For too long it’s appeared as if touring Pakistan is the last thing a Western cricketing nation wants to do; this series has the power to change all that

Danyal Rasool03-Mar-2022Take a stroll through the streets of Lahore, Islamabad or Karachi, and the eye test bears out what the numbers tell you. Young people throng the streets, choke roads, shops and public spaces in their thousands. There’s a vibrancy, but, inevitably, also a kind of chaos that can oscillate between uplifting and panic-inducing. Pakistan is, after all, one of the faster-growing countries of the world, the population rapidly approaching a quarter of a billion. It is also among the youngest, with the average age under 23.That may carry all sorts of demographic implications, but for cricket at this present moment, one of them is startling: most Pakistanis weren’t alive the last time an Australian cricket team arrived on these shores to play international cricket.Related

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That might explain the unique atmosphere the arrival of a side led by Pat Cummins in Islamabad appears to have generated. It was in 1998 that a Mark Taylor-led side last came to Pakistan to play a three-Test series, one that’s taken on a larger-than-life form in the imaginations of those old fogies – by Pakistan standards – who still recall that somewhat drab affair. By the end of that series, it felt like Pakistani spirits had been all but broken, even if Sir Donald Bradman’s record somehow wasn’t.The world has changed dramatically in the intervening 23 years, and Pakistan even more drastically so. The country’s population has grown by nearly 100 million people. A new format of cricket has been invented, and subsequently, become dominant. It is so long ago, for heavens sake, that Shoaib Malik hadn’t even made his debut then, and Shahid Afridi made his Test debut in the third of that series. It’s practically ancient.Cummins himself alluded to the notion that his side’s presence here was about a little more than just cricket. “The whole previous generation of Australian teams didn’t get to experience Pakistan so we feel really lucky and fortunate that we are the first team to be back playing in Pakistan,” he said in a candid, self-aware reflection to the media. “It’s great that we are playing over here. I think this will be a tour at the end of our career we’ll look back on and think that was really special. As much as anything the way we’ve been looked after with the security presence, we’ll probably never experience anything like that in our lives. Great life experience, really proud and happy to be experiencing Test cricket over here. Hopefully there’s plenty more of it in the future.”It is perhaps tedious to rehash the off-field significance of a touring side visiting Pakistan, but it remains pertinent because, frankly put, it’s appeared for too long as if that’s the last thing a Western cricketing nation wants to do. Less than six months earlier, New Zealand were here in this very same city to play a landmark tour of their own, only to pull out citing security concerns on the day of the first game. Australian cricketer Ashton Agar’s partner received a threat, ultimately dismissed as a hoax, in the last few days, and the security presence around the Australian team hotel is extensive.But all that only establishes the dazzling opportunity this is for Pakistan cricket to make the most powerful off-field statement since 2009. Australia were the only side to reject a tour to Pakistan even before the terror attack on the Sri Lanka cricket team.Mark Taylor scored 334 in the drawn Test in Peshawar in 1998•AFPIn 2002, war was raging in neighbouring Afghanistan and drawing ever closer in Iraq when Australia decided they didn’t want to tour Pakistan. It was Australia then who set the template for what would be Pakistan’s home post-2009, when they dragged Pakistan out to the UAE. For those young enough to remember the UAE as something of a Test fortress for Pakistan, that 2002-03 tour was a different world. The nadir of that truly dismal two-Test series was a two-day Test, its brevity failing to compensate for its horror as far as Pakistan were concerned. It would be immortalised in two numbers for a generation of Pakistani fans: 59 and 53.If the current incarnation of that Australian side now sits in the heart of Islamabad – replete with first-choice superstars – gearing up for a full, three-format series, Pakistan may genuinely begin to believe the low of 2009 and the war on terror may, at least, be consigned to the past as far as this nation’s cricket is concerned. This visit of Australia kickstarts what should be a bumper home year for cricket in Pakistan, with New Zealand and England, two sides who pulled out last year to much criticism, set to visit in the autumn. Pakistan has not seen a home year like this since the 1990s.The relatively unfamiliar Pakistani conditions for the visiting side add an extra layer of intrigue to a series Pakistan has been clamouring for since as long as they can remember. At a time when Test cricket repeatedly wrestles with existential crises every time there’s a dull session in England or a wicket turns too much on the first day in India, Rawalpindi is officially sold out for all five days. There’s a panoply of angles that should make this series particularly delicious viewing, and cricket afficionados may rightly point out the quality of the cricket should, stripped of all context, be enough to justify these levels of excitement.But, with the vague, unreliable memories of the five-year-old that I was in 1998, I can recall the stifling drudgery with which Mark Taylor plodded along towards his triple-century, and Australia racked up 599 for 4 in 174 overs sitting on a 1-0 lead in a series they would go on to win by that very margin (until that point, only Pakistan’s third home series loss since 1980). 1-0 scorelines can be just as dreary in cricket as they are in football sometimes, so I’d insist I have it on good authority that a visit of Australia doesn’t magically make for exciting cricket.But a lot of growing up can happen in 23 years, especially if you happen to spend them in Pakistan. That’s why, as the newly minted Benaud-Qadir trophy shimmers on the eve of the series, Pindi, in unison with Pakistan, pulses with cautious excitement. Who knows if the cricket will really be good, but Pakistan knows that the fact there’s any cricket at all is very good indeed.

Batting coach Siddons disappointed with left-handers being dismissed to balls angled in from around the wicket

