Fraser-McGurk has faced 104 balls in IPL 2024, and has attempted boundaries off a staggering 77 of them – it’s what this game demands, and it’s what he is supplying

Sidharth Monga27-Apr-20242:15

Did Mumbai miss a trick against Fraser-McGurk?

The first ball of the match swung in against the angle of a left-arm quick. It is one of the more difficult balls to negotiate for right-hand batters. Jake Fraser-McGurk, though, drove it wide of mid-on for four.Encouraged by the swing, Luke Wood would have fancied himself with the new ball, but Fraser-McGurk kept swinging through the line. When Wood went short of a length, Fraser-McGurk flat-batted him through the covers.Jasprit Bumrah, the one bowler who has held his own in IPL 2024, began with a slower ball, but Fraser-McGurk lofted him down the ground for a six. This was only the second time Bumrah has been hit for a six first ball in the history of the IPL.Related

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Fraser-McGurk’s gameplan was plain. Clear the front leg and swing hard if the ball is in your wheelhouse. Play the horizontal-bat shot if the length allows you to get enough power behind it. If the length is precise, try to chip over the infield because there are only two fielders in the circle. If nothing works, then and only then try to not hit a boundary.An afterthought for Delhi Capitals (DC), Fraser-McGurk has batted just 104 balls but has attempted boundaries off a staggering 77 of them. That’s nearly twice the aggressive shot percentage of 39 this IPL. No other batter has attacked even 60% of the balls he has faced.Fraser-McGurk is the ideal T20 batter. Bat at the top of the order, have the willingness to capitalise on the field without getting your eye in, and have the necessary skill to adjust to changes in length and pace and score at three runs per ball that he has attacked in his first IPL.The skill was apparent when Hardik Pandya cramped him with what looked like the perfect ball: short of a length, into the body, taking his arms away from him. And still Fraser-McGurk managed to go inside-out over mid-off from that height and with such little room.Jake Fraser-McGurk smashed 19 in the first over of the game and didn’t let up while he was there•AFP/Getty ImagesA lot of it is timing, Fraser-McGurk said in the spot interview between the innings, but then there are also the strong core, glutes and upper body that help him when timing can’t. That’s what you work in the gym for.Fraser-McGurk has got out five times in those 77 boundary attempts, which might bother conventional wisdom borrowed from longer formats of the game. But this mix of attitude and skill is what coaches would give anything to be able to instil in their more established multi-format batters.Hardik spoke interestingly of the fearlessness of youth when he praised Fraser-McGurk’s innings. Hardik himself was a massive hitter when he burst on to the scene, but now chooses to anchor innings. You see that in some non-Indian players too – such as David Warner, who went from the hitter who came straight from club cricket into internationals to becoming a batter who took upon himself to bat through the innings.There will come a time not too far in future when Fraser-McGurk will become big too. There will be a big price tag to justify, there will be big expectations. If he can maintain this intent even then, we will have had ourselves another Travis Head, who, by the way, has attacked 54% of the balls he has faced in IPL 2024. The two could be opening together for Australia at the T20 World Cup come June. Be warned.

The hesitant batting of captain Babar Azam was a microcosm of the problems facing the team

Danyal Rasool07-Jun-20241:40

Mumtaz: Babar Azam was troubled by USA bowling

There were nine minutes between the end of USA’s Super Over and the first ball of Pakistan’s, and that phase where no cricket was played painted as eloquent a picture of the story of the game as any passage of actual action.Every single American fielder was in position at Grand Prairie. Saurabh Netravalkar had ball in hand. A full-time employee at a software giant in Silicon Valley, Netravalkar – who once played for India’s Under-19 side – had taken time off from his day job for USA’s T20 World Cup campaign. He glanced over at the opposition’s dugout of full-time cricketers; they couldn’t quite work out who was best equipped to take on Oracle’s software engineer in the pressure moments they were supposed to excel in for a living. You wouldn’t have begrudged Netravalkar’s impatience, paid time off in the US is rare enough not to be spent waiting around on the opposition’s Super Over choices.Related

