Their season disintegrated in the latter stages, with their batsmen not putting up enough runs for their bowlers to work with

Karthik Krishnaswamy07-Nov-2020Five matches, five defeats. That’s how a promising Royal Challengers Bangalore season ultimately came to nothing. In each of those last five games, the Royal Challengers batted first, posting totals of 145, 164, 120, 152 and 131. And as hard as their bowlers tried to keep them in the game, they simply didn’t have enough runs to defend, with only two of these matches going into the final over.Something, clearly, went horribly wrong with the Royal Challengers’ batting. But what, and why? How did a team that won seven of its first ten games disintegrate so spectacularly?According to Mike Hesson, the Royal Challengers’ director of cricket, the downturn was caused by the batsmen’s inability to adapt to the slowing down of the pitches as the tournament progressed.”The reality is that the wickets slowed up and as a batting group we didn’t adapt quickly enough, and when you don’t score enough runs you put an awful lot of pressure on your bowling unit,” Hesson said in a media interaction on Saturday. “Last five games, we batted first, [and] on all of the surfaces we struggled to adapt, we struggled to be able to apply any pressure on our opposition, we kept losing wickets by trying to force our case, therefore you end up basically crawling over the line a little bit from a batting point of view, getting a sub-par score, and then scrapping hard.”And the fact that we’ve had to scrap for every game, the last four or five, it certainly exposed the fact that we struggled on the slower surfaces as the tournament progressed.”The first ten rounds, when there was enough pace in the surfaces, as a batting unit we were very good. In the death we were the second-best team, in the powerplay I think we were second or third, in the middle we were sort of around the middle, and as the tournament progressed we dropped off in those phases, but that in a nutshell was the story of the last five games.”On the surface, Hesson’s reading seems accurate. The Royal Challengers were indeed the second-fastest-scoring team in the death overs until the end of their tenth match of the season, and third-quickest in the powerplay, but second-from-bottom in the middle overs.Then they simply fell off a cliff, particularly in the death overs (their middle-overs scoring rate actually improved marginally in the latter part of the tournament).The Royal Challengers’ death-overs scoring rate nosedived over their last five games•ESPNcricinfo LtdBut did cracks suddenly erupt in the Royal Challengers’ batting unit after game 10, or did they exist right through the tournament, papered over initially by the acts of a genius? Look at the death-overs numbers in the above graphic, and think about this game, this game, this game and this one. Would the Royal Challengers have won any of them without AB de Villiers?Four wins out of seven, owing largely to the efforts of one man. And even de Villiers can’t keep such a run of form going forever. The Royal Challengers’ death-overs decline towards the end of their campaign can be attributed largely to de Villiers reverting to the mean. In their first ten games of the season, he batted six times in the death overs, and was only dismissed twice in 69 balls. In their last five games, he was dismissed three times in 16 balls across three innings.The Royal Challengers were heavily reliant on AB de VIlliers’ death-overs masterclasses•ESPNcricinfo LtdA team can’t be so reliant on one batsman. Or even two. Virat Kohli’s approach in T20s has been widely debated, but when he makes it as far as the death overs he usually makes it count. In the early, happy phase of the Royal Challengers’ season, he made it into the death overs four times in 10 innings, and scored 88 runs off 40 balls (strike rate 220.00) while being dismissed once.In his last five games, Kohli only got into the death overs once, scoring 17 off 11 balls in the phase against the Chennai Super Kings, after having scored 33 off his first 32 balls.That sort of start was typical of Kohli’s season, and the Royal Challengers were prepared to accept it given the death-overs payoff he can deliver. But did they organise the rest of their batting well enough to complement those slow starts?Simon Katich, their head coach, certainly believes so.”One thing that we tried to do with our batting order was structure it so that guys who batted in consistent pairings complemented each other,” Katich said. “You’re having guys who are strong against maybe pace, and other guys who’re strong against spin to complement each other in different phases of the innings, so it makes it harder for opposition captains to really stifle the innings.ALSO READ: Gambhir says RCB need to look beyond Kohli for captaincy“We see that in games where two similar players bat together and an opposition captain can win a three- or four-over spell of the game with a certain type of bowling, so we were really mindful of that, and hence the reason why there were games where we did bring left-handers into the fold to break up our right-handers at the top, which we obviously had, with three of the top four, in [Aaron] Finch, Kohli and de Villiers.”Pretty much in T20, batting has to be adaptable and flexible, because the nature of the game situation dictates how you have to play, whether you’re batting first or you’re chasing and when you enter the fray. So there are no actual set positions in T20 a lot of times, it comes up to how you have to go against a certain match-up and try and make it as hard as possible for the opposition captain.”That flexibility, however, wasn’t always apparent when it came to de Villiers’ batting position. He batted at No. 4 in all but two of his innings, no matter when the second wicket fell. And he ended up with a rigidly fixed position over his last six innings of the season, after the Royal Challengers made the widely debated decision to promote a pair of left-handers, Washington Sundar and Shivam Dube, above him, to match up against the two legspinners in Kings XI Punjab’s attack.”We certainly tried [promoting the left-handers] in Sharjah against Kings XI knowing full well they had their two legspinners bowling in that phase of the game,” Katich said. “Unfortunately, the execution of that plan probably meant that we copped a lot of flak over it, because it left AB de Villiers not batting as much as we would have liked, and also we didn’t get the runs we would have liked in that phase, where we did promote Sundar and Dube. I don’t think there was anything wrong with the actual thought around the plan.”

