The major takeaways from India’s squad for the 2024 T20 World Cup

Sidharth Monga30-Apr-20245:08

Should Shivam Dube be in India’s starting XI at the World Cup?

Rinku loses out to ChahalAs reported here, the last spot in India’s 15-man squad for the 2024 T20 World Cup came down to a choice between Rinku Singh and a back-up bowler. It must have been a tough decision to omit Rinku because India need an in-form hitter of high pace in the middle- and lower-middle order, and he has been exceptional in the opportunities he has got for India. To pick him, though, India’s selectors would have had to go without a specialist bowler among the back-ups. Eventually, they went with a second wristspinner in Yuzvendra Chahal instead of a fourth fast bowler in Avesh Khan. It seems like a specific selection for sides against whom India can play two wristspinners.What would have been the point of picking Rinku?From Rinku’s point of view his exclusion seems heartbreakingly unfair, but from the team’s point of view India are already struggling to fit Shivam Dube into the XI. So where would Rinku have fit in?This situation began when Hardik Pandya, India’s T20I captain for a while last year, was sidelined by injury for a long time after the 2023 ODI World Cup. Keeping his fitness in mind, India’s selectors and coaching staff decided they needed someone else as captain. In came Rohit Sharma, who had been “rested” from T20Is since the 2022 T20 World Cup in Australia, for the home T20I series against Afghanistan in January. With Rohit came Virat Kohli, who also hadn’t played a T20I between the 2022 T20 World Cup and this January.Rohit is believed to have asked for Kohli for his temperament, but picking Rohit and leaving out Kohli would have been difficult for the selectors. The debate over their explosive hitting ability might rage on, but Rohit and Kohli along with Yashasvi Jaiswal and Suryakumar Yadav means India have a top four who don’t bowl or keep wicket.A wicketkeeper and two allrounders will likely make up the lower-middle order. That leaves hardly any room for Dube in the starting XI, or Rinku.Related

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Can Dube fit in?In a conservative XI, he can’t, but there are left-field options. The team management could leave out Jaiswal, open with Rohit and Kohli, and free up the No. 4 spot for Dube. If they can trust Ravindra Jadeja to bowl four overs, they could leave out Hardik and possibly rely on one over from Dube, who unfortunately has not bowled at all for CSK this IPL season because of the Impact Player rule.There is another, more enterprising way to fit Dube in. Play the spin allrounder – Jadeja or Axar Patel – at No. 8 and go with just three specialist bowlers. That, though, is a leap of faith the team management might not be willing to take even if it provides batting depth.Is India’s batting depth at issue?In a straightforward XI from this squad, India will not have any six-hitters after No. 7. It is a strange shortcoming in Indian cricket that specialist bowlers who can do some power hitting down the order don’t exist. The team has already shown signs of moving on from players with the batting ability of Shardul Thakur if they cut it as specialist bowlers.So what might India’s first XI look like at the World Cup?For conditions that are not extremely spin-friendly, the following could be the probable XI:Top order: Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, Suryakumar Yadav
Middle order: Sanju Samson/Rishabh Pant, Ravindra Jadeja/Axar Patel
Spinner: Kuldeep Yadav/Yuzvendra Chahal
Fast bowlers: Jasprit Bumrah, Arshdeep Singh, Mohammed Siraj
And two out of Yashasvi Jaiswal, Hardik Pandya and Shivam Dube.If India play on a slow track, they can pick another spinner instead of a third fast bowler. They could either go with both Jadeja and Axar to strengthen the batting, or both Kuldeep and Chahal for a more potent wicket-taking attack.

The likes of Beaumont, Lewis and Devine bat for domestic setup that supports women’s Test cricket

Firdose Moonda26-Jun-2024Playing Tests as a national women’s team is “like studying for an exam at the last minute, trying to cram in all the knowledge,” according to South African women’s captain Laura Wolvaardt, who has two caps to her name and a third to come this week.South Africa play India in Chennai in what will be their third Test in the last two years, and India’s fourth in the last three years. Though excited by the possibility of being involved in the longest format, Wolvaardt recognises the potential pitfalls of playing in what are essentially exhibition games with no domestic counterpart.”It is a massive challenge not having any domestic red-ball experience to go straight into an international Test match,” she told ESPNcricinfo’s Powerplay podcast. “It’s sort of like studying for an exam at the last minute, trying to cram in all the knowledge about Test match fields and plans and all of that. But I would love to have more of it in the calendar. The more regularly we do it, the better the product will be. But obviously playing one Test every two years, there’s a chance that the games won’t be that great.”Related

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That much is obvious. South Africa’s last Test was a mismatch against Australia at the WACA earlier this year. They lost by an innings and 284 runs and two Australian batters – Annabel Sutherland and Alyssa Healy – scored more runs than South Africa’s entire line-up across two innings. And that’s not an isolated example. In December 2023, India beat Australia and England by eight wickets and 347 runs respectively in their one-off Tests and in June last year, Australia beat England by 89 runs. None of those matches were what we may call close. Before that, six successive Tests were drawn and though there is inherent excitement, the game has become one which wants winners and losers rather than shared spoils.For England’s coach Jon Lewis, this string of either one-sided or undecided matches is a direct result of not having regular domestic red-ball competitions for women. “My view is that if you don’t underpin Tests with a level below, or two levels below, then the opportunity for the girls to really truly understand how to play Test cricket will be missed. So the quality of Test cricket will probably remain very constant or consistent and the players will make a lot of mistakes, because they don’t have exposure to playing it,” he said.”I played in my first season as an 18-year old boy playing county cricket and we had 12 four-day fixtures plus probably five or six second-team fixtures, which is more multi-day cricket than any female has played ever. So I had that bank of knowledge in my first year.”South Africa play India in Chennai in what will be their third Test in the last two years•Getty Images and Cricket AustraliaBut cricket has changed from when Lewis played and the costs of multi-day matches are substantial and not commercially viable. Globally, the red-ball game is in domestic decline and almost non-existent for women. To date, only the BCCI has a women’s multi-day tournament after they restarted this year, to develop their Test side albeit that they don’t have many opponents. In the last 20 years, only England, Australia, South Africa and India have played women’s Tests and they are also the only teams scheduled to do so on the current FTP.Given the continued growth of the T20 game, it is unlikely there will be more. “The likes of Pakistan or Sri Lanka, they are not going to play Test cricket any time soon,” Tammy Beaumont, who scored a Test double-ton in the last English summer, said as she made the case to protect the 50-over game. “Everyone would love to have loads of Tests but that’s not going to happen. And if only four nations are playing Test cricket in women’s cricket then you have to protect 50-over cricket at all costs.”Players from countries outside of the four current Test-playing teams seem to agree with the sentiment that they are unlikely to get any red-ball cricket even if they would like to try the format. “I would love to play Test cricket and I would love every country to play Test cricket and I would love there to be domestic setups that support Test cricket. Whether that’s realistic, I’m not too sure,” New Zealand’s white-ball captain Sophie Devine said.

