Lisa Sthalekar, a pioneer in more ways than one

by h716a5.icu Uncategorized

Inducted into the Hall of the Fame, the allrounder had an outstanding career on the field and is now hugely influential off it

Daniel Brettig05-Feb-2021A persuasive case can be made for the fact that between the retirement of Shane Warne in 2007 and the rise of Nathan Lyon as an established member of the men’s team after 2013, no spin bowler in Australia was in greater command of their craft than Lisa Sthalekar. Unquestionably, none was more influential.The aggressive and inventive use of spin bowling in the women’s game, primarily in T20 but also in other forms, can be traced largely back to Sthalekar’s reinvention of spin as an attacking weapon for New South Wales, who she captained to multiple domestic titles, and then Australia on the world stage. This after decades in which they had been seen largely as run-stoppers while the seam and swing bowlers rested.On being inducted into the Hall of Fame

“As a player there were plenty of times when I sat in the auditorium watching those players being inducted and hearing their stories, and you kind of wonder ‘will I ever get that chance, will my career ever be seen in a similar light as those before me’ and I get this opportunity now. It’s been an interesting road as an immigrant coming into Australia and trying to fit in and sport was certainly the way that I did it.

“Cricket was my second sport but I soon fell in love with it pretty quickly. Once I realised that women’s cricket existed and there was a pathway for me to not only represent my state but my country, that was something I certainly wanted to achieve at about 15 or 16 years of age. My family, my parents were very supportive, my father was the one who first introduced me to the game of cricket where I really fell in love with it. Went to the SCG and that kind of sold me to want to play for my country and hopefully be able to play there.

“One coach that has been from my NSW Under-18s right up to the Australian level was Steve Jenkins, so a shout out to him for him putting up with me but also me putting up with him as well, and then also the captains and my team-mates. They’re the ones you experience so much with on tour and they drive you to be better and I was very fortunate to come into the NSW and Australian teams with absolute legends of the game who are already inducted – Belinda Clark, Cathryn Fitzpatrick, Karen Rolton, the list goes on and on. So to be seen in a similar light to them I pinch myself. I’m very fortunate and very blessed to have represented my country and my state.”

Seldom can a cricketer have enjoyed a more triumphant career conclusion either, as Sthalekar twirled her way through opponents at the 2013 ODI World Cup in India, playing a major role in helping Australia to wrest back the crown they had lost on home soil four years previously, and bowling distinctively in her gold and green cap. As a person of colour, Sthalekar is a pioneering member of the Hall of Fame for other and equally significant reasons, as part of a personal story that intertwines so closely with the quantum leap made by the women’s game.”That’s something certainly that I’m proud of. I see myself first and foremost as an Australian cricketer and as I’ve gone on this journey I’ve realised that I’ve been seen as a role model for those of south Asian descent, an immigrant as well,” Sthalekar said. “Hopefully I’ve been a positive role model to all of them that you can make it in Australia; you can achieve what you want to if you keep your mind at it and (are) willing to work hard – anything is possible.”Unlike Warne and Lyon, of course, Sthalekar made her start in the game at a time when it was not exactly clear whether it was a game for her, with no women’s teams to speak of in the vicinity of her childhood home in Sydney’s west. “I didn’t even know women’s cricket existed,” Sthalekar recalled. “I remember speaking to my father and saying I wanted to play cricket and he said ‘I don’t think girls can play, because they’re all boys that play on Saturday mornings’.”In time, Sthalekar’s father went to West Pennant Hills Cherrybrook and got her a trial, before they discovered the existence of women’s teams more or less through happenstance.”I went down to my first trial and it was all boys there, certainly didn’t want to step out of the car, but my father insisted and I’m glad he did,” she said. “I was fortunate to be able to play with three guys all the way through to Under-16s and the penny only dropped because one of the senior players was actually dating a female cricketer at the time and said ‘there’s the Gordon Women’s Club’, so at the age of 13 I realised women’s cricket existed and joined – played boys’ cricket in the morning and women’s in the afternoon.”Lisa Sthalekar poses with the 2013 ODI World Cup trophy in Mumbai•ICC/GettyThe development of spin bowling as Sthalekar’s chosen skill was a largely self-taught affair, as she spent one whole summer learning how to deliver an effective offbreak, and can now admit that it was only in the later days of her long career for Australia that she was able to benefit from specific and directed advice as to how to develop further. Since retirement, she has enjoyed watching the rising stocks of left-arm spinners in particular, and hoped they all got greater chances to apply themselves in Test matches.”I still remember learning how to turn the ball, you know how they say get your seam to fine leg, that’s how you’re going to get your drop and drift and I couldn’t figure it out until I spent a whole summer in the nets by myself mucking around with different grips and techniques,” she said. “So a lot of it was self-taught, there weren’t a lot of spin bowling coaches going around. I got private coaching from a batting perspective from Wayne Seabrook, so spent a bit of time with him growing up, but when I came into the NSW side, I think offspinners were seen as very economical.Related

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“Just tie down one end for us, the rest will come at the other end. It probably changed when I took over the captaincy of the NSW side, I felt I could have the fields that I wanted, I started to bowl a little more aggressively and toss the ball up a little bit more old school spin bowling from that point of view.”Then, from a coaching perspective, the first time a coach really gave me a lot of feedback in a match situation was Stuart Law, he was assistant coach of us in the 2012 T20 World Cup in Sri Lanka, and he ran on a message in the final that I needed to slow it up because the pitch was quite difficult and I was getting the ball to bite. He provided feedback and then John Davison was part of our 2013 World Cup campaign, so right at the back of my career I got probably the biggest mentorship from a former spinner and a revered international coach.”That final campaign in 2013 still brings a twinkle to Sthalekar’s eye, with her part in the final victory over West Indies remembered as much for a spectacular catch to close out the game as for the spell of 2 for 20 that showcased all that was great about her flight, drift, dip and spin, and the critical wicket of Deandra Dottin.”I didn’t tell too many people, I think I just told my family and four friends, didn’t tell any of my team-mates,” she said of her retirement plans. “I pushed myself to finish off that six months, prior to that I wasn’t necessarily enjoying my cricket, I wasn’t quite sure where it was going, and I’m glad I did that and I can probably thank Shelley Nitschke and Sarah Andrews, two of my team-mates at the time and one obviously in Sarah had already retired, but Shelley was still heavily involved in the game and they kept pushing me to keep going.After retirement, Sthalekar has done some prolific work as a commentator•BCCI”So I’m glad I did, because most female cricketers back then would play a World Cup, play the Ashes and then after the Ashes everyone retired. But within our side we had Megan Schutt playing for the first time, Alyssa Healy was on the sidelines, Meg Lanning had just come in, I was seeing that next generation and we had just won the T20 World Cup, we’d won the Ashes back in 2011 and then we’d finished with the 2013 World Cup.”I thought ‘right, we’re No. 1 in every format, it’s time to go’ and given the fact I came in when Australia were really strong and dominant, it was nice to leave the team in that situation and then allowing the next generation a chance.”Since then, Sthalekar’s influence has been huge, across her involvement with the Australian Cricketers’ Association and also some prolific work as a commentator, a job that presently has her in Abu Dhabi for the ongoing T10 tournament. She is outspoken about the fact that administrators cannot afford to let Covid-19 cruel the strides made by the women’s game up to and including last year’s T20 World Cup, and must continue to invest for the long-term.”I understand that women’s cricket was building up really nicely and the T20 World Cup played at the MCG on March 8 showed what you can do if you invest heavily and market it properly, and I felt like women’s cricket was just about to kick off because of that, and then a week later the whole world shut down,” she said. “What that showed me was national boards and everyone went back to automatic pilot – ‘what’s going to give us revenue, it’s the men’s game, we’ve got to get that up and running’.”I understand you’ve got to pay bills and money’s got to come in, absolutely, but if you can find a way to get men’s cricket up and running in a bio-secure bubble, then surely you can do that for the women’s game. I look at India and they are a prime example. The last time they played as a country was March 8, and we’re nearly coming up to a year. Some countries have done really well, Pakistan women’s side have a couple of series locked in and they’re playing South Africa at the moment, Australia leading the way as well and New Zealand and we’re in that same bio-bubble.”But I urge national boards and the ICC to make sure the women’s game grows globally and goes off the back of that T20 World Cup – I hope that 80,000 at the MCG becomes a common occurrence.”Given how far the women’s game has come since Sthaleker attended that first trial session for a boys’ team, such a vision should be well within reach.

