For moments during the first innings, especially when Kuldeep Yadav was attacked, the home side were under some pressure but they responded in style

Andrew Fidel Fernando22-Oct-20231:48

Bond: New Zealand gave up on getting Kohli out

Beneath the colossal Dhauladhar mountain range, the snow on the peaks and ridges set aglow by the setting sun, New Zealand are hustling. They have been hustling most of the afternoon.Since 19 for 2 in the ninth over, Daryl Mitchell and Rachin Ravindra had raced their twos, been alive to tight singles, and sped out of their creases, stopped when the ball was fielded in the ring and zipped back to safety, each of their actions rapid and electric.This is only part of their hustle, because New Zealand being New Zealand, there is also a manic fight on the strategy front.India have only five serious bowlers this match, and New Zealand have planned to take one of them down. On a pitch that favours seamers, the spinners are the obvious targets, and between Ravindra Jadeja and Kuldeep Yadav, Kuldeep is the softer one.Related

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Partly this is because Kuldeep is less experienced; Jadeja is now a hardened veteran across formats. Partly this is because wristspinners are an infamously fragile breed.Shane Warne, the greatest to ever do it, proclaimed repeatedly that a wristspinner’s first objective should be to bowl a decent-enough first over their captain would keep them on for a second.Between 21 December 2019, and 27 March 2021, Kuldeep went through a patch when he went at over six runs per over in six of eight ODIs, and 5.5 or more in the other two. This sounds like a small sample size, but these are the margins of error when you play for this India team. New Zealand will know Kuldeep has a history of being rattled. They’ll also know he’s been rattled less lately. But they have to try.Because Mitchell is a right-hander Kuldeep’s stock ball spins to him, he takes the lead in upsetting Kuldeep’s figures and by extension – he hopes – India’s bowling plans. He runs at Kuldeep and launches him for huge sixes down the ground. As New Zealand are scrapping for advantage and this is still not enough, Mitchell repeatedly tries the reverse sweep against the turn as well. But he is beaten on two of the four times he tries it against Kuldeep.Kuldeep Yadav was under pressure but still had an impact•Associated PressThat’s the game, but when you’re searching this desperately, you miss some.Still, New Zealand are winning this battle. Kuldeep has leaked 35 from his first four overs. When he comes back on for a fifth in the 31st over of the innings, he gives away another 13.Most captains would swap him out here, right?”That’s it. You’re done for a bit.””Let’s get some control back here. Get someone in who can bowl some dots.”Go into damage control. Who else is around who can roll their arm over?”Not India. Rohit keeps Kuldeep on for two more overs in this spell. In the next over, Kuldeep should have had Mitchell caught at long off, but Jasprit Bumrah drops it. In over after that, Kuldeep nails Tom Latham in lbw front of leg stump. As wristspinners are a famously mystical breed, it is not clear whether this was a slider or a front-of-the-hand flipper.

Mohammed Shami, the first bowler with two men's ODI World Cup five-forshttps://t.co/wm8y4HuhSE #INDvNZ #CWC23 pic.twitter.com/OG010nc0SY

— ESPNcricinfo (@ESPNcricinfo) October 22, 2023

Then Kuldeep goes out of the attack.At some point, you begin to realise that no amount of hustle will work. That this is not a cricket team that responds to the usual cues. Bowlers don’t get bashed into oblivion here. India have dropped three catches by this stage, but no falling apart as England did two nights ago is happening.What happens instead is an irresistible rallying. In Kuldeep’s first five overs he gave away more runs than he had in his full quota all tournament, but in his last five overs he bowls wickedly fast deliveries that threaten the stumps, takes two wickets and concedes only 25. Mohammed Shami in his first game in the tournament takes five wickets and is almost unhittable at the death, while Jasprit Bumrah does spectacular things like bowling a 49th over brimful of yorkers, which concedes only three runs.Mitchell and Ravindra had put on a stand of 159 off 152 balls for the third wicket – the biggest ever partnership for any wicket at this venue. Yet in the last 16 overs of the innings, so spectacular is India’s bowling that New Zealand – supremely placed to provide a blistering end to this innings – can manage only eight boundaries.New Zealand’s total always seemed light, but India’s chase was too smooth to believe. They would continue to hustle late into the night, black uniforms shooting like pinballs over a mottled green outfield that England had complained about a week earlier, but New Zealand’s fielders had no problems diving on.The run out of Suryakumar Yadav was spectacular – Mitchell Santner, perhaps the best fielder of this tournament so far – backhanding a ball while rolling over to bowler Trent Boult, who backhanded it to the wicketkeeper while his own body was twisting around. A play so perfect, it deserved to win the match.2:44

Mitchell: ‘The way India bowled was pretty special’

Not against India. Virat Kohli produced an innings so sweet it gave him time to turn down a single and look for the big 49th century. This is after openers Rohit Sharma and Shubman Gill had put on a 71-run partnership against the likes of Boult and Matt Henry, who have statistically been the best opening pair in the past few years.All this while the crowd roared for India, shouted Bumrah, Siraj, and Shami’s names in the last 10 overs, and clamoured as one for Kohli as he approached his century, even cheering a Jadeja forward defence so Kohli would have enough runs left to chase in order to get to triple figures.If you are an opposition team, even one that has won four in a row as New Zealand has, how do you possibly combat this? You are playing a cricket team every bit as forbidding as the colossal peaks that surround a stadium that is packed with supporters whose clamouring for India’s success is voracious and relentless.After the match, New Zealand’s best batter, Mitchell, said he and his team-mates were grateful for the chance to play at a venue such as this, and have experiences such as this, since his is a team that hails from “the bottom of the world”.But from among the New Zealand side, Mitchell will know, most of all, how teams as spectacular as India are now, intimidate opposition on their home soil.Mitchell’s father, John, is a former coach of the All Blacks, whose home crowds turn up to stadiums with far greater capacity than Dharamsala, dressed all in black – a sporting phenomena known as “the blackout”. At Eden Park, the All Blacks have not lost in 29 years. They have won a World Cup final there in that stretch.On Sunday, India and their ocean of blue shirts were almost as scary. The next-best team in the competition so far, had a run at India missing their key allrounder. By the end Kohli was turning down singles in his quest for a hundred. No amount of hustle got New Zealand close.

