All posts by h716a5.icu

Cricket in Western Australia has gone from strength to strength since Justin Langer took over as coach. Now, Perth Scorchers have the chance for a third straight BBL title.

Tristan Lavalette21-Jan-2016Sometime before Friday’s BBL semi-final showdown with Melbourne Stars at the MCG, Perth Scorchers coach Justin Langer will meet with revered Australian Rules football coach Alastair Clarkson. A get-together of two of Australia’s most hardnosed coaches is revealing, though hardly surprising. There are many parallels between the tenacious characters credited with almost single-handedly resurrecting their respective teams.As senior coach of three-time defending Australian Football League (AFL) premiers Hawthorn, Clarkson has transformed a group of misfits into a juggernaut. In 11 seasons with Clarkson at the helm, the Hawks have played in five grand finals – winning four- and stamped themselves as once again the AFL’s undisputed powerhouse after being the trendsetters in the 1970s and ’80s.You feel Langer has used Clarkson’s ascension with the Hawks as a template in his own coaching blueprint with Western Australia and the Scorchers. If they defeat the Stars, the Scorchers will compete in their fifth consecutive BBL final on Sunday.Under Langer, the Scorchers have played in three straight BBL finals, winning the last two. Western Australia have been runner-up in the Sheffield Shield the past two seasons having not previously made a final since 1999. They also won the 2014-15 Matador Cup, Australia’s domestic one-day tournament, having not placed higher than third in the previous decade.It has been a remarkable renaissance for WA cricket after such a barren period this millennium, which hit a nadir in late 2012 when the Marsh brothers, Shaun and Mitchell, were axed from the Scorchers’ Champions League Twenty20 campaign in South Africa.They were dumped after a night of partying to celebrate Mitchell’s 21st birthday; it was highly embarrassing for the brothers, putting their international prospects at the crossroads, but, more worryingly, it reinforced WA’s festering culture marked by ill-discipline. It reduced WA cricket to a punchline, as its halcyon days stretching from the 1970s throughout the 1990s had become a distant memory.Disenchanted by this, some of the state’s greatest ever cricket figures pleaded with then WACA vice-president Sam Gannon for a coaching shake-up. Dennis Lillee, Rod Marsh, John Inverarity and Adam Gilchrist wanted Langer, who was then Australia’s batting coach, in the coach’s hot seat in a desperate bid to arrest the decline.For Langer, taking the reins of his beloved WA was a “no-brainer” but the support he received from the top was crucial in his bid to overhaul the team’s culture. “From day one, I had overwhelming support and lots of rope to make changes,” Langer tells ESPNcricinfo. “The most important thing is we had hit rock bottom. There were lots of issues off-field and performances on-field had become mediocre. We needed to be proud to be West Aussie again, and clearly strong change was needed.”Langer had learnt greatly from his captaincy of WA in 2007, after his international career had ended, which was relatively fruitless due to an apparent resistance of his leadership style. “When I was captain in 2007, I was perceived to be too serious and setting expectation too high. It was a good experience in leadership,” Langer says.Immediately after replacing Lachlan Stevens as WA’s coach in November of 2012, Langer made it his priority to seek out Shaun Marsh, who was languishing in WA’s Second XI after having started the year playing Test cricket. Langer’s stern and frank talk with Shaun is credited as the catalyst for the talented batsman’s revival. “I talked to Shaun, his manager and his parents – who are some of my closest friends,” Langer recalls. “I looked him in the face and I said ‘I will always love you but if you step out of place, you can’t be in the organisation … you can’t afford to make one mistake’. I think he appreciated the honesty and from then Shaun has been outstanding.”There was no ranting or raving from Langer to his new players. He knew the team had talent, as evidenced by them making the inaugural BBL final, but it was clearly not being harnessed properly. Respected coaches Tom Moody and Mickey Arthur had previously tried to rejuvenate WA, leaving Langer to think the problems were deep-seated.Helping the Marsh brothers to progress has been one of Langer’s achievements•Getty ImagesOn arrival, Langer realised discipline had been preached but the message was not getting through. There were so many rules that, in effect, it had become too suffocating and confusing. “I went in with a clear message and imparted values that I had learnt from the great WA and Australian teams,” Langer says. “There had to be a buy-in to the values as we hadn’t earned the right yet. The values were based on working hard, respecting the past, looking after mates and celebrating success.”We had rules they must uphold, such as the players were never allowed to get drunk in public, they needed to be responsible with alcohol. Common sense, keeping things simple and no mobile phones at training were other key rules.”Banning mobile phones in the workplace could appear rather archaic, but Langer is unrelenting in his belief that they stymie communication. “When I was playing county cricket, players were always on their phones and it made us look so unprofessional. We are there to do a job,” Langer says. “If people are on their phones, then there is no communication. They don’t talk to each other. I saw this in the Australian dressing room, where players were texting each other in the same room. I have threatened to throw mobiles from the balcony.”Has he ever gone through with that threat?”It’s a secret,” Langer responds slyly.The collective reverence towards Langer from his players is palpable and genuine. That adoration has manifested on-field, with the team showcasing the inimitable traits that defined Langer’s indefatigable playing career.Notably, the Scorchers haven’t been particularly sleek but a healthy dose of resoluteness and pluck has made them the BBL’s trendsetter. You can never write the Scorchers off, even in the direst of situations. They generally find a way to eke out victories. No matter the result, you can’t question their intent.Smartly, the Scorchers have resisted the temptation of splurging on glossy international players, preferring to build around a local core. Continuity has been a trademark of the team and helps explain their sustained success in cricket’s most volatile format. “Cricket Australia probably wouldn’t like me saying this, but we want to build a sustainable program for WA cricket 12 months a year, not 11 months,” Langer says. “We primarily want to give players from our squad a chance and use this stability as our competitive advantage. We have a really clear strategy with overseas players, they are the cream on top. We do not build a franchise around them like some other teams do.”Langer’s overwhelming success has made him the likely successor to Australia coach Darren Lehmann. Accordingly, Langer will become Australia’s caretaker coach during their tour of the Caribbean mid-year in an effort to give Lehmann a welcome break.While a succession plan is seemingly underway, Langer is reluctant to get too ahead of himself. “Life is about timing, maybe I’ll coach Australia one day,” he says. “I look forward to the Caribbean but it is a caretaker role and is about giving Boof a few weeks off. Being an international coach sounds glamorous but you’re away from home 11 months of the year. It’s incredibly taxing.”In typical Langer fashion, he’s only focusing on the task ahead. Right now, his concentration is centred on the Scorchers’ historic bid for a hat-trick of BBL titles.”I am nervous [ahead of the semi-final]. I am always nervous before games,” Langer says. “It is all about creating great memories. Statistics don’t mean a lot when your career is over. Celebrating wins is what I remember from my playing days.”[The hat-trick of titles] is an unbelievable opportunity. We have a chance to create a great legacy.”

