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According to journalist Pete O’Rourke, West Ham’s existing relationship with Hull City could help them to win the race for the signing of Keane Lewis-Potter during the upcoming transfer window.

The Lowdown: Premier League interest in Lewis-Potter

The forward first made his breakthrough into the Tigers’ starting XI in League One last season, but following their promotion, he has made the step up to the Championship look incredibly easy, having scored 13 goals and provided four assists across all competitions this term, as per Transfermarkt.

Following some impressive performances of late, a move to the Premier League looks like it could be on the cards, with Tottenham, Brentford and the Irons all said to be interested in battling it out for the 21-year-old’s signature.

David Moyes signed Jarrod Bowen from the Yorkshire outfit two years ago, with the winger going on to become a fan favourite at the London Stadium, and that existing connection may just put the east Londoners in pole position this time around.

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The Latest: West Ham hold Lewis-Potter advantage

When asked if the Bowen deal from 2020 could potentially impact whether West Ham are successful in bagging Lewis-Potter this summer, O’Rourke told GiveMeSport:

“It will benefit West Ham if they do decide to pursue their interest in Keane Lewis-Potter. They considered a possible move in January, as did Brentford, so there’s quite a few clubs looking at the young winger, and he’s really impressed in the Championship.”

The Verdict: Another Bowen?

Bowen has been prolific since making the switch to the top flight, having already made a staggering 46 goal contributions in just 101 games for West Ham, which offers hope that Lewis-Potter has the potential to make a similar impact should he decide to replicate the 25-year-old’s move from Hull to east London.

Once described as a “special talent” by his former Tigers manager Grant McCann, the £900k-rated gem was the star of the show at Hull’s end-of-season awards earlier this week, where he took home a hat-trick of trophies after being voted the Supporters’ Player of the Year, Players’ Player of the Year and overall Player of the Year.

In addition, Lewis-Potter made his debut on the international stage for the England under-21s back in March, and he definitely has a bright future ahead of him, wherever that may be.

O’Rourke’s suggestion that the Irons could hold the upper hand due to their previous transfer dealings with Hull is very much an intriguing and promising one.

In other news… a new report has shared a huge transfer update on West Ham’s pursuit of one of their summer targets

Pat Cummins was the only seamer to bowl more balls than Rabada in international cricket last year

Firdose Moonda in Cape Town01-Jan-2020While England wait on the fitness of their fastest bowler Jofra Archer, South Africa can relax knowing their own superstar, Kagiso Rabada, is rediscovering his form.Archer barely bowled in training on New Year’s Day due to a sore elbow while Rabada entered it on the back of his best performance of 2019, after taking seven wickets in South Africa’s win at SuperSport Park. There, Rabada played a solid supporting role in the first innings before sparking an England collapse of 6 for 46 against the second new ball in the second innings, where he attacked with intensity and found a hint of swing.ALSO READ: South Africa embrace the struggle to re-embark on road to success”There’s definitely a lot more fire in KG’s eyes at the moment,” said Quinton de Kock, who played franchise cricket with Rabada for several seasons.Rabada’s effort came at the end of his leanest full calendar year in wicket terms since his debut in 2019, with 33 wickets from eight Tests at 27.39. By way of comparison, in 2016, he played nine Tests and took 46 wickets at 23.24 and he claimed more than 50 wickets in both 2017 and 2018.A combination of being overbowled – Rabada played the full IPL in 2019 and returned with a back injury ahead of the Word Cup – and being out of ideas – South Africa did not have a dedicated bowling coach in the Ottis Gibson era – are the likeliest causes of Rabada’s slump, although Vernon Philander believes it was also inevitable, and valuable.”He was going to get a knock at some stage, a dip in form, whatever you want to call it, but the only way to get through it is to go through it yourself,” Philander said. “I am glad he has gone through it because there’s no greater learning than learning yourself. The most important part was for him to go through it and to really feel what it feels like and to now come out and identify what’s going to work for him moving forward.”As an earnest learner, Rabada has been trying to add to his arsenal from a young age. Given his athleticism and his height, pace and bounce come naturally to him and he has spoken about working on the cutter and the inswinging yorker and the IPL provided evidence that he had learnt a lot about bowling both.But at the World Cup and then in India, Rabada looked out of sorts, down on pace, and frustrated. Theories were hatched about how his overuse as an up-and-coming quick was impacting his longevity. Philander didn’t think that was the issue. “The longer you play the more you realise that the simpler you keep it, the more results you will get. He went through that phase where he wanted to try a few things and it didn’t quite worked, and now he has gone back to the old simple self and it seems to be working again.”At SuperSport Park, Rabada’s performance resembled much of what we saw of him from the early days of his career. For the most part, he pitched the ball up on off stump and let the movement he found do the rest. Occasionally, he held his length back but he didn’t overcomplicate his approach. For that, new (old) bowling coach Charl Langeveldt may deserve credit.Langeveldt worked with the South African attack under Russell Domingo between 2015 and 2017 but was dispensed with when Gibson came on board. He was re-recruited to join Mark Boucher’s coaching staff and at the team’s training camp before the series, Rabada said he was looking forward to Langeveldt’s guidance, especially his directness. “Tactically I think he’s really good,” he said. “Technically he doesn’t force things upon you. He’s really simple. He gets to the point. I just like how natural he is. He gets to the point really quickly.”It was also there that de Kock noticed the Rabada of old returning. “At the camp before the first Test, it seemed like he was really excited to get going and play. He was very motivated,” de Kock said.ESPNcricinfo LtdThat may not be the best news for England, especially with the way Archer has begun 2020. But they may be lessons from Rabada’s experience for Archer and they’ve come from a player whose bowling style is not quite the same as theirs but who has years of experience to lean on. Philander warned Archer, who was England’s most expensive bowler at Centurion, that being fast is not enough and being focused is just as important.”Extreme pace is not going to get you across the line. You need to be able to be consistent at what you do. And in international cricket guys will work you out. You can have extreme pace, rush batters and make life uncomfortable for them but at some stage, guys are going to get used to your pace and they are going to be able to play you,” Philander said.”It’s finding what works for you on different surfaces and saying, ‘I can actually hold the game as well, at whatever pace’. You don’t want to be the one guy going at five or six an over and putting the rest of the attack under pressure because you are going at five or six. It’s making sure that you have aggression but also that you can hold the game.”That’s the kind of bowler Rabada is being allowed to develop into because South Africa have found raw pace in other players, like Anrich Nortje, control from Dwaine Pretorius and space in the team for both of them, which allows them to play with four frontline quicks. “We’ve got a nice balance now,” de Kock said. “We’ve got Anna [Nortje], who bowls high 140s and is not really the most pleasant guy to face, then Vern with steady pace, Dwaine, who can hold one side and then KG who is always picking up wickets.”

