A raft of retirements, and uncertainty over MSL among concerns for SA as their summer winds up abruptly

Firdose Moonda17-Mar-2020GainsA deeper player pool
South Africa’s selectors cast their net as wide as possible and provided opportunities to a wide range of players. By doing that, they’ve found that the resource base is not as rickety as initially thought. In Test cricket, Rassie van der Dussen established himself as a reliable middle-order presence while Anrich Nortje secured a spot as one of the frontline seamers, in ODIs Heinrich Klaasen, Kyle Verreynne and Jon-Jon Smuts showed their potential as candidates for the 2023 World Cup and, in T20Is, Temba Bavuma demonstrated an ability to switch gears. This summer showed that South Africa’s domestic system, however ragged it appears, is still producing players that can make the step-up to the international stage and can be trusted as a feeder system for the national side. Quinton de Kock’s captaincy step-up
Six years ago, when Graeme Smith stood down after leading the Test side for more than a decade, South Africa were unprepared. They rotated through Hashim Amla and AB de Villiers before landing on Faf du Plessis, but seemed equally unready for du Plessis’ departure. In white-ball formats, Quinton de Kock has taken to the treble role of captaining, opening the batting and keeping wicket with relative ease. De Kock’s on-field presence is commanding, with bat in hand or when issuing instructions, and his form as South Africa’s highest Test run-scorer in the season may suggest he is up for the red-ball role as well. The only sticking point is that it may require him to give up the gloves, something de Kock is adamant he does not want to do. A new pace pack
Dale Steyn and Vernon Philander were the last links to South Africa’s previous pack (after Morne Morkel retired in 2018 and the rest went Kolpak) but their injury struggles meant South Africa were at pains to find a new attack. In Nortje and Lungi Ngidi, they have the foundations. Both have recovered from injuries and came through the season with strong results. Nortje was the leading wicket-taker across all formats and particularly impressed with his pace which was often in the higher 140kph range, while Ngidi’s ODI form showed his varied skill set, which includes pace off the ball and the temperament to bowl at the death. Workload management is always an issue with fast bowlers and they will need to be handled carefully in future but, if done well, both could become stalwarts of the new era.Kagiso Rabada wears a pensive look in the outfield•Getty ImagesFormer player involvement
Mark Boucher’s appointment as national coach, along with a support staff including Jacques Kallis and Charl Langeveldtl, was hailed as a victory for the current crop of players because of the extensive experience they bring to the set-up but the South African system as a whole, too, have seen former players return to the fold. Four of the six franchise coaches are former internationals – Ashwell Prince (Cobras), Robin Peterson (Warriors), Imraan Khan (Dolphins) and Allan Donald (to start with the Knights in April) – while Paul Harris, Jacques Rudolph, and Hashim Amla have all been involved in consultancy roles of some description. At a time when South African cricket needs to call on as much expertise as it can, keeping former players close is a priority and, so far, CSA has got it right.Losses Kagiso Rabada’s form
Whether to impetuousness or injury, the leader of South Africa’s attack, Kagiso Rabada, had a disappointing 2019-20 season. He endured his leanest Test season since debuting, with just 21 wickets in six Tests at 32.05, the first time his bowling average has peeped over 30. Besides, he was suspended from the final Test against England after an accumulation of demerit points and ended his season with a groin injury. Is the burden of being the poster boy becoming too much for Rabada or is he simply finding other interests, like music and the NBA? Either way, he is too good a player for South Africa not to pay attention to and they need to work with him to get him back to his best. Calling it a dayHashim Amla and JP Duminy called time on their careers before this season while Steyn stepped away from Tests and Imran Tahir is now available only for T20 cricket, and South Africa had to deal with more retirements as the season wore on. Vernon Philander played his last Test series against England, leaving South Africa without a bowler with the subtle ability to move the ball off the seam, while several domestic veterans also decided to call it a day. Rory Kleinveldt, Farhaan Behardien and Andrew Birch played their last matches for the Cobras, Titans and Warriors respectively, which may not mean much for international cricket, but strips the domestic circuit of a layer of experience essential for knowledge transfer. While Behardien signed a Kolpak deal, Kleinveldt and Birch could be convinced to become involved with local teams. The transformation fight With a past as polarised as South Africa’s, it is inevitable that there is still much grappling over race issues but matters came to a head during the England series when the country’s only black African Test batsman Bavuma was left out of the New Year’s Test. Bavuma had averaged less than 20 in 2019, so his omission was justified but the message from the team camp which went along the lines of, “We don’t see colour,” was badly received. It didn’t help that the messenger, du Plessis, went through a period of poor form that attracted severe criticism. Bavuma was recalled but the bigger debate, about the slow pace of change, remains. Financial struggles The withdrawal of major sponsor Standard Bank and a second summer of running the Mzansi Super League (MSL) without a broadcast deal has left CSA financially flailing. Corporate backers may be lured back in once the fate of suspended CEO Thabang Moroe is known, but the future of the MSL remains uncertain. At the same time, CSA needs to find a way to fund the six franchises, all of whom are dependent on the mother body, and the 13 provincial unions as well as put money into the women’s game and development cricket.

