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Bhuvneshwar and Shami continued their impressive run at Eden Gardens as India’s fast bowlers stole the spotlight from their spin twins

Bharath Seervi19-Nov-20173 – Number of times India’s fast bowlers have picked all 10 wickets in a Test innings at home. The combined effort of Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Mohammad Shami and Umesh Yadav is the first time they have done so in over 30 years. The previous instance was against West Indies in Ahmedabad in 1983 when Kapil Dev took nine wickets and Balwinder Sandhu took one. The first time this happened was against England at Wankhede in 1982 when Kapil and Madan Lal shared five wickets each.1986 – The last time three fast bowlers picking two or more wickets for India in an innings of a home Test. Coincidentally, this happened against Sri Lanka in Kanpur, with Kapil, B Arun, India’s current bowling coach, and Chetan Sharma being the trio. Overall, this is the fourth such instance for India at home.31 – Wickets Shami and Bhuvneshwar have combined to pick at Eden Gardens in last three Tests they’ve played here – against West Indies in November 2013, New Zealand in September 2016 and in this match. All other Indian bowlers combined have managed only 17 wickets in these three matches at an average of 29.64. In comparison, Shami and Bhuvneshwar have combined average of 17.77. Shami has picked at least three wickets in each of the five innings while Bhuvneshwar has two four-wicket hauls. Among 23 India bowlers who have picked 10 or more wickets at Eden Gardens, Shami and Bhuvneshwar have the best two averages.

Bowlers Wkts Ave SR 4-forsShami & Bhuvneshwar 31 17.77 32.29 5All other India bowlers 17 29.64 64.64 024.79 – Average of fast bowlers at Eden Gardens in last five years. Among 15 venues that have hosted Tests in this period, only Pune, which has hosted a solitary Test – against Australia earlier this year – has a better average (17.77) for the quicks. In four Tests in last five years at Eden Gardens, pacers have picked up 69 wickets at 24.79, while spinners have 49 wickets at 32.93. In five years prior to that, in three Tests at the venue, spinners had a better average (46.59) than pacers (59.90)9 – Overs bowled by spinners for India in the first innings – eight by R Ashwin and one by Ravindra Jadeja. It is the least that India’s spinners have bowled in the first innings of a home Test. The previous record was in the Delhi Test of 1987 against West Indies, when the spinners bowled 16 overs.2010 – The last time India had century opening partnership in their second innings of a Test before Shikhar Dhawan and KL Rahul did it in this match. The previous one was between Virender Sehwag and Gautam Gambhir against South Africa in Centurion. This is India’s second century stand for the first wicket this year and both have been put on by Dhawan and Rahul against Sri Lanka.1 – Number of bigger opening stands for India at Eden Gardens than the 166 between Rahul and Dhawan in this match. The highest is 191 by VVS Laxman and Navjot Sidhu against Australia in 1997-98. This is the first century partnership for the first wicket for India at Eden Gardens since 1999, and only the fourth overall.9 – Scores of 50 or more for Rahul in Tests this year, in 13 innings – the joint-most along with Dean Elgar (20 innings). Rahul failed to convert the first eight fifties into hundreds but is unbeaten on 73 at end of day four in this Test. Rahul is the first India batsman in six years to make that many scores of 50 or more in a calendar year; the previous player to do so was Rahul Dravid in 2011.

On a pitch with copious amounts of seam movement, two very different batsmen did in large parts what comes naturally to them to lay a platform for India

