“My innings was simple. If the ball was in my zone, I tried to strike it as clean as possible.”

Hemant Brar21-Oct-2020Nicholas Pooran doesn’t like to complicate things. Before IPL 2020, when ESPNcricinfo had asked him which team he was looking forward to playing against the most, his answer was: “All.” When asked which bowler he was most excited about facing, he said, “Everyone.”The same can be said about his batting too. In a 360-degree world, Pooran relies on drives and pulls to score a majority of his runs. While batsmen are busy slogging right, left and centre, he revels in playing proper cricketing shots. Tuesday was just another example of it.Despite Shikhar Dhawan’s second successive hundred, the Kings XI Punjab had restricted Delhi Capitals to 164 for 5. It wasn’t a big target but the Kings XI lost KL Rahul early. While Chris Gayle changed the momentum with a 26-run over, it was Pooran who flattened the Capitals.After Gayle’s onslaught, the Capitals had managed to restore the momentum in the very next over, which saw the back of Gayle and Mayank Agarwal. R Ashwin had bowled Gayle with a slider as the batsman went for a slog across the line, but Pooran drove him to the cover boundary first ball. While it was a fuller delivery, Pooran’s shot selection also made a big difference.Cometh the middle overs, the phase in which Pooran has been the most destructive batsmen this IPL. In overs 7 to 15, his 230 runs are second only to Rahul’s 241. But while Rahul’s runs have come at a strike rate of 133.88, Pooran has smashed them at 182.53. Among those with at least 50 runs in that period, no has scored at a faster rate.But before Pooran got going, there were some jitters, not in shot selection but in running between the wickets. One such mistake had already resulted in Agarwal getting run out. In the eighth over, it could have been curtains for Pooran as well when he tried to drop-and-run only to be sent back by Glenn Maxwell. Shreyas Iyer’s off-balance throw was a bit wide of Pant who failed to flick it on to the stumps and Pooran was saved.Nicholas Pooran provided impetus to the Kings XI Punjab innings•BCCIHad Pooran been run out, the Kings XI would have been 70 for 4 in the eighth over with not much batting to come. In that scenario, according to ESPNcricinfo’s Luck Index, the Capitals would have gone on to win the game.What followed instead was a period of such clean hitting that it resulted in Sachin Tendulkar tweeting in praise. After being 11 off 10 balls, Pooran tonked 42 off the next 19. Tushar Deshpande bowled short and got whacked over deep square leg. Marcus Stoinis tried length and was launched over long-on. In six balls, bookended by those two hits, Pooran struck two sixes and three fours to turn the game decisively in the Kings XI’s favour.

Some power packed shots played by @nicholas_47.
What a clean striker of the ball he has been. His stance and backlift reminds me of @jpduminy21.#KXIPvDC #IPL2020

— Sachin Tendulkar (@sachin_rt) October 20, 2020

At the halfway stage, the Kings XI required just 64 from 60 balls with seven wickets in hand. Pooran and Maxwell added 69 in 40 balls, the latter’s contribution being only 16 off 15, and by the time Pooran got out, the equation had further come down to 40 from 45 balls, which the Kings XI achieved with one over to spare.Pooran did all this while playing shots right from the MCC coaching manual. In his 28-ball 53, ESPNcricinfo recorded eight cover drives, which fetched him 14 runs. The only more productive shot was the pull, yielding 16 runs from three attempts. The innings, where he scored at a strike rate of almost 190, had no reverse sweeps, no scoops, no ramps and just one slog.After the match, when Maxwell asked Pooran about his knock on , Pooran’s reply was: “My innings was simple. If the ball was in my zone, I tried to strike it as clean as possible.”At the post-match presentation, he told host broadcaster Star, “I am a naturally aggressive player. I play on merit. If it’s in my zone, I hit it. Simple as that. If it’s a match-up, it’s a match-up.” When asked about confusion while running between the wickets, he replied, “One of those nights, one of those nights. It was tough. Poor communication. Simple.”Those responses may come across as simplistic, but Pooran is aware of what he has been doing right and what he needs to improve upon.”I have been working really hard,” he said at the post-match presentation. “I have been hitting the ball pretty good. I have been getting starts but haven’t been able to convert those into big scores. Even tonight I got a start but couldn’t finish the game for the team. That’s disappointing for me.”Before Tuesday, Pooran had only threatened without actually inflicting much damage but if he can keep improving the way he has been, it won’t be too long before oppositions start considering him a real threat.

What worked well for Kings XI Punjab, and where Royal Challengers Bangalore erred

Dustin Silgardo24-Sep-2020Why did Kohli leave Steyn and Dube for the death overs?
With the Kings XI at 100 for 1 after 12 overs, Virat Kohli brought back Navdeep Saini for his third over. Saini had been easily RCB’s best death bowler since the beginning of last season, going at 8.85 runs an over in the last four overs as compared to 12.52 for the rest of the team. So why not leave two overs for him for the death? At that stage, Kohli had used three overs of Yuzvendra Chahal and wanted to keep one back for Glenn Maxwell, whom Chahal had dismissed five times in eight previous meetings. Saini was the next most likely to get a wicket, so Kohli was, perhaps, looking to be aggressive.That decision left Dale Steyn with two overs at the death, and Shivam Dube with at least one. Kohli had done something similar in the previous match – against the Sunrisers Hyderabad – and it had worked out well, as Dube managed to bowl three overs for just 15 runs and two wickets. But that was the first time Dube had ever bowled in the death in the IPL, so asking him to do it again was always going to be a gamble. Steyn, meanwhile, has not had great numbers at the death of late. The Kings XI played it smart by playing out Saini and Chahal and then looked to go big against Steyn and Dube at the end. However, had Kohli held on to his catches, his strategy may have worked out well.

Maxwell arrives. But you can’t go to Saini. Only one over of Chahal. #RCB’s Bowling resources are thin but the deployment is equally intriguing. #KXIPvRCB

— Aakash Chopra (@cricketaakash) September 24, 2020

Why was Philippe promoted ahead of Kohli?
Josh Philippe opened for the Sydney Sixers in the previous season of the Big Bash League and averaged 37.46, so the move was designed to get the best out of him, as Kohli said after the game. The idea was also to have him play a pinch-hitter’s role and leave Kohli and AB de Villiers to finish the innings.”He’s batted at the top of the order for Western Australia. He’s done well in the Big Bash as well,” Kohli told the host broadcaster. “[It’s still] early days in the tournament, so we thought we’ll try and maximise his ability, and see how we go from there on because I know I can bat at [No.] 3 [if I need to], [and] we have a solid opening partnership.”So we just thought chasing a big total tonight we’ll give ourselves a bit more depth in the middle overs … and Josh can go in and play a counterattacking knock, then AB and myself can really put pressure in the middle overs. But [it] just didn’t come off.”That said, Philippe is not a particularly fast starter – he struck at 117.93 in the powerplay in the BBL, less than Kohli’s 126.72 in the same period in the 2019 IPL. And, his early dismissal here meant Kohli came in with the team already in big trouble, and by the time de Villiers arrived, the game was all but gone.The Royal Challengers seem to have too many batsmen in the XI best suited to playing in the top three. One way to fix this would be to play Moeen Ali for Philippe. They may even consider playing Kohli at the top – where he averages 48.72 in the IPL – and pushing Finch or Paddikal down one place.

“Chasing a big total tonight we’ll give ourselves a bit more depth in the middle overs … and Josh can go in and play a counterattacking knock, then AB and myself can really put pressure in the middle overs.”Virat Kohli explains the thinking behind promoting Josh Philippe

Why have the Kings XI being leaving out Gayle and Mujeeb?
Mujeeb-ur-Rahman finished the recent Caribbean Premier League season as the second-highest wicket-taker and Chris Gayle, well, is the Universe Boss. So why did the Kings XI leave out both? Gayle’s declining strike rate recently may not have worked in his favour: since 2018, he strikes at 137.44, which falls short of Glenn Maxwell’s 148.59 and Nicholas Pooran’s 142.80 in the same period. Also, a settled opening pair of Rahul and Mayank Agarwal makes it further difficult for Gayle to sneak in.The equation for Mujeeb, though, is slightly complicated. The Indian fast-bowling reserves for the Kings XI are a bit thin, with the young Ishan Porel the only option apart from Mohammed Shami. Hence, they have played two overseas seamers: Sheldon Cottrell in both matches, and Chris Jordan and Jimmy Neesham in one each. Against the Royal Challengers, they opted for two legspinners in Ravi Bishnoi and M Ashwin to target the right-handed pair of Kohli and de Villiers. K Gowtham was left out for a lower-order hitter, for which they picked Jimmy Neesham. It worked out well for the Kings XI though, as Ashwin dismissed de Villiers and the legspinners took a combined haul of 6 for 53 between them.Getty ImagesWhere is Yadav going wrong?
Umesh Yadav has gone at 11.85 runs per over this season without having taken a wicket. Things weren’t much better last season either, when he went at 9.80. Yadav’s biggest issue seems to be bowling too many balls on the pads. Since the start of last season, he has bowled 37% of his balls on the stumps and 12% down the leg. As a result, he has been taken for runs on the leg side; more than 60% of the runs he has conceded this season have been scored square or behind square on the leg side. In the 2018 season, though – which has been Yadav’s best IPL so far – he had bowled 59% of his deliveries outside off, a clear sign of his success.

