He took a wicket off a no-ball once again and burned two reviews, before finding his groove to help India salvage something from the first day in Indore

Karthik Krishnaswamy01-Mar-2023Two balls, one after the other, behaving in entirely different ways: a defining feature of day one of the third Border-Gavaskar Test match in Indore, where a series of pitches with variable pace, turn and bounce reached a new level of variable.Ravindra Jadeja had been the recipient of two such balls earlier in the day, from Nathan Lyon. He’d successfully reviewed an lbw decision off the first ball, which had skidded into his back pad before he could bring his bat down, but he’d fallen to the next ball, which stopped on him and turned, causing him to drag an attempted square cut far straighter than intended. Aiming to slap the ball through point, he ended up caught by short extra-cover moving to his left.Now, two sessions later, in the 39th over of Australia’s innings, Jadeja bowled two such balls to Usman Khawaja. The first kept low, and the second spat up towards the batter’s gloves. Khawaja kept out the first, jabbing down hurriedly, and survived the next one, fending it between short leg and leg gully.Related

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At that point, Jadeja had figures of 16.3-4-45-2. Excellent, you’d think, until you viewed them in the context of the match situation. India had been bowled out for 109 in a mere 33.2 overs. Australia were 115 for 2 in 38.3 overs.It could have been different, but it wasn’t, and Jadeja had been in the thick of all the coulda woulda shoulda. He’d got Marnus Labuschagne to play on in just his second over, and Australia could have been 14 for 2, but he’d overstepped. It was the third time in the series that he’d had a wicket struck off for that reason.Not too long after that, Jadeja had played a part in burning two reviews against Khawaja. Ball-tracking suggested that both balls would have gone on to miss leg stump comfortably, and the first one also happened to pitch and strike Khawaja’s front pad outside leg stump.In the over after the second review, R Ashwin didn’t get to review a not-out decision when he struck Labuschagne’s front pad. The ball was a near-replay of Labuschagne’s dismissal in the first innings of the Delhi Test, and Ashwin had got his man only after taking recourse to the DRS. In Indore, however, India were perhaps too wary of asking for a review soon after they’d used up two in quick succession.Australia could have been – couldabeen, even – 38 for 2, but they weren’t.And so it went, as Khawaja and Labuschagne built the day’s biggest partnership, by far. They put on 96 runs, and occupied the crease for 198 balls. The entire India innings had lasted 200 balls.It wasn’t that India didn’t threaten to break this stand at various points. But it was the kind of day when nothing seemed to go their way. When Jadeja finally broke the second-wicket stand, the shooter he bowled Labuschagne with was the 49th ball of Australia’s innings to draw a false shot, according to ESPNcricinfo’s control data.Australia lost two wickets over those 49 not-in-control balls. India lost all 10 over the course of 51 not-in-control balls.Luck, it would seem, was on Australia’s side but they also had other things going for them. Pitches with sharp turn reduce a spinner’s margin for error, and both Ashwin and Jadeja took a while finding their groove. They beat the bat regularly from a traditional good length, and in the effort to bowl fuller and find the edge, they offered up more scoring opportunities than they otherwise might have. India couldn’t afford to attack too much given their low total, and their in-out fields were both a necessity and a source of frustration as Khawaja and Labuschagne picked up a steady stream of singles to deep fielders.It was that kind of day, the kind that’s usually reserved for visiting teams in India. But like they did in Pune six years ago, turning conditions can occasionally backfire on India. They know it, but they feel they play their best cricket on such pitches. Vikram Rathour, India’s batting coach, said as much in his end-of-day press conference.Steven Smith was dismissed late in the day as Ravindra Jadeja helped India claw back some lost ground•Getty Images”Of course you can collapse as a batting unit at times, but the thing is that we do prefer to play on turning tracks because I think that is our strength, that is where we are really good as a team,” he said. “How much that wicket turned, to be fair, the earlier two wickets, I don’t think they were bad wickets by any standard, they were wickets which turned, which we prefer.”Pitch preparation isn’t an exact science, and the same intentions applied to three different strips of turf can produce three very different pitches. Rathour said India were taken by surprise by just how much the ball turned on this Indore pitch, but he sympathised with the groundstaff for having had to prepare it at short notice.”Today it was drier than we expected and we saw that it did more,” Rathour said. “First day of a Test match, it did a lot more than we expected. But to be fair on the curators also, I think they hardly got time to prepare this wicket. They had a Ranji Trophy season here, and then it was pretty late that it was decided that the game was shifted from Dharamshala to this venue, so I don’t think they got enough time to really prepare the wicket.”On this pitch, batting seemed to become slightly easier as the day wore on. It may have been down to early moisture drying out over time, or to Australia batting for longer against an older ball, or to a pair of set batters spending a significant length of time at the crease. Whatever it was, it reflected in the control numbers.Australia’s batters achieved a control percentage of nearly 79 over their innings. India’s figure was just above 74%.But the uncertainty India’s bowlers created through Australia’s innings began reaping rewards after tea. The occasional frustrations of Jadeja had defined India’s bowling performance until then; now it became all about the one quality, above all, that’s made him a great cricketer – his persistence.Sometimes it can feel like a mildly negative quality; it took him until his 18th over to try bowling from over the wicket to the left-hander, by which time Khawaja was on 60. The change of angle caused immediate uncertainty out of the footmarks outside off stump, and brought out Khawaja’s sweep – he missed one, and top-edged his next attempt to the fielder at deep square leg.But it’s also a sign of Jadeja’s trust in his methods that it took him so long to try the new angle. The methods, the trust, and the skill underlying it all brought him, soon after, the wickets of Labuschagne and Steven Smith, and Australia’s false-shots-to-dismissal ratio reverted to the mean. By stumps, they’d lost four wickets while playing 69 false shots, and while they were still ahead of the game at 156 for 4, they were not nearly as far ahead as they may have hoped when they’d bowled India out so quickly.Jadeja had been the meme at the centre of it all: If you don’t love me at my *insert overstepping visual*, you don’t deserve me at my *insert wicket celebration*.

