With 70 to win from five overs, should Pollard play it safe and target the other Sunrisers bowlers?

ESPNcricinfo staff06-Sep-2020In , we present our writers with a tricky cricketing situation and ask them to captain their way out of it.Scenario: The Mumbai Indians are playing the Sunrisers Hyderabad and need 70 from five overs. Six wickets have fallen, and Kieron Pollard and Rahul Chahar are in the middle, with Trent Boult, Lasith Malinga and Jasprit Bumrah to come. The Sunrisers bring on Rashid Khan for his last over. Bhuvneshwar Kumar has two left, and Siddarth Kaul and Khaleel Ahmed have one each – all three bowlers have gone for nine runs per over so far. Pollard was faced with this same situation versus Barbados Tridents in the Caribbean Premier League recently. He chose to block Khan, taking just four off the over, and then got the remaining 66 in the next four. As captain of Mumbai, you can send a note out to Pollard, telling him how to approach the final five overs, what to do against Khan, and who else to target. What does the note say?Gaurav Sundararaman: Seventy from five overs has been achieved eight out of 15 times in the IPL. So it is not impossible, but Pollard needs to have at least two overs of 20-plus runs. Pollard’s stats against Khan at the death while chasing are: 18 runs from 15 balls with one four and one six. So, the note would be to play out Khan and target the seamers. Also, I would ask Pollard to try to keep strike for all 30 balls. Score only fours and sixes and refuse singles, barring off the last balls of overs. He just needs 15 or so boundary balls out of the 30 balls left, so some dots are fine.Sreshth Shah: You need to be there till the end. Minimise risk against Khan and shield your partner. A couple of twos and a single off the last ball is just fine. Kumar will likely bowl the 18th and 20th overs, so attack in the 17th and 19th. You can put pressure on Kaul and Ahmed by getting boundaries off their first balls. That could make them miss their yorkers, giving you some full tosses and length balls.Don’t commit to your shots too early. Feel free to say no to singles off Kaul and Ahmed. You need to face all 12 balls from them and get at least 36 of the remaining 70. That will leave you with 29 to get off Kumar. His yorkers are accurate, so stand outside your crease to mess with his length. Aim for 12 to 14 in the 18th and, if things go to plan, you’ll need 15 to 17 in the 20th. Once there are six balls to go, the pressure will be on the Sunrisers, and we back you to finish the game. You’ve done this before.Karthik Krishnaswamy: As Mumbai’s captain, I’d just leave it to Pollard to figure out how to attack which bowler – the man has played more than 500 T20 games and won so many of them from situations like this. I’d leave it to him to decide whether to play out Khan or go after him. There’s an opportunity from the other end, though, if the Sunrisers put extra fielders in the ring and look to keep Chahar on strike. If that’s the case, I’d tell Chahar to pick two areas he’s confident of hitting boundaries in and go after balls that give him a chance to hit into those areas. If the Sunrisers set regular fields to him, I’d tell him to take the singles on offer and give Pollard the strike as much as possible.Vishal Dikshit: Mumbai’s situation is similar to the one the Chennai Super Kings found themselves in against the Sunrisers in the 2018 Qualifier. The Super Kings were 92 for 7 and needed 48 from 30. Faf du Plessis was batting with the tail and had one over of Khan to face. He took just one run from that over, but the Super Kings still won with five balls to spare. So, my obvious message to Pollard would be to play out Khan’s entire over, even if it is for a maiden. Once Khan is done, back yourself to the hilt against Kaul and Ahmed because Kumar has a tricky knuckleball, which makes it tougher for batsmen to clear the boundary.Kaul tries a lot of yorkers in the death, so I’d advise Pollard to bat like his team-mate Hardik Pandya: go deep in the crease and across towards off stump, and target the long-on boundary. One last note: don’t give the strike to Bumrah and Malinga.Shashank Kishore: I’m going to assume this is happening in Sharjah, where the boundaries are small. For the last four overs, you have two bowlers short on international experience and a Kumar who may be a bit rusty after some injuries and niggles over the past year. So there’s reason to show Khan respect. You can still look for boundaries down the ground as the straight boundaries are probably as big as the ones in your backyard, but only if Khan misses his lengths. If you get four, you can safely take a single late in the over. It doesn’t matter if Chahar gets out on the last ball. Now, down to the last four. You need something in the range of 60 to 66. Dew will play its part, the ball will skid on. Trust your instincts, hit through the line. Even mis-hits will fly. Watch out for Kumar’s knuckleball – hold your shape for a split second against him. Watch, watch, don’t commit early. Even if you play 18 out of the 24 balls, we’ve got a good chance of winning.