Over-experimentation in the middle overs undid the early damage inflicted by the pacers, says Australia captain

Daniel Brettig18-Sep-20172:39

‘Two new balls made chase tougher’ – Smith

Depth is a concept that Australia can expect to wrestle with during the Ashes, in the sense that England’s batting order has it and Steven Smith’s side, for the time being, does not. In Chennai, Smith’s ODI team got an early taste of what that can look like, albeit in circumstances that allowed some room for benefit of the doubt.With the new ball, Nathan Coulter-Nile and Pat Cummins started exceptionally well, bowling fast, on the ideal length and with enough movement to prompt errors from India’s top four. Marcus Stoinis then followed up by “bashing the wicket” and coaxing out a couple victims of his own to cross-bat shots.However those early gains gave way to more indifferent bowling through the middle of the innings, as India showcased the depth – that word again – they have added to their batting order in limited overs matches through the regeneration of MS Dhoni and the allround ability of Hardik Pandya. Dropped catches helped too, but India still had to capitalise, something Dhoni and Pandya did in grand style, the former savaging the recalled James Faulkner, after the latter had swung freely at Adam Zampa’s flat, full wrist spin.”I think we probably we went away from our plans a little bit,” Smith said. “We were hitting such a good length and certainly persisted with that for a while with the good bouncers we were bowling. We were trying too many things, too many slower balls, just not hitting that good hard length we were hit early on.”The message to Zampa as well was to bring his length back a bit. He was bowling very full and Hardik looked like hitting everyone of those for a six. As soon as he got his length back a bit and made him go across the ball, he got him out. He just bowled a fraction full and paid the price.”Depth in batting tests a bowling unit in this manner. Second and third spells are required, wickets must be coaxed from old balls as well as new, concentration and discipline must be maintained for longer periods than an initial burst. Granted plenty of overs in which to right the ship, Dhoni and Pandya proved capable of playing a longer game than Australia’s bowlers. It was an episode that could not help but be noticed by England, particularly its lower middle order trio of Jonny Bairstow, Ben Stokes and Moeen Ali.”That partnership changed the game,” Smith said. “They put on 120-odd and took them from 87 to 206. In the end that proved to be a match-winning partnership. Unfortunately we weren’t able to capitalise on the start we had. We started very well with the new ball. That’s a positive for us. One thing we have been working on.”Over the last 18 months, we haven’t started well with the new ball, we haven’t been able to draw things back. I thought we bowled to the conditions and bowled to the right areas.”When rain arrived between innings, reducing Australia’s allotment of overs to 21 and their target to 164, the time afforded to Dhoni and Pandya was sheared away from the touring middle order. This was doubly unfortunate, as the same inclement weather that reduced the overs also helped create an ideal environment for India’s seamers Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Jasprit Bumrah and Pandya himself. By the time the early overs had seen a tit-for-tat loss of Australian top order wickets not dissimilar to India’s, there was very little room for the middle order to manoeuvre in.”It was never going to be easy chasing 160 with two new balls. It was sort of a good new ball wicket to bowl with,” Smith said. “We could have perhaps played a little bit differently and try to take a little bit more time upfront. It’s always hard in 20 overs to judge that. We weren’t good enough. Batting for 20 overs is difficult when you are losing wickets. Trying to go hard, it didn’t work out as we would have liked. Hopefully we would turn things around in a couple of days in Kolkata.”I think 160 with one new ball would have made things a lot easier. When you have two new balls from both ends, as you saw the whole game, we took three wickets with the new ball and they found it quite hard. It was the same for us. When you are playing 20 overs, you don’t have a great deal of time to make things up. You need eight an over basically from ball one. It was difficult in that aspect. Perhaps we could have been a little bit more defensive at the start, keep wickets in hand and harder later.”Stacked as it is with allrounders, Australia’s limited overs batting order is deeper than the Test match equivalent. They will hope that next time around the weather will not intervene at an awkward juncture. but at the same time, Smith will know that success for his teams this summer will relate very much to whether they can persist for longer periods than in Chennai – India now, and England in coming months, both have the depth to test Australian endurance.

In a big final, England slowed the game to the tempo that their captain had demanded, they had the trophy winking at them from the sidelines, and then…

Andrew Miller at Eden Gardens04-Apr-20161:40

Butcher: Stokes would put his hand up again

The legend of Eden Gardens looms over all first-time visitors to the mightiest stadium in Asia. You can have revelled in all the glories and rolled your eyes at all its quirks, but nothing quite prepares you for the shabby magnificence of the venue.Much like the city for which it forms such a towering and iconic presence, the old lady creaks under the weight of its own history, yet still finds a way to absorb new additions to the annals, to produce tales that resonate down the ages as people turn to one another and sigh, “ah yes, Calcutta …”And so it proved, at the end of an evening that throbbed with instant history, when Ben Stokes sunk to his haunches, his face as red with heat and emotion as the shirt with which he mopped his brow. No amount of acclimatisation, or visualisation, or hours of dedication in the nets, could have prepared Stokes – or any other cricketer for that matter – for the shockwaves that poured forth from the tailor-made bat of Carlos Brathwaite.Brathwaite’s final onslaught (“remember the name!” came the commentary-box cry) was as brutal and immersing as the wall of heat and wetness that seems built into the Kolkata air. It was, quite literally, breathtaking, and the more Stokes thought about the implications, the more the atmosphere drowned him. By the time of that final contemptuous swing over deep midwicket, England’s designated death bowler had long since abandoned the thrash of panic and had moved directly to blank acceptance.

England, to be fair, have learned an awful lot about what that takes, even in the space of a three-week campaign. Each of their four victories upto the semi-final called upon a range of survival skills that no team can know they possess until they are challenged