“It is a massive challenge not having any domestic red-ball experience to go straight into an international Test match. It’s sort of like studying for an exam at the last minute, trying to cram in all the knowledge about Test match fields and plans and all of that. “Wolvaardt on lack of domestic red-ball experience

For Devine, it’s as much about preparation as scheduling, which affects both the men’s and women’s games. “There’s obviously a lot of difficulties and I guess this is where I need to put my realistic head on. We’re talking about a crammed schedule and where are you going to find time to be able to prepare? Because at the end of the day, if you’re going to play, you need to do it properly and you need to give yourself the best chance to perform. And where the game’s going, not just in the women’s, but in the men’s space too, we’re crunched for time as it is and we haven’t got too much Test cricket going on. I’m really conflicted because I would absolutely love to play a game.”Devine would be happy to play “just one Test,” before the end of her career “because I’m a cricketer, I’ve grown up with Test cricket and I’d love to test myself at that level over four or five days.” But former Australian captain Meg Lanning sees that view as nothing more than nostalgic. Earlier this year she called for more regular Tests or none, with similar reasons to Lewis.Wolvaardt wants Tests more regularly, for very specific reasons. “It’s just for the challenge. I love watching Test cricket just to see the little battles within the battles,” Wolvaardt said. “It’s sort of the more real form of cricket. And I think you get exposed if some technical things are lacking or if something is not up to scratch in your game. In T20 cricket, you can sometimes get away with something just because you’re going hard and showing a lot of intent, whereas in Test cricket, I think it’s more [of] your actual skill and your actual art.”She’s not alone in that thinking. Lewis also subscribes to the notion that playing longer-format matches can have short-format benefits. “I have a really strong belief that if we play more multi-day cricket at the domestic level, it will improve our white ball cricket. The ability to repeat balls in the same place and play the moving ball as a batter will make us better cricketers and more adaptable cricketers,” Lewis said. “If we play more Test cricket, then we will become better at white ball.”But he won’t let that go without a caveat. “However, if you’re going to play Test cricket, you have to underpin it with multi-day cricket and domestic level red-ball cricket.”And in the current climate, that might take time to happen.

There was a Maxwell scare, and Cummins also had his moment, but this time Afghanistan would not be denied

Andrew McGlashan23-Jun-2024The memories of Mumbai. What role would they play? As Glenn Maxwell was finding his stride, depositing Rashid Khan over long-on, when both the spin of the ball and direction of the wind were against him, the “scars” that he had talked of from a game Rashid admitted kept him awake at night, looked like they were there for Afghanistan.Another six, straight down the ground off Gulbadin Naib, took Maxwell to his fifty and as Naib began his next over, the 15th of the innings, Australia needed 44 from 36 balls with five wickets in hand.

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When the third ball of the match from Ashton Agar spun past the bat of Rahmanullah Gurbaz and flew through the vacant slip for four byes, there was a sense of a fascinating contest brewing on a pitch that had been all the talk in the lead-up. After three overs there had been two scoring shots off the bat, one an inside edge by Gurbaz off Josh Hazlewood, and Australia’s quicks were also extracting awkward, inconsistent bounce. But Afghanistan’s openers played it superbly; they waited and did not panic.Related

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The scoreboard read 11 for 0 off 3.5 overs when Gurbaz launched Pat Cummins straight down the ground for six. The next over from Hazlewood went for 12, including another Gurbaz six, and in the end, the powerplay registered a healthy 40 without loss. The running between the wickets by Gurbaz and Ibrahim Zadran was superb, something later Rashid singled out.The century stand, their third of the T20 World Cup 2024 and a new record, came up in the 14th over and their individual fifties followed in consecutive overs. Australia had never waited so long to take a wicket in a T20I when Marcus Stoinis eventually had Gurbaz taken in the deep – that was a rivalry which appeared to have a little bit of feeling.

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Australia’s poor fielding display against Scotland was put down to a team who knew they were safely in the Super Eight. Saturday’s may have cost them a chance of a semi-final.Agar bowled tidily after being recalled in place of Mitchell Starc to provide another spin option, but he had a day to forget in the field. He let through a boundary at deep square leg, over-ran another at long off, and dropped a difficult, but catchable chance in the penultimate over. He wasn’t alone, although none of the chances were sitters.Ashton Agar had a forgettable day on the field•Associated PressAdam Zampa can be excused for his flying attempt at deep third when Zadran upper-cut Cummins and a return catch to Stoinis by the same batter wasn’t easy. But Matthew Wade could have stumped Gurbaz on 41 and Travis Head reached a running catch that then burst through his hands, although Rashid fell without addition.Australia were able to finish the innings on a high when Cummins claimed his second hat-trick in three days – he was denied four in four when David Warner spilled another catch in the deep – although a last-ball boundary from Mohammad Nabi took Afghanistan to 149 which always felt competitive. Mitchell Marsh later rated it 20 above par.

