Who would make it to your all-time Chennai Super Kings XI?
ESPNcricinfo staff25-Apr-2020Wouldn’t it be fun to pick an all-time Chennai Super Kings’ XI, based on player stats for the franchise? We’ve picked ours, now it’s your turn to participate in choosing the readers’ XI.
The answer lies in whether the format even needs the sort of role he plays in the batting order
Karthik Krishnaswamy11-Sep-2020Come to Think of itIn a week when his place in England’s T20I line-up has come under intense debate, Dawid Malan has become the world’s top-ranked batsman in the format. It shouldn’t make sense but it does, sort of, encapsulating the contradiction between two views of T20 batting.Proponents of the first view (who presumably include the designers of the ICC’s rankings system) would point to Malan’s basic numbers – the third-highest international average among batsmen with at least 500 runs, and a strike rate of 146.66 – and suggest that he scores runs both quickly and consistently. Why, they would ask, is this even a debate?The dissenters would reply: look at he builds his innings, and point to his strike rates over his first five, ten, 15, and 20 balls. He starts too slowly, they would say.Getting your eye in before accelerating is a tried and tested way of building an ODI innings. Scoring slowly over 20 balls isn’t that big a deal since 20 balls only make up 6.67% of a batting team’s total quota of deliveries in an ODI.
No one with any understanding of T20 would suggest Kohli is twice as good as Russell. But does Kohli even belong on the same level as Russell or AB de Villiers or Kieron Pollard?
In T20, 20 balls make up a sixth of a team’s innings. To proponents of the second view, those 20 balls would be better utilised by a more explosive batsman. Malan – or someone in his mould – might catch up later, but later might not happen at all, given the increased risk of dismissal inherent to the format. Even if that batsman does catch up, will it be enough to make up for that slow start?It’s the risk built into the role of the T20 anchor, and given the distribution of resources in a T20 innings – ten wickets over 20 overs – it’s valid to ask if teams need one at all, even if that anchor is the best who has ever anchored.You’ve seen the headline, you know where this is going.ALSO READ: Who are the greatest T20 players of them all?It isn’t just the armchair fan who believes Virat Kohli is a great T20 batsman. Former players say it all the time too, and pick him in their all-time XIs. He’s spent large swathes of his career at or near the top of the ICC T20I rankings, and he’s the highest paid player in the most lucrative franchise tournament in the world. His IPL earnings are particularly notable since the tournament enforces a spending cap, giving each team a purse of Rs 85 crore (approximately US$11.5 million) to assemble their entire playing squad. The Royal Challengers Bangalore spent a fifth of their purse at this year’s auction just to retain Kohli’s services. Oh, and he earns twice as much as Andre Russell does at the Kolkata Knight Riders.Is Kohli good?No one with any understanding of T20 would suggest Kohli is twice as good as Russell, so that isn’t the debate here. But does Kohli even belong on the same level as Russell or AB de Villiers or Kieron Pollard or Jos Buttler or peak Chris Gayle?To those who believe in the value of the anchor, the answer would probably be yes. As in Malan’s case, but over a larger sample size, the basic numbers are elite. If a career strike rate in the 130s doesn’t look too flash, look at his numbers since the start of 2016.
But, as with Malan, Kohli is a slow starter. The graphic below charts how T20’s top run getters (minimum 3000 runs) since the start of 2016 have gone about building their innings. You’re doing pretty well to be among the light-blue dots (overall strike rate in the 140-150 range), but Kohli sits at the extreme left of that band, with a strike rate of 130.92 over his first 30 balls.
Let’s split this by innings. The way batsmen approach chases is usually dictated by the target in front of them, and you could argue that Kohli’s place in the chart below is influenced by the fact that he has had to chase 179 or less (below nine an over) in 29 of his 45 chases in this period, and 159 or less (below eight an over) in 19 of them.
Runs made while batting first (minimum 1500 since the start of 2016) present a clearer picture of a batsman’s natural approach. Kohli’s strike rate undergoes a stark jump here, from 129.90 at the 30-ball mark to an eventual figure of 144.77. The batting-first graph, in general, shows more batsmen diverting sharply from the trend line. Malan makes the biggest jump in strike rate (from 118.90 at the 30-ball mark to 138.54 overall) followed by Kohli (from 129.90 to 144.77).
Kohli, in fact, ends up with a better strike rate than Buttler (142.69), but the latter has a 30-ball strike rate of 142.30.The 30-ball strike rate is an important number because 30 balls make up a quarter of a T20 innings. While batting first, a Buttler innings that lasts 30 balls would bring his team roughly 43 runs on average. A Kohli innings of 30 balls would bring his team 39 runs. Malan scores 36 off his first 30 balls, typically, and Russell, who has a 30-ball strike rate of 166.90, scores 50.Kohli, of course, begins his innings with the expectation of spending more time at the crease than a late-overs hitter like Russell would. This is why early on he plays fewer shots that would be construed as risky in the longer formats. But how often does he get past the 30-ball mark?Kohli is without equal when it comes to getting past the 30-ball mark in chases, doing so in nearly 58% of his innings. Of the 22 other batsmen who have made at least 1500 runs while chasing since the start of 2016, KL Rahul is a distant second at 43.59%. You can ask whether Kohli could score significantly quicker if he batted with less certainty, and whether scoring quicker would be more beneficial to his teams, but you can’t doubt his efficiency in executing his game plan.
While batting first, however, Kohli only gets past the 30-ball mark around 39% of the time, not significantly more frequently than de Villiers or Aaron Finch, who score significantly more quickly in those first 30 balls.
When Kohli does stay in, however, the payoff can be spectacular. In all T20 cricket since the start of 2016, 20 batsmen have scored at least 500 runs in the death overs (16-20) while batting first. It’s worth reproducing the entire list here, because it paints the full picture of how quickly Kohli scores at the death – quicker than Russell, Pollard, Hardik Pandya, MS Dhoni.