Sports minister Nathi Mthethwa calls for transparency, wants quick results from the new panel

Firdose Moonda30-Oct-2020
Analyse and act on the forensic report used to fire former CEO Thabang Moroe
South African cricket’s best-kept secret is this document, which has only been seen by three former CSA independent board directors and Mthethwa, and which can only be viewed by those willing to sign a non-disclosure agreement. A summary released by CSA did reveal some of the contents of the report, including financial misconduct on the part of Moroe, and implicated several former board members including Beresford Williams, acting president till the other day.Mthethwa wants the interim board to study the report and act on it, including taking any actions against parties who are proven guilty of wrongdoing, and he also wants the report to be made available more widely.”This thing that you have a report that is a secret document must come to an end,” Mthethwa said. “It be a document which must be understood and scrutinised; implement what the recommendations are but be at liberty to look at the report itself, critically so, so that there is nothing which is an area you can’t get into.”Implementation of the 2012 Nicholson Report
Eight years ago, when Gerald Majola was investigated and then sacked after being found guilty on nine charges at a disciplinary hearing around the awarding of bonuses during the 2009 IPL, which was held in South Africa because of the Indian general elections, judge Chris Nicholson compiled a report which made recommendations including about how CSA should constitute its board. Nicholson suggested the board be made up of as many independent directors as non-independents (people from within the members’ council) and that the chairperson be independent too. To date, CSA has not implemented this. Instead, it had a board made up of a majority of non-independent directors and a president chosen from that, and a minority of independents. Part of the reason CSA did that was to please the South African Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee (SASCOC), which did not approve of a majority of independent directors.The performance of the national team will play a role in deciding what CSA has to bargain with when it comes to a new broadcast deal.•BCCINow that Mthethwa has taken over the case of CSA from SASCOC, he has insisted that the Nicholson recommendations are put in place. Therefore, the job of the interim board is likely to be to determine a process by which the permanent board will be appointed, bearing in mind the Nicholson report’s criteria.Review board decisions taken since 2019
Although the summary of the forensic report that was used to fire Moroe indicated that many of Moroe’s actions, especially with regard to deals over the Mzansi Super League, were undertaken without the board’s knowledge, the board made several of its own decisions which Mthethwa wants the interim structure to look into.”This team is going to look into everything, including the decisions that were taken by the board that resigned,” he said. That would include things like the firing of five members of staff other than Moroe – which includes former COO Naasai Appiah, former head of sales and commercial Clive Eksteen, both of whom are fighting their dismissals in court – and decisions over the structure of cricket operations and the domestic game.Make South African cricket great again
Strictly speaking, this is the job of the executive (the CEO, acting in this case, and those who work in the office) and the players, but the board is responsible for making sure that the right things get done. In the last year, CSA has attracted “public criticism around how (it) has conducted its affairs, particularly in the areas of leadership, governance, transformation, selection of teams and so on from various interest groups within and outside of cricket”, as Mtethwa pointed out, it has lost sponsors and will be on the back foot when negotiations for a new broadcast deal begin. CSA’s deal with pay-television channel SuperSport ends in April next year, by which time the performance of the national teams over the summer will play a role in determining whether the organisation has a strong product to bargain with. The more competitive the teams are, the better the deal CSA can get, and although team form is not in their control, creating an environment that is suitable for growth is.Last summer, South Africa lurched through a string of poor results in India and at home as massive uncertainty shrouded the organisation. A more stable structure may help support stronger results and the rebuilding of a team that used to be on top of the Test rankings and still has unfulfilled ambitions of hoisting a World Cup.

One of the early ones? One dominated by Mumbai? Or a Dhoni special? Our staffers watch the footage and get to arguing

13-Apr-2021Matt Roller, assistant editor: Well, regardless which season was our favourite of the first 13, I’m sure 2021 is going to be the best yet. []Sreshth Shah, sub-editor: Before we get to the contenders, can we all just agree that 2011 was the worst? Ten teams in two groups of five, accompanied by complex match-ups where some teams faced each other only once? (Yes, Deiva, I know CSK won).Roller: 2011 had the highest Kochi Tuskers Kerala coefficient, which means it was the best. I mean, you guys remember those kits, right?Shah: Orange and purple, to symbolise their desire to have the orange-cap and purple-cap holders! Still gives me nightmares.Deivarayan Muthu, sub-editor: Hahaha, back-to-back titles for CSK, but that final was so very one-sided. And, for me, some of these early seasons were bit hit-and-giggle.Roller: To be fair, RCB signing Chris Gayle as a replacement for Dirk Nannes (like for like) was an all-time great off-field move. Orange cap and MVP, and the move that turned him into an IPL legend. But yeah – that format was horrible.Shah: Honestly, Deiva, the hit-and-giggle may have attracted me the most! Most teams were still firming their strategies up. I’m pretty sure the Rajasthan Royals had the worst odds to win IPL 2008, having spent the least money at the auction. And the league still had Pakistani players – Shahid Afridi, Shoaib Akhtar among others.Related

