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The pandemic showed us what we stood to lose, but it also gave us greater perspective on the issues that really matter

Sambit Bal31-Dec-2020Defeat, any sportsperson who has experienced considerable success will tell you, is a greater teacher than victory. The same for life and adversity. Not in living memory has the human race been challenged like it was in 2020, and while the cost, in terms of loss of life, economic hardship, and just the all-encompassing shadow of fear, has been immense, what have we learnt? Or discovered? About ourselves and our world?Some things are instantly palpable. Collectively, we have found resilience and the adaptability to navigate through our circumstances. Remote-working made room for more family time and for reacquainting oneself with simple pleasures and finding new ones.At ESPNcricinfo, we survived the unthinkable – the absence of live sport – by slipping for a while into magazine mode, a thoroughly enjoyable challenge that meant conceiving and producing features, both text and video, that required the rigours of a weekly, at the pace of an instant medium. And gratifyingly, many of those features continue on the site, even after the return of cricket.Apart from everything else, and I believe I speak on behalf of many of my colleagues – and many of you – the break allowed us to renew our love for the game. Given how it felt when the world began shutting down in March, any cricket, let alone how much of it we have at the moment, feels like a miracle.But what about the most valuable lesson? Powered by artificial intelligence, super-fast cloud computing and advances in molecular science, the scale of human ambition and imagination has seemed limitless this century, luring us into a sense of unassailability. By making us confront our fragility, the pandemic has served as a useful reminder of our place in the universe and the power of nature.Related

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Cricket needed some soul-searching too. On the face of it, it is prosperous like never before, but beneath the boom there are serious fissures that imperil its future. And the pandemic has hastened one crisis that was always coming. But first, the good stuff.Cricket in the time of Covid
When life was suspended earlier this year – offices and businesses shut, borders closed, flights cancelled – resumption of live sport seemed the lowest priority. But yet, when sport, first football and then cricket, started up again, much earlier than we had expected, it reaffirmed its place in our lives. Even while the shadow of the pandemic hung grimly and normalcy seemed a distant vision, the sight of young and fit athletes displaying physical skill was reassuring and uplifting. Sport is not a luxury; it is the most joyous extension of life.For all the criticism they cop, let’s give a hand to the administrators for rising to a challenge no one could have imagined, much less planned for. The England Cricket Board led the way. Without precedence to go by or any template to follow, it put together a biosecure apparatus that was as elaborate as it was detailed. Faith came too from the West Indian players, who were the first ones to travel, and then from Ireland*, Pakistan and Australia, who ensured a full English summer.The BCCI benefited from this experience and pulled off an even more impressive feat. At the best of times, organising the IPL, which is as big as the World Cup in scale, is a gigantic task. To gather players, support staff, broadcast crew, umpires and officials from at least nine different countries, amid varying levels of travel restrictions, and host the tournament away from home in three separate emirates, with different quarantine norms and border restrictions, required fleet-footed planning, coordination with multiple government and private agencies, and exacting efficiency and rigour in execution. There was no room for lapses. After one Covid scare, the tournament went swimmingly.Playing the IPL in the UAE this year required an unprecedented level of coordination and care behind the scenes•Samuel Rajkumar/BCCIMeanwhile, there was the CPL in the Caribbean and, quite amazingly, the first edition of the Lanka Premier League, which, despite aborted attempts, a few Covid scares, and a few pullouts, was successfully completed mid-December in Sri Lanka.As the year wound on, crowds returned to grounds in New Zealand and Australia, and with chants, applause, drums, flags and even some boos, cricket felt restored.Cricket economy: brace for impact

But trouble is brewing elsewhere. The cricket economy, overheated for long and largely reliant on one country, is due a correction. Cricket subsists on broadcast revenue and the big cricket boards and the ICC have flourished in the last two decades on the back of mega rights deals. This has enriched the entire cricket ecosystem barring one vital constituent – the broadcaster.The rumblings have begun already. Cricket Australia is in a dispute over the value of the rights with its primary broadcaster; New Zealand Cricket has gone entirely digital; Pakistan has gone with an advertising revenue-sharing deal with the government-owned broadcaster based on highly optimistic projections; and both West Indies and Bangladesh are without broadcast deals at the moment.But the loudest warning came from the man primarily responsible for putting the cricket economy into hyper drive. Uday Shankar, the out-going chairman of Star and Disney India*, under whose leadership Star invested over US$ 4.5 billion in cricket rights in the current cycle, $3.5 billion of which went to the BCCI alone, said in an interview in the Times of India this October that the current global model of the game was fast becoming unsustainable and for cricket authorities to not take that into account would be short-sightedness.

For all the criticism they cop, let’s give a hand to the administrators for rising to a challenge no one could have imagined, much less planned for

