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.

Dramatic, unpredictable, controversial – for over two decades now, the Border-Gavaskar trophy has been one of cricket’s great rivalries

Andrew McGlashan03-Feb-2023

India vs Australia 2000-01

India won 2-1
Though the two sides have had history before, this series took the rivalry up several notches and featured one of the greatest comebacks. Australia had built a formidable side – perhaps their best ever – under Steve Waugh, and their victory in the opening Test made it a record 16 wins in a row.Despite a hat-trick by Harbhajan Singh – the first ever by an Indian bowler in the format – Test No. 17 looked all but won in Kolkata when India were made to follow on. Then came VVS Laxman and Rahul Dravid. The pair batted throughout the fourth day, building a fifth-wicket stand of 376 and setting Australia 384 to get. At times the draw looked odds on, but Sachin Tendulkar blew the game open and Harbhajan secured a historic win.What followed in Chennai was scarcely less dramatic. Matthew Hayden scored a double-century to cap a remarkable series for him, and Harbhajan took 15 wickets. India needed 155 and edged over the line by two wickets.

Australia vs India, 2003-04

series drawn 1-1
This series featured a truly epic encounter in Adelaide. Ricky Ponting’s 242 had led Australia to a seemingly impregnable 556, but once again Dravid and Laxman had other ideas. This time they added 303 for the fifth wicket, Dravid going on to post 233, as India almost drew level, to make it a one-innings contest. Then Ajit Agarkar had his finest hour, taking 6 for 41 to leave a tantalising target of 230. Again it was Dravid who led the chase, an unbeaten 72 securing another place in the game’s folklore.Australia hit back in the Boxing Day Test despite Virender Sehwag’s stunning 195, with another Ponting double setting up the series-levelling victory. The decider at the SCG saw India fill their boots to the tune of 705 for 7, with Tendulkar forging an unbeaten 241 and Laxman a majestic 178. Anil Kumble almost single-handedly bowled Australia out, but Justin Langer and Simon Katich hit centuries. After a second-innings dash (and another 91 not out from Dravid), Australia were set 443. They gave it a crack, led by Katich and Waugh in his final Test, before everyone ultimately shook hands and drew breath.Stand-in captain Adam Gilchrist shepherded Australia to their first series win in India in 35 years in 2004-05; injured captain Ricky Ponting sat out the first three Tests•Hamish Blair/Getty Images

India vs Australia, 2004-05

Australia won 2-1
Captained by Adam Gilchrist in the absence of an injured Ponting, Australia secured one of their finest overseas series wins. Gilchrist himself was key in the opening Test, in Bangalore, with a rapid century, alongside a majestic 151 on debut by Michael Clarke. A three-pronged pace attack, supplemented by Shane Warne, then worked through India’s batting with efficiency and precision.The second Test, in Chennai was a ding-dong battle until a final-day washout denied a gripping finish. Australia had folded from 136 for 0 to 235 all out in the first innings before Sehwag cracked 155. However, Damien Martyn’s century kept the visitors in the contest. At the end, everyone was left wondering about what could have been if it hadn’t rained with India in pursuit of a target of 229.There was no tight tussle in the match that decided the series: Australia steamrolled India in a 342-run win in Nagpur. Martyn had one of his finest Tests, with 114 and 97, while Clarke made 91. Jason Gillespie led the way with the ball, taking nine in the match. A fit-again Ponting returned for the final Test in Mumbai, on a hugely challenging surface, where India nicked a thrilling win, defending just 107 after Clarke had taken an extraordinary 6 for 9.

Australia vs India, 2007-08

Australia won 2-1
A series that began with a comfortable Australia win at the MCG took a controversial, ill-tempered twist in Sydney, where a racism controversy involving Harbhajan and Andrew Symonds overshadowed the match. Harbhajan was initially banned for three Tests before the ban was overturned on appeal. Symonds dominated the early stages of that game with a career-best 162 not out, having survived an edge behind on 30 that umpire Steve Bucknor did not spot. There was more umpiring controversy on the final day when Dravid was given caught behind and Clarke secured a victory in the dying moments – equalling Australia’s previous 16-match winning run. The post-match conversation was fractious, with Kumble channelling talk from the days of Bodyline: “Only one team was playing in the spirit of the game.” Briefly, India threatened to quit the tour.Tempers had calmed by Perth, where Ishant Sharma rattled Ponting with a thrilling spell, and India produced a brilliant victory. Unfortunately, the series came to an underwhelming finish in Adelaide, where a flat pitch was the only winner, besides some batting averages.The pall of the racism scandal involving Harbhajan Singh and Andrew Symonds hung heavy over the fractious 2007-08 Test series•Getty Images

India vs Australia, 2008-09

India won 2-0
Australia failed to repeat their triumph of four years earlier, the weakness of their spin attack proving telling. They showed promising signs in the opening Test, with Ponting and Mike Hussey’s centuries dominating a drawn game, but India were far too good in Mohali, where the differences started to show.Delhi was a match for the batters. Laxman enhanced his brilliant record against Australia while Gautam Gambhir also made a double century. In a bid to try and level the series, Australia gave a debut to offspinner Jason Krejza in the final Test and he collected 12 wickets, although at the eye-watering cost of 358 runs. The visitors were made to pay for a first-innings slide from 229 for 2 to 355 all out, and eventually a target of 382 proved well out of reach.

