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Stats highlights from the tri-series ODI between West Indies and Australia in St Kitts, where the hosts sealed a comfortable four-wicket win

Bharath Seervi14-Jun-20167 Consecutive ODI defeats for West Indies against Australia, before this four-wicket win. Their last win came in March 2012 in Gros Islet. Australia also had a sequence of 14 undefeated ODIs against West Indies between November 2006 and March 2012. The last time West Indies chased a target of 250 or more against Australia was in September 2006 in Kuala Lumpur.92 Marlon Samuels’ score in this match is his highest against Australia in ODIs. This was his first fifty against them after 19 innings. He had previously made two half-centuries against Australia, both of which came in 2001. His average against the visitors has increased from 17.04 to 20.04 with this innings, but it is still the worst among 16 West Indies batsmen who have scored 500 or more ODI runs against Australia. He also picked up his first Man-of-the-Match award in 27 ODIs against them.2011 Last time each of West Indies’ top five batsmen scored 25 or more runs in an ODI. It had happened against Netherlands in Delhi in the 2011 World Cup.16 Consecutive ODIs in which West Indies’ openers did not add a fifty-run stand, before Johnson Charles and Andre Fletcher put on 74 on Monday. In those 16 innings, the openers added 25 or more runs only four times.6 Sixes conceded by Adam Zampa on Monday, the most by an Australia bowler in an ODI since 2002. Xavier Doherty (twice), Clint McKay and Glenn Maxwell have conceded five sixes in a match. Zampa had conceded just five sixes in his first five ODIs and, for the first time in six ODIs, had an economy rate of more than six. He has managed to take at least one wicket in each of his six ODIs and with nine wickets in this series, he is the leading wicket-taker.98 Usman Khawaja’s score in this match is his highest in ODIs. He scored just 29 runs in two innings in Guyana but in both the innings in St Kitts so far, he scored half-centuries – 59 and 98. With 186 runs, he is the leading run-getter in the series.74 Runs scored by West Indies in the first ten overs of the innings is the highest by any team in this series, and was also the first time a team scored more than 60 runs in the first ten overs. Australia had scored just 40 in the same period.3 Number of times two batsmen were run out in the 90s in an ODI. Both Khawaja (98) and Samuels (92) were run out in this match. The last such instance was also at the same venue, in the 2007 World Cup when Michael Clarke and AB de Villiers were run out for 92. The first such instance was in the 1999 World Cup in Hove, where Sourav Ganguly was run out for 97 and Jacques Kallis for 96.

Kuldeep Yadav, who idolised Wasim Akram and wanted to bowl fast, talks about his journey, from his coach convincing him to bowl spin to Anil Kumble advising him about the art of bowling long spells

Arun Venugopal12-Oct-2016When Kuldeep Yadav bowled chinaman for the first time, he had no idea what it was called. Left to him, he wouldn’t have bowled spin, or even turned up at a cricket net. As with many Indian kids, Kuldeep found himself chasing unfulfilled dreams of the previous generation. Kuldeep’s father Ram Singh, a brick-field businessman in Kanpur, had wanted his younger brother, Janardhan Singh, to succeed as a professional cricketer. Janardhan played district-level cricket, but couldn’t graduate to the next level.Ramsingh was disappointed his brother’s career didn’t take off, but he wasn’t going to accept defeat; instead, he decided to invest in his son. When Kuldeep was 11, he was sent to a cricket academy to train alongside his uncle. Kuldeep remembers being a “timepass” cricketer initially; he played a lot of table tennis, but it wasn’t as if he wanted to make a career of it either. “I was too young to decide what to do, so I just studied, played and generally had fun for about a year,” he says.Kuldeep’s coach Kapil Pandey, however, thought he had enough talent for serious cricket, but insisted he switch to spin bowling. Kuldeep wasn’t happy about it: he idolised Wasim Akram and was obsessed with fast bowling. “Even my dad isn’t very tall, so my coach thought I wouldn’t shoot up enough to become a fast bowler,” Kuldeep says. Pandey was proved right as Kuldeep grew no taller than five feet eight inches.When Kuldeep gave spin bowling a shot, he didn’t tweak the ball like a fingerspinner would and instead bowled it from the back of his hand. Kuldeep says he doesn’t know why he did it, but Pandey liked what he saw. “He was impressed with the way my hand opened up at the time of release. He thought I had a rare talent and I should continue bowling that way.”Kuldeep is glad he heeded his coach’s advice. “If I had remained a fast bowler, I would have probably never got to meet Wasim sir,” he says with a chuckle. “When I told Wasim about it [years later, at Kolkata Knight Riders], he was happy that I stuck to spin bowling.”Thereon, Kuldeep never slacked off, packing in two practice sessions every day in the morning and evening. That there was no reference point – there weren’t any chinaman bowlers around him to emulate – wasn’t a hindrance to learning. Kuldeep would try to copy the action of Ravindra Singh Chauhan, a legspinner in his academy. He would also watch videos of his idol Shane Warne and observe his action and rhythm closely. Even now, Kuldeep goes back to Warne’s videos, particularly from the 2005 Ashes, whenever he feels he has a problem with his bowling.When he was 14 or 15, Kuldeep was considered too young to play for Uttar Pradesh’s Under-17s. In a year or two, Kuldeep was a regular in the India under-19 side, but didn’t make the squad for the 2012 World Cup. Kuldeep, then only 17, wasn’t perturbed; he knew his time would come. Two years later, he went on to take a hat-trick against Scotland in the Under-19 World Cup and also became the joint second-highest wicket-taker in the tournament, along with Kagiso Rabada and Namibia’s Bredell Wessels.In 2012, Kuldeep’s first IPL experience was little more than a brief flirtation with Mumbai Indians. A more purposeful, career-defining relationship was forged with Kolkata Knight Riders, who signed him up two years later. While he didn’t get a game in the 2014 IPL season, Kuldeep finished as Knight Riders’ second-highest wicket-taker in the Champions League T20 later that year, as the team finished runners-up. A little over a fortnight later he made his first-class debut.Kuldeep remembers making an impression on his first day at the Knight Riders camp by dismissing Gautam Gambhir in the nets. He is grateful to Gambhir for playing him in the first XI despite the presence of senior spinners such as Sunil Narine, Brad Hogg, Shakib Al Hasan and Piyush Chawla. More reassuring was how Gambhir never fretted over Kuldeep going for runs.”He would just say, ‘it doesn’t matter, he scored off a good ball,'” Kuldeep says. “When I was playing CLT20, Shoaib Malik took 18 [21] runs off me in an over. So, I went up to Gauti and said I wanted to bowl from the other side because the end I was bowling from had shorter boundaries. Gauti bhai insisted I bowl from the same end. I thought to myself, (what has he done).”The game he’s referring to is the semifinal against Hobart Hurricanes. It proved an important, even if chastening, lesson on second-guessing the batsman’s motives. Kuldeep had started well, conceding only 10 runs in three overs and taking the wicket of Ben Dunk. The first ball of his fourth over to Malik was a dot. Then Malik smashed him for two sixes and two fours.Gambhir’s faith in Yadav has been career-defining for the spinner•BCCI”[Malik] told me after the match I was bowling very well, and that he was reading my mind during my first three overs,” Kuldeep says. “He knew exactly when I would flight the ball or push it faster. When you come up against a big player, he is always one step ahead of you.”A key figure in Kuldeep’s development has been fellow left-arm wristspinner Hogg. Apart from teaching him how to bowl the flipper – Kuldeep admits he needs to become stronger to bowl it as well as his senior partner – Hogg has hand-held Kuldeep through match situations. During a match against Sunrisers Hyderabad in the 2016 IPL season, Kuldeep, after a tight over, was anxious to attack in the quest for wickets.With Sunrisers chasing 172, Hogg knew the batsmen themselves would be under pressure to go after the bowling, and advised Kuldeep just to keep things tight. Kuldeep duly dismissed Shikhar Dhawan in his next over.Hogg has also endeared himself to Kuldeep by being a sounding board. “He has asked me to Skype him if there is any problem I want to discuss with him,” Kuldeep says. “That’s a big deal for a youngster when someone you look up to takes a keen interest in you.”Kuldeep went through a traumatic period during the Ranji Trophy last year. While his numbers – 13 wickets from five games for Uttar Pradesh at an average of nearly 47 – were middling at best, he believes he could have done with a few more opportunities. “I was struggling so much to play for my state, but I don’t know why I wasn’t being picked,” he says. “I had come back after having picked wickets playing for India A, but I would be dropped here. I felt like I was being ignored.”One of the reasons he doesn’t find a regular place in the UP team is the presence of Piyush Chawla as the lead spinner, especially on pitches that don’t require more than one spinner. It’s also possible his success in the shorter formats has led to him being typecast as a limited-overs bowler. Kuldeep, however, insists he is a classical spinner whose heart lies in the longer format.”If you are a spinner, you should turn and flight the ball. I can’t fire it in fast; that is beyond me,” he says. “I love Test cricket the best. I get a lot of enjoyment playing four-day cricket, and my bowling style suits four-day cricket because I flight the ball.”Help, though, was forthcoming from two senior members of the side – Chawla and Suresh Raina. “PC supported me a lot, and asked me to keep working hard,” he says. “Raina is very caring. He always calls and keeps tabs on what is happening with me. I worked very hard on my bowling during that phase. Such phases are part and parcel of life – sometimes you do well and sometimes you don’t.”By the time the Duleep Trophy began – a day-night affair that trialled the pink ball for the first time in India’s first-class cricket – Kuldeep was more at peace with himself and finished as the leading wicket-taker with 17 wickets in three matches. With India’s head coach Anil Kumble and then selectors Vikram Rathore and Saba Karim in attendance, Kuldeep picked up four wickets in the final. Yuvraj Singh, his captain at India Red, called him (magician).Kuldeep’s performances in the tournament didn’t earn him a place in either the Test or the ODI sides against New Zealand, but they didn’t go unnoticed, as he was invited to train with the Indian team. Only once before had he been part of the senior squad when he was picked for the ODI series against West Indies in 2014.”When you are with the team and training with them, you feel that you are a part of the team,” he says. “I had some good conversations with Anil this time. He spoke to me about how I should bowl when the body starts tiring and what I should do while bowling long spells. He would stand next to me while I was bowling and took very good care of me.”The more I am used to bowling to batsmen like Virat [Kohli] or Jinks [Ajinkya Rahane] and Puji [Cheteshwar Pujara] , it’s easier to understand where I stand and how I can improve when I go back to Ranji Trophy. They tell me what’s the right pace to bowl and what variations I could bowl.”Kuldeep didn’t have to wait too long to put some of that wisdom into practice, as he was picked for UP’s season-opener against Madhya Pradesh. But he would know from experience that getting there is only half the job done.