The cricket establishment, he argued, was in denial in thinking it was still all about Test cricket. Fans were primarily interested in T20s and ODIs and it was only marquee Test cricket – India vs Australia and England, Australia vs England – that they cared about. Advertisers and sponsors were always likely to prioritise the interests of fans.Star’s own deal with the BCCI for India’s bilateral cricket, drafted with no room for negotiation, is illustrative of Shankar’s point. Worth nearly a billion dollars, it is agnostic of format and opposition, with the broadcaster required to pay the same fee for a Test against Afghanistan as for a T20I against Australia.At the other end, there’s growing financial inequity between rich and poor boards, and a consequent and inevitable widening quality gap in the cricket played. New Zealand remain an outlier and perhaps a model of governance for the smaller boards in the way they have managed their resources to remain competitive, but signs are troubling everywhere else. Cricket’s elite club expanded when Afghanistan and Ireland were granted Test status in 2017, but those two sides have managed four and three Tests respectively since then.The big boys of this club, India, England and Australia, meanwhile have played 284 of the 454 Tests held since the beginning of 2010 (62.5%), of which 77 have been what Shankar described as marquee contests. Looked at from different vantage points, this points to either the Big Three cornering the biggest slice of action for themselves, or that too many Tests are commercially unviable in the current model.It’s a strong argument that the market will eventually determine the future of bilateral cricket, but the erosion of the game’s traditional battlefields will eventually shrink the global talent pool and the effects will be felt in the shiny T20 leagues that dip into this pool. This scenario might seem distant, but the IPL has just laid out its expansion plans and the demand for quality players will increase 20%. This is a simplistic illustration, but the underlying point is that even leaving aside the concept of equality, cricket isn’t a big enough sport to let some of its branches wither away.A powerful gesture can help in changing attitudes while a half-hearted one can dilute or confuse your message•Christiaan Kotze/AFP/Getty ImagesSouth Africa’s free fall
If you set aside wealth and boardroom power, South Africa have been, pretty much since their reintegration in 1992, a cricket powerhouse, a worthy challenger to Australia in the first decade of the century, and in possession of a better record away from home than everyone else. They produced an assembly line of international-quality fast bowlers, handy allrounders, gritty all-weather batsmen, and a few all-time greats. Their World Cup miseries aside – and even here, their failures become a talking point because they make it to the knockouts – they were never a side easily beaten. As a box-office draw, they were always gold class. England played five-Test series against them, and there was much hand-wringing when India’s last tour to their shores was cut to three Tests from four.It is distressing therefore to watch the gradual descent of a team so consistently excellent. Part of this is cyclical, of course. When a collection of world-class players, including a couple of once-in-a-lifetime ones, comes together, the departure of those players leaves massive voids. You don’t lose Jacques Kallis, Graeme Smith, Hashim Amla, AB de Villiers, Dale Steyn, Vernon Philander and Morne Morkel over a period of five years – the last four over two – without suffering a dip. But the South African situation has also been aggravated by administrative chaos and the aggressive implementation of the national reservation policy.A sub-optimal cricket team is a small price to pay given the heinousness of South Africa’s past, and affirmative action in sport is part of a much more significant narrative. But even though delicate, the question at least needs to asked: whether the ultimate aim – of getting the cricket team to be more representative of the nation – wouldn’t be better served by a far more aggressive approach to developing talent at the lower levels. How many underprivileged children can afford to be in the elite cricket schools, for long the nursery for nurturing talent in South Africa, or to pursue professional cricket as a vocation, given their socio-economic circumstances? Wouldn’t creating equal opportunities at the grassroots be far more transformative than imposing stiff targets at the highest level?South Africa also face the challenge of containing the exodus of aspiring white players to whichever other nation – the US being the latest promised land – will have them. If the national team continues to decline, would cricket not become a less attractive sport for young people?

As the year wound on, crowds returned to grounds in New Zealand and Australia, and with chants, applause, drums, flags and even some boos, cricket felt restored

But who can one address these questions to? Cricket South Africa’s CEO was first suspended, then sacked for misconduct. One acting CEO stepped down, the second has been suspended for breaches of the Companies’ Act. The COO has been sacked. The entire cricket board resigned after the sports minister threatened to intervene, and an interim board is now in place. Amid all the chaos, a Covid outbreak led to the abandonment of an ongoing tour by England.The year 2020 couldn’t end any sooner for cricket in South Africa, but the fear is that it could get much worse in 2021.Take a knee, and rise together
Another confounding image came from South Africa on Boxing Day when the national team stood with raised fists to support the Black Lives Matter movement. It was a strange half-gesture.Taking a knee has become the most powerful symbol of solidarity with the movement that ignited across the world after George Floyd, an African-American man, was choked to death by a white police officer in Minneapolis, Minnesota.England and West Indies women take a knee during a T20I in Derby in September•Nathan Stirk/Getty ImagesCricket did itself credit when the England team joined the West Indies players in taking a knee when play resumed after the pandemic in Southampton.The Test also featured a rousing interview on Sky Sports with Michael Holding, the former West Indies great, which became cricket’s call to arms on racism. Holding later criticised the England and Australia teams for not continuing the practice further in the summer.There’s an argument that the world needs to move beyond symbolism to tangible action against racism. It’s a hollow one. Taking a knee doesn’t prevent tangible action. In fact, by raising awareness repeatedly, it can help promote action. And as a symbolic gesture from sportspersons, it is profound and stirring. It’s the recognition of a problem; it’s a simple message of empathy with the persecuted, and a high-profile statement that the world stands united against the abomination of racism. It’s a movement that needs to expand. In India, it should transmute into Dalit Lives Matter, for casteism here is just as malevolent as racism elsewhere.As for racism, South Africa has the most to apologise for. The reluctance of its elite cricketers to go the full distance – a simple matter of bending a knee – sends the wrong message.

