All posts by n8rngtd.top

England have a fantastic chance to level the series after a perfect second day

George Dobell26-Aug-2021There wasn’t any sangria in the park or feeding animals in the zoo, but this was, pretty much, England’s perfect day. By the end you really could have been forgiven for thinking they were someone else, someone good.It goes without saying that this has given England a fantastic opportunity to level the series. Yes, the pitch looks full of runs at present. And yes, England’s bowlers will no doubt have to work far harder in India’s second innings.But this has given England an opportunity beyond that. Not only should England’s batters be able to take great confidence from this performance – the top four all reached 50 for the first time since the 2013 Dunedin Test – but in keeping India in the field for 129 overs, they’ve earned the chance to strike a blow that could be significant later in the series.Joe Root scored his 23rd Test hundred•Getty ImagesThe Tests come pretty thick and fast these days, after all. And long before the end of the day, Mohammad Shami – who bowled better than his figures suggest – had been on and off the pitch for treatment, Jasprit Bumrah had padding on his knee and Ravi Jadeja was limping. Ishant Sharma, meanwhile, has looked a shadow of the fast bowler who came into this match with 311 Test wickets. There were moments, such as when England took singles to him at mid-on and mid-off, when his lack of mobility was almost alarming. Really, if you saw him on a bus, you would offer him your seat.The point? England have an opportunity to break a bowling attack. Or at least put so many miles in their legs their viability is compromised for the days ahead. England have been on the wrong end of such tactics many times. Now is the time to be ruthless. Many will say England should declare overnight – and it’s true, there’s not much point sending out James Anderson to face them on the third day – but you can guarantee India’s bowlers will not relish the prospect of warming-up and pulling on the bowling boots once more.You suspect that most of those present at Headingley on Thursday went home purring in pleasure at the innings they witnessed from Joe Root. For the second day in succession, this old ground had seen an England great produce some of his greatest work. He made his sixth century of the year – already equal to the England record shared by Denis Compton (1947) and Michael Vaughan (2002) – and his third of the series look easy. There were many beautiful strokes – not least a fierce sweep, a gorgeous clip off his legs and a fine reverse-sweep – but one back-foot punch through cover was a thing of such perfection that you could almost imagine a sunset taking a photo of it.Most Tests 100s for England in a year•ESPNcricinfo LtdBut we know Anderson is an incredible bowler and that Root is enjoying a hot summer. What, perhaps, is more encouraging for England in the long-term is the performance of Dawid Malan and Haseeb Hameed.Malan’s second-highest Test score, in his first Test innings in more than three years, was a nicely judged effort which served to demonstrate both his tighter defensive technique – he left with expert judgement – and his range of strokes. A couple of his cover drives would have pleased David Gower. There isn’t higher praise. There’s no reason to think Malan cannot kick-on from this.The entire innings, though, was set up by the opening partnership. And it was telling that it was England’s highest opening stand (135) since Hameed had his first run in the side in November 2016. It lasted 50 overs, drew the sting from the attack and put England ahead in the game.Hameed, in truth, was not as fluent on the second day. He added only eight to his overnight score and went 28 balls without scoring immediately before his dismissal. He still made 68, though. He still looked the part. Don’t worry too much about him not scoring any runs in the V; Malan only made one in the off-side V; Root only made seven there. This hasn’t, to date, been a pitch for driving. Just ask the Indian top-order.Peter Moores knew the exact moment Hameed was ready for a return to international cricket. Moores, the Nottinghamshire coach who signed Hameed at the end of 2019, had spent the previous evening, midway through the strange summer of 2020, working with Root in the nets at Trent Bridge. England were about to reconvene for the lockdown Tests against West Indies and Root had come to work with Moores to find some form. The next morning, Hameed turned up for a bat.”We were in the exact same net,” Moores tells ESPNcricinfo now. “And when there are just two of you there and you’re throwing with the dog-stick, you know how much you’re putting on the ball. So, you get a really clear picture of the way someone is playing.”And he just batted beautifully. He had rediscovered his rhythm. I was using Joe – who is clearly one of the best players in the world as a benchmark – and I just thought, ‘Has is looking very, very good’.”The next few weeks didn’t produce a mountain of runs. But they did produce some. And perhaps as important as the three half-centuries in seven innings and an average of 38.85 was the return of a smile to his face. Freed from what had clearly been an increasingly unhappy relationship at Lancashire, he rediscovered the joy of the game.”There weren’t a million people trying to sign him when he came here,” Moores recalls. “And yes, he needed repairing. There was some technical work to do, but mostly he needed rebuilding as a person.Related