Australia and Pakistan have both slipped from the top Test spot this year. Now both teams are coming after series losses and will have lots to do under lights at the Gabba

Brydon Coverdale in Brisbane14-Dec-2016Against South Africa in Adelaide, Australia made five changes and named three debutants in one of the most comprehensive overhauls of the national side since World Series Cricket. They won, but a dead rubber only, and now face the expectation of winning a series against Pakistan. But Steven Smith’s men have much schooling ahead of them in international cricket, with many lessons to learn. And if Mickey Arthur has taught the Pakistanis anything, they will punish Australia if they haven’t done their homework. So, here are six subjects that Australia’s new-look squad might (or might not) benefit from studying.Ancient historyOne of the most enduring records in Australian cricket is the team’s unbeaten run at the Brisbane Cricket Ground – nicknamed the Gabbatoir for their slaying of opposition dreams at the venue. Last time Australia lost a Gabba Test was in 1988. Smith wasn’t even born then, and nor were half of his team. Not to mention this will be the first Gabba Test played with a pink ball under lights, and the first Gabba Test full-stop for up to five of Australia’s XI. And so, like most students, Australia’s cricketers will view this ancient history as irrelevant. We might as well be discussing who won the Punic Wars.”We’ve got a great record here and hopefully we can keep that up, but it’s a little bit different this year – the pink ball compared to the red ball,” Smith said. “I’m not really paying much attention to that, it’s about going out here and making sure we’ve got our processes right and we’re playing good cricket. And if we’re doing that then hopefully the result will take care of itself.”Modern historyAustralia and Pakistan have both been ranked No.1 in Tests this year, but have fallen to No.3 and 4 respectively after losing campaigns. Australia lost away to Sri Lanka and at home to South Africa, and Pakistan lost on the green seaming pitches in New Zealand. It is also worth noting that only four in Australia’s side – Smith, David Warner, Nathan Lyon and Mitchell Starc – have played Tests against Pakistan. By comparison, 10 of Pakistan’s squad have played Australia. One of those is fast bowler Mohammad Amir, who skittled Australia for 88 at Headingley in 2010. That Test marked the beginning of an era in which Australia’s batsmen often suffered humiliating collapses against swing – an era that remains ongoing. Under lights with the pink ball, Amir could be a serious threat.”I remember watching out in Australia in 2010 he bowled with really good pace,” said Smith, the only current Australia player to have faced Amir in Tests. “I think he was hitting 145-150 and in England he slowed it down and got his wrists right and swung the ball, so it’s great to have those sort of gears and those skills. No doubt he could potentially be a handful if it’s swinging around. Guys are just going to have to identify those difficult periods and adapt and show some resilience and things will get easier from there.”GeographyIn 2014, Australia learnt a lesson about deserts. On the dry pitches of the UAE, Pakistan’s batsmen handled Australia’s fast men with ease, and their spinners with contempt. Pakistan’s slow bowlers were dominant, including legspinner Yasir Shah. On debut in that series, he claimed 12 wickets at 17.25 across the two Tests, more wickets than all of Australia’s spinners combined. But in Australia, where the pitches will offer far more bounce and pace, Smith hopes that the threat of Yasir will be diminished.”I guess the Gabba, you’ll get a bit of extra bounce as a spin bowler,” Smith said. “I guess that can play in your favour, and can also play against you. Your length has to be spot on. Generally there isn’t too much turn – it’s more bounce, so length is crucial. And if you’re slightly off your length, you can really cash in down the wicket and square of the wicket as well. So he’s going to have to be pretty accurate.”Steven Smith is the only current Australia player to have faced Mohammad Amir in Tests•Getty ImagesPhysical educationAustralia’s new-look side boasts some fine fielders – Peter Handscomb pulled off a super catch at gully in Adelaide – but some aspects of working together require improvement. Australia will, for example, hope that wicketkeeper Matthew Wade and first slip Matt Renshaw have no further disagreements over who should go for a catch. Still, Australia will likely have the edge over Pakistan in the catching department. Pakistan’s batsmen might also find themselves up against some bouncer barrages as Australia’s fast men try to exploit the pace and bounce in the pitches, although the likes of Wahab Riaz are more than capable of returning the favour.”We’ve watched a little bit of the New Zealand series, just recently, and I think traditionally sub-continent sides that come over to Australia don’t handle the pace and bounce, or aren’t as comfortable with the pace and bounce of our wickets,” Smith said. “You need to try and find ways to exploit that as much as possible and at times I’m sure we’re going to see some short-pitched bowling to mess with their feet and be possible ways to get them out as well. We watched New Zealand pretty closely and they obviously did a good job, so hopefully our bowlers can replicate that.”MathsCalculations are always important for a captain, whether setting targets or juggling bowling spells. But in day-night Test cricket an extra dimension is added, with the knowledge that batting can become harder as the floodlights kick in. In Adelaide, Faf du Plessis even declared South Africa’s first innings before the close of the first day, such was his desire to test Australia under the lights.”I think if you look at all the pink-ball stats that have come out, most wickets have been lost in that final session so I guess it adds another dimension to the game,” Smith said. “Captains have to be switched on and possibly figure out different times to have a crack. If we get the opportunity and it might be about going out and trying to score a little bit quicker to get 10 overs with the new ball under lights, because we’ve seen it can do quite a lot. It throws some different strategies into the game.”ScienceThis is where the lessons get complicated. At about 5pm on match eve, the Australians gathered around the 22-yard strip in the middle of the Gabba and tried to work out how it would perform. At Adelaide Oval, the curator had left six millimetres of grass on the surface to help protect the pink ball; at the Gabba, only two millimetres will be left on. Perhaps only in cricket do agriculture and sport combine to hold the attention of so many. The Gabba curator, Kevin Mitchell jnr, believes the pitch will perform like a typical Gabba Test surface. Whatever the case, Australia’s uncertainty was such that Smith was unable to confirm whether spinner Nathan Lyon would play.