No blame could be apportioned – none would have been appropriate in any circumstances, really, given how far and how high England’s rebooted white-ball team had flown in the past three weeks. And yet, they had long had an inkling that they were in line for an occasion like this, at some stage of their voyage of discovery. Their young and adaptable team had turned up, in the words of Jason Roy, to play in front of “100,000 people in a World Cup final” with – hopefully – not a care in the world.However, not even their captain, Eoin Morgan – once of Kolkata Knight Riders, and a man who had famously called for England to “embrace the naivety” in their opening rounds – could quite dare to let his players take the field with eyes wide shut.”It’s not just another game,” Morgan had cautioned on the eve of the match. “Tomorrow everything will feel a little bit rushed to start with, but it is important we are in the right frame of mind to slow it down when needed.” His words would prove agonisingly prophetic as the contest began to unfold.The warning signs were there from the moment England began their warm-ups. Attempting to pretend that this is just another game isn’t really an option when your opponents are already deep into their celebrations – or, as it was on this occasion, sharing in those of the gleeful West Indies women’s team, whose stunning dispatching of the three-times champions Australia was a mic-dropping hint as to the focus within their combined camps.The one true difference between the IPL and English T20 cricket isn’t the skill that comes to the fore – the likes of Buttler, Root and Roy prove beyond doubt that talent isn’t an issue – it is the situational experience that comes with asked to be heroes on a daily basis•Getty Images/ICCAnd life didn’t get any less full-on after that. The sweltering night, the packed house, the corridor of pyrotechnics that guided the players out for the anthems. These are the experiences which the West Indies players, by and large, have come to accept as commonplace. After all, the one true difference between the IPL and English T20 cricket isn’t the skill that comes to the fore – the likes of Buttler, Root and Roy prove beyond doubt that talent isn’t an issue – it is the situational experience that comes with asked to be heroes on a daily basis.England, to be fair, have learned an awful lot about what that takes, even in the space of a three-week campaign. Each of their four victories up to and including the semi-final – and even their opening-night crunching by Chris Gayle – called upon a range of survival skills that no team can know they possess until they are challenged: a head for heights in the thrilling run-chase against South Africa; a stomach for the fight as Afghanistan threatened in a low-scoring tavern-brawl; a steady aim as Sri Lanka’s batsmen roared back into contention in Delhi.After all of those tests of character, everything seemed to have clicked during England’s hugely impressive defeat of New Zealand, only for it to unravel just enough in the final. The loss of the toss, and the obligation to set the tempo against a team with no apparent upper limit, was doubtless a contributory factor. Nevertheless England approached their innings as if tumbling down a flight of stairs. They still made it to the bottom, just without the dignity they might have anticipated when first setting foot on the landing.Morgan called the batting “terrible” – and he, alas, would know, after a gruesome end to his own formless campaign – but it was Roy’s frantic two-ball duck that seemed to have set the agenda for England’s efforts. Like Brendon McCullum in last year’s World Cup final, the notion of playing a good-length ball on merit proved anathema when there was momentum to be established, and like New Zealand on that occasion, such a blow to the solar plexus proved too winding to allow a complete recovery.It was the right approach to take, but it had the wrong upshot. In fact, for those first five overs of discombobulation, only one recent contest between England and West Indies could compare – the infamous Stanford showdown of November 2008, when the islanders eyed the prize and secured it with the aplomb of natural showmen.Roy’s trudge back to the pavilion, at a pace reminiscent of Inzamam-ul-Haq, with his helmet half-removed and his bat upside-down in his limp hands, was a picture of conquered dejection. Nine balls later, Alex Hales echoed that agonised self-admonishment after clipping a half-tracker to short fine-leg. And when Morgan came and went for 5, stiffly accepting his fate like a guilty verdict in the dock, England were 23 for 3, and free-falling.Amid England’s gut-wrenching loss, Joe Root produced another classy fifty•Getty ImagesBut then there was Joe Root. There’s always Root, puncturing the gloom with a back-foot drive through the covers, followed by the most sweetly forceful nurdle through the gap at wide mid-on – the sort of shot that fails to fully register because it feels as though you’ve been conned. And, briefly, there was Jos Buttler – beast mode on mute this time out as he reverted to the single-pinching that had kept England’s ambitions on course in the South Africa epic.But Buttler, being Buttler, couldn’t help but smack three sixes into the mix, including two in two balls to ignite England’s ambitions for the second ten overs of their innings, and suddenly it was clear what Morgan had meant in his pre-match comments. Despite the thickness of the air and the fervour of the crowd and their opponents, there was still a sense that England could regain control, by taking deep breaths and trusting themselves to see it through.And so it was, when Buttler picked out deep midwicket in the pursuit of another boundary – an occupational hazard even in the midst of a T20 crisis – his departure was beaten but relatively upbeat, displaying the air of a mission rejoined as he punched gloves with the incoming Stokes before pausing at the boundary’s edge to collect his spare bat – a symbol, perhaps, of England’s desire to bat long, even if their execution was proving wanting.The denouement of the innings, however, proved to be a reversion to the chaos that had launched it. Stokes seemed too bewildered to be disappointed as he left, after getting in a tangle against Dwayne Bravo and lobbing a leading edge to point, while Moeen Ali accepted his leg-side strangle with a shrug and returned whence he came in the dug-out.But it was Root, inevitably Root, whose departure was the body blow. Debates have been raging all tournament long about the relative merits of England’s star batsman and India’s modern icon Virat Kohli (and the greatest point of comparison was still yet to come) but the straight-lined superlatives of each player are what so clearly set them apart from the pack. Root’s 54 from 36 balls was another unhurried masterpiece, underwritten with a diet of easy singles and stamped with seven smooth injections of class.The purity of his angles meant he had no need for cutesy dinks and shovels, and so, inevitably, he fell to one all the same. Had Root’s attempted flick to leg come off, as a similar moment of outrage against South Africa had sailed for six over third man, he would have been hailed for his daring, and for seizing back the initiative after the loss of two quick wickets in three balls – instead, with that tally now at three in four, the moment only deepened England’s mire.

Had Root’s attempted flick to leg come off, as a similar moment of outrage against South Africa had sailed for six over third man, he would have been hailed for his daring

This was “no consequences cricket” boiled down to its barest essence – the costliest shot at Eden Gardens since Mike Gatting’s reverse sweep in the 1987 World Cup final, claimed some, and yet such recriminations are pointless if you expect your players to back their instincts. Root is hardly the type of player to retort with “it’s just the way I play” – in fact, his departing volley of invective at the Champion-dancing West Indians was significantly spicier than that – but somewhere on a golf course in his state of semi-retirement, a certain former England batsman would doubtless say it for him.But even a half-completed rebuild was better than none at all, for England’s stumble towards a total of 155 for 9 – 40 below par, in Morgan’s estimation – was still more than any side had previously managed to chase in a World T20 final. And what followed was nothing short of extraordinary, as Morgan – displaying the sharp mind that his frail batting could not replicate – set his team to slow the game almost to a standstill, and tossed Root of all people the ball for the second Powerplay over.The impact was electric, and it galvanised a crowd that would finish the night as partisan West Indians but who, for three critical overs, were willing to farm out their support to the team that was gamely reigniting the contest. A first-ball lollipop, smacked unerringly to Stokes at long-off; a second-ball flap, uneasily picking the gap behind point; a third-ball flog, as Gayle of all people, the author of that 47-ball hundred at the Wankhede, had his ego played like a tin whistle before he’d taken the time to find his range.David Willey chimed in with another standout performance – and a ‘champion’ dance – at the start and in the slog overs•Getty ImagesBefore West Indies could regroup, Lendl Simmons, their semi-final hero was gone, David Willey curling an inswinger into his front pad with the same aplomb that Ryan Sidebottom had brought to England’s 2010 campaign in the Caribbean. At first all Marlon Samuels and Bravo could do was rebuild the innings from within a stunned vacuum. Poking the singles that had been rumoured to be beneath their dignity, accepting the tide was no longer in their favour, as Liam Plunkett banged out a Test-match tattoo on a tight, back-of-a-length line and Adil Rashid opened his account with a ripper dipper that dropped late on Bravo and bit away from the bat, before switching to a diet of googlies to negate the impact of the dew.But all the while, you knew it was coming. The West Indies pain train, that fusillade of boundaries that you knew could haul any cause back from the brink. The first six of the innings didn’t land until the 14th over, by which stage the rate was almost exactly two a ball. But when two more followed in Plunkett’s final over, including a fearsome straight smash from a now-psychotically pumped-up Samuels, you realised that the new target, 52 runs from 30 balls, was essentially a case of landing one blow in three.Time can stand still in Calcutta if you find a means to let it. Much like the herds of glorious yellow taxis that patrol the streets but seemed determined to stop for no-one, there’s a random element to life in India’s most storied city. England squeezed and they fought and they wrestled to keep the match in their grasp. They soaked in the setting, and warmed to their task, pouncing in the outfield and daring the West Indians to take their chase deeper than any side has had to go in a World final.They slowed the game to the tempo that their captain had demanded, they had the trophy winking at them from the sidelines. They had once again fiddled a means to make a merit of their imperfections and nothing, surely, could stop them now.But then, at the bitterest of denouements, England’s time froze completely. And as West Indies restarted the party that has barely relented since they landed, the realisation dawned that, for Stokes, part of his persona will remain trapped in that over for eternity – another ghost of Eden Gardens, another layer of legend in the greatest venue of all.

