It was the perfect result for the Ahmedabad crowd: their defending champions getting off to a winning start, even while they had their fill of the MS Dhoni show

Shashank Kishore31-Mar-2023On IPL opening night, a 100,000-strong Ahmedabad crowd enjoyed the best of both worlds. It couldn’t have been more perfect for them than an MS Dhoni special and Gujarat Titans win.Except, Motera’s definition of “special” was something as simple as Dhoni tying his shoelaces, Dhoni waving while being paraded around the ground on a golf cart decked up like a chariot, or, even better, Dhoni emerging from the dressing room in his match gear. Who could fault them for going into a tizzy, though, with it being just shy of eight years since he last played at the ground. In fact, it was closing in on a year since he was last spotted on a cricket field of note anywhere, and that last sighting was at the end of an atypically woeful run for Chennai Super Kings at IPL 2022. Yes, everyone was waiting to see Dhoni, at 41, hoping for one more glimpse of the man if not the legend.They had braved traffic snarls, the sapping humidity that typically follows a summer downpour, the long queues to pick up physical tickets, and impossible levels of frisking and poking and prodding to finally get to their seats. As if all of this wasn’t stressful enough, they had to sit through the opening ceremony with the anxiety of whether Dhoni would actually play.On match eve, Dhoni had trained with knee braces. The news spread like wildfire on social media, with reports emerging that he’d probably have to skip the game. So every move Dhoni made today was viewed through the prism of him being a doubtful starter.It was a full house at Motera to kick off IPL 2023•AFP/Getty ImagesWhen he stretched his right leg, they wondered if he’d cramped. When he crouched low and did his wicketkeeping drills, they wondered if he was testing his hamstrings. When he gently lobbed a few overarm deliveries during the warm-ups, they wondered if the casual vibe was a sign of him not playing. Then, during the match, in the dying moments, when he clutched his toes to stretch after diving but failing to stop four leg byes, there was a collective cry of anguish, the four leg byes that benefitted Titans be damned.It needed a breathtaking opening ceremony to briefly keep the Dhoni chorus away. It felt like a home game for Chennai Super Kings, but when has it not been so at a Super Kings game, particularly since Dhoni’s message on Instagram at 19:29 on India’s Independence Day in 2020 to “consider me retired” from international cricket. Covid-19 pushed the IPL that year to September and CSK went on to have a season to forget, finishing joint-last on the points table. He couldn’t sign off altogether from cricket on that note, surely?In 2021, Dhoni duly lifted the IPL trophy. Dad’s Army had done it. There couldn’t have been a sweeter way to bid goodbye, right? But the win hadn’t come in Chennai, with the IPL once again moved to the UAE due to Covid-19. How could he have left without saying goodbye to his beloved Chepauk faithful? And so he came back in 2022, only for the tournament to be played only in Mumbai and Pune as cricket, like everything else, slowly got back on its feet after the ravages of the pandemic.Hardik Pandya could not have been faulted if he was left wondering about the concept of home advantage•Associated PressIn a rare expression of emotion after the season, Dhoni said he’d like to say goodbye in front of his home fans. When? No one knew.And so, here we were, in 2023, beginning all over again. Wondering if this would be his last dance. It’s a thought that consumed many in the crowd as they watched the opening ceremony. There was a point when the cameras panned to the Super Kings dugout with Dhoni the only one seated there, his feet tapping to Arijit Singh’s chartbusters. From singing along to “Channa Mereya” the crowd switched to “Dhooo-ni! Dhooo-ni!”. It was a proper throwback for those who grew up in the ’90s and 2000s, to hearing chants of “Saaa-chin! Saaa-chin!”.At several points during Super Kings’ innings, the crowd yelled for Dhoni to come out. For close to 90 minutes, they keep trying. At one point when Shivam Dube kept swinging for the hills and missing, they lost patience. The home team was in the ascendancy despite an astounding Ruturaj Gaikwad innings. You’d think the home fans would have rejoiced. They didn’t. They kept waiting for Dhoni. And after 90 minutes, when he finally took strike, the noise was deafening.But the loudest cheer on the night was yet to come. It was reserved for when he clattered his fourth ball for a six off Josh Little. Hardik Pandya could have well been left wondering if this was what they meant by home advantage.The Dhoni mania briefly gave way to rich applause when Shubman Gill played a series of aesthetically pleasing shots to get Titans’ chase going. But every now and then, there was a reminder that the fans were mostly here for Dhoni.A touch of Titans, a dash of Dhoni – the recipe in Ahmedabad on Friday evening•AFP via Getty ImagesThe 179 Super Kings had set wasn’t quite in the Dhoni territory of choke by spin, definitely not on this deck where the ball skidded through and came on nicely. But in empowering two rookies in Tushar Deshpande and Rajvardhan Hangargekar with the new ball, Dhoni played his cards like he always has amid the clamour.He was calm even when Deshpande went for a succession of boundaries and when he and Hangargekar overstepped. He was waiting for that one opening, and when he finally had it, he brought Ravindra Jadeja on and promptly attacked, with a slip in place for Hardik. Perhaps the presence of that fielder prompted Hardik’s dismissal, bowled missing a sweep.The match nearly went into Dhoni’s grasp after Hangargekar struck in the 18th over, but in the end it became amply evident that Super Kings’ middle-order slip-up, after Gaikwad’s stunner, was going to cost them. Dhoni alluded to this, his parting line at the presentation being: “I’m not disappointed, our bowlers tried their best.” It was a typical, succinct Dhoni assessment of where they’d erred.As for the crowd, they left a happy lot, perhaps wishing they could see a repeat of this clash come May 28, and return in big numbers to cheer for the man in the yellow No. 7 jersey while having their own team defend their crown.