The allrounder was a key figure for Madhya Pradesh after they endured a shift from boiling Puducherry to freezing Dharamsala

Shashank Kishore06-Feb-2024Venkatesh Iyer can’t remember playing a game in India in sub-zero temperatures. That’s until earlier last week, when he landed in Dharamsala for Madhya Pradesh’s Ranji Trophy Group D fixture against Himachal Pradesh.”My first thought was: I shouldn’t be out here playing,” Iyer tells ESPNcricinfo.The HPCA Stadium was covered in snow. There were sheets of rain and icy-cold winds. A day earlier, Madhya Pradesh had finished a game in 32-degree Celsius heat with over 90% humidity in Puducherry.”Temperature-wise, the chill in Ireland two years ago [when Iyer was part of an India squad that toured the country for a T20I series] was a lot more, but this was unique, a first for me in India. Even three layers of sweaters didn’t help,” Iyer says. “It was freezing, the entire ground was covered in snow. There was heavy rain as well.”MP’s situation was compounded by logistical challenges. From Puducherry they had to drive down four hours to Chennai and board a flight to New Delhi before reaching Dharamsala. A three-day break between games was whittled down to two.”From extremely hot, we came into freezing conditions, but weather can’t be an excuse for poor performance,” Iyer says. “That said, it was tough. That’s why we had to go there a couple of days prior to know how the body is going to react, how we’re going to recover. Else we would have been caught completely off guard. The two days of training was very crucial to our conditioning.”So what did it entail?”It was more about mobility exercises and warming up our muscles,” Iyer explains. “We also tried to leave the hotel for the ground a lot earlier than usual. If we used to leave usually at 7.45am, we left for the ground at 7.30.”Even 15-20 minutes of extra warm-up time was massively important in that weather. You can’t enter the ground and immediately start running in that weather, it can take a toll on your back. The entire schedule was superbly planned by our trainer.”What were the key aspects to training in such weather?”A lot of stretching for starters,” Iyer says. “It’s normal for muscles to cramp, they tend to become stIff, so it was important to keep them loosened in that cold. Even whe we were in the hotel, we were called to the gym for stretching more than any other form of conditioning because you never know which muscle you will end up pulling.Venkatesh Iyer missed MP’s journey to the 2022-23 Ranji title due to a combination of injuries and India duty•Getty Images”In the room, we were advised to use heaters at all times, and keep our bodies warm throughout.”On the field, Iyer had a memorable performance. He first picked up a three-for to help skittle Himachal out for 169 and then contributed a vital 72 in tough conditions to help MP eke out a first-innings lead. This earned him the Player of the match award in a drawn, weather-impacted fixture during which no play was possible on days two and three.”The forecast is very accurate there,” Iyer says. “The first day we arrived, the ground was covered in snow, but the first day’s play, the sun was shining bright, and we got in a full day of cricket. Overall, we knew we’d get probably 2-2.5 days to try and push for an outright result.”They got a good partnership lower down the order [Himachal recovered from 36 for 6 on day one]. Had we bowled them out for 70-80, and we got what we did, it would have been game on.” As it turned out, Himachal were 42 for 5 in their second innings, still six runs short of making MP bat again, when the game was called off.”Batting-wise, this is an innings I’ll remember for a long time,” Iyer days. “I had to battle the conditions. It was so difficult that you were never set. But once you know which direction you need to head to, the clarity makes this slightly better. I knew we had to make 170-180, that gave me increased focus.”Iyer found himself struggling at different times. He was recovering from a back spasm, which made it tougher given the conditions.”There was genuine travel fatigue” he says. “You’re on the bus for a long time. And then with the distances we had to cover, it took a toll, but you have to take care of it as a professional and ignore things you can’t change.”Iyer is driven by the desire to win the Ranji Trophy, having missed out on the team’s journey to the title in 2022-23 due to a combination of injuries and being on India duty.”We now know what it takes to be champions, we have the ability to win,” he says, with MP potentially one win away from entering the knockouts. “That belief has come since our win. For someone not part of the set-up there, to come in here, I find this an amazing place to be.”More than the team goal, it’s my burning desire to do something special to help us win the Ranji Trophy. Some things complete you as a cricketer. A Ranji Trophy win will complete it for me.”

From a franchise final to leading her country, Sophie Devine chats to Valkerie Baynes and Firdose Moonda

ESPNcricinfo staff18-Mar-2024In the latest episode of ESPNcricinfo Powerplay, New Zealand captain Sophie Devine chats to Valkerie Baynes and Firdose Moonda about hosting England straight off the back of the WPL Final, physical and mental health and where franchise cricket fits in the scheme of women’s cricket.

