There was joy for Trent Boult and Jasprit Bumrah, who played the wreckers-in-chief

Bharath Seervi23-Oct-20203 for 4 – The Super Kings’ score after 2.5 overs. Only once has a team been four-down for a lower score: the Kochi Tuskers Kerala were four-down for two runs against the Deccan Chargers in 2011. The Super Kings’ previous lowest score at four-down was 13, also against the Mumbai Indians, at Wankhede Stadium in 2013.3 – Runs scored by the Super Kings’ top-four batsmen in the collapse, the lowest for any team in an IPL innings. The previous lowest was four runs by the Kochi Tuskers’ top four against the Chargers in 2011.ESPNcricinfo Ltd5 – Five wickets lost by the Super Kings in the powerplay, which is the first such occasion for them in the IPL. They have lost four wickets in the first six overs several times, including twice last year. Only once has a team lost more wickets in the powerplay – the Kochi Tuskers against the Chargers. The Royal Challengers Bangalore had once lost seven wickets in five overs, but that was only a five-over match because of rain.3 – Number of times the Mumbai Indians have picked up five wickets in the first six overs in the IPL. The first two instances had come in 2017, both against the Delhi Daredevils. They had taken four wickets in the first six overs against the Super Kings twice before, both in 2013 including the final that year.10 – Wickets for Trent Boult in the powerplay overs this IPL, including three in this match. He has taken three wickets more than any other bowler has in powerplays so far.1 – It was the first time Jasprit Bumrah struck twice in an over in the powerplay in the IPL. Before this game, he had taken two wickets in an over 13 times in the IPL, but those were all in the second half of the innings.3 – Instances of five of the Super Kings’ top-six batsmen getting out for single-digit scores in the IPL. Incidentally, all of them have come against the Mumbai Indians. The previous two instances were at the Wankhede in 2013 and in Chennai in 2019.

Before Adelaide, India had been dismissed for 100 or fewer four times since 2000

Dustin Silgardo19-Dec-2020100 all out vs England, 2nd inns, Mumbai, 2006
Shaun Udal never played a Test after this, but in Mumbai in 2006, he produced an iconic moment with his offspin when he dismissed Sachin Tendulkar to leave India 76 for 5 in chase of 313. Udal ended with four wickets, including that of a young MS Dhoni, and England secured a 1-1 draw in the three-match series. It was always going to be a tough chase for India on a fifth-day Wankhede pitch, but their star-studded batting line-up did not even put up a fight. England’s quicks accounted for Rahul Dravid, Virender Sehwag and Yuvraj Singh, and Udal did the rest. This was England’s first Test win in India since 1985.99 all out vs New Zealand, 1st inns, Hamilton, 2002
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Stats – India hit record low with 36 all out

India’s batsmen could not handle the extreme swinging conditions in New Zealand on their 2002-03 tour. In the first Test, in Wellington, they had been bowled out for 161 and 121, and in Hamilton, they failed to reach three figures in the first innings. Daryl Tuffey ripped through the top order, dismissing Sanjay Bangar, Rahul Dravid, Sourav Ganguly and Sachin Tendulkar for single-digit scores. India actually managed to claw their way back into the Test, dismissing New Zealand for 94 in their first innings, but a second collapse meant New Zealand won by four wickets.Virat Kohli’s disastrous 2014 tour of England came to an end when he nicked off yet again•Getty Images94 all out vs England, 2nd inns, The Oval, 2014
India were bruised and battered by the second innings of the fifth Test of their 2014 tour of England. After going 1-0 up in the second Test, they had been beaten soundly in Southampton and Manchester and were dismissed for 148 in the first innings at The Oval. England had responded with 486, batting India out of the Test for all practical purposes. There was little fight in the second Indian innings: Jimmy Anderson removed M Vijay and Cheteshwar Pujara early, Virat Kohli’s poor tour came to an end when he nicked behind yet again, and Dhoni was sent back for a duck as India were bowled out in less than 30 overs and lost by an innings and 224 runs, their third biggest defeat in Tests.76 all out vs South Africa, 1st inns, Ahmedabad, 2008
On a first-day pitch in Ahmedabad, South Africa’s quicks put in one of the finest displays of fast bowling on Indian soil as they ran through India in 20 overs. Makhaya Ntini started the collapse, dismissing Wasim Jaffer in the fourth over. Dale Steyn then got Virender Sehwag to chop on before Ntini got two more, Laxman leaving one that was angled in and Ganguly playing on. Then Steyn produced one of his best Test deliveries, getting one to seam past Dravid’s edge and hit the top of off stump. Morne Morkel got in on the act with two quick strikes before Steyn wiped up the tail to finish with 5 for 23. A double-century by AB de Villiers in South Africa’s first innings put the game beyond India.

Pakistan’s bowlers were splendid in Mount Maunganui, but Williamson and Taylor were just a little bit better