Kohli, of course, is almost always well set if he’s at the crease at the start of the 16th over, whereas most of the others on that list usually begin their innings around that point. But Kohli, unlike most T20 batsmen of his kind, has that extra gear. You might watch Ajinkya Rahane – a similarly slow starter – and occasionally wonder why T20 teams never retire batsmen out. You wouldn’t do that with Kohli.But as much of an outlier as Kohli may be among the larger group of anchors in T20, he remains an anchor, and the value of that role remains up for debate.If India have a weirdly skewed T20I record since the start of 2016 – they have 29 wins and seven losses while chasing, and 23-13 while batting first – it probably has something to do with the fact that they often play three anchors (Rohit Sharma, Shikhar Dhawan and Kohli) at the top of their order, and that their quicker starters (Rahul, Rishabh Pant) have either been shunted up and down the order or in and out of the side, or have not had the chance to bat often enough – Pandya has only batted 25 times in 40 T20Is.ALSO READ: How do the 2020 IPL captains stack up?In the wider philosophical debate over the role of the anchor, India currently sit in opposition to England, who have no place for Joe Root in T20Is, and will probably have no place for Malan when Jason Roy and Ben Stokes return to the side.Over its history, football has gradually moved towards a universalisation of skills, and teams at the elite level of the sport now seldom have room for defenders with a limited passing range, goalkeepers who are pure shot-stoppers – recall Joe Hart’s experience when Pep Guardiola took over at Manchester City – or forwards with a poor defensive work rate.Test cricket rewards specialist skills, but batting in T20 is probably destined to evolve towards universalisation. The vast majority of cricketers currently play at least two of its three formats, but the experience of West Indian players – for whom the politics and economics of the sport opened up a wider schism between T20 and the other formats – has given us a glimpse into the future. The likes of Gayle, Evin Lewis, Nicholas Pooran, Pollard, Russell and Dwayne Bravo either only play T20 or only white-ball cricket, and train year-round to be elite T20 hitters. West Indies’ line-up at the World T20 in 2016 had room for one anchor – Marlon Samuels – but there’s unlikely to be room for any such when they line up to defend their title next year.Elite teams of the future are likelier to conform to the model followed by West Indies and England, with more players specialising in one format or another, and a greater universalisation of roles among the T20 specialists. The best teams already have fairly fluid batting orders, with batsmen sent out to target specific opposition bowlers, but they will only grow more fluid with less room for an anchor.The likes of Kohli, Babar Azam and Kane Williamson are top-rung Test batsmen, and their only T20-specific training takes place around major T20 events. They can only be so good at T20, and becoming better at it will probably take something away from their longer-format game; the Test-match skills of Kohli, Azam or Williamson, you’d agree, are far too precious to lose. And so, given all the restrictions placed on him by his circumstances and priorities, Kohli is absurdly good at the specific role he plays in T20 cricket. But is he one of the world’s best in the format? Probably not, and in years to come, perhaps we’ll view him as the best of a dying breed.Come to Think of it
Australia’s No. 3 has had generous slices of luck, but also worked his way through difficult periods
Daniel Brettig15-Jan-2021For a few tantalising milliseconds in the early afternoon, Australia stared another extremely low first-innings tally squarely in the face. Navdeep Saini had found a spot on a parched Gabba pitch to have the ball kick up at Marnus Labuschagne, and the reflexive miscue off the shoulder of the bat sailed fairly gently to the left of Ajinkya Rahane’s trusty hands at gully.No score had been added since Steven Smith flicked Washington Sundar straight to short midwicket, after neither David Warner nor Marcus Harris were able to deal with a modicum of early movement for the new ball in the hands of Mohammed Siraj and Shardul Thakur.Marnus Labuschagne enjoyed the need to make plans more spontaneously against a less familiar attack•Cricket Australia via Getty ImagesRahane, perhaps, had time to start thinking beyond the ball travelling towards him, to the triumphant scenes of a Test match and series win despite a surfeit of injuries and absences. Labuschagne certainly had time to think he was gone for 37, only to watch transfixed as the ball burst through Rahane, the captain leaving his hands stretched out in shock at the chance he had missed. The moment was compounded by the realisation that Saini, in bowling that very delivery, had suffered a groin strain.Having already lost so many more seasoned bowlers, India were physically down for the count, but Australia for a time seemed incapable of finding someone with the mental reserves to stay in the middle long enough to take advantage.Fortunately for the captain Tim Paine and coach Justin Langer, they have for the most part been able to rely upon Labuschagne to do that kind of hard, top-three batting, to the point that in reaching his fifth Test century and first since last summer’s starburst of runs against Pakistan and New Zealand, he was able to tally up 400 runs for the series. No-one else on either side has managed more than Smith’s 258.Labuschagne has, of course, benefited from a good deal of fortune, dropped four or five times over the four Tests, depending on whether or not you consider a low edge on 48 grassed or half-volleyed by Cheteshwar Pujara. But he has also been able to work his way through multiple difficult periods against an Indian side that, for all their injury woes, has remained disciplined and well planned throughout.