“The wickets slowed up and as a batting group we didn’t adapt quickly enough, and when you don’t score enough runs you put an awful lot of pressure on your bowling unit”Mike Hesson, RCB’s director of cricket

There wasn’t, but the flak they copped for the move dissuaded the Royal Challengers from trying it again, even in situations that seemed to cry out for it.In the game against the Super Kings in Dubai, Kohli and de Villiers scored a combined 68 off 62 balls against Ravindra Jadeja, Mitchell Santner and Imran Tahir, all of whom turn the ball away from the right-hander. Moeen Ali, a left-hand batsman with a T20 strike rate of 169.36 against legspin and left-arm orthodox before that game, and a far more proven performer than Sundar or Dube, didn’t come out to bat until the 18th over.Moeen didn’t play another game until the Eliminator against Sunrisers Hyderabad, when the Royal Challengers made two major changes to their batting line-up. It felt like a belated recognition of the issues that had plagued the team through the tournament, especially through the middle overs. Kohli, who had struggled to find the boundary through the middle overs all season, opened alongside Devdutt Padikkal to try and make use of the powerplay field restrictions. Moeen – who boasted the best middle-overs strike rate (176.51) of all Royal Challengers batsmen since the 2018 season – came back into the team.According to Katich, Moeen was set to bat at No. 3 to target the legspin/left-arm spin combination of Rashid Khan and Shahbaz Nadeem. But the Royal Challengers lost two wickets within the first four overs, and the plan was put on ice. Moeen eventually arrived in the 11th over and ran himself out, off the first ball he faced – a free-hit.ALSO READ: Kohli’s mentorship and never-say-die attitude vital for RCB, says coach Katich“There was a period, if we hadn’t lost a wicket early [in the Eliminator], Moeen would have probably batted three, if he’d come in at the back end of the powerplay or just after the powerplay, so the timing of the wickets probably changed how our batting line-up looked,” Katich said.”We were taking the aggressive option, really, in moving Virat to the top of the order to try and get him in the game, to influence the game positively. That didn’t happen, I mean, that’s the way it panned out. It’s not often you get someone [Kohli] caught down the leg side and someone else run out off a free-hit no-ball, so that’s the way the game goes sometimes, and it didn’t go our way.”It didn’t go their way, but it might well have done had the Royal Challengers taken those decisions earlier in the tournament, and acted more proactively to address their middle-overs issues.

Also, only Malinga has produced better match figures than Siraj among visiting debutants in Australia

ESPNcricinfo stats team29-Dec-20204 – Wins for India at the MCG. This is India’s most successful venue away from home. Previously they had won three Tests each at Queens Park Oval, Trinidad, Sabina Park, Jamaica, and at the SSC in Colombo. No other team apart from England has won more than three matches at the MCG.ESPNcricinfo Ltd2003 – The previous instance of India winning a Test after losing the toss and bowling first in SENA countries (South Africa, England, New Zealand, Australia). That was also in Australia, the famous Adelaide Test of 2003. In fact the last time India won away from home in such a situation was in 2010 in Sri Lanka.2 – Previous instances of teams coming back from 0-1 down to win the second Test in Australia in the last 50 years. West Indies came back from 0-1 to win at the WACA in 1975-76. After that, it was New Zealand in 2011 in Hobart. India had lost the first Test on 23 occasions in SENA countries before this and come back to win the second Test only in 2010-11 in South Africa. The last team that won back-to-back Tests at the MCG was England in 1982 and 1986 . Before that Pakistan won in 1979 and 1981.Related

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32 – Years since no Australian batsman scored a fifty in a Test match at home. Incidentally, that was also at the MCG against West Indies. In the last thirty years, away from home, this has happened to Australia only three times.79 – The highest score for an Australian batsmen in the last six Tests between Australia and India in Australia. Marcus Harris scored this in Sydney last year. Since the start of 2016 there have been just two batsmen who have scored Test centuries for Australia against India – Steven Smith and Glenn Maxwell.1 – Overseas debutants in Australia with better match figures than Mohammed Siraj. Lasith Malinga is the only bowler to have taken more than Siraj’s five wickets in such a scenario. Only four Indian pacers have taken more wickets on debut away from home than Siraj.1887 – That’s when a visiting team’s spinners last averaged better in Australia. India’s spinners figures for this series so far read 13 wickets at an average of 16.92.2.52 – Run rate for Australia this series – the lowest ever in a home series starting from 1990. Three of the six lowest run rates for Australia in this period have come against India. The piece erroneously mentioned Pakistan in 1979 and 1981 as the last instance. This has been corrected

A new reality show trains the spotlight on the sport’s growing elitism, and hopes to do something about it