Mohammad Isam10-Apr-2022There is no doubting that Bangladesh’s batters have the ability to fill all areas of a cricket field with their shots, but as they displayed in the first innings in Gqeberha, they can’t seem to decide on when to play which shot.Mushfiqur Rahim’s dismissal in particular, getting bowled by missing a reverse sweep soon after reaching his fifty, has brought sharp focus into the team’s decision-making. But there were several other shots, too, that came against the run of play.Bangladesh had promising knocks and put together two decent partnerships, but there was not much else. With Bangladesh batting the way they did, 217 was all they could muster in the first innings.South Africa conceded several boundaries in the first nine overs on the third morning, but as soon as they tightened up, Mushfiqur and Yasir Ali went into their shells. They scored only 12 runs in 10.2 overs after the initial free-scoring spree, and it resulted in both batters falling to ordinary shots.Yasir has showed the right intention in his early days in international cricket, but on Sunday, he overlooked the importance of the situation he was batting in. South Africa had lost their last review in the 60th over. It wasn’t a big one, but for a line-up five wickets down, this should have been a signal to bat with a bit more freedom.Instead, Yasir lobbed back a catch at Keshav Maharaj later in the same over. And his more illustrious partner at the other end made a graver error. One ball after he had reached his fifty, Mushfiqur missed with his reverse sweep and the angled Simon Harmer delivery banged into his off stump. One suspects that Mushfiqur had even telegraphed the shot to Harmer.It was, as a Bangladesh commentator likes to say, “an unnecessary shot”. Mushfiqur had already struck Harmer’s first ball of the day for four with a conventional sweep. He survived an lbw shout next ball, so the jury is out on whether the reverse sweep was even the right option.This is Mushfiqur’s fourth dismissal playing the reverse sweep in all formats since January 2021. Even though last year he called it one of his favourite shots, the reverse sweep hasn’t brought him much success. In fact, during this period, he has struck only two boundaries in 18 attempts playing the shot.At the end of the second day, batting coach Jamie Siddons had said that Mushfiqur wouldn’t let the spinners settle down, but he definitely didn’t mean encouraging such an approach with high-risk and low-yield shots.”We need to be aggressive against the spinners,” Siddons said. “We need to take some risks to take the bat-padders out of the game. Mushfiq is normally a great sweeper of the ball. There’s a bit of turn and bounce, but we haven’t lost a wicket sweeping yet. We lost wickets doing other things. You won’t see Rabbi sweep but you will see Mushfiq continue to sweep. It is his strength, and he is still out there. If he hangs around and pokes around, he will probably find himself out. So I think we encourage that. It may be high risk but that’s okay.”Bangladesh lost five wickets on the second day, four of them to incoming deliveries. The ones that had the most focus however were the three Wiaan Mulder wickets. Tamim Iqbal, Najmul Hossain Shanto and Mominul Haque all got out lbw to deliveries angled into the stumps from around the wicket.Siddons said that the batters told him they were trying to hit those deliveries on to the leg side, when the prudent option would have been to play them straight.”I have spoken to two of the (dismissed) left-handers about their dismissals,” Siddons. “Both were trying to hit the ball to the leg side when they know that I talk about clearing their front pad and hit it back to where it came from (which is the off side). We need to work on that. It is a mental and technical mistake that can be easily rectified. We need to do that pretty quickly. It is a form of dismissal that shouldn’t happen with the bloke coming around the wicket.”Siddons, who had a huge role in the batting development of Tamim when he was Bangladesh’s head coach from 2007 to 2011, said that the left-hander just wavered from his plan to get his front leg out of the way against incoming deliveries for one ball, to pay the ultimate price.”I think Tamim was looking for a four to bring up his fifty. He forgot how he was playing the whole innings. He was playing beautifully straight, and not putting his pad across. I think his aggression, taking the fight to the bowlers, was excellent. It relaxed our change-room. I thought he played well for 47. It would be nice if he went on with the game though.”

Desperation stakes for Joe Root as West Indies swarm towards famous series win

Alan Gardner27-Mar-2022Farewell then, the Red-Ball Reset. We hardly knew you. There may be successors, of course, a reboot of the franchise in a couple of months’ time, once the ECB have found themselves a new coaching team and management structure worthy of the Inspiring Generations tagline. But with the Grenada Test all over bar the shouting and the continuation of England’s barren record in the Caribbean, we have surely heard the last of that phrase for a while.Right from the moment this England touring party was announced, with their two all-time leading Test wicket-takers conspicuously absent, there was a suspicion that this was a mission doomed to fail. England have been beaten often enough in the Caribbean over the past 50 years while fielding their best personnel to know that chucking together a group of semi-regulars and sort-of-new faces to accompany Joe Root and Ben Stokes was unlikely to work.Even so, and allowing for the fact that the best-laid plans gang aft a-gley (and these probably weren’t the best-laid plans, let’s be honest…), this was a sucker punch for those following back home amid balmy spring weather and the first stirrings of the cricket season to come. After draws on the front foot in Antigua and Barbados, the last thing most were expecting when flicking on BT Sport in the evening was the sight of England being monstered by the mediums of Kyle Mayers.Eight down at the close and leading by just 10 runs, the jig was almost up. And barring the gallows-humour take that, in Saqib Mahmood, they still had their best batter to come, there was precious little to cling to for the put-upon fan of England’s Test side.Related