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“He was in a tough place. He had experienced an extreme version of what many young players go through: he had enjoyed early success and then started to struggle.”But I knew him from my time as coach at Lancashire. He was just coming through the system then and I knew he was a great kid. Almost as soon as he walked through the gates, it was a though we’d found a soul-mate. All he wanted to do was learn and talk and get better. As a coach, that really is the dream.”I think he felt released here. And first he started to trust his game again, and then he’s just blossomed.”A little while into the season, a committee man from Notts said to me ‘he fields with joy’ and that’s exactly right. Whether he’s at short-leg or cover, he does it with a smile on his face. He’s brought great energy to our team. It’s been lovely to watch.”So, what was the technical work?”Like a few young players, he had started to take an off-stump guard,” Moores explains. “You can understand the logic: they think they’re lining up the stumps. But actually it draws you into playing at balls you shouldn’t. You don’t really want to be defending balls outside off stump. You want to either be leaving them or attacking them. There’s no benefit in defending them.”Now he takes middle-stump. His trigger movements are smaller and he’s opening up more scoring opportunities.”Hameed’s defence can be a delight. At his best, he really does play the ball right under his nose with bat and pad so tight together you suspect it could keep out the rain. But it was the more aggressive strokes he played on the first day which really pleased Moores.”It was nice to see him play some shots,” he says. “That’s the way he’s moved his game. There was a period, a couple of years ago, when he looked as if he was just trying to survive. He wasn’t thinking about scoring runs. He was battling rather than batting.”He says he knows when he’s playing well as he has soft hands and can cushion the ball. It’s a lovely quality. It means you can edge the ball and still not be out. It’s a quality that Kane Williamson has. But Hameed can play pace and spin well. He sees the ball early. I think he’ll be fine in Australia. His game is designed to play pace.”Haseeb Hameed rocks back and cuts•PA Photos/Getty ImagesIt’s no coincidence that Moores has been involved in Hameed’s rehabilitation. He has played a similar role in many careers going back to Mushtaq Ahmed at Sussex. So it’s probably not surprising that it was Moores he turned to after his failure – a first-ball failure, at that – in his comeback innings at Lord’s.”I did speak to him, yes,” Moores says. “He was fine. Maybe if he hadn’t scored that century against India in a warm-up game a few weeks earlier he might have been a bit more worried, but he was ok. I just gave him verification, really. I reminded him he was a top player and that it was important to control yourself in those moments. I think he just didn’t watch the ball in that innings.”And were there any concerns about getting bogged down on day two?”Not really,” Moores says. “Batting is often tougher in the morning at Leeds and I thought he looked comfortable doing the job he did. He put a lot of overs in the legs of those bowlers. And all the bouncers they bowled to him will have taken something out of them for later in the match or later in the series.”There’s not much doubt that Root will take the plaudits for this innings. And quite right, too. But it felt like a significant innings from Hameed, too. After several years of hard work, he’s starting to reap what he sowed.

Great keeper, good mate, straight talker – that’s just a few things the former Australia player has been

Ian Chappell27-Feb-2022″Is Rod Marsh an epileptic?” The phone call came at about 11.30 am in Sydney.It was former Queensland and Australian ODI player and now Bulls Masters boss Jimmy Maher. The answer was an emphatic no.The next call was concerning. “Rodney has actually had an attack in the car,” said Maher. “His heart stopped beating for several minutes before the hospital got it started again.”Related

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Seventy-four-year-old Marsh is the best Australian keeper I’ve seen and he has been a good mate since we played together in the 1970-71 Test side.He covered more territory standing back than any keeper, and while this was a great asset, it could also be a source of frustration. When Tony Greig edged Gary Gilmour’s awayswinger in the World Cup semi-final at Headingley in 1975, it was headed to my right.It never reached me.”Listen you fat bastard, catches on my right are mine,” I told him during the celebration. That’s one reason our friendship endured: we both made our points clearly.I was once asked who was the better keeper, Marsh or Ian Healy. It was an easy answer: “Have a look at their hands.”Marsh’s hands, despite years of collecting the ferociously fast Jeff Thomson and the extremely quick Dennis Lillee, are untarnished. If you look at that Headingley catch and then the diving leg-side one where he caught Clive Lloyd, you’ll understand about the territory he covered standing back.I awarded Marsh the dubious nickname of Iron Gloves during his Test debut at the Gabba. I’d just read about the poor-fielding Pittsburgh Pirates first baseman Dick Stuart, who was nicknamed Iron Glove. It seemed like an appropriate name to anoint Marsh with – he dropped a couple in his first game. Years later, when Marsh claimed the world record for most dismissals by a keeper the laconic Doug Walters informed him: “Marshy, if you’d taken ’em all in your first Test, you would’ve claimed that record four games ago.”It was after Marsh’s first Test that former Australian opener and renowned journalist Jack Fingleton approached me at Sydney airport. “What’s this cove Marsh like?” he asked.I replied, “He’s a good bloke. He can bat, and don’t worry about the first Test, he can keep,” I answered. “Why do you ask?””Well,” replied the fastidious Fingleton, “he just threw his suit carrier in the luggage rack on top of my deer-stalker. I told him, ‘Marsh, my hat’s under there,’ Fingleton continued, “and he replied, ‘It can only improve the hat.'”Marsh famously poaches a Chappell catch at Headingley in the 1975 World Cup semi-final•Patrick Eagar/Getty ImagesI thought to myself that the debutant had a sense of humour, but I only said: “Jack, he’s all right. You’ll enjoy a game of golf with him.”We won that game of golf a few years later, thanks to Marsh’s skill with the clubs.Like all excellent teams, we had not only a very good wicketkeeper but a smart one.Marsh thought that if you were the incumbent, you should improve by doing the job all the time. He improved a hell of a lot, especially against spin. He was naturally very good standing back. As captain, he let me know how the quicks were hitting his gloves, and he was never short of an idea. He also told me the truth and that helped me learn a lot about captaincy.”You’re an idiot,” he told me, with an unprintable word before “idiot”, between overs at Old Trafford in 1972. He reckoned it was a seamers’ paradise and I had two spinners bowling. That warned me I was captaining like it was Adelaide Oval and I had to adjust my thinking to the ground we were actually playing on.Following his playing days, we’ve stayed in touch. He enjoyed a very successful career as head coach at both the Australian and England academies and has been a selector for both countries, as well as chairman of the Australian panel. He was director of coaching at the ICC’s Global Cricket Academy in Dubai, and has been an administrator as well.Whatever the job, he has given it his all, and he told the truth. You always know where you stand with Rod.He has a stalwart family in wife Ros, boys Paul, Daniel and Jamie and their wives and families. He’s a widely admired character and I received numerous encouraging messages when Rod fell ill. Their gist was the same: “He’s a tough bugger, he’ll pull through.”I’m hoping so, because he was a first-class teammate and remains an excellent friend.

