And has anyone taken more six-fors in an innings than Stuart Broad’s 12?

Steven Lynch09-Feb-2021Where does Kyle Mayers’ 210 not out stand in the list of highest scores on Test debut – particularly in the fourth innings? asked Ken Hutchinson from England

The highlight of West Indies’ remarkable chase to win the first Test against Bangladesh in Chattogram at the weekend was the double-century by Kyle Mayers, who was making his Test debut. His unbeaten 210 was the fifth-highest score on debut, behind Reginald “Tip” Foster (287 for England vs Australia at Sydney in 1903-04), Jacques Rudolph (222 not out for South Africa vs Bangladesh in Chittagong in 2002-03), Lawrence Rowe (214 for West Indies vs New Zealand in Kingston in 1971-72) and Mathew Sinclair (214 for New Zealand vs West Indies in Wellington in 1999-2000). Brendon Kuruppu of Sri Lanka also made a double-century on debut (against New Zealand in Colombo in 1986-87).But Mayers’ innings is easily the highest in the fourth innings on debut, beating 112 by Abbas Ali Baig for India at Old Trafford in 1959. England won that match by 171 runs. The only other century by a debutant in a successful run chase was Yasir Hameed’s 105 for Pakistan against Bangladesh in Karachi in 2003 (Hameed had also made 170 in the first innings). And there have been only five other double-centuries in the fourth innings of any Test, the highest being George Headley’s 223 for West Indies against England in Kingston in 1929-30.The West Indies team in Chattogram included debutants coming in at Nos. 3, 4 and 5. When was the last time this happened? asked Peter Everitt from Barbados

The three West Indian newcomers in Chattogram were Shayne Moseley, Nkrumah Bonner and, as mentioned above, Kyle Mayers. The last time debutants went in at Nos. 3, 4 and 5 in their first Test – excluding countries’ inaugural matches – was at Lord’s in 1946, when debutants Rusi Modi, Vijay Hazare and Abdul Hafeez Kardar filled those spots in the second innings. Kardar, who later captained Pakistan, had batted at No. 8 in the first innings, and was possibly a nightwatchman (not a very successful one, since he was out for a duck). Arguably a more genuine instance happened at Trent Bridge in 1935, when South Africa’s Nos. 3, 4 and 5 in the first innings were debutants Eric Rowan, Dudley Nourse and the captain Herby Wade. There were ten earlier instances, eight of them in the 19th century.Five bowlers took two wickets each in an innings in a recent Test in New Zealand, and it nearly happened again at Chennai. How often has this happened in Tests? asked Michael Anderson from New Zealand

The instance you’re talking about came during the first Test against Pakistan in Mount Maunganui in December: as New Zealand pushed for victory, Tim Southee, Trent Boult, Kyle Jamieson, Neil Wagner and Mitchell Santner all took two wickets. It didn’t quite happen in England’s first innings in Chennai, although it was possible after eight wickets as four of the Indian bowlers had two apiece.The first time this occurred in a Test match was in Sydney in 1882-83, when Joey Palmer, Billy Midwinter, Fred Spofforth, Harry Boyle and Tom Horan all took two wickets for Australia against England; it did not happen again for almost a century, until India’s first innings against England in Delhi in 1981-82, when Bob Willis, John Lever, Derek Underwood, Ian Botham and Graham Gooch all claimed two. After that there were six such instances before the recent one at Mount Maunganui: by South Africa against Pakistan in Faisalabad in 1997-98 and in Durban in 2002-03, Australia vs New Zealand in Adelaide in 2004-05, Sri Lanka vs Bangladesh in Galle in 2012-13, New Zealand vs Australia in Wellington in 2015-16, and England vs Pakistan at Edgbaston in 2016.Muttiah Muralitharan has taken six-fors in an innings on 30 occasions, the most by any bowler•AFPI noticed that Stuart Broad has taken six wickets in an innings on 12 occasions – has anyone done it more often, for England or anyone? asked Stuart Beckett from England

You’re right that Stuart Broad has taken six or more wickets in a Test innings on 12 occasions. It equals the record for England, set by the remarkable Sydney Barnes, who played only 27 Tests to Broad’s 144 to date. Way out in front overall is Muttiah Muralitharan, who took 30 six-fors in his long career. Next come Anil Kumble and Shane Warne, with 19 apiece.Apparently there’s a man who played Tests alongside both Victor Trumper and Don Bradman – who is it? asked Geoff Knight from Australia

Victor Trumper and Don Bradman are often bracketed together as Australia’s best-ever batsmen: in Trumper’s case it’s more down to the style in which he batted than the bare statistics, which are relatively modest. There is indeed one man who played in Trumper’s last series, the 1911-12 Ashes, and in Bradman’s debut Test in Brisbane in 1928-29: the New South Wales allrounder Charles Kelleway, who featured in 27 Tests in all. Three England cricketers – Jack Hobbs, Phil Mead and Frank Woolley – played against both Trumper and Bradman in Tests.Kelleway opened the bowling in that match in Brisbane – which Australia ended up losing by 675 runs, still a record margin – but picked up an injury during it and never played another Test. I don’t know much about Kelleway, and am looking forward to finding out more when a recent book about him – The Pupil and the Master – makes it through the Covid-affected postal system!Use our feedback form, or the Ask Steven Facebook page to ask your stats and trivia questions

Here’s how the six teams look after the two mini replacement drafts ahead of the second leg

