Watching him put aside ego and get down with the grind in poker provided a reaffirmation that he was for real

Andrew Miller05-Mar-2022When you think of Las Vegas, you probably think of the desert heat, the neon lights, the replica landmarks and the revolting glitziness of the endless, tinkling casinos. You almost certainly don’t think of the world’s greatest legspinner, standing by some piss-infused bins, sucking on a “smoko” and ruing the one that got away.If there’d been an alley cat or two in the vicinity, Shane Warne might well have kicked them into the Nevada night too. For it was the dinner break on the first evening of the 2012 World Series of Poker main event, and Warne had just snuck out through the hotel kitchens after overplaying his final hand of the session to damaging effect.It wasn’t a tournament-ending setback – that would come some days later, after the initial 6598-strong field had been whittled down to the hundreds – but in cricketing parlance, it was quite literally that loss of concentration before an interval, all that hard graft squandered in a moment of avoidable rashness.Related

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“The flop came eight, jack, deuce, rainbow…” Warne would later tell me, in eye-glazing detail, as we shared a cab back across Vegas at the close of that day’s play. Every time he lost a hand, it was due to someone else’s good fortune, of course, rather than his own dumb miscalculation, but the sheer nerdery in Warne’s love of poker was never less than joyous to behold.For I genuinely believe that, in those otherwise awkward years between Warne’s retirement from cricket and his discovery of a true life after sport, his love of cards gave him a purpose and belonging that he simply could not have replicated elsewhere in his extraordinarily A-listed life.In a world where Warne could speed-dial personalities as polarised as Ed Sheeran or David Hasselhoff, and where – as Nick Hoult, his ghostwriter at the Telegraph, has memorably related – he was obliged to use code words and pseudonyms at hotel receptions to keep the paparazzi at arm’s length, there was something reassuringly wholesome about sitting anonymously at a poker table, for sometimes days at a time, re-channelling that extraordinary blend of bluff, grind and raw skill that had marked Warne out as one of the greatest sporting champions of any sport and any era.Personally speaking, however – having marvelled as a teenager at his seemingly fully formed arrival on cricket’s world stage – Warne’s all-consuming new passion offered an entry level insight into his remarkable psyche, as he attempted to translate his proven genius in one field to another, entirely different, mindgame.”[Poker]’s about skill, it’s about patience, it’s about not getting tired in the course of a 12-hour day,” Warne told me during that Vegas trip, for which – in an impressive bluff of my own – I managed to persuade the bean-counters at the Cricketer that an all-expenses-paid week of gambling was exactly what the magazine needed for its reboot.”You need serious powers of concentration and an understanding of when to push and when to sit tight,” Warne added, conferring the game with all the glamour of a day in the dirt in Rawalpindi. “You have to manage your frustration when you’re being dealt crap cards, or being forced to play safe because other guys are going mad. And sometimes you have to create something that’s not there…”Ah yes. The bluff. Was there any player in cricket’s history better at sowing doubt in his opponents than Warne? The knowledge of the moments in which he genuinely had the best hand and played it to perfection – and most things in that regard stemmed from the Ball of the Century at Old Trafford in 1993 – made his years of grift and bluster possible; those times in the late 1990s and early 2000s when his shoulder appeared to be held together by stringy pizza cheese, and only his multi-layered connivances were able to hoodwink a succession of opponents into tame and match-sealing surrenders.Mindgames R Us: Warne gets stuck in in Perth, 2006•Tom Shaw/Getty ImagesFor Warne was playing poker on the cricket field long before he turned to his cards for that post-career adrenaline shot. Unlike the quick bowlers who had ruled the roost before his arrival, there were rarely any route-one options when it came to outwitting the batters in his sights. He often needed to get his fish on the hook before he could reel them in – perhaps with a diet of ripping legbreaks, followed by the slider, as Ian Bell discovered to his cost at Lord’s in 2005, or perhaps with some expertly detonated verbals, the likes of which lured both Mark Ramprakash and Nasser Hussain to their doom in the 1998-99 and 2001 series.He seemed to find a personalised strategy for all calibres of rival. In a one-day final in Melbourne in 2000-01, Warne even greeted Brian Lara with a first-ball bouncer, a tactic that hit instant pay dirt when a riled Lara slapped a wild drive to cover in the same over. And then there was his long and storied rivalry with South Africa’s Daryll Cullinan, a batter who was so fazed over the course of so many setbacks that he turned for help to a psychiatrist – some two decades before they were accepted as a recognised part of a sportsperson’s preparation.That innate willingness to graft may have been at odds with Warne’s showman persona, but it was a key part of the deceptive image that he was able to present throughout an astonishing 15-year career. And when it came to poker, his new rivals may have known little of cricket, but most of them were better than average people-readers, and could see and respect the efforts that he was willing to put in to cut it on the tables.”He’s a guy I can introduce at events and say, ‘Hey, Ben Affleck, here’s a guy who’s more famous than you!” Phil Hellmuth, one of poker’s greats, told me during that trip.”Some of these sportsmen are really good at poker because they are competitive by nature,” Hellmuth added. “If you’re good enough to channel that and become great in your first career, it figures that some of these guys know how to relearn that and get good at something that will make them a new career.”As things turned out, Warne fell short of the money “bubble” on that 2012 trip – “I always overplay my jacks,” he admitted in a moment of post-elimination candour, while watching Hashim Amla rack up a triple-century at The Oval later that summer. And overall, he rarely got closer to a payout than in 2009, when his deep run in the tournament caused him to turn up a week late for his hugely hyped Sky Sports debut in that summer’s Ashes.But his love of the game was absolute. He kept putting himself through the glamour-free yakka of these vast deep-stack tournaments because there was nowhere he’d rather be – even if those games tended to be in vast aircraft-hangar-style conference centres, light-years removed from the penthouse glamour that poker projects on late-night TV, and where the all-pervading vibe was the fierce concentration and mild terror of a school exam-hall.2:03