The tough Chandrakant Pandit way might not be for everyone, but it worked for his old state side – and helped him exorcise some ghosts along the way

Shashank Kishore28-Jun-2022″Maybe this was God’s way of telling me that I deserve it after 23 years.”An emotional Chandrakant Pandit reflects on Madhya Pradesh’s maiden Ranji Trophy title win, the morning after. He narrowly missed out on lifting the coveted trophy as captain in 1998-99, and the feeling of winning it as coach at the same venue of that heartbreak hasn’t fully sunk in yet.But, instead of waking up at 2.36am, like he did on the fifth day of the Ranji final on Sunday, a relaxed Pandit has woken up after sunrise. A disciplinarian when it comes to keeping time, he is ready at 8.45am sharp, the time of our meeting.Entering Pandit’s hotel room feels a bit like entering the school principal’s office. If someone is summoned, even at short notice, they are expected almost immediately.”I never ask a player, ‘can you come to my room if you’re free’,” Pandit says as he sips his morning coffee. “If we’re on a mission, I expect them to be fully committed. That was a routine we had throughout the season.”Related

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The vibes post the Ranji triumph are different, though. There are no traces of notebooks, whiteboard, stationery and everything else you’d associate with Pandit’s team meetings in the drawing room of his hotel suite.The party from the previous night, where Pandit let the boys “enjoy freedom for a change”, hasn’t had a spillover effect on his schedule though. Meetings are lined up through the day with several Madhya Pradesh Cricket Association (MPCA) officials, even as he is continuously flooded with calls from journalists and well-wishers. In the evening there’s a flight to catch to Indore, for a grand reception.Does he really have a chance to put his feet up and rest?”We’ll first ask Chandu sir to laugh out loud,” a beaming Aditya Shrivastava had said at the post-match media conference on Sunday. “He’s at work at any given time of the day or night. If any of the boys are eager or need help, he’s always ready. Full intensity. We’ll ask him to enjoy with us today.”Much of the narrative surrounding MP’s success has revolved around Pandit, and understandably so. Dinesh Karthik called him the Alex Ferguson of the Ranji Trophy. Irfan Pathan wondered if Pandit’s sixth Ranji title as coach would translate into an IPL coaching gig. Abhinav Mukund felt he has a magic wand.Pandit has quietly soaked all of it in, knowing fully well his methods work only because his unheralded teams – that is, unheralded barring Mumbai – buy into his methods wholeheartedly, even if it isn’t easy.

“At the international level, you have players matured enough to understand things and support staff to guide you accordingly. In domestic cricket, one person [is enough to] convey his methods easily. I don’t have a bowling or batting coach.”Chandrakant Pandit

Pandit won the Ranji Trophy as coach with Mumbai in 2002-03, 2003-04 and 2015-16, then shepherded Vidarbha to their maiden Ranji title in 2017-18, and then incredibly helped them defend it 2018-19. He was also director of cricket at Rajasthan when they defended their title – again, only their second ever – in 2011-12.His journey as MP coach began in 2020, just before the Covid-19 pandemic hit. He was mulling offers from three teams when MP joined the queue. The itch to banish the ghosts from 1998-99 – something that comes up regularly during our chat – had him sign up with his old state side.”I was at my village in March 2020 when Sanjeev Rao, the MPCA secretary, called me,” Pandit remembers. “Someone had told him I was taking a break after my stint with Vidarbha. I thought why not go back to MP. After all, I’d played six years for them. Then the thought of missing out on winning the Ranji Trophy in 1998-99 came to me. Maybe it was God’s way of telling me to accept the offer.”He signed up, with a few terms and conditions clearly laid out. Among them were being given a free hand in selection and total freedom to run the show his way.When he got down to work, he interviewed every single MP probable. “Around 150 for Ranji,” he says. These interviews would add up to days, weeks even, but it was a vital building block for Pandit. His impressions of each of the players he spoke to are all neatly tucked away in his office at the Holkar Stadium.In it are details such as his first impressions of the players, how they had progressed as cricketers, and the road map ahead. I ask him if any players have turned his early impressions of them wholly around. He cites the example of Venkatesh Iyer, whom he found hesitant to begin with.Chandrakant Pandit has now won six Ranji Trophy titles as a coach•ESPNcricinfo Ltd”Iyer used to bat at No. 6 and invariably score 20 not out, 24 not out,” he says. “I kept telling him in between he’s good enough to be an opener.”He asked, ‘if I fail what happens?’ I said while I’m around here, nothing will happen. Then he asked, ‘what happens once you go?’ I said by then you will cement your place. Now, he’s with the Indian team and it’s all his efforts.”The move up the order worked wonders for Iyer. He topped MP’s T20 run charts in the 2020-21 Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy, with 227 runs in five innings at an average of 75.66 and a strike rate of 149.34. Then, in the one-day competition, the Vijay Hazare Trophy, he hit a blistering 146-ball 198 against Punjab that helped Madhya Pradesh amass 402 for 3.Iyer is one of many such examples. There’s Yash Dubey who hadn’t opened in 28 innings prior to this season. In his first outing at the top, he made a career-best 289 against Kerala and then, three games later, another century in the final. Himanshu Mantri was also similarly pushed up to open alongside Dubey.Pacer Ishwar Pandey’s issues with injuries forced Pandit to look elsewhere. When the selection committee proposed Anubhav Agarwal, it took him few practice games to be convinced here was a ready replacement.”I asked the players their preferences when we conducted these interviews,” Pandit says. “Aditya said he was shunted up and down the order. I said, ‘you tell me what number you’d like Let’s decide now’. He said, I’d like to bat five. Then I gave the option to Shubham Sharma to open, he said ‘I’d love to bat at three’. We fixed that.Pacer Ishwar Pandey’s injury issues forced MP to look beyond him, and in came Anubhav Agarwal•PTI “Rajat Patidar used to bat three when Shubham hadn’t played a couple of games. I told him, ‘Rajat I need you at No. 4’. He said I’d love to bat three. Then I told him he’s our run-getter and if our opening stand is good, he can really do some damage in the middle order. I told him there’s security, and he won’t be dropped.”I told Himanshu Mantri I’m looking at you as an opener. I liked his technique, the temperament of leaving the ball. The idea was to fix up a number and get the fear out of the players. Akshat Raghuwanshi, the 18-year-old, I said go out and play your game. I don’t want him to lose his flair.”Pandit is clear there’s only a “little leeway” for those who don’t buy his methods but are still beneficial to the team. This isn’t because of ego, but because he wants everyone – senior or junior – to abide by the same rules.Much of his ideas are hard-taskmaster-like, and you wonder if it comes at a risk of the players not thinking for themselves. Pandit clarifies he isn’t one bit averse to players speaking up, even if he finds them hesitant.”Now they’re slowly opening up and giving their views,” he says. “Many times, during a game I keep a board and ask the players to write their observations. They’re free to write what they feel, and we talk about it later.”It’s just to educate them instead of just me passing on ideas. If a partnership is on, I ask them to write things like what they could’ve done better. It’s totally anonymous, I don’t go to that part of the dressing room. I don’t want them to write with the pressure of what I will think.