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There was no reason for USA to shirk away. This was, after all, the sort of moment those cricketers will have looked forward to for the best part of their careers. They knew they should have wrapped this game up well within regulation time, and it was an excited rather than nervous buzz that pulsed through the home side. As Pakistan, wracked with self-doubt and uncertainty, went back and forth on how to scrape their way out of the hole they’d dug for themselves, it suddenly became hard to tell who the underdog was.For the past day or so, Pakistan captain Babar Azam had told everyone about all the things that aren’t in Pakistan’s control. The Dallas weather that forced them to train indoors for two days when it rained, though better scheduling would have seen them arrive with time enough to acclimatise. The niggle to Imad Wasim that upset the balance of the side, though a 34-year-old with an extensive injury record was always a risk worth factoring in. The toss when USA inserted Pakistan to bat against their will, though Babar won the toss five times in the build-up fixtures – supposed to be dry runs for this tournament – and never once opted to bat first.Babar the batter, though, is all about control. But under the pressure of a fiery USA start, he shrunk into his most conservative traits. But then again, Pakistan’s middle order has the lowest combined average of any of the top 12 nations. It thrust Babar into the impossible position of sticking around aimlessly and diminishing his side’s chances, or get out taking a risk and watching them go up in smoke anyway.By the end of a powerplay where Pakistan scored 30, he had managed 4 off 14 balls, and after nine overs, 9 off 23. When he flicked the final ball of the 10th over the rope, it was the first four of Pakistan’s innings. They burned through deliveries like an oil nation with a carbon budget, unable to recognise the finite nature of those resources even as they evaporated before their eyes.Fear of failure? Babar Azam never got going and finished with a 43-ball 44•Associated PressBut it was Pakistan’s profligacy with the ball that put all that had gone before to shame. USA had recognised there was little to fear from the target, or indeed a bowling unit that spent at least 14 disinterested overs going through the motions.Shadab Khan has backslid as a bowler far enough to barely be considered an allrounder, and yet Pakistan were forced to get through four overs from him and Iftikhar Ahmed. When Babar needed him to squeeze in a tight one as the quicks built up a modicum of pressure at the death, Shadab would toss in three loose deliveries and was fortunate to concede just the 11 that helped USA break the shackles.That Pakistan could put out such a performance and still somehow find themselves in a situation where defending 12 off three would win them the game was almost a travesty. A half-hour of clutch bowling, culminating in an enthralling penultimate Mohammad Amir over that saw him land four yorkers on a sixpence demonstrated the ceiling of Pakistan’s performance and how far below that they had dipped for about 35 of the game’s 40 overs.

The highlights of USA's incredible victory against Pakistan in Dallas#USAvPAK #T20WorldCup
pic.twitter.com/z5hKxoiWHH

— ESPNcricinfo (@ESPNcricinfo) June 7, 2024

It was the sort of display that has seen him lauded as the architect of two of Pakistan’s three ICC titles, and the sort of over he has the ego to believe he can bowl more frequently than anyone else in the nation.Pakistan had bowled just two full tosses in the previous six overs despite almost exclusively going for yorkers, but Haris Rauf would miss his mark twice in the final three balls, with Aaron Jones and Nitish Kumar finding the 11 runs they needed to drag their side into the Super Over.But wins against the run of play are rare in cricket, and the debt Pakistan’s wastefulness had racked up would have to be paid. Amir, whose full deliveries on the stumps had proved so reliable, suddenly strayed from the plan, sending the Super Over out of the batter’s hitting zone. The best thing you could say for that approach was it worked, though only because it was too wide for the batter to reach on at least three occasions. Like the child who always falls for the same magic trick, USA opting to steal a run every time the wide was called seemed to surprise the Pakistanis; seven of the 18 they put up came off wides.From getting themselves into a scarcely deserved winning position, Pakistan had leaked 29 off 9 balls. The damage done over three hours of improvidence could not be undone by nine minutes of timorous repentance. Pakistan had invited the wolves to the door, and the debt was about to be settled.

The fast bowler finds a way to thrive in all conditions but in Kanpur his magic balls just kept beating the bat

Alagappan Muthu27-Sep-2024It started from the very first delivery of the day. Jasprit Bumrah saw it skitter through at shin height and bounce before it reached the wicketkeeper.In a way, that helped India. Their pre-match suspicions about Kanpur having low bounce were confirmed and their slip cordon was a lot more confident with the positions they’d chosen, really close in to the bat. Bangladesh’s first wicket fell because Yashasvi Jaiswal was only 14 metres away at gully.Bumrah puts a lot of effort behind the