Having been out of action for 18 months, the quick wants to take a leaf out of Pat Cummins’ book as she gets back to competitive cricket

Valkerie Baynes25-Jun-2023There was a time when just walking 200 metres to grab a coffee without needing crutches or a lift home in the car was the biggest achievement in Tayla Vlaeminck’s bid to play for Australia again.Vlaeminck was one of the fastest bowlers in the women’s game before suffering a recurrence of a stress fracture in the navicular bone of her foot, which kept her out of two T20 World Cups either side of the ODI edition in 2022. She made the last of her 24 appearances for Australia during the 2022 Women’s Ashes, 18 months to the day before she played for Australia A last Wednesday as part of their T20 series against England A running alongside the current Women’s Ashes Test. Vlaeminck picked up the wicket of opener Bryony Smith as England A won by 74 runs at Loughborough.”It was so much fun getting out there,” Vlaeminck said at Trent Bridge after stopping by to see her senior team-mates locked in battle with England. “It’s been a while in the making… it was an lbw and I almost lost my voice I shouted that loudly. I don’t know that the umpire had a choice, to be honest. The girls got around me and I suppose it makes it all worth it in those nice moments.”Related

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Making it all worth seemed a long way off, even when she progressed from that short coffee errand to a ten-minute walk listening to a podcast. Or when she spent four months working with the Australian Ballet, just a stone’s throw from the MCG which Vlaeminck credits with playing a crucial role in helping her back to cricket.”It’s one of the key reasons I’m back,” she said. “It was awesome because building calf strengthening stuff is literally their gym, so for me to go in there not talk cricket, not even have to talk to people about where I’m at or even see it at all, it was really refreshing. It took away the fact that I was doing rehab and just felt like I was training with another person. I walked in first day and some of the stuff I was like, ‘oh, this will be so easy,’ and I’d get two reps in and I’d be sweating and shaking. They were incredible. They just let me come in whenever I wanted, they dropped everything for me basically, so I definitely wouldn’t be back playing without them.”Vlaeminck has also worked closely with Cricket Australia and Cricket Victoria, remodelling her action to try and prevent a recurrence of the injury.Tayla Vlaeminck suffered a recurrence of a stress fracture in the navicular bone of her foot•Getty Images”I’ve made a few technical changes that we identified as probably a reason why my foot kept going on me,” she said. “That took a while to get the hang of. I was probably in the indoor nets at Junction [Oval] for maybe three or four months, just literally walking to the crease, and relearning that pattern I’d done for so long.”I still feel like I’ve only probably bowled at 100% a handful of times. And going into a game is completely different to the nets, so I think it’ll take me a little bit. But everyone’s been so supportive of me, no one is forcing me or putting pressure on me to perform straight away, so I feel like I’ve got a bit of freedom and a bit of time to get back into it.”It was just some feet alignment stuff. My arms and legs kind of go everywhere when I bowl so I was going into some real weird positions which my body obviously couldn’t handle. I was just trying to straighten a few things up and just make my action a bit more efficient and hopefully that’ll keep me on the field longer this time.”

“I’m a shocker for if I get the ball in my hand in the nets it was like, 120% or nothing. The last 18 months have been a steep learning curve, I actually just can’t do that if I want to play cricket and play regularly.”Tayla Vlaeminck

