All posts by h716a5.icu

ESPNcricinfo staff07-Aug-2016Pakistan were set 343 to win and Mohammad Hafeez helped the ball to long leg to gift England their first wicket•Getty ImagesSami Aslam struck his second half-century of the match. But his team-mates weren’t quite so sturdy•AFPMoeen Ali broke through after lunch when he had Azhar Ali taken at second slip•Getty ImagesThe ball then started to reverse swing for England and James Anderson removed Younis Khan•Getty ImagesSteven Finn was pumped when he ended his wicket drought by claiming Misbah-ul-Haq•Getty ImagesAsad Shafiq bagged a pair when he was trapped lbw by Chris Woakes•Getty ImagesPakistan lost four wickets for only one run in the middle session and with the tail in sight, England closed in on their opponents•Getty ImagesSohail Khan struck some meaty blows in a 10th wicket partnership that contributed 50 runs•Getty ImagesMoeen took the final wicket to fall and pushed England into a 2-1 series lead•Getty Images

ESPNcricinfo staff21-Jun-2016England struck early when David Willey removed Danushka Gunathilaka•Getty Images/Sportsfile… and Willey was flying when Kusal Perera holed out to backward point•Getty Images/SportsfileChris Woakes also struck early to remove Kusal Mendis for 17•Getty Images/SportsfileDinesh Chandimal regrouped for Sri Lanka with 37 from 56 balls•Getty Images/Sportsfile… while Angelo Mathews anchored the innings with 73•Getty ImagesMoeen Ali ended Chandimal’s stay and a stand of 64•Getty Images… courtesy of Woakes’ catch at deep backward square•PA PhotosThe fireworks, however, were provided by Seekkuge Prasanna•Getty Images…who made 59 from 28 balls…•Getty Images… including eight fours and four sixes, before falling to Woakes for 59•Getty ImagesWilley and Liam Plunkett combined to run out Dasun Shanaka•AFPMathews fell during the closing overs•AFPFarveez Maharoof shepherded the lower order as Sri Lanka posted 286 for 9•PA PhotosEngland’s reply started badly when Jason Roy fell lbw•Getty ImagesSuranga Lakmal was right on the money, getting rid of Alex Hales•PA PhotosJoe Root inside-edged on to his stumps•PA Photos… before Jonny Bairstow was caught at point for 3, leaving England 30 for 4•PA PhotosMorgan hit a few boundaries to steady his side…•PA Photos…but Nuwan Pradeep had him caught behind for 43•PA PhotosMoeen then played on to Pradeep, with England 82 for 6•PA PhotosJos Buttler helped get England’s chase back on track•PA PhotosButtler and Woakes put on a century stand, running Sri Lanka hard•AFPSeekkuge Prasanna made the vital breakthrough …•AFP… courtesy of Dasun Shanaka’s stunning catch at long-on to remove Buttler for 93•AFPBut, needing six off the last ball for a tie, Liam Plunkett duly obliged•AFP

Jimmy Neesham talks Twitter, rating himself as an allrounder, and the most annoying thing about Brendon McCullum

Interview by Nagraj Gollapudi23-Sep-2016You tweet in an unfiltered way. Not many athletes do that.
I don’t really see the point of filtering things too much. There are times when your opinion is not popular and you have to tone down a little bit. But I think the more you are yourself, the easier it is to get on with daily life.Who is the second-best cricketer at Twitter, who you follow?
A lot of people tweet me saying Virender Sehwag is quite good, but a lot of his stuff I can’t understand because it’s not in English. A lot of Indians tell me I am the second funniest behind him.Which cricketer would you would pay to watch?
I will pay to watch AB de Villiers. You don’t really pay to watch a lot of international cricketers if you are an international cricketer because it is a little hard to go in the stands and watch with the members of the public. It can get a little inconvenient, for obvious reasons.

“If a person has a very tidy, trimmed, well-maintained beard, he probably is more conscious of how he comes across to other people. And you have guys like Kane, who just lets it run wild. He doesn’t really care what everyone else thinks of his beard”

One match you did watch from the stands, with de Villiers playing, was the 2015 World Cup semi-final.
It was a crazy experience. I actually wasn’t going to go to the game. And then one of my friends who I knew through media work had a pass in a private area, so I could watch the match from a private room and not have to deal with the kerfuffle that goes on with that sort of situation. But it was a really special evening for New Zealand cricket.”Holy f****** shitballs this is the best day of my life.” – you wrote, sitting in the third tier immediately after Grant Elliott hit the winning shot in that semi-final.
It was a pretty authentic reaction to what was happening at the time. Just like most of the rest of the nation, I certainly got swept up a little bit with the passion of the moment. It was deleted later for obvious reasons.Why?
There were some naughty words in there which I did not want to repeat. I try to stay away from those kinds of things. As I said I got a little bit excited, clearly.What quiz question do you most fancy being in?
A few friends of mine do public quizzes and they say this one: “Who was at the other end when Brendon McCullum scored his triple-hundred?” Seems to be a reasonably popular one.”A lot of Indians tell me I am the second funniest [tweeter] behind Sehwag”•Getty ImagesYou hit a hundred in that Test. On the morning when McCullum walked out to bat in the 290s, he said he was feeling really nervous. But once he got to the pitch, you looked around and said, “Gee, I didn’t think so many people would turn up to see me score a hundred.” McCullum said he started to laugh and felt a lot more clear-headed when play began. Do you remember that?
It was in the morning, during the warm-ups. Brendon was pretty fatigued and was sort of struggling to get up for the occasion. It is always nice to try and break the ice in a situation like that. Now that McCullum has retired, can you tell us anything about him that was really annoying?
He’d never let you pay for anything. He always managed to find a way to sneak off in the middle of a meal and slip some notes to a waiter. You’d go to pay at the end of the meal and the waiter would say it’s all been taken care of. A few of the lads have only just found out what a beer costs since he’s retired!What about his superstition about not changing bat grips?
Yes, he did not like to change his grip in the middle of an innings. During the 300, when he batted for two and a half days, every time he ripped his grip he would wrap strapping tape around it. A little bit of repair on the fly. And by the time he got to 290 on the fifth morning, his bat had probably more strapping tape than grip, so it was more difficult for him to get bat on ball.If you had to conceal something inside your bat what would you carry in it?
Ah jeez! Something that will make the ball go a bit further would be quite useful, but that is obviously illegal. Maybe some sort of speaker so I can listen to some music while I am in the middle batting.Can you learn anything about a cricketer from the beard he sports?
You can learn a lot. If a person has a very tidy, trimmed well-maintained beard, he probably is more conscious of how he comes across to other people. If you have guys like Kane [Williamson] who just lets it run wild, he doesn’t really care what everyone else thinks of his beard. I think it can show a little bit of a window to a person’s conscience.