India vs Australia, 2010-11

India won 2-0
This short two-match series began with a classic in Mohali. Australia were given a strong base: Shane Watson’s century and Tim Paine’s 92 carried them over 400. No one passed three figures for India – Tendulkar fell lbw to Marcus North on 98 – with Mitchell Johnson taking five wickets to leave things almost all square. From 87 for 0, Australia then lost all ten wickets for 105 runs to leave a target of 216. At 124 for 8, the visitors were comfortable favourites but their arch nemesis, Laxman, found an ally in Ishant to get within 11 runs of the target. Amid late drama, Pragyan Ojha helped India scramble over the line.The second Test, in Bengaluru saw two big first innings. Tendulkar’s double-century was the dominant display as Australia fought hard to stay in touch. However, ultimately a target of 207 set early on the final day was well short of being competitive, and Cheteshwar Pujara broke the back of India’s chase.Run, mate: a sore VVS Laxman’s mad dash to the finish in the company of Pragyan Ojha sealed the two-Test series in India’s favour in 2010•AFP

Australia vs India, 2011-12

Australia won 4-0
After a hard-fought opening game in Melbourne, it became a one-sided series with the home side far too strong, although Australia did get their first glimpse in Test cricket of a certain Virat Kohli. At the MCG, India let a strong position slip when they were 214 for 2 in reply to 333, but they then had Australia rocking at 27 for 4. A stand of 115 between Ponting and Clarke – former and current captains – got the home side back on track and in the end 292 proved well out of reach for India.India were also overwhelmed in Sydney and Perth. At the SCG, Clarke hit an unbeaten 329 in huge stands with Ponting (134) and Hussey (150 not out) while at the WACA, David Warner made a scintillating 180 off 159 balls, including a century in a session on the first evening. Australia’s four-pronged pace attack was too much for India to handle. Ponting (221), with what was his last Test century, and Clarke (210) filled their boots again in Adelaide in another comfortable win, but India’s first innings included 116 from Kohli at a ground where he would continue to shine.

India vs Australia, 2012-13

India won 4-0
As the previous series had been one-sided in favour of the hosts, so was this. For Australia it would forever be known for the “Homeworkgate” saga that led to four players – Shane Watson, James Pattinson, Mitchell Johnson and Usman Khawaja – being dropped for the third Test, having failed to follow team orders.In the opening Test, Clarke’s 130 had given Australia a solid base, but Kohli’s century and MS Dhoni’s 224 showed they were well short; R Ashwin took 12 in the match. A thrashing by an innings and 135 runs followed in Hyderabad (in which Clarke funkily declared nine down late on the first day), where Pujara made a double-century and Ashwin bagged another five.The wheels then came off the tour, although Australia did not initially capitulate in Mohali. Warner and Ed Cowan opened with 139, a recalled Steven Smith made 92 in a sign of things to come, and Mitchell Starc flayed 99. However, M Vijay and Shikhar Dhawan added 289 for the first wicket in reply, and although the bowlers did fight back, Australia could only set 133.In a bizarre twist, the dropped Watson then returned as captain when Clarke was injured for the final Test. A bowler-dominated contest was decided by the spin of Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja, with Pujara bringing the runs.Australia played the 2014-15 Border-Gavaskar Trophy in the shadow of Phil Hughes’ death•Getty Images

Australia vs India, 2014-15

Australia won 2-0
This series was overshadowed by the death of Phil Hughes just days before the start. It was a remarkable effort from the players, particularly the Australians, to play such exhilarating cricket in Adelaide as they did to secure victory late on the final day to honour Hughes.There were emotionally charged hundreds for Warner (twice in the game), Clarke and Smith, alongside a magnificent captain’s performance from Kohli who also scored two centuries in the match. His final-day 141 put India in with a chance of chasing 364, but the visitors slipped from 242 for 2 to 315 all out after Murali Vijay fell for 99, with Nathan Lyon claiming seven wickets.In Brisbane, India were again competitive, although late wickets made the result appear tighter than it was. There was another hundred for Smith, but it was the runs Australia’s lower order made, led by Johnson, that were vital: the last four wickets added 258 after they had been in danger of handing over a big lead.Smith and Kohli again traded hundreds in Melbourne, where India were able to hang on for a draw thanks to their middle order, while similar scenes played out in Sydney. The series returns for Smith (769 runs at 128.16) and Kohli (692 runs at 86.50) were remarkable.