Danyal Rasool26-Dec-2020This is just about acceptable. Yes, New Zealand are on top, and yes, Pakistan’s answer to Kane Williamson is currently nursing a thumb injury, while Pakistan’s answer to Ross Taylor disappeared down the same cracks as Azhar Ali and Asad Shafiq’s potential over the years. Yes, that means the template New Zealand followed against West Indies is still very much on, particularly given the vulnerability of Pakistan’s batting order and the confidence surging through New Zealand’s quick bowlers. But for all of that, and the frustrations Pakistan will be nursing now that a grinding day is over, few, even in the bitter, scapegoat-y world of Pakistan cricket analysis, could throw much blame Pakistan’s way.Mohammad Rizwan won the toss – the sixth successive time a coin has bested a New Zealand skipper this summer – and bowled on a surface greener than most outfields in Pakistan are this or any other time of the year. Unlike West Indies, Pakistan’s new ball bowlers Shaheen Afridi and Mohammad Abbas took advantage of the grass on the wicket and the new ball, striking to remove New Zealand’s struggling openers early. They did so not because they went in search of magic deliveries, but because they stuck to that niggly line just outside off stump that has brought them success in most places they play.Clip that opening spell, set up a tutorial and use them to teach every visiting side how to bowl on the first morning in New Zealand. In a masterclass of execution, Afridi and Abbas appeared to be exploiting the conditions so expertly they might as well have been raised under the shadow of Mount Maunganui itself, rather than first time visitors to this place. Tom Latham floundered and Tom Blundell fiddled and both inevitably fell to Afridi, though Abbas could claim assists for both dismissals thanks to a six-over spell of metronomic efficiency in which no quarter was given. He might not have known it was one day out from Christmas for the lack of generosity on offer. Or he might have been auditioning for Scrooge’s part.Thirty of the 36 balls Abbas bowled in that opening burst were length balls outside off stump, with only three full deliveries, meaning he hadn’t been fooled by the grass on the surface and gone searching for phantom swing. Twenty-six of Afridi’s deliveries in his first six overs were length balls on or around off stump, with both wickets coming off those deliveries.Shaheen Shah Afridi was a menace throughout the day•Getty ImagesBut this isn’t a story of the ball getting older and the bowlers losing their discipline, allowing Williamson and Taylor to build that attritional partnership that dominated the best part of the day. The figures suggest that Pakistan’s lengths didn’t waver much at all throughout the first two sessions, with Faheem Ashraf justifying his inclusion as an extra seamer by turning in a rigidly disciplined performance, if not quite as penetrative as his more storied counterparts. Williamson left him particularly well, but it was telling that that was the New Zealand captain’s most secure option against a bowler some might have felt the hosts would target. Eighty percent of the balls he bowled targeted that fourth stump, and while the wickets column remained empty, 15 runs in 10 overs in the first two sessions suggested he wasn’t much of a downgrade to Abbas.All of this, as you might have picked up, is really rather good, but so, you’ll likely have noticed, are Taylor and Williamson. Taylor, overtaking Daniel Vettori to become the most-capped New Zealand cricketer in history, demonstrated why he’s hung around so long, taking a more assertive role as Williamson took his time settling in, and pouncing upon Pakistan’s genuine weak link, Yasir Shah, just before tea to secure control of the day for his side. Williamson, meanwhile, left what he could and dead-batted the rest in the first two sessions, undoubtedly only aggravating the frustrations of Pakistan bowlers who would have felt they deserved better for the discipline they showed.New Zealand’s two greatest living batsmen would refuse to leave the crease for the best part of 50 overs, as if having marked out the 22 yards as the place they would squat. They have done that often enough by now to be able to claim ownership rights; this was their tenth hundred partnership together, more than any other New Zealand pair has managed. Few will have felt as much of a grind; equally, few will feel as rewarding.Afridi would return to give Pakistan one more shot in the arm, removing Taylor with a bit of extra bounce, but Williamson was going nowhere. It wasn’t a completely chanceless innings – he was lucky an lbw shout wasn’t sent upstairs – and the two catches Pakistan put down in the slips barely count by their inexorably slipping fielding standards. The strike rate, once languishing around 20, had picked up, and the fluency was returning to his shots. Pakistan’s accuracy after tea had begun to fall away, as Williamson and Taylor will have known it inevitably would. That it lasted two sessions was a fairly impressive feat, one that on another day might have seen them well into New Zealand’s tail by now.Solid bowling performance? Yes. Bowlers dominating batsmen for large periods? Most certainly. The reward? Waking up tomorrow to get ready to bowl at Williamson, unbeaten on 94, with the scoreboard reading 222 for 3. If that’s what a decent day looks like, this short, two-match series might become an interminable one for Rizwan’s side.

Anderson has the most Test wickets for a fast bowler after turning 30

S Rajesh09-Feb-20211:43

Did England play spin better than India in the first Test?

6 – Consecutive wins for England in Asia, following their 3-0 and 2-0 series wins in Sri Lanka in 2018 and earlier this year. Their recent record in Asia contrasts sharply with that of South Africa, who lost their ninth Test in a row in the continent when they were beaten by Pakistan in Rawalpindi on Monday.ESPNcricinfo Ltd11 – Test wins for England in Asia since January 2010 – they have a 11-12 win-loss record in the continent during this period, which is easily the best among the non-Asian teams. No other team has won more than half the number of Tests that they have lost: New Zealand and West Indies have a win-loss ratio of 0.5. Australia have a 3-15 record during this period. In fact, England have won more Tests in India during this period (three) than all other teams put together (two).
Of the nine series England have played in Asia during this period (excluding the ongoing one in India), they have won four, lost three, and drawn two.343 – Test wickets for James Anderson after turning 30, which is the most for a fast bowler. He went past Courtney Walsh, who has 341. Among all bowlers, only three have more wickets after turning 30: Rangana Herath (398), Muttiah Muralitharan (388), and Shane Warne (386), while Anil Kumble has 343 as well.ESPNcricinfo Ltd26 – Test wins for Joe Root, which equals Michael Vaughan’s record for an England captain. Root has a 26-15 win-loss record in 47 Tests, compared to Vaughan’s 26-11 in 51 matches.ESPNcricinfo Ltd1 – India had lost just one home Test in their last 35 games before this one, going back to the beginning of 2013. They had won 28 games during this period, and were easily the most dominant home team in these eight years.3 – Consecutive Man-of-the-Match awards for Root – he had won the award in the two Tests in Sri Lanka as well. There are only six other instances of a player winning three or more successive awards: Muralitharan (four), Ian Botham, Wasim Akram, Kallis, Michael Hussey, and Steve Harmison.2010 – The last time India bowled more no-balls than the 27 they did in this match. That was against South Africa in Kolkata, when India bowled 29. Just two bowlers contributed to all the no-balls: Ishant Sharma (16) and Amit Mishra (13).4 – Wins in India for Anderson. Since 2000, only two other overseas players have won as many Tests in India: Mark Boucher and Jacques Kallis.1999 – The last time India lost a Test in Chennai. It was an epic encounter, which Pakistan won by 12 runs. Since then, India won five out of eight Tests here before this defeat to England.