Sidharth Monga in Johannesburg24-Jan-2018Virat Kohli and Cheteshwar Pujara. Cheteshwar Pujara and Virat Kohli. Two more different persons, two more different batsmen will be hard to find. You sometimes wonder if they have any common interests that can help them get through the long days spent next to each other in the slips. And then they bat together. With completely different vocabularies and grammar. One man wants to refuse errors, the other wants to refuse to let the bowler settle. One man can wait out 53 balls on nought while not playing a loose shot to a decent ball, the other is usually near a hundred if he faces 53 dot balls in an innings.They watch each other and must surely admire the qualities they don’t have themselves. Surely Kohli watches Pujara and admires the discipline with which he figures out what line he has to play and what line he can leave? “He has lots of shots, and the way he batted today, I don’t think any other batsman could have batted like that,” Pujara said of Kohli after adding 84 for the third wicket with him on day one at the Wanderers, easily worth 150 on a normal pitch. This pitch had copious amounts of generous seam movement available.”This is one of the toughest pitches I’ve played on,” Pujara said. “And as we saw, it was difficult to score some runs, especially in the first session. It was difficult to rotate the strike. It has a lot of bounce, it has seam movement. And there is enough pace now. So we had to work hard to score runs, but the total we have I think it is as good as scoring 300 on any wicket. As we saw, we got a wicket, and if we bowl well, I think we’ll get them out. I would say it was a good day for us.”South Africa will be the first ones to concede they were not at their best with the ball and in the field, but the pitch was still really difficult. You needed to bowl really bad balls or bowl decent ones to really good attacking batsmen to be hit on this pitch. In Pujara and Kohli, South Africa found that combination. Pujara waited and waited and waited, and refused to risk making a mistake for a run until he finally got a ball too straight and too full. Kohli backed his eye, picking the length early, getting into attacking positions every ball, and defending or leaving as a second thought. Neither man was averse to doing what didn’t come naturally to him: when Pujara was in, he threw his bat at every loose ball; Kohli faced 86 dots out of 106.Normally you would perhaps criticise the extreme defence of Pujara or – at moments – the reckless attack of Kohli. Here a defensive batsman needed to dig deep into his reserves of discipline, and an attacking batsman needed to capitalise on every small opportunity before one with his name arrived. You need luck to survive on such a pitch, and they both had it.Too late from the point of view of winning the series, the return to this balance of defence and attack was a step closer to the template that served India’s batting well on their previous overseas cycle. For some reason that balance has gone wonky this time around. While Kohli has maintained his attacking instincts, M Vijay is playing too many shots and half-heartedly so, Pujara until this innings was not sure what game to play, and the batsmen after Kohli have no idea what their game should be because they have no security in the side.Pujara and Kohli did their best to vindicate the bold call to bat first on a spicy pitch. “I think as the game progresses, we are very sure that this wicket will be difficult to bat on,” Pujara said. “As we saw even in the later stages of today, the cracks are opening up and a couple of balls deviated a lot. I mean, I haven’t seen deviation like that before. As the game progresses I think this wicket will have variable bounce and cracks will open up, so it will be difficult to bat on. That’s the reason we chose to bat first.”However, not every bowling innings from South Africa will feature balls too wide or too short, not every day will they have AB de Villiers dropping a catch. The platform set by Pujara and Kohli was a great opportunity for India to post a formidable total. They should be extremely disappointed with the shots played in the lower-middle order and the lower order. They won’t be now but they should be asking themselves if they needed five seamers and to lose the cushion of a sixth batsman. What they have now is competitive but will ask for a repeat of this kind of extreme discipline and attacking skill in the second innings too.Before that, India will need their bowlers to make sure South Africa don’t get ahead on the first innings. “I think we’ll be looking to get them out before 150,” Pujara said. “And, obviously, looking at this total, I think the second innings will be very important. Seeing the weather forecast, I think it will be overcast and there will be more help for the fast bowlers.”

A round-up of the key numbers from the final ODI at Old Trafford as England’s spinners again come to the fore

Bharath Seervi24-Jun-2018 90 – Difference between Jos Buttler’s score (110*) and the second-highest score in England’s innings (20). Alex Hales and Adil Rashid both made 20. The 10 batsmen combined to put on only 86 runs with six boundaries compared to Buttler’s 110 with 13 boundaries.ESPNcricinfo Ltd 94 – Runs added by England’s last two wickets, the third-most for any side in a successful chase. Buttler and Rashid added 81 runs for the ninth wicket while Jake Ball and Buttler shared 13 runs. The most runs scored by last two wickets to win an ODI is 136 by Sri Lanka, also against Australia, in 2010-11. The previous best for England was 50 runs against Pakistan in 1987. 108.00 – Buttler’s average across all formats since the start of May. In 14 innings comprising of the IPL, Tests and ODIs, he has scored 864 runs including a century and nine fifties. He had scored five fifties for the Royals in last six IPL games, hit two fifties in three innings in the Test series against Pakistan and now two fifties and a hundred in this ODI series. He has hit fifty-plus in five of the six chases in IPL and ODIs in these two months.

Team Wkts Ave Econ SR 3+ wktsEngland 24 25.16 5.55 27.10 5Australia 5 79.59 5.60 85.20 0 24 – Wickets by England’s spinners in this series – their most ever in any ODI series. Rashid and Moeen Ali both picked 12 wickets each. On the other hand, Australia’s spinners could manage only five wickets at average of 79.60. 2 – Number of times England have whitewashed their oppositions in a five-match series. The previous one was against Zimbabwe way back in 2001-02. 2 – Whitewashes suffered by Australia in bilateral series of five or more matches, and both have come in the last two years. They lost to South Africa the same way in 2016-17 before this defeat. In 38 such series before this, they had never faced a 5-0 defeat. With this defeat, Australia have suffered 16 losses in their last 18 completed ODIs.