The only viable option is to approve and share a list that specifies the nominated concussion substitute for each player ahead of a match. That will not solve the problem but it will avoid post-substitution disgruntlement

Anatomy of collapses
When a team gets bowled out for 36, it is, inevitably, a combination of the following things: outstanding bowling on a helpful pitch, a few mistakes from the batsmen, but, most crucially, every element falling precisely in place in favour of the bowlers in an uncommon manner. Every potentially wicket-taking ball must find its mark – the edge, the pad or the stumps – every edge must carry and every catch must be taken. Batting can be a cruel game of fractions, and when caught in a perfect storm like India were in that fateful session in Adelaide, the room for error, the lifeblood of batting, is minimised to almost zero as bowlers find their zone.Another day, for no fault of the bowlers, it’s another story. On the first evening of the Melbourne Test, Mitchell Starc could have had three wickets in the first over instead of one, and Pat Cummins could have had six wickets in his two spells across two days instead of two. Shubman Gill was beaten three times in one Cummins’ over and dropped in the slips soon after. He would be dropped once more the next morning and score boundaries off genuine edges; Cheteshwar Pujara had edges off his bat drop short twice before being dismissed due to a third, and Ajinkya Rahane, the century-maker, had two clear reprieves.But it’s also a fact that teams collapse more often these days. For one, it has been a bowler-friendly era, with home teams preparing wickets to suit their bowlers, and in the process, helping all bowlers. Also, in an age that places a premium on fast run-scoring, defensive techniques have been eroded to a point where batsmen aren’t equipped to play out tough sessions with sideways movement. That’s true of all teams, including England, whose home grounds thrive on seam and swing.There are two ways to look at it. We can lament the lowering of the overall quality of Test cricket. Poor batsmanship means bowlers are made to look better, and the primary contest in cricket is devalued. Or we choose to embrace the way of the times and celebrate what we have: Test cricket on wheels, runs at a fast clip, sometimes wickets at a faster clip, and more results than ever before.The problem with upholding the umpire’s call for lbws is that the human decision introduces inconsistency•Mark Brake/Cricket Australia/Getty ImagesAnother manifestation of deteriorating defensive technique is the growing number of instances of batsmen getting hit on the head after taking their eyes off the ball. This has made concussions substitution one of the most important regulation changes introduced into the game. It’s a matter of debate why it can’t be extended to include all serious external injuries – a broken arm, for example – but head injuries are grievous, sometimes deceptively so, compared to others, and the substitution takes the pressure off teams and individual players to deploy a concussed player when a match is poised delicately.But it does create piquant situations like the one in India’s first T20I against Australia last month, when Yuzvendra Chahal came off the bench to replace Ravindra Jadeja, who took a blow to his head during his pugnacious and eventually match-defining innings of 44 off 23 balls. Chahal, a specialist and match-winning T20 bowler, duly bowled India to victory, causing considerable frustration to the Australian team.India clearly got the best of the deal in that match. They got full value from the bat of Jadeja, picked as an allrounder, but since he was also due to bowl four overs of spin, Chahal, even though he is a legspinner and Jadeja a left-arm spinner, was the only possible substitution available.But there is no way to avoid such scenarios in the future. It will be impossible for teams to carry like-for-like substitutes for every player, or even every group of players. And what if a substitute also gets injured? The only viable option is to approve and share a list that specifies the nominated substitute for each player ahead of the match. That will not solve the problem but it will avoid post-substitution disgruntlement.

It is ironical that the BCCI under Ganguly’s presidency has spent considerable time at the court to overturn the very reforms that facilitated his ascension

Decision over the decision-maker
The Decision Review System was meant, apart from trying to get as many decisions correct as possible, to take some heat away from the umpires, by co-opting players into the decision-making process. Despite the occasional baffling outcome with the technology, even the staunchest traditionalists will not have a convincing argument for reverting to the old ways.But a massive bugbear remains – the umpire’s call, which grants the benefit of doubt to the original decision for lbw. Umpire’s call was introduced for one primary reason: to account for a margin of inevitable uncertainty in the ball-tracking technology. However, the margin-of-uncertainty argument would be far more palatable if the benefit of doubt wasn’t granted to the umpire’s decision. The sport needs consistency and not confusion. One batsman can’t be out and another be not out, as is the case presently, when the ball is shown to be hitting the stumps in both instances.Joe Burns, battling to save his career, was dismissed in the Adelaide Test when the ball was shown to be grazing the leg stump. In the next Test, Marnus Labuschagne survived a review even though a larger part of the ball than in Burns’ case was projected to be hitting. The difference was that Burns was given out on the field and Labuschagne not out. A series of umpire’s calls that go against a team can prove decisive to the result of a game.There is a simple fix. Keep a standard margin of uncertainty in favour of the batsman. Perhaps reduce it to the batsman being out if more than 25% of the ball is projected to hit the stumps. And remove the umpire’s call. The sanctity of the decision is more important than that of the decision-maker.The skipper becomes a suit
Great expectations carry the risk of great disappointment. It would have been futile to expect Sourav Ganguly, among India’s most adored captains, to replicate the success he had with the Indian team in his stint in cricket governance, but when he promised a new era after being nominated as the BCCI president, hopes ran high. Perhaps a bit naïvely.Michael Holding’s moving interview about the racism he has experienced helped bring greater focus to the Black Lives Matter conversation in cricket•Getty ImagesIt’s true that Ganguly would not have become president – not so soon, at least – if most of the other leading aspirants had not been debarred in the wake of the Supreme Court-backed reforms mandated by the Lodha committee, but it is also true that Ganguly was co-opted by the old system. In the time-honoured tradition of the BCCI, he didn’t fight an election: he was selected. Though as board president he was never going to have around him a stellar team of the sort that made his tenure as Indian captain so successful, it is ironic that the BCCI under his presidency has spent considerable time in court trying to overturn the very reforms that facilitated his rise to the post.Under the new constitution that elected him, Ganguly’s term is over. Yet he, and Jay Shah, the BCCI secretary, carry on, because the Supreme Court has been in no haste to make a ruling on the petition by the board to overturn the cooling-off clause between terms in office mandated by the Lodha committee.Meanwhile, the professional administration has been dismantled piece by piece. The BCCI has not replaced the CEO and the CFO who left; it is without a head of cricket operations and an administrative head for the National Cricket Academy. And just recently, the board picked a selection committee that has no experience in T20 cricket, though there are two back-to-back T20 World Cups on the horizon.The concept of zonal selectors, though officially discarded, is alive in practice and Abey Kuruvilla, who played the last of his 35 international matches in 1997, was preferred as the West Zone candidate over Ajit Agarkar, who represented India in 221 matches and played six seasons of the IPL. (This is not to say that more international experience is a defining qualification for being a better selector, but experience of contemporary cricket has to count, particularly in T20, which is almost a different game from Test cricket.)In simple terms, it’s just like in the old era – the honorary office bearers are back in administrative roles, thus defeating one of the central reforms that stipulated a clear demarcation of functions between the elected office bearers and the executive.Part of the problem is that the Lodha committee failed to address one of the root issues at hand. The reforms were limited to the top tier, and that was never going to be enough as long as the underlying electoral process remained the same. It only meant that many from the old guard who were debarred merely transferred their positions to their nominees. Some faces might have changed, but the power remained with the same network of clubs and state associations.It would have been beyond Ganguly to single-handedly upend the system that anointed him, but had he tried, he would have had the mandate of the Supreme Court and the force of goodwill behind him. Instead he has been in the news for his endorsement deals – among others for businesses that compete with the BCCI’s official sponsors – and for his links with a company that owns an IPL franchise.Our sporting heroes are not obliged to always live up to our image of them, but we are still entitled our disappointment.Persons of the Year
I have two, and neither held a bat or a ball this year. Steve Elworthy, the ECB’s event director, for leading cricket’s response to the pandemic and putting the show back on the road. And Michael Holding, for being the game’s eloquent voice of conscience in the BLM movement.*ESPNcricinfo and Star are part of the Walt Disney CompanyMore in our look back at 2020*Dec 31, 2020, 8.35 GMT: In the original version of the piece, Ireland was missing from the list of teams that toured England

