At a time when Afghanistan is in the world’s political focus again, the first pan-subcontinental star offers a respite from all that heavy context

Osman Samiuddin14-Jun-2021There’s been something slightly disorienting about watching Rashid Khan, Afghan superstar, in the Pakistan Super League, although that feeling is also entirely appropriate. Though this is a debut in the league for him in body, in spirit it feels like a homecoming. This is a league run by the country he grew up in, possibly spent his formative cricket years in; where his cricket hero is from; where a large segment of the population are kindred to him in soul, mind and spirit – a tie that can never be erased or confined by material irrelevances like passports or borders.Said league, as it happens, is being played in a country Khan now resides in for convenience, because it allows him to travel easily. Said country is also the birthplace of said league, so Rashid Khan, a 24×7 on-the-road athlete, is, in many roundabout ways, home.He has been a life-affirming figure at this PSL, not least because it plays out at a time when that dreaded, wholly inadequate, hyphenated term “Af-Pak” is (with capital I) Important again. The TL;DR is that the US is pulling the last of its troops out of Afghanistan, 20 years after 9/11 and that has (capital I again) Implications for neighbouring Pakistan because there have been implications forever since the British drew a line in the sand in 1893 and divided one people into two.In a tiny but undeniable way Khan’s participation is significant in this connection – to say that yes, there is some very real life to sort out, but in the meantime here’s a slice of life that is also real and infinitely less exhausting. What is being played out here, an Afghan icon starring in Pakistan’s biggest event, is both a refuge from all that geopolitical context but also a reminder that the context need not be something to always take refuge from.Related

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And at some level, to Pakistanis specifically, it should be challenging. Millions of Afghans fled Afghanistan to seek refuge in Pakistan after the Soviet invasion of their country in 1979. But in a metropolis like Karachi, far from being seen as fellow sufferers – let alone citizens, because a majority have not been allowed to become citizens – they are seen by Pakistanis as troublesome, and worse, deleterious to society at large.More directly, hopefully, by dint of Khan’s participation in the PSL, through simple familiarity it can work away at the complications of cricket ties between the two countries, tied up within the broader complications of that hyphen. Khan’s celebration of the dismissal of Asif Ali in the 2018 Asia Cup is part of the friction, the clashes between Pakistan and Afghanistan fans in Leeds in the 2019 World Cup a result of it.Imagine, though, the power of him bowling as he did last Thursday against Peshawar Zalmi but doing it in front of a full house at Gaddafi Stadium, the home of his team? Better yet, at some point, imagine him playing in Peshawar, once – maybe forever – a home, in front of thousands of his people? There’s not enough wattage in the world to measure the electricity of such an occasion.In a way, prolonged participation in the PSL should also complete the uniqueness of his stature. Here is a player whose home is Afghanistan, who has grown up in Pakistan, who is not only a star in India but plays his “home” internationals there. He plays those for a country that is central to a geo-strategic proxy war – bragging rights, in plainer words – between the other two.He is at home right across these three countries. He is freely able to play in front of their crowds. He is freely able to play alongside their best players and against them. To varying degrees, each of the three can claim a bit of him, and Pakistan more once he has played more of the PSL. To that end, speaking publicly in Urdu post-match has been a nice touch. It may appear a small touch but, given that until as recently as the 2019 World Cup, Afghanistan’s team was reportedly under instructions by its board to not speak Urdu publicly, it is not that small.

Imagine him playing in Peshawar, once – maybe forever – a home, in front of thousands of his people? There’s not enough wattage in the world to measure the electricity of such an occasion