Explains why looking to bat through was important given the middle order hadn’t fired until then in IPL 2020

Shashank Kishore09-Oct-20202:46

KL Rahul on his slow starts: ‘Strike rate is over-rated’

KL Rahul began IPL 2020 in sparkling form, allaying his own fears of not being able to play a cover drive even. But six games in, after his slightly tempered-down approach – as compared to his blitzkrieg that the Kings XI Punjab have been mostly used to at the top – raised questions over his changing role as an anchor, Rahul countered them by stating that “strike rates are very, very overrated.”On Thursday, Kings XI were chasing 202, and Rahul was stuck on 11 off 14 balls after first being involved in a run-out with Mayank Agarwal and then seeing Prabhsimran Singh falling to a catch early in the chase. As per ESPNcricinfo’s data, Rahul didn’t look to attack any of the 14 deliveries he faced before top-edging a sweep off left-arm spinner Abhishek Sharma to Kane Williamson at square leg. By then, the pressure was already on Kings XI.He linked his sedate approach with the bat to captaincy, and explained why batting through was important because the middle order hadn’t really fired until then in the tournament. Rahul’s change in approach has become increasingly visible since he struck 132, the highest by an Indian in the IPL, against the Royal Challengers Bangalore in his second game.”Look, I think strike rate is very, very overrated. For me, it’s only about how I can win games for my team,” Rahul said at the post-match press conference. “On a certain day if I think 120 can win the game for my team, I will do that. This is how I bat. I like to take responsibility as a leader.”Yes, we make mistakes. I’m not saying I haven’t made a few mistakes, but you learn each day as a leader and batter. It’s a partnership when you’re in the middle as a batting group, every player has different roles in the team and those roles change with each game. So I try to do the best I can, try and assess and play according to that. At the end of the day, I need to walk out of the ground knowing I’ve got my team as close to winning or try to win the game. That is the most important thing.”An animated KL Rahul addresses his team ahead of play•BCCIRahul then fielded a question on whether his team was too reliant on himself and Agarwal. On Thursday, Kings XI had hedged their bets on a five-bowler strategy, which left them a batter light. They left out Sarfaraz Khan, who had only faced 29 deliveries in the tournament until then, and had a very long lower order that had Mujeeb Ur Rahman, who nearly has the same number of T20 runs as his appearances, come in at No. 7.”When you see a team at the bottom of the table, you start thinking a lot of things are not going right,” Rahul said. “We can accept a lot of things haven’t gone right, but no team has their top six firing. Couple of them will be in good form, couple of them may not, so it’s important for the in-form players to get as many runs for the team. Openers are always – I won’t say under pressure – expected to give good starts. I’m not very worried but if the set batsmen or those in good form can get as many runs for the team, that will help, make the team look good.”Amid the disappointments, Kings XI have had a number of young Indian bowlers step up. Ravi Bishnoi, the teen legspinner from Rajasthan, has shown the tenacity to pick wickets regularly. Against the Sunrisers Hyderabad, Bishnoi orchestrated a turnaround of sorts by dismissing David Warner and Jonny Bairstow in the space of three deliveries. Warner mistimed a slog off a googly to long-on and Bairstow, after making 97, was foxed by a flipper.At the other end, left-arm seamer Arshdeep Singh, impressed immediately, bowling excellent yorkers and denying batsmen any room in the death overs. He finished with figures of 2 for 33 off four overs. Arshdeep isn’t express quick and is more the mid-130s bowler, but he made up for his lack of pace with his accuracy.”IPL is the biggest platform, the youngsters have been working really, really hard in the three weeks that we’ve been here,” Rahul said. “Arshdeep and Bishnoi – so good to see them me among the wickets. They bowled high-pressure overs, and it’s great to see how they held their nerve to bowl those big overs for the team at this platform. That will give them and the group a lot of confidence. Small things like these are infectious. It can spread to the rest of the group quickly. So really happy to see how they bowled.”