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In November, at the Wankhede, Naveen-ul-Haq had Head caught behind second ball from around the wicket. In Kingstown on Saturday, it took him one ball more, and he did it all by himself as the stumps were splayed. In that game he then had Marsh lbw after he had cantered to 24 off 11 balls. This time a superb slower ball had the low-on-runs captain lofting a drive to mid-off after a couple of boundaries had suggested things may have turned for him.Warner, who has been in excellent touch this tournament, was starved of the strike in the powerplay and top-edged a sweep off Nabi. Australia were 32 for 3. It had been something of a surprise to see Afghanistan wait until the sixth over to use spin, it was also a surprise to see left-arm spinner Nangeyalia Kharote, playing his first game of the tournament, bowl the seventh. Fourth ball, Maxwell reverse swept him for four and two deliveries later launched him over deep midwicket for six. Rashid’s first over only went for three, but Noor Ahmad’s cost 11. In the over before drinks, Maxwell drove Rashid through the covers with calculated precision.

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Naib, who had been the eighth bowler handed the ball, all by the 11th over, had already removed the in-form Stoinis with a delivery that climbed off a length and trapped expert-finisher Tim David lbw with a stump-trimmer. But one figure still loomed in front of Afghanistan. Maxwell was on 59 off 39 balls.Three balls into his third over, Naib claimed one of the most significant wickets of a career which goes back to the very earliest days of Afghanistan’s evolution as a cricket nation. As Maxwell so often likes to do he, went to slice the ball through backward point but couldn’t keep it down and 19-year-old Noor, who had not been given another over, took a brilliant low catch. Maxwell let out a scream of anguish. Naib roared and flexed his muscles.Gulbadin Naib flexes his biceps after getting the big wicket of Glenn Maxwell•ICC/Getty ImagesTwo balls into the next over, Rashid removed the last specialist batter in Wade. But off the last ball of the over, the final one of Rashid’s spell, Cummins – the other half of the nightmare in Mumbai – was able to scamper a single from a misfield by Noor. Rashid made his frustrations clear. Maxwell wasn’t there, but the tension still was.Naib, who bowled his four overs straight in what will go down as one of the great T20 spells, put them a step closer when he defeated Cummins with a slower one. On the boundary Afghanistan’s bowling consultant Dwayne Bravo, who played 573 T20 matches, lived and breathed every moment. Head coach Jonathan Trott outwardly betrayed few emotions, much like when he batted, barring an occasional wrinkle of his nose.Naib had one more moment in him, diving full length to his left at cover to remove Agar. Afghanistan were one wicket away. Somehow they managed not to have enough fielders in the ring for the last ball of the 19th over so gave up a no-ball and free hit, but this one wasn’t going to slip away.Two balls into the last over, Zampa swiped Azmatullah Omarzai in the air to long-on where underneath it was Nabi, who like Naib has been there from the start. Australia were the 45th side he has won against in international cricket, and none will have been sweeter. Bravo, with a turn of pace, led the surge onto the outfield in celebration. Naib was given a piggyback off the field.

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A defeat to Australia and Afghanistan’s ODI World Cup was over. Now a win over Bangladesh could be enough for a semi-final. At the very least, they will know the sums of what they will need to do as they play second, again in St Vincent, after the Australia-India match. Their storied cricket journey has another chapter, and more could yet follow.”I think I can sleep better now,” Rashid a few minutes after the historic moment. “I didn’t sleep the whole night [in Mumbai]. I feel like tonight because of the happiness I won’t be able to sleep.”

Stats highlights from Galle, where Sri Lanka crushed New Zealand by an innings and 154 runs

Sampath Bandarupalli29-Sep-20246 Test wins for Sri Lanka in 2024, the joint-second-most for them in a calendar year. Sri Lanka won eight of the 13 Tests played in 2001 and six wins in 2006 out of the 11 matches.6-0 Sri Lanka have won all the six Test matches they played against New Zealand at the Galle. These are the most matches played by a team at a venue against an opponent, winning all of them. The next highest is five each by Australia at the WACA in Perth against Pakistan, and South Africa against Sri Lanka at Centurion Park.Sri Lanka also recorded only the fifth instance of a team winning six or more consecutive Tests against an opponent at a venue.Related

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97 Wickets for Prabath Jayasuriya in his 16-match Test career so far. Only one bowler has bagged more than Prabath in their first 16 Tests – George Lohmann (101).9 Wickets picked up by Nishan Peiris on his debut Test in Galle. Only two bowlers took more wickets for Sri Lanka on their Test debut – 12 by Prabath against Australia in 2022 and 11 by Praveen Jayawickrama against Bangladesh in 2021.Peiris is only the fourth Sri Lankan to take a six-wicket haul on Test debut. Prabath was the previous man to do so, claiming six wickets each in both innings.514 Sri Lanka’s first-innings lead in Galle is the fifth-highest for any team in Test history. The highest is 702 runs by England against Australia in 1938 at The Oval. Only once did Sri Lanka have a higher first-innings lead – 587 against South Africa in the 2006 Colombo Test while batting second.88 New Zealand’s first-innings total in Galle is their lowest-ever against Sri Lanka in Test cricket. Their previous lowest was 102 all-out, in 1992 in Colombo’s Sinhalese Sports Club.9 Sri Lanka are now the first team in Test cricket with 600-plus totals against nine opponents. Their first-innings total of 602 for 5 in Galle was their first 500-plus total against New Zealand in the format. Australia and Afghanistan are the only teams against which Sri Lanka haven’t posted a 600-plus total.5 Catches for Dhananjaya de Silva in New Zealand’s first innings. He is only the second Sri Lankan fielder to claim five catches in a Test innings, after Lahiru Thirimanne.All the five catches Dhananjaya took were off Prabath’s bowling, making him only the second fielder to claim five catches off a bowler in a Test innings. Thirimanne was the first, as all the five catches he took against England in 2021 were off Lasith Embuldeniya.