All the stats highlights from West Indies’ dominating win over Afghanistan in the final group game

Sampath Bandarupalli18-Jun-2024218 for 5 – West Indies’ total against Afghanistan in Gros Islet is their highest at the men’s T20 World Cup. Their previous highest was 205 for 6 against South Africa in 2007 and 205 for 5 against Australia in 2012. It is also the highest by any team in the ongoing T20 World Cup 2024 and the joint-fourth across all editions.West Indies posted their highest team total at a men’s T20 World Cup•ESPNcricinfo Ltd1 – The 218 by West Indies is now the highest total against Afghanistan in T20Is since they became a Full Member nation in 2017 and the second-highest ever, behind the 225 for 7 by Ireland in 2013.92 for 1 – West Indies’ total in the powerplay against Afghanistan is the highest by any team in the first six overs at the men’s T20 World Cup, bettering the 91 for 1 by Netherlands in the 2014 edition against Ireland.36 – Runs scored by West Indies in the fourth over bowled by Azmatullah Omarzai are the joint-most in an over in men’s T20Is. As many as 36 runs were scored by Yuvraj Singh (off Stuart Broad in 2007), Kieron Pollard (off Akila Dananjaya in 2021) and Dipendra Singh Airee (in 2024 off Kamran Khan) when they hit six sixes in an over, while India also scored 36 in an over against Afghanistan earlier this year, which included a no-ball and five sixes.152 – Runs scored by West Indies across the powerplay (1-6) and death overs (17-20) against Afghanistan. It is the highest any team aggregated across the powerplay and death overs in a men’s T20I (where ball-by-ball data is available). The previous highest was 151 runs by Nepal against Mongolia at the Asian Games last year.104 – Margin of West Indies’ win by runs in Gros Islet is their second-biggest in men’s T20Is, behind the 134-run win against Uganda earlier in the tournament.It is also the second-biggest losing margin for Afghanistan in T20Is, behind the 116-run defeat against England in the 2012 T20 World Cup.Nicholas Pooran stands at No. 1 among West Indies’ six hitters in men’s T20I cricket•ESPNcricinfo Ltd296.3 – Nicholas Pooran’s strike rate across the powerplay and death overs during his knock of 98 off 53. He scored 80 runs in the 27 balls faced in those two phases, hitting six fours and eight sixes. Pooran scored only 18 runs off 26 balls in the middle overs without hitting a boundary.37 – Runs scored by Pooran off Rashid Khan, in 16 balls. No batter has taken more runs off him in a T20I. In fact, in all T20s, only once has Rashid leaked more runs to a batter in a game, when Chris Gayle hammered 42 off 16 in a 2018 IPL match. Manan Vohra scored 37 off 14 against him in IPL 2017.4 – Batters to be run out in the nineties in a men’s T20I, including Pooran against Afghanistan. Only one of the previous three instances came at the T20 World Cup – Chris Gayle, who also scored 98 before being run out in the 2010 edition, against India.2012 – Runs by Pooran in his T20I career, making him the first man to cross the 2000-mark for West Indies in this format. Pooran is now the leading six-hitter for West Indies in T20Is, with 128 sixes, surpassing Gayle’s 124.

England legspinner is back on the world stage, with an eye on the next generation

Matt Roller07-Jun-2024″You want to be a role model for the next generation,” says Adil Rashid, sitting outside England’s dressing room at Sophia Gardens in Cardiff. “Especially where I’m from, in Bradford. When they see me play, they know that it’s possible, regardless of where you come from or your background. They know you’ve come from the bottom, and made it to the top.”Rashid is about to start his 10th year as a mainstay of England’s limited-overs team. His consistent excellence can obscure just how remarkable his story is: a boy from Bradford, the son of a taxi driver, and a legspinner with Pakistani heritage who has become a double world champion and a source of inspiration for South Asian cricketers in England and Wales.Rashid is the youngest of three brothers but “always had that something special about him,” recalls Amar, the middle brother. “We used to play in our basement every day and on our drive, in the park or on the local astroturf. We were always playing together. He always had that natural ability.”Amar is sitting on the balcony of what used to be a warehouse in Thornton, to the west of Bradford. In late 2022, he and his family transformed it into the Adil Rashid Cricket Centre through extensive renovation. It is now a modern four-lane net facility used by aspiring young players, club cricketers and professionals, the only one of its kind in the immediate area.”I’ve invested quite a bit of money,” Adil says. “It’s about giving back to the community, and also having something there for the next generation of cricketers coming through. There’s a big demand in terms of club cricket as well: Under-10s, second team, first team, Bradford League, Yorkshire League. It was almost a no-brainer – it was just about finding a location.”After seeing a dozen different potential sites, Amar settled on Thornton. He played to a decent standard himself, with nine List A appearances for the Unicorns – an invitational side in the county 40-over competition – in 2011. But coaching has always been his passion: “It’s what I’ve enjoyed and what I’ve known all my life.”Yorkshire legspinner Jafer Chohan gets tips from Amar Rashid•ESPNcricinfo LtdAmar runs the centre, and was instrumental in the initial idea to set up an academy named after his younger brother over a decade ago. “As funny as it might sound, I coach a lot of fast bowlers,” he says. “We are going for the more modern style of coaching here: helping fast bowlers to develop speed; power-hitting and 360-degree batting; and the uniqueness of legspin.” They are skills that have rarely been produced through the traditional English system.The centre is the northern training base for the South Asian Cricket Academy (SACA), a scheme launched in 2021 by Tom Brown following his PhD research at Birmingham City University. SACA’s aim is to address the underrepresentation of British South Asian players at the top level: according to its research 30% of recreational cricketers in England and Wales are British South Asian, which drops to 5% within men’s professional cricket.Related

