On day one at the MCG, the Australians looked little better technically or tactically than they had in the uncertain summer of 2018-19

Daniel Brettig26-Dec-2020Perhaps it was the euphoria of bowling India out for 36. Perhaps it was the false impression created by a quick and comfortable fourth-innings chase of fewer than 100 to win that same sunny Adelaide afternoon. Or, perhaps, it was the confidence built up by last summer’s clean sweep of Pakistan and New Zealand, a confidence that looks increasingly misplaced.Australia entered Boxing Day at the MCG with very little sense of foreboding about what might occur should they bat first on another pitch that featured a liberal covering of grass to ensure it would not be too hostile to bowlers.Joe Burns groped, wafted and strained at Jasprit Bumrah before nicking one behind•Getty ImagesIn fact, Australia were so confident that Joe Burns’ second-innings 50 at Adelaide Oval had righted the numerous wrongs of the first innings, that Steven Smith’s rapid demise at the hands of R Ashwin was a blip, and that Matthew Wade, Marnus Labuschagne, Travis Head and Cameron Green were all set for big innings, that the captain Tim Paine chose very happily to bat first on an MCG pitch that had 11mm of grass and early morning moisture.In fairness to Paine, there was plenty of history backing this decision. Since the dramatic first day of the 2010 Ashes Test in Melbourne, when England sent Ricky Ponting’s team in and promptly razed them for 98 to set up the retention of the urn, the average first-innings score was in the region of 389: more than enough, one would think, against an Indian side now minus Virat Kohli.But the evidence presented by Australia’s top six in front of a socially distanced MCG crowd of 27,615 offered rather more unsettling conclusions for Australia’s planners and selectors. Confronted, for the second time in as many Tests, with a sensibly marshalled bowling attack on a pitch that required hard graft rather than heavy hitting, the Australians looked little better in a technical or tactical sense than they had done during the uncertain summer of 2018-19.Related

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That this could be true with Smith present again was still more worrying for the hosts, who are now faced with the fact that, apart from his pair of stirring SCG centuries in the opening ODIs, Smith is playing much more like he did during a halting IPL campaign than at any stage of his otherworldly 2019 Ashes series in England.Believe it or not, Smith is now closing in on three full years without making a century in a Test match in Australia, the sort of figure that many would refuse to believe without actually consulting the calendar. Last summer, New Zealand constrained his scoring rate with short stuff from Neil Wagner; this time around, the wily Ashwin is continuing to build on some early uncertainties created when they crossed paths in the aforementioned IPL.By playing around neatly with lengths and paces on a highly disciplined, even slightly defensive, line of middle and off stumps, Ashwin has found Smith’s outside and inside edged in consecutive innings for the combined tally of just one run. He found enough purchase in Melbourne to achieve similar things against Paine, after Wade had gifted his wicket to Ashwin with an unsightly smear before lunch – the sort of shot selection that no career opener would have sat comfortably with.That Wade would have sallied forth in such a manner indicated a measure of overconfidence, a sense that may have arrived through the contrast in how he handled the opening exchanges when lined up against Burns, who groped, wafted and strained at Jasprit Bumrah over the course of ten torturous deliveries.Marnus Labuschagne got himself close to a major score again•Getty ImagesBurns had, at least, survived more than the single ball he managed against Trent Boult this day last year, but it was clear that the problems he has experienced so far this summer at all levels were not to be eradicated by a fourth innings cameo against a crestfallen India in Adelaide, after the game had been effectively decided.For a time, the best hope Australia had of a substantial first-innings score was carried through by Labuschagne and Head, who in a stand worth 86 vital runs either side of the lunch break demonstrated that a good degree of application, with the odd aggressive stroke thrown in, could bring about the results Australia desired.During this period, Rahane came close to looking like he was short of ideas, particularly after Bumrah was not called upon until midway through the afternoon session for reasons that were not entirely clear. Labuschagne left as many balls as he could, often on length, and was twice fortunate to have lbw shouts rebuked by ball-tracing on the grounds of height.His back leg will show a bruise or three from balls that thudded into it with the bat clearly raised, but the proof of Labuschagne’s judgment is in the fact he has got closer to a major score in each first innings than any other member of the home side’s top six.Contrast this with Head, who while playing soundly for the most part remains keener than most Test batsmen to feel the thud of the ball on the bat. Head leaves only around 15% of deliveries bowled to him, as against 29% for Labuschagne and 24% for Smith. It’s a set of numbers that could not be forgotten when, after his post-lunch sabbatical, Bumrah angled in from around the wicket to coax an edge and the breakthrough. Head’s average against balls whirring in at him from this point of release is around the 25-mark, and it was a surprise India did not opt for it sooner.Labuschagne’s handy occupation, and a shorter one from the sophomore Cameron Green, were then to be ended by the spiky, speedy work of the 26-year-old Mohammed Siraj, who deputised grandly for Mohammed Shami with spells of pace and direction. Labuschagne leaned too far across his stumps to avoid flicking a straight ball to leg gully – for once mimicking Smith in a fashion he would rather have avoided – and Green’s immobile front leg presented Siraj with too clear a target for an lbw verdict. And 124 for 3 quickly became 155 for 7, the advantage very much lost.R Ashwin takes off on a celebratory run after dismissing Steven Smith•Getty ImagesOne of the features of this match are a series of tributes for the late, great Dean Jones. His wife and daughters were accompanied to the middle by Allan Border during the tea break to place Jones’ baggy green cap, Kookaburra bat and groundbreaking sunglasses by the stumps. Both Jones and Border were part of one of Australia’s least happy Boxing Days of all, when they were bowled out by England for 141 in 1986 to set up an innings defeat. Undue haste had, at times, been a feature on both that day and this one.Watching all this, the coach Justin Langer would have ruefully recalled his pre-match words, which featured plenty of confidence but also included the truism of Test match first innings: big ones win games consistently, and anything else will leave a side scrambling for freakish things like the third afternoon in Adelaide.”If we’re going to become a great team we have to get better at winning after we win and people didn’t quite understand that, but really good teams keep winning and winning, particularly when they’re playing good cricket,” Langer said. “So it’s an area we’ve addressed, we’ll have to start well Boxing Day morning and then be consistent, because we know India will fight back as we saw in the first two days of the Test match in Adelaide.”We know that in first innings in Australia we are looking to score 400 in the first innings – there is no surprise there, that’s what we’ve based our best Test cricket on for years. So, when I said we have got areas where we can improve, that’s one I am talking about. We play our best cricket, as we saw all last summer, when we are scoring big first-innings totals, that’s what we aspire to and what we will be aspiring too in this game as well.”But having been fortunate to watch everything click for the pacemen in Adelaide at precisely the right moment, the Australians were only good enough to improve on their halting first innings of the series by the measly matter of four runs. Asking any bowling attack, even one as good as Mitchell Starc, Pat Cummins, Josh Hazlewood and Nathan Lyon, to pull consecutive Tests out of the mire is more than any international top order should expect.India, as it happened, ended the day on 36 again. This time, though, for the loss of just one wicket. Reality was starting to catch up.