An astonishing onslaught against Australia showed all the hallmarks of his white-ball evolution

Firdose Moonda16-Sep-2023Heinrich Klaasen spent Friday night either watching the highlights of his 83-ball 174 or looking after his nine-month old daughter Laya; or maybe juggling a bit of both as he soaked in what he hinted was the most enjoyable match of his career.”It was special and a lot to take in. I will go tonight and watch a bit of the highlights,” a visibly emotional Klaasen said afterwards, though he later turned on dad mode when asked what keeps him motivated. “Having a family has changed things for me. The little one doesn’t care what I’ve done tonight. I saw she’s awake already so it might be a long night.”It was likely a long one either way as Klaasen tried to make sense of a blistering knock that he approached with a Midas touch.Related

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As it was happening, he tried not to think about it and forced himself to stay in every moment of the match, so much so that when offered the chance to sit out the first part of South Africa’s fielding innings, he refused, so that could be on the park with the rest of the team.”What’s changed in my career is that I am playing every ball as it is and for me to stay in that mindset, I don’t recap what I have done the previous ball or think of what I might do the next ball,” he said. “Tim David asked me how many sixes I hit and I said I didn’t know. It shows my mindset was good and I was only focusing on what’s coming in that moment. I have to go back and look at it. It was awesome out there and you don’t often get that feeling – maybe once or twice in your career.”He used the word changed because Klaasen wasn’t always such an in-the-zone player. He admitted that in his early days, he tried to do much and emulate players he admired but that it didn’t always work.”You look up to some role models and you want to be like them – like AB de Villiers. You want to play all the shots but the genius behind guys like AB was knowing when to play them,” Klaasen said. “For me, I explored a lot with it and it didn’t work. It was about maturing into my game and knowing my options are.”That level of fine-tuning only happened when Klaasen was dropped after a series against Sri Lanka in 2021. He missed matches against India and Bangladesh in early 2022 and went back to his domestic team, the Titans, based at SuperSport Park. “The coaches said to me, ‘You are using too many options. Let’s limit yourself,’ he explained.

Who would you pick?#SAvAUS #CricketTwitter pic.twitter.com/hwzsweJjlE

— ESPNcricinfo (@ESPNcricinfo) September 15, 2023

Pakistan’s attack bowled plenty of dots at the Chinnaswamy, but it was the ones that went for four and six that set the tone

Osman Samiuddin20-Oct-20232:06

Pujara: Babar succumbed to pressure

The first over of the match, bowled by Shaheen Shah Afridi, was a good over. It was not the great over that we have come to expect from Afridi but it was a good over. He forced Pakistan to take a slightly ludicrous review off the first ball and tried to push for another very optimistic one off the fourth, but otherwise it went well. He wasn’t straining too hard for that full-length ball that he hasn’t been able to nail right of late. He showed signs he was willing to mix his length and off five balls he conceded just one run.Off one though, the fifth ball of the over, he went a little too full. It shaped in a touch as well. No matter. This is the Chinnaswamy. The boundaries here are served Size Extra Small. The pitch is true. There may only have been four ODIs at the stadium in the last 10 years but we’ve all seen the IPL. We all know the feats of white-ball batting magic that are written here. Also, facing up was Mitch Marsh and there is no cleaner hitter of a cricket ball right now. With minimum fuss, he launched a six straight down the ground.It was a very Mitch Marsh shot. The over read: four dots, one slight error, one maximum. In not quite the way Pakistan would have wanted, the tone was set for most of the rest of this innings.Related