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• Graeme Swann: 'If England are aggressive, they can win the tournament for Jos Buttler'

Eight SACA graduates have signed professional contracts since becoming involved in the scheme. Foremost among them are Kashif Ali, who scored twin hundreds for Worcestershire in their first County Championship match of the season, and the legspinner Jafer Chohan, an ever-present for Yorkshire in the T20 Blast since signing his first professional deal.Chohan, a student at Loughborough University, was released by Middlesex five years ago, aged 17. “I was really hating cricket at that point,” he recalls. He played for SACA in their first full season, and their head coach Kabir Ali tipped Yorkshire off about him. He also impressed Joe Root while net-bowling to England’s Test squad before a tour to Pakistan.It culminated in an open trial at the centre later that year, attended by coaches from the northern first-class counties: Darren Gough, then Yorkshire’s managing director, quickly offered him a contract. Chohan has continued to work closely with Amar ever since. “Growing up, my only spin coach was my dad,” he says. “Coming here has taken my bowling to the next level.”Rashid is back out in the Caribbean, seeking a third World Cup title•Gareth Copley-ICC/Getty ImagesChohan was inspired by Adil: “For me, someone of Pakistani origin, watching him made me feel like ‘you know what? I can actually do it.’ Him and Moeen [Ali] have done so much for the Asian community: they made me want to embrace being Asian a lot more, rather than feeling embarrassed about it. It actually feels like more of a cool thing which, when I was younger, maybe it didn’t.”Now, Chohan is mentored by his idol. “I couldn’t be more grateful: without him and Amar, my game wouldn’t be where it is right now. He has been very open with me: it doesn’t get much better than bowling with one of the best legspinners in the world. Last year, when I got called up to the four-day squad, he saw that and gave me a call to give me a few tips… Those little things go a long way.”Adil is proud of the progress that Chohan has made, with him and Amar mentoring him. “That’s what the centre and the academy is there for,” he says. “It’s for people who don’t get recognised, but you see the talent is there. Jafer has worked with my brother and with me and he has broken through. It was a big moment for the academy and for the centre, to know that people have come through and made it.”

“It’s about giving back to the community, and also having something there for the next generation of cricketers coming through. It was almost a no-brainer – it was just about finding a location”Adil Rashid on setting up his academy

I arrive at the centre on a rainy Wednesday lunchtime, the day of England’s washed-out T20 international against Pakistan at Headingley. As Amar speaks about his vision to roll the centres out across the country, a legspinner is bowling in an empty net, aiming at a cone while working on his variations.His name is Kyme Tahirkheli, an allrounder who nearly gave up on the sport altogether when he was released by Yorkshire’s academy at 17. Now aged 25, he is regularly training at the centre as he searches for a pro contract. He recently trialled at Worcestershire, and hit 117 off 101 for SACA in a red-ball friendly against Lancashire’s 2nd XI last month.”I was put off by cricket when I left Yorkshire: I felt like my stats showed consistently that I was a performer,” he says. “I came across Amar in 2020, and since then I’ve been coming down religiously… I’ve been working hard, every single day. It’s hard graft – in many ways, you’ve got to work harder than the guys who have contracts – but I’ve been putting in performances for SACA.”Amar Rashid runs the Adil Rashid Cricket Centre in Thornton, Bradford•ESPNcricinfo LtdLike Chohan, Tahirkheli sees Adil and Moeen as “a big inspiration”. He says: “For myself, being a South Asian from Bradford, it really resonates with me seeing Adil go out and achieve these great heights. Every time I’ve met him, he’s always very humble: you wouldn’t be able to recognise the things that he’s achieved or what position he’s in, in life. That’s really inspiring for me – and many others – to try and emulate him.”The centre is a small business which charges for use, but the academy has sponsored players who cannot afford to pay for one-on-one coaching. Amar hopes to source additional funding: “We need to start applying for more: we haven’t nailed it down yet. There are a lot of kids from deprived areas around here, so we need that funding to help sponsor more of them.”It is also Adil’s training base when he is at home. He spent three months training there between the ILT20 in February and England’s T20I series against Pakistan, and continues to use Amar as a coach when he is on international duty. In the 2022 T20 World Cup in Australia, Amar would watch from home and send Adil advice; it culminated in him taking 2 for 22 in the final.Rashid is already a double world champion, part of the first men’s team to hold both white-ball World Cups simultaneously. Over the next three weeks, England have the chance to set another record by becoming the first men’s team to retain the T20 World Cup. “That’s the aim, ,” he says. “We have the belief to do that.”We’ve got the team, the squad, the backroom staff, the mentality, the positive energy. Can we make history again? That’s what we’re driving towards. Hopefully, we can go out there, do our thing, and be victorious.” Whether they do or not, Rashid has made his hometown proud.

SRH’s opening duo of Travis Head and Abhishek Sharma had been dynamic, but they were stopped in their tracks with the title on the line

Karthik Krishnaswamy27-May-20241:21

What changed for Starc towards the end of the season?