India vs Australia, 2016-17

India won 2-1
The most recent meeting in India, and one that Australia probably look back on as a missed opportunity after they took the opening Test in Pune on a surface that became increasingly challenging against spin. Steve O’Keefe had a remarkable match with figures of 12 for 70; India managed just 105 and 107. Smith (109) made one of his finest hundreds in the second innings, while Starc’s first-innings 61 proved vital.It was the second Test, in Bengaluru, that Australia missed their chance. Lyon’s 8 for 50 bowled India out for 189, but a lead of 87 wasn’t enough to kill the game. India battled to build a target of 188, then Ashwin got to work, picking up 6 for 41 as Australia crumbled for 112.Ranchi produced a high-scoring draw, with centuries for Smith, Pujara, Glenn Maxwell and Wriddhiman Saha, leaving a decider in Dharamsala. Smith again scored a hundred, but a first-innings total of 300 from 144 for 1 was a disappointment. India scraped ahead with a small lead, but Australia’s 137 proved no obstacle to the home side and that was the series.The taming of the crew: India clinched back-to-back victories in Australia in 2018-19 – their first-ever series win in the country – and 2021-22•David Gray/AFP/Getty Images

Australia vs India, 2018-19

India won 2-1
A landmark moment for India. It started with a gripping victory for them in Adelaide and would likely have finished with a 3-1 scoreline if not for rain in Sydney. The opening match, where the bowlers held sway, was an outstanding contest, decided by the brilliance of Pujara. Australia’s batting line-up was a patchwork affair – Warner and Smith were away serving out their bans after the Newlands ball-tampering scandal – but the lower order got them within range of a challenging target.The home side fought back in Perth at the new Optus Stadium, on what became a devilish surface that produced edge-of-the-seat action. Australia’s opening stand of 112 gave them a head start, but Kohli responded with a great century. Khawaja’s gusty 72 kept India at bay despite Mohammed Shami’s best efforts, and in the end India fell well short.Crucially, though, India believed they were the better side and showed it in Melbourne. Led by Pujara, they ground their way to a strong total and Australia wilted against the skill of Jasprit Bumrah. In Sydney they batted Tim Paine’s side into the ground – Pujara 193, Rishabh Pant 159 not out – and were able to enforce the follow-on when Kuldeep Yadav took five before the rain came.

Australia vs India, 2020-21

India won 2-1
This series in the middle of the Covid pandemic became an instant classic that ended with India’s greatest ever victory, with which they ended Australia’s formidable run at the Gabba.In what would be Kohli’s only match of the series, India were bundled out for just 36 in the opening Test, in Adelaide. In an astonishing session, India nicked everything from Pat Cummins and Josh Hazlewood less than 24 hours after looking in control, having earned a useful lead.Bumrah shone at the MCG and Ajinkya Rahane, standing in as captain for Kohli, produced the defining innings with a brilliant 112. Australia should have won in Sydney but dropped vital catches on the final day as the injured duo of Ashwin and Hanuma Vihari put on an extraordinary display of resilience, aided by Pant’s almost hundred and the obduracy of Pujara.So to Brisbane for the decider. India’s injury list had mounted and their bowling attack was threadbare, to put it mildly. Australia seemed in control, until they weren’t. They failed to build on Marnus Labuschagne’s hundred, and Shardul Thakur and Washington Sundar took the opportunity to revive India’s innings. Still, Australia were able to leave 328 for the final day, but when Shubman Gill and Pujara added 114 for the second wicket, it dawned on Australia that India had a chance.Then came Pant with an audacious display in what had effectively become a one-day run chase. A thumping drive down the ground as the shadows lengthened secured a place in history. “What I’ve seen is unimaginable, the resolve and character the boys have shown is simply superb,” coach Ravi Shastri said.What will this rivalry provide us next?

The northeastern state has barely any cricket infrastructure, but its players have fought their way to promotion

