Doom and gloom aside, Sri Lanka’s recent track record and international-cricket journey offers promise

Madushka Balasuriya18-Sep-20232:02

Maharoof: Sri Lanka exceeded the expectations of many by reaching the final

At any other point in Sri Lanka’s history, crumbling to 50 all out in an Asia Cup final would’ve left the captain standing on extremely shaky ground. Especially if he’s managed only two double-digit scores in his last 11 innings.Dasun Shanaka’s form with the bat is difficult to ignore. But there is more than meets the eye in this story.”Dasun works so hard on his game,” Sri Lanka head coach Chris Silverwood said on Sunday. “And as we know he’s a great man. So from my point of view we’re just trying to put confidence into him. We know what he’s capable of. He can be a very destructive batter, and we’ve seen in this tournament that he’s more than a useful bowler. So for me he’s one score away from flying again,” he said speaking after Sunday’s Asia Cup final.Related

• Injured Chameera and Hasaranga miss out, Shanaka to lead Sri Lanka at the World Cup

• Silverwood: 'A kick up the rear end not the worst thing going into a World Cup'

• Coach Silverwood wants Shanaka, Dhananjaya 'to provide firepower' as finishers

• ESPNcricinfo's Asia Cup team of the tournament

• Siraj donates Asia Cup final prize money to groundspersons

“There’s more to being the captain than just scoring runs. Dasun is very good at it. He has the respect of everyone in the dressing room. He understands the players and shows them a lot of love and support as well. And that love and support is returned to him as well. But he’s not alone in there. He’s got a lot of support in that dressing room.”Shanaka took over the reins in early 2021. It was a change in leadership that coincided with a youth-driven overhaul of Sri Lanka’s white-ball sides – set in motion by the Pramodya Wickramasinghe-led selection committee and emboldened by the now-defunct technical advisory committee headed by Aravinda de Silva – one that culminated in that most unlikely of Asia Cup wins in 2022.That win might have set unrealistic expectations for the T20 World Cup later that year, but after another Asia Cup final, this time in ODIs, it’s hard to argue that this isn’t a side moving in the right direction. It just so happens that the setbacks thus far have been particularly brutal.But does that warrant tearing up the blueprint completely? Especially when that blueprint had accounted for such setbacks? Speaking to ESPNcricinfo prior to last year’s T20 World Cup, consultant coach Mahela Jayawardene had acknowledged as much.”The players know what their roles are in this team. What is being asked of them to do, that is important. But it’s very difficult for new guys to come in and straight away do that,” he said.”We have to give some time to cultivate that within the group, and you will see that they trust each other out there. They don’t blame each other for mistakes, they take their mistakes as a group not as individuals, and they move on.”For much of cricket’s history, the idea of player roles was anomalous – you simply played your best squad, be it in Test or ODI cricket. However, the advent of T20 has gradually ushered in the era of specialists, not just in formats but in positions. Jayawardene has long been a passionate advocate of role clarity, something he had identified as a key point to address even prior to joining Sri Lanka’s coaching set-up in an official capacity.Dasun Shanaka followed up Sri Lanka’s Asia Cup win with an appearance in the final•AFP/Getty Images”We had to be more prepared, the players needed more direction in terms of role clarity. There was a lot of things we needed to do, in terms of getting them to play a certain brand of cricket and giving them the freedom to express themselves.”The perception is that the pursuit of this new set of goals has set Sri Lanka up for pain in the short term, but the numbers don’t actually support that. Sri Lanka’s win-loss ratio has hardly budged over the past few years and even compares well with the halcyon days of 2007-2014.In terms of win percentage, Sri Lanka’s under Shanaka’s captaincy stands at 58% with 23 wins in 39 ODIs. How does that compare with previous regimes? Well, the longest in recent memory is Jayawardene’s, with his 129 games seeing 71 wins (55% win rate). In terms of best win rate, Kumar Sangakkara got up to 60% in 45 games. Angelo Mathews won 49 of his 106 ODIs as captain (46%). So Shanaka is generally par for the course, and even if you take Sri Lanka’s golden period in 2007-2014, their ODI win rate stood at 52%.Given that, a large part of the current malaise surrounding the team could be down to big-game performance. Despite that 52%, Sri Lanka would make a deep run in nearly every major tournament between 2007 and 2014, culminating in that 2014 World T20 win (their T20I win percentage in this period was 62.5%). Shanaka meanwhile has won 45% of T20Is under his captaincy, but since that includes an Asia Cup win, his record in the shortest format is viewed fairly favourably.Why, then, does this Sri Lanka side feel so much worse than those of yesteryear? Simply put, the opposition has gotten better.A fun aside surrounding Sri Lanka’s debacle against India: the entire ODI lasted 129 deliveries, putting it third in the list of the shortest completed men’s ODIs. The second, fourth and fifth spots in that list also include Sri Lanka – it’s just that on these occasions, they were the ones handing out the hammerings.Of those three thrashings, Zimbabwe were at the receiving end of two. Entire Bangladesh top orders have been ransacked by Chaminda Vaas alone. Even India have felt the burn that a red-hot Sri Lanka can inflict and social media was full of posts reminiscing about the good old days.This is at the heart of Sri Lankan cricket’s identity crisis at the moment. A string of wins in the qualifying tournament to a World Cup has been written off as minnow-bashing and losses to supreme white-ball outfits like India and England were viewed as conclusive evidence of Sri Lankan cricket’s downfall.The reality, though, isn’t quite so bleak. It is just that it seems so by comparison. There was a time when Sri Lanka could go toe-to-toe with even the best sides in major tournaments. It stings that they can’t do the same right now; that they’ve been left behind.Addressing this is where Sri Lanka are investing their energy. They’re trying not to make hasty decisions, and in that sense, the willingness to persevere with Shanaka might just be a signal of a greater shift in the mindset of those tasked with taking Sri Lanka cricket back to where they feel they ought to be.Perhaps then it’s time we stop pining for what Sri Lanka were and relearn to love them for what they’re trying to be.