Bess enjoyed better luck and greater reward but, in terms of consistency, Leach was superior

George Dobell07-Feb-2021It was, in this tale of two spinners, the best of times and the worst of times.While Jack Leach spent much of the day craning his neck to see how far back the latest six off his bowling had been hit, his former apprentice, Dom Bess, cut through the best middle-order in world cricket. To claim any of Virat Kohli, Ajinkya Rahane, Cheteshwar Pujara or Rishabh Pant might have been considered an admirable achievement: to claim all four is exceptional.And yet, beneath those figures, there’s a more complex picture. Because statistics don’t just mislead. They lie and cheat and insist the cheque is in the post as they try to sell you a time-share in Fallujah.For the truth is that Leach bowled perfectly reasonably. He just happened to be the victim of an assault on his bowling by Pant that, on another day, could have resulted in a wicket. And while Bess, at times, bowled nicely, he would also be the first to accept his control slipped as the day wore on and he enjoyed more than a little fortune with a couple of his wickets. The point is, the difference in figures was far greater than the difference in performance.Bess is earning quite a reputation as having something of a golden arm. His five-for in Galle, not so long ago, contained some outrageous luck: Niroshan Dickwella slicing a long-hop to point, for example, or Dasun Shanaka caught after his slog-sweep cannoned off the short-leg fielder and into the gloves of Jos Buttler.And, as he claimed two more wickets here – both men in the top eight of the ICC’s Test batting rankings – with a full toss and long-hop, it was hard not to wonder how long his winning streak could last.Related