It might not always make sense but special players deserve more chances than others get

Aakash Chopra29-Oct-20201:52

Will Rahul’s IPL form help him in Tests?

KL Rahul being picked for India’s Test team for the tour to Australia has produced mixed reactions. Some are of the opinion that picking him devalues the first-class structure because the selection seems to be a reward for his white-ball performances. A few, like me, believe it was only a matter of time before he got a call up for the longer format again. In fact, the absence of Rohit Sharma on the tour to New Zealand early in the year could have been an ideal comeback series for Rahul.Rahul’s Test career stats read: 36 Tests, 2006 runs at 34.5, with five centuries. While these aren’t great numbers, they aren’t abysmal either. The fact that four of those Test centuries have come when he batted as an opener away from home perhaps adds a little more weight to the numbers.The other side of the story is equally compelling: the fact that he lost his place in Tests after a series of low scores; that there were clear patterns developing in his modes of dismissal that only accentuated his problems.Initially he nicked a lot of deliveries outside off – a common problem when the head isn’t on top of off stump, and one that is highlighted more when it happens to an opener. When Rahul tried to correct that, he started going far too across in an attempt to play outside the line of the ball, and ended up getting trapped in front of the stumps. It was obvious that he was trying extremely hard to address the issues, but sometimes the harder you try to get out of a quagmire, the deeper you sink.ALSO READ: Is KL Rahul’s problem technical or mental? (2018)Sachin Tendulkar wrote in his book that a batsman is at his best when his mind is at the opposite end – for that’s where what you have to counter comes from. There’s truth in that: when you focus on your head, feet and hands while standing in your stance, you are guaranteed to be late on the ball. Rahul, like a lot of batsmen going through poor form, was mentally stuck at his end. Lack of runs meant that he was dropped from the Test side, and what started as a very promising Test career, with a hundred in only his second Test, in Australia, threatened to be over well before time.When he wasn’t appearing for India in white flannels, Rahul kept scoring runs elsewhere. He started out as middle-order batsman in T20 cricket but found his real mojo in the format as an opener. He has become the first Indian to score 500-plus runs in three consecutive IPL seasons. He took over keeping duties in limited-overs internationals to fill in for Rishabh Pant, and adapted to the new role of finishing the innings. In fact, he has been India’s standout batsman in white-ball cricket over the last couple of years – both for consistency and impact. But is that enough for a call-up to the Test team?Let me share a story from my life here. The Indian selectors picked 24 probables for India’s tour to Australia in 2007. Wasim Jaffer, Gautam Gambhir and I were on that list. Virender Sehwag had had a very ordinary 2006 as a Test player, and two poor years as an ODI player, and he had been dropped for both formats. He went back to playing for Delhi in the Ranji Trophy to regain form and stake a claim again. Unfortunately, the runs didn’t come in first-class cricket too – his scores in the games running up to selection for the Australia series were 16, 0, 9, 32 and 9. He was so woefully out of form that he told the national selector who had come to watch one of our games to pick Gambhir and me, and to not pick him because he was out of form. That’s what you expect from Sehwag – honesty.Then Gambhir got injured and was ruled out of the tour. There were only two openers left on the list, Jaffer and I. My selection was almost guaranteed, but in the end the selectors in consultation with the captain, Anil Kumble, went for Sehwag.The selection didn’t make cricketing sense because Sehwag hadn’t earned his place back. I was the guy who paid the price for the gamble that the team took. As often happens with players of Sehwag’s calibre, he went on to score a hundred, in Adelaide, and did not look back since. He scored his second 300 in Tests a couple of months after.KL Rahul is the kind of player whose Test match technique is intact even when he is scoring at top speed in T20•Getty ImagesI can be forgiven for holding a grudge over something that didn’t seem fair at that point in time. But was there merit in the selectors picking Sehwag without domestic runs or form behind him? History would suggest that the gamble was worth taking, for Sehwag went on to achieve things that I probably would not have done despite my best efforts. Sehwag was a special player and perhaps deserved special treatment.Before going back to Rahul, let’s look at the other possible contenders for the opening spot in Tests now. Also, please bear in mind that these are extraordinary times and a lot of cricketers haven’t played any competitive cricket for eight months or more. The series against South Africa at home last year seemed like a good time for both Priyank Panchal and Abhimanyu Easwaran to be given an opportunity to open in Tests, but the selectors chose Rohit Sharma instead. And as they say, the rest is history. Sharma piled up the runs and closed the window of opportunity for the domestic performers. Since then, Panchal’s numbers have declined. Abhinav Mukund was the most prolific opener in the last domestic season, with Easwaran second on the list. Considering that both haven’t played a first-class game for a while, what were the realistic chances either would be picked for the tour to Australia? In the ideal world, Sharma, Mayank Agarwal and Prithvi Shaw would be the first-choice openers and Shubman Gill would have been in the squad as back-up. With Sharma’s injury and the lack of clarity about how well or not he is recovering, the selectors had to pick another opener in the side. If it was only about IPL numbers, they would have toyed with the idea of reinstating Shikhar Dhawan too.I must say here that the comparison with Sehwag was just to draw a parallel, but Rahul too is the kind of player who demands a bit more investment. His technical game is intact even when he is scoring at a rate of knots in the shortest format. His game has no obvious flaws that might make him susceptible to the trials of Test match cricket. Whether he will make it big in Test cricket or not, we will find out in good time, but there is merit in getting him back in whites. Players with his quality of skills and talent will get more opportunities than the rest, and while it might seem unfair at the time, like it felt to me in 2007, it might be the right decision for Indian cricket.What if the team management dropped Sharma after he had middling returns in the middle order, ending his Test career without allowing him a shot as an opener? What if Sehwag’s return had been delayed till he got runs on the first-class circuit back in 2007? What if Virat Kohli had been asked to go back to play first-class cricket to regain form after the tour to England in 2014?While I completely feel for the guys, like me back then, who are at the wrong end of these selections, I can now also understand why some players deserve and get an extra chance or two. Rahul has been given another shot at the longest format. Let’s hope he seizes it with both hands.