The offspinner averages just 31.14 in Australia, the second toughest nation to bowl spin

Sampath Bandarupalli17-Dec-2023With his five-wicket match haul against Pakistan in the home season’s opening game in Perth, Nathan Lyon has scripted his name alongside seven other bowlers to have bagged 500-plus wickets in Test cricket. Only two other Australians have achieved the milestone before him – Shane Warne and Glenn McGrath. Lyon enters the 500 Test wickets club to increase the tally of spinners to four, joining Muttiah Muralidaran, Warne and Anil Kumble.It took a while for Lyon to reach here, needing 123 Tests, by far the most among the four spin bowlers. Being a non-Asian spinner and often playing with a three-man potent pace-bowling unit has given Lyon fewer wicket-taking opportunities. However, Lyon has taken 24.04% of the wickets picked by the Australian bowlers in the matches he played. Only three non-Asian spinners with 150-plus wickets since 1980 have picked up a higher share of the team’s wickets.

The multi-format South Africa tour will keep India busy at the turn of the year, and there will be extra focus on the T20I series with a World Cup months away

Nagraj Gollapudi30-Nov-2023The India squads for the South Africa tour are set to be picked on November 30 in Delhi. In all, the tour will include three T20Is, three ODIs and two Tests. While the primary focus will be on winning in South Africa, the selection panel led by Ajit Agarkar will also look to address some of the broader selections for the T20 World Cup, which will start in June, immediately after the 2024 IPL.With India playing only six T20Is between the current home series and the T20 World Cup, ESPNcricinfo looks at some of the tough and significant questions the selectors are likely to deliberate on.Who leads at T20 WC – Rohit or Pandya?Since India lost the 2022 World Cup semi-final against England last November, Rohit Sharma has not played T20Is. In his absence, Hardik Pandya presented himself as an eligible successor to Rohit in the shortest format.However, two things happened at the ODI World Cup to force a rethink on who is best to lead India at the T20 World Cup. First, Hardik hurt his left ankle in the first half of the World Cup while trying to intercept the ball in his follow-through. A ligament tear was not detected but eventually Hardik was ruled out for two months in early November, which means he will miss the South Africa tour.The second factor was Rohit’s explosive starts at the World Cup alongside his aggressive captaincy, which led a ruthless India to 10 straight wins until Australia beat them in the final.If Rohit is able to display similar explosive intent in T20Is, it has the potential to once again set India up for big scores. Plus, Rohit’s T20 leadership acumen has never been in doubt. While Hardik earned his leadership badge by winning the IPL in 2022 with Gujarat Titans, who also made the final last season, he has never led an Indian team that has included the senior quartet of Rohit, Virat Kohli, KL Rahul and Jasprit Bumrah. It doesn’t mean he is not capable, but the question would be who is the best captain – to provide clarity of roles as well as take tough calls under pressure.Does Kohli find a place in T20Is?Like Rohit, Kohli hasn’t played T20Is since the 2022 World Cup. However, he was the fourth-highest run-getter in the 2023 IPL, during which he scored successive centuries that took him past Chris Gayle’s tally of most tons in the tournament’s history. “A lot of people feel my T20 cricket is declining, but I don’t feel like that at all,” Kohli had said then. “I feel I am playing my best T20 cricket again.”Despite strident criticism, Kohli, who has been the Player of the Tournament at two T20 World Cups to go with the recent ODI World Cup award, has been adamant about sticking to the anchor-style batting: starting conservatively, pushing the ball into gaps in the middle overs before the explosive finish. It is an approach adopted in the past by Rohit and Rahul, with whom he formed India’s top order at the past two editions of the T20 World Cup.Among the top Indian openers in all T20 cricket, only Yashasvi Jaiswal and Rohit have struck at more than 130 per 100 balls in the powerplay since October 2021. It is worth mentioning here that Shubman Gill displayed much improved intent during this year’s IPL, and went at above 150 in the powerplay. In this same period, Kohli’s first 10-ball strike rate is 113.33 while Jitesh Sharma (165.54), Jaiswal (150.12) and Suryakumar Yadav (145.50) have shown more early intent.The question then for the selectors is: does Kohli fit in as the No. 3? One way for that to happen is if both openers go aggressive before Kohli adapts based on the situation. The alternative is to consider a new batter with a faster pick-up.It could not be confirmed whether Kohli will sit out the white-ball leg of the South Africa series, but even if he does, the selectors need to make their decision quickly. It would be risky to defer the decision to closer to the World Cup. If the selectors and the team management decide to move on, they ought to inform Kohli and also identify the batter they feel can replace him at No. 3.Who should be the two wicketkeeper-batters?Rahul, Ishan Kishan, Sanju Samson and Jitesh have performed or been part of the T20 squads in the past couple of years to perform that role. While Rahul played a winning hand in India reaching the ODI World Cup final recently, in T20s he has struggled with slower starts, which has stunted his team’s momentum. Also, the bigger challenge with Rahul is that he has played mainly as an opener – both for India and in the IPL – for the past several years. At the last T20 World Cup, too, it was Rishabh Pant and Dinesh Karthik who kept wicket.Since November 2019, Rahul has not batted in the middle order in any T20 game. As a middle-order batter Rahul’s numbers read: 1223 runs in 50 innings at an average of 32.18 with a strike rate of 127.66 with two centuries. As an opener, since October 2021, Rahul has made 1802 runs in 49 innings at 41.90 with a strike rate of 132.59.While his experience and keeping skills are in no doubt, can Rahul fit in to the middle order when there are more power hitters available?If Pant was fit, he would be a favourite to make the 15. However, the BCCI has not yet given an updated timeline on Pant’s return. Even if Pant were to play in the IPL, his keeping and batting form are not guaranteed. Kishan and Jitesh, who are currently playing the T20I series against Australia, are other viable options. Kishan, though, is a top-order batter while Jitesh is a finisher, a role he has performed well for Punjab Kings. Samson, who last featured on the Ireland tour, is again a top-order batter.Who are the options for bowling allrounders (outside of Hardik)?Rahul Dravid and Rohit have both stressed on the importance of having batting depth balanced by bowling depth. That was one reason Shardul Thakur and Axar Patel were part of the original 15 for the World Cup. Both will again be part of the set of bowling allrounders the selectors will look at along with Ravindra Jadeja, Washington Sundar and Chahar.While Jadeja and Axar are primarily middle-overs specialists, Chahar and Washington can make an impact in the powerplay. Both of them can also play useful batting cameos. While Washington can bat anywhere, Chahar has the capability to bat No. 8 or 9, which means Indian tail won’t be that long.Who will be Bumrah’s partners?Jasprit Bumrah and Pandya will be automatic first picks. Both can deliver in all three phases in an innings. However, the squad will need two other fast bowlers. The contenders are Mohammed Siraj, Mohammed Shami, Arshdeep Singh, Prasidh Krishna, Mukesh Kumar, Avesh Khan and Chahar, who was added for the final three T20Is of the ongoing Australia series.