His amazing bat speed helps make up for a minor technical quirk

Aakash Chopra25-Feb-2015It was an exhibition match in England against amateur cricketers. As expected, the pitch wasn’t the best, and the bowler didn’t have too much pace either. The thing about these matches is that as a batsman you have to do most of the work: find the gaps in a field that is well spread out from the start, generate pace off the bat, because there won’t be much on offer, and avoid getting carried away.The batsman hit a slightly short ball off the back foot behind point for a four. The bat came down at unbelievable speed to generate pace, the supple wrists opened the face of the bat at the last minute, and the ball sped to the fence. That was the first time I saw Hashim Amla bat, and I was fortunate to have the best seat in the house, about 20 yards away, at the non-striker’s end.I had not seen anyone with such bat speed. Amla was different and it showed.
 In India we talk a lot about Virat Kohli’s enviable record in ODIs but Amla’s numbers are even better. He took 13 fewer innings than Vivian Richards (and Kohli) to get to 5000 runs, and he scores a century every 5.5 innings, which is better than anyone who has played the limited-overs game. Add to that the fact that he opens the batting, while playing most of his cricket on seamer-friendly South African pitches, where even the best players average about ten runs per innings fewer than their career average. Not to mention his phenomenal Test numbers.Amla is indeed one of the modern greats. 
Like most South African batsmen he has a back and across movement followed by a step forward as a trigger movement to set himself up before the ball is bowled. You tend to do this if you practise a lot against the bowling machine while growing up. But playing against the bowling machine also makes you tend to keep your bat in the air while standing in your stance (like Jacques Kallis did), and mostly the bat comes down from the first-slip region (once again, like Kallis).Amla is different in this regard, for his bat comes down from the third- or fourth-slip region, if not from gully. 
To ensure that the bat comes down straight, Amla makes a loop at the top of his backlift, because regardless of where the bat starts its inward trajectory from, it must come down through the first-slip direction to present the full face while playing. Since Amla launches the bat in through gully, it needs to travel a greater distance, which means he needs to do one of two things to ensure that he isn’t late on the ball: one, initiate the downswing a little earlier, or two, bring the bat through quicker than other batsmen do.Initiating the downswing early could make the timing go off completely, and so Amla chooses the second option – of making the downswing quicker – and that momentum results in generating extraordinary bat speed. But if he has to hit through the leg side, he abandons the loop at the top of the backlift, and that allows him to present the full face of the bat while playing through midwicket too. Kohli, Amla and Steve Smith are the three current batsmen who have this ability.Amla’s other strength is that after the set-up, his stability at the crease allows him to play drives on the rise. The extra pace of international fast bowlers doesn’t allow openers the luxury of a long front-foot stride, and so balance and transference of weight become critical while driving off the front foot. Amla is pretty sound in these areas, and his driving on both sides of the pitch is simply exceptional.However, no one is perfect and there are weaknesses and chinks in any armour, which can be exploited if you have the tools as a bowler. The flip side of Amla’s bat starting from gully is that at times the loop at the top isn’t made properly, which leads to the bat coming down at an angle, and that creates an opening for the balls that dart back in after pitching. Amla has been out bowled or lbw in over 30% of his dismissals against pace. Like all top-class batsmen it’s not movement in the air that bothers him but movement off the pitch. Tinashe Panyangara went through Amla’s defence in South Africa’s opening game of the World Cup. It is a pointer for other bowlers to the sort of delivery that is worth trying early on if there’s some movement off the surface on offer.

Pop duo Duckworth Lewis talk about their new album and why the England team needs more characters

Interview by Alan Gardner01-Jul-2013 Sticky Wickets, Walsh (left) and Hannon: timed their second album to a nicety•Jim DysonYou’re back with another album. Did you think there was more to be sung about cricket?
Neil: Apparently we did. I think the way we write about cricket, it’s kind of limitless. Because we don’t necessarily write about cricket per se, it’s just the jumping-off point. So we kind of take these quite small ideas and elaborate upon them in various strange tangents.Thomas: I think it’s the fact that it’s endless in its stories and in its history. Something like football or snooker, you get fun anecdotes. But with cricket you have entire books and volumes about certain stories and incidents that happened.Neil: And its phraseology and terms – it’s got so many cool words attached to it: nudging, nurdling, line and length, mystery man – all the names of the songs on our new album!The commentators help us an awful lot. We took the inspiration for “Boom Boom Afridi” entirely from David Lloyd; he has fantastic nicknames for everybody and then we managed to get him to do his little bit on the actual song.You’ve got a few famous names featuring this time around. Did they approach you or did you have to ask?
Thomas: Oh, they were keen but we had to ask them because they’re very busy people. Someone like Stephen Fry is never not working and never not being asked. It was very exciting for us but there was no way we thought we’d get him.”Neil: It was quite scary, because I’m such a fan. He read it through once, it was brilliant, but I had the temerity to say, “Would you mind reading it again, slower?” He said, “Of course, not a problem.” But then he had to rush off.Thomas: Daniel Radcliffe did talk a lot. He was far more relaxed…Neil: I would almost class Daniel Radcliffe as verbose, he loves to chat.”Radcliffe is on the track “Third Man”, which references the fielding position, as well as the Orson Welles film of the same name.
Neil: That’s correct, Harry Lime and so on. We have written various songs where it’s kind of about the ability to daydream while cricket it happening. But they’re always good dreams and it’s perfectly reasonable. And this was actually daydreaming while playing the game.Thomas: You’d probably put a lesser fielder – Monty Panesar, say – down at third man, because the ball wouldn’t be going down there a lot. So we thought, you know, you spend an hour down there, not really involved in the game, why not get involved in a spy movie.Neil: Or just fantasise about murdering all the other people on the pitch, really…Do either of you get the chance to play much? Have you stood at third man, daydreaming the game away?Neil: That’s the only fielding position I’m ever put in actually. I sometimes turn out for the Cavaliers, who are a bunch of actors in Dublin, and I’m very, very bad.