Vlaeminck also needed to change her attitude towards training. While her all-or-nothing approach was laudable in an elite athlete, it’s unsustainable for a body that has also endured two knee reconstructions, a dislocated shoulder and a partial anterior cruciate ligament strain.”I won’t go crazy on the games and just have some more rest time and more games off,” Vlaeminck explained. “We’ve changed my training a little bit as well, less intense overs at training. I’m a shocker for if I get the ball in my hand in the nets it was like, 120% or nothing. The last 18 months have been a steep learning curve, I actually just can’t do that if I want to play cricket and play regularly. So just those little things – making sure I keep them going now that I’m actually back playing is going to be hard but something that I’ll have to get my head around.”She sat out the second T20, which England A won by five wickets but was expected to feature again in Sunday’s series decider as her comeback is carefully managed. But the Test being played simultaneously remains a good way down the comeback trail, with the 24-year-old Vlaeminck saying, “If I could get a T20 game for Australia, if I could even get back in the squad, that’d be incredible”.There are precedents for such a revival, however, if Vlaeminck wants to add to her one Test appearance, in the 2019 Ashes. Australia men’s captain Pat Cummins was a gifted teenager with a fierce bouncer who had to overcome heel and back stress fractures to go on and play 51 Tests and counting.Tayla Vlaeminck has vowed to go a bit easy during her training sessions•Getty Images”I see what he’s done and I think that’s pretty cool,” Vlaeminck said. “And the same thing happens to a lot of young athletes in lots of sports, right? People come in, they have two or three years where they just get one thing after the other and then all of a sudden something happens and you’re fine. It’s cool to be able to see that and see that other people have found a way out but I suppose when you’re actually in it, it doesn’t necessarily always feel like that’s going to be the case.”While what Pat’s done is incredible and hopefully I can do the same thing, I’m also not Patty and so it’s hard to be able to be like, ‘I’ll be sweet from now on and I’ll play 50 Tests’. But it does give you that little growing sense that once you start to mature in your body a bit more your bones hopefully harden up a little bit then yeah, but there’s a lot of cricket to go.”Such is Cricket Australia’s faith in Vlaeminck’s talent and potential that they renewed her national contract with no expectations attached as to when she would play for her country again.Shawn Flegler, Cricket Australia’s Female High Performance and Talent Manager, described Vlaeminck’s return in the Australia A game as a “massive relief” especially as her injury was such a rare one, giving medical and coaching staff little by way of a blueprint for her rehabilitation programme.”There’s not many in the world who bowl 120-plus,” Flegler says. “You have to be patient, you always have to be with fast bowlers, but even more so with those who bowl 120-plus. We made that commitment a couple of years ago. She has something special, let’s hang in there. I know she is really grateful for it, but she is the type of person you want to see do well because she is committed to being the best she can be, on and off the pitch. I have no regrets about offering her a contract.”The good thing now is she understands she doesn’t have to bowl at 100% all the time. When she used to train, it was 100% from ball one in training, 100% in the game. Now she is learning how to control that a bit. Being 90% is good enough to get wickets and at training being at 70%, you can still improve your action. And then you can still go to 100% now and then. It’s just her understanding, being a fast bowler and learning her craft. I think she will get back to 100% again.”

Some legendary men have risen from the ashes, with instances going four decades back