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Muthu: Absolutely. The Pakistan flavour in the IPL was something else. What a remarkable debut that was from Shoaib Akhtar at the Eden Gardens – the same venue where he had yorked Tendulkar and Dravid. Shoaib took down Gambhir and Sehwag, then bounced out AB de Villiers with what took off like a NASA rocket. He was touching 150kph and the ground was jiving and grooving to all of that. Sohail Tanvir: purple-cap holder in the first season. Great fun. Anyway, I know this will make me feel me old, but how old were you then, Matt?Roller: Was our combined age less than Imran Tahir’s actual age now? I was ten! [in 2008]Muthu: I was six years older than you. I suck at math, but definitely less than Tahir.Shah: And I was at the ground as a 15-year old doing DX-type celebrations. Never mind…Roller: Shah + Muthu + Roller in IPL 1 = 41; Tahir in IPL 14 = 42. Nice.Muthu: Hahaha, sorry to veer away, but Shawn Michaels was the best among the DX crowd.Shah: So let’s start from the top, shall we? I thought 2008 was excellent, only because we didn’t know what to expect and the proper underdogs went on to clinch the whole thing. Shane Warne leading his troops to battle. The emergence of Yusuf Pathan.But 2009, in South Africa, was even better. Imagine: the teams that finished seventh and eighth in 2008 reached the final the following season! That really cemented the IPL as a league where “anything could happen”. And of course, the old wardog Anil Kumble playing a crucial role in the final. Proving that T20 cricket wasn’t just for the newbies.Roller: 2008 and 2009 were really fun from the “cricketainment” side, but that often made things feel a bit gimmicky, rather than a fully fledged league.Personally, I think the early season that is worth considering is 2010. Third season, teams had developed their identities to a certain extent and were getting smarter about strategy, and you had global T20 specialists like Kieron Pollard beginning to get picked up for huge money after doing so well in the Champion League T20. And the SRT narrative arc: orange cap and MVP, but a match-losing innings in the final.Sizzling in South Africa: Adam Gilchrist made a 35-ball 85 to take the Deccan Chargers into the 2009 IPL final•Themba Hadebe/Associated PressShah: Don’t forget table-toppers Delhi Daredevils finishing with ten wins out of 14 in the league stage in 2009, only to get knocked out by an Adam Gilchrist masterclass in the semi. That was one of the last of the “knockout-style semis”.Muthu: That’s certainly missing in the IPL these days.Shah: Matt, 2010 should be in consideration only because of the list of players who put up match-winning performances: Nannes, Dmitri Mascarenhas, Justin Kemp – remembering him taking 3 for 12 against Kolkata for CSK – and Juan “Rusty” Theron!I’d still place 2009 above 2008 and 2010 among the first three seasons.Roller: I don’t think the early ones come close to anything that’s happened in the past five editions. If you can ignore the nostalgia, then it feels pretty clear to me that the standard has shot up, T20 has evolved in plain sight, and each of the last five seasons has been brilliant in terms of the race for the playoffs in particular – all of them going down to the final day of the group stage, I think?Shah: Thanks for bursting the (sorry to drop that all-important word these days) bubble, Matt, and bringing us all back to reality.Muthu: Yeah, I’d agree with Matt that the first couple of seasons were more about “cricketainment”. In the 2010 season, there was a bit of strategy, and it marked the arrival of Pollard. It was also one where spinners started to bowl more often in the powerplay. Ramesh Powar for Kings XI Punjab. Andrew Symonds used to take the new ball against the lefties. R Ashwin and Muttiah Muralitharan were CSK’s powerplay spinners. The best strategic move that season has to be MS Dhoni stationing Matthew Hayden at the edge of the circle at short, straight mid-off and then placing a long-off right behind him, challenging Pollard to hit over both men, but Pollard eventually holed out to Haydos!High-speed chase: Corey Anderson’s unbeaten 95 allowed the Mumbai Indians to get a jaw-dropping 190 in 14.3 overs to qualify for the 2014 playoffs•BCCIRoller: We should acknowledge there’s a big personal aspect to all this too, by the way. I’ll always look back at 2020 particularly fondly because it took place while the UK was heading back into lockdown – it was such good escapism to be able to watch that from mid-afternoon every day for two months while the days were getting shorter and the pubs and restaurants were starting to close again.Muthu: There’s maybe some recency attached to 2020, but it was quite thrilling, delivering one Super Over after another, including a double Super Over. Three teams at 12 points, three teams at 14. Sunrisers Hyderabad qualified with a mere 12 points in 2019, I think. KKR could have qualified in 2020 had they not lost heavily to RCB. Sure, it was CSK’s worst season, but if Dwayne Bravo had limped and rolled out one cutter after another to Axar Patel, even they could have snuck in. Instead, Ravindra Jadeja tossed it into the swinging arc of Axar. There was a gulf between Mumbai and the rest, but If you look at just the other teams, it was pretty close.Shah: Matt, I agree with you too. But just before we go into the last few seasons, the 2014 and 2015 editions deserve shoutouts too. Kolkata won 2014 on the back of nine straight victories – including doing the double over Mumbai in the league phase. And the last game of the league phase in 2014 had Mumbai Indians chasing 190 in 14.3 overs thanks to Corey Anderson (and Aditya Tare’s last-ball six), which left Rahul Dravid throwing his cap on the floor.And in 2015, Mumbai Indians were struggling after the first half of the season. Then they pulled out seven wins in their last eight league games to not only enter the top four but a streak of five wins took them to the top two. It was the first season where they really outmuscled their opponents – the start of an era that’s still running. Both 2014 and 2015 story arcs made for fascinating seasons.Roller: 2014 