The backlash has been swift and predictable, but it shouldn’t steer England away from a blueprint that has allowed them to unleash genius from the get-go

Andrew Miller22-Jun-2023It was, as the Daily Star put it, “a real kick in the Bazballs”. England’s second defeat in three Tests was only fractionally less of a cliffhanger than their one-run loss in Wellington in February, but it was so much more of a tumble into the chasm.England’s gaunt faces at Edgbaston’s post-match presentation were in stark contrast to the mutually appreciative incredulity with which Ben Stokes’ men had congratulated New Zealand at the Basin Reserve four long months ago… James Anderson, of all the curmudgeonly competitors, even dared to be seen smiling on that occasion, after becoming Neil Wagner’s fourth and final victim of an indefatigable, deck-hitting fourth-innings display.And who knows, perhaps Wagner was the inspiration behind Stokes’ questionable but clear tactics to Australia’s tail on Tuesday evening, as he abandoned any pretence of conventional new-ball pressure on a sluggish surface, and goaded Pat Cummins and Nathan Lyon into a mistake that never came.Related

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That final hour now feels like a seminal moment in the Bazball narrative – the first time in 15 outings that Stokes, England’s brilliantly ballsy captain, has been forced to blink first when the stakes have been at their highest. And so, a mere 24 hours after Stuart Broad had insisted his team was not “results-driven in any way, shape or form”, Stokes found himself admitting to being “beat up emotionally” by the events of that final day.The cognitive dissonance that that creates in a previously bulletproof philosophy will not have gone unnoticed as Australia, the reigning World Test Champions, now look towards Lord’s and a chance to taint the ethos further with subtly corrosive doubt. Are you sure you want to play that booming first-ball drive, Zak, or that ramp up over the slips, Joe? You want to declare on a featherbed with the world’s No.1 batter in overdrive? Sure, Stokesy … you do you.And as a consequence, it’s suddenly time for some Bazball real talk. Because, if this thrilling, intoxicating philosophy is to survive its first contact with the ancient and unimpeachable truths of the Ashes rivalry – and the death by a thousand hot takes that it can entail – then England urgently need to halt the frivolous narrative that has been allowed to spread like a pandemic in the hours since the loss, and unleash instead some overdue honesty about the tactic’s hard-nosed origins.For until they manage to do so, the mockery will be legion. “England have got carried away with Bazball and seem to think entertaining is more important than winning,” wrote Geoffrey Boycott in The Telegraph, while George Dobell – formerly of this parish – pointed out in The Cricketer that this was “not the primary school egg and spoon. It’s the Ashes”.Even the reliably trenchant Nasser Hussain, speaking on Sky Sports moments after the result, reminded viewers that England had not lost a home Ashes series since 2001 by playing “the old-fashioned way”, and that they “didn’t need ‘Bazball’ to beat Australia … You can’t hide behind [wanting to entertain].”But Bazball is not simply a happy-clappy means to “inspire a generation”, as per the ECB’s tagline, just as England’s World Cup win in 2019 was not designed to “boost participation levels”, even though that that was quite literally the second question put to Eoin Morgan as he sat on his plinth at Lord’s with the trophy gleaming beside him.Joe Root’s batting at Edgbaston was both carefree and thrillingly effective•Getty ImagesThe fact that it did was a pleasing by-product of that success, and similarly, the ECB owe Stokes’ men a separate debt of gratitude for playing in a style that has packed out the grounds and even drew a Sky Sports-record 2.1 million viewers for Edgbaston’s epic day five. And it’s gratifying to know that the players have a social conscience, particularly at a dicey time for English cricket when, with the impending publication of the Independent Commission for Equity in Cricket (ICEC) review, the game forever feels one press release away from being plunged back into crisis.But for the sake of the players’ credibility, and that of a tactic that – privately at least – will have earned more respect within the Australia dressing-room than they’ll ever need to declare in public, England now need to draw a line under the proselyting and the mission creep, and turn the focus back onto the madness at the heart of their method.For everyone loves a good origin story, and if properly expressed, Bazball’s could give Batman’s a run for his money. Forget for a moment the 24/7 laughter and the sight of Harry Brook bowling dobblers on the second morning of an Ashes series. At its core, Bazball is a cold-blooded self-preservation tactic that Brendon McCullum inadvertently hit upon in the midst of tragedy eight years ago, which in turn is quite possibly the reason why he has expressed such an active distaste for the term. To embrace it might draw attention to a time of his life that he’d much rather forget.New Zealand were midway through a Test match against Pakistan in Sharjah in November 2014 when news reached the squad of the tragic death of Phillip Hughes during a Sheffield Shield match in Sydney. The players lost all appetite for the game at hand, but the show had to go on – and so McCullum walked out to bat with a brain emptied of every care, and proceeded to smoke 202 from 188 balls.Somehow, amidst his grief, he bottled that unthinking mindset and, in passing it on through his team during a famously rampant autumn of his career, it was picked up on by his opponents too – not least a young Stokes, whose 85-ball hundred in the 2015 Lord’s Test against New Zealand remains the fastest ever scored at the old ground. And when, seven years later, the chance arose for the pair to work together as captain and coach, their alchemy was instant – not least because Stokes himself was emerging from his own well-documented mental turmoil, which included the death of his father from brain cancer in December 2020, the existential futility of playing on through Covid bio-bubbles, and the fears for his career after a badly broken finger at the 2021 IPL. The joy of the past 12 months, as expressed through the squad’s complete buy-in, has been the joy of release, and the unquestioning knowledge that nothing is better than having no cares in the world.The point of all this is that Bazball’s backstory (as Stokes and McCullum clearly won’t be calling it just yet) is as real and bleak as the prevailing narrative makes it out to be phony and frivolous, but the resulting strategy has already been proven to be the single best means for this particular group of players to achieve their potential. Instead of endlessly being bailed out by miracles – be it Stokes’ Headingley opus in 2019 or Root’s annus mirablis of 2021 – the team is now configured to unleash genius from the get-go. And while Stokes is right to acknowledge that “losing sucks”, it doesn’t mean it’s wrong to continue to be unafraid of losing per se.And yet, it was notable to how superficial McCullum was determined to keep his chat with the media after England’s Edgbaston defeat. He skimmed quickly through the personnel issues facing the side ahead of Lord’s, from Moeen Ali’s finger to Jonny Bairstow’s glovework, and though he reiterated his persistent belief that the team’s current ethos is the best way to win, his punchline once again was to digress into how entertained everyone had been this past week.He is well within his rights, of course, to remain implacable as he leans back on the balcony, feet up on the sofa, yawning while the drama plays out before him. But just as Trevor Bayliss, his similarly laid-back predecessor, was famously likened (by our friend George again) to a yucca plant and whale music for his focus on creating a good dressing-room ambience, so you suspect that McCullum will have to earn his corn this week – probably on a golf course somewhere remote, while England’s women fill the Ashes void during an important week of regrouping.Bazball has brought England victory in 11 of their 14 Tests in the McCullum-Stokes era•Getty ImagesBayliss’s most famous intervention during his time as head coach was to kibosh England’s victory celebrations in the semi-final of the World Cup, against Australia at Edgbaston no less, with a short sharp warning that they’d won nothing yet and if they carried on like this they’d finish the tournament with nothing too.You suspect McCullum’s intervention will be more subtle, more laidback, but it will need to be no less to the point. If you think this is bad, he might wish to remind his charges, just remember what true bleakness is like.True bleakness is bio-bubbles, true bleakness was the void of the last Ashes tour. True bleakness is not a narrow loss in front of a crowd in utter thrall of the spectacle you are putting on, but the treadmill existence that was endured during Covid, endlessly playing the same game with no adulation other than the dressing-room cheers that, to this day, remain England’s most important support structure – both in spite of, and more importantly because of, the very fervour their antics have whipped up.Poignantly, the final word on Bazball’s viability would surely have been delivered by the one man who would have loved it more than any other onlooker.When, in the latter years of his tragically all-too-short life, the late great Shane Warne turned his hand to poker to replicate the competitive thrill that had powered his mighty Test career, he used to talk of the need to project a table image, to ensure that – as often as possible – you were playing the man, not the cards, as the action unfolded in front of you.It’s counterinituitive in terms of conventional sporting strategy, but in poker terms, it’s designed to bypass the vagaries of luck that will inevitably clean your stack out every once in a while. If you keep making the right choices against the right opponents, in the manner that matches the hand you are representing, you will surely end up winning more than you will lose.It’s only under such conditions that Root, for instance, could correctly surmise that Pat Cummins’ opening gambit on day four of an Ashes series would be to hit that channel outside off, and therefore a pre-emptive reverse-ramp makes for an entirely logical and correct response. And only a captain who knows the nihilism at Bazball’s core could possibly declare at 393 for 8 after 78 overs on the opening day of the series – a move designed, as he said, to throw his opponents clean off their game.On this occasion, it did not work. But that’s not quite the same as it being a wrong option. For the sake of the rest of a now short-stacked series, Stokes has no option but to buy back in, and go again. Warnie, for one, would approve.