Knight Riders have not been their usual selves in 2021, but it’s not too late to fix things

Sreshth Shah03-May-20215:04

What’s ailing KKR’s batting this season?

Failing to set the tempo
Since the middle of last season, the Knight Riders have gone with a top-three which has plenty of potential but is the most inexperienced among all the teams. Nitish Rana and Rahul Tripathi are both uncapped and Shubman Gill is far from being a regular in India’s white-ball squads.Very few IPL teams in the tournament’s history have had a combined top three with only three games of international cricket between them, and the optimistic punt from the management has failed more than it has worked. Inconsistent scores from Rana, who has five innings of 22 and under, and Gill’s average of 18.85 at a strike rate of 117.85 have been the two biggest concerns.The alternatives – Karun Nair, Gurkeerat Singh, Venkatesh Iyer and Sheldon Jackson – are not too compelling either. Apart from Iyer, none of the others are regular openers in T20s, however, they may have the fire in their belly to show their worth. Perhaps, the Knight Riders could harness that.The other option is to bring in Tim Seifert, the New Zealand batter, but that would mean axing an overseas player. Although the issue of inexperience doesn’t get solved, at least a new thought process could bring in different results. After seven games for each side in IPL 2021, the Knight Riders have lost 12 powerplay wickets, the joint-most in the tournament. That along with a powerplay run-rate of 7.35 has hampered the side from setting the tempo early with the bat.Brendon McCullum, the coach, said in a press conference recently that he wants his top order to be aggressive, which they have failed to do. He said: “if you can’t , you change ” Expect a new top order for the rest of the season – the only question is what the personnel will be.Kolkata Knight Riders’ problems have started with the top this season•ESPNcricinfo LtdThe Morgan question
The ideal scenario for the Knight Riders was for their top three to set the base for eight to ten overs, following which a strong middle order of Eoin Morgan, Andre Russell and Dinesh Karthik could change gears to set a big total or complete a win.But with the top order eating nearly half the overs with very little on the board in most games, Morgan’s been forced to look for the big shots from the get-go. However, he has struggled with timing and when he hasn’t, he has fallen just before he could transition into his power-hitting mode. The lack of good scores from the top four has added more pressure on Russell and Karthik, who have also not been able to replicate their peak batting performances from 2019.On numbers alone, no one would bat an eyelid if Morgan was dropped after scoring only 92 runs in seven games, but when he is also wearing the captain’s armband, things get complicated, more so after the Knight Riders changed captains midway through last season. And with Karthik saying last year that captaincy hampers his own batting, the management will have to look beyond the obvious choice for a new leader. In any case – barring Rohit Sharma’s 2013 run with Mumbai Indians – changes in captaincy do not rescue teams from dire situations.McCullum has often stressed on role definition among the Knight Riders, so it’s unlikely Morgan will bat anywhere else either. The side likes Russell to come in at the 12-over mark and Karthik preferred at the death, and with both struggling against spinners who operate in the middle overs, the captain Morgan is set to stay at No. 4.4:01

McCullum: ‘I’ve asked time and again for us to be more aggressive’

The Narine conundrumWith a new bowling action that no longer has the sting of the Narine that lit up the IPL in his early days, does he merit a place in the XI when he no longer opens? Runs off the bat, as a floater, have been few and far in between. And with only three wickets in four games, there are others who can potentially have a greater impact.Although Narine isn’t a shabby opener option given the current struggles in the top order, the Knight Riders may still move to replace him with Shakib Al Hasan. Although Shakib may not replicate Narine’s batting strike rate, he is more consistent and there’s little to separate in the bowling.The other option is dropping Narine for Lockie Ferguson, who has the ability to be the enforcer in the bowling line-up by simply using his pace to trouble batters at any stage of the innings. That would also give the Knight Riders two express overseas quicks to torment oppositions, alongside Pat Cummins, and bring in one of Harbhajan Singh or Kuldeep Yadav as the second spinner. The third option is Seifert at the top for Narine, and add someone like Pawan Negi (or one of the two spinners) lower down.Sunil Narine’s new bowling action no longer has the sting of the old one•BCCIRethinking powerplay bowling plans
The original Moneyball team in the IPL, the Knight Riders have focused on match-ups. But that hasn’t worked out well with the ball.Take the example of Varun Chakravarthy against Royal Challenger Bangalore. With two wickets in the game’s second over, he had given the Knight Riders an early upper hand. Yet, next over, against the new batter Glen Maxwell, it was not Chakravarthy, but left-arm spinner Shakib bowling, who could potentially get the ball to turn away from the batter. Maxwell ended up hitting 78.Against the Delhi Capitals while defending a smaller total, it was Shivam Mavi opening the bowling – against the in-form pair of Shikhar Dhawan and Prithvi Shaw – and not Cummins, who arrived later to pick three wickets, an effort that came too late to have any impact on the match result.Against Chennai Super Kings, on a pitch where Deepak Chahar ended up taking four wickets in the Powerplay, the Knight Riders bowled three overs of spin. The Super Kings openers quietly compiled 54 for 0 to set a strong platform. They finished on 220 for 3.There is merit in their most experienced bowler Cummins taking the new ball in the hunt for early wickets, with Prasidh Krishna and/or Ferguson from the other end. Then bring in Shakib or Narine, leave Chakravarthy to control the middle overs, and once again use the Ferguson-Cummins combo alongside Russell at the death to close out the innings. It’s conventional, and yet propitious. But the Knight Riders – more often than not – prefer taking the path less travelled.

