Australia have shown an indication to bowl, while England, too, love a run chase. Could we be in for a bowl-first Ashes?

Andrew McGlashan12-Jun-20231:40

Test mace in the bag, Ashes up next

It did not look good for Rohit Sharma when Australia finished the opening day of the World Test Championship final on 327 for 3 having been put in to bat. But he had been badly let down by his bowlers, as Pat Cummins confirmed he would have done the same and bowled first.In fact, Australia head coach Andrew McDonald called The Oval surface “a clear bowl-first wicket” given the covering of grass and cloudy skies, although that had burned off by early after when Travis Head and Steven Smith took charge.There is a quote attributed to WG Grace about bowling first: “When you win the toss, bat. If you are in doubt, think about it, then bat. If you have very big doubts, consult a colleague, then bat.”Clearly the game has moved on since Grace’s time, but by and large Test cricket has remained led by the bat-first mantra unless conditions are hugely persuasive the other way. One notable exception came at The Oval in 1998 when Sri Lanka captain Arjuna Ranatunga, knowing that Muthiah Muralidaran was his trump card and not wanting the prospect of the follow-on which wouldn’t have allowed Muralidaran a break, stuck England in. They made 445. Sri Lanka made 591 and Muralidaran bowled them to victory.Related

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On the flip side, a year earlier in 1997, Mark Taylor made what is regarded as one of his best calls at a toss when he batted first on a damp Old Trafford pitch knowing it would help Shane Warne later on. Steve Waugh made twin hundreds. Warne bowled Australia to victory.Waugh’s great side of the 1999-2001 era went through a period of bowling first reasonably regularly including four times in 2001 which all brought victories. Of course the game is littered with times it hasn’t worked. One of Australia’s most famous occasions when it went wrong was 2005 at Edgbaston, the venue for the first Test on Friday, when Ricky Ponting said “we’ll bowl” after Glenn McGrath rolled his ankle. England rollicked to 407 in 79 overs (there’s a word for that) and it changed the Ashes.To bring things back to the current time there is a chance we could be in for a bowl-first Ashes this year. Ben Stokes loves a run chase, already stating when the coin goes up that’s the way he wants to shape the game. Meanwhile, Australia have shown an inclination to bowl in recent times, doing it on three occasions in the last WTC cycle including in consecutive Tests last season against South Africa in Brisbane and Melbourne. Had the coin fallen Cummins’ way at The Oval, it would have been four.An area that Australia are better stocked than England for the Ashes, is the strength of their spinner•Getty Images”We’ve been more prepared to bowl in recent times and don’t think that is going to change,” McDonald said.Whereas Stokes might fancy a chase, McDonald said the key factor is wicket-taking. “Think you consider how difficult 10 wickets will be in the fourth innings verses what happens up front.”Cummins, a rare fast-bowling captain, believes the view around putting the opposition in has changed. “If there’s a bit in it on day one and you feel like you’re going to take 10 wickets, you just go for it,” he said. “I think the stigma around bowling first and not bowling them out [cheaply] has gone a bit as opposed to in the past.”However, something always in Australia’s mind, and an area they are clearly better stocked than England for the Ashes, is the strength of their spinner.”Is the wicket going to deteriorate, will reverse swing come into it, will spin come into? That’s the other thing to recognise,” McDonald said. “We’ve got an all-time great spinner in Nathan Lyon and the fourth innings is when he gets the work and conditions are in his favour.”Regardless, though, of what stage the Australians are bowling, they are prepared for England’s batters to come after them and that may require a shift in attitude.Who’s the No. 1 team in Test cricket currently? The ICC rankings might not quite say it, but Nathan Lyon knows the answer•Getty ImagesAgainst India, Australia conceded 3.97 runs per over across the game, equalling the rate Sri Lanka scored against them at Galle in the first Test last year as the most expensive they have been since 2016. It was a likely a taste of what is to come, although England will try to add a run-an-over to that.”We felt that both batting groups did an incredible job to prosper on the wicket that had enough in it for the bowling units,” McDonald said. “But every time you missed it was a boundary so one thing that we’ve got to factor into England is how we deny them those boundaries. There’s a couple of things that we can potentially tidy up and take from this game into the next one.”Most of our bowlers went at above what they’d usually go, and we’ve just got to get our heads around that the tempo will be slightly different. We’re a team that usually goes at that high two runs per over, here we’ve got to get our heads around the fact that we could go at four runs an over.”Another element that Australia have been putting a lot of work into is their field placements and it may be those, rather than specific bowling plans, where the most obvious changes are noticed in the Ashes.”Their batters hit balls in different areas so our planning and prep will take that into consideration,” McDonald said. “You saw even today [Sunday against India], some people may have been critiquing our sweepers out, [but] we wanted to control the tempo of the game. Think in England that’s something most teams do. Think England will employ similar tactics when wickets are flat, and we’ll do the same.”

Even when he took 7 for 70, in the second Test against Sri Lanka, he had to share the limelight

Danyal Rasool27-Jul-2023Like that least favourite child parents simply don’t talk about unless they are in the running for a Nobel Prize, followers of Pakistan cricket don’t really bring up Noman Ali much. He’s a spinner, for one – a left armer at that. Quiet, under the radar. He’s not even like those flashy lower-order batters who entertain at the crease, and so devoid of the rub of the green that blesses so many Pakistan cricketers he even found a way to run himself out as a nightwatcher the previous Test. Oh, and he doesn’t really spin the ball that much. If you were conjuring up an unsexy cricketer in a lab, you would base it on Noman and then dial it down a bit.There’s always a reason not to talk about Noman, and on Thursday, Naseem Shah offered it up on a platter. Naseem is the anti-Noman. He’s a fast bowler with boyish good looks, pace to compete with the best, conventional and reverse swing with frightening control, and a hairline that takes pride of place among the pantheon of Pakistan fast bowlers. He’s got his whole career ahead of him, and no signs yet that he’s anywhere near the best version of himself. He will grow into his body, put on a bit more muscle, and gain both experience and confidence. His fandom, boyband-like in its devotion, will grow into a legion.But Noman is blessed with something that often eludes flashier, more talented cricketers: he understands perfectly both his role and his limitations. He only came into the side two years ago because Pakistan needed an extra spinner against South Africa, and hung around as Yasir Shah faded away, and Abrar Ahmed wasn’t yet ready. It’s a barren time for red-ball spin-bowling talent in Pakistan, and Noman knows when you’re that hard up, anything will do. Even the drip, drip, drip from a leaky faucet.Related