Umar Farooq08-Jun-2021The Pakistan Super League (PSL) had two mini replacement drafts for the six franchises to complete their teams ahead of the second leg of the 2021 edition of the tournament, which had been suspended after 14 matches in March following a spate of Covid-19 cases among players and support staff in Karachi. It will resume on June 9 in Abu Dhabi, with Lahore Qalandars set to take on Islamabad United.If it hadn’t been paused, PSL 2021 would have ended with the final in Lahore on March 22. Between then and now, several overseas players – who were part of the first leg – have withdrawn from the tournament due to various reasons.Where the teams stand on the points tableAmid the logistical challenges, all six franchises were allowed to pick two additional players in their original squads, with at least one overseas player, increasing squad sizes from 18 to 20. The earlier playing conditions had stated that each team had to feature at least three or a maximum of four overseas players in their XIs, but given the growing obstacles around the Covid-19 pandemic, the number has been reduced to minimum of two overseas players and maximum of four in the XI for each team. Here’s a look at all the changes in the squads ahead of the second leg.Karachi KingsForm guide: WLWLW (most recent first)OUT: Colin Ingram, Mohammad Nabi, Dan Christian, Joe Clarke, Liton DasIN: Thisara Perera, Najibullah Zadran, Martin Guptill, Mohammad HarisPlaying XI (before postponement): Sharjeel Khan, Babar Azam, Joe Clarke, Colin Ingram, Dan Christian, Imad Wasim (capt), Mohammad Nabi, Mohammad Ilyas, Mohammad Amir, Waqas Maqsood, Arshad IqbalESPNcricinfo LtdRelated

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Peshawar ZalmiForm guide: LWWWL (most recent first)OUT: Mujeeb Ur Rahman, Liam Livingstone, Saqib Mahmood, Tom Kohler-Cadmore, Ravi BoparaIN: Fabian Allen, Fidel Edwards, Rovman Powell, Waqar Salamkheil, Hazratullah ZazaiPlaying XI (before postponement): Kamran Akmal, Tom Kohler-Cadmore, Shoaib Malik (capt), Haider Ali, Ravi Bopara/David Miller, Sherfane Rutherford, Amad Butt, Umaid Asif, Saqib Mahmood, Mohammad Imran, Mohammad IrfanESPNcricinfo LtdIslamabad UnitedForm guide: WLWW (most recent first)OUT: Alex Hales, Lewis Gregory, Phil Salt, Janneman MalanIN: Mohammad Akhlaq, Usman Khawaja, Umar Amin, Brandon KingPlaying XI (before postponement): Phil Salt, Alex Hales, Shadab Khan (capt), Hussain Talat, Asif Ali, Iftikhar Ahmed, Lewis Gregory, Faheem Ashraf, Hasan Ali, Mohammad Wasim Jnr, Zafar GoharESPNcricinfo LtdLahore QalandarsForm guide: WLWW (most recent first)OUT: David Wiese, Joe Denly, Tom Abell, Samit Patel, Shakib Al HasanIN: Rashid Khan, James Faulkner, Callum Ferguson, Seekkuge Prasanna, Tim David, Sultan AhmedPlaying XI (before postponement): Fakhar Zaman, Sohail Akhtar (capt), Joe Denly, Mohammad Hafeez, Ben Dunk, Samit Patel, David Wiese, Zeeshan Ashraf, Shaheen Shah Afridi, Ahmed Daniyal, Haris RaufESPNcricinfo LtdMultan SultansForm guide: LLWLL (most recent first)OUT: Chris Lynn, James Vince, Adam Lyth, Carlos Brathwaite, Obed McCoy, Shahid Afridi, MahmudullahIN: Blessing Muzarabani, Rahmanullah Gurbaz, Asif Afridi, Hammad Azam, Shimron Hetmyer, Johnson Charles, Waseem MuhammadPlaying XI (before postponement): Chris Lynn, Mohammad Rizwan (capt), James Vince, Sohaib Maqsood, Rilee Rossouw, Khushdil Shah, Shahid Afridi, Carlos Brathwaite, Sohail Khan, Usman Qadir, Shahnawaz DhaniESPNcricinfo LtdQuetta GladiatorsForm guide: WLLLL (most recent first)OUT: Tom Banton, Dale Steyn, Anwar Ali, Chris Gayle, Ben CuttingIN: Andre Russell, Jack Wildermuth, Jake Weatherald, Khurram Shehzad, Zahir KhanPlaying XI (before postponement): Usman Khan, Saim Ayub, Faf du Plessis, Azam Khan, Sarfaraz Ahmed (capt), Ben Cutting, Mohammad Nawaz, Qais Ahmad, Zahid Mahmood, Dale Steyn, Mohammad HasnainGetty Images

England should let Moeen know they value him after flashes of his best in Chennai

George Dobell15-Feb-2021Like a band reforming for a comeback tour, Moeen Ali has reminded us of most of his greatest hits during this game.There’s been the dip and drift of his bowling at its best. There’s been the wicket of one of the best batsmen in the world. There’s even been a brief reprise of that timing with the bat which lit up this ground so often the last time England were here, when he scored 190 runs in the match.But there were also the full tosses. And the long-hops. And the cheap dismissal that had you shaking your head and wondering about the gap between his potential and performance with the bat at this level.To some extent, this is Moeen. He’s going to delight, infuriate, surprise and confound you almost every time you watch him. He’s probably never going to be the most consistent cricketer. On the good days that feels like part of his charm. On the not so good, it is maddening.But he’s 33 now and there’s not much evidence he’s going to reinvent himself. Maybe, just as we seem happy to accept that the aggression of Rishabh Pant and Ben Stokes will sometimes lead to their downfall, we have to accept that Moeen’s apparent insouciance – the quality that enables him to look, at his best, wonderfully relaxed in the fury of the moment – is part of the package? As Frank Sinatra put it: Why try to change me now?Moeen has taken eight wickets in this Test. But for a couple of missed chances, he would have had a five-for in both innings. He has now taken 189 Test wickets. While his average (36.10) is high – the highest among England bowlers with a minimum of 150 Test wickets, in fact – his strike rate (59.80) is better than any of the spinners above him in his country’s all-time wicket-taking list. That list consists of Derek Underwood, Graeme Swann and Jim Laker, all generally accepted as greats of the English game.Moeen Ali will delight, infuriate, surprise and confound you almost every time you watch him•BCCIYes, the game has changed, and comparisons with strike rates – or indeed, averages – across eras can be misleading. But Moeen’s record as a bowler does deserve a bit more respect than he is sometimes given. While he would love to have the consistency and control of that trio, each one of them would be proud of his drift and dip. His best deliveries really are very good. The problem is the bad ones occur a bit too often.”They’re amazing deliveries,” Jeetan Patel, England’s spin-bowling consultant, said of Moeen’s classical offbreaks. “They shape away from the right-hander’s bat, they dip, they hit the wicket hard and spin big. He’s taken eight wickets and he should probably have had nine or 10. I don’t know what more people would want.”It’s his first game back. He missed two weeks of intense training. Does that prepare you to play Test cricket in India? Maybe yes, maybe no. His rewards show that he’s close enough, that he’s good enough and he will certainly be better for this hit out.”And the full tosses? “When you’re striving to hit the footmarks with lots of spin on the ball, there’s going to be variation of length,” Patel said. “It’s understandable. They [England’s spinners] have bowled a lot of overs, too. It takes its toll.”The encouraging thing about this display from Moeen is that he looked better the longer it went on. And that’s hardly surprising as he came into the game without a first-class game since September 2019 and without any warm-up cricket on the tour. He’s recently suffered a bout of Covid-19, too, and ripped a finger which had become soft from its lack of bowling on the seam of the SG ball when he returned to training. Expecting him to hit a perfect line and length was simply unreasonable. In normal circumstances, you might expect him to go from strength to strength in the rest of the series. Really, it’s every bit of two years since he gained this level of drift and dip.The less encouraging thing about this display is that it might represent an ending rather than a beginning. As things stand – and there is a possibility of a change of plan – Moeen is still expected to return to England in the next few days. While he is expected to return to India for the limited-overs section of the tour, this period could be his only chance to spend some time at home in several months.Related