“It was a matter of discipline early on, especially in that first session and a half, making sure you get yourself in, you get the pace of the wicket so that you can really cash in when the bowlers are a little bit tired and they’re a bit cooked”Marnus Labuschagne
They have been much too good for a half-fit Warner, again unable to stretch his groin enough to cover the movement on offer for Siraj in the first over of the match. They quickly found the measure of Harris, showcasing a more side-on technique than he had displayed against India, Sri Lanka and England in 2018-19 but unable to counter the swinging ball that he flicked all too casually into the hands of the man just forward of square leg.As for Matthew Wade, who helped Labuschagne add a priceless 113 but then skied a pull shot just as he looked to be fashioning the sort of score he needed to remain assured of his place, the inability to maintain concentration or avoid unsightly dismissals has been a problem in every Test, whether he has been batting at the top or in the middle order. As much as minds are frayed by the usual rigours of a Test series plus the added constraints of biosecurity, Wade has been unable to match his prolific first-class record in the international cauldron.Related
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“All the batters are going to make their own assessment of how they got out,” Labuschagne said. “They’re all international players and you know everyone gets judged harshly, but you’re your harshest critic, and everyone will look at their dismissals for what they could have done better or could have done. I’m definitely disappointed not going on and getting a really big score, which would have put us in a better position as a team.”Currently the physical, the mental and just trying to make sure you’re staying on, it doesn’t matter who’s bowling at you, making sure you have 100% concentration. In Brisbane, it gets very hot and humid so you know if you keep the bowlers out there that it’s really tough to keep backing up. It’s definitely a mental challenge at this time in the series and with the way things are.”It was a matter of discipline early on, especially in that first session and a half, making sure you get yourself in, you get the pace of the wicket so that you can really cash in when the bowlers are a little bit tired and they’re a bit cooked.”Mohammed Siraj goes full stretch but can’t stop Marnus Labuschagne’s drive•Getty ImagesThe pace duels Labuschagne experienced with Siraj, Thakur, Saini and T Natarajan saw Australia’s No. 3 take advantage of anything over-pitched and several short balls, while he was also able to score more freely against Sundar than anyone else in the top six. As a compulsive tinkerer and planner, Labuschagne enjoyed the need to make plans more spontaneously against a less familiar attack, and also on a Brisbane pitch quite unlike any he has seen before.”Definitely today I had to formulate some plans on the run and keep understanding the situation of what they were doing and I think that’s the part of the game that is really enjoyable, you’ve got to read the situation out there,” he said. “You can look at stuff on a screen and see guys bowl, but only you know out there with the feel of how you can do things and what you can do differently to make life easier out there.”I did feel like on 37 the ball did sort of hold in the wicket and kick up a little bit. I do feel like the wicket is considerably drier than it would be normally. I think those things could add some value, especially as we go into day two, three, four, five to the back end. I haven’t seen a Gabba wicket that’s really up and down, but it showed some signs today of a bit of dryness.”And while a final tally of 108 was not the big hundred Labuschagne had been seeking, before he too misread a short ball from the skiddy Natarajan, it was the vital platform Australia required, allowing Paine and Cameron Green to push on promisingly in a stand worth 61 by the close. Paine and Green, should they take fuller advantage of India’s tyros on day two, will have Labuschagne to thank for clearing the way.Rahane, meanwhile, may struggle to erase the image of that edge sailing towards him, well within reach of 87 for 4 and a very different tale to the one his miss allowed Labuschagne to write.
Being bowled out for 32 against Tasmania, along with IPL absences, heralded a new-look top order
Daniel Brettig14-Apr-2021One of the most famous sporting victories of recent history was the curse-breaking campaign of the 2016 Chicago Cubs to win the Major League baseball club’s first World Series in more than a century. It was built largely upon a formula of marrying up a young and dynamic batting and fielding line-up to a seasoned and powerful pitching roster: young hitters, old pitchers.That formula is not a million miles from the one that New South Wales will take into this week’s Sheffield Shield final. The success or otherwise of the approach will likely give pause to other states at a time when Australian cricket is looking ever more fervently for a fresh batting generation to replenish the huge gaps likely to be left by the likes of David Warner and Steven Smith in coming years.It was only a matter of weeks ago that Mark Taylor, the former Australian captain and longtime New South Wales and Cricket Australia board director, raised alarms about what he perceived to be a lack of batting talent coming through in the nation’s most populous state. “It would mean our Test side just won’t be as good, there’s no doubt about that,” Taylor told the . “The way the numbers in Australia stack up, it’s the responsibility of the two big states to produce their share. If they don’t, chances are Australian cricket will struggle.”Based on the look of the batting order selected for a humiliating Shield defeat to Tasmania, in which the Blues were shot out for 32, Taylor might have had some valid queries: of the top seven, only the recently recalled Jason Sangha was under the age of 25, and none of Daniel Hughes (32), Nick Larkin (30), Daniel Solway (25) or captain Peter Nevill (35) were anywhere near Australian calculations. Of the group, only Kurtis Patterson could realistically have ambitions for the Test team, and faint ones at that based on recent returns.Related
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Taylor’s assertions were met with an unusual level of umbrage from within the state system, not so much for what he had observed at Shield level but for what has been steadily bubbling underneath. There is a wellspring of batting promise among young cricketers in New South Wales, the counter-argument went, they just haven’t been picked yet.Perhaps, then, the Tasmanian humiliation and Taylor’s response were necessary evils for the Blues. As much as Larkin and Solway had earned their chances through steady accumulation at grade level, they also struggled to become consistently high scorers for their state, something that Hughes had at least managed to achieve. At the same time, Nevill’s decision to withdraw from the remainder of the Shield to be present for the birth of his first child, and Moises Henriques’ IPL deal, created additional spots for youth.
The young Blues batters will take the field in the knowledge that the bowling attack alongside them, likely to feature Mitchell Starc, Josh Hazlewood, Nathan Lyon, Trent Copeland and Sean Abbott, is extremely well versed at pressuring opponents with the benefit of runs on the board
The New South Wales selectors had already shown some degree of interest in the future arc of the national team by elevating Pat Cummins to the domestic limited-overs captaincy ahead of Smith. It was a call effectively indicating their preference for who they would like to see named national captain whenever the time comes for Tim Paine to surrender his post – most likely after next summer’s Ashes series, as commentary roles and the release of a memoir await him.At the same time, the Tasmania defeat forced a pivot to a far more less experienced batting line-up for the final Shield game against Queensland with a place in the final still to secure. Out went Larkin, Solway and Nevill; in came Matthew Gilkes, Jack Edwards, Lachlan Hearne and Baxter Holt as wicketkeeper. Of this group, Edwards (to turn 21 on the final day of the final) has already been heavily invested in, while Hearne (20) and Holt (21) have been growing ever more impatient for chances to show their wares.In Wollongong, Gilkes, Edwards, Hearne and Holt all showed signs of promise, while Sangha responded to greater seniority in the line-up by composing arguably the best century of his young career. The Blues might still have faded to defeat at the hands of Mitchell Swepson if not for a rain-ruined final day of the game, but they at least go into the competition decider with a few more first-innings runs behind them against essentially the same bowling attack they must face again.The new breed: Jack Edwards, Lachlan Hearne, Jason Sangha•Getty ImagesIn between Shield games, of course, 20-year-old Edwards sculpted a century of his own on the domestic limited-overs final at Bankstown to guide the Blues to a 12th one-day title, and will now hope to emulate the feat in the long-form final. The young Blues batters will take the field in the knowledge that the bowling attack alongside them, likely to feature Mitchell Starc, Josh Hazlewood, Nathan Lyon, Trent Copeland and Sean Abbott, is extremely well versed at pressuring opponents with the benefit of runs on the board.Queensland have much the more travelled batting line-up of the two sides, featuring no less than four Test players in Joe Burns, Marnus Labuschagne, Matt Renshaw and the captain Usman Khawaja. But it is the performances of young bats in Shield finals that the selectors will be looking most keenly for – think of Justin Langer in 1992, Michael Bevan in 1994, Adam Gilchrist in 1996 or Andrew Symonds and Simon Katich in 1999, all preludes to substantial international careers.”We’ve got so much talent in our batting ranks, so pleasing to see Jack do what he did the other day, to see the way Matt Gilkes and Jason Sangha played the last Shield game against these guys,” Patterson said. “That’ll give them the world of confidence going into this game. It’s certainly on myself and Dan Hughes as the two older guys in the group to make sure we do our part and play our roles, but while those other guys are young, most of them have enough experience now and they’ve got a lot of confidence in their games.”So the balance of the New South Wales side for the Shield final might have been a case of circumstances as much as design, but it has at least provided the game’s decision-makers with some new talents to assess on the biggest stage short of a Test match. It has also followed, if loosely, the formula of those drought-breaking Chicago Cubs.