The Wanderers has become the ninth full-member pitch to be rated ‘poor’ or worse since the ICC introduced its pitch and outfield monitoring process

Sidharth Monga28-Feb-2017Since the introduction of ICC’s pitch and outfield monitoring process in 2006, 14 international pitches have been rated poor or worse by match referees. Nine of the 14 pitches have belonged to ICC full members. If the five matches in Canada – four of them within two days – are taken out, four of the remaining nine pitches to face sanction have been in India. Here is a list of the nine full-member pitches.India v South Africa, Test, Kanpur, 2007-08Rating: Poor
Reason: Too dry and too much turn and variable bounce
Match referee: Roshan MahanamaWhat happened: Trailing 1-0 after being bowled out for 76 on a moist pitch in Ahmedabad, India defeated South Africa in three days to level the series. South Africa were bowled out for 121 in the second innings. “My considered view is that the pitch was poor as it was too dry and had considerable turn and variable bounce from the first day… The pitch was not up to Test match standards,” said Mahanama in his report.”It was a poor cricket wicket, though I can understand the reason behind it,” South Africa’s then coach Micky Arthur said. “But the practice facilities and the accommodation left a lot to be desired for an international venue.”The fallout: Kanpur got away with an official warning because it had no previous record of producing a substandard pitchIndia v Sri Lanka, ODI, Delhi, 2009-10Rating: Unfit
Reason: Random, dangerous and uneven bounce
Match referee: Alan HurstWhat happened: India had already won the five-match ODI series when they came to Delhi for the last match, but only 23.3 overs were bowled before it was decided the pitch offered “extremely variable bounce and was too dangerous for further play”. The bounce varied from shin to shoulder height from similar areas.The fallout: Feroz Shah Kotla was banned from hosting international cricket for a year, but that was actually a reprieve: had the ICC imposed the maximum penalty of two years, Delhi would have lost out on 2011 World Cup matches.The BCCI sacked its grounds and pitches committee, headed then by Daljit Singh, who duly came back and still heads the committee.West Indies v South Africa, Test, St Kitts, 2010Rating: Poor
Reason: Too flat
Match referee: Jeff CroweWhat happened: Nineteen wickets fell over five days as South Africa declared at 543 for 6, only for West Indies to overhaul the total. “This was not an exciting surface on which to play Test cricket,” South Africa captain Graeme Smith said. “We were all looking for a good, even battle between bat and ball. Hopefully, Barbados [next Test] will have a little bit more in the pitch, and it will be more of a fair challenge for both sides.”The ICC noted that “it was remnants of a T20 pitch from a few weeks ago”.The fallout: After due consideration, the rating was changed to “below average”. No penalty or fines. Since this match, St Kitts has hosted one further Test, which Pakistan won.Sri Lanka v Australia, Test, Galle, 2011Rating: Poor
Reason: Excessive spin early on and further deterioration
Match referee: Chris BroadWhat happened: The Test ended on the fourth day with spinners taking 18 of the first 30 wickets to fall. In the last innings, fast bowler Ryan Harris took a five-for as Australia won by 125 runs. However, Australia captain Michael Clarke and his predecessor Ricky Ponting said day one felt like day five.David Richardson, then the ICC’s general manager for cricket, said: “It was clear from the video footage of the match that the amount of turn, especially early in the match, was excessive and there were occasions (even on the first day) where the ball went through the surface of the pitch, bouncing unusually steeply from a good length.”The fallout: The ground was officially warned, and ICC’s pitch consultant Andy Atkinson was to inspect the pitch before it hosted further international cricket. Galle remains one of Sri Lanka’s iconic Test venues. In 10 Tests since the warning, Galle has produced one draw but has generally remained bowler-friendly. Two of the 10 Tests have ended in three days, but they haven’t been considered to have produced “excessive turn” early in the match.England v India, Test, Nottingham, 2014Rating: Poor
Reason: Too flat
Match referee: David BoonWhat happened: The first Test of the series brought a glut of runs, including 81 from No. 11 James Anderson and twin fifties for No. 9 Bhuvneshwar Kumar. It was widely touted as a “chief executive’s pitch”, designed to ensure gate receipts over five days. Anderson the bowler was left frustrated that edges didn’t carry on the low and slow surface.The fallout: An official warning and a requirement for the ground to furnish the ECB pitch consultant’s report before international cricket the next season. The only Test at Trent Bridge since then ended in three days with England bowling Australia out for 60 on a green seamer. That particular green pitch is often the counter given by irate players or coaches when the quality of a rank turner in Asia is questioned.India v South Africa, Test, Nagpur, 2015-16Rating: Poor
Reason: Excessive turn and uneven bounce throughout the match
Match referee: Jeff CroweWhat happened: After losing the ODI and T20I series to South Africa, in the words of India director Ravi Shastri, India took a chance and rolled out a turner in the first Test of the series in Mohali. That three-day finish paled in comparison with the third Test, in Nagpur, where the degree of turn, the bounce, and the pace off the pitch were all variable. South Africa were bowled out for 79 in their first innings; India’s 215 on day one was the highest score of the match.The fallout: An official warning was given even though the BCCI questioned the rating. In the World T20 the same season, Nagpur produced mainly turning tracks with India bowled out for, well, 79 in the tournament opener against New Zealand.India v Australia, Test, Pune, 2016-17Rating: Poor
Reason: Loose soil on both ends and spinners’ deliveries exploding from the surface early in the match
Match referee: Chris BroadWhat happened: After beating New Zealand, England and Bangladesh emphatically in a long home season, India went for a turner in Pune, against the wishes of the local curator. Australia enjoyed the advantage of batting first and then their spinners became unstoppable. India made only 212 runs – their lowest match aggregate at home after losing 20 wickets.The fallout: The ground was given a warning but was allowed to continue hosting international cricket. In October 2017, it hosted a low-scoring ODI in which seamers took the majority of the wickets. The pitch curator, Pandurang Salgaoncar, was involved in a much more serious controversy this time, as a TV channel claimed to have caught him on tape trading information about the pitch.Australia v England, MCG, 2017-18Rating: Poor
Reason: Pitch neither favoured the batsmen too much nor gave the bowlers sufficient opportunity to take wickets
Match referee: Ranjan MadugalleWhat happened: The MCG’s curator had resigned and his replacement was yet to arrive, so the preparation of the pitch for the Boxing Day Test of the 2017-18 Ashes was left in the hands of the arena operations manager. He tried to play it safe by leaving little grass on the surface and repeatedly rolling it, but the result was a pitch that did not deteriorate over the five days. In addition, the bounce, according to Ranjan Madugalle, the match referee, was “medium, but slow in pace and got slower as the match progressed.” Only 24 wickets were taken during the Test, while the runs came at less than three an over. Steven Smith, the Australia captain, criticised the pitch for offering nothing to the bowlers. “We saw some reverse swing, but the ball just gets so soft so quickly because the surface is quite hard,” he said. “It gets soft, doesn’t carry through, and it’s really difficult to get people out. I just don’t think it’s good for anyone.”The fallout: Cricket Australia has 14 days to reply to the ICC.South Africa v India, Wanderers, 2017-18Rating: Poor
Reason: Excessively steep and unpredictable bounce, and excessive seam movement
Match referee: Andy PycroftWhat happened: The ball had been swinging and seaming prodigiously on the first day, but it was when a few deliveries jumped up from a length and hit batsmen on day two that concerns were raised about the surface. Batsmen from both teams were struck on the gloves through the second and third day, with the team physios making several trips to the centre. To complicate matters, some deliveries kept low and some moved dramatically sideways after hitting cracks. On the third day, the umpires were seen having several discussions with each other on whether the match should be abandoned due to a dangerous pitch. When Dean Elgar, the South Africa opener, was hit on the helmet by a short-of-a-length delivery from Jasprit Bumrah on the third evening, the players were taken off the field, leading to fears the game would indeed be called off, which would mean a one-year ban for the Wanderers, one of South Africa’s premier venues. However, the game continued on the fourth day. While India’s Ajinkya Rahane said the pitch was “challenging but not dangerous”, Elgar suggested the match should have been abandoned.The fallout: The Wanderers has been given three demerit points. If the ground accrues two more demerit points within the next five years, it would lead to a one-year ban.