“Brendon would never let you pay for anything. He always managed to find a way to sneak off in the middle of a meal and slip some notes to a waiter”

Is there anything that Williamson can’t do with the bat in hand?
He is always trying to explore new shots in training. If he does see a shot that he can’t play, it will only take him a couple of weeks to sort.Why are guys like McCullum and Williamson good at what they do?
Brendon was much more explosive. He could come out and dominate anyone on his day. His attitude was: get ’em before they get me. Try and take bowlers down. Kane plays more of a waiting game, wears the opposition bowlers down, and his record is second to none in all formats of the game. The main thing I have learned from playing under both of them is that there is more than one way to skin a cat. Use your own method and success will come once you are true to yourself.Are you patient as a player?
I don’t think I am, really. That is one of the things that I probably struggle with a little bit in Test cricket – trying to find a natural tempo to play at. My natural game is being more aggressive. In the last few months I have watched guys like David Warner, Virat Kohli, and Kane to a certain extent, who go out and still play quite aggressively in Test cricket. And now I realise you can play aggressively in the longer format of the game.What is your favourite stroke?
There is nothing better than a hook shot. When a fast bowler comes in and tries to dig it in short and a batsman just stands tall and hooks it away. Something like what Kevin Pietersen used to play is the best shot to watch.You are being talked about as a Test allrounder. How good do you think you are?
You have to think you are one of the best going around to succeed in the international game. I have been hindered by a back injury in the last couple of years. But having come back and played county cricket [for Derbyshire], I still believe if I am putting my best foot forward in both departments, then I am one of the handful of the best allrounders in the world. And hopefully over the next six months or so I can begin to prove that on the field with results, because you can think of yourself as much as you want, but that doesn’t really count unless you can put the numbers on the board.Quiz question: “Who was at the other end when Brendon McCullum scored his triple-hundred?”•Getty ImagesWhat is one cliché you want commentators to cut out?
The one that most annoys me is when commentators talk about pulling off the front foot. Any pull shot is off the front foot by definition. So when the batsman pulls off the front foot and the commentator says he is taking the bowler on, I find that really strange.How exactly do you plan to tackle R Ashwin on Indian pitches?
He is a high-quality bowler, a top-ten bowler at the moment, and in his own conditions he will be a big challenge. But we have got some pretty good players of spin in our top order. We have been talking of ways to combat him. But I certainly won’t be giving away my plans here.You have already wondered why airports don’t have hairdressers. What about hotel rooms?
It would be quite nice if hotels had Netflix in the rooms.What if you could introduce a new Law in the game?
I would quite like to see what would happen if there were no rules on ball-tampering. If you could just do whatever you wanted to the ball. That would probably make Test cricket more interesting. It could make more tedious sessions more exciting with the ball reversing more.What about cricket at the Olympics?
I think the ICC should be doing everything within their power to get cricket into the Olympics. One of our main aims as a sport should be expanding playing numbers throughout the world, and the Olympic Games is a perfect way to achieve this.What has cricket taught you so far?
Cricket has taught me that you can’t get too down during the bad times. Everyone through their career has their highs and their lows, struggle mentally and physically. If you can continue to take one day at a time and not get too disillusioned by your failures then you will probably have a lot more fun, a lot more play, a lot more success than failures.

The left-field appointment of Rob Andrew as chief executive, after a decade at the RFU, gives Sussex an opportunity to remain relevant in a changing game