Himanshu Agrawal23-Jan-2023The state of Manipur, in the northeastern corner of India, has a rich history and tradition in sport; even the state’s current chief minister, N Biren Singh, is a former Border Security Force footballer. But amid all the success in boxing, weightlifting and football, cricket has barely had any presence.It is still, as Rajkumar Imo Singh, the president of the Manipur Cricket Association (MNCA) puts it, “in its infancy stage”. But infants grow quickly. Manipur have made the final of the Plate Division of the Ranji Trophy, where they will meet Bihar starting January 25, and have earned a promotion to the Elite Division next season. Manipur have done this with barely any infrastructure – their “home” games were played in Gujarat – and with a team full of homegrown players.”We have a team born and bred in Manipur – a totally indigenous team,” Imo tells ESPNcricinfo. “With the talent we have, we pushed forward only those who are actually from Manipur.”It was only before the 2018-19 season that nine new teams – including Manipur and five others from the Northeast – gained full-time BCCI membership. Until then, these associations received vastly less funding from the BCCI than the older full members. Though this has changed, Manipur continues to lag behind in infrastructure, grounds and support staff. That the wet weather in the state lasts five or six months a year doesn’t help either.But there is talent, and that talent is learning on the job.”The key is to keep it simple,” says Rakesh Sharma, Manipur’s coach – he formerly played for and coached Oman. “If we feed them with too much information or even stats, they might get confused.”Rakesh takes the example of the successful chase of 337 against Sikkim in the Plate semi-finals.”I broke it down into blocks of 50 runs each because 337 is a huge target. The boys kept believing, and kept growing in confidence as the chase moved on.”We played friendly matches in the build-up [to the Ranji Trophy]. Special thanks to our trainer [Raajoo Bhatkal], who keeps pushing them, since our players barely play ten matches a year. But they have played so much in the last five months that their bodies have taken a lot of load. Our physio has also worked very hard to make them match-ready.”The floodlights at the Luwangpokpa Cricket Stadium in Imphal are soon to be inaugurated•Manipur Cricket AssociationBefore the start of the Ranji season, camps in Noida helped players develop their fitness for four-day matches. Simultaneously, the focus was on developing the right environment for players to prosper no matter the problems they faced.Ronel Singh, the MNCA secretary, says the players gelled well because most of them had played together over he last few seasons.”My priority was strong team bonding,” Ronel says. “We emphasised on players below 30 years of age. We told them, ‘You will be given ample opportunities to showcase your skill’.”While he’s proud of what the players have achieved, Ronel sees room for improvement. “We seem to be low on patience with the bat,” he says. “We are almost always in T20 mode!”New stars in the making
Rex Rajkumar was one of Manipur’s early bloomers, making the headlines when he picked up all ten wickets in an innings in an Under-19 Cooch Behar Trophy match against Arunachal Pradesh in December 2018. Cut to the 2022-23 season, and Manipur’s list of impressive performers is growing.Pace bowler Pheiroijam Jotin, all of 16, made his first-class debut against Sikkim last month, and immediately grabbed attention with 9 for 69 in the first innings. He then took a nine-wicket match haul against Sikkim in the Plate semi-finals. So far, Jotin has 33 wickets at an average of 13.81 in six games this season.Left-arm spinner Kishan Singha has also taken 33 wickets this season, at 15.42, while seamer Bishworjit Konthoujam has 20, at 21.00.Konthoujam is currently Manipur’s leading wicket-taker in first-class, List A and T20 cricket.

Manipur pacer Bishworjit Konthoujam set the stage on fire against Arunachal Pradesh and scalped five wickets. #ARPvMAN #VijayHazareTrophy

Watch his superb bowling displayhttps://t.co/5Vy9UtxGYJ pic.twitter.com/4Q1px1XiD8

— BCCI Domestic (@BCCIdomestic) December 12, 2021

Cricket wasn’t Konthoujam’s first love – he was once a national-level boxer. And he’s not alone among Manipur’s players in having played other sports at a high level.”He is very tall, and has a fighting instinct,” Ronel says of Konthoujam. “We had just asked him to bowl for a few months, and he has now completely turned to cricket. Also, Johnson Singh played football at the representative level; he is still a very good footballer.”Incidentally, such is the quality of football in Manipur that 38 of their players – the most from any state – featured in the Indian Super League’s 2022-23 season.The road ahead
Performances on the field have been encouraging, and there is now ample funding from the BCCI, but concerns linger.”The playing season is pretty short [due to the rainy weather], so we have to take that into consideration,” Imo says. “We need the expertise which BCCI has.” He suggests that indoor training facilities will help.But there are positive signs for the future. The Luwangpokpa Cricket Stadium in Imphal, the capital of Manipur, will soon inaugurate its floodlights. And Imo, who has been with the association for six years now, sees an appreciable increase in youngsters taking to cricket, and he has approached the state’s education directorate to request school and college students to be actively involved in the sport.Imo recalls his father, the former Manipur chief minister RK Jaichandra Singh, taking him to the Khuman Lampak Stadium – a multi-use stadium that’s mainly used for football and athletics, to play cricket. Imo hopes that budding cricketers in Manipur will have enough cricket grounds to play in. More and better infrastructure can only speed up the growth of cricket in the state.And there will be accelerated learning for Manipur’s players next year, when they face India’s domestic heavyweights in the Elite Division next year.”We follow Mumbai and Tamil Nadu a lot,” their captain Langlonyamba Meitan Keishangbam says. “And we admire Sai Kishore, Cheteshwar Pujara and Jaydev Unadkat the most.”The ambition, hunger and willingness to grow is already visible. If that desire is matched by performances on the field and the growth of the game in Manipur’s grassroots, there will soon be space for a bat and a ball alongside the football that sits in a corner of every household in the state.