“Aditya [Shrivastava] was supposed to get married last year and asked me, ‘sir, which date should I pick?’ I told him only in June and that too only for two-three days, you will not get time to go on your honeymoon because we had started our preparations.”Chandrakant Pandit’s methods might not be for everyone

“This final was the only game where I handled the board. I didn’t want them to waste time on that. The learning process in a league phase is different, in the final I can’t have such discussions. I can’t be diverting their attention to what they should be writing on the board when there’s a game to win.”I ask him if this style could work outside the domestic system. “At the international level, you have players matured enough to understand things and support staff to guide you accordingly,” he says. “In domestic cricket, one person [is enough to] convey his methods easily. I don’t have a bowling or batting coach. Too many things can confuse a player. The grasping ability of [young] players isn’t the same at the domestic level.”As well as he has delivered over the years, Pandit’s methods aren’t for everyone. It has worked wonders at MP, like it did with Vidarbha, because they are teams that come with a tremendous hunger to topple the bigger teams like Mumbai, Karnataka and Delhi.Pandit admits success comes at the cost of several sacrifices. In a cut-throat world, he sees no other way.”I remember Aditya [Shrivastava] was supposed to get married last year and asked me, ‘sir, which date should I pick?’ I told him only in June and that too only for two-three days, you will not get time to go on your honeymoon because we had started our preparations.”Shrivastava grins cheekily in response. “It has been a year since I got married and I have still not gone on my honeymoon.”Even if this leaves him quietly disappointed, he isn’t going to let it show. He has bought into Pandit’s methods wholeheartedly. The rest of the team has followed along too, and the results are there for everyone to see.

We break down some of the lessons learned from the first season of 100-ball cricket

Matt Roller01-Aug-2022

What is a good score?

The average first-innings score in full-length games in the first season of the men’s Hundred was 145 for 6, but rarely proved enough runs to defend. There was a heavy chasing bias – 19 out of 30 games were won by teams batting second – and the average winning first-innings total was 161 for 5.Related

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Scores ranged from Birmingham Phoenix’s 87 all out against Manchester Originals at Emirates Old Trafford to Northern Superchargers’ 200 for 5 against the same opposition at Headingley. Only five out of 62 completed innings ended with a side being bowled out.With each innings lasting 100 balls rather than the usual 120, scoring rates were slightly higher in the Hundred than across the last three T20 Blast seasons, (1.47 runs per ball in the Hundred, compared to 1.42 in the Blast). Batting averages were slightly lower as batters placed slightly less value on their wickets than usual (23.46 in the Hundred compared to 24.68 in the Blast).

Regional variation

There was a significant difference between scoring rates at each venue: games at Edgbaston saw teams score at 15.6 runs per 10 balls, compared to 12.5 runs per 10 balls at Old Trafford (though the sample size was small in Manchester, where two games were no-results due to rain).Three teams – Southern Brave, Oval Invincibles and Birmingham Phoenix – won all four of their home games, while London Spirit were the only team to go winless at their home ground. Sixty-nine percent of games finished in home wins, compared to 56.1% over the last two T20 Blast seasons – suggesting that recruiting for a single format, rather than all three, allowed teams to better exploit their own conditions.

Batters win games, bowlers win tournaments?