That could make him potentially the first true pan-subcontinent star. Nobody, not Hanif, not Mankad, not Gavaskar, not Kapil, not Imran, not Javed, not Wasim, not Sachin, not Kohli, not Babar – none can claim to have cut through the jingoism and blind hatred that blights cricket fandom in these countries. In the adulation and respect he inspires in these countries Khan might have quietly accrued a status that sets him apart from nationalities. He’s a country of one, and equally one of all countries. It seems unnecessary to state that how big he is in Australia too.There’s so much going on here, and after it all there is still his cricket. Of which, it’s safe to say that he has equalled his hero in some respects. “He is one player who has fans all over the world,” Khan told the a couple of years ago. “You don’t get such players every day. Check his record, he doesn’t have many centuries, but whenever he arrived, he would hit four-five-six sixes, entertain and leave. That is why he had fans. You to become his fan.”Aside from the detail of the batting, this could be about Khan himself. He, of course, was talking about Shahid Afridi, whose gravitational force he himself now comfortably channels, and which demands you’re pinned down for every single ball he’s involved in. Plus, he creates these moments, it seems, far more consistently. The other night, against Islamabad United, he stole a win with the bat in all of five balls, which in totality was a very Afridi thing to do but in its execution was far more ruthless. Although, just as Afridi would tell himself walking to the crease, Khan told himself to not play big shots. But when it came to the crunch, like Afridi again, he couldn’t hold himself back.By now everyone knows everything about the genius in his bowling, not that this knowledge helps batsmen any. Each ball is delivered as an expression of the same superiority and certainty as has been done by the true masters – the Marshalls or McGraths or Akrams.A special word for the googly, though. Fittingly for the nature of the delivery, Khan’s googly works in the opposite way to most others. The more he bowls it the it is understood, like the best magic, or undoubtedly for some people, maths.This is a great league for showing off googlies in. For a long while, it was a Pakistani delivery and in Imran Tahir at the Multan Sultans, there is a direct descendent of the Abdul Qadir lineage. At the same franchise there is also Qadir’s blood, and perhaps the beginnings of a theory that the googly can be inherited genetically. Khan’s googly though stands apart from all of them. And in doing so, it still feels right at home.

Root admits his attack bowled too short and that mistakes were repeated

Andrew Miller20-Dec-2021In the end, England found the will to fight, and dragged the Adelaide Test kicking and screaming into the floodlit session of the fifth and final day. But for all that their 113.1 overs of resistance encouraged a few fleeting thoughts of survival, their all-out total of 192 told a more realistic tale.Not only was it the lowest total of the match, and fewer runs even than England’s eventual margin of defeat, it was also the 11th time in 27 innings this calendar year that England had been bowled out for less than 200.It’s an extraordinary collective failing, especially when you consider that Joe Root, England’s captain, has twice made more runs than that in a single innings this year, en route to his stellar haul of 1630 at 62.69.But with the Boxing Day Test looming in six days’ time, and England already 2-0 down in the Ashes having lost in Australia for the 11th time in 12 matches, Root knows that the lessons of these opening two Tests must be absorbed urgently if they are to avoid this tour heading in the same bleak direction as each of its two predecessors.Related

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“I’m actually very proud of the way that the guys fought today,” Root insisted. “The attitude, the desire – that’s how we need to go about whole Test matches. You can’t just leave it to the last day and expect to pull off an enormous feat, which is what it would have been today.”After the agonies, literal and otherwise, of his final-over dismissal on the fourth evening, Root was particularly pleased for Jos Buttler, England’s embattled wicketkeeper, whose glaring errors behind the stumps had been compounded by his duck in the first innings.Buttler avoided a pair on the final day when his counterpart, Alex Carey, blemished an otherwise superb display by failing to react to an early edge off Mitchell Starc, but seized on that let-off with a doughty 26 from 207 balls – the second-longest innings of his career, behind his century against Pakistan in 2020.”Jos’s innings was outstanding,” Root said, “ably supported by others, Woakesy [Chris Woakes] in particular. But ultimately that is the attitude and the mentality that we have to harness for five days if we’re going to win here.”The disappointing thing about this week is that we made the same mistakes as last week,” Root added. “We just can’t afford to do that. That’s going to be the most frustrating thing about this game, looking back.”Buttler’s innings ended in bizarre fashion, as he stepped back to steer Jhye Richardson into the covers and trod on his own wicket, 12 balls into the final session of the game. And while Root admitted that the team had been “devastated for him” after such a committed effort, he said that the strength of character Buttler had shown was reminiscent of his crucial half-century in the 2019 World Cup final – the sort of big-game mentality for which he had been recalled to the Test team in the first place.”Anyone that can handle a World Cup final – read the situation of the game, and be as composed as he was throughout that – can manage situations like this one within a Test match,” Root said. “He should gain a huge amount of confidence from the way he played today, not just in performing out here in these conditions but in his defence. Hopefully he can take a lot from this into the rest of this series.”Joe Root reflects on another heavy defeat•PA Images via Getty ImagesWhile England’s batting was a recognised concern coming into this Test, Root acknowledged that the bowling had been every bit as culpable in Australia’s first innings. Despite reuniting England’s senior seamers James Anderson and Stuart Broad with a view to exploiting the purported movement of the pink ball, the lengths from all of England’s five quicks were consistently too short to target Australia’s outside edges, as they racked up a formidable 473 for 9 declared.”We need to be braver, and we need to get the ball up there,” Root said. “We were a little bit short with the ball. We didn’t challenge them enough, and they left very well again, which was something that they did in Brisbane as well.”Having witnessed Australia’s success with a fuller length in their own first innings of 236, England’s quicks fared better second time around, particularly on the fourth morning when three wickets tumbled in the first hour. “That’s almost the benchmark for us,” Root said. “We need to look at those passages of play, and do them for longer, and exploit the conditions as well as we did in that period of the game.”Overall, however, England were outbatted, outbowled, and outfielded on a consistent basis from the first ball to last.”That’s the game,” Root said. “You have to be able to put the ball in the right areas for long enough, you have to be able to score big runs, and when you create those chances you have to take them.”I think the frustration within our dressing room is that we did not quite execute very basic things well enough for the second game in a row. First of all, we need to learn, and we need to learn fast. We can’t make the same mistakes that we have done so far.”Despite the 2-0 scoreline, and the knowledge that no England team has ever fought back from such a deficit to win the Ashes, Root remained adamant that all is not lost, and that the gulf between the teams need not be as big as it has seemed in the first two Tests.”With the bat, we have got the ability,” he said. “I don’t think that Australia are that much better than us in these conditions. We are better than how we’ve played and we’ll front up in Melbourne, and put in a performance which is a fairer reflection of the ability in our dressing-room.”We’ve got three massive games with the Ashes on the line now. And if that’s not motivation enough to go there and put performances in, I don’t know what is.”