Pakistan have played just eight ODIs all year, and must fast come up with a winning formula ahead of the long hard grind of the season

Danyal Rasool21-Aug-2023The clock would not even have struck nine in the morning when PCB chairman Zaka Ashraf was in his car in Colombo. It is rush hour in Colombo on a Monday morning, no one’s idea of a pleasant start to any day. But this VIP guest could not leave it any longer, because the appointment he had to keep lay four hours away in a small southern Sri Lankan town. Ashraf was meeting the Pakistan team for brunch in Hambantota, a day out from the start of the first of three ODIs between Pakistan and Afghanistan. With no flights between the capital and the town, this was the only way to get there. Ironically, if Afghanistan – the official hosts of the series – had been actually hosting it – Kabul was just a half-hour plane hop away.The window in any four-year cycle when bilateral ODI cricket truly feels like it matters has shrunk exponentially and is diminishing even faster, but we’re finally looking through it now. With the ODI World Cup on the horizon, Afghanistan and Pakistan – victims of geopolitics and security concerns – find themselves in Sri Lanka for the best part of their preparations for the tournament. Before the Asia Cup, they have got together for their first-ever bilateral series, Hambantota and Colombo the neutral venues.Related

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It is not clear if the Afghanistan players also had the pleasure of the ACB chairman to benefit from, but they got to Hambantota early enough. Hashmatullah Shahidi’s side has experience at the venue; just two months earlier, they played a three-match ODI series against Sri Lanka in Hambantota, losing 2-1. They played a more recent 50-over series in Bangladesh, winning it by the same margin. It’s a near-identical squad to those two tours that they have assembled in Hambantota to face Pakistan. It’s a settled side, and one that’s had ODI experience in these conditions. It’s more than Pakistan can say.Afghanistan might never have beaten Pakistan in this format, but they have little to fear. The four times these sides have played ODIs – at varying degrees of development during Afghanistan’s journey over the last decade – Afghanistan have shown steady improvement, and been desperately unlucky not to win their last two encounters. Throw in Naseem Shah’s T20 Asia Cup heroics, and Afghanistan’s problem against Pakistan boils down less to quality and more to composure and experience in the moments that count most. As the 2-1 T20I series defeat of Pakistan in March demonstrated, they are making progress on that front, too.