In 2018, ESPNcricinfo’s Andrew Miller faced an over from Shane Warne

And in watching Warne put aside the ego and just get down with the grind, it was a reaffirmation of that sense we all had had beamed into our living rooms throughout the course of his matchless career – that in spite of the artifice of his art, and the apparent superficiality of his bleach-blond image, Shane Warne was entirely for real.In 2018, I was privileged enough to witness the truth of Warne in its full majesty. A chance, at the Kia Oval, to face a full over in the nets from the greatest bowler of my lifetime, and – at the behest of his old Ashes rival, Michael Vaughan – to “smash him out of the park”.Inevitably we talked poker while I was strapping on my pads – it’s how we always communicated in our intermittent meetings, with Warnie always keen to unload about some lucky sucker who’d cleaned him out the previous week – but two moments in particular stand out now, as I look back on a career highlight that is laced with more poignancy than I could ever have envisaged at the time.Firstly, there was his generosity of spirit, as he played along with my inept efforts to take him to the cleaners while imploring me not to hold back because I “probably [wouldn’t] get this chance again”. How devastatingly final that now sounds.But then, right at the end of the session, while signing off for the cameras, there appeared on Warne’s features a flicker of apparently genuine hurt, as I joked about how he had “ruined my childhood” with his routine dismemberment of my England heroes.The moment passed as quickly as it appeared, but it’s strangely haunting nonetheless, for it spoke to Warne’s most basic desire to be a people-pleaser – which, when you think about it, ought to be a given for one of sport’s great entertainers.It’s not always quite as linear as that, however. Not many megastars are quite so devoid of pretension as Warne remained to the end – even allowing for a hectic, jet-set lifestyle that only a man who burned at his wattage could have kept up with.But that glimmer of a tell does perhaps explain why Warne never quite raked in the poker millions that he always believed were his for the winning.

Indefatigable fast bowler channels spirit of Larwood to end frustrating tour on personal high

Andrew Miller16-Jan-2022Mark Wood targeted two things in the build-up to this Hobart Test, over and above the helmets of Australia’s batters: “wickets and wins”. Thanks to England’s miserably frail batting, the latter notion proved to be a pipedream, but thanks to the former, it had been a whole lot more plausible in this contest than any other stage of this series, after one of the most richly merited five-fors in recent Test history.It’s rare to be able to say definitively that a bowler has “deserved” better rewards – how often has an English seamer, in particular, beaten the outside edge time and time again, only for their pitch map to suggest that they were half a yard too short to truly challenge the bat? That was arguably the defining theme of England’s loss in their last pink-ball match at Adelaide – which also happened to be the one match of this series in which Wood was an absentee.For Wood, by contrast, it’s been a case of the shorter, the nastier, the better – and now, at the very last gasp of an indefatigable campaign, his efforts have earned him his very own step on the way up to the Bellerive pavilion, after he produced the best figures by a visiting bowler in Hobart’s brief but proud Test history.Related