England’s assistant coach, who has been part of six World Cups and led them to their first global title, believes they have the team to go all the way again

Interview by Matt Roller22-Oct-2021″It’s a feeling that I’d never be able to describe – way beyond anything I’d ever felt before. If you could bottle that moment, I’d open that bottle every single day. You don’t get any better feeling than that.”Paul Collingwood is sitting in his hotel room at England’s training camp in Oman reminiscing about the undisputed highlight of his T20 international career. After inside-edging Shane Watson for four to level the scores in the 2010 World T20 final, Collingwood shimmied down the pitch and clipped him wide of mid-on to win England their first men’s ICC event.Those three weeks in the Caribbean were not the culmination of a long-term plan or the start of an era of dominance, but now look like a precursor to England’s white-ball revolution following their early exit at the 50-over World Cup in 2015. “I remember a discussion with our head coach, Andy Flower,” Collingwood recalls. “We said whatever we’d been doing in the past, it hadn’t worked. If we continued with the same kind of team and method and strategy, there was a good chance that we weren’t going to succeed.”Related

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Ahead of the 2010 World T20, England were thrashed by their second-string Lions side in a warm-up match in the UAE and decided to throw Michael Lumb and Craig Kieswetter, the openers who took their attack apart, in at the deep end, while embracing their analyst Nathan Leamon’s findings: that left-arm seamers were undervalued – hence the selection of Ryan Sidebottom ahead of James Anderson – and that slower-ball bouncers were surprisingly effective at the death. After scraping through the group stage on net run-rate, they won their next five games in a row to lift the trophy, never conceding more than 150 in an innings.”We had to take a gamble – be brave, be bold,” Collingwood says. “The preparation was all about confidence, not too much technical work or thinking too deeply about the game. It was all about having fun and putting on a bit of a show. It was a different approach to what we were used to, but we changed our mentality and embraced that real ‘express yourself’ approach. Thankfully, it worked.

“With a leader like Morgan, when they’re going through a bad run of form, people look at just stats of scoring runs – how do you measure what that person is giving in leadership? The only way you can is through results, but it’s far greater than that.”