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If Moeen does go home, it will leave England’s rotation plans looking a little clumsy. They will, you would think, be obliged to recall Dom Bess for the third Test having just knocked his confidence by dropping him for this game. And for all Bess’ qualities – really, it’s not unreasonable to expect him to score more runs than Moeen these days – he is liable to offer several of Moeen’s less welcome characteristics without the accompanying brilliance.Might there be a middle path? Part of Moeen’s understandable desire for a break is the possibility of going to the IPL (which follows fast on the heels of this tour and prohibits time at home) once the limited-overs section of the England tour is concluded. But, having been released by RCB, there is no guarantee he will be picked up in Thursday’s auction. Notwithstanding the difficulties in gaining flights and serving quarantine periods, it might make sense to wait until his fate in that auction is known to decide when he requires a break.Moeen can’t be blamed for preferring to take his break during the Test section of the tour. There is a T20 World Cup to be played in India later this year, after all, and he wants to be part of it. And, much as it may grate with some, it’s also probably fair to conclude that the majority of Moeen’s future career may be spent in the T20 game. If England wanted him to prioritise differently, they should probably have given him a full central contract.Indeed, it is entirely possible this will be Moeen’s final Test. You would think England would play just one spinner throughout the rest of 2021 – they will play seven home Tests and an Ashes series in Australia – and there is every indication the selectors see Moeen as their third-choice option.You can understand why England dropped Moeen after the first Test of the 2019 Ashes. He looked a chastened, disappointed figure at the time. A man who had lost his confidence and fallen out of love with the game a bit. He looked as if he needed a break.England celebrate after Moeen Ali bowls Virat Kohli on the first day•BCCIWhat is harder to understand is England’s subsequent treatment of him. For at the time that decision was made, Moeen was the top Test wicket-taker in the world in the previous 12 months. As such, you would think he would be nurtured and encouraged and made to feel valued. Instead, he lost the red-ball element of his central contract around two months after he was dropped and, with a touch of disillusionment settling in, started to grow away from the longest format and one or two of those involved in selection. Like nearly every cricketer – every person, probably – he will perform better when he feels valued.”I suppose the one thing that Mo wanted – well, needed – out of red-ball cricket was a bit of love from the game,” Patel said. “I think he’s got that [now]. Hopefully he will score some runs and really fall in love with red-ball cricket again.”There will be those who dismiss this performance as it came on a track offering assistance to spinners. And it’s true, there has been an unusual amount of turn available. But it was also a surface on which India’s No. 8 has scored almost as many runs as England managed in the first innings and a surface upon which the hosts are much more accustomed. While it’s absolutely fair to acknowledge England’s spinners bowled too many release deliveries, it must also be acknowledged that England’s batsmen were bowled out for 134 in their first innings. It would be perverse to pin this result on the performance of two spinners who have claimed 14 wickets between them.Besides, when Moeen is at his best, many of his best attributes are shown before the ball hits the pitch. His drift can lure batsmen out of his position; his dip can result in misjudgements of length. If 10 wicket-taking chances – and the fact that he has bowled 61 overs in the match, having not played a game for months – is not deemed good enough, don’t we have to reflect on our expectations?So, yes, a greatest hits comeback tour. But if it’s not to be a farewell tour, too, England’s management probably need to let him know how much they value him. Moeen is not perfect, of course, but at his best, he’s the best England have.

Seamer hoping her Test experience comes to the fore as England prepare to take on India

Andrew Miller14-Jun-2021With her ability to bang out a disciplined line and length for long spells at a time, Kate Cross is considered something of a Test match specialist when it comes to women’s cricket, although that is not quite the accolade that it really ought to be, given how infrequently the format ever comes around.Nevertheless, with 14 wickets at 14.92 in her three Test appearances, Cross has featured in half of the six
matches that England have played in the last decade, and she is hopeful that India’s renewed interest could help to revive the longer format, both internationally and at domestic level.”The format doesn’t come round often but it’s really special when it does,” Cross said on England’s first day of training at Bristol, two days out from the start of the Test. “We all get really excited when the whites come out, and we’re just looking forward to getting going on Wednesday now.”Obviously it’s very different to the white-ball game, but we try and embrace it as much as possible, because we know we’ve only got one opportunity to play a Test match this summer. We want it to be a good spectacle for people to watch, so that everyone buys into it, because we obviously wish we could play a bit more of it.”England’s last three Tests have all been against Australia, while India have not played the format since 2014. But Cross knows from past experience that a lack of familiarity need not hold back India’s talented line-up, having been on the losing end of their encounter at Wormsley that summer.Related