Stats highlights of this season’s Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy

Bharath Seervi21-Jan-20162005-06 Last time Uttar Pradesh won a domestic title, before winning this Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy. They had won the Ranji Trophy title on that occasion. They ended as a runner-up in the 2007-08 and 2008-09 Ranji seasons, and also in Ranji One-Day Trophy in 2005-06. On this occasion, they beat Baroda by 38 runs in the final at the Wankhede Stadium. Two seasons ago, in 2013-14, against the same oppositions and at the same venue they had lost by three runs in the final.2 Times a team has won the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy without losing a match. Uttar Pradesh won all their nine games. Bengal had done this in 2010-11, winning each of their eight matches.60-31 Win-loss record of teams chasing in this competition; the win-loss ratio of 1.935 for teams fielding first is the highest in any season. This is the third time when teams chasing have won more matches than teams batting first, after the 2010-11 season when the win-loss ratio was 1.093 (32 out of 68) and the 2012-13 season when it was 1.285 (45 out of 81). Incidentally, all of the 16 Super League matches were won by teams fielding first. The final was won by the team batting first though.7.17 Average run rate this series – second-best in a Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy series after 2009-10, when the scoring-rate was 7.44 an over. Also, the average runs per wicket in this series of 21.03 is the second-best after 2009-10, when it was 21.27.21.46 Average opening stand – the worst for any of the seven seasons played so far. In 2012-13, an average of 21.73 runs were scored per dismissal, which was the previous worst. The highest average by opening stands was in 2009-10, when it was 29.08. There were four century partnerships for the first wicket this season though, second-most after 2009-10 and 2013-14 when there were five.28.9 Balls per six in the tournament – least among all seasons. Last season, a six was hit every 30.4 deliveries and one every 33.9 balls in the season before that. As many as 715 sixes were hit in this series. The previous highest was 595 sixes in 2014-15. Overall, however, a boundary (fours and sixes) was hit every 7.3 balls in 2015-16, only the third least in a Syed Mushtaq Ali series.4 Centuries made in 2015-16, the joint second highest in a Syed Mushtaq Ali series after 2012-13 when there were six hundreds. There were four hundreds made last year as well.377 Runs scored by Baroda’s Hardik Pandya – the most by a batsman in a Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy season going past Avi Barot’s 369 in 2013-14 for Haryana. Pandya played two consecutive innings of 81* off 51 and 86* off 46. Also, his average of 53.83 is the second highest in a season among the 12 batsmen who made 300 or more runs; Mayank Agarwal’s 61.40 in 2012-13 is the highest (scored 307 runs). Click here for highest run-getters in this season.39 Runs made in one over bowled by Delhi’s Akash Sudan in the last group match – the most expensive in T20 cricket beating the 38-run over by James Fuller for Gloucestershire against Sussex’s Scott Styris in England in 2012. The previous record for most runs in an over in T20s in India was the one bowled by Prasanth Parameswaran to Chris Gayle in 2011 IPL when 37 runs were leaked. Pandya plundered 34 runs off that Sudan over – the second highest by a batsman in a T20 in India after Gayle’s 36 runs off Parameswaran’s over.21 Sixes by Delhi’s Nitish Rana – most by anyone in a season going past Sagun Kamat (2013-14) and Tirumalasetti Suman (2014-15) who had hit 19 sixes. Pandya also hit 19 sixes this season with 14 of them in two consecutive innings.175.88 Rana’s strike rate – the highest by a batsman facing 150 or more balls in a season. He scored 299 runs in 170 balls at an average of 42.71, including three fifties with a highest of 97.3 Number of players who have scored 150-plus runs and taken 15 or more wickets as captain in any T20 series. Irfan Pathan – who captained Baroda – did it in this Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy with 200 runs and 17 wickets in 10 matches. The other captains to do it before him are: Shakib Al Hasan, with 280 runs and 15 wickets in 11 matches in the 2011-12 Bangladesh Premier League and Dwayne Bravo, who made 173 runs and took 28 wickets in 13 matches in the Caribbean Premier League in 2015. Pathan averaged 40 with bat and 15.76 with ball this season.3 Times Cheepurapalli Stephen took four or more wickets in an innings playing for Andhra – most such hauls by anyone this year. Seven others have taken two such hauls in a season, including Ranjit Mali, Nathu Singh and Irfan Pathan.3 Centuries by Unmukt Chand in T20s, including the one he hit this year. He scored 108 playing for Delhi against Gujarat in a Super League match. His previous two centuries came in 2012-13 in consecutive innings. No India batsman has scored more than three T20 centuries; Rohit Sharma and Suresh Raina have three centuries each. Only Gayle (5) and David Warner (4) have scored more centuries in T20 cricket in India than Chand.