Taking the nasty short ball out of the game might seem unthinkable, but we might soon be at the point where we’re seriously considering it

Sidharth Monga06-Jan-2021The current India tour of Australia has already had a bowling allrounder, a lower-order batsman, miss the T20I series because of a concussion. A key bowler is missing three Tests of the series with a broken arm. An opening batsman has missed out on a potential Test debut because of a hit to his head, which gave him his ninth concussion before the age of 22. All three players were hit by accurate, high-pace short-pitched bowling, which takes extreme skill, and some luck, to keep out.The concussed bowling allrounder is now back. He has scored a fifty at the MCG that has frustrated the home side, who have been accustomed to rolling India over once they lose five wickets. India’s additions from five-down in their last six innings in Test cricket: 64, 43, 48, 40, 48, 21. In Melbourne, the sixth wicket alone has added 121 because this bowling allrounder hung around with his captain, one of only five specialist batsmen, a bold selection by the visiting side after 36 all out.Related

Phil Hughes' death is a stark reminder of the danger players face on the cricket field

Will Pucovski and the other Australia batsmen need clarity to succeed at SCG

Chappell: Don't ban the bouncer, fix batting technique instead

Why the bouncer is not essential to cricket

The contradictory fear of the fast bowler

The fast bowler whose bouncer in the T20I ended up concussing this allrounder goes back to the bouncer plan in the Test. Experts on TV feel he has been too late getting there, that he has not been nasty enough. The allrounder shows he can handle himself, dropping his wrists and head out of the way of a couple of snorters, but he eventually plays a hook and is caught in the deep.The next few batsmen are much less adept at handling this kind of bowling – the kind of players who have yielded low returns for India batting lower in the order. Bouncer after bouncer follows. One batsman has to call for help after getting hit in the chest. The other is hit twice on the forearm. All told, the bowler bowls 23 consecutive short balls at Nos. 7-9. Welcome to the land of “broken f****** elbows”.

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This is Australia. This is the land of tough, “hard but fair” cricket. This is also the place where there was an exemplary inquest into safety standards in cricket after the tragic death of young Phillip Hughes on a cricket field. Hughes was a specialist batsman, it was not a high-pressure Test match, and he was not facing an express bowler. He was hit in the side of the neck by a bouncer, just where the helmet ends.It was a moment of awakening in cricket; of realisation that we have been extremely lucky, given the number of blows batsmen take, that we have not had too many such grave injuries. That it needn’t be an inept tailender, that it needn’t be 150kph, that it needn’t be particularly nasty at first look, that any of the large number of bouncers we see and enjoy could be fatal for any of the practitioners of this highly skilled sport.No. 9: the blow in the Sydney tour game was the ninth time Will Pucovski had been concussed playing cricket•Getty ImagesImagine the number of concussions we have missed, now that we know how likely a blow to the head from a fast-paced bouncer is likely to cause one. In 2019, in the aftermath of the Steven Smith concussion, Mark Butcher told ESPNcricinfo’s podcast Switch Hit how he faced a barrage from Tino Best and Fidel Edwards in 2004, wore one on the head, went off for bad light, didn’t tell anyone how he felt, came back and batted with the same compromised helmet on. He is pretty certain he has batted through concussions. “You just batted on as long as you saw straight.”A concussion is a head injury that causes the head and the brain to shake back and forth quickly, not too unlike a pinball. It can make you dizzy, it can disorient you, it can slow your instincts down, its symptoms can show up at the time of impact or five minutes after, or an hour later, or at any time over the next couple of days. Just imagine the number of players who have continued risking what is potentially often a much graver “second impact”, which can be caused in part by slowed instincts because of the first impact.Australia is the land trying hard to normalise going off when you’ve had a head injury. It led cricket into instituting concussion substitutes. Six years on from Hughes’ death, we are in the middle of a series between two highly skilled pace attacks capable of aiming high-speed, accurate short-pitched bowling at the bodies of batsmen.ESPNcricinfo LtdWhile there is conversation around making cricket safer, the threat for lesser-skilled batsmen is going up: 13% of deliveries from fast bowlers to those batting from Nos. 1 to 7 has been short in this series; for the lesser batsmen, batting from 8 to 11, this number has gone up to a whopping 29%, or roughly two short balls an over. The corresponding numbers in the recently concluded series between New Zealand and West Indies were 9% and 13%, which is still higher than the norm in Test cricket: 6% for batsmen 1 to 7 and 9% for the tail since concussions substitutes were introduced in July 2019.

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Cricket is a weird sport. If you are a tail-end batsman, you often have to go out and let millions watch you do something you are inept at – sometimes hilariously so. And do it against opponents who are almost lethally good at doing what they are doing. The less you like it, the more you get it.Opposing fast bowlers have stopped looking after each other now, what with protective equipment improving and lower-order batsmen increasingly placing higher prices on their wickets. When you are hit by a bouncer, you know there are former cricketers, some of whom you grew up idolising, waiting to label you soft should you show pain, let alone walk off.”You just batted on as long as you saw straight:” Mark Butcher gets hit by one from Tino Best•Getty ImagesWhen Ravindra Jadeja, the previously mentioned bowling allrounder, took a concussion substitute in the T20I, the predominant conversation was about the need to watch out against the misuse of the concussion substitute. Perhaps because Jadeja batted on for three more balls after he was hit – which was also a sign that not all teams take concussions seriously enough. Not every batsman has a stem guard at the back of his helmet, an appendage that might have saved Hughes’ life.Mark Taylor’s response is a good summation of what the pundits thought: “The concussion rules are there to protect players. If they are abused, there’s a chance it will go like the runner’s rule. The reason runners were outlawed was because it started to be abused. It’s up to the players to make sure they use the concussion sub fairly and responsibly. I’m not suggesting that didn’t happen last night.”Taylor is a former Test captain, a former ICC cricket committee member, and a current administrator. He is better informed than many. During India’s home season in 2019, when Bangladesh’s batsmen were hit again and again in less-than-ideal viewing conditions in a hurriedly organised first day-night Test in India, commentators questioned their courage and called the repeated concussion tests ridiculous.

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Mitchell Starc is the bowler whose bouncer resulted in the concussion to Jadeja. He is the one who bowled 23 short balls in a row at India’s lower-order batsmen. He has had to deal with criticism from former players for being too soft at various points in his career. He saw his batsmen score just 195 after winning the toss in Melbourne, and was part of the bowling group that was asked once again to bail the team out. India batted extremely well, five catches went down, the pitch was easing out a little, and the deficit was growing. There was a microscope over Starc now.Umesh Yadav gets out of the way of a Starc bouncer. “You don’t hit me, I won’t hit you” doesn’t apply among fast bowlers anymore•Getty ImagesTest-match cricket is no ordinary workplace. You have to do whatever is within the laws to get your wickets. Almost everyone is so good at what they do that errors have to be prised out, sometimes forced. Every weakness is preyed upon for whatever small advantage it might yield. It is not far-fetched to imagine Will Pucovski, the previously mentioned repeatedly concussed opening batsman, will be peppered if and when he makes his Test debut. This Indian team has fast bowlers who can give as good as they get, and they have got some from the Australian bowlers.For over after over, fast bowlers do what their bodies are not biomechanically meant to be doing. You have to find a way to get a wicket. The bouncer is a legitimate ploy to get wickets, to mess with the batsman’s footwork, to let them know they can’t plonk the front foot down and keep driving or defending them, and even to send a message out to the remaining batsmen. That line between bowling bouncers to get wickets and doing it to hurt can get blurred. If you have an awesome power and no one has a way to tell with certainty that if you are always using it with good intent, there are chances you will end up misusing it once in a while.It might sound extremely cynical, but if a blow to the head is highly likely to get a concussion substitute in, thus putting a front-line bowler out for at least a week and denying the opposition their ideal XI for the next Test, is it that difficult to imagine a fast bowler trying that extra bouncer before going for the full ball? Test match cricket is no ordinary workplace.