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England have not dispatched a quicker bowler to Australia since Devon Malcolm’s two tours in 1990-91 and 1994-95, and like Malcolm – whose career average of 37.09 did little justice to the raw hostility that he brought to his best spells – Wood looked set to depart with the admiration of his foes, but nothing tangible to show for it.Prior to this match, his eight wickets had been bludgeoned at a Malcolm-esque 37.62, but in a hint of what might have been feasible with better support and more England runs to defend, five of those scalps had been a combination of Australia’s big three: Steve Smith, David Warner and Marnus Labuschagne, all of them extracted before they had reached 30, and in Labuschagne’s case, three times in as many innings after his ascent to the No. 1 Test ranking.Wood’s speeds, meanwhile, have been heroically unyielding – he’s busted a gut to push 90mph in every spell, no matter how dog-eared the ball or tattered the match situation. And in that respect, he’s emulated another lion-hearted performer of yesteryear, Darren Gough – whom Mark Taylor memorably said he would take as Australia’s 12th man in that 1994-95 series, given how ebullient he had remained in the midst of another traumatic Ashes tour.There were concerns, however, that even Wood had finally run out of steam in the opening exchanges of this contest – his third Test in a row, after years in which he had rarely been risked even for back-to-back encounters.In a profligate first-innings display, Wood’s first ten overs were panned for 74, including 31 in three pressure-releasing overs straight after the morning drinks break – and given that Australia had been 12 for 3 after the first ten overs of the match, it turned out to be a critical passage of play.Wood took his maiden Test six-for•Getty ImagesBut the reality was that the conditions on that seethingly green first day called for a subtlety that Wood – to his credit, more often than his detriment – does not possess. Like New Zealand’s Neil Wagner, Wood is a man with sledgehammer attributes, but the conditions that morning demanded a scalpel that he is not accustomed to handling. Had James Anderson been available, he surely would not have been used as first-change; had Jofra Archer not been broken before the series had started, he too might have possessed the versatility to thrive on that fuller, more forensic length.Wood tried to oblige – he has not wanted for trying all tour – but instead, he was punished for his probing, most particularly by Labuschagne, the man over whom he had previously exerted a hold unlike any other bowler in world cricket.According to ESPNcricinfo’s ball-by-ball data, Wood bowled 46 balls on a good length or fuller across the two innings, and got clobbered at an economy rate of 7.69, with just the wicket of Australia’s No. 10, Pat Cummins to show for it. In the first innings alone, half of the balls in that first spell were full: 21 out of 42. They vanished for an eye-watering 36 runs.However, once he made the decision to drag that length back, for his post-tea spell on the first afternoon, Wood’s returns were transformed – 3 for 41 in his remaining eight overs of that innings, all of them caught on the pull, and 9 for 78 in his final 24.3, with a succession of battered batters finding no answer to his line, his lift, and most of all, his stamina.In that respect, Wood’s methods have evoked another indefatigable Northerner – his near-namesake Harold Larwood, whose exploits were not exactly cheered to the rafters while he was zoning in on Don Bradman’s forehead during the 1932-33 Bodyline series, but who came to be appreciated in hindsight, not least when he emigrated to Australia after the war. It’s a stretch to suggest that Wood might set up a new home in Hobart after this performance, but he’d certainly be welcomed.As for the Aussies in his sights, they may be grateful that, at 32, this is probably Wood’s final appearance in a Test in Australia. Usman Khawaja may well suffer flashbacks from the bouncer that all but decapitated him as he gloved one off his throat, while the sucker-punch pull that Steve Smith hoisted to fine leg on the third morning was not only the moment that England truly knew they were back in with a chance, it was also the moment that Smith’s average dipped below 60 for the first time since 2017.Such pyrrhic victories have abounded in this contest – Warner’s pair being another case in point – but Wood’s refusal to let up at any stage of a desperate campaign has been a rare and precious joy for England’s success-starved players and public. Thanks to his wickets, that win seemed, ever so fleetingly, to be a realistic prospect.