Harigovind S09-Jul-2023Cricket has been the site of retirement reversals in 2023 – first when Moeen Ali returned for the Ashes and then when Tamim Iqbal cut his retirement short to a six-week break. That got us thinking: what if a cricket team was composed of players who hung their boots only to slip back into them later?Bob SimpsonSixty-two-Test-veteran Bob Simpson had been out of international cricket for a decade when Australia’s reserves were stretched thin ahead of the 1977 India series, thanks to Kerry Packer’s World Series Cricket. Simpson, then 41 years old, hauled himself out of retirement and went on to score 539 runs in ten hits.Tamim IqbalThe mood was sombre when Tamim Iqbal called time on his illustrious career in a tearful press conference, one day after Bangladesh had lost to Afghanistan and three months before the 2023 ODI World Cup, in India. But after an intervention by Bangladesh prime minister Sheikh Hasina, Tamim took a u-turn.Javed MiandadUpon finding himself dropped from the side in 1994, Pakistan’s batting wizard decided to bid farewell to cricket. “No Miandad, No Cricket,” wailed cricket fans as the country’s Prime Minister at the time, Benazir Bhutto, coaxed the maestro to make himself available again. Miandad obliged, but it wasn’t until 1996 that he next represented Pakistan.Getty ImagesKevin PietersenKevin Pietersen was an early proponent of globetrotting in franchise leagues. And when he decided to end his international limited-overs career with four months to go to the 2012 World T20, England cricket was jolted. But less than 60 days later he said that he would never say no to a comeback. Come back he did, to play eight more ODIs and a T20I for England.Carl HooperCarl Hooper, one of the most gifted players of his generation, sprung a surprise by announcing his Test retirement at the tender age of 32. However, after West Indies’ barren streak in 2001, the prodigal son returned to lead them in a home series against New Zealand, India, and South Africa, eventually retiring in 2003.Bhanuka RajapaksaFamilial obligations were the official reason given by Bhanuka Rajapaksa when he announced his retirement from internationals in early 2022. His ‘hasty’ decision was met with disapproval from Sri Lanka’s Sports Minister, Namal Rajapaksa. Following a meeting between the two and a consultation with the national selectors, Rajapaksa expressed his wish to represent his country in the game he loves for the years to come.Afridi and Miandad both came out of retirement•AFPImran KhanThe legendary Imran Khan had decided to call it a day after Pakistan’s defeat to Australia in the 1987 World Cup semi-final. Imran had a change of heart when he was asked to represent Pakistan again by President Zia-ul-Haq. Imran would retire five years later, as a World Cup winner.Moeen AliMoeen had retired from Test cricket in 2021 but found himself answering an SOS call ahead of the 2023 Ashes when Jack Leach was ruled out. His second coming to Tests saw him breach 200 wickets in the format, two years after leaving the ring five short of the milestone.Shahid AfridiIn 2006, 2010, 2011, 2014 and 2017 were the retirements, and in 2006, 2011 and 2016 came the comebacks. But behind the metronomic speed of his retirements sat one of the most influential cricketers of the modern era: there was little on the cricket field that Afridi couldn’t do, and a place always seemed open for him.Srinath in South Africa: playing his final World Cup•Getty ImagesJavagal SrinathJavagal Srinath left the Caribbean in 2002 having made up his mind that he had played his last Test. However, Sourav Ganguly would have none of it. Ganguly convinced Srinath to come out of retirement and play three more Tests and lead the attack at the 2003 World Cup, where India were runners-up.Jerome TaylorJerome Taylor’s 46-Test career came to a halt when he decided to end his Test prospects to focus on the shorter formats – but things took an unexpected turn when he wasn’t picked in any white-ball matches for the next 14 months. He promptly reversed his Test retirement but hasn’t donned the whites since.

Steven Smith has the highest batting average for anyone who has played 99 Tests

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The cricket community reacts to the two-time champions failing to qualify for the ODI World Cup for the first time in their history

ESPNcricinfo staff01-Jul-2023

In 2018, Scotland lost to WI and as a result lost an opportunity to play in the 2019 World Cup. They were gracious and supportive in defeat and wished us well.

I want to return the favour. Congratulations @CricketScotland and best of luck in the remaining Super Six games. pic.twitter.com/1HWBBqWbjg

— Carlos Brathwaite (@CRBrathwaite26) July 1, 2023

Every team wants to be the one that’s spoken of as era-defining; the one that is expected to lift World Cups, but New Zealand aren’t that team

Karthik Krishnaswamy03-Nov-2023You probably remember every twist of fate that befell New Zealand at Lord’s on July 14, 2019. If you’re a fan, the cosmic unfairness of that World Cup final is probably still with you, a colourless, odourless substance that burns your nostrils every time you breathe.Plucky New Zealand, unlucky New Zealand.You might not recall quite so vividly, though, all the luck that New Zealand enjoyed on their way to that final – or, indeed, the semi-finals. Their only wins in the league stage came against teams that ended up with fewer points than them – including three tight finishes that could have gone the other way – and they lost, by comfortable margins, to England and Australia, who finished above them, and to Pakistan, who ended up with the same points total. Their match against India, the table-toppers, was washed out. Pakistan had a washout too, but they might have had reason to view it as a point dropped against Sri Lanka rather than one gained.Plucky New Zealand, lucky New Zealand.Four years on, there’s a certain sense of déjà vu to how their World Cup campaign is unfolding. They began with a thumping win over England, when it wasn’t yet clear how bad England were, and then beat three teams they were expected to beat: Netherlands, Bangladesh and Afghanistan.Related

