Philippe joins Patterson in reaching three figures before bowlers dismantle Lions’ first innings

ECB Reporters Network31-Jan-2025

Australia A assumed control of the first-class match against England Lions with the tourists asked to follow-on in Sydney.Josh Philippe joined Kurtis Patterson in reaching a century as Australia A declared at 373 for 9 before the Lions were bundled out for 116. Allrounder Will Sutherland claimed 3 for 7 while Brendan Doggett took 3 for 17.Durham opener Ben McKinney reached the close unbeaten 67 as the Lions made a better fist of it second time around to be 116 for 2.Phillipe powered his way to an unbeaten 120 from 121 balls after Sam Cook (3 for 58) trapped Patterson leg before for 137. Sonny Baker returned 3 for 60 as the Lions made light work of the Australian lower order to force their declaration.The Lions were immediately in trouble with the bat, falling to 30 for 3 thanks to two early strikes from Xavier Bartlett, and never recovered with Lancashire duo Matt Hurst (34) and Rocky Flintoff (29) the top-scorers.McKinney and skipper Alex Davies began the repair job with a 106-run first-wicket partnership, but Jordan Buckingham claimed two late wickets to reinforce the home advantage.

England, meanwhile, will be looking to maintain their winning start to the tournament when they take on Scotland

Sruthi Ravindranath12-Oct-2024England vs ScotlandSharjah, 2pm local timeEngland squad: Heather Knight (capt), Lauren Bell, Maia Bouchier, Alice Capsey, Charlie Dean, Sophia Dunkley, Sophie Ecclestone, Danielle Gibson, Sarah Glenn, Bess Heath, Amy Jones (wk), Freya Kemp, Nat Sciver-Brunt, Linsey Smith, Danni WyattScotland squad: Kathryn Bryce (capt), Chloe Abel, Abbi Aitken-Drummond, Olivia Bell, Sarah Bryce (wk), Darcey Carter, Priyanaz Chatterji, Katherine Fraser, Saskia Horley, Lorna Jack, Ailsa Lister, Abtaha Maqsood, Megan McColl, Hannah Rainey, Rachel SlaterTournament form guide: England have won both matches they’ve played so far – against Bangladesh and South Africa – while Scotland are coming into the match having lost all three of their games.News brief: These teams will be facing each other for the first time in T20Is. England are coming into this match after a gap of five days, having last played against South Africa on Monday.Scotland are out of the semi-final race. The Group B table has three teams – England, West Indies and South Africa – still in contention for the semi-final, with England having the lowest net run rate among them. England will be looking to improve their NRR with a big win.”There was a little bit of illness at one point but I think hopefully everyone will be available,” England captain Heather Knight said of player availability ahead of the match.This will also be Scotland wicketkeeper-batter Lorna Jack-Brown’s last international match.Player to watch: Danni Wyatt-Hodge has been solid at top of the order for England. Chasing a tricky target of 125 on a slow Sharjah pitch, with left-arm spinners bowling from both ends, she dropped anchor after the early loss of Maia Bouchier and stitched a 64-run stand with Nat Sciver-Brunt. She finished with 43 in as many balls, which followed her Player-of-the-Match performance of 41 against Bangladesh.Harmanpreet Kaur’s 52 took India to a win against Sri Lanka•ICC via Getty ImagesAustralia vs IndiaSharjah, 6pm local timeAustralia squad: Alyssa Healy (capt & wk), Darcie Brown, Ashleigh Gardner, Kim Garth, Grace Harris, Alana King, Phoebe Litchfield, Tahlia McGrath, Sophie Molineux, Beth Mooney, Ellyse Perry, Megan Schutt, Annabel Sutherland, Tayla Vlaeminck, Georgia WarehamIndia squad: Harmanpreet Kaur (capt), Smriti Mandhana (vice-capt), Yastika Bhatia (wk), Shafali Verma, Deepti Sharma, Jemimah Rodrigues, Richa Ghosh (wk), Pooja Vastrakar, Arundhati Reddy, Renuka Singh, D Hemalatha, Asha Sobhana, Radha Yadav, Shreyanka Patil, S SajanaTournament form guide: Australia have three wins in three matches and are coming into this contest having comprehensively beaten Pakistan. With that win, they also all but sealed a semi-final spot thanks to their net run rate of 2.786. India have two wins in three games. In their previous match, they posted the highest total of the tournament so far – 172 for 3 – and in return bundled Sri Lanka out for 90 to post their biggest win by runs at the T20 World Cup.Related

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News brief: Australia have major injury concerns heading into the crucial clash. Just four balls into the match against Pakistan, Tayla Vlaeminck was out with a right shoulder dislocation. To make things worse, captain Alyssa Healy suffered “an acute right foot injury” while batting on 37 as she hobbled off the field with Australia needing 14 runs to win. Both players went for scans on Saturday.India captain Harmanpreet Kaur, who had hurt her neck in the match against Pakistan, turned up with a pain-relief patch on the right side of her neck during the Sri Lanka match. She also didn’t take the field during the chase. Fast bowler Pooja Vastrakar bowled full-tilt before the Sri Lanka game but didn’t play.India will want a big win against Australia. If they win by more than 61 runs, they will move ahead of Australia, thereby automatically qualifying for the semi-final. In a case where India win by fewer than 60 runs, they will hope New Zealand win by a very small margin against Pakistan on Monday. For instance, if India make 150 against Australia and win by exactly 10 runs, New Zealand need to beat Pakistan by 28 runs defending 150 to go ahead of India’s NRR. If India lose to Australia by more than 17 runs while chasing a target of 151, then New Zealand’s NRR will be ahead of India, even if Pakistan beat New Zealand by just 1 run while defending 150.Overall, India have won just eight out of 34 T20Is they’ve played against Australia. Two of those wins came in the group-stage games of previous T20 World Cups, in 2018 and 2020.Players to watch: Two of their best batters finding their form bodes well for India heading into the big game. Harmanpreet and Mandhana’s collaborative effort against Pakistan boosted India’s NRR with the semi-final race heating up. Mandhana, after a cautious start to her innings, changed gears and took on Sri Lanka’s spinners to make 50 off 38 balls. Harmanpreet, continuing from where she’d left against Pakistan, played a classic, hitting eight fours and a six on her way to a 27-ball 52. It was just what India needed to reinvigorate their T20 World Cup campaign.