They’re called Travishek because it’s the easiest way to combine their names, but it also makes sense because Travis Head takes first strike for Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) and Abhishek Sharma starts at the non-striker’s end. Almost as a rule.Before the final of IPL 2024, there had only been three exceptions to this. Abhishek had taken first strike twice against Royal Challengers Bengaluru, and once against Lucknow Super Giants. On all three occasions, an offspinner had bowled the first over.On Sunday, against Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR), Abhishek took first strike for the fourth time this season. This time he wasn’t facing an offspinner.He was, instead, up against Mitchell Starc.You could understand why Head might have felt less than enthusiastic about the prospect of facing Starc with a new ball. Just watch this. And that’s a video from six years ago. There was also this, of course, from last Tuesday in Ahmedabad:

Mitch Starc, tomaye mene gelam!pic.twitter.com/Etq4is5Cgw

— KolkataKnightRiders (@KKRiders) May 21, 2024

Over all the years they have come up against each other, Starc has rattled Head’s stumps with full, fast balls bending past the outside edge, and rattled them with balls threatening to shape away before nipping back past the inside edge.For most of IPL 2024, Starc had looked like a bowler not quite in full control of the complicated mechanics of his run-up and delivery. The ball wasn’t coming out of his hand in quite the way he would have liked it to and was landing in the slot, meeting the middle of bats rather than swerving and ducking past their edges. By Tuesday, however, he seemed to have found that elusive thing they call rhythm. Right in time for a meeting with his old sparring buddy, Head.It fell to Abhishek, then, to negotiate Starc and the brand-new white ball.Related

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Abhishek could have been out three times in Starc’s first four balls. There was a swing and miss off the first ball, and a poke and miss off the second, both regulation balls from a left-arm swing bowler that left the left-hand batter outside off stump. Then, Abhishek opened his bat face, steered the fourth ball to the left of deep third, and took a chance on a tight second run. A better throw may well have beaten his dive.Looking back at how Sunday night unfolded, might SRH have to have lost Abhishek to any of those three balls, in any of those routine ways, rather than the way they actually did? Like, I mean, here’s how it happened:

Ball of the season?pic.twitter.com/fnl7oWkhQb

— KolkataKnightRiders (@KKRiders) May 26, 2024

Yes, KKR social-media admin person. That was, in all likelihood, the ball of the season. It was angled into the left-handed Abhishek, and it pitched around middle stump. It would likely have missed leg stump if it had continued along its initial trajectory, but it began to shape against the angle just before it pitched, with devastating consequences.It clocked 139kph, and that doesn’t sound hugely impressive when you pit it against the mid-to-late 150s balls that Gerald Coetzee and Mayank Yadav have bowled this season, but 139kph is blindingly fast when the ball swings like that. Particularly when it swings from that length. The length that freezes batters’ feet and squares them up. The length that shaves paint off the top of the stumps. The top, on this occasion, of off stump.You need all those inadequate words of description, because Starc, when asked about it in his post-match press conference, only had this to offer: “Not much to it. Run in, try and hit the stumps, try to swing it. That’s what I’ve tried to do for the last 14 years. Doesn’t always happen. I’ve been lucky enough that it’s happened twice in the last two games, with Trav as well.”I mean, that’s part of my experience that I’m supposed to be bringing to the group is to start us off and lead the way [with] powerplay wickets. We’ve seen how important they are through the tournament. We were fantastic in the powerplay again today, as we were in the first qualifier against them.”It’s always nice to bowl a ball like that, but there’s nothing special about the plan: just run in, try and bowl fast, swing it, and see if one can hit the top of the stumps. It’s nice when it comes off.”Abhishek Sharma is bowled by an unplayable delivery from Mitchell Starc•BCCIWith time, with distance, with a little less recency bias, we may be able to pick out other candidates for ball of the season. When that happens, our selection is likely to include another work of top-of-off artistry from a KKR bowler: Vaibhav Arora to Shai Hope at Eden Gardens.It was similar to Starc vs Abhishek, sliding past the outside edge to light up the bails, except it was from a right-arm bowler to a right-hand batter, and it was seam movement rather than swing.Both Starc vs Abhishek and Arora vs Hope showcased a key piece of KKR’s title-winning jigsaw. KKR took the joint-most powerplay wickets of any team in IPL 2024, and their 27 came in 14 innings as against Rajasthan Royals’ 15.Starc took 11 powerplay wickets, and Arora nine. KKR finished the season with two of its top four wicket-takers in that phase.IPL 2024 was – it still feels weird to use the simple past tense rather than the present perfect – the season of the stratospheric total, and the two finalists were the teams that reached for the stratosphere most often. But where KKR’s batting explosions could come from anywhere in a line-up of immense power and depth, SRH’s owed theirs, for most part, to a turbocharged opening pair and a six-hitting machine in the middle-order.After SRH won the toss and opted to bat on Sunday night, KKR’s clearest path to victory was to take these three out as cheaply as possible, and the top two as quickly as possible.Starc, with Abhishek in his sights rather than Head, had done half that job. The surviving half of Travishek now took strike to Arora, bowling right-arm over.Vaibhav Arora got Travis Head with sharp swing•AFP/Getty ImagesOver the last couple of years, as Head has dominated a World Test Championship final, a World Cup semi-final, a World Cup final and an IPL with his daredevilry, a theory has developed around how best to bowl to him, particularly early in his innings: angle the ball into him from right-arm around or left-arm over, and cramp him for room. Head likes to stay leg side of the ball against the fast bowlers and free his arms, and he’s bloody good at doing that – under no circumstances, then, should you give him any semblance of room.Before Sunday, Head had fallen four times to fast bowling in the powerplay this season. He had been out once to the right-arm over angle, when Chennai Super Kings’ Tushar Deshpande had slanted the ball across him and got him to hit towards the longer off-side boundary. He had been dismissed three times by the ball angling into him from left-arm over.Arora began from right-arm over, in theory Head’s preferred angle. It can be a difficult angle to bowl from if you’re bowling to someone like Head, because there’s only a tiny sliver of a line you can bowl without either offering room or straying onto his pads. It’s particularly tricky if, like Arora, you swing the ball away from the left-hander.1:09