Mustafizur Rahman’s rise continued at the IPL, where he led his team Sunrisers Hyderabad to the title, but his toughest challenges are yet to come

Mohammad Isam01-Jun-2016″Bulu, did you see who’s inside?””There was the foreign coach, and another guy wearing t-shirt. Who is he?” Bulu asked breathlessly and then walked away briskly, as usual.Bulu is a tea-maker for cricket stars. He has souvenirs from Sachin Tendulkar and MS Dhoni. He once advised Tamim Iqbal on his form. But he couldn’t recognise Mustafizur Rahman sitting in the physio’s room at the National Cricket Academy in Mirpur.Bulu’s official duty is to help take care of the media. Only minutes had passed before he returned with a bottle of water for the journalists waiting outside. “How come there are so many cameras here?” he asked softly.It was only when Mustafizur came out of the room, and feigned running away from the cameras, that Bulu recognised who he was.*****Mustafizur’s IPL campaign – 17 wickets at 24.76 – went as his Bangladesh captain Mashrafe Mortaza had predicted. Perhaps even better, considering the 20-year old left-arm quick and his team Sunrisers Hyderabad emerged champions.”I said it in interviews before the IPL, even as far back as November last year, that he [Mustafizur] would trouble all the batsmen in the world,” Mashrafe told ESPNcricinfo. “From the way he troubled top international batsmen in 2015, I knew that those in the IPL would have a tough time taking him on. And as you have seen, it wasn’t easy for anyone.”From what I have seen of him in the tournament, Mustafizur has used the yorker quite well. It came in handy for him to keep the run-rate down. Batsmen know that he is all about the cutter, which makes them think of him differently. So he has improved a lot, and with more experience he will do better.”Mustafizur’s economy rate of 6.90 was the best in the IPL, under condition of 120 balls bowled. He was named the Emerging Player of the Season, but he was already a vital cog for Bangladesh in limited-overs cricket, having helped them to series wins over India, South Africa and Zimbabwe in 2015.*****Mustafizur has never spoken about what kind of ball he prefers – red or white, new or old. He has opened the bowling in all of his 14 first-class matches and nine ODIs but the bulk of his wickets have come in late spells.Considering only three days’ cricket were possible in his debut Test series, Mustafizur could bowl no more than 22.4 overs across two innings. Three of his four wickets – Hashim Amla, JP Duminy and Quinton de Kock – came with the old ball.Similarly in ODIs, 18 of his 26 wickets have come after he has bowled five overs in a match. His captains – Mashrafe and Mushfiqur Rahim for Bangladesh, Kumar Sangakkara for Dhaka Dynamites in the BPL, and David Warner in the IPL – preferred to use him in the slog overs.Mustafizur is expected to be critical to Bangladesh’s ODI plans, especially in the 2017 Champions Trophy, and for ensuring automatic qualification for the 2019 World Cup. So it won’t be surprising if he is given time off from Test cricket.*****Mustafizur is contracted to play limited-overs cricket for Sussex in the English county season. The BCB hasn’t decided when they will send Mustafizur, and the man himself is not keen on another stint outside his beloved Tetulia village in southwest Bangladesh.Coaches and former cricketers believe he should go to UK because playing in different environments would help him grow as a player. The Bangladesh management, however, is worried about overexposure.Participating in domestic tournaments around the world could lead to batsmen figuring out the mystery of his cutters, and possibly result in him becoming a diminished force for his country. In the IPL final, Virat Kohli was able to take him on by stepping out of his crease or making room to the leg side. But Mustafizur is said to have a beautiful cricketing brain and he is a tremendous competitor. As he showed in the IPL, his yorkers beat batsmen who may have thought the only threat he posed was with the slower ball.Mustafizur has generated a lot of interest in Bangladesh, and around the world. Shakib Al Hasan and Mohammad Ashraful had done the same during their careers, and at times had been handled poorly. It is important that the team management and the BCB do better considering Mustafizur’s temperament. He is still a shy, small-town boy and he will need help handling off-field issues.Mustafizur is a rare bowler. Fitness and form withstanding, he will stoke the club v country debate regularly in the coming years. He will need to be guided properly, given the right signals, and then the freedom to express himself.

While his team-mates were prone to losing concentration on the cusp of breaks in play, Virat Kohli steeled himself to stay until stumps and brought up another Test ton

Karthik Krishnaswamy in Antigua 22-Jul-20161:03

Manjrekar: ‘Kohli reminds me of Tendulkar’