Records tumbled at the MCG as Australia put the seal on a dominant summer

Deep Gadhia01-Feb-202516-0 – Australia bagged the multi-format Ashes series 16-0, to sum up their dominant summer. They whitewashed England across three ODIs and three T20Is, and won the historic day-night Test at the MCG inside three days to take the maximum possible points in the series for the first time since its inception in 2013.440 – Australia’s total at MCG in their first innings was their third-highest total at home. Interestingly, both of their highest scores in the Ashes at home have come in pink-ball Tests. The previous being 448 for 9, when both the teams met for the first-ever day-night Women’s Test at the North Sydney Oval in 2017.This was also the eighth instance of Australia scoring over 400 in Test cricket, going past England and India’s seven each.Innings and 122 runs – Australia’s margin of victory over England in the first-ever pink-ball Test at the MCG. It is also the third-biggest margin of victory for Australia following the innings-and-284-runs win against South Africa last year and the innings-and-140-runs win against England in 2001.270 – Australia’s lead at the end of their batting innings at the MCG, the second-biggest first-innings lead for them in Test cricket. The best for them was when they achieved a lead of 499 against South Africa at the WACA last year, which also remains the biggest by any team in the history of women’s Tests.23 – Wickets taken by Alana King across the seven games of the Women’s Ashes, the most by a bowler alongside Ash Gardner who also picked up 23 in the previous Ashes in 2023.ESPNcricinfo Ltd9 – Wickets shared between King and Gardner in the final innings of the MCG Test. It is only the second time spinners have taken nine or more wickets in an innings for Australia. The last time it happened was in the previous Test here at the MCG in 1949, when Betty Wilson, Una Paisley and Amy Hudson shared the spoils.1 – Annabel Sutherland became the first woman to score a Test match century at the MCG. In the previous two matches played here, in 1935 and 1949, England’s Betty Snowball had the highest score of 83 not out at the iconic venue.ESPNcricinfo Ltd3 – Sutherland equaled the record of Wilson and Jill Kennare to have the most centuries for Australia in Test cricket. She now has three centuries in her last six Test innings, and becomes only the second woman after India’s Sandhya Agarwal to have three or more hundreds under the age of 24.150 – Sutherland also became the first woman in Test history to have scored 150-plus scores in consecutive innings en route to her 163 at the MCG, with her previous Test innings being the mammoth 210 at the WACA last year. She is just the third cricketer to have multiple 150-plus scores in Test cricket after Karen Rolton and Heather Knight.4 – Beth Mooney’s maiden Test match century made her only the fourth woman after Knight, Tammy Beaumont and Laura Wolvaardt – and the first Australian – to have centuries in all three international formats of the game. She has three ODI and two T20I tons apart from her first in Tests.ESPNcricinfo Ltd6 – Nat Sciver-Brunt’s half century in the first innings at the MCG, means she now has a fifty in each of her last six Tests, making her the first player to achieve this feat in Women’s Tests. Three have come against Australia, two against South Africa and one versus India in 2023.5 for 143 – Sophie Ecclestone became the first female visiting bowler to get their name up on the MCG honours board. But it came at an expensive cost, as she conceded the second-most runs by a bowler in a women’s Test whilst taking a five-wicket haul. Ony former Pakistan skipper Shaiza Khan has a more-expensive five-for, conceding 167 runs for her six wickets in 2004 in what is still the country’s last Test played.It was also the fourth occasion of Ecclestone conceding over 100 runs in a Test innings, the most for any bowler. New Zealand’s Jackie Lord had done so three times over the course of her Test career.

The ace Sri Lankan spinner was a consultant for New Zealand on their subcontinent tours this season

Interview by Andrew Fidel Fernando15-Nov-2024Rangana Herath, the most successful left-arm bowler ever, was spin consultant in New Zealand’s set up when two left-arm spinners, Ajaz Patel and Mitchell Santner, played big roles in the 3-0 whitewash of India this month. Herath spoke about his experience on working with the bowlers on this history-making tour.Before New Zealand went to India, they had two losses in Sri Lanka. Let’s talk about what that was like.
I was very impressed by their team environment. When you lose, you tend to talk a lot about mistakes. But in this team, what we talked most about was what we learned, how we adjusted to conditions, and how to take the good things we did to India. That’s what we did after the series defeat in Sri Lanka. Although we lost, there weren’t many players who were that upset. I think there’s a lot to learn from that.Everyone – the coaches and the players – were on the same page. Rather than looking too big-picture, everyone was engaged with the match situation at hand and looking to find the best solution to the problem in front of them.Related

