Plays of the Day for the second day of the second Test at the SSC

Sidharth Monga at the SSC27-Jul-2010Great partnership, part I
During the course of their 193-run stand, Kumar Sangakkara and Mahela Jayawardene overtook the combination of Matthew Hayden and Ricky Ponting to become the second-most prolific partnership between non-openers. By the time they were separated, they took their tally to 4798, behind only the 5993 that the Sachin Tendulkar-Rahul Dravid combination has added, in 42 more innings and at an average which is 12 runs lesser.Great partnership, part II
That great minds think alike was manifested when Sangakkara and Jayawardene thought of running on the same part of the pitch in the 111th over. They ran into each other, but a major collision was avoided. Not sure if the Indians had any energy left to laugh at it, though.Harper and his body parts
During Sri Lanka’s chase in the first Test, Daryl Harper copped one smack on the chest when he couldn’t get out of the way of a pull from Tillakaratne Dilshan. During the second Test, he was spotted showing his badly bruised chest to a Sri Lankan batsman. It wasn’t a pretty sight. Today, a throw from M Vijay got the umpire on the back side. Spare us the details this time, Daryl.Dhoni gets Jayawardene, finally
India needed something out of the ordinary to unsettle Jayawardene and get his wicket. That had not happened until MS Dhoni lobbed a throw back to the bowler, and managed to hit Jayawardene, softly, on his head. That did the trick, and soon Jayawardene lobbed one to midwicket. That also earned the Indian fielders a mercy declaration.Harbhajan gets a wicket
Stop the press. That Jayawardene wicket was also Harbhajan’s first of the series, in 449 deliveries spread over three innings.The SSC stats dossier
Jayawardene extended his own record for most runs at a venue, taking his tally at the SSC to 2641 runs at 82.53. He also broke Sir Don Bradman’s record of nine centuries at the MCG the most at a venue – with his 10th at the SSC. Sangakkara who made 219, took his tally to 1822 at 72.88, also scoring his seventh century here. Thilan Samaraweera was not to be left behind; by virtue of staying unbeaten, he took his average here to 81.93, and the runs-tally to 1229 in just 14 Tests.Welcome to Test cricket, son
If you are a spinner on debut, you don’t want to be bowling your first delivery to Virender Sehwag, who has scant respect for the breed. Suraj Randiv’s first act in Test cricket was to be cut away for a four, first ball, and then go for another four through the off side in the same over. As soon as he put a fielder deep on the off side, Sehwag dropped it into the off side and took another single.

The lack of Tests in India’s upcoming schedule could limit the duration of their No. 1 ranking

Cricinfo staff06-Dec-2009Ironically, India have risen to the top in a format some would accuse them of neglecting – and their low frequency of Tests could cause them to lose their crown sooner rather than later. They are only the third team, after Australia and South Africa, to reach the summit of the ICC’s Test rankings since they were introduced in 2001 but their time there could be brief because of a schedule that contains only two Tests in the next 11 months.Which means the duration of their reign will be determined by how their closest rivals, South Africa and Australia, fare in the next few months. “It is a bit of a concern, as we play only two Test matches in the next six months, so it will be tough for us to maintain the position,” MS Dhoni said after India’s victory in Mumbai. “I can’t do anything about the schedule. It is good to play Test cricket, at the same time we are here to play whatever cricket we are asked to play.”Before their 2-0 victory, India were ranked third with 119 points after Sri Lanka and chart-toppers South Africa (122). The two consecutive innings victories in Kanpur and Mumbai earned India five points, taking them two clear of South Africa, while Sri Lanka slipped below Australia to fourth place.During the period in which India have only two Tests – against Bangladesh – to maintain a hold on their No. 1 position, South Africa play at least four and Australia eight. A 2-0 win against Bangladesh isn’t likely to give India too many ratings points either, so they could be overtaken depending on how South Africa do against England, and how Australia go against West Indies and Pakistan at home, and in the away series in New Zealand and against Pakistan in England.What is certain is that India will end 2009 as the No. 1 Test side because even a 3-0 victory for Australia in the ongoing series against eighth-ranked West Indies will give them only one point, taking their tally to 117, and no improvement in position.India’s immediate threat is South Africa, but they will have to beat England by a 2-0 margin or better to reclaim the No. 1 spot. A 2-0 or 3-1 victory for South Africa will take them marginally ahead of India, 3-0 will given them 126 points, and 4-0 will extend their lead over India by three. However, if England win 1-0 or 2-1, South Africa’s tally will reduce to 117, increasing India’s lead by seven points.If South Africa fail to recapture the top spot against England, India’s reign will receive an extension because even if Australia blank Pakistan 3-0 at home, following a 3-0 win against West Indies, their ratings points will increase only by three to 119. They will then need to win in New Zealand and beat Pakistan in England – an away series for Australia – to move up the ladder.