Four wickets down, 302 on the board. An excellent first day for a batting side, by almost any measure. Almost. India’s number six was R Ashwin, a man who has played 32 Test matches, a man with undoubted batting talent, but also a man who had never batted anywhere in the top six before, and had batted at seven only twice. On Thursday, Ashwin walked in at 236 for 4, a far less secure situation than 302 for 4.At the other end was Virat Kohli, batting on 99.Kohli had just watched Ajinkya Rahane fall against the run of play to a long hop. Not too long before that, in the final over before tea, he had watched Shikhar Dhawan, who had curbed his instincts for four hours to score 84, fall to a high-risk shot: a sweep played to a ball pitched on middle stump, by a legspinner. Deliveries from legspinners pitching on middle stump often straighten to hit middle stump, or, as in Dhawan’s case, the front pad. And just after lunch, Kohli had walked into the middle after Cheteshwar Pujara had got himself out to another long hop.Three wickets carelessly given away, three wickets given away against the run of play, two of them close to breaks in play.On the eve of the match, Kohli had spoken about the need to guard against that sort of thing.”We have discussed this quite a lot, since the [2014-15] tour of Australia. We have felt the breaks – lunch break, tea break, drinks break – we tend to lose a lot of wickets around this time. It’s a matter of experience. We were losing our concentration, and not realising how important those moments are in a Test match.”He had also spoken about India identifying the need to attack the opposition in the first Test of a series, and to play their best possible bowling combination in order to do so. He had backed his words in the most comprehensive way possible. Kohli’s India had played five bowlers before, but one of them was usually an allrounder such as Stuart Binny or Ravindra Jadeja. Now neither was in the side, and the five bowlers were five .This was why Ashwin was batting at No. 6. And he came in as early as he did because of three soft dismissals, two of them close to breaks, two of them watched from 22 yards away by the very person who had spoken of the need to avoid such lapses.They had committed those lapses against a team that had seemed set for two days on the field, a team with one genuine fast bowler, one genuine spinner, and two 128 kph workhorses who were in the side in large part for their batting ability. It was a bowling attack of a team that seemed bent on drawing the Test before a ball had been bowled. Given the resources available to them – the one other fast bowler in their squad, Miguel Cummins, was yet to make his Test debut – it may even have been a prudent selection.Shannon Gabriel, the one genuine fast bowler in the West Indies XI, had begun the day by removing one of India’s openers in a nasty spell of short-pitched bowling. But that spell had only lasted four overs, and his next spell, close to lunch, only three. Every time he went out of the attack, the threat to India’s batsmen dwindled visibly.Virat Kohli held firm to finish 143 not out at the close of day one in Antigua•Associated PressAnd so, when the third-wicket partnership between Dhawan and Kohli passed the 100 mark, West Indies almost seemed resigned to conceding 500. And yet, somehow, India slipped to 236 for 4.For once, it was hard to read displeasure in Kohli’s body language. He probably felt it. But all he could do was carry on batting. Just as he had done till then.When Kohli came to the crease, India were 74 for 2 in 27.4 overs. They were going at less than three runs an over. Carlos Brathwaite, bowling wide of off stump and testing India’s patience, had figures of 6-2-6-0, because Dhawan and Pujara had been as patient as the tactic demanded, with an early wicket down and the ball still new.The first time Brathwaite bowled that line to Kohli, he took a long stride out, reached for the ball, and drove him into the covers for three. He was batting on 26, but he had done the same thing against Jason Holder, West Indies’ other run-drying workhorse, when he had been batting on 0.This need to feel bat on ball has been Kohli’s weakness in conditions where the ball moves around, but here, with the sun out, the ball shorn of its shine, and against friendly medium-paced bowling, he probably reckoned it was a risk worth taking.It proved to be so, and the reward was a strike rate that rattled along in the 70s. Twice – once off Gabriel when on 19, and then off Brathwaite when on 37 – he reached out and sliced the ball dangerously wide of gully. But those were the only false steps in an innings where he achieved a 94% control rate.It was an approach that probably only Kohli among India’s batsmen could have taken, for he has consistently shown across formats an ability to make risky shots look mundane during his ongoing, and seemingly endless, run of form. Take this shot he played against Devendra Bishoo when on 83. A well-flighted delivery, landing on a length that forced Kohli into a big front-foot stretch. It pitched on off stump, and Kohli flicked it between midwicket and mid-on. It wasn’t the rubbery bottom-handed Kohli whip we are accustomed to seeing. This was a daintier creation, a last-second improvisation born of that long, smooth stride that brought his head on top of the ball, and the recognition – possibly off the pitch rather than out of the hand – that this was a googly.Strokes of this kind peppered Kohli’s innings. The loose balls disappeared as you might expect, and reasonably good ones went into gaps as well, manipulated by neat footwork and a pair of hands and wrists that is perhaps the best in the cricketing world today. Twenty-eight of his 143 runs came in twos and threes.On a pitch that seemed to flatten out as the day went on, against a bowling attack with only one real threat, there were moments when batting almost seemed too easy for Kohli. But, as his team-mates showed, snares lay waiting for that one mistake, that one moment of carelessness. This, after all, was still Test cricket.

The India A squad travels to Australia on Thursday, but the composition remains unknown thanks to last-minute changes the BCCI has neither acknowledged nor explained

Arun Venugopal03-Aug-2016On June 25, the India A squad to tour Australia for a quadrangular one-day series and two four-day matches was announced through a BCCI press release, but late changes have been made to that squad.The selectors had named the same squad for both formats with Naman Ojha as captain. With less than a week before the team’s departure, reported that Naman Ojha had been replaced by Manish Pandey for the limited-overs leg; Pandey would be the captain for the quadrangular series and Ojha would lead the side in the four-day games.The team departs for Australia on Thursday, but the BCCI has neither confirmed nor denied the story. There is no acknowledgement that last-minute changes have been made, its media manager has not responded to ESPNcricinfo’s queries, and nobody outside the BCCI is sure which players are travelling to Australia for which format. ESPNcricinfo has independently verified that the change has been made, and that Pandey for Ojha is not the only change in the squads.Akhil Herwadkar, who initially featured in the squad for both legs, will now be a part of only the four-day matches, while Hardik Pandya, who wasn’t part of the initial 16-member squad, will now replace the injured Vijay Shankar in both formats. Mandeep Singh and Yuzvendra Chahal have also been drafted into the limited-overs side.A BCCI source attributed the late changes to a “communication gap” in the selection process, and said the original idea was to pick two separate squads. “We started off with two teams but in the middle there was a communication gap that’s why we kept certain boys in the standby list,” he said. “(The) information has come a little late. Definitely it’s a little embarrassing for someone like Naman Ojha.”It is understood the selectors were initially in favour of players for specific formats, and had a few players like Mandeep and Hardik on stand-by. However, unclear communication apparently led to a delay in the board signing off on the changes made to the team. The board source, though, denied there was lack of clarity while naming the initial squad.”Everybody was clear (about the players to be selected),” he said. “(But) subsequently different sides were picked for (multiple) day matches and one-dayers after considering the future options (for the Indian team), like whether Naman Ojha is in the race for one-day spot or the Test spot. Accordingly, the changes were made. Suddenly Vijay Shankar got injured, so there are quite a few things, which happened but otherwise we were very clear. Players like Hardik and Mandeep Singh are future prospects and they need to be given exposure to white-ball cricket.”Ojha said on Tuesday he was informed of the decision “five-six days” ago. “There are 15 (13) Test matches this season so it (playing the four-day games) is good for me,” he told ESPNcricinfo. “I have time to prepare well on my batting and keeping, and I will not burn out. I can now train harder for two more weeks (before leaving for Australia for the four-day leg).”By all accounts it is possible there is nothing sinister about the changes. The logic might even be sound: Ojha is 33, he is not the next India limited-overs wicketkeeper, and like Tests and ODIs it makes sense to have two different squads. There might be logic to it but there was no communication or explanation behind the changes, or knowledge of when the BCCI realised these changes were necessary. The fact that nobody from the BCCI has owned up to this on the record just forces observers to look for reasons other than cricket logic.