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In that second match in Sri Lanka, Glenn Phillips was the only spinner who took wickets – three. How did that tour affect the spinners?
When you go to Galle, some teams might think: “The pitch turns there, so the spinners have to do everything.” But this team didn’t have that mindset. They trusted their skill and put the emphasis on how accurate they needed to be. Sometimes spinners put unwanted pressure on themselves when they see a turning pitch. It was all about accuracy, accuracy, accuracy. Whether it spins or not, that’s really important. But we did talk about things like angles of attack, and release positions, and how you’d vary them. But mostly we talked about accuracy.What kind of advice did you have as they went to India?
So already there was an emphasis on accuracy. But one thing we knew was that India batters are quite aggressive in their approach. So the thinking for the spinners was around how to be smart when that happens. On the tactical front, what we talked about was how to set those in-out fields that close off the attacking options for batters.Did you look at each batter and plan fields?
Whether it’s a batting-friendly field or a bowling-friendly one, the first 20 to 24 balls is going to be tough for a batter. It’s hard to discern the pace of the pitch, and sometimes you don’t know what is happening. So the main thing we planned was around those 20 balls and employing the right fields during that period. For each batter we made some minor changes to our overall strategy. That was what a lot of the talk going into India was about.”That’s what happens when you put the ball in the right spot”: Ajaz Patel got Shubman Gill bowled with one that went on straight on day three in Mumbai•AFP/Getty ImagesIn the Bengaluru Test you didn’t need the spinners at all. In the second innings, because of the nature of the pitch, were the spinners asked to operate as holding bowlers?
No. Because we had batted and scored 400-odd and by then the pitch was helping spinners a bit. Again, the talk was about putting close-in fielders and shutting off those boundary options.Ajaz Patel got two wickets and those were very important. He got [Yashasvi] Jaiswal, and that was key because he is a batter who attacks a lot. He comes forward and what we saw was, his strength was hitting over mid-off and mid-on. We talked to Ajaz about how to change up his line and his pace, and he did that perfectly. [Patel had Jaiswal stumped for 35.] Then he also got Rohit bowled off the edge. And then Glenn Phillips got Virat Kohli’s wicket. So although the spinners didn’t run through the team, they got them a really important start.When you went to Pune and saw that pitch, what did you talk about?
We saw very quickly that it was going to turn and that we needed to play three spinners. Everyone was on the same page about that again.Mitchell Santner hadn’t been very successful in Sri Lanka, What did you think of his bowling at that point?
I think he had mostly played white-ball cricket for the past few months, and because of that, he was bowling white-ball lengths. When the pitch turns, you need to bowl fuller. Although Santner wasn’t bowling short, on these kinds of pitches he becomes more effective when he pitches it up a bit more.But then the biggest difference between Galle and Pune was that he varied his pace in Pune. That meant he had more leeway with his lengths and he could pitch it up or bowl it slightly shorter, and both could be effective. He understood the pitch really well.The Bengaluru Test was played on a seamers’ track but New Zealand’s spinners had their say in the second innings. Glenn Phillips got Virat Kohli to nick one behind•Idrees Mohammed/AFP/Getty ImagesFrom the time he started, I thought, “He’s going to bowl well here.” It’s hard to predict someone getting five or more wickets. But he was impressive from the outset in that game [with 13 wickets].Did a lot of the spinners’ plans work out against India’s batters, or was it more about building pressure?
I think we built a lot of pressure with spin. When batters have that attacking mindset, the fields that were set by Ajaz and Santner were really good. The bowlers take ownership of those fields and the captain and others are aware of what the plan is.What did you see as the strengths of each of New Zealand’s main spinners – Santner, Patel and Phillips?
They bowl three different lengths between them. Ajaz isn’t very tall – he and I are about the same height. He tries to toss the ball up over the batter’s eyeline and bowl a little fuller – between 4 and 4.5 metres from the stumps.Santner because of his height has the option to bowl a greater variety of lengths, on that pitch in Pune especially.Glenn has his own rhythm. He gets to the crease quickly, and because he bowls a lot of white-ball lengths, he knows how to set a field to that as well. We stressed that they should stick to their strengths. Glenn had a lot of protection. It wasn’t quite a one-day field, but he had more protection than the others.Going into the last innings of that Pune match, India needed 359. How did you approach that?
We thought that it was a big target for them to chase, so we had a lot of confidence, especially because our spinners had bowled well in the first innings. My experience is that even 200 is a big total in a fourth innings, so we were confident.Mitchell Santner was “bowling white-ball lengths” going into the India series, but he soon fixed that and ended up with 13 wickets in the Pune Test•Ishara S Kodikara/AFP/Getty ImagesAgain, Santner and Ajaz varied their pace well. I think that was the difference between New Zealand’s bowlers and India’s.Ajaz didn’t get a lot of wickets in this match, though it was a helpful pitch. What do you think was the reason for that?
On any surface, not everyone is going to get wickets. Ajaz is the main spinner in this team, but sometimes when someone [else] is getting wickets, you have to change your approach also. Sometimes when one bowler is getting wickets, the other person builds pressure. I think Ajaz is someone who looks at what role he has to play in any situation. He’s got a lot of knowledge about cricket, and I think he adapted his game to what he needed to do at the time. At the time the attacking option was Mitchell Santner, and there was understanding there.Going into the third Test, New Zealand had already won the series. There must have been some serious confidence in the team going to the Wankhede?
A lot of players who play Test cricket want to win a Test in India. As someone who played for Sri Lanka I had that dream too, but I wasn’t able to get there. The New Zealand players were also like that. After we won the second match, they never got overconfident. It was more about it being a fresh start, and that this was a new surface, and that we had to adapt again. That was the mindset and that was fantastic. There was no guarantee about winning that third one as well.Ajaz got a lot of wickets in the third Test. Talk us through his first spell.
Ajaz is super interesting, because in the previous Test he’d played at the Wankhede, he’d taken all ten wickets in the first innings, and four wickets in the second. The difference between the previous pitches and this one is that on the Wankhede, you have the red soil, and when it turns there, it turns very sharply. Ajaz has a lot of revolutions on the ball, and so almost all his balls were very effective. Because he tosses it up, he especially gets that very sharp turn.In the last innings India had to get 147. You’ve defended a lot of low scores yourself. What did you say to the bowlers?
I had been talking to them in general about the fourth innings being incredibly tough for batters. Even when we had had to chase 107 in the fourth innings in the first match, R Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja had made it difficult. So we talked about 147 being a big score to chase. The emphasis was again on accuracy and relying on the help from the surface, which was turning.”Ajaz has a lot of revolutions on the ball, and so almost all his balls were very effective. Because he tosses it up, he especially gets that very sharp turn,” Herath says of New Zealand’s lead spinner in the series•Surjeet Yadav/Associated PressAfter Matt Henry got Rohit out, Ajaz was getting big turn, but he bowled Shubman Gill with one that didn’t turn – that’s what happens when you put the ball in the right spot. We had the trust that the pitch would do the rest if we did the right things.Ajaz is in many ways a similar player to you. What did you speak to him about?
A lot of our talk was about how to be effective whether or not the pitch offers turn – how to adjust your angles of attack, how to change your release positions, how to bowl well, even in New Zealand. All the spinners in this group had an open mind, and that came out of them already having a lot of trust in their skills.What was the feeling like in the dressing room when those wickets were falling?
I was in the dressing room and downstairs during that period, and when Rishabh Pant was batting well, I also did have a doubt about whether they could win.But winning 3-0 was a huge joy. It was like when I was playing and we beat Australia 3-0 [in Sri Lanka in 2016]. It’s something that happens very rarely.Did you learn anything from being part of this series?
Players were very accountable in this environment. When things went wrong, players accepted responsibility and they looked for solutions. That was really impressive. As a coach, being part of an environment like that was really valuable. It was a boon to my coaching career as well.