ICC Test rankings Team Matches Points Rating

India 323957 124 South Africa 30 3672122 Australia 31 3600 116 Sri Lanka 31 3574 115 England39 4102 105 Pakistan 171424 84 New Zealand 25 200180 West Indies 25 1910 76 Bangladesh 19 255 13Click here to see the ODI and player rankings rankings.

The new regime and not being captain anymore has brought him liberation and, perhaps, self-discovery

Osman Samiuddin06-Jul-2022Joe Root got England underway on the fifth morning at Edgbaston with a little nudge off his thighs to square leg for a single. It was almost exactly the shot with which he began England’s final day in the chase at Lord’s against New Zealand earlier this summer. It is a trademark Joe Root shot.He has an entire family of back-cuts, from the angled-bat dab down fine to the more vertical open-faced glides square and everything in between: these are all trademark Joe Root shots.The Joe Root off-drives are a trademarked range, housing the bog-standard drive through extra cover, leaning lithely into the shot, the square-driving on one knee or going straighter, body and bat moving into the ball with the practised ease of a dancer.Related

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The clips he works through midwicket – also a Joe Root trademark. The pull shot: trademarked; the back-foot punch, on his toes, as elegant as a yoga pose; the little drop to the off for a quick single; these are all shots that are identifiably Joe Root’s but if so many shots are identifiably Joe Root’s, then can any one shot be truly his? And if not, where does that leave us?With the best batter in the world at this moment.One sense that is common with great batters in their very best periods, as with Root now, is that every great innings acquires this inevitability. Of course, they scored a hundred and of course, they did it the way they did it, the way they always do it. It’s them, that’s what they do. After a time, pitches, bowlers, situations, and even results can become irrelevant.Or rather than an inevitability, is this what it must be like to see (rather than hear) an echo? Every subsequent great innings is the echo of an original great innings the batter has played, except unlike with sound, there’s no loss of vividness.With Root, most innings drive home the universal observation about his batting, that the first time you look up at the scoreboard after he has come in, he is already on 20-something and nobody is quite sure how he got there (hint: those trademarked shots).But the reality for most batters has always been that the first part of any innings is the most difficult time. They are lining up actions, making sense of the surface, getting their body aligned, making sure the feet are light, the arms loose and a central equilibrium holding it together. They are trying to tune themselves out from the outside noise but also tuning themselves to the task at hand.There’s no standout metric that illustrates the point of Root’s starts – the best one is that his dismissal rate in the first 20 balls (among batters who’ve played at least 100 innings since Root’s debut) is the sixth lowest. Even the caveat that he has played a lot in England, where top-order batting is basically about negotiating the early dismissal, doesn’t save this from being underwhelming. But that only speaks to a broader point about Root, because by the time you’ve read the last two paragraphs, he’s already on 23.

With Root, most innings drive home the universal observation about his batting, that the first time you look up at the scoreboard after he has come in, he is already on 20-something