Not yet, as numbers and Dhoni will tell you, but they need more from the lower middle order to squash that notion

Arun Venugopal and Shiva Jayaraman 28-Oct-2016Virat Kohli’s rapid and sustained rise over the last few years has brought inevitable comparisons with Sachin Tendulkar. In less than a decade since making his ODI debut, Kohli has marked himself out by acing the chasing game. He has numbers to go with it: 14 hundreds in successful chases, already level with Tendulkar. Kohli has batted in 59 successful chases, Tendulkar did so in 124.As with Tendulkar, Kohli’s dismissals are greeted with gasps of resignation. When Kohli got out in Delhi and Ranchi, for 9 and 45 respectively, there was that sudden, piercing silence again, one that most Indian cricket fans who grew up in the ’90s would be familiar with. The immediate throwaway line has been: it’s just like Tendulkar, Kohli gone, India lose. Especially in chases; in 2015, for instance, Kohli scored less than 12 in four of the five ODIs India lost chasing. Is it then a throwback to the era when Tendulkar’s failure would inevitably result in India’s defeat or is it just an emotional reaction?There is no doubt India win much more often when Kohli scores a fifty or more in a chase. While chasing 200 or more, India have won 23 of 32 games when Kohli has completed his half-century. When Kohli hasn’t reached fifty, India have managed only 20 wins from 44 chases of over 200. In those 20 chases that were won without a big contribution from Kohli, there were 36 scores of 50 or more from other specialist batsmen. Rohit Sharma has scored seven of those.MS Dhoni, too, doesn’t believe India is a one-batsman team, and isn’t inclined to read too much into the numbers thrown up because the sample is not large enough for him. “If you see the last one, one-and-a-half years, we haven’t played a lot of ODI cricket,” he said after India lost to New Zealand by 19 runs in Ranchi. “I can say that the stats actually don’t reflect the exact scenario because also at that period I have batted at a different position and our top order was batting brilliantly.”The numbers largely appear to corroborate Dhoni’s view. In all ODIs where India have chased since 2014, they have won five games and lost as many when Kohli has scored at least 50. He has scored two hundreds and three fifties in losing causes during this period. In the 17 games that Kohli has scored less than 50, India’s record hasn’t been too bad: they have won nine wins and lost eight. In the nine wins that came without Kohli making a half-century, Shikhar Dhawan has contributed a century and four half-centuries while Rohit Sharma has struck three fifties. The rest of the batsmen have chipped in with four hundreds and three fifties. Kohli has scored 25.76% (813 out of 3156) of India’s top-order runs in successful chases in ODIs since 2014. Dhawan is second on the list with 18.25%.These numbers reveal that despite Kohli’s overwhelming contribution to India’s successful chases, the team hasn’t been overly dependent on him. However, the numbers don’t tell you what happens when India fail despite a Kohli century or fifty. What happens after he is gone?A good example of how Kohli’s dismissal exposes a middle order that isn’t well versed in finishing games came in Canberra at the start of the year. Set a target of 349, Kohli and Dhawan racked up hundreds. At 277 for 1 in the 38th over, India looked like they would complete the chase fairly easily, but once Kohli departed within two overs of the dismissals of Dhawan and Dhoni, India’s middle order unravelled, with only Ravindra Jadeja getting into double digits.Similarly in the Rajkot ODI against South Africa, Kohli batted deep but his departure, with 55 required off 29 balls, snuffed out India’s chase. When the “Tendulkar-falls-India-lose” era ended, India had match-winners following him: Rahul Dravid, Dhoni, Yuvraj Singh. That Dhoni is not finishing matches now, and that India’s two other match-winners in recent times – Rohit and Dhawan – bat before Kohli accentuates the “Kohli-falls-India-lose” impression.The numbers will tell you India are not over-dependent on Kohli – at least not yet – but the impression they are coincides with their struggle to find somebody who can make his own the slot vacated by Yuvraj. Not even Suresh Raina – good as he has been – has been able to provide that presence consistently. With Dhoni moving up to No.4, suggesting the youngsters need to learn finishing innings by themselves, India’s overreliance on Kohli may be more than just a feeling.