He had an answer for everything Mumbai Indians threw at him and made it tough for Hardik Pandya to ask him difficult questions

Sidharth Monga02-Jun-20251:53

Moody: Shreyas Iyer identified key moments to go into the fifth gear

Shreyas Iyer was proper in the zone. The kind of space where you forget where you are. It takes time to come down from that trance.When he was walking back after leading a third side into an IPL final, as he protected a seemingly injured right hand and shook hands with his left, he saw Shashank Singh and gave him a dirty look. It doesn’t need a professional lipreader to ascertain what he said. Translated to English: “don’t come close to me”. Followed by the most common Hindi expletive.This was a man aroused by the competition. He scored 87 not out off 41 for any team – Punjab Kings (PBKS) on this occasion – to successfully chase down 200-plus against Mumbai Indians (MI) for the first time in the 18 years of the IPL. MI, whom everyone fears for their success rate in big matches. MI, who held an 18-7 record in playoffs and knockouts coming into this match. MI, who were riding high after beating the best IPL team of the last four years, Gujarat Titans (GT).Related

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Sensational Shreyas Iyer powers PBKS to second IPL final

But Iyer hadn’t forgotten how Shashank had left the job unfinished. That he had strolled the first half of the run that he couldn’t complete. The calm Iyer, the focusser on his own breathing, the dropper of big words one interview at a time (“stupendous” on this night, in case you were wondering), the dancer they all want to make reels with; under the surface a ferocious competitor. He was, in his words, “locked in”.

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Trent Boult can get a highlights reel of surreal catches he has taken. You can’t say that of many fast bowlers. Yet, the more you play, the more you put yourself out there, there are bound to be errors that stick to you. In the 2019 World Cup final, he ended up touching the rope when catching Ben Stokes. Here he dropped Nehal Wadhera, the left-hand batter whose presence in the middle kept Mitchell Santner from bowling his third and fourth overs.Even in the last match, GT kept holding back M Shahrukh Khan and kept promoting left-hand batters. The result: Santner bowled just one over for ten runs and a wicket. He has gone at 9.12 an over and 73 runs per wicket against left-hand batters this IPL as against 7.61 and 26.66 against right-hand batters. So there was some sound reasoning behind not bowling Santner. As their coach Mahela Jayawardene said, it was something that had worked for them in the past especially given they have had bowling options.On the night, Hardik Pandya did actually take the bolder route and bowled Santner at Wadhera. Santner would have got him out had Naman Dhir not misjudged the catch at deep midwicket and then lobbed it for a four. Then Boult reprieved Wadhera off Hardik’s bowling. We will never know if he would have found the courage to trust Santner again because just as he was possibly preparing the stage for the next bold move, Iyer happened.2:30

Why didn’t Hardik and Santner complete their quota of overs?

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Ashwani Kumar went for just four in the 11th over. Jasprit Bumrah conceded seven in the 12th after having gone for 20 in his first. With eight overs to go, we were now at two runs a ball with two Bumrah overs up MI’s sleeve. Hardik possibly felt he needed to push it just a little more before he could go shopping. He brought on Reece Topley, playing his first match of the season because of the injury to Deepak Chahar and then to his replacement Richard Gleeson.Topley had bowled two decent overs in the powerplay, but Iyer, 19 off 15 now, knew he was going to take him down. And this is where the transformation of Iyer the T20 batter became apparent. Earlier in the day, Himanish Ganjoo tweeted how batters were slogging length balls way more frequently than till 2023. In the years 2022 and 2023, Iyer played zero slogs to length balls from fast bowlers. In 2024 and 2025, he has done so to 11.39% of good-length balls.Topley’s first ball to Iyer was just there: 8.86m. Marginally short of good length. All the more reason to not slog it. Iyer, though, slogged it. It was not a powerful slog. He saw to it – borrowing from Iyer’s words – that he didn’t over-hit it. And then, the MI bowlers lost their execution . Six of Iyer’s eight sixes off the MI fast bowlers came off slot balls, pitched between 4m and 6m. Iyer was absolutely brutal on those. They offered him seven, and he missed only one.Shreyas Iyer took 13 runs off seven yorkers•Associated Press

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Those with a lot of experience of playing and coaching the sport at the highest level say there is no secret to planning. The sport is more about the execution on the day. Jayawardene was clear they didn’t execute well. All these slot balls were either length balls pitched too full or yorkers gone too short. Iyer was on top of his execution game, the bowlers weren’t. Iyer was locked in, the bowlers weren’t. The other day Sherfane Rutherford toe-ended one of these slot balls. Iyer didn’t.However, it wasn’t all cashing in on loose balls. Even when the bowlers executed well, Iyer outdid them. If they bowled seven slot balls at him, they also bowled seven yorkers. With the ball tailing a little. Iyer steered them behind square for three fours, one to the right of short third, two to the left. He took 13 runs off seven yorkers.With the efficiency of power-hitting these days, you can’t really have third back in the death overs. Iyer took the best the two big MI bowlers – Bumrah and Boult – could throw at him and turned them into fours. The one off Bumrah’s yorker was audacious. This ball swung in 0.57 degrees, just enough to make you shift from the original line you line up, and it would have landed 18cm in front of the middle stump had Iyer not dabbed it fine of short third.2:31