Phoenix, who topped the group stage, were the best batting team in the competition, both in terms of average and strike rate. They were helped in part by the fact they played their home games on excellent batting pitches but also had the competition’s form player in Liam Livingstone, who finished the season as the tournament’s leading run-scorer.Brave, the champions, were only fifth-fastest-scoring team with the bat but their bowling attack was the most miserly in the competition in terms of economy rate. They were not prolific wicket-takers across the season – their collective bowling average was the second-worst – but took 15 in their two knockout games and were excellent at the death.Superchargers were the second-best team in terms of economy rate, bowling average and batting strike rate, and third-best in terms of batting average, yet failed to qualify for the knockout stages.

Five balls or ten?

The ability for one bowler to bowl consecutive ‘sets’ of five balls is perhaps the most obvious difference between the 100-ball and T20 formats. Captains took up the opportunity to leave the same bowler on around 10% of the time, with spinners bowling 69% of 10-ball sets in the competition.Captains tended to leave bowlers on after a strong first set of five balls, meaning that the economy rate for the second set of five was significantly higher – though still lower than the overall economy rate for the competition – suggesting batters managed to line bowlers up. Most bowlers were kept on at the same end, though around one-sixth of 10-ball sets were delivered with an end change in the middle.Spirit used the 10-ball option more than any other team, with Mason Crane and Mohammad Nabi bowling seven 10-ball sets each. Jake Lintott, Brave’s left-arm wristspinner, was the most-used 10-ball bowler in the competition.Southern Brave’s Jake Lintott was the bowler most likely to deliver a 10-ball set in 2021•Getty ImagesAs the competition wore on, batters attacked the second half of a 10-ball set more often. In the first 17 matches of the season, the second half of a 10-ball set cost 7.7 runs per over and bowlers took a wicket every 23.5 balls; in the second half of the season, those figures were 9.4 an over and a wicket every 16.1 balls respectively.

Crossing law change rewards bowling teams

Another key rule change from the Hundred has now been brought into English domestic cricket and several T20 leagues including the IPL, and will become universal when the MCC update the laws of the game in October: the new batter is always on strike after a catch, regardless of whether the batters crossed.The data suggests the change has rewarded bowling teams for taking wickets, as was anticipated. Across the last three seasons in the T20 Blast, batters’ strike rate the ball after a wicket fell when the new batter was on strike was 71.7, compared to 117.2 when the ‘in’ batter faced; in the Hundred, batters scored at a strike rate of 82.2 the ball after a wicket fell.

Unlikely death-bowling hero ensures UAE finish campaign with first win in T20 World Cups

Sidharth Monga20-Oct-20225:07

Erasmus: ‘Difficult to put the loss into words’

On the surface, Muhammad Waseem is the kind of cricketer you wish you were.By 10.10pm Australian Eastern Daylight Time, Waseem had bowled just 22 balls in official Twenty20 cricket. He had got three wickets in those 22 balls, which makes for an impressive strike rate of 7.33. Two of these three wickets were Namibians – one of them David Wiese – but still. His main role in the side is to open with the bat.Somewhere between 10.10pm and 10.15pm, Waseem came on to bowl in a match that had appeared to be UAE’s in the bag but was now in the balance. The momentum was with Namibia with Wiese refusing to have this as his last game in this tournament. And who knew if he would ever play one again?Related

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Waseem marked an extremely short run-up, making the keeper – standing as far back as he did for other quicks – look like either optimistic or unaware. Waseem tiptoed for a bit, and then off four paces he let the ball rip. First ball nearly a yorker. Second ball beat Ruben Trumplemann and carried comfortably to the keeper. He was like the old pro in the neighbourhood who could just turn up and do anything. As an opening bat, he had scored a half-century earlier in the day.This was the 17th over. Seventy-three off 36 had become 46 off 24. The last over had gone for 18. Even Trumplemann had begun to hit now. And here Waseem was, hardly a bowler, nailing his lengths off four paces at a decent lick.

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UAE are a lovely mix. Their cricket is no longer just the first-generation guns for hire. Many of their cricketers are homegrown. Their background is diverse. Their captain is a Malayali, their youngest player of Goan origin, their hat-trick hero is Tamil, their fast bowlers have roots in Pakistan. The team language is Hindi/Urdu, but Waseem can speak a bit of Malayalam, the captain’s mother tongue. Unlike their former countries, they have no problem playing with each other. They are not insecure. They are loud, expressive and are not shy of having a go at each other on the field. They are also a team that was aiming for just their second win in all World Cups, after their triumph over Netherlands in 1996. So even though this was a dead rubber for them in terms of tournament play, but there was a big point to prove. To others and to themselves. The world just below Full Member sides is cut-throat.