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“I didn’t want just that bloke to be scared,” Len Pascoe said to me in 2015. “I wanted the guys in the dressing room to be scared too. If you got him scared, that’s it. Often when I took wickets, I would get them in batches. One, two, bang. You just hit hard, hit hard.”Pascoe is a man after whom a hospital ward was named in the New South Wales town where he lived. Back then in the 1970s, every Saturday, Bankstown hospital would receive cricket victims in the Thomson-Pascoe ward. (And that despite being told years later by the groundsman at Bankstown that because of Thomson and Pascoe he used to make incredibly flat pitches.)Sandeep Patil is felled by Len Pascoe in Sydney in 1981•Getty ImagesPascoe was a young fast bowler, son of an immigrant brick carter, who grew up with racial abuse. To him, the man standing in the way of everything he wanted was the one across the 22 yards. He would do anything to get him out, and his captains and batsmen loved using him to do that. He bowled in an era when it was commonplace to hear chants of “Lillee Lillee, kill kill” at cricket rounds. In those days, any discussion around player safety was arguably mostly a ploy to neutralise West Indies, who had by then developed a pace battery that could match if not outdo any pace attack blow for blow.The injuries Pascoe caused concerned him. Once, a batsman, George Griffith of South Australia, told him in a hospital after a day’s play that had he been hit half an inch either side of where he had been, he wouldn’t probably have been around to accept the apology. When Pascoe next hit a batsman badly – Sutherland’s Glenn Bailey in a grade game, who then vomited blood – his mate Thomson had only recently lost his former flat-mate, 22-year-old Martin Bedkober, felled by a blow to the chest while batting in a Queensland grade match.The young Pascoe kept doing it despite his discomfort, kept rationalising it to himself, comparing it to the risk a policeman or an army man takes, but when, at 32, he hit Sandeep Patil, a blow that knocked the batsman off his feet, he had had enough. He saw Patil stagger off the field, barely conscious, swaying this way and that despite support from the medical staff. Pascoe told Ian Chappell he was walking away. Pascoe said Chappell asked him, “What if he hits you for six? Do you think he feels sorry for you?” That kept Pascoe going for another season but his heart was not in it.Pascoe never injured another batsman. As a coach now, he teaches young bowlers to use the bouncer responsibly: bowl the first one well over the leg stump, only as a fact-finding mission to see where the feet are going. Bowl to get wickets, not to injure batsmen. It is important to instil fear, but it is equally important to not get addicted to instilling that fear.

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Test cricket in New Zealand is played upside down. As matches progress, the pitches get slower and better to bat on. The best time to bat is the fourth innings. Everywhere else in the world, no matter how green the pitch, you win the toss and bat if no time has been lost to rain before the toss. New Zealand is the only place in the world where you win the toss and bowl first, because dismissals have to be manufactured in the second innings.Life is nasty, brutish and short when you’re facing Neil Wagner•Getty ImagesThese conditions have given rise to a phenom called Neil Wagner. But for Wagner’s style of bowling – persistent short balls between the chest and the head of the batsmen – there would be a high rate of draws in New Zealand. Since his debut, Wagner has bowled more short balls and taken more wickets with them than anyone else. He trains like a madman so that he can keep doing it over extremely long spells.Two days after Starc possibly flirted with the line between bowling bouncers for wickets and bowling them for the hurt, Wagner goes to work on a dead pitch in the face of a stubborn Pakistan resistance to try to draw the Test. Running in on two broken toes, over an 11-over spell, Wagner bowls bouncer after bouncer from varied angles at varied heights and paces, and finally manages to get the wicket of century-maker Fawad Alam with a short ball from round the wicket.The tail dig in their heels, and we go into the last hour with two wickets still in hand. Wagner figures the batsmen can block if he keeps pitching it up. So he digs it in short, and gets Shaheen Shah Afridi in the head in the 11th over of his spell. Over the next few overs, Afridi is tested repeatedly for a possible concussion.This Wagner spell is compelling to watch. One man against the conditions, against his own hurting foot, against stubborn batsmen, trying to win his side a Test match in the dying minutes of the final day. The tail, emboldened by the improved protective equipment batsmen get to wear, braving blows to the body, trying to save a Test match. The fast bowler, fitter and stronger than he has ever been, able to sustain hostility and accuracy over longer spells than ever before.ESPNcricinfo Ltd

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“The bowling of short-pitched deliveries is dangerous if the bowler’s end umpire considers that, taking into consideration the skill of the striker, by their speed, length, height and direction they are likely to inflict physical injury on him/her. The fact that the striker is wearing protective equipment shall be disregarded.”

The MCC leaves it to the umpires to decide what is dangerous. In most cases the umpires are professional enough to prevent things from getting bad enough to be visible to those watching from the outside. Often a quiet word when the bowler is walking back to their mark is enough. Yet the times that it does get out of hand, the umpire can call a dangerous delivery a no-ball, followed by a “first and final warning” and suspension from bowling should the bowler repeat the offence. It is near impossible to remember when such a no-ball was called, let alone a suspension.The one time in recent memory when it did look like it got out of hand was when Brett Lee bowled four straight bouncers at Makhaya Ntini and Nantie Hayward in Adelaide back in 2002. Ntini was hit on the head twice before staggering through for a leg-bye, with Ian Chappell on air observing he was “perhaps a little dazed”. After the fourth short ball, which chased Hayward’s head as he backed away towards square leg, umpire Simon Taufel had a quiet word, resulting in two full deliveries.Often under fire from commentators – former players themselves – and fans, umpires can be reluctant to draw any attention to themselves. The common refrain they have to deal with: “They have come to watch us play, not you umpire.” Umpires don’t want to be seen as overly officious – when it comes to policing player behaviour or in ball management or pitch management or ensuring player safety.If the umpire steps in in the case of Starc, it will certainly be controversial in this high-profile contest. If he steps in to prevent Wagner from bouncing Afridi, he knows his one quiet word could end up being the difference between a win and a draw for New Zealand. The umpire has to ensure player safety but without compromising the integrity of the contest or attracting vitriol from former players and media. It is an extremely tight rope.

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Those running the sport stand at a crucial crossroads. A lot of sports – especially those played by teams – have their roots in military training or colonisation. They were originally played to keep troops fit and ready for war, to hone a killer instinct for real war by indulging in a phony war; for voyeuristic entertainment; or to discipline the people of a new country so as to control and spread the right messages among the colonised. The war analogies endure but we have come a long way from sport’s original purpose. Player safety standards might need to catch up.Brett Lee to Makhaya Ntini, 2001: welcome to Adelaide•Getty ImagesOne of the reasons bouncers are such a thrilling spectacle is the real danger they carry. At that pace and that height, you can’t always control what is happening. To watch an expert batsman try to tame this force through technique, skill, courage and luck is a rush. There has to be a rush involved in bowling or facing them too. But only till someone gets hurt again, especially knowing as we do now what even a moderate-looking impact can do to a player’s health. The rush gives way to unease pretty quickly these days.Any new regulation that aims to limit this damage will be tricky to enforce. The existing regulations, which limit the number of short balls that are head-high (and not, for instance, chest-high) might need to be looked at too. In the last decade there were two recorded instances of club cricketers not surviving blows to the chest.At first glance, the idea of regulating the use of bouncers seems ridiculous, given how integral the bouncer is to the game of cricket. There must have been a time, too, when the idea of a concussion substitute must have seemed ridiculous. When it must have been okay for players to compromise their safety by carrying on playing with potential brain injuries.There will have to be a time when it might not be considered ridiculous for player safety to take precedence over the desire to preserve the bouncer. It seems more a matter of when than if. Any decision will involve carefully examining what the sport will end up losing. A length-ball outswinger might not be as effective if the batsman knows he can keep planting his front foot down to cover the movement. We might end up losing out on a whole genre of bowling: Wagnering, if you will. It will make the umpires’ job even more difficult, bringing more subjectivity into it as they rule one bouncer dangerous and another passable.Then again, do we, and the sport, have it in us to wait for another grave injury – or lawsuits in some countries – before we make that move?