The day started in extraordinary fashion, before the teams fought hard on the best batting pitch of the series

Karthik Krishnaswamy09-Mar-2023On December 8, 1959, Ayub Khan and Dwight D Eisenhower, the presidents of Pakistan and the USA, attended the fourth day of a Test match in Karachi. Striving to save the Test against Australia, Pakistan scored 104 for 5 over that five-and-a-half-hour day. Only once have fewer runs been scored over a full day’s play in Test cricket.Sixty-three years and three months later, Narendra Modi and Anthony Albanese, the prime ministers of India and Australia, were in attendance on day one of another Test match, at a stadium named after one of them. Runs came quicker in Ahmedabad than they did in Karachi, but there was a similar attrition to proceedings, and it felt especially so coming after the frenetic contests in Nagpur, Delhi and Indore.You could almost call it a day of normalcy after the frenzied action of those three Tests, but there was nothing normal about it in other respects. The players didn’t warm up on the field of play. Before the toss, the prime ministers went on a lap of honour around the outfield, on a buggy decked out with stumps and bats, to the accompaniment of patriotic Bollywood tunes composed by AR Rahman and Salim-Sulaiman.Related

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Tickets for days two, three, four and five of this match had gone on sale days before tickets for day one, as the organisers sought to balance the presence of the paying public and special invitees. There was talk before the match of record attendances, but the world’s highest-capacity cricket stadium was perhaps only 60% full through the first hour of play, which the prime ministers sat through. A curious thing happened once they left; the lower tiers, initially packed with men and women wearing badges around their necks with the word “volunteer” on them, began to clear out, while the upper tiers began filling up.All this was unusual, but the cricket was relentlessly old-school.It was the kind of day on which your attention could wander, but whenever you turned your eye back to the action, whether it was at 10am or 4pm, you were likely to find Usman Khawaja defending off the back foot, with his front pad pulled smartly away from the line of the ball.Khawaja’s timeless, unhurried grace was the one constant on a day of subtle shifts in mood and tempo. The new ball swung around corners, but India’s quicks took time to find their lines, and Travis Head, slashing at everything, rode his luck while scoring 32 off 44 balls. He played and missed constantly, survived a dropped chance, and achieved a control percentage of 77 on the flattest pitch of the series, but India could do little against him but wait for the next mistake. Once it came, a miscue to mid-on off R Ashwin, the bowlers got into their groove, and gained control over Australia’s run rate.A simplistic narrative has developed around this generation of India players, that they represent a new-age vision of India fuelled by a brook-no-questions aggression, but the cornerstone of their Test results both home and away has been the patience and control of their bowling attack. It was fully on display now, on this flat, first-day pitch. It took India 289 balls to pick up their next two wickets after they’d dismissed Head, but they only conceded 90 runs in that time.The pitch was slow and low with barely any turn on offer, and India met its challenge with time-tested methods. They tried to keep the stumps in play, and set fields for drives and flicks in the wide V from extra-cover to midwicket, primarily to protect runs against those shots, while also hoping for catches if the batters played too early.A frequent sight on day one in Ahmedabad: R Ashwin reacts after a close call•BCCIThe spinners looked to mix up their pace and angles and turn the batters’ muscle memory against them, hoping to get them playing for turn when there was barely any available. Steven Smith kept trying to clip Ashwin to mid-on, and kept playing the ball back to the bowler off the outside half of his bat. Ashwin’s hands kept going towards his head, but while he was troubling Smith with his drift and lack of turn, he wasn’t necessarily going to get him out with just those tools.India waited for mistakes, and kept the runs down while they waited. Marnus Labuschagne and Smith both looked good without managing to wriggle out of India’s stranglehold, and both were out in classic slow-pitch fashion, playing on with their bats drawn a mite too far from their bodies.So far, so attritional. It took until the 71st over of the day for an India bowler to do something spectacular at the Narendra Modi Stadium. Mohammed Shami produced that moment, as he somehow often seems to on seemingly lifeless pitches. He did it during a spell of reverse-swing, but he did it with a hint of seam movement, and in a manner that seemed almost inevitable.When he last came to India, Peter Handscomb had the reputation of being an lbw candidate; he’d stand deep in his crease, go back and across in his trigger movement, and often end up on the back foot against full deliveries with his pads in line with the stumps. On this trip, he’s changed his set-up slightly, at least when the ball has reversed. He still stands with both feet inside the crease, but he doesn’t go across his stumps quite so much, and stays leg-side of the ball.Watching this, you may have felt that a skiddy ball straightening to hit the top of off stump could get him in trouble. Umesh Yadav tried to bowl this for a while, before Shami took over. There’s probably no one in the world better at bowling that particular delivery, and Shami took exactly one ball to land it perfectly to Handscomb. Outside edge beaten, off stump cartwheeling, thank you very much.Mohammed Shami sent Peter Handscomb’s off stump cartwheeling in Ahmedabad•BCCIFor India in home Tests, this sort of moment has often opened the floodgates after hours and sessions of patient probing. For a while, Shami continued to threaten. Cameron Green shouldered arms to a ball he could have left on length in Perth or Brisbane, and was lucky to come away with his off stump intact.Shami then peppered Green with the short ball. As a towering man with a crouched stance, low hands, and a recently fractured finger, Green may well have expected to face this line of attack, particularly on this low-bounce pitch against skiddy fast bowling. He knew, however, that the bigger threat was the full ball at his stumps, and he was prepared to use methods to repel that mode of attack even if it left him looking awkward when it was up near his ribcage.Green got through the barrage, and India took the second new ball, an over after it became available. They may have hoped it would swing, while also giving their spinners a bit more purchase late in the day. It didn’t quite work that way, and from 201 for 4 in 81 overs, Australia sped to 255 for 4 in 90 with Khawaja bringing up his century, to pockets of warm applause, in the last over of the day.Australia had perhaps enjoyed the better of the day’s exchanges, but India had kept their scoring down for large periods. They will have had an anxious eye on the pitch throughout; it remains to be seen how long it will hold together under the harsh Ahmedabad sun.The turning pitches laid out for the first three Tests of this series were partly an effort to minimise the impact of the toss. Now, with a series win and a place in the World Test Championship final on the line, India had prepared – by design or otherwise – the flattest surface of the series. These pitches tend to stay flat through both teams’ first innings when India play Test matches in October and November; in the heat of March, there’s a chance they can start off flat and deteriorate rapidly.The course of the Test match may well hinge on how long it takes for this pitch to offer serious turn. Both teams can expect plenty more old-fashioned attrition until then, under the watchful eyes of a thousand larger-than-life likenesses of their respective prime ministers. They’ve left the stadium, but they’re still watching.