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When they came to the ground, the Malayalee captain, CP Rizwan, saw the pitch and decided in consultation with the Trinidadian/Indian coach, Robin Singh, that they would play an extra spinner, and told Waseem he might be called upon to bowl an over or two.Now domestic T20 cricket in the UAE doesn’t qualify as official T20 cricket. So it is easy to miss that Waseem bowls a bit in T20s. Not just bowl, he bowls at the death. He makes sure he does because he is the captain of his club side. Recently in D10 cricket, he defended eight runs in the final over. Sometimes he bowls 14, 16, 18, 20. And he is playing, as he says, every second-third day.Muhammad Waseem gets a hug from his captain•AFP/Getty ImagesIn the UAE team, though, the bowling is, in his words, “very good”, so he isn’t required to bowl. Now that he was bowling, he had to do so to the ultimate pro, Wiese, who knew UAE would need two overs from somewhere and was quite excited at the idea of playing spin. He can pounce on any error in length. Waseem missed his on the fifth, and got clubbed. This was, to borrow from the ICC’s punch line, big time.With the sixth ball, Wiese perhaps fell to the temptation of the short square boundaries and turned the bat face. Waseem settled under the massive top edge, but the ball caught him on the fingers. Waseem was good enough to recover and fire a quick throw that would have caught Wiese short had the keeper gone back to the wicket.”I was very upset because I hardly drop catches,” Waseem said. “It is very rare that I drop one. When I did drop him – I was under it, had judged it, but it caught the fingers instead of the palm – I thought it was a big mistake, but the way Zahoor bowled that 19th over, I got my confidence back.”It was Zahoor Khan, born in Faisalabad, about 200km north of Mian Chunnu where Waseem started his cricket, who kept the game alive with his yorkers and one bewitching slower ball. He has been fantastic throughout at the death in this World Cup. His 19th over – three runs and a wicket – against Netherlands created something out of nothing. In the 20th against Sri Lanka, he conceded three runs and took two wickets.Zahoor gave Waseem a second wind. He was confident again. “The good thing is, being a death-overs bowler, I get yorkers right,” Waseem said. “And the plan was to bowl yorkers so that even if I miss the length, they have to hit down the ground, which is a big hit. I wanted to avoid being hit square. The idea was to get hit straight down the ground if I did, and that’s what happened with Wiese’s wicket.”Wiese, who had been waiting to target the two overs from spinners, was spot on when he said he was expecting some error from the part-time bowler. “We weren’t really expecting him to come on but when he came on – at the end of the day he is a part-timer – so you would expect him to miss one or two but he bowled well tonight,” Wiese said. “He executed his skill and at the end of the day, we just didn’t have enough in us. Fair play to them, well bowled.”

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The night ended in tears for Wiese. At the press conference, he sat stone-faced, staring at nothing in particular. He vowed to come back for Namibia in the 2024 T20 World Cup. Rizwan was a relieved man, having got that elusive first win. “I’m feeling really happy,” Rizwan said. “First win for UAE in a [T20] World Cup. Indeed, it’s a proud moment. Really, we can now fly back better.” Just another bittersweet final day of the first round of a T20 World Cup.

The former England captain is looking forward to seeing how Bazball goes in Pakistan

Aadam Patel26-Nov-2022It took nine games for a side to successfully chase down a target in the sixth season of the Abu Dhabi T10 and it came as no surprise to see Eoin Morgan there at the end as New York Strikers beat the reigning champions Deccan Gladiators by eight wickets.Morgan may be past his prime and in the closing stages of his career but he rolled back the years to finish off the job at the Sheikh Zayed Stadium. The former England captain came in after Josh Little dismissed Andre Fletcher in the first over and navigated his side to their second win in three matches, with an unbeaten 42 off 23 deliveries.It was a game that was in the balance until Morgan and Azam Khan took Odean Smith for 19 runs in the penultimate over, leaving the Strikers needing just six off the last over. And despite Little taking the game to the last delivery, Azam flicked the final ball away to get the single and seal victory for the Strikers.”I think conditions have been different to previous years,” Morgan said. “The couple of games that we’ve played before this have probably had a bit more bounce in the pitch and a bit more pace which is great for the game but it’s just a case of adapting. Today, the wicket was a little bit slower as it was a day game so I think it’s just taken a few days to adjust.For Morgan, after some time working for Sky Sports over the T20 World Cup, he admitted that it has been nice to get back out in the middle over the past week.”Yeah, I still love playing the game,” he said. “It’s obviously a completely different challenge to international cricket. The level of expectation just isn’t there anymore. I’m here to enjoy myself.”That is pretty much where Morgan is at after calling it a day from international cricket in June and it remains to be seen whether he will enter the IPL auction after going unsold last year, but the Abu Dhabi T10 is benefitting from his services in what is now his fifth season playing the competition.”I’m a huge fan of T10, I thoroughly enjoy coming,” Morgan said. “It’s just a fun tournament to play in and all the overseas players like coming here. Abu Dhabi is a fantastic place to play and tour. The one thing that playing in T10 does is that is exposes everything that is exposed in certain periods during a T20 game so when you look at powerplay and death bowling – the two biggest moments in T20 cricket. You have them in abundance in T10.”The Abu Dhabi Cricket & Sports Hub has seen an influx of England players over the past week with the Test squad and the touring Lions party in town. Around 60 of England’s male cricketers have been enjoying the facilities and after seeing the red-ball set-up thrive in recent times under the leadership of his close friend Brendon McCullum, Morgan admitted his enjoyment but also his sense of regret.”I still look at them and I’m very much jealous of the way that they’re playing and the attitude they take into the game. It’s a completely free-spirited attitude that epitomises what Brendon and Stokesy are about,” Morgan said. “Over the years, we’ve tried playing defensively and traditionally and tried to bat for long and that hasn’t worked so he’s taken the initiative to change things that suit the personnel that he’s bringing in and hopefully the success continues in the long-run. It certainly has short-term.”And with England embarking on their first tour to Pakistan in 17 years, the World-Cup winning captain shared his excitement at seeing how Bazball goes in Pakistan.”Yeah, definitely [it’s exciting],” Morgan said. “We experienced it when we first started our shift in 50-over cricket and it’s actually more interesting to see how the opposition react and how they change because it has the power to make the opposition really think In Test cricket, you usually have a plan A and you stick with that for as long as you can. But against this England team, you need a lot more than just a plan A.”