“Pakistan in ODIs are surprisingly uncomplicated – a world-class top three, a gun pace bowling attack, and the still ascending star of Shadab Khan. The middle order is unconvincing, the underbelly is weak, and bench strength, particularly in the batting department, is limited”

Pakistan have played only a few more ODIs than their counterparts this World Cup cycle – it is their lowest tally since 1979-83 – and any patterns of form are difficult to make out. Their only ODI involvement all year has come in the form of eight matches against New Zealand at home, for all of which the visitors were hindered by unavailability to some extent or other. That has been the story of Pakistan’s opponents for much of the last four years; series wins against South Africa and Australia have come when those teams have been significantly diminished. Nine further games have been played against Zimbabwe, the Netherlands and the West Indies. But the win-loss ratio -19 victories and eight defeats – is solid, and in May, they rose to the top of the ODI rankings; they will get there again if they beat Afghanistan 3-0.At its core, Pakistan in ODIs are surprisingly uncomplicated – a world-class top three, a gun pace bowling attack, and the still ascending star of Shadab Khan. That’s about it. The middle order is unconvincing, the underbelly is weak, and bench strength, particularly in the batting department, is limited. It’s a Polo-shaped side, a winning formula all around with a large gap through the middle. That makes it conspicuously incomplete, but also plenty of fun.Pakistan have, belatedly in this cycle, tried to plug those gaps. Agha Salman has shown flashes of ability in the middle order, while Mohammad Nawaz has gradually assumed greater importance in the ODI side. Tayyab Tahir and Abdullah Shafique offer bench strength, while Pakistan wait for Mohammad Rizwan to translate his T20 runs into ODI accumulation. While what they have might be enough to overwhelm Afghanistan, this series is as much about what follows as it is about itself, and Pakistan will try and ensure they don’t spread themselves too thin for the sterner tests that will follow.By the time Ashraf returned to Colombo, the evening rush hour was waiting to greet him. It was quite a day for the chairman, but for the players he left behind in Hambantota, the long hard grind of the season was only just about to begin.

Mixed messaging in selection, and catastrophic call at the toss, pushes champions past point of no return

Matt Roller21-Oct-2023Jos Buttler sat on his own in the row of seats outside England’s dressing room, above the sightscreen at the southern end of the Wankhede Stadium. He wore the thousand-yard stare of a man who knew that, while his side are mathematically still alive in this World Cup, there is surely no way back from here.As Buttler contemplated what had gone before, Mark Wood and Gus Atkinson had a swing, thrashing 70 runs off 5.3 overs. But even that partnership was not enough to save England from the ignominy of their biggest-ever defeat in men’s ODIs – that too on a night that they had earmarked as the game that would turn their World Cup around.This was their third defeat out of four at this tournament, and all three have stung. They were swept aside by New Zealand in Ahmedabad and dealt with by Afghanistan in Delhi, but this was an utter meltdown in Mumbai. South Africa did not just beat England’s world champions: they made them look like a broken team.It had the sense of the night when England’s title defence fell apart. They placed their hopes in the core of players who have underpinned their white-ball revolution and their rise from also-rans to double world champions; collectively, they have simply not performed.England’s hopes effectively ended with Dawid Malan’s leg-side dismissal in the sixth over•ICC/Getty ImagesThere was a short passage towards the end of South Africa’s innings in which England exerted a brief sense of control. After 41 overs, South Africa were 264 for 5 and had not scored a boundary for 29 balls; Marco Jansen, their No. 7, had 11 off 19. “We could have looked like restricting them to 340 or 350,” Buttler reflected.Instead, they managed 399. Heinrich Klaasen’s hitting was as crisp as it was clean as he swung his way to a 61-ball hundred, while Jansen pummelled 64 off his final 23 balls. “It spiralled out of control,” said Matthew Mott, England’s coach. “We were under siege for a while: Jos was looking around to see who was fit to bowl.”England were simply exhausted, and not for a lack of basic fitness. “It certainly looked a bit like a warzone there at times,” Mott said. The problem stemmed from Buttler’s choice to bowl first when he won the toss, a decision he explained by saying: “[This is] generally a good ground for chasing, so that’s the reason behind it.”But like so many decisions England have made in this World Cup, the explanation relied more on the past than the present and the future. England wandered out to field at 2pm, when Mumbai’s heat and humidity were at their most oppressive. It was a simple recipe for disaster: 11 Englishmen, left in the pan for four hours until fried to a crisp.The evidence underlying Buttler’s assertion was scant. Chasing teams had a 75% win record in men’s ODIs at the Wankhede over the past decade, but the sample size was all of four matches. There is a strong chasing bias in the IPL, but the physical requirements of 90 minutes in the field in the evening are hardly comparable to a full afternoon in the blazing sun.Heinrich Klaasen described the conditions as “brutal” after his outstanding century•Associated PressAnd if England were once a chasing team, they are no longer that side. This was their seventh loss in their last eight completed ODI run-chases; the only target they have hauled in was 210 on a turning pitch in Mirpur. England used to make light of scoreboard pressure; now, it inhibits them.The conditions were brutal, not least for an XI which featured only three players under the age of 32. There was a revolving door of players coming on and off the field due to niggles, cramps or illness, to change their sweat-drenched shirts or simply for a moment’s respite. England’s medical staff became the busiest men in Mumbai.Reece Topley was struck on his index finger in his fourth over, a suspected fracture which looks likely to rule him out of the tournament. Adil Rashid battled an upset stomach, which left him doubled over on the boundary. If it could have gone wrong for England, it did.Related