had the best final, I reckon? Wriddhiman Saha 115 not out off 55 and ends up on the losing side.Encore: after beating the Pune Supergiant by a run in the 2017 final, Mumbai Indians won by the same margin in 2019, against the Chennai Super Kings•Mahesh Kumar A/Associated PressShah: It was the best up until the two one-run wins – Mumbai vs Pune, 2017 and CSK vs Mumbai, 2019.Roller: The UAE leg of 2014 made it quite fun too, in the effect it had on teams’ strategies and the fact that we got to see some pure, uncut #MaxwellBall for a few weeks.Muthu: Pujara and Maxi FTW. I’d put the 2010 final up there too – it was the beginning of the IPL’s fiercest rivalry.Roller: Oh, and nobody thinks 2013 was the best season, right? But it’s worth mentioning that it did have the most iconic IPL innings of all time: Chris Gayle 175 not out.I reckon 2016 is a genuine contender here – the Virat-AB year.Shah: Of course. Sunrisers needing to win all three playoff games, having not finished in the top two. Kohli magic.Roller: And also the season where Gujarat Lions turned up and were unbelievable! Easy to forget they were top of the points table.Shah: It was the only time since the inception of the playoffs that a team outside the top two won.Roller: Those Kohli-AB stands at Chinnaswamy were something else – against the Gujarat Lions and Sunrisers particularly, but they were just next-level good throughout the season. And then for SRH, the unfashionable team playing unfashionable cricket to do the job in the playoffsDouble the appetite: Virat Kohli and AB de Villiers’ together ransacked 939 runs for the Royal Challengers Bangalore in the 2016 season•AFPBen Cutting MOTM in the final! And another thriller – 208 v 200… David Warner scoring 50 every other game… what a season. I think that’s got to be a podium finish as a minimum.Muthu: But these were all seasons where the winning franchise got to play at home and maximise it. Which brings me to 2018. It started with everyone trolling CSK as Dad’s Army. It ended up with Dhoni trolling everyone in typical Dhoni style. The played just one game at Chepauk due to political turmoil and showed that they could win away. Lungi Ngidi was yanked off the bench in Pune and became the enforcer. There was some Dhoni chaos theory, where he inverted his batting order, in Pune. He showed he still had it. There were games where Harbhajan Singh and Karn Sharma didn’t bowl a single over. Dhoni is often criticised for being rigid, but this was one season where we went against the grain and absorbed all the pressure on comeback.Shah: An overseas player, Mustafizur Rahman, winning the Emerging Player award. Bhuvneshwar Kumar’s consistency. It was perhaps the first season that showed you need your bowling smarts to actually win T20 games consistently.Muthu: It was also Rishabh Pant’s coming-of-age season in the IPL. I think he smashed Bhuvi for 40-something off ten-something balls. Rashid was a phenom that season – his all-round brilliance vs KKR in the knockout was stunning.Roller: Agree that 2018 was a really good one – Pant winning emerging player and coming through with some outrageous innings, the Chris Lynn-Sunil Narine combo flourishing, KL Rahul having a great season back when he used to play with intent…Shah: Throw in Narine’s emergence as a pinch-hitter.Muthu: Oh yeah, Narine at the top was peak T20, one of the revelations of the 2018 season.Roller: But equally, the overriding memory is slower-ball specialists doing really well – AJ Tye purple cap! – and I’m not convinced that always makes for the most enjoyable spectacle.Rishabh Pant vs the Sunrisers in 2018•ESPNcricinfo LtdShah: Okay, 2018 has my vote for the best season, pipping 2016 by a whisker. Now to see if 2020 has enough oomph to beat 2018.Muthu: I never expected AJ Tye to hit close to 150kph. Didn’t he bowl the fastest ball this Big Bash, Matt?Roller: Yeah, he has completely reinvented himself, to be fair. But there were a few other guys that season too, Siddharth Kaul for example, bowling knuckleballs and taking 20-plus wickets.Quick one for 2019: the Andre Russell season. I guess a few players leaving early maybe took the sheen off 2019. And there was the constant feeling that it was the warm-up act for the World Cup immediately after. That said, Dre Russ was out of this world – and the final was one of the best, as we’ve mentioned.Muthu: Yeah, Dre’s hitting was unbelievable that year. And that final was the most tactical final in the IPL. Mumbai made CSK dig deep and made Dhoni think like Mumbai do. Then Lasith Malinga, the greatest T20 bowler in the world (that’s a debate for another day), did what he does.Roller: But the real winner for me personally is 2020. My pitch: Everyone needed that season to happen. Expectations were probably a bit lower with the fact that every game was at a neutral venue, there was chaos in the build-up with various positive Covid tests, and uncertainty as to whether the tournament would even happen. But there were so many close games and multiple Super Overs. The most intricate and advanced tactical side of the IPL won, yet there was so little gap between the teams – there was almost nothing between the other seven. Throw in the context of lockdown over here and it’s a clear winner for me.Muthu: But 2020 and 2018 finals turned out to be one-sided affairs, but otherwise the quality of cricket…the playoff line-up being decided on the last day, big-ticket players lighting up the league. To stage the IPL itself during a pandemic was a massive achievement. Agree, it was hotly contested. For me, it’s a tie between 2018 and 2020, with a Super-Over shootout. Or we don’t need one. We know 2021 is gonna be even better.Roller: Back to this for the pay-off line 🙂Muthu: Are we done?Roller: Think so?Shah: 2020 was amazing, considering the constraints teams were facing. Covid, neutral venues, hot playing conditions. Add the end of Chennai Super Kings’ dominance (sorry, CSK fans), Kings XI Punjab losing games they shouldn’t have (against DC, Kolkata). Then the late Kings XI rally. Rahul Tewatia magic, T Natarajan emergence. Amid the terrible year that 2020 was, maybe the IPL saved the year’s face for cricket?