Once a net bowler with CSK, Varun has worked on – and added to – his variations to become KKR’s spin frontman at IPL 2023

Deivarayan Muthu15-May-20233:26

Nayar: Varun has better clarity on how to target each batter

In 2018, Varun Chakravarthy had his first taste of the IPL as a net bowler at Chennai Super Kings in Chepauk. Varun was only playing fourth-division cricket in Chennai then, but there was something about him. He turned the ball both ways at high pace and troubled almost all the CSK batters, including MS Dhoni, at the nets.Five years on, in his first IPL game against CSK at Chepauk, Kolkata Knight Riders’ Varun out-spun CSK’s spinners and kept KKR in contention for the playoffs. When Varun bowled at the CSK nets, his stock ball was the googly and he would mix it up with sliders and carrom balls. He now has his legbreak to turn sharply and has become a more versatile spinner.According to ESPNcricinfo’s logs, the legbreak has been responsible for nine of his 19 wickets this season. After a rough IPL 2022, where he managed just six wickets in 11 games and was benched, Varun spent a lot of time nailing the legbreak with Abhishek Nayar, the KKR assistant coach, at the franchise’s academy as well as with AC Prathiban, the former Tamil Nadu offspinner, who had also worked with Varun at Madurai Panthers in the Tamil Nadu Premier League.Related

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In the past, Varun used to bowl legbreaks with a cross-seam or a scrambled-seam. In IPL 2023, he has got his legbreaks to turn more by bowling with an upright seam and giving more revs on the ball. The legbreak, which he bowls from the back of the hand like Rashid Khan, has made his other variations even more potent.With the Chepauk pitch gripping from the get-go, Nitish Rana handed the new-ish ball to Varun. The spinner’s first ball was a googly, which Ruturaj Gaikwad seemingly picked and swept for four. Two balls later, Varun tossed a legbreak up, which broke away from Gaikwad, drawing a thick outside edge to short third.Varun returned to the attack after the powerplay and challenged Devon Conway with bounce. He pinged Conway’s pad with a topspinner that went straight on, but extra bounce meant the ball was going over the stumps. Ajinkya Rahane then charged at Varun, looking for a straight six, but Varun dragged a legbreak away from his reach and had him sending a catch to long-off.The two strikes set CSK up for a boundary-less sequence of almost seven overs.”Yes, I’ve been working on my legspin this season, so hopefully it’s going well,” Varun said after the game. “Last season, I used to bowl cross-seam legspin, but it was not gripping that much, so I thought of mixing up the seam one and cross-seam one. So it’s definitely creating more doubt for the batsman.”He conceded 15 off his last over, the 18th of CSK’s innings, but it was still a decent over. He even dipped into his offbreaks, but Shivam Dube, CSK’s designated spin hitter, dared to mow him against the turn over midwicket for six.

“It still hurts us, that. He tortured [CSK’s batters] in the nets for a number of years, but with the auction and the way it is, we couldn’t retain him”Stephen Fleming

Varun’s growth from a net bowler at CSK to one of the mainstays of KKR’s attack has left Stephen Fleming impressed as well.”It still hurts us, that [missing out on Varun]. He tortured [CSK’s batters] in the nets for a number of years, but with the auction and the way it is, we couldn’t retain him,” the CSK head coach said. “And the thing is with the Tamil Nadu players all around the different teams, they knew about him as well and we were unable to keep him a secret. But we were very excited by him as a talent when he bowled against us in the nets and he went for a big price that first year.”He went off a little bit and now he has come back. He had some injuries and now he looks fit. He bowled very well today and he’s a weapon. When you have [Sunil] Narine and him operating, they’re a very potent combo in the right conditions. Probably at Kolkata, they don’t get the most favourable conditions to bowl on, so coming to conditions like this, they excel.”With Narine having his leanest full IPL season yet, in terms of both wickets and economy rate, Varun has fronted up to do the job that Narine used to do – bowl the difficult overs. Varun’s economy rate of 8.82 between overs 16 and 20 is the second best among spinners, behind Yuzvendra Chahal, and fourth best overall this IPL among bowlers who have bowled at least 50 balls during this phase. In the powerplay, only six spinners have bowled at least 50 balls this season and among them, Varun is the highest wicket-taker, with five.Nayar put Varun’s success down to his hard work at the KKR academy during the off-season and in the lead-up to the IPL season.Varun has bowled the tough overs this season and bowled them well•BCCI”After last season, we discussed quite a bit on what we thought went wrong and also I think when you play season after season, teams tend to target you differently,” Nayar said at the press conference. “One of things we tried to do throughout the off-season and throughout the season was to understand the challenges we were going to face. There is a stark difference in terms of how he’s using his deliveries – using the one that goes away [legbreak] a lot more than he was doing last year.”So, a lot of work went in not just technically and tactically but also understanding his mindset in terms of understanding how individuals are going to target him. I think last year when he didn’t have a great season, the ways in which every team was targeting him and certain areas where they constantly hit him. I think once we analysed and understood that, we obviously spoke about getting revs on the ball and getting more bounce and speed off the pitch… but also understanding which areas teams are going to target him.”We played at Eden Gardens, a smaller ground, where it is tougher for a bowler, and last time we were in Mumbai. Yes, he has been challenged, but a lot of hard work he has put in at the [KKR] academy over the whole season and not just prior to the IPL season. That has helped him in his preparation and in terms of clarity how he’s going to target each batsman or how he’s going to be targeted by each batsman.”When CSK had started their pre-game warm-ups, the Chepauk DJ was belting out plenty of songs of popular Tamil actor Vijay to rouse the crowd. It must’ve been a strange feeling for Varun, who is a huge fan of Vijay and who was the only Chennai boy in the two XIs on Sunday.After Varun’s mid-innings interview, the DJ played out Vijay’s from the movie . It probably wasn’t intended for Varun, but it was indeed another top spell from him.