Andrew Miller24-Nov-2016Forty minutes into Rob Andrew’s first press conference as Sussex’s surprise new chief executive, after a bruising decade in the boardrooms of the Rugby Football Union, and it is abundantly clear (as if there had been any doubt) that he is not about to pull up a deckchair and settle for a sinecure among the seagulls and seasoned cricket fans at Hove.”I thought people came to the south coast to take it easy!” he jokes, as the questions from the floor turn from the prosaic to the political, with Sussex’s adversarial stance in the ECB’s brave new world of city-based cricket right at the forefront of the topics.Sussex, after all, were one of three counties – Surrey and Kent being the other two – who, back in September, stood firm in voting against the ECB’s move towards a solitary option for the future structure of England’s revamped T20 competition. And for that reason, and regardless of the initiatives that the club themselves might prefer to showcase – most particularly their county-wide commitment to the grassroots game – no one’s in any doubt about the issue that will dominate Andrew’s tenure.”We are not Luddites,” insists Jim May, Sussex’s chairman, waving an arm towards the pavilion window to emphasise his point. “We were the first county ground to install floodlights: fact. We were the first county ground to have a dedicated academy; this year we were the first county to have a dedicated women’s academy. We are not looking in the rear-view mirror all the time. But we do have doubts about the city competition.”Sitting alongside him, Andrew is understandably diplomatic in fielding enquiries about a role that he will not officially be taking up until January 3. But if, in the course of his RFU career, he gave off the impression of being the ultimate insider – seemingly above reproach as five England coaches passed below him through the corridors at Twickenham – he’ll be discovering soon enough how the land lies now that he’s on the slippier side of a club v country divide.”I knew, right from the start, that this was going to be full-on,” he says. “But the one thing I have been very close to in the last 20 years is politics in sport. Sport is big business now and I’ve seen how people try to manage that mix. I’ve seen it when it goes quite well, I’ve also seen it when it goes badly. Understanding those issues, and trying to pick your way through and get to a solution, is really challenging but very rewarding.”According to May, it was Andrew’s range of “transferable skills” from rugby to cricket that propelled him to the top of a list of 50 applicants for the job – and he transferred plenty of those back in his playing days as well, representing Cambridge University and Yorkshire 2nd XI in the mid-1980s before the demands of his rugby career took over from his passion for leather and willow. But it is Andrew’s status as an unequivocal household name that is surely every bit as valuable to Sussex in cricket’s uncertain current climate.In his 12-year England career, Andrew amassed 71 caps at fly-half and featured in three World Cup campaigns and as many Grand Slams. And, as a man who has been immersed in administration ever since, with seven years as director of rugby at Newcastle prior to his time at the RFU, his views can be expected to resonate beyond the sometimes cloistered walls of English domestic cricket. By extension, they will tackle at source that thorny issue of relevance that stalks the sport in general but the smaller clubs in particular.”Rugby and cricket are at similar levels in the public consciousness,” Andrew says. “The funding from the ECB into the counties is very similar to that from the RFU to the clubs. And the question of how do you get players through the system to produce a successful England team is very similar too. When Hugh Morris [former director of England Cricket] was at the ECB and I was at the RFU, we shared a lot of thoughts.”Rob Andrew is unveiled as Sussex’s new chief executive•ESPNcricinfo LtdSo, when Andrew points out – as he does – that one of the greatest strengths of English cricket is the fact that its 18 first-class counties are spread from the tip to the toe of the country, or states that there are “kids all over Sussex who are dreaming of being the next Haseeb Hameed, and it’s our job to make that possible”, his words are “music to the ears”, not only of his chairman sitting alongside him, but to the representatives of the other non-Test grounds who may at last have hit upon their spokesman for the disenfranchised.”Against a complex backcloth, and with people taking positions, it will be extraordinarily helpful having Rob,” May says. “He will provide a safe environment for the cricket management, but not an unchallenging one, and his profile will undoubtedly help us in the commercial world.”Much of that commerce will inevitably depend on the ECB’s vision for the future of its domestic T20 competition. As an upshot of September’s meeting, the plan as it stands is to replicate the compact schedule and structure of Australia’s Big Bash League, even if the current travails of Australia’s Test team serve as a timely reminder of the dangers of becoming over-reliant on short-form gains.Though the details differ, the somewhat shrill tone of the T20 debate is one to which Andrew believes he can relate, given that his focus for the past two years has been the new long-term agreement between the RFU and England’s leading clubs over the release and funding of the elite player squad. The original deal, which he was instrumental in brokering back in 2008, had been a similarly watershed moment for English rugby, given the bad blood and suspicion that had coloured so much of the landscape since the dawn of the professional era.”In rugby we found an English solution to an English problem,” says Andrew. “I think the same has to apply to cricket. I don’t want to point fingers elsewhere but has Australian cricket gone too far in one direction and impacted the long-form side of the game?”May, for his part, isn’t so concerned about holding back, warning (with perhaps more mental imagery than he had intended) of a Hinkley Point-style meltdown if the ECB insists on driving through changes to the domestic structure when, in his opinion, there is insufficient evidence that they are either necessary or suitable.”There are at least three big differences between here and Australia,” he says. “Number one, nearly all the population of Australia is in a few cities by the coast. Number two is that the weather’s guaranteed, which it isn’t here. And the third thing is, it’s a very different media landscape in Australia. All their major sports are on free-to-view TV.”Our anxiety is that if we go down that route, would non-host counties like Sussex be marginalised in the long-run? It’s a really difficult trade-off, because we’re trading off what’s best for English cricket, whatever that is, against what’s best for us.”And to Sussex’s credit, notwithstanding their relegation in 2015, the club has been one of the genuine powerhouses of the two-division era precisely because it has known how to make the best of its relatively straitened circumstances. Last year’s departure of coach Mark Robinson may have severed the final link to the side that won three County Championships in five seasons, including their maiden triumph in 2003, but in May’s opinion, the seeds of regeneration have already been sown.It is with justifiable pride that May points out that the club has no external debt, unlike several of the Test-match grounds – most notoriously Durham, but the likes of Yorkshire and Warwickshire too. Much of that is a legacy of the work put in place by Andrew’s predecessor, Zac Toumazi, who announced his intention to step down last month after four years in charge, but equally it stems from a trenchant recognition that top-down business models lack sustainability in a crowded market.Looking around Hove, with its rows of well-appointed flats peering over the boundary from the neighbouring streets, it is clear that England’s oldest county never had an option but to cut its cloth accordingly. Not for them the notion of “build it and they will come”, as advocated by the old ECB hierarchy. Besides, as May freely admits, there’s a degree of wealth in the ever-expanding conurbation of Brighton and Hove that makes looking after existing markets more relevant than might be the case the further north you travel of London.But if there is one tenet of the board’s new regime with which the Sussex hierarchy wholeheartedly concur, then it is their new “Cricket Unleashed” strategy, launched this summer with a view to driving participation in the recreational game. On Toumazi’s watch last November, Sussex’s professional club and its cricket board, which represents 245 clubs throughout the county, were merged to create a new centralised body. It is a change that Andrew plans on embracing.”Sussex is probably the first county to put whole of their cricket under one umbrella, and that is really important to me,” he says. “All sports have to build from the bottom up, because eventually that’s how you get the right group together for long enough with the right talent. I first saw Jonny Wilkinson when he was 11 years old. George Ford and Owen Farrell were once seven-year-olds dreaming of playing for England. That’s what sport is about for me.”Teams take time to build, it will take a bit of time for this new Sussex team, after a successful period, to grow. But there’s nothing better than watching young players grow and fulfil their potential.”