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Afterwards, Marcus Trescothick, the England batting coach, tried to suggest that the team’s calamitous tumble towards likely defeat and a series loss on the decisive day of action should not provide the final word for the tour.”We’ve had one bad day today and over the course of the series this is the first bad day we’ve had,” he said. “Day one in Antigua we had a challenging day, but fought back really well. Barbados we were really strong and controlled most of the game and today it’s gone wrong.”It’s easy over the course of what we’ve had over the winter to throw it back and throw the baby out with the bath water. It’s all gone wrong, yes, we’ve had a really bad day and we’re really disappointed. We believe as coaching staff and players in that dressing room that we’ve made strides as a team over the course of the Test matches we’ve had. We’ll lick our wounds and try to come back from it but it’s been a really tough day and we’ve put the series in jeopardy.”Root and his men had at least resumed on the third morning still in touch, having been 114 for 9 at one stage during their first innings, and with the potential for setting West Indies a testing target on a pitch that has offered variable bounce throughout. All they needed to do was limit the damage, take two tail-end wickets and start making amends with the bat. But at the first whiff of grapeshot, they scattered.It was a day littered with instructive vignettes. Several came during an extended morning session during which England’s attack once again struggled to finish off the opposition – as at Lord’s and The Oval against India last summer, say, or at various points during the Ashes. Kemar Roach was dislodged inside the first five overs by Mahmood, one of the few actual bright spots on tour, and the same bowler could have had Jayden Seales lbw shortly after, without addition to the score, only for England to have run out of reviews.Mahmood kicked the ground in frustration, with Hawk-Eye confirming Gregory Brathwaite’s error. But Root had spent his allocation the previous day, all three of them speculative: an appeal for a leg-side catch off Jermaine Blackwood and failed lbw shouts against Josh Da Silva and Alzarri Joseph.West Indies were 41 runs in front at the time, but would more than double that advantage through a magnificently resourceful and nuggety maiden Test hundred from Da Silva. For a period the innings almost went into reverse, as England bowled maiden after maiden while unsuccessfully trying to create another chance against Seales. But Da Silva kept chipping away and then went on the attack to bring up his hundred with success thumps down the ground off Craig Overton. Root once again powerless as the game ebbed further away.Although Da Silva was given out caught behind to his very next ball, a punt of a review saw all the players have to retake their places, just when England thought the misery was finally over. Their frustrations were evident as Overton, fielding in his followthrough, hurled the ball back at Da Silva. Root dismissed Seales himself, but the jeopardy of England’s position, 93 runs in arrears, was palpable.Joshua Da Silva celebrates the dismissal of Jonny Bairstow•Getty ImagesCue another grisly top-order collapse, with Zak Crawley and Root particularly culpable for their dismissals. Root wore a hollow look as he trudged off after falling to Mayers for the second time in the match, and that had developed into a thousand-yard stare watching on from the balcony as Stokes tickled behind while attempting to leave, England 39 for 4 and deep in the mire. While there are few other options as captain, Root knows he doesn’t have to do this any more if he doesn’t want to.Another revealing moment was to come. Alex Lees and Jonny Bairstow lashed together a partnership from the flotsam and jetsam of the innings, eking out 41 runs from almost 25 overs and seemingly giving England a chance to transfer some of the pressure back. But with Da Silva returning some of the commentary about slow scoring he had received from Bairstow earlier in the day, West Indies were gifted another opening late on. As if to prove right Da Silva’s sledge that “He has more shots than me”, Bairstow tried to pull a Joseph short ball from round the wicket in the following over, only for an under-edge to nestle in his antagonist’s gloves.”We didn’t stand up in the pressure moments when it was going down to the wire,” Trescothick said. “We haven’t stood up and performed as we have in the rest of the series, whereas they’ve had a couple of guys really step up and make a difference. Mayers bowled brilliantly and got something out of the pitch, Da Silva batted well for a hundred, his first one. We need to try and put in those performances when these times come around.”It is not long since this tour began with well-intentioned but facile observations from the likes of Root and the interim coach, Paul Collingwood, about the “good, in-depth conversations” players were having, the “feel-good factor” and “opportunities for the group”. When Ollie Robinson limped out of the warm-up game, Collingwood said he would not be panicking; when Mark Wood hurt his elbow in Antigua, there was no SOS to James Anderson or Stuart Broad.But barring a miracle of a magnitude beyond the last-wicket stand between Leach and Mahmood on day one, England are set to extend their abysmal recent record to one win in 17 Tests, across five series without success. Once again it is clear how deep their red-ball problems run – and there isn’t a button marked ‘reset’ that can fix them.

Explosive white-ball hitter targets run of Championship games to boost his all-round game

Paul Muchmore05-Apr-2022After a successful winter away honing his white-ball skills in T20 leagues, Surrey’s Will Jacks is looking to strike the balance to excel across all formats in 2022.Jacks, 23, has embraced his reputation as one of England’s most promising white-ball hitters, but heading into his fifth season of senior county cricket, has only one first-class hundred to his name, and only featured in six matches of the 2021 County Championship.Speaking at Surrey’s pre-season media day, Jacks was keen to set out that his priorities for the season are split “50-50″ between the red and white-ball formats.”Obviously at the moment, I’ve been progressing more in the white-ball game and the T20 game, and haven’t excelled in the longer form as much as I would have liked,” Jacks said. “I’m really trying to nail down a middle-order spot that we possibly have available and make that my own.”I’m working a lot on my offspin to try and become the second [spin] option, or if there’s a greener wicket, we can play an extra seamer and I can be the spinner.”Jacks has a reputation as an explosive batter – in a T10 fixture against Lancashire in 2019, he hit a 25-ball century featuring six sixes in an over. The change of gears down to more attritional red-ball cricket can be challenging, but Jacks believes that mastering the basics will make it easier to switch between formats at short notice.”It’s definitely harder, especially having been away all winter. I came back on March 2 so exactly a month from then to the start of the season, basically to practice my red-ball play, I hadn’t hit one since the last ball of the [2021] season.”But it’s definitely something I’m getting better at, changing between formats, because as long as you have a good solid base, I’ve tried to keep my technique simple this year.”It’s the basics of balance and keeping his head up that Jacks has been working on at The Oval ahead of their season opener on Thursday against Warwickshire at Edgbaston.Jacks, with Hashim Amla, during the 2021 Blast campaign•Getty Images”I’ve been working on my head position, try not to fall over to the offside,” he said. “It’s a constant thing through the last few years, I’m trying to stay balanced and counter that and keep my head in line. And then just generic balance, which I work on for T20s to keep a good base, and it’s obviously very similar for [red-ball], the basics are the same.”I just have to get myself in good positions really, and once you do that, it’s all mental, which I have to work on too, the patience, not being scared to bat all day to get a hundred – stuff that I haven’t done too much in my career.”On the white-ball front, Jacks’ winter saw him spend time at the Abu Dhabi T10 League in November, before a productive spell in the Bangladesh Premier League, where he topped the run charts with 414 in 11 innings for Chattogram Challengers, displaying his versatility on turning pitches away from the batting-friendly tracks of The Oval, and showing responsibility and patience beyond a gung-ho, hit-from-the-word-go approach.”The pitches were very different, here [at The Oval] you probably face eight overs of spin, 12 of seam, it probably flips the other way round there, maybe like 14 of spin.”So that was something for me to work out, if you found your single, found your options against spin, especially in the powerplay, you obviously face more dots in the powerplay, and it’s important not to get worried about that. Because the spinners are very high quality, but the local seamers weren’t as good, so when they came on I knew I could cash in.Related