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Hasan Ali bowled eight dot balls in his first two overs. He began his second over from round the wicket though with such a floaty leg-stump half-volley it would’ve been rude had David Warner turned down the invite to scoop it over fine leg for six. He ended the over with a wide length ball that Marsh crunched through point. In between there were three dot balls.Iftikhar Ahmed, called up far earlier than he might have been expecting and turning out to be a far better part-time option than anyone expected, bowled a decent eighth over. Good lengths, nice darts, some dots. Apart from the third ball which was a tiny bit short, a teensy bit wide, and bam, meet Warner’s cut shot. He may be cuddlier now but that cut shot is still mean as hell.Usama Mir came on for the 11th over and bowled a decent one. Mixed the flight, mixed the pace a little, got some turn, bowled three dot balls. He also bowled one that was a tiny bit short, a teensy bit wide and bam, meet the Warner cut. Again. It’s still mean as hell.This pattern would repeat itself time and time again in the first 35 overs of the Australia innings. Lots of dot balls, lots of boundary balls. Instinctively this feels like a very Pakistani malaise, especially of this attack: good enough bowlers to bowl good balls, but not enough of them for long enough. In Bengaluru though, this pattern formed in record-breaking extremis: Australia’s total was the highest made by a team (since we began our ball-by-ball records in 2002) where 50% or more of the balls they faced were dot balls. Pakistan bowled 152 dot balls. But, they also conceded 10 sixes in the first 25 overs, the most they’ve conceded in the first half of an ODI innings. Two games ago, against Sri Lanka, Pakistan bowled 144 dot balls – 47.8% – and still conceded 345.Shaheen Shah Afridi had to shoulder the burden again•ICC via Getty ImagesIt’s difficult to be too harsh on the bowling especially on a ground that is always very harsh on bowlers. Pakistan were playing here for the first time. They had clocked the smaller dimensions in training. They knew it would be tough. Their fast bowlers worked on hitting the right lengths in training, ideally somewhere around back of a good length and at the stumps always.By all accounts those sessions went well, but in the heat of a World Cup game, it didn’t translate. We’re talking a fairly tiny area of this pitch you can hit and not be taken for runs off. And even then the line must be super tight: width is a sin, too straight a folly. In those first 20 overs, where much of the game was shaped, though Pakistan tried they didn’t hit that spot often enough and the margins were cruel. When they hit back of a length (as recorded by our ball-by-ball data), they conceded at a strike rate of 84.61; when they hit length, they went at nearly 140. It’s not a massive difference in terms of feet, but the costs of missing it is significant.”We knew this ground is famous for a boundary festival,” Pakistan’s bowling coach Morne Morkel said later. “Upfront we leaked some soft boundaries – that was one of our key discussion points, to keep hitting the deck and keep the stumps in play. We know in India any bit of width you can throw your hands through the line. That was one area we lacked.”If they hit or forced some good shots, we can live with that. But we couldn’t string enough balls on the stumps, that’s the learning we will take, the improvements we need to make. Those are the small margins. They will hit your good balls for four, but can we eliminate our bad balls and bowl less percentage of bad balls especially upfront?”The one man – well, boy really – who was bringing that control this year, who was hitting the right lengths for the pitches he bowled on more consistently is, of course, not here. A number of sides are dealing with the absence of big names in this tournament, so Pakistan are hardly alone in that misfortune, nor can they afford to dwell on it.But the loss of Naseem Shah, in a side where depth and the readiness of that depth has always felt thin and stretched, hits doubly on days like this. It has put a greater burden on Afridi (who at least confirmed here he can carry it) and asked Hasan and Haris Rauf to bowl outside their comfort zones.”Naseem Shah is a quality bowler and if you look at his stats, the consistency he gave us with the new ball upfront was amazing,” Morkel conceded. “The partnership he formed with Shaheen was fantastic. It’s meant slightly new roles for Hasan Ali and Haris Rauf with the new ball in the powerplay.”If you look at their stats, they are guys used to bowling outside the powerplay. They’re learning, they’re trying their heart out, but Naseem obviously is a big loss.”In the final reckoning, Pakistan’s comeback in the field and then the chase until fairly deep into the game should provide some solace. This was – as Mir dropped an early, crucial, all-time dolly, as Rauf conceded 24 in his first over, as Warner took full toll of the chance, as Marsh celebrated his birthday with a hundred (he hit an Ashes hundred this summer for his brother Shaun’s birthday too) – shaping up to be one of those operatically bad Pakistan days. In the end it was bad in just an underwhelming kind of way.Except a bad day at a World Cup is a bad day no matter the scale and Pakistan cannot afford too many more now.