From Test match double centuries to a one-day game ahead of its time, Dean Jones was one of the dominant players of his era

Daniel Brettig24-Sep-202010:23

Tom Moody recalls the multiple roles of Dean Jones

In both his cricket and his life, Dean Jones’ departures left a sense of shock and loss for their arrival before so many could say goodbye.At the end of his international career as a wonderfully livewire batsman and limited-overs pioneer, this was because Jones found himself out of Test calculations and on the edge of the one-day team in South Africa in 1994, compelling him to call a summary retirement press conference on what had to that point been the nominal farewell tour of Allan Border.Twenty-six years later, Jones left this world almost in mid-stride, suffering a cardiac arrest while working as an analyst on the latest edition of the IPL for Star in Mumbai. In both cases his departure left a deep, tangible sense of conversations and moments lost, of thank yous unable to be given. Similarly, his induction to the Australian Cricket Hall of Fame had been done via video link when Jones was occupied by a T20 coaching assignment, and now his death left so many around the world feeling bereft, or perhaps even less articulate than that.ALSO READ: ‘One of a kind you were, Deano’What we are left with is a rich trove of moments and memories, many more than those typically provided by cricketers of longer subsequent careers, and to ponder the jumble of contradictions, frustrations and triumphs of the man known universally as Deano.Two qualities in particular stand out. The first was his sheer energy, a characteristic that helped push him to some of the most extraordinary cricketing heights. If Jones was flagging towards the end of his unforgettable 210 against India in Chennai in 1986, his captain Border knew how to bring on a second wind, suggesting that it was time to get a Queenslander, Greg Ritchie, in to do what a Victorian could not. His civic pride suitably threatened, Jones went on, past 200 and into legend.Jones’ many other brilliant performances, and a few not quite so brilliant, were infused with a similar mix of bravado and courage. Whether it was smiting the West Indies all around Adelaide Oval for his second double century in Tests in early 1989, cuffing a young Wasim Akram and Waqar Younis for twin hundreds at the same venue a year later, or obliterating Sir Richard Hadlee in an Auckland ODI later the same season, Jones could be utterly irresistible. On the 1989 Ashes tour, Mark Taylor led the aggregates and Steve Waugh the headlines, but none batted better or more predatorially than Jones.In one-day matches, Jones’ knack for finding gaps and running with what seemed Olympian speed between the wickets made him the most feared batsman in the world in the realm of limited overs. A technicolour innings of 145 against England at the Gabba in 1990-91, wearing the gold cap then the white floppy hat and cheered on by a packed house, alerted a generation of aspiring schoolchildren that batting need not be all about getting through to stumps: the T20 age was probably born in the imaginative aftermath of a Jones innings.ESPNcricinfo LtdHis precise knowledge of things like how much quicker he could run two if he turned blind than not, was also well ahead of its time. A pair of flicks to the fine leg boundary of Hansie Cronje at the SCG in his final international summer, the second followed by a pointed punch of the fist as the crowd went wild, underlined how infuriating Jones could be to bowl to, or captain against.Of course, the manic enthusiasm for the game and the national team that Jones wore so proudly also led to plenty of occasions where brio outstripped sense.Who but Jones would find himself run out after being bowled by a Courtney Walsh no-ball in the West Indies in 1991? Who but Jones would find the ball trapped between his glove and pads after advancing to Venkatapathy Raju at the MCG later that year, flicking it away and forever denying he could have been out handled the ball? Who but Jones would ever conceive of, let alone act upon, a plot to ask Curtly Ambrose to remove his wrist band under the pretence of losing sight of the white ball in the 1993 World Series finals? And who but Jones would actually write, innocently and truthfully in a column ghosted by Mark Ray, that the absence of the famously litigious coach Bob Simpson from the dressing room during a Gabba one-day game in early 1994 had helped the team to relax? Simpson threatened to sue his own player.None of these moments helped Jones or his career, but they all added richly to cricket’s lore.The second quality, for which Jones was equally famous, is the sense of something incomplete or unjust about his career and its aftermath. There is no more highly ranked Victorian than the state’s Premier, and in Dan Andrews’ social media tribute there came the words “should have been picked for many more than his 52 Tests”. It is a view that has been able to enhance the Melbourne pub trade for most of the past 28 years by generating extra conversation and by extension extra rounds, and it was never discouraged by Jones.ALSO READ: ‘I can’t remember a thing after 120 in that innings’ In his 1997 book, Matters of Choice, the former selector John Benaud gave a very good, reasoned and frank depiction of all the cross currents running through the selection panel’s call to make Jones 12th man for the Gabba Test against the West Indies in 1992. These ranged from Jones’ increasing levels of inconsistency, the need for a fresh approach to tackling the Caribbean side, and his poor record against the West Indies outside the aforementioned Adelaide 200, to the fact that the Sheffield Shield draw for that season had given him precious few hits relative to those afforded to Damien Martyn, who was ultimately to debut instead.

RIP you magnificent cricketer

Finally got the elusive 100 at his home ground, just happened to be against Australia pic.twitter.com/Sjv8CFp0cJ

— Rob Moody (@robelinda2) September 24, 2020

Martyn’s own tale is one of rejection and recrimination before his own summary decision to retire, and it was a burden that Jones carried through the next two years and, arguably, for the rest of his time around the game. Steve Waugh’s diary reflection on Jones’ international retirement, in South Africa in 1994, bears repeating: “I know how he desperately wanted to wear the baggy green cap again and when he thought that was an impossibility, he didn’t want to keep torturing himself.” Waugh was not alone in being far more calculating in later years when it came to the rules of engagement with selectors in particular, and the Jones precedent doubtless helped.The selectors came close to recalling Jones one final time, for the 1996 World Cup, but stopped short at the very last moment. Jones’ riposte was to make a hundred for a World XI against the Australians in an MCG match to mark the centenary of the Victorian Cricket Association on their return from the cup. Though a vaudevillian Dean Jones tribute match had been played at the ground the season before, this was as close as he got to a true farewell: for parochial Victorians, Jones versus Australia was almost better than Australia with Jones.It should not be forgotten, either, that both Jones and Border were the primary losers in the graduation of Australian cricketers from solid contracts to eye-popping ones. When they retired, neither commanded ACB deals of more than five figures, yet within a couple of years the likes of Waugh, Shane Warne and Mark Taylor were raking in earnings before endorsements much closer to half a million apiece. If there was ever a perception of selfishness or opportunism about Jones, his unfortunate place in cricket’s money trail is worth remembering.As it was, Jones spent the rest of his days jumping between coaching, commentary and other assignments, including a brief and hotly debated stint on the Australia senior PGA golf tour in 2012-13. He was rightly castigated for a couple of heedless commentary moments, one a reference to not caring about the state of Robert Mugabe’s Zimbabwe while there to cover a series, and the other a reference to Hashim Amla as “the terrorist” picking up a wicket. He was never likely to fit the cloth of a Cricket Australia coaching job, although he did consult briefly in 2012.

I normally wouldn’t share screenshots of any convos but I think ppl should know the kind of man #DeanJones was off the field. One of the most compassionate ppl. This he sent to me when Asif was going through a tough time, he believed in Asif & Asif delivered that season. pic.twitter.com/xbhjsNVosc

— Rehan Ulhaq (@Rehan_ulhaq) September 24, 2020

A third attribute, undersold by many, must be Jones’ generosity. Not always defined in the ways that cricketers or administrators might have wanted it to be, it was largely in the sharing and developing of ideas about the game of cricket and sport more broadly. Apart from One Day Magic in 1991 and My Call in 1994, which both carried strong instructional or counselling elements, Jones’ final book was a collection of cricket tips gleaned from his many and varied travels as a commentator and coach.Its launch at the MCG in 2016 saw Jones in his very best form, holding court and discussing concepts he had picked up to share from the likes of VVS Laxman, Waqar Younis and Ricky Ponting, offering up photo opportunities and autographs as though he was still Australia’s No. 4 batsman instead of Steven Smith.More recently, and in a more personal tale, Jones thought nothing of responding to a brief request of his memory with a long, jovial phone call and a bevy of advice about how best my partner and I might move out of a Covid-19 Melbourne into country Victoria should we so choose to. There was a warmth in this Jones that contrasted with the coolness others had experienced, just as his batting days could so swiftly veer between the sublime and the ridiculous. Either way, they were always memorable. So goodbye Deano, and thank you. You are gone much too soon.