Moody: SRH’s batters have failed to adapt to conditions that are not batting friendly

In those circumstances, Arora bowled the perfect delivery. It started some way outside leg stump, and then began to swing, pitching roughly in line with leg stump and reaching Head when it was just about in line with off stump. Head’s feet tend not to move all that much even when he plays some of his best shots; it can even be an advantage when he can free his arms and swing cleanly with a vertical or horizontal bat. This ball, though, drew a defensive response, and it mattered that his back foot was stuck in its initial position. He followed the ball with his hands, showing only half his bat face.Head has enjoyed days when he has offered similar responses to similar balls early in his innings and survived. Cricket can be like that, with the slimmest margins between the play-and-miss and the edge to the keeper.On another day, Head may have survived this Arora ball, and forced him to go back and bowl another ball, and another ball, all the time contending with the small margins of bowling to a champion.On this day, it was Arora who ran towards his KKR team-mates, arms extended, as if to show just how much this wicket meant to the balance of this match. “Thiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiis much.”This IPL final was 12 balls old. KKR were already in front, by a significant margin. The tournament’s best new-ball pair had won a decisive victory over its scariest opening partnership.Move aside, Travishek. Make way for Starora.

Their preparation for the World Cup always looked light and they were handed a thrashing by Afghanistan

Deivarayan Muthu10-Jun-20241:14

McClenaghan: NZ looked sloppy and rusty from the outset

Kane Williamson guides a legbreak from Rashid Khan straight into the lap of Gulbadin Naib at first slip and throws his head back in disappointment.Williamson’s get-out-of-jail shot is the dab, against both spin and pace, but with a slip in place and the ball turning and holding up in the Providence pitch, there was no way out for him and New Zealand.”He must have known there was a slip there,” Ian Smith summed up the dismissal on TV commentary. “It’s another indication of a side that hasn’t played cricket.”New Zealand slid to 33 for 4 in the seventh over, in pursuit of 160. They eventually folded for 75 in 15.2 overs. Rahmanullah Gurbaz had outscored them with 80 off 56 balls.New Zealand batted, bowled, and fielded like a side that was desperately short on match practice. Their full-strength T20I team had last played together at the end of their home summer against Australia in February. While a second-string side toured Pakistan for a five-match T20I series in April, some of New Zealand’s key personnel, including captain Williamson and finisher Glenn Phillips, spent most of the IPL on the bench. Openers Devon Conway and Finn Allen were coming into the T20 World Cup after having just recovered from injuries. Neither had featured in the IPL or the Pakistan series.The cobwebs had gathered so much dust that it was impossible for New Zealand to brush them off in three hours. Allen, who was patrolling the longer leg-side boundary, lost the ball under lights and dropped Ibrahim Zadran on 13 in the fifth over. In the next over, Conway failed to gather an accurate throw and fluffed a run-out chance. Gurbaz was on 19 at that point. The opening pair punished New Zealand’s sloppiness in the field and pressed on to forge 103 in 14.3 overs. There were a number of other fielding lapses in an un-New Zealand performance that had the Black Caps red-faced, including Williamson.New Zealand were poor in the field against Afghanistan•ICC/Getty Images”Our fielding didn’t help our cause without a doubt,” Williamson said after the game. “That would be the most frustrating part for me. “It is something we pride ourselves on, so that was very disappointing but that performance from us married up to an outstanding performance from Afghanistan meant that it wasn’t good enough and they showed their skill today and we were outplayed.”New Zealand’s batting was just as shaky, with the ball swinging more under lights in the night than it did in the evening. After left-arm seamer Fazalhaq Farooqi wrecked the top order, Rashid and co. used the low bounce and skid offered by the Providence pitch to their advantage. And of course, there’s always some turn as well at the venue. Rashid is familiar with all of that, having played for Guyana Amazon Warriors in the CPL in 2017. Gurbaz is also used to these conditions, having turned out for Amazon Warriors more recently in 2022.

To turn down those two warm-up games, to me, is mind-blowing and should be put under scrutinyMitchell McClenaghan