'Rashid Khan has got that ace up his sleeve, always'

by n8rngtd.top Uncategorized

ESPNcricinfo experts Aakash Chopra and Tom Moody put their heads together to figure out the best spinner in T20 cricket

ESPNcricinfo staff31-Oct-20207:37

Moody: Rashid never shirks away from the workload

Aakash Chopra: What is it about Rashid that is so, so special and unique?Tom Moody: Firstly, forget about his bowling as such, (it is) his character. He is an enormously gifted character that loves the contest. He is a real fighter. And when he was selected out of the (2017) auction, that was probably something that wasn’t known. What was known was what we’re seeing quite regularly everytime we watch him bowl – and that is his genius with the ball, his ability to spin the ball sharply, more so into the right-hander and away from the left-hander, but also generate that great deal of pace off the wicket, which is his greatest asset.Chopra: Let’s dive deeper and dissect the craft of Rashid’s legspin because that is unique. A quick bowling action, fairly flat and quick in the air, off the surface as well. But it was felt that he was figured out last season (2019 IPL) when people were just playing him out: “don’t attack him, he can’t get you out”. This season we have seen a different side to Rashid Khan. He’s picking wickets even when people are defending. How has he been able to do it?Moody: As you said, last year, and I think around the world, a lot of people have decided against attacking Rashid Khan, “let’s just preserve wickets and accept that his four overs are going to go for 24, and on a good day, we might get 30 off him”. So they’ve taken that strategy. So they’ve really taken away the ability for him to take wickets with batsmen looking to be positive against him.In the early parts of his career, batsmen were trying to dance down the wicket, hit him down the ground or sweep him or reverse sweep him or give themselves room and try to hit through the off side. And on every occasion… well, certainly more often than not, they were found unstuck because he’s a very, very difficult prospect to face.Rashid Khan sets off in celebration•BCCIAnd one of the main reasons he’s so difficult is because of that speed he gets off the wicket and the fact that the batsmen aren’t reading which way it is turning. He doesn’t turn his legbreak enormously, but he turns it enough. It is mainly that wrong ‘un. And that is his main weapon.One of the reasons he probably is having more wicket-taking success this year is that batsmen, when they’ve come across Sunrisers, have found that there’s been a little bit more pressure at both ends. So, therefore, they can’t just sit on Rashid when they are not scoring as freely as they’d like at the other end. So what they’ve had to do is take a little bit more risk against him. He is obviously a year older and a year smarter. He’s come into this tournament, having played a full Caribbean Premier League. So he’s got a lot of overs under his belt. So he’s ready and prepared.Chopra: The pitches in the UAE are a lot faster off the surface, so you can’t possibly just see him out. Secondly, earlier when he used to come to play the IPL, he would have bowled 12 months of non-stop overs in T20 cricket. And over a period of time, if you have bowled a lot of overs, sometimes that fizz, that zip actually goes away. You want to be accurate, but you are not that accurate because the limbs are tired. Could that be a factor? Could just the faster nature of these pitches as compared to a lot of pitches in India in April and May could that be a factor – people who are defending now, they are not even going against him. He is now conceding like three-and-a-half runs an over in a lot of games, but he’s still picking up two or three wickets.Moody: It is a good point you make about the surfaces being a little bit quicker. And there is probably a little bit more bounce as well at a couple of the stadiums in the UAE. Spinners do relish that extra little bit of bounce. I still feel that the overs that he’s had leading into this tournament in the Caribbean were important. I don’t think anyone can come into the tournament cold and expect to hit the ground running. He’s coming in ready to go. He’s had that rest in quarantine anyway, so freshened up in quarantine.

One of the reasons he probably is having more wicket-taking success this year is that batsmen, when they’ve come across Sunrisers have found that there’s been a little bit more pressure at both ends. So, therefore, they can’t just sit on Rashid when they are not scoring as freely as they’d like at the other end. So what they’ve had to do is take a little bit more risk against himTom Moody, former Sunrrisers’ head coach

Chopra: What is his training procedure, Tom? Is he actually one of those who does sit and analyse the opposition? How does he actually prepare for a game?Moody: Rashid is someone that is very thorough with his training. I wouldn’t say he’s someone that over-analyses the game. He does keep it very simple. He’s got very simple plans, which in a way works to his advantage, because he knows that his strength is this, don’t overcomplicate it and try to bowl three or four different (types of) balls in one over just to confuse the batsman. His good ball on a repeated loop is good enough for 24 balls in a four-over stint.What he does do is he definitely bowls a lot of overs at training. He doesn’t shirk away from the workload. He’s very aware that he needs to maintain his rhythm in his bowling. Yes, he would want to bowl specifically to left- and right-handers, according to who we are playing against. So if you are playing against a side that’s got a heavyweight in their top order of left-handers, for instance, he’ll want to bowl the majority of his overs in training to the left-handed batsmen just so he could formulate his lines and these lengths.He will look at some video, particularly if he hasn’t seen a batsman. But in this day and age, the players know, you know each other inside out, they play against each other at various leagues or on the international stage often enough, they know each other’s strengths and weaknesses.Rashid Khan finished his spell with a double-wicket maiden•BCCIChopra: But that information is not always knowledge and wisdom. He does get taken for runs once in a while. I remember that one game against Kings XI Punjab in Mohali when Chris Gayle just went after him. And that was the first time I saw him getting clobbered in that fashion. How did he actually bounce back in the reverse fixture? How does he come back from fear failure, a rare one?Moody: Yeah, that was a rare one. And it was a space that he hadn’t been in. It was very interesting, actually. He was very reflective of his performance. He didn’t shirk away from analysing and reflecting on that effort. I remember sitting with him for a period of time and discussing it. It was really him that, which was the important thing, came to the conclusion that really the thing that was undoing him was his length to Chris Gayle on that day, it was just probably a foot to two too full.And the harder he tried, the harder he found it to find the right length because he was putting himself under pressure. So instead of just taking a step backwards and taking a deep breath, and just getting his rhythm and finding his right length, he was rushing himself through his overs and therefore presenting the wrong length, which proved to be the right length for Chris Gayle.Chopra: Would it be fair to say that in terms of success formula, length is the critical component: if you pitch too full you get taken for runs, if you pitch too short you don’t pick up those many wickets?Moody: That’s pretty much the formula for any spin bowler, or any bowler, period. But, particularly for Rashid, for him to be in that space where he is a nightmare to face to where he’s someone that you can actually rotate strike if not hit boundaries against, and once he gives that a little bit of freedom it is welcomed by the batsman because they are sitting and waiting for options and opportunities to score. Because, unlike a lot of spinners, when he hits his right lengths, it is very hard to change that length by using your feet because of his speed through the air.A lot of spinners you can use your feet and throw them off their length. But, with Rashid, batsmen have found it very difficult to be able to come down the wicket and put the spinner under pressure with his length. So he’s got that ace up his sleeve always.Chopra: Can people play him as an offspinner? I’m just finding ways to counter him because if you keep playing dot ball after dot ball, eventually you get dismissed trying to go for a big one? Moody: Good luck, just playing him as an offspinner!Chopra In terms of scoring areas, Tom – instead of off side, you are looking to score, say, long-on, midwicket. Robin Uthappa got the better of him one season where he decided he was going downtown and nowhere else?Moody: I remember that clearly too. Robin Uthappa was playing (Rashid) nearly like a straight sweep slog over sort of straight midwicket to midwicket, and he did it did very effectively, as you said. So he was just banking on the ball turning in, but you are talking about a player that is an established and very good player of spin.A lot of batsmen have talked about trying to cover their stumps and play Rashid Khan through mid-on, midwicket, go with the tide of what they think the spin is. And if Rashid does see batsmen look to do that, what he will look to do to counter that is just change his release position at the crease. So he’ll just change the angle of the balls coming down. He may not necessarily change the delivery, but he’ll change the arrival of the delivery. So it may come six inches or a foot wider over the crease than it would have done in the previous six balls.