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Noman has had to do the jobs no one else will, and he’d done them without complaint, receiving little praise in return. Just three Tests ago, while New Zealand batted Pakistan out of the game across 195 dreary overs, Noman sent down 63. In 2022, on a placid pitch in Karachi against Australia, he bowled 48 for little reward. When he has got wickets, he’s been easily overshadowed – by Hasan Ali on debut, by Shaheen Afridi in Zimbabwe, and by an ICC pitch rating against Australia.This was a perfect Test match for Pakistan, but they weren’t getting wickets, and who could predict the weather in Colombo on day five? Pakistan had already lost a lot of time to rain and arguably dawdled on the declaration, and Sri Lanka had laid a respectable foundation with their openers. Naseem, Shaheen and Abrar had, of course, all been tried first, but when each returned empty-handed, Babar Azam threw the ball to Noman.Few could begrudge Nishan Madushka for falling to that first ball, in equal parts because of the quality of the delivery and the unlikeliness of the source of it. Noman found his radar immediately, drifting it in, landing it on middle, and getting it to grip just enough to beat the outside edge while still clipping the outer half of off stump. It wasn’t just effective, but it was – whisper it quietly – actually sexy.Perhaps Noman’s been doing this all along, and we just haven’t noticed, and maybe that says something about us just as much as it does about him. Because few will remember that ball, or the six others that helped blow the game open and ensure Pakistan didn’t need to play dice with the rain gods. For, at the other end, Naseem, while going wicketless, was sending down a spell for the ages. Just after lunch, he produced four maiden overs on the trot, somehow being attacker and container all in one, even as Noman picked up wickets from the other end. The spinner has held things up for the quicker bowlers for much of his career, but in a strange inversion, the lead actor was returning the favour to his supporting cast.Naseem Shah needed only six balls to pick up the last three Sri Lankan wickets•AFP/Getty ImagesEven so, as Noman picked up his fifth, sixth and seventh wickets, and whispers of ten began to echo around, the limelight still found reasons to stray away from him. Because Naseem was bowling a spell whose worth couldn’t be measured in numbers. The drama rose to a crescendo in the 62nd over. By this time, Naseem was getting the ball to reverse with a mastery that takes most a career to perfect. Three times he beat bat, three times Hawkeye showed the ball was reversing too much. As Naseem sunk his face into the Colombo dirt in despair, the technology had in effect told him he was simply too good to get that wicket.But Noman’s role, remarkable as it was, had come to a conclusion. Naseem hasn’t often been kept waiting for what he wants, and normal service resumed as the prince of Pakistan’s fast bowling took centre stage. Noman had cleared the path for a shot at the tail, removing the charmed Ramesh Mendis who had somehow survived that over from Naseem. It took the 20-year-old all off six deliveries to wrap up the final three.Even as Noman led the team off, the cameras showed what people really wanted to see. An extended shot of Naseem, surrounded by his team-mates as they laughed, joked, and played with his hair. The boy who got three wickets may have deserved more, but none would begrudge the man who picked up seven even a single one. Slow left-arm spin might not be glamorous, but there’s no taking the sheen off figures of 7 for 70. Only one visiting cricketer has ever managed to do better in an innings in Sri Lanka.And that, as Noman might be too modest to point out, is even rarer than a Nobel Prize.

After a probing first over, the India captain attacked the bowlers with shots ranging from scoop to reverse sweep

Shashank Kishore05-Sep-20231:57

Uthappa: Rohit’s uber-aggressive approach not necessarily the best for him

“Not really. Honestly, there were some nerves to start with.”Rohit Sharma had a sheepish smile as he recounted the probing new-ball examination by Karan KC in the very first over of India’s chase.Twice he was rapped on the pads by nip-backers, once he pushed feebly down the wrong line. Karan wasn’t just working up the pace but building excellent rhythm. The fifth ball of that working over beat Rohit with the angle, as the ball hit the deck and straightened.Related

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Rohit wasn’t pleased with himself, and he seemed to have decided he was going to take the attack to the bowlers. He stepped out to slap Karan over mid-on first ball of his next over, before rain forced the players indoors.Until then, it had been brewing up to be a compelling mini-battle between a bowler working up a good pace and a batter trying to shred a temporary lull that seemed to have boiled over from Saturday, when Rohit was troubled by Shaheen Shah Afridi in the lead-up to his dismissal.Having beaten him twice with deliveries angling away, Afridi managed to sneak through Rohit’s defence with one that jagged back in off the seam. Rohit was only a split-second late in bringing his bat down, by which time the off stump had been pegged back.Karan KC troubled Rohit in the first over•AFP/Getty ImagesOn Monday, Rohit was a bit testy on the field, seemingly irked at catches going down, fielders conceding runs through misfields, and seeing bowlers miss their lengths repeatedly and being unable to close the innings. This frustration peaked when Dipendra Singh Airee and Sompal Kami put on a half-century stand to lift Nepal from 144 for 6 in the 32nd over.Rohit’s own batting form hasn’t been much of a concern, though. He made 103 in the first Test against West Indies in Dominica and followed that up with twin half-centuries in Port-of-Spain. His only ODI innings on that tour, 12 not out, was possible because India collapsed in a heap while chasing 115 and Rohit had to come out, at No. 7, to complete the job.Before the Asia Cup, Rohit looked enterprising at India’s camp in Bangalore, batting with a sense of refreshing freedom. But doing it in a match simulation knowing the price of your wicket is far less than in a crunch game against a gun attack like Pakistan’s is a lot easier.Prior to the Pakistan game, Rohit had spoken of the need to “use my experience” and do what the team needed of him. “Last two years, I’ve played a different style of cricket,” he explained. “I’ve played with a lot of risks but it’s important to balance it out. As a top-order batter, it’s important to bat long and get the team in good situations.”I’ll look to use my experience. Whenever we get a chance, when I’m in good rhythm, I don’t want to leave it easily. In the last one, one and a half years, I hadn’t thought much about these, I was playing with a lot of risks, but it’s important to bring some balance into my game as well.”A rare sight – Rohit playing a reverse sweep•AFP/Getty ImagesOn Monday, there was a small matter of ensuring India didn’t slip up for at stake was a Super Fours berth. And so when he came out to bat after the rain break, with India chasing a revised target of 145 in 23 overs, Rohit seemed clear about his plan.He took apart Sandeep Lamichhane, Nepal’s biggest threat, by employing the slog sweep to good effect. He was equally effective playing the pull – his trademark shot – and in between even treaded into the inventive by playing scoops and an unreal flick-scoop that, much to his astonishment, managed to clear the rope at deep square leg with ease.”I wanted to just chip it over short fine, I had no intention to hit it all the way to deep-backward square,” Rohit chuckled after winning the Player-of-the-Match award for his 74 not out. “I timed the ball really well, but the bats these days are really good.”Rohit’s ease of flicking the switch was quite a treat. After the rain break, it didn’t quite seem the Rohit who had been uncertain against the moving ball. He was quickly into savage T20 mode, picking lengths early, lifting good-length balls down the ground, using his fast hands to thread gaps behind point, and dismissing anything in his zone out of the ground.He wasn’t just intent on being a foil to Shubman Gill, who had taken off like a bullet train with a succession of stunning back-foot punches. There was a ruthlessness in wanting to finish a job that hadn’t begun quite well.While Rohit himself wouldn’t read too much into a one-off performance, fully knowing bigger challenges await, he would be the first to acknowledge a good hit in a competitive game is a box worth ticking off in search of that 2019 World Cup mindset.