Gloucestershire spinner believes his life story can help next generation as he signs three-year deal

Andrew Miller10-Dec-2020How often do we talk glibly about “heartbreak” in the all-consuming world of professional sport? It can be bandied about without thinking in the heat of the match-defining moment – the missed milestone, the tight finish, the thought of what might have been, if only that crucial moment had gone your way.But when Gloucestershire’s hopes of silverware ebbed away on a soggy Finals Day at Edgbaston in October, perspective was the one thing that their defeated dressing room retained in abundance. For, as Tom Smith, their left-arm spinner, puts it: “we’ve all been through a few things in our lives”.Two years ago, Smith himself was close to walking away from cricket in a grief-stricken blur, following the death of his wife Laura from a rare form of liver cancer – a tragedy that left him bringing up two young daughters on his own, and fearing that he would forever be judged in his day job as “the widower”.But, he says, the love and support of his Gloucestershire team-mates helped carry him through the darkest days of his life – and vice versa too, for remarkably, he was not alone in experiencing some of the rawest grief imaginable.”When you think what the dressing room’s been through, it’s pretty incredible,” Smith tells ESPNcricinfo. “So much has happened over such a short period of time. It’s made us a very mature group of players, very emotionally intelligent.”In April 2018, the club’s assistant coach Ian Harvey suffered the loss of his own wife Amanda, while in 2017, Gareth Roderick’s father took his own life. In the same timeframe, Cindy Klinger, wife of the former club captain Michael, underwent multiple operations for Stage 4 breast cancer, while Benny Howell’s lifelong struggle with ADHD is further evidence that the club offers a level of genuine emotional support that few employers could hope to replicate.And today, for Smith, that support has been reaffirmed in a new three-year contract that offers him the chance to step into a coaching role at the club in the final year of his deal.”It’s a really exciting opportunity for me,” Smith says. “I’ve always thought that coaching would be something I’d like to transition into after my playing days, but to be given an official role is very exciting and I can’t wait to get started. I feel very fortunate to be a part of this club. They believe in backing the individual, as well as the cricketer, and they’ve supported me every step of the way.”The deal is a reflection not only of Gloucestershire’s willingness to invest in its people, but of the levels to which Smith himself has lifted his game, which he now freely admits has helped him to feel alive again after months of “numbness” in the aftermath of Laura’s death in August 2018.In this year’s Blast, Smith truly came into his own, claiming 14 wickets at 17.35 in Gloucestershire’s run to Finals Day, at a remarkable economy rate of 5.92. And while he was unable to exert his hold on their semi-final, as Surrey dominated a rain-reduced contest at Edgbaston, he nevertheless finished the season with a small but significant personal accolade, the Gloucestershire Supporters’ Player of the Year.Tom Smith – and several of his team-mates – have received off-field support from the Professional Cricketers’ Trust•Getty Images”I feel like I’ve improved every year, really,” Smith says. “I guess that comes with age and experience, and the hunger to be better, but so long as my numbers are getting better each year, I’d like to play as long as possible.”But I know that cricket will come to an end eventually, and with the girls to think about, I’ve got no option but to plan for the future,” he adds. “The last thing I want to do is sit back and relax, and think I’ve got three good years ahead of me – that’s not me at all. I just want to keep improving on and off the field, and be the best me I can be.”Taking life for granted has not been an option for Smith since Laura’s death, and never was that more apparent than during the grim early months of the English summer. The country was in lockdown and instead of preparing for the cricket season, Smith was furloughed in his house in Bristol, with his waking hours taking up with home-schooling for Rosie, aged 6, and Clara, 4.”It was very, very hard,” he says. “I think the lack of exercise really troubled me the most, because with the children being so young, our one outing a day was spent with Rosie riding a bike and me pushing Clara around in the buggy while she went to sleep in the afternoon.”I just wasn’t exercising. I was sat at the table doing phonics, and just didn’t feel in control of anything. I was living the same day over and over.”Eventually, Smith began doing shuttle runs in his 15 metres of back garden, just to guard against pulling a hamstring if, by some miracle, the season did get back up and running. But then, suddenly, there was light at the end of the tunnel as Gloucestershire’s players were called back for pre-season training, and as the campaign got underway in August, Smith found himself experiencing a joy that he had struggled to replicate in the preceding months.”I look back at it, and although it was awful, a really dark period for me, in a way it was quite positive because it enabled me to feel the way I’m feeling now,” he says. “There’s happiness and reflection on a good season, but also I just enjoyed my job, which is something I can’t say I’ve truly felt with all the stress of the past few years.

“The one thing I’ve learned is that you just have to try and enjoy the game, there’s so much stress and there’s so much pressure on performance. It’s easy to say that, but I do feel over the last few years I’ve just enjoyed the game, because we are so fortunate to do what we do.”

“For the longest time, I felt like I was just existing really,” he admits. “Playing cricket, looking after the children, I just felt numb all the time. I did think about retiring because I didn’t want to be known as the widower, I wanted to be known for my cricket. I just didn’t want that judgement.”I know it was all cooked up in my head, but it took me a while to realise that. And as the year went on, I got more and more excited by the prospect of the season and realised it was something I wanted to do.”For me to go through that, where cricket was taken away, was something that I’d never experienced. I always had cricket in my life since I was tiny, so it really made me appreciate what I do for a career, and how lucky I am to play for Gloucester with a great group of players, who are extremely supportive of my situation.”You do wear a bit of a mask as a cricketer,” Smith adds. “You leave your home as a single parent and then you arrive at the ground as a sportsman. You’re judged for what you do on the field, so I feel very free on the pitch. It’s a chance to stop thinking about what’s going on at home, or worrying about the children. I can just go out and perform.”ALSO READ: Off-field struggles bring Gloucestershire’s squad togetherClearly it’s not quite that simple, and Smith has spoken previously of the huge support he received from the PCA’s Professional Cricketers’ Trust, through whom he was able – among other crucial contributions – to source a nanny to provide his girls with the maternal support they would so clearly need when he was away for a match.But even the littlest details of Smith’s career are complicated by his changed circumstances. “The club understands that sometimes I’ll be late to training because the timings overlap with the school run, or that I’ll be unable to commit to an event because I have other stuff on,” he says. “They’ve allowed me to be the best single parent that I can be, so to be able to commit to them for another three years, and thank them for their support, is something that’s really important to me.”The one disappointment for Smith was that he was unable to share any of his rediscovered love of cricket directly with his girls this summer. Though he concedes that neither of them is especially sporty, and that Clara tended to be scared of the fireworks whenever she came to the Blast in preceding seasons, the inability to involve them in the fabric of the club this year is something he regrets.”I would have loved them to come to some of the summer, but it wasn’t to be,” he says. “But most of the players probably suffered in the same way. The lack of crowds was one thing but many players’ parents, brothers and sisters come to most games. The cricket is just as important to them as to the individual.”At the age of 33, Smith is confident that he will continue to give his best on the field for Gloucestershire for some time yet, but is understandably cautious about what the future may hold, notwithstanding the coaching path onto which he appears to be heading, and for which he will soon be embarking on his ECB Level 4 badge.Gloucestershire wore a one-off kit for their Blast game against Sussex in 2019 to mark Rainbow @ Grief Encounter’s support for Tom Smith’s family•Getty Images”I’ve got to be realistic that there may not be a job at the end of the three years,” he says, “if all the spaces are filled or if Covid hits badly, and budgets are tight. But I’ve always used my winters well and tried to do work experience and extra studies. I’m currently working for a wealth management company, which keeps me busy because I still have to actively think about what I might do if the coaching isn’t there.”For the time being though, Smith knows that his life experiences will be of value in aiding Gloucestershire’s next generation of cricketers, particularly spinners – a breed that tend to require sympathetic handling in their developmental stages.”I do think that some of what I’ve been through in the last few years will be of value to young players,” he says. “Everyone goes through periods of their careers where they believe that one bowl or one bat is going to be it for them, and that puts them under so much pressure.”The one thing I’ve learned is that you just have to try and enjoy the game, there’s so much stress and there’s so much pressure on performance. It’s easy to say that, but I do feel over the last few years I’ve just enjoyed the game, because we are so fortunate to do what we do.”I’ve noticed it more and more in recent times when dropping the children off to school,” he adds. “The parents are worried about the security of their jobs, or they’re working all the hours through the night, and we just go and play cricket.”Of course there is stress around that, you do have to perform, but I also think we’re so fortunate. It’s taken me a while to realise that but I think if I can pass that on to the next generation, it’s hugely important.”

The three young uncapped Indian fast bowlers promise much for the future

Aakash Chopra10-May-2021In T20 cricket the two most difficult phases to bowl in are the first six overs and the last four. In the early years of the IPL, the majority of the overs in these periods were bowled by the overseas bowlers, but gradually the Indian internationals began to share this responsibility. Still, while Jasprit Bumrah and Bhuvneshwar Kumar grew into two of the finest fast bowlers in the world in these phases of a T20, the rest of the young – and even older – Indian fast bowlers were still not up to the mark.A curtailed IPL does not provide us with a reasonable sample size of matches to form a firm opinion, but there was enough to suggest that there has been a significant shift in the roles and responsibilities of young uncapped Indian fast bowlers in the tournament.In Chennai, Harshal Patel of the Royal Challengers Bangalore was assigned the duty of bowling his four overs in the second half of the innings. Chetan Sakariya of the Rajasthan Royals bowled both with the new ball and in the death overs. And Avesh Khan of the Delhi Capitals was extremely impressive in all phases of the game. These three Indian medium-pacers were the story of the 29 games played in this year’s IPL so far.Related