Cricket’s second favourite team has fought hard and come a long way to become world No.1
Jarrod Kimber24-Jun-20213:08
‘This team has more world-class players than any NZ team previously’
There is pride in being everyone’s second favourite team. A sense of playing the game in a way that neutral fans enjoy. But there is also a bigger truth there. Everyone chooses their number two team for a specific reason. Still, when it’s generally accepted that one side has that mantle, there are usually a few key reasons. They are seen as nice, safe and non-threatening. Even if they beat your main team, they won’t rub it in much, and over time you think you’ll still win more than them. Their victories are nice, their losses have honour, and it’s easy to relegate them to the friend zone because they are beige.In New Zealand’s case, even more literally.In 1930, New Zealand played their first-ever Test against England. At the exact same time in the Caribbean, the West Indies played a Test. Both teams were playing against England.For the longest time, New Zealand was cricket’s second team.
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According to the broadcast, New Zealand had a 27% chance of winning coming into the sixth and final day of this final. A chance, but not much more. But Kyle Jamieson changed that in a spell. Not even for the first time in this game, this man with the golden bowling average destroys the best batting line-up in the world.Related
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Jamieson is a 26-year-old player, who started as a batter, before changing into a bowler. So he had a late start by New Zealand standards into the international team. Yet he has embarrassed teams in his first eight Tests. He looks too good to be true. A tall, smart swing bowler who can hit sixes as well. A choose-your-own-cricketer kind of player.For generations, New Zealand allrounders were a bit like that quote on Bob Cunis, neither one thing nor the other. Jamieson is not like that.It’s not that he’s the best cricketer that they have produced. This is the country of Richard Hadlee. But as exceptional as Hadlee was, his raw talent came from New Zealand. A lot of the honing of it came from county cricket. Jamieson is 100% New Zealand Cricket.The natural talent with him is obvious, but Jamieson is a product of the New Zealand system. It took coaching to turn this young batter into a fast-bowling phenom. That perfect wrist had to be trained into him by skilled coaches. And it took a professional system to keep him around when he could have disappeared into everyday working life when he didn’t crack the national team early on.For the first time, New Zealand had a system worthy of the players they had always produced. Jamieson is a combination of hard work on and off the field.
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There is a story I found when John R. Reid died. It was written on some long-forgotten cricket forum or blog, and it was about Reid’s preparation for a tour to England when he was captain of New Zealand.Reid worked at a service station, and to warm-up before the tour, he asked for volunteers to come down and bowl to him in the local nets. One of those was a young boy, around 12, who tried his hardest to help Reid. The pitch they had on offer was concrete. Reid was going up against the great England cricketers in an era they dominated, with kids bowling to him on a concrete wicket.There is amateur, there is graft, but New Zealand weren’t playing the same sport as England at that point.And this amateur part haunted their cricket for a long time. Like when in 2002 their domestic cricketers went on strike, except it’s not really a strike if you don’t have a job. You saw that when the T20 era almost split their team in half. And you could see that in the 1970s when Glenn Turner left.Turner was a fierce professional playing for a happily amateur nation, and it would never last. He turned himself into an incredible player in county cricket and then would come back to the amateur world of New Zealand. And in 1977, Turner resigned as captain. He was 30, clearly in his prime as a batter, and he dominated county cricket.In total, Turner would make 103 first-class hundreds, seven for New Zealand. In all, he played in 41 Tests over a 14-year career.We focus on New Zealand’s small population a lot, but we don’t factor in how many players they have lost along the journey.Stewie Dempster played in 10 Tests for them, and he averaged over 65.To find a player as good as Dempster for a new Test team is incredible luck. But soon he was recruited by Sir Julien Cahn, an eccentric millionaire. The latter hired fantastic cricketers for his own personal cricket team, that he played in. Dempster moved to England, and when not playing for Cahn, he would have a stunning career for Leicestershire, scoring over 10,000 first-class runs. Less than 1000 were for his nation.If Dempster wasn’t the best New Zealand cricketer at that point, it was Clarrie Grimmett. The New Zealand born and bred legspinner took 216 wickets for Australia, many of which occurred after New Zealand were promoted to Test status.And it continued. Jack Cowie was an extraordinary bowler who New Zealand unleashed on an England tour in 1937, where he took 114 first-class wickets at an average of 20. He toured England again in 1949, and in total, he played seven Tests there. In his entire career, he played nine matches, as the war ate his best years up. In those nine Tests, he averaged 21.53. His first-class record was 359 wickets at 22.28.On that 1949 tour with Cowie was Martin Donnelly. Like Cowie, he made his debut in 1937 and played his last Test in 1949. He averaged 53 on those two tours of England in the Tests. And that was his career average, as he never played another Test. In 131 first-class matches, he averaged 47.Bert Sutcliffe and Jack Cowie, two of New Zealand’s greats•Getty ImagesOf the first four great Test players they produced, not one played more than ten matches combined, they totalled 26 Tests.And not having those players around really shows in the win column. That first Test was 1930 and their first win was 1956 when they beat West Indies in Auckland. Of their first 80 Tests, they won three. They lost twenty by an innings.Only one innings defeat was to Australia, in 1946. They didn’t make 100 runs in the match; they did not consider it a Test at the time, and Australia did not play New Zealand again for 10,136 days.In 1955, New Zealand went into the third innings 46 runs behind England. England won the match by an innings and 20 runs.This is what John R. Reid once said: “I told a lot of lies. We’d gather as a team, and naturally, I’d try to be as positive as possible… I’d try to encourage our fellows, to explain that everyone is human, that they all got nervous, had failures. But in the back of your mind there was this knowledge that, all things being equal, we were in for a rough time.”One thing was true of early New Zealand cricket, they lost their best players, and they lost.And yet, through the losses, something always shone through.There was a miniseries made in 2011 in