How will the new allowance of two bouncers per over play out in the IPL? We asked two leading fast bowlers for their take

Nagraj Gollapudi20-Mar-2024Alongside the yorker, the type of delivery that has the potential and power to surprise and literally floor the batter is the bouncer.While the fast, climbing bouncer – like this Jasprit Bumrah rocket – can force a top- or leading edge while sending batters ducking and weaving out of harm’s way, the slower variety can equally, but in different ways, lead to a dot ball or a wicket.Though the power of the bouncer is potent in all cricket, in T20s bowlers have been allowed just one per over. That is going to change in the IPL from this season: the league has decided to allow bowlers two bouncers an over instead of the one that is the norm in T20 elsewhere, including in international T20 cricket.What impact will that have on bowling plans, and on batters?”It is a huge, huge advantage,” Harshal Patel, who will turn up for Punjab Kings this IPL, says. “The biggest advantage is, you can bowl them at any point in an over – as opposed to [having to think of] when is the best, when we had just one bouncer an over.”You can now go really hard early on: bowl a bouncer very first ball or second ball, then bowl a couple of length deliveries, then go defensive and close off the over. The more options you have, the better as a bowler.”I can package my over better now.”Related

• How soon will we need to reconsider how essential bouncers are to cricket? (2021)

• Carnage and fun – the madness at the death in T20 cricket

• Harshal Patel: 'There's nothing wrong in bowling 24 slower balls in a T20 spell'

• Death becomes him (2018)