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“It was about planning out the whole 20 overs. When I’m at Surrey, we have a deep batting line-up, with international players, and I can just free-flow and just keep going with my shots, whereas as an overseas player I had more responsibility obviously.”A short two-match cameo for Islamabad United at the Pakistan Super League followed, and although he returned just 0 and 11 with the bat, Jacks called his time at the competition an “incredible experience” and is eager to return in future seasons.”In Bangladesh, we didn’t have any crowds, then it was 25% for the knockouts, so to go to Lahore and play in front of full houses – my last game we played against Lahore Qalandars and it was sold out – it was incredibly loud, it was a great atmosphere to be part of.”It was like a T20 here but on steroids, with the horns and the loud noises. It’s a great experience. The quality of the bowling in Pakistan is world renowned. It was a good challenge, unfortunately I only got to play two games, but it was something I loved and something I’ll hopefully be part of again in the future.”One opportunity to revisit those Lahore crowds sooner would be to break into England’s T20 side for their seven-match tour of Pakistan ahead of the T20 World Cup. But for now, Jacks’ mind is firmly set on repeating his white-ball success on the home front – first with Surrey, for whom he was the Blast MVP in 2020 and their top run-scorer in 2021, and then in the Hundred with Oval Invincibles.”Of course, that’s the aim,” Jacks said of his England ambitions, “but I can’t really think about that, you’ve got to think about your performances here for Surrey, I’ve had two good seasons in the T20 Blast, so hopefully I can continue that and try to be the leading run-scorer here, work on my bowling, and then there’s the second year of the Hundred obviously.”We just want to try and win it this year. That’ll be the main thing, trying to score as many runs as possible and win games for the team. We felt like we missed out last year. We had a great squad and probably should have been closer than we did. We’ve got the core of the squad back together so we’ll be going all the way this year.”

The opener scored his maiden ODI fifty in only his second game to rescue New Zealand from a perilous 0 for 2

Deivarayan Muthu13-Jul-2022Finn Allen’s T20 strike rate of 178.92 is the best among batters who have played at least 50 innings in the format. That strike rate jumps up to 186.54 in the powerplay, and this ability to dash out of the blocks earned him an IPL gig with Royal Challengers Bangalore even before he had made his international debut for New Zealand.Allen has since broken into the Vitality T20 Blast and The Hundred as well, his rise somewhat highlighting the changing landscape of cricket. But while he’s hot property in the T20 world, does he have the range of skills to succeed in 50-overs cricket? On Tuesday, Allen was asked that question during New Zealand’s second ODI against Ireland, on a Malahide pitch that was two-paced, offering assistance to both seamers and spinners, with the overnight and early-morning rains juicing it up even further.Related

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After Matt Henry and Jacob Duffy swung the ball prodigiously in the powerplay in the afternoon, it was Mark Adair’s turn to let it rip later in the evening in Ireland’s defence of 216. Adair yorked Martin Guptill first ball and then breached Will Young’s defences with a sharp inducker. New Zealand were 0 for 2 in two balls, and The Village raised itself in a massive roar.In the early exchanges, Allen looked to bash his way out of trouble, like he often does at the Basin Reserve for Wellington Firebirds in the Super Smash. He dashed out of the crease to Craig Young but almost yorked himself in the process. He swung hard at a pull against Adair and almost ended up dragging it back onto his off stump. Soon after, he wound up for a lusty leg-side slog against Adair but missed the line.But once he had sussed out the conditions, and when the ball stopped swinging, Allen’s natural game came to the fore. Adair erred too full in the ninth over, and Allen walloped him for 6,4,4,4. Having scored just 6 off 18 balls at one stage, Allen charged to a 47-ball half-century, his first in ODIs, coming in just his second game. His 101-run third-wicket partnership with captain Tom Latham was central to New Zealand chasing down their target and wrapping up the three-ODI series with one game to go.”I supposed I recognised that it wasn’t easy early on” Allen told NZC’s in-house media team after the game. “Me and Tommy had good comms. We kept each other in it and kept reiterating to trust our base and just go from there. There’s lot more time than we realise at times in 50-over cricket, so it was nice to just sit in and bat with him and spend a bit of time in the middle and once we sort of got one away, we became a bit more free-flowing, which is nice.”Tom Latham and Finn Allen added 101 after getting together at 0 for 2•Sportsfile/Getty ImagesAllen has played just 29 List A games so far, including his two ODIs, and and has an average of 27.96 to go with a strike rate of 108.71. As the first of those numbers might suggest, he’s still learning to adjust to the pace and pattern of play of 50-overs cricket.”Obviously having Tommy there… It helped a lot in talking with him but for me I’m still figuring out the pace at which I want to go about my one-day cricket and sometimes on those wickets, you have to sit in and realise that they’re bowling well and get through that,” Allen said. “We still finished the powerplay on 56, I guess, so we came out of it nicely.”Just recognising that there are tough periods in the game that you’ve to get through and once you get through that, you’re kind of set in a way. So, yeah, a lot of learnings for me today and obviously, as I said, nice to spend time with Tommy out there today.”New Zealand will be particularly pleased that Allen could adapt on a difficult pitch against a promising Ireland attack. They had to rejig their batting line-up to accommodate Allen at the top, with Henry Nicholls dropping down to the middle order. Allen’s inclusion could potentially allow New Zealand to use their accidental T20 opener Daryl Mitchell as a finisher alongside Michael Bracewell in white-ball cricket.Allen, who plays under Bracewell’s captaincy at Firebirds, wasn’t surprised by the allrounder’s brilliance in Ireland. After securing an unlikely victory with his maiden ODI century in the series opener, Bracewell took 2 for 26 and made an unbeaten 42 off 40 balls in the second match. His figures on Tuesday were the most-economical ten-over spell by a New Zealand spinner since Daniel Vettori’s 4 for 18 against Afghanistan in Napier during the 2015 World Cup.”The Beast [Bracewell] was challenging the bat the whole innings and the whole time he was bowling,” Allen said. “It was also really good to see him get the rewards for that and his batting has been pretty outstanding as well.”He’s done exactly what he’s been doing in domestic cricket out here [in international cricket] and showing everyone what he can do. That guy has got ice in his veins and he backs himself 100%. He’s got really good options that he’s taking and he’s just executing really well. So it’s so good to see such an awesome guy and everyone back home is pretty stoked to see him do well. So it has been phenomenal to watch.”

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Should Rahul bat more freely while chasing?