Need 195 off 87 balls? Get yourself a beefy New Zealander who can do the job

Hemant Brar05-Apr-20213:35

Mike Hussey, James Faulkner and Aditya Tare on Anderson’s innings

We polled our staff for their picks of the top ten best batting, bowling and all-round performances in the IPL through its history. Here’s No. 9Mumbai Indians vs Rajasthan Royals, 2014“It was basically an impossible feat to do.”That’s Corey Anderson recounting what the Mumbai Indians were faced with against the Rajasthan Royals in IPL 2014. With a playoff spot at stake, they needed to chase down 190 in 14.3 overs for their net run rate to get where it needed to be. It was an asking rate of more than 13 an over. No wonder it felt impossible.The abiding memory from this game will always remain that of Aditya Tare – his face covered with his shirt – going berserk after hitting the winning six, and the Royals’ mentor, Rahul Dravid, flinging his cap down in the dugout in disgust. But the man who did the impossible was Anderson.Before this match, he had scored only 150 runs in nine innings that season in the tournament. An average of 18.75 and a strike rate of 118.11 meant he had lost his place in the playing XI. But this was the last league game of the season and knowing they needed more batting firepower if they were to get to the required net run rate, they replaced fast bowler Marchant de Lange with Anderson.One thing with impossible-looking tasks is that they are also liberating in a way. When failure is almost certain, there is no pressure to succeed. Anderson benefited from being in that sort of situation. Vindicating Mumbai’s decision to bring him back, he smashed an unbeaten 95 off 44 balls to help them pull off arguably the biggest heist in IPL history.Neo is that you? Mr Anderson goes ballistic•BCCIEarlier, the Royals had ransacked 130 in the last ten overs of their innings, with Sanju Samson and Karun Nair scoring half-centuries, and Brad Hodge and James Faulkner applying the finishing touches. Watching them would have given Anderson some ideas about how to bat on that pitch.The Royals didn’t have an enviable bowling attack but the equation for Mumbai was bizarre. How bizarre? Lendl Simmons struck three fours in the first over of the chase, and they were still below the asking rate.Coming in at 19 for 1, Anderson struck the first ball he faced for four and the next for six. Soon after, Kevon Cooper dismissed Mike Hussey and Kieron Pollard in the fifth over but Anderson was unstoppable. With a six off Dhawal Kulkarni, he raced to 52 in just 25 balls; 42 of those runs came in boundaries.What followed was an even more extraordinary phase of hitting as Ambati Rayudu and Anderson added 81 in just 31 balls for the fifth wicket. Anderson’s contribution was 49 off 21 balls, Rayudu’s 30 off ten.In all, Anderson struck nine fours and six sixes. His method was simple: clear the front leg and swing through. Anything pitched fuller than short of a length fell right into his hitting arc. And when he swung, the Wankhede looked the size of a matchbox.

The numbers

75.79 Percentage of Anderson’s runs that came in boundaries (72 out of 95)

11 Number of Anderson’s runs that came behind the wicket

13.29 The Mumbai Indians’ scoring rate; still the highest for a 20-over game in the IPL

Two fours off Faulkner and Pravin Tambe in the 11th and 14th overs exemplified Anderson’s power. Faulkner bowled a slower ball on leg stump; Anderson backed away and belted it past the bowler. Tambe bowled a faster one and was thumped over his head. Both bowlers tried to stop the ball but must have considered themselves lucky not to have come in the way of it.Apart from the clean hitting, Anderson picked his spots well. Against Pravin Tambe, he mainly targeted the midwicket region, while the seamers were largely pummelled down the ground.When you’re looking to hit each ball to the boundary, mishits are almost inevitable: Anderson wasn’t in control of 16 of the 44 balls he faced. But he scored 87 off the 28 balls in which he was in control – which means there were hardly any lucky runs.Despite Anderson’s onslaught, Mumbai had only brought themselves level in 14.3 overs. There was a sigh of relief in the Royals camp; some in the dugout began to celebrate too. But there was a twist left.It turned out Mumbai could still qualify if they hit a boundary off the next three balls, and Tare launched the very next one, a leg-stump full toss from Faulkner, over deep-backward square leg, resulting in frenzied scenes.Suddenly, Mumbai had a shot at the title.The Greatest IPL performances 2008-2020

Trent Rockets men’s coach on tactical differences of new format and England’s need for a premier short-form competition

Matt Roller19-Jul-2021Covid-19 cases are on the rise in the UK and on Monday, government restrictions were eased even further. Entire teams have been forced into self-isolation in county cricket, with Derbyshire forced to cancel their final two T20 Blast group games due to a lack of available players. Tom Harrison, the ECB’s chief executive, was firm in emphasising last week that the mental toll of bubbles meant they were no longer feasible, but the Hundred – which starts on Wednesday night – can ill-afford a spate of cases over its four-week group stage.It is a familiar scenario for those involved in the competition who have worked in franchise cricket over the last six months. Andy Flower, who will coach the Trent Rockets men’s team, is one of them: he was in India working as Kings XI Punjab’s assistant coach when the IPL was curtailed in May, either side of which he coached Multan Sultans to the PSL title, initially in Pakistan and then in the UAE after an outbreak among players caused a postponement.”I’ve been away from the UK for three-and-a-half months,” he tells ESPNcricinfo via Zoom, shortly before finishing his 10-day hotel-room quarantine period. “We talk about adaptability being really important for players in the short formats of the game and it’s equally important for us on the coaching or leadership front. One of the most important aspects in having a good chance in a franchise competition is adaptability.Related