• IPL to allow two bouncers per over

More options for bowlers to sequence their overs
Generally in T20s, bowlers are known to follow a bouncer with a yorker. That is likely to change under the new allowance, according to former South Africa, Sunrisers Hyderabad and Royal Challengers Bangalore fast bowler Dale Steyn. Steyn was bowling coach at Sunrisers for the last two seasons (he opted out this year for personal reasons).”A bouncer and a yorker go hand in a hand,” he says. “If you get [the one] bouncer out of the way too early in the over, the next ball which immediately comes to your mind is the yorker, because now the batter knows you can’t bowl a length ball and he is not expecting anything short. Everything is now going to be in his half.”I know a lot of [batters] fear the yorker a little bit. But if you are bowling yorkers to batters like [MS] Dhoni, [Jos] Buttler, Surya [Yadav], they are able to access parts of the field where there is no fielder.”Against a bouncer, Steyn points out there are only limited pockets in a field the batter can hit to usually, as opposed to a yorker.”If you are bowling a yorker, the ball can go anywhere. If you don’t execute it well, Dhoni hits you for a six over long-on. You can bowl a perfect yorker and you can still get hit for a boundary over fine leg. Whereas with a bouncer, setting the field is much easier to control: you know the shot is potentially going to third man, deep square, fine leg. There are not many guys who can hit a bouncer over long-off or long-on – the percentages of that happening are extremely low.”Steyn agrees with Harshal that bowlers now have more options when planning an over.”Now, instead of being under pressure to bowl multiple perfect yorkers, [or thinking] ‘Do I bowl a wide or straight yorker?’ you can walk back to the mark calmly and follow the first bouncer with even a back-of-a-length ball, which offers all three types of dismissal. You can keep the batter guessing about when the second bouncer is coming. Now? Or is it going to be another length ball?Harshal Patel favours the slower bouncer, forcing the batter to generate the power to clear the outfield•Saikat Das/BCCI”The two bouncers allows the fields to be kept simpler, the bowler’s mind less clouded, which overall means his execution could be better.”Two bouncers: a weapon for attack or defence?
Harshal, the top wicket-taker in the 2021 IPL, fetched the highest bid for an Indian player at the auction ahead of the upcoming IPL season, when Punjab bought him for Rs 11.75 crore (US$1.41 million approximately). Over the years he has largely been used in the final ten-over segment, where his variety of slower balls, including a slower bouncer, have posed difficult questions for batters.”[The bouncer] can be both [attacking and defensive] depending on what lines you bowl or what pace you deliver at. If you want to go slower into the pitch, sort of wide-ish outside the off stump, then it can be a very good defensive option against batters who generally tend to drag to the leg side.”It can be also be an attacking option depending on whether you have the fine leg and square leg back and you bowl at the batter’s head and force them to hook you or hit you over the boundary. In a T20 environment very few batters will try to keep it down and try to hit the gaps, most will try and hook you over the line. So that always allows you to force an error.”While the fast bouncer has shock appeal, the slower variety that Harshal relies on can be a nearly equal threat. He talks about the Eliminator in the 2022 season between Royal Challengers Bangalore [his previous IPL franchise] and Lucknow Super Giants, where slow offcutters dug into the pitch were his stock delivery and fetched him Marcus Stoinis’ wicket at a crucial time in Super Giants’ chase.”Eden is a small ground, so I bowled wide slower bouncers to most of the specialist batters, including KL Rahul, Marcus Stoinis, Deepak Hooda. I had great success. [The other bowlers] were going ten an over while I was closing my overs for six or seven runs an over.”It’s important to pick the kind of batter to bowl bouncers to, Steyn says. “It’s about making sure the bowler doesn’t overdo the bouncer to guys who are able to take it on”•BCCIWhen and against whom will the two-bouncer rule be most effective?
Steyn believes bowlers will be best off using the new allowance mostly after the powerplay.”Maybe after at least the first four overs. Because with only two fielders out in the powerplay, you have less chance of setting the field. You are also trying to utilise that new ball – trying to swing it, use the hard seam better. So one bouncer is really good in the powerplay to keep the batter guessing. A second bouncer might mean, if he gets any bat [on it], it could fly into the vacant area. Outside of field restrictions, though, you have a different game plan, you have more fielders to play with.”Steyn would like to see bowlers target attacking batters more.”Anybody who is a power player. “[As a coach] you tend to tell bowlers, ‘Guys, stay out of their strike zone.’ Let’s see them pull the ball, as opposed to put their front foot down the track and bully you back over long-on or long-off.”Those kinds of batters knew they didn’t need to pull or hook, and [they could] just duck the [one] bouncer previously. They could catch up with consecutive sixes to counter that one dot ball. But now two dot balls… it’s a different story.”For Harshal, it is about attacking the new batter straight away.”You need to be very good with line: you want to be somewhere around the left ear or left shoulder, because that is the blind spot and batters don’t have control. Because when you try to hook and when the ball rushes on to you or comes a little slower, you end up gloving.”To his point about testing batters with the short ball, Steyn adds a caveat. “If you are bowling to Mitchell Marsh on a flat track in Delhi, the pace-on bouncer might not be the best option. Marsh grew up in Western Australia. I remember specifically a game in Delhi last year where Umran [Malik] tried doing that against Marsh and he didn’t do it high enough and Marsh dominated him. But if he is bowling against somebody else who doesn’t play the pull well, then I will suggest Umran bowl the bouncer more than once.The new rule should encourage bowlers to think more about how to place their fielders, Steyn says. Someone like Jasprit Bumrah can even fool batters by bowling a yorker after setting the field for a bouncer•Vipin Pawar/BCCI”If you are rushing a guy around nipple height and he is not looking to take on the pull, then you can get away with a full over by having the long-on and long-off up. It’s really about making sure the bowler doesn’t overdo the bouncer to the wrong batter – guys who are able to take it on.”Two bouncers, more thought about fields
Bowlers need to think about field placements themselves, Steyn says.”It’s going to be a more challenging field when you are going to force the batter to play more straight shots instead of just standing there and hacking. I want to see bowlers start thinking more as opposed to walking to the top of the mark and the captain telling them, ‘This your field’ and [the bowler goes] ‘All right.’ Over years and years of that they just stick to stock standard field settings. You see guys scoring 360 degrees around the park. We need a little bit more thinking. This [new rule] will allow them to tinker with their thinking now.”An example of a smart bowler of this sort, Steyn says, is an India and Mumbai Indians player who can bluff batters on any pitch across formats.”If you are a [Jasprit] Bumrah, who delivers an extremely good yorker, he can even bluff by going yorker and knocking your poles off while retaining a field for the bouncer.”Steyn thinks the two-bouncer rule will not impact totals in games drastically. “You are still going to see teams scoring 180, 190, 200. It’s not like teams are going to get all out for 120.”It’s going to be quite interesting how batters handle the bouncers. We are going to start to see a difference between how good some batters are versus how lucky some other batters sometimes get, where when they come in, they know that they are only going to get balls bowled in a particular area and they can score 30 off 20. We are going to see less of that.”In Test cricket a bowler has plenty of deliveries to set up a batter – a luxury not available in T20. Steyn believes the two-bouncers rule will change that.”You probably got two balls in T20s to work a batter over previously. Now you could potentially get three to four balls.”