New Zealand that heavily featured cricket called ‘Tangiwai’. It’s about how a train disaster clashed with a Test versus South Africa.In the disaster, 151 people lost their lives, including Nerissa Love, whose fiancee Bob Blair was in Johannesburg during the middle of a Test match. On one side of the world, New Zealanders were in hospitals because of the crash, on the other side, they had as many batters in hospital as the middle because Neil Adcock kept hitting them.Bert Sutcliffe left the ground to get medical treatment himself and, after losing consciousness twice, he made his way back to the ground to fight on for New Zealand.The image of Sutcliffe going back out to bat at Ellis Park looks more like a war photo than a cricket one. His head is covered in a bandage. There is a huge lump on the back of his neck. According to Richard Boock’s “[captain Geoff] Rabone and a couple of first-aid men raced into the middle to readjust the Kiwi’s bandages, which had been weeping blood during the exchanges. They eventually decided to tape a white towel around his head.”Had Sutcliffe been struck again, it’s possible he might have died. But instead, he struck back at South Africa. Taking on Adcock, destroying Hugh Tayfield and he took them past the follow on with a six. When the ninth wicket fell, Sutcliffe was left alone, and he and the South Africans started walking off the ground. No one believed New Zealand’s No. 11 would walk out.Let’s be clear, neither man should’ve been out there. The pitch was dangerous; one clearly had a concussion, the other couldn’t have been focusing correctly. But they did bat on, putting together 33 runs.New Zealand would end up 84 runs behind on the first innings, and they would lose by 132 runs. And yet here we are, still talking about it.
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There will be a long queue of people lining up to say this win doesn’t count. New Zealand barely play away from home. The final is in conditions that suit them. Had Covid not hit, they may not have qualified. Australia lost points for a slow over rate. The World Test Championship helps teams who play short series. India is a better team. They can’t beat Australia. South African players keep turning up to strengthen them. And then this final, they had a consequence-less two-Test series in English conditions to prepare. England even helpfully had three of their front-liners out.This couldn’t have been much different from their 1949 tour, where their batting was so weak, they almost chose an inexperienced player from Fiji, IL Bula, to strengthen their team. And their entire plan on that tour was to draw all four Tests, so they could prove to England that they were worth five-day Tests. They achieved their goal, and here we are.So if this championship felt lucky, flukey, or things went their way, then no team has ever deserved that more. They fought against better teams, professionals, and dynasties for generations, all while they were trying to survive as a cricket nation. They took 26 years to win a Test, and 39 to win a series. They had all the bad luck already.And outside a win in Kenya for a tournament we now know as the Champions Trophy, New Zealand’s greatest success was losing and then tying and losing two successive World Cup finals. In the 1980s they were a fantastic team, there were just others who were better.There has always been someone else winning; there has always been someone bigger. That is just the world they live in.Ross Taylor and Kane Williamson share a moment after making New Zealand World Test Champions•Getty ImagesBut look at who they had in the middle at the end, New Zealand’s greatest batter, Kane Williamson. There are a lot of cricket cultures in the world, but Williamson couldn’t have come from any place; his lineage is evident in all the intelligent calm leaders before him. A product of the professional environment, he is homegrown, homemade, and unquestionably great.And some of what I’ve been talking about will sound like ancient history. For many of you, New Zealand is just another team. But they aren’t, and they have never been. And facing that final ball was living proof. Ross Taylor made his first-class debut in the 2002-03 Plunkett Shield season. That was the year New Zealand domestic players went on strike. Taylor began his career as an amateur.Like Stewie Dempster, Hedley Howarth, Jeremy Coney, John Wright, Nathan Astle, Bob Cunis, Blair Pocock, Richard Collinge, Bert Sutcliffe, Chris Harris, The Hadlees, The Redmonds, and the Crowes. All of them. And because of what they achieved in so many losses, honourable draws and then incredible wins, players like Tim Southee, BJ Watling and Tom Latham could be in a World Test Final. This wasn’t a win of a single team; this was a win for a cricket culture that took generations to build.Like Taylor, this team went from amateur to professional, 26 years for a Test win, 39 years for a series victory, and 91 years to be champions.New Zealand aren’t amateurs anymore; they’re professionals. They might still be cricket’s second favourite team, but now they’re something more, number one.
India registered their eighth Test win in 2021, their joint second-most in a calendar year
Sampath Bandarupalli30-Dec-20213 Test defeats for South Africa at the SuperSport Park in Centurion, where they played 27 Test matches and won 21. Their previous two Test losses at this ground came against England in 2000 and against Australia in 2014.4 Number of Test wins for India in South Africa, including the latest victory in Centurion. Two of those wins came in Johannesburg, in 2006 and 2018, and the other in Durban in 2010.ESPNcricinfo Ltd3 Instances of South Africa being bowled out under 200 in both innings of a home Test since their readmission. The other two instances came in Johannesburg – against Australia in 2002 and India in 2018. Before this match, South Africa were never bundled out under 200 in a Test innings in Centurion.8 Test wins as captain for Virat Kohli against South Africa, the joint-most for any captain against them. Ricky Ponting also won eight (out of 12) Tests as captain against South Africa.ESPNcricinfo Ltd3 Consecutive wins for India in Boxing Day Tests, having defeated Australia in Melbourne in 2018 and 2020. India won only one of their 14 Boxing Day Tests before this streak – against South Africa in Durban in 2010.19.10 Bowling average of India in the Centurion Test. Only six times did the Indian bowlers take all 20 wickets in an away Test match at a lower average. The 783 balls they bowled in this match are also the fourth-fewest while taking all 20 wickets in an away Test.ESPNcricinfo Ltd8 Wins for India in Test cricket this year, the joint second-most they won in a calendar year. They also had eight wins in 2010. Their best is nine Test wins in 2016. Four wins this year came outside Asia, the joint-most for them in a calendar year, alongside the four wins in 2018.12 Instances of India bowling out the opponents under 200 runs in Test cricket this year. Only England – 13 times in 1978 – have bowled out opponents for less than 200 on more occasions in a calendar year.