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Sakariya started as an unknown but immediately made an impression. He has the skills to make the ball move both ways in the air, has both back-of-the-hand and offcutter slower ones, and the temperament needed to bowl wide yorkers. He isn’t rapid in the air but has shown that he has the bowling smarts to pick the right options.The Royals had a preset plan to have deep point and deep square leg fielders from the first ball. That kind of field forces your hand as a bowler, often making you bowl shorter. While bowling to that kind of field is not ideal for someone who isn’t really fast and prefers to rely on swing instead, Sakariya adapted and rarely bowled a boundary ball with the new ball. Every time he was taken for runs, the batters had to take risks. In the death overs, he not only backed his plans, he also was not perturbed by the reputation of the batter he was bowling to.Avesh Khan bowled the toughest overs for Delhi and came out looking good•BCCIThere are two things in particular that you look for in a young bowler. One, how he reacts to a six or four – that is, what will his follow-up ball be? And two, how does he shape up in a contest against the best in the world? The likes of Kieron Pollard, Andre Russell and AB de Villiers are capable of smashing good balls for sixes and that puts a lot of experienced bowlers off their plans, making them end up bowling half-volleys as we scratch our heads and wonder why they didn’t just bowl a wide yorker. Sakariya stood tall in these contests, though, as I said, the sample size is small.Khan was assigned a much tougher role than Sakariya. He wasn’t bowling the first and third overs but rather the fifth or sixth – the toughest of the powerplay overs. Since Anrich Nortje was missing and Kagiso Rabada seemed a little off-colour, Khan was often even brought on to bowl the 18th and 20th overs.He is tall, gets good bounce and is fairly quick in the air. This season we saw him pitch the ball fuller when it was new, and land yorkers close to perfectly in the death overs. He doesn’t have a great slower one but he seemed to be in a good place to make the best of what he does have. That’s another thing that makes a big difference: if you don’t have a good slower one, the ones you do attempt are probably going to disappear. It is the same with misdirected yorkers. The understanding of one’s abilities and skills is vital if you are to trust them while choosing from the many options every ball presents.Harshal Patel showed he knew how to operate on slow pitches•BCCI/IPLPatel, the holder of the purple cap, seemed to turn over a new leaf in his IPL career this year. There aren’t many categories of fast bowlers in T20 cricket – the two main ones are those who are good with the new ball and the ones who specialise in bowling at the death. Patel might belong to the latter group, but impressively, he made the most of his skills on the slow surface in Chennai. Once the ball got old, it started to grip the pitch, and the bigger boundaries allowed the fast bowlers to roll their fingers over the ball with more confidence. T20 cricket isn’t long enough for bowlers to set up dismissals but it does allow you to use the match situation. Patel often started his spells around the 12th over – when the opposition is typically looking to break free. He used his offcutter variation to take the pace off the ball, and otherwise bowled really straight – though not attempting to get under the bat.In theory it sounds really simple because that’s more or less what you need to do on a slowing surface, but it requires discipline and confidence to stick to the plan. We’ve often seen bowlers try something radically different on the fifth ball of an over after having contained the batters for the first four balls. The anticipation that they are going to be hit makes them do things differently even when normal service is working just fine.Patel, as expected, struggled a little when RCB’s campaign moved to the Wankhede and Ahmedabad but two expensive 20th overs must not take away from the amazing things he did before that.

Refusal to massage senior players’ egos was unpopular but necessary

Andrew Miller21-Apr-2021Was it the fact that Ed Smith was too clever by half, and unafraid to show it? Or was it the backlash to England’s rest-and-rotation policy – an imaginative response to the ongoing Covid crisis but one that proved too rigid for the already daunting challenge of facing India on home soil?Or was it a simple act of cost-cutting from the ECB – a body that had to axe 62 jobs at the end of last summer due to a £100 million hole in its finances, and which can point to the pathways programme fronted by the ubiquitous Mo Bobat, as well as the over-sized squads for England’s bio-secure tours, and claim with some legitimacy that the role of a bespoke selector really is surplus to current requirements?Whatever the reasons (and given the depth and complexity that Smith liked to bring to his role, it’s fair to assume they were myriad), his non-retention, or “dropping”, to use the word that selectors themselves are so averse to uttering in this day and age, is a remarkable turn of events. It marks the end of more than 100 years of independent selection panels for England Test teams, and ushers in an unlikely new autocrat in the guise of head coach Chris Silverwood – or “Kim Jong Sil”, to use the moniker that the Guardian‘s cricket correspondent doesn’t expect to stick.Rumblings abound about Smith’s relationship with the players he was tasked with picking – many of them are understood to have been prickly in the extreme – and there was always an accompanying sense of over-complication to his methods. After all, once you’ve factored in a few elements of horses for courses, as well as the familiar vagaries of form, selection ultimately comes down to a fairly simple case of “yay or nay”? If this bloke cuts it, he’s in for the duration; if this bloke doesn’t, he’s not. It’s pretty mundane, actually, especially when the team is functioning well – which to Smith’s credit, it was … at least until India cranked up the spin settings this winter.But it’s telling that, of the 28 players to feature in his 37 Test selections from May 2018 to March 2021, Smith’s most constant “other-ranks” pick (behind the captain Joe Root) was a player who might never have played the format again, had he not backed his first and biggest hunch to the hilt.Only a selector willing to approach the role differently – and willing to back up his leap of faith with a highly-evolved explanation – could have risked the recall of Jos Buttler for the Tests against Pakistan in 2018. Buttler had not played any Test cricket for 18 months, since a spare-part role on the tour of India, but Smith recognised that his rampant form for Rajasthan Royals in the IPL was there to be harnessed across formats, whether or not it offended any sensibilities in the process.Root and Silverwood’s responsibilities have grown with Smith’s departure•Getty ImagesSure enough, Buttler thrived on the faith that he had been shown, and translated that IPL confidence into a series of agenda-seizing displays : a player-of-the-match performance against Pakistan at Headingley, and an integral role in England’s 4-1 series win over India, when two other Smith hunches, Sam Curran and Adil Rashid – back in contention despite quitting red-ball cricket for Yorkshire – helped provide the lower-order with enough depth and indomitability to wrestle an improbably comprehensive victory out of a tightly-contested series.It’s arguable, however, that Smith’s vision was too all-encompassing for the remit of his role. When Andrew Strauss appointed him in the spring of 2018, his stated aim had been to usher in a new era of data-driven selection, and the early signs were undeniably fruitful in that regard. Yet his project stalled abruptly in the immediate aftermath of perhaps his finest hour.England’s 3-0 series win in Sri Lanka in November 2018 was a triumph for what was dubbed “total cricket” – the ability to be ultra-flexible and turn to players with specific skills in certain conditions, such as the subcontinent specialist Keaton Jennings or, less convincingly, Smith’s former Kent team-mate Joe Denly, whose job-a-day legspin would be consistently over-sold in red- and white-ball cricket alike.For three Tests against Sri Lanka, it worked a treat. In spite of fielding a team with more wicketkeepers than frontline fast bowlers, England’s line-up had enough moving parts to cover every facet of the game: three contrasting spinners (leg, off and left-arm), a variety of pace options with Ben Stokes as the pivot, genuine batting to No. 8 and competence all the way down, and an enviable blend of ballast and flair therein. He’d cracked it within six months. It really was a simple game, especially for such a clever-clogs.But unfortunately, Smith’s ultra-logical treatment of players as chess pieces ran counter to the need to massage a few egos along the way, and also rode roughshod over the unspoken truth within dressing rooms – that not all players are equal. The decision to back Curran’s ubiquity over Stuart Broad’s single-string class in the subsequent Test against West Indies in Barbados in January 2019 backfired so spectacularly, amid a series-defining 381-run defeat, that it’s arguable whether Smith ever quite had – or was permitted – the courage of his convictions again.Related