Justin Mohamed is at the centre of what the sport is doing to try and correct years of ignoring a vast part of history

Daniel Brettig09-Sep-2020Justin Mohamed remembers feeling somewhat cheated. It was late in Jason Gillespie’s storied career when he discovered, purely by chance, that Glenn McGrath’s greatest fast bowling offsider was, like him, an Aboriginal Australian.”I actually worked with his father [Neil] – and early in Jason’s career I didn’t realise he was Aboriginal,” Mohamed tells ESPNcricinfo. “Then I met his father and thought ‘Gillespie’ and said ‘oh do you know Jason’ and he said ‘yeah, that’s my son’, and I remember thinking ‘wow’, and feeling a little bit ripped off that I couldn’t sit and watch him and feel proud of another Aboriginal person running in to bowl at Lord’s.”Up to that point, most of Mohamed’s role models in cricket had been members of the great West Indian sides of the 1980s and early 1990s, largely because there was a stronger sense of common ground than he shared with Australia’s national team. “Seeing the West Indies out here and seeing people of a similar sort of colour doing their thing, where I grew up in Bundaberg in Queensland, we connected with that team.”Mohamed’s childhood sense of identification with West Indies, and then his belated discovery of shared heritage with Gillespie, speaks volumes for the landscape of cricket that he entered and sought to help change when he became co-chair of Cricket Australia’s National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Cricket Advisory Committee (NATSICAC). If the name of the group is a mouthful, the brief was greater still – finding ways to connect the nation’s Indigenous population to a game that, after some notable early history, more or less ignored them for 80 years.ALSO READ: Dan Christian lifts lid on casual racism in Australian cricketMany have carried the burdens of that willful neglect over numerous generations, not least the West Australian opening batsman John McGuire, whose struggles for first-class recognition in his home state have been well documented. More recently, he asked to have his name removed from a WA under-age trophy because he had tired of what he saw as a lack of substance behind gestures, whether they be trophies, statues, or Welcome To Country ceremonies before matches.Justin Mohamed: ‘The important piece in having an Aboriginal person on the board, it is very clear they’re there for what they bring, who they are, their experience and expertise’•Getty ImagesIn the obvious pain emanating from McGuire’s story, Mohamed sees the key to what he and others have been building on for more than five years now, since the 2015 release of For The Love Of The Game, an often-searing independent report on the history of cricket’s relationship with Aboriginal Australia.”When I heard about that, this is part of the example we see – you can’t just window dress things, and that’s what John was saying,” Mohamed says. “Having my name on a trophy’s fine, but then I look around to the championships and I see very few if any Aboriginal young people coming through, so it’s a bit of window dressing where you’re acknowledging Aboriginal people, but the work that’s done beneath that is not enough to get the involvement that’s needed.”That’s a good example of someone standing up and saying, well, it’s alright to raise the Aboriginal flag, or have a Welcome To Country, but if that’s all you do, that is not going to resolve the imbalance that is happening. John was saying ‘I’m not going to let my name be used to window dress something when there’s not enough happening behind that’. Each state and territory is different in how they’ve acknowledged or seen their champions.”One of the things where I think it is pretty well known is the number of Aboriginal athletes that have come through other team sports compared to cricket. When you see that, you know something’s not right, because the hand eye co-ordinations and reflexes that flow with other sports, knowing when I was younger many of us played cricket, but we never saw it as a pathway. There’s a couple who broke through that, but one or two breaking through doesn’t mean all is working well.”

One of the things where I think it is pretty well known is the number of Aboriginal athletes that have come through other team sports compared to cricket. When you see that, you know something’s not rightJustin Mohamed