For all that England’s batting has been this summer – and aside from being astonishingly successful, it’s still not clear precisely what it is – it has been underpinned by the presence of Root. He is the one who was there when none of this was there, and he’ll be the one still there when all this isn’t. That he has bookended the wild last few weeks with fourth-innings hundreds in a big chase is perfect.And the Edgbaston hundred was every bit as significant as Lord’s hundred. England had lost three wickets in two runs in a matter of minutes, Virat Kohli was all over them and India were threatening to recreate The Oval. Lose Lord’s and who knows whether this happens. Lose this and face the questions, or at least the smirking reminders that against the best attacks, this isn’t going to work.Root’s response was to lead England as he was always meant to: with bat. In the first 15 overs of the stand with Jonny Bairstow, a period in which the game was at its tightest, Root took 60% of the strike. That might not appear a very lopsided proportion but imagine the strong temptation to let Bairstow take over and really barrel his way into that target?Instead, Root gamed it out. Enough singles to not let the score stagnate (but not so many that anyone noticed he was already on 20-something), keep out what you can, put away what you can. Jasprit Bumrah got too straight, away to the midwicket fence; Mohammad Shami gave him a fraction on length, dabbed through backward point. Root survived a tight lbw shout, next ball he shuffled out – another trademark – and clipped Shami through midwicket.From the other end, Ravindra Jadeja was gaining control. Post tea, he had figures of 6-2-9-0 into his spell, drying up England’s runs from over the wicket. Root had reverse-swept twice to try to break the stranglehold, without success. In the seventh over of Jadeja’s spell, he finally paddle-swept him twice, each for four; in his next, he swept him conventionally for another. Boom, Bumrah and Shami seen off, now Jadeja; by the next over, Mohammed Siraj and Shardul Thakur were bowling.He can be a rock star too•PA Photos/Getty ImagesThis wasn’t what England had done previously; this was Root doing what he does. He referred to conversations in the dressing room about recognising moments when the pressure had to be absorbed, before ruthlessly turning it around – a bit of nuance not often talked about over these Tests.Once that period broke open, the inevitability crept back in: of a Root ton and more improbably of another big England chase. On the final morning, Root got through the 90s with, in order, a glide off the face through third man, a clip off his pads and a late, late dab so fine it bounced in front of and then over second slip – all for four. If Root were to sleepwalk his way through the 90s, this is the route he would take as he knows it so well.Eventually, England chased down the total in a much more calculated and less bludgeoning way than at Trent Bridge and Headingley. They were more inevitable about it and at the centre was Root.All that said, it has been a fascinating summer in the career of Joe Root. He feels like a kid again and because he has never knowingly not looked like a kid, the youthfulness is assumed to be in his batting. The new regime yes, no captaincy also yes. Together it has brought liberation. His strike rate has always been healthy but this summer, he has been striking at 19 runs more per 100 balls.Also, perhaps, self-discovery. At Trent Bridge, he played shots that are unusual for him in Tests and urged a rewriting of the coaching manual. After Edgbaston, he half-joked he was caught between the grounding of the old Yorkshire way of orthodox batting and the entreaties of his captain to be a rock star. But he has clearly been re-thinking, or rather re-assessing, more seriously the contours of Test batting.”It’s scripted out how you need to play in Test cricket,” he said when asked about dealing with the stifling orthodoxy around the format. “Sometimes being unpredictable is very difficult to bowl at. Sometimes the gaps are bigger, and you know where the ball is going to be because of generally how sides bowl for long periods of time. There have been occasions this summer I might have played some unusual shots. But they’ve felt like pretty low-risk options in the moment.”It’s not as if no one has ever come upon this truth before. Virender Sehwag, as just one, understood this from the moment he started playing. In Root’s case, it could even be argued he has returned to it, given his once burgeoning white-ball game. Remember that, unlike his great contemporaries, he rarely gets to exhibit his (still considerable) white-ball skills anymore.He has played seven ODI innings since becoming a world champion three years ago; he hasn’t played a T20 outside the Blast in over three years. The absence has steadily dimmed the cachet and robbed him of a global, all-format sheen (while, by contrast, Steven Smith and Kane Williamson faced off in the last T20 World Cup final). If nothing else, this summer has been a righting of that.

Plays of the day from the third day of the first Test between India and Australia in Bangalore

Sidharth Monga at the Chinnaswamy Stadium11-Oct-2010The miss
Australia might have shown characteristic grit on this tour, but they have been quite average in the field. After dropped catches and a missed stumping in Mohali, the fielding mishaps continued in Bangalore. The costly one was in the fourth over of the day when M Vijay was halfway down the pitch, and the ball with Nathan Hauritz at cover. Hauritz, though, didn’t realise that Tim Paine had made it to the stumps, and shied at them instead, unsuccessfully. Had he lobbed the ball back to Paine, Vjay would have been dismissed for 49.The overthrows
These were not as poignant as Steven Smith’s in the previous match. They did, however, involve not knowing the whereabouts of the keeper. Peter George fielded a straight hit to him at mid-off and must have presumed that Paine wouldn’t have made it to the stumps when he lobbed one towards him. Either that or he must have thought Paine would be as tall as himself, as the ball sailed well over the wicketkeeper’s head for four overthrows.The extreme slowness
You may have seen the slower bouncers, but this one was the real deal. George, all of two metres tall, dug one in short to Sachin Tendulkar, rolling his fingers on it, looking to get something out of the docile pitch. The problem was that it landed at his own shoe laces, and the result was a bouncer so slow, Inzamam-ul-Haq would have walked back faster than it. It came like a balloon that had been punctured midway, and Tendulkar had to be on his best defence to keep it out. Needless to say, there were laughs all around, even from the umpires.The temptation
In the dying moments of the day, with light fading fast, Ricky Ponting showed Suresh Raina the carrot. With Michael Clarke bowling gentle left-arm spin, he brought the long-on in, showing Raina an opportunity for an easy boundary. Raina latched onto it first ball, only to get too close to the pitch and perfectly find Hilfenhaus’ hands at mid-on. Moves rarely produce quicker results.The cruelty
So you have finally got the Test cap after a couple of seasons of heavy run-scoring in domestic cricket? You have cover-driven your second ball for four. So you feel at home? The pitch doesn’t think so. The third ball Cheteshwar Pujara faced stayed nastily low and was nastily accurate. And to think that he spent three days watching batsmen make merry on the same 22 yards. He may not get a chance in the second innings, and by the time India play another Test, VVS Laxman, whom he replaced, might be back.

What do the likes of Tamil Nadu, J&K and Chandigarh need to do to make the Ranji knockouts?