New era began with a loss, and focus on bowlers than batting depth – Buttler will have to learn quickly ahead of T20 World Cup

Matt Roller08-Jul-2022It was an incongruous handover. “Today, I start my new life as an England fan,” Eoin Morgan wrote in his programme notes for his old side’s T20I series against India. “I think for now it makes sense to detach myself from the England set-up a little bit, to give Jos [Buttler] and Motty [Matthew Mott, the white-ball coach] some room.”But it was hard to escape Morgan’s presence at the Ageas Bowl on Thursday night. Rather than relaxing at home with a glass of red wine in England’s first game since his international retirement, Morgan was on site in a crisp white shirt, watching on from the Sky Sports “pod” on the boundary edge.At the start of the 12th over, when Chris Jordan returned to bowl his second over, former England batter Nick Knight was thrown on commentary. “Morgan has gone to his most experienced bowler because he knows the importance of this partnership,” he said, before correcting himself: “Buttler, even…” The change of captaincy has loomed for some time, but it will take some getting used to.Related

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Buttler has led England before in white-ball cricket – five times in T20Is and nine times in ODIs – but this was his first game in full-time charge, and represented a reality check as to the scale of the role. He has a significant burden on his workload in this format in particular – opening the batting and keeping wicket as well as now captaining – and this was the first of a dozen games in a 25-day window which will be a significant test.The first obvious difference of the Buttler era was in selection. Morgan prioritised batting depth at all costs throughout his tenure, but under Buttler in the first T20I against India in Southampton, England fielded an extra bowling option compared to the sides they played throughout last year’s World Cup, with Tymal Mills unusually high at No. 9.”That will develop over time,” Morgan said of their balance. “There’s flexibility depending on how we see fit.”But the biggest change was simply his position behind the stumps, rather than in the field. Morgan would typically field at extra cover, giving him easy access to his bowlers throughout an over to discuss plans. “I always felt I wanted to give the bowler clear direction at the top of his mark,” he explained on air.Buttler attacked by using Moeen Ali in the powerplay, and got mixed results•PA Images via Getty ImagesButtler, by contrast, generally opted to leave his bowlers to the task at hand, delegating responsibility to two senior players in Moeen Ali and Jordan when he felt a message needed to be relayed. At times, bowlers appeared isolated: during Matt Parkinson’s second over when deep extra cover, long-off and long-on were in place, there were no red shirts within 20 yards of the bowler.”If you need to talk, it’s easy to just to do the legwork as a wicketkeeper and touch base at the start of overs,” Buttler said. “A lot of the time either Chris Jordan or Moeen Ali is at mid-off or mid-on relaying messages as well. But I like the bowlers to take some ownership; I like them to try and lead that as much as they can.”And of course, doing that legwork, we can have good conversations as to what we’re trying to achieve.”Buttler made several attacking moves, not least opting to dangle the carrot to India in the powerplay by giving the third and fifth overs to Moeen. It was a qualified success: Moeen removed Rohit Sharma with an arm ball which took his outside edge, and had Ishan Kishan caught top-edging a sweep to short fine leg. However, he returned 2 for 26 in the powerplay, being swept for consecutive fours by Rohit and launched over long-on by Deepak Hooda for back-to-back sixes.Buttler had spoken in the build-up about looking to solve England’s death-bowling problems by taking early wickets, and was successful up to a point: the final six overs cost 48 runs as Jordan, in particular, thrived by bowling hard lengths, but India still managed 198 after putting England’s new-ball bowlers under pressure with their early intent.Buttler was bowled first ball as full-time England captain•Getty ImagesWith the bat, England fell a long way short, and Buttler conceded that India’s “fantastic new-ball spell” had changed the game. Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Arshdeep Singh both found prodigious swing with the new ball in stark contrast to England’s seamers; in typical Morgan style, Buttler suggested that might have been different if they had “hit one to the stands to reduce the swing”.Buttler himself is among the world’s most in-form white-ball batter after following up his MVP-winning IPL season with two stunning innings against Netherlands last month. But he could use a score in one of this weekend’s T20Is against India to remove any suggestion that his batting will suffer under the burden of his new role.There was not much he could have done about his first-ball duck on Thursday night at the hands of Bhuvneshwar, whose hooping inswinger tailed in sharply to crash into leg stump. It was his fourth duck in his last seven innings as captain, but there has been no kind of pattern to those dismissals, spread out across a four-year period.Morgan’s one-word description of Buttler’s captaincy at the innings break was “exceptional”, but it will take time for both of them to become used to their respective new roles. They are close friends, and live nearby too, but Buttler’s challenge is to find his own voice and continue England’s evolution; with just over three months until the World Cup, he will have to learn quickly.

Legspinner bags 3 for 6 to lead Team Abu Dhabi to victory, two days after his 24th birthday

Aadam Patel29-Nov-2022Peter Hatzoglou had no intentions of spending his 24th birthday in Abu Dhabi. But he is now living the life of a T20 freelancer and with the way he is going, he will have plenty more franchise gigs to keep him busy and perhaps, many more birthdays abroad.Hatzoglou finished his birthday celebrations on Sunday by watching Musical in Abu Dhabi and by all accounts, enjoyed his Monday off. On Tuesday afternoon, he decided that the celebrations were carrying on. Hatzoglou turned up and bowled two overs against Moeen Ali’s Morrisville Samp Army, dismissing Johnson Charles, Moeen and David Miller as he inspired Team Abu Dhabi to their second successive win.Related