Rub of the green, invisible heroes, plants in rival teams… is it too early to say ?

Sidharth Monga26-May-2022Forget the role clarity. Never mind the death bowling of Harshal Patel and death batting of Dinesh Karthik. Leave aside Wanindu Hasaranga in the middle overs. If you are a Royal Challengers Bangalore fan and believe in signs, you are probably already playing “” at wedding celebrations. For it looks destined right now that this is Royal Challengers’ year. You probably know more signs than us, but here are a few that are staring us right in the face.If you haven’t noticed these, you either don’t follow IPL or are just trying to be a hipster by following only teams that have no connect with the geographical units they claim to represent: Rajasthan Royals or Punjab Kings or whatever their name was last week or Delhi Capitals.

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DRSYou probably get nightmares of the marginal calls gone against your team or that erroneous short run that you believe ended up costing you a playoffs spot, but this year the rub of the green has been on Royal Challengers’ side. Remember the second ball Karthik faced in the Eliminator? Looked gone for a duck. Not given. Saved by an umpire’s call on the review.Who will forget Rishabh Pant, so trigger happy on most days with DRS requests, being conservative in a match that Royal Challengers desperately needed Mumbai Indians to win against Capitals?All these marginal calls are going against Royal Challengers’ rivals elsewhere. Capitals’ Rovman Powell not getting the no-ball, for example. Gujarat Titans’ Matthew Wade hitting the leather off the ball only for Ultra Edge to not show a sound signature. With some luck, we might even have a year when Royal Challengers don’t demand for an aspect of decision-making to be taken away from the umpires.Related

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They are dropping your match-winnersBoth Rajat Patidar and Karthik were dropped when the partnership was hardly past 10: in the end they end up with 92 in 41 balls.Also before we let Pant go, he dropped Karthik on five in the league game against Royal Challengers only for Karthik to score 66 off 34 that buried Capitals.Speaking of match-winnersShouldn’t they be Faf du Plessis, Glenn Maxwell and Virat Kohli? Between them, Maxwell and Kohli have played three innings of 40 or more at a strike rate above 140. du Plessis last had such a big impact on May 8. It’s the others who have been carrying them. You would think with two matches remaining the big three are due according to the law of averages.He’s won it with Mumbai. He’s won it with SRH. He’s won it with CSK. This year, Karn Sharma is with RCB. Should we say more?•BCCIWhat are the odds?Patidar was supposed to be getting married during this IPL. It was only an injury to young Luvnith Sisodia – an event so unremarkable that the IPL release doesn’t even mention what injury – that brought Patidar in as replacement after Royal Challengers had let him go. He spent more than 20 days on the bench, and came in only when others played them out of contention. Now he won you the Eliminator with his first century in T20 cricket.Plants in rival teamsIf Patidar is an example of a lost soul finding its way back, another lost soul helped them from the outside. Tim David was part of Royal Challengers last year but they made not a single bid for him at the auction table this year. Only for David to score 34 off 11 in Mumbai’s final league match to make sure Capitals finished below Royal Challengers.The invisible heroStarting 2016, only Mumbai have been able win the IPL without Karn Sharma in their squad even though Karn has played only four matches in the playoffs. That’s four titles in four playoff matches, one with Sunrisers Hyderabad, one with Mumbai, two with Chennai Super Kings. In one of the title runs, he didn’t play a single game.If you think all of Royal Challengers’ calls at the auction table have worked only in a circuitous way, you have another thing coming. They managed themselves a steal deal this year: Karn Sharma at the base price of INR 50 lakh.The captainThe last time a team won the IPL from outside the top two, it was an overseas captain leading them. du Plessis is the only overseas captain in the playoffs this year. Okay now we are taking it too far but you get the drift.