Shashank Kishore29-Jan-2025Group ATable toppers Jammu & Kashmir need just one point to qualify. They can achieve this with a drawn fixture against Baroda that will take them to 30 points.Baroda need at least a first-innings lead to go to 30 points, in which case Mumbai can’t catch them even if they beat Meghalaya with a bonus point.Related

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Mumbai need seven full points, and ideally hope Baroda vs J&K ends decisively either way. In such a scenario, they can pip one of Baroda or J&K and be the second team to qualify from the group. If Baroda vs J&K is drawn, Mumbai will have to hope J&K, whom they lost to last week, take the lead.Essentially, Mumbai’s qualification hinges on the Baroda vs J&K result even if they get the full seven points which they’re expected to.Watch out for: Baroda vs J&KGroup BThings are less complex in this group. With five wins in six games, Vidarbha are through. A virtual knockout between Gujarat and Himachal will determine the second qualifier. Gujarat are currently second on 26 points and will be through with a draw. Himachal have a simple equation: win and pip Gujarat to the quarterfinals.Watch out for: Gujarat vs HimachalGroup CTable-toppers Haryana need one point against a resurgent Karnataka.They can qualify even with an outright defeat, but it’s a route that they wouldn’t want to take. In any case, hoping for Bihar to beat Kerala in Kerala seems outlandish given Bihar have five losses in six games.Kerala face the simple task of winning and securing themselves a spot. Even a lead may do, if Karnataka vs Haryana ends in a draw.Karnataka need a bonus-point win•KSCAFor 2024-25 Vijay Hazare Trophy champions Karnataka, buoyed by KL Rahul’s return, nothing but a bonus-point win will suffice. If they manage to achieve this, they will have knocked out Haryana despite being equal on 26, because they will have had one less bonus point.Watch out for: Karnataka vs HaryanaGroup DA superb win over Chandigarh last week has vaulted Tamil Nadu to the top spot with 25 points. A draw against Jharkhand will see them through. A loss will put them on a sticky wicket as Chandigarh and Saurashtra can leapfrog them on points.Chandigarh have stuttered lately. After losing outright in their season opener to Railways, they went on a bull run of three back-to-back wins, but two outright defeats to Saurashtra and TN leave them with having to do the heavy lifting in the final round. Only a win with a bonus point (which will take them to 26) will help them to steer clear of Saurashtra.Saurashtra needed two bonus-point wins to put themselves in the reckoning prior to the Ranji season resuming. They got one against Delhi last week on a rank turner at home with Ravindra Jadeja picking 12 wickets. Jadeja will likely have another massive say on what is believed to be another Rajkot turner against Assam, who will be boosted by the return of Riyan Parag from a shoulder injury.A bonus-point win will see them through. Only a lead will leave them tempting fate – they’ll need Chhattisgarh to beat Chandigarh. An outright win without a bonus point will leave them hoping Chandigarh v Chhattisgarh ends in a draw.Delhi and Railways – who will garner a lot of eyeballs courtesy Virat Kohli’s Ranji return after 12 years – are also in with an outside chance. They’ll need a bonus-point win and a host of other results to go their way.Watch out for: Saurashtra vs Assam and Delhi vs Railways

The opener’s series in the Caribbean has been characterised by a number of starts but no major score