Taijul Islam fits neatly into Bangladesh’s Test line-up, often stemming the flow of runs when the opposition is piling on the pressure; but has the management shown enough faith in him?

Mohammad Isam10-Feb-2017The second day of the Hyderabad Test belonged to Virat Kohli but the man who finally removed him could feel satisfied with his efforts. Taijul Islam was slightly lucky to get the prized wicket as the leg-before decision looked iffy on replay, but when you have been the most consistent bowler in an attack that has been taken for 687 runs, a bit of good fortune is justified.Taijul finished with three wickets, a paltry haul compared to some of his bigger ones, but he held up well against a prolific batting line-up, accounting for M Vijay, Ajinkya Rahane and Kohli. Two of those wickets came at the back-end of big scores and Rahane’s – for 83 – was brilliantly snapped up by Mehedi Hasan.His accurate left-arm spin, developed over the years in the first-class circuit, fits into many of Bangladesh’s bowling efforts where the opposition batting line-up applies a lot of pressure by batting long. That’s where Taijul usually comes in, holding up one end and pegging away on one spot. He doesn’t bowl much on middle stump to the right-handers, instead bowling the delivery that pitches on off and spins away. His biggest strength is the bounce he generates from his high-arm action, which is augmented by the jump at the time of delivery.Among his three victims, Taijul bowled the least to Vijay, giving away one boundary before bowling him around his legs. He kept Rahane quiet in the early stages of his innings and, even during the long first spell on the second day, Taijul didn’t give him much – off the 36 balls he faced, Rahane made 12 runs.Taijul kept it tight and could have had more if Mushfiqur Rahim hadn’t missed a stumping of Wriddhiman Saha•AFPTaijul also tied up Cheteshwar Pujara, who got only nine runs off 40 balls, but Kohli was a different proposition. Like he had been against all the Bangladesh bowlers, Taijul too was bashed by the India captain, who scored 55 runs off him, hitting five boundaries off 79 deliveries faced. But, by virtue of bowling most number of deliveries to Kohli, Taijul also bowled the most dot balls to him.Among all the Bangladesh spinners, Taijul looked most likely to dismiss Kohli. He forced him to come forward a number of times, and was as accurate as one can be against such a marauding force. When he did trap Kohli leg-before, the ball slid back into his pads as he attempted a late cut.His first spell today lasted 17 overs in which he gave away 56 runs to take two wickets. But like the rest of the bowling attack, he too got tired. In his last spell, Taijul was taken to the cleaners by Ravindra Jadeja, giving away 50 off ten overs. Maybe the spell at the end was compensation for bringing him into the attack late on the first day, where he bowled 20 overs and looked like Mushfiqur Rahim’s most viable option after coming on to bowl in the 36th over.Being overlooked until there is no other choice within the bowling attack has been a feature of Taijul’s international career so far.He started off with a five-wicket haul in his debut Test innings against the West Indies. In his first home Test, Taijul took Bangladesh’s best Test figures of 8 for 39 against Zimbabwe in a dramatic spell that brought the side a hard-fought win in Dhaka. And his third and most recent five-for came against Pakistan, when he took 6 for 163 in Chittagong in April 2015. He also took a hat-trick on his ODI debut, against Zimbabwe in November 2014.Despite these performances, he hasn’t always been a straightforward selection, particularly after Mehedi Hasan burst on to the scene late last year. This after a brief period in 2014-15 when legspinner Jubair Hossain had climbed ahead in the pecking order.During Bangladesh’s New Zealand tour in December-January, Taijul was with the team but didn’t play a single match. Mehedi was preferred as the second spinner, given that Taijul had not taken too many wickets in the previous Test series against England.Mehedi later said that Taijul’s mental strength, after having sat out the entire New Zealand tour, was impressive. “Taijul bhai bowled really well,” he said. “He was playing at this level for the first time since the England matches in October. He didn’t play at all in New Zealand so his comeback really was pleasing. He showed great mentality. He bowled tightly, and spun the ball a number of times. He created a lot of chances.”But he is the sort of quiet, strong character who doesn’t seem fazed by most situations. There should always be a place for someone like Taijul in this line-up: he brings a cool head always required in an emotionally unpredictable team. He won’t always bowl the big spells but a bit of certainty could help him come into his own and provide the bowling line-up with a strong backbone in Tests.

Marks out of ten for the New Zealand squad that played the Test series against South Africa

Firdose Moonda30-Mar-20172:19

Hesson happy with how New Zealand are shaping up

9Kane Williamson

The top run-scorer and the only one to score more than one hundred, Kane Williamson capped off his first season as captain with a typically fine showing with the bat. He led from the front with two classy centuries, which deserved more than the draws they were part of. In Dunedin, Williamson’s knock ensured New Zealand did not have cause to panic after Ross Taylor retired hurt and helped set them up to take a slender lead. In Hamilton, his 170 allowed him to equal Martin Crowe’s 17 Test centuries and become the youngest New Zealand player to 5,000 Test runs. His Hamilton hundred was chanceless and dominant, he paced the innings perfectly and set his team up to push for victory. Although he cannot find himself on the winning side of a coin toss and his DRS skills need work, as a leader Williamson shows great promise.8Jeet Raval

New Zealand needed someone who could be tighter outside the offstump than Martin Guptill; Jeet Raval has provided that. His solid technique is his greatest asset and it served him well against a South African attack who can exploit even the smallest weaknesses. He scored half-centuries in all three matches – in Dunedin and Wellington after Tom Latham had departed early – and shared in crucial partnerships with Kane Williamson in Dunedin and Hamilton and with Henry Nicholls in Wellington. His 88 was the third-highest score by a New Zealand opener against South Africa and though he will be disappointed he was not able to push on to a maiden century, he completed an impressive Test summer.7.5 Neil Wagner