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Certainly, he seemed to pull his punches in subsequent selections – perhaps most notably in the decision not to turn back to Jennings for this winter’s subcontinent trip, even when Rory Burns dipped out of the Sri Lanka series to attend the birth of his first child. Likewise, we may never know now whether Dawid Malan – who took umbrage at Smith’s early suggestion that his game was better suited to Southern Hemisphere venues – would have been a bolter for this winter’s Ashes squad.The equally plausible reason for Smith’s belated conformity, of course, is that England had by that stage turned around their Test fortunes, thanks to the core of young players whom Smith himself had been instrumental in choosing: most notably, Ollie Pope (despite picking him at No. 4 on debut and, bizarrely, as a wicketkeeper in New Zealand), Zak Crawley, Curran and Dom Bess – yet another hunch pick, after Jack Leach broke his thumb on the eve of Smith’s first squad selection. His temperament at Test level could not be questioned until his technique deserted him in India, and at the age of 23, he’s got time to come again.As for England’s white-ball plans – the over-riding priority for 2019, his first full year in the role – Smith’s involvement was never allowed to evolve beyond peripheral. His attempt to shoehorn Denly into England’s World Cup plans was plain weird, and rightly kiboshed on the eve of the campaign, while his inability to offer any real hope of a recall to Alex Hales was the first true sign of Smith’s redundancy, in the literal sense. What, honestly, could his purpose be, if Eoin Morgan had such a powerful and unchallengeable veto?Bairstow’s role changed regularly under Smith’s watch•Getty ImagesThere were other mis-steps along the way – Jason Roy as an Ashes opener was the hunch that proved it’s all guesswork really, while Smith’s chastising of Jonny Bairstow for crimes against Test-match batting technique was inconsistent to say the least. Was he a wicketkeeper, was he a No. 3, was he both or was he neither? By the time he’s sloped off the India tour with three ducks out of four, the latter seemed the likeliest answer. Something similar might also be said of Moeen Ali, who featured in just 11 of the Tests of Smith’s era, despite for a 12-month run – up to and including his axing after the first Ashes Test at Edgbaston – being the leading wicket-taker in the world.Despite all this, Smith finishes his stint in credit. England were drifting as a Test team when he took the job in the penultimate year of Trevor Bayliss’ reign – they’d been trounced in the Ashes and bowled out for 58 against New Zealand, and were in the midst of an abject overseas run of 11 defeats and two draws in their previous 13 overseas Tests. Until the recent denouement in India, that record had briefly been transformed to six away wins in a row, but overall, a return of 21 wins and 12 losses in 37 Tests shows clear progress.From a stodgy start, England found themselves challenging for the World Test Championship final right up until the penultimate Test of the cycle – and, for all that the knives were out after the apparent scuppering of the India tour, Smith’s unapologetic adherence to England’s rest-and-rotation policy has set a course for Covid survival that may yet have more spin-off benefits than are being appreciated right now. Dale Steyn’s tweet said it best: England are creating an “army of amazing cricketers”, with the depth of options necessary to survive a horrific and never-ending itinerary.And if one or two England players are seething about the way they’ve been treated along the way, then it just so happens that professional sport provides a very productive outlet for such emotions. As Broad demonstrated in the wake of his snub at the Ageas Bowl at the start of the 2020 summer, sometimes it helps to have a voodoo doll in your hold-all to help channel that rage.When, in the coming months, England’s players find their style cramped within the dressing room, and have to bite their tongues for fear of getting on the wrong side of the captain-coach combination that now has a more official hold over their careers, they may yet have reason to miss Smith’s defiantly independent line of thought.

First, though, a flashback to the ’70s, and an English master

Mark Nicholas03-Mar-2021Perhaps the best thing about county cricket in the 25-year period from about 1970 to 1995 was the quality and number of international players. Obviously they raised the standard but they also provided unique experiences for the average Joes, who made a buck or two from their part in the sidebar column of the superstars’ lives. I was one of those. As Simon Hughes sort of says in the introduction to his brilliant book , we may not have been the best players going around but we sure hung out with a few who were.One of these was Derek Underwood, the Kent left-arm spinner, who took 297 wickets for England at an average of 25.83 and an economy rate of 2.10. Twenty-nine of these, at an average of 17 apiece, were on Tony Greig’s successful tour of India in 1976-77, when he combined with John Lever’s left-arm swing to help win the series 3-1. They compare favourably to Bishan Bedi’s 25 wickets at 22.9. In their very different ways, both were wonderful bowlers. On a decaying pitch, Underwood’s extra pace and directness were more fearsome than Bedi’s flight and guile.In his first-class career he snared a total of 2465 victims at 20.28 per wicket and the same economy as in Test cricket. He was a unique cricketer and an unlikely one, given his ten-to-two feet, utter absence of athleticism and penchant for a smoke and a pint. He was brave, mind you, and the photograph of him, bare-headed, swaying out of the way of a Michael Holding thunderbolt at Old Trafford in 1976 is one of the game’s most iconic images.Related

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“Deadly”, as he was known, bowled the ball fast for a spinner and had a wizard “quicker” ball that was fired in at around medium pace. On pitches that offered something, whether wet or dry, he turned it square – he didn’t cut the ball, as is often suggested, but he did release it a cutter’s pace – and was close to unplayable. You get where I’m coming from, right? Think Axar Patel and then some.Us Hampshire lads got him on one of each at Canterbury. The first was on an old, dry pitch, so uneven that the eye of a hawk was required to simply survive. After an over of playing and missing, I got myself to the non-striker’s end and asked the umpire, the Australian Bill Alley, what he thought. “Kick it or cut it, son, there’s no other option,” he answered with certainty and a smile, upon which, next time I was down that end, I backed away a little from a good-length ball and cut with a power and precision I didn’t know I had in me. Oh my days – to the square cover boundary it flew as if it were a bullet from a gun! Nice one, Bill.The next ball was pitched full and I thrust out my left leg in panic, realising too late that it was the famous inswinging quicker ball. It rebounded painfully from my pad and into the hands of the silly-point fielder, who joined the chorus of appeals for lbw. Plumb, hitting middle halfway up, surely. Bill gave me not out. Bill!The second time was in 1984 on a wet one, where the ball tore divots from the pitch each time Underwood landed it. The first one I received went past my chest, to be taken by Alan Knott at shoulder height. The second slammed into the splice of my bat; the third, spun hard, ripped the thumb of my glove away from the bat handle and looped to slip. We were 13 for 0 when he came on and 13 for 3 at the end of the over. We managed 56 between us, 17 of them to previously unseen reverse sweeps by our buccaneering captain Nick Pocock. Deadly took 7 for 21. Barry Richards told me that Deadly had done the same to a Hampshire team he played in on a dry pitch on one of the Kent outgrounds in the late ’60s. He said Deadly took 7 for 18, or something close to it, adding that he had no idea how they got the 18. And Barry could bat.1:26

What made Axar Patel so successful on the Ahmedabad pitch?

So I tried to imagine what it must have been like walking to the wicket in both the second Chennai Test and the third, in Ahmedabad: a fiendishly difficult task ahead indeed.Patel bowls at a good pace, not far from that of Underwood, and with equal directness. He spun the ball hard in Ahmedabad, angling the seam mainly to slip but occasionally undercutting it so that the ball skidded on from the outer layer of lacquer sprayed on to protect its colouring. He rarely dropped short or bowled a full toss.He doesn’t have Underwood’s quick inswinger but he does have the DRS – the decision review system officially adopted by the ICC in 2009 – a weapon so potent that batsmen are hopelessly limited in their defensive options.Forget kicking it away and then forget playing with bat and pad locked together. Don’t push hard at the ball because, with Patel’s height and ability to drive it into the surface, the extra bounce will kill you. Ideally you would get nearer to the pitch of the ball by using your feet, but at his speed – which often touches 60mph and averages out at 56, surprisingly quick – you need to weigh up the risk carefully! Oh, and don’t sweep, no chance, not on two pitches that saw pieces burst from the surface on the first day. Joe Root is about as good as it gets against spin, and in great nick, but even he struggled with the complexities of the problems before him.So what to do? Get your mind right, for a start. Believe that if you find a way to survive for 30 balls or so, things should get easier. Should.Stick to a plan. Don’t fret if you play and miss. Playing and missing is good. Much better than nicking off. Team up with your partner, rotate the strike. Look to score and you will defend nice and solid. The move to attack is the best move to defend because it is positive, decisive, clear. Ignore the noise, park the traffic. Ignore the opponents and their asides. Enjoy it. Embrace the crowd. Love it. Remember this is what you dreamt about since bat and ball first invaded your life. See upside not downside. Smile from within. And damn the opposition, make it all about you.Double jeopardy•BCCIAssuming you are a right-hander facing Patel, you want to get forward but without committing the move of the front foot too early, otherwise you end up either playing around that front leg or using your bat as if it is on a rail, sliding left to right in search of the ball. You need to stay leg side of the ball and look to score on the off side, with the spin. Ideally you want to be alongside the ball, allowing flexibility to either hold your defensive position and allow the ball to beat you, or react to the natural angles and with the softest of hands. This is really difficult and requires practice to get the timing of the move forward exactly right, because if you commit too early, it becomes hard to get back and cut, which is a key scoring option. Ask Bill.The generously spirited Rahul Dravid sent Kevin Pietersen an email on this theme of response to problems Pietersen encountered a decade ago. In it, he says that a good practice drill is to face spin in the nets without pads on (“maybe not the day before a game!’) which forces you to get the bat in front of the pad and to watch it very closely. He adds that an exposed front leg will instinctively not move forward too early and therefore a rhythm will develop that has you waiting while picking up the length of the ball and then moving quickly to defend on the front foot or attack from the back foot.Patel is doubly difficult to face right now because his confidence is high. There are few, if any, bad balls to feed from – balls that have the dual effect of lifting the batsmen and eating away at the bowler. Best of all, he has a master of the craft at the other end, wheeling away with an increasingly ruthless quality.Much has been said about R Ashwin’s control, less about his variety. He has four main deliveries – the orthodox offspinner, which has the seam angled at 45 degrees towards fine leg; the overspinner, where the seam revolves vertically on its axis and brings extra bounce; the slider, where the seam revolves horizontally on its axis and the ball skids, low and fast, at the stumps; and the carrom ball, which is flicked between thumb and bent middle finger and can spin a little either way but is used most effectively by Ashwin to go from leg to off.Though not an especially big spinner of the ball, he is an almost cruel examiner of technique. In theory, it should be easier to cope with the ball turning in to the bat as against the one leaving it, but he has managed to contradict that theory by working out the varieties and angles that most discomfort even right-hand batsmen and make him such a formidable opponent.He has also learnt not just to be comfortable with the new ball but to fizz it off the leather with the horizontal revolutions used to target pads and stumps. He has made fools of many an opener geared up for the raw battle against pace but unable to unravel the subtleties of spin. The pink ball made life even easier for him because the extra layers of lacquer kept it hard and shiny (and therefore quicker and more skiddy off the pitch) for longer than will be the case with the red ball this week. In fact the pink ball and the DRS directly explain why so many wickets were bowled or lbw – 20 out of 30 in the game, a high percentage of those to what were perceived as straight balls.8:36

Is Ashwin India’s greatest offspinner?