England head coach’s time in Netherlands might have given him his first taste of mentoring a cricket team. Now he comes up against his old side with his future in this role under a cloud

Matt Roller07-Nov-20232:05

Harmison: Batting looking like hard work for England

Four times at this World Cup, a coach has come up against – and beaten – a team that they used to represent as a player: Jonathan Trott (Afghanistan) and Chris Silverwood (Sri Lanka) against England, Grant Bradburn (Pakistan) against New Zealand, and Chandika Hathurusinghe (Bangladesh) against Sri Lanka.Matthew Mott, England’s coach, will hope to extend the streak on Wednesday in Pune. His adopted side face Netherlands with Champions Trophy qualification on the line and Mott’s position under scrutiny: he is 18 months into a four-year contract, but a seventh defeat in eight games would put him under real pressure.Mott is as Australian as they come: he grew up on the Gold Coast and made more than 3,500 runs across a decade-long Sheffield Shield career for Queensland and Victoria. Yet he also played professionally for a third team: Netherlands, who he represented for two List A games as an overseas player.Related

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Long before the days of franchise cricket sustaining players through the off-season, Mott spent several years playing in the Lancashire League, but in 2003, he went off the beaten track and joined Excelsior ’20 in Rotterdam. Most clubs had an overseas player: a young Grant Elliott pipped Mott to the honour of being the Hoofdklasse’s leading run-scorer.Mott enjoyed it enough that he recommended a Gold Coast team-mate named Brett Crichton to Voorburg CC for the following summer. “It meant we had a free overseas player for a year,” recalled Tim de Leede, who represented Netherlands at three different World Cups and whose son, Bas, will feature on Wednesday. “We used to be a very small club, so we were very, very happy.”Matthew Mott and Jos Buttler have a tough job of helping England qualify for the Champions Trophy•Gareth Copley-ICC/Getty ImagesTowards the end of the season, Mott was asked to play in the preliminary round of the following season’s Cheltenham & Gloucester Trophy, county cricket’s 50-over knockout competition. On debut for the Dutch, he scored 45 not out in a win over Cornwall to set up a fixture against Gloucestershire; he returned the following summer for it, taking two wickets and then making 41 in a heavy defeat.De Leede, who played alongside Mott in both games, believes that his coaching aspirations may have started that summer. “As an overseas player in the Netherlands, you have to start coaching at your club – seniors and kids. Maybe it started then and he liked it?”Mott referenced his time in the Netherlands during his first interaction with the media in the England job last summer. “I did play cricket many years ago,” he said, looking out over the VRA ground in Amstelveen. “Looking at this ground, it’s come on leaps and bounds.”It was an idyllic way for Mott to start with England: a three-match series in the baking sunshine, with thousands of travelling supporters drinking Amstelveen dry. They racked up a world-record total of 498 in the first ODI and won the series 3-0 while hardly breaking a sweat.Jos Buttler made 162 in the first game – 56 runs more than he has managed across seven innings at this World Cup – and took over from Eoin Morgan as captain straight after that tour. His partnership with Mott brought immediate success in the form of last year’s T20 World Cup in Australia.3:09

Hopkinson: England struggled with executing under pressure

But England’s defence of their 50-over crown has been a mess, with Saturday’s 33-run defeat to Australia in Ahmedabad representing their second-best result. They will need at least one win and possibly two to finish in the top eight and seal a spot in the 2025 Champions Trophy; failure to do so will leave Mott vulnerable.He has found himself under growing pressure as this World Cup has worn on, not helped by Morgan’s suggestion that there is “something else going on” than simply players being out of form collectively. Mott pushed back against those comments and while some react better to defeats than others, there has not been any obvious rift in the squad.Instead, the sense is that England are a team bereft of confidence, without the relevant experience and muscle memory of recent ODI success that helped them get through the setbacks they encountered on home soil four years ago. Mott’s task is to revitalise a group that has played together so often, but will never again.Rob Key, England’s managing director of men’s cricket, will return to India this week and will rejoin the team in Kolkata ahead of Saturday’s fixture against Pakistan. Key holds Mott’s future in his hands but was also ultimately responsible for appointing him; sacking him so early into his tenure would not reflect well on his judgement.There is a simple route for England to quieten talk about Mott’s position: to win on Wednesday, and win well. If Mott’s brief time in Dutch orange was a success, failure in Pune would leave him red-faced.