The last time Lucknow Super Giants won a game while chasing was more than a month ago, on April 7 , when it was only the second week of IPL 2022. Now with barely a week left for the league stage of the tournament when teams are expected to fine-tune their plans for the playoffs, a glaring weakness has emerged for Super Giants: they can’t ace their chases.Even though Super Giants were chasing 179 on Sunday, which might have appeared to be below-par because of how Rajasthan Royals were looking set for 200-odd at one point, KL Rahul ‘s team stumbled to 34 for 3 in the powerplay and left too much to do for the middle order that neither had the experience like their top order nor the hitting abilities of their lower order.Related

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Rahul admitted after their loss that they had to get “smarter” while batting and “needed to work hard” on their game because it was the fourth time in a row that they went down in a chase.”It was a gettable target. It was a good pitch, there was a bit in there with the new ball. We were backing ourselves to get that target, but we couldn’t execute our plans and once again the batting group…we haven’t been able to collectively perform as a unit in a few games,” Rahul told the host broadcaster at the presentation. “We need to go back and work on our game, work on being smarter when we’re in the middle and try and get a win for the team.”Pune was a lot harder, there was a lot more on the pitch there. This (Brabourne Stadium) was a really good pitch, there was seam movement early on, quality bowlers like Trent [Boult] and Prasidh [Krishna] were hitting hard lengths, getting to move it just a little bit. They bowled in good areas and when you lose two wickets in an over that puts pressure on you and it has happened a couple of times with us where we’ve lost the game in the powerplay, as a batting we’ve lost three-four wickets which is obviously very hard to come back from. We need to work hard on our game and make sure when the ball is moving and when there are quality bowlers, you find a way to stay in the game and give your team a good start so that in the back end, we can always get runs.”Super Giants are now second on the list to lose the most number of wickets in the powerplay in this IPL, only behind Kolkata Knight Riders. On Sunday, Boult and Prasidh rocked Super Giants early with the back-to-back wickets of Quinton de Kock and Ayush Badoni in the third over followed by Rahul’s departure for a laborious 10 off 19 in the sixth over.Deepak Hooda struck a 33-ball fifty at No.4 on Sunday•BCCI”If we can hold our nerve in the middle while we’re batting and give ourselves a chance to play out the new ball or play out a good spell even when there are just 120 balls,” Rahul further said. “If you can get through that spell then you always have enough time to make up and win the game from there. We’ve got power in our batting; people do hit the ball really far, and they can hit sixes and get a big over, so it’s just about being smart and playing out the good spells.”One way for Super Giants to succeed on Sunday would have been to take the game deep because Royals have had issues with their death bowling and still have the worst economy rate in that phase. Maybe, the Super Giants think-tank held Marcus Stoinis and Jason Holder back for that phase, but their decision to promote Badoni to No. 3 backfired as he fell for a golden duck.Their bowling coach Andy Bichel told the host broadcaster Star Sports early in the chase that Badoni was promoted because he had been batting well in some of their practice games, and Rahul revealed after the game that they could bat Stoinis up the order in the coming games.”He (Badoni) has been batting well,” Rahul said at the press conference. “In the last four-five games, we felt like we could have used him slightly differently, so we tried playing him top of the order.”On Stoinis’ batting position, Rahul said: “What we’re trying to do is utilise players who will best suit the situation and for us, Marcus is one of those players who has brute force, and we know that he can be really dangerous at the back end, so we’ve tried to hold him back a little bit. We’ve kept it slightly flexible with the batting roles, and this is the role we’ve picked him for, the finisher for us and even today, he batted really well.

“We need to go back and work on our game, work on being smarter when we’re in the middle and try and get a win for the team.”KL Rahul

“He’s showing that he can really win us games single-handedly, but you need someone to support him at the other end and he needs, and the team needs the top order to set up the game for someone like Stoinis and Jason to come in and finish games which hasn’t happened, unfortunately. Having said that, we might even see Stoinis batting up the order in the next game or the coming games where we give him more overs to play and give him a chance to go out there and be the dangerous Stoinis that he is.”Daniel Vettori and Piyush Chawla, experts on ESPNcricinfo’s show T20 Time Out also expressed that Super Giants need to bat Stoinis and Holder higher, before Krunal Pandya, who batted at No. 5 on Sunday.”Honestly, they are heavily dependent on their top three,” Chawla said. “In the middle order, you just have Marcus Stoinis, who comes quite late, and if you see the other batters, they don’t have much experience. The whole middle order has been exposed for Lucknow in a couple of games especially.””We’ve had it on numerous occasions that quality, proven, generally international batsmen have been left to Nos. 5, 6 and 7 or left too late and then unproven domestic batsmen or even unproven international batsmen are batting ahead of them,” Vettori said, “and it seems to be counterintuitive to have that kind of set-up because Stoinis has batted on numerous occasions up the order and Krunal Pandya hasn’t; he has mostly batted at No. 6 or 7. It feels like they’ve got their roles mixed up, and also Jason Holder, who is one of the best middle-order batsmen, has the potential to go up.”Vettori further said there was no need for Super Giants to experiment with Badoni at No. 3 when Deepak Hooda had been excelling there earlier. “You want your best batsmen out there to take it on because Hooda has batted at three on numerous occasions now, and he has looked like KL Rahul in a lot of ways. I don’t believe there’s any need to protect your best batsmen.”

“I think energy on the field is more important than a few balls in the nets,” says head coach Dave Houghton

Danyal Rasool21-Oct-20222:23

Takeaways: Two-time champions WI bow out; Zimbabwe back among big boys

Zimbabwe qualified for this T20 World Cup in July, but for the past three months, coach Dave Houghton has given short shrift to the idea that they qualified for anything at all. For him, qualification meant getting through to where he feels Zimbabwe belong, in the Super 12s. He wasn’t too keen on going to Australia only to come back after playing three games.The self-serving approach might be to overplay the achievement of getting to the main round, burnishing his credentials as a coach, but at every opportunity, Houghton has chosen to underplay it. “I did say to the guys when we left home, it’s nice we qualified to get here, but that’s not our main objective,” he said after Zimbabwe’s beat Scotland to make the Super 12s. “Our main objective is to get through and then cause as much damage in the next stage as we can.Related

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• Chatara, Ervine and Raza lead Zimbabwe into Super 12s