Another area touched on by the report, and seen in practice by Mohamed almost as soon as he joined NATSICAC, was that the focus seemed too much about the short-term, a couple of events each year such as the Imparja Cup, and gestures over substance.”I think at my very first meeting, there were these groups and people in states and territories feeding information up to CA, but a lot of it was around activities like the Imparja Cup and getting to tournaments on game day, getting CA to get behind some of the local or state initiatives,” he says. “A lot of the things that were done in the Aboriginal space were once offs and not really part of the strategic plan, which all organisations would have. So there wasn’t a lot of planning, if something important came up there’d be a lot of lobbying and talks about ‘we should do something on this date’ instead of planning it out to say ‘in 2022 we have this coming up and we want to have this focus’.”From early days it was more about getting short or small wins, carnivals, small recognition at particular times of the year, but this approach was saying it needed to be more strategic, it needed to be drawn across all of CA and all that it does. That’s the journey we’re on now. Not just the designated Aboriginal carnival, but all parts of CA. That was from the history of the game through to the elite level and the grassroots.”Early on, Mohamed had a win when he found himself co-chairing NATSICAC with Earl Eddings, who would eventually find himself rising to the position of CA chairman. This offered a sense of gravity to discussions, in the knowledge that this was not just being shared with a CA board member, but one of its most senior directors. Numerous events, from a 2018 tour of England to commemorate the Aboriginal trailblazers of 1868 to a reconciliation match involving the Australian women’s team earlier this year, were given impetus by this avenue.At the same time, players, staff and officials are all on the journey of fully appreciating and acknowledging how cricket missed a chance to keep Indigenous Australia close for nearly a century and must not toss that opportunity away again.”With Aboriginal Australia’s history, sadly in the cricket sense, there was a rich involvement which was never valued at the level it should have been,” Mohamed says. “The value of cricket went back to the Sir Donald Bradman era, whereas the first XI [in 1868] was seen as something which happened, but it was never really spoken about at the level it should have been.”If cricket wants to have an edge over the AFL, rugby league or any other sport, the first ever team to travel and represent Australia is in the form of cricket and an Aboriginal team doing that. But it was a missed opportunity. Once people started seeing this was factual and the amount of activity that happened with Aboriginal Australia in these early days, and the influence that it had on our national game, people like Earl and others said ‘we need to be doing more about an embarrassing situation we’re in’.”Justin Langer addressed the Australian Indigenous Men’s and Women’s team at Lord’s when they met the men’s ODI squad•Getty ImagesSeeing past that embarrassment to deal with the sometimes ugly truth was a pivotal idea behind the decision to set-up a series of panel discussions under the banner of Cricket Connecting Country, in which Dan Christian spoke frankly of his experiences this week. At the same time, members of Australia’s men’s team are working through their own process of education and understanding, helped in some cases by on-on-one meetings with the New South Wales and Brisbane Heat paceman Josh Lalor to talk through the cricket experience of people of colour.Inside CA’s own organisation, its diversity and inclusion manager Adam Cassidy has done an enormous amount of work in helping to build towards greater connection, aided by CA’s Indigenous engagement specialist, Courtney Hagen. For Hagen, the end of the journey is one where any person of colour sees cricket as an enticing and welcoming place to be.”It would show that cricket stands for the rights of human beings and that doesn’t stop when it comes to people of colour in Australia,” she says. “It’s not in a tokenistic way, it’s a real journey, an authentic movement, and by creating this positive environment for conversations to be shared, I think as a prospective cricketer you’d have a lot more respect for the game.

Seeing some of the Australian one-day players seeing the Aboriginal teams’ shirts and saying ‘we should have some of those designs on our uniforms’, it was a really good moment

“You’re probably more likely wanting to engage more in the sport itself, because you know that in the environments you’re going to be in, you’re culturally safe and that you’re welcome. You won’t be put in situations where you’re going to suffer harassment or racism in the game, because we’ve moved so far forward, and that cricket as an organisation will look after you.”Mohamed’s best illustration of what he is aiming for is to ask people to think of something they value, and why. “There’s definitely no one thing that can make it happen, it’s a combination of things, but really the way I like to look at it is you’ve got to create a space where people can value something,” he says. “The only way you value something is you need to be knowledgeable about what that is. You do your research, or you’ve been brought up and told something, or you have a hands-on experience and put it into your life and it becomes something to value.”Once you value something then you want to look after it and you also want to show that to other people, you’re proud of it. We’ve seen enough stories of where people leave their chosen sport, not so much because they’ve lost their love of the game, they just haven’t felt welcome in the space. That’s the challenge for cricket from the junior to the elite level, and it is important that there are familiar things within that.”This is not to say that Mohamed, Cassidy and Hagen haven’t experienced moments of the connection they are striving for. One in particular stands out. “When we went over to England to do the 150th anniversary and follow the footsteps of that tour [in 2018], there was a moment at Lord’s where the Australian one-day side was there, Justin Langer was the coach and our women’s and men’s teams went to look at Lord’s. Justin wanted to bring the two teams together, which was a great thing for our players.”Justin made an effort to get the two teams together in the change rooms, and he got up and spoke and I felt it was a very special moment. Justin said these words, ‘not very often you get three national teams in the one room’. So, he classed our women’s and men’s Indigenous sides as equal to the Australian one-day team. I just think that was a really good moment to say here we are, we’ve all got the green and gold on, and we’re all representing the same country, and really showing the value of all that.”Seeing some of the Australian one-day players seeing the Aboriginal teams’ shirts and saying ‘we should have some of those designs on our uniforms’, it was a really good moment. That’s what we’re talking about, and that’s what cricket should be able to do.”Among the decisions made at the most recent CA Board meeting was to formally expand NATSICAC’s advisory role to the whole of the organisation, not just community cricket. In many ways, change is afoot.