The England opener looks back at her career so far – getting past burnout, making the cut in Tests, and turning from an allrounder into a pure batter

Tom Hamilton06-Dec-2023The night before a match, regardless of which country she’s in, Danni Wyatt opens her notebook to a blank page and writes down some keywords to remember the following day.Whether it’s a World Cup final or a domestic match, it’s the same process. And it was the same on Tuesday evening as Wyatt, 32, prepared for her 150th T20I for England. She wrote down “enjoy”, “relax” and a few other more aggressive reminders.Often by the time she gets to the crease, she has forgotten what she wrote. “Once I’m out in the middle I’ll just be like, let’s go, bring it on,” Wyatt says. “I try not to think too much, I just try and be in the moment and just watch the ball.” She stands tall with her chest out, head up, and aims to hit the first or second ball over the boundary.That’s the mentality that she’s fine-tuned across 13 years of representing England, leading her to this milestone 150th cap. “When I’ve played my best knocks, I’ve just thought, ‘Come on, bring it on.’ If you walk out there all shy and think you’re going to get out and have a fear of failure, you’ve got no chance.”It didn’t used to be like that, especially in the first seven years of her career, when she was cast as an allrounder with a batter’s mindset.In time, she has learnt to manage her self-doubts, but regardless of whether she’s Wyatt the experienced international, or back as her ten-year-old self, playing in the boy’s team alongside her older brother Ryan, there’s one theme bridging eras and fuelling her. “I’ve always felt like, especially in ODIs, I’ve always had to prove people wrong. And I’ve always played as if it’s my last game. I guess even when I play my 150th match, I’ll still feel like I’ve not done enough yet.”

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It’s late afternoon in Mumbai when we talk on Zoom. The England players who played in the WBBL joined the team in India earlier in the day. Wyatt woke up feeling a bit “blah” but after a slightly shambolic coffee order and a team lunch, her spirits quickly returned to normal. It’s a familiar feeling building up to an England match; the butterflies she gets on game day are the same that fluttered as she stood at the makeshift crease on the street outside her family house waiting for her brothers to bowl at her.Related

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Cricket wasn’t always a predestined path. Wyatt was a talented footballer and part of Stoke City’s centre of excellence, but the bat and ball won her over. She remembers the first time she played alongside Ryan at the local cricket club in Whitmore. “It’s quite scary, isn’t it, for a girl? But because he was there and I knew his friends who played in the team, I just felt so comfortable. Playing against the other teams, you could hear them saying, ‘Oh they’ve got a girl, they’re going to be rubbish’, actually spurred me on to being better.”Wyatt progressed to Staffordshire Ladies and Meir Heath Women, and in 2010, the England call came for the tour of India. She made her international debut in an ODI in Mumbai, where she will walk out for her 150th T20I, although on a different ground.”I batted No. 8 and got picked for my bowling. I bowled four overs and I was so nervous I could hardly let go of the ball. It was horrible. I think I went for 24 off four overs, which isn’t great, but I batted and got 28 not out.” Three days later she made her T20I debut on the same ground. “I got run-out for 0 and everyone was saying I went from Donald Bradman to Donald Duck in the space of basically 24 hours.”Wyatt views her career as clearly split into two phases. From 2010 to late 2017, there’s Wyatt the allrounder who did okay with bat and ball but felt unfulfilled. “In my head, I always felt more of a batter who could bowl a little bit. And then I had people throw me in to be a pinch-hitter.”I was a better player than that. I used to go out there and swing instead of batting properly and doing what I knew I was capable of. Maybe I didn’t take it as seriously as I should have; I could have scored way more runs than I did.”Back then her mood was governed by her form and most recent performance – the number of wickets she took, or the runs she mustered. She was fully immersed in the cricket bubble. The pressure grew, and it came to a head after the 2013-14 Ashes down under, where she struggled for form, taking two wickets across three T20Is and two ODIs.

“When I’ve played my best knocks, I’ve just thought, ‘Come on, bring it on’. If you have a fear of failure, you’ve got no chance”

“I just wanted to be away from cricket. I got to a point I didn’t even want to be picked for a while. I had this feeling I was going to fail. I think it was just burnout.” She was only 22, but tour after tour had taken its mental toll.”I was dropped for the T20 World Cup in Bangladesh and I was actually relieved. I had a holiday, had several weeks out, and I got the hunger back. I was recharged, I did well at domestic level and got back into the squad. I’ve not missed many since, apart from the ODIs a couple of years ago, which I was really disappointed about.”In late 2017, there were a couple of months in which her cricketing life and perspective shifted. It’s a state of mind she still inhabits six years on.It was another Ashes series in Australia. A week before she flew out to join the team, her grandad died. She wasn’t picked for the Test side or the three ODIs, but then came the T20Is. “I knew it was my time. I was just like, right, come on, my grandad just died. There’s way more to life. We are all going to die one day. What’s the point in worrying and stressing? I was stressing about whether I was even going to play for England again. I was annoyed that I didn’t get picked in the ODIs. I also knew I could play Test cricket, but I’d always had these people saying, ‘You’ve not got it in you to play Test cricket’.”That annoyed me, so I thought, I’m just going to forget what everyone says. I’m going to do me and be a bit selfish.”I think I was batting at six in the first T20I. It was at the North Sydney Oval and I hit my first T20I fifty. And then I got picked to open the batting two days later in Canberra.”Wyatt remembers the huge influence England’s head coach Mark Robinson had on her career. “Robbo changed my career. And Ali Maiden, who was the batting coach, played a huge part. They put their trust in me and said, ‘You can do it’.Wyatt celebrates winning the 2023 Women’s Hundred title with her Southern Brave team-mates•Julian Finney/Getty Images”I remember Robbo saying to me the night before that match in Canberra, ‘Just promise me, you won’t be scared. If Ellyse Perry bowls you a bouncer, get behind it.'” At this point, as we talk, Wyatt mimics a pull shot. “I remembered that when I batted the next day. I think I got about 26 [she made 19 off 16] and I just felt really good.”Two days later, with the series poised at 1-1, Wyatt opened once again, and this time everything clicked. She hit 100 off 57 balls, becoming the first female England player to hit a T20I century.She remembers the emotions that bubbled over when she was on 99. “I felt myself starting to cry. I suddenly thought of my grandad, who’d be up there looking down on me, of all the times my dad drove me around the country when I was younger, Mum buying me my first set of whites. I was thinking about all the tough times in cricket to get to this place I was, about to hit a T20 hundred to win us the game and draw the Ashes.” The century came off a single from a square cut.The tears mixed with sheer exhilaration and adrenaline. She put her hands in the air and hugged her batting partner, Katherine Brunt. “It was just such a relief to finally show the world and my team-mates what I could do. At this point there was loads of talk about me having all the talent but getting out in the 20s and 30s, being a pinch-hitter, etc. But this felt like such a massive relief. I knew I could do it.”Four months later, she hit her second T20I century, 124 off 64 in Mumbai against India.Since that 2014 hiatus and the 2017 breakthrough, Wyatt has taught herself to be more philosophical with form. “The number of times I’ve been in a rough patch, you start having those thoughts in your head saying you are rubbish, you can’t play cricket anymore, you doubt yourself. Even though I’ve just hit a hundred in the series before, [if] then you fail, you start thinking, ‘Am I good enough?’ So it’s all about being mentally strong.