A lot of it has to do with their batters being out of form, but there have been other things bubbling away as well

Mohammad Isam30-Oct-20235:00

Shakib: ‘If everyone played their part well, we wouldn’t be in this position’

As the travelling Bangladeshi fans gather around for some tea in central Kolkata on Monday evening, the collective struggles of England, Pakistan and Sri Lanka in the World Cup is helping lessen the blow for them. India beating England by 100 runs doesn’t quite have the same feels as Netherlands beating Bangladesh, but a wee bit of schadenfreude is still worth their while.There were high hopes last year when Bangladesh automatically qualified to this World Cup. They ultimately finished third in the ICC ODI Super League, a position that then captain Tamim Iqbal had targeted before the cycle had begun in 2021.”We took up the qualification process very seriously,” he said in November. “We knew we had some away series too. We didn’t want to wait till the very end to qualify. Going into the 2023 World Cup, we definitely want to do really well. If we qualify as one of the top three or four teams, it makes sense talking about wanting to play in the semi-finals or finals. If you go in as say the No. 4 team, it means you have done well over 20-23 games. For a team like us, it would give us some confidence.”Tamim saying what he did then made a lot of sense. Bangladesh had crushed South Africa in the deciding game in their ODI series last year. They won easily in the West Indies. They fought back from improbable situations against Afghanistan and India.Related

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Six games into the World Cup, though, that statement just sounds off. That Bangladesh were playing well through 2022 is a distant memory. Even those who had performed well, look a shadow of themselves.It all began earlier this year when they lost the ODI series against England. Their meek approach against the reigning world champions wasn’t made into a big deal at the time but it seems to have followed them to India.There was a definite drop of form despite Bangladesh beating England in the T20Is and then beating Ireland quite comfortably in both the home and away series. A newly-introduced rotation policy also left captain Tamim unsure of what his best combination was for the World Cup ahead. The cracks began to show again when they lost a series to Afghanistan in July, though the consensus is Tamim’s retirement drama played a big role in that defeat.The Asia Cup wasn’t a convincing campaign and things got worse against New Zealand last month, but there was leeway there. Bangladesh were using those matches to prepare for the World Cup so that was more important than the results.Shakib Al Hasan and his Bangladesh team haven’t had too many reasons to smile at this World Cup•AFP/Getty ImagesStill, the up-and-down run into the tournament hadn’t done the team any favours and coach Chandika Hathurusinghe and captain Shakib Al Hasan had started to underplay their chances in interviews and press conferences. Perhaps they knew what was about to happen.Litton Das, the poster child of the new Bangladesh only last year, has become an example of their inconsistency. Najmul Hossain Shanto’s great form of the last 12 months has totally deserted him. Tanzid Hasan is being given time to learn and grow but some of the ways he’s been dismissed aren’t helping his cause.The BCB has contributed to this mess too. Had the board dealt with Tamim with a little more care, he would’ve been at this World Cup, offering stability at the top of the order. To add to that, two players whom the board thought were past their prime are the two who have shown the way forward. ESPNcricinfo had learned back in March that the BCB was planning to move on from Mushfiqur Rahim and Mahmudullah. Fortunately for them, that didn’t come to pass.The Bangladesh management has put more faith in someone like Mehidy Hasan Miraz, whose surprising batting form has led to his being shuttled up and down the batting order. And while there may be merit in using him to disrupt the opposition’s plans, it still led to other more established players batting out of position. It was also not a good look that a bowler who can bat was being given that much freedom when Mushfiqur and Mahmudullah, who are much more capable run-scorers, got stuck to Nos. 6 and 7.For many the buck will stop with Bangladesh’s batting unit for their poor World Cup performance. Except for the first match against Afghanistan and the first 90-odd minutes against India, they haven’t looked like a collective that can chase successfully or set up a good total.The main characters – Hathurusinghe and Shakib – are not new to the scene. Hathurusinghe returned to the Bangladesh job in February. He took over from a very successful Russell Domingo, who had a decent time in terms of win percentage but fell out with the BCB directors on many aspects. Hathurusinghe is a BCB favourite, who was approached to return to the job he left in 2017, several times.Shakib is the country’s greatest sportsperson, but the pre-World Cup interview he gave, where he rounded on Tamim, was bad timing. It had the potential to distract the team from the job on the field and, after the loss to Netherlands on Saturday, Shakib ended up admitting it himself.How the BCB and the Bangladesh team management couldn’t prevent a senior player going after another senior player in the press is a topic for a different day. But ahead of their seventh match in the World Cup, how the batting problem could never be solved remains a troublesome mystery. As much as the batters’ inconsistency and poor form is going to be questioned, the team management’s experimentation and shortcomings will also be under the spotlight.