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In a side with the likes of Alex Hales, Chris Lynn, James Vince and Adil Rashid, Hatzoglou is very much becoming the main attraction. In his first over, he tossed the ball up to Charles and found his top edge before Moeen hit one straight to Fabian Allen at cover, who held on superbly with one hand. And when Hatzoglou bowled the destructive Miller in his second over, Morrisville Samp Army were left reeling at 21 for 5 and their chase of 101 was as good as done.That they ultimately reached 82 for 9 was thanks to Basil Hameed, who smashed 47 not out off 18 balls to ensure the scoreboard looked remotely respectable. No other Samp Army batter reached double figures.But this was Hatzoglou’s day out and in many ways, this is becoming his tournament. In a format where teams tend to score at at least ten an over, his figures of 3 for 6 was quite something. His economy rate across four games is just seven and he is taking a wicket every seven balls.On November 17, Hatzoglou sat his CFA (Chartered Financial Analyst) exams and flew out to UAE for the Abu Dhabi T10 later that day. He is still awaiting the results from those exams but it’s safe to say he is passing pretty much every test that’s come his way with a ball in hand.In addition to Tuesday’s three wickets, his scalps in the tournament include the likes of Suresh Raina and Tim David. Right now, he has seven wickets for just 56 runs in the eight overs he has bowled in the tournament.”Every batter’s really trying to take you down,” Hatzoglou said after the match. “My plan has not really changed to be honest. I’ve never played T10 before, but I’m just trying to hit the top of the stumps with a few more variations than what I would probably use in a T20.”He wasn’t even meant to be here if it wasn’t for a last minute pick by Paul Farbrace and co at Team Abu Dhabi. And in true Hatzoglou style, he didn’t even know till he received a message from Tymal Mills, who he knows from their time together at Perth Scorchers.”I was actually in Spain on a golf trip after The Hundred with some mates when the draft happened,” said Hatzoglou, “so I put the YouTube stream on and I didn’t get picked up. So we turned the draft stream off and got on with our night but what I didn’t realise was that there was an additional pick for each team. I got picked then and didn’t know but I got a message from Tymal Mills and that’s when I realised I’d actually been picked up.”Evidently there is something about the man who described himself as an “accidental cricketer” that is proving to be a struggle for batters in the tournament. Whether it is his eye-catching action that is very much like the India wristspinner Ravi Bishnoi or the pace and energy that he bowls with, it is the overall element of surprise that Hatzoglou believes is one of his great strengths.”When I was at Oval Invincibles in The Hundred, we looked at my bowling with the analyst Freddie Wilde,” he said. “That pace is something that’s very unique and the drift and bounce I get. I get virtually but no spin but generally speaking, that surprise factor has been huge for me.”Over time, that element of surprise will no doubt diminish but for now it is working wonders and as the saying goes “if it ain’t broken, then why fix it?”Hatzoglou will head to the Big Bash League after the Abu Dhabi T10 but unlike last year, he won’t be returning to the KPMG office in the new year. The plan is to fully embrace the T20 globetrotter lifestyle. Who knows what comes next but the thought alone is exciting enough.

Bairstow injury opens door for new coming man, as predecessor embraces senior status

Vithushan Ehantharajah06-Sep-2022On Thursday, there will be a new kid in town. Following a soft launch in T20Is, Harry Brook will become Test cap number 707 on Thursday, as he takes the place vacated by Jonny Bairstow after a golfing accident.Ben Stokes confirmed Brooks’ debut on the eve of the third Test, but the Yorkshireman is more than just the next cab off the rank. He is, according to some very good judges, the Uber XL. Since the start of the 2021 summer, the 23-year-old has scored 1,782 first-class runs, including five of his seven career centuries. This summer, he’s averaging 107.44 from 12 innings, including 140 for England Lions against the touring attack, albeit with Kagiso Rabada, Anrich Nortje and Lungi Ngidi sitting out. There was also a 48-ball century for Lahore Qalandars against Islamabad United in February – the second fastest in the Pakistan Super League – which underlined his white-ball qualities.He will return to Pakistan for the seven-match T20I series next week, before moving on to Australia for the T20 World Cup. And he’ll almost certainly be back for England’s historic three-match Test series in Pakistan. As great as the recent past has been, the immediate future carries even more promise. We are very much entering Brook SZN.So, what do you need to know? There are shots for days, pluck for weeks, deft and dangerous wrists, and talent to burn. Even as a non-playing member of the squad until now, he has impressed plenty with his batting in the nets and has not been out of place in a dressing-room full of big personalities and seasoned internationals.No doubt this all sounds familiar. Brook is clearly a unique talent, but English cricket has a habit of anointing a new wunderkind before the last one has found his feet. And Tuesday was a reminder of that, when the man who was last predicted to be king ran the rule over his soon-to-be teammate.”Harry is a seriously good player,” Ollie Pope said, when asked of the man 13 months his junior. Given the proximity in ages, the pair have been on England U19 tours together, and 2018 was the most notable split of their careers so far when Brook captained the U19s at the World Cup at the start of the year, before Pope made his full England debut that summer.Ollie Pope is at the centre of England’s batting plans as he goes into his 30th Test•Getty ImagesIt’s weird to think of Pope as that much more senior, but that’s only right given he’s been here four years already. Thursday will be notable for him, too: a second Test at his home ground, a 30th cap and seventh as England’s No.3 – ascending levels of importance for a player in his fourth home summer as an active cricketer at the top level (a shoulder injury ruled him out of 2019).His season’s Test average of 34.36 is currently on course to be his highest so far, bolstered by a second Test century against New Zealand at Trent Bridge. For now, that figure is far more relevant than Pope’s current career average of 30.00. But within the latter are contained experiences, successes and mistakes, which are expected to guide Pope to be the player many still believe he will become. As such, Brook’s introduction should highlight the fact that Pope, even in a middle order of 30-somethings who have been there and seen it all in Bairstow, Joe Root and captain Ben Stokes, should regard himself as a senior man. It’s something he does not have a problem with.”I think it’s a good way to be,” Pope said of regarding himself in that manner. “If you’re worried about keeping your voice down and just going about your own business, you can get quite internal like that. Thirty Tests is a good amount and it’s a privilege to have played this many games and I also feel like I’ve got a great bank of experience now to work from. I’ve toured some good places and some tough places as well, which can expose your game and how you go about them. But I see them as massive learning blocks.”For someone like Brooky, I know the challenges international cricket can bring. He’s definitely someone I’ll chat to. It’s not me saying how to bat, it’s just saying what I found has worked for me over my time so far as an England cricketer and the times when it hasn’t necessarily worked for me, because it hasn’t always been smooth sailing and I’m sure it won’t be going forward. It’s just almost learning how to deal with the good and the bad of Test cricket. Not that it’s bad, just the lower phases when you’re struggling for your own form and as a team. It’s only things you can feed off and give advice to, for someone like Brooky coming through.”Ollie Pope brought up his second Test century at Trent Bridge earlier this summer•Getty ImagesAge and maturity rarely run parallel in life and that is certainly true for sport. There is an argument to be made that Brook making his debut now makes far more sense than a 20-year-old Pope making his when he did. The Surrey batter had just 15 first-class matches under his belt before he came in at No.4 at Lord’s against India in August 2018, which also happened to be the first time he had come to the crease in the first 10 overs of an innings in his red-ball career to date.Brook, by contrast, has 56 appearances, along with stints at the PSL and Big Bash League in the winter just gone. He is, in terms of personality and ability, further along the line than Pope was, and he will also benefit from batting in a middle-order position far more familiar to him than the one Pope finds himself in right now.Given Bairstow’s “lower limb” injury is expected to keep him out for the rest of the year, Brook will likely have four Tests at No.5 before the year is out. By that point, Pope may still be trying to establish how No.3 works for him.Related