Too few West Indies batsmen showed the application required in their bid to salvage a draw

Nagraj Gollapudi20-Jul-2020With an hour left in the game, as the final drinks break of this Test was called, Ben Stokes walked alongside Shannon Gabriel. It was a matter of time for an England victory with Gabriel and his new-ball partner Kemar Roach doing their best to avoid the inevitable. But Stokes did not want West Indies to relax: he said a few words in the direction of Gabriel, who just kept his head down. First ball upon the resumption, England got the breakthrough.Stokes plucked out two stumps and why not – he had flattened West Indies’ bowlers with the bat first and then broken the resolve of their batsmen twice via crucial breakthroughs with the ball. One of those was that of Jermaine Blackwood, just a ball away from tea.Blackwood was in the middle of a flourishing partnership with Shamarh Brooks in the second session. Their alliance had cleaned up after the farce that was the Windies top-order, which showed no fight, resolve or technique and succumbed at the first punch from England.ALSO READ: Sky’s the limit for ‘Mr Incredible’ Stokes – RootBlackwood had picked up three early fours off Sam Curran and had dominated Dom Bess from the word go. Playing his naturally attacking game, Blackwood felt comfortable. So much so in that final over before tea, bowled by – who else? – Stokes, Blackwood felt he could afford to smile and chirp back to the England allrounder.Stokes was attempting to expose Blackwood’s weakness: facing the short-pitched delivery. Bowling from around the stumps, wide of the crease, Stokes banged in the perfect short ball, that climbed sharply into the ribs of the airborne Blackwood. Instead of ducking it, Blackwood responded awkwardly to fend it off, but lobbed a catch that Jos Buttler took running to his left. Stokes did not waste the opportunity to say a few words in the direction of Blackwood.It was the turning point and West Indies never recovered. West Indies lost this Test because of many reasons, but the most important was their batsmen never showed the relentlessness of Stokes. With the bat, Stokes had shown the grit and determination to succeed – however ugly he looked, however slow he played. What mattered to him was the big picture, building a big total, and then forcing West Indies to follow-on. Allied with the belief of Stuart Broad, Stokes nearly had West Indies facing embarrassment on Sunday.Although England ultimately had to bat again, they did so from a position of strength. Then, for the second day in succession, Broad made the new ball talk. John Campbell had already spilled an easy catch from Stokes, and then further embarrassed himself by once again becoming a walking wicket.Shai Hope, too, has been hopeless. A nip-backer from Broad reared off a length from the fourth-stump line to hit the top of his off stump. Hope meanwhile squatted in response as if it was a grubber. Hope’s Test career now hangs in balance. He has been totally out of sorts, unable to find a rhythm and settle down. Unlike Kraigg Brathwaite, who has at least proved that he can play late and play time despite his string of failures in the second innings, Hope has looked like man with a head full of questions instead.Shamarh Brooks fell to Sam Curran for 62•Getty ImagesFor once the vigilant defence of Roston Chase failed, leaving the responsibility of saving the Test match with Brooks and Blackwood. With Blackwood showing intent, Brooks played second fiddle initially, and after the Jamaican left, he showed character to withstand the renewed pressure from England. Could he do what Blackwood did in Southampton to take West Indies to the finish line and secure a draw? He only had one specialist batting partner in his captain Jason Holder, after Shane Dowrich once again showed his weakness against the short delivery.With the ball getting softer, but staying low, in the final session Curran went round the stumps, and lured Brooks with slow cutters. The ploy was to draw the batsman forward with silly mid-off and a short cover placed as a trap. Brooks was attentive initially and watched the ball, playing late with soft hands. The margin of error was zero – if he failed, it was end of story. And that is what happened when Curran burst through, despite the watchful gaze of Brooks, who did not even review having been rapped on the knee, in front of off stump.They might have eventually taken the game into the final hour, but West Indies were not close to batting out the 80-odd overs they needed to for a draw that would secure the Wisden Trophy. West Indies made a cumulative total of 485 runs in the match, which was nearly what Engalnd made in the first innnings (469). No West Indies batsman has scored a century in the series so far. Brathwaite, Blackwood and Brooks have shown some resolve, but they will admit they have lacked the hunger and belief of Stokes.Despite the slow nature of the pitches and dry conditions, the tourists have been vulnerable against balls arriving on the stumps: so far this series they have lost 22 wickets in that fashion, at 10.50 apiece.Holder admitted it was a concern. “Many of our batters got caught on the crease, on a surface like this you need to commit forward or back,” Holder told Sky Sports after the defeat. “We’ve got to understand scenarios better. We fought through decent periods in the game but maybe need a little bit more grit, determination to get through challenging spells. It’s just about getting through those tough spells.”In the afternoon session the TV cameras caught West Indies head coach Phil Simmons stealing a few winks in the dressing room. That image captures nicely the state of mind of most of his batsmen. We all have taken a nap at work but in a Test match is a different thing: West Indies were caught snoozing by a relentless England.