“I identified that the natural length would be about 20 years between both albums but because it rains a lot in Ireland we were faced with using the Duckworth-Lewis method and it became four years “Thomas Walsh

I think my batting is slightly preferable to my bowling but they’re both terrible. I sometimes take wickets when I’m bowling just because I’ve finally managed to get the ball to the other end of the crease, roughly in the right direction.Was there much demand for a second album?
Neil: From the people we know who loved it, yeah, they were saying, “When are you going to make another one?” We always said, “Are you crazy?” And it turned out that we were crazy.Thomas: I identified that the natural length would be about 20 years between both albums but because it rains a lot in Ireland we were faced with using the Duckworth-Lewis method and it became four years.So you’re not going to be releasing one every time the Ashes are played in England?
Neil: We’re not planning anything – we do not plan. People don’t believe us when we say it is kind of an accident [the albums] have appeared at the Ashes. Basically we did the first one, it accidentally came out at just the right time, and then we both went off to do albums of our own, and by the time we’ve come back to make another one, it was four years later. A happy accident.Do you know if any of the England players are fans? Graeme Swann is known as a bit of a musician.
Neil: Yeah, he’s a fan, which is very nice. I don’t know about any of the others. We’re doing Swanny and Anderson’s podcast, so that will be fun. I can’t wait to meet Jimmy Anderson.Did you try and get any of them to appear on the album?
Thomas: It would be a lot more difficult than the people we did get.Neil: In the entertainment world it’s not too hard and people are always ready and willing. With sports people they’re always hither and thither in the world, it’s very hard to pin them down. This has been the celebrity fest, this album, maybe if we do another it will be the cricketer fest. But really, we do not have plans for another one, just like we did not have plans for this one.You seem to have reinvented the cricket song genre but there have been one or two previous attempts. Do you have any favourites?
Neil: I’m not sure I can pinpoint one that was really, really great…Thomas: People would say something like “Dreadlock Holiday”, because it mentions cricket, or “Soul Limbo” by Booker T and the MGs – but they weren’t cricket songs.Neil: The 10CC one is definitely a good piece of West Indian music. “Soul Limbo” was used as the BBC cricket theme all those years – well, it’s a magnificent piece of music but Booker T was none the wiser. There are some lovely old calypso tunes from the fifties when West Indies started beating England.Thomas: And Roy Harper did “When An Old Cricketer Leaves The Crease.”Neil: I think we’ve doubled the output.What are your favourites on the new album?
Thomas: I think “Judd’s Paradox”, because of the way it came together, and it sounds so strong. It’s quite beautiful in parts.Still swinging

Forget T20, this is cricketainment. Neil Hannon and Thomas Walsh, two Irishmen with an affinity for the English summer game and an ear for a jaunty tune, have returned with the Duckworth Lewis Method’s second album, after a four-year break – during which time, it is probably fair to say, the world in general has been largely oblivious to the relative absence of cricket pop.
Sometimes the most delightful gifts are the unexpected ones. Their eponymous debut offering oozed into the consciousness during the 2009 Ashes, delivering beguiling classics off a short run-up, and nimbly picks up the same thread. Divine Comedy frontman Hannon, and Walsh, of Pugwash, insist that the release ten days before the start of the 2013 Ashes is purely coincidental but few would begrudge them the association. Their mellifluous melodies seem destined to infuse a hotly anticipated cricketing summer.
Duckworth (Walsh) and Lewis (Hannon) may be friends of the Two Chucks but this time around they are joined by a few actual celebrities. “If you’re gonna flash, flash hard,” avers David Lloyd on “Boom Boom Afridi”, a paean to the mercurial Pakistan allrounder, while Henry Blofeld’s unmistakable tones adorn “It’s Just Not Cricket”. Elsewhere, the presence of the actor, writer and comedian Stephen Fry and Daniel Radcliffe (aka Harry Potter) provides further evidence of the game’s enduring pull in entertainment circles.
Billed as a “cricket fantasia”, there is plenty for both fans of the game and lovers of music to pick through. The songs are intricately layered, with playful lyrics and catchy hooks straight off the middle of the bat. The steampunk bombast of “Boom Boom Afridi” gives way to subtler ruminations on the lot of the umpire, and the spoken-word poetry of “Judd’s Paradox”. You might think “Chin Music” would go heavy on the drums but instead it floats along like a Victorian fairground instrumental. “Line and Length”, meanwhile, transports you back to the ’80s (though sadly without any references to Eddie Hemmings), sounding like a cross between Huey Lewis and the News and Yello.
In following up their original cricket-themed concept album, there might have been a danger that the Duckworth Lewis Method’s unique charms would lose some of their shine. However, such is the strength of their songwriting that the conceit still seems to have plenty of life in it. The ball may be a little older but DLM are still swinging.

Neil: I basically paraphrased a conversation in the film , about the spy ring at Cambridge. This exact metaphor was brought up in that and I thought that was kind of cool and I wrote the lyrics around that.Thomas: Most of the stuff came together from very disparate positions but it sounds so cohesive.Neil: You know what my favourite is – “Line and Length”, just because I’ve always wanted to do a song like that, an ’80s bish-bash, crazy, funky samples. I love all of that and I got a chance to really go for it.You’re both Irish but you support England. Does that create any conflict, especially as Ireland continue to make impressive progress at international level?
Neil: I think we’d say we follow England. They’re very follow-able, their games are always on the telly, and you get to know all the players so intimately. I’ve kind of been willing them to win for years because they were so bad for so long.Thomas: The old patriotism kicks in, obviously, but I’m a big England fan, I have been for a long time, so it doesn’t really change.It’s good when you have a team of some characters as well, because that’s what I remember about England, having a lot of different characters. Sometimes the England side looks like a boyband, really, it’s a bit worrying. If you think of Tim Bresnan, I’d rather he was in the team than not, because you don’t quite know what you’re going to get. He’s one of those players that could get you a five-for or whatever – players like that are essential, as well as the ones you can rely on.Mike Gatting probably gets a lot of ribbing, for pointing at the umpire, and when the ball hit him in the nose, and of course the Shane Warne ball – but he was a great cricketer, a really solid player. I think he was a character as well, and sometimes you need them.Perhaps Australia have more characters in their side now, after David Warner’s recent scrapes and the appointment of Darren Lehmann as coach?
Thomas: I think it’s brilliant, in a way, because they’re not good enough to beat England on paper, I don’t think, but they could get inside their heads. I remember Steve Collins, the Irish boxer, psyching out Chris Eubank, and that was a sure case of someone using their mind over their talent. So I think the Australians could start trying to get at England. That’s the only chance they have.What are your predictions for the Ashes then?
Neil: Thomas’ is 3-1 to England, with one draw, and mine is 3-0.What about over the back-to-back series? Ian Botham is predicting 10-0.
Thomas: Is he!Neil: I think we’ll hold fire on the return…Thomas: I’ll go two-all Down Under.Neil: They’ve never had an easy series Down Under, regardless of the sides, so it would seem likely that it would be tight. I’ll go 2-2 as well.Cricket has gone through a lot of changes in the last decade – do you think it will still move people to write songs in 20 years time?
Neil: It’s impossible to know how these things will inspire creativity in the future. I think there will always be books written about cricket, because it’s that kind of a sport, it has such depth. Songs I don’t know…Thomas: I think it will continue to inspire.Your first album contained a song called “The Age of Revolution”, about some of those changes in cricket. What do you think about the rise of T20?
Neil: Thomas likes it a lot more than I do. I find it slightly like eating a bar of chocolate compared to a three-course meal.Thomas: It sounds like it’s been to the detriment of the Test game but I love Test match cricket above anything else. But I do love to sit down and watch a T20 because, let’s face it, you do like to sit down now and again and eat a chocolate bar. I just do it all: three-course meal, chocolate, Quavers.Neil: That’s the answer to the question, “Can they all exist?” Of course they can, because all of those foodstuffs exist.