Not many truly are straight balls, as the angles prove. A ball bowled to a right-hand batsman by a left-arm spinner from wide on the crease that hits the pad on the front foot in line between wicket and wicket (which is the requirement of the lbw law, assuming a shot is offered by the batsman) will often be missing leg stump simply because of the angle. Therefore it has to straighten, or spin, just a little from leg to off (cricketers often refer to this as the ball holding its line).In the days pre-DRS, batsmen would use their pad as a second line of defence and umpires were reluctant to give anyone out on the front foot as, a) they felt the ball “still had a lot to do”, and b) the angles told them it was missing leg. The DRS suggested otherwise. More balls appeared to be hitting the stumps than previously thought. Umpires started to give more front-foot decisions in favour of the bowler. Batsmen had to quickly rethink: hence the Pietersen conundrum and the Dravid email.In no time, the percentage of lbws claimed by spinners went up, and dramatically so. Suddenly it was fine to give batsmen out on the front foot, even when the ball nipped back or spun from the off. Then, in 2016, came the killer blow for batsmen: the at once tiny, but in its effect absolutely massive, change to the detail of the DRS.Before September 2016, in cases where the ball was hitting the outer stumps, more than half the ball had to be predicted to be hitting the off or leg stump squarely for it to be judged as out. The change was to say that the ball had only to be clipping the stumps: the stumps were effectively made half a stump wider on either side. Believe me, when the ball is moving and the batsmen are groping, this is so damn difficult as to easily explain the low scores we saw in Ahmedabad. Axar has taken seven of his 18 wickets in the series lbw. That’s a lot for a left-arm spinner on big-turning tracks and a good reason for him to bowl it quickly and directly at the target. If batsmen cannot be sure whether it will spin or not, they are in big trouble.It will be fascinating to see if the red ball behaves less aggressively than the pink one and if the pitch for the fourth Test is as dry and crumbly as the one for the third Test, which, though not dangerous, was too heavily weighted in favour of the bowler and extreme in the nature of the challenge it went on to present.It is not quite right to say that India face similar problems when they come to the green pitches in England. Certainly there are green pitches in England, and as the Australians of 2015 will testify, some like Nottingham that are far too green. These matches are often toss-dependent because green pitches tend to dry out and improve as the game goes on, or as overhead conditions become kinder to batsmen, thereby making the chance to bowl first a potentially game-breaking advantage. More generally, English pitches are good to bat on. The best players agree on that. After Stuart Broad took 8 for 15 to knock over the Aussies for 60 that day at Trent Bridge, Root made 130 in England’s 391 for 9 declared and Australia 253 in their second innings.The reverse has usually applied in India, thought not particularly so in the last two Tests, when the ball spun throughout the match. In the first Chennai Test, yes, England took full toll of winning the toss and went on to win the game. In the second, England had the chance to close down India’s toss-winning advantage but failed to take it. In Ahmedabad, they had that same advantage but failed to make use of it because there was something in the surface for the bowler. It is the first-innings 112 that Root and his men will forever rue and that Virat Kohli will long remember as the match won by Axar Patel with a pink ball and a system that favoured his brilliant performance in a way that England’s more modest spin attack simply could not match.It has been pretty crazy stuff but whatever your view on pitches, balls and review systems, it makes for a compelling watch and endless debate in the aftermath. Cricket as a headline is no bad thing. Expect more of the same, if not quite so quickly please, in the contest to come on Thursday.

A statistical look at James Anderson’s first-class career, after his landmark wicket

Sampath Bandarupalli05-Jul-20211 James Anderson is the first player to reach 1000 first-class cricket after making their debut in the 21st century. Overall, Anderson is one of the 216 players to achieve the milestone in first-class cricket and the first since Sri Lanka’s Dinuka Hettiarachchi in May 2019.2005 The last pace bowler before Anderson to complete 1000 first-class career wickets was Andrew Caddick in August 2005. Anderson also became the first English (and Welsh) player to 1000 FC wickets since Robert Croft in September 2007.0 Number of players with more first-class wickets than Anderson since his debut in May 2002. Tim Murtagh’s 856 wickets are the second-most by any player in this period.ESPNcricinfo Ltd7 for 19 Anderson’s bowling figures against Kent on Monday were his best in first-class cricket. His previous best bowling in the format was 7 for 42 in 2017 during the third Test at Lord’s against West Indies, when he completed 500 Test wickets.937 His wickets while opening the bowling in first-class cricket, 825 of which have come after taking the first over of the innings.161 Instances of Anderson dismissing a batter for a duck, including Heino Kuhn, his 1000th FC wicket. 105 of those came in Test cricket, the most ducks ever collected for any Test bowler.731 Wickets for Anderson on England soil in first-class cricket. Australia (75) is the only other country where he has taken over 50 wickets in the format.2 Number of teams against which Anderson has bagged over 100 first-class wickets – 118 against India and 104 against Australia.ESPNcricinfo Ltd167 First-class wickets for Anderson at his home ground of Old Trafford, the most he has taken at any venue. His maiden wicket, 100th wicket, 200th wicket, 700th wicket and 1000th wicket in first-class cricket all came at Old Trafford. Lord’s is the only other venue (113) where he has taken more than 100 first-class wickets, including 105 Test scalps.81 First-class wickets for Anderson in 2017, his most productive year, including 60 during the English season. Those 60 wickets are the joint-most he has taken in an English season, matching his tally in 2005.11 Anderson has dismissed Australia’s Peter Siddle on 11 occasions, all in Test cricket. Siddle is the only batter whom Anderson has dismissed ten or more times in FC cricket.1 Anderson’s only first-class wicket other than bowled (203), LBW (166) and caught (632) came when Northamptonshire’s Damien Wright was hit wicket in the 2005 County Championship.

Afghanistan legspinner unfazed at Trent Bridge’s runs, or burden of being first draft pick

Andrew Miller23-Jul-2021Rashid Khan, the No. 1 pick at the original Hundred draft in 2019, says that his faith in his own ability will allow him to overcome Trent Bridge’s recent reputation as a bowler’s graveyard, as he prepares to lead Trent Rockets’ attack in their opening fixture against Southern Brave on Saturday.Khan, who was recently confirmed as Afghanistan’s captain for the forthcoming T20 World Cup, warmed up for his Hundred stint with two Vitality Blast outings for Sussex last week – alongside a potential opponent on Saturday, Jofra Archer – having emerged from ten days in quarantine following his arrival from Lahore Qalanders’ PSL campaign.And on Saturday, he will take on a Southern Brave batting line-up featuring a number of in-form batters including James Vince, who followed his maiden ODI century against Pakistan with two match-winning innings in a single day for Hampshire in their Blast double-header last week, and New Zealand’s Devon Conway, who has followed up remarkable start to his international career with a strong run of form in the Blast as Somerset’s anchor (the Brave are missing Quinton de Kock for the opening games due to South Africa’s series in Ireland).Rashid, however, is unfazed by his status as the tournament’s most in-demand signing, nor by a Trent Bridge pitch that served up a total of 433 runs in Pakistan’s thrilling victory in last week’s first T20I, and where, in the past five years, England have twice broken the record for the highest innings in ODI history – most recently their total of 481 for 6 against Australia in 2018.Rashid Khan poses in his Trent Rockets uniform•Trent Rockets”As a spinner, if you have those things in your mind, that the wicket is flat, the boundary short, I think it doesn’t help you,” Khan said. “What helps is that you bring your own skills and your own experience to the game, rather than to think about those things, which is not in our control.”As a bowler, you cannot get 75-80-metre boundaries at every ground. But still, if you bowl a bad ball, even if it’s a 100-metre boundary, they are going to hit you for six, you’re going to concede runs. So it will be a definitely a challenge. I will need consistency in how I bowl, and that will be tested. But as long as I have that positive mindset for the game, I can deliver.”Whatever it is, as long as I’m hitting the right area, and backing up my skills and my talent, I think I can deliver for the team. Your best delivery is your best delivery for any batsman around the world. That’s why it has written on the wicket [on the TV analysis], ‘good length’. As long as you’re hitting that area, that gives you the maximum right result.”In a T20 career that has now spanned 267 matches, Khan’s career economy rate of 6.28 is a testament to the impact of his misleadingly simple methods – a bustling stump-to-stump approach, brisk pace through the air, and a natural command of line and length, all backed up by a wicked googly that is scarcely distinguishable from his legbreak.And with all teams having to get to grips with the possibilities and pitfalls of the Hundred’s new playing conditions, in particular the opportunity for a bowler to deliver two consecutive sets of five balls (and potentially 20 out of 25 all told) Rashid recognises that his ability to becalm the batters in his sights makes him one of those players for whom the alterations could have been tailor-made.”I’m super excited about bowling ten balls in a row,” he said. “It kind of gives you an opportunity to take ten wickets straight away, and three hat-tricks. That’s an advantage we have, but you can also be hit for ten sixes as well, or give 50 runs away in just ten balls.”It mostly depends on the conditions, and the situation of the game as well, but if a batsman is struggling against any bowler then, definitely, the opposition captain will want to have those ten balls by that bowler to keep the pressure on.Related