No-balls remain an issue, and he has been expensive at the death, but the CSK quick is also picking up lots of wickets at IPL 2023

S Sudarshanan05-May-20231:24

Tushar Deshpande: ‘Bowling a no-ball is a crime in T20 cricket’

Tushar Deshpande was unlikely to be at the top of too many lists of top wicket-takers in the IPL before the season started.That’s not a comment on Deshpande’s abilities, but before 2023, he had featured in only seven IPL matches across two seasons. He is right up there, though, nearabouts the top with 17 wickets – the same as Mohammed Shami – and that’s because he has used his pace as well as the variations in his repertoire – the offcutter and the knuckle ball, especially – to good effect to fix one of the gaps in the Chennai Super Kings line-up.”I am not going there to learn, firstly,” Deshpande had said of his expectations from the IPL on ahead of the 2020 edition, when he found an IPL team – Delhi Capitals – for the first time. He was 24 then. He had played all domestic formats for Mumbai already.Related

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“If I want to play for India in the future, I cannot look at IPL as a place to learn. I will look to grasp from whatever inputs I will get. But I will go there to deliver. I will be looking to execute whatever I have prepared.”Deshpande speaks very little. But those words revealed a lot about the person that he was – is – and how he thinks about himself and his game.And for CSK this year, Deshpande has exhibited his preparedness for the big moments early in the competition. First, when he got rid of Rohit Sharma with a nip-backer after being hit for a four and a six in the space of four balls. Then, again, in the same game when he dismissed Tim David with change of pace after he was pumped for 6, 4, 6 in the three previous deliveries. Later, against against Lucknow Super Giants, he kept his calm in the face of an onslaught from Nicholas Pooran to have the batter caught at long-off when the game was in the balance.Deshpande has carried his confidence from Mumbai’s Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy win, where he regularly bowled in the powerplay as well as at the death and returned 17 wickets at an economy of 6.72 – his best in a T20 tournament.

****

As an eight-year-old, Deshpande played at Subhash Maidan in Kalyan, a distant suburb of Mumbai. Seeing his interest in the game, his father Uday sent him for the Under-12 trails for Shivaji Park Gymkhana in Dadar, 48 kilometres away from home. Deshpande, who travelled there in a local train with his kit bag in tow, saw that the queue for bowlers was shorter than that for batters, and joined that. There was no looking back thereon.Tushar Deshpande had played five games for Delhi Capitals in 2020•BCCIThat day, it was Deshpande’s ability to be nippy that had caught the eye of former Mumbai left-arm spinner and renowned coach Padmakar Shivalkar, Capitals’ current assistant coach Pravin Amre, and Sandesh Kawle, head coach of the Mumbai women’s side in the last two seasons.It was the first batch of the academy that also had the likes of Shreyas Iyer and Shardul Thakur, who have since gone on to play for the national side, and also Aakarshit Gomel, Siddhesh Lad and Harmeet Singh. And it didn’t start too well for Deshpande.”He had the spark, and we felt he could do well as a pace bowler. But he came crying once his Under-19 coach told him that he can never be a fast bowler,” Amre told ESPNcricinfo. “I told him, ‘we believe in you, but do believe that you can bowl fast?’ He said yes. I told him to write it on his bag, take it seriously, work towards it and not get demoralised. That was an important moment in his career.”Kawle worked on Deshpande’s basics – the run-up, the action, the fitness – and taught him never to compromise on his pace.”He is a soft-spoken and polite man, but he has the anger and the fire in his body language that is in-built in a fast bowler,” Kawle said. “He has the aggression. If someone hits him for a boundary, (he gets very angry). But we used to tell him not to compromise on his pace. If you do that, you can never become a fast bowler. Now he has the variations which are needed to be unpredictable in T20s.”In 2015, just a month short of 20, Deshpande first represented the senior Mumbai side – after having played for their Under-16 and Under-19 teams – in a T20 against Odisha.