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“Almost every franchise in every competition is being affected by late pull-outs – the Hundred is obviously being seriously affected at the moment. We had a recent situation where Wahab Riaz – who came in for Nathan Coulter-Nile – had a visa problem and won’t be available for the first few games [Marchant de Lange has been signed as his replacement]. That’s an obvious example of having to be flexible and understanding at this time.”Not that it has affected Flower’s success. He comes into the Hundred on the back of a remarkable run of results coaching franchise teams, just under two years after leaving his role at the ECB: he has won the PSL, taken St Lucia Zouks to their first CPL final, and led teams to first and second-placed finishes at the Abu Dhabi T10.Success with Multan was unexpected after they had started slowly in the Karachi leg of the PSL. “We did come from almost nowhere,” he says. “The conditions in Abu Dhabi were much fairer and made for better, more interesting cricket and suited our attack more. [Blessing] Muzarabani, the tall fast bowler from Zimbabwe, was central to our plans and was a revelation for us; Imran Tahir was solid as a rock and generally inspirational; and Sohaib Maqsood was a major difference in our fortunes.”His role at Trent Rockets, he admits, is “a bit of a play to nothing”. As things stand, he is only due to coach them in the first season of the Hundred following Stephen Fleming’s withdrawal for family reasons, and has inherited a squad already picked by Fleming, Mick Newell (general manager) and Kunal Manek (analyst). He had a meeting with Lewis Gregory, the Rockets’ captain, during the Karachi leg of the PSL about the tournament and has been in regular contact with him throughout England’s white-ball series against Pakistan.He has had some time to think through the nuances of the new format, but expects tactical trends to evolve gradually through the group stages. “I’ve been involved in T10 as well so I’m used to an even quicker, more attacking form of the game but I’d imagine it’s going to be similar to T20 – though might feel slightly different in that we’ve got these 10 balls from one end. There might be a few tactical differences and if you can get the edge on the opposition through understanding those better and quicker, then that’s what we need to do.”An area where it will feel different to T20 is the option [for one bowler] to bowl 10 balls in a row, so how do you deploy some of your more powerful resources like Rashid Khan? When he operates for his IPL side, he bowls overs 8, 10, 12 and 14 in the middle and usually people find it hard to attack him. Getting a feel for the Hundred and what it’s like to bowl 10 balls in a row and how effective that is, we’ll have to assess that in real time.”

“I’m a very big supporter of a premier short-format competition for England. We all know the power and reach of the IPL, various other countries have excellent franchise competitions. England needed its own”Andy Flower

There are a few details to iron out within the squad. Joe Root is likely to be available for the opening rounds and Flower is yet to decide which order the top four – Root, Alex Hales, D’Arcy Short and Dawid Malan – should come in. He is hoping that the strong Notts core of five players plus assistant coach Paul Franks will be able to exploit their high-scoring home ground to their advantage, though cautions against the idea that every game will be a run-fest. Franks will be joined by Mal Loye (batting), Tom Smith (bowling) and Nic Pothas (fielding) on the coaching staff, while Flower is particularly pleased that Jonathan Trott – a mainstay of his successful England side – has recently been appointed in a backroom role.As for his star batters, Flower is enthusiastic about the opportunity to deal with Hales again, having worked closely with him as a young player making his way in international cricket during his time as England’s head coach and tracked his recent progress in franchise leagues. “I’ve always been a real fan of his batting,” he says. “His skill against spin is undervalued; not only the power game, but he’s a good off-side player, and willing to sweep against spin when he needs to.”I feel for him, actually, because we all deserve second chances in my opinion. I’d don’t know what goes on behind closed doors with England but I can’t see why he would be ostracised any longer. One thing he’s done pretty well is that he hasn’t let it affect his form and I applaud him for that – he’s able to focus on what he needs to, as opposed to being distracted by the topic.”I’m not quite sure how we’ll go with the top four but they’ll all had lots of success. I think Root is an excellent T20 cricketer, actually – one of his greatest strengths, ever since he first played for England, has been that he plays at a tempo that the match or situation or his team requires. His understanding of the game is that good that he can do that. [Root and Malan] are both intelligent and skilful cricketers who will do what’s required of them.”And as for the ? Does Flower think English cricket needs the Hundred? “Without a doubt,” is the unequivocal response. “I’m a very big supporter of a premier short-format competition like this for England. We all know the power and reach of the IPL and there are various other countries that have excellent franchise competitions. England needed its own. It’s really important financially for the ECB and for the future of the game in this country that it works.”It’s great that a women’s competition is operating at the same time with the growth of the popularity of the women’s game in the UK. And the better standard of cricket is good for the future of English cricket: playing under pressure in a competition with a global reach is good for all these young English cricketers. We’ve seen what it’s done for young Indian cricketers, and I can only imagine that this is going to be a very good thing for English cricket.”

The RCB batter says his success this season is all down to batting at a more familiar position in the line-up

Hemant Brar03-Oct-20214:21

Manjrekar: Maxwell has changed the fortunes of RCB

Harpreet Brar had conceded only ten from his first three overs. And that includes two overs against a set Virat Kohli and Devdutt Padikkal.Brar is not a mystery spinner. His method is simple and out there. He tries to hit good length with enough pace on the ball that the batter has no time to set himself up for a big shot. Such is his self-belief that whenever he is brought on and his captain asks him for the plan, he just replies, ” [You don’t worry, I won’t give runs]”.Watch the IPL on ESPN+

Sign up for ESPN+ and catch all the action from the IPL live in the US. Match highlights of Royal Challengers Bangalore vs Punjab Kings is available here in English, and here in Hindi (US only).