‘Such a big over’ – Aaron on Inglis taking 20 off Bumrah in the fifth

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Iyer hit the slot balls mercilessly, scored boundaries off yorkers, so what’s left? Ah, the short ball. Off 13 balls pitched shorter than 6m, he scored 28 runs, including the lovely nonchalant afterthought of a ramp off a slower bouncer from Hardik.It was also a great day for Iyer in the field. For the third playoff match in a row, it turned out that the side winning the toss had chosen wrongly. In the first, the ball moved around a lot more in the second innings, but Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) didn’t have many to chase. In the second, MI had to deal with huge amounts of dew, but Bumrah bowled them out of trouble.Here, PBKS – or the weather folks in Ahmedabad – had no clue it would rain when they decided to field. Between the toss and start of the match, it began to rain and kept raining on and off for more than two hours. When it did stop, they wasted no time in getting the game on.PBKS had to now contend with a wet ball. Their legspinner match-winner Yuzvendra Chahal was making his comeback, his bowling hand still not 100%. Suryakumar Yadav corrected his unfavourable match-up against Chahal with three sixes, but Iyer kept trusting his big player. In his final over, Chahal took Suryakumar with him, a wicket that cost MI about 20 runs.All through the first innings, PBKS just kept hanging in. Their coaching staff was a little nonplussed when Iyer went to Azmatullah Omarzai – 2-0-24-0 – at the death even though Vijaykumar Vyshak – 3-0-30-1 – had an over left. The bowling coach James Hopes said Iyer just went with his gut, and Omarzai gave him two overs for 19 and the wickets of Hardik and Dhir.3:14

Shreyas Iyer’s hat-trick of sixes turned the match

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It was well past midnight when Iyer finished the win to reach the final, meaning the final is “tomorrow” and not “day after”. He is the only captain [apart from MS Dhoni – Chennai Super Kings (CSK) and Rising Pune Supergiant/s] to have taken more than one team to the IPL final, also the only one to lead two different teams to the final in successive years. Hang on, why does he have three teams then? Why has he been released immediately after winning the title?To be fair to Delhi Capitals (DC), he was yet another anchor when they let go of him. Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) didn’t quite show the desperation to retain their winning captain.”Tomorrow” they will move one pitch to the side. Onto the exact same surface on which Iyer did things that still resonate with his team. Their first match of IPl 2025 was played on pitch No. 6 in Ahmedabad, the mixed-soil pitch in the middle of the square. The first ball he faced for a new team, he made a statement by lofting Kagiso Rabada’s hard length over mid-on.If his first act was a statement for those on the outside, Iyer’s final act with the bat was a statement for his own team. He was 97 not out but not on strike when the last over began. Shashank hit the second ball to deep midwicket, was happy with one to give Iyer the strike, but Iyer pushed Shashank for the second. Iyer never got the strike back, but 23 came off that final over. PBKS won by 11. Iyer still doesn’t have an IPL century.On that same pitch, Iyer will come up against the team that has beaten them twice in their last two encounters, the vastly improved RCB. Against an India team-mate with whom he shared a profound heartbreak at the same venue in 2023. They have both improved massively as T20 batters over the last two years. Virat Kohli has been loved unconditionally by his only franchise, who are yet to win the IPL. Iyer has won the IPL, but not the unconditional love of a franchise. Or the India T20I side. In between he even lost his national contract.Only one of the two will find solace on Tuesday night.

The new No. 4 for India evoked memories of the old one with his double-hundred at Edgbaston

Sidharth Monga03-Jul-20251:15

Aaron: ‘Gill is an Indian Rolls Royce’

As a boy, Shubman Gill was a cricket nerd. He knew of the website , which is not a place for the casual fan. Back then, it was not behind the paywall that it is now. Gill would visit it because it is a repository of cricket scorecards that goes beyond international and domestic cricket, right down to junior scorecards and local leagues. Gill wanted to measure himself up against great players when they were his age.Gill’s “player oracle” search featured one player more than others. He wanted to know what Virat Kohli’s scores and achievements were when he was his age. At that age did he get ahead of Kohli. The senior man acknowledged as much when he first saw Gill in the nets in New Zealand in 2019-20, famously saying he didn’t have even 10% of the talent when he was Gill’s age.By then, though, Gill knew what a tall order he had chosen to follow. He might have had the skill, but he would need every bit of bloody-mindedness, competitiveness, fitness and drive he could muster to keep measuring up. Remarkably, he kept measuring up: he had his ODI game sorted before any other format, had a tough initiation into Test cricket, and then was named the Test captain at a similar age with similar numbers as batter and a similar transition to carry out. And with the whole world watching, not just the nerds.Related

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Gill won’t need to subscribe to any websites to tell him he is carrying the parallels too far. A century on captaincy debut. Just like Kohli. In a defeat. Just like Kohli. A century in the second Test as captain. Just like Kohli. The same number of centuries as Kohli in England already. Going past Kohli for the highest score by an India captain already. Then getting out for 269, Kohli’s India cap number.More than just the numbers, it is the same inevitability he has carried as Kohli did at his prime whenever a pitch was less than spiteful. Gill barely ever plays a false shot. Even in a high-risk format such as T20 cricket, Gill scored 650 runs in IPL 2025 at a strike rate of 155.87 with a control rate Test batters would be proud of: a false shot every nine balls, or in control of 88.49% of the balls he faced. No batter did better than one false shot every over. Can you imagine what would happen if you gave Gill a flat track and unlimited time to bat?There is no need to imagine. You saw what happens. At Headingley, he played 21 false shots in 227 balls. That last one stuck with him. That was the kind of shot his dad would taunt him for playing when he was at the junior level.Long before that, when he was still living in his village, Lakhwinder Singh, Gill’s father, used to get his farmhands to throw balls at little Shubman. They would be rewarded with Rs 100 if they got him out. It was a little over a pound back then. Much better paid professional bowlers might as well be asking themselves, “What are we, farmers?”2:11

Jadeja: Captaincy pressure not affecting Gill’s batting

“We threw everything at him,” England’s assistant coach Jeetan Patel said afterwards.The skill and muscle memory developed hitting all those balls from the age of four or five teamed up with the resolve that comes from seeing a relaxed shot result in a Test-losing collapse, and England found themselves at the receiving end. Only 25 false shots came about in his 387 balls at the wicket. And he didn’t have to shelve any of his shots: reverse-sweeps, aerial hits, all were a go.Ravindra Jadeja, who spent the most time with Gill at the wicket, summed it up best. “When he has batted, it hasn’t seemed he is the captain or he has any extra responsibility. Today, unluckily that ball went to hand because it never looked like he would even get out.”Gill famously started this series at a Test average of under 36. He stated that his goal was to be the best batter in the series. His average has risen to 40.64 already. It is tempting to imagine where his average would be if he got a few more such pitches in his first 32 Tests.