Fourth-choice left-arm spinner makes record-breaking start to Test career

Andrew Fidel Fernando01-May-2021Praveen Jayawickrama is essentially Sri Lanka’s fourth-choice left-arm spinner. If Lasith Embuldeniya or Duvindu Tillakaratne had been fit, or if Prabath Jayasuriya had passed a fitness test, he would have struggled to find a place in the squad. But such are the manic, dramatic turns that both engulf and somehow also enliven the island’s cricket, Jayawickrama took 6 for 92 to become Sri Lanka’s most-successful bowler on debut, surprising everyone, but also, in a sense, no one.See, this is the Test team that loses most of its pace attack and has its captain sacked, before going to South Africa and becoming the first Asian side to clinch a series there; the team that collapses twice at home to modest England spin, then defies a decent pace attack and the Dukes ball in the Caribbean; which has a batter with 11 Test hundreds and an average of almost 40 failing to make the XI, while an opener with an average of 26.31 after 41 Tests sits second on the year’s run-scoring list; whose coaches are forever in peril; whose administration has been dominated by the same smarmy figures for 25 years; and yet whose cricket refuses to die quietly, though the situation has often seemed terminal.Jayawickrama’s personal journey is one of steady progress. He would tell his mother that he’d play for Sri Lanka one day at age eight, long before he even took the sport up seriously. He’d rise through the ranks at his school in Kalutara, before being offered a scholarship by a bigger one in Moratuwa in his senior years. He’d make the Sri Lanka Under-19 side, and become a leading bowler in one-dayers in particular.But then in making the Test team, and producing bowling performance, claiming the biggest opposition wickets as he did, Jayawickrama has become the latest partaker in Sri Lankan mayhem. There are only 10 first-class matches on his log book, and somehow, he is already a record-breaking Test bowler. Where Wanindu Hasaranga has been groomed for over a year, and Lakshan Sandakan for several more, Jayawickrama has leapfrogged both and collected better innings figures than either have ever managed.There was no great magic to what he did on Saturday. In his own words, he kept the bowling tight, continued to probe, and had help from the surface, which in its own way has contributed to the chaos in becoming spin-friendly so rapidly, almost overnight. He put good revolutions of the ball, but suggested he was more a disciple of flight and subtlety, than of rapid, rasping turn.Crucially, though, Jayawickrama did not allow Bangladesh’s big-name aggressive batters to bully him off his lines and lengths. Tamim Iqbal lap-swept the first Jayawickrama ball he faced for four, then bashed consecutive boundaries off him next over. But there was no retreating to flatter deliveries, or faster darts. Jayawickrama continued to give the ball air, unperturbed by a batter who was racing at close to a run-a-ball in the first session. By the time Jayawickrama eventually got Tamim out, having him caught at slip with his second delivery to him from around the wicket, Jayawickrama was the frontline bowler Tamim had been most reticent against – his strike rate only 53.Related

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“What I wanted to do in this match was bowl a lot of dot balls and build pressure,” Jayawickrama said. “My favourite wicket was Tamim’s – I had really wanted that one. I had bowled a lot of balls over the wicket, but he wasn’t playing that many attacking shots to me. So the captain and a few of the senior players asked me to make a change and try it, and I’m very happy it worked.”Mostly, he got his wickets with deliveries that turned more than batters expected – one right-hander caught at slip, another at gully, before Mehidy Hasan was struck in front by a delivery he expected to go on with the arm. But he had Mushfiqur Rahim lbw with a straighter one too. If you’re testing both edges, signs are, you’re a left-arm spinner.But these are signs only. At this venue in 2016, Kusal Mendis played one of Sri Lanka’s greatest innings ever to turn a match against Australia on its head, and five years later cannot find a place in the national team. In that same match, Sandakan took 7 for 107 and has not replicated such success since. The tornado that is Sri Lankan cricket raises you up to dizzying heights occasionally; but for some, harrowing descents can follow.All we can hope for 22-year-old Jayawickrama is that his landings are soft, and his cricket resilient. And that with time, he finds his place in the whirl.

The Fizz had a unique set of skills early in his career but perhaps no one really understood how to make the best of him

Jarrod Kimber03-May-2021At the time of the 2017 Champions Trophy, for those who had seen Mustafizur Rahman, he was close to the most interesting player in the world. For those who hadn’t seen his early Bangladesh games, or his one full IPL season – Jonathan Agnew looked at Rahman’s figures and assumed he was a spinner during the opening broadcast of the tournament – it was easy to assume he was a fingerspinner because that is, predominantly, the kind of bowler that comes out of Bangladesh. And the thing is, Rahman was a spinner. Just that the magic part was he was doing it at 130kph.By then, Bangladesh had not only their brightest seam-bowling talent ever – an incredibly unique player – but also one of the world’s best. In 2015, he was chosen for the ICC’s ODI team of the year. He destroyed India in a series and was picked up for US$200,000 by Sunrisers Hyderabad. When he played in Tests, he could bowl left-arm round the wicket to right-handers and be unplayable. Cricket had not seen a bowler with his skills in a very long time.But that version of Rahman was already over by the time some were learning about him. By that time, Bangladesh had uncovered a remarkable fast, spinning unicorn and his shoulder had already killed the unicorn.

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The 2016 version of Rahman was like an alien. We hadn’t seen a bowler like him in the game in living memory. We’d had cutter bowlers like Chris Harris in the 1990s, and we’d then had Benny Howell and Ben Laughlin, who were trying to deliver medium-paced spin. While they all had success, none stormed through the top level of the game.Bob Appleyard is probably the most recent like-for-like example, and there is no way to do his story justice here. He overcame incredible personal misfortune, including a long hospitalisation losing a chunk of his lung, had his development stunted by World War II, and started playing first-class only when he was 26. But in his first full season for Yorkshire in 1951, he took 200 wickets at 14.14.

It’s clear his arm can still put the revolutions on the ball, especially for the overspinner, but his shoulder can’t handle the sideways spin of before