“I’ve been told for years that I’d never be a Test player,” Wyatt says. “They said, ‘You’ve got a different technique, you’ve not got the temperament to last that long, you are a slogger, you’re a T20 player…’ But in my head, I thought I can definitely do this”

“I remember listening to an interview from Joe Root and he said as a cricketer, as soon as you think you’ve made it, that’s when you’ll drop off.”You’ve never actually made it because it’s such a fickle sport. You can get 100 one day and then the next game get out on 0. You can train really well, feel in great touch, and then you can whack it to a fielder and be out for a low score. So that’s why it keeps you humble and keeps you improving.”Part of that is experience and age, but also the influence of her friends, family and fiancée Georgie Hodge, who is a football agent.”I think she knows far more about cricket than she lets on, but it helps,” Wyatt says about having a partner who isn’t connected with the game.There are always distractions, like the two planning their wedding next year. “It’s a very exciting time and something to look forward to. Obviously cricket is my job and it means a lot to me, but as long as my family and friends are happy and healthy, that’s the main thing, isn’t it?”It is a horrible time when you are going through a rough patch, it can be pretty lonely, but it’s all about having a good support network around you.”Right now on tour, Wyatt is focusing on her pre-match routines, like that process of writing down keywords the night before. “It’s just things to keep fresh in my mind, whether it’s ‘brave’, ‘show intent’, ‘hit with full face of the bat’.On the morning of the game, if she’s feeling the nerves, she’ll lie down in her hotel room and do some breathing exercises. On the bus to the ground she’ll listen to music, seek a laugh or two to alleviate any nerves, but the minute she’s at the ground, it’s game face.Wyatt was England’s first T20I century-maker in the women’s game•Getty Images”I won’t think about the words, but they help me prepare. It’s literally just thinking about the pitch, what it might do, what their [the opposition’s] goal is going to be, and then once I’m out there in the middle, I think you’ve just got to trust your processes and hope for good luck and just try and relax.”I do think nerves are really good. I get nervous playing in the street with my brother. It just means that we care. I do think nerves turn into energy. A lot of people say I’m a completely different person on and off the pitch. I don’t speak when I’m batting. I just like to stay in the zone and have a confident ‘arrogance’ about me.”Especially for me, [while] opening the batting, it’s my job to put the pressure on the bowlers straight away and entertain the crowd and people watching at home. And that comes with taking a lot of risks. Sitting back in the crease and trying to hit a six second ball is a big risk, but the best players all do that and sometimes it comes off, sometimes it doesn’t.”Wyatt is kicking off the winter tour after a really good season at home. In August she was the Player of the Final, leading Southern Brave to their first Hundred title, having lost the 2021 and 2022 finals. That was a career highlight, but an even bigger one had come two months earlier when she made her Test debut, against Australia at Trent Bridge, having been overlooked for so long.”I’ve been told for years that I’d never be a Test player,” Wyatt says. “They said, ‘You’ve got a different technique, you’ve not got the temperament to last that long, you are a slogger, you’re a T20 player…’ But in my head, I thought I can definitely do this.”

She pauses when asked how she’d like her career to be remembered. “Hopefully Danni Wyatt, the girl that is always there for the team, hits the ball from ball one, a good fielder and good person”

She references the way the England men have adopted “Bazball” as having “helped a little bit”, but also the philosophy of current head coach Jon Lewis, who “wants us to take the game forward”.”He wants us to put pressure on the bowlers as soon as we go out to bat. He talks about wanting to inspire the next generation. I remember as soon as [Lewis] got the job, I told him I wanted to play Test cricket and that it was my aim to play in the Ashes. At that point I wasn’t even in his sights, but every opportunity I had to impress, I made sure I took it. I finally got the nod the night before the Test.”She batted at No. 6, scoring 44 and 54. “It was kind of like an stuff-you to a lot of people. I was just so proud to be out there playing Test cricket, let alone in an Ashes. The result didn’t go our way, but we played so well throughout the five days. I just wanted to do well for myself, my family and for Lewy.”After a summer in which she featured in the Ashes, the Hundred and the Charlotte Edwards Cup, where she scored a match-winning fifty in the final, Wyatt started to feel hints of fatigue, so she pulled out of the WBBL where she was due to play for Perth Scorchers. She still looks pained as she talks about the guilt of letting people down, but she knew she was getting close to exhaustion.Away from cricket there was the exhilaration of getting engaged in March this year, but a month previous, she’d had to navigate the heartbreak of not being picked up in the groundbreaking Women’s Premier League auction – an event that promised not only the biggest payday in the history of women’s cricket but a global spotlight for the best players in the game.”I really got my hopes up. I was thinking, surely I’ll get at least a bid.” She had put herself in as an allrounder for the auction at a competitive Rs 50 lakh price tag (US$60,400 approx), ticking the batter and offspin boxes. The auction coincided with England’s T20 World Cup match against Ireland in Paarl.She remembers being on the team bus on the way to the ground, checking her phone to keep track of the auction.

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Shabnam’s swing, at pace, has earned her four wickets in WPL 2024 so far, and three of them are of Nat Sciver-Brunt, Alyssa Healy and Chamari Athapaththu

Srinidhi Ramanujam12-Mar-20244:10

Klinger impressed with Shabnam Shakil’s swing and work ethic

You are 16, and your first three wickets in the WPL are Nat Sciver-Brunt, Alyssa Healy, and Chamari Athapaththu. Shabnam Shakil is yet to finish school, but she has already given #careergoals with her performance in WPL 2024.In Delhi on a chilly Monday night, with a spell of 4-0-3-11, Shabnam not only provided hope for Gujarat Giants – who are mathematically still in the race for a playoff spot after an eight-run win over UP Warriorz – but also for Indian women’s cricket.Giants came into the contest having lost five of their six matches with two more to go. Opting to bat against Warriorz, Beth Mooney’s unbeaten 74 had dragged them to a below-par 152 for 8. Warriorz, just above bottom-placed Giants on the points table with six points, also needed a win to get into the top three.Related