All his experience and self-belief told R Ashwin at the end of day two that the Rajkot Test was more delicately poised than the scoreboard suggested. Here’s why

Karthik Krishnaswamy16-Feb-20242:48

Manjrekar: ‘Ashwin is a really gifted cricketer’

When you watch a game of cricket, you’re always watching two games at the same time. There is, of course, the game as it unfolds on the scorecard: runs, balls, wickets. Then there’s the game that’s shaped by all the subjectivities you bring to it: your nationality, your affection or disaffection for players and teams, the expectations you have from them, and a thousand other things including the pleasure or disgruntlement caused by your most recent meal.There are always two games in play at any given time, and apart from everything else Bazball has done to Test cricket, it has also, perhaps, widened the gap between the game on the scorecard and the game perceived by its viewers.Day two of the Rajkot Test ended with England two down and 238 runs away from India’s first-innings total of 445, with a centurion at the crease.Related

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A lot of Test matches have reached this sort of position, but very, very few have reached it in quite this manner. England have taken just 35 overs to get to 207 for 2. They have batted in a rare and thrilling manner, a manner that may lead the viewer to conclude, via extrapolation of their rates of scoring and losing wickets, that they are in a position of great dominance.The scorecard, though, still says they are two down and 238 runs away from India’s first-innings total. As breathtaking as the rush of their scoring has been, it has been the outcome of heightened risk-taking. The risks may have come off spectacularly so far, but they remain risks, with no guarantee of sustained reward.This is how India view the state of the Test match, going by the words of R Ashwin, who picked up his 500th Test wicket in the midst of England’s charge.”It depends on what the yardsticks are,” Ashwin said, when asked if England’s batting approach had left him feeling more challenged than ever as a spinner. “Honestly, I mean, the yardstick that I would apply is, how well one is bowling, how it is coming out of the hand, how much risk a batsman is having to take.”He took the example of a boundary Ollie Pope hit off Ravindra Jadeja, a squatting, overhead reverse-scoop off a good-length ball on the line of the stumps.Jasprit Bumrah hugs R Ashwin after his 500th wicket•AFP via Getty Images”If you see a batsman sitting down and hitting the ball over slip, you would probably admire [it] yourself and say, that’s the shot he wants to play if he wants to get to me, and all credit to them for doing it. They’re able to take the risk and spread the field and get the singles going. But that’s the way they want to play. We [batted for] four and a half sessions; [if] they want to get it done in two, so be it.”Whether it’s [the bowler] being challenged is how you want to look at it, and honestly, I don’t think it’s flustering us much. And even if you saw, I don’t know how it looks from the outside, [but] when it was 200 for 2, I think [our] guys were pretty relaxed. You know, in a session, there is [the chance of] four or five [wickets] that could come your way.”This is how Test innings often progress. There are long partnerships and periods of bat dominating ball, but one wicket can quickly bring another. Three partnerships accounted for over 80% of India’s total. They believe England’s innings could still follow this sort of pattern, and control figures support their belief.Over their innings, India’s batters managed a control percentage of 86, approximately, while losing a wicket (not including the run-out dismissal of Sarfaraz Khan) every 12 false shots they played. England, so far, have gone at a control percentage of 82, and lost a wicket every 18.5 false shots. That luck may not hold over their entire innings.There have already been clear moments that could have gone India’s way on another day. Jasprit Bumrah nearly found a way through Ben Duckett with a searing yorker but the toe-end of his bat saved him from lbw. Ashwin, in the last over of the day, produced an lbw shout that wasn’t given on field, and, upon review, returned an umpire’s call verdict on pitching line.