Mohammad Nawaz enters the record books with hat-trick and five-wicket haul in UAE T20I tri-series final against Afghanistan

Sampath Bandarupalli08-Sep-202566 – Afghanistan’s total in the final is the lowest in a tournament final in men’s T20Is, beating Norway’s 69 all out against Jersey in the final of the 2024 Sub-Regional Europe qualifier Group B. Only three teams in all men’s T20s have recorded lower totals in finals.2 – Afghanistan’s 66 is also their second-lowest total in T20Is, behind the 56 all out against South Africa in the semi-finals of last year’s T20 World Cup. It is also the fourth-lowest total by any team against Pakistan in men’s T20Is.5 for 19 – Mohammad Nawaz became only the second bowler to take a five-wicket haul in a men’s T20I tournament final after Papua New Guinea’s Norman Vanua, who took 5 for 17 against Vanuatu in the final of the 2019 Pacific Games.Nawaz is also only the third to take a five-wicket haul against Afghanistan in T20Is after Bhuvneshwar Kumar, in the Asia Cup and Sam Curran in the T20 World Cup, both in 2022.ESPNcricinfo Ltd3 – Bowlers to take a hat-trick for Pakistan in men’s T20Is, including Nawaz. Faheem Ashraf against Sri Lanka in 2017 and Mohammad Hasnain also against Sri Lanka in 2019 are the others.Nawaz is also only the third bowler to bag a hat-trick in a men’s T20I final after Uganda’s Elijah Otieno against Kenya in 2021 and Belgium’s Khalid Ahmadi against Malta in 2022 (where ball-by-ball data is available).15 – Wickets taken by spinners in Sharjah in the final, the joint-third-highest in a men’s T20I match.Pakistan spinners accounted for nine of them, the joint-highest by them in a men’s T20I – they took nine against Hong Kong in the 2023 Asian Games.20 – Number of wickets taken by Shaheen Shah Afridi in the first over of an innings in men’s T20Is. Only Oman’s Bilal Khan (22) has taken more wickets in the first over in this format (where ball-by-ball data is available).7-0 – All the matches in the tri-series were won by the team batting first, a record. These are the most matches in a men’s T20I series or tournament where all matches were won by teams batting first.

Performances in the tri-series featuring Pakistan and Afghanistan saw them squander advantageous positions in about every game

Danyal Rasool06-Sep-2025United Arab Emirates (UAE) are set to play their second Asia Cup which begins later this month. ESPNcricinfo takes a look at how the home team shapes up ahead of the tournament.How did they make it?UAE qualified for the Asia Cup by winning the ACC Men’s Premier Cup 2024. The tournament in Oman featured ten sides, with the top three guaranteed qualification for the eight-team Asia Cup. After finishing second in their group, UAE defeated Nepal in the semi-finals, before going on to beat Oman – the side they lost to in the group – in the final.Recent resultsUAE’s recent results show quite a gap between their floor and ceiling. Since May 2025, and before the recent tri-series with Afghanistan and Pakistan, they had won six out of nine. That included a come-from-behind series win over Bangladesh. It was followed by an inconsistent tournament in Uganda, where they won three of their five games, but were ultimately pipped to first place by the hosts. The tri-series has seen them squander advantageous positions in just about every game, demonstrating flashes of quality even against the more decorated sides, without quite the experience to sustain it over 40 overs.Who are their key players?As with most sides on the fringes of the elite, match outcomes depend heavily on individual stars having good games. Sides like the UAE do not quite have quality running through each position in the way the more established teams do. The first name on the team sheet is their talismanic captain and opener Muhammad Waseem, whose explosiveness up top is instrumental to useful starts with the bat. He strikes at over 155 in 2025, and has proved a focal point of quality for the Asia Cup hosts.Left-arm spinner Haider Ali could be key if the tracks in UAE are slow and low•Emirates Cricket BoardThe only batter in the side with a more explosive record is Asif Khan, more specialised at finishing the innings off with his big hitting straight down the ground. On lower, slower tracks like the kind the UAE is likely to throw up for the tournament, left-arm spinner Haider Ali has the record to instil optimism. He was the leading wicket-taker in that tournament in Uganda, and the pick of the bowlers in the team’s second fixture against Pakistan in the tri-series.Who do they play at the Asia Cup?UAE have been placed alongside defending champions India, Pakistan and Oman in Group A. They take on India to start off in Dubai, before a fixture against Oman in Abu Dhabi, and then one versus Pakistan in Dubai two days later. They will need to finish in the top two to make it to the Super Four.How have they fared in the Asia Cup before?The UAE has only ever played one T20 Asia Cup in the past – in 2016 in Bangladesh. That year, the qualifying stage was melded in with the tournament proper, and the UAE eased through that first stage with wins over Afghanistan, Hong Kong and Oman. In the second stage, they finished bottom, losing all four games.UAE squadMuhammad Waseem (capt), Alishan Sharafu, Aryansh Sharma (wk), Asif Khan, Dhruv Parashar, Ethan D’Souza, Haider Ali, Harshit Kaushik, Junaid Siddique, Matiullah Khan, Muhammad Farooq, Muhammad Jawadullah, Muhammad Zohaib, Rahul Chopra (wk), Rohid Khan, Simranjeet Singh and Saghir Khan