Daniel Brettig in Port-of-Spain18-Apr-2012Ed Cowan is learning the hard lesson that international cricket requires an international method. Over six Tests, Cowan is yet to play in anything other than a winning Australian team, and has contributed a series of middling scores that have neither defined him as a “walking wicket”, nor gone on to the kinds of totals that won him a place in the Test XI in the first place. To his frustration, he has found it difficult to go on from his carefully compiled starts, and is also wrestling with the fact that two of his most productive shots down under – the pull and the cut – are seldom able to be used with confidence on the low, slow pitches of the Caribbean.On the fourth day of the Trinidad Test Cowan had a dose of good fortune, dropped at slip early from the bowling of Fidel Edwards. He looked safe against the spin of Shane Shillingford, employing the sweep to decent effect. But he was again undone by the speed and line of Kemar Roach, burning his second referral of the match before again departing lbw, and left with some chastening thoughts about how he must improve. The question of whether the national selectors give him the chance to improve is an open one, with eight months separating this series from the home matches against South Africa.”It’s very different to batting back home,” Cowan said of the Caribbean. “It’s been a great experience I guess to play in such foreign conditions. You build your game up to play a certain way back home and I’ve played my entire career playing in Australian conditions so I’ve had to make a few minor adjustments to try to grind out runs however I best see fit over here.”I feel like certain aspects of my game already have improved, for example, playing against off-spin. I feel like I’ve found a way that can now work here and in the sub-continent and you don’t have to do that back home because there aren’t that many wickets that turn. At the same time, my go-to shots, the cut shot and the pull shot, aren’t really in the game either so I’ve got to find a way to score runs elsewhere.”As for the starts, Cowan said he was doubly frustrated by the fact that he has continually played himself in only to be out before breaking into more meaningful scoring territory. He said he had felt clear-headed at the crease and was not filled with dread the moment he reached 20 – though his sequence of scores across this series and at times against India would suggest otherwise.”It’s frustrating, to state the obvious. It’s something I’ve prided myself on in first class cricket – If I get a start, I tend to go on with it; if I get to 30, I get a hundred, so it’s been very frustrating,” Cowan said. “On the flip side, it feels that it’s nice to know you can consistently get in. And if your worse days are 20s and 30s and you start turning them into really good days, you start turning into a really good player.”So I don’t feel like I’m going out there as a walking wicket and that I’m going to get knocked over. So that’s good. I feel like I’m not only good enough to be playing at this level but contributing. And dominating on my good days, it hasn’t quite worked out yet. You need slices of luck and coming up today against a guy who was bowling pretty well. So that’s the game of cricket.”It’s frustrating to get through what’s the hardest time of batting and then to get out when the ball is getting softer. I think in these conditions to ground out 40 or 50 is a bloody good day. To grind out 20 doesn’t look but it still feels like you’ve given some contribution to the team, not just taken the shine off the ball for the other blokes. I’m probably more frustrated about getting in and then getting out that anything else. I feel like my game is in good order. There’s a big difference between being out of runs and out of form and I feel a little bit out of runs.”Cowan’s use of two referrals for the match has not been at any great cost to Australia so far, but it has raised the question of who is best placed to judge them on the batting side. The batsman himself must fight conflicting notions of reason and self-preservation, while the non-striker, however helpful he wants to be, is not in line with the wickets so can be wide of the mark in his estimation of lbw decisions in particular. Cowan suggested the narrow margins for error provided by the DRS had encouraged batsmen to second-guess decisions they had previously considered to be out on instinct.”It felt pretty close, as it turned out,” Cowan said of the second innings. “We’ve seen on the referrals sometimes it felt like it would have been slipping down leg. Even seeing the replay, until that ball straightened from the angle he was on, it probably was missing leg. It’s a great skill to be able to bowl from wide on the crease, around the wicket. It just felt like it was missing leg. I can’t really see the last half a foot of what the ball does but it certainly hit the seam and straightened down the line but if it didn’t it would have been missing leg.”Everyone’s played enough cricket to know if you’re hit on the pad you have that feeling deep inside ‘gee that’s pretty close’. Even from my own experience in the first innings it felt pretty adjacent but it’s half a ball width and the umpire to say not out initially and it’s not out. I think we’re finding with the review system that the margin for error what we consider to be out – even Michael Clarke to Shillingford in the first innings, he just said it felt out. That feeling of ‘I’m out’, I think the DRS is showing that not always is it out. With that in mind if you think you’re out, review it.”

George Bailey and Ed Cowan could be considered unlucky to have missed out on Cricket Australia contracts this year. But if they’re good enough, it won’t matter.

Brydon Coverdale22-Jun-2012The purpose of a central contract system is right there in the name. Central. The aim is to put on retainer the players expected to be central to the team’s performances in the coming year. George Bailey and Ed Cowan come to fit that description this season. If they do, they will be rewarded. They will also provide Australia with much-needed batting depth.Neither man should view being left off Cricket Australia’s contract list, which this year featured only six batsmen, as an insult. They are both new to international level. They may become long-term prospects. They may drift back to state cricket, as plenty have before them. Their fate, like that of all of Australia’s young batsmen, is in their own hands. They can’t ask fairer than that.Simon Katich might disagree after his omission last year, but there is one undeniable truth about Cricket Australia’s contract system. Eventually, the right players always earn a deal. Sometimes the wrong ones do as well. That is another matter.But the right players, those who become key performers for Australia during a contract year, will be upgraded to a national contract. It is built into the system. Call it natural selection. Last year, Katich was not in Australia’s plans, so there was no point signing him up. Others, Matthew Wade and Nathan Lyon for example, became regular internationals and were contracted mid-year. Simple.To be upgraded to a national contract from outside the initial group, a player must accumulate 12 points based on a system where each Test appearance is worth five, an ODI is worth two and a T20 international earns one. Bailey is the country’s Twenty20 captain, but has still only played nine times for Australia. If he can make himself a regular ODI player on top of his T20 duties, he will earn a contract.Cowan has played Australia’s past seven Tests. He has shown promise, but that is all. He will need more than the odd half-century and an average of 29 to make himself a viable long-term Test prospect. But if he is good enough to hold his place for three more Tests, he will be upgraded.There are others in the same situation, notably Clint McKay, Daniel Christian and Peter Forrest. They are all likely to play enough games to be upgraded. But why not make them earn it? In the past, too many contracts have been awarded prematurely. Too many contracts have been awarded full stop.Only 17 men have been handed deals for the coming year, down from 25. A less bloated list is no bad thing. England awarded only 13 central contracts last year, and their criteria for a mid-year upgrade is even tougher. They seem to be coping.Now, players won’t just make up the numbers. Remember Cullen Bailey, the young legspinner who was contracted in 2007? He did not play an international match that year, and hasn’t come within cooee since. Adam Voges was handed a contract in 2007, 2008 and 2010, for the grand total of 15 ODIs and four T20s.Not that this year’s 17-man squad is perfect. Mitchell Johnson can count himself extremely fortunate to have been included. Presumably the selectors view him as a first-choice player in the ODI and T20 sides, for his Test bowling in recent times has been about as intimidating as his Movember moustache.The retention of Brad Haddin is an indication that the selectors either believe he is still the No.1 wicketkeeper ahead of Matthew Wade or are yet to make up their minds. After a disappointing year in both Test and one-day cricket, there would have been justification for leaving Haddin off the list.Clearly, Ricky Ponting is not going anywhere in a hurry. His outstanding series against India bought him more time in the Test side, although a poor tour of the West Indies followed. The selectors want him around and he wants to be around. He is likely to be part of the Test side for at least another summer.Ponting is one of only six specialist batsmen given contracts this year, along with Michael Clarke, Shane Watson, David Warner, Michael Hussey and David Hussey. There is no reason the split between bowlers and batsmen should be more even – it is a contract list, not a starting XI – but the imbalance does indicate that John Inverarity and his fellow selectors want more from the wider batting group.That is far from ideal a year out from the Ashes, but nor is it a surprise. This is a team that in the past year has relied on four men – Clarke, Ponting, Warner and Michael Hussey – for more than half its Test runs. It is a side that was bowled out for 47 in a Test match in November.Young batsmen like Usman Khawaja, Shaun Marsh and Phillip Hughes have let Test opportunities slip over the past year, while Cowan, Bailey and Forrest are still proving themselves. There are others showing promise at state level – Joe Burns, Liam Davis and Rob Quiney, to name a few – and it is up to whoever is given a chance to grab it.Australia’s young bowlers have been doing that over the past 12 months. It’s no wonder there are seven fast men and two spinners in the contract list. This year it’s time for the batsmen to make themselves indispensable. Cowan and Bailey would be a good start.