Opportunities for players has never been higher but fixture clash undermines tournament

Matt Roller17-Jan-2024Laurie Evans is the fastest-scoring batter in the Big Bash League this season and blitzed 72 off 34 balls in Perth Scorchers’ final-ball defeat to Sydney Sixers on Tuesday, their final game of the regular home-and-away portion. But when Scorchers face Adelaide Strikers in Saturday’s Eliminator, he will be 9,000km away in Abu Dhabi.Evans is one of seven players who will miss the BBL’s knockout stages in order to feature in the early stages of the ILT20 in the UAE. It is a scheduling clash which leaves three Englishmen – who have a single international cap between them – as the only overseas signings left standing in Australia, and one which diminishes a season that has reinvigorated the BBL.Strikers are the worst-affected club: they will lose this season’s joint-highest wicket-taker in Jamie Overton and the third-highest run-scorer in Chris Lynn, as well as Adam Hose. Brisbane Heat will be without Sam Billings and captain Colin Munro for Friday’s Qualifier against the Sixers, who themselves will have to cope without James Vince.The principal reason does not take long to work out: the ILT20 pays players more than the BBL. “All the way through my career I’ve made a name for myself in finals and big games,” Evans said on Tuesday night. “It’s absolutely the worst time to be leaving, but I’ve got a job to do and a family to feed. It’s just the nature of the beast.”Despite a 50% increase in the BBL’s salary cap ahead of this season, the ILT20 has more financial muscle. ILT20 franchises can spend up to US$2.75 million – including two ‘wildcard’ players – on salaries for a four-week tournament, while BBL teams are capped at US$2m for a seven-week period. Put simply, players earn more money for less work.But wages are not the only consideration: most players had signed ILT20 contracts long before the BBL’s overseas draft. When Overton signed off from the Big Bash with an Instagram post on Monday, he denied a fan’s comment that Gulf Giants will pay him more. “They aren’t,” he said. “I had signed for them before I got drafted with the Strikers.”The first two overseas drafts have split opinion and have added needless uncertainty for players who would otherwise have been retained directly. Billings, for example, has spent the last two seasons with the Heat, but had to go through the uncertainty of a televised draft between them rather than simply signing a contract extension.

Some people forget that a draft literally has zero guarantee of being picked up…

All players want to play finals

— Sam Billings (@sambillings) January 16, 2024

Evans believes that there is also a “general consensus” among players that the BBL’s 44-match season could be played in a tighter timeframe: “I certainly feel that the BBL could squeeze some more games in. We’ve had a lot of downtime and I think that way, you’ll get the best players coming back over without any clashes, and get the finals done.”It’s great that I can go and play as many tournaments as I can in a year,” Evans said. “I just think you need to move with the times. You’ve seen it in England with the Hundred: they want it done inside a month and it’s a brutal schedule, but that’s the game we’re in. The 10 games [per team] is about right, but I definitely think we could shorten the start and end.”Several ILT20 franchises have the advantage of a global footprint. Evans will be aware that if his form continues in an Abu Dhabi Knight Riders shirt over the next month, it could result in contracts with their affiliates in the US (Los Angeles), the Caribbean (Trinbago) and even India (Kolkata) down the line. There is no equivalent with Scorchers.The game is at saturation point worldwide: from Friday, the BBL’s finals will compete for attention not only with the ILT20, but also the Bangladesh Premier League, the SA20 and a swathe of bilateral international series, including Australia’s Test series against a West Indies side missing several players to those leagues.The status quo is not working. Take Nicholas Pooran: he played three games in five days for Durban’s Super Giants in the first week of the SA20 but has since joined MI Emirates, whom he will briefly captain before flying to Australia for a T20I series. Players have never had so many opportunities to earn a living, and the global market has never been more competitive.Even still, the BBL remains an attractive league for overseas players: they can base themselves and their families in Australia over Christmas, play for established teams in front of engaged crowds, and earn a competitive wage while doing so. Holding onto a set of high-quality overseas players for the knockout stages should not be an impossible task.The BBL has been a major success this year, with the decision to reduce the number of games vindicated by a significant spike in crowd numbers and a compelling narrative that has sustained the league’s 13th season. But the talent drain to the UAE should remind its administrators that there is no room for complacency.