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Cross recalled that England “probably went into that game a bit naively”, as India outplayed them to win by six wickets, with Mithali Raj’s half-century sealing a dominant display that had begun with bowling their hosts out for 92 on the first day.”We’d played more Test cricket than India had in the four or five years leading up to that, so I think it was probably a good leveller for us,” Cross added. “They came out and played really hard-fought cricket and beat us quite convincingly, actually. It just goes to show that, even though we don’t play the format a lot, there’s still nothing that you can take for granted.”The India series is the start of a busy summer for England’s women – certainly compared to their Covid-ravaged summer of 2020, when West Indies’ belated arrival in September allowed them to get back on the field for the first time since the T20 World Cup in Australia in March.With the Rachael Heyhoe Flint Trophy already in full swing, and the maiden season of the Hundred fast approaching next month, Cross recognises that now may not be the perfect moment for England’s women to push for more red-ball cricket in their itinerary. Nevertheless, a strong showing in Bristol this week can only help the cause, now that the women’s game is getting more exposure across the board.”I’m a big advocate for [domestic red-ball cricket],” Cross said. “The longer format is where you learn the real skill of cricket, how to defend good bowling, and how to bowl for longer periods of time and be relentless with your line and length.

“You can’t use your saliva so you’ve got to find the sweatiest member of the team and use their sweat as best as possible. And that’s me. It’s always me!”Kate Cross on shining the ball

“I don’t think it would be a bad thing to play a longer format, whether that’s two- or three-day cricket domestic level.”Obviously in the next 12 months, it’s really important that we establish what we’ve got now, with the 50-over competition and the T20, and obviously the Hundred as well. But I’m quite positive about the fact that that it could potentially happen. Maybe in the next five years, we might get to a point where we can do that.”But I’ve always said our ratio of training to playing has been quite heavily weighted towards the training side, so it’s nice that we’ve actually got a lot of cricket to play and a lot of look forward to.”As for whether Cross gets to add to her three Test caps, she admitted to some nervousness about the quality within England’s seam ranks – with the old guard of Katherine Brunt and Anya Shrubsole backed up by the likes of Tash Farrant’s left-arm angle, as well as the new kid on the block, Emily Arlott, whose four-wicket over for Sparks against Vipers last week propelled her into the reckoning.”It’s always a worry when you’ve got people working hard to take your spot,” Cross said. “But it’s great for the team, it’s great for our environment, and I think it just goes to show how important those regional contracts are now.”Both have been bowling really well,” she added. “Ems is a tall fast bowler, which you don’t see that often in the women’s game, so she hits a bit of a harder length than a lot of us do, which is exciting to see, she’s obviously got that extra bit of paceKate Cross runs in to bowl in the nets•ECB”Tash is very naturally good at swinging the ball, so that offers something different as well with the left-arm option, so it’s exciting to have those options in the squad.”I’m not sure what the team is going to be, but obviously to win a Test match you need the bowlers to stand up and take 20 wickets over four days, so hopefully we’ve got the depth in the squad to be able to do that.”Ultimately, though, Cross believes that her prior knowledge of red-ball bowling should give her an edge in selection – and jokes that the banning of the use of saliva means that she brings another important consideration to the team.”A good line and length in Test cricket is a good line and length in most cricket when you’ve got the new ball,” she said. “That’s where I’ve had success in Test cricket when I have played, because it’s about who cracks first basically. Who can be most boring for as long as possible, which is more often than not me.”The big skill with red-ball cricket is trying to get it to reverse from about 40 overs onwards, because nothing much happens with it after that,” she added. “You can’t use your saliva so you’ve got to find the sweatiest member of the team and use their sweat as best as possible. And that’s me. It’s always me!”

Previous Chester-le-Street wins a distant memory as England knock game on head in time for second half at Wembley

Alan Gardner29-Jun-2021As Jonny Bairstow peeled off a succession of boundaries to fire England’s chase of a small target at Chester-le-Street, a buoyant crowd began to sense that this ODI was going almost exactly to plan. With Sri Lanka dismissed more than seven overs shy of batting out their 50, and England as keen as ever to secure a quick kill, hopes rose of knocking the match on the head in time for kick-off at Wembley.In the end, England’s overeager attempts to get the job done were encapsulated by Bairstow’s 43 off 21, bowled chopping on. A clatter of wickets put a check on their momentum, but Sri Lanka missed crucial chances in the field and never had enough on the board in the first place. Sam Curran clouted the winning runs in the cricket at around the 28-minute mark in the football – and the 7,500 in the stands quickly thinned out.The only thing that could now put a dampener on the mood was Gareth Southgate’s team selection (or, perhaps, the Germans).Related