David Hopps19-Jul-2022Cricket is the most elitist sport in Britain, asserts the voice-over in , but here is Fred, one of English cricket’s best-loved figures, gathering together a disparate group of Preston teenagers and determined to do something about it. That is the premise of the reality TV show that should leave many of those involved in running English cricket over a generation or more squirming with embarrassment.You are probably aware of the statistics by now – if you did not go to private school, even more so if you have a minority-ethnic background, your chances of forging a professional career with a county club are drastically lower. That you will feel that cricket has any relevance to you at all is also unlikely. But quoting statistics is changing nothing, so perhaps Flintoff can reveal some home truths from a more emotional perspective.Fred wants to explore cricket’s image as a “posh boy sport”, and gathers some coaches around him to help. He begins in optimistic mood, imagining how wonderful it would be if he could unearth “the next cricketer who’s going to play for their country or a county”. But two episodes into this three-episode series, he has become part teacher, part social worker, wrestling with the balance between demanding discipline and providing emotional support, moved by the stories he hears about teenagers sleeping rough in bus stations and asylum seekers desperate for a better life, and the depressingly familiar collection of broken homes and damaged minds.Flintoff has no coaching experience, but he was brought up in Preston and he gets it. He played his first game as a kid in a hand-me-down Manchester United shirt and “I don’t even like Manchester United”.He knows the problem with cricket: “They think it’s played by posh people and they think it’s boring,” he says as he pins up posters on the Broadfield Estate close to where he grew up.A group is assembled, probably with some off-camera support. A few of those who turn up follow football, but nobody can name a cricketer; the raw hand-eye co-ordination that Flintoff had hoped for is not immediately apparent; and they certainly can’t afford any kit. But just don’t call these kids underprivileged because at their core it is pride, however it manifests itself, that is holding them together. And, anyway, Preston has come out in surveys as one of the best places to live in the north-west: this is not deprivation, this is normality.”Did you think us three were posh?” he asks the group about himself and his fellow coaches.”You’ve got a Ferrari, what do you mean?” comes the answer.Flintoff is a state-school lad made good and he connects with people. (I vaguely remembering questioning how he would adapt post-retirement, but I was entirely wrong and he has embraced the “TV celebrity” role with great vigour and capability). The encouragement of his coaching team, Kyle Hogg, a former Lancashire team-mate, among them, slowly brings improvement. A firm belief in the positive bonding experiences provided by team sport is only gently expressed, but the benefits are clear for all to see.The grassroots infrastructure that enabled Andrew Flintoff to become one of England’s most-loved cricketers is shrinking•Getty ImagesHe takes his team 60 miles north to Patterdale in the heart of the Lake District for their first match. It’s a nice counterpoint. Their opponents have an average age of 65, the ground is one of the most beautiful in England, and the cricket teas are to die for. Being expected to wear white kit, complete with cable-knit sweaters, spooks many in Team Flintoff.They lose, deflated gently by opponents whose age brings wisdom about how to pitch the game. “A win is having the confidence to go and play,” says Flintoff. He has sensed the insecurity behind the bravado. is not a polemic, quite the opposite, but when he starts searching for a ground his team can use, everybody should vent their anger. He visits two grounds he knows from his youth. His own ground in Preston’s Harris Park is now derelict and owned by a property company. Another ground has “the police on speed dial”. Without grounds like these, and the family support he received, England might have lost one of their most-loved allrounders in history. The point is allowed to rest subtly, but this is Broken Britain, social fabric collapsing, opportunities narrowing. This is a story as much about the state of Britain as the state of cricket, not that this should give the game a free pass.Ben reveals that he was sleeping rough in Preston Bus Station at 16. He has been lucky enough to get council starter accommodation and is studying for college. He is a big lad who can whack it if he connects. Sean has behavioural problems and when the coaches complain “they’re dicking around again”, he is normally involved.This is reality TV and, as such, Flintoff must find a home for his team. He gets access to the people who matter in South Ribble Council and gets a grant of £200,000 to rehabilitate Vernon-Carus Sports Club, two miles outside Preston, after pledging £50,000 himself. “Cricket wouldn’t have been top of my wish list,” remarks a council official. No surprise there then. The subsequent Council press release, incidentally, makes no reference to .Thousands of coaches, unsung and unpaid, struggle throughout the year to combat a shortage of players, lack of volunteers, and lack of funding. At the heart of their problems is a breakdown of society, of the recognition that you must give something back. Ten minutes sweeping out the dressing rooms of their new home and several of Flintoff’s group have already had enough. You hope the team survives when Flintoff and the cameras depart, but it would be an even bigger achievement if it did.The real breakthough (conveniently perhaps?) comes when Adnan joins the group. He fled Afghanistan after the Taliban took control, arrived in England in the back of a lorry, cut his way out, and handed himself into the police station. He didn’t speak a word of English and his foster family tell how they stopped fearing for his state of mind when he started connecting through cricket. He is a natural cricketer with bat and ball and because he is on their side, giving them hope of success, the team take to him. Only Adnan loves the game; in fact, it defines him.Episode 2 ends with the team playing their first match and, well, you’ll have to watch it to find out the outcome. But Ben sums it up best. “Since I started playing cricket, it has changed my life, being in a little community, from being just a homeless kid.”That’s his TV reality. But despite all the schemes and all the promises, the game is shrinking. Every time councils or schools depict cricket as elitist and allow it to wither, every time cricket officialdom settles for lip service and a fat pension, every time cricket volunteering falls further out of fashion, the game becomes more elitist still. The figures are disputed (why don’t they even exist?), but cricket grounds are disappearing at an alarming rate and so are the chances of all but the most privileged.

It wasn’t the visceral roar of an Anglo-Australian crowd fuelled by alcohol; this was joyous, unbridled passion for the teams and the game

Alex Malcolm23-Oct-2022The MCG is a magical place. The roars here are special. But of all the great sporting events this grand stadium has hosted, of all the roars this grand stadium has produced, Sunday evening’s might have been the most extraordinary.When R Ashwin struck the winning run, the noise that the 90,293 people inside the MCG made was heard in the suburbs more than two kilometres away.Related