The next two years he battled serious illness. In 1954, Appleyard returned and took 154 wickets at 14.42. He was picked for England, played nine Tests over two years, and took 31 wickets at 17.87. But by 1956, his shoulder was wrecked, and in 1957 he was being occasionally left out of the Yorkshire team. The next year was his last at Yorkshire. In all, he took 708 first-class wickets at 15.48.Appleyard bowled lots of things. He was never considered specifically a seam bowler or a spinner. Instead he bowled both, and often combined both. He began as a bowler who would bowl the outswinger early, and then an offspinner later. Over time, the two morphed, and he brought in legcutters and inswing. He could move the ball off the straight with an astonishing number of weapons. And unlike many of the English cutter bowlers of his era, he took 26 cheap wickets on a tour of Australia and would bowl traditional offspin with the same action and technique as that with which he had just bowled swing. No one considered him part of the 1950s cutter movement; he was his own distinct creature.Before Appleyard, Sydney Barnes described himself as a spinner, even as cricket writers of the day referred to him as a seamer. Barnes – like Appleyard – bowled a combination of spin and pace. And he took 189 wickets in 27 Tests at 16.43. He would have played more if not for his constant wars with authorities.And that’s it for these hybrid fast spinners. Not to say others haven’t tried it. Some could bowl spin and pace ably, like Garfield Sobers. But we haven’t had many players who use both skills at once, delivering a ball at pace that still turns. But it’s clear from the careers of Barnes and Appleyard, that when you do, batters struggle.Rahman famously tried it after being dared by the wicketkeeper Anamul Haque to try it, and then he wondered if he could bowl fingerspin at a high pace consistently. That was his plan, and for the shortest time, it made him almost unhittable.Mustafizur Rahman was at the centre of things for the Sunrisers in 2016•BCCIA lot of his skill comes from an incredibly flexible wrist, and the ability to impart spin on the ball without losing the pace that other bowlers do. We don’t know if Rahman would have put up numbers like Appleyard or Barnes. He only ever bowled in one Test before he injured his shoulder the first time. And for a while in that debut Test, against South Africa at home, nothing that special happened. Then with the score on 173, Rahman dismissed Hashim Amla, JP Duminy and Quinton de Kock in the space of four balls.We don’t know if he could have kept doing this; his numbers since the injury are not great. But at his absolute best, Rahman could bowl left-arm fingerspin at 130kph. He could have bowled around the wicket to right-handers and moved the ball on any surface, at pace. There was a feeling that he could have been found out, but how do you work out someone who can move the ball at pace from that round-the-wicket angle?In 15 first-class matches before that first injury, his bowling average was 18.38.

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The Mumbai Indians collect overseas left-arm seamers like it’s a hobby.That is why they signed Rahman in 2018. You would assume they had done their due diligence on him, knowing the shoulder was not quite what it had been. But there were few bowlers in the world with a bigger upside as a reclamation project.If you could get Rahman back to what he once was, you potentially had one of the IPL’s best bowlers. And part of the plan was for Lasith Malinga to come in and mentor him.

As he wasn’t like a standard seamer, like a pitcher he might have needed more days off between spells. That’s probably why seam bowlers haven’t bowled spin at pace: bowling quick alone is hard enough on the body

“He [Rahman] was really good when he had first arrived in international cricket, but people now are expecting more than that,” Malinga said at the time. “I think he has confused his skill. He has got very good variation, but I think he needs to focus on his game plan. He has got three or four variations, but he needs to think of how to make use of that variation. I think, at this point, he is a bit aggressive and trying a bit too much. I think I can sharpen that for him.”That was a misunderstanding of what was happening. Essentially, at his best, Rahman only needed three deliveries: the fairly fast straight ball and two cutters. One of those was more like the traditional cutter many bowl but which lost little pace; the other one he ripped like an offbreak with more wrist work on it. He was trying all these other balls because the cutter either couldn’t be bowled, or wasn’t working as well. He played seven games for Mumbai, averaged 32.85 with an economy of 8.36.The numbers hint it wasn’t ideal, but you got an idea at Mumbai’s frustration with him in the Netflix documentary . Coach Mahela Jayawardene has a reputation in cricket – well-earned – as a friendly, amiable man but you can see him losing patience with Rahman, eventually lashing out at his translator, suggesting Rahman should learn English. In 2019 they released him. But the IPL still remembered that 2016 season, which meant that any uptick in his form might bring a new contract. Sure enough, the Rajasthan Royals were willing to bid on him after some promising form with Bangladesh and a bunch of wickets in a lower-level local league.It’s worth remembering that breakthrough season in 2016, when he averaged 24.76 with an economy of 6.90. But at the death, where he bowled 144 balls, his economy was 7.83. Only three players have ever bowled more at the death in one season than he did: Jasprit Bumrah, Siddarth Kaul and Dwayne Bravo (on three occasions).The Sunrisers had found a death-bowling star, and they left him there. Teams didn’t go out to him, partly because half the time they couldn’t get near him. To right-handers, he would start the ball way outside leg stump and then drag it across them. That is an angle that does not exist in cricket. Left-arm bowlers almost never swing the ball away from righties – they angle them across – and they certainly don’t start the ball a foot or further outside leg when they do. He bowled 69 balls out of those 180 that ESPNcricinfo recorded as batters not being in control against. Of those – so, more than 11 overs of them – the economy rate was 2.43. Only four other bowlers have delivered 50 balls at the death that batters were not in control of and at an economy of under three. The closest is 0.4 runs an over worse than Rahman that season.He may not have produced the best season ever, but in 2016 he delivered the most unhittable death balls of any season.

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Things were tougher for Mustafizur Rahman with Mumbai Indians•BCCIBaseball pitchers impart incredible revolutions that make the ball curve and slide all over the place. But baseball pitchers don’t play every game, or in back-to-back games unless they are late-innings specialists with low workloads. Clayton Kershaw has won the Cy Young Award for best pitcher in the National League (in North America) several times. He last won in 2014, when he played only 27 out of his team’s 162 games.If you overuse a pitcher, they get injured, because of the pace they throw at, but also because of the revolutions they impart on each pitch. Pitchers commonly undergo ulnar collateral ligament reconstruction – replacing your elbow tendon with a different tendon from your body. It’s called the Tommy John surgery.Pitchers rest, they are looked after by teams of experts, and still some of them need to borrow another tendon to continue. Back injuries are what we get in cricket for bowlers, not the Tommy John surgery (Shaun Marsh had one of those).Rahman’s shoulder, rather than elbow, was the problem, a tear in his superior labrum from anterior to posterior. Appleyard also had shoulder injuries. It makes sense because bowling fingerspin at maximum pace should injure the shoulder or elbow. Those revs at that speed has to be carefully managed.In 2016, Rahman only bowled 120 overs. With the Sunrisers as they won the IPL, some internationals for Bangladesh, and then two games for Sussex. It’s not a lot of balls. A common refrain was that he was being overbowled. But it’s possible he wasn’t overbowled in a traditional cricket sense.Before 2016 he had played 44 professional games. As he wasn’t like a standard seamer, like a pitcher he might have needed more days off between spells. That’s probably why seam bowlers haven’t bowled spin at pace: bowling quick alone is hard enough on the body.