Ben Foakes' futile masterclass highlights the plight of the specialist keeper

by h716a5.icu Uncategorized

For all his brilliance with the gloves, judgement on Foakes’ return will be determined by his batting

Andrew Miller15-Feb-20214:02

#AskMatchDay: Is Foakes the best wicketkeeper in the world?

When done right, some things in life – like a proper wet shave with a cut-throat razor, or cooking your roast potatoes in goose fat – can be so luxuriously perfect that, in that precise instance in which you sit back and go “aaah!”, you vow to yourself you will never, ever again settle for anything less than the very, very best a man can get.But then, life gets in the way, and the impracticality of your peccadillo catches up with you at inopportune moments, and you end up just settling for a Bic and some cooking oil. And you know what? They do a perfectly adequate job. A blemish here and there on your mildly fuzzy cheeks, perhaps, and maybe a fractionally less satisfying crunch to your spud. But who’s really paying attention when, as everyone knows, it’s the quality of the gravy that truly defines your beef?Such were the circumstances that defined Ben Foakes’ efforts on the third morning at Chennai, as he produced one of the most lasciviously futile masterclasses imaginable.Much like his matinee-idol teeth, Foakes’ efforts all Test long have been close to spotless. In the first innings, his unshowy excellence contributed to a new world record – the highest total ever conceded without a single extra – while in the second, the same pillowy soft hands that have served his bowlers so well behind the sticks gave England a glimmer of resistance in front of them too, as he dug in to top-score with 42 unflustered, unbeaten runs, even as his team-mates were fleeing the lava-pit.

But it was on the third morning, as if piqued by a fractional dip in his standards the previous evening, that Foakes brought out his most silken showmanship. Wicketkeepers, like umpires, rarely steal the limelight unless they are making match-changing errors – especially not when Virat Kohli is busy compiling a statement half-century in their presence. But Foakes’ exploits in the space of 30 faultless minutes from the start of play were too wondrous to pass without extensive and gushing comment.The prologue was Foakes’ assist in Ollie Pope’s ninja-reflexed run-out of Cheteshwar Pujara – a moment that may have owed plenty to an unlucky stubbing of Pujara’s bat in front of the popping crease, but which also served to underline the significance of sharp reflexes in the close combat of Asian Test cricket.After all, Dom Bess had singled out Pope for his efforts at short leg in the first Test, saying he was ready to “offer him a contract” to be his permanent lid-man. And given that Keaton Jennings attracted similar plaudits in Foakes’ debut series in Sri Lanka two years ago, it’s curious how wicketkeeping excellence still can’t quite earn the same cachet as a must-have weapon for these conditions. Foakes, after all, came into this contest with most of England ruing the untimely departure of Jos Buttler – a less accomplished gloveman who, for all his faultless work in the past three Tests, was barely six months ago facing the Test axe on account of his batting.Related

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What followed, however, was a one-man protest on behalf of the English Wicketkeeper’s Union – a cri de coeur on behalf of men such as James Foster and Chris Read, both of whom have been helping Foakes to hone his technique during this Asian tour, and both of whom discovered in their own playing days how hard it is to gain traction on an England berth when molten glovework is the best thing that you can offer to the team collective.So Foakes set about upping the ante with a pair of utterly sublime stumpings to account for Rohit Sharma and Rishabh Pant. Both were notable not so much for the speed of his hands but their proactive movement, as he absorbed the fizzing bounce with scarcely a hint of tension in his stance, and was already flowing towards the bails as the ball began to nestle into his webbing.In both instances, there was no question that Foakes had “made” the dismissals, rather than simply reacting to the chances that came his way. Rohit might well have wriggled back into his crease had he taken longer than a split-second to seize his chance, but it was the poise he retained as Pant galloped, swung and swivelled that made even the leathery old pros in the commentary box sigh. Foakes had every right to be caught unawares as the ball exploded through a contortion of limbs, high to his right. Instead, his reaction was magnetic in its surety.And just as quickly as his reflexes, the plaudits began to rain down, not least from a past-master of Indian keeping, Kiran More, who praised Foakes on Twitter as “one of the best overseas keepers in Indian conditions”. “When Foakes opens up while keeping his body opens up, that helps him to collect the ball when it is bouncing and jumping,” he wrote. “He has a great head and hand position, has great balance about him.”