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Opening the bowling, medium-pacer Shabnam was greeted by Healy – with the experience of 153 T20Is – with a four through backward point. It was a half-volley outside off and got the treatment it deserved. But Shabnam, not intimidated by Healy, got it right quickly. Off the third ball, she dismissed Healy with a full delivery outside off stump that just held up slightly. Healy ended up miscuing this to mid-off.In walked Athapaththu – another player with 100-plus T20Is.Shabnam was still not intimidated. The fifth ball of the over moved away late to beat Athapaththu’s outside edge. The last ball was another full-length delivery outside off stump, angling away from the left-hand batter. Athapaththu went for it, but only got her outside edge on the drive, and was caught by Ash Gardner at extra cover.Warriorz 4 for 2. Shabnam 1-0-4-2.Shabnam did not let the energy or the intensity die down. She followed it up with two one-run overs to finish the powerplay with 3-0-6-2. She hit the pitch hard, which made it difficult for the batters to get down the pitch against her. With Gardner and Kathryn Bryce picking up a wicket apiece from the other end, Warriorz were caught in a strangle.She bowled out, varying her lengths in her fourth over to keep the batters guessing. Before signing off, she knocked over Shweta Sehrawat – also her India Under-19 team-mate – with a back-of-a-length delivery that nipped back in to go past the outside edge and hit the top of off stump. That left Warriorz reeling at 35 for 5. Shabnam was done. The Player-of-the-Match award was in the bag too.Shabnam Shakil picked two wickets in her opening over – Alyssa Healy and Chamari Athapaththu•BCCIThough Warriorz recovered, thanks to Deepti Sharma’s 88 not out and Poonam Khemnar’s unbeaten 36, they could not get over the line.”I am so happy to perform on such a platform and getting to play with such big names,” Shabnam said afterwards. “I love bowling with the new ball like any pacer. I was getting that boost bowling with the new ball, and I was just enjoying my bowling.”

****

Shabnam started playing at the age of nine. Her parents are from the navy, and it was her father, a fast bowler who played club cricket in Andhra, who made her choose cricket. She began training under P Nagaraju at his academy in Visakapatnam, where she worked on her long run-up and bowled quick. In her early days, she turned to videos of Brett Lee and Jasprit Bumrah for inspiration.Like any youngster pursuing cricket, her days had two practice sessions, in the morning, before school, and then in the evening. In 2021, Shabnam made her state debut for Andhra in the Women’s Under-19 One-Day Trophy in Surat. In 2022, she featured in the Senior Women’s Inter-Zonal T20 Trophy. The same year, she was picked in the India squad for the inaugural Women’s Under-19 World Cup in South Africa, played in 2023. India went on to win the title, but Shabnam played just two games and returned with a solitary wicket.

“Whether she did well or not in the last couple of games, I honestly don’t mind because if the girls work as hard as someone like Shabnam, you want to give them opportunities, and she got that in the last couple of games”Michael Klinger on Shabnam Shakil

However, she had impressed head coach Nooshin Al Khadeer, who noted her ability to clock 110kph. With Nooshin joining the Giants set-up as bowling coach for the inaugural WPL, Shabnam was roped in for a base price of INR 10 lakh. She was still just 15.Shabnam warmed the bench in the first season and did not feature in the first four matches of the ongoing season, all of which Giants lost in Bengaluru. But when the tournament moved to Delhi, Giants decided to unleash her against Royal Challengers Bangalore. At 16, she was the youngest debutant in the WPL.Against RCB, being introduced as the seventh bowler, she was hit for a first-ball four by Sophie Devine. She ended her three overs wicketless and conceded 27 runs.In the next game against Mumbai Indians, Shabnam got her first WPL wicket, of Sciver-Brunt, with her third ball. Her ability to hit higher speeds was evident in that game, when she clocked 109kph.”I learnt a lot during my Under-19 days,” Shabnam, who idolises Jhulan Goswami, said after the match on Monday. “I got a platform there. That was my platform, I learnt a lot from there, and I am applying that experience in practice.2:13

Takeaways: Poor fielding lets Warriorz down again

“Last year, during WPL as well, I spoke a lot to the coaches, Nooshin ma’am and Mithali [Raj, Giants’ mentor] ma’am. I am trying to work on all the feedback I got from them.”Giants head coach Michael Klinger has also been impressed with her work ethic. Klinger saw her first at the ten-day camp before this season, but felt she was “a bit different”.”She was super impressive,” Klinger said. “She is a bit different as well. She swings the ball in – not a lot of quick bowlers do that. And she is going to develop the slower ball over the year or so, which is going to make her stronger. She can bowl cross-seam as well, which on some wickets comes into play. Her maturity is beyond her age, and she has got the work ethic. She is only going to get stronger and fitter over time as well, and that’s going to help.”Whether she did well or not in the last couple of games, I honestly don’t mind because if the girls work as hard as someone like Shabnam, you want to give them opportunities, and she got that in the last couple of games.”The first edition of the WPL gave us several Indian domestic talents, such as Saika Ishaque and Shreyanka Patil, who have moved up the ladder quickly to the senior national team after benefitting from exposure on a big stage. For Shabnam, this season might be the first steps in that direction too.

Ben Stokes has questioned a system that is more nuanced than the binary arguments that follow it

Andrew Miller20-Feb-20242:47

How do England find themselves in this position?

Make what you will of Ben Stokes’ remarks about the DRS at the end of the Rajkot Test. On social media, however, more than a few observers have heard the moaning far more loudly than any justified indignation, at the end of a Test in which his team had been comprehensively thrashed.Stokes did go on to clarify that the technology was not the reason for England’s defeat. Yet it’s indisputable that they were on the wrong end of a series of extremely tight DRS calls in the course of the contest – most particularly Zak Crawley’s in the second innings, which was shown as such a marginal flick of the leg bail that the TV graphic didn’t even align to the data returned by Hawk-Eye.Related