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David Willey, one of the fittest men in their squad, described himself as England’s “donkey” last month due to his workhorse qualities; by the start of his ninth over, he was cramping so badly that he had to pull out of his run-up, before sending down a waist-high no-ball that Klaasen sliced for six.And barely 90 minutes after walking off the field, Willey was back out in the middle. Four days after Mott had insisted England would not make “wholesale changes”, they made three: Sam Curran, Liam Livingstone and Chris Woakes were replaced by Willey, Gus Atkinson and Ben Stokes.It left them relying on their top six to score the bulk of their runs, instead they managed 55 between them. Chasing 400, England “needed everything to go perfectly”, in Buttler’s words. Nothing did: it was game over after the first ball of the sixth over, when Marco Jansen had Dawid Malan strangled down the leg side to leave them 24 for 3.England have not officially been eliminated from this World Cup, but the manner of this defeat was so painful that it is hard to see how they can turn things around. They talked a good game in Mumbai this week but, as they prepare to play Sri Lanka in Bengaluru on Thursday, the same messaging will have little effect.Teams are likely to need six wins out of nine in the group stage to reach the semi-finals: England will need five in a row to reach that point, and do not look like they know where even one is coming from. “We’ll keep the belief,” Buttler insisted, but few outside of their dressing-room will join them – and those doubts must be seeping inside it.

Pakistan’s new T20 captain is fully focused on the World Cup less than six months away

Danyal Rasool11-Jan-2024A day after arriving in New Zealand, Shaheen Afridi’s T20 side were greeted with a Powhiri – a Maori welcoming ceremony – at a marae, a traditional meeting ground. It was the first time a visiting team had been invited alongside the New Zealand cricket team onto a marae as part of a traditional welcome. The pictures that went out painted a picture of mutual respect and familiarity for two teams that, by the time this series is over, will have played each other 27 times in the last 15 months.And the newly anointed Pakistan T20I captain extended that spirit of respecting and honouring his own predecessor – as well as his vice-captain – to the pre-match press conference, saying Babar Azam and Mohammad Rizwan were “the best opening pair” for Pakistan. At the same time, though, he suggested that did not mean his side weren’t open to changes, and suggested Pakistan were still working out their best combination ahead of this year’s T20 World Cup.”Babar and Rizwan remain the best opening pair for Pakistan,” Shaheen said. “We have 17 matches ahead of the World Cup to look at our combination. We’ll make tweaks to see which player is best suited to which position. When we go to England we’ll know what the best position is. There will be changes perhaps but by the time the team goes to England, we hope to know exactly what our best playing XI is and where they’re playing.”Related

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Babar and Rizwan’s pairing in T20s has been a point of keenest debate for followers of Pakistan cricket, with the main question surrounding whether the enormity of runs they score up top can compensate for a strike rate not quite as explosive as modern T20 cricket demands. That debate has been lent further fuel by the emergence of two firebrand hitters in Saim Ayub and Mohammad Haris who can take their place. While Haris is not part of this series, Ayub is expected to feature heavily, potentially lining up with Rizwan as opener.Shaheen insisted Babar dropping down the order did not mean Pakistan valued him any less, dismissing the idea he was struggling with the bat. “I don’t think Babar’s form is bad. He’s the best, and he’s scored so many runs I don’t even know anymore. A few innings make no difference. As a player and a captain, he’s performed well for Pakistan. He’s always our best player.”The other notable point of interest for Shaheen concerns his own workload, with the T20 captain saying he had missed the third Test against Australia earlier this month because the medical team deemed the chances of an injury too significant to play him in a game that was inconsequential to the series.With Australia having taken a 2-0 lead, Shaheen had bowled 99.2 overs across that period, far more than any other bowler from either side. Pakistan team director Mohammad Hafeez said Shaheen’s body was sore, and could not be risked, though the decision did come in for heavy criticism from several former Pakistan legends, most notably Wasim Akram and Waqar Younis.Shaheen Afridi bowled nearly 100 overs in the first two Tests against Australia•Icon Sportswire/Getty Images”I played Tests after a few months and played two Tests,” Shaheen said. “Test cricket is not easy – I bowled 100 [99.2] overs. My body was sore and there was a chance of injury, so I think the team management and medical panel decided I should take a rest – they didn’t want to see me injured again.”Test cricket is my first priority. Everyone loves Test cricket. When I start[ed] my cricket journey, I played T20Is and ODI. My older brother [Riaz Afridi] who played one Test for Pakistan said, ‘when you play Test cricket, you’re a proper cricketer’. My first goal is always to prioritise Test cricket. That’s the first priority for every cricketer. When you play the shorter format, it’s easier on your body.”I’m fit now. I bowled too much in the two Tests and the fatigue was immense. If we had the opportunity to win the series, I believe I would have played, because I love Test cricket and it is my priority.”But the need to nurse Shaheen back to a higher level of fitness – his pace continues to hover in the early 130s kph since he returned from his previous injury (knee) – also means he is unlikely to play each of the five T20Is Pakistan play in New Zealand. “I do not want to miss any game, but what the body requirements is [are] means there might be challenges. I want to play every game for my country.”The more immediate challenge, though, concerns the dimensions at Eden Park in Auckland, where the sides play the first T20I against New Zealand. The ground is a multi-purpose venue, its other most notable function being playing host to the All Blacks, New Zealand’s rugby side. The shape of the ground means the straight boundaries are famously short; the shortest distance from batter to rope can be as little as 45m. It is something Shaheen, a bowler who likes to pitch it up and look for swing, is keenly aware of, and hinted at a change of tactic.”The straight boundary is very small, to be honest, not easy [to defend]. For me, I like to bowl full so it’s tough. The square boundary is bigger so we’ll adjust our team plan to that. But it’s not easy for fast bowlers; we’ll see what fast bowlers in the past have done so we’ll do our best.”For me this is an exciting challenge and a proud moment. It’s not easy, a new challenge. We have a good track record against New Zealand but they’re an excellent T20 side.”Earlier in the day, Kane Williamson and Afridi unveiled the series trophy at Albert Park, the spot where the flower guardians encircle the central fountain – the place for the photoshoot. Williamson sat down for his press conference before Afridi, with New Zealand making sure he wrapped up to not keep Afridi waiting for too long. The familiarity with which the two greeted one another is indicative of the frequency with which their paths cross, but the traditional welcome Pakistan received reminded Afridi of a time when he was in New Zealand during his Under-19 days.”That [the welcome] was a really good experience,” Afridi said, his face lighting up at the memory. “We had a similar welcome at the 2018 World Cup when we came here. I wasn’t in the team then, but as a touring group we really liked it. It was an awesome experience this time, too, we enjoyed it. Thank you to New Zealand Cricket and to all of New Zealand.”Afridi isn’t just in the team now, but very much the main character. And while that brings with it burdens and claustrophobic expectations in Pakistan, kicking it off with a powhiri at Orakei marae is a friendlier reception than he will get some days.