New Zealand’s highest wicket-taker and the series’ most successful seamer had to take on the additional responsibility of bowling in an attack without Tim Southee and Trent Boult. Wagner had only played one Test in which both of them had not featured in the XI and that was on debut in 2012, but he accepted the embraced the challenge and led the attack. As expected, Wagner was indefatigable in his use of the short ball but also showed some variation. One of the fuller deliveries he dished out took out Hashim Amla’s middle stump in Dunedin. New Zealand have come to depend on him to make things happen and in every match, he delivered.Colin de Grandhomme

On the face of it, Colin de Grandhomme should not be very dangerous; he bowls in the late 120s. But he troubled South Africa with the quality of the questions he asked with full deliveries outside the off stump. He got three gifts in the first innings in Wellington, a reward for a disciplined start when asked to open the bowling, and he was kept in the role for Hamilton where he enjoyed more success. His batting was the bonus New Zealand wanted; in Hamilton, he scored his maiden half-century and upped the scoring rate at the right time to put New Zealand in their best position of the series – and edge ahead of Neesham as their premier allrounder.Matt Henry

Having waited for an opportunity behind Tim Southee and Trent Boult, Matt Henry took his chance and set the tone with the new ball in Hamilton. He removed two of South Africa’s top four early on and showed the same intent in the second innings. Henry was effective with both short and full deliveries, and deepened the collapse when he got rid of Temba Bavuma in the second innings to leave South Africa with just one recognised batsmen left in a bid to stave off defeat.7BJ Watling

A man with an appetite for a fight, BJ Watling gives New Zealand lower-order muscle which was most evident in Dunedin. His fifty there and partnership with Kane Williamson allowed New Zealand to take the lead. He also played determined knocks in Wellington and Hamilton. He often runs out of support, though, and there are continued calls for him to bat higher up, which would be difficult given his wicketkeeping responsibilities.6Henry Nicholls

With pressure over his place at No. 5 growing, Henry Nicholls came into this series needing runs to prove himself and he got them in Wellington. His hundred came a time New Zealand needed it most – they were 101 for 5 and without Ross Taylor in the first innings – and allowed them to mount a challenge. He did not have any other scores of significance and was twice out in single figures, which makes consistency his next challenge.Jeetan Patel

An unexpected pick, Jeetan Patel’s comeback was prompted by New Zealand’s decision to play on slower surfaces to negate South Africa’s quicks – that necessitated two specialist spinners in Dunedin and Hamilton. Initially, he operated as Quinton de Kock’s nemesis and dismissed him twice in the first Test after also getting rid of him in the fourth and fifth ODI, but de Kock did not remain his bunny for too long. Patel continued to trouble South Africa’s batsmen though. More crucially for him, he emerged as New Zealand’s first-choice spinner, edging out Mitchell Santner in Wellington.Trent Boult

Trent Boult did the damage early and later on in South Africa’s first innings in Dunedin. He got rid of Stephen Cook and then took three wickets with the old ball when he found substantial movement. He was particularly impressive in keeping run-scoring to a minimum with more than a third of his overs being maidens. Boult picked up a groin injury in the second innings, which ruled him out of the rest of series.5Tom Latham

After a poor start to the series with 24 runs from his first three innings,Tom Latham returned to form with fifty in Hamilton, where he batted with more patience and composure than he had in the previous two matches. Latham’s runs came on the back of an improved performance in the field, where he took a blinder at short leg to dismiss Faf du Plessis on the paddle sweep to redeem himself after a slip-catch clanger in Dunedin. Latham still has work do against the moving ball but can be pleased with his season’s work.Mitchell Santner

He was outperformed in Dunedin by Jeetan Patel and then left out of the Wellington Test but Mitchell Santner came back fairly strongly in Hamilton. The three and a quarter hours he spent at the crease only yielded 41 runs but came at a crucial time for New Zealand. Kane Williamson was holding court and needed support, which Santner provided, to build the lead. His credentials as an allrounder are growing, though he would have wanted a few more wickets to his name.4Tim Southee

Left out in Dunedin to accommodate two specialist spinners, Tim Southee may have gone to Wellington itching to prove his worth but he only picked up three wickets. He picked up the bulk of the workload in the first innings and proved threatening upfront but did not get the rewards he would have been after. A hamstring injury kept him out of the Hamilton match.3 Neil Broom

Called up because of his experience in first-class cricket, Neil Broom was tasked with batting in Ross Taylor’s No. 4 spot and did not have an easy time of it. He was on the receiving end of two fantastic deliveries in Wellington and then shouldered arms to Kagiso Rabada in Hamilton to end the series with not much to show and questions over whether he has a future as a Test cricketer.2James Neesham

Picked as the allrounder in Dunedin ahead of Colin de Grandhomme, James Neesham only bowled 13 overs in the match and was dismissed for seven. He returned for Wellington but failed to contribute as much as New Zealand would have wanted and was dropped for Hamilton. Neesham needed to hold the middle-order together better and present more threat with the ball but failed to do both.UnmarkedRoss Taylor

Ross Taylor tore his calf early in his Dunedin innings and had to retire hurt before he could do any real damage – to himself or South Africa. He returned to bat with the tail to help New Zealand edge ahead but could not take any further part in the series.

A lot of talking, a trip to the football, forgetting what had gone before. How one of the great comebacks was scripted