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There is, however, a sense from those around Pope that he is growing into the role of first-drop. Not only its responsibility but the very nature of being someone who occupies that space. Some of the best No.3s the game has seen have been, well, “grown-ups”. Pope knows a couple of them well. He played with Kumar Sangakkara at Surrey, whom he spoke to at Lord’s last week about the role. And he regularly consults with the current incumbent at the county, South Africa’s own Hashim Amla.”He’s a great role model, not just as a player but as a person,” Pope said. “The way he stays so level, he’s scored that many hundreds for South Africa – what a player – but you wouldn’t know it. It’s a great attribute to have – a humble guy. And we’ve chatted about technical stuff, and when I do get runs for England, he’s one of the first to drop me a message.”That Pope is looking to position himself above his years is reflective of an environment under Brendon McCullum in which the squad feels “the closest we’ve been” and thus more receptive to new voices. He doesn’t necessarily pipe up in meetings – which are few and far between with this management group – but there is a note to bring some energy on the pitch, particularly when he’s at short leg, which is a position he won’t be relinquishing to newbie Brooks.Harry Brook made 140 against South Africa in their warm-up match•Getty ImagesPerhaps most important is that Stokes and McCullum see Pope as much more than a precocious youngster, but a serious operator who wants to put himself out there. While Stokes had known as much from seeing him operate at close quarters, McCullum got his first hint of that when Pope made perhaps the ballsiest call of his career to date.Upon hearing Stokes mention in his unveiling as captain that Root would be moving back to four, Pope picked up the phone and, ultimately, demanded he get first dibs on three. Speaking four months on, Pope is glad he went through it.”I don’t know how he took at first,” he said of Stokes’ initial reaction. “If we wanted me to stick at four or he genuinely thought that. I just remember thinking there was one spot available and it was the first time I felt I could be successful in that role, the way I was playing county cricket and the hard work I had put in.”I was happy I made that call and when Baz called me to tell me I was in the squad, I was very much buzzing. But also I’m batting at No.3, this is a chance I don’t want to miss. It’s nice to have had some success there and hopefully that can keep coming.”It is a chance that will be afforded to him as long as he wants it. With one score of note so far against South Africa – 73 in his first knock of the series at Lord’s – the final match of the men’s summer presents an opportunity to make No.3, and therefore a place in the XI, his own for the foreseeable future. As the next star of the future comes in, another could be on his way to being one of the present.

Their spinners bowled fewer poor deliveries and drew more forward-defensives from the England batsmen

Sidharth Monga14-Feb-20211:22

Manjrekar: Ashwin’s wicket-taking ability is taken for granted

It is a peculiar thing that has been happening during Tests in India for at least 20 years. It was on full display when the crowds returned to Chennai for the second Test. It is not exactly that but it sounds like a wild celebration at the fall of India’s second wicket. First it used to be for Sachin Tendulkar, now Virat Kohli.Steve Waugh described this period when the intensity picked up but also when the crowd would disorient you as fielders. Waugh wrote by the time you got used to the noise, Tendulkar already had 40 on the board. Not too different with Kohli. If you did manage to get Tendulkar out early, the pin-drop deathly silence in the stands was a joy for the fielding sides. England had managed it here in five balls. Kohli and the crowd were stunned by the full Moeen Ali offbreak that bowled him.India were now 86 for 3 in the first session. Sixty-five of those had been scored by one man. The man coming in was coming off scores of 1 and 0, someone who prefers facing pace to spin. India were playing five bowlers. Never mind all the profligacy before, England still had a chance to get right back into the game. They had done so twice after losing the toss against Sri Lanka in Galle not long ago. An attacking field was set. In came Ali, and what Ajinkya Rahane got was a full toss first ball, which he dispatched for four through extra cover.Related

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It summed up England’s bowling effort. Because of the excessive assistance from the pitch, there were unplayable balls every now and then but equally there were full tosses, half-volleys and long hops to take the pitch out of the equation. Kohli just happened to get the best ball out of the Ali lengths bingo. The spinner Ali replaced, Dom Bess, bowled seven full tosses in the fourth innings in the first Test, conditions out of a spin bowler’s dream. Ali bowled 10 in the first innings of this Test, a match tailormade for spinners, where puffs of dust and mini explosions were seen as early as in the first half hour of the match.When the ball reached the hands of R Ashwin and Axar Patel, though, the full tosses and the long hops disappeared. In all, England spinners bowled 14 full tosses. On 20 occasions they were cut or pull. India’s spinners were cut or pulled 10 times, and bowled no full tosses. And full tosses and being cut or pulled is the extremes; there are many other bad balls spinners can bowl within the spectrum.Basically, as a spinner on such a pitch you know you are in the game if you keep drawing a forward defensive or from on the crease. In a much shorter innings, India’s spinners drew the forward-defensive 112 times to England’s 115. If you are accurate enough to keep the batsmen tied down, your eventual misbehaving ball is likelier to be more lethal because you will have fielders in place to take the catches. Add to the accuracy the guile of Ashwin’s changes of pace, the drift, and then the variations in seam angles from both the spinners to make sure the ball spins less.India’s spinners bowled no full tosses in England’s first innings•BCCIOverall India’s batsmen were in control 82.4% of the times as against England’s 74.6%. If your bowlers are good enough to draw a false response once every four balls as against the opposition doing it once an over, you will end up on the winning side.Especially when you have batsmen who are playing a role in doing so. Bowlers should always get the extra credit because they initiate every bit of action in cricket, but sometimes bowlers react to what has been happening too. India batted way better than England did against spin. This pitch looked like a selectively watered one, where drier areas provided excessive turn and smoother ones went straight on. And they were next to each other on a good length for spinners and slightly fuller.Rohit Sharma, Ajinkya Rahane and Rishabh Pant didn’t let it matter. In all India’s batsmen stepped out 81 times, reaching the pitch of the ball and doing their thing before it could do its. They swept from the rough and were to the pitch of the ball when the spinners went straighter. England often got caught up on the crease, stepped out – or were allowed to do so – only 20 times, and swept from straight lines.This is something India perhaps saw in the third innings in the last Test. It was a much better pitch for the batsmen, only really got difficult on days four and five. The control percentages in the four respective innings there were 88, 89.4, 79.5 and 88.3. That dip in the third innings didn’t go unnoticed. Knowing the quality of spin England brought, India knew it was the scoreboard pressure that made them potent. That is why they were happy to take the risk of what can sometimes turn out to be a lottery pitch. They didn’t just gamble; they backed themselves to negate the toss advantage on such a surface.Whatever you think of the pitch – and there will be talk around it because it started exploding in the first session of the Test – the side winning this Test played much better cricket, and it wasn’t even close. And they did so through a method, skill and discipline, and not through lottery.

Everything you need to know about the tournament, arranged alphabetically. Includes J for jinx and R for running out a non-striker