In the Channel 4 studio at lunch, Sir Andrew Strauss grudgingly set about eating some humble pie. Strauss was a curiously puritanical captain in his day, given his rakish attributes, and admitted his belief that specialist wicketkeepers belonged to a “bygone age” – an understandable sentiment, on the one hand, seeing as the rise of his own No.1 Test team had had the sergeant-majorly Matt Prior as the team’s pivot and pulse at No. 7. And just like Buttler and Jonny Bairstow in recent times, Prior’s game was blameless at the height of his career – even if, in conditions such as these on his maiden tour to Sri Lanka in 2007-08, his cymbal-gloved display at Kandy had cost England a rare victory chance, and soon led to his own banishment from the team for the next 12 months.That’s one of the big problems for wicketkeepers – the bigger the reputation, the harder the ‘clang’ as that opportunity goes to ground. The other is the one that became all too apparent as India’s second innings began to stretch off into the distance. When the chances dry up, even the half-ones, any point of difference that you might have brought into the contest drifts back into abeyance.For a time in India’s second-innings reboot, Foakes’ standards were undimmed. There he was, standing up to and swallowing Stuart Broad’s lesser-spotted legcutters, which were biting off the pitch with such venom that Ben Stokes, standing five metres further back at slip, was still too late to react for the one opportunity that came his way.Foakes stumps Rishabh Pant on the third morning•BCCIThere was Foakes, plucking cobra spit at neck height, as Jack Leach found bite and bounce from an off-stump line. He even induced a review for caught-behind off Dan Lawrence’s ripping first delivery, with Joe Root seduced by the nonchalance of his one-handed, unsighted snaffle down the leg side. And to think that Alec Stewart standing up to Ronnie Irani for a handful of ODIs was once the height of English wicketkeeping funk. Surely this was a masterclass of epoch-shifting proportions?And yet, England have got giddy about Foakes’ attributes before. It only took one ill-balanced Test in the Caribbean two years ago for his player-of-the-series exploits in Sri Lanka to be banished to cricket-hipster purgatory – and who knows when, if ever, he’ll get a chance to add to his one-and-only ODI cap, let alone get himself an average after saving England’s bacon in Malahide with an unbeaten matchwinning fifty.For his plight is almost as old as the game itself. Everyone tends to blame Adam Gilchrist for shattering the mould for specialist keepers at the turn of the 2000s, but Jack Russell and Bob Taylor were suffering for their art long before him, as were Keith Andrew and George Duckworth back in the days when Godfrey Evans and Les Ames were the more recognised sources of runs.And sure enough, just as things were getting eulogistic, Foakes failed to wrap his gloves around an 82mph/132kph nick as Broad went unrewarded once again, and suddenly the bubble was burst. “Why is he standing up to the stumps?” asked Sunil Gavaskar on the host broadcast, with precisely the lack of nuance that purists can attract when they let their standards slide. Not long after that, he missed another stumping too – or was it a dropped catch? Either way, an infinitesimally small under-edge deceived Foakes as he rose to end R Ashwin’s stay, and there’s surely no more naked sight in the game.And so, in spite of the heights of excellence that one of the purest talents in the game was briefly able to attain, final judgement on Foakes’ return to the England Test team is destined to come down to his batting on the very same snake-pit that he went above and beyond to tame. for his breed, you might say. But at least he’s got an average of 79.75 in Asia to give his credentials some heft.

England's white-ball culture change laid bare as fringe players prove international mettle

by h716a5.icu Uncategorized

English sport’s surreal week continues as circumstances force promotion of youth

Alan Gardner08-Jul-2021Where to next for this increasingly surreal week of sport in the UK? With football – at least, according to a majority of those surveyed – on its way home for the first time in more than half a century, cricket decamped to Wales for the start of England’s bilateral one-day series with Pakistan. After a tepid first half of the white-ball summer against Sri Lanka, this contest held out the promise of greater intrigue – and that was before you factored in the hosts having to come up with an entire replacement squad due to the exigencies of Covid-19.England’s enforced “change of personnel”, as Ben Stokes put it with more than an air of understatement at the toss, was not only a curiosity for the record books – five debutants and a grand total of 124 caps between the rest – but surely presented Pakistan with a chance to pinch some valuable World Cup Super League points off a weakened opponent. At worst, these ODIs were bound to have a greater competitive edge.But Stokes, having won the toss in his first outing as limited-overs captain, duly did as Eoin Morgan would have done and stuck Pakistan in, then watched contentedly from mid-off as England’s Other Guys set about giving a practical display of the country’s much talked-about white-ball depth. His first act on the field was to call for a review, as Saqib Mahmood thumped his opening delivery into Imam-ul-Haq’s pads; thereafter, aside from a solitary over’s bowling, he did not have much else to do.Related

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England squad forced to self-isolate after positive Covid tests

'There were two overseas seamers in PSL: me and Steyn'

Fears that going up against the likes of Babar Azam, Fakhar Zaman and Shaheen Afridi with a bunch of Royal London irregulars (more than half of whom hadn’t played a List A match since May 2019) would prove to be a mismatch were by turns both confounded and confirmed. Mahmood, the England attack leader by mien as much as the fact his four previous appearances where more than the rest combined, claimed two wickets with his first three balls and the outlines of another thrashing as emphatic as anything handed out to Sri Lanka were defined.By way of example, Sri Lanka’s Powerplay scores in their three attempts to set a competitive 50-over target were 47 for 3, 47 for 4 and 45 for 4. A sickly return of 46 for 4, three of the wickets falling to Mahmood, left Pakistan in similar distress.In truth, despite the scratch nature of England’s XI, by and large the players on show were either close to the squad in recent times – such as World Cup winner James Vince or No. 1-ranked T20I batter Dawid Malan – or among the pack of Lions pacing to and fro while waiting for a chance. Mahmood, whose 28 Royal London Cup wickets at 18.50 in 2019 (the last time the domestic 50-over competition was played) helped win him international recognition that winter, duly took his.Having begun about as well as he possibly could, by removing Imam and Azam in the first over of the match, Mahmood backed the effort up by going round the wicket to pin Pakistan’s sole debutant, Saud Shakeel, lbw. He was then brought back by Stokes mid-innings – another Morgan-esque move – in pursuit of a swift kill; his fourth wicket, finding lift and seam movement from round the wicket once again to graze Faheem Ashraf’s outside edge, left Pakistan 101 for 7 and sinking.Matt Parkinson took his first ODI wickets•Getty ImagesThere was some extra spice to his performance, which was duly applauded by the Pakistan contingent in the ground – more voluble throughout than their English (or Welsh) counterparts. Mahmood was born in Birmingham but is of Pakistani heritage (his mother was born there), and it was in the PSL earlier this year when his performances as an overseas seamer – a rarity in itself – signalled he should soon be back in England contention after apparently slipping down the pecking order.There were maiden ODI wickets, too, for Lewis Gregory, Matt Parkinson and Craig Overton, followed by an unbeaten half-century from Malan and another on debut from Zak Crawley, as England shrugged off the absence of their established performers. Pakistan’s implosion, which included a daft run-out after Zaman and Sohaib Maqsood had seemingly steadied the innings with a fifth-wicket stand worth 53, added to the potent sense of the bizarre in Cardiff.So dominant were the understudies that it invited comparison (at least in the shorter formats) with Australia in their pomp. The 1994-95 quadrangular series, featuring England and Zimbabwe as the touring sides, famously saw Australia A qualify to play the final against the senior XI. Australia A could select the likes of Ricky Ponting, still a few weeks shy of his full debut, Matthew Hayden, Greg Blewett, Michael Bevan, Justin Langer and Damien Martyn. Numerous other players from that era, from Stuart Law to Martin Love, would find domestic excellence rewarded by only a handful of caps.England are perhaps not quite there yet, however garlanded the likes of Phil Salt and Brydon Carse go on to become. Perhaps, given the prevailing mood of the nation, it is more apt to focus on the complete change of culture that Morgan, Stokes and the rest have overseen, and see a parallel in the way Gareth Southgate has fostered a revival in English footballing fortunes – doing away with old-fashioned notions, investing in talent and technical skill, promoting fearless youth.At Wembley on Wednesday, the likes of Bukayo Saka (eight caps) and Kalvin Phillips (14) demonstrated a readiness for the highest level that would have been almost unthinkable a generation ago. With three World Cups (T20 and 50-over) in the schedule for England’s cricketers over the next couple of years, if Mahmood, Parkinson and the rest can step up as confidently, it won’t just be down to an inconvenient outbreak of Covid-19.