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“Obviously we’re over the moon. When I took over in June or so for the qualifiers in Bulawayo, the biggest and main objective was to get here. We got ahead and won five of those games, and they were as pressurised as any game because each game was like a cup final. So we had some sort of experience of playing a game with as much on it as this one is like today.”Zimbabwe had left themselves with no room for error after a disappointing batting performance saw them slump to defeat against West Indies. In that game, Houghton’s preference for ultra-aggression had perhaps played a part in the defeat, with Zimbabwe going after a quality West Indian bowling attack even when the required rate meant they could have adopted a more sedate approach. A predisposition for caution in this crunch game might only have been natural, but Houghton has drilled his side too well to let them fall back into those old habits.”Going into today’s game, I wanted us to play the same way,” he said. “I’m excited by the fact our players will continue to do it. Win or lose in a cut-throat game like today, we could be going home at 6 tomorrow morning, or staying in the hotel overnight and preparing for the next round.”It was a tough game, and our guys are happy to keep playing that way, and I want us to keep playing that way. It’s the only way we’ll improve.”There has been a sea change in results and the morale in the Zimbabwean camp since Houghton took over about four months ago. But Houghton doesn’t believe himself to be a tactical mastermind who overhauled the way Zimbabwe played cricket, somewhat quaintly admitting he “doesn’t really know the answer to what he’s brought to the team”.”The only thing I’ve done to the guys is saying ‘you have the freedom to play, and there will be no repercussions if you make mistakes’. One other thing I’ve done is changed our practising schedules. The Zimbabwean guys have worked really hard to get techniques to compete at this level, but they’ll over-practise. If I leave them to their own devices, they’ll practice from 8am to 4pm every day of the week. The problem with that is that by day two, the practising becomes mundane and boring and nobody is actually going forward.”So I’ve really cut back on our practices. Our practices are a bit shorter and with a bit more quality, and there are days where I won’t let them practise at all because I think energy on the field is more important than a few balls in the nets.”

“The guys have worked really hard to get techniques to compete at this level, but they’ll over-practise. If I leave them to their own devices, they’ll practice from 8am to 4pm every day of the week. So I’ve really cut back on our practices”

Houghton has also repeatedly offered a straight bat to any invitations to criticise the previous coach Lalchand Rajput or his setup, even if the difference since his arrival has been like chalk and cheese. But in his own taciturn way, he did offer suggestions as to why Zimbabwe found themselves in such a deep malaise earlier this year, hinting there were perhaps “too many repercussions, a bit of over-analysis and a bit of over-practising”. He also said that Zimbabwe didn’t really have too many team talks under him. It is something fast bowler Brad Evans also told ESPNcricinfo earlier, saying a meeting that lasted ten minutes under him would be considered unduly long.”I don’t think it was too difficult,” Houghton said. “Nobody wants to be unhappy. So to get them to go from unhappy to happy is not that difficult at all. Once they realised that I’m not going to be a person who’s going to be standing there pointing fingers and shouting at them all day, I think immediately there was a change in attitude.”The last time Houghton was Zimbabwe’s coach at a World Cup was at the ODI edition in 1999. On that occasion, too, Zimbabwe qualified for the second round and finished fifth, their best performance at a World Cup. It included wins against South Africa and India in the first round.It’s perhaps tempting to get carried away, but Houghton has the experience to understand the step-up in the quality his side is about to face. “I’m happy to talk about our ambitions, but I don’t want to be unrealistic,” he said. “Obviously everybody would sit here and say we want to win it. We want to cause some damage. If we could take home a couple of big scalps as well, that would be great.”Just as he is about to leave, though, there is a mischievous little glint in his eye and the shadow of a smile. “If we could get into the semi-finals, even better.”Houghton then gets up and makes his way out to join his players in the celebrations. He is a happy man in charge of a happy team. Despite Zimbabwe Cricket’s financial condition, you cannot put a price on that.

Visitors can relate to how galvanised England felt on emotionally charged day

Firdose Moonda10-Sep-2022There isn’t more to say about South Africa’s batting. They produced a repeat of Manchester, but the knock-off version, putting in their worst batting performance in England since 1912. But instead of being angry, maybe we should be understanding. If there’s ever been a day for a little softness, today’s it.Not a person watching this morning’s commemorative events to celebrate the life of the late Queen Elizabeth II would have been unmoved by the hush over the ground during the minute’s silence, broken by a single bell chime and followed by a powerful, poignant delivery of the national anthems. Laura Wright sang “Nkosi sikelel’ iAfrika” with no instrumental accompaniments and hit every note to perfection. She was then joined by the almost-capacity crowd for the first rendition of “God Save the King” at a sporting event since 1952, likely the first in many of their lifetimes. The words echoed and floated and bounced through the air, each one reminding us that this is one of those days we will talk about and say, “I was there”.For England, it must have been galvanising. A nation united, is how some newsreaders have described it. South Africans know what that feels like. We’ve never had a monarch but we had what former president Jacob Zuma called, the “king of kings”, the father of our nation, Nelson Mandela, who died during a visit by India in 2013. That day, South Africa had won the first ODI and that night, we danced in the streets and in the pouring rain. For weeks afterwards we celebrated the man who freed us while on the field, the show went on. South Africa went on to win the ODI series and the Test rubber that followed. Now, on the other side of the coin, perhaps they were a little overwhelmed.Barely 24 hours before play began, the Test was on the verge of not happening, and 24 hours before that, a toss had taken place in anticipation of a decider that carried the weight of what Dean Elgar called a, “World Cup final”. Then, there was the uncertainty of it actually happening, the discussion of an extension, which was considered and ultimately refused by South Africa, and there must also have been a realisation that England, in their current mindset, would play at a pace to force a result inside three days (not that that hasn’t already happened twice in this series). Knowing that they would have to bat first, in bowler-friendly conditions, with an inexperienced line-up in front of an emotionally charged crowd, must have left South Africa jittery.No team likes to make excuses, and South Africa didn’t, with batting coach Justin Sammons only describing it as an “extraordinary” day and praising England’s pinpoint attack. “The reality is that we’ve got to give the opposition credit. They bowled really, really well,” he said. “They got the ball in the right area 80 percent of the time and continually asked questions of us. We didn’t give our wickets away through mental errors. It was execution.”Dean Elgar walks back disappointed after falling for 1•Getty ImagesFacing Ollie Robinson, in particular, who targeted the area outside the off stump and got the ball to move, has proven beyond most of the South African batters. Sammons put that down to inexperience and he has a point. Only one of South Africa’s top eight – Dean Elgar – had played a Test in England before this tour and while Elgar is within sight of 5,000 Test runs, (he is currently 66 runs away) South Africa’s next most experienced batter is their No.9, Keshav Maharaj, who is also the only other player in the line-up with 1,000 Test runs. Kagiso Rabada is next with 827.Comparatively, five of South Africa’s top six had collectively scored 1,387 Test runs before this Test, and had 33 caps between them. South Africa have missed Temba Bavuma’s 51 Tests and average of over 40 in the last two years, but they have also struggled because players like Aiden Markram and Rassie van der Dussen were out of form before they were dropped and injured respectively, and they’ve had to make big changes as a result.Ordinarily, bringing in a player like Ryan Rickelton, who moves his feet well and has a convincing shuffle across, or Khaya Zondo, who held his own in defence and showed some aggression against the spinner, would have been about blooding them in the side. But on this tour, it’s been about hoping they can bring some redemption, which is not entirely fair on two newcomers.Ideally, the pair would be cushioned by players who are experienced and in form, and allowed time to settle. In this match, they are batting in a brittle line-up, which may ultimately mask their potential to be good Test batters. The same may apply to Keegan Petersen, who scored three half-centuries in four innings against India but has managed just 99 runs in the same number of knocks here. He has been uncertain outside the off stump, nicked off three times and was then bowled leaving today. A lot is expected of Petersen but he is currently making just his tenth Test appearanceWith so many struggling batters, the sum of South Africa’s parts is low, which Sammons recognises as their biggest issue. “What we’ve been missing is partnerships. Big partnerships. A hundred-plus partnership,” he said. “For that to happen, individuals have to make their starts count. That hasn’t happened on this tour.”Related