When did Ravindra Jadeja get so good with the bat? You may not have noticed, but it has been a while

Karthik Krishnaswamy22-Feb-20241:11

Manjrekar on the talking points for Ranchi, from India’s perspective

At some point around 2018 or thereabouts, commentators began to notice that Ravindra Jadeja had been contributing consistently with the bat “over the last couple of years”, or “over the last two-three years”. All these couples of years later, they often still use the same words when talking about him.Here’s the thing. Jadeja has averaged over 35 with the bat in eight of the last nine years – including the one we’re in – and over 40 in four of them. Since the start of 2016, he’s scored 2532 runs at an average of 42.91. Of the batters who have scored at least 2000 runs in this period, Jadeja has a better average than: Angelo Mathews, Cheteshwar Pujara, Azhar Ali, David Warner, Tom Latham, Alastair Cook, Quinton de Kock, Faf du Plessis, Dhananjaya de Silva, Hashim Amla, Jonny Bairstow, Ben Stokes…We could go on, but let’s stop at Stokes, because, well, you know why. Stokes, in this period, averages 38.47. He also, of course, has 11 hundreds in this period to Jadeja’s four. There’s a reason why you might assume Stokes is the better batter of the two when you debate who the world’s best allrounder is.Related

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There’s also the matter of Jadeja’s unusually high proportion of not-outs: 19 in 78 innings, nearly one in every four. Compare that to Pujara’s six in 120 innings, or Stokes’ seven in 145.It’s true that Jadeja’s batting record – particularly from 2016 to 2019, when India ran up a lot of massive totals on flat home pitches – is slightly inflated by how many runs he’s scored in declaration innings. But he’s also played match-turning innings on difficult home pitches, averaged over 40 in Australia, and shown the soundness of his defence against swing and seam in England, not least during his 104 at Edgbaston in 2022, when he put on 222 with Rishabh Pant after they came together at 98 for 5.Basically, he’s been bloody good for a long time.But when you watch Jadeja bat, you can kind of see why commentators continue to do the “last couple of years” thing. It may be because his batting is a little, well, unmemorable, in the sense that it’s a little lacking in idiosyncrasy, in shots he plays in a manner that’s his alone, and in stylistic flourishes and unorthodoxies. You wouldn’t call him attractive to watch, but you wouldn’t call him unattractive either.Last week, he walked in at 33 for 3 on his home ground and scored 112. By the end of it, what stuck in the collective memory – judging by discussions in traditional and social media – was his role in running Sarfaraz Khan out in his debut innings, and the nature and timing of his own dismissal, a chipped caught-and-bowled off Joe Root early on day two.This series, Jadeja has mixed attack with good defence•AFP/Getty ImagesIt was, to be fair, that kind of innings. Watching it, you may have found yourself thinking thoughts such as, “Wait, he’s on 31? How did he get here?”You may even have made a comparison with R Ashwin, the Siamese twin Jadeja is entirely unlike. Even in his briefest stays at the crease, Ashwin can play shots that leave a lasting impression: a back-foot drive off Josh Hazlewood in Bengaluru, for instance, the only scoring shot in an innings of 4.Jadeja?It took until he was in his 60s for Jadeja to play a truly Jadeja shot: something that made you go, ah, yes, I’ve seen do before, many times.It was off a short ball from Root, to which he rocked so far back that you feared he’d trample the stumps. From that position, with upper body leaning further back, he played more a shovel than a pull, hitting under the ball rather than across it, launching it over the midwicket boundary. Not immediately pleasing to the eye, but not unpleasing either, with a robust, utilitarian charm. A shot much like the cricketer who played it.