After seven games with the Royals, he is averaging 28 with an economy of 8.30, and that’s down after his 3 for 20 against his old team, the Sunrisers

After Rahman came England’s Pat Brown, a similar bowler. He takes a wicket every 16 balls in T20s. He hasn’t had shoulder or elbow problems, but he’s had stress fractures in his back, which is maybe the most conventional thing about him. Rahman and Brown will be among the many bowlers like this who will give medical teams and coaches as many wickets as they do headaches.

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Ottis Gibson was a brilliant bowler. As Bangladesh’s bowling coach, it wouldn’t have taken long for him to realise that Rahman was one of the best hopes he had with the new ball. The first step towards fixing him was developing a vital left-arm seam-bowling weapon – an inswinger. It might seem odd to turn one of the most innovative bowlers ever into a standard seamer, but Rahman had never really had the chance to learn the basics earlier.We haven’t seen it as much in this IPL, mostly because the Royals have two other left-arm seamers who need the new ball. But he has swung the ball back in a little at times.As for his slower balls, there is no extraordinary sideways movement. He does still have a slower ball, with massive revolutions on it. Whereas before it darted off sideways, now he bowls it like a Murali overspinner. It kicks up and is still hard to hit. But while it’s still a ball only he could bowl, it’s not the kind you can build a career around.It’s clear his arm can still put the revolutions on the ball, especially for the overspinner, but his shoulder can’t handle the sideways spin of before.

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Mustafizur Rahman is playing more than expected due to Jofra Archer’s absence this season•BCCIPlaying against Mumbai, the Royals are way behind. Mumbai have promoted Krunal Pandya to take on some match-ups. The commentators are talking about how the two teams are neck and neck in the chase, but Jasprit Bumrah has bowled some overs to restrict the Royals, so they have to take wickets with de Kock at the non-striker’s end.Rahman comes on to bowl the 17th over. His first ball is in the slot, a cutter but in name only. It doesn’t deviate wildly and it’s not fast either. Pandya smashes it over wide long-on for six. In his glory season, Rahman was hit for seven sixes in 144 balls at the death and in 2018 seven in 51 balls.The next ball is a quick yorker, and Pandya can only edge it onto his foot. Then it’s the offspinning overspinner he now prefers, and Pandya picks it, but is beaten by the bounce. It hits him on the body and goes nowhere. It’s this ball that is still uniquely Rahman’s, a softer, gentler version of the demon offspinner he once delivered. The next ball is the attempted yorker but ends up as a half volley outside off stump. Pandya tries to smash it and drags it onto his stumps.By the following Rahman over, Mumbai need nine from 12. There was a time when Rahman would have made it difficult. He doesn’t here. de Kock and Kieron Pollard take a boundary each, and they only need three balls to finish the game. If the Royals had Jofra Archer, Rahman would probably only play the odd game. Even without Archer, he still may not play the entire season. In fact, he is due back with Bangladesh on May 20. After seven games with the Royals, he is averaging 28 with an economy of 8.30, and that’s down after his 3 for 20 against his old team, the Sunrisers. There have been times he’s looked as good as these numbers, and others whem he’s only just been holding on.There has been no fairy tale in this comeback yet. The magic he once had is gone. He was a cricketing unicorn, and now he’s another battling bowler thrown into the death overs to survive.There are few players with the natural talent of Rahman. There are even fewer who start with that talent, lose the thing that makes them successful, and find another way to stay. He will be hit for more boundaries now but for someone who entered cricket with one of the rarest gifts ever, only to have it wreck his body, just to be back to be hit for boundaries is success.He made it to the IPL twice, as a unicorn first and now as another left-arm seamer. Most people don’t get there even once.

With the current lot of IPL games being played in these two cities, the ability to deal with the conditions there is to the fore

Aakash Chopra20-Apr-2021Strokemaking is one of the top attractions of T20 cricket and so curators usually look to prepare pitches that are a little skewed in favour of the batters. While some argue that there should always be a fair contest between bat and ball, the dynamics of a T20 game demand that bowlers need to look elsewhere than the pitch for allies.Scoreboard pressure is as real as the ball swinging in the air or turning off the surface, and must be used to your advantage. Of course, nobody wants a featherbed for a surface at a really small ground. A lot of people tell you that the watching public, at home or in the stadium, loves only big hits but the fact is that too much of anything isn’t good. In a bat versus bat contest, cricket often loses.This IPL has already produced some very interesting surfaces and the trend is likely to continue. With only six venues hosting the entire tournament and only two being used during any given block of about two weeks, the chances of pitches adding a new element to the contests are high. When there are back-to-back matches over two consecutive days at the same venue, the curator might try his best to have two similar pitches ready but it’s a lot easier said than done because he doesn’t really have the option to use the pitches that are off to one side or the other. And the ones close to the central playing surface attract heavy traffic and so are bound to have a lot of wear and tear.How do you counter challenging surfaces in a T20 game? Obviously the challenge is different on different surfaces. The pitch in Chennai has been slowing down radically as games progress, and that makes it toughest to bat during the last five overs there. On the contrary, the green and moist pitch at the Wankhede Stadium is toughest to bat on in the first six overs, while the ball is new.Since the challenges are different, they need to be countered differently too. In Chennai, you need to start the innings assuming that run-scoring is going to get tougher with every passing over, and that makes it important to play high-risk cricket up front.You must attack from the get-go, and while you should still choose the areas you want to target, there’s merit in stretching the envelope a little in the first six overs. After that, the focus must switch to rotating the strike as much possible, and perhaps, waiting for short-pitched deliveries for boundary shots. Once the ball gets old in Chennai, it’s very difficult to hit boundaries off the front foot without taking a significant amount of risk. Of course that risk must be taken once in a while but if you have gotten off to a flier and have managed to rotate the strike in the middle overs, you won’t be forced to manufacture these shots all the time.On a seaming Wankhede deck, batters must allow the ball to come to them•BCCI/IPLChepauk is a reasonably big ground and it may not be a bad idea to chip the ball over the fielders inside the circle to create opportunities for twos – that’s something we haven’t seen very often thus far in the tournament.It must be acknowledged that all of this is much easier said than done, for a game of cricket will invariably find a narrative of its own.As for the first six overs at the Wankhede Stadium, on a night when the ball is seaming around, you ought to dip into your Test batting repertoire and momentarily forget that it’s a T20 game and that Mumbai is a high-scoring ground. Our game demands that one must always respect the conditions, and if you don’t just because it’s a different format, you’re likely to fail.The swinging-seaming ball must be encountered with caution and care. Don’t play big, booming drives on the up. Instead, allow the ball to come to you.T20 cricket has changed the mindsets of a lot of bowlers and many feel obliged to try a couple of variations in any given over. Often it’s the change of pace on a surface good for batting, but even on a bowler-friendly surface, they tend to change the line and length a couple of times in an over, and that’s the opportunity you must wait for and seize.If there are no easy opportunities to score, you must bide your time and back yourself to make up for the lost time in the overs to follow. The toughest thing for a goalkeeper while saving a penalty shot is to stand still and hold his ground instead of anticipating and diving to one side, but there’s enough evidence to suggest that his best chance of pulling off a save is to not move till the ball has been kicked. A batter letting a couple of deliveries go to the wicketkeeper in a T20 game is akin to standing still for a goalkeeper, but on a seamer-friendly pitch that might be the best thing you as a batter could do to help yourself and the team.Once again, like it was the case for the strategy to succeed in Chennai, this too is easier said than done here.