She displayed all the qualities that India thought they would miss with the new ball in the post-Jhulan-Goswami era

Shashank Kishore29-Jul-2022In India’s first outing at a global event in the post-Jhulan-Goswami era, Renuka Singh, 26, displayed all the qualities that India thought they would miss with the new ball: swing, seam, accuracy, large heart.The four Australia batters she nipped out weren’t ordinary wickets. They were of world-beaters who have made a mockery of bowling attacks the world over. Alyssa Healy: one of the hardest hitters of a cricket ball in the women’s game. Beth Mooney: one of the most versatile batters. Meg Lanning: scorer of more white-ball hundreds than any other woman batter, and owner of the most ferocious cut in the game. Tahlia McGrath: among the best young talents in the game currently.Related

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It was meant to be a trial by spin, but Australia’s top order was undone by seam, quite spectacularly, by a rookie, all of seven games old in T20Is, who simply stuck to the very basics coaches impress upon. Of bowling to your strengths, being accurate, and allowing the surface to do the rest.Healy was out nibbling at a delivery she could have either left alone or cut. Mooney played down the wrong line. Lanning was in two minds of whether to bring out her trademark cut or simply steer the ball behind square, only to be caught at point. McGrath didn’t perhaps know that inswing is Renuka’s most potent delivery, and was in no position to drive one that bent in wickedly to beat the inside edge and flatten leg stump.Last year, Renuka had burst through against the same team in Australia. Back then, she was slightly slower, giving batters a little more time to make adjustments against her. Between last October and now, Renuka has worked on becoming fitter and stronger, and has added a couple more yards of pace.Prior to the Commonwealth Games, India had two 10-day camps either side of a tour of Sri Lanka, where she picked up seven wickets in three ODIs, including a career-best 4 for 28.The camps were intense, with a set daily agenda. The fast bowlers were divided into different groups. Each group was put under a dedicated trainer, who logged in their workloads, their bowling speeds, their spells. A dietician worked through their food charts; every gram consumed was meticulously charted. Every evening’s recovery session was planned to the T.Then there were simulations and video analysis of every practice session. This extra emphasis on developing a young fast-bowling group had been in the works for two years, from when WV Raman took over as head coach in 2019.Renuka Singh Thakur (L) celebrates after dismissing Tahlia McGrath•Associated Press”I’ve been working on my fitness for the past month,” Renuka said after picking up her T20I career-best 4 for 18. “We had a dedicated fitness camp, and I’ve worked on speed, agility and endurance; I’m a fast bowler so those are really important skills. That has helped me a lot. I try and hit hard lengths, so that you can get help from the pitch. That has worked for me. I’m predominantly a swing bowler. The more I swing the ball, that much more help I’ll get.”Renuka hails from Himachal Pradesh, a state known for its hilly terrain and adventure sport. Until 2008, there was not a single academy in the state dedicated for girls. That changed after Anurag Thakur, the former BCCI president, developed a state-of-the-art facility in Dharamsala the following year.At 15, Renuka, who was at an age where she had to decide between pursuing academics or trying her hand at sport, was among the first batch of trainees at the academy. At 17, she broke through into the HP senior team.Now, HP is far from a champion team in the women’s circuit. Most players say landing a Railways gig is their ultimate aim. It offers them a competitive environment apart from guaranteeing several perks such as paid leave, government accommodation, a pension scheme, a monthly salary, and training equipment.Renuka too had a similar dream, and it came true in 2021 when she got a job in the Railways. Within eight months of her playing in the set-up, she made her T20I debut in Australia last year, and has since become a regular member of the Indian team.The debut came on the back of an impressive Senior One-Day Trophy, where Renuka picked up nine wickets in five games. But it wasn’t until she picked up four wickets in her first spell against Karnataka in the final, like she did against Australia, that word spread of this seamer with excellent control and the skillset India had been on the lookout for.If the 50-over World Cup in New Zealand gave Renuka an opportunity to apprentice under Goswami, the safety jacket has come off at the CWG. The start has been promising, and India will hope Renuka continues to thrive.