On a dissimilar surface to the ones they’ve encountered in recent home Tests, India’s bowlers lacked consistency and failed to adapt, raising questions about their overall efficiency

Alagappan Muthu14-Nov-20160:51

Ganguly: Ishant should replace Umesh in Visakhapatnam

The Rajkot Test was filled with tough lessons for India. But a draw was secured, and the team moves on to Visakhapatnam, its picture postcard beaches and possibly turning pitches.At the most recent international match played at the venue, Amit Mishra picked up five wickets and New Zealand were bowled out for 79 after having been 63 for 2. Before the start of that ODI, the host broadcaster’s pitch report suggested it would be a belter. Fifty or so overs in, it was turning from one corner to the other.India’s bowlers may not mind a similar setting come Thursday. They tend to work better when there’s something in it for them, much the way children are far more inclined to do their chores when they get extra dessert at dinner. Work needs incentive and, often, it is in the form of chocolate cake.They weren’t too bad in Rajkot. In fact, Umesh Yadav and Mohammed Shami were able to find reverse swing when it looked like none of England’s bowlers could. They created chances with the new ball on the first day but were let down by their fielders. R Ashwin, often the big brother pulling this bowling attack out of trouble, crafted two fine wickets to redress the dropped catches but from there on; from the second session of the Test, India slowly lost their way.It raised a familiar question. Can India’s bowlers be effective on a good pitch?England outclassed India with both bat and ball in the first Test, albeit after winning a crucial toss•Associated PressIt’s a difficult proposition because the window of opportunity you have is quite small. Say the first half hour when you can expect some sideways movement. Making the batsman play as much as possible in this period is vital. So too is attacking each one’s weaknesses. For example, India rarely tried to bounce Moeen Ali when they themselves had success with the ploy before. England were very keen to test Cheteshwar Pujara with the short ball.The other thing when dealing with stubborn pitches is having a clear plan and sticking to it. When the batsman knows there is no seam or swing or spin, when he can trust the pace and bounce, it is only the bowler’s discipline that creates doubt: keeping the ball outside off stump if he is susceptible to nicking off, getting closer if he tends to get bowled or lbw. Be boring. Be repetitive. Play on his ego. Induce the mistake. Savour the triumph.India were lacking in this regard. At times, it seemed like they didn’t have an idea of what they wanted to do. They were hoping for wickets rather than pushing for them. They were hoping to keep the runs down rather than devising ways to find wickets. They had an in-out field on the second morning in Rajkot. Yet, they conceded 21 boundaries in a single session. This spell of play forced India so far back in the match that it required their five batsmen to bat at their peak not once but twice to save it. Could they have done so had they conceded 537 runs in the first innings away from home?In Rajkot, India’s spinners did not turn up when they were needed the most•Associated PressLosing the toss was a mitigating factor, a sizeable one. It meant India had to bowl when the pitch was at its most docile. England too conceded a total of 488. But they made the batsmen take a lot longer to get there. Chris Woakes took the pitch out of the equation with his pace. Stuart Broad was skillful enough to repeatedly hit a crack, which ran length-wise down the pitch, to see if it could give him some natural variation.There are ways to overcome a stubborn pitch. The margin of error is small and it often takes an exceptional effort to succeed but there are ways.Harking back to the Eden Gardens where India clinched the No. 1 Test ranking, Virat Kohli was noticeably chipper. He had won the Test mace a year into full-time captaincy, he had another series victory on his record and the signs pointed to dominance over the entire home season in 2016-17. But the reasons for his happiness were none of those things. The batsmen did well on a seamer-friendly surface. The fast bowlers outdid New Zealand’s, who were arguably more used to such conditions. Kohli had seen his team stand up to adversity. He wouldn’t want that to be a one shot.

Key numbers from the first Test, including Steve O’Keefe’s control percentage and Australia’s scoring pattern against R Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja

Bharath Seervi and Gaurav Sundararaman25-Feb-20170 Wickets taken by Steve O’Keefe from the Pavilion End, from nine overs. All 12 of his wickets came from the Hill End. O’Keefe did not bowl from the Pavilion End after his first spell in the first innings. In the second innings, he began from the Hill End and continued bowling from that end unchanged. Of the 20 India wickets, 16 were taken by a bowler bowling from the Hill End. Of the four taken by bowlers bowling from the Pavilion End, three were taken by Nathan Lyon, the last three dismissals in the match.79 The control percentage for Indian batsmen against O’Keefe, which means 21% of the time he drew false strokes from the Indian batsmen. Despite taking 12 wickets in the game, O’Keefe wasn’t the bowler who forced the highest percentage of false shots from batsmen; against Nathan Lyon, the control percentage for India’s batsmen was only 70, which suggests he was unlucky to not take more than five wickets in the match. In fact, India’s two spinners main drew more false shots than O’Keefe: Australia’s control percentage was only 76 against R Ashwin and 73 against Ravindra Jadeja. However, O’Keefe’s fuller length, and the fact that he got less turn, ensured that he got the edges and the wickets, while the other spinners beat the bat more often.67 Average of India’s top-five batsmen against left-arm spinners before this series – each of them averaged above 45, with Cheteshwar Pujara and Virat Kohli averaging above 100. In this match, each of them were dismissed by O’Keefe at least once and their collective average fell to 56.25. In the 2016-17 season, other visiting left-arm spinners picked up 11 wickets giving away 839 runs, an average of 76.27. In this match alone, O’Keefe picked 12 wickets at an average of 5.83.14 Dismissals for India while playing a defensive shot. Australia, on the other hand, lost 14 wickets while looking to attack and six while defending.4 Number of reviews India took when fielding, and were wrong on all occasions. On the other hand, Australia reviewed only once when fielding and got it right. Australia batsmen reviewed six times and got two right while India batsmen got one right in three attempts. In the third innings, off two consecutive overs of Jayant Yadav India reviewed and got both wrong thus finishing their reviews and in the 56th over when Steve Smith could have been out if India had reviews left. In the fourth innings, both openers reviewed Umpire’s decision and had failed, thus India lost both their reviews very early in the innings. Overall, both teams used seven reviews, the visitors had three successes and hosts only one.