Could the two WTC finalists be any more excited?

Alan Gardner15-Jun-2021Here we go again, then. The hoopla, the hype, the patriotic fervour. The hopes of millions carried on the shoulders of millionaires, heroes dressed in white, cheered off in pursuit of glory and a coveted piece of silverware. The entourage, the WAGs, the swirl of social content. The nagging fear that it will all come unstuck, followed by bitter recriminations, dressing-room splits, trial by media.That’s right, we are, of course, talking about India’s bid to bring it home in the World Test Championship final, as the oldest format’s newest format rolls in to sweep Euro 2020 off the UK back pages – much to the relief of England’s cricketers, who have now got twice as much cover for their failings after they began the meticulously planned long run in to the 2021-22 Ashes with a crushing defeat at home to New Zealand.Already the atmosphere is building around the event, with kids flocking to buy Test flannels and recreate their favourite moments from the WTC league stage on TikTok. That added context was all the game needed, and you can sense the anticipation among those involved too – as Virat Kohli explained a few months ago.Related

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“If you want me to be brutally honest, it might work for teams who are not that motivated to play Test cricket. Teams like us, who are motivated to play Test cricket and want to win Test matches and keep Indian cricket team at the top of the world in Test cricket, we have no issues whatsoever, whether it’s a World Test Championship or not. I think for teams like us, it’s only a distraction when you start thinking of the World Test Championship.”Okay, so it’s not for everyone – even the captain of one of the sides involved (though this was said before India qualified, so it can perhaps be categorised as “mind games”). But at least the ICC managed to come up with a way of pitting the two best teams against each, despite the obvious issues caused by the pandemic, right? Let’s ask, Ravi Shastri.”Please don’t shift the goal posts. You have got more points than any other team in the world, 360 at that time, and suddenly there’s a percentage system where you go from number one to number three in a week. We’ve have had to dig deep. We’ve had to go down every hole that’s needed to find water and we found it. We put ourselves in the final of the World Test Championship, the biggest trophy in the world, with 520 points.”Well, look, Shaz, they had to do . Now can we at least just sit down and enjo…”Ideally, in the long run, if they want to persist with the Test Championship, a best-of-three final will be ideal. As a culmination of two and a half years of cricket around the globe. Going forward, best of three will be ideal, but we have got to finish it as quickly as possible because the FTP will start all over again.”So there you have it: the WTC was a complicated distraction that both bored and infuriated its participants, but would nevertheless benefit from having more games (hahaha, have you seen the calendar?). Baddiel and Skinner are right now heading into the studio with the Bharat Army to lay all that down in a seminally catchy pop tune which will echo on the terraces at IPL matches for years to come.

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Speaking of the WTC, New Zealand look to be in good form after completing their warm-ups against some local enthusiasts and competition winners. As we’ve touched on before, those mild-looking Kiwis are actually monsters and they handed out another cheerily ruthless mauling at Edgbaston. After the carnage on day three, England coach Chris Silverwood attempted the traditional hunt for some positives. “You look at how New Zealand have played this game, they have given us a lesson on what it takes to be number one in the world,” he said – which sounded a bit like a pygmy shrew looking to pick up tips from a saltwater crocodile on how to become an apex predator. But perhaps the greatest indication that Kane Williamson’s men are untouchable was that they made six changes for the second Test but still managed to avoid any criticism for disrespecting a weaker opponent.

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Cricket is not often short on controversies – already this month we’ve had the stink around Ollie Robinson’s Twitter droppings, plus Shakib Al Hasan taking up karate during a DPL match – but what we have lacked until recently is player YouTube channels to help explain it all. Well out in front is R Ashwin, though the Light Roller’s Tamil is a little rusty, so we don’t often tune in, and now following in his wake comes Usman Khawaja – maker of one of the great 37s on Test debut and a man not afraid to give Justin Langer some backatcha in the Australia dressing room (at least until he was dropped). As you might imagine, given his Pakistani origins and experiences as the first Muslim to play for Australia, Khawaja speaks eloquently in his six-minute video about Robinson and prejudice in the game. On Shakib “losing his c**p”, well, he spends most of the time giggling to himself, which is an understandable response. Either way, Uzzy the Oracle should be worth a follow.

Newlands ball-tampering scandal: “We forget the lessons of that time at our peril”

Andrew McGlashan22-Jun-2021What were your thoughts when you arrived in the midst of a once-in-a-hundred-year crisis?
I didn’t have too much time to think about it, if truth be told. At the time, I’d been dealing with the situation around the men’s T20 World Cup, so I was certainly right across all of the Covid-related issues. As I said at the time, it was a complete surprise, quite a shock. Not sure if we spoke too much but I was probably a bit like a rabbit in the headlights. The situation we found ourselves in certainly focused the mind. Very quickly, we established four priorities: get the CA team back to work, to deliver to the summer safely, deliver for our partners, and then bring the game together, whether that was the states and territories or the players’ association. Think a feature of the last summer is that we have all pulled together, everyone has had a hand in delivering the season and, hopefully, that puts us on firm footing as we come out of this situation.There was uncertainty and tension throughout the season, perhaps one of the more visible moments was how the India Test series would finish in terms of venues. Was there ever a moment where you had to be strong on how it would play out?
It was a very uncertain time. What we did very well was bide our time in terms of decision-making. It was a case of every single day; I remember tuning into New South Wales press conferences at 11am [to see the latest Covid-19 numbers]. It was always our intent through the whole summer to play the series as scheduled and that was really because from the outset the lens we looked through was the cricketing public. There were times when there were calls to stay in Melbourne but we couldn’t deprive the public of NSW who were suffering through the Northern Beaches situation through no fault of their own. Similarly, this notion that we wouldn’t carry on to Brisbane, we couldn’t deprive that public. But, by that stage of the season, what was most pleasing was we had relationships with all the jurisdictions, we had very solid bio-security plans, and everyone came together – including the BCCI. What wasn’t so pleasing was the result, but for a Test series to come down to the last 20 minutes is pretty epic.