Stats highlights from an incredible ODI as India chased down 321 in just 37 overs

Madhusudhan Ramakrishnan28-Feb-2012Virat Kohli’s strike rate of 154.65 is the third-highest for an Indian batsman in a century scored in an ODI chase•Getty ImagesKohli scored his ninth ODI century and his second against Sri Lanka. It is also his sixth century in ODI chases. Kohli’s strike rate of 154.65 is the third-highest for an Indian batsman in an ODI chase (centuries only) after Virender Sehwag and Mohammad Azharuddin.The run-rate during the century stand between Kohli and Suresh Raina (13.56) is the highest ever for India for a 100-plus partnership in ODIs, and the highest against major Test teams. The highest overall is 17.73 during the 136-run stand between Nathan Astle and Craig McMillan against USA in 2004.Gautam Gambhir and Kohli were involved in their fifth century stand in ODI chases. In the second innings (min. 1000 partnership runs), the pair averages the highest (75.33).Lasith Malinga conceded over 90 runs for the first time in his ODI career. His economy rate of 12.52 is the highest in ODIs for a minimum of five overs.India batted second for the eighth time in the series. There have been only four previous occasions when teams have batted second more often in an ODI series. The target of 321 is the second-highest successfully chased target in ODIs in Australia and also the third-highest target chased by India.India become only the second team after Sri Lanka (Headingley 2006) to chase a 300-plus target in under 40 overs. Sri Lanka had scored 324 in 37.3 overs, which makes India’s effort the fastest chase of a 300-plus target. In fact, India’s run-rate of 8.75 is the second-highest for a 250-plus chase in ODIs after South Africa’s chase of 434 in Johannesburg in 2006, when they achieved a rate of 8.78.India hit 33 fours in their innings equalling the highest number of boundaries hit in a team innings in Australia. The number of fours hit in the match (54) is the joint fifth-highest in a game in Australia.Both Tillakaratne Dilshan and Kumar Sangakkara scored their fourth ODI century against India. Only Sanath Jayasuriya (7), Ricky Ponting (6), Nathan Astle and Salman Butt (5) have scored more ODI centuries against India. Dilshan, who equalled his highest ODI score (against India in Rajkot), also becomes only the second batsman after Jayasuriya to make a 150-plus score on two occasions against India.The 200-run stand between Sangakkara and Dilshan is the fifth double-century stand for the second wicket in ODIs against India. It is also the highest partnership in ODIs in Hobart surpassing the 165-run stand between Nick Knight and Marcus Trescothick in 2003. The double-hundred stand is also the 11th in the history of the Australian tri-series and the second for Sri Lanka in the competition.With both Sangakkara and Dilshan scoring centuries, it is the 15th instance of two batsmen scoring a century in the same team innings against India. For Sri Lanka, this is the 11th instance overall of two batsmen scoring a century in the same innings and the third such occasion since the start of the 2011 World Cup.Sangakkara’s century is his 13th in ODIs and his fourth against India. it is also his second century in Australia after the 128 against India in Adelaide in 2008. His strike rate of 120.68 during his century is his highest for a 100-plus score.Sri Lanka’s 321 is their ninth total of 300 or more against India in ODIs. They have, however, gone on to lose five of the nine matches. It is also the 56th time that India have conceded 300-plus runs, the most for any team.The match aggregate of 641 is the third-highest in an ODI in Australia. The highest is 678 in the game between Australia and New Zealand in Perth in 2006-07. The match run-rate of 7.39 is the highest for a completed ODI in Australia.Edited by Siddarth Ravindran

When Dhoni was asked about Zaheer’s mastery of reverse-swing after theMohali victory, he immediately spoke of the example that he’s set foreveryone else

Cricinfo staff21-Oct-2008
Australian hopes went the way of Brad Haddin’s splayed stumps © Getty Images
Four years ago, Zaheer Khan walked off the turf at the Vidharbha CricketAssociation Stadium with Australian whoops of joy ringing in his ears. Afour-match series of which so much had been expected had ended inside fourdays on a green-tinged pitch that had brought smiles and smirks toAustralian faces. The final game in Mumbai, which should have been amarquee occasion, instead became an irrelevant dead rubber on a dustbowl.Zaheer took 6 for 159 in Nagpur, perfectly respectable for a pace bowlerin Indian conditions. But Glenn McGrath had 5 for 106 and Jason Gillespie,the eye-popping return of 9 for 80 as Australia romped to a 342-runvictory, India’s heaviest Test defeat in terms of runs. It was enough to tell you howmuch Zaheer still had to do. He was good, but he certainly wasn’t special,not in the way that Australia’s legends were.Fast forward four years, and his three wickets in four balls ensured thatRicky Ponting’s side would crash to their most humiliating defeat inyears. Not since Curtly Ambrose, Patrick Patterson, Malcolm Marshall andCourtney Walsh sent Allan Border’s side stumbling to a 343-run defeat atthe Kensington Oval, in April 1991, has an Australian team been so comprehensively outplayed. That was to be Vivian Richards’ final series as captain and though West Indies won comfortably enough, there was a feeling that the end of an era was imminent.The once-were-warriors headlines will be rehashed with some force afterthis Australian defeat, and speculation over why they were so poor overthe five days threatens to overshadow the real story of the match andseries so far – India’s magnificent pace bowling. The 20-year-old IshantSharma, who has troubled Ponting like few others have, is the leadingwicket-taker in the series, and jokes about the “hairodynamic” advantagehe possesses won’t sound funny to Australians for much longer if hecontinued to bowl with such pace, accuracy and control of swing.Whisper it softly, but India havethe more accomplished pace attack in this series, and especially in theseconditions. And in the man whose months out of the charmed circle made himrealise the value of what he had squandered, they have the perfect leaderof the pack Ishant is still learning though, and his story certainly doesn’t have theelements of wilderness and redemption that Indians tend to be so fond of.For that, you have to look more closely at his new-ball partner. When hecame on the scene in 2000, Zaheer was such an exciting prospect that thecomparisons with Wasim Akram weren’t even forced. Within a couple of yearsthough, they sounded ridiculous. It wasn’t that Zaheer wasn’t capable ofgood spells, it was just that he was incapable of stringing a few together. Comparisons with the man Mike Selvey referred to as the Left Hand of God were as premature and silly as the anointing of Monty Panesar as the new Bedi.By the time Zaheer was eased out of the squad after India’s embarrassing 341-run defeat in Karachi, he had taken 121 wickets from 42 Tests at an average of 36.34. Allan Davidson he was not, and there were few complaints as a new group of pace bowlers was entrusted with lifting Indian cricket’s stocks.Within the year though, Zaheer was back, having turned in one eye-catchingdisplay after another in domestic cricket to book a seat on the flight toSouth Africa. With the wet weather having forced the team indoors, hefronted up to the media inside a university gymnasium in Cape Town. In asoft voice and earnest tone, he spoke repeatedly of the time on thesidelines and how it had made him realise how much playing for India meantto him. And though he was outbowled by Sreesanth in the Test series, hisattitude throughout was that of a man who had seen the error of his waysand was determined to make every millisecond count.When Dhoni was asked about Zaheer’s mastery of reverse-swing after theMohali victory, he immediately spoke of the example that he’s set foreveryone else. “He’s bowling at his best. His commitment is great, he’sfit and he bowls his heart out, even in conditions where the bowlers arenot getting much help. His form is brilliant right now.”He suggested that Venkatesh Prasad would be better equipped to comment onthe work that goes on in the nets, but Ponting was emphatic in hisassessment that reverse had played a huge part in India’s victory. “Intheir first innings, it took us 70 to 80 overs to get the reverse-swinggoing. Their guys were doing it within six to eight overs. That’s a bigdifference.”They didn’t just get the reverse going though. They controlled itbeautifully. Zaheer certainly has done it before. In England in the summer of 2007, he saved his best for Trent Bridge, especially after a puerile English prank that involved jellybeans on the pitch. He swung the ball both ways, and was lethal from round thestumps too as India clinched the victory that would seal the series.
Most Indian bowlers speak of the benefits they have had from working with Venkatesh Prasad © AFP
That was with the Duke ball. Earlier this year, he got tremendous shapewith the Kookaburra in Sri Lanka. In conditions that offered next tonothing for the pace bowlers, Zaheer’s figures were unremarkable, butthere was certainly no stinting on effort. If India’s slow bowlers hadn’tbeen so below the standards set by Ajantha Mendis and MuttiahMuralitharan, India might have done better than a 2-1 defeat.Now armed with the SG, he’s even more dangerous than he was in his Duke ofHazard phase. He’s shut down Matthew Hayden three times in four innings,and devastated the tail twice. The lower order simply has no answer todeliveries that shape in like a boomerang, and the look of bemusement onBrad Haddin’s face after Australian hopes went the way of his splayedstumps was worth framing.Just as they were in the 2005 Ashes, Australia’s pace bowlers have beenstymied by a ball that’s different to the Kookaburra that they use athome, and their inability to get the right length and shape going. TroyCooley, who played first-class cricket for Tasmania, became a big nameafter that English win, but as someone pointed out, India have a bowlingcoach who was actually an international-class bowler.Venkatesh Prasad doesn’t have a feature written about him every other day,but most of the bowlers speak of the benefits they have had fromworking with him. On tours of England (1996) and South Africa (a fewmonths later), Prasad bowled as well as any Indian swing bowler has everdone. Reverse-swing wasn’t quite his forte though, and beforeZaheer, only Manoj Prabhakar among the Indians had truly mastered pacebowling’s most mysterious art.In his second phase of his career, which has now encompassed 16 Tests,Zaheer has taken 67 wickets at 28.80. Not quite a McGrath, you mightthink, until you notice that a lot of those matches were on pitches asresponsive as a mannequin on Red Bull. Whisper it softly, but India havethe more accomplished pace attack in this series, and especially in theseconditions. And in the man whose months out of the charmed circle made himrealise the value of what he had squandered, they have the perfect leaderof the pack.