When batting When fielding Team No. of reviews Successful No. of reviews SuccessfulIndia 3 1 4 0Australia 6 2 1 165 Percentage of runs scored by the Australian batsmen on the off side against R Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja. Jadeja conceded 72% of his runs came on the off side while the figure was 60% for Ashwin in the same region. During his century, Steven Smith scored 77% of his runs against Jadeja on the off side while 75% of runs scored against Ashwin were towards the leg side. Smith did not play against the spin much, thereby reducing the risk of getting dismissed.79.01 Percentage of dot balls Smith faced off Jadeja. Against each of the other three bowlers – Ashwin, Umesh Yadav and Jayant – he did not have more than 56% in dot balls. He had a strike rate of over 60 against each of the other three bowlers, but only 38.27 against Jadeja and finally lost his wicket to him.12 Percentage of runs scored by Australia off the sweep and reverse sweep. Australia scored 39 runs through the sweep and 17 runs through the reverse sweep while losing one wicket to the same. This has been an effective shot in the sub-continent. India, on the other hand, had the opportunity to sweep only eight times scoring 18 runs from those.

Amid the euphoria of their post-World Cup ODI revival, England showed fallibility in pressure matches and in less-than-perfect batting conditions. These very failings led to their undoing in a global semi-final on a tricky, used pitch in Cardiff

Andrew McGlashan in Cardiff14-Jun-2017The last time England and Pakistan met in the knockout stages of a one-day tournament was Melbourne in 1992. English hearts were broken by Imran Khan and Wasim Akram. It was also when they were last regarded as a genuine force in the 50-over game until this current crop of players came together over the past two years. Now, 25 years later, Pakistan have done it again. This time it was barely contest.It had looked like the stars had aligned for England with the bowling attack, even in the absence of the injured Chris Woakes, finding its teeth during the matches against New Zealand and Australia to supplement an awe-inspiring batting order. They were the only unbeaten team through the group stage and the one issue was the form of Jason Roy, who lost his place to Jonny Bairstow for the semi-final.Even that change appeared to have improved things for England. Bairstow made 43, albeit not entirely convincingly, in a solid start. Unlike 1992, the lbws went England’s way too: Bairstow was saved by a narrow umpire’s call off the second ball of the match and Alex Hales reprieved after he’d been given out to one that pitched outside leg. They were also facing a Pakistan attack without Mohammad Amir, who had been ruled out with a back spasm.Instead it turned into a punishing day. The mitigation of it being a tricky used pitch – the same one which had hosted the final group game two days ago – quickly diminished as Pakistan made light of conditions. Fakhar Zaman, one of the finds of the tournament, broke the back of the chase with a century stand alongside Azhar Ali at more than five-and-a-half an over. In every aspect of the game, Pakistan were better.There had been signs that England would struggle to blaze their way to 300-plus, but little to suggest the demise which would unfold when they were 128 for 2 in the 28th over and on course for at least 250. Then Joe Root edged a cut against Shadab Khan, having not found the boundary for 36 deliveries. From the 30-over mark of the innings, when England have so often more than doubled their score, they managed just three fours amid some outstanding bowling.But even allowing for the quality of the bowling, England appeared timid. One of the questions asked of this side is how they adapt when 300 isn’t par, or even below par. There had been glimmers of a different approach on slower pitches in the West Indies earlier this year, but the opposition were poor. When the ball zipped around against South Africa at Lord’s and called for some circumspection they were 20 for 6. This time the damage did not come early, but when the boundaries dried up there did not appear a Plan B.Was it the pressure of the knockout scenario? For all the success and run-gorging over the last two years, this was the highest-pressure game the side had faced. Also, during their post-World Cup revival there have been examples of England collapsing even with a bilateral series on the line. It happened against Australia in 2015, when they were skittled for 138 at Old Trafford, and South Africa last year in Cape Town. Some might point to last year’s World T20 final as another example of where they failed in the pressure situation, but that ultimately came down to an over after they had hauled themselves back into the match. When this performance started to go badly, it spiraled and was never retrieved.The innings swung between an attempt to keep the attacking mantra going – Bairstow’s top-edge to deep square leg and Eoin Morgan’s run down the pitch and swing at Hasan Ali – and an inability to then milk the bowling when the going was tough. Ben Stokes had appeared to leave his timing at Edgbaston, facing 64 balls without a boundary of which 34 were dot balls.In England’s innings as a whole there were 160 dot balls (their fifth-most since the World Cup) and if only 50 of those had become a single, 250 was there for the taking – a target that would have seen Pakistan start the chase under more pressure. There was room for a more drop-and-run approach from the middle order.They weren’t without a chance defending 212 with a vulnerable Pakistan middle order, but they barely reached it. The openers took advantage of the hard new balls to skip well ahead of the rate and by the time spin was introduced in the 15th over the score was 81 without loss. Adil Rashid could be milked. Towards the end of the chase, Jos Buttler missed a stumping and there was a no-ball called when England had too many fielders on the leg side. Neither made a jot of difference but summed up their day.So England’s wait for a global one-day title will stretch to at least 44 years. The 2019 World Cup has always been stated as the ultimate aim, but that will be of scant consolation today. This will hurt. And for some time.

Toby Roland-Jones, who had a starring role on his Test debut, came through a scheme that is under threat

George Dobell at The Oval31-Jul-20174:17

#PoliteEnquiries: Does Moeen compare with Murali, Saqlain and Ashwin?