Jarrod Kimber29-Aug-2017″Stand up and fight back” is the text that the West Indies Twitter feed used during this Test. The quote is the title of a Jimmy Cliff Song.At the start of this tour Stuart Law talked publicly about how he wanted his team to make history. But privately they were talking about fight. It’s not an official slogan, but Law made it very clear to them before the series started.These are the toughest conditions for us; you are facing two of the best quick bowlers around, if you don’t fight, you won’t survive.That tweet was sent out at tea on the second day when Kraigg Brathwaite and Shai Hope were in the middle of their incredible partnership. In that morning session they had stood up, and in the afternoon they were fighting back.**Sixteen minutes and 15 seconds. That is how often the West Indies lost a wicket on the third day at Edgbaston. There were beach balls out on the ground longer than West Indies batsmen. They let themselves down; the fans, press and their own legends got stuck in. It was one of the worst days – even with some pretty dire ones over the last 20 years – in the history of West Indies cricket.Jason Holder’s post match press conference was a broken man trying to hold his rage in. He was sick and tired of losing, and being told how bad his team was. It wasn’t just that, the entire Test was hearing from plenty of people of how they should make a second division and put them in it, of how they didn’t deserve three Tests, of how they didn’t care, didn’t try, and certainly didn’t fight.When Holder finished his press conference he went straight down to the change rooms and Law talked to the team.Law was, is, firm. The positives were mentioned, but there weren’t many. Blackwood, Brathwaite and the good early start with the ball. Then the negatives were mentioned, they were probably glossed over as to name them one by one would have taken almost three days. In all, Law only spoke for about 15 minutes, or maybe it was sixteen, but on day three at Edgbaston, that was enough.At the end of his talk, Law was clear: “Let’s hit back”.**Day four and five at Edgbaston became the days when West Indies broke their game down and built it back up again.They practised hard on each day, and they also sat down for open meetings on both of these days in which they tried for brutal honesty. Each player spoke up about his game, saying ‘I wasn’t this, I have to be this…’ The overriding message was that they needed to change.The reason for so much talk at Edgbaston was when they went to Headingley, they wanted to go there without the baggage.The West Indies team psychologist is Steven Sylvester, also does work with Sheffield United, and he took the West Indies to Bramall Lane to see their game against Leicester City. The team was treated like VIPs, when they have announced the fans cheered, they got to talk to the coaches and players behind the scenes.The reception was so good, so overwhelmingly positive, old men coming up to shake their hands, the crowd reaction and the treatment from Sheffield United itself, it was as if the West Indies had won the last Test.Sheffield United were smashed, they lost 4-1.**The West Indian batsmen bowl in the nets. All the time, it is part of their training, more often than not you see batsmen in world cricket, faff about, pad themselves up, make gags, and then bat, before picking up their gear and leaving.This team has grown up together, they are very close, and they see things like this as helping each other out. This has all been fostered by their assistant coaches, Roddy Estwick and Toby Radford.Estwick has coached some of this team since they were 11 years old, Radford has been there since most of them were teenagers. There is still a genuine excitement that they all get to play together, and that they are in Tests.The entire team is growing up together.Shai Hope started the match with a Test average under 20 and ended it a hero•Getty Images**Once the West Indies arrived for this Test, they treated it as if it was normal. The problems had been discussed, dealt with, there was no need for more talk, they knew they had to fight, and they knew how.On the first day that was with the ball. Kemar Roach and Shannon Gabriel looked better on their own than the entire five-man attack had in the previous Test. Had they taken more of their chances they could have all but ended the match on the first day, but in the end they had to be pretty happy with England being out for 258.The next day was theirs as well. When Brathwaite and Shai Hope came together it was tough, they had lost three early wickets, they were still haunted by Edgbaston. But Hope and Brathwaite passed England’s score on their own. For two days, they were almost as good as they were bad in the previous Test.But as terrific as they were on the second day, they started day three losing two wickets in two balls. In the tour matches against Essex and Kent they lost early wickets and got themselves in trouble and fought back. So while Edgbaston was on everyone’s mind, they were thinking about their good times, they still thought they could fight back. And they did. Holder, Blackwood, and the tail got them a proper lead. Then the bowlers took early wickets, and created plenty of chances.But their fielders didn’t take them, they dropped Joe Root when they could have destroyed England on day three, and then on day four they shelled Dawid Malan as well. And day four, well it wasn’t as bad as anything they managed at Edgbaston, but it was a pretty poor day of cricket. They looked directionless at times, and like they’d lost. And somehow after three top days of cricket, they went from favourites to rank outsiders.642 teams have been set over 300 runs in a final innings chase, 29 have been successful. That is a 4.52% success rate. Look at the teams who have done it; they’ve had Bradman, Greenidge, Amla, and Younis in their teams. The West Indies side has Kieran Powell opening and Kyle Hope batting at three.But at the press conference at the end of day four, their bowling coach Roddy Estwick said: “We’re still looking to win this Test match. We’ve got nothing to lose”.The chorus of Jimmy Cliff’s goes, “Stand up and fight back, You got nothing to lose”.**There was no chance to fight back this morning; this morning was about standing up. Brathwaite edged the ball straight to slip, Alastair Cook dropped it, Brathwaite edged straight to slip again, this time it landed inches in front of Tom Westley, and then finally he drove the ball straight back into Stuart Broad’s hands, and Stuart Broad dropped that as well. This was all in the morning, and it doesn’t include the many times he faced an incredible ball that he barely kept out.Other batsmen would worry about this kind of start. Brathwaite is a bubble batsman, he’s batting, the outside world might be in flames, but he’s just focusing on the next ball. And once he was set, it would have been the first time England believed they had declared too early. Some batsmen enter zones that make them look un-dismissable, and that was Brathwaite’s afternoon.But as he approached 100 for the second time this match, he showed signs of being a human. Brathwaite had tried to get away a wide one from Moeen Ali – perhaps with half a mind on getting his hundred before tea – and the edge flew into Ben Stokes chest.It was Shai Hope who showed the emotion, waving his bat around in anger, looking away in disgust. Brathwaite, the man who has been making hundreds since the age of 13 like a robot, just looked confused. His walk off the ground looked like he was trying to come to grips with why he had to leave.Hope and Brathwaite had faced 109 overs in this Test together, scoring 390 runs. Hope could have been forgiven if like elderly married partners, when one died, the other followed.But if Brathwaite looked set, Hope looked regal. There was a back-foot drive so good, oh, so good, so so, so good. Until you see it, you don’t truly know what love is. It went through mid-off; it was as if it was too extraordinary to travel via cover, this one had to go straight.And that is what Shai Hope does, plays shots of such aesthetic and cricket quality that you burst with high-pitched squeals, orgasmic sighs and nonsensical giggles. In this innings, even with Brathwaite struggling at times, the youngest man in the match batted like it was his birthright to succeed in Tests, maybe even this Test. For the longest time it looked like the only time there was a chance he’d get out was if his team mate drilled a drive and the ball was fumbled onto his stumps, which happened to his brother.Even when it got tough after tea, with three successive maidens, Roston Chase was almost out every ball, balls keeping low, balls spitting up, reverse swing, Hope only looked marginally challenged.Jermaine Blackwood lays into a pull shot•Getty ImagesWhen Shai Hope was six years old, he took a photo posing as a batsman using some new cricket gear. Behind him smiling is Clive Lloyd. Fifteen years later it was Lloyd who gave Hope his first Test cap. Today Lloyd would have smiled more than either of those two occasions.It was Shai who said on day two after Jermaine Blackwood took ten runs off the last over that “Jermaine’s, Jermaine”.Blackwood is something special; he’s a five-foot weapon of destruction, that can destroy the bowlers, himself, practically anything. He’s the last cold beer in your fridge, a beam of pure light, he’s a real life Tickle me Elmo. Today he was the whopping great cherry on West Indies ice cream cake of joy.Blackwood stood back and humped a ball straight back over James Anderson’s head. He charged down at fast bowlers like they were club spinners. When the crowd started chanting, “Oh, Jimmy Anderson” it was like he misheard and thought it was for him. He attacked the new ball like it’d stolen his lunch money as a child. He almost fell over attempting something like a drunken Nat-Meg. He sliced a ball over third man’s head for six, and then walked down the pitch like he’d been named emperor of cricket, waiting for underpants and roses to be thrown at his feet.West Indies had fought hard for four and two third days, and now it was party time, and no one parties like Jermaine; he parties on his own at two in the afternoon doing his taxes. So when he was within a boundary of winning the match, he gave away his helmet. If he was going to win this – and he deserved it after his great knock at Edgbaston – it was going to look pretty as hell, hitting the ball harder than Thor. Instead he was out, and pretty embarrassed.It was left to Shai Hope to hit the winning runs. He came into this Test as a 23-year-old without a Test hundred, was ranked below Joe Burns, Jayant Yadav and Mark Craig in the ICC rankings, and had an average of 18.Eighteen, and in the 534th first-class match played at Headingley this was the first time a man had made first-class hundreds in both innings. That is making history. That is standing up. And he stood up as he clipped the ball off his pad for two, the match-winning two.The West Indies came into this Test having suffered one of their worst losses in history, ranked eighth in the world rankings, and of their last 87 away Tests they had won three.Three, and for the fourth time in twenty years, they beat Jimmy and Broady, Root and Stokesy, England at home, and the Headingley clouds. And they stood up as they achieved one of the greatest comebacks in Tests. History. Stand up. Fight.As Jimmy Cliff sang, “No matter what the people say,
Never, never, never run away.
You’re the youth, you’re the change, you’re the new
You’re the one to free yourself.”