Yuzvendra Chahal's simplistic approach recaptures confidence in familiar conditions

by n8rngtd.top Uncategorized

Through basic control and bowling smarts, Chahal delivered a match-turning performance

Saurabh Somani26-Jul-20210:58

I backed myself before coming on this tour – Chahal

Since India turned to wristspinners in the white-ball formats in the second half of 2017, Yuzvendra Chahal had been a regular fixture in the playing XIs, in both ODIs and T20Is. However, after the 2019 World Cup, both Chahal and fellow wristspinner Kuldeep Yadav were no longer able to command a spot in the first XI. The Covid-19 pandemic meant India’s squads were split, with Chahal being a more reliable inclusion in the limited-overs side playing in Sri Lanka. It was in Sri Lanka that Chahal established himself as a regular in the playing XI, and returning there has also seen the form of old return.Chahal was full of fizz in the first two ODIs, rested in the third since India had sealed the series, and went up a notch in the opening T20I on Sunday. In the ODIs, he had been thrown the ball after good starts by Sri Lanka, and invariably offered India greater control. He did the same thing in the first T20I, only better. Brought on immediately after the powerplay with Sri Lanka 46 for 1, Chahal bamboozled Dhananjaya de Silva with a delivery of a legspinner’s dreams. A loopy delivery that was so perfect it could have represented an equation, teasing drift, hitting the perfect length on leg, and then ripping across the batter to knock out off stump.That would be Chahal’s only wicket in the game, but his figures read 4-0-19-1. The bare numbers are impressive enough, but in terms of Smart Economy – which is arrived at after taking into account the stage of the match a bowler has bowled in and the batters bowled to – Chahal’s was an astounding 2.69, easily the best in the game for any bowler that delivered more than one over.Chahal could tie Sri Lanka down not just by skill, but by smarts too. He was bowling with a shorter leg-side boundary to the right-hand batters, and therefore didn’t bowl a single googly to them. Not just that, he maintained control of his line immaculately too. According to ESPNcricinfo’s ball-by-ball data, of the 13 balls Chahal bowled to right-hand batters, three were on the stumps and 10 were outside off stump. Not a single ball down leg. Of the 11 balls bowled to left-hand batters, seven were on the stumps, not giving them room to target the off side, which was the shorter boundary.Yuzvendra Chahal provided plenty of control with figures of 4-0-19-1.•ISHARA S. KODIKARA/AFP/Getty Images”The end I was bowling from, the leg side boundary was shorter and they were looking to hit that side,” Chahal said after the match. “That’s why I didn’t bowl googlies to the right-handers. I didn’t want to give them confidence, I thought that if I can bowl a lot of dot balls, pressure will build. So even if I don’t get a wicket, my partner from the other end can bowl more freely. If I had tried to go for wickets, or tried something extra, and they had hit a six or four, the pressure would have automatically come on us, because the total wasn’t so big. So I bowled more googlies to the left-handers. I kept mixing it up.”Chahal gave up seven runs in his first two overs, and an asking rate that was 7.66 before he came on, had ballooned to 10.00, with Sri Lanka having also lost two wickets inside three overs. Just before his final over, Charith Asalanka had taken debutant Varun Chakravarthy for 14 runs, giving Sri Lanka a set-up for a final-overs charge. On came Chahal for the 15th over. He conceded just three runs, varying pace, adjusting length if the batter moved and keeping the ball out of their hitting reach. ESPNcricinfo’s Smart Stats had Sri Lanka’s win probability at 40.47% before Chahal’s last over. After he bowled, it had dropped to 22.92. He said his job was “to control the middle overs”, which is exactly what he provided to India.Getting the fizz back in his bowling was the result of spending time during the pandemic-enforced lockdown with coaches, and with Haryana team-mate Jayant Yadav, whom Chahal bounced ideas off.”When I was not playing, I was working with my bowling coach, about where I should bowl, why I was not able to perform in a couple of matches. During the lockdown, I did single-wicket bowling, practiced with my friends,” Chahal said.Yuzvendra Chahal’s only wicket in the first T20I was of Dhananjaya de Silva with a ripping legbreak•SLC”I didn’t want to make too many changes. I thought about which lines I should focus on, whether to go wider or go stump to stump. I sat with (Bharat) Arun sir, there is Paras (Mhambrey) sir here and Rahul (Dravid) sir, so I sat with them, saw videos to see what am I missing? I have been doing well, but it was not happening in a couple of matches. During the lockdown, before this tour, I couldn’t really go much to cricket grounds due to Covid-19 restrictions. But the three-four sessions I got in my hometown, I went and practiced. Jayant Yadav was there, I’ve been playing with him since childhood, so we practiced together. I spoke to him also, and things started from there. The main thing was that the more confident I can be while bowling, the better I will be able to bowl.”Related

  • Krunal Pandya tests positive for Covid-19, second T20I against Sri Lanka postponed by a day

  • Bhuvneshwar, Chahar, Chahal help India defend below-par 164

For Chahal, it was important to do well in this series, given the depth of options India have to choose from. In this squad alone, among pure spinners, Rahul Chahar is on the sidelines as another promising legspinner, while Kuldeep and Chakravarthy are around too.”Definitely when your bench strength is so good that you have a pool of 30 players overall, it is a boost, and you get quality there,” Chahal said. “All spinners are doing well. You know that for your spot, there are already two people ready, who have already performed in the IPL, here. My focus when I play is that I should perform whenever I play. If you perform (well), then you get to play. You can stay in the team only with performance. When I bowl, I keep my mind clear, I don’t think of ‘this guy has done this, that guy has done that’. My mind is on the fact that I have the ball, and what I need to do now.”Chahal is likely to face sterner challenges after the current T20I series, with the twin behemoths of IPL and the T20 World Cup later this year. If he can continue to employ the skill and nous he has regained in Sri Lanka, there will be more happy days ahead for him and his team.

Who goes out of India's XI when Virat Kohli comes in?

by n8rngtd.top Uncategorized

If Shreyas Iyer is to be retained after an excellent debut, a tough call will have to be made for the Mumbai Test

Sidharth Monga01-Dec-20212:12

Agarwal or Rahane: Who will sit out when Kohli is back?

Everybody knows about Rahul Dravid’s second Test as captain. That’s when he declared on a certain somebody. Let’s talk about his third then. It was also the third Test for a batter who had made his name as in ODIs already. Yuvraj Singh would get to play, and Dravid would be the captain, only when Sourav Ganguly was missing. In his third Test, just before Ganguly was fit again, Yuvraj scored a superb century from 95 for 4 on a green seamer in Lahore. Back then, Dravid didn’t have to decide whose place the full-time captain would take without denying the promising youngster, who looked ready to transition from white ball to red ball at the international level.