Also: is Darren Stevens the oldest bowler to take a five-for in the County Championship?

Steven Lynch04-May-2021Fawad Alam has now extended all four of his Test half-centuries into hundreds – is this a record? asked Zaheer Ahmed from the UAE
Fawad Alam’s 140 against Zimbabwe in Harare a few days ago made him the sixth man to convert his first four Test scores of 50-plus into hundreds. The first was the great George Headley, all in West Indies’ 1929-30 home series against England, and he was followed by another West Indian, Everton Weekes, Australia’s Neil Harvey, and the 1960s England pair of Norfolk-born left-handers, Peter Parfitt and John Edrich. Weekes went one better by making it five hundreds in a row, before a questionable run-out for 90 in Madras (now Chennai) spoilt the sequence, but Headley converted all his first six 50-plus scores in Tests to centuries.In a recent IPL game, three of Punjab Kings’ overseas players were West Indians. Has any franchise ever included four overseas players from the same country? asked Stuart from South Africa
I think the game you’re talking about was the Punjab Kings’ victory over the Mumbai Indians in Chennai on April 23, when their four permitted overseas players were Chris Gayle, Nicholas Pooran and Fabien Allen from the West Indies, and Australia’s Moises Henriques.But there have been 26 IPL matches so far in which a side used four overseas players from the same country, usually Australia. The first two were in 2010, when the Deccan Chargers fielded Adam Gilchrist, Ryan Harris, Mitchell Marsh and Andrew Symonds; the following year, playing for the Kings XI Punjab, Gilchrist and Harris were joined in eight matches by David Hussey and Shaun Marsh. Also in 2010, the Rajasthan Royals had chosen Aaron Finch, Adam Voges, Shane Warne and Shane Watson against the Kolkata Knight Riders; in 2011, Finch, James Hopes, Matthew Wade and David Warner all turned out for the Delhi Daredevils against the Pune Warriors.In 2012 Gilchrist, Hussey, James Faulkner and Shaun Marsh appeared for the Kings XI against the Rajasthan Royals, while in 2013 Faulkner, Brad Hodge, Shaun Tait and Shane Watson played together twice for the Royals, who the following year selected Faulkner, Watson, Kane Richardson and Steve Smith in five matches, with Hodge replacing Smith in another.The instances since have involved four South Africans: in 2016, the Delhi Daredevils had Quinton de Kock, JP Duminy, Imran Tahir and Chris Morris in three matches, while the Kings XI Punjab selected Kyle Abbott, Hashim Amla, Farhaan Behardien and David Miller in two.Darren Stevens completed a five-wicket haul on his 45th birthday last week. Is he the oldest to take a five-for in the Championship? asked Mike Berriman from England
Kent’s seemingly ageless allrounder Darren Stevens, fresh from being named one of Wisden’s Five Cricketers of the Year, took 5 for 53 against Glamorgan in Cardiff last Friday, which was his 45th birthday.He’s actually some way short of being the oldest bowler to take five in an innings in the Championship: Warwickshire’s Willie Quaife claimed three in 1926, when he was 54 years old. The oldest to take a five-for in any first-class match was William Lillywhite, who was 58 when he took six for Over-36 against Under-36 at Lord’s in 1850.I think the last 50-year-old to take five wickets in a Championship innings was Tom Goddard, the Gloucestershire offspinner, who did it three times in 1952 at the age of 51. However, Stevens might just have been the first to take a five-for on his birthday – that one’s a bit beyond the capabilities of our database!Darren Stevens’ birthday five-for came in a loss for Kent as Glamorgan won by ten wickets•Getty ImagesWe know about the 1000 runs before end of May record, but who has taken the most wickets before the end of May? asked Lee Davis from England
This record belongs to the Kent and England legspinner Alfred “Tich” Freeman, who took 65 wickets in May 1931, on his way to 276 wickets in the season (he didn’t play in April that year, as Kent’s first match started on May 2). Freeman was in the middle of an astonishing run that brought him 2451 wickets over ten seasons from 1926, including a record 304 in 1928. Freeman collected 86 wickets in August 1933, the record for a calendar month, but in 1930 he actually took 104 between May 21 and June 19. He played nine matches in that time, and took ten or more wickets in eight of them.I understand that a county once played two first-class matches at the same time. When was this? asked Gerry Schlittner from England
This remarkable double has actually happened twice. In 1919, Warwickshire took on Derbyshire in a County Championship match in Derby and also played Worcestershire, who did not take part in the Championship in that first post-war season, in a friendly at Edgbaston, with both matches starting on August 4 (all that season’s games were scheduled for two days).Ten years earlier, in 1909, Surrey had gone one better by staging two home first-class matches simultaneously, both starting on June 21. It was not a great success for them: Lancashire won their Championship match by an innings The Oval with more than a day to spare, while not too far away in Reigate, Oxford University needed the full three days but also won by an innings.There are more details of these matches in an interesting booklet called Double Headers, written by Keith Walmsley and published by the Association of Cricket Statisticians and Historians in 2013. For details of their other publications, and how to join the association, click here for the ACS website.Use our feedback form, or the Ask Steven Facebook page to ask your stats and trivia questions