Surrey wicketkeeper opts to hone white-ball skills rather than be involved on tour of India

Matt Roller16-Jan-2024When England Lions line up against India A at the Narendra Modi Stadium on Wednesday, one player will be conspicuous by his absence. Jamie Smith hit a 71-ball century in the Lions’ most recent first-class match against Sri Lanka in the spring, but will be 1000 miles away from Ahmedabad preparing for the ILT20 in the UAE.Smith, a Surrey academy product, made his ODI debut in September and is widely considered to be a future England Test wicketkeeper. His record-breaking hundred for the Lions last year earned him rave reviews from Ian Bell, the Lions’ batting coach, and was enough to catch Ben Stokes’ eye while England were on tour in New Zealand.But rather than spending a second successive winter with the Lions, he has opted to fulfil a contract with Gulf Giants, where he will play under former England coach Andy Flower. It is a decision that many would interpret as a statement of priorities, but Smith himself is clear that it will help him achieve his ambition to be a three-format international cricketer.Related

Jamie Smith: England's next wicketkeeper off the rank ready to put his hand up

England's new faces to take on Ireland

ILT20 becomes first Associate-run franchise league to get 'official' List-A status

PSL opener on February 17 to clash with ILT20 final

The ECB management are fully supportive. Smith spoke to Mo Bobat, the board’s departing performance director, before committing to the ILT20 and Rob Key, England’s managing director, is also on board. “It was a very open conversation between us,” Smith told ESPNcricinfo. “It wasn’t a case of ‘you can’t do this’ or ‘you have to do that’.”There’s always going to be a couple of conversations: my main goal is to play Test cricket for England and I don’t want to be blacklisted, but that was never the case and that was reassuring. I want to become a three-format player and I just felt at this time, I’ve probably had more experience in first-class cricket.”Smith has played more T20s (59) than first-class matches (50) but has not had a consistent role, batting everywhere from No. 1-9 in Surrey’s Blast side. “I’m a relative novice in terms of my T20 game,” he said. “I want to get more experience and a bit more exposure against quality overseas players, and expand my game that way.”The ECB were very supportive. I think they appreciate that I’ve spent a lot of time focusing on my red-ball stuff in the last few years. Last November, I was on the Lions camp in Dubai, had Christmas off then went over to Sri Lanka and was into the [county] season. There was no actual time spent practising any white-ball skills.”I was back into red-ball cricket, all the way through to the Blast and the schedule is so hectic. I finished our last Championship game [in May] and we were playing in the Blast straightaway. At the end of the year you always write down little things you want to explore and work on, but there just wasn’t actually any time I could dedicate to that.”

“I want to go out and be proactive in red-ball cricket, put people under pressure. In the past there has been a misconception that you’re only a white-ball player or a red-ball player. You have to look at the bigger picture”

But Smith believes that playing franchise cricket will not only help his T20 game. “I want to go out and be proactive in red-ball cricket anyway, and put people under pressure,” he said. “In the past there has been a misconception that you’re only a white-ball player or a red-ball player, you have to look at the bigger picture.”Whether you’re on a Lions tour or in a franchise competition, you’re still playing games of cricket against high-quality, experienced players and you’re still trying to better yourself. I’d say my T20 game is very similar to my red-ball game and to me, it’s just about batting and improving – whatever environment that is in.”Smith is also conscious that franchises can be fickle. “There’s a limited window when you can get picked up. There are two or three competitions going on at the same time in January and February, then you’ve got the PSL and then ultimately the IPL, which is another aspiration a bit further down the line.”Without putting your name in the hat, you see how people are nowadays: you can just get moved on. There’s so many players out there, and if you don’t start taking a few of these opportunities up then all of a sudden, they will pass you by and there’ll be other players that will go past you.”Smith had his most prolific Championship season in 2023 as Surrey won their second title in a row, averaging 40.88 with two hundreds from No. 4. “I’d had a few goes in the past and people told me, ‘you might struggle with the moving ball’ but this time I made it my own,” he said. “And we came away with another trophy.”He also thrived in his first full season of the Hundred, batting at No. 3 for Birmingham Phoenix after he was picked up for £50,000 in the draft. “They gave me so much confidence. My role was clear from the get-go: you’re not scared of failing because you know you’ll be given the opportunity.”But the highlight of Smith’s summer came at Trent Bridge in September, when he made his England debut as part of a second-string ODI squad that beat Ireland 1-0 in a rain-affected series. “It was an incredibly proud moment for me, and for my family,” he said. “It gave me a snippet of what is hopefully to come.”You want to play in all three formats but to tick off one, nobody can take that away from you.” The second and third ticks are unlikely to be too far away.