Trio hasn’t played long-form cricket since March, and weren’t included in the XI for the second T20I either

Sidharth Monga06-Dec-2020T20I > Test warm-upTouring teams often complain these days that they hardly get decent opposition during tour games, which makes them less preferable to intense training sessions within the team. This Australia A side, though, was way better than just decent. It included Test captain Tim Paine, regulars Travis Head and Joe Burns, squad members James Pattinson, Will Pucovski, Michael Neser and Cameron Green, and also Jackson Bird, good enough to walk into this Indian side as the third seamer.However, India chose not to release any of the Test players in their T20I squad though none of them has played multi-days cricket since March. Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Shami and Mayank Agarwal didn’t even feature in the second T20I at the SCG. It is not like they were overworked: Agarwal and one out of Bumrah and Shami had missed each of India’s last two limited-overs internationals.Navdeep Saini, who had two disappointing ODIs before being dropped, could have used this opportunity to stake a claim for the format experts feel he is best suited to, especially at a time when India are scrambling for a third seamer in Ishant Sharma’s absence.Not sparing KL Rahul is understandable with an international series there for the taking, but could India have given one or two of the other Test regulars game time instead of them just sitting and watching a T20 international?Prithvi Shaw started his Australia tour with a duck•Getty ImagesDucks for both openersThough it is assumed that Agarwal is a lock in the opening role, there are question marks over who his partner will be. The incumbent Prithvi Shaw has had an ordinary year throughout, although that included only three first-class matches before this one. His IPL form might be in a completely different format, but he now has four ducks in his last seven innings. More than just the score though, what will worry India is the shot he played to get out today: a nothing push to a wide delivery, which even when middled wouldn’t have fetched a run. That is nothing but a recipe for disaster against the new ball in Australia.His competitor by the looks of it, Shubman Gill, faced only one delivery which seamed back in to take a healthy inside edge onto the pad only to be ballooned for a catch to slip. It wasn’t what anyone would call a bad shot, but he didn’t bat long enough to see what kind of form he is in. In theory, there are three more innings left before the first Test for both Shaw and Gill to impress the team management.Hanuma Vihari ahead of RahaneRahane will – by virtue of being appointed vice-captain – lead India once regular captain Virat Kohli leaves for paternity leave after the first Test. That makes his form further more important after starting his last few series with a question mark over his place in the side. He began nervously, playing and missing and even edging the medium-pacer Mark Steketee, but got into his work even as wickets fell at the other end. Whenever he got the opportunity, he transferred the pressure back by punishing every loose ball. The short delivery asked a few questions of him even when he was set, but overall the unbeaten 108 will lend him good confidence going into the Tests.However, there was another possible pointer: he didn’t promote himself to No. 4 in Kohli’s absence. Usually you see batsmen go one position up when someone is missing, but the Indians instead promoted Vihari for this game. Possibly Rahane is comfortable with his No. 5 spot with Vihari moving above him once Kohli leaves, leaving the No. 6 for one of Gill, Rahul or even Rohit Sharma to grab.Leg gully for PujaraAustralia’s Test captain Paine would have started getting déjà vu of the disconcerting sight of Pujara’s backside as he got into his usual attempt to grind out the bowling: 167 balls for his 69. However, this time there were slightly funky fields in place to test out certain plans: leg gully at first followed by silly mid-on later. Then something rare happened: a well-set Pujara fell against an Australian side without maximising the start when Pattinson had him gloving a short ball to leg gully. The short ball did trouble Pujara in New Zealand, but that is a side equipped with an attack – thanks to left-armer Neil Wagner – that can bother nearly anyone with the short ball. Do watch out, though, for the leg gully if Pujara gets in during the Tests.Travis Head celebrates a wicket•Getty ImagesWriddhiman Saha preferred to Rishabh PantPant has been India’s first-choice wicketkeeper in overseas Tests for his batting ability as well as because teams don’t need the purest of wicketkeeping on pitches that don’t turn. However, India chose to go with Saha in the tour game. This could change by the time the first Test arrives, though tour games have often been good indicators of what India intend to do in Tests. In New Zealand, for example, Pant batted ahead of Saha.Be that as it may, Saha managed just a duck here, thanks to what seemed a dubious lbw call to an offspinner from around the wicket as the ball might have pitched outside leg.Pattinson stakes a claimEither through injury or due to plenty of fast-bowling riches, Pattinson having played only 21 matches so far is a loss to Test cricket. Among those who have taken at least 80 Test wickets, Pattinson’s strike rate of 48.9 is No. 16. It is just that two men ahead of him are also part of the current Australian attack: Pat Cummins and Mitchell Starc. However, Starc has taken leave to tend to an illness in family and has not been in great form in the internationals so far this summer. If Starc doesn’t make it to Adelaide, Pattinson has made a right claim to that spot with a three-for, including the wicket of a well-set Pujara.Head captains PaineIt is interesting that Australia’s Test captain Paine was on the field but was led by Head. An equivalent of that would be Vihari leading Kohli in a match. There is already talk of Australia grooming Head for a possible leadership role in the future, but in the here and the now, at some point in the series, Head and Matthew Wade might come under pressure from Green to even keep that middle-order position.Green is a bowler who gets disconcerting bounce not much unlike Kyle Jamieson, who troubled India earlier in the year in New Zealand. However, Green’s bowling workload is being micro-managed: spells no longer than four overs, not more than eight overs in a day. And Head himself made an audition for the role of a part-time – and the only – spinner in the Australia A XI today, bringing himself on to relieve the fast bowlers and even ending up with the wickets of Saha and Kuldeep Yadav.