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What isn’t necessarily recalled so rapidly, is the missed chances he has suffered. The stumping and catch missed by Buttler against Pakistan, for example, or the slip catch missed by Ben Stokes against West Indies.Yes, Bess has had some fortune of late. But he has now taken 16 wickets in two-and-a-half Tests this year at an average of 19.37 apiece. For how long can such success be ascribed to fortune?And he did, at times, bowl really well here. He dismissed Kohli, for example, at the end of a probing spell that saw him build pressure on one of the best batsmen of his era. After 17 deliveries against him had produced just four singles – Kohli had, in all, faced 47 deliveries for his 11 runs and was without a boundary – Bess pushed one a little wider, saw it drift further before it turned just enough to take the inside edge.Might batsman error have been a contributory factor? Of course. But England had frustrated him for more than an hour and Bess had lured him out of position with that drift and punished him with that turn. It was a nice piece of bowling.”It’s certainly up there with the most satisfying wickets of my career,” Bess said. “Obviously he’s a phenomenal, world-class player. But it was special more for what my process was.”It wasn’t about bowling that magic ball. It was about smashing in 10-15 balls in a good area. Then something will happen. It’s the process of getting there. I was really pleased that I kept him in a spot, then one has gone and it’s straight to Ollie Pope.”The wicket of Pant was reward for some decent bowling, too. Bess knew Pant would come at him. But he continued to toss the ball up. And, this time, he added a bit of width, too, so that when Pant came down the wicket, he was always reaching for the ball. The hint of turn was enough to draw a slightly false stroke. Again, was the batsman at fault? Of course. But Bess set the trap and executed the plan neatly.It’s hard to find many compliments about the long-hop that dismissed Pujara, though. On most days, such balls will go to the boundary. But today, Pujara’s pull stroke thumped into the back of Pope at short-leg and looped to Rory Burns at mid-wicket.By then, Rahane had been brilliantly caught by a diving Joe Root at cover. To some extent, he had been set-up by the previous deliveries: Bess troubling him with drift and coming close to having him caught at mid-wicket a couple of balls previously. And the ball he attempted to drive did dip, too, contributing to the false stroke. The fact is, though, Rahane hit a full toss to a fielder. It would be disingenuous not to acknowledge the element of fortune.And that’s fine. The vast majority of wickets are a combination of good bowling and batsman error. So when Bess pointed out afterwards he was “due a bit of luck”, it was hard to disagree.”I’m not bothered how the wickets come,” he said. “There’s so many times you bowl a good ball and don’t get anything. You’re due a bit of luck aren’t you?”Dom Bess was rewarded with four wickets•BCCIBut Leach didn’t enjoy any such fortune. At one stage, Pant hit him for four sixes in seven balls. After eight overs, he had conceded 77 runs. It looks ugly, doesn’t it? They are worse figures than Simon Kerrigan endured at The Oval in 2013. And that was a game which proved a turning point in Kerrigan’s career.But while Leach was, like Kerrigan, hit out of the attack, he wasn’t hit off his stride. This was more a case of fine batting than poor bowling. And while Pant was clearly the victor in the duel – he scored 48 in 21 balls from Leach, including five sixes (all in the arc between mid-wicket and mid-on) and two fours – there was hardly a poor ball in there. Instead Pant, recognising the potential danger of Leach gaining assistance from the foot marks outside his off stump, backed himself to hit the bowler out of the attack. It was a high-risk approach, but it worked.But given just a bit of fortune, Leach might have won this tussle. Twice he saw the ball pass agonisingly close to the boundary fielders set for the stroke. At no stage did he lose his composure; at no stage did he lose his line and length. He basically came up against a fine player who took a chance and saw it come off. It happens.There was a case for persevering with Leach in the attack. England were defending a mammoth first-innings total of 578, after all, and Pant only needed to mis-time one. But instead, Root fiddled his bowlers around and, having frustrated Pant with an over of his own bowling – firing the ball into the rough outside off stump and conceding only a single in the process – he saw Bess benefit from his frustration in the next over.”I thought Leach bowled really well,” Bess said. “And that’s not me just saying it. Pant played a phenomenal innings, but if one goes straight up in the air, it’s a completely different game. I know people will look at the outcomes; I know at one point he was going at 10 an over. But it doesn’t matter: I thought he bowled really well.”The data would appear to support that view. Leach hasn’t bowled a single full toss in his 17 overs to date. And while he has dropped short 10 times, none of those deliveries cost him a boundary.Bess, by contrast, has bowled 10 full tosses and 16 short balls in his 23 overs to date. And while those deliveries cost him 27 runs, they also brought him two wickets.Leach’s pitch maps to Washington Sundar and Pant were almost identical, but Sundar took him for a far more reasonable 17 runs from 39 balls. It seemed to sum up Leach’s day when Jofra Archer, running back from mid-on, dropped Sundar off him near the close.So, hard times for Leach. But as Bess said, we must guard against judging these things from the “outcomes”. In terms of consistency, Leach was the better of the two bowlers. In time, you would think, his luck will turn.

Big-name players will return but some key areas will continue to provoke debate when Australia resume playing

Andrew McGlashan07-Mar-2021Australia fought back from 2-0 down to square the series against New Zealand before suffering a heavy loss in the decider. The squad was missing at least four players who will be inked into the T20 World Cup squad, in theory given an opportunity to assess the wider options available. With the team now facing a lengthy break, what can be gleaned from the five matches?Related

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Wade the frontrunner, but where does the keeper bat?However this series had played out there would have been questions remaining afterwards because of the names missing, especially so at the top of the order. David Warner will return and open with Aaron Finch – that’s probably the easy bit – but at the moment it appears Australia want their gloveman in the top order as well and that’s going to be a squeeze with Steven Smith also to fit in. Matthew Wade had the gloves throughout the series and in the last match slotted in at No. 3 having previously opened and produced his best knock of the five games. Josh Philippe played two very good innings in his debut series – and may well be the man for the 2022 T20 World Cup – but for now Wade looks to have the running. With the bat he may yet be used in a floating capacity both because of his experience and the fact that he’s a left hander.Marcus Stoinis played a spectacular innings in Dunedin but the make-up of the middle order remains a debate•Getty ImagesThe finisherThis has been a perennial debate around Australia’s T20 side. Given Ashton Turner wasn’t tried in the series before returning home early for the birth of his child it would appear to be between Marcus Stoinis and Mitchell Marsh (it’s tricky to see how both play when all the batsmen are available). Stoinis played one standout innings – the 78 off 37 balls that almost stole the game in Dunedin – and it could be his spot to lose although, like so many in this line-up, his best work domestically comes at the top of the order and at times he can still soak up too many dots. Marsh’s best innings came when batting at No. 4 in the first match, albeit in a forlorn cause, and in three of matches found himself down at No. 7 below Ashton Agar in an attempt to split up the left and right handers. He also didn’t bowl in the series following another season of injury. Daniel Sams showed what he is capable of with 41 off 15 balls in Dunedin, but the feeling is he has to compete as one of the five bowlers. Agar, whose role with the ball is vital, has yet to convince he can quite hold the batting position needed of him.It can’t all be on MaxwellRelated to the above is the fact that it still feels as though too much of how the middle order performs (in whatever order they bat) rests on the brilliance of Glenn Maxwell. It came off spectacularly in the third game when he had the ideal mix of a platform to work with and time left in the innings as he hammered 70 off 31 balls. Either side of that he made 23 runs in four innings and Australia need to have the ability to soak up those sorts of days more easily.Riley Meredith made a good impression in his first series•Getty ImagesPace-bowling pecking orderMitchell Starc and Pat Cummins will be locked into the side which probably leaves room for one more frontline quick in the XI. It could well be a horses-for-courses approach depending on conditions and opposition. The possibility of larger World Cup squad due to Covid-19 protocols also means the tough calls may not need to be made at the outset. Riley Meredith’s first appearances for Australia certainly caught the eye, twice beating Kane Williamson for pace to win lbw appeals, and his development at the IPL (if he plays) will be watched with interest. Kane Richardson remains a hugely versatile performer and perhaps the most dependable behind the big two. Jhye Richardson, on his international comeback, showed glimpses of the late swing that make him so dangerous. Does Josh Hazlewood come into the mix as well?Did Australia try enough? During the series both Finch and coach Andrew McDonald spoke of the valuable “information gathering” that had gone on even if, from the outside, it did not look like much was changing pointing to things like altering batting orders and Adam Zampa bowling more Powerplay overs. There was only one personnel change in the five games: Meredith replacing Sams after the first two matches. In truth, the series finishes with largely the same questions as it started. Five of the squad who were there the end – D’Arcy Short, Ben McDermott, Andrew Tye, Jason Behrendorff and Tanveer Sangha – did not get a game although so many extra players wouldn’t have been on tour under normal circumstances.