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Such were the reasons why Stokes and Brendon McCullum approached the match referee Jeff Crowe at the end of the game, to seek clarification about a system that, as McCullum subsequently admitted to the UK media: “I don’t really understand, to be honest… it’s a little hard from a layman’s point of view to understand how it works.”Either way, the genie is back out of the bottle, now that England’s captain has cast aspersions on a system that is far more deeply nuanced than the binary arguments that invariably follow it around. Virat Kohli did much the same on England’s last tour of India in 2021, when he suggested that umpire’s call “creates a lot of confusion” – a remark that led directly to the ICC recalibrating the wicket zone from the bottom of the bails to the top.Who knows whether Stokes’ remarks will have a similar upshot, but it’s another damaging blow to a process that effectively protects players from the justice they think they are seeking. Nobody could ever claim that DRS is a perfect system, and it’s pointless to deny that it had an eyebrow-raising few days in Rajkot. But when it comes to the unique issue of lbws, and their reliance on incomplete information, umpire’s call offers a shade of grey when neither black nor white is appropriate for the process the players are undergoing. For the most part, it spares the sport from exactly the sort of flashpoint that we’re dealing with now.We are, after all, talking about the likelihood that, when stopped in its tracks some six feet from its target, a piece of leather with a diameter of approximately 2.8″ would have struck a 28″ x 9″ stack of sticks with sufficient accuracy to dislodge either of two wooden bails that protrude a further 0.5″ above the height of the three stumps themselves – an anomaly that might well have accounted for the misrepresentation of the aforementioned Crawley dismissal.India appeal for lbw against Zak Crawley•Getty ImagesAnd so, to go back to Stokes’ initial assertion – “if the ball’s hitting the stumps, the ball’s hitting the stumps” – what does that actually mean?If we take his remark at face value, and assume that Stokes believes that even the faintest nudge on the stumps should count as a dismissal, that would in essence leave batters defending a target area of close to double the actual dimensions of the wicket – around 450 square inches instead of 252, given the additional area created by the ball’s diameter on three sides.And yet, in a serendipitous incident on the 2021-22 Ashes tour, Stokes himself became the living, breathing manifestation of the need for a margin of error in decision-making. Facing up to a delivery from Cameron Green during the Sydney Test, he was given out lbw by the on-field umpire Paul Reiffel but successfully overturned it when replays showed that the ball had missed his pad but clipped his off stump without dislodging the bail.And so, to take it to the other extreme, if Stokes was suggesting that only balls that would be completely smashing the stumps should be considered for lbws, then that target area would plummet to little more than the dimensions of the middle stump itself (86 square inches, since you asked), and the sport would revert to the pre-DRS days when batters were permitted to park the front pad with impunity and bore fingerspinners in particular out of existence.ESPNcricinfo LtdClearly, if umpire’s call were to be abolished, those parameters would need to be set at some mutually acceptable point in between those two extremes. But that wouldn’t resolve the fact that the target area of the stumps would be arbitrarily and permanently expanded – by close to 100 square inches even for a 50% impact – nor that there would have to come a point on the very limit of that margin, as with the flicking of a light-switch, when light turns to dark and you’re faced with the complete reversal of any given decision.England, ironically, discovered this the hard way in the second Test in Visakhapatnam, when Crawley, again, was the victim of a contentious lbw – this time a leg-stump-adjacent delivery from Kuldeep Yadav that looked to be sliding down, but was projected to be hitting enough of the stump to overturn the on-field not-out verdict.And that exception arguably proves the rule as to why umpire’s call is a vital factor in expectation management. As we’ve seen in football since the advent of VAR, the 180-degree decision U-turn is the single most frustrating aspect of technology’s introduction. It’s not an improvement to kill the passion of the moment by putting all emotions on pause until the all-seeing eye has had its final say, especially when the verdict is overturned by the skin on a defender’s knee, or the stitch of a cricket ball’s seam.ESPNcricinfo LtdAbsolutists will still argue that you should trust the technology – if it’s good enough for missile guidance, then it’s clearly an improvement on the umpire’s all-too-human eye. But that argument misses the point on several levels.Firstly, it ignores the fallibility that exists even in machines – tennis has successfully incorporated Hawk-Eye for line calls, and has the benefit of being able to replicate the full path of the ball in each disputed case. But at Wimbledon in 2022, to cite one example, the US player Rajeev Ram refused to play on after querying a tight call. “We’re turning the machine off,” he demanded. “We’re not in the future here, man.”Secondly, and most importantly, the crucial point about DRS itself has never been to extract absolute truths about dismissals, but to do away with gross injustices. Clear howlers, such as Alec Stewart’s infamous lbw against Sanath Jayasuriya in 2000-01 that pitched six inches outside leg, are quietly and effectively dealt with these days. As indeed are all manner of inside-edges into the pads. The issues that kick up a stink are those that fall precisely on the margin of in and out.Clear 50-50 calls, in other words, that always have and always will fall into that sweet spot of contention, and every now and again blow up irrespective of any attempts at mitigation. It’s surely preferable, in such instances, for an on-field decision that guides the emotions into the resulting review, even if – in Crawley’s case – the upshot isn’t quite what the aggrieved team is hoping for.

India had won 12 consecutive internationals across formats before their shock defeat in Harare

Sampath Bandarupalli06-Jul-20242 – India became only the second men’s T20 World Cup champions to lose their first T20I after the title win, though of course this was a completely different playing XI in Harare to the one that clinched the title in West Indies last week. England, who won the title in November 2022, also lost their first T20I outing as the World Champions, against Bangladesh in March 2023.116 – The target India failed to chase against Zimbabwe in Harare is the lowest they have failed to get in a full 20-over men’s T20I. The previous lowest failed chase was 127 against New Zealand in the 2016 T20 World Cup.Related

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12 – Consecutive wins for India in men’s internationals before this defeat. It was their joint-longest winning streak across formats, levelling their feat in 2017.India’s last defeat was against England in the Hyderabad Test, after which they won four Tests on the trot and all eight matches at the T20 World Cup.12 – T20I matches without a defeat for India before the loss against Zimbabwe on Saturday. Their last defeat in this format came against South Africa in December 2023.India won outright 11 of the 12 T20Is between their two recent defeats, while another game ended in a tie, which they won in the Super Over. It was India’s longest unbeaten streak in the format, equaling their 12-match winning streak between 2021 and 2022.102 – India’s total against Zimbabwe is their second-lowest in a run chase in men’s T20Is. Their lowest is 76 all-out against New Zealand in pursuit of the 127-run target in the 2016 World Cup.It is also the third-lowest total for a Full Member against Zimbabwe in T20Is, behind West Indies’ 79 for 7 in 2010 and Pakistan’s 99 all out in 2021.15 – Player-of-the-Match awards in T20Is for Sikandar Raza. These are the joint-second most awards for anyone in men’s T20Is, alongside Suryakumar Yadav (15) and only behind Virat Kohli (16). Six of Raza’s 16 match awards have come while leading Zimbabwe in 20 T20Is.7 – Number of batters dismissed for a duck in Harare between Zimbabwe (4) and India (3). These are the second-most ducks in a men’s T20I involving Full Members, behind the eight ducks in the 2010 T20I between West Indies and Zimbabwe in Port-of-Spain.25* – Partnership runs for the tenth wicket between Clive Madande and Tendai Chatara in Zimbabwe’s innings. Madande scored all 25, off the 18 balls he faced in that partnership, while Chatara remained unbeaten on zero off nine balls.