Sidharth Monga14-Oct-2022A for Australia: Defending champions for the first time, and also staging the T20 World Cup for the first time. Seven Australian grounds will host 45 matches and 16 teams over 28 days. One of the teams that qualifies into Group 2 will play Pakistan in Perth on October 27 and then take a four-and-a-half hour flight to Brisbane to cover the road distance of 4310km (or 3606km as the crow flies) for their next match, against Bangladesh on October 30.If that makes you worry about jet lag, keep in mind this is a tournament that will be played in four different time zones, but the eastern-most venue, Brisbane, is not the one that is the farthest ahead of UTC because it doesn’t take part in daylight savings time. Perth is eight hours ahead of UTC, Brisbane ten, Adelaide ten and a half, and Melbourne and Sydney 11.So where the bloody hell are you?B for bounce: It is unmissable, even to the naked eye. It is the first thing you notice. The bounce is steeper in Australia than elsewhere. It is not always bad news for limited-overs batting. The ball can be easier to time if the bounce is good and true, but equally, the really good bowlers can use the bounce to their advantage.C for captains: Quite a few captains go into the tournament with a big selection headache: do they drop themselves? Kane Williamson and Temba Bavuma are going at under a run a ball in all T20 cricket since the last World Cup. Aaron Finch hasn’t been in the best touch, has given up ODIs, and went down the order to let Cameron Green, who is not even in the World Cup squad (yet), open in the same month as the World Cup. Babar Azam will carry the strike-rate cross, and even Jos Buttler might have cause to doubt himself, what with injuries and meagre returns in T20Is leading up to the World Cup.D for Djilang: The indigenous name of Geelong, the only non-Test venue in the World Cup. Adelaide is Tarndanya, Brisbane is Meeanjin, Hobart is nipaluna, Melbourne is Naarm, Perth is Boorloo, and Sydney Warrane. Australia will be wearing an indigenous-themed kit (see K) for this World Cup. Only four indigenous men and two indigenous women have played international cricket for the country.We won’t be seeing most of West Indies’ 2016 title-winning side at this World Cup•Getty ImagesE for Eliminator: As in, the one-over eliminator. Or, more colloquially, the Super Over. Ever since the boundary-countback fiasco in the 2019 World Cup final, the provision is that teams will play Super Overs until there is a winner. However, there are time constraints and double headers. Only 30 minutes of extra time is available for all the matches (except for when the reserve day kicks in for the knockouts – an extra two hours are available on reserve days). If the full quota of overs in a match is bowled before the scheduled close, the minutes saved are added to the time provisioned for Super Overs. A minimum of 20 minutes will be made available for Super Overs, even if the actual match goes into overtime. The changeover time of five minutes between the match and the first Super Over is not counted in the time available.If we don’t have a winner in the time available, the match ends in a tie. If there is no winner in a semi-final, the team that finished higher in the Super 12s will progress. A final without a winner even after Super Over(s) will result in joint champions being crowned. Semi-finals and finals have a reserve day, but every attempt will be made to finish the match on the actual day with the match continuing from the point at which it was truncated, should the reserve day be used.F for first round: Not to be confused with Qualifiers (see Q). Four teams from the two groups in the first round will make it through to the second round. UAE, Netherlands, Sri Lanka and Namibia are in Group A in the first round; Ireland, Zimbabwe, West Indies and Scotland in Group B. The top two teams from each group will go into the two groups in the Super 12s. The top two teams from each of those Super 12 groups will make it to the semi-finals.G for Gayle: This is the first T20 World Cup without Chris Gayle. And the first without Dwayne Bravo. Also missing for West Indies are Kieron Pollard, Andre Russell and Sunil Narine. That’s a massive load of T20 experience and genius they have lost in recent times. Add to it Shimron Hetmyer, who was replaced after he could not make both his original and his rescheduled flights to Australia. It’s the first time that West Indies have to qualify for the Super 12s, and there is a realistic chance that the two-time champions might not make it.H for Hazlewood: Josh Hazlewood is a category unto himself. Previously written off as a Test specialist, he has made a roaring comeback into limited-overs cricket, T20s in particular. He is not the word that Rahul Dravid is too shy to speak in public, but he rarely goes for more than the going rate in the match. He is a banker you can expect to bowl four overs pretty much all the time. In the IPL at least, R Ashwin became that kind of bowler, although in T20Is he might still rely on match-ups. Keshav Maharaj is also getting there.Australia will wear an indigenous-themed jersey at this World Cup•AFP/Getty ImagesI for injuries: Jasprit Bumrah, Jonny Bairstow and Jofra Archer are three exciting T20 players out with injuries. South Africa allrounder Dwaine Pretorius too has been withdrawn. Also on the injury watchlist is Shaheen Afridi, who is coming back from a knee injury but has been named in Pakistan’s squad.Thanks to the freak injury to Bairstow, Alex Hales, who last played in a T20 World Cup in 2016, gets to make a comeback. Dinesh Karthik has waited much longer since last appearing in a T20 World Cup, in 2010.J for jinx: No side has successfully defended its T20 World Cup. No host side has won the title either. Then again, no side has had a chance to defend at home. And Australia are the favourites, with most bases covered. There: we have reverse-jinxed a reverse-jinx.K for kits: Australia have their indigenous-based jersey, Sri Lanka are drawing attention to climate change, Zimbabwe’s yellow top to go with red trousers looks fresh, England are vowing to play with freedom in collarless red, India have managed to find another shade of light blue, and New Zealand again have everybody beat with a mix of grey and black punctuated with white horizontal stripes and the fern.L for luck: It is not the opposite of skill or strategy or fitness, but the shorter a match of cricket gets, the bigger the role luck plays. Other luck factors are difficult to imagine ahead of the start of the tournament, but not the toss. Matches in the UAE, the hosts of the last World Cup, were heavily loaded in favour of the chasing side, making the toss crucial. The coin is less likely to play a role in Australia. While chasing still remains the way to go in T20 cricket, it is confounding that over the last two years Australia has been the second-worst country for chasing sides, who have won 43% of the time. Still, expect teams to prefer chasing but also expect possible closer contests.M for MCB: Mini collapse breakers. The discussion around anchors in T20 is quickly moving to those who can arrest a collapse. Dawid Malan and Virat Kohli are examples: they bat high when a wicket falls early, but if the opening partnership has lasted close to or over ten overs, the batting order is reconsidered, to see if bigger hitters need to be promoted. Malan and Kohli are now efficient in this role, a skill Williamson, Bavuma and Steven Smith will aspire to developing.Get ready to be Rauf-ed up: the World Cup is missing some key fast bowlers, but Pakistan’s Haris Rauf and Co will bring plenty of zing to it•Gareth Copley/ICC/Getty ImagesN for net run rate: It’s not uncommon in such tournaments for more than two teams to end up on the same number of points. Then it often comes down to net run rate, though only comes into the reckoning if the teams can’t be separated by number of wins. If two teams are tied on net run rates too, the next tiebreaker parameter is the number of wins in matches between them and then the net run rate in those matches. If that still doesn’t resolve the tie, the sides higher in the pre-tournament seeding will progress. The pre-tournament seeding order is: England, India, Pakistan, New Zealand, South Africa, Australia, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, West Indies, Scotland, Namibia, Zimbabwe, UAE, Netherlands, Ireland.O for over rates: Over rates are not overrated anymore. For the first time since 1999, a cricket World Cup will have an in-game over-rate penalty. It means extra work for the third umpire, who will have to pause the clock every time there is a stoppage beyond the control of the fielding side. Any over that begins outside the stipulated time limit of 85 minutes for an innings has to be bowled with at least five fielders inside the ring, as opposed to four at other times. Any wicket after the fifth earns the fielding team one minute of time (there is no such time allowance for wickets one through four). In innings shortened by three or more overs, the fielding side must be ready to bowl the penultimate over inside the proportionately reduced time limit. No such penalties apply to innings of ten overs or shorter.P for pace: In the 2019 50-over World Cup we had only five men who regularly went over 145kph, which roughly classifies as extreme pace. Archer is not available, but we have Pakistan fast bowlers Haris Rauf, Naseem Shah and Afridi joining Mitchell Starc, Lockie Ferguson, Mark Wood, Kagiso Rabada, and the seriously fast Anrich Nortje.Extreme pace is one point of difference teams look for, left-arm pace is another. All eight teams that have qualified for the Super 12s already have at least one left-arm quick each.Q for Qualifiers: Two qualifying tournaments featuring eight teams each took place to decide who the final four teams in the World Cup would be. All four finalists – UAE and Ireland from Qualifier A, and Zimbabwe and Netherlands from Qualifier B – made it to Australia.R for running-out a non-striker: The practice is being normalised, though some sections still think of it as being underhanded. The MCC has moved its ruling on such run outs from the law on unfair play to the one on run outs, so watch out for more non-strikers being caught outside their crease before the ball is bowled.A total of 405 sixes were scored in the 2021 T20 World Cup. How many will be hit on the big Australian grounds in this year’s tournament?•Daniel Pockett/CA/Cricket Australia/Getty ImagesS for sixes: Since the start of 2020, a six in Australia has been hit every 22 balls. Only in South Africa has six-hitting been less frequent. The South African pitches probably make it difficult to hit sixes, but in Australia, it’s more likely a case of #mcgsobig.The boundaries for this World Cup can’t be bigger than 82.29 metres, but in order to maximise the use of available field of play, they can’t be pulled in more than ten metres in from the perimeter fence. The threshold for the shortest boundary has been reduced from 59.43 m to 52.12 m, in all likelihood to accommodate Geelong, which is primarily a footie ground and is quite narrow. The pitch is dropped in at an angle to get around the size limitation, but since the ground hosts six matches in five days, it might need a bit of elbow room when the game is not played on the centre pitch.T for triple-headers: There are three days in the tournament on which three matches will be played, to go with 14 double headers, but no match will be played simultaneously with another. That makes for another multi-team tournament where the teams playing the last match get the advantage of knowing what to do if their prospects of progressing come down to net run rate (see N). Namibia, UAE, Scotland, Zimbabwe, India and England stand to benefit from this schedule.U for umpires: Remember, they know the laws better than us and know how to judge and apply them better than us. But they also make mistakes, a lot of which are corrected these days. The same 16 umpires who stood in the last World Cup will stand this time around. With this tournament, Aleem Dar, Marais Erasmus and Rod Tucker will have officiated in six of seven men’s T20 World Cups. This will be second World Cup of the year for Langton Rusere of Zimbabwe, after the women’s World Cup. The four match referees will be Ranjan Madugalle, David Boon, Chris Broad and Andy Pycroft.V for venues: If Australia make it to the semi-finals, they will play their match in Sydney no matter where they finish on the table. If they don’t, the winners of Group 1 and runners-up of Group 2 will play the first semi-final in Sydney; the winners of Group 2 and runners-up of Group 1 will play in Adelaide.W for weather: Climate change is upon us, and this World Cup could be affected directly. Victoria this week braced for the “worst weather event” of the year in the form of very heavy untimely rain in what normally would have been spring, the season of sunny days, cool nights, colourful jacarandas and wildflowers. There was flooding in South Melbourne and flash-flood warnings in Victoria the week before the event, and there is already talk of rain-affected games.Sixteen-year-old Aayan Afzal Khan of UAE is the youngest player at this World Cup•Ashley Allen/ICC/Getty ImagesX for cross(over): Finally, we can put the confusion to rest. T20 leagues adopted a regulation saying that the incoming batter would be on strike irrespective of whether the batters had crossed during a dismissal (except if the dismissal was off the last ball of the over) before international cricket did on October 1, but now, at long last, the not-out batter will stay at the end they were at even if the two batters cross each other while a catch is taken. It is a crucial little bit of help for bowlers, especially when they are up against lower-order batters.Y for youngest: Aayan Afzal Khan of UAE, born in Goa, brought up in Sharjah, is 16 years old, comfortably younger than any other player in the tournament. In the Under-19 World Cup earlier this year, Ayaan starred in what was possibly UAE’s biggest triumph on the world stage. He scored 93, taking his side from 26 for 4 to a total that was enough to beat West Indies by 82 runs. He is actually a left-arm spinner first and then a batter. UAE went on to win the Plate final. Mohammad Amir, who started the 2009 World Cup at 17 years and 55 days, remains the youngest player in all T20 World Cups.At 38 years and 230 days on the day Netherlands play their first match, opener Stephan Myburgh will be the oldest in the tournament. Hong Kong’s Ryan Campbell played in the 2016 World Cup when he was 44 years and 33 days old.Z for Zampa: And other wristspinners who are no longer part of XIs by right. Fingerspinners are making a comeback, especially if they can be as good as Maharaj and Ashwin, or if they have match-ups working for them. Apart from Rashid Khan and Adil Rashid, Zampa is the one non-allrounder wristspinner who gets picked no matter what. If the Australian pitches have the bounce they are famous for, this tournament could signal a comeback for his breed.