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International cricket’s return to the northeast for the first time since the 2019 World Cup was greeted by balmy conditions and a 50% capacity crowd – the enthusiastic roars and bass-heavy ‘choons’ between overs told you it was a ground half-full rather than half-empty. England colours were in abundance, though in one of the country’s footballing strongholds it wasn’t a surprise to see several sporting white (or red), in preference to the light blue worn by Eoin Morgan’s side.Durham is often cast as the archetypal English outpost to which touring teams, particularly those from the subcontinent, are sent to struggle. But Sri Lanka had beaten England on their two previous ODI encounters at the ground – both times emphatically.In 2006, Mahela Jayawardene’s unbeaten, run-a-ball 126 secured an eight-wicket at Chester-le-Street, as Sri Lanka marched almost unimpeded towards a 5-0 series win. The towelling England received that summer highlighted in the starkest of terms just how far off the pace they were in the one-day game. Eight years later, as a side built in the mould of Alastair Cook clanked steadily towards another bout of World Cup ignominy, Sri Lanka dismissed their hosts for 99. On that tour, they took home trophies across all three formats.Times have changed, as last week’s T20I series demonstrated, although Mark Wood expressed some surprise going into the first ODI at how far Sri Lanka seemed to have fallen. “When I was growing up, they had some of the greatest names in the game,” he said. But the days of Jayawardene and Sanath Jayasuriya flaying English bowlers around their own grounds have long gone.Here, aside from the home side’s trigger-happy stumble during the chase, the heart of the contest lay in the efforts of Kusal Perera and his charges to make a game of it against an England XI that still possessed a formidable heft, in spite of the absence of several first-choice players – Jason Roy, Ben Stokes, Jos Buttler, Jofra Archer – through injury. That they were able to play the role of bully boys was largely down to the spick-and-span efforts of Chris Woakes, a man about as far away from in-your-face domineering as it is possible to be.Jonny Bairstow put an early dent in the target•Getty ImagesWoakes’ immaculate opening spell of 5-4-6-2 from the Finchale End left Sri Lanka struggling to stay afloat, and when he returned to end a 99-run stand between Perera and Wanindu Hasaranga, it precipitated a slide of 7 for 40 that seemed to torpedo the tourists for good. In the process, he claimed his 150th ODI wicket – only five bowlers have more for England – and equalled James Anderson’s record of 13 four-wicket hauls in the format.With Woakes back in the role of “Mr Dependable”, after a winter in which he was more “Mr Invisible”, Mark Wood rapid and David Willey incisive, England were able to cauterise the Sri Lanka innings, despite the counterpunch provided by Perera and Hasaranga.Chris Woakes made two early breakthroughs•Getty ImagesThere was plenty that was figuratively apposite about Perera holding up the Sri Lanka innings while the rest collapsed to rubble around him. Not only has he had to contend with three of his senior players being sent home for an unsanctioned trip to experience the after-dark charms of Durham city centre’s historic marketplace, but Oshada Fernando and Dhananjaya de Silva were ruled out on the morning of the match with illness and injury respectively.His opening partner, Pathum Nissanka, had all of six ODIs to fall back on for experience; the No. 3, Charith Asalanka, was making his debut; the next two men in, Dasun Shanaka and Hasaranga, were batting well above their usual stations. Yet Perera stayed true to the no-fear approach that he invoked when handed the captaincy last month, and in partnership with Hasaranga gave his side to bowl at. In fact, had he held on to a Moeen Ali edge when England were 80 for 4, a scare might have been on the cards.By then, the small pocket of Sri Lanka supporters at the Lumley end of the ground had largely given up on waving their flag. Even at this early stage of the World Cup Super League, Sri Lanka look destined to be scrapping it out at the qualifier – but at least amid the malaise affecting their cricket, Perera’s pugnacity offers a standard to rally around.

They will sometimes miss an edge or two, and sometimes it will happen in clumps, but that doesn’t make a bad umpire

Sidharth Monga05-Dec-20213:16

Vettori: It was fairly obvious Kohli had nicked it

When TV commentators and fans start to psychoanalyse umpires, you know it is a declaration day. It can be tough to watch for a spectator, but any top-level sport is a competitive pursuit first and through that it becomes a spectacle. It is a spectacle because it is competitive, and not competitive because it is a spectacle.Watch live cricket on ESPN+ in the US

India vs New Zealand is available in the US on ESPN+. You can subscribe to ESPN+ and tune in to highlights of day three of the 2nd Test in English or in Hindi.

So India chose to bat on in order to deny New Zealand even the slightest of sniffs and to not lose the advantage of bowling last. They could have enforced a follow-on, and probably would have finished the Test by now, but they have nowhere to go after finishing early. They will be stuck in the bubble for the South Africa tour anyway so why not make sure you take the extra day and be absolutely ruthless?Besides, India had a couple of batters who could do with some time out in the middle. Plus, Axar Patel said at the end of the day’s play that they used their batting innings to simulate a fourth-innings chase on a turning pitch out in the centre.It doesn’t make for engaging viewing especially when the opposition doesn’t have the bowlers to compete in these conditions. Will Somerville, one of the four specialists that New Zealand played in both Tests, has gone wicketkless in the series. Only seven bowlers in the history of the game have conceded more runs in a series without taking a wicket.In such circumstances, except for those personally invested in the runs, say, Virat Kohli scores, spectators find it difficult to stay engaged. So out comes the usual punching bag, the umpires. Not that the umpires weren’t pilloried before Covid-19, but the latest fad is to criticise home umpires because the authorities deem flying in neutral umpires unnecessary during the pandemic. This is the worst slander of professionals in an era where they are professionally evaluated. It is ludicrous to imagine an umpire will carry a bias in front of all high-res, high frame-rate cameras, which can curtail his own career.The umpires have been in the spotlight in Mumbai•BCCIIf there can be a bias, it won’t even be visible to those who build such lazy narratives. The bias can be in the conducting of the game, in how much they let someone sledge, whom they pull up for bad behaviour, how much they let a team play in wet conditions etc. Even bad light doesn’t fall under such bias because it is objectively measured. Aside from the odd off-the-record murmur, there hasn’t been a big issue on this front either.Unfortunately, former cricketers, often known to be at odds with umpires when they played, are at the forefront of this vilification. During this Test, for example, Shane Warne picked out one isolated few-seconds-long clip of the Kohli lbw in the first innings and ruled it “simply not-out”. He went on to suggest that third umpires frequently misinterpret the technology without ever considering the possibility that it could have been pad-bat-pad. After all, there was a point when the bat was slightly behind the pad and UltraEdge still picked up a sound signature. In the second innings, when the bat was merely an inch or two further ahead, Kohli was ruled not out in near-identical circumstances.The same people disregard technology when it comes to low catches because technology hasn’t played Test cricket and those who have played Test cricket know that every low catch is out even though there is new evidence on display.Before you know, 20 media organisations are quoting Warne and the umpire is not allowed to defend himself. Even when he does, it never really sticks. Kumar Dharmasena, an excellent umpire, a former ICC Umpire of the Year, provided an excellent explanation for his umpiring error in the 2019 World Cup final. In public perception, it was firstly assumed that a professional of such high acclaim didn’t even remember the overthrows law.India belt out what turned out to be a successful appeal against Will Young•BCCIDespite Dharamsena explaining that it was physically impossible to know where the two running batters were in relation to each other at the exact moment when the fielder released the ball from 60 yards away, people ignored another playing condition and asked him why he could not check with the third umpire. The issue here is that playing conditions allow umpires to check only dismissals and boundary saves with the third umpire. That the MCC rewrote the law was an admission it could not be enforced in the form that it was.Just do a search on any platform for “Dharmasena final”, and you will know how much we care about the actual profession of umpiring and the process of decision-making, which is why one of the dominant discourses on a slow day was about the umpires in this series when they haven’t really been bad. They will sometimes miss an edge or two, and sometimes it will happen in clumps, but that doesn’t make a bad umpire. Moreover, we have DRS to eliminate those these days.You watch out for those who make bigger, conceptual errors, such as this. There are certain lbw calls that are of concern: basically those where it’s physically not possible for the ball to strike a batter within the stumps and also hit the stumps. If you falter on these, it might suggest you get affected by other things such as the strength of an appeal.There was only one call in this series that was remotely close to this category when R Ashwin got a decision with a big offbreak that hit Will Young on the front foot, a rarest of rare dismissals in cricket. However, the low bounce probably clouded everyone to the point that even the batter didn’t review it. There have been marginal lbws missed by the umpires in this Test that didn’t even elicit a decent appeal from the bowlers. It is because three sets of professionals out there didn’t think it was out, and high-res super slow-motion replays showed the ball to be missing the edge or kissing the boot on the way to the inside edge. To use them to beat up umpires is an unfair battle that they can never hope to win.There are many things that are wrong with the umpiring discourse, which will take way more than this space (you can do worse than to read this), but a slow day is a good time to remind yourself of how good the umpires today are and to remember to use the same empathy we use for the athlete when we come across the occasional error.