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In his second Test as coach of India, Dravid has to make that call. Or, at least, help make it. Virat Kohli, who gave himself a one-Test break to just get off the treadmill for a week and work on his game, will be back as captain for the Mumbai Test against New Zealand, and he has to decide who makes way for him. Shreyas Iyer rescued India twice with innings of 105 and 65 on debut, making it nigh impossible to leave him out, especially when the other three middle-order batters have a combined average of 27.3 over the last two years.It leaves Dravid and Kohli a tricky selection to make. These are their options.Kohli replaces Rahane

If you just look at cold numbers, Ajinkya Rahane, who captained in Kohli’s absence, has to go.Rahane averages 24.39 over his last 16 Tests, including one century in the Boxing Day Test nearly a year ago. With scores of 35 and 4 in the last Test, his career average has now dipped below 40.2:57

Vettori: Would probably leave out Rahane for Kohli in Mumbai

At home he averages 35.73, which has come down to 30.08 over the last five years.It is a fairly large sample size, and it is the easiest switch to make because Kohli will come in and reclaim the No. 4 spot, leaving Iyer at No. 5, where he scored the runs in Kanpur.This is one of the peculiar things about Test selections, though. Bowlers get rotated depending on the conditions. Why not batters? Part of the reason is that batters have the least say in the runs they get; conditions and bowlers initiate a play, batters react. In that sense, they are not the horses that are changed with courses.It is a thought, though: Rahane’s record at home is not good, so why not play him only in away Tests?Kohli replaces Pujara

Cheteshwar Pujara has been dropped for much less in the past. He helped save the Melbourne Test in 2014-15 but found himself out of Sydney. He scored a match-winning century on a green seamer in Sri Lanka in 2015, and found himself out in the West Indies after one home series in India without a century.Now it has been close to three years without a century. That’s 23 matches for an average of 28.61. He has played the odd good innings in between, but they have been support acts. He has tired the bowlers down with grit and will, but eventually he has needed an assertive batter with him for those contributions to count.It is interesting how the experts read it. Pujara’s returns have been marginally better, but Rahane has looked better and more organised at the wicket before finding ways to get out. Pujara bats in the more difficult No. 3 position. Both are the same age, 33.Kohli trained at the Brabourne Stadium during his break from the Test team•AFP/Getty ImagesKohli replaces Agarwal

If this happens, it will seem unfair on the young opener, who has not got a proper run in Test cricket yet.Mayank Agarwal averages 43.28 after 15 Tests, but he dominates attacks at home: he has double-centuries against South Africa and Bangladesh. On the away leg, he played both the Tests in New Zealand last year, but made way for Rohit Sharma midway in the Australia series and then missed England with injury. It would seem unfair to drop him after just one Test back just to retain two veterans.As in the unfortunate case of Hanuma Vihari, who has got to play just one Test at home and gets to play away only when the conditions are difficult enough to ask for a sixth batter, selections at Test level are not about what is fair to an individual but what is best for the team. If the team management genuinely believes that Pujara and Rahane can turn it around, and that they are of more value than Agarwal – who will be the back-up opener once Rohit and KL Rahul are back – they could take this call.

Who opens if Agarwal goes out?

Back to when Dravid was the captain in Ganguly’s absence…Ganguly came back, but Yuvraj didn’t go out. Nor did Dravid, VVS Laxman or Sachin Tendulkar. It was opener Aakash Chopra who made way. Ganguly announced at the pre-match press conference that either he or Yuvraj would open, but come day one, the job fell on wicketkeeper Parthiv Patel. Wicketkeepers tend to get such deals.Current wicketkeeper Wriddhiman Saha’s fitness is in doubt; neck pains take longer to go away at 37 than at 27. If Saha doesn’t make it, his replacement KS Bharat, who displayed excellent skills behind the wickets as the substitute, will be a decent pick to open: he has opened the innings in 77 of his 123 first-class innings, and scored a triple-century and three other centuries from that position; he has moved down the order over the last couple of years but has the experience of opening.If Saha is fit, though, such an arrangement will again be unfair on someone who batted for over three hours with a stiff neck to play an innings that, according to coach Dravid, took India to safety when they were still under pressure in Kanpur. It is not about the individual, though. Saha is 37, and he has struggled with the bat away from home. The selectors will be justified if they go with a younger back-up for Rishabh Pant.

In a nutshell…

At the heart of this selection lies an acknowledgement that batting at the Test level is mostly a reaction to the conditions and the bowling. Over the last three years or so, Rahane and Pujara don’t have the runs they would have wanted, but it is also true that India have played some deep attacks in tough batting conditions. Yet, it is also true that India have a lot of talent waiting in the wings.There has to be a reason why first Kohli and Ravi Shastri and now Dravid have backed Pujara and Rahane. Especially Kohli, who was trigger-happy with selection calls in the first half of his captaincy. One thing is sure: neither one of them can feel hard done by if dropped.If Dravid and Kohli persist with both of them in Mumbai and go to the extent of dropping an opener and asking a keeper to open, it will only tell you how much they value Rahane and Pujara.But how long will they keep valuing them if the runs don’t come?

How many New Zealanders have taken ten wickets in an innings?

by h716a5.icu Uncategorized

Also: who has played the most Tests since 2005 without appearing in a T20I?