A pitch that has combined the effects of the Pune/Indore-style bunsen and Chennai-style toss magnifier has left India on the verge of another home defeat

Karthik Krishnaswamy24-Feb-20242:06

What is the key to batting on tricky pitches?

India’s rare defeats in home Tests over the last decade have tended to be of two types. In Pune in 2017 and Indore last year, they lost to Australia on square turners that narrowed the gap between India’s spin attack and that of the visitors. In Chennai in 2021, they lost to England on a pitch where the toss had a significant influence on the result: it was flat on the first two days, when England piled up 578, and began to take appreciable turn thereafter.Now, after two days of play in Ranchi, India could be on their way to another home defeat. They are seven down and 134 adrift of England’s first-innings total, and they will be batting fourth. And the pitch that has helped bring them to this position has been a curious one, combining the effects of the Pune/Indore-style bunsen and the Chennai-style toss magnifier.It hasn’t exactly been a square turner, but it has armed spinners with variable bounce – particularly low bounce. And while the Ranchi pitch hasn’t been anything like flat at any point, uneven bounce has seemed to have a greater effect on day two than it did on day one, and it’s only likely to get worse. The toss, then, may have been crucial.Related

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There’s a caveat, though. For losing the toss, India gained a window of seam movement and awkward bounce for their fast bowlers on the first morning, when there was a bit of moisture in the pitch for the new ball to work with. The debutant Akash Deep took three wickets in his opening spell, helping reduce England to 112 for 5.Since then, though, England have had the best of the conditions, and have batted and bowled brilliantly to take full advantage. Batting became easier through the second and third sessions of day one, when the pitch dried out and the ball lost its hardness and shine, and while low bounce was a threat even on day one, it only seemed to get more pronounced on day two.The conditions have contributed to the vulnerable position India find themselves in, and their bowling coach Paras Mhambrey suggested they were surprised by how this pitch has played, and how quickly uneven bounce has become a factor.”From the couple of games that previously we’ve seen out here, generally the nature of the wicket is, it gets lower and slower as the days progress,” he said. “In the past also, if you see a couple of games that [were] played, it has got slower, on lower side as well. So we expected that, but to be honest we didn’t expect it to be playing that low on the second day itself.”I think a couple of balls did keep low in the first innings as well, but that’s what we didn’t expect. We expected it to get slower as the days progress, but not the variable bounce that we’ve seen in the last couple of days.”The low bounce has had a ripple effect on the game. Apart from the chances it has directly helped create, it has also widened the spinners’ margin for error. All through this series, India have taken advantage of the relative lack of control of England’s young spin attack, but on this Ranchi pitch, the bowlers have had to bowl genuine long-hops to get attacked square of the wicket. Given the threat of the shooter, batters have had to offer a straight bat even to marginally short balls.All in unison: Shoaib Bashir, Jonny Bairstow, Zak Crawley, Joe Root and Ben Foakes go up as Rohit Sharma falls•BCCIAs well as Shoaib Bashir and Tom Hartley bowled, then, this widened margin for error also helped them settle and build a constricting rhythm. They sent down 32 and 19 overs, respectively, virtually in single spells – their only break came when they swapped ends late in the day – and made excellent use of their high release points and pace into the pitch, attributes for which they were selected for this tour ahead of more experienced candidates.In the past, India have made their preference for spinner-friendly pitches clear during certain home series. During the Border-Gavaskar series last year, their coach Rahul Dravid admitted that the pressure of having to win Test matches and accumulate World Test Championship points was leading them to push for turning pitches rather than flat ones.The first three Tests of this India-England series have witnessed a return to a more traditional style of Indian pitch, largely batter-friendly through the first three days or so, with wear and tear bringing spinners into play thereafter.Yashasvi Jaiswal batted pretty firmly during his fifty, but didn’t have enough support from the other end•AFP/Getty ImagesThis Ranchi pitch has been different. In the lead-up to the Test match, India may have had a case to ask for a turning pitch given that they were resting Jasprit Bumrah, their leading fast bowler and most influential player of the series. According to Mhambrey, they made no such request, and had expected that this pitch, going by its history, would play similarly to the one in Rajkot for the third Test.”Firstly, venues are not something we can control,” he said. “This was a venue allotted for the series as well. The way the wicket plays out here has always been similar. It has always not been a rank turner. I wouldn’t call this a rank turner because there was variable bounce. I don’t think too many balls spun sharply from the wicket and there was variable bounce on the lower side. That made batting difficult.”But that’s the nature of the soil and there was no specific instruction of a rank turner from our side. It was a similar wicket to [Rajkot] which turned a little bit. We expected it to be similar but the soil out here is different and you can’t guarantee the exact wicket you want. There honestly weren’t any instructions that we need a turner. I don’t think it is a turner as of now. It’s just the low bounce which is making batting a little difficult. I don’t think there has been any ball which has really spun to call it a turning wicket here.”