Unique and inimitable, it can be interpreted in multiple ways

Osman Samiuddin20-Jul-2021Forty years, and with each remembrance Headingley stands less as simply a Test match and more as art. A couple of weeks ago in the , Michael Atherton remembered it through the eyes of some of the surviving players and their memories of some of those who have passed, and as a work of recall and storytelling it was beautiful and elegiac, like a late-stage REM song.It only enhances this idea, that Headingley is a work of art, frozen in the era in which it was played and resolutely of its time in a physical sense, but with meanings and implications melting forever forth from it, and alive still as an ideal to aspire to and admire; an epic contest that, though it shows one winner and one loser, cannot really be said to have produced either. It is Headingley and it is merely incidental that England won and Australia didn’t. Works like that, as Headingley 2019 reminded us, don’t come around often.As with any piece of art, Headingley can be interpreted in multiple ways. We celebrate it, of course, and come together over it, but we also break it down. We ask what it means and what it says about its protagonists, and we respond equivocally, as we must; the artist needs an internal dogma – to believe their way and only their way is right – to produce their art, and the athlete something similar in their quest for greatness, but we, in understanding and appreciating it, we need doubt and a mind open enough to know that greatness comes in many shapes and forms; in some ways all great art and sport is the striving to narrow this schism between creator and audience. We recognise also in Headingley the time that produced it, ripe with racial tensions and a ravenous appetite for the personal affairs of the royal family and think, that’s funny, has it really been 40 years?Related