Of his 108 IPL wickets so far, 62 belong to openers and No. 3s. This is his game

Alagappan Muthu03-Nov-20201:41

Agarkar: Sandeep looks innocuous but gets the big wickets

Did you know that Sandeep Sharma and Jasprit Bumrah have virtually the same record in IPL cricket?No seriously. They do.One of them is a simple medium pacer who, it might seem, requires helpful conditions to be at his best. The other is an all-format bowling force. A once in a generation cricketer. And they have the same record.So how come one gets superstar billing and the other – while being a staple of the IPL – is largely looked over.Well the simple reason is Bumrah saves his team when the whole damn game is on the line. He comes on when Andre Russell is starting to get hot. He comes on when AB de Villiers is looking to go 360. He comes on when they go into a Super Over. These are all viciously pressure-riddled scenarios and Bumrah succeeds in them time and time again.That expressionless walk back to the top of his mark. The breath he takes before starting to run in. The awkward action. The awesome pace. The breathtaking clarity of mind. The machine-like execution. It’s like Hollywood built a fast bowler and dropped him in Ahmedabad for India to enjoy.ESPNcricinfoSandeep can’t live up to that billing. For one, he can’t bowl fast. And that limits your options so badly. Bouncers can become hit-me-for-six balls. Batsmen have extra time to move around the crease and mess up your lines and lengths. You’ll have to arm yourself with variations. It’s a of work.Luckily, Sandeep loves that. He slogs through thousands of overs in first-class cricket. Even though no one watches that. It might seem a silly gripe. But wouldn’t you want everyone to know when you do something well? Didn’t you run over to every single one of our family members to show that exam in which you got 100/100? Recognition is important. In a world dominated by social media, it can even be life-changing.Sandeep deserves it simply because he does this one thing as good as anybody else. Even Bumrah.He pwns top-order batsmen in the IPL.Here is a sample of his work. He has dismissed Virat Kohli seven times in 13 matches. He has knocked over Rohit Sharma four times in 14 matches. The latest was the result of a ball that moved in just a smidge and just late enough to mess with the timing of a chip that was meant to carry over mid-off. He has even taken down T20’s greatest batsman four times in 11 innings. Chris Gayle averages an anaemic 10.25 runs against this mean old merchant of the dibblies and dobblies.Through the course of Tuesday’s game – one that the Sunrisers had to win to make the playoffs – Sandeep overtook a World Cup winner in Zaheer Khan to become the most successful bowler in IPL powerplays. Of his 108 wickets in the tournament so far, 62 belong to openers and No. 3s. This is his game. This is his value. This is his genius. Sandeep is the powerplay Bumrah.His round-arm action pushes the ball in the opposite direction to which he wants it to swing it so that the movement is both subtle enough and late enough to beat the middle and take the edge. But he knows if things don’t go for him, he will likely get pasted. Quinton de Kock launched him for four, six and six in the fifth over in Sharjah but the next ball he faced nibbled just far enough away from his reach that he inside-edged it onto his stumps.Sandeep isn’t Hollywood. But he’s still very very good.

L Balaji and Varun Chakravarthy talk about bouncing back from Covid-19

Nagraj Gollapudi and Shashank Kishore 22-May-2021

Lakshmipathi Balaji – ‘Was I scared? I was worried’