Now he is up against Glenn Maxwell. In the previous game between Punjab Kings and Royal Challengers Bangalore, Brar had bowled Maxwell for a first-ball duck. The batter had played back to a delivery he probably should have gone forward to and was beaten on the outside edge. On Sunday, Brar nearly pulled off a repeat. Maxwell once again went back and pushed at the ball. This time he got an outside edge but KL Rahul failed to latch on to it.By the time Brar came for his final over – the 13th of the innings – Maxwell seemed to have adjusted to his pace and length. On the second ball of the over, Brar erred a little on the shorter side, and that was enough for Maxwell to go back and across and pull it for a six. Two balls later, Brar bowled on the fuller side and Maxwell sent it into orbit over deep midwicket.Then, it was Ravi Bishnoi in the firing line, with Maxwell hitting him for back-to-back sixes. The first was a googly, which bobbled right into Maxwell’s hitting arc and was deposited over cow corner. Bishnoi went full on the next ball, only to be walloped down the ground.During his 33-ball 57, Maxwell scored only 19 off 16 balls against seamers. But against spinners, he plundered 38 off 17. In comparison, all other Royal Challengers batters scored only 27 off 37 balls against spin. In fact, this whole season Maxwell has feasted on spinners, taking 216 runs off 137 balls at an average of 54.00 and a strike rate of 157.66. So that was a match-up he nailed.Name that shot – Glenn Maxwell batted in typical Maxwell fashion against Punjab Kings•BCCIEarlier this week, against Mumbai Indians, Maxwell had used switch hits and reverse hits – against both pace and spin – to target the shorter boundary and give his side what proved to be a winning total. But that was in Dubai. This was Sharjah, where the relaid pitches have made life difficult for batters, where the average first-innings total this season had been 134, where the chasing sides had won four out of five games.So, Kohli’s decision to bat first after winning the toss wasn’t a straightforward one. And even though Maxwell seems to be batting on a different level than anyone else, he too acknowledged this wasn’t an easy pitch.”I felt probably this one was the toughest to adjust to,” he said at the post-match presentation. “It skidded on a little bit more from the spinners, which means you’ve got to be a little bit sharper at the start of the innings. The other wickets held up just a tiny bit more and gave you a bit more time on the back foot.”The ball might have been skidding on, but when Maxwell connected those sixes, it seemed to stay on his bat just a fraction of a second longer, giving his wrists enough time to whip it away. His knock propelled Royal Challengers to 164, the highest total in Sharjah this season, and eventually into the playoffs.During IPL 2020, playing for the Punjab franchise and batting mostly at No. 5, Maxwell had managed only 108 runs in 11 innings. This time, in the same number of innings, he has 407. Maxwell attributed the revival to a familiarity with the role he’s been assigned.”In T20s, I have found a nice little rhythm batting at No. 4,” he said. “It’s something I probably had for Australia over a long period of time as well, which is probably why I have success over there. Coming to the RCB, they wanted me to do the exact same role. It’s been really enjoyable to actually come into the change room and actually have to change not too much.”Maxwell has now scored three half-centuries in the last three games. If he continues his form, it could well be a first IPL title for Royal Challengers.

After another forgettable year for Melburnians, 12 pulsating overs by the Australia quicks was something to savour

Alex Malcolm27-Dec-2021Test batting doesn’t get any harder. Test cricket doesn’t get any more compelling.In one glorious hour, in one of world cricket’s great amphitheatres, on a day of Test cricket threatened by Covid-19, in the world’s most locked-down city, the MCG, which has been silent for almost two years, found its voice again as Mitchell Starc, Pat Cummins and Scott Boland delivered a brutal, pulsating spell of fast bowling, the equal of any, to put England on their knees again.Related

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A crowd of 42,626 sounded like double that number as Starc went within millimetres of a Test hat-trick and England slumped to 7 for 2. That soon became 22 for 4 when local hero Boland got in on the act, striking twice in his first over, the second last of the day. England finished 31 for 4, 51 runs behind with just six wickets in hand in their second innings trying to avoid a 3-0 series defeat inside 12 days of cricket.England will lament their batting woes, but Australia’s attack is ruthless and irrepressible. The sheer quality of the fast bowling on display was something to behold, and the cacophony that accompanied it made it appear gladiatorial. Except this wasn’t a fair fight, it was lambs to the slaughter.Cummins nearly took Haseeb Hameed’s head off with his first ball, Hameed fending it in hope just over David Warner in the slips.Cummins made mincemeat of Zak Crawley. Every ball was a step in a slow torturous march towards an inevitable conclusion. A legcutter nipped past the groping edge. An offcutter thundered into the thigh pad. Another one cut him in half. He survived one nick, as Alex Carey opted not to dive in front of first slip for the second time in two Tests and it clean bowled Warner on the half-volley for four desperately needed runs.At the other end, Starc’s searing pace whistled past Hameed’s low hands time and again. England’s two youngest batters were rabbits in the headlights, all hands and no feet, hopelessly trying to survive as every ball seemed to have one of their names on it.Pat Cummins bowled beautifully, but hasn’t picked up a wicket yet•Getty ImagesThe crowd sensed the moment. Starc gave them what they came for. A perfectly pitched delivery that threatened to shape in and held the line scratched Crawley’s outside edge and handed Carey a simple catch. Dawid Malan entered the cauldron and departed one ball later. Another 140kph missile darted in off the seam and thundered into the pads. Umpire Paul Wilson went up with the 40,000-strong appeal. Malan reviewed in hope, ball-tracking sided with the umpire to have it clipping the top of the leg stump.England’s talisman, Joe Root, walked out with the weight of a nation on his shoulders again. Starc’s hat-trick ball was as good as anything he’s faced in this series, full and threatening to shape back into off and zipping away at the last moment to beat the edge by a hair’s breadth.The threats kept coming. Hameed was hit twice on the pad by Cummins, but the steep bounce in the MCG track saved him on both occasions. Starc continued to torment Root. He edged one between third slip and gully. He edged another short of Carey, who dived full length to his right this time.Respite finally appeared to have come in the 11th over when Boland replaced Starc. No chance. The Victorian sent the home fans into raptures as Hameed nicked a peach to Carey to end a tortured 31-ball 7. Jack Leach was sent out as nightwatchman but he nearly played on first ball from Boland and then allowed the second to hit the top of off stump.The frenzied Melburnians were restless and vociferous, hungry for another victim, as Ben Stokes took an eternity to emerge from the bowels of the MCG to face the final ball of the over. Boland received a standing ovation from Bay 13, much like those reserved for Merv Hughes in his heyday, as the Australians sprinted around to allow Cummins six more balls.Mitchell Starc was on a hat-trick after removing Dawid Malan, and missed the mark by a whisker•Getty ImagesRoot was beaten again and then forced to wait, as the opposing skipper sensed the mood, pausing for an age before the final ball to let the crowd noise crescendo as they thumped their hands on anything within reach.But Root kept it out. According to ESPNcricinfo’s ball-by-ball data, England were in control of just 44 of the 72 balls bowled in the final hour. At the ground, it felt like it was just two: Root’s final straight drive for three only bettered by a stunning off-drive off Cummins to get off the mark.”That was absolutely bouncing,” Marcus Harris said after play. “For 40,000 it felt like there was 100,000. When Starcy was on a hat-trick, it was unbelievable. And then when Scotty Boland ran down to Bay 13 at the end then after those two wickets in the over, that was brilliant. That was a great atmosphere. That is something you dream of as a kid to be a part of.”James Anderson was left in awe of what the Australian quicks had produced. “I thought the spell from Starc and Cummins was outstanding,” Anderson said. “But that’s what you expect. They’re world-class bowlers. They’ve done it in Test cricket for many, many years. So it shouldn’t take anyone by surprise that they bowl like that. And it’s just disappointing to lose four wickets in that period.”It was another forgettable hour on another forgettable tour for England. But after another forgettable year for Melburnians, one pulsating hour of cricket was something to savour.