How many fairy tales is too many?

Sambit Bal19-Jan-2021Catch your breath. Settle your heart. Calm your nerves. And soak in it. Let it wash over you. Luxuriate in the feeling. Bask in your good fortune, whoever you are and wherever you are: you have just had the ride of a lifetime. Sport doesn’t do much better than this: this is beyond special, beyond the imagination, beyond dreams. As sports fans we live for days such as these, when hopeless odds are beaten, when the unimaginable is achieved, when new heroes emerge and when history is scripted.And India, what do we say to you? All through this magnificent series you have tugged at our hearts. Now you own them.Faith, courage, belief, grit, character, spirit – in the context of the cricket at least, you have raised the bar for these words, which are often worn from overuse. Not only have you – and I do not use these words lightly – created the greatest moment in India’s Test history, you have provided a glorious hurrah to the most epic, the most layered, form of sport known to us.Test cricket is life itself: not only is it a game of the highest skill, it is also a test of endurance and adaptability, patience and courage. There is the toil, ball after ball, session after session, day after day. You can glide on the waves only if you have the heart to weather the storms. There is heartbreak and there is redemption: Test cricket always gives you a second chance. How well India forged steel from the debris of Adelaide, numerically the lowest point of their Test history, with their captain and best batsman, and one of their strike bowlers gone.Related