“We’d turn up, put 100% effort into training, and then go straight to the golf courses. If you didn’t enjoy the golf you were around the pool at the hotel. We tried to make it as relaxed an atmosphere as possible. I think that camaraderie that we gathered and the momentum that we had through the tournament [meant] it was just a really fun experience.”Now England’s assistant coach, Collingwood is preparing for his sixth of seven men’s T20 World Cups – he captained England in the first three and was part of the backroom staff in 2014 and 2016. They will be captained in this edition by the man who was at the non-striker’s end as Collingwood hit the winning runs 11 years ago, and he can see parallels between Eoin Morgan’s position heading into this tournament and his own in 2010.Morgan has had the worst year of his T20 career in 2021, averaging 16.63 with a strike rate of 118.52, and the sample size of 35 innings is not exactly small. Collingwood himself struggled badly during the World T20 in 2010 – he made 61 runs in seven innings with a top score of 16 – and while he says that it would be “great if [England] have both the leader and the runs”, he stresses that they were not facing “desperation if we haven’t”.”You can understand sometimes that you do lose form [as captain] because of the amount of mental energy that you give up in big series,” Collingwood says. “I remember back in 2010, all I wanted to do was go out there and try to impose myself on the game and make sure that I wasn’t eating up balls just because I was in a bad run of form. You don’t want to be selfish in any way – you want to lead the team and help them play the brand of cricket you’re desperate to.”With Morgs, I’ve always found it takes one shot or ball out of the middle of the bat. He’s never that far away and we’ve all seen how destructive he can be. I’m sure he’d want to score more runs but… you’ve got to understand what he gives the team in his leadership. That is far greater than a run of form with the bat. He takes pressure away from players: there’s a lot of hours that he puts into analysis behind the scenes so when you get into a game, the players can relax and the captain can be the composer out there and run the show.Been there, won that: Collingwood struck the winning runs that gave England their first World T20 win, with Morgan at the other end for company•Rebecca Naden/PA Photos/Getty Images”With a leader like that, when they’re going through a bad run of form, people look at just stats of scoring runs – how do you measure what that person is giving in leadership? The only way you can is through results, but it’s far greater than that. To even question what he gives or question his form with the bat, we’d never go down that route. We totally understand as an England team what he’s given in the past and what he’ll continue to give in the future. He’ll be desperate to score more runs but as long as his leadership and direction and skills of leading on the park are still 100% – like they are – we’ll be very happy.”In particular, Collingwood considers Morgan’s recent experience with Kolkata Knights Riders – whom he captained into the IPL final after a poor first half of the season – to be a trump card for England, not least after his exposure to the UAE’s pitches. Morgan’s flexible use of his batting resources, pragmatism in fielding only two frontline seamers in certain games and willingness to slide down the order in recognition of his own form all serve as evidence of his strengths as captain – though their winning streak came about in no small part due to a world-class spin attack, something that England lack.”It’s an unbelievable achievement from the position they were in,” Collingwood says. “It shows what kind of a leader he is that he was able to galvanise a team that seemed to be down and out. It’s going to be crucial that we have as much understanding as possible regarding the venues and what’s working, and Morgs has been in the heat of the battle.”Along with a handful of other players and support staff members, Collingwood is expecting to be away from home for most of this winter and admits that another winter confined to hotels is a tough prospect. “We’ve obviously done a lot more of it than other teams and I don’t understand why we still need bubbles, if I’m entirely honest,” he says. “When everyone is double-vaccinated, the sooner we manage Covid like any other illness the better for everyone mentally.”The restrictions are put on us in these World Cups because we’ve got to protect the tournament, but everyone who has done bubbles for a long period of time would argue you’ve only got so much time that you could actually cope with them and a lot of cricketers out there are on the brink. From the outside it looks nice, staying in nice hotels, but it’s frustrating: you are literally stuck with the same people for months on end.”

“We had to take a gamble – be brave, be bold. The preparation was all about confidence, not too much technical work or thinking too deeply about the game”On the mindset that won England the 2010 World T20 title

But he stresses that he will be driven through by the prospect of “a World Cup then an Ashes… for all of us, this is one of the most exciting times of our career, whether as a coach or a player. What could be achieved over the next five or six months is huge. Everyone is raring to go and building up really well.”Collingwood sees the key to his own role as assistant coach as “giving a player the chance to improve”. He took particular pleasure from Liam Livingstone’s breakthrough summer having suggested a technical tweak (with some help from Marcus Trescothick) that sparked his six-hitting form. “That’s why you do the job: it’s great to see a player respond well and go onto the success he’s had this year,” he says. “It’s nice for players to appreciate the work you do but they’re the ones that have to be open to little tweaks and changes.”And he is clear about two things: that the standard of T20 cricket has never been higher, and England have never been better placed at this stage in their preparations. “You’re going to see a very serious World Cup,” he says. “It would be silly to say that cricket hasn’t moved on: every other sport in the world has. People are getting faster, stronger and fitter. The athleticism and the power that’s in the game now is pure and it’s forever evolving.”I don’t think many teams will be looking forward to playing against England, with the power that we have in the batting unit in particular. I don’t think you could be better prepared than this team is. Of course we’re missing a couple of players that have been a key part of our white-ball team – the extreme pace of Jofra [Archer] and the allround ability of Ben Stokes – but we’ve built up a big squad where players can come in at any time and fill gaps if we do have injuries.”I see us as one of the teams to beat. I don’t think we should be scared of having the favourites tag on us – I think we’ve earned it over the years. This team is still moving forward even now – as good as the guys are, we want them to get better and better. It’s a difficult side to pick and I’m glad I don’t have that job – there’s so much skill and experience around the group. Last time [in 2016] we were very close. Hopefully this time, we can just go that extra step.”