The second-most overs faced, the second-best lead and other dizzying records

Sampath Bandarupalli04-Jan-2022176.2 – The number of overs Bangladesh batted in their first innings at the Bay Oval. These are the second-most they’ve batted in a Test innings, behind the 196 overs they batted out against Sri Lanka in Galle, 2013. This is also only the second instance of Bangladesh batting 150-plus overs in a Test innings outside Asia – 152.0 overs against New Zealand in Wellington in 2017.ESPNcricinfo Ltd2009 – The last time a visiting team batted for more than the 176.2 overs in a Test innings in New Zealand. Pakistan battled out 193.2 overs during their second dig to draw the series at the McLean Park.ESPNcricinfo Ltd130 – Bangladesh’s first-innings lead in this match, the highest New Zealand had conceded in a home Test since the start of 2017. England’s lead of 101 at the Seddon Park in 2019 was the only instance of a visiting team claiming a 100-run first-inning lead across the 22 home Tests against New Zealand in this period.1 – Only once before have Bangladesh bagged a higher first-innings lead than the 130 they did here, in an away Test. That was the 192-run first-innings lead they pocketed against Zimbabwe in Harare last year. It is also the second-highest first-innings lead for Bangladesh when batting second in a Test, behind the 295-run lead against Zimbabwe in 2020.8 – Each of Bangladesh’s top eight batters faced 50-plus deliveries in their first innings against New Zealand. It is the first instance for Bangladesh in Test cricket where their top eight batters survived 50 or more balls in the same innings.ESPNcricinfo Ltd4 – The number of times Bangladesh have posted scores of 400 or more in an innings in New Zealand. All of them have come since the start of 2010. No visiting team has had more such totals in New Zealand in this period. Australia also had four 400-plus total in New Zealand since 2010, including three totals over 500.890 – The number of balls bowled by New Zealand’s pacers in the first innings. These are the most by a team’s pacers while taking all ten wickets in a Test innings since 2000. The 890 balls they bowled were also the most by a team’s quicks in a Test innings since 2007.

Warner, Babar, Pooran among overlooked contingent as lack of availability dents tournament’s quality

Matt Roller05-Apr-2022’Buy British’ was the mantra for teams in Monday’s men’s Hundred draft. When governments use that slogan, it is a tacit admission that foreign goods have offered consumers better value for money than their domestic alternatives. For the Hundred teams, however, it was a scarcity of overseas options that drove them to make picks as they did.The Hundred’s organisers have consistently promised “brilliant overseas players” and “world-class cricket” but this year, the competition’s month-long window from August 3 to September 3 clashes with several men’s bilateral series, the Asia Cup and the start of the Caribbean Premier League.In the draft, five of the eleven vacant slots in the top £125,000 salary band were filled by domestic players: Joe Clarke and Tom Banton (Welsh Fire), Tom Kohler-Cadmore (Trent Rockets), Laurie Evans (Manchester Originals) and Liam Dawson (London Spirit). Uncertainty over the availability of leading overseas players was always expected to see domestic players do well, but even Dawson himself admitted he was “surprised” to have been picked at the band he was.Each pick made sense at a micro level, with teams looking to fill gaps in their squads by recruiting the cream of the English crop, but the bigger picture is that the ECB will pay £625,000 in wages to a group of players who, for all their respective talents, have 34 England caps between them. That figure represents just under a third of the total wage bill across all eight teams in the women’s competition, despite women’s salaries doubling over the winter.Babar Azam, Lockie Ferguson, Nicholas Pooran and David Warner were among those unsold due to uncertainty over their availability.”Availability is a big issue for the overseas guys throughout the whole tournament,” admitted Eoin Morgan, London Spirit’s captain and a prominent advocate for the Hundred, speaking to ESPNcricinfo in a forthcoming interview. “I think you can go through every team and who they selected and there are actually very few overseas that are available throughout the whole tournament.”As a result, several men’s sides have opted to use at least one of their overseas picks on cheaper options, with seven of the twenty-four foreign players signed for £60k or less (each men’s team will add a fourth ‘wildcard’ overseas player to their squad in June or July for £50,000, with a maximum of three permitted in the same XI). While their selections make sense for an Oval Invincibles side looking to add power to its middle order, Rilee Rossouw and Hilton Cartwright were not the overseas draw-cards that the ECB had envisaged when they came up with the Hundred.Related