Trademark six-hitting from No. 9 followed by key incisions lifts New Zealand hopes

Andrew Miller22-Jun-2021As Kane Williamson left the field on the fifth afternoon, taking with him a pitch-perfect innings of 49 from 177 balls that had telegraphed the relentlessness of India’s seam attack while at the same time rising above it, he turned to his batting partner Tim Southee and uttered a few pointed words of encouragement. The lead was a slender four runs, with two wickets standing, and more than 40 overs remained scheduled for the day. It didn’t take a lip-reader to translate the captain’s orders.For Southee likes to lump it. He has been hitting sixes with a unique alacrity, almost from the day he arrived on the international scene as a precocious 19-year-old, 13 long years ago in Napier. He cracked nine on that final afternoon against England in 2008 – almost exclusively mown over midwicket, as he announced his arrival with a Nathan Astle tribute knock of 77 from 40 balls from No. 10, to cause improbable jitters in a monstrous chase of 553.The scenario could hardly have been different on this occasion, but the levers remained true. Lump it Southee did, two hulking swings through the line, high over his favoured leg-side, as New Zealand’s remarkable tail attempted a repeat of the trick that had set them apart in their home series against India in early 2020.Related

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Southee’s six-hitting exploits are well known but bear repetition – his tally is up to 75 now in 79 Tests, and at a ratio of 1 every 27 balls which has no equal in the game. His nearest “rival” by that measure, astonishingly enough, is none other than his new-ball partner and No. 11, Trent Boult, who’s picked off 30 to date, at roughly 1 in 40 balls. By contrast, the great Ricky Ponting, whom Southee pulled clear of in his short-but-sharp innings of 30, faced more than 52 overs for each of his 73 thumps over the rope.But therein lies the difference between great batters and great hitters, for in truth the fireworks didn’t quite come off as planned. India’s otherwise under-employed spinners picked off the last two wickets for a slender deficit of 32, but given that their own lower order had been docked to the tune of three wickets in four balls in India’s first innings, the difference in potential for the spicy end of this contest was plain enough to see, even in a rare passage of accelerated action.”It was just a bit of reminder to keep going and eke out as many runs as we possibly could,” Southee said of his chat with the outgoing Williamson, whose preternatural technique had once again calibrated the risks and rewards throughout a morning session in which New Zealand, trailing by 116 overnight, had a game to lose but nothing yet to win. “It was about trying to hang in with Kane for as long as we could, and once he left, the way that we play our best is with that freedom as bowlers and as tailenders.”Williamson scored 7 from 75 balls before lunch, dogged and dour – occasionally shaking his right elbow which was stiff with cramp, but seemingly untroubled by the left joint that has caused him such bother in recent months. He had never before faced so many balls in a Test innings without reaching a half-century, but the logic to his attrition was indisputable.”Steady the ship,” as the sailor-hat tributes among the Kiwi contingent would put it, let others bat around him during that dicey morning period, in which Mohammad Shami in particular was hounding the edge with a pent-up fury, as he finally earned some reward for his years of toil in English conditions.”It was crucial,” Southee said of Williamson’s durability. “It was a tough time this morning, the Indian bowling asked a lot of tough questions and put us under a lot of pressure, and he was able to hang tight and dig deep and battle his way through. He’s a class player, and he’s got a very sound defence that he was in full trust with.”Williamson began to up his tempo against the new ball, more than doubling this total in his final 36 balls as India’s fatigued trio of quicks found their discipline beginning to flag. But it was the men around him who kept nudging the score towards parity – Colin de Grandhomme, whose 80-plus strike rate is up there with Adam Gilchrist and Virender Sehwag, and Kyle Jamieson, whose levers are even more imposing than Southee’s, and whose average continues to hover above 40 after another front-dog dominant display.”You always probably want more than what you got, but it’s shaping up for an intriguing day tomorrow,” Southee added. “To have two of their more attacking players as well, it’s nice to see the back of them.”Rohit Sharma shouldered arms to a Tim Southee delivery•Getty ImagesThat’s putting it mildly. For it was Southee the bowler who completed the job that Southee the batter had started, prising out the vital scalps of Shubman Gill and Rohit Sharma to a pair of subtly different inswingers – the first with his so-called three-quarter-seam drifter, the second a more simple flipping of the shiny side as Rohit fatefully shouldered arms on a fourth-stump line – to ensure that New Zealand are the only team for whom attack is a broadly risk-free option going into the historic day six.In the first innings, Southee had bore the brunt of both his victims’ pugnacity, as India hurtled off in a 62-run opening stand that was the only moment to date in which New Zealand seemed out of control with the ball. This time he sought to be fuller and more menacing, recognising that the tables had turned since Williamson’s morning vigil, and now it was his opponents who had nothing to gain from aggression.He’s always had his outswinger, right from that Napier debut, when four of his five wickets were a consequence of his natural bend – three catches in the cordon plus the prized maiden scalp of Michael Vaughan, pinned lbw by the one that didn’t move. By his own admission, the inswinger has been a trickier beast for him to tame down the years, but in arguably the most important Test match of his long and storied career, he chose an opportune moment to confirm his hard-earned mastery.”As a player you’re always looking at different ways to expand your game, and that’s been one of the ways I’ve looked to develop over the last little while,” he said. “Especially with the Dukes ball, being able to swing it that a little bit more.”The Gill dismissal was Southee’s 600th in all internationals – a milestone he acknowledged was “nice” to have ticked off. But having picked up a five-for in his first Test of this England tour at Lord’s, he knows he’s in the form to make India’s life more uncomfortable yet, as New Zealand seek to turn the screw on a slender lead of 32.”The Indian side probably had their most challenging period when the ball was slightly older,” Southee said. “Hopefully tomorrow morning, it will swing a little bit more and we can ask a few questions early on.”