“It brought back a lot of pain, but it also caused us to reflect that it’s always going to be there. We forget the lessons of that time at our peril”Nick Hockley on the return of the Newlands scandal to the headlines

You have put a figure of A$ 50 million on the cost of Covid-19 last summer. The hopes are the 2021-22 season will be smoother, but how much can the game absorb?
At the moment, we are hoping for the best but planning for the worst. Planning for a continuation of border closures but we are hopeful come the summer, providing there are no cases in the community, that we will be able to have freedom of movement and players will have more freedom. Equally, we now have the intellectual property and the relationships if we need to move quickly to enact contingency plans. I certainly feel for the winter codes; the disruption is extremely costly. Probably the big difference for cricket compared to the winter domestic competitions is the number of international teams coming. Last year, we had two teams, this year we are bringing six teams in. The two weeks’ mandatory quarantine and setting up training facilities so players can train to come out in a fit condition to play, that comes at a cost and is extremely complicated. It requires support of government at every level. It’s probably the biggest summer in the game’s history here; in a normal course, an Ashes is a high-revenue year so that goes some way to offsetting the costs, but the range of cost outcomes is very much dependent on the situation as it unfolds.Now that you no longer have “interim” next to your name, are there any areas you particularly want to focus on?
What Covid has done is shine a light on where capability lies across the whole sport. We were restricted from traveling, so a large proportion of our workforce had to stay at home for the season and that showed that we can work remotely, we can work as a collective across state and territory associations, so certainly look to take that agility and efficiency. And something I’ve spoken very passionately about over time is making sure we are the most inclusive sport we can be, that we continue to invest and aren’t taking backward steps. I’m excited that we have two multi-format series for the women’s team leading into a World Cup and a Commonwealth Games. Think we’ve seen a really rich talent pipeline coming through the WBBL, but it’s making sure we are being very inclusive in the whole pathway and whole sport to make sure it’s really representative of contemporary multicultural Australia. We are also really gearing up around the postponed men’s T20 World Cup in 2022, which I think is a really important event. A bit like the women’s World Cup was a great opportunity to change the game from a gender perspective, the men’s World Cup is a great opportunity to build relationships with the expat communities across Australia.”What wasn’t so pleasing was the result, but for a Test series to come down to the last 20 minutes is pretty epic”•Bradley Kanaris/Getty ImagesHow to do you think Australian cricket has dealt with the broader social issues – racism, diversity, inclusion – that have been at the forefront around the world in the last year?
We’ve made great strides. Our vision is to be a sport for all Australians. If you take, for example, our Reconciliation Action Plan, we’ve grown indigenous participation tenfold in eight years, we’ve got some fantastic role models. We do great work in the all-abilities space, but are we as a sport truly representative of the community we serve? Not yet. And we won’t rest until we are. We’ve made massive strides from a gender perspective. The events particularly in England over the last few weeks [around historic tweets] only serve to emphasize the role sport plays and that the public holds sport to a very high account and we have a real leadership role to play. We must continue to work on ensuring that the game represents the very best of community. That means having respect for everyone and making sure they feel like they belong.One of the key things on the horizon is the next MoU about how the players are paid. Are you hopeful it will be smoother than last time?
Absolutely. When you step back, the entire sport is aligned in wanting cricket to be as strong as possible and to have sustained growth. Both the players and administration have a really big hand in that. While we haven’t been able to spend too much time face-to-face because people have been in bubbles, we have had to work more closely than ever. We are having constructive discussions around what’s important, what are the things that are really going to grow the game and how does the playing group contribute to that, but also how can we support the players throughout their careers. The other thing I would say is I think the MoU has stood up well during Covid because it is in essence self-correcting if we have a revenue impact.

“I’m a great believer that more people playing cricket at the elite level can only be good for the health of the game. It’s exciting that we’ve got an expanded T20 World Cup but equally there are more opportunities to play [the one-day] World Cup”Nick Hockley

Can you update us on the situation with Channel Seven?
We are deep in dialogue for planning for the upcoming season. The discussions that we have had have been really constructive. We’ve had some very honest conversations about the challenges of last 12 months, which were quite publicly documented, but certainly the latest meetings have been all about how we work together to deliver what is going to be a massive summer. We’ve been working through some innovations and ensure how the WBBL and BBL is really relevant to the contemporary youth audience and delivers on its promise to attract a new audience to the game.What do you make of the next ICC calendar with global events now set to be played every year?
I think it’s really exciting that there are more World Cup opportunities for more countries. I’m a great believer that more people playing cricket at the elite level can only be good for the health of the game. It’s exciting that we’ve got an expanded T20 World Cup but equally there are more opportunities to play [the one-day] World Cup. I believe the formats do have a relationship with each other and think if countries can only play T20 at the world level, they are missing out on core skills for the longer formats. What is exciting is the potential to host some of those major world events in emerging markets; they just won’t be limited to the traditional countries.Related