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“In this format, I think the more you look to put the pressure on the batsman, that’s the time they give you the wicket, rather than trying to attack to get his wicket. As long as you’re putting the pressure on by bowling the dot balls, that gives you the wickets as well.”Above all, however, Khan is looking forward to playing his cricket in front of packed crowds once again, after a year of behind-closed-doors fixtures due to Covid-19. And, having witnessed the success of the IPL’s tamasha, the off-field glamour and excitement that has accompanied the on-field action, he is excited about the glitz surrounding the Hundred, and its potential to hook in a new audience in English cricket.”If you want to have a successful competition, then definitely, it’s 60-70% the fans that make it successful,” he said. “If you look at the last one-and-a-half years, we don’t have fans in the stadium, it doesn’t look the same game. The fans make it more bright and entertaining, and if they give their love to this form of the game as well, it will be on top of the world. As players, we can only give 100% in the centre, and bring our skills into the game.”To me, it looks like a massive competition, for everyone around the world, not only here in England,” he added. “It will definitely take lots of attention and motivate lots of youngsters as well, and that’s the main reason behind this game, to motivate the youngsters and to bring their mindset for this game.”Khan, of course, is no stranger to such role-model status, having risen to become Afghanistan’s most famous sportsman since making his international debut in 2015. And having taken that burden of expectation in his stride, he’s comfortable with his prominent status going into the Hundred.”It was a huge, proud moment for me and for my country, to be someone from Afghanistan and to be the first pick in this competition,” he said. “I’m so lucky, and I think what I have done in the last five-and-a-half years made it possible.”I’m looking forward to prove that. I just need to keep it simple for myself, bring my skills into the game, enjoy the game, keep smiling and keep doing well for the team.”

He leaves Afghanistan cricket in safe hands on the field – Mohammad Nabi and Co showed as much in their clinical take down of Namibia

Deivarayan Muthu31-Oct-20213:32

Borren: Afghanistan took pace off the ball and bowled yorkers effectively

Rashid Khan comes into the attack in the eighth over of Afghanistan’s defence of 160 and strikes with his very first delivery to knock over Namibia’s Zane Green for 1. The Afghanistan fans at Gates A11 and A12 in the Sheikh Zayed Stadium greet Rashid’s first-ball strike with big cheers. But the biggest cheer of them all on Sunday is reserved for Asghar Afghan when he is being carried off the field by Gulbadin Naib, with Naveen-ul-Haq and Najibullah Zadran holding his hands, after what is his last match.

Watch highlights on ESPN+

If you are in the USA, watch the Afghanistan vs Namibia highlights on ESPN+ here in English, and here in Hindi

The Afghanistan fans chant: “Asghar! Asghar! Asghar!” and wave the national flag around even more vigorously than they had done when Asghar walked out to bat earlier in the afternoon. Some of them break into jigs when Asghar thanks them for their love and support. Standing next to Asghar, Naveen dedicates his Player-of-the-Match award to his first national captain at the senior level.Asghar was part of Afghanistan’s first-ever T20 World Cup squad that had travelled to the Caribbean more than 11 years go. Naveen, who was only ten years old back then, took to cricket at that point, after watching Afghanistan break onto the biggest stage.Now, Naveen pays rich tribute to Asghar , calling him the best captain Afghanistan have had, as their supporters get their chants going once again in the background. “Asghar! Asghar! Asghar!”The numbers back Naveen up: Asghar holds the record for most wins as a captain in T20I cricket.Asghar Afghan is carried by Gulbadin Naib as the Afghanistan team gives him a farewell•ICC/Getty Images

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Asghar had been removed as captain in the lead-up to the 2019 ODI World Cup. Then, in December the same year, he was reappointed captain after Afghanistan ended that World Cup without a win. However, 15 months later, Asghar was sacked again, with the board experimenting with a split-captaincy model. Then, minutes after Afghanistan had announced their squad for the 2021 T20 World Cup, Rashid stepped down from T20I captaincy, protesting against the squad being selected without conferring with him.Mohammad Nabi took over the leadership amid the chaos, and on Sunday it all came full circle as he combined with Asghar to set the scene for Afghanistan’s thumping victory against Namibia, raising their hopes of progressing to semi-finals.Nabi and Asghar make for contrasting characters. If Nabi is an international hip-hop superstar, Asghar is a more traditional Attan dancer. Nabi gives the ball an almighty whack; Asghar gently knocks it around. Nabi rocks the floppy hat; Asghar wears the standard cap. Nabi is a short-format globetrotter, having had stints in the IPL, BBL, CPL, BPL, PSL and even the Hundred. Asghar has never played league cricket outside of Afghanistan.Related

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When the pair got together in Abu Dhabi, Afghanistan were in a spot of bother at 113 for 4 in the 16th over. Legspinner Jan Nicol Loftie-Eaton was turning the ball big and also getting it to skid off the pitch. Namibia’s pack of left-armers were varying their pace and bowling into the track.Nabi needed just one sighter – a flicked single to square leg – and second ball he slapped JJ Smit between cover and point for four, in the 17th over. In the next over, David Wiese darted in a wide yorker, and Nabi sat back and chopped it away to the left of short third man for four.In the next over, when Ruben Trumpelmann, Netherlands’ previous match-winner, ventured a slower cutter into the pitch, Nabi lined it up and clobbered it over midwicket for six.Asghar doesn’t have as much power, but he did his bit to keep the scoreboard ticking. When Jan Frylink erred too full, Asghar got underneath the length and lofted it, just about clearing long-off. The ball landed in front of the Afghanistan dug-out, as Mohammad Shahzad animatedly applauded Asghar. He then hit Smit for two fours in a 16-run over.Asghar Afghan gets a guard of honour after his final innings•ICC/Getty ImagesRealising that the straight boundary was too big for him to clear, Asghar aimed for the “V” behind the wicket. Trumpelmann, however, took pace off and took the ball away from Asghar’s reach, and had him scooping a catch to fly slip. Trumpelmann immediately congratulated Asghar and patted him on his back. The dismissal hushed the crowd, but they celebrated again when their hero walked through a guard of honour into the dug-out. Head coach Lance Klusener then ushered him into the dressing room. And just like that he was gone.Nabi went on to Afghanistan the finishing kick they needed, taking them to 160 for 5. Asghar then teared up at the innings break when he was asked about his decision to retire midway through the tournament.”I wanted to give an opportunity to youngsters,” he told the host broadcaster. “Most of the people asked me why I don’t play till the end of the tournament. It’s something I cannot explain. In the last match [against Pakistan], we were hurt too much, and that’s why I decided to retire.”There’s plenty of memories. It’s very difficult when you retire. It’s very difficult to explain but I have to retire.”Asghar Afghan got emotional while talking about his decision to retire•ICC/Getty ImagesAmong those memories would be giving Afghanistan the belief that they could not only compete at the top level but also win. On the eve of Afghanistan’s T20 World Cup match against West Indies in 2016, Asghar (Stanikzai then) said: “In the next one or two years we will be a serious team and beat these Full Members very easily, as we have potential.”In 2018, Asghar captained Afghanistan in their first-ever Test, against India in Bengaluru. In 2019, in their second Test, under Asghar, they secured their first win, against Ireland in Dehradun, their adopted home.Now, they’ve became such a serious contender in T20 cricket that at this World Cup they are second only to Pakistan on points in a group that includes New Zealand and India.At the post-match press conference, Asghar said that he is confident of leaving Afghanistan cricket in “safe hands”. In the safe hands of Nabi, who is rallying this team despite the political turbulence back home. In the safe hands of Rashid, who is a white-ball phenom already. In the safe hands of Hazratullah Zazai and Rahmanullah Gurbaz, who could be future white-ball stars. In the safe hands of Naveen, who is always ready to bowl the tough overs.Farewell Asghar, you’ve taught them all well.