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Predominantly Headingley has been an Anglo-Australian possession, but as with all art, there is no possession. We just come to it differently and take what we want from it. The first I learnt of Headingley was through , by Peter Arnold and Peter Wynne-Thomas, which described in some detail every Test series played from 1877 to 1987 (the book was published in 1988). It was a great gateway read, arranged by combinations of bilateral series in chronological order and dotted with brief biographies of great players.It did not waste words, the hard brief clearly to keep it straight and dry: “The third Test at Headingley was one of the most extraordinary in the series and was a great personal triumph for Ian Botham.” The statement is inarguable. It somewhat captures the magnitude of the event and whets the imagination. How great this Test must have been if even this big, green, official-looking book with a stiff upper lip was saying it.I’ve never seen more than brief highlights of the Test, and that too only of the last couple of days. Is this also not how we art, for which the viewer’s presence at the time of its creation is unnecessary, and so too an experience of it in some original, un-pirated way? That is how powerful Headingley can be – how powerful it is – that it is clear instantly that it is unique and essentially inimitable.Depending on the individual, different vantage points stand out from which to view Headingley. I’d already watched Graham Dilley bowl, for instance, on highlights recorded on video of Pakistan’s 1987 tour of England. He looked a little like Boris Becker, my preferred sportsman of the time. Or maybe it was only the blond eyebrows, because Dilley moved with some rhythm and grace, and Becker moved like the Tin Man of Oz. In my mind all Dilley ever bowled were full outswingers, and he did it off a run-up that was so curved that until he bowled, he looked to be running in for the high jump.In the dressing room after the win•Getty ImagesSome, like Mike Brearley, were not so familiar, and because he had not remained a very public figure, he first formed as a mythical figure, and then as a glitch. How else to grapple with the idea that he was playing international cricket with the record that he had, let alone as captain? Captains captained by deed, like Imran Khan, and Brearley’s batting average was not doing much.It is said often now that such a cricketer cannot exist but how many such cricketers have ever existed (even if we acknowledge that he was in rich enough form to warrant a recall that summer for his batting)? Yet captaincy has rarely sat so lightly on one person as it did on Brearley, perhaps because it seemed to constitute so little of what he was and is as a man. That summer was his last as an international cricketer, an auteur-captain directing beautiful games in real time, without cuts or post-production edits and coming across ever so slightly like Woody Allen, only with more assurance and less nervous energy.Terry Alderman took 42 wickets in that series, and nine at Headingley, which, as feats of lone and losing heroism go, may be low on a scale topped by the man in front of the tank in Tiananmen Square, but probably nearabouts Brian Lara’s 2001 series in Sri Lanka. Alderman was the oddest thing: an English fast bowler trapped in an Australian body. Australian fast bowlers were quick and mean, and the less quick they were, the meaner they got; Alderman’s first name was Terence and he was a primary school teacher.Subcontinental batters in Australia were doomed by the Bill Lawry soundtrack, “Edged and gone!” and then, suddenly for a bit in the ’80s, Alderman was making them shuffle across and trapping them leg-before, like he was carrying a bit of the atmosphere and clouds of Headingley with him all around Australia. He was so unlike any Australian fast bowler that none of the breed’s top 20 wicket-takers comes close to Alderman’s percentage of career leg-before wickets; next best to his 34% (and a staggering 37% in Australia) is Jason Gillespie at 23%. Poor man, the trauma of Headingley was just Alderman’s third Test.Golden boy: Botham, lit by the setting sun on the balcony at Headingley•Adrian Murrell/Getty ImagesAnd there was Botham (if the name is Terence, it’s fine), the smile if this Test were da Vinci’s . Such a thought would’ve been outlandish to most Pakistanis during the mid-to-late ’80s, when Botham was for them the very picture of the English Yob. That had begun with an equal-opportunity offensive quip in 1984 about Pakistan being so horrible a touring destination, one should only send their mother-in-law there, but it quietly escalated through that decade, culminating in a lost libel case against Imran in the mid-’90s. Not helping also was that during the second half of the ’80s, Botham was an unapologetic bearer of the worst of that decade’s style. Everyone had the mullet and the moustache but to bring with it that bellied strut – and the fact he was no longer as good as when he first began – made it grate that much more. This version of Botham, mid-appeal, is on the cover of the .But in 1981 he cut a different figure, softer, less toxic, as in the more iconic photographs from the Test. As he exhales in that dressing room, readying the cigar, light and shadow tussling on his bearded face, the slightest sheen of perspiration and the tousled mop give him the appearance of a sailor decompressing after a long, arduous leg; or a world-wearied adventurer, which, it could be argued, he was. It’s so intimate a photograph, you can smell it. He looks noble, humbler somehow, which makes sense because the summer until then, and the year preceding it, had been a humbling time. Captaincy had become the kryptonite to his game. And perhaps some of the introspection of this photograph was born of the toll of Ken Barrington’s sudden death not four months before, on a tour of the Caribbean. Botham, captain then, and Barrington, a manager, got on well, and the former was understandably shaken up by it.The other is on the balcony after the Test, notable in the way similarly premised royal photographs are. In colour versions, a golden glow emanates from Botham, the centre of this solar system. Over his right shoulder, on the field below, are his people, and as Botham poses for photographs, moments after his greatest triumph, he can’t help but look royal. But only in the way that to look royal is to look awkward around normal people, as if unconvinced that such an arbitrary concept as royalty should merit adulation.In Botham’s career, 1981 is the sun at noon. The next summer, his beard vanished and the mullet was sprouting, a case of the butterfly turning back into a caterpillar. He would battle Imran for the primacy of allrounders and lose. It was a great series that feels now not as old as 1981, perhaps because of the overhead gloom in which its highlights perpetually play out. Visually and stylistically, 1981 was that much beloved decade, the ’70s throwing a tantrum and simply not letting go. Nineteen eighty-one is of a piece with the 1976 visit to England by West Indies, when the sun stayed out all day and up all night. Have any nation’s greatest days so hinged on the sun as that of Britain?

After a stop-start career, the spinner is on the verge of featuring in the WTC final, against the country of his birth

Deivarayan Muthu16-Jun-2021Being a frontline spinner in New Zealand is a thankless job. Just ask Ajaz Patel. He has by far been the best spinner in the Plunket Shield in recent times, but he needed three successive chart-topping seasons – and an injury to Mitchell Santner, who had transformed himself into a batting allrounder in Tests during Mike Hesson’s stint as coach – to break into the New Zealand side, at the age of 30.Patel grabbed 5 for 59 on debut in November 2018, as New Zealand successfully defended 175 in Abu Dhabi for one of their most memorable Test victories. Then, next month, Patel went wicketless in the Wellington and Christchurch Tests against Sri Lanka. His specialist left-arm fingerspin was later needed in Sri Lanka, where New Zealand launched a remarkable comeback to level the series 1-1.Although Patel was not picked for the Australia tour, and then went wicketless at Basin Reserve against India, he was rewarded with a first central contract by mid-2020, with New Zealand leaning towards a spin overhaul. Patel’s accuracy and versatility were valued over Santner’s batting and more defensive left-arm fingerspin. However, a calf injury meant Patel was relegated to the sidelines again and lost his contract, in a T20 World Cup year, playing a single Test.