Their unexpected union took KKR from 57 for 5 to a score they could defend despite dew setting in

S Sudarshanan04-May-20242:02

Was sending Pandey as impact sub the right call?

Thursday evening, Wankhede Stadium. The harsh afternoon heat was giving way to a pleasant evening when Kolkata Knight Riders’ practice session got fully underway. Manish Pandey was among the first to take guard in the second of the two nets. Seeing him time some of the shots, one wondered why he had not played a match this IPL.Pandey faced all types of bowling plus throwdowns at his disposal. Between the deliveries, he even had a banter with some of the bowlers, and by the end of his nearly 30-minute stint, he walked out of the nets all drenched in sweat.Friday evening, Wankhede Stadium. Left-arm seamer Chetan Sakariya marked his run-up on either end. A one-match suspension for fast bowler Harshit Rana had meant KKR had a slot in the XI for an Indian seamer. Even though Pandey was among five potential Impact Players for a sixth successive game, all indicators pointed towards Sakariya making his KKR debut.Related

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But when Nuwan Thushara’s triple strike had KKR reeling at 57 for 5 in the seventh over, they had to change their plan. So out walked Pandey as Impact Player, replacing an already dismissed Angkrish Raghuvanshi.KKR had never beaten MI at the Wankhede since 2012, so you wouldn’t blame MI for thinking they had things in control, especially on a slightly two-paced surface. Venkatesh Iyer, who hit a century against MI at this venue last year, had started with two fours in his first four balls and was on 13 off 8 when Pandey joined him. But the next four overs produced just one boundary.In the 11th over, Iyer flicked Piyush Chawla through fine leg for four and then smacked Gerald Coetzee for a four and a six to signal a move-on.Manish Pandey and Venkatesh Iyer’s 83-run stand rescued KKR•AFP/Getty ImagesPandey took the cue and capitalised on his favourable match-up against Jasprit Bumrah in the 14th over by taking 12 runs off him. It included a flicked four – replays indicated it went off Pandey’s thigh pad and Bumrah wasn’t happy about it the entire over – through fine leg and a ramped six over deep third to leave their head-to-head reading thus: 80 runs, 42 balls, no dismissals.Pandey fell for 42 off 31 when he miscued one to cover but Iyer carried on. At the death, he pre-empted what the bowlers were attempting and hit crucial boundaries to bring up his second half-century of the season. He deposited Hardik Pandya over wide long-on before hitting a six and a four via reverse shot off Thushara in the 19th over.In a bid to scoop Bumrah on the penultimate ball of the innings, Iyer lost his balance, and middle stump, and was the last batter dismissed for 70 off 52 balls. But despite KKR losing their last five wickets in 29 runs, his 83-run partnership with Pandey, off 62 balls, had steered them to 169.Heading into the game, KKR were the most expensive side in the powerplay this season, and had conceded the second-most sixes at the death. Given Mitchell Starc’s poor form, MI’s long batting line-up, and the dew, a target of 170 did not look challenging.But Varun Chakravarthy and Sunil Narine derailed their chase, with identical figures of 2 for 22 off four overs. Starc, who came into the match with seven wickets from eight games at an economy of 11.78, also picked up 4 for 33, including three in the 19th over to seal KKR’s seventh win in ten outings.”Venky’s been fantastic for us,” Starc said at the post-match press conference. “He has certainly not been out of touch, he has been hitting the ball nicely through the games and certainly at training. Tonight was the night he got the runs to reward that hard work. Not our best start with the bat but the way he went about his innings to absorb some pressure, still keep the scoring rate pretty healthy and build a fantastic innings for us alongside Manish Pandey, that was a really key partnership.”They showed their experience. Obviously, Venky has got good memories here from last year, scoring a hundred. That partnership tonight was what got us to a total we thought we could defend. He used all parts of the ground pretty well, he fought his way through the innings.”