Prowess against legspin could prove critical in first big test of England’s credentials

Matt Roller29-Oct-20211:48

Is the fifth-bowling option a worry for Australia?

In theory, England’s players were meant to arrive at the T20 World Cup on the back of a month of limited-overs cricket, spread across the IPL and tours to Bangladesh and Pakistan. In practice, half of their squad landed in Oman for a training camp in early October after a month’s break from the game entirely.With concerns about the prospect of a full winter on the road and uncertainty about their ability to see their families, four players – Jonny Bairstow, Jos Buttler, Dawid Malan and Chris Woakes – withdrew from their IPL contracts at relatively short notice. It was the sort of trade-off that multi-format cricketers find themselves making increasingly often, weighing up mental health, family time, financial gain and match practice and attempting to find a conclusion that keeps everyone happy.Related

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While nobody would argue with their decisions, it has been notable that England’s two star performers since the start of their World Cup campaign were both playing regularly for their franchises after the IPL’s resumption: Moeen Ali, whose Powerplay wicket-taking has set up two convincing wins has spoken about the confidence he gained from his senior role at Chennai Super Kings, while Jason Roy has extended his run of form for Sunrisers Hyderabad after a month adjusting to the UAE’s slowish surfaces.By contrast, those coming in off a break have found things slightly tougher since arriving in the Emirates. Buttler hit 73 in the final practice game against New Zealand but has not quite looked at his fluent best since; Malan was scratchy in the warm-ups though will have benefitted from time in the middle in the chase against Bangladesh; and even Woakes, who has impressed in his first two outings, has admitted he “didn’t feel too good” in the lead-in, finding his way back after a while without a game.Perhaps the only man who hit the ground running was Jonny Bairstow, who immediately issued a reminder of his worth in England’s middle order with innings of 49 off 30 against India and 30 off 21 against New Zealand in their warm-up fixtures. He has faced only 10 balls in the tournament itself, out cheaply in pursuit of quick runs against West Indies and pulling the winning boundary against Bangladesh, but there are positive signs with sterner tests to come.Such is his importance to England’s limited-overs set-up, it defies belief that this is Bairstow’s first T20 World Cup since 2012, when he was a 22-year-old floating up and down the order in a side captained by Stuart Broad. He returns nearly a decade later as one of the world’s premier limited-overs batters, and playing a clearly-defined role in this England side that has slipped under the radar.Bairstow hit the winning runs in England’s victory against Bangladesh•ICC/GettyHeading into their series in South Africa last winter, England had a big decision to make about the make-up of their batting line-up: Malan’s form at No. 3 demanded inclusion but Buttler, Roy and Bairstow were ensconced in the first-choice XI and only Buttler had much recent experience batting outside of the top three. But England had faith in Buttler as an opener, giving their best batter the opportunity to face as many balls as possible, and instead moved Bairstow to No. 4.To some it looked like another slight against a player who had been messed around by England’s management throughout his career. In fact, it was a glowing endorsement. There is no tougher position to fill in a T20 batting line-up than No. 4 given the range of situations batters find themselves facing when they come in; in particular, it requires you to face the opposition’s best spinners more often than not.So Bairstow’s success at No. 4 should not be taken for granted: he made 207 runs at 51.75 with a strike rate of 146.80 there across series in South Africa and India last winter, managing to combine consistency with fast-scoring. His role has been more flexible since, with England occasionally experimenting over their home summer, but he has still shown his ability to take down spin through the middle overs, developed over his career but honed through his experiences in the IPL.It is Bairstow’s ability to take down wristspin that has been particularly crucial. Since the start of the 2019 IPL, only two players have scored faster against wristspin in all T20 cricket, and both of them – Moeen and Nicholas Pooran – have the advantage that right-arm legspinners’ stock balls turn into their hitting arc. Bairstow, by contrast, often finds himself hitting against the spin, but his ability to read lengths early means that he can either rock onto the back foot and pull or come forward and time fuller balls into gaps (the vast majority of his runs against wristspin come in front of square on the leg side).That skill will be vital on Saturday night in Dubai, when England come up against an Australia side that have shown some vulnerabilities in their two opening wins but know that victory will put them on the brink of semi-final qualification. Despite their impressive seam stocks, Australia’s key bowler to date has been Adam Zampa, who has taken 4 for 33 across his eight overs; Bairstow’s task will be to take him down.Bairstow’s legacy as one of England’s greatest white-ball batters is already secure, whatever happens in this tournament: without his hundreds against India and New Zealand, their 2019 World Cup win might not have been possible. But if they are to succeed in their bid to hold both trophies simultaneously, it will surely owe much to Bairstow’s versatility, adaptability and skill.