The highlights reel of his Rajkot innings is utterly unremarkable because it’s full of competently executed attacking shots off less-than-good bowling. But it shows you that he’s not attempted to drive balls on the up or sweep them from the line of the stumps, and that he’s survived enough of the good balls to be able to be on strike against the not-so-good ones

On Thursday, the eve of the fourth Test in Ranchi, India batting coach Vikram Rathour gave this insight into Jadeja the batter.”Lately, I think what he’s doing really well is – that has been his strength in bowling as well, that’s the kind of character he has – he keeps everything very simple,” he said. “There is no complication. He is not overthinking, he is not overanalysing anything. He just does what the team requires at that stage, and that goes for his bowling and batting both. That’s the great asset that he has – keeping it really simple and executing his plans.”It was the kind of press-conference reply that may have initially disappointed the questioner – come on, you’re the batting coach; give us something about his technique and gameplans! – before the realisation dawned that this was, pretty much, the heart of it.Jadeja keeps things simple. There’s probably no shot in the book that he’s among the best in the world at executing, and many others have tighter defences. But he does many things well enough to be very good at them at Test level, and he knows his own game better than most.But perhaps the thing most viewers underestimate about Jadeja is how much natural talent he possesses. The simplicity of his methods can give you the illusion of a limited player, but one look at his record should tell you he’s no such thing. Particularly with the ball. There have always been accurate left-arm spinners who’ve bowled quick and attacked the stumps; there have always been left-arm spinners who’ve given the ball a rip; there have always been left-arm spinners who have varied their pace and used the crease cleverly. Jadeja does everything.Jadeja – Great with the bat, amazing with the ball•AFP via Getty ImagesThis is why there was an air of inevitability about his fourth-innings five-for in Rajkot. The areas he was hitting, ball after ball, and the amount of help he was able to extract from them, left England’s batters little choice but to succumb. Why did Ollie Pope try to cut when the cut really wasn’t on? Why did Jonny Bairstow and Root try to sweep when the sweep really wasn’t on? Jadeja was giving them neither the confidence that they could survive him by defending nor any balls they could score off with relative safety. So they simply had to take those chances.Jadeja isn’t quite as good with the bat, relative to his peers, as he is with the ball, but he brings to his batting the same sense of naturalness – has he ever tinkered with his stance? – the same adherence to clear, simple plans, and the same genius for playing the percentages. The highlights reel of his Rajkot innings is utterly unremarkable because it’s full of competently executed attacking shots off less-than-good bowling. But it shows you that he’s not attempted to drive balls on the up or sweep them from the line of the stumps, and that he’s survived enough of the good balls to be able to be on strike against the not-so-good ones.Since September 2018 – when he scored an unbeaten 86 at The Oval that showed him how good he could be, even away from home, if he trusted his defence – he’s gone past the 100-ball mark 15 times in 49 innings. Nearly once every three innings, which is remarkable when you factor in his bowling workload.There’s a ceiling to what Jadeja can do with the bat, of course, and he probably won’t play a lot of high-impact, Stokes-like innings against top attacks that don’t give batters clear-cut scoring opportunities. But this is where the comparisons stop making sense because these are two very different types of allrounder. Jadeja is one of the greats of his type, and he’s been this good for a long, long time.Much longer than a couple of years.

Nine special moments from an enthralling Test match between India and England

ESPNcricinfo staff06-Feb-2024India and England played out four days of riveting Test cricket as the hosts levelled the series in Visakhapatnam. We’ve picked out the best moments and this is your chance to pick your favourites. Over to you to rank them.

Australia’s most successful domestic coach speaks about his methods and philosophy after signing a new two-year deal with WA and Perth Scorchers