As I was isolating on my own having tested positive for Covid-19, a thought crossed my mind: recovering from Covid-19, both physically and mentally, is like experiencing an episode of Man vs Wild.On May 2, I was feeling a bit of uneasiness. I had body ache and a mild nose block. I was tested the same day around mid-afternoon. By May 3 morning, I had tested positive. I was shocked. I had done nothing to breach the norms to endanger my and rest of the bubble’s safety.We had reached Delhi around April 26 from Mumbai. We were tested the next day followed by a match on April 28. The next day we had another test. On May 1, we played another match against Mumbai Indians. So I was confident that my immune system was strong enough and resistant to the coronavirus.Along with me, after the May 2 testing, two others including Kasi Viswanathan (Super Kings’ CEO) and a helping staff member had also tested positive. To ensure it was a false positive, we were tested again the same day. I tested positive for the second time. Promptly, I was moved to another floor at the team hotel, separate from the rest of the Super Kings squad.Was I scared? Initially I could not express my feelings. I knew people were dying outside. It took me another 24 hours to sink in the seriousness of issue once family and friends started to message. I started to get worried. From the second day in isolation I realised I had to monitor myself, recording all the health data. I was obviously anxious.I was also more worried about the others in my team who I was milling around with before I tested positive. Rajeev Kumar (CSK fielding coach), Robin [Uthappa] [Cheteshwar] Pujara, Deepak [Chahar] along with Kasi Sir were all around me. So my conscience was battling with the difficult question of what if any of these people tested positive, too? I was praying for their health.Then I came to know that Michael Hussey (Super Kings’ assistant coach), too, had tested positive. Till day we don’t know how or where we contracted the coronavirus. We had a very strict protocol within the bubble from first week of March when CSK’s preparatory camp started. After the experience in 2020 IPL when members of the CSK contingent tested positive, the franchise took maximum precautions even when we travelled from Chennai and Mumbai where we were based for the first leg of our IPL.Even in Delhi we followed the strict protocol. I don’t know where we might have caught the infection: was it at the ground? Was it at the training ground at the Roshanara Club? But that was secluded. And why should only two of us get it?With the situation very bad in Delhi which was in the firm grip of the pandemic, the CSK management was pro-active and flew both Hussey and myself in an air ambulance on May 6 to Chennai where we had round-the-clock medical care. It was a crucial and timely step. We were transported into the air ambulance wrapped separate oxygen pods. The pod itself takes a good few hours to build. The pod is like a transparent tunnel where you are enclosed. That is the safest way and the only way to fly a Covid-19 patient.Once in Chennai the anxiety that had gripped us in Delhi had been replaced by confidence. Mentally we became positive. I started to constantly exchanging messages with Hussey and we realised that many were dire situation outside. We were fortunate to be under better care. Eventually after spending about close to 12 days I returned home in Chennai on May 14.It is a journey of survival is how I look at it. Lakhs of people have been affected, and most of them recovered, but many were not lucky to survive due to different reasons. It has been an intense situation. In my career I have encountered several challenges, but it is different battle we are going through dealing with the pandemic.I realise now how lucky I was and that was because of the timely help of my franchise. It was huge effort to move get exemptions, clearances to shift us from Delhi to Chennai. But there are people out there who are waiting for hours and days on end to get help. We have to put in all our efforts to reach out and help out. Lives are at stake.Varun Chakravarthy has been struck down by post-covid symptoms•BCCIVarun Chakravarthy – ‘Still have weakness and dizziness’

The debate over India’s selection leading into the fourth Test has grown cacophonous. Who should play, who shouldn’t, and why?

Karthik Krishnaswamy31-Aug-2021The highs of Lord’s have quickly given way to the lows of Headingley, and, as is always the case after heavy defeat, the debate over India’s selection leading up to the fourth Test has grown cacophonous. Who should play, who shouldn’t, and why? Here are the major questions for India to answer going into The Oval.Should India play an extra batter?
They were bowled out for 78 on the first day at Headingley, and lost their last eight wickets for 63 on the fourth. While Virat Kohli said after the match that he has “never believed” in having a sixth specialist batter, and that having that batter would be “no guarantee” against such collapses, he has in the past picked combinations that included that extra batter and only four specialist bowlers.Related

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Jadeja taken to hospital for precautionary knee scans

There is a chance that India might be forced to go with six batters anyway, if the knee injury that Ravindra Jadeja suffered at Headingley rules him out of the fourth Test. On this tour, Jadeja has been more of a batting allrounder than a bowling allrounder, with his most telling contributions being his 56 at Trent Bridge and his first-innings 40 at Lord’s rather than his tight but mostly nonthreatening bowling, as his output of 15.2 overs per innings and his strike rate of 228.0 would suggest.If Jadeja is to be replaced, therefore, it’s his batting India will probably want to cover before his bowling. But even if he’s fit, India might consider playing a sixth batter, given the lack of runs from Ajinkya Rahane (who averages 19.00 in this series) and Rishabh Pant (17.40) in particular.If they pick a sixth batter, for whatever reason, the obvious choice would be Hanuma Vihari, but there’s also the option of shifting KL Rahul – who began the tour as a middle-order option – down the order and picking either Mayank Agarwal or Prithvi Shaw to open alongside Rohit Sharma. Vihari would probably be the likelier choice, given both his status as the next middle-order batter in line, and the utility he brings with his part-time offspin.