MS Dhoni did have moments of influence over this game, but the headline belonged to someone else

Alagappan Muthu23-Mar-20241:01

Moody’s message to Gaikwad: ‘Make this your team’

Maheesh Theekshana was wondering where he was supposed to go. He was loitering somewhere at fine leg, halfway to the boundary, trying to catch the captain’s attention.Ruturaj Gaikwad was at mid-off, talking to the bowler Tushar Deshpande. It took a while for him to realise he was needed by somebody else but by the time he looked up, MS Dhoni has already taken care of it.Theekshana was sent to patrol the fence, although he did wait until the captain agreed with . This team has been the extension of one man’s will. A multi-million dollar manifestation of his personality. Until now there was never anybody else. And when there was, it didn’t really work.Related

• Ravindra, and an unlikely Wellington reunion in Chennai

• A season begins, an era ends, and life goes on for MS Dhoni

• Gaikwad: Last year itself, Dhoni had hinted about captaincy

• CSK vs RCB, Live blog: Mustafizur extends CSK's dominance over RCB

• Mustafizur stars as Gaikwad's CSK start title defence with comfortable win over RCB

Stephen Fleming did say at the pre-match press conference that Dhoni had such a sense for cricket that it would be impossible to turn it off and foolish to let it go to waste. He had a chat with Ravindra Jadeja just before he came on to bowl on Friday. He had been active in setting fields, not necessarily deciding on positions, but the angles. Those 1m, 2m adjustments for which, last season, he said he liked the players to always keep an eye on him. It looks like that instruction might still be valid this year.Throwbacks had been the theme of the night starting with the opening ceremony, where the entertainment arrived on stage riding a zipline like it was 1996 and purveyed grade A nostalgia. A full house was treated to (1998), (1997) and (1998) and then a Chennai Super Kings win over Royal Challengers Bengaluru for the eighth straight match at the MA Chidambaram Stadium. Except in between all the same old things there was a little bit of a revolution.Ruturaj Gaikwad captained a CSK outfit with MS Dhoni in it•BCCICSK gave out four debuts for just this game. That’s only one less than the count for the entire last season. There were, of course, mitigating circumstances. Two of their first-choice players were injured so they had to be replaced. Daryl Mitchell has proven himself in international cricket and so merits a place. But Sameer Rizvi – born almost exactly a year before Dhoni played his first international – making it to a CSK XI on opening day is a significant change of track. Their current captain spent his entire first season with the side warming the bench.This team is changing. It has no choice.Gaikwad seemed to be enjoying his first few minutes rendering CSK in his own way. There were almost half a dozen little field changes in the first three overs and one of them made a lasting impact on the match. He made it together with Mustafizur Rahman. Third on the boundary came up. Cover went back to sweep. It was a response to a batter finding his runs a little too easily; a play made to complicate his process.This was a good surface with enough pace in it. So at the start, CSK assumed that if the ball were to fly, it would go behind square. Faf du Plessis, though, kept finding the boundary in front of it. He hit each of RCB’s eight fours in the first 4.2 overs. So a decision was needed. The bowler seemed to come up with it. The captain agreed. The wicket fell. It wasn’t necessarily a plan – or if was, it was aimed at making the batter access a different area of the field; it was a way to ask more questions of him. And that really is the gist of being captain. Just try to make the other guy mess up.2:54

What contributes to CSK’s winning culture?

That wicket was part of a period where only three of eight overs produced more than a run a ball. And at the end of it, Mustafizur had 4 for 7 and RCB were 78 for 5. Who had that on their bingo card? A fast bowler dominating a home game for CSK. And he still had 12 balls left. There was every chance he could become only the second seamer, since L Balaji in 2008, to pick up a five-for for the Super Kings. It wasn’t to be, but when his work was done, and he was heading off to field at short third, he came to a dead stop and turned around, like you would if someone from behind calls you. Dhoni was the one who was behind. He put his arm around Mustafizur and gave him a pat on the back. These two and their PDA.”I thought he bowled brilliantly,” RCB batter and Chennai boy Dinesh Karthik said, “In all three spells, he showed his skills. He’s bowling a lot quicker than he usually does. So that’s great for him personally. He hit the right lengths. His slower ball came out well. This was a very good pitch. It’s not the usually slow Chepauk turner that we are probably visualising in our mind. The ball skidded on a lot more and it was good for batting and he bowled really well. What makes It really tough is that he can bowl at 138-139kph and he’s got that slower ball which goes to 120-125kph, which makes it really hard to line him up”Towards the close, a packed house wearing yellow started hoping for a wicket to fall. When RCB appealed for a caught behind off Shivam Dube, they were joined by a chorus of thousands. They wanted the No. 6 wearing the No. 7 coming out to bat. They had already seen him do all the other things, including an acrobatic one-handed take where he seemed to just lift off from the ground. That brought the first roar after the first ball. Clearly, the more things change, the more they stay the same, but somewhere Dhoni himself would have been happy with the way this game ended. It contained bits of him – he took two catches and effected a run-out – but the headline belonged to someone else.

Also, what kind of an over is a “smudger”?