He is a rare breed who kept making changes to the very soul of his batting

Sidharth Monga03-Mar-2022VVS Laxman was awed by a stunning quality of Sachin Tendulkar’s batting. In 1996-97, on a particularly quick Newlands surface, Tendulkar widened and also slightly opened his stance, tapping his bat between his feet instead of the usual behind the back toe. And he scored a breathtaking century. All he did to prepare for this change was take a few throwdowns with that stance.”I have told him many times that for the rest of us mortals, if we want to change something, we have to first do it in the throwdowns, then in the nets, and then carry it into a match,” Laxman wrote on ESPNcricinfo. “Here he was, against the best bowling attack of the time, trying something new in the throwdowns and directly using it to get a brilliant Test hundred.”Batting is such a fickle pursuit it drives its practitioners to obsession. Everything from their technique to routines must be just so. Accordingly, they are loathe to change. Coaches have to walk on eggshells when suggesting a change. If they manage to convince a batter, they go through the process sensitively and painstakingly in the nets. Well with most of them at any rate.Then there is the rare breed that can change things on the fly and be comfortable with it. That is perhaps the most important quality Tendulkar’s spiritual heir Virat Kohli shares with him.Related

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Change has been the biggest hallmark of Kohli’s career, which now stands 100 Tests old. It has practically happened in public eye with hardly any breaks from any format. By the time batters reach first-class cricket, their game is more or less set. Not many change the soul of their batting as much as Kohli has done. From a bottom-handed batter who favoured the on side, he has fashioned himself into a cover-drive-reliant batter who has all but sacrificed back-foot off-side runs to counter the movement that hampered his cover drive. Normal stance, extra wide stance, slightly wide stance, bat twirl (although not really a part of technique), bat tap, no tap, big front press, then fine-tuning it, he has done it all.Most incredibly, like Tendulkar, he could make changes seemingly on a whim. At Edgbaston in 2018, Sriram Veera observed for how Kohli constantly fought with his own game: changing his guard two-three times during the innings, standing outside the crease one ball, deep inside the next. The first half of that epic innings was scratchy, but Kohli kept changing to fight for a different result to the one four years prior. Earlier that year, in South Africa, he would tap his bat down to certain bowlers and not to certain others, almost a different batter to different bowlers.This is more than just the fierce will to compete and improve, which shows in how he turned around his fitness. This is complete knowledge of his game, and detachment with what is not the bottom line, runs. And the utter confidence to pull off those changes, not fearing he might lose some of his original attributes.Sample what Sanjay Bangar, then the batting coach, said after Edgbaston: “I would say that this innings showed different facets of Virat’s batting. The main thing is that Virat is flexible about his batting approach. Most of the batters are not flexible when it comes to changing technique or approach. But Virat in this respect is different.”Virat Kohli: the spiritual heir to Sachin Tendulkar•PA Photos/Getty ImagesIt is clear how seamers tried to get him out for a majority of his career. Drag him across, play with the edge, and then try to sneak in the lbw. Kartikeya Date used extensive ball-tracking data to see how some of the prominent batters react to different zones on the beehive. Kohli had turned the top-of-off delivery, a weakness for other batters, into a strength, averaging 156, by shifting his guard and moving forward to cut down the movement. Wide length balls and short balls in the channel outside off became less productive zones. The top-of-leg delivery tended to get him lbw. He backed himself to do enough damage by then.Contrary to conventional wisdom, Kohli didn’t shelve the cover drive. It is not stubbornness or lack of self-denial. When facing spin, against which he has been proficient, Kohli cut out the lofted shot to the extent that he once went 805 balls in 2016 without hitting one in the air. Rarely in a bad position to play spin – even though he didn’t sweep or leave the crease much – he knew he had other scoring avenues. Some of his best knocks against spin have not been hundreds but forties and fifties in the third innings when all bets are off, looking at ease against the misbehaving ball when others are struggling.Against seam, on the constantly difficult tracks of today, and facing deeper and fitter attacks, he felt he wouldn’t get runs if he didn’t cover drive. So he just tried to keep getting better and better at it even if it meant sacrificing back-foot runs. He wasn’t unmindful, he was practical.At the same time Kohli kept meeting the demands of higher scoring rates in the limited-overs game by expanding the same base. Reaching 100 Tests is a staggering achievement for Kohli because he has excelled in two other formats at the same time and has led all the sides he played in when at his prime.In an interview with Nasser Hussain in 2016, when he spoke so eloquently of the changes he made, he answered a Tendulkar comparison saying he won’t be able to play as long as Tendulkar did. He knew back then itself he was playing an intense game that took a lot out of him. Any batter who plays Test cricket for India is an expert at what he does, but it is fair to say his is not as natural and gifted a game as Tendulkar’s.It is showing in how Kohli has had to take a sudden and big step back from leadership in the last six months or so. He goes into the 100th Test having not scored a century in two years even though he has not looked as out-of-sorts as those numbers suggest. Yet you wonder if he draws comfort from them. If he doubts himself now. If there is going to be a resurgence not matter how brief or long. One thing you do know, though: if he feels a change is required, he will make it. You’d better be watching out for that, even at 100 Tests old.