The recent recalls for Tim Paine and Cameron White – based on a combination of pragmatism and mysticism – have blindsided plenty in Australian cricket

Daniel Brettig11-Jan-2018Were Australia’s national selection panel a spin bowler, they would be lauded for well-disguised variation.Tim Paine as Ashes wicketkeeper, despite not taking the gloves for his state, was equivalent to the big wrong’un that Mushtaq Ahmed fizzed past Graeme Hick in the 1992 World Cup final, fooling everyone. Now Cameron White’s recall, three years after his last international appearance and with a World Cup just around the corner, is Shane Warne’s 1994 Gabba flipper through Alec Stewart, after a couple of short balls had him thinking of the cut and pull shots.As spin bowlers do, the selectors had cunningly set-up quite different expectations, from the moment the Cricket Australia board had urged Trevor Hohns’ panel to look for more youthful talent following Rod Marsh’s resignation in the wake of a fifth consecutive Test match defeat in Hobart late in 2016. Matt Renshaw, Peter Handscomb, Marcus Stoinis and Sam Heazlett were all ushered into the national team during this period, leaving numerous older players looking wistfully towards retirement.Certainly Paine and White were not expecting to be in contention. Paine was seriously contemplating a move out of Tasmania to take a job with Kookaburra last winter after Matthew Wade elected to return home, and White was so sure he is surplus to international cricket that he has critiqued the aforementioned selection policy in an unvarnished manner that could only be described as “going down swinging”.His words last January were spicy enough to provoke this response from Hohns: “I’m a little bit surprised by those comments, to be quite honest. The Sheffield Shield has been well-documented as being very important to us in Australian cricket – selectors, everybody. And then younger players – I think he just needs to remember that he was a very young man when he was given his first opportunity in one-day cricket. I don’t think there is any disparity there at all, to be honest. Cameron has had plenty of opportunities … he has had plenty of opportunities in the past and it’s probably fair to say performed okay without being earth-shattering.”More earth-shattering was the selectors’ sharp change of tack with the Ashes looming, abandoning youth in favour of players either in good run-scoring form (Cameron Bancroft), long-time talents who as Darren Lehmann said “we hope we’ve got him at the right time” (Shaun Marsh) or more obscure choices that Lehmann conceded were as much a matter of “gut feel” as anything else (Paine). It is a combination of selection pragmatism and mysticism that has blindsided plenty in Australian cricket, never more so than on the night the Brisbane Test squad floated into the public domain via some strong reporting from the .Disquiet about Paine’s selection in particular was evident at many levels of the game, leaving plenty of questions to be asked even before the squad was officially named at 10am the following day. Paine’s subsequent success in the Ashes was universally lauded, but did not stop debate about the process or lack thereof behind the decision. Now, as White comes to terms with how he has gone from the selectors’ most strident critic to their latest choice to end a sequence of middle-order collapses in ODIs, those process questions have re-emerged.”I haven’t been out of the one-day team for Victoria and that’s what this format is, but pretty surprised,” White said. “There have been some guys in great form around the country, Ashton Turner, D’Aarcy Short and to be honest I was expecting one of those guys to get the call-up, but I’m very happy that it’s me and I’ve got the opportunity, but it was a surprise, no doubt.Chris Hyde/Getty Images”I just think with those selections during the summer the selectors thought they were the best fit and they showed that was pretty spot on, so hopefully I can prove the right that they’ve made another good call with this one. Anytime there’s selections its an opinion isn’t it, there’s always going to be people disagreeing and I’m sure some people disagree with this selection as well.”The disagreement White speaks of is generally considered the type of pub debate long associated with selection, being as it is a thankless task where, as Jamie Cox once said “you’re only right if you win”. But there is a deeper issue implicit in decisions that are as surprising to players and the states they hail from as they are to members of the cricket-watching public. Cricket Australia is now an organisation where much has been made of all groups pulling in the same direction, whether employed by the Board or the states – they literally work off a philosophy called “One Team”.So when decisions on players are made in contravention of previous policy, whether stated publicly or internally, hackles are quite reasonably raised. By their own selection decisions, whether not picking Paine as wicketkeeper or leaving White out of three of five Sheffield Shield games before the start of the Big Bash League, Tasmania and Victoria made it patently clear they had little or no idea that either man was in the selection frame. This demonstrates that, whether on wider philosophy or more specific player management, national set-up and state have not been on the kind of close wavelength they are supposed to be. It was a position articulated by Ed Cowan earlier in the season, when he revealed even Smith had been surprised by some choices in the Brisbane squad.”He (Smith) has had some open and honest conversations with me,” Cowan had said. “I think he was surprised – without revealing confidential conversations between us – he certainly had a view that that’s the way the board had indicated selections were going to go. And I think the selection panel, as directed by Pat Howard, has turned that on its head. Once we got to the bottom of why it happened, I was comfortable with that [being dropped from NSW team]. The only sour element comes from the fact that three weeks ago, I was evidently too old, and then someone [Shaun Marsh] who I played youth cricket with gets picked in the Test team.”The policy of the young guys playing, I’ve got no problem with, as long as it is a selection policy that sticks consistently. The bottom line here is every player in the system wants it to be at its absolute maximum capacity. We love the Australian cricket team. We want it to win and we are wishing those guys all the very best. But from a systemic point of view, we just want a little more consistency and clarity around selection.”In terms of selection priorities, the states have searched for some indication from CA as to what has driven recent decisions, but they have got nothing quite so instructive as the words of the selector Mark Waugh in commentary for Ten on Thursday night’s BBL coverage: “There’s nothing that beats a winning culture, so winning the games in front of you, I think that’s just as important as looking ahead, a bit of both.”It was Waugh, ironically, who had first suggested Paine was in contention to play this summer, during a radio interview in October. As a straight-talking commentator, he has often been a more reliable source of messaging than anything shared in private between CA and states.As White has said, he has been picked at a time when he is in form and has decent self-knowledge of his game, meaning he is every chance of succeeding and so going down as another “success” in terms of Australian selection this summer, another well-disguised variation with which to fool England. But in terms of reaching decisions based on judgments linked to an overall strategy, the selectors this season have been the equivalent of a golfer driving into the rough, hacking out into a bunker, blasting out onto the green, then holing a 40-foot putt to make par. The right result, sure, but by a method that may not be sustainable in the long run.

On April 18, 2008, the IPL began with a Brendon McCullum blaze. How does T20 look today, exactly ten years later?