All the stats and records from the high-scoring opening T20I between India and South Africa

Sampath Bandarupalli10-Jun-202212 Consecutive wins for India in T20Is before the seven-wicket defeat against South Africa. It is the joint-longest winning streak for any team in men’s T20Is.212 Target chased by South Africa in Delhi, their highest successful chase in the T20I format. Their previous highest chase came in the inaugural World T20 game in 2007 against West Indies, where they chased down 206.126 Runs scored by South Africa in the last ten overs, the most by a team in a successful chase in that period (11-20) of a T20I. The previous highest was 125 by Australia against Pakistan in the 2010 World T20 semi-final, as they chased down the 192-run target from 67 for 4 after the tenth over.ESPNcricinfo Ltd1 India lost a T20I after posting 200-plus for the first time. They were successful while defending a 200-plus total on each of the previous 11 instances. The previous highest successful chase against India was exactly 200 runs, also by South Africa in 2015.131* The partnership between Rassie van der Dussen and David Miller. It is fourth-highest stand by any pair for the fourth or a lower wicket in men’s T20Is and the best for South Africa. Their previous highest was 127* between Faf du Plessis and van der Dussen for the fourth wicket against England in 2020.2 Number of partnerships against India in T20Is, which is higher than the 131-run stand between van der Dussen and Miller. Babar Azam and Mohammad Rizwan shared an unbeaten 152-run opening stand in last year’s T20 World Cup, while David Warner and Shane Watson put on a 133-run partnership for the first wicket in the 2012 edition.ESPNcricinfo Ltd14 Shreyas Iyer’s drop of van der Dussen in the 16th over cost India 14 runs. He was then on 29 off 30, and finished on 75 off 46, scoring 46 off 16 after the drop (including the run he scored off the ball he was dropped). According to the Luck Index, the other batters would have scored 32 off 15 had the chance been taken.75.76 % Percentage of runs scored by batters in this match through boundaries. It is the third-highest % in a men’s T20I with 300-plus runs coming through the bat. The highest is 76.1 % during the Auckland T20I in 2020 between New Zealand and West Indies, while 75.85 % of runs scored by the batters came via boundaries during the T20I between India and Sri Lanka in Indore in 2017.12.17 Economy rate of spinners in this match, the fourth-worst in a men’s T20I where they bowled ten or more overs. The four spinners – Keshav Maharaj, Tabraiz Shamsi, Yuzvendra Chahal and Axar Patel – collectively bowled 11.1 overs, conceding 136 runs for two wickets. All the four bowlers ended with an economy rate of ten and more.

What questions could the new Australia head coach face in the coming months and years?

Andrew McGlashan20-Sep-2022Replacement for HaynesWhen Nitschke and her fellow selectors next get around a table to pick the squad to tour India in December one of the key questions will be who replaces Rachael Haynes following her retirement last week. She will be a significant loss across all formats, but the most pressing one initially will be T20 with the five matches in India and an eye on next year’s World Cup.”Rachael leaves a massive void, both on and off the field,” Nitschke said in Brisbane on Tuesday. “She’ll be really hard to replace.”From a batting point of view, a lot could depend on how players go in the upcoming WBBL. If Ellyse Perry brings the form she showed at the start of the Hundred into a middle-order role with Sydney Sixers then it could be a way for her to slot back in. If there is a thought to look to the future, a player such as Phoebe Litchfield may get their chance. Then there is a more experienced figure such as Georgia Redmayne who has been on the fringes for the last couple of seasons without yet making a debut.Leadership transitionMeg Lanning’s indefinite break from the game after the Commonwealth Games followed by Haynes’ retirement has brought into focus the captaincy. If Lanning hasn’t returned by the India tour a new leader will be required, and even if Lanning is back it remains a longer-term question about who will follow her. A solution for the immediate needs if required could be Alyssa Healy, who will captain New South Wales early this season, although she would need to balance it with batting and keeping, while Jess Jonassen and Tahlia McGrath also captain their states.Related

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“There are a good group of emerging leaders in our team that are going to have opportunities to stick their hands up,” Nitschke said. “We don’t have a designated leadership group but there are people amongst the team and group that are leaders on and off the field. Some girls lead in their states. They all have different strengths.”A broader changeoverAt some point over the next few years, other players will follow Haynes’ lead and call it day – some perhaps sooner rather than later – as one of the most dominant sporting teams in history begins to break up. The Australian system is well placed to fill gaps as they emerge, but the strength of the domestic game – and areas such as Australia A – will need to come into their own. And, ideally, departures will be staggered to avoid a mass exit of three or four key players at once.”Whether it is now, in one year or two years’ time, there are going to be some changes,” Nitschke said. “For the moment we have a good strong core of a team. I expect them to continue and be around for a little while but there are going to be changes afoot. We have a really good domestic comp backing us up so it is going to be exciting seeing who puts their hand up.”