Debutant seamers play their part in rocking South Africa top order

Valkerie Baynes27-Jun-2022England have had their first glimpse of life beyond Katherine Brunt and Anya Shrubsole and it looked pretty bright out there at Taunton.With Brunt revving up the crowd while sitting in the Somerset Stand and Shrubsole also taking in the view at her home ground, England’s retired seam stalwarts gazed down on the action as Issy Wong and Lauren Bell, on international debut, helped reduce South Africa to 45 for 4 on the opening day of the Test.There’s every chance that Brunt, having presented Wong with her Test cap, looked on with satisfaction as she and Bell grabbed their opportunity to try and step into the void she left when she recently announced her retirement from Tests, following Shrubsole’s decision in April to call time on her international career.Related

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“They didn’t look out of place at all, did they?” said Kate Cross, who claimed four wickets in her new role as seam attack leader. “Wongy steaming in and trying to knock people’s heads off at some point, she’s been doing that in the nets with us all week so it was great to see her get a chance.”There’s not many times that you’ll make your full England debut in a Test match. It’s just pretty special. It’s been a really nice day. There were some amazing speeches this morning. Katherine Brunt in particular had everyone in tears, talking about when we play Test cricket it feels like we’re always fighting to prove that we can play the format and we want more of it.”So it’s always nice when you get the new guard to come in and get that opportunity as well. I thought everyone played with a smile on their face and no one looked nervous. No one looked out of their depths at all. So I thought that’s a great place for us to be.”Wong struck with her 12th ball in international cricket, pegging back Laura Wolvaardt’s middle and off stumps, then took a screamer of a catch launching herself into the air in the covers to dismiss Sinalo Jafta giving Cross her third wicket.Bell bowled a probing first spell, and finished the day with the wickets of Lizelle Lee, to a tight lbw decision upheld on impact on umpire’s call, and the prize wicket of Marizanne Kapp, spectacularly caught by Tammy Beaumont at mid-off.Kapp’s faultless 150 resurrected South Africa’s innings to the point that they had reached 284 by the time they were bowled out to end the day’s play, altering the complexion of the match somewhat although it did little to dampen England’s spirits, given the performance of the side’s newcomers.Kate Cross struck early for England•PA Images/GettyAlso making their Test debuts were Alice Davidson-Richards, a batting allrounder who offers another seam-bowling option and who dismissed Nadine de Klerk cheaply, and Emma Lamb, who will have the chance to open alongside Beaumont when England begin their response on Tuesday.For her part, Kapp was particularly impressed by Wong. “When she bowled that first over this morning I told our team doctor I believe she’s going to go far,” Kapp said. “I think she has what it takes.”Overall as a unit I feel like they bowled really well. It does get harder to bowl once the ball is so much older and with a quick outfield so I feel like they bowled really well and for me the goal was to just get through the tough sessions and then I knew I could cash in at the back end.”Wong was somewhat of a surprise inclusion having been promoted from travelling reserve when Emily Arlott struggled for fitness after a recent covid infection. Despite having travelled with England squads for the best part of two years, Lisa Keightley, the head coach, said she wanted to carefully manage Wong’s workload and suggested that she was more in the frame for a limited-overs role this season.Wong ended the day with 1 for 54 from 13 overs, and Bell with 2 for 47 from 16 and both were able to reflect on their journey to this point, having progressed through Chance to Shine and become the first full participants of the programme set up in 2005 to address the decline of cricket in state schools to go on and play for England.”It feels pretty special to be the first people to have been a part of that pathway, hopefully we’re the first of many,” Bell said.Wong agreed: “I’m sure there will be other Chance to Shine graduates after Belly and me.”For those that have gone before them looking on, there was reason to hope and believe too.