Srinath Sripath18-Apr-2018Brendon McCullum slammed a ton to kick off the IPL•Getty ImagesMatch-ups, analytics and micro-statsBrendon McCullum gets dismissed roughly once every 17 balls against spin bowling. Thanks to this nugget, sides now regularly start off with their best spinners against him. Back in the day, Royal Challengers Bangalore started off with Praveen Kumar, Zaheer Khan, Ashley Noffke and Jacques Kallis. Three right-arm quicks, a left-arm quick, lots of pace on the ball early on, just as he likes it. There were hardly any slower ones from the seamers, nor any spin in the bowling attack until the ninth over of the game.You wouldn’t blame their think-tank, since there just wasn’t enough T20 data to identify McCullum’s weakness in 2008. Sure, a scan through his ODI numbers revealed a potential weakness against the slower bowlers, but by the time left-arm spinner Sunil Joshi came on to bowl, McCullum had raced to 58 off 36 balls. Today, Joshi would almost certainly have opened the bowling, just like Axar Patel successfully did last week, getting McCullum out for a duck in the first over.Ten years on from that day, a spinner opened the bowling to target Chris Lynn’s weakness and get rid of him, and pace bowlers trundled in from the other end to target (opener!) Sunil Narine’s weakness. Some of these punts work out, some don’t, but there is a lot more thought behind every single decision made in 2018.Adapt or perish: no room for slow coachesA chase of 223 in a 20-over game. The chasing side, back in 2008, sent out Wasim Jaffer and Rahul Dravid to open, and they managed a combined 8 off 19 balls. That’s over 42,000 first-class runs and years of experience batting together, but in a relatively unknown format, chasing an unfamiliar 10-plus run-rate from ball one, they came a cropper.Today, Ajinkya Rahane, himself a first-class giant and not the fastest of starters, has had to adapt his game and take on the role of the dasher, racing to 36 off 19 balls in the Powerplay. It is an innings that might have fuelled comments like “threw his wicket away” back in the day, but right now, that’s the quintessential T20 opener’s knock: perform or perish, or perform and perish, while always accelerating.Sunil Narine opening the batting regularly feels like T20 cricket’s equivalent of 1990s ODI pinch-hitters. It is not a one-off move any more but a calculated punt from franchises, and in the company of Chris Lynn, Knight Riders have got a made-for-T20-cricket opening combo. Both spend most of their time on the T20 caravan around the globe, hardly ever play first-class cricket, can shift multiple gears at will and change matches within a few balls.ESPNcricinfo LtdSpin for the win in the PowerplaySeven out of 12 Powerplay overs on Wednesday were bowled by spinners, with offspin and legspin and left-arm wristspin used to deny batsmen pace and slow down progress. It is a tactic now widely employed in T20 leagues around the world, and in the IPL’s 11th season, being put to use by every franchise.Sample this: we are just into the 15th game, and spinners have already bowled nearly double the number of Powerplay overs (61.2) than they did in the whole of the 2008 IPL season (31.1). All of this is the result of in-depth analysis, focus on player-versus-player match-ups, and at a larger level, increasingly widespread acceptance that T20 does not conform to standard cricketing wisdom and tactics.Boundary-line tightrope walks: child’s playBen Stokes’ catch by the boundary line off a full-blooded Robin Uthappa swipe to long-on is another widely discussed change the T20 game has brought about. Relay catches and boundary-line wizardry is now the norm more than the exception, and fielding by the ropes is now a specialist position against batsmen increasingly finding it easy to clear them.That it was an Englishman taking the catch – Stokes was one of three playing this game along with Jos Buttler and Tom Curran – was fitting, for that is the other radical shift from the early days. England have the largest overseas contingent with 12 players in IPL 2018, compared to none in 2008.Oh, how far we’ve come, from the smash-and-grab world of 2008, to a game where conventional methods are thrown to the wind, and on-field decisions are dictated by clinical number-crunching and analysis more than ever before.

A misfiring middle order, a slightly below-par death-overs specialist, and a captain batting out of position may have all contributed to the defending champions’ horror start to the season

Vishal Dikshit27-Apr-2018A few days ago, you could sympathise with Mumbai Indians because they were putting in the performances but narrowly missing out on results. Before their last match, they had lost four out of five games; all four in the last over while defending targets, and two by one wicket.On Tuesday against Sunrisers Hyderabad, Mumbai had no one to blame but themselves. Chasing 119, they collapsed to their lowest-ever IPL total of 87 on a fresh Wankhede pitch against an attack that was without Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Billy Stanlake.What has gone wrong for them? Here are a few factors that have combined to put Mumbai Indians at the bottom of the table.ESPNcricinfo LtdMiddle-order woesMumbai’s strength during last year’s winning campaign has turned into their weakness. The personnel has remained similar, after an auction in which they attempted to retain the core of the Pandya brothers and Kieron Pollard, but that core has not fired.Mumbai’s think-tank also decided to open with Suryakumar Yadav after their first two losses, so that Rohit Sharma could add stability to the middle order. Even though Suryakumar has adapted well, the lack of runs from the Pandyas and Pollard has hurt Mumbai.In each of their six matches so far, at least one of their top-order batsmen – Evin Lewis, Ishan Kishan and Suryakumar – has given them a start. The hole in the middle order was exposed the most against Delhi Daredevils, when all of their top fired to power Mumbai to 141 for 2 in 13 overs. From there, they unravelled in the attempt to accelerate and ended on 194 when they were on course for 220.Hardik Pandya’s case is unusual. He started off well in the opening match at No. 5 but has moved down to No. 7 since then, below Krunal Pandya and Pollard. Apart from two unbeaten innings of 22 and 17, he has scored nine runs across three innings while coming out to bat in the last three overs. It could be that bowlers have found out Hardik’s weakness and don’t deliver the ball in his arc anymore. When Mumbai head coach Mahela Jayawardene was asked about this, he didn’t dismiss the possibility.”We knew that there will be people bowling at a different level because we analyse other opposition, we do analyse our guys and we give them information that this is something you look forward to and this is something that we need to work on,” he said. “Every year you can’t bat the same way. If people don’t evolve and improve, there is no progress. Young guys like Hardik will learn that and need to work harder, the talent alone will not get you there. Reading the game and thinking about the game, that’s the part they need to keep learning and especially with international bowlers coming and doing various things, you have to evolve, otherwise you won’t be able to be consistent.”ESPNcricinfo LtdWhere is Pollard?Pollard’s transition from a fixed asset to a non-performing one seems to be happening rapidly this season. He doesn’t bowl in the IPL anymore, he hasn’t won his side a match in times of crisis, and he takes one of the four overseas spots. Apart from the lack of runs, it is also his position that is under scrutiny now. He has been coming out to bat with not much time left in the innings and is striking at 88.23 in his first 10 balls, the fourth-worst of all batsmen to have faced a minimum of 30 balls this season. Will Mumbai now look to move him up the order or will they drop him altogether?ESPNcricinfo LtdBumrah’s 19th-over horrorsJasprit Bumrah has made such a reputation for himself in the death overs that even a small drop-off in his performance leads you to wonder what’s wrong with him. He has bowled well mostly – his Smart Economy Rate this season is 6.36 – but a couple of poor 19th overs have cost Mumbai games they might otherwise have won.The first time was when Chennai Super Kings needed 27 from 12 balls and Bumrah started the penultimate over. He attempted to bowl the yorker four times in the first five balls and got only one of them right. The other three went for sixes off Dwayne Bravo’s bat. Bumrah got him out off the sixth ball, but only after his over had gone for 20.That being the tournament opener, it is possible his confidence took a hit. Against Rajasthan Royals, Bumrah bowled a superb 17th over, varying his pace beautifully to pick up two wickets, and only conceding one run. When the 19th over began, Royals needed 28. Bumrah bowled short and wide twice, to Jofra Archer and K Gowtham, who both slapped him for four, overstepped on one occasion, and failed to nail his yorker even once. He leaked 18 in the over and Mumbai suffered close defeat.ESPNcricinfo LtdIs Rohit batting in the right position?Rohit Sharma clarified after his 94 against Royal Challengers Bangalore that he would continue in the middle order to allow Suryakumar and Kishan to flourish at the top. Rohit may have been batting at No. 4 on that particular day, but he walked out in the first over, with Mumbai 0 for 2, effectively opening the innings – which is where he bats for India.Opening works for Rohit because he is at his best when he has time to get his eye in, and time is a luxury in T20 cricket. In all T20s since 2015, he has a first-10-balls strike rate of 117.6, with a dot-ball percentage of nearly 50 in that time. If he opens for Mumbai, he can afford to go slow early on, since he will have Lewis or Kishan to do the early hitting at the other end. Once he’s set, Rohit is capable of murderous acceleration: once he has faced 30 balls, he strikes at 177.3. That was exactly the case against Royal Challengers; he was on 40 off 30 after 14 overs, and then launched into the quick bowlers to score 54 runs off his next 22 balls.As captain, Rohit might be thinking long-term by promoting Suryakumar and Kishan up the order. But given the situation Mumbai are in, he will have to prioritise immediate results over developing younger players. And for that, moving back up to open might not be a bad idea.