Ten instances of gambling in cricket

Ben Gardner and Phil Walker21-Feb-2017All betts are on
Gambling and cricket have been together forever. According to the , the first recorded cricket match, in 1646 at Coxheath in Kent, had betting involved, and in the 18th century, gambling-inspired violence was standard at cricket matches. Play even had to be suspended during a 1756 fixture at the Artillery Ground between Surrey and Dartford, and it wasn’t long before a section entitled ‘Betts’ was written into the official rules of the game to try, in vain, to limit the rampant practice.IPHell
Fast forward a few centuries to the gambler’s dream that is the IPL. Thrills, spills bellyaches, a million markets running at once and an incessant schedule to forlornly chase those ravaging losses. And hell, if you’re on a particularly poor run, why not stump up your own wife on a match? In 2016, Ravinder Singh of Kanpur, in the midst of a bad trot – house, car, heirlooms etc, nothing he couldn’t manage – came over all Mayor of Casterbridge to stake his missus, Jasmeet, on a game. When the result went against him, Ravi legged it, and according to the is still at large. Jasmeet, meanwhile, went to the police. Which on balance seems entirely reasonable.Zero tolerance
OK, we all know that some cricketers aren’t entirely scrupulous when it comes to cricket matches and money, and that rules are necessarily in place to keep the blighters in check. But it’s hard not to feel a tad sorry for some of those lesser mortals who feel the full strength of the law for minor indiscretions, such as the WBBL players Hayley Jensen and Corinne Hall, who both received six-month bans in 2016 for betting on the results of an Australia-New Zealand Test match and the men’s one-day competition. “We take a proactive, zero-tolerance approach to maintaining the integrity of our sport and this includes any form of betting on cricket globally,” Cricket Australia’s Head of Integrity Iain Roy intoned. That a governing body needs a ‘Head of Integrity’ says it all.Lord Tennyson (second from left): backs his team even when they concede a 208-run lead•Getty ImagesTennyson’s tenner
This one’s for the ages. Hampshire, led by noted jowly sophisto Lord Tennyson, had mustered 15 in reply to Warwickshire’s 223 in their 1922 Championship fixture. Warwickshire skipper The Hon. Freddie Calthorpe – a title was a pre-requisite for any county captain back then – predicted a two-day finish, and cheekily suggested the third be set aside for golf. Tennyson took umbrage at the insult, laid down £10 at huge odds on a Hampshire win, and watched his team pile up 521 before claiming a 155-run victory on the final day.Lump on Lumpy
The Glenn McGrath of his day, Lumpy Stevens was as accurate as they come. Indeed, it is because of him that we have a middle stump, installed after he ‘bowled’ the great Hambledon batsman John Small three times through the then-gaping gap between off and leg stumps in a single-wicket game in 1775. Lumpy, generally considered to be cricket’s first great bowler, later put his accuracy to profitable use, winning £100 for his employer Lord Tankerville – upon whose estate in Walton-on-Thames Lumpy worked as a gardener – by landing the ball on a feather placed on the pitch.A Shaw bet
Considering the fact that England were following on in their 1800 fixture against Victoria, that no team had ever followed on and won, and that some of England’s players, led by George Ulyett and John Selby, were deliberately dropping catches for their own monetary gains, the odds of 30/1 offered to England captain Alfred Shaw seemed remarkably short. But he kept faith in his team, laid a pound on England winning, and managed to lead his side to victory. He was even aided by one hapless player who managed to lodge the ball in his sleeve in attempting to miss a catch.Herbie Collins (batting): could bet you what you had for breakfast today if you let him•PA Photos500/1
“I have never had any qualms over the matter and I have never lost a moment’s sleep because of it.” Dennis Lillee there, in a column for the how, with his marriage collapsed and his wife and daughters back in Germany, on one such night he lost £288,400 in a single bet: “I bought Australia for £2,800 at 340 runs. That meant for every run [they score] over 340, you win £2,800, but for every run under, you lose the same amount. Every wicket felt like a stab in the heart. By the end of the night I felt like I had been scalped. The next day when I looked at the mess that was me in the mirror I said, ‘Didi, things have got to change.'” Thankfully, they did, and Hamann is now clean.The horseshoe
Herbie ‘Horseshoe’ Collins was a scrawny titan of Australian cricket between the wars. He made four centuries in 19 Tests from 1920-1926, and as captain, developed a reputation not just for never losing the toss, but rarely losing at the racetrack. A ferociously prolific gambler, there was nothing, according to his New South Wales teammate Hal Hooker, that Horseshoe wouldn’t bet on: “Waiting on a railway line he would bet on how many trains would pass through the opposite platform. How many carriages would be on the next one, how many carriage windows would be open.” Naturally he became a bookmaker; in Roland Perry’s , Perry writes that Horseshoe won and lost two fortunes on the track and at one stage required the assistance of the New South Wales Cricketers Fund to support him and his invalid mother. But for all his legendary gambling instincts, and his tendency to play poker all night before turning up, sleepless, to a match the next morning, there is no suggestion that Herb ever put any money down on a game of cricket for which he was involved. There are limits.All Out Cricket

Stephen Cook, Hashim Amla and JP Duminy have been rather underwhelming on the tour of New Zealand

Firdose Moonda in Hamilton22-Mar-20170:53

The search for form in South Africa’s top order

If batting problems are the subject under discussion in this series, New Zealand are the side worse off. They have a misfiring opener in Tom Latham and are without their most experienced player, Ross Taylor. But South Africa are not without issues. Despite the coming of age of Dean Elgar, the nuggety approach of Temba Bavuma and the sensation that is Quinton de Kock, they have three senior players – Stephen Cook, Hashim Amla and JP Duminy – who desperately need runs.”All batting units at international level will have one player struggling for form but that’s okay because you can’t just be relying on that one player,” South Africa coach Russell Domingo said. “That’s why it’s a batting unit and that’s why it’s a team – the team has got to try and help that player get out of those slumps. We’ve got maybe two or three players who are feeling that pressure at the moment. That’s a little bit of a concern. It’s always easier to just have one but when you’ve got two or three who are maybe searching for a bit of form, a bit of runs, it does become more challenging.”