India 396 (Jaiswal 209) and 28 for 0 (Jaiswal 15*, Rohit 13*) lead England 253 (Crawley 76, Bumrah 6-45) by 171 runsBen Stokes’ expression said it all. For the second time in as many first-innings counterattacks, all he could do was shrug his shoulders and marvel at the genius of the man who’d just had his measure, as Jasprit Bumrah cut short another spirited display from England’s captain, to cap a performance that transcended the conditions that he’d been granted.In the midst of India’s surprise loss in Hyderabad, Bumrah’s six wickets across two innings had been a warning as to where the true threat in India’s attack would lie. So it proved at Visakhapatnam on what had been touted as a spinners’ paradise, as Bumrah piled that same haul into one sensational display, springing the trap on England’s batters with the insuperable figures of 6 for 45 in 15.5 overs.All six of those came in the space of 71 deliveries across his final three micro-spells – a howling, hustling display of express-paced reverse swing in which the cream of England’s batting were simply bereft of answers. Joe Root’s audible groan as he snicked an outswinger to first slip, having aligned himself to Bumrah’s initial shape into his pads, confirmed the extent to which even England’s kingpin had been outplayed, but it was Bumrah’s subsequent extraction of England’s first-Test hero Ollie Pope – blasted from the crease by an unplayable inswinging yorker – which proved that, just occasionally, the danger is too acute even for this team to keep running towards it.Related

• 'No demons in the wicket,' says Bumrah after wrecking England

• Jimmy vs Jaiswal: a who-is-gonna-do-it thriller

• Jaiswal wants to 'double it up and keep going'

• Stats – Jaiswal and Lara in a club of their own

It was a one-man show to match that which Yashasvi Jaiswal had completed for India in the morning session, as he converted his overnight 179 to an epic 209 from 290 balls, in an innings in which no other batter passed 34. Though Bumrah was backed up in timeless flat-deck fashion by the wristspinner Kuldeep Yadav – whose sharp-turning wiles claimed three of the other four wickets to fall – the extent to which he up-ended this contest is perhaps best expressed by the serenity of England’s progress outside of his killer burst.While Zak Crawley was in command of England’s tempo, in a long-levered knock of 76 from 78 balls that included a 16-run dispatching of Bumrah’s fourth and final new-ball over, England seemed on course to make India pay for another first innings in which they’d failed to bat their opponents out of contention. With James Anderson rolling back the years once more to finish a majestic performance with 3 for 47 in 25 overs, it seemed a total of 396 was very much game on. In hindsight, of course, the sight of one masterful swing bowler transcending the conditions should have been taken as proof that another would surely follow suit.Nevertheless, England gave it a good go for as long as they realistically could. On a surface offering increasingly steepling bounce, England were obliged to tweak their game-plans, with the reverse-sweep that was such a feature at Hyderabad now fraught with danger and rarely unfurled. And in Crawley’s case, that meant using his 6’5″ reach to smother any danger at source, with full-faced drives to the straighter deliveries and pounding slog-sweeps when the bowlers strayed outside off.This approach included another proactive tilt at the new ball, with England marching along to 59 in ten overs before Ben Duckett poked Kuldeep to silly point to depart for 21 for 17. Pope survived on his wits for the initial 10 runs of his innings, stretching forward with near-desperation in a display that had far more in common with his 1 from 11 at Hyderabad rather than his subsequent 196, but Crawley was a class apart, much as he had been in a similarly one-man display in Ahmedabad on the 2021 tour.By the time he had reached 72, Crawley had scored a half-century in boundaries alone – the last of which, a half-tracker punched past cover, caused Ashwin to be pulled from the attack nursing the uncharacteristically tatty figures of 8-0-40-0. It meant England had cruised past 100 at a rate in excess of five an over, and when Axar Patel belatedly entered the attack after drinks to be shovelled second-ball through midwicket for four, it was clear Crawley was not about to slow down.Zak Crawley brought up a 52-ball half-century•BCCI