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The health of the game in Australia is about much more than just the two main national teams, but they are the most visible part of the sport. How would you judge where they stand?
The Australia women’s team are remarkable. This summer they’ll be targeting getting a monkey off their back – I was there in Derby for the [50-over World Cup] semi-final against India in 2017 and I know from speaking to the captain and the coach how much that hurt. Think they are as hungry as ever and they are also very excited about the Commonwealth Games. What is particularly exciting is the young talent, some great young leaders, coming through and challenging what is a very settled side.On the men’s side, this is a really big moment. By their own admission, they were extremely disappointed about the last home summer particularly coming off the back of a previous home defeat against India. I know first-hand when we were unable to tour South Africa just how devastated the players were. It was reassuring for to see that disappointment, they just wanted to get back on the horse so there’s a huge amount of hunger. There’s no better opportunity than this upcoming summer to fulfil their potential as a side.How is the relationship now with Cricket South Africa?
We’ve had lots of constructive discussions around how we schedule moving forward and how we make up for those postponed tours. South Africa were due to tour here as per the FTP this summer [for white-ball matches] but due to logistics around quarantine they are unable to do. All the latest discussions have been entirely constructive and, as we said, we are committed to rescheduling that tour as soon as it’s safe to do so as it fits into the future schedule.Did the return of the Newlands scandal to the headlines recently surprise you?
It really did surprise me. What it did, it brought back a real strength of feeling. It brought back a lot of pain, but it also caused us to reflect that it’s always going to be there. We forget the lessons of that time at our peril. The progress the team under new leadership over the time has been phenomenal, they have really put culture and how they play absolutely at the core. Particularly going into the home summer that we’ve got, think it is better to acknowledge it is there and think about how the group comes together and what they want to be remembered for than forgetting about it. I had many conversations on the subject and went back and restudied the events of the time. We must never forget those learnings.

Coach Pierre de Bruyn elated with the fight shown by his team to make the Super 12 stage of the T20 World Cup

Firdose Moonda22-Oct-2021Namibia is a country of 2.5 million people, nine cricket fields, five cricket clubs and 16 contracted players. And they’ve made it to the Super 12s of a T20 World Cup.Along the way, they’ve won their first-ever major tournament match and they’ve beaten a Full Member. Over the next three weeks, they will play against four others and they have automatically secured a spot at the next T20 World Cup too. Their performances will get people talking about the deserts and the desolate landscapes of the country they call home; a place where you can drive for hundreds of kilometres and not see another soul; of Africa’s last colony, with no major cricketing achievements to its name until now.

Watch the 2021 Men’s T20 World Cup on ESPN+

Sign up for ESPN+ in the US and catch all the action from the Men’s T20 World Cup. Match highlights of Namibia’s historic victory is available here in English, and here in Hindi (US only).

“It’s a dream that’s come true. These players were six and seven year-old boys, dreaming of playing against teams like India and Pakistan. That dream has come true,” Pierre de Bruyn, Namibia’s coach said. “All they had in the last few years was to watch these guys on TV and dream about it. They will wake up knowing it’s real. I am just so pleased for them. I don’t think people really know how limited we are. We are not a cricket organisation with a luxury of great resources.”That’s no understatement. Two years ago, the Namibian national men’s team only had three contracted players. When they secured ODI status in April 2019, they were able to get 13 more. They still don’t have a stadium to call their own and play home games at a club ground, The Wanderers (not the one you think you know). De Bruyn, who has been coaching them from the start of that year, still lives in Centurion and commutes to Windhoek as often as needed. They don’t have a full time physiotherapist, a full-time strength and conditioning coach or a full-time team manager and between November 2019, when they qualified for this tournament and April 2021, they had no official fixtures.The Covid-19 pandemic would not have helped, of course, but it meant Namibia had no match-time against the kind of teams they would face at this event. “But, we’ve got a saying that we’ve got to find a way,” de Bruyn said. And they did.One of the first things de Bruyn did was to rope in an old friend, Albie Morkel, albeit also on a part-time basis, to join the coaching staff. “He is a guy I wanted from the start. We’ve known each other for more than 20 years and his expertise and calmness was something I thought we could use.”The next thing was to organise matches as often as they could. In the build-up to the T20 World Cup, Namibia hosted Uganda, a Zimbabwean Emerging side, a South African Emerging side and two South African domestic teams, the Titans, captained by the country’s Test skipper Dean Elgar, and the Knights. Namibia beat all those sides.David Wiese is congratulated by his team-mates•ICC via GettyAnd finally, they sought out a headliner: South African allrounder, David Wiese, who qualified to play for them through ancestry. Wiese’s father was born in Namibia and he had initially thought of playing for them early on in his career. Then, the Proteas happened. He went with them to the 2016 T20 World Cup and thought he would become established in the side but never did. He signed a Kolpak deal and when that system ended, started a journeyman T20 league career earning high status in the Pakistan Super League and the CPL.He had never played for Namibia before this tournament but in three matches, has put in two award-winning performances, though he did suggest that his accolade against Ireland should have gone to the Namibian captain Gerhard Erasmus for his unbeaten 53 off 49 balls. “It was an unbelievable captain’s knock under pressure,” Wiese told the television broadcasters. “I’ll accept it but today’s his moment. They (the team) have put in a lot of hard work behind the scenes and they deserve every success.”Wiese’s modesty does not reflect his value to the team so far. After they were bowled out for their joint-lowest total in a T20I against Sri Lanka, 96, he scored a half-century to help them complete their highest successful chase against Netherlands. Then, he took 2 for 22, to keep Ireland to 125 for 8 on a slow Sharjah track before plundering 28 off 14 balls to accelerate the Namibian chase just as it may have stagnated. There were stages in their reply when it seemed that the pressure was growing on them, but for de Bruyn, the result was barely in doubt.”Our planning going into this game was calm. The conditions suit us. That’s what we get back home. We had a solid game plan and we made sure we stick with that game plan,” he said. “It was quite simple: don’t leave the stumps, play straight and take it deep. I think where Ireland got it wrong was after that powerplay, a devastating powerplay (Ireland were 55 for 0), the next four overs, they fell asleep. We just knew we had to take it deep, rotate hard, we ran much better between the wickets. The planning was something we discussed and also the opposition analysis.”Now, de Bruyn will have other opposition to analyse, a task he relishes as Namibia enter a tough Super 12 group. Although there may not be any expectations that they will progress further, the monetary gains from getting this far will make a significant difference to their ability to develop further. “We didn’t mind that [underdog] tag coming in but we had a lot to lose. We didn’t accept that we would have nothing to lose because financially it makes a big difference. We can upskill and we can invest a little,” de Bruyn said.They can also show some of the bigger nations what they are made of. “We are going into Group B as the underdogs and those guys will look at us and maybe see us as a pushover. We’ve shown the cricketing world over the last week that we are not a pushover. We are going to keep on competing, regardless of the results.”Because they’ve got 2.5 million dreams to live out in a different desert.