“If I have to judge and see the way I am bowling, I wouldn’t be too flustered because they haven’t been able to hit me to different parts [of the ground], which is what will [worry me].”R Ashwin

Ashwin believes these moments will keep coming, and that enough of them could still go India’s way to keep them in the game. He even suggested that the bargain of Bazball – faster scoring at the expense of a certain amount of control – could lower the workload of India’s bowlers.”They are showing a lot of intent, playing like how they would play in a T20 or one-day game,” he told the host broadcaster. “Given us less time to think and also less labour. Have to bowl good balls and expect one of those airy-fairy shots to go to hand.”The dictionary definition of airy-fairy is “impractical and foolishly idealistic”, but Ashwin’s intended meaning was probably just edged or miscued shots. India, he seemed to suggest, would have to keep bowling good balls and producing moments of mis-control.It can be hard for a bowler to know what a good ball is, of course, when any line or length is liable to disappear to the boundary. It takes self-belief and experience, qualities Ashwin has in abundance, to be able to separate process from outcome.In the face of an assault such as England’s on Friday, which left every India bowler bar Bumrah nursing economy rates north of five an over, they almost have to assess themselves like T20 death bowlers: I know I went for a few, but did I bowl to my field and make the batter take risks to access the boundary?”If I have to judge and see the way I am bowling, I wouldn’t be too flustered because they haven’t been able to hit me to different parts [of the ground], which is what will [worry me],” Ashwin said in his press conference. “I am clear on picking where they have to take a risk, such that I’m still bowling my best balls, and I thought even today, I got a really good spell going from the [Pavilion End].Ben Duckett took risks and they paid off handsomely on the day•AFP via Getty Images”Spinners have largely bowled from the Media Box end, and I think I just got one over [from there, and] there was a dismissal opportunity. So I have to try and create opportunities.”Ashwin referred here to the lbw shout against Duckett in the last over of the day. That ball disturbed the top surface of the Rajkot pitch and turned sharply past the outside edge, but Ashwin felt that sort of misbehaviour would remain a rare occurrence for the time being.”At the moment, it seems like the usual, typical Rajkot wicket,” he said. “And it will keep getting slower. The deviation that you’re seeing, the one that is turning, it’s going at a really slow clip. So yeah, I think the way the game is going, if the cracks don’t open up, I think the wicket will continue to stay pretty good for batting.”This has been the case to varying degrees in all three Tests so far in this series, with the pitches – certainly relative to those in other recent India home series – mostly on the flatter end of the spectrum. Ashwin felt this was helping England’s batters play in their preferred manner.”The conditions are dictating the pace of the play in this series,” he said. “Pretty much for the first 3-4 days in all the Test matches – barring that last day in Hyderabad, where driving became really tough – it’s been [the case that] you can literally plonk your foot down and drive on the up, and that’s been the kind of pitches [we have had].

“They are showing a lot of intent, playing like how they would play in a T20 or one-day game. Given us less time to think and also less labour. Have to bowl good balls and expect one of those airy-fairy shots to go to hand.”R Ashwin

“It is supposed to be that way, and [as bowlers you] cash in if there is a fourth-innings possibility and the wicket deteriorates. The way they are playing is high-risk cricket and [as bowlers] you would expect the rub of the green to go your way, like how it did in [the second Test in] Vizag [Visakhapatnam].”England, though, are doing everything in their power to try and keep the rub of the green going their way. They take a lot of risks, but they practice those risks assiduously, and tailor them to their batters’ individual strengths.Alex Carey reverse-swept compulsively when Australia toured India last year, but was out three times in 15 attempts at the shot. Pope has played 28 reverse-sweeps in this series without being dismissed – and this count doesn’t include the squatting reverse-scoops he’s pulled off on multiple occasions. Pope reverse-sweeps so well because he seems to have one for every occasion: he plays one variant with his front leg striding towards the ball and another with his back leg advancing, depending on the line of the ball and the intended direction of the shot.Duckett, similarly, cuts balls few other batters would dare play the shot against because he’s freakishly good at it, blessed with incredible hand-eye coordination to go with a 5’7” frame that turns good lengths into shortish lengths.England don’t just take risks, then, but make every effort to take better risks. But even the best of risks remain risks, particularly against bowling of India’s quality. England have as much faith in the collective efficacy of their risk-taking as India do in their potency with the ball. The scorecard says this match remains in the balance, and both teams know it in their bones.