“You just want to shake the people that are saying they need to get rid of it… it just winds me up”

Matt Roller24-Aug-2023Back in March, Kate Cross was on a pre-season tour to Mumbai with the Thunder watching the inaugural women’s Hundred draft. Since the end of the previous season, she had been plotting Manchester Originals’ strategy with their coach Stephen Parry, working out how best to recruit a team that would take them to the play-offs.Teams were only allowed to retain four players before the draft, but Originals thought they had gamed the system. They kept hold of Sophie Ecclestone, Deandra Dottin, Emma Lamb and Ellie Threlkeld; after signing Laura Wolvaardt with their top draft pick, they would then use their Right-to-Match (RTM) card if anyone tried to sign Cross in the second round.”We were sure that nobody would even think about signing me,” Cross recalls. “I was Manchester captain, and we thought people would assume they would RTM me – which was the plan. I wasn’t anticipating going in that top bracket so I was just sat there chatting to Alex Hartley in our room – and then my name popped up in purple.”Northern Superchargers, Originals’ Leeds-based rivals, had signed her as a top-bracket, £31,250 pick. With Wolvaardt and Ecclestone already drafted at that salary, Originals were powerless to prevent it. Cross, a proud Mancunian, didn’t know how to react; her Thunder team-mates welcomed her onto the bus the following morning by chanting: “Yorkshire! Yorkshire!”Related

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Five months down the line, Cross’ accidental move across the Pennines could hardly have worked out better. While Originals missed out on the play-offs for the third successive season, Superchargers won six of their eight group games and will play in Saturday’s eliminator at The Oval.She has twice turned out against Originals, with the Hundred structured so that designated ‘rivals’ play each other twice. “It wasn’t horrendously weird, but you see all your team-mates as opposition for the first time: I was suddenly bowling at Emma Lamb and thinking, how am I going to get her out?”Superchargers’ opponents on Saturday are Welsh Fire, meaning Cross will come up against Hartley, her best friend and podcast co-host who is retiring from professional cricket at the end of the competition: “If we win, I’ll have been there for my best friend’s final game; if they beat us, I’ll get to see her play at Lord’s in a final.”Having covered the tournament extensively as a broadcaster as well as playing in it, Cross has seen more of the Hundred first-hand than almost anyone. She believes it has been “absolutely incredible” for both the profile and the standard of women’s cricket, and is baffled by continued speculation about the tournament’s future.”I don’t understand it,” Cross says. “I don’t know where that speculation is coming from: it doesn’t seem to be the ECB and Sky certainly don’t know anything about it, and they’ve obviously paid the broadcast bill for it. From my point of view, it’s just carried on gaining the momentum that has been building over the last year.”The crowds have grown and the standard of cricket has been better: the boundaries have been pushed out further but the average score has still managed to go up. From my point of view, it doesn’t really matter what the format is, as long as you’ve got that element of the men and the women playing at the same grounds, on the same pitches.”It has done so, so much for the women’s game. That’s what winds me up the most about people who don’t buy into it. If you actually speak to people that are in the ground, so many people say what a great day out they’ve had but I don’t think that gets reported on. The people who don’t go to the games and don’t like it seem to have a louder opinion than actually the people that are there.”Cross signs autographs for young Superchargers fans at Headingley•ECB/Getty ImagesThe most familiar argument against the Hundred is that it has relegated men’s county cricket to secondary status during August. “That’s standard, isn’t it?” Cross says. “The first thought in everyone’s brain is, ‘what does it do to men’s cricket?’ When actually, what it’s done for women’s cricket has been incredible. It’s getting players prepared to play on the big stage.”I don’t understand why anyone would think about getting rid of that. You just want to shake the people that are saying they need to get rid of it… it just winds me up. Some people obviously have their frustrations with it, but from my point of view, it’s been great.”The tournament has also given Cross the opportunity to prove herself in short-form cricket. Four years after her most recent T20I cap for England, she is part of their squad to play Sri Lanka immediately after the Hundred and says she “started to pick up a bit of rhythm” at the end of the group stages.”I’ve not played a T20 for England since 2019 but I feel like I’ve been really close. I’ve not bowled as well as I could this summer – even through the Ashes, I didn’t feel I was at my best – but in the last couple of games for the Chargers, I’ve felt a lot more threatening; back to where I was a year ago.”That should bode well for Superchargers on Saturday, as they look to set up a final against Southern Brave at Lord’s 24 hours later. “We’ve been pretty clinical,” Cross says, “and a Lord’s final would be pretty cool, wouldn’t it?”

From Pakistan and Sri Lanka splitting hosting duties to breaking down all six participating teams, we discuss everything about the tournament

ESPNcricinfo staff29-Aug-2023In the latest episode of Stump Mic, Danyal Rasool joins Kaustubh Kumar and Vishal Dikshit to discuss everything about the 2023 Asia Cup – from Pakistan and Sri Lanka splitting hosting duties to breaking down all six participating teams.