Baz’s boys and Stokes’ folks are going to nice-guy the hell out of Test cricket or kill the format trying

Alan Gardner18-May-2022Who amongst us – with the possible exception of Brad Haddin – doesn’t have a soft spot for New Zealand? The designated Nice Guys of world cricket, they have inspired a legion of dedicated kiwi fanciers with their wholesome brand of understated effectiveness, winning hearts and minds (and even the occasional trophy) along the way.Currently there is no one looking more longingly in the Black Caps’ direction, silently mouthing “I wanna be you”, than England. Not content with basing the overhaul of their one-day teams a few years ago on New Zealand’s Brendon McCullum-led band of derring-doers, they have now opted to bring in the twinkly T20 sage himself as their new Test coach. Truly, has there ever been a more overwhelming case of Stockholm syndrome than that inspired by England’s 2015 World Cup battering at the Cake Tin?With McCullum and (Christchurch-born) allrounder Ben Stokes forming a totemic tattooed twosome in charge of the Test side, England seemingly intend to go down swinging, at the very least. Which most fans would probably agree is better than going down in a crying heap, as has been increasingly the case. But what will life be like under the “Thriller Bees”? Let’s sift for clues.Positive cricket
One of the most-memorable McCullum gambits was charging down to Mitchell Starc in the opening over of the World Cup final. Sure, he had his stumps splatted and New Zealand ended up being thrashed, but it’s the principle that matters. Stokes has a similar mindset. Be it balls, bodies or dressing-room lockers, both love to smash it.Spirit of the game
In his 2016 MCC Spirit of Cricket lecture, McCullum regretfully recounted running out Muthiah Muralidaran after he had left his crease to celebrate a team-mate’s hundred. Don’t be surprised if Stokes decides at some point down the line that the whole runs-off-the-back-of-the-bat thing in the 2019 final was a grave injustice and offers to repatriate the stolen World Cup to New Zealand.Team culture
McCullum took over as New Zealand captain in the wake of the bungled removal of Ross Taylor, helping to heal a split dressing room and rebuild the team from one of its lowest points in recent times. Stokes takes charge of England following one of the longest and most successful (technically speaking) captaincies in their history, and with the team still completely behind his predecessor, Joe Root. He’s got a hell of a job on his hands.Playing with a smile
A central McCullum philosophy. Might be tricky for James Anderson to get his head around.Tattoos
If in doubt, spell it out. McCullum has his international cap numbers on his shoulder; Stokes has them on his arm. McCullum has a silver fern on his chest; Stokes has one on his shoulder, plus a pride of lions on his back. Both have tributes to their wives and kids among their body art. Stand by for Mark Wood having his imaginary horse tattooed on a buttock, Jack Leach getting 1* etched into his neck, and Zak Crawley discovering some Maori heritage.So there you go. England’s Test decline has been slow and painful, but now they’re going to live fast (or kill the format trying). Time for members of the Barmy Army to all go out to get “Baz Boys 4 Life” inked on a bicep.

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Chennai Super Kings may not stand a chance of winning this year’s IPL, but their fans have something even better to celebrate: MS Dhoni is back at the wheel. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Ravindra Jadeja’s brief captaincy stint was an unhappy affair – made all the more difficult, the Light Roller suspects, by having the “Dad’s Army” alpha lurking in the background. “For the first two games, I simply oversaw his work and let him be later,” Dhoni said after being reappointed for the rest of the season. “After that, I insisted that he take his own decisions and bear responsibility for them.” Strong overbearing paterfamilias vibes from Mahi there, like the dad who grudgingly allows his son to have a go at being the map-reader on a family walk. Now everyone’s lost and, adds Dhoni regretfully, if we all die out here, then we know whose fault it is. Still, character-building stuff for young Jaddu.