“Subroto Banerjee [Bihar’s coach] called me up and said he saw a bowler who dismantled their batters with just pace”Pravin Amre on Tushar Deshpande’s performance in the Vijay Hazare Trophy in 2018-19

Come the 2016-17 season, his was a last-minute selection in Mumbai’s Ranji Trophy squad as a replacement for Thakur, who had been called up to India’s Test side, and Deshpande immediately left a mark with a four-wicket haul – including dismissing Dinesh Karthik – on the opening day against Tamil Nadu in Rohtak, and took 21 wickets in the competition in 14 bowling innings.In the quarter-final, though, he suffered a stress fracture of the ankle, which he aggravated when he tried to rush back to action. The result was that he was out for about six months. It was around the same time his mother was diagnosed with ovarian cancer, a battle she would lose two years later.In October 2018, a month after Deshpande had made his List A debut for Mumbai in the Vijay Hazare Trophy, Amre got a phone call. It was from former India cricketer Subroto Banerjee, who was then coaching Bihar.”He called me up and said he saw a bowler who dismantled their batters with just pace,” Amre recalled. “He picked up five wickets [in the Vijay Hazare quarter-final in 2018-19]. Mumbai were winning the Ranji Trophy [comparatively more] but had won the one-dayers after a long time, and Deshpande’s contribution was a big one.”Despite injury setbacks in 2018-19 – he suffered a hamstring injury in the Ranji match against Gujarat – Deshpande had a productive season. He had picked up 15 wickets in Mumbai’s first Vijay Hazare win since 2006-07, 17 wickets in four Ranji matches and 19 in the Mushtaq Ali Trophy that season, which led to a call-up for the India A series against Sri Lanka and South Africa at home.Thakur and Deshpande are seen as similar bowlers in Mumbai cricket. In Amre’s words, “Shardul used to swing it a lot while Deshpande was more of a hit-the-deck bowler.” But Deshpande has had an issue with bowling front-foot no-balls.Deshpande’s first red-ball game for Mumbai was as Thakur’s replacement, and it so happened that CSK acquired Deshpande after Thakur became too expensive for them in the IPL 2022 auction – they had to opt out after going up to INR 7 crore.Amre on Deshpande’s IPL success this season: “Good to see him do well, and I am sure MS Dhoni has a big role to play in that”•BCCIBut before that, Deshpande was selected at his base price in the IPL auction in 2020 and only played five games for Capitals that season, picking up three wickets. Ben Stokes, now his CSK team-mate, was Deshpande’s first IPL wicket. And while he went unsold in the auction in 2021, he was still part of CSK as a net bowler.Come 2023, there was a bunch of injuries in the CSK camp: they had Kyle Jamieson and Mukesh Choudhary ruled out before the season started, while Stokes, Simarjeet Singh and Deepak Chahar picked up injuries during the tournament. That has given Deshpande regular games, and the opportunity to bowl in the death overs as well as have short bursts at the start, and he has capitalised.He has played ten matches for CSK so far this season, and his 17 wickets includes seven in the last four overs, again the joint-most for anyone to have bowled at least four overs at the death. Deshpande’s economy rate of 12.70 during that period has been on the higher side, but Amre is still pleased with the efforts.”He was with DC where he didn’t have a good year but got the experience,” Amre said. “He is a learning boy, a good student of the game and he took it in his stride. Good to see him do well this season, and I am sure MS Dhoni has a big role to play in that.”For an Indian fast bowler, pace is important, and he has that. To come from a simple household from Kalyan and do this well, I am sure his father, who supported him throughout, must be very proud.”Deshpande might have been a tad late to enter the glitzy world of the IPL, but in his first season as a regular in the XI, he sure is leaving an impression. In the process, he has perhaps ensured that his is not the last name you would imagine topping the bowling charts going forward.

Valkerie Baynes and Firdose Moonda discuss newcomers and old hands as the build-up to Trent Bridge intensifies

ESPNcricinfo staff14-Jun-2023The build-up to the Women’s Ashes Test at Trent Bridge has intensified with England naming their squad to face the Australians. Valkerie Baynes and Firdose Moonda look at the players who stand to make their debuts in the format, as well as some who have been there before. They also discuss the Charlotte Edwards Cup final and Anya Shrubsole’s retirement announcement.