When his team-mates were a distance from their best, the offie held the fort with a lengthy old-ball spell

Andrew Fidel Fernando01-Dec-2021Seven bowling innings, 21 Test wickets, and on a day in which the left-arm spinners went missing in stretches, an outstanding 6 for 70, which brings the average down to 23.52. If you’d followed Ramesh Mendis at first-class level or in the Sri Lanka A side, you might have thought – oh, here’s a decent batting allrounder who can do the job with the ball.But Sri Lanka has a knack of finding spinners in unusual places (though, to be fair it must also be said that Sri Lanka tracks have a knack of making hotshot spinners out of almost anyone – Kraigg Brathwaite has a six-wicket haul at the P Sara Oval). And on Wednesday, Mendis was diligent, where Lasith Embuldeniya and Praveen Jayawickrama had been loose. Where the lefties missed their lengths, letting the batters rock back to crash the ball square too often, Mendis worked the pitch like an accountant with a set of tax forms – his work conscientious, repetitive, light on the glam. Just like this answer to the question, “what is it that brought you success, on arguably the best day of his career so far?”‘The pitch wasn’t turning as much as we thought it would, from even the afternoon yesterday,” Mendis said. “So we got together with the coaches and the plan was to bowl a lot of dot balls, and bowl just to one spot. We didn’t have a lot of runs to defend. I just put the ball in the right place.”If that’s a workaday answer to match a workaday style, the impact of his big spell certainly wasn’t. West Indies were only 24 runs behind at that stage, and had six first-innings wickets in hand. They bat deep, Joshua da Silva coming in at No. 8. How big was the lead going to be? Triple-figures? In Galle, those leads don’t get ate up in the back end of a Test. Sri Lanka had denied West Indies a win on the island for almost 30 years. Brian Lara, Courtney Walsh, Curtly Ambrose, Richie Richardson – they’ve all been here, and not all the Sri Lanka sides they met were strong. If Sri Lanka were going to be decked on their home turf, was it really going to be by West Indies team?But Mendis had been putting in the work. Either side of lunch, he bowled 20 overs unchanged with a barely-responsive old ball, giving only 35 runs away. Just after drinks in the second session, he switched ends, took the second new ball. And just as Veerasammy Permaul and Jomel Warrican had found on day two, if you can blow one batter down, at Galle you could spin yourself to a tornado of wickets. Roston Chase was first to go, the ball spitting more than he expected with its hard new seam, the catch flying to leg slip. Hope went two Mendis overs later, hit in front, clipping leg. And then, two in two (which Mendis had made happen in the first Test of this series as well); Jason Holder hit in front, the doughty da Silva bowled by one that didn’t turn.Four wickets in the space of 17 runs for West Indies; four in the space of 19 balls for Mendis – look, you get it, this spell was not game-turning necessarily, because we don’t know where we wind up on Friday, but it was, at the very least a significant veering away from the set course.If you’re looking for a “the coming of Sri Lanka’s next spin hope” type conclusion, we’re too smart, been burned before, don’t understand the selectors, and so we don’t do that here. (Remember that other Mendis?) But, okay, here are some bright nuggets. Athough West Indies have seven right-handers in their top eight, Mendis, who turns the ball into them, has still been Sri Lanka’s best spinner of the series (all six of his victims in this innings were right-handers). With a tour of India, and home Test series against Australia and Pakistan coming up next year, Mendis is collecting for himself a happy mound of confidence.Plus, he’s got a first-class batting average of more than 40, you know, so it’s possible we have not seen the best of his batting yet. By his own admission, he’s been asked to play more as a bowling allrounder in the national side, and so far, in his four Tests, that is exactly what he has seemed.But Sri Lanka have three young spinners on the go now, and on Wednesday, when two of them were a distance from their best, the offie held the fort with a lengthy old-ball spell, and when the new one was thrown to him, broke through big.