Steven Lynch28-May-2024Calvin Harrison bowled an over in a county match the other day that was described as a “smudger”. What does this mean? asked Bill Dunmore from England
That over by the Nottinghamshire legspinner Calvin Harrison came during their Championship match against Hampshire at Trent Bridge last week. It was the 48th over of Hampshire’s second innings, near the end of the match. The first delivery went for five wides, then the subsequent balls went for three, two, six, four and one, before the final delivery was a dot. Every ball of the over thus had a different outcome: this unusual event is apparently known on the county circuit as a “Smudger”, after the former Middlesex opener Mike “MJ” Smith. He was a tall batter, with an unusual movement across the crease as the bowler delivered, and played five one-day internationals for England in 1973 and 1974.After his playing career, Smith became Middlesex’s scorer, and apparently recorded an over like this in one game. According to Martin Briggs, a regular on the Ask Steven Facebook page: “He noticed one such over when scoring a county match years ago and thereafter was forever on the lookout for another. He was apparently held in great affection on the circuit, and county scorers named that kind of over after him, ‘Smudger’ being a common nickname for a Smith. I think I heard the story from Derbyshire’s former scorer John Brown.”Such overs are obviously difficult to spot, but I asked the Melbourne statistician Charles Davis whether his wondrous international database could throw up any other examples. This is not a definitive list, but he did discover a few: “In India’s ODI against Pakistan in Mohali in April 1999, an over by Virender Sehwag – who was making his debut – included (not in order) a dot ball, three singles, a single off a no-ball (two on to the total), a delivery that went for three wides, a four, a four off a no-ball (five runs for the total), and a six. I haven’t found any six-delivery overs in Tests or ODIs that contained 012345 or 123456, but there a few with 012346 (not in that order). However, the strangest such over must surely have come in Bombay(now Mumbai) in 1951-52, when the 44th over of India’s first innings, bowled by England’s Brian Statham, read 4, 0, 1, 2, 3… 8.”Harshal Patel won the purple cap for the second time this year. Has anyone else won it twice? asked Mahendra Sunderam from India
Harshal Patel took 24 wickets for Punjab Kings in this year’s IPL, to take the purple cap for the most wickets by a handy margin. Patel also won it in 2021, when he picked up 32 wickets (the joint-most in any IPL season) for Royal Challengers Bangalore.This award has been shared around quite a lot: since the first IPL in 2008, only two others have won it twice. Bhuvneshwar Kumar did it in successive years for Sunrisers, with 23 wickets in 2016 and 23 in 2017, while Dwayne Bravo topped the tables with 32 in 2013 and 26 in 2015 for Chennai Super Kings.Turning to the batters, Virat Kohli has won the orange cap for the most runs in the IPL season for the second time; he also came out on top in 2016 with 973 runs, the overall record for any season. Chris Gayle also topped the list twice, for RCB in 2011 and 2012, but David Warner has done it three times (2015, 2017 and 2019, all for Sunrisers). For the overall list of most runs in an IPL season, click here.Who has been out for a duck most often in Tests? asked Richard Sullivan from England
Top of the pile here is the West Indian fast bowler Courtney Walsh, who was out without scoring in 43 of his 185 innings, 61 of which were not out. Second is Stuart Broad, who was dismissed for nought 39 times (244 innings, 41 not-outs). But the leader in percentage terms, at least among the men with most ducks in Tests, is the New Zealander Chris Martin, who was dismissed 52 times, 36 of those without scoring (he also had a creditable 52 not-outs). Martin also bagged seven pairs in Tests – no-one else has more than four.Leading the way for ducks in men’s ODIs is the prolific Sri Lankan Sanath Jayasuriya with 34, not far ahead of the Pakistan pair of Shahid Afridi (30) and Wasim Akram (28), and Sri Lanka’s Mahela Jayawardene (also 28). In T20Is, Ireland’sPaul Stirling has so far bagged 13 ducks, ahead of four men with 12.In women’s ODIs, Jhulan Goswami of India collected 18 ducks, while England’s Charlotte Edwards had 16. . And in women’s T20s, Danni Wyatt of England has to date bagged 17 ducks, four more than Suzie Bates of New Zealand and Malaysia’s Winifred Duraisingam.Shakib Al Hasan (left) has the most wickets in T20 World Cups while Virat Kohli (right) has the most runs•Associated PressWith the next T20 World Cup tournament fast approaching, who has scored the most runs and taken the most wickets in them over the years? asked Christopher Glass from Australia
The leaders in these two tables are both likely to add to their tallies in the forthcoming T20 World Cup. Virat Kohli leads the way “>for the batters, with 1141. The only other man over 1000 is Mahela Jayawardene (1016). Rohit Sharma goes into the 2024 tournament with 963.The leading wicket-taker in T20 World Cups is Shakib Al Hasan of Bangladesh, with 47 (like Rohit, Shakib played in all eight previous editions of this tournament). Shahid Afridi comes next with 39, one ahead of Sri Lanka’s Lasith Malinga, but the next man on the list who should feature in 2024 is another Sri Lankan, Wanindu Hasaranga, with 31.I was amazed that the United States beat Bangladesh the other day. Have they ever beaten a Test nation before? asked Jay Morrison from the United States
Before upsetting Bangladesh last week at Prairie View in Houston, Texas, the United States men’s team had won 36 previous official internationals – but only one of them was against a Test-playing nation. The USA defeated Ireland by 26 runs in a T20 match in Lauderhill (Florida) in December 2021.Just to show it was no fluke, the USA followed up their win over Bangladesh by coming out on top in the second game as well, to clinch the series, another first for them against a Test nation.Use our feedback form, or the Ask Steven Facebook page to ask your stats and trivia questions