The leggie has honed her wrong’un for years to turn it into a deceptive and deadly weapon

Shashank Kishore18-Feb-2022Amelia Kerr is making her WBBL debut, in October 2019. She comes to Brisbane Heat with a big reputation. Can she live up to it?For a while, it appears as if she might not bat or bowl. And then in the ninth over of the chase, she is thrown the ball. Two uneventful overs pass but she already has the batters wondering: is she a legspinner or a googly bowler? It’s a question that player after player asks for the rest of the evening.In her third over, Kerr makes a splash. Out come three wrong’uns, again. This time, the over reads 0W0WW0 – no hat-trick, but she caps a memorable debut with a triple-wicket maiden.That over in itself makes for absorbing viewing because of her variations. The first wicket is off a googly that dips and spins gently to beat the inside edge and crash into the stumps. The follow-up is a flipper that is left alone on line and length. Then she bowls a fizzing googly that strikes the pad even before the batter has shaped to play the cut.Sydney Sixers are eight down and Kerr has a chance to close out the game in the same over. She brings out a flighted delivery. It drifts in, pitches on off and spins back in to beat a forward prod. Bam! Another googly, another wicket. It’s a dream beginning – a teenager varying her pace and trajectory like an international veteran.The story repeats in the Super Smash final of 2021. Kerr’s high-quality bowling leaves batters unsure of which way the ball is turning. They’re stabbing nervously at her, with leaden feet. They fall like ninepins. Kerr picks up a hat-trick, though Wellington Blaze lose out on the title to Canterbury Magicians, thanks to Lea Tahuhu’s cameo with the bat.”I called her a googly bowler,” laughs Ivan Tissera, Kerr’s childhood coach, who is now in charge of Wellington Blaze, her domestic team. Tissera first met Kerr when she was a ten-year old, who her father, Robbie, wanted to spend summers outdoors. As they began working together, Tissera remembers accuracy being Kerr’s first big strength.”She had a natural legspinning action – clean, good arm-speed, a lot of flight. As kids, the wrists are flexible, so she’d come to the nets and keep bowling, not knowing which way she’s turning the ball. She’d land the ball in the same spot outside off, see the ball rip away both ways and then ask in amazement how it’s happening.”As she grew up and hit her teens, Kerr began to understand the nuances of the googly. She worked on developing a quicker arm. “Initially, I just wanted her to enjoy bowling,” Tissera says. “Then she understood the googly needs to be subtle, but struggled a bit with drift. So the line would end up being middle and leg. It took a good two years of hard practice to get that balance right.”As Kerr began to travel the world and play in the leagues, the realisation dawned that she ought not to be a one-trick pony. She watched Rashid Khan and wanted to fizz the ball around like he did. It was her next project, to get quicker through the air but without losing the bite in her bowling.It’s this awareness of her craft, the ability to understand the subtle differences and work on them tirelessly, that helps her execute unfailingly in a match scenario. It’s also this aspect that sets her apart from the next best at the googly, Poonam Yadav.The India legspinner relies heavily on flight and dip, to the extent that her slower pace and trajectory can sometimes allow batters to line her up. This is perhaps what made her predictable when South Africa toured India last year. She finished the ODI series with no wickets, and managed all of two overs in her lone outing in the T20Is, a far different bowler than the one that bamboozled Australia on that magical opening night of the T20 World Cup in February 2020.”I think bowling at her usual speed, she has dismissed good batters like Meg Lanning, but it’s just that when you play non-stop, you want to pick up aspects of your game you don’t have, and that drives her,” Tissera says. “Now she bowls around 76-80kph, earlier she was around 65-67. Before, when she bowled quicker, she used to lose the shape of the ball. Now, she has lost that bit of extra turn, unless it is a rank turner, but her consistency in lines and lengths are amazing.”Who Does it Best?: The cutter | The pull | The googly | The cover drive | The yorker | The cut | The bouncer | The sweep

With the multi-format series beginning on Thursday here are four players to keep a close eye on

Andrew McGlashan and Valkerie Baynes19-Jan-2022Tahlia McGrath

Tahlia McGrath is a very different cricketer to the one who was part of the 2017-18 Ashes series where she made her Test debut at North Sydney Oval. It was a more-than-handy performance with three wickets and 47 – adding 103 alongside Ellyse Perry who made her famous double century – but that would be her last international appearance until a one-off outing in late 2020 against New Zealand.This season, however, has seen her state her claims as a top-class allrounder having worked on her game at domestic level. Against India she made 74 in the second ODI to help resurrect the chase with Beth Mooney then produced two key innings in the T20I series having batted nicely in Test before finding point. Her return has further added to Australia’s middle-order options with the bat and pace-bowling options in the field.Related