Stephen Cook

Scores on this tour (Tests only): 3, 0, 3, 11
Innings since last hundred: 7
Hundreds this season: 2Stephen Cook’s judgment around the off stump has been suspect•AFPThere is no getting around the fact that Stephen Cook does not score pretty runs, but now he has added ugly dismissals to his CV as well. He has been the first man out on all four occasions in this series and to the same kind of delivery – the outswinger. He has both left the wrong ball (first innings in Dunedin) and gone fishing after it (both innings in Wellington). And though he would have survived had he reviewed the caught behind in the second innings of the first Test, one can’t help but wonder for how long?Cook looks increasingly edgy at the crease, perhaps even worse than he did in Australia, where his first four innings yielded 75 runs. He could be banking on the knowledge that he came through that rough patch and scored a century in the second innings of the day-night Test in Adelaide and topped that up with another at home against Sri Lanka. Judging by how he hit the nets on Wednesday, when only fielding drills were compulsory, Cook seemed to know he couldn’t rely on those statistics for too long.”He hits more balls than anyone else in the world so he is going to be here even if no-one is allowed to be here,” Domingo said.Cook might not lose his spot just yet considering the only reserve batsman in the squad is Theunis de Bruyn, who usually plays in the middle order. Quinton de Kock moving up seems unlikely as well, given his responsibility as wicketkeeper. And as far as future prospects go, Aiden Markram, the 22-year-old opener with an average of 41.38 from 28 first-class matches, may need a little more time to mature.Hashim AmlaScores on this tour (Tests only): 1, 24, 21, 38*
Innings since last hundred: 4
Hundreds this season: 1Hashim Amla has looked better as the tour has gone on, but he doesn’t have that big score yet•Getty ImagesIt might be sacrilege to even suggest Hashim Amla is losing his touch but an unusually lean season says something needs addressing. He has struggled with footwork (first innings in Dunedin, when he was bowled through a bat-pad gap) and concentration (soft dismissals in the second innings in Dunedin and first in Wellington) issues, which could be the consequence of limited-overs cricket affecting his Test match play.Amla gave up captaincy last January, in the same match that he scored a double-ton. Another century two games later hinted that he had been freed up, but a lean tour of Australia and struggles against Sri Lanka – broken briefly by a hundred in his 100th Test – brought the doubts back. Amla has looked better as the New Zealand series has gone on, and given his sterling record in England, where South Africa play next, they will not even consider going without him.JP DuminyScores on this tour (only Tests): 1, 39, 16, 15*
Innings since last hundred: 4
Hundreds this season: 2JP Duminy has been getting out to both the short and the full balls•AFPJP Duminy began as a Test player with immense promise but somewhere along, he has turned into one that frustrates the fans. After 44 matches, he still averages under 35 and his six hundreds are spaced out through significant periods of under-performance.Duminy has had a poor tour of New Zealand, across formats. In the Tests, he was bounced out on the pull (first innings Dunedin), pinned in front playing all around an inswinger (second innings Dunedin), caught off a half-volley (second innings Wellington) and he has no excuses.Since AB de Villiers’ absence, Duminy has been promoted to No. 4 and he had early success, scoring a cathartic century against Australia in Perth. He revealed he had considered retirement last summer but was persuaded to stay on by then-selector Ashwell Prince, and Faf du Plessis has not stopped praising his game since. Duminy went on to score a century against Sri Lanka too but has not been unable to build on those innings. Although, his bowling adds to his value, it will not be enough to keep him in the side if his low scores continue. If de Bruyn is to come into the XI, Duminy is the likeliest man to make way.Two days ago, Duminy opted out of the IPL so he could have a little more time to work on his game, a sign of commitment to the national cause”He has made that decision based purely on freshening up from the mental aspect side of things but also family commitments. I suppose in the long run it is in the best interests of JP Duminy and also South African cricket,” Domingo said.Unless the results start to show soon, Duminy may end his career as a nearly-man and South Africa will have to look elsewhere.

He does not look the bowler he once was, but post-comeback, he has often thrived when few thought he would

Danyal Rasool13-Jun-2017We have made a litany of excuses, mostly to ourselves, for why Mohammad Amir hasn’t come back and taken a wicket with every delivery he has bowled. Excuses for why his pace has been down, why he doesn’t bowl six yorkers an over, and why he doesn’t swing the ball into and away from batsmen at will. Past memories don’t help play down expectations either. After all, banana-swinging balls ripping through Australia and England aren’t entirely representative of Amir’s oeuvre pre-2010, but that is all that sticks in the mind.Initially, we thought we needed to wait for him to play Test cricket. That would mark his real comeback, as even he himself called it ahead of the four-match Test series against England last year. After that tour, we believed he had either been unlucky or the problem was the lack of support on the field: too many catches – 12, to be precise – had been dropped off his bowling. Then came the tour of New Zealand, where the pitches are so green that they were barely distinguishable from the outfield. Perfect for Amir, we decided.Seven wickets in four innings and a whitewash of Pakistan later, we quickly moved on to Australia. The bounce here would be ideal for an express fast bowler like Amir. Watch that ball rear off the surface at the Gabba, wait for the superstar to silence cricket’s biggest crowd on Boxing Day, Amir can match up to anything Mitchell Starc can do, and so on…Amir went wicketless at the MCG and the SCG. Starc took 14 wickets in the series. So, clearly, there wasn’t a conspiracy against quality left-arm fast bowlers either. Pakistan were whitewashed, again. We still had moments to cling to, and this vague idea that if those magical moments could happen every ball, every spell and every match, Amir would be the sort of bowler on the field as he was in our fantasies. Remember the first over against India in an Asia Cup T20 game, when he bowled so majestically we believed, however fleetingly, he could defend 83 against arguably the best batting line-up in the world?Amir’s most flamboyant performances have come when we least expected them. The series against West Indies was supposed to be one dominated by spin, on surfaces that had long ceased to be conducive to fast bowling. But Amir seemed to find some sort of inspiration there too, as if the legends of Michael Holding and Joel Garner had inspired him to revive a craft that the Caribbean had long ago given up on.”I have always believed you need luck in cricket,” Amir said after the win against Sri Lanka•Getty ImagesSo this Champions Trophy came at a good time for Amir. Or so went the theory. It nearly turned out that way at the very start, too, when he bowled another superb first over to Rohit Sharma that revived memories of how he had toyed with the Indian batsmen in Dhaka a year earlier. But flirting with the outside edge and the off stump can only ever be appetisers, and are always frustrating without the main course. He went wicketless in that match, and the one after that – though again, he was superb in the slog overs against South Africa – and his most memorable contribution against Sri Lanka was his role in a streaky lower-order partnership that helped his side to the semi-final.So perhaps the only thing that can be derived from Amir’s career, especially post-comeback, is that making predictions about him is futile. We tune in to a game in Cardiff hoping to see a glimpse of Amir bowling under overcast skies, and may end up wondering if he can get a few streaky runs under watery sunshine to see his side over the line. It hardly makes sense, and Amir knows that better than anyone.”I have always believed you need luck in cricket,” he said after the win against Sri Lanka. “Thankfully, we had that luck today, and Sarfraz told me after he was dropped that he believed God was on our side, and so I must not make a silly mistake.”Amir recognises he has been unlucky not to get more wickets than he has in this tournament. “I was very frustrated at the start. When you bowl well and don’t take wickets, it frustrates you, particularly if you’re playing as a senior bowler. But today I bowled well and took two wickets, and that has given me a lot of confidence.”He even had time to fire off a couple of passive-aggressive shots at England. When asked how Pakistan were preparing for a game against the hosts and tournament favourites, he played down any possibility that they were daunted by the challenge. “They’re a good side but, then again, teams that reach the semi-finals are all good teams. And when you win a game under pressure, like we have done, it’s a huge boost for you.”A week ago, most would have believed that a match against Pakistan wouldn’t be England’s biggest concern at any stage of the tournament. It might be fair to maintain that even now. After all, England have played far better cricket than Pakistan, who have never won a Champions Trophy semi-final anyway – and there’s no sign that might change tomorrow either.However, Amir knows well that his career may eventually end up being defined by England. It is the place where he found success as a teenager, tearing though oppositions all those years ago, the place where he fell as far as a cricketer could fall, and the place he made his comeback over half a decade later. It may yet be the place where he sucker-punches the hosts just as they look like they are entering a period when they might have the world at their feet.