Australia’s upcoming schedule

December Away vs India, five T20Is

January Home vs Pakistan, three T20Is & three ODIs

February T20 World Cup, South Africa

Resetting goalsRight now, Australia hold every major prize going: ODI World Cup, T20 World Cup, Commonwealth Games gold and the multi-format Ashes. In terms of winning, they have almost pushed the bar as high as it can go. It has been an extraordinary era. Over the last few years, the team has always had another big goal to aim at, whether it be the home T20 World Cup, ODI redemption or the gold medal push. Now they need to start again.”It’s one of the best sporting teams in Australia at the moment, or for a long time, and to be involved in that first hand and guide them in that is a pretty exciting prospect,” Nitschke said. “If it isn’t broke, don’t fix it. I certainly won’t be going in and changing everything we do because we’ve been so successful. Think it’s about evolving with the game and looking to improve. It’s about reassessing and reevaluating.”We’ve obviously been very successful and it’s a challenge to stay at the top of the game. We know around the globe there are other teams coming for us. India continually keep challenging us and will continue to do so. We hope that just pushes us to get better as well.”Assistant coachesWith Nitschke’s promotion and Ben Sawyer having left to be head coach of the New Zealand women’s team, there will be considerable changes in the backroom set-up. Dan Marsh and Jude Coleman were the assistant coaches for the Ireland tour and Commonwealth Games. In the last couple of weeks Cricket Australia has advertised for the position and the initial deadline is September 23. “We need people with relationship-building skills, that know the game and players really well, and the trends of the global game, think that is real benefit because we are starting to perhaps play a bit more Test cricket,” Nitschke said. “To keep challenging [the players] and pushing them forward is something pretty important for us.”

He has played in just 14 of India’s 44 ODIs since the start of 2020 but remains crucial

Deivarayan Muthu21-Jan-20231:42

Shami on workload management: ‘I prefer playing matches’

The seam is bolt upright. Not even a hint of wobble. Finn Allen topples over like a house of cards. The ball clunks into the top of middle stump via a deflection off the back pad. Inducker after three outswingers. The perfect set-up. This is vintage Mohammed Shami. He strikes in the first over of the first-ever international game in Raipur to rouse a sellout crowd.Sure, there’s a smattering of grass on this pitch, though nothing as generous as a green seamer on the first day of a Test match in Hamilton. Shami keeps landing the ball on the seam to maximise the early juice. He keeps threatening both the edges. He doesn’t present width. He doesn’t offer the drive ball that New Zealand are searching for.Daryl Mitchell tries to manufacture that drive ball by shimming out of his crease, but Shami still beats him in length and has him weakly plopping a return catch. Mitchell throws his head back in despair. Shami throws the ball up in the air and wheels away in celebration.Replay – Ind vs NZ, 2nd men’s ODI

You can watch the replay of the second ODI between India and New Zealand on ESPN Player in the UK and on ESPN+ in the USA.

The drive ball never comes from Shami in the powerplay. Just one of his 24 in the powerplay was full, but even that wasn’t really hittable. Mohammed Siraj and Hardik Pandya back Shami up beautifully as New Zealand fall to 15 for 4 in ten overs. They are eventually rolled over for 108 in 34.3 overs.”Conditions were not as helpful to the bowlers as it may have appeared,” Shami said at the post-match press conference. “They got out early but conditions were not overtly bowler-friendly. We dismissed them cheaply by bowling a testing length. It was a damp wicket but it was important to keep good line and length. All the bowlers were disciplined and the result is for all to see.”New Zealand captain Tom Latham admitted that the unwavering accuracy of Shami and Siraj handcuffed their batters in the early exchanges.1:39