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Sophia Dunkley

After spending 18 months on the fringes of selection through 2019-20, Sophia Dunkley made quite an impression during the English summer of 2021. She debuted at the Women’s World T20 in 2018, but it was an assured 74 not out against India in June, when she became the first black woman to play Test cricket for England, that set her on course to make a place in England’s middle order her own across formats.The nerveless nature of that innings pervaded limited-overs series against India and New Zealand when, more than once, she kept a cool head to see England to victory. Her unbeaten 73 batting for the first time in ODIs was instrumental in England’s win against India at Taunton and she scored a four off the penultimate ball to clinch a tight chase – and the series – in the third T20I against New Zealand.In England’s warm-ups against England A in Australia, Dunkley struck 15 off 12 balls in the rain-affected 35-over match, where her sharp fielding was also on display with three catches, while in the two T20s, she hit 10 off eight and 17 off 10. Her legspin has been used sparingly by England but she provides another option while her batting is key.Charlie Dean made a promising start to her England career•Getty ImagesDarcie Brown
It feels like Darcie Brown, the 18-year-old quick bowler, is on the verge of taking the cricket world by storm. Capable of rapid late outswing and also possessing one of the best bouncers in the game, Brown has put together two impressive WBBL seasons – 29 wickets across the two editions at an economy under a run-a-ball – and earned her first call-up for last year’s tour of New Zealand.In just her second ODI, earlier this season against India, she served notice of her potential with a Player of the Match 4 for 33 with her scalps all being among the top five of the order. She was wicketless on her Test debut at Metricon Stadium and there is an understandable caution about over-bowling her as she continues to develop, but there are few more exciting prospects in the game.Charlie Dean
Something of an unknown in Australia, 21-year-old offspinner Charlie Dean has made the most of her handful of opportunities. She made her debut in the first ODI against New Zealand in September and played all five fixtures. It was her 4 for 36 to help England to victory in the rain-hit match at Worcester – just her second match at this level – which really caught the eye, as did her enthusiasm in the field throughout.Dean had been in line to feature earlier in New Zealand’s tour when she was named in England’s squad for their three-match T20I series before she and Maia Bouchier had to isolate as possible contacts of a suspected Covid case in their Southern Vipers team. Fifty overs is Dean’s preferred format at this stage and that may be where she features most heavily in this Ashes series, but her ability to deceive batters by generating plenty of overspin and drop makes her a valuable addition for England.

Grenada comes out in force to revel in another famous series win over favourite opponents

Cameron Ponsonby27-Mar-2022One-nil, to the West Ind-ies. One-nil, to the West Ind-ies…A backs-against-the-wall, hang-in-there-and-grind-the-opposition-down-before-nabbing-it-right-at-the-end victory for the men in maroon. George Graham would approve.”Very proud,” a buoyant Kraigg Brathwaite said at the close, already a couple of sips of champagne down. “My first home series win, so very happy. It was a very, very good series for us. In two hard-fought draws in the first two games I thought England played extremely well and we had to show some fight in the last days of both of those games. But coming here, we ramped it up. It’s been a remarkable effort.”It’s a series victory that extends a proud record, with West Indies losing just once to England at home in Test cricket since 1968. And even that sole reversal, in 2004, is already 18 years ago, which is as long as England waited between Ashes victories from 1987 to 2005, and longer than they’ve been made to wait for a series win in any of the other established Test nations bar Pakistan (whom they haven’t been to visit for 17 years and counting).A point of real satisfaction for West Indies on this occasion, however, is that this wasn’t just the Jason Holder and Kemar Roach Show but a squad-wide effort. In Nkrumah Bonner, Brathwaite, Jermaine Blackwood and Joshua Da Silva, there were four separate centurions. Jayden Seales equalled Roach for wickets with 11 apiece and Alzarri Joseph was just one behind. Kyle Mayers and Veerasammy Permaul took more wickets than Holder despite both playing fewer matches. The West Indies rallied. And rallied together.”I believe this is the start,” Brathwaite said. “But we can’t become complacent. We have got to keep learning, keep improving. That is one thing with the youngsters in the team – Joshua, Jayden, Alzarri – they are willing to listen. That is the only way to get better, Jason Holder and Kemar Roach and Jermaine Blackwood really leading the way, and the guys learnt a lot on the job. I think it’s the start and we have to continue to work hard.”But if there was one man to laud with praise and whom without the series result would have been reversed, it was Brathwaite himself. With 341 runs at an average of 85.25, Brathwaite faced 901 deliveries across the series with Joe Root the next highest having faced 565. It was fitting therefore, that from the 901st and final delivery he did face, he struck the winning runs.”Yeah that felt well,” Brathwaite smiled in reflection as he pondered both the winning runs and the question of whether this had been his best-ever series with the bat. “Really good. Very happy that as a team we came out on top. It’s close, to be honest. And it very well may be. As a three-match series it was one of my best.”Kraigg Brathwaite and John Campbell celebrate West Indies’ win•Getty ImagesThis is an incredibly likeable side who clearly enjoy playing for one another. And while Brathwaite may now be the captain, former skipper Holder remains a willing lieutenant whose energy in the field and role as a leader is still apparent.Before the series began with Brathwaite doing his media rounds, Holder was perched behind the press pack pretending to film and attempting to get a laugh out of a stony-faced skipper. Whenever a dull moment occurred on the pitch, he would leap into action and lead the team in “Simon Says” activities of high knees or heel flicks. Viewers at home will have also heard his constant encouragement throughout the series. And that’s not even through the stump mic. The man’s voice just carries across the Atlantic.The relentless support on the pitch was matched off it here in Grenada and it was fitting that the Windies sealed the series in front of the first raucous home crowd of the tour. Steel bands were constant and chants of “London Bridge is falling down” regularly came from the stone-stepped party stand to the left, and only ever really petered out due to laughter rather than exhaustion. And for all the noise from the thousands in attendance, one man’s voice rose above all. We’ll never know his name, but Party Stand Pete has a certain ring to it.What Pete lacked in variation he made up for in consistency. Yelling “pressure, pressure” with a clap that could set off landslides if he wasn’t careful. This went on for the best part of three days with his advice strong and inarguable at all times. Never more so than when the Windies were in the depths of 95 for 6 late on day two.Related

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“One ball at a time. *clap* Take your time. *clap* But remember! *clap* When you get the bad ball? *clap* Punish it!”It was a level of support that did not go unnoticed by the Windies team, with Brathwaite commenting on the strength of the home fans at the end of the game.”It was remarkable to see how many Grenadians came out to support us,” he said of the crowd in general, but hopefully of PSP in particular. “So I just want to say thank you to them.”We enjoyed it. Obviously we won the decider. The crowds in Barbados and Antigua weren’t bad but Grenada fans really came out. They don’t get much cricket here so it’ll be nice to see one or two more [Tests] out here.”And if there’s one thing you can be sure of as the Windies celebrate their victory long into the night on the Grand Anse beach, it’s that Pete couldn’t agree more.