While India will be eager to fix their batting-order issues, they will be without Jasprit Bumrah for the second Test too

Nagraj Gollapudi at Lord's07-Aug-20180:47

The less Pandya bowls, the better for India – Arun

On the eve of the first Test at Edgbaston, both KL Rahul and Cheteshwar Pujara inspected the pitch at opposite ends, one after the other. Rahul bowed to the pitch and touched his heart, an Indian form of paying obeisance to things sacred. Pujara pressed his palm to inspect the hardness. At that point both men were in contention for a berth in the Indian top order. The next day, Pujara shook Rahul’s hands to congratulate him for getting into the team while he himself sat out.Bumrah ruled out of second Test

Jaspirt Bumrah is not going to play in the second Test at Lord’s, India’s bowling coach has confirmed. Although Bumrah has been bowling across the training sessions starting with the warm-up match in Essex, he still has the brace protecting the left thumb that he injured in India’s first T20 against Ireland on June 27.
While including Bumrah in the 18-man squad for the first three Tests, the BCCI had mentioned that the fast bowler would be “available for selection from the second Test onwards based on his fitness”. On Tuesday, at the team’s first training session after the first Test, Bumrah bowled to the lower order.
Bowling coach Bharat Arun said Bumrah is out of contention although he is “bowling fit”. Arun pointed out that Bumrah’s match fitness could only be verified once he bowled without the brace on his hand.

Two days out from the second Test, it will not be so fanciful to think both men will play at Lord’s. Only because the one glaring weakness that got exposed for India was their weak batting outside of Virat Kohli, who scored 200 runs alone while the rest of the 10 men managed only 214.But why pick Pujara after his poor form in county cricket that adds no weightage to his selection? Look at this way: Pujara has more county experience than anyone in India’s batting line-up and understands the conditions better than anybody. Yes, runs and form are good metrics to measure the worth, but experience also counts.The Lord’s pitch has a screen of faint green across the length. Although London was burning on Tuesday morning after a heatwave in the preceding days, the forecast for the first four days of the match is for cooler temperatures in the early twenties with the odd shower. In that case, the idea of playing two spinners might not materialise.If Pujara does play, whom does he come in for? Maybe Hardik Pandya, who has always been picked as a batting allrounder. Even at Edgbaston, Pandya bowled 10 overs in the first innings and did not bowl in the second at all. In the four Tests Pandya has played overseas this year, he has bowled 61 overs and has taken just three wickets at an average of nearly 70 and strike rate of 122. Is that a strong enough contribution from an allrounder?Asked if India would consider playing an extra batsman at Lord’s, their bowling coach Bharat Arun did not give a conclusive answer. “Playing an extra batsman here, I would consider that as a very conservative move,” he said at a media conference. “Everything depends on the conditions. And if the conditions are not as friendly as it was during the first Test it would make more sense to play five bowlers.”But is it really that conservative? By playing an extra batsman you are reinforcing your batting department, your weak area. You are also not chopping and changing constantly, giving the batsmen more security about their spots. Shikhar Dhawan, Rahul and Ajinkya Rahane would have been disappointed by the way they were out at least once at Edgbaston, but being the first match of the series, they can be given more chances.At the same time, India cannot afford to wait for too long for them to strike form. They need to secure the batting order and Pujara offers them that option. As for the question of where Pujara could bat, he could come in at No. 5 or 6 and face the second new ball, or Rahul could be pushed down the order and Pujara could take his usual No. 3 spot. After all, India head coach Ravi Shastri told ESPNcricinfo during the Essex match to be ready for “surprises”, saying the Indian middle order would be flexible.The question is, will India be “conservative” and flexible? Or will they stick to status quo?

The pitch, the opposition, the heat were all peripheral to Kohli’s single-minded pursuit of runs – while Pant made batting fun to watch

Alagappan Muthu in Rajkot05-Oct-2018There was a scramble in the crowd as soon as the second Indian wicket fell. They had barely moved from the little pockets of shade afforded by the second tier stands in Rajkot, but now they careened into the sunshine, phones out, hands waving, and smiles as bright as the sun.Virat Kohli was coming out to bat.He wouldn’t have seen the stir he caused. The man gets into a zone when he’s batting where only he, the ball, and his routines exist. He came down the dressing room steps fiddling with his gear. Then he touched the turf, held the hand to his heart. Whether he asked for a hundred or not, he looked destined for it.Kohli’s made better runs before; tougher runs; more meaningful runs, but his 139 against West Indies was the perfect advertisement of the one quality that makes him a modern-day great. Keeping the noise out.His innings began when the spotlight was on Prithvi Shaw, who was busy making batting look easier than breathing. Kohli was new to the crease. He would need time to understand the pace of the pitch and the kinds of shots he could play. He waited until the 17th delivery for his first boundary – a risk-less straight drive against an inviting half-volley.Kohli spent 230 deliveries in the middle. Yet, according to Cricviz, his innings included only five false shots. This is where India’s captain towers over his peers. He puts in the work to get set and then rarely gives it away.Leading up to his dismissal, he was playing shots as if a voice inside his head was giving him imaginary targets to hit. “Long-off”. He turned a length ball into a half-volley with a superb stride. “Midwicket”. Hit against the turn off legspinner Devendra Bishoo. “Straight of midwicket”. The auto-pilot flick, head over the ball, wrists working smoothly. It all seemed like indulgence; as if he was treating himself for all the time he didn’t play an extravagant shot when he very well could have.