Steven Lynch07-Dec-2021How many New Zealanders have taken ten wickets in an innings, as Ajaz Patel did in Mumbai? asked Vernon Smithson from New Zealand
Slow left-armer Ajaz Patel’s superb return of 10 for 119 in Mumbai at the weekend made him only the second New Zealander to take all ten in an innings in all first-class cricket. The other one did so a long time ago, on his debut: English-born Albert Moss took 10 for 28 for Canterbury against Wellington in Christchurch in 1889-90. The Dunedin-born legspinner Clarrie Grimmett took 10 for 37 for the Australians against Yorkshire in Sheffield in 1930, but was well established in the Aussie Test side by then. He had moved to Australia in his early twenties, around 1914, in search of better cricket opportunities (New Zealand was not a Test-playing nation then).Patel was the third bowler to take all ten wickets in a Test innings, after Jim Laker, with 10 for 53 for England against Australia at Old Trafford in 1956, and Anil Kumble, who claimed 10 for 74 for India vs Pakistan in Delhi in 1998-99. Patel was thus the first to do it in an overseas Test – but, since he was born in Mumbai in 1988, he was also the first to do it in the city of his birth!In a recent newspaper column, Shane Warne criticised Mitchell Starc and Nathan Lyon for their averages against top-six batters. I should think everyone’s average against the top six is higher than their overall average – but how do Starc and Lyon fare, and what were Warne’s? asked Pete Lehmann from Australia
This is a difficult query, complicated in Warne’s case by the fact that ESPNcricinfo only has full ball-by-ball data since 2001, which covers only about half his career. Overall, Mitchell Starc has taken 255 Test wickets at 27.12, with 158 of these coming from the top six at an average of 33.01. Nathan Lyon has 399 wickets overall at 32.10, with 169 at 40.78 against the top six. In the matches for which we have details, Shane Warne took 332 wickets at 23.83, with 169 at 32.51 against the top six.Warne’s difference (8.67) in the matches we know about is higher than the other two – Starc’s is 5.89 and Lyon’s 8.66 – but his averages are better. It should be borne in mind that while Starc almost always starts bowling at the top six, Warne and Lyon would usually bowl later, perhaps with one or two batters already established, so you might expect all spinners’ averages to be slightly higher. All in all, I think the jury is still out!Overall, looking at bowlers with at least 100 Test wickets since 2001, Pakistan’s Mohammad Asif has the lowest difference between top six (24.96) and overall (23.74), with Glenn McGrath just behind (22.91 vs 20.98; his figures are also incomplete). Another Australian, Pat Cummins, is currently fourth by this yardstick, with 23.87 vs 21.06 (so Warne is right if he thinks Cummins is better against the top six than Starc). The leading spinner by difference is England’s Graeme Swann, who took 162 top-six wickets at 33.13, in an overall bag of 255 at 29.94.Since T20Is began early in 2005, who has played the most Tests without appearing in one, and who has played the most ODIs? asked Elamaran Perumal from the United States
Since the official first T20I, in Auckland in February 2005, Cheteshwar Pujara has played 92 Test matches for India without being chosen for a T20 game; he’s just ahead of Azhar Ali, who has played 90 Tests for Pakistan. Next, with 74 apiece, come Dimuth Karunaratne and Kraigg Brathwaite, the rival captains in the Test series between Sri Lanka and West Indies that finished last week. Brathwaite has never played a senior T20 match of any kind.Turning to one-day internationals, Rahmat Shah of Afghanistan has so far played in 76 ODIs without making the cut for a T20 international. Azhar Ali features again, with 53 ODIs. Karunaratne has played 34; he’s next to two West Indians, Alzarri Joseph (37 ODIs but no T20Is) and Jonathan Carter (34).Cheteshwar Pujara has now appeared in 92 Tests without once playing a T20I•BCCII noticed that Kris Srikkanth took only 25 wickets in ODIs, but had two five-wicket hauls. Is this the smallest number of wickets to include two five-fors? asked Divyanand Valsan from India
The attacking India opener Kris Srikkanth didn’t often get the chance to display his bowling talents in one-day internationals – only 33 spells in his 146 matches – but you’re right that he often made it count when he did get a chance. His 25 wickets included 5 for 27 against New Zealand in Visakhapatnam in December 1988, and 5 for 32 against them five days later in Indore. Apart from that his best figures were 3 for 12, in the Asia Cup final against Sri Lanka in Dhaka a few weeks before.The only bowler to finish his ODI career with two five-fors but fewer wickets than Srikkanth was the Australia left-arm seamer Gary Gilmour, whose 16 wickets included 6 for 14 against England in the 1975 World Cup semi-final at Headingley and 5 for 48 against West Indies in the final at Lord’s a few days later. Another left-arm seamer, Namibia’s JJ Smit, has so far taken 20 wickets in his ten ODIs, including 5 for 26 against Oman in Windhoek last month, and 5 for 44 against them in Al Amerat in January 2020.In which Test were the most individual centuries hit? asked Mohit Patel from India
There were a record eight centuries in the drawn Test between West Indies against South Africa in St John’s in Antigua in 2005. This was equalled in the match between Sri Lanka and Bangladesh – unsurprisingly, also a draw – in Galle in 2012-13. For the full list, click here.The first-class record is nine individual centuries in a match, which has happened twice, both times in India: by Bombay and Maharashtra in the Ranji Trophy semi-final in Poona (now Pune) in 1948-49, and by West Zone and South Zone in the Duleep Trophy final at the Wankhede Stadium in 1986-87.Shiva Jayaraman of ESPNcricinfo’s stats team helped with some of the above answers.Use our feedback form, or the Ask Steven Facebook page to ask your stats and trivia questions

Poll: Ashwin or Chahar? And does Hardik fit in if he can't bowl?

by n8rngtd.top Uncategorized

Have your say – what should India’s XI for the game against Pakistan be?

ESPNcricinfo staff22-Oct-2021Options are endless with the Indian squad, what with their IPL experience with different combinations. You can argue for Ishan Kishan and/or Virat Kohli to open just as much as you can argue to keep KL Rahul in the middle given his versatility; you can even argue for Rohit Sharma and/or Kohli to not be there in the starting XI. You can argue for Hardik Pandya as a pure batter on his potential just as much as you can argue against him on current form even if he is available to bowl. You can argue for R Ashwin’s experience, Varun Chakravarthy’s mystery or Rahul Chahar’s wristspin; you can argue for more than one of them too. So let’s be realistic with this poll, restrict it to only the slots that are open according to the team management.For that we need to take on face value what Kohli said at the toss in India’s first warm-up match: Rahul, Rohit and Kohli are locked in as the top three, in that order. And Jasprit Bumrah as the lead seamer and Ravindra Jadeja as the allrounder at No. 7 are not in any doubt.What about the middle order?
These are more situational spots based on overs left in the innings and match-ups rather than fixed batting numbers. If Hardik bowls – Rohit said before the second warm-up match that he would – it will make the choice easier. The other options are Suryakumar Yadav, Rishabh Pant and Kishan.

What should the spin attack look like?
Chennai Super Kings, the IPL 2021 champions, used only their spin-bowling allrounders in Dubai, but India will surely employ more spin beyond just Jadeja. Conditions will determine if they pick one or two specialist spinners, and they have got three choices. Chahar is a quick wristspinner but without a great IPL behind him, Chakravarthy is a mystery spinner in great form but doesn’t have a lot of experience, and Ashwin has a lot of experience but he is a fingerspinner who was not finishing his quota against right-hand-dominated batting line-ups in the IPL.

Bumrah, and who else?
The number of spinners and the number of fast bowlers are connected questions. Bumrah is a certainty but India will need at least one – and likely two – more quicks. Bhuvneshwar Kumar has the experience of bowling in the powerplay and at the death. Mohammed Shami can extract any help there might be for fast bowlers. Shardul Thakur has impressed with his canniness and was picked belatedly after the selectors realised they were one fast bowler short.

No longer a hitting machine, David Warner is now the smart-cricket guy

by h716a5.icu Uncategorized

It seems that whatever malaise had slowed Warner down, he’s over it

Jarrod Kimber12-Nov-2021David Warner was the most dominant batter in the IPL for years. And then he played a few bad games, and the team he had captained for an IPL victory not too long ago dropped him mid-year and sacked him from his leadership job.When I said he was dominant, he had an average of 52 with a strike rate of 145 from 2014 until 2020. And half a bad year where he made runs, but far more slowly than anyone would have liked, was enough for Sunrisers Hyderabad to let him go. In the eight innings he played in IPL 2021, he was run-out twice. And they moved on from the most incredible batter they – or maybe anyone in the IPL – have ever had.Related

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Australia saved their tournament, now they need to define it

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Wade, Stoinis tee off at the close to put Australia in final

It was not the first time Warner had struggled. In 2018, when he was banned from the Australian team, he went on to play in Canada for the Global T20 league’s Winnipeg Hawks. He averaged 13.6 with a strike rate of 114.7. He then turned up for the CPL with St Lucia Stars and made nine, 11 and seven in his first three games. Even as he started to make some more runs for the Stars, people began to wonder if this was some kind of irreversible decline in form.Was Warner’s effectiveness tied to being an Australian player? Had his mojo been sucked out with the sandpapergate scandal? These were the weird thoughts that seemed to float around.Obviously not, as he then went straight back to the IPL and made 692 runs at a strike rate of 143.86 in 2019.