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South Africa have not had a century stand across the three Tests, just three half-century partnerships at Lord’s and one at Old Trafford. At the Oval, so far, their highest is 36. The lack of application may cause people to question why they did not “pick up a bat once”, in Petersen’s words, in the six-day break they had between the end of the Manchester Test and the resumption of their training last Saturday for this one. It may even extend to asking why they didn’t have a tour match in that time, albeit they lost by an innings in their warm-up against England Lions before the Lord’s Test, and still went on to win that game by an innings themselves. The grim reality is that a few extra net sessions or a warm-up match here or there is unlikely to result in South Africa making any major improvements.Those will only come when the current batters have had time in the international game, either to work out what they need to do to step up or to realise they can’t. But the deeper and darker truth is that there isn’t really anyone to replace them with, because the pipeline is not being primed for that. The decrease in South Africa’s domestic fixtures (from 10 matches a season to seven), the scant availability of top bowlers in those matches and the inevitable squeezing of the four-day game into the season’s margins, which will come when the SA20 launches next year, are all going to make it more difficult to find batters who can apply themselves for long periods of time against top-class attacks.On that point, Sammons wasn’t sure where to lay the blame. “There’s a massive difference in any first class set-up around the world compared to Test cricket,” he said. “You are going to be tested in Test cricket in different ways than you are domestically. Even guys who have played 100 Tests are trying to improve.”That may well be true, but those guys are improving from a much higher base than South Africa’s current line-up. Instead, all he can do is try to create some kind of foundation for South Africa to work off, while acknowledging that it is not yielding the desired results. “The guys are putting in a lot of work behind the scenes and we own that we haven’t been good enough,” Sammons said. “But we are working hard. That is a fact. I am positive that, sooner rather than later, we will start reaping those rewards.”But will that be too late to challenge in this series?

“The next three or four weeks is going to be about challenging ourselves outside of our comfort zones,” says the middle-order batter

Firdose Moonda21-Nov-2022South Africa’s red-ball batters are trying to make themselves as uncomfortable as possible as they prepare for their three-Test series in Australia next month. All the Test batters, with the exception of white-ball captain Temba Bavuma, who has been given time off, will play in at least one of the three rounds of domestic first-class matches taking place before the squad leaves in early December.For Rassie van der Dussen, who is returning from a finger injury, which sidelined him for over two months, his training is as much about runs as it is about readying himself for a hostile reception in Australia.Related

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“The next three or four weeks is going to be about challenging ourselves outside of our comfort zones,” van der Dussen told ESPNcricinfo at the launch of the SA20 league recently. “When you go to Australia, from a skill point of view, they have some of the best in the world. Their bowlers hardly bowl any bad balls and keep you under pressure. And then, from a pressure point of view, the media, the crowds, it’s those kinds of things you need to expect when you go there, from what I have heard. So the next few weeks will be about pushing myself out of my comfort zone and making sure I address all those factors so, when I get there, I know I have done the hard yards and the uncomfortable yards in practice.”Van der Dussen, like most of the line-up barring captain Dean Elgar and Bavuma, has never played a Test match in Australia. South Africa have not toured Australia over the Christmas-New Year period since the 2008-9 season, when they won a series there for the first time. They have not lost a series in Australia since, but haven’t played Tests there since late 2016.That may suggest South Africa head to Australia with some advantage. But Australia are currently the top-ranked team on the World Test Championship (WTC) points table. South Africa sit second, and one of the main reasons for it has been their bowling unit. In the current WTC cycle, South Africa’s attack has the best bowling average (22.98) and lowest strike rate among all teams, taking a wicket almost once every seven overs. Contrastingly, their batting has struggled. Only Bangladesh and West Indies have scored fewer runs than South Africa since July 2021, during which time South Africa have only crossed 300 five times in 19 innings, and gone past 400 just once. They have been bowled out for under 200 eight times and have the fewest number of centuries: two.

“Numbers-wise, we haven’t done what we have wanted to, which is to score more hundreds and get the team to 400-plus, but the Test Championship table shows that we’ve done all right”Rassie van der Dussen