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Perhaps the problem is the conflict between the tournament’s overall aims and the disparate, individual ambitions of those involved in selecting the squads. The ECB would love teams to sign players based on their reputation – it seems like a missed opportunity that Chris Gayle has twice registered for a draft without being picked – in order to shift tickets and merchandise, but an analyst hoping to impress a coach in order to keep their job would rather prove their worth by signing a hidden gem.The decision to stage the draft behind closed doors for a second year in a row added to the sense that nobody is quite sure what this tournament is, or who it is for. Back in 2019, the draft was hailed by the ECB as “an historic occasion in British sport, as the first major UK sport competition draft to be held in this country,” shown live in a prime Sunday night slot on three Sky channels and online. Two-and-a-half years later, it took place remotely on a Monday morning before being drip-fed out through press releases and live blogs on a Tuesday afternoon, after most of the main cricketing stories had already been broken.Showing the draft live would have presented expensive logistical challenges, not least with most head coaches based overseas and working in Mumbai during the IPL, but they would not be insurmountable. Even if the Hundred is pitched at new fans, existing ones are always intrigued by team construction: the most recent PSL draft had over a million views on YouTube, and viewing figures for the IPL auction regularly dwarf those for actual games.By contrast, the women’s competition continues to attract the best players in the world. Meg Lanning leads a contingent of eleven Australians who will stay in the UK after the Commonwealth Games and despite the salary discrepancies – Lanning will earn just £1,250 more than the lowest-paid men’s players – the prevailing sense is that the women’s Hundred is working better than the men’s.The ECB claimed with some justification that the tournament’s first season was a success, emboldened by strong viewing figures and ticket sales in its first season, but the question that its many critics continue to ask is: at what cost? As Andrew Strauss’ high performance review into the structure of the English game looms, the Hundred still resembles a speculative venture.

He’s no Shoaib Akhtar but one had to watch him close to notice how good he was, and his very few magic balls

Andrew Fidel Fernando10-Mar-2022Did you watch Suranga Lakmal bowl? No, really. Did you watch him closely? It’s ok. It’s human. Be honest. If anyone wouldn’t really mind, it’s Lakmal.Our man captained five Tests for Sri Lanka. In the third of these, he did not bowl at all in the first innings. In the second innings, he sent down just two overs.Related

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Why? Because he is who he is, and felt largely surplus to requirement. In this 2018 series, South Africa had surrendered en masse to Rangana Herath and Dilruwan Perera in the first Test. They were nosediving spectacularly again on a bone-dry SSC pitch, until, inside 35 overs, they were all out for 124, three spinners having bowled right through the innings. Lakmal’s two overs in the second dig were mainly to give the spinners a break.That’s Lakmal concentrate. Rational. Ego-free. Almost invisible. Bring a great ball of his to mind? Yeah, neither can I. Great bowling performances, though, there’s the thing. You don’t have to bowl magic balls to bowl a good spell. And that is where Lakmal lived. Draw a venn diagram. The space common to “bowls line and length”, “swings it a bit”, “seams a little”. Colour that segment in. That’s Lakmal territory.Perhaps, you’ll look at that Test average of 36.38, and think he was just a plodder. If you were being unkind, you’d say he one. Long of hair, longer of face, a gangly tumbling of over-long limbs – he’s no Shoaib Akhtar. He’s not even on that spectrum. He never tried to be. A gentle away-seamer, a smirk when the batter misses it. A turning of the heel, returning to his crease, a doing of all of the above again. You had to watch him to notice how good he was. Otherwise, he was almost invisible.Almost invisible to the Sri Lanka public, because his bowling only really got to really fly overseas, where Sri Lanka generally lost. A 5 for 63 in Port Elizabeth, 5 for 54 in Christchurch, 3 for 25 in Bridgetown, 4 for 39 in Port Elizabeth again, 5 for 47 in North Sound. Since 2016, he’s averaged 28.74 away from home.In that 2019 series that Sri Lanka won in South Africa, which perhaps should go down as their greatest Test triumph ever, there he was, averaging 25.5, keeping a lid on the opposition scoring while the younger bowlers hunted (successfully) for wickets around him. Not a man for the glory spells. The hard ones. In Galle, when nothing was happening, and there was a mild hope the ball would reverse. At the SSC, when the batters have started sweeping well, and the runs are flowing too quickly, and you need a guy to bring the rate down again, even if there’s no real chance of a wicket.When all you want is for balance to be restored, which for Sri Lanka, is a lot of the time in overseas Tests, it is where he shines. Those are the Lakmal overs.He probably would have got more overs if other fast bowlers had stayed with him. Sri Lanka would have prepared some slightly seamer-friendly tracks, if they had a seam attack, instead of a lone, reliable seamer. What could have he been if Nuwan Pradeep didn’t injure his hamstrings that often, or Shaminda Eranga didn’t have a kink in his elbow, or Dhammika Prasad’s shoulder hadn’t fallen apart, or even if Lahiru Kumara had delivered on his early promise?Instead, what Lakmal got at home were intensively spin-friendly pitches, on which he, and most others who bowled at more than 110kph, were sometimes redundant. In some ways, it is typical that Lakmal is right at the centre of an intentional erasure of seam bowling in Sri Lanka’s home Tests.He may get a fair showing from the pink ball, though. Across the two day-night Tests Sri Lanka have played, the first in Barbados, the second in Dubai, Lakmal averages 19.13, playing a significant role in winning both matches.At 35, he’s choosing to look after his financial future, moving to Derbyshire, instead of staying with the Sri Lanka national side, who pay him less than $60,000 a year, not including match fees. Here, for the first time, he appears to be acting in (understandable) self-interest.But in this last Test that he will play – against India – however, remote Sri Lanka’s possibility of pulling off an upset, we should do something most of us don’t really do with Lakmal. Watch him. Watch him close. There are very few magic balls. Only good spells. We can meet him there. He deserves that much.