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The late Shane Warne, who now has the great southern stand named after him at the MCG, had said he had never heard a roar louder than when he took his 700th Test wicket in front of 89,155 adoring fans on Boxing Day in 2006. This was louder.It was louder than when Mitchell Starc rattled Brendon McCullum’s stumps in the opening over of the 2015 ODI World Cup final.It was louder than any of the recent AFL grand finals that were played in front of more than 100,000 people.And it wasn’t just one roar. It was every roar. Dozens of them, in a pulsating match that ebbed and flowed across a riveting, nail-biting 40 overs between India and Pakistan.Even the sights and sounds before the game had a different feel. Hours away from the first ball, there were fans decked in blue and green teeming towards the MCG from all corners of Melbourne. It is rare to see crowds of such size so far out from the start of an event at this venue.When the winning run was scored, the noise was heard in the suburbs more than two kilometres away•Getty ImagesThey were ten deep at the nets outside the Ponsford Stand; they were chanting and singing in droves outside the members’. Inside the ground, as the players warmed up, there were cheers.India and Pakistan had played one another at the MCG before. It was in 1985. They had met twice in ODIs in the Benson and Hedges World Championship of Cricket then.Ravi Shastri was Player of the Tournament – called Champion of Champions – then, and made 63 not out in India’s win over Pakistan in the final. Now he was presiding over the toss as a commentator and received an almighty roar when he introduced Rohit Sharma and Babar Azam to the crowd. The noise was so loud that Rohit’s decision to bowl first could not be heard over the loudspeaker.The roar went up a notch when Babar’s name was announced on the big screen as the line-ups were confirmed. It was twice as loud when Virat Kohli’s name appeared.Then came the anthems. The Indian and Pakistani national anthems have been sung in stadiums all around the world, but even those that had heard them many times over had never heard them quite like this. It rivalled when 95,446 sang Liverpool’s in unison before the Reds played A-League side Melbourne Victory in a friendly at the MCG in 2013.As India’s anthem ended and the roar rang around the ‘G, Rohit threw his head back, closed his eyes, and exhaled. The emotion of the occasion was writ large all over his face.

In the Shane Warne stand, there was no animosity, no hint of the political situation that threatens to derail the next Asia Cup in Pakistan and the next World Cup in India. The fans were there to soak in the rarest of occasions, as were the players.

Then the noise reached a crescendo. When Arshdeep Singh swerved one back into Babar’s pads and Marais Erasmus’ finger went up, the MCG heard a roar unlike any other. It made the hair on the back of your neck stand up and left goosebumps on your arms.It wasn’t the guttural, visceral roar of an Anglo-Australian crowd fuelled by alcohol and a thirst for blood. This was joyous, unbridled passion for a team and the game.It seemed as though the India fans were in the overwhelming majority as Pakistan slumped to 15 for 2 and could barely lay bat to ball in the powerplay. But the green shirts and Pakistan flags proved otherwise. And Iftikhar Ahmed helped them find their voice with three mammoth sixes to have both sets of fans rocking.In the Shane Warne stand, there was no animosity, no hint of the political situation that threatens to derail the next Asia Cup in Pakistan and the next World Cup in India. The fans were there to soak in the rarest of occasions, as were the players.”It was a very good experience,” Arshdeep said after the match. “A once-in-a-lifetime experience I would say, playing in [front of] such a big crowd and a crowd loving both the teams.”The game seesawed, with the crowd barely able to draw breath. There was an attempt to start a Mexican Wave but there wasn’t a long enough lull.4:14

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Pakistan’s fans took control again as India stumbled in the chase. Haris Rauf, who had earlier heard the MCG roar for his hat-trick in the BBL, caused an even greater eruption when he dismissed Suryakumar Yadav with extreme pace.But then Kohli produced his masterpiece. Every sweet six from his blade nearly raised the roof. The last eight balls were absolute bedlam. Nearly every fan in the stadium was on their feet. Wickets, sixes, no-balls, free hits, byes and wides were met with a cacophony that reverberated around the stadium and into the surrounding areas.There was joy for India, and heartbreak for Pakistan at the end. But those who witnessed it and heard it, no matter which side of the result they were on, felt privileged to be part of it.”It was my first taste of a World Cup game, of a Pakistan-India game, and I couldn’t ask or be grateful for a better event than this,” Shan Masood, who took Pakistan to a strong score in collaboration with Iftikhar, said after the match. “Ninety-thousand people at the MCG. That shows how important Pakistan-India games are to cricket.”If we want to take this game forward, I personally feel that these are games that should happen more regularly and around the world. So it’s important for the development of the game that we see games like these, fiercely contested games that go down to the last ball.”Who knows when we will have another one. But savour this one. Savour the sights. Savour the sounds. There has never been anything like it.

What’s changed for Maxwell, and are the Knight Riders wasting Shakib?