Once, there was a future. Now, there is nothing. But still, “cricket can be a life for me”, she hopes
Firdose Moonda27-Apr-20227:07
Roya Samim: I play cricket because I know it’s my future
Roya Samim has finally represented Afghanistan in a cricket match.Virtually, that is.Her avatar, so to say, turned out in an Afghanistan shirt, with her name, a number and the Afghanistan flag on it, for an e-sports contest organised by Global eSports that was an act of protest against the fact that there is no real national Afghanistan women’s team. They played against Australia in a virtual women’s World Cup final, and lost, just like all the teams that played Australia in the actual tournament.But it was not about the result at all.Related
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“Anyone who played that game showed that they stand with us,” 28-year-old Samim told ESPNcricinfo from her home in Canada. “It’s like a candle-light protest, but instead of lighting a candle, it’s playing cricket. And it reminded people that we are here. We exist. I cannot play on the national ground but I played virtually, and when I see that, I am just proud of myself that ‘Yes, I was in the Afghanistan team’.”Samim became interested, and involved, in cricket as an adult, playing with her siblings despite the raised eyebrows of those in their community, who said “cricket is not for you [girls/women]”. Mostly, they played indoors in their home in Afghanistan, but found like-minded enthusiasts, and in 2019, began campaigning for a professional women’s cricket set-up. At the time, Samim was working as a mathematics teacher, but “hoped that cricket could become my career”.By November 2020, the Afghanistan Cricket Board (ACB) was convinced enough to roll out contracts for 25 women, with the plan that they would slowly progress to playing competitive fixtures.Though the board indicated it would take time to get a women’s team on the park, given the cultural and traditional norms in Afghanistan, Samim saw attitudes shifting around her.Roya Samim brushes up on her forward defensive•Roya Samim”There were people that accepted us, appreciated us, and said we can do it,” she said. “There were those who allowed their girls to go to the school, to go to cricket, and to go to other sports. It was becoming acceptable.”Spurred on by the pockets of support they got, the group of Afghan women trained as hard as they could. “We had professional coaches – the trainers for the international men’s team, they trained us too,” Samim recalled. “The ACB provided us with camps and three or four days of training in a week. We had two teams and we played against each other. We made ourselves professional.”We spent seven or eight hours a day on cricket. First, we’d go to the ACB headquarters, then we’d go to the [Victory Cricket] academy, then we’d go to the fitness clubs. We wanted to be professional and we developed a lot.”In that time, there was some talk of organising matches against Oman or Bangladesh but that never came to fruition. In fact, nothing did. “Not even six months of our contract was complete when the Taliban came and everything was destroyed.”The Taliban’s political takeover in Afghanistan began in May 2021, and escalated in August. In the space of a week, they claimed territory from Kunduz to Kabul and it was during that period that Samim decided she had to reconsider her options.”At the time, the Taliban had more than two provinces and the big city of Herat. We were just afraid. I went to my cricket manager and said, ‘If you know that cricket can go ahead and there will be peace, I will not leave’, to which she replied, ‘No, I cannot guarantee that, and the situation is not good for girls, so you should leave’. That’s when we left Kabul,” Samim said. “Three days afterwards, the Taliban took [over] Afghanistan. We were in a hotel and my team-mates called me and they cried.”Everything – any dream, any wishes, any hope that me and my team-mates had – was gone. It was such a bad situation. When I remember now, I just want to cry.”While many of Samim’s team-mates remained in Afghanistan, she made it to Canada with “only two pieces of clothing”. Her brother and two sisters joined her, but she had another brother in a different country. She has had to adjust to many things, not least the “completely different weather”, and has just been through a winter with “lots of ice and lots of snow” as well as the loss of both her cricketing and professional career.
“Women’s education is really important for any country. If you want to change the future, you have to have women’s education”Samim on how difficult it has been for women in Afghanistan
“It’s really hard to explain how my life is. In Afghanistan, I had a good career and I had other things. I had friends, and my team,” she said. “When people saw me, they were proud of me. Here, I had to start from zero. But I started because I feel that I am so strong, I can handle anything. I have some friends, I started playing cricket, I started working. I’ve got many friends. Everything is going normal. Well, I want to pretend it’s normal.”Samim has stopped teaching and is now a settlement worker who aims to help other refugees. She laments the loss of learning opportunities for women in Afghanistan but hopes to keep the conversation alive by speaking about it.”When I heard that the Taliban were not going to allow girls to go to school and I wasn’t in Afghanistan to stand against it, I just cried,” she said. “I can’t do anything. It’s so hard, because education – especially women’s education – is really important for any country. If you want to change the future, you have to have women’s education. It is really hard to see that we have completely lost our country. It’s really hard but we can’t do anything. I just raise my voice like this.”Similarly, she is also keeping her cricket ambitions burning and has found a place for it: Fredericton Cricket Club in New Brunswick. She hopes it will open doors for her to play elsewhere – including franchise leagues – and appeals to anyone who has an opportunity to provide it.”Any small chances that are given to us as cricket players, we will be happy,” she said. “Even a trial, if people want to give it to us, we are ready. I play cricket because I know that it’s my future. Sometime in the future maybe I will get into a national team. I am really working for this. I am really training hard. I have lost everything, so cricket can be a life for me.”Samim aims to play for another five to seven years before turning her attention to coaching. With so much invested in cricket, she does not want to see Afghanistan shunned from the world stage. She supports the men’s team in continuing to play rather than face any sanctions, and believes it brings joy to Afghans, wherever they might be.”I would like the men to continue to play. I don’t want the situation to have an effect on them. They are the only team that can bring some happiness in my country. It’s only cricket, not other sports [do that]. It’s good that they continue.”And she hopes one day she will be able to join them in real life in a match for Afghanistan.”To go home now is impossible because the Taliban don’t accept me and I don’t accept them. But if anything changes – for example, maybe they will allow girls to play cricket – [and] if there are matches, I should be there. It’s my country.”