When a game finishes as dramatically as the Oval Test, it would be easy to overlook all the moments that led to the final outcome. Moeen Ali’s hat-trick – the first he has taken at any level of the game – was certainly a fitting ending to the ground’s 100th Test.It stretched a remarkable run of records Moeen is accumulating in recent times: already one of just three men to score 1,000 Test runs and take 30 Test wickets in a calendar year (Ian Botham and Jacques Kallis are the other two) after a strong 2016, he recently reached the milestone of 100 wickets and 2,000 runs quicker than Garry Sobers, Imran Khan, Kapil Dev, Botham et al, gained a place on the honours board at Lord’s denied the great Shane Warne and returned the best figures by an England offspinner at Trent Bridge since 1956. It can’t keep being dismissed as an aberration, can it?Now he has become the first man in history to take a Test hat-trick at The Oval and the first England spinner to take one anywhere since 1938. He has 18 wickets at a cost of 14.72 in this series. And, with the confidence to give the ball more air and attempt more variation, there is no reason to doubt there is more to come.But the seeds of England’s victory were sown long before Moeen claimed that hat-trick.Most crucially, they were sown on the first day when Alastair Cook negated a dangerous attack and some treacherous conditions to set a platform on which Ben Stokes was able to build. Then, after Stokes had contributed the most mature performance of his career to date, Toby Roland-Jones was able to exploit conditions which might have been tailor-made for him. An assured debut from Tom Westley and typically selfless half-century from Jonny Bairstow rammed home the advantage.While it is true Roland-Jones will rarely encounter Test surfaces offering as much assistance to his style of bowling as he found in the first innings here, his virtues – height, accuracy, an ability to hit the seam and adapt his bowling to the circumstances – will have value everywhere. That includes Australia. While he faces a huge fight to keep his place once the likes of Chris Woakes and Mark Wood recover their fitness, it would be a major surprise if he is not part of the Ashes squad now.Such was Stokes’ hostility and Roland-Jones’ accuracy, James Anderson was not called upon to bowl until more than an hour into the final day. He finished the second innings having bowled the fewest overs of the England attack; a scenario that has been unthinkable for much of the last decade, when a succession of England captains have turned to Anderson at the first opportunity.Is this an example of his waning powers?Up to a point, perhaps. There’s little doubt that Anderson’s pace is diminished and little doubt he is not too far from the end now. But it is only a Test since he claimed a five-for and, even here, he bowled 26 overs for 51 runs and claimed three wickets. At worst, he demanded respect and retained control.So he, too, will surely go to Australia. And if his diminishing role on the pitch is compensated by the wisdom and experience he provides to other bowlers, so be it. “There’s a reason he fields at mid-off,” Joe Root said afterwards. “Don’t underestimate what he brings to this team.”But it was, without doubt, England’s more disciplined and sophisticated first innings batting that set-up this win. After the laissez-faire nonsense of some recent performances, England showed a willingness to graft that will complement their natural flair. This was probably the most pleasing element of their performance.Could Toby Roland-Jones have been lost to the game?•Associated PressOther seeds were sown long before that.There were three men in this England side who had developed, in part at least, through the MCC system. Both Westley and Roland-Jones graduated through the MCC Universities scheme (MCCU), while Dawid Malan was an MCC Young Cricketer (MCC YC).Westley and Malan may well have ‘made it’ without the MCC’s assistance. Westley was already on the radar of Essex when he went to Durham University, while Malan had played first-class cricket in South Africa before benefitting from the MCC YC scheme that is designed to catch late developers and the best of those who are missed by the county system.But Roland-Jones? He had slipped out of the county scene when he went to university. Originally in the Middlesex system as a batsman, he benefited from a late growth spurt that bestowed new gifts upon him as a bowler. Had he not gone to Leeds-Bradford, he would probably have been lost to the game.The MCCU scheme is a remarkable asset to the English game. Set-up by former England opener Graeme Fowler in 1996, the aim was to ensure young people did not have to choose between education and cricket. By providing them with good quality coaching and playing opportunities at the same time as allowing them to gain a further education at one of six centres (Cambridge, Oxford, Cardiff, Durham, Leeds-Bradford and Loughborough), the scheme not only encourages some into sport who might otherwise be lost, but prepares those who do break into the professional for the life after their sporting retirement.The most famous graduate is probably Andrew Strauss, but there have been many more including Zafar Ansari, Sam Billings, Monty Panesar and Heather Knight of recent England players. At present, somewhere approaching 25% (the ratio has risen recently) of current county cricketers have come through the programme. Many more go on to coach at schools or in clubs. Nearly all finish with a degree to fall back upon when their playing career ends. It has one of the great, though largely unheralded, success stories of English cricket in recent years. It is doubtful anything has done more to avoid hardship in future generations of cricketers.But the scheme is under threat. Partly because some believe the games do not warrant first-class status – and it is true, they are sometimes uncomfortably one-sided – and partly because it is currently funded almost entirely by the MCC, it has recently been the subject of an extensive review by independent consultants, Inside Track. Now a working party (including Strauss and the MCC’s head of cricket, John Stephenson) has been formed to study the review and consider its recommendations.It is possible the universities’ first-class status will be rescinded entirely – which might well disincentive some students into attending university or pursuing a career in cricket – or, as an outside possibility, be left unchanged.A more likely option would see the university centres amalgamated – perhaps into something like MCCU North and MCCU South – for their first-class games against the counties and into a Combined MCCU team for the 50-over competition. That, it is argued, might concentrate the standard of the sides while continuing to provide the carrot of first-class cricket to prospective students. Whether it would encourage as many students into the scheme as is the case at present is debatable.There is another aspect to this. We do not have to look very far to find example of cricketers – sometimes highly successful cricketers – who have fallen on hard times after their playing career has ended. It has, at times, looked like an epidemic. While the PCA does tremendous work in helping players prepare for the challenges of life after cricket, little can help more than a good education and time to mature in a benevolent yet still high-performance environment. The one-sided nature of some MCCU contests might be considered a price worth paying when compared to such gains.While the example of Roland-Jones provides timely evidence of the cricketing merit of the programme, it is to be hoped that the working party gives proper consideration to the duty of care the game owes to the next generation of players by preparing them for more than cricket.Morally and practically, the MCCU scheme is working. Tinker with it at our peril.