Having endured a lean patch since her 171* in Derby, the batter returned to form with a 66-ball 63

S Sudarshanan24-Feb-2022When Deepti Sharma was dismissed in the 18th over of the run chase, New Zealand were starting to regain control. The pressure applied by the spin duo of Frances Mackay and Fran Jonas had consumed Deepti – she had faced a combined 23 balls from them and failed to score off 14 of them.From 53 for 1 at the ten-over mark, India had only added 36 more in the next 7.4 overs. In walked the out-of-form Harmanpreet Kaur to join the set Smriti Mandhana. It was a comeback of sorts for Harmanpreet, who had been rested in the previous match.India came to New Zealand having lost just one out of ten ODIs while chasing since the start of 2019. But on this tour, they had lost both their previous matches when they had been set a target.Related

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Were they on course to botch another chase? Would the batters undo the spinners’ efforts, which had helped restrict New Zealand to a total that looked assailable?On Thursday, Harmanpreet used the sweep to good effect for most part of her innings. Anything remotely in her arc and around middle and leg was swept away towards square leg as she kept the runs flowing, while also not denying Mandhana the strike.She had got out to a full toss off Jonas in the second ODI to give the teenager her first wicket in the format. But come the fifth game, she was cautious to begin with, taking no chances off the first eight balls she faced from the left-arm spinner.At the start of Jonas’ fifth over – the 24th of the chase – Harmanpreet slinked down the track and thumped the ball over deep midwicket. The nifty footwork, hand-eye coordination and the shot had shades of the trademark strokes with which she had lit up Derby during her 171 not out in the Women’s World Cup of 2017. The shot even elicited a bear hug in response from Mandhana.”I think it was important for the whole team, and it was good to see her come back and play the shots she was playing,” Mandhana said after the match. “I was happy to be at the other hand to watch the ball flying off her bat. When she hit that six I felt like hugging her. I felt happy for her.”There was no looking back from thereon for the pair, who found at least one boundary in almost every over from then. Harmanpreet took a special liking to Mackay in the 28th over, hitting her for back-to-back fours after she had been given a life.Smriti Mandhana added 64 for the third wicket with Harmanpreet Kaur•Getty Images”It was important for the partnership to happen before the World Cup,” Mandhana said.She was right. In 27 innings since that 171* against Australia, Harmanpreet had scored 627 runs at an average of 27.26 and a strike rate of 66.91 before Thursday’s knock. Her best score in six knocks since the start of last year’s tour of England last year was 19. She had come under fire from numerous voices, including those of former players.However, in the interim, she had done well for Melbourne Renegades in the WBBL, both with bat and ball. But the performances had dried up at the international level by the time the New Zealand tour began.”My conversation with Harry di was outside of cricket,” Mandhana said when asked about the words she shared with the senior batter. “I believe if someone is not confident or timing the ball, it is better not to talk to them about cricket. We spent time going out, having dinner, having fun. We tried to distract her so that she can start afresh. I have not had any batting conversation before in the middle today.”Harmanpreet finished with 63 off just 66 balls and played a key part in India picking up their first win of the tour.In two of the last three ICC tournaments, Harmanpreet produced at least one big knock for India: her ODI best in 2017, and a maiden T20I century in the T20 World Cup in 2018, when India made the semi-finals.With the upcoming ODI World Cup just around the corner, and to be played in New Zealand, Harmanpreet couldn’t have chosen a better time to get back among the runs.

Her 194 sixes across formats are an international record, but she was more than handy with the ball too

Sampath Bandarupalli01-Aug-20221 Deandra Dottin became the first woman to score a century in the T20I format in 2010, when she smashed an unbeaten 112 off 45 balls against South Africa in the T20 World Cup opener.
Dottin’s century came off just 38 balls, the fastest in Women’s T20Is. It is also the only century while batting at No.6 or lower in Women’s T20Is.Related

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6 Dottin is one of the six players to score two hundreds in Women’s T20Is. Her second hundred came in 2017 against Sri Lanka when she scored 112 off 67 balls. Both of Dottin’s T20I hundreds are the top two highest individual scores for West Indies in this format.70.44 Percentage of West Indies’ total scored by Dottin during her 112 against Sri Lanka in 2017. It is the highest contribution made during a completed innings in Women’s T20Is.

The New Zealand fast bowler on coffee, Italian food and what possibly did the tourists in against England in the first Test earlier this month

Interview by Alan Gardner23-Jun-2022This interview was conducted ahead of New Zealand’s Test series in EnglandWhat’s your go-to meal?
Probably Italian. There is a place that my partner and I go to in Auckland that does a lovely duck risotto.What about cooking – do you have a speciality in the kitchen?
I’ve tended in the last couple of years to go more down the path of eating out and enjoying someone else’s expertise rather than my own. Especially when we travel a lot, you get a chance to try some new places and different sorts of foods.Which cricket venue has the best catering?
I think a lot of people would say Lord’s but I’m going to go either Hagley Oval or Bay Oval.What edges out Lord’s?
It’s in New Zealand (). Yeah, I think it’s probably just being at home – you get to experience those places a bit more. I’ve only been to Lord’s once, so maybe it’ll shift in a couple of weeks’ time. But I’m happy to stick with some homegrown food.Related

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Was there anything that Lord’s did well when you went in 2021?
I remember having some prawns as an entrée and they were outstanding. Can’t remember what sauce was with them, but if we have those again, there could be some full stomachs going out on the field after lunch.Which team-mate is the best in the kitchen?
Matt Henry. He whips up some pretty good food. I think he’d probably be up there.Does he do good pasta?
I’m not sure, he hasn’t actually cooked for me! But he’s not afraid of sending a few snaps about it.Who’s the biggest coffee hipster?
It’s hard to go past Ticks [Blair Tickner] – he’s got his own café. But I think most guys tend to enjoy their coffee. Everyone’s got their own coffee machine at home. Had some pretty good brews since we’ve been here [in the UK], as part of our walk to the ground. It’s probably hard to find someone that doesn’t enjoy coffee, rather than the other way around.Is there anything you can’t go on tour without?
We travelled around with coffee beans last year, and little AeroPresses to make our coffees, but we haven’t had to take that on tour this year – we’ve been able to go out and grab one. I wouldn’t say there’s too much, food-wise. I’m pretty happy to go out and try things from where we are in the world.

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