“No one knows that for the last seven to eight months I have been working hard on my bowling”
Sidharth Monga29-Apr-2022You’d expect Sunil Narine to top economy charts in an IPL season eyes closed, but here is a surprise. Among those who have bowled a minimum of 10 overs this IPL, only Narine has a better economy than Krunal Pandya’s 6.18 per over.During Mumbai Indians’ glory days of 2019 and 2020, Krunal played virtually as the fifth specialist bowler with Kieron Pollard used as back-up should things go wrong. In the last year or so, his bowling has dipped, which led him to work hard on his skills for “seven to eight months”. The reward came in the form of his first Player-of-the-Match award in the IPL since 2017, as his spell of 2 for 11 in four overs – including a maiden over – led Lucknow Super Giants’ defence of just 153.Related
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The opposition, Punjab Kings, were a good match-up for Krunal: among the 10 teams this year, Kings have the worst run-rate and worst average against left-arm spin. However, Krunal has been impressive through the season, bowling in eight matches out of nine so far, and going for less than eight an over in six of them. In four of them, he has gone at a run a ball or better.”Throughout the tournament I have been bowling well,” Krunal told host broadcaster Star Sports. “No one knows that for the last seven to eight months I have been working hard on my bowling. Trying to get tall.”I just want to mention Rahul Sanghvi, who has been a big, big help for me. I had a chat with him seven-eight months back, and I told him I want to develop my skill. I felt I was always good with my mindset. I just felt if I could develop my skills, it would really help. The results everyone can see, but the effort has been there from the last eight months, trying to get better as a bowler, especially skill wise.”The one skill Krunal said he was missing was the ability to turn the ball. Bad habits had crept in unknown to him.”Because I am playing a lot of short-form games, you don’t realise what’s happening,” Krunal said. “So I didn’t realise I was getting too low and my stride was too long, and in the end I just had to fire the ball in. So I was just playing with the batsman’s mind. So I just realised if I get tall and if I impart more spin… I have always varied my pace but in that if I am able to impart spin or get the ball to grip [then] that would create a lot of doubt in the batters’ mind. Again had a word with Rahul Sanghvi. He was kind enough to help me.”Let Daniel Vettori, one of the greatest left-arm spinners to play the game, break it down for you. “He is one of the few spinners who can bowl at that pace and still impart topspin on it,” Vettori said on ESPNcricinfo’s post-match analysis show T20 Time Out. “Most spinners who bowl that quickly have to undercut the ball. And therefore all that is happening is that the ball is skidding on unless it is a really bad surface. What he is doing is he is challenging batsmen with that pace but also getting dip.”It’s not like batsmen can get down to him, it’s not like batsmen can go back to him. It is incredibly difficult to read the length. That’s why he is so successful against left-hand batters and right-hand batters because he has actually got something on the ball. It is a real skill, and it’s impressive to watch.”To his credit, Krunal also has the self-awareness to realise when the skill needed to get something on the ball has deserted him, and the willingness to work hard on it setting that right.
Extraction of Williamson for third time in series epitomises soft skills of hard competitor
Vithushan Ehantharajah25-Jun-2022Zaheer Khan, Hasan Ali – and now, Matthew Potts. It’s not a trio you would naturally throw together, even if they’d make a pretty tidy bowling attack. Beyond that, there is probably not too much in common given the age differences along with the era and environments they grew up in. The Beastie Boys, they are not.But on Saturday at Headingley, a thread that existed between Zaheer and Hasan was sewn unto Potts. For they are now the only three bowlers to have dismissed Kane Williamson three times in a Test series. Zaheer was in his 15th year in the format, while Hasan did so a year after making his debut in 2017. It’s taken Potts a matter of weeks.It’s no measure to rank them, by any means. Especially given that, when Zaheer made his India debut in 2000, Williamson was a 10-year-old, gently guiding balls behind the car and into the garage door. But it is a neat summation of how quickly Potts has felt at home at this level, to have stamped the New Zealand captain’s card in all but one of the four innings he’s had. Had Covid not intervened at Trent Bridge to rule out two more meetings, Potts might have earned enough points to be entitled to a free Kane Williamson.The set-up and punchline for this final battle was Potts in a nutshell. Four deliveries came from an almost identical release point at the crease, before he went wide while serving up a ball that behaved just like the others. Williamson, by now conditioned to a ball coming into him, approached this one exactly the same, offering a straight bat, but failed to register that it was a little wider, thus probably one to cut. He knew he was done as soon as contact was made, and arched back to look to the sky in despair as Jonny Bairstow took the catch with the gloves and Potts wheeled away.Having just lost Devon Conway, and with Williamson set on 48 after nearly three hours at the crease, it was an incision that tipped the afternoon England’s way, maybe even the match. New Zealand still lead by 137, with five wickets still to get.ESPNcricinfo LtdAs it stands, Potts is England’s leading wicket-taker for the series with 13 at an impressive average of 21.53. And although he started with a bang at Lord’s with four for 13, followed by three for 55 in the second innings, his work so far at Headingley might be his best showing yet.He was unfortunate to leave the first innings with just one wicket for 34 from his 26 overs, especially considering he’d twice got the better of New Zealand’s eventual centurion Daryl Mitchell. An lbw on eight was not reviewed after being adjudged not out, then an edge on 80 was taken out of Joe Root’s hands at first slip when wicketkeeper Ben Foakes leapt across to snatch at it.But you knew, deep down, Potts’ rewards were not going to be too far away. As he mentioned on Sky Sports at stumps on Saturday, he is consistent with his method: “I don’t think there’s any great secret. Just a bit of wobble, maybe the occasional swinger. Just try and hit it on a good length and hopefully something will happen.” As it did against Williamson, and earlier when he got England’s hunt for ten second-innings wickets up and running with a delivery that left Will Young and coaxed a prod to Ollie Pope at third slip.As for the moments when it doesn’t quite happen? “It’s not a drama,” he shrugged, like a bloke who knows full well that none of this caper is life and death. Yet even in those moments when the pitch flattens out, he’s still running in, still hammering that length and doing it accurately enough for England to operate without a fine leg, giving them an extra fielder to use in a more threatening position.A quick arm, an awkward action and what those in on the term call “fast nip” – Potts’ ability to lose little pace after the ball pitches – are misjudgement-inducing themselves, even before his skills come into the equation. Those skills got a tune-up over the winter, and ultimately led to his international calling, including the acquisition of a wobble-ball. Add it all together, even an average pace of 81 miles per hour (both in this Test and the series as a whole), CricViz calculates he elicits false shots 17 percent of the time – essentially more than once an over.That he is now doing all this as James Anderson’s replacement is not for nothing, either. The burden of deputising for 651 dismissals doesn’t register, because his remit hasn’t changed. When so many have tried to mimic the great man, Potts was his own man, doing things in his own way.Related