And how many World Cups have featured two teams reaching the final undefeated?

Steven Lynch02-Jul-2024Was Virat Kohli’s 76 last Saturday the highest score in a T20 World Cup final? asked Armugam Lokesh from India

That important innings of 76 by Virat Kohli was the highest of the 2024 T20 World Cup final in Bridgetown, but there have been five higher scores in the course of the previous eight such finals – including Kohli’s own 77 against Sri Lanka in Mirpur in 2014.There have been two scores of 85 in T20 World Cup finals. The first, which was not out, was by Marlon Samuels, for West Indies against England in Kolkata in 2016; New Zealand’s Kane Williamson was out for 85 against Australia in Dubai in 2021. Samuels also hit 78 against Sri Lanka in Colombo in 2012.Was Louis Kimber’s double-century the other day the fastest ever in terms of balls received? asked David Powell from England

That astonishing onslaught by Leicestershire’s Louis Kimber broke several records, for the English first-class game at least. Kimber blasted 243 against Sussex in Hove last week, and reached his double-century in just 100 balls, the fastest in England (beating 123 by Aneurin Donald for Glamorgan against Derbyshire in Colwyn Bay in 2016). The only faster double-century in all first-class cricket came from 89 balls, by the Afghanistan batter Shafiqullah Shinwari, playing for Kabul against Boost in Kunar in 2018.During his innings, Kimber smote no fewer than 21 sixes, surpassing the County Championship record of 17, established two years ago by Ben Stokes for Durham against Worcestershire at New Road. In all first-class cricket the record remains 26 sixes, by Tanmay Agarwal during his 366 for Hyderabad against Arunachal Pradesh in Secunderabad in January 2024.Kimber had come in at No. 8, at 144 for 6, with Leicestershire still 320 short of their target of 464, but took them agonisingly close – when he eventually dragged the ball into his stumps, only 19 more runs were needed. The only higher scores from No. 8 in first-class cricket are Cecil Maxwell’s 268 for Sir Julien Cahn’s XI against Leicestershire in West Bridgford in 1935, and Wasim Akram’s unbeaten 257 for Pakistan in a Test against Zimbabwe in Sheikhupura in 1996-97.The 59th over of Leicestershire’s innings, delivered by the England Test seamer Ollie Robinson, cost 43 runs. The sequence was 6,4,4,6,4,4,4,4,1, the second, sixth, and eighth deliveries being no-balls that also incurred two-run penalties. The only first-class over to leak more runs was the somewhat contrived instance of 77 by Wellington’s Bert Vance, in a New Zealand Shell Trophy match against Canterbury in Christchurch in 1989-90: he bowled 17 deliberate no-balls, most of them inviting full-tosses, in an attempt to keep the opposition interested in chasing their target. In the end the umpires and scorers lost count: there were only five legitimate balls in the over, and Canterbury finished just one short of victory, as this article recalls. John Morrison, Wellington’s captain, said: “I nearly had heart failure when I learnt a little time after the game that Canterbury only needed one to win.”Louis Kimber’s double-century, off 100 balls, is the second fastest in all first-class cricket, behind only Shafiqullah Shinwari’s 200 off 89 for Kabul in 2018•Leicestershire CCCHas any World Cup final featured two teams who were undefeated in the lead-up to the final, as the 2024 T20 World Cup did? asked Prithvi Sreenivasan from the United States

You’re right that both India and South Africa were unbeaten on the way to the T20 World Cup final in Bridgetown last weekend. This hadn’t happened in a men’s T20 World Cup before but, in the days when there were fewer preliminary matches, it was the case at the 60-over World Cup in England in 1979, when England and West Indies were both unbeaten before meeting in the final at Lord’s.In the women’s game, it happened during the T20 World Cup in 2009 in England, when the hosts and New Zealand both won all their group games then prevailed in the semis. England won the final at Lord’s. A similar thing took place a year later in the West Indies: Australia and New Zealand won all their group games, then the semi-finals, before Australia squeaked a three-run win in the final in Bridgetown.Arguably it also happened at the women’s World Cup in India in 1978, when both England and Australia were undefeated before the last round-robin game in Hyderabad, which decided the trophy as there was no actual final. Australia won by eight wickets after England managed only 96 for 8 in their 50 overs.Has anyone ever taken all ten wickets in an innings on their first-class debut? asked Tahir Rashid Ahmed from Pakistan

The only man to achieve this did it a long time ago: seamer Albert Moss took all ten wickets for Canterbury against Wellington in his maiden first-class match, in Christchurch in 1889-90. Moss, who was 26, had not long emigrated to New Zealand from his native Leicestershire. He played only three further top-level matches, and finished with 26 wickets, the fewest of any of the 83 men who have taken ten wickets in a first-class innings.I saw that Geoff Boycott once carried his bat for 99 not out in a Test. Has anyone else done this? asked Michael O’Sullivan from England

Geoff Boycott carried his bat for 99 through England’s innings of 215 against Australia in Perth in 1979-80. The last man out was Bob Willis, who turned down the run that would have taken Boycott to three figures, because he wasn’t keen on facing Dennis Lillee. “I asked him why,” wrote Boycott, “and he said ‘Because he will get me out.’ I don’t suppose there is any answer to that, but I thought that Geoff Dymock from the other end, slanting the ball across the right-hander, represented just as big a threat to him.” He was right: Willis fell in the next over to Dymock for a duck, giving Australia victory.There are six other instances of a player scoring 99 not out in a Test, but none of those was by a player who also carried his bat. There have been five other cases of an opener carrying his bat for 99 in first-class cricket.Shiva Jayaraman of ESPNcricinfo’s stats team helped with some of the above answers.Use our feedback form, or the Ask Steven Facebook page to ask your stats and trivia questions