South Africa’s new head coach’s long-term aim might be the World Cup in 2019, but the Test squad demands more immediate attention, with holes that need plugging

Firdose Moonda18-Sep-2017Ottis Gibson touches down in South Africa on Monday morning, ten days before his first assignment begins, with plenty to do.South Africa host Bangladesh for two Tests, three ODIs and two T20Is, seemingly a gentle warm-up to their busiest summer to date. But they won’t be fooled. The last time South Africa faced Bangladesh, they were beaten in the ODIs, while the Tests were rained out, starting off a downward spiral that saw them slip to No. 7 on the rankings. They have since climbed back to No. 2, but as Gibson’s predecessor, Russell Domingo said on his departure, they are “far from the complete article” as a Test side. Though Gibson’s main focus is the 2019 World Cup, he will also have to try finding the missing pieces of the Test puzzle, and that task starts immediately.The opening round of first-class fixtures begins on Tuesday, and at Gibson’s request, all available national players will be in action. Gibson is expected to attend at least one of the matches, though he could get to two or even all three.He has confirmed an appearance at SuperSport Park – where Titans play Dolphins – which will allow him to see captain Faf du Plessis as well as most of the current Test squad, including Dean Elgar, Quinton de Kock, Morne Morkel, Chris Morris, Andile Phehlukwayo and Keshav Maharaj. Heino Kuhn will not be in action as he is out injured. Down the road at Wanderers, Lions play Warriors, and if Gibson pops in there, he will be able to cast his eye over Stephen Cook, Kagiso Rabada and Dwaine Pretorius. Theoretically, it will also be possible for Gibson to drive out to Bloemfontein, where Knights face Cobras, and watch Hashim Amla, Temba Bavuma, Dane Piedt, Theunis de Bruyn, David Miller and Duanne Olivier.The Test squad is set to be named during the week, but there are still some key areas for Gibson to focus on.The opening pair Despite Elgar’s emergence as one their most reliable performers, South Africa have been unable to find consistency with their openers. Kuhn has a knee injury that will likely force him out of contention. The other candidates are Cook, who surged back to form against India A last month, and Aiden Markram, who will captain a CSA invitation XI in a warm-up match against Bangladesh in Benoni. Gibson may not get to see Markram, but blooding the youngster seems an obvious route, because sterner tests await South Africa this summer.Batsmen of colour South Africa’s transformation requirement is a topic of discussion, especially in light of JP Duminy’s Test retirement. South Africa are now left with only two regular batsmen of colour: Hashim Amla and Temba Bavuma, and Gibson will be hard-pressed to find another soon. Cobras’ Jason Smith and Dolphins’ Khaya Zondo are candidates, but neither have the weight of runs that will knock down doors. That opens up an opportunity for someone else to make a mark, especially in the first half of the summer. Lions’ Reeza Hendricks and Omphile Ramela are two others on the radar, and Gibson will want one of them to perform before the transformation numbers become an issue.Balancing the attack Dale Steyn and Vernon Philander would be automatic picks, but neither are available for the first-class matches this week. Steyn’s recovery could only come with the T20 Global League in November, and though Philander is expected to recover sooner, his battle with fitness does not bode well. Morne Morkel has emerged as the most dependable of the quicks, so he will have to lead the attack with Rabada. Gibson will likely look for the more consistent bowler between Morris and Olivier, but Phehlukwayo may be able to force his way in. Over the season, South Africa will want greater resources in this department, be it a tried and tested one like Wayne Parnell, or youngsters like Lungi Ngidi and Junior Dala.Support Staff The quick turnaround between Gibson’s arrival and the Bangladesh series means that Domingo’s support staff will work for Gibson at first. Assistant coach Adrian Birrell, bowling coach Charl Langeveldt, batting coach Neil McKenzie and spin consultant Claude Henderson will be at Gibson’s disposal, but it will be up to him how long they stay. There is strong suggestion that Birrell will not remain assistant, with Lions coach Geoffrey Toyana and Warriors coach Malibongwe Maketa in the running to become the new second-in-command. Langeveldt, McKenzie and Henderson may consider themselves on trial as things stand, especially as Gibson begins to establish his coaching style in the South African set-up.