The pitches have provided considerable assistance in recent seasons which has left selectors adjusting how they assess batters

Alex Malcolm24-Jan-2024This was supposed to be a summer of cashing in for Australia’s batters.Pakistan and West Indies were returning to Australia’s shores having combined for 32 wickets in four previous Tests in Australia in 2019 and 2022 respectively. The home side made 500 in four of their six innings across those two series, with batters piling up triple and double centuries galore.But Australia’s batters have not had much fun against two very inexperienced attacks this summer so far, having been tested by debutants Aamer Jamal and Shamar Joseph.Only two players, Mitchell Marsh and David Warner, have averaged more than 40 and only two centuries have been scored, although Marsh has twice fallen in the 90s.Fairly or unfairly, it has led to questions about the form and composition of Australia’s top six, with the decision to open with Steven Smith in Adelaide proving a lightning rod for opinion.But what is going unnoticed is how difficult the pitches are for batting in Australia compared to years past, and how friendly they are to seam bowling.Captain Pat Cummins believes it is a welcome relief from some of the Australian pitches that were served up in his first full home summers in the team, between 2017 and 2021.”It’s nice,” Cummins said. “My first couple of summers it felt like even the games that we won, you were bowling 45 overs as a quick bowler. You were finishing on day five and you were pretty bruised and battered.”We haven’t really had that for the last couple of summers, which is great. It feels like, say the hundred that Trav [Head] got [in Adelaide] holds even more significance. You’ve got to earn basically every run you get. I love it. It feels like you’re always in the game. Even if you’re out of it or feel like you’re a little bit ahead, a quick half an hour can turn the game. I quite like the Test matches.”The numbers certainly back up how much more difficult it has been for opposition batters against Australia’s largely unchanged attack. Between October 2017 and October 2021, of the countries that hosted 10 Test matches, Australia was the third-easiest place to bat for travelling players as they averaged 25.98. But since October 2021, that number has dropped to 19.16.Some outstanding players have played in Australia in both periods and the decline has been marked. Eight visiting players scored more than 200 runs and averaged more than 40 in Australia between 2017 and 2021, including Joe Root and Babar Azam. None of the players to have scored more than 200 since have averaged more than 35, with both Root and Babar returning in that time.Australia’s batters have faced a similar decline at home. David Warner, Steven Smith, Marnus Labuschagne and Mitchell Marsh all averaged over 66 at home between 2017 and 2021. Only Marsh has been able to maintain that since 2021 albeit his sample sizes in both periods are quite small. Travis Head and Usman Khawaja are the only mainstays to improve their home records but Khawaja has scored all three of his home centuries on very placid SCG pitches in that time and two of those have been not out when the team has declared to help that average. Head has been a complete outlier in terms of his success on lively home pitches. Khawaja and Green have vastly improved records overseas since 2021 than they do at home which is unusual for Australian players, especially given three of those tours have been in Sri Lanka, India and England.Smith agreed that the pitches have been tougher to bat on but has enjoyed the battles.”I think you can probably see that with the scores,” Smith said. “There are not too many 500-plus scores that we were getting three or four years ago pretty consistently. The games are ending a lot quicker as well. There has certainly been a lot more in it.The value of Mitchell Marsh’s runs have been high in tough conditions•Getty Images”The Kookaburra balls are staying harder as well. The new balls seem to have another coat of lacquer on them. Even after 80 overs on a couple of occasions there is still writing on the ball and you can see it still shaping and remaining reasonably hard. Maybe there is a balance between them. I feel like it has been pretty hard on the batters the last few years but it has still been fun.”Sheffield Shield pitches have also been incredibly seam-friendly in recent years. It has led Australia’s back-room staff to take a different approach to appraising the performances of the batters at both Test and first-class level, with traditional averages not carrying as much weight. Individual runs percentage contribution to an innings score is one measurement used, with 15% regarded as a good baseline for top four players and slightly less for Nos. 5-7, while runs above expected average is another.Australia coach Andrew McDonald reiterated the importance of putting context around batting averages and contributions.”On average, runs are coming down in Australia. Batting hasn’t been easy over the last couple of years,” McDonald told SEN. “So maybe some averages reflect that. We’ve got to put a bit more perspective around those averages.”But speaking after the Adelaide Test, which ended inside seven sessions of cricket with only two players passing 50, McDonald did not believe the pitches had become too seam-friendly”It’s a great debate, isn’t it?” McDonald said. “The wickets have offered more for seam bowling, and this wicket out here had a little bit of variable bounce as well. So I think it’s definitely evened up and is that a good thing or a bad thing? I think as long as you come to a venue and it’s showing consistent traits as a home team, you’re happy with that.”We’re encouraged by the seam. You’re never out of a game. Even if you’re in front of the game you’ve got to be really diligent in making sure that you maximize that position. I think it keeps everyone interested. This game probably sped up a little bit quicker than what the fans would have liked, than what probably the players would have liked, but in saying that, I think it was a balance. You earned your runs and you still had to work hard for your wickets as well.”Australia’s staff are constantly checking ball-tracking data as well to evaluate their batters’ performances.”You look at the scoreboard and it’s 5 for 144 which we were at and you put into place what you’re seeing in terms of the data that’s coming through and you understand this not easy for batting,” McDonald said. “So that just gives us an understanding of how difficult wickets are and what’s happening with the ball.”