Unprecedented scoring rates have been the calling card of the Stokes-McCullum regime

Alan Gardner31-May-2023We don’t know exactly the moment Bazball was born. Was England’s approach to Test cricket discussed in the first meeting between the team’s new coach and captain, Brendon McCullum and Ben Stokes? Perhaps we can trace it to the run chase at Trent Bridge, a dizzying 50-over romp to 299 in the second Test of last summer. Or maybe it was a twinkle in McCullum’s eye back when he was still an all-format player.We do know that Friday will mark exactly a year since the pair came together to revive England’s Test fortunes, starting with the home series against New Zealand in June 2022. Never mind the philosophical debates – and the fact that England, and McCullum in particular, don’t like the zeitgeist-surfing nickname for their style of play – it seems a good time to check in on the revolution, with England having won 10 out of 12 Tests and preparing for six more across the next two months, including an eagerly anticipated Ashes series.

Stokes the fire

Whatever the effect of Stokes’ captaincy, things couldn’t really have got much worse. England had won one Test in 17 under Joe Root, going back to the winter of 2020-21, and after the failed “red-ball reset” in the Caribbean were ready for a complete reboot.The beauty of Test cricket is that is always more than one way to win – and there is still a place for old-fashioned, copper-bottomed batting, as New Zealand showed when turning the Basin Reserve Test on its head in February, thereby handing Stokes only his second defeat. Australia have already made noises to suggest they won’t be lining up to accept a pasting. Whether Bazball can maintain trajectory into its second year will not be in England’s hands alone.

With both Kohli and Rohit rested and India suffering a collapse, either batter could have chaperoned the batting line-up

Deivarayan Muthu30-Jul-2023Sanju Samson and Suryakumar Yadav: two batters with limitless white-ball potential. But they have had only limited opportunities in ODIs so far. Both Suryakumar and Samson had made their ODI debuts on a tour of Sri Lanka in 2021, when a number of seniors were in the UK for the inaugural World Test Championship (WTC) final and the following Test series against England. That white-ball series was a dry run for the 2021 T20 World Cup in Dubai.Two years later, Suryakumar is a T20 phenom and Samson is the face of Rajasthan Royals in the IPL. But opportunities continue to be limited for them in ODIs. Since their debuts in Sri Lanka, they have played just six ODIs together over two years.In the absence of Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma, who were both rested for the second ODI against West Indies, and with the series – and perhaps World Cup spots – at stake on Saturday, this was probably the best chance for both Samson and Suryakumar to push their cases. But both batters were part of a collapse that saw India being rolled over for 181 in 40.5 overs.Related

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Sure, the Barbados pitch was a challenging one with the quicks causing some balls to burst from a length and the spinners finding grip and turn. But it wasn’t Barbados of old where Joel Garner and Andy Robers had razed oppositions.Jayden Seales is just working his way back from a knee surgery while Romario Shepherd might not have even played had Jason Holder been available for selection. And not too long ago, Gudakesh Motie was Akeal Hosein’s understudy in ODIs. This West Indies side will not even be part of the upcoming World Cup. In such a scenario, India’s team management would have expected Samson and Suryakumar – or at least one of them – to shepherd the batting line-up after Shubman Gill had holed out for 34 in the 17th over.1:23

Jaffer: Suryakumar will probably get one last chance in the third ODI

Samson walked out at the fall of Gill’s wicket and watched Ishan Kishan, Axar Patel and Hardik Pandya tumble at the other end. This brought Samson and Suryakumar, who funnily enough was wearing Samson’s jersey, together in the middle. It could have been a potential World Cup selection shootout, but neither could repair India’s innings. Their partnership lasted just one ball, with Samson nicking legspinner Yannic Cariah to Brandon King at slip for 9 off 19 balls.Suryakumar then started in more promising fashion, driving Cariah behind point with the turn for four off the second ball he faced. With both Cariah and Motie extracting sharp turn and uneven bounce, Suryakumar shelved the sweep and tried to pick off runs on the off side. But he couldn’t control a cut off Motie and lobbed it to backward point for 24 off 25 balls.After West Indies chased down the target with six wickets to spare, India’s stand-in captain Hardik Pandya expressed his displeasure at the overall batting performance. “We didn’t bat the way we were supposed to,” he said at the post-match presentation. “I think the wicket played pretty well and I don’t think it was like the first game. I think barring Shubman, everyone played their shots, got out, and hit the fielders. Disappointing but at the same point of time many things to learn.”With West Indies forcing the series into a decider in Trinidad on Tuesday, India might not be able to create further room for experimentation. It is also hard to see India fiddling too much with their combination in the Asia Cup and the home ODIs against Australia, where the oppositions will be stiffer, in the lead-up to the World Cup.Sizeable contributions from Suryakumar and Samson on a tricky track on Saturday could have earned them a bit more game-time over the coming weeks, but with Shreyas Iyer and KL Rahul on the road to recovery, they could soon return to the bench once again. And if India do need them at some point during the World Cup, they might have to rock up cold.