Alagappan Muthu18-Apr-20212:38

Brendon McCullum – We should have bowled Chakravarthy against Maxwell

What makes de Villiers a great death-overs batterThere are over 200 players who have faced more than 30 death-overs deliveries over their IPL careers. AB de Villiers stands above all of them. The undisputed No. 1. The phenom. The punisher more than just a finisher with a strike rate of 233.97.How does he do it? How does he come in at the 12th over of a T20 and hit an unbeaten 76? How does he come in at the 39th over of an ODI and score a hundred?Well, for one, there’s his balance. After a shuffle across his stumps and a crouch, he is perfectly still until the ball comes down, which opens up every part of the ground.Second, he tries not to premeditate. Sure, he walks across his crease when he scoops and everything, but for the most part, he just reacts to the ball.”I follow my instincts,” de Villiers said in 2016 after leading a badly, laughably crumbling Royal Challengers into the IPL final. “I try and watch the ball closely. I’ve played the game for many years now and I know my talent will take over if I just watch the ball and enjoy myself out there.”For proof of those words, take a look at ball number 17.5 from the Royal Challengers innings today. It’s from Andre Russell. So it’s quick. He’s also coming around the wicket, so it’s cramping him for room. Plus, there’s the added complication of it being a high full-toss.But de Villiers’ instincts have already kicked in. They tell him to just get low. And to bend to the leg side so he would have room to thrust his hands up from under the ball. And just like that, he conjures a boundary out of nowhere.Instinct. And de Villiers’ is still the best.ESPNcricinfo LtdWhat’s changed for Maxwell?On a pitch where it has never looked easy to time the ball. Glenn Maxwell at one point was 60 off 34. That’s a strike rate of 176.47Royal Challengers bought him with the intention of making him one of their key players. They gave him the No. 4 spot – even if it meant fewer deliveries for de Villiers, arguably their biggest match-winner. He has slotted into the leadership group as well, often seen in discussions with Kohli on the field.All of this is exactly how he plays for Australia. They bat him high up the order. They give him extra responsibility. They get the best out of him.In T20Is, Maxwell has batted at No. 5 or lower in only 19 of his 65 innings. That’s about 29%.In the IPL, he’s been forced to bat at No. 5 or lower in 31 of his 82 innings. That’s 37%.The finisher hype had messed him up in previous seasons of this tournament. Now he’s been given time to shape a whole T20 innings and he’s risen to the challenge. Big time.ESPNcricinfo LtdWhy is Chakravarthy dangerous?A man who taught himself to bowl by watching Sunil Narine videos on YouTube is now keeping Sunil Narine out. How about that?Varun Chakravarthy may well be the Knight Riders’ most important bowler this IPL for two simple reasons: he turns the ball both ways and is hard to read out of the hand.Kohli couldn’t read him. Went for a big shot – aiming for long-on – and was caught at cover instead.Rajat Patidar couldn’t read him. He was too late on a ball that broke his stumps.Even de Villiers didn’t dare attempt anything flash. The Knight Riders wanted to save Chakravarthy for the Royal Challengers talisman. So they took him out of the attack after a double-wicket first over and brought him back on as soon as de Villiers came to the crease.The battle lasted seven balls. Except it could have easily ended in the fifth, with Chakravarthy getting de Villiers’ outside edge, but there was no slip in place.Can India make the most of his talent in what is a T20 World Cup year?Varun Chakravarthy landed two early blows or KKR against RCB•BCCI/IPLAre Knight Riders wasting Shakib?Shakib Al Hasan’s subtle variations in pace and length have led to the downfall of many. And each of them will have wondered “what just happened – I thought I had him!” Left-arm orthodox has never been so funky.But Shakib is a fine batter too. At the 2019 World Cup, having demanded the No. 3 position for Bangladesh, he scored 606 runs at an average of 87 and a strike rate of 96. A top-order slot with time to get into his groove is the best way to maximise on his batting potential but the Knight Riders are a bit too packed up there.Shubman Gill can’t bat anywhere else. Nitish Rana has earned the chance for a longer rope. And Rahul Tripathi is high-impact in the powerplay. Then captain Eoin Morgan wants the No. 4 spot – that’s his in the England team as well. So Shakib is, well, a bit stuck.

Our writers pick which seamer most artfully deceives batters in the shortest format in men’s cricket

ESPNcricinfo staff29-Sep-2022Mustafizur Rahman
what fast bowling is about. Taking pace off? Nah, I’d rather you feel the heat. A good slower ball is an act of deception, some way removed from the macho posturing that goes into the standard quick’s shtick. Bowling a cutter is in its own way an admission of defeat. But Archer’s slower ball is in a different category. It is sleek, it is sexy. It slides off the knuckles, via a change of grip during his run-up that is in itself an outrageous flair move. It hovers in the air like a UFO, then dances like a disco ball before your eyes. And when you’re expecting 90mph up your hooter, this chilled pill will make you look like a chump. Batters at the World Cup are getting off lightly.

His variety of slower balls and ability to give a good whack with the bat make him a valuable T20 World Cup candidate

Deivarayan Muthu19-Mar-2021In the lead-up to IPL 2018, Chennai Super Kings coach Stephen Fleming was impressed with Shardul Thakur in match-simulation slog overs at Chepauk, although the seamer was bit of a hit-and-miss. Fleming believed that Thakur could become a death-bowling option for the franchise along with the first-choice Dwayne Bravo – if he could work on his lines and lengths. Three years later, Thakur showcased his T20 evolution in a must-win match for India against a power-packed England line-up with an assortment of slower deliveries that might have done Bravo proud.The conditions at Motera on Thursday night were as tough as they could get for any bowler. When Thakur aimed for a yorker at the death with a dew-slicked ball, he lost grip of it so much that it flew behind him. Thakur hadn’t started well either, dropping Dawid Malan on 3 at short third man and then leaking 21 runs from his first two overs. The catch was a tough one, and two boundaries came off edges, but the figures didn’t tell these tales.Related

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• Stand-ins Thakur and Sundar stand out