Especially in hindsight, it feels like New Zealand might have been better off had they participated in warm-up games. Sure, their players had arrived in three batches and they had logistical challenges to deal with, but could they have squeezed in some warm-up fixtures like a similarly undermanned Australia had done in the lead-up to the T20 World Cup?Former New Zealand fast bowler and a current expert at ESPNcricinfo, Mitchell McClenaghan, was puzzled at New Zealand’s decision to opt out of playing warm-up matches in the Caribbean, where conditions vary significantly from one venue to another.”To turn down a couple of warm-up games…you’ve got a lot of players that haven’t played and sat on the bench in the IPL,” McClenaghan said on the Timeout show. “Conway looked incredibly out of touch. Finn Allen, in his case, didn’t go to Pakistan with a back injury. All these guys haven’t played in the last month or so and then also haven’t played in the Caribbean. So, to turn down those two warm-up games, to me, is mind-blowing and should be put under scrutiny.”New Zealand’s batting was worked over by pace and spin•ICC/Getty ImagesFormer New Zealand coach Mike Hesson, who had coached Islamabad United to the PSL title earlier this year, was also critical of New Zealand’s fielding and their decision to rock up cold without playing warm-ups.”We looked really underdone,” Hesson told . “We actually looked disinterested at times when things actually started to not go our way. The body language dropped in the field, which is certainly not what Kane Williamson will be pleased with at all. From there, they gave Afghanistan a bit of momentum and there were some chances that New Zealand missed. Devon Conway certainly looked like he hadn’t played cricket in three months, which he obviously hadn’t, and I felt for him. The fact that there’s been no warm-up games for this Black Caps side…unfortunately, there was no surprise with the performance they put in.”Given the draw – New Zealand were among the last of the 20 teams to start the T20 World Cup – they were always meant to play catch-up. Their 84-run drubbing in their opener has now put them so far behind that they’re on the brink of being knocked out in an obvious group of death, in which Afghanistan and West Indies have coasted to two wins each. Afghanistan’s eye-popping net run-rate of 5.225 means they already have one foot in the Super Eights, leaving New Zealand facing West Indies, who also have a healthy run-rate (3.574), in a must-win on June 12 in Trinidad, the home to several West Indies T20 superstars.In their most recent T20I match at the Brian Lara Cricket Academy, West Indies toppled England for a 3-2 series win, with left-arm fingerspinners Akeal Hosein and Gudakesh Motie taking five wickets between them for just 44 runs in their eight overs on a sluggish track last December. New Zealand understand that they have margin for error from hereon.”Well, they [West Indies] are an amazing T20 team. They’re a strong team that can change the game very quickly and it’s obviously their home conditions as well,” Luke Ronchi, New Zealand’s batting coach, said upon the squad’s arrival in Trinidad on Saturday. “They have a lot of guys from Trinidad playing in their team, so they know the conditions and the ground at the Brian Lara Stadium. It’s [about] making sure we do what we do. That’s something we missed in the first game.”Even if New Zealand hit the ground running against West Indies, they could well suffer an early exit, considering their poor net run-rate (minus 4.2), unless the co-hosts lose to Afghanistan.One rust-ridden, un-New Zealand performance may have unravelled an entire World Cup campaign.

The two batters combined well as India began to fight back against New Zealand

Ashish Pant18-Oct-20240:45

Manjrekar: Sarfaraz a 2024 version of Javed Miandad

Virat Kohli and Sarfaraz Khan don’t have a lot in common, but almost nine years ago at M Chinnaswamy Stadium, the venue for the first Test between India and New Zealand, they combined to give one of the moments of IPL 2015.Sarfaraz, then 18, while playing for Royal Challengers Bangalore had thrashed an audacious 21-ball 45 not out which included a number of physics-defying shots. While walking back to the change room, he was greeted by an awe-struck Kohli, the captain then, who appreciated his innings with folded hands and a bow. The video quickly went viral.Kohli and Sarfaraz’s paths haven’t crossed a lot since their RCB days which ended after Sarfaraz was released in 2018. It was fitting that the first time that they were batting together in an international game was at the very ground where they had shared a lovely moment all those years back.When the two got together, India were in a spot of bother trailing New Zealand by 261 runs. Yashasvi Jaiswal and Rohit Sharma had fallen in quick succession after a good start and that meant, Sarfaraz and Kohli had to do the rebuilding exercise. What they had in their favour was a pitch which had settled down. What they had to overcome was scoreboard pressure, and maybe a demon or two.Kohli and Sarfaraz were two of the five India batters to fall for a duck in the first innings where India were bundled out for 46. Kohli had not scored a fifty in a Test match in 2024. It didn’t seem like he’s been out of form but he wasn’t converting his starts as comfortably as when he was at his peak. He’s also had to miss a few games for personal reasons. Sarfaraz has been fighting for his place in the India side since making his debut against England earlier this year. There is a chance he wouldn’t even have been in the playing XI had Shubman Gill been fit. But the way the two of them played belied the pressure that was on them.1:08

Manjrekar: Kohli attacked really well against spin

After four balls of staunch defence, Sarfaraz went to his favourite sweep shot taking Ajaz Patel for back-to-back fours. It was an important passage of play. Ajaz was the one who had dismissed the Indian openers, but all of a sudden he was not allowed to settle into any sort of rhythm. Kohli, who was on 9 off 22 at the time having played a few tentative strokes, laced Will O’Rourke for a delightful cover drive. And when Sarfaraz guided the quick bowler past the slips the Chinnaswamy Stadium which had been silenced for a bit, found its voice again.It wasn’t a roar just yet. More of a hum. Sometimes that’s what the scoreboard does. India had reached 121 for 2, were going at close to 4.70 runs an over, but were still behind by 235 runs. Then came two shots from Sarfaraz, which wound the clock back right to 2015. Both shots came in an O’Rourke over. Both shots highly unconventional for a Test match.O’Rourke tried testing Sarfaraz with a bouncer, but the line was outside off and with the pitch not as quick, the batter used all the pace on offer to ramp him for six. Two balls later, O’Rourke went short again. This was a quicker bouncer aimed right at Sarfaraz’s body. But he arched back, and while almost ducking, plopped the face of the bat in the same path as the ball and got it over the keeper’s head even as he was falling onto his backside.This was the moment. Kohli was in splits. Bengaluru was delirious.Sarfaraz Khan and Virat Kohli scored quickly in the third session•Getty ImagesBy this time, Kohli also wanted to join in on the fun. As Ajaz came on to bowl his 11th over, he jumped down the track and smashed the left-arm spinner for a straight six. But it was the reaction after the shot which showed that he was zoned in. Kohli took a step to his right, adjusted the straps of his gloves and just nodded while looking at Sarfaraz. The next ball, out came a sweep through square leg which brought up the fifty partnership off just 45 balls before Kohli ended the over with another four through long leg.In all this, the crowd made sure to make their presence felt. They were quiet for most of the day with New Zealand and Rachin Ravindra piling on the runs, so much so that when the India innings began even the forward defence was met with a loud roar. When Kohli and Sarfaraz finally got things going India’s way, pandemonium set in.The ‘RCB, RCB’ chants came up but were soon replaced by ‘India, India’. The Bharat Army was singing its songs, the Mexican wave lasted for a good half an hour, the noise from the was deafening and in all this, Sarfaraz and Kohli carried on.The camaraderie between the two was also very much visible. The first ball of the 45th over by O’Rourke was a wayward short ball well down leg. Sarfaraz instinctively flapped at the ball to no avail, and then sheepishly glanced at Kohli, knowing he had erred with 15 minutes left for stumps. Kohli unimpressed, looked to his right and almost immediately broke into a wide grin without saying much.The duo added 136 runs for the third wicket and reduced the deficit to 125. It would have been a near-perfect day for the two if not for Kohli falling off the final ball. But they will know that with their backs to the wall, they have helped India dream the unthinkable. Only once in the history of Test cricket has a team won after falling for less than 46 in the first innings. That happened in 1887. If Sarfaraz can last for any length of time and help the hosts take a sizeable lead, Bengaluru could witness some unprecedented scenes in the next couple of days.