Jaffer: Shami unlucky in previous games, deserved his wickets today

“They obviously bowled fantastically well,” Latham said. “And like you said they were pretty relentless with the lines and lengths they bowled and that didn’t give us any easy scoring options and then obviously to be five down reasonably early on, I think just after the 10th or 11th over… Yeah, it was hard to come back from there. When you get bowled out for just over a 100 obviously makes things pretty difficult. So, unfortunately it was just one of those days where everything India did turned their way.”New Zealand briefly threatened a fightback through Michael Bracewell (who else?) once the ball grew older and softer. Shardul Thakur finally gave Bracewell the drive ball, and the batter drilled him down the ground for four. Then, when Shami returned to the attack, Bracewell carted him for three fours in six balls. Bracewell had laid into him in the first ODI in Hyderabad too but here Shami beasted the Beast. He ditched his attempted yorker, which disappeared to the boundary, for the big bouncer. He switched his angle from around the wicket to over the wicket and let rip a head-high lifter close to the off stump. Bracewell had very little time and room to work with and ended up top-edging it to the keeper. Game over for New Zealand.Prasidh Krishna or Umran Malik have been India’s chief enforcers in the middle overs of an ODI in the past two years. However, Prasidh is now on the sidelines, still working his way back from injury while Malik can’t find a place in this XI because India want some batting insurance at No. 8 in the form of Thakur. In their absence, Shami has stepped up with the old ball too and kept himself in India’s World Cup frame and Raipur couldn’t have been happier. The city had waited for a long time for its first international game and Shami ensured it was worth it, despite the match lasting just 55 overs. After the game ended early, a laser show kept the fans entertained. The show ended with a message to the crowd: “Chhattisgarh thanks you”. Perhaps, that was a message to Shami as well.India’s bowling depth is as unprecedented as their batting depth these days. Just like how Ishan Kishan made way for Shubman Gill immediately after smashing a double-century, Shami might have to make way for Jasprit Bumrah once he regains fitness. Which isn’t anything new. Shami hasn’t been an ODI regular for India – he has played in just 14 of their 44 games since the start of 2020. Siraj’s emergence has pushed him into the background a bit. But Saturday’s events proved he’s not the kind of player who goes quietly into the night.That means advantage India because how many teams can say they have a bowler like Shami as their plan B?

They reached the final last season and will want to add depth to their batting to go one better this time

Sruthi Ravindranath20-Dec-2022Who they’ve got
Rajasthan Royals had their best IPL season since 2008 in 2022, when they finished as runners-up. They have let go of nine players since, but have retained their key personnel.

Follow the 2023 IPL auction LIVE

You can watch the auction live in India on Star Sports, and follow live analysis with Tom Moody, Ian Bishop, Wasim Jaffer and Stuart Binny right here on ESPNcricinfo.

Current squad: Sanju Samson (capt), Yashasvi Jaiswal, Shimron Hetmyer, Devdutt Padikkal, Jos Buttler, Dhruv Jurel, Riyan Parag, Prasidh Krishna, Trent Boult, Obed McCoy, Navdeep Saini, Kuldeep Sen, Kuldip Yadav, R Ashwin, Yuzvendra Chahal, KC CariappaWhat they have to play with
They have a total of INR 13.2 crore (USD 1.6 million approx.) in their pocket, which is not great seeing that they have nine slots to fill. Four of those are possible overseas slots.What they need

• One of Royals’ biggest strengths is their top order, which has Jos Buttler, Yashasvi Jaiswal and Sanju Samson, in the main. But the next three – Devdutt Padikkal, Shimron Hetmyer and Riyan Parag – did not click as expected last season. Importantly, bar Parag, they don’t have anyone there that can bowl an over or two. So a batting allrounder will be a huge help. Someone who can do what James Neesham, who they have let go, can do when at his best.
• They have a number of excellent bowlers in Trent Boult, Prasidh Krishna, R Ashwin and Yuzvendra Chahal. Some back-ups for these players, both overseas and Indian, will help.
• They have a reputation for picking little-known Indian players and backing them, so expect a few of those this time too.

The likely targets

• For the allrounder, the obvious high-profile choices are Sam Curran, Ben Stokes – who has been part of the franchise before – and Cameron Green. But Royals also have the third-lowest purse heading into the auction, which might mean bids for Shakib Al Hasan, Dasun Shanaka and Jason Holder. Not to forget Sikandar Raza, who might, in fact, be a great fit at Royals.
• Royals would want to have solid back-up batters, and Harry Brook, who can play both as a top-order batter and in the middle order, could be one of their targets. There’s also Najibullah Zadran, who plays for Barbados Royals in the CPL. Of Indian options, they could go for Rohan Kunnummal or Bikramkumar Das or Chirag Gandhi.
• They do have Obed McCoy, but with options like Reece Topley, Chris Jordan and Josh Little around, they might be tempted.A few options for them in the uncapped category could be Mumbai left-arm spinner Shams Mulani and Himachal Pradesh’s batting allrounder Sumeet Verma.