After a chastening tour of South Africa, everyone who matters in Bangladesh cricket is worried about the state of the country’s fast bowlers. Just what has gone wrong, and can anything be done about it?

Mohammad Isam31-Oct-2017Four weeks of poor performances in South Africa and everyone in Bangladesh cricket is worried about the pace bowlers. The seven matches in that tour, across formats, revealed some home truths about their technique, skills and attitude. Taskin Ahmed, Rubel Hossain, Shafiul Islam, Mustafizur Rahman, Mohammad Saifuddin, Mashrafe Mortaza and Subashis Roy jointly took 19 wickets in seven matches, averaging 83.21 and taking a wicket every 15.1 overs.Among those who really matter in Bangladesh cricket – senior cricketers, coaches and board officials – there is already an urgency to find out what went wrong. Although the BPL will begin within three days of the team’s return home, it is not a topic that is easily going away.It was one disaster after another in South Africa, starting from the Test series. Mushfiqur Rahim threw the pace bowlers a challenge to eke out advantages from what he perceived to be the first-day freshness of pitches in Potchefstroom and Bloemfontein. But they ended up bowling all over the place, giving South African batsmen at least two bad balls every over.The twin failures drew the wrath of Mushfiqur, who himself was not spared for deciding to bowl first on batting-friendly pitches. That ultimately led to the sapping of any confidence in the ODIs, a format in which many of these pace bowlers have done well over the past three years.South Africa followed a 10-wicket win in the first ODI with two 350-plus scores, and continued their dominance through the T20Is, where they batted first in both matches and posted totals of 195 and 224.The focus of most observations in the last week or so has been that Bangladesh’s pace bowlers are not bowling enough during training. Some have said it has become a “bad habit”, that the bowlers should simply be putting in more hours at the nets. Instead, the belief is that they spend a lot more time working on their fitness, either running and sprint work or in the gym.The bowlers themselves, at least privately, also feel they should be bowling more and that the focus as of now is more on their fitness.”If we are to bowl 10 overs in a session, we cannot be bowling four overs in training every day,” one pace bowler told ESPNcricinfo. “It is not a difficult thing to understand that by bowling more in the nets, we will improve. But it doesn’t happen like that in the Bangladesh team.”He also spoke of the generally unsettled existence of a Bangladesh fast bowler: they hardly play in home Tests where spinners dominate, sometimes not bowling a single over in long sessions of only fielding in the deep. At the same time they spend months training in the senior team’s camps, which keeps them away from bowling in first-class cricket.That leads into another frustration. Those who have worked closely with the pace bowlers point out that while they work hard, they are not as self-sufficient as the team would like them to be. They stick to doing what they are told, and hardly ever contribute to team meetings. Worse, they don’t set their own fields.Mushfiqur’s criticism did not go down well with the BCB president Nazmul Hassan, but many of the points he made were the result of pent-up frustration. He also acknowledged that he couldn’t perhaps communicate well with the pace bowlers, which, by many accounts, is accurate.ESPNcricinfo LtdEven though Bangladesh slightly misread the pitch in the first Test, Mushfiqur had hoped of at least a wicket or two in that first session. In that first Test, however, Taskin, Mustafizur and Shafiul conceded 58 runs off 67 balls marked as “short” or “full” by the ESPNcricinfo scoring team, which represented approximately 10% of all the balls they bowled in the Test. Against these two lengths, South Africa struck nine fours, one roughly every seven balls.The three quicks only bowled two yorkers in 108 overs.Nearly 70 per cent of their 648 deliveries were on a traditional good length, from which they picked up three wickets and conceded 452 runs at 3.05 per over. It showed that while they regained some consistency and control over their length in the second innings, they couldn’t use the new or old ball well enough.By contrast, Kagiso Rabada, Morne Morkel, Dane Olivier and Andile Phehlukwayo profited much more from that good length; They pitched 234 out of 492 balls on that length, taking eight of their 13 wickets there. That’s roughly a wicket every 29 good-length balls. Compare that to Bangladesh’s one in 150.Since bowling short wasn’t really an option on a pitch that didn’t offer much bounce, the South African pacers refrained from overdoing it. They only delivered 49 short balls, picking up one wicket. Bangladesh bowled 25 short balls, getting one wicket.Things grew worse for Bangladesh in Bloemfontein, where there was a bit more bounce but not much lateral movement. Mustafizur, Rubel and Subhashis ended up giving away 179 runs off the 165 short and full deliveries in the Test: which was more than a third of their total 456 deliveries.The South African batsmen hit 31 fours off those short and full lengths, or nearly one four every five balls. But they were far quieter when the pace bowlers bowled a good length: 180 balls, 131 (or nearly 73%) dots. When they bowled a good length, Bangladesh’s quicks only gave away 2.56 per over.Here lies another problem that hasn’t gone unnoticed: some of the pace bowlers strive too much for those magic wicket-taking balls. They don’t aim to build pressure by bowling a succession of dot balls. Without much lateral movement, those wicket-taking attempts flip into bad balls.In Bloemfontein, South Africa’s pacers showed that, unlike their Bangladesh counterparts, they could use the short ball as a weapon: they pounded the batsmen with 157 short balls, taking five wickets while conceding 3.78 per over. On many occasions they got wickets with good-length and full balls while slipping them in amidst their short-ball barrage.In Potchefstroom the Bangladesh pacers didn’t show enough skills to use good-length balls to slow down the batsmen, while in Bloemfontein their short balls were too easy to handle.Bangladesh also couldn’t keep any of the South African batsmen on strike for a significant period of time. The starkest difference between the sides in the Test series lay in the singles conceded metric. The Bangladesh pacers conceded singles off nearly 20% of the totals balls bowled, while the figure for the South Africa pacers was just 8%. All other parameters (twos, threes and boundaries) were virtually the same for both sides.ESPNcricinfo LtdOnce they had done this poorly in the Tests, the prediction was that the problem would persist in the limited overs games. The steady progress of Bangladesh’s quicks in the shorter formats since 2015 provided some hope that they would do better, but that quickly diminished when Mustafizur was ruled out of the ODIs with an ankle injury.Nothing worked against Hashim Amla, Quinton de Kock, Faf du Plessis and AB de Villiers. What stood out instead was the lack of yorkers, which bowlers like Rubel Hossain and Taskin have been more inclined to bowl and better at bowling in the past. They bowled only three each in the first two ODIs and eight in the third game.In all this, the role of Courtney Walsh comes to the fore. Over the last 13 months, most have found him to be a diligent and helpful bowling coach. He puts forth all plans and constantly offers the bowlers tips. He has gone out of his way to make the pace bowlers feel comfortable around him, often by bonding with them socially.Some of the pace bowlers were not vocal enough when they were struggling, an observation that was especially true in New Zealand earlier this year. At the time it was seen as a minor and inevitable issue because Walsh was new, but while Walsh has since tried to overcome that, the bowlers haven’t responded properly.Walsh will, however, continue to have a greater role in their holistic improvement. Champaka Ramanayake, working currently for the BCB’s High Performance Unit, will also have a role to play, especially because of his history with bowlers like Rubel and Shafiul. But the pair may have to enforce a tougher regime on the bowlers, starting with greater focus on bowling longer spells in the nets and taking it to first-class matches.Will the BCB enable this? The answer is not quite straightforward.As soon as they return from South Africa, the bowlers will become busy with the BPL. And tired bodies will be reluctant to play any first-class matches after December 12, when they are available to do so.Sri Lanka arrive in mid-January, four weeks after the BPL. That is not really enough time to implement a cultural shift in how Bangladesh’s pace bowlers develop, or even make necessary technical tweaks.While there is a lot of dread flying around the Shere Bangla National Stadium, the good news is that everyone is worried, and thinking hard about how to improve things. This is a positive step and as a senior figure mentioned. “The South Africa tour was a disaster but it is good that it happened,” he said. “If we forget about the South Africa series, it will be a disaster for Bangladesh cricket.”