We love using real-life metrics to understand our beloved game better

Alan Gardner16-Sep-2024How high is Josh Hull’s ceiling? These are the sort of questions that keep the Light Roller up at night. And not just ones related to home improvement. Is Sam Billings an air-fryer convert? Does Ravi Bopara own a ride-on lawn mower? Never mind averages and strike rates, this is the good stuff.But anyway – just how high is Hull’s ceiling? It has been the talk of English cricket since Hull, a 6ft 7in left-arm seamer from Leicestershire, was picked for a surprise Test debut a couple of weeks ago. If he’s that tall, you’re probably thinking, then he a high ceiling. Quite likely a “massive” one, as his captain, Ollie Pope, put it in the build-up to his first England appearance.Does it have any nice cornicing, though? And what about the paintwork? Presumably an ornate light fitting is out of the question, with headspace at such a premium.Related

• The PCB is even more disastrous than usual. Here are the numbers to prove it

• Ollie Pope admits to 'frustration' after Test summer sweep goes begging

• WTC scenarios: England's chances take a hit; Sri Lanka, Bangladesh still in contention

• 'When we came back from 26 for 6, it was a new dimension': how Bangladesh pulled off their greatest feat

You might be wondering what this has to do with Hull’s potential as a Test cricketer – let’s just have a look at his numbers and decide whether he’s any good. But this isn’t how the game works in England anymore, not under Brendon McCullum’s Holistic Cricket Wellbeing Programme (Golf Module optional). Selection is now about attributes and moments. Zak Crawley is our guy to open – it, brother! Shoaib Bashir is a tall spinner with huge hands – get him on a plane to India!Now we have Hull, who had taken two wickets at 182.5 for his county this season, but has size 15 feet and a massive ceiling. And to be fair to Rob Key, McCullum and Co, this Jedi mind-trick stuff seems to be working out: Hull now averages 30.33 in Test cricket, compared to 84.54 in the County Championship.So what’s next? It turns out that, despite his enormous ceiling (as previously mentioned), Hull’s release point is slightly lower than Stuart Broad’s was – somewhere around the level you would hang a nice portrait in your hallway. England do like their raw data, so this will have doubtless been spotted. A plan may already be in place, involving yoga and visualisation techniques. Or maybe some time in the nets. You know, whatever works.And then it’s onwards and upwards, hopefully accompanied by statistics that go through the roof in the right way. Because only in the fullness of time will we come to know whether Josh Hull has the fixtures and fittings to accompany his truly stratospheric ceiling.Won’t even try to think up a joke about Pakistan here, because the PCB will always outdo us•AFP/Getty Images

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Of course, despite all the attributes and moments, not to mention scintillating entertainment for Joe Public when Pope opted to bowl spin for a bit when the light was bad, England lost the Oval Test to Sri Lanka. Afterwards, Joe Root explained the team’s failure in the following terms: “Coldplay can’t be No. 1 every week.” Which seems to betray a fundamental misunderstanding of how the music industry works, as well as provide an interesting insight into Root’s musical tastes (are such bedwetters even allowed on the Baz boombox?) And, as far as analogies go, it also fails to explain why England have spent exactly zero weeks at No. 1 (on either the ICC rankings or the World Test Championship table) since McCullum took control of the playlist two years ago.

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Elsewhere on the charts, meanwhile, Pakistan are still playing the old hits: dysfunction, hubris and farce. Barely a year on from Mickey Arthur minting “The Pakistan Way”, his replacement, Jason Gillespie, is discovering that the only way is down, as a 2-0 home defeat to Bangladesh extended their losing streak under Shan Masood’s captaincy to five Tests in a row. Afterwards, Masood attempted to put his team’s struggles into a context everyone can understand. “You can’t prepare for science and then sit a maths exam,” he said. “If you’re being tested for maths, you study maths. To play red-ball cricket, you must play red-ball cricket.” The PCB’s response, meanwhile, has been to come up with an entirely new curriculum in the form of the Champions Cup – proving themselves once again to be top of the class in shambling ineptitude.