Alex Malcolm29-Feb-2024You’ve had incredible success in the last three seasons. The question now is how do you get better as a coach and how do you take your coaching to the next level with the same group?I think you constantly ask yourself how are you getting better and whether it’s some of the leadership programs that I do or the ability to continue to keep learning on the job with what you do. But also the opportunities to keep trying to experience different environments and working with different players I think is all part of that. With our group itself, it’s a phenomenal group, and I feel very grateful to be in the position that I am to work with this group of players and staff that have brought so much success. But equally, I think every team is constantly in transition and we’re no different.The recent Marsh Cup success is probably a testament to that where I think we used 23 players over the eight games and we saw five debutants as well. Hopefully, not only are we able to continue to bring those high standards, but we’re actually starting to give opportunities to that next generation of West Australian cricketers as well. That’s the exciting bit. I think that’s the big part of why I love my job and why I want to continue to be able to do what I’m doing at the moment.You had an opportunity to coach Australia A last year. Is there some flexibility to take more opportunities like that or get involved in some overseas franchise cricket over the next couple of years alongside coaching WA and Scorchers?There is. Exactly what that looks like we’ll continue to work through but the idea of being able to go and experience different environments and continue my learning away from our setup and hopefully bring some different ideas back with me is something we’ll certainly look to explore and work out what suits best.What have you learned over the last few years about first achieving success and then sustaining it?I think what success provides is belief more than anything. Belief that what you’re doing is working. Belief that the playing group are invested in how the program runs and the way they want to play their cricket. Probably the biggest learning is that…validation might not be the right word, but hopefully, it means that the things that you are trying to implement and put into place are putting you on the right track. From that first season where we won those three trophies, every one of them is incredibly satisfying, but they’ve all been very different and provided different challenges. That’s the art of doing what we do, navigating through those challenges and providing guidance and leadership. But ultimately, I think it’s the underlying belief that has really stood out over those last couple of years.Adam Voges: ‘You can’t do everything yourself and that ability to empower and trust other people to do their job is really important’•Getty ImagesWhat about the evolution of your relationships with the players? Being a domestic coach is different now to when you were a player with so many players coming in and out of the squad at various points of the year due to international and franchise cricket. How do you manage that with the players?We’ve got a big squad. I think we’ve got 31 players, including our CA contracted guys at the moment and trying to have touch-in points with all of them at various times is a challenge in itself. But that transition period of guys coming in and out of our program is something that I’ve tried to refine and tried to make sure that each time they go out or each time they come in it feels like they haven’t left.The communication side of that is really important, to just try and stay in touch with those guys as much as possible. But for all players, give them the clarity that they’re seeking, whether it’s in their role, in selection, in where that improvement lies for each one individually. So that’s been an evolution. Getting better at that side of things is something that I’ve had to work on and certainly haven’t nailed but continues to be part of how I continue to evolve and grow.One of the hardest things for a coach is to take your hands off the reins at times and empower your assistant coaches. What have you learned about that?Beau Casson is a head coach in waiting. Tim Macdonald is a really experienced bowling coach and a couple of our development coaches are great and there’s been transition in that space as well over the six years. Getting those guys to come in and buy into what we’re trying to do, but allow them to do their jobs and to work really closely one-on-one with the players, with their specific skill sets and give them the autonomy and empower them to make decisions at times. Just ultimately trust that you’re backing them to do their jobs really well. I’m incredibly lucky with the support staff that I’ve got and that goes into our SSSM [Sport Science Sport Medicine] group as well, not just our coaching group.What are the things you know now about coaching that you wish you knew when you started?There’s plenty that I didn’t know when I started. I think number one, you can’t do everything yourself and that ability to empower and trust other people to do their job is really important. Over-communication is always way better than a lack of communication. I think they’re two of the really big things. Just understanding what the big things are and focusing time and effort on them. Not sweating on things that ultimately are out of your control. They’re probably the key learnings. It can be a stressful life at times. It can be a lonely life at times. But understanding and learning a couple of those key points is certainly what I’ve been able to do over the last five or six years.Western Australia continues to produce a lot of cricketers for the national side•Getty ImagesWhat is the next phase for a domestic coach in Australia given the way global cricket is trending with the amount of franchise leagues that have developed? Do you think the role is going to change at all and how will it differ from coaching at franchise or international level?I think ultimately our role is still to develop Australian cricketers. Working really closely with that young group coming through is vitally important and then for our senior players, it’s continuing to challenge them but also understanding that they’re playing cricket 12 months of the year, and making good decisions around how do you help them with that, to help them have the careers and the success that they want to have.Understanding that this is often home and they like coming home. I think that’s an important part of it. Just managing those transitions in and out but ultimately trying to have a strong program that helps with development, helps to continue to try and get the best out of these guys and help them have the careers that they want to have. So that’s only going to happen more and more with franchise cricket now.I certainly hope that in 10 years time our main goal is still trying to produce West Australian and Australian cricketers. It’s going to be a balance and that’s going to happen more and more I think.You mentioned challenging senior players. How do you handle those situations now compared to when you started?I always thought there was room for that and that’s one of the biggest things I learned from JL [Justin Langer]. I was a senior player when he came into our program. He opened my eyes up to different ways of training, and different ways of going about things. It’s really easy to leave your senior players alone and let them do their thing. But he probably helped get the best out of me late in my career, and it’s certainly a lesson that I took and continue to take in and they’re often just little small things, but just trying to continue to help guys grow and improve and that’s important for anyone regardless of what stage you are at in your career.This new deal takes you through until 2026. Where do you see your career progressing beyond that?Ultimately I’m really grateful for the job that I’ve got at the moment. I’m really lucky to do what I do. I love it. And that’s a huge part of why I’m continuing. Beyond these two years, I don’t actually know ultimately what that looks like. It’s like a player really. You do the best job that you possibly can and you control what you can control and then if opportunities present themselves beyond that, then that’s great.But if you get too far ahead then maybe you take your eye off what you’re doing at the moment. And I say that to the players all the time, so I’ve got to be able to live that as well, to really just invest in this next little period and really enjoy it as well. I think there’s still some success to come with this group, albeit we’re going to continually look to transition with a pretty senior group.

Australia have now won 20 of their last 22 ODIs against West Indies at home

Sampath Bandarupalli06-Feb-2024186 Balls bowled in Canberra are the sixth-fewest for any completed men’s ODI and the fewest-ever for an ODI hosted by Australia (excluding overs-reduced matches). The previous shortest completed ODI in Australia lasted 199 balls, also played between Australia and West Indies, in 2013 in Perth.1 Xavier Bartlett is now the first Australian to bag four or more wickets in each of their first two ODIs. Only five players before Bartlett achieved this feat of claiming four-plus wicket hauls in their first two ODIs – Curtly Ambrose, Adam Hollioake, Brian Vitori, Mustafizur Rahman and Hamza Tahir.259 Balls remaining when Australia reached their target of 87 runs. It is the seventh biggest win in men’s ODIs in terms of balls remaining for any team and the biggest for Australia, bettering their win by 254 balls against USA in the 2004 Champions Trophy.Related

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1 The defeat by 259 balls is also the biggest for West Indies in men’s ODIs. Their previous biggest defeat was by 244 balls, also by Australia, who needed 9.1 overs to chase 71 in the 2013 Perth ODI.22 Consecutive men’s ODIs without a win for West Indies against Australia in Australia. Their last ODI win down under against Australia came way back in January 1997. Australia won 20 of their previous 22 home ODIs against West Indies, while another two ended without a result.12 Consecutive wins for Australia in ODI format, a streak that began during their victorious World Cup campaign. It is the joint-third longest winning streak for any team in the men’s ODI cricket.
Australia won a record 21 successive ODIs in 2003, while Sri Lanka won 13 on the trot between June and September last year.86 West Indies’ total in Canberra is their fifth-lowest total in men’s ODIs and their second-lowest against Australia, behind the 70 all-out in Perth in 2013.3.4 Overs needed for Australia to reach the 50-run mark is the fastest for them in men’s ODIs since 2002. Australia’s previous fastest team 50 in the format was off 3.5 overs against Sri Lanka in 2016 in Dambulla.

The cricketing world congratulated Afghanistan on their first ever win over Australia

ESPNcricinfo staff23-Jun-2024

This is big… @ACBofficials topple Australia for the very first time!
Hats off to @rashidkhan_19 and his team of true fighters. #T20WorldCup

— Tom Moody (@TomMoodyCricket) June 23, 2024