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Given all that they had to overcome, it was appropriate that they should have finished their trial in the toughest arena. For subcontinental teams, Australia, with its hard pitches, big grounds, tall and muscular fast bowlers, and the aura of intimidation in the air, is the hardest land. And nothing amplifies the Australianness of Australian cricket as much as the Gabba, where the pitch, not yet a drop-in, yields bounce and movement, and where the cracks lengthen as the match wears on, making the aforementioned fast bowlers feel even deadlier; where Australia had not lost a Test since 1988, and where India have never won one. When it emerged that India were reluctant to travel to Queensland, it was put down in some quarters to their fear of the “Gabbattoir” rather than to legitimate concerns about the hard quarantine norms in Queensland.And what did they have at their disposal? Barely 11 fit men to put on the park, with six of their first-choice bowlers, two of whom had made match-defining contributions with the bat, lost to injury (one more would be incapacitated in the first innings of the match) and two middle-order batsmen, in addition to their captain, gone too. The number of wickets taken by the bowlers of the two teams read 1033 to 13, going into the game.And their captain loses the toss, his third in a row, at a ground where no opposition team has ever mounted a successful chase of over 200. And Australia’s bowling attack is one of their best ever.Given all the fairy tales they have woven on this tour, how could India do anything but cap it with the biggest of them all: the most audacious of heists, a chase of 328 on the final day. It’s a Test they didn’t need to win; a draw would have done enough to see them hold on to the Border-Gavaskar Trophy, which they won handsomely on these shores two years ago. But just how could they not go for the win?It was appropriate the charge was led by two young men who represent, in contrasting style, the dauntlessness of this team. Tellingly, neither played in the only Test India lost on the tour. Shubman Gill, 21 but marked out as a future star, caressed boundaries with the finesse of a Mahela Jayawardene in his prime, and took on the bouncer trap with the spirit of a pugilist. Rishabh Pant, who came on this tour off a horrid IPL and with questions over his attitude and fitness, and was picked over the first-choice wicketkeeper, Wriddhiman Saha, only because India needed to compensate for Kohli’s absence, was able to take on the dare of the final-session chase not just because he had the wares but mainly because he was prepared to bear the cost of failure. Or perhaps he chose never to contemplate it. Impossible odds are never beaten without a dose of audacity.Sandwiched in between was the phlegmatic figure of Cheteshwar Pujara, whose batting through the series has aroused many a debate. In 2018 he was the architect of India’s first-ever series win in Australia, with 521 runs and three hundreds. Australia were better prepared for him this time, and his run-scoring was reduced to a trickle even by his own standards. But he still was the hardest to dislodge, weathering 928 balls, grinding down the bowlers with each one he blunted. Apart from two innings – the Adelaide horror show and the small chase in Melbourne – the fewest deliveries he absorbed in an innings this series was 70, and his 211-ball vigil in Brisbane, during which he copped the nastiest blows because the Australian quicks homed in on him, gave his young partners insurance against the collapse. Every Test team needs a Pujara, one of a dying but priceless breed.Rishabh Pant: big heart, no fear•Patrick Hamilton/AFP/Getty ImagesThe story of India’s series is that the fairy tales just kept coming. There were three match-altering partnerships involving the No. 8s: in Melbourne, Ravindra Jadeja, playing his first game after being concussed in the T20I series, added 121 with Ajinkya Rahane; in Sydney, R Ashwin batted 128 balls in a 42.4-over partnership with Hanuma Vihari, who batted 161 balls on one leg. Ashwin, who has four Test hundreds, had not gone past 25 since December 2018. He perhaps wouldn’t have played the first Test, and possibly also the second, had Jadeja not been injured. Ashwin was, in the words of his wife, crawling on the hotel-room floor the night before the last day of the Sydney Test with a back injury that would deny him the opportunity of a final tilt in his best series outside the subcontinent.And what of Mohammed Siraj, the son of an auto-rickshaw driver, who came into the spotlight through a talent-hunt contest, who stayed on the tour to honour his father, who died while Siraj was in Australia, and who made his Test debut because of an injury to Mohammed Shami. Two Tests later, Siraj was India’s enforcer not only in name but in deed, hustling Australia’s best with wicket-taking balls.Or T Natarajan, who had bowled only with a tennis ball till 2010 or thereabouts, and found a place in India’s T20I squad on the strength of his yorkers this IPL, who went to earn an ODI cap and then make his Test cap, having stayed back as a net bowler. His three wickets in the first innings in Brisbane contributed to keeping Australia’s first-innings score under 400. As did the three-wicket hauls from fellow debutant Washington Sundar and near-debutant Shardul Thakur, who bowled only ten balls in his first Test before pulling up with an injury.Sundar, another T20 specialist who would have, cross your heart, never been thought of as a Test prospect, and was played only because India couldn’t afford a long tail, and Thakur, who was played as the fourth quick bowler as insurance against another injury, which duly came about when Navdeep Saini hobbled off with a groin strain, provided the penultimate twist with a 123-run partnership when at, 186 for 6, India’s resistance seemed to have finally been broken.As sports fans and writers we can usually consider ourselves fortunate if we are able to watch and write about one rousing story in a series. That this series between these two fierce rivals came down to the final hour of the final day of the final Test would have been enough. But this Indian team left us memories to keep us warm for a lifetime.

The USA batter is the fourth man to hit six sixes in an over in international cricket, after Gibbs, Yuvraj and Pollard

Daya Sagar11-Sep-2021As you would expect after equalling an international record previously achieved only by Herschelle Gibbs, Yuvraj Singh and Kieron Pollard, there are 4000-5000 unread WhatsApp messages on Jaskaran Malhotra’s phone. One of the first to congratulate Malhotra after he hit six sixes in an over for USA against Papua New Guinea was Pollard, who was also his captain at St Lucia Stars during the 2018 edition of the CPL.Like his more famous colleagues at the Stars from that year, like David Warner, Daren Sammy and Lendl Simmons, 31-year-old Malhotra aspires to play in the IPL one day, his early ambition of turning out for India having come to nothing. That said, there is pride and satisfaction of being a part of an improving USA outfit.Related

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• Six sixes in an over

• Thisara Perera smashes six sixes in an over

“It’s quite amazing, really. I had not planned on any such thing when I went in to bat,” Malhotra told ESPNcricinfo about his innings of 173* (in 124 balls, with four fours and 16 sixes), also the first ODI century in men’s cricket for USA. “I entered the field with our team in a spot of bother, having lost three wickets for 29 inside the first ten overs. My first target was to just stay till the end. As the innings progressed, I got the confidence to play my shots.”In the final over (bowled by the unfortunate Gaudi Toka), once I was able to hit four sixes, that’s when the thought of six sixes first came in. I am grateful that I was able to equal this record.”Of the six sixes, which took USA to 271 for 9 and a 134-run win, Malhotra picked out the second as his best, having gone inside-out over cover. Shades of the third one Yuvraj had hit off Stuart Broad back in that 2007 T20 World Cup game there.And though there has been a surfeit of messages and calls since September 9, the one Malhotra has been waiting for hasn’t. “I know Yuvi (Yuvraj) will also be calling me soon. I am eagerly looking forward to that.”It’s a long way, that international fixture – his 13th across ODIs and T20Is – in Al Amerat from his formative years playing in Himachal Pradesh.”I captained Himachal Pradesh at Under-15 and Under-17 levels. I was also the most prolific domestic wicketkeeper-batter at Under-17 level. In fact, I was rewarded with a place among the 20 probables for the Under-19 World Cup in 2008, and was part of the NCA camp,” Malhotra said. “Unfortunately, I couldn’t make the final 16, which won the tournament under Virat Kohli.”Malhotra did, however, find a place in the Himachal Pradesh senior team, but never got a look-in at the first-class level. A chance encounter with cricket in the USA came after the 2010 domestic season in India, when he was visiting a relative in America, ended up playing in a local tournament while there, and did well.After that, there were invitations each year from cricket bodies in the USA, and simultaneously a drop in the likelihood of ever making it big in India.In 2014, Malhotra decided to make his move to the USA. Permanently.”I did dream of playing for India at the highest level, but playing for USA in international cricket has been very satisfying too,” he said. “Cricket here is on the right track, and with possible inclusion at the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics, it will give us a chance to take on the best on a global stage quite soon.”Besides this, we need to make the most of the qualifying rounds for World Cups in T20 and 50-over formats, so that we can get better exposure at the highest level.”