When Thakur was recalled into the attack, England were in front, needing 46 from 24 balls, in their chase of 186, with six wickets in hand. Ben Stokes had just taken down both Indian spinners Rahul Chahar and Washington Sundar, peeling off 41 from a combined 19 balls off them.ESPNcricinfo’s forecaster pegged England’s chances of winning at 50.62% at the start of the 17th over, but in a space of two balls it nosedived sharply to 15.94%. Thakur rolled out a pair of offcutters and had both Stokes and Eoin Morgan holing out of successive balls. He banged those cutters into the pitch and hid it away from the swinging arcs of both the left-handers. Both batsmen took the wiser option of attempting to hit Thakur straighter as opposed to squarer, but they ended up slicing the ball to the outfielders. With Thakur’s double-strike, India were onto something…Hardik Pandya and Bhuvneshwar Kumar, too, kept taking pace off the ball, bowling legcutters to right-handers and offcutters to left-handers, leaving Thakur with 22 to defend off the last over against Jofra Archer and Chris Jordan. Thakur floated a legcutter away from Jordan’s reach first ball and kept him to an under-edged single. However, against Archer, Thakur veered away from his slower variations wide of off, and served up an on-pace length ball on the stumps that was pumped down the ground for four. The next ball was short and wide with Archer mowing it over midwicket for six. The equation was narrowed to 12 from three balls, and the pressure was back on Thakur. The seamer tossed the ball into his trouser pocket and wiped it furiously.The pressure mounted further on Thakur after he sent down two wides – one for height and the other for width. After a seemingly intense discussion with Rohit Sharma, the stand-in captain, and Pandya, Thakur revisited Plan A: dig slower balls into the pitch and take it away from the batsman. He splintered the toe of Archer’s bat with the fourth legal ball of the over and then had Jordan holing out next delivery with what looked like a knuckle ball to close out the game for India.Shardul Thakur’s double-strike at the death derailed England’s chase•BCCI”The last over [is] never easy and with dew coming in so much…there was not much dew in the last three games, but this game yes there was dew,” Thakur outlined the challenge for him, speaking to . “Definitely a tough over and they [England] were swinging hard. So, they were going for a few runs and it was important to bowl those dot balls – one or two dot balls – and the game was sealed.”Yes definitely because like I mentioned earlier there was dew coming in, so had we bowled the slower ones in the stumps or little bit up then it would have been easy to hit. The idea was to hit into the stumps and keep [the ball] away from their power zone.”Thakur also said that he relished the pressure of bowling the tough overs in the death and powerplay, having also done it recently for CSK in IPL and Mumbai in domestic cricket.”I’m enjoying it a lot,” he said. “Even when I’m playing in the IPL or domestic cricket, I bowl a lot of overs in the death or fourth, fifth or sixth over in the powerplay. So, I bowl a lot of overs where batsmen come hard at bowlers. Kind of getting used to it now.”The Thakur of the old, however, wasn’t used to white-ball cricket. He had fairly limited exposure with the white ball, having played a bulk of his age-group cricket in Mumbai with the red ball. Then, in senior cricket, he first broke into India’s Test squad in 2016 with his strong Ranji Trophy performances. He has since learnt on the job, adding more tricks to his repertoire and knowing when to use them.When Thakur made his T20I debut in 2018, he only seemed to have the knuckle ball as his change-up option. He can now bowl a split-finger variation, cutters into the middle of the pitch, and a cross-seamer that he gets to swerve by imparting backspin. In the ongoing T20I series against England on the grippy Ahmedabad tracks, he has taken all his five wickets with the offcutter, according to ESPNcricinfo’s ball-by-ball data, giving up 65 runs off 43 balls. And he bowled 21 of those offcutters on Thursday alone.India’s attack, much like their batting line-up, is packed with options in the approach to T20 World Cup, but not too many have the adaptability and variety of Thakur. Plus, he can give it a good whack with the bat in the lower order.

The Zimbabwe captain’s dismissal seemed to fall into a grey area in the laws of the game

Mohammad Isam18-Jul-2021Zimbabwe captain Brendan Taylor was out in unusual manner during the second ODI against Bangladesh, his hit-wicket dismissal appearing to fall into a grey area in the laws of the game. The decision went up to the third umpire, and Taylor walked off looking miffed when the red light came on.The incident took place during the 25th over of the Zimbabwe innings in Harare. Taylor attempted an upper-cut against the left-arm quick Shoriful Islam, and failed to connect with the ball. Once the ball went past his bat, Taylor straightened up from his semi-crouched position and swung his bat backwards, dislodging the off bail in the process.One of the Bangladesh fielders noticed, and appealed. On-field umpire Marais Erasmus referred it to the TV umpire Langton Rusere who adjudged Taylor out for 46.According to Law 35.1.1.1, batters can be out hit wicket if they put down the wicket with their bat or any part of their person “in the course of any action taken by him/her in preparing to receive or in receiving a delivery.”According to Law 35.2, the batter is not out hit wicket if the wicket is disturbed “after the striker has completed any action in receiving the delivery,” unless the striker is setting off for a run or lawfully making a second stroke in order to protect their wicket.The ambiguity in this instance would refer to the umpire’s interpretation of whether or not Taylor’s actions after the ball had passed his bat were a continuation of the action taken to receive the delivery – i.e. whether the umpire judged them to be part of his follow-through, or whether they constituted a separate action akin to the shadow practice that batters do after playing a shot.Further ambiguity is created by the dead-ball law, which states that the ball is dead when “it is finally settled in the hands of the wicket-keeper or of the bowler.”The ball may have been in the keeper’s gloves before Taylor broke the wicket, but the key word is “finally”, with the law going on to add: “Whether the ball is finally settled or not is a matter for the umpire alone to decide.”Furthermore: “The ball shall be considered to be dead when it is clear to the bowler’s end umpire that the fielding side and both batsmen at the wicket have ceased to regard it as in play.”It would seem, then, that the umpires’ interpretation, in the end, hinged on two things: whether Taylor disturbed the stumps in his follow-through or after he had completed his shot, and whether or not the ball was, by that point, dead.Taylor had already come close to a hit-wicket dismissal earlier in the day. In the ninth over of Zimbabwe’s innings, he had slipped after defending a delivery from Taskin Ahmed, and while falling over his left boot had come off, and narrowly missed hitting the stumps.