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There’s something to be said for Potts’ personality, too, because it’s not quite as obvious on the field as it is with others. While Ben Stokes, Stuart Broad and Jonny Bairstow took turns between balls to conduct the Western Terrace like they were warming up the Pyramid Stage at Glastonbury, Potts managed to do so when the ball was live.You could probably apportion some of the credit for Henry Nicholls’ wicket (caught and bowled by Jack Leach) to Potts, considering he was responsible for the decibel levels that made Headingley feel that little bit smaller and that little bit more enclosed for New Zealand’s batters. And it said all you needed to know about his attitude to the game, and the grind, that he was hurrying back to his mark even as darkness closed in, to try and prise one or two more deliveries out before the day was done.Alas, his scampering before the rains came in to end day three proved in vain, and he will return on Sunday morning with one ball remaining in his 10th over.There is a selflessness to his graft: Potts is the type of person who’d run through a brick wall for his team-mates and then clean up the debris. It is why, even before he had bowled a ball in an England shirt, Stokes – his Durham team-mate – championed him as not just an “athlete” but “everything I expect this team to be going forward”.Typically, he wasn’t having it when he was asked of the thrill of having a player like Williamson, a generational great, in his back pocket. “I wouldn’t say he’s sitting in my pocket,” he replied, as much of a correction as it was a statement of the sort of humility necessary to make it in this arena.”To be honest, that could be anyone. Anyone in that line-up, I’m trying to get them out. And if I’m not, I shouldn’t be in the team really.”Well, he is. And he should be, for a good while yet.
It’s a question that could quite quickly look silly, but at the moment it feels relevant
Andrew McGlashan12-Oct-2022Ben Stokes can do things on the cricket field that few others are capable of, but is he among the best seven T20I batters in England?It’s a question that could quite quickly look silly being asked, but at the moment it feels relevant.On the international stage, it has been the least convincing of the three formats in Stokes’ career – currently a batting average of 19.08 and strike-rate of 133.52 from 30 innings – but it’s now one of two he plays having retired from ODIs during the home summer.It is natural for England to want Stokes in the team, but right now it doesn’t quite seem an easy fit. He has won an ODI World Cup for his country and his influence, as has been seen with the Test side this year, amounts to much more than purely runs and wickets. In this game there was the additional funkiness of him bowling the first over of a T20 innings for the first time.But he’s never really found his role in the format and, little more than a week out from the T20 World Cup starting, there is a sense that it’s still being searched for, although No. 3 or No. 4 – depending on the game situation – is the task he has been earmarked for.Related
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The opening T20 of this series in Australia was the first time he had picked up a bat in the middle for a month and even someone of Stokes’ ability needs time to get back in the groove. However, he has played unconvincingly in Perth and Canberra.In the first game he came in at No. 3 after the rollicking opening stand between Jos Buttler and Alex Hales and couldn’t really maintain the momentum. He fell for 9 off 9 having also taken a blow on the chin for his troubles when he tried to reverse sweep Daniel Sams.In Canberra the end product was 7 off 11 when he missed a sweep at Adam Zampa and threw his head back in frustration. This time he had come in at No. 4, inside the powerplay, and did have some time to construct an innings but during his stay he collected just seven singles.This was also the first time England got to look at the No. 3-4 combo of Stokes and Dawid Malan after the latter was shunted down the order in Perth. Stokes is taking a few deliveries to get himself set – and, currently, is not being able to go on from there – which is a style that has been attributed to Malan for parts of his T20 career despite some outstanding overall numbers.There was data that emerged from the Hundred earlier this year that showed Malan’s intent in his first 10 balls and increased markedly. He struggled for the most-part in Pakistan on the slow surfaces, but in Canberra was much more at home, as he has been in the past on Australian surfaces, with more pace to play with. In an interesting contrast to Stokes, in the first five balls of his innings he had a four and a six.If Stokes is going to soak up a number of early deliveries before he feels he can launch, it becomes even more imperative that Malan maintains that brisker early tempo especially if the pair find themselves together. Malan finished with a superbly-constructed 82 off 49 balls, reading the situation expertly from 54 for 4. A penny for Steven Smith’s thoughts on that.Ben Stokes makes a spectacular save on the boundary•Getty ImagesIt feels very unlikely that Stokes is left out of the World Cup starting XI, but Liam Livingstone may yet have a part to play. At the moment, the assumption is that if his ankle comes good then he will slot in at No. 7 for the opening game against Afghanistan in Perth, followed by four bowlers. But there is a balance of side that sees them play with one batter fewer – as they have done in this series so far – and utilise an extra bowling-allrounder. Sam Curran may not have been in the original starting plans but is hard to leave out now.The other aspect to factor in, is an unquantifiable one: Stokes on the big occasion. Ideally he needs a substantial innings in the last game in Canberra on Friday or the warm-up against Pakistan in Brisbane but, in reality, it might not matter when he’s in the heat of the battle in a game that matters.It’s a point of debate whether he’s among England’s best T20 batters but, as epitomised by the gravity-defying boundary save at long-off, you suspect if things get tight over the next few weeks there’s few others Buttler will want by his side.