Mercurial allrounder has struggled with form and injuries but could be key component in World Cup defence

Matt Roller20-May-2024Three years have passed since Liam Livingstone’s magical summer, when everything he touched turned to gold. His international breakthrough came in Nottingham, when he announced himself to the world with a 42-ball century, but it was in Leeds that he proved that was no fluke.Headingley’s Football Stand instantly evokes a straight six that Livingstone hit off Haris Rauf in England’s T20I series against Pakistan in 2021. It cleared the stand, landing somewhere on the Leeds Rhinos rugby league pitch behind, and seemed almost like showboating: the straight boundary is only around 65 metres, but one measurement put Livingstone’s hit at 120m.Livingstone turned 28 that summer and was the face of England’s new generation as they refreshed their white-ball teams after the 2019 World Cup, a three-dimensional player with an irresistible self-confidence. He was the MVP of the first season of the men’s Hundred, surged into the T20 World Cup squad and sold for INR 11.5 crore – over £1 million – at the IPL auction.Related

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But as England prepare for another T20I series against Pakistan – their first on home soil since Livingstone’s – Livingstone faces a defining summer. He has achieved plenty in his career – he is a T20 World Cup winner and has played for England in all three formats – but there is a sense that he has not quite kicked on as hoped.Towards the end of the 2022 summer, he suffered a freak injury when he slipped on the kerb of a pavement and damaged his ankle ligaments, and things have never quite been the same for him since. He rushed back to play a walk-on role in England’s T20 World Cup win in Australia, then sustained a knee injury on Test debut in Pakistan a few weeks later.Livingstone has suffered various different muscle injuries since, returning early from India last week to get his knee “sorted” before the T20 World Cup after a strain ruled him out for two matches earlier in the IPL. He made no impact at the 50-over World Cup last year – 60 runs in six innings – and this year, across 18 innings for three different T20 franchises, he has averaged 15.75 with a strike rate of 126.00.IPL team-mates Liam Livingstone and Sam Curran prepare for the start of England’s T20I series•PA Photos/Getty ImagesHe has spent much of his winter sharing a dressing room with Sam Curran, his England, MI Cape Town and Punjab Kings team-mate. “It’s an interesting one: we’re playing so much cricket,” Curran said of Livingstone’s form. “Livi’s such an X-factor player. He brings so much to all his teams. He’s that three-dimensional cricketer that the side has and everyone has seen what he’s done with England in previous years… I’m backing him to come good.”Curran is certainly right that Livingstone is in high demand: in February, he signed a two-match contract with Sharjah Warriors after MI Cape Town were eliminated from the SA20, then flew back to South Africa to go on safari.But his downturn in form has coincided with an unbalanced diet of cricket: he has played 13 List A games and 56 T20s but not a single red-ball match. Livingstone has often slid down the order, once all the way to No. 8 for Lancashire: across formats, he has only faced an average of 16.4 balls per match since the start of last year, hardly long enough to find any rhythm or form.Perhaps that should not matter in the modern era: players like Kieron Pollard and Tim David have made careers as T20 finishers while rarely facing more than 20 balls in an innings. But Livingstone has spent much of his career playing across formats and does not yet seem to have benefitted from greater specialisation.!function(){“use strict”;window.addEventListener(“message”,(function(a){if(void 0!==a.data[“datawrapper-height”]){var e=document.querySelectorAll(“iframe”);for(var t in a.data[“datawrapper-height”])for(var r=0;r<e.length;r++)if(e[r].contentWindow===a.source){var i=a.data["datawrapper-height"][t]+"px";e[r].style.height=i}}}))}();