While he is no longer the kid with the double-sided bat slogging 90mph-plus into the crowd, he’s been the Warner that Sunrisers had in this tournament. Not the one they dropped this year, but the one who dominated the IPL over six seasons

The Sunrisers’ over-reaction might have had less to do with six bad games from Warner and more to do with their own poor roster construction. But it was a big decision to make on the back of such a small sample size. However, people took a few bad games and assumed that Warner was in an irreparable decline. At 35, hell, once you pass 32, people start looking for signs that you are done.Watch cricket live on ESPN+

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And there are plenty of signs that Warner isn’t the same batter he once was, as he’s clearly just not. He made his mark by flat-batting Dale Steyn into the MCG crowd when he was 22 games into a professional career and hadn’t yet played a first-class match. In that game, he had a strike rate of 206, clearing the massive boundary six times.In all, he has hit that many maximums or more ten times, but only once since 2012.5:44

Jayawardene: ‘Warner’s contribution was crucial’

It is also really the period where he went from being a hitter to a batter. Or, more importantly, a Test player. Since being that kind of a batter, Warner has changed from a T20 hitting machine to a hard-running match-up guy who knows how to make very consistent runs. His body has changed too, and there is a reason he doesn’t bowl legspin – or even medium pace – anymore as his shoulder will not allow it.None of this means he can’t hit sixes anymore, he still takes down a lot of spin, and if Warner can time the ball well, he will score them off quickly. But he isn’t the beast who dumped Vinay Kumar a bunch of rows back in a Test at the WACA.And that is why it is strange that people saw the IPL form and the slow start to this tournament against South Africa and assumed Warner was past it. Most of what Warner does now is just smart cricket. He knows how to make runs in T20s. Like any batter, Warner will go through a bad patch because T20s can be like that. If Warner wasn’t the most consistent scorer in the modern T20 format, then KL Rahul was, and he went through a similar run not that long ago.And it seems that whatever malaise had slowed Warner down, he’s over it. This is already Warner’s best-ever T20 World Cup, and it’s not a tournament that he generally does that well in. In fact, part of Australia’s problems can probably be traced back to the fact that they have Warner and Aaron Finch at the top. But despite them being big-name T20 stars, they haven’t even always opened for Australia at this global tournament together.So far, Finch has not really fired this time, but Warner has. He made 65 from 42 against Sri Lanka, had two failures against England and Bangladesh, but then bounced back by scoring 89* against West Indies from 56 balls. His Sri Lanka knock probably helped the team win the game, the West Indies one did too, but they were half on the plane while bowling in that innings.This innings against Pakistan in the T20 World Cup semi-final was something else. This was a knockout match against an incredible bowling line-up that goes deep. Warner survived Shaheen Shah Afridi early on and took on his good match-up against legspin with Shadab Khan. And when Mohammad Hafeez bowled a double bouncer, he was so quick to work out that it was a no-ball and get to it so he could swing it over the ropes. That was again proof of how smart he is.This innings helped set up Matthew Wade and Marcus Stoinis at the end. And had he just reviewed his caught behind, he might well have been able to navigate Australia through their collapse much easier.Warner has changed. While he is the fourth leading run-scorer at this tournament, with a strike rate just under 150, he has only hit seven sixes. But while he is no longer the kid with the double-sided bat slogging 90mph-plus into the crowd, he’s been the Warner that the Sunrisers had in this tournament.Not the one they dropped this year, but the one who dominated the IPL over six seasons.

Can RCB shed tag of top-heavy underperformers?

by h716a5.icu Uncategorized

They are backing established Indian domestic players like Mahipal Lomror and Siddarth Kaul to add heft to their international stars

Shashank Kishore22-Mar-2022Where they finished in 2021RCB finished third in the league phase, before losing to a resurgent Kolkata Knight Riders in the Eliminator. It was RCB’s second straight playoffs finish.Potential first XI1 Faf du Plessis, 2 Anuj Rawat, 3 Virat Kohli, 4 Glenn Maxwell, 5 Mahipal Lomror, 6 Dinesh Karthik, 7 Wanindu Hasaranga, 8 Harshal Patel, 9 Shahbaz Ahmed/Karn Sharma, 10 Mohammed Siraj, 11 Josh HazlewoodRelated

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Player availabilityThe newly wed Glenn Maxwell will miss at least the first two games, while Josh Hazlewood is set to miss the first three matches due to Australia commitments. RCB can choose between the firepower of Finn Allen or Sherfane Rutherford to plug the Maxwell void.Allen offers them big-hitting ability at the top of the order. He has a T20 strike rate of 175.65 across 51 matches. Rutherford, meanwhile, can be used as a finisher, a role he played, albeit sparingly, for Delhi Capitals three years ago. He has a decent body of work in T20 cricket lately, being a key player in the St Kitts & Nevis Patriots team that was crowned CPL 2021 champions. He was their second-highest run-getter with 262 runs at a strike rate of 127.18.BattingFor a long time now, RCB have tended to be top heavy. Season after season, they try to plug gaps, but the more they’ve tried to change, the more they’ve remained the same. Last year, they looked to plug the middle-order gap with Rajat Patidar and KS Bharat. This time around, they will need Mahipal Lomror and Suyash Prabhudessai – both established domestic names now – to fire and take the pressure off Maxwell and Dinesh Karthik.At the top, they don’t have the calming presence of Devdutt Parikkal anymore. But in Anuj Rawat, all of two games old in the IPL, they have a player with potential. Can he translate that into performance? RCB appear to be keen on giving him a long rope as an opener alongside du Plessis, with a freed-up Kohli set to bat at three.Anuj Rawat, who has played for Rajasthan Royals previously, albeit without much game time, is likely to open for Royal Challengers Bangalore this season•BCCI/IPLBowlingMohammed Siraj, one of RCB’s three retentions ahead of the auction, will have the new-ball responsibilities and Harshal Patel, among their costliest auction picks, will be their death-overs weapon. Harshal’s career graph has skyrocketed following a record-equalling 32 wickets in IPL 2021.In the spin department, Yuzvendra Chahal’s void will be filled by Wanindu Hasaranga, who also offers some lower-order batting depth in addition to his deceptive legspin. Karn Sharma is an able back-up for Hasaranga should they need a local option for the sake of team balance.Incidentally, Karn was first signed by RCB in 2009 as a rookie pick outside the auction. Since then, he’s been part of IPL title-winning campaigns with Mumbai Indians, Sunrisers Hyderabad and Chennai Super Kings.Shahbaz Ahmed also offers them all-round depth and the ability to be a floater in the batting line-up. In Siddarth Kaul and CV Milind, they have experienced local Indian pace reinforcements. Both Kaul and Milind have been consistent performers for Punjab and Hyderabad in domestic cricket for a long time now.Young players to watch out forKeeper-batter Anuj Rawat’s formative years in Delhi clashed with those of Rishabh Pant, who has gone on to establish himself as India’s No. 1 keeper across formats. Two truncated domestic seasons haven’t helped, and Rawat is trying to make up for lost time. Still only 22, Rawat is an exciting top-order stroke-maker who has been backed to open. He’s been a part of the IPL for three seasons with Rajasthan Royals, without much game time. This could be the opening he was looking for.Nicknamed “Junior Gayle” by Chandrakant Pandit, the renowned domestic coach, Mahipal Lomror used to toy with age-group attacks in Rajasthan along with his best friend Rishabh Pant. After the Under-19 World Cup in 2016, where both featured an India line-up that finished runners-up, their paths diverged. While Pant soon graduated to play for India, Lomror has had to go back to the drawing board in domestic cricket. After years of being in the fringes and a middle-order back-up at Royals, Lomror has an opportunity to step it up.Coaching staffMike Hesson (director of cricket), Sanjay Bangar (head coach), Sridharan Sriram (batting and spin coach), Adam Griffiths (bowling coach), Malolan Rangarajan (fielding coach)Poll question

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