The South Africa batter on taking mental-health breaks, data-driven analysis, his attachment to Multan Sultans, and more

Danyal Rasool14-Mar-2023December is perhaps the busiest time of year for an international cricketer, the festive season throwing up fixtures around the world in all formats and numerous franchise leagues, but that month in 2022, David Miller was nowhere to be found on a cricket field. On Christmas Eve, he posted a picture of himself unwinding at a nature reserve in his native South Africa, while the South African side was gearing up for the Boxing Day Test in Melbourne, and the Big Bash League, where he once played for the Hobart Hurricanes, was picking up steam.Since South Africa’s elimination from the T20 World Cup in November, Miller had largely kept himself away from cricket, aside from an 11-day stint at the T10 League in Abu Dhabi. Despite being one of the most in-demand players on the T20 circuit, Miller has developed and nurtured interests outside the game, fishing and photography among the more prominent ones. The break he took at the backend of last year, spending time with family and friends was much-needed, because the months that would follow were to be among the busiest in his career.He had been named captain of the Paarl Royals in the inaugural season of the SA20, and was to link up with the Multan Sultans in the PSL just days later; there were just five days between the SA20 semi-finals in Johannesburg and his first game in Multan at the PSL. Having only ever played three PSL games before – for Peshawar Zalmi in a truncated season in 2021 – he was given a baptism of fire, thrust in chasing 10 runs an over at the death against a Lahore Qalandars bowling attack that included Shaheen Afridi, Haris Rauf and Zaman Khan. It posed different challenges to the SA20, particularly in a league where he had almost no experience.Related

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But Miller has worked out ways to cope with the schedule, and the varying demands each tournament poses. “I think it’s all mental,” Miller tells ESPNcricinfo. “It’s about being prepared for what’s coming ahead. I knew I was coming to the PSL after the SA20. I knew mentally I was going there all along, and you mentally prepare yourself with that journey for the next couple of months. I took December off with family and friends, took a really nice break and felt I was refreshed for the next six months. It can be challenging going from one place to another, but as long as you’re mentally prepared beforehand, it makes it a lot easier to perform for those competitions.”There’s a lot of cricket nowadays, internationally and leagues. Your schedule can get quite busy. I just listen to my own body, especially at this time of my career. I don’t want to play so much cricket I’m feeling mentally fatigued. It’s just about listening to your body and knowing when you need a break. And just to be honest about that. There’s a lot of money involved in cricket nowadays. So it’s important to make mature decisions about whether you really need a break or if you can keep going.”We’re at by the swimming pool at the luxury Pearl Continental Hotel in Lahore on a pleasant early March afternoon. As a heavily guarded, fortified compound, it’s the venue of choice for all PSL teams, as well as any visiting sides since international cricket trickled back to Pakistan in 2015. In some ways, he could be anywhere – India, South Africa, Bangladesh – as the T20 franchise circuit blends into a blur of airports, hotels, glitzy opening ceremonies, boundaries and wickets. In an earlier interview with ESPNcricinfo, his international team-mate Rilee Rossouw said it was like being a “T20 gun for hire”.Miller acknowledges that characterisation, but still calls himself a “team player”. “The way leagues are going now, lots of teams are buying other teams around the world,” he points out. “So you do feel attached to certain teams. I’ve always had a mindset of playing to the best of my ability whoever I play for. I’m a team player and I do quickly get attached to a team. I enjoy all the teams that I play for, and it’s just about contributing for that team at that moment.”

“I’m not a massive one on analysis. I definitely will sit down and kind of go through a certain bowler if he’s got a different action or a different craft with the spin”

Even so, Miller knew there were certain ways the PSL stood out, and he wanted to challenge himself. His previous stint at the PSL comprised just three games in a Covid-hit season with Zalmi, though the signs had been encouraging, and he had scored 116 runs at 140. Days before we speak, he’d clobbered a 25-ball 52 against Islamabad United, setting up a big win over the two-time champions.”My experience in Pakistan is the wickets are actually pretty good. I think maybe the bounce might be a bit different to other countries, where it’s a little bit lower. It’s not that steep sharp bounce. If you can get used to the bounce, you can hit through the line and make sure your body position’s a bit lower. That’s one of the key areas.”I’d watched bits and pieces of the PSL over the years and what I’ve taken from that is the bowling is really good. Pakistan always produce really good fast bowlers. They’ve also got world-class spinners. An overseas player coming in as a batter, it’s a good competition to be a part of. It challenges you in many different ways. That definitely makes the PSL a stand out for me with the kind of death bowling that they’ve got and the pace they’ve got as a nation. It definitely does challenge you and I’m really enjoying the fact that I can be in that position to challenge my skill.”” I enjoy all the teams that I play for, and it’s just about contributing for that team at that moment”•AFP/Getty ImagesMiller’s come into the PSL at a time when one battle of ideas has already been won and lost, and he now plays for a side that was at the forefront of winning it. In the early years of the tournament, Islamabad United were among the pioneers for an analytics-heavy, data-driven approach to squad recruitment and in-match decision-making, prioritising batting fluidity and ideological flexibility to optimise match-ups between certain batters and bowlers.It appeared to bear results, with United winning two of the first three years; they remain the only multi-trophy side in the league. The Sultans, who came into existence in 2018, picked up the analytics baton, and have made the final each of the last two years, winning the title in 2021. By now, nearly all teams use that sort of forensic date for decision-making, even Lahore Qalandars, who in the early years would have been top of the table in their opposition to favouring information over feel and instinct. However, they were bottom of the actual table each of the first four years, so a change was inevitable. They are now the defending champions.Many players, however, are famously lukewarm about the role of data in their individual decision-making, and Miller is no different. “I’ve been playing around the world for some time, he says after a long pause. “You kind of understand what different players can do on the field. I’m not a massive one on analysis. I definitely will sit down and kind of go through a certain bowler if he’s got a different action or a different craft with the spin. It takes some time to look through that, but generally I feel most bowlers are the same in terms of their action and the height the ball comes from. Unless it’s something drastically different, in which case I’ll take some time to analyse. I think it is important just to know what you’re up against in a game.”Captaincy’s a bit different. For me to know exactly what the opposition have I’ll do a lot more analysis in that sense, as there’s a bit more responsibility on decision-making. If something goes really badly for the bowler, that’s where I step in and give them different options as I know where their strengths and weaknesses are as a captain.”Multan are now in the playoffs for the fourth straight season, as are his old side Zalmi. Miller won’t be part of the final charge, leaving to link up with South Africa’s ODI squad for a series against the West Indies. Ask him which of the two PSL sides he’s enjoyed his experience with more, and that answer comes back fairly quickly. “Multan Sultans.”He does get attached to teams fairly quickly, after all.