Unfortunately for him, and for England, Axar’s next ball was pushed a fraction wider outside off, and Crawley’s ambitious hack took a leading edge to be brilliantly caught by Shreyas Iyer, running back from point. At 114 for 2, the time was nigh to recall Bumrah to greet the incoming Root – especially given that a solitary over from Mukesh before the drinks break had confirmed that the ball was indeed tailing. What followed was nothing short of a masterclass.Even amid the carnage, however, England’s spirit wasn’t completely broken. Jonny Bairstow brawled with intent to reach 24 not out at tea, albeit the bulk of his innings had been compiled while Bumrah was taking a breather – of his first 28 deliveries, their only meeting had been his very first ball, and that had been another inswinging yorker that almost extracted a review for lbw. Straight after the break, Bumrah was back once more, and his fourth ball of the session was scuffed to Gill at first slip.Ben Foakes came and went without much resistance as Kuldeep bowled him round his outside edge for 6, while Rehan Ahmed’s attempt at a counterattack ended with a toe-ended slap to midwicket. But Stokes, typically watchful at first and inching through the gears as the wickets slipped away around him, found an ally in Tom Hartley to launch a late counterattack of 47 in 40 balls for the eighth wicket – with Mukesh’s ugly figures of 0 for 44 in seven overs proving that an ability to bowl reverse-swing was not remotely the same as harnessing it.Each man landed a slog-sweep for six in consecutive overs, with Stokes’ off Ashwin confirming that he’d go wicketless in an innings in India for just the sixth time in his Test career. But back came Bumrah with a job to finish, and two balls later, back went Stokes’ off stump as the ball snuck low past a half-formed block.The Stokes wicket was Bumrah’s 150th in Tests, and by the time he had mopped up Hartley and Anderson, his average had plummeted to an extraordinary 20.28, a figure that no bowler with that many wickets has matched since the great SF Barnes, more than a century ago. If ever there was proof that we are witnessing a generational talent among fast bowlers, the names in his wake – Marshall, Garner, Ambrose et al – amply confirm it.By the close, India’s first-innings lead of 143 had been stretched to 171 without further loss in five overs, with Jaiswal back where he had started the day, with his captain Rohit Sharma alongside him, feasting on perhaps the first demoralised passage of play that England have allowed to slip into their endlessly optimistic attitude.

MatériaMais Notícias

Com desempenho superior ao adversário no contexto geral da partida, o CRB se impôs atuando no Estádio Rei Pelé e, nesta quarta-feira (12), bateu o Athletico-PR por 1 a 0. O compromisso em questão valeu pelo confronto de ida pela terceira fase da Copa do Brasil.

O marcador em questão permite ao Alvirrubro empatar no duelo de volta, na Arena da Baixada, para se classificar. O jogo está agendado para ocorrer no próximo dia 25 de abril, às 21h30 (de Brasília).

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>Justiça bloqueia quase R$ 8 milhões de Willian a pedido de Mayke, do Palmeiras

GALO DA PRAIA EM CIMA

Através da imposição com posse de bola e intensa movimentação no plano ofensivo, o time alagoano ia dominando as ações ofensivas onde o goleiro Bento, na primeira etapa, precisou trabalhar. Na oportunidade mais aguda do Alvirrubro, o lateral-direito Matheus Ribeiro abriu espaço na intermediária e soltou a bomba para grande defesa do arqueiro do Athletico.

Por sua vez, o Furacão tinha bastante dificuldade de sair do sistema de marcação do CRB, tendo apenas escapadas pontuais que precisavam contar mais com individualidades do que jogadas mais trabalhadas. Foi desta forma que o passe de Vitor Roque encontrou Canobbio onde o cruzamento do uruguaio foi direto no compatriota Terans para a bola ainda desviar em Vitor Roque e entrar na meta de Diogo Silva. Todavia, o árbitro Wilton Pereira Sampaio foi acionado pelo responsáveis do VAR onde o impedimento de Canobbio foi identificado e marcado.

ENCONTROU O CAMINHO

Apesar da melhora apresentada pelo Athletico na reta final da primeira etapa, o Alvirrubro foi quem conseguiu transformar seu maior tempo de superioridade em bola na rede. Após jogada em velocidade de Copete no lado esquerdo, o avante colombiano cruzou rasteiro onde, na segunda trave, Anderson Leite (nome que entrou no intervalo) só completou para a meta vazia e fez a festa da maior parte dos torcedores no Rei Pelé.

PANORAMA DE POUCA MUDANÇA

Nem mesmo a necessidade de buscar a desvantagem contraída na capital alagoana serviu como elemento de maior inspiração, logo de cara, para o sistema de criação da equipe visitante. ‘Encaixado’ no sistema de marcação formatado pelo CRB, o Furacão seguia refém de jogadas individuais de Vitor Roque e escapadas pontuais dos demais integrantes de ataque. Nesse contexto, a melhor chance de empatar apareceu quando Terans encontrou espaço e bateu de fora da área em bola que passou muito perto da trave esquerda de Diogo Silva.

Depois dos 35 minutos do segundo tempo, período onde a questão física parecia pesar contra o Galo da Praia, o time da Baixada chegou a exercer certa pressão que se baseava mais na posse de bola do que, necessariamente, em chances claras de buscar a igualdade. Nesse momento, amelhor possibilidade da busca pelo empate parecia surgir já aos 50 minutos do segundo tempo quando, em campo, Wilton Pereira Sampaio marcou pênalti sobre Vitor Roque após choque com Guilherme Romão.

Porém, após aconselhamento da equipe de Árbitro de Vídeo, o árbitro do duelo anulou a marcação e o resultado permaneceu com a vitória dos mandantes em solo alagoano.

FICHA TÉCNICA DA PARTIDA
CRB 1 x 0 ATHLETICO-PR – TERCEIRA FASE DA COPA DO BRASIL

Local: Estádio Rei Pelé, em Maceió (AL)
Data e hora: 12/04/2023 – 19h30 (de Brasília)
Árbitro: Wilton Pereira Sampaio (GO)
Assistentes: Bruno Raphael Pires e Tiago Gomes da Silva (ambos GO)
VAR: Carlos Eduardo Nunes Braga (RJ)
Cartões amarelos: Auremir, Fábio Alemão, Falcão, Matheus Ribeiro (CRB);Christian,Erick,Fernandinho, Zé Ivaldo (CAP)
Cartões vermelhos: –
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Gols: Anderson Leite (10’/2°T) (1-0)

CRB (Técnico: Umberto Louzer)

Diogo Silva; Matheus Ribeiro, Fábio Alemão (Matheus Mega, aos 47’/2°T), Anderson Conceição (Gilvan, aos 16’/2°T) e Guilherme Romão; Auremir (Falcão, aos 31’/2°T), Juninho Valoura (Anderson Leite, no intervalo) e João Paulo; Mike, Anselmo Ramon e Copete (David Braw, aos 31’/2°T).

ATHLETICO-PR (Técnico: Paulo Turra)

Bento, Khellven (Madson, aos 38’/2°T), Zé Ivaldo, Thiago Heleno e Pedrinho; Erick (Hugo Moura, aos 38’/2°T), Fernandinho (Christian, aos 15’/2°T) e Terans; Canobbio (Willian, aos 15’/2°T), Vitor Roque e Cuello (Pablo, aos 25’/1°T).

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