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After having proven his fitness and form in the domestic competitions, Patel worked his way back into New Zealand’s enlarged squad for the England tour, with the World Test Championship final against India thrown in. Upon arrival at Ageas Bowl, the venue for that WTC final, Patel outlined the challenges faced by a New Zealand frontline spinner.”As a spinner, you thrive on situations where you have an opportunity to contribute to the team and contribute to the environment, especially as a New Zealand spinner, knowing how few opportunities we get,” Patel had said.”No I try not to put any [added] pressure on myself,” he said when asked about his limited opportunities during a separate media interaction later in Birmingham. “I still just try to enjoy my cricket and you know obviously faith is a big factor for me, which allows me to stay grounded and back my abilities and be comfortable with whatever’s thrown towards me. So, I mean, I just make sure I’m still working hard and developing my game and continue to grow so that when the opportunity does come, I try and make the most of it.Ajaz Patel picked four wickets against England at Edgbaston•Getty Images”But, I think there’s no real added pressure. Every time I put the cap on, I look at it as a privilege and try and make the most of the opportunity and try and have fun because at the end of the day, that’s why we play cricket. We play it because we enjoy the game and I suppose it’s still reliving a childhood dream. Representing New Zealand and putting that black baggy on… we take a lot of pride and privilege in that. So, for me, every time I get an opportunity, I go out there, try and have a bit of fun and really put my skills out there and put out there what I’ve been working on while I’ve been away really.”When Patel was recovering from injury last home summer, the team management had recalled Santner, who helped close out the Mount Maunganui Test against Pakistan last home summer. Santner started the England tour as New Zealand’s first-choice spin option at Lord’s and it needed another injury to him to make room for Patel in the team.Patel marked his return with a match haul of four wickets, including that of Joe Root, at Edgbaston, with the old-school virtues of spot bowling on the stumps or finding just enough turn outside off. That has been his formula for success in the Plunket Shield and even in his brief Test career, where he has particularly flourished away from home.Most recently, at Edgbaston, Patel struck in his sixth over to have Ollie Pope nicking off and then pinned Olly Stone with a slider. He backed it up in the second innings by bowling James Bracey and besting Root with extra bounce and fizz.

“I guess it would be quite rewarding to play against India out there and I hope I can sit back and kind of look back at something like that in the future and go: ‘what! that was an amazing time in my career’ and something that any cricketer would cherish for as long as I live. It would be a hell of a story to tell later on.”Ajaz Patel

According to ESPNcricinfo’s ball-by-ball data, 56 of his 138 balls pitched on the stumps, resulting in two wickets. All told, nearly 45% of the deliveries he has bowled in Test cricket have threatened the stumps, fetching him 11 of his 26 wickets. He’s usually mindful of not wanting to go searching for the magic ball or the rough.Patel, however, doesn’t quite have the pinpoint accuracy or the vast experience of Ravindra Jadeja, or R Ashwin for that matter, but he’s the best that New Zealand have got right now in Test cricket. From being one among six changes in an under-strength New Zealand XI in the second Test against England, Patel has now regained the lone spin-bowling slot from Santner for the WTC final. If the Southampton track plays true to its nature of aiding spin, Patel could well get the nod ahead of seam-bowling allrounder Colin de Grandhomme, with Kyle Jamieson poised to slot in at No. 7.Related

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From emigrating to New Zealand in 1996, facing omissions at the Under-19 level, moving to Central Districts after not finding a spot in Auckland, then facing further omissions with the national side, Patel is now on the verge of featuring in one of the biggest games for New Zealand, against the country of his birth. That will be “a hell of a story”, right?”I just got goosebumps thinking about it [WTC final against India] to be honest – from where I started my journey in terms of emigrating to New Zealand to then be in a position where you are in the home of cricket, England, to be playing against India, one of the best nations when it comes to cricket, but also I guess your birth country… but representing New Zealand, which I now call home; it’s kind of going full circle, but that’s my cricketing journey,” Patel had said after arriving at the Ageas Bowl earlier this May.”I guess it would be quite rewarding to play against India out there and I hope I can sit back and kind of look back at something like that in the future and go: ‘what! that was an amazing time in my career’ and something that any cricketer would cherish for as long as I live. It would be a hell of a story to tell later on.”

Praise for Australia and Pakistan following an entertaining semi-final in Dubai

ESPNcricinfo staff12-Nov-2021

What a game !! Congrats to the Aussie boys on finding a way to win – well done to @davidwarner31 & Zamps. @MatthewWade13 who was absolutely bloody awesome, well done mate & the Hulk Stoinis was outstanding too. What a final between Aust & NZ at the #ICCT20WorldCup2021

— Shane Warne (@ShaneWarne) November 11, 2021