At one point, she wanted to be a fast bowler. Now she is troubling the best batters in the world with her legspin

S Sudarshanan23-Mar-2023Young Parshavi Chopra was told a few things about legspin. That she will have to risk getting hit and only then the chances of picking up wickets will rise. That it is wickets that will earn her laurels and not the low economy rate.In UP Warriorz’s game against Gujarat Giants earlier this week, Ashleigh Gardner and D Hemalatha had added 93 to keep Giants on track for a tall score. Both had displayed their range of strokes against seam and spin, but Warriorz captain Alyssa Healy trusted Chopra to bowl at the death.Chopra was part of India’s squad that won the Under-19 T20 World Cup in January this year. There she had bowled Sri Lanka’s Vishmi Gunaratne with a googly. The batter had danced down towards the off side but the ball spun past her pads to hit the stumps. But a majority of her 11 wickets in the tournament came off legbreaks.Between that World Cup and the WPL, Chopra worked on the googly and grew confident to use it more frequently.Now, bowling the 17th over of the innings against Giants, Chopra went for wickets instead of trying to stop runs. She tossed the first ball up to Hemalatha outside off. It was the wrong’un and Hemalatha didn’t pick it, holing out to long-on. On the first ball of the 19th over, her last, she once again flighted the googly to entice Gardner out of her crease and got her stumped.It was just the second appearance for Chopra in the WPL and she already left a mark on those who hadn’t watched her at the World Cup.Vishal Bhatia, her coach at Yuvraj Singh Centre of Excellence (YSCE) in Greater Noida, just outside Delhi, credits Chopra’s increased use of the googly to the target bowling sessions they had ahead of the WPL.”Before the WPL, we were working on target bowling, bowling in [various] situations, and when to use the googly,” Bhatia tells ESPNcricinfo. “She didn’t bowl the googly much in the Under-19 Women’s T20 World Cup. But now she is confident in bowling the googly and reading the batter well.Parshavi Chopra was the second-highest wicket-taker at the U-19 T20 World Cup•ICC/Getty Images”You can be needed in the powerplay or the death overs. We worked on what ball to use when and how to read the batter by looking at her stance. I told her that you shouldn’t play the name, but play the batter – it so happens you bowl to someone looking at their reputation – and the situation.”Chopra pursued skating in her younger days, just like Yuvraj, but was drawn to cricket listening to her father, uncle and grandfather talk. She watched the 2017 Women’s ODI World Cup on TV and wanted to don the national colours after seeing India’s narrow, heart-breaking loss to England in the final. Her father, Gaurav, identified her interest and got her enrolled in the coaching centre where Bhatia and later JP Nautiyal coached her.”I never let her compromise with her cricket but I compromised on her studies,” Gaurav says. “She was very good in her studies. But to achieve a goal or target in life, you have to focus on just that one thing. If you try and do multiple things, you won’t get as much success.”At a YSCE summer camp in 2017-18, Bhatia came across Chopra who then wanted to be a fast bowler. But given her slight build, she was encouraged to bowl legspin. Her run-up and action had to be tweaked accordingly but once that was done, and she was able to generate spin, there was no looking back.In the 2019-20 season, she picked up 20 wickets in the Women’s Under-19 One Day Tournament playing for Uttar Pradesh. During the Covid-19 lockdown, her father left no stone unturned and prepared a pitch at home for single-wicket practice with assistance from Nautiyal and inputs over video calls from Bhatia.”Her body was very flexible because of the stretching, which is part of skating,” Nautiyal says. “Her wrist position comes naturally to her. We had to work on her lines and lengths. But she grasps things quickly and works really hard for hours together.”Chopra picked up eight wickets in the Under-19 T20 Trophy in October 2022, and was then selected for the T20 Challengers and the Quadrangular Under-19 series featuring West Indies and Sri Lanka. A good show at the Under-19 T20 World Cup in South Africa led her to be picked by Warriorz at her base price of INR 10 lakh.The only girl child in the family, Chopra was fascinated after watching videos of Australia legspinner Shane Warne’s bowling. She took an immediate liking to his action and was upset for a few days after he died last year. But through her steady rise and eye-catching outings in the WPL, she is keeping the flag of legspin flying high.