Van der Dussen acknowledged that the numbers have not been up to standard, but he suggested that difficult conditions were somewhat to blame. “If you look at the averages of the batters, it’s not up there. But you have to see the context, in terms of the conditions we’ve played in for the last two years – it’s been very bowler-friendly. For example here (in South Africa) against India and in New Zealand and England.”Numbers-wise, we haven’t done what we have wanted to, which is to score more hundreds and get the team to 400-plus, but the Test Championship table shows that we’ve done all right. We’re sitting second and we will definitely look to improve.”Asked if the line-up’s inability to convert their starts into big scores was an indicator of a systemic problem, van der Dussen moved to quell serious concerns. “I am not worried. I know what we are about as a batting unit. I refer to some characters and backgrounds. I know the types of people we have in our batting line-up and the resilience we’ve shown,” he said. “There’s got to be a time when it’s going to click. We’ve got to keep doing the same things in training, keep doing the hard yards and the uncomfortable work and we’ve got to believe we are one innings away from your next big innings.”It feels like the idea of runs being just around the corner is a line South Africa consistently use. It was used when asked about South Africa’s dearth of hundreds or more recently, Bavuma’s form in T20 cricket and specifically at the recent World Cup. After missing South Africa’s tour to England because of an elbow injury, Bavuma returned to score 70 runs in five World Cup matches, the least among South Africa’s specialist batters, and with the lowest strike rate, apart from Tristan Stubbs (31 runs in four matches at a strike rate of 100.00).Rassie van der Dussen is hoping to get his white-ball place back after missing the T20 World Cup with a broken finger•Getty ImagesVan der Dussen backed Bavuma, and said strike rate could be over-rated at international events, where temperament was more important. “In domestic tournaments, strike rate, boundary count is a big thing. But sometimes the value of a calm head gets overlooked. I think people make too much of it at international cricket,” he said. “In domestic leagues, it’s a big thing, people want to see sixes being hit and a lot of action but when the pressure is on in an international tournament, I believe we need guys with calm heads and clear thoughts.”That’s what van der Dussen hoped that the likes of Bavuma, Elgar and he would provide to a Test squad that heads to Australia without their No.3, Keegan Petersen, who tore his hamstring in the domestic T20 competition. They also have an interim coach, Malibongwe Maketa, following Mark Boucher’s departure. They have added two back-up batters in Heinrich Klaasen and Theunis de Bruyn, who have 13 Test caps between them but have been playing professionally for a decade and eight years respectively.”If you look at the squad, we have guys who have been seasoned domestic cricketers for years and years,” he said. “It’s guys who have been around the block, maybe not in terms of number of Test matches played but we are hardened first-class cricketers and we are going to lean on that going to Australia. We hardly have any youngsters in the batting line-ups so it’s up to us to step up.”Klaasen, Elgar and wicketkeeper-batter Kyle Verreynne all warmed up with centuries in last week’s round of fixtures, where van der Dussen made his comeback. He scored 45 and 10 in his first match back and his progress is on track for the first Test in Brisbane which starts on December 17. “I’ve been batting for the last four weeks and I’ve been back to facing full bowlers for the last two weeks. It went better than I expected.”He was also aiming to get his white-ball place back after missing the T20 World Cup as he recovered from a broken finger, and would be in action for MI Cape Town in the SA20 before pushing for a place in South Africa’s ODI squad. “I like to think I will be back in the mix, seeing that I am fit again now,” he said. “I love white-ball cricket and I love the challenge of T20, and the tactical and strategic part of T20.”

Oppositions have been able to push back from positions of struggle while batting and India’s top four are not as prolific as they used to be

Sidharth Monga24-Dec-20222:29

Jaffer: ‘Intent of Indian batters disappointing’

India might still win this one. In fact they are still favourites to win this Test because their in-form batters are yet to come out to bat, but the third day’s play in Mirpur was like a teaser in which what once were faraway clouds slowly get darker.This is a team in transition. Their main batters are past their best, they rarely get a pick of their first-choice bowlers, and they don’t have a fit captain. In this year alone, India have had three captains in seven Tests. There is a revolving door in the bowling department because of fitness issues and the odd debatable selection.This team is not that ruthless clinical side that used to rarely ever let an advantage go. In four Tests this year, India have been in situations they used to close out matches from with eyes closed, but they have lost three of those and are 45 for 4 chasing 145 in the fourth.Two worrisome trends made a comeback in Mirpur on day three where India effectively had Bangladesh at 26 for 6 in the third innings thanks to their 87-run lead in the first innings.Now it’s not like India never conceded partnerships in their golden run, but they always kept a lid on the scoring rate. It used to feel like they automatically knew when to bowl dry and when to attack more. There are many examples of this, not least the Johannesburg win in 2017-18 when Hashim Amla and Dean Elgar added 119 for the second wicket in a chase of 241, but they never ran away, going at little over two an over. In Bengaluru in 2016-17, after getting bowled out on day one, India showed similar control bowling against Australia on day two.The worrying sign is that in this year, teams have been able to push back from positions of struggle and push back at a pace that India have not been able to arrest.Defending 239 in Johannesburg in the first Test of the year and 211 in the second, India lost in 67.4 and 63.3 overs respectively. They went searching for wickets instead of just bowling well for long spells, which brought them success earlier. At Edgbaston, England chased down 378 in 76.4 overs at nearly five an over.Litton Das led Bangladesh’s fightback•Associated PressIn Mirpur, too, it was not so much that Bangladesh added enough runs to make a match out of it, but the pace at which they did so. That, and some good fortune as it showed in Virat Kohli missing three-and-a-half catches, is partly the nature of counterattacks, but when Bangladesh did counterattack it didn’t look like they were having to take a lot of risks.Overall, India bowled well in the third innings. In fact they produced false responses more frequently than Bangladesh did in the fourth, but during the two partnerships that got Bangladesh 106 runs in 20.4 overs they often failed to bowl to their fields, conceding easy boundaries despite in-and-out fields.It didn’t help that India didn’t have a third spinner, which seems like a case of having misread the pitch. Axar Patel bowled a 19-over unbroken spell, and India rarely ever could have two spinners in tandem.On another day, one of the four catches sticks, and we are not talking of this, but that might just cover up the other small cloud on the horizon. The batting of this team in transition has needed Nos. 5 to 8 to bail them out more often than they or their leadership will find acceptable.Since the start of 2020, India’s top four have averaged 31.58; only South Africa, Bangladesh and West Indies have worse numbers. In the matches that India have played over this period, the opposition top 4 has averaged only marginally better, which points to the conditions being tough where India have played.After a point, batters can do only so much if the bowling is unerring in difficult conditions. That is the nature of Test cricket. Now unless India’s bowlers have been way better than the opposition’s over this period, the batting cloud is not as dark as it might seem.It still is a cloud. When India dominated Test cricket from 2016 to 2020, their top four averaged twice the opposition’s top four, a little over 50 as against a little over 25. So unless the bowling has dipped dramatically over the last two years, the batting has. Kohli is averaging in the 20s since the start of 2020, Cheteshwar Pujara is barely in the 30s, and only Rohit Sharma is in the 40s.There has been a dramatic dip in the averages of India’s top four, and a small rise in the opposition’s top four in this period as compared to the four golden years before that.A transition has to be delicately handled, and India’s World Test Championship hopes also rest on winning four out of five Tests, including this one. Usually you would think India are the favourites to make the final considering the remaining four Tests are at home, where they have lost just two Tests in the last 10 years. However, this batting transition and the occasional bowling profligacy might make their fans more nervous than they should be given their record at home.