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The schedule, so kind to New Zealand until this point, then threw in their path, one after another, the tournament’s Big Three: India, Australia and South Africa. They lost all three games, along the way plunging ever deeper into an injury crisis, and now find themselves in another battle for fourth place, with Pakistan once again their nearest rivals.How good are New Zealand, then? Are they, as they appeared to be in the early weeks of this tournament, a title contender? Are they, as they have seemed since then, a merely above-average team who can’t match the quantity of outright match-winners who pepper the top three teams’ line-ups?The answer? Yes.Every team wants to be the one that’s spoken of as era-defining; the one that is expected to lift World Cups as a birthright; the one who, by not winning, exposes the flaws in the tournament’s design. New Zealand aren’t that team.You don’t have to be that team. In a tournament like this one, you can be the fourth-best team, closer in overall quality to the team in fifth than the one in third, and still go on to win the thing – or come within inches of doing so.New Zealand are happy to be the fourth-best team. In a way, they almost seem to welcome it. They’ve reached far too many World Cup finals over the last eight years to be considered anything other than world-class, but the fact that there are usually one or two teams who happen to be just a little bit better than them, man for man, or just a little bit more radical, tactically, almost gives them the license to play up the plucky underdog stereotype that they outgrew years ago.On Friday on the eve of New Zealand’s match against Pakistan at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium, it was revealing just how often Daryl Mitchell peppered his press conference with allusions to a uniquely New Zealand way of playing cricket.Despite some brilliant fielding, New Zealand have dropped 16 catches so far, highest for a team in this competition•ICC/Getty ImagesInevitably, he was asked to elaborate on what he meant by a ‘BlackCaps’ way or ‘Kiwi’ way of playing the game.”That’s probably for you guys to work out and decide yourselves,” Mitchell said. “Look, we’re a small country, down the bottom of the earth, and for us it’s fighting for every ball, chasing every ball to the boundary, and doing the little things that we can control. The big stuff will look after itself if we’re clear on our roles, very detailed with how we go about our business, and you can work out our blueprint and our plan from that.”But yeah, we’re just very proud to represent our country and get stuck in the World Cup and you’ll see that by the passion and the way the guys throw themselves around out in the field.”Preparation, then, and desperation on the field. You’d think every team at this level ticks those boxes, but New Zealand beat them all to make it their entire identity.Mitchell’s words may be his alone, but they perhaps also reflect his team’s mentality going into Saturday’s game. New Zealand are probably aware that they’ve dropped more catches (16) than any other team in the competition so far, and that they have the fifth-worst chance conversion rate (71.4%) of any team. They probably feel that a doubling-down of stereotypically Kiwi virtues will do them no harm in their quest to reach the semi-finals.

“We’ll just keep playing like Black Caps and Kiwis do, and I’m sure we’ll come a long way to winning the game.”Daryl Mitchell, NZ allrounder

But here’s the thing. Pakistan (82.2%) have the second-best chance conversion rate in the tournament, and have dropped the second-fewest catches (8). England, desperately struggling England, have dropped even fewer (6), and have the third-best chance conversion rate (81.2%).There is no pattern here, and there usually isn’t, because – *cliche demolition klaxon* – catches really don’t win matches.Every team drops catches, and every team goes through streaks of catching everything that comes their way and streaks of letting everything slip, for no other reason than the vagaries of probability. Better bowling teams create more chances, offsetting the effects of some of them failing to stick. Good bowling stops far more runs than desperate chasing and diving do, and good batting creates far more runs than are saved on the field.It’s with ball and bat, primarily, that New Zealand will have to fight off Pakistan’s challenge on Saturday. Luck may well come into it – there is rain forecast in Bengaluru, and a washout would be entirely in New Zealand’s interests – but pluck? Every team has that.