Mumbai Indians kept bowling short and often varied the pace to strangle Kolkata Knight Riders’ chase

Dustin Silgardo06-May-2018How did KKR’s chase fall apart?
After 12 overs, they were going at 9.25 runs an over and needed 8.87 an over to win. With eight wickets in hand, that should have been straightforward. But after losing Robin Uthappa, KKR scored 33 from the next 33 balls and left too much to do in the last two overs. A lot of that was down to intelligent bowling from Mumbai Indians. Hardik Pandya mixed short balls with slower ones and wide yorkers while legspinner Mayank Markande gave the batsmen no room. Mitchell McClenaghan and Jasprit Bumrah also bowled short balls to make life difficult for KKR. But from KKR’s point of view, there are a couple of worrying trends emerging.ESPNcricinfo LtdFirst is Nitish Rana’s habit of slowing down as his innings progresses. He strikes at 142.68 in the first 10 balls of his innings, but that drops to 112 from balls 11-20 and 127.59 from balls 21-30. On Sunday, Rana raced to 22 off 11 balls, but then didn’t hit a boundary for the rest of his 27-ball innings. In his last 16 balls, he faced seven dots, and his strike rate by the end was only 114.81.Second: Andre Russell has been dominant in the death while batting first, but he has not yet fired in a chase. He has been striking at 130.67 in chases, compared to 246.67 in the first innings. In the death overs of chases, his strike rate drops to 78.50. Once Rana was out, Dinesh Karthik looked to rotate the strike and stay till the end while Russell went for the big shots, but he did not find his timing against the slower balls from the seamers and Markande’s legspin. Russell managed only nine off 10 balls before holing out. He has only batted in four chases, so KKR will hope he can buck the trend.ESPNcricinfo LtdShort stuff works for Mumbai
If you were listening to the radio commentary of the first few overs of KKR’s chase, without context, you would be forgiven for assuming this was a Test match at the WACA in the 1990s rather than a T20 game at the Wankhede. Bumrah, McClenaghan and Hardik Pandya hit the deck and targeted the batsmen’s body. The ploy got Chris Lynn to top edge a pull to short fine leg.As the innings progressed, Mumbai’s seamers kept bowling short of a length, often taking the pace off as they dragged the ball in to the pitch. Of the 84 balls they bowled, 69% were short or short of a length. They conceded at 7.75 an over off that length and took three wickets with it. If you take Ben Cutting, whose short balls Uthappa put away, out of the equation, the other three seamers went at just seven an over off short balls.ESPNcricinfo LtdWhy didn’t Mumbai send in Cutting?
The sight of Ben Cutting padded up, helmet on, awaiting his turn in the dug out is becoming an emblem of Mumbai Indians’ problems this season. They have all these dangerous weapons, but can’t seem to find the right moment to use them. Against KKR, Cutting had been ready since Krunal Pandya walked in to bat. But by the time Krunal was dismissed, it was clear Sunil Narine would bowl two of the last four overs. While Cutting strikes at 172.5 against pace, he manages just 118.33 against spin in T20s. And he would be facing one of the best T20 spinners, so Mumbai sent in JP Duminy instead.Why Narine was held for the death?
For the first time this IPL, Sunil Narine was given two overs at the death. KKR have had their problems in that period – coming in to this game, they were the third most expensive team in the last five overs.They also had a debutant fast bowler, Prasidh Krishna, and there was always the chance he would have to be protected from the slog overs. KKR captain Dinesh Karthik knew he could have two overs from Mitchell Johnson at the death, but he did not want to bowl Andre Russell then, because he has gone at 12.50 an over in that period. KKR have been getting one over from Piyush Chawla in the death, but against Mumbai there was the chance he would bowl to Krunal, who smashes legspinners at a strike rate of 200-plus. So, if Karthik wanted to give Krishna not more than one in the death, he had to get two from Narine, who ended up conceding 20 and taking a wicket in the last five.Narine also dismissed Rohit Sharma in his first over to the batsman. Narine had dismissed Rohit six times in 15 innings before this match, so that was clearly a match-up KKR wanted. Had Rohit survived the 12th over, Karthik may have given Narine another over at him, which would have meant changing his death-over plans.