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More transformation lolz coming out of South Africa, where attempts by CSA to remove Mark Boucher as men’s team head coach over allegations about past racist behaviour backfired. Never mind that the board was shocked – shocked! – to discover that hiring a group of white former players to management positions en masse might provoke a response from those who believe South African cricket is long overdue a reckoning on equality. CSA’s efforts to address examples of discrimination raised during last year’s Social Justice and Nation-Building hearings then fell flat due to the unavailability of witness testimony. The intentions are good, clearly. But it seems before CSA can make a significant dent on historic racial injustice, it will have to transform a reputation for historic administrative incompetence.

All the key numbers from England’s record chase against India at Edgbaston

Sampath Bandarupalli05-Jul-2022

A record chase

378 – Target chased down by England, their highest successful chase in Tests. Their previous best was 359, against Australia in the 2019 Ashes Test at Headingley.ESPNcricinfo Ltd1 – England posted the highest chase by any team against India in Tests. Australia’s 339-run chase in the 1977 Perth Test was the previous highest against India. The 378-run chase is also the second-highest by any team in England, behind Australia’s 404 in 1948.1 – Number of fourth-innings total against India in Tests that are higher than the 378 for 3 by England at Edgbaston. South Africa made 450 for 7 in pursuit of a 458-run target in the 2013 Johannesburg Test. It is also the fourth-highest total for England in the fourth innings of a Test.ESPNcricinfo Ltd4 – Successful 250-plus run chases in 2022 for England. They have now become the first team to complete four successful chases of 250-plus targets in a calendar year. Australia had three such wins in 2006, while four other teams have won two each, including England in 2004.Related

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• Ben Stokes: England approach means opposing teams will now 'fear' third innings

Scoring them quickly

4.93 – England’s run rate in the chase, the third-highest for any team involved in a successful 300-plus chase in Test cricket. Pakistan scored at a run rate of 5.25 to chase down a target of 302 against Sri Lanka in 2014, while West Indies hunted down 342 against England in the 1984 Lord’s Test at 5.19 runs an over.4.34 – Scoring rate in the Edgbaston Test, the fourth-highest for a completed Test match. Edgbaston has played host to three of the top-six results in the list of completed Tests with the highest scoring rates.

A partnership for the ages

269* – The partnership between Joe Root and Jonny Bairstow. This is the fourth-highest stand for any wicket in the fourth innings of a Test match. It is also the highest partnership for the fourth (or lower) wicket, surpassing the 251-run fourth-wicket stand by Australia’s Graeme Wood and Craig Serjeant against West Indies in 1978.1 – The partnership between Root and Bairstow is the highest in the fourth innings of a Test match against India, surpassing the 216-run stand between Sri Lanka’s Roy Dias and Duleep Mendis in the 1985 Kandy Test. It is also the second-highest stand for England in the fourth innings behind the 280-run partnership between Paul Gibb and Bill Edrich in 1939 against South Africa.1 – Root and Bairstow became the first England pair to score hundreds in a successful fourth-innings chase in Test cricket. There have been 11 previous instances of twin centurions in a successful chase in Tests, with the last one by Pakistan in 2015 against Sri Lanka in Pallekele.2 – Hundreds for Root and Bairstow in successful chases, both in the ongoing home summer. No other England batter has more than one century in a successful fourth-innings chase in Test cricket.

Bairsball!

2008 – Last instance of a player scoring centuries for England in both innings of a Test match – Andrew Strauss in 2008 against India in Chennai.ESPNcricinfo Ltd2 – Bairstow became only the second England batter with twin hundreds while batting at No. 5 or lower in Test cricket. Denis Compton scored 147 and 103* against Australia in the 1947 Adelaide Test while batting at No. 5.6 – Hundreds for Bairstow in Tests in 2022, the most by a player while batting at No. 5 or lower in a calendar year, surpassing Michael Clarke’s five hundreds in 2012. Bairstow’s six Test centuries is the joint-most by an England batter in a calendar year.ESPNcricinfo Ltd

Root’s favourite opponents

9 – Number of centuries for Root in Tests against India, the most by any batter against India. Garry Sobers, Viv Richards, Ricky Ponting and Steven Smith are all at second with eight hundreds each against India.ESPNcricinfo Ltd737 – Number of runs by Root in the series, the second-most for England in a series against India, behind Graham Gooch’s 752 in 1990. His 737 runs are the fifth-highest for an England batter in a bilateral Test series and the fifth-most runs for a batter in a series against India.333 – Difference in runs between Root and Bairstow in this series, the joint-third highest between the top two run-getters of a Test series since 1940. Smith led Ben Stokes by exactly 333 runs during the 2019 Ashes series in England.