Have defending champions hit rock bottom at this tournament?

Andrew Fidel Fernando04-Nov-20232:00

Buttler: ‘Incredibly frustrating but it doesn’t shake your belief’

At some point it just makes you sad. Sad to watch. Sad to be around. Sad to go to press conferences, and ask sad questions of sad players who collectively bear the kinds of mopey expressions that rows of dogs in rescue shelters do.”Oh no, this one’s been treated really badly. Beaten by almost everyone they’ve met almost everywhere they’ve traveled? How awful.”Only two points on the table after seven matches and a net run rate of negative 1.504? That’s really ruining this metaphor. But buddy, that’s some serious misery.”Related

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There were days when England crashing out of tournaments was at least comical. In their 2011 World Cup quarter-final, TM Dilshan apologised to Upul Tharanga for hitting a four, because Sri Lanka’s openers only had so many of the 230-run target left to get, more than 10 overs to get them in, and Tharanga hadn’t got to a hundred yet. But then that England had also done things like tie a 338-runs-a-side game against eventual champions India, earlier in the tournament, which had set up the punchline.In Wellington in 2015, New Zealand chasing their 123 down inside 13 overs was an absurdist humour masterclass for the totality of that evisceration.At the start of this campaign, there was schadenfreude about their unraveling in India too. They’d been so allergic to non-attacking words, their captain refused to call it a World Cup defence. (Would they have preferred “Smashing the ever-living daylights out of their title”?)But many of these are the same guys who won in 2019, won in the shortest format in 2022, were just months ago talking about saving Test cricket, and now would struggle to save a funny meme on their phone, such is the overall level of incompetence and aversion to any shred of joy in this campaign.The usual things to say at this stage is that a team looks defeated, appear to be husks of themselves, have nothing left to give, are mentally down. But to see a once-great team in this state somehow feels even worse as well as ridiculous, like a team of men in their mid 30s have all received calls from their parents to let them know they’re being put up for adoption.In reality, there was fight from them against Australia, and portions of the game which they genuinely won. David Warner has carved up this World Cup, in the ODI form of his life, but Chris Woakes bowled an excellent off-pace delivery to have him top edge one high into the air, not long after he’d also dismissed Travis Head, who’d hit 109 off 67 balls in his last match.As late as the 35th over, when Ben Stokes had started to find his range, England still had six wickets and a hope. At the time, Adil Rashid’s late boundaries did not seem totally futile either.But seen in the context of this sewage avalanche of a campaign, even these moments of strength begin to feel like a wallowing in misery. Then their captain, Jos Buttler, comes out after the game and says things like:”We only lost by 30.””We threatened, but we’re still not good enough.””Yeah, frustrated. Yeah, disappointed. Yeah… all of the above.”Ben Stokes’ expression says it all•ICC via Getty ImagesThere have not been stories of personal triumph either. England do not have a batter among the top dozen runscorers in this tournament, or a bowler in the top dozen wicket-takers.They are now the man at the party who rocked up with a keg of beer and almost as much confidence, but through the course of the evening has unraveled and is weeping loudly for all to hear on the couch. They deserve the dignity of a taxi home, a friend holding them as they stagger through their door, some help getting out of the trousers in which they have lavishly peed themselves, and then a long, kind blackout. These, after all, are even now world champions.But they have two more rounds of this World Cup left, and a Champions Trophy in 2025 to qualify for, though many of these players may not actually make it another two years in ODI cricket. Their morose expedition hits Pune next, for a match against Netherlands, who have players in their team who would be giddy if they got a county contract.Surely England can find something of themselves there. But then every time they’ve thought they’d hit rock bottom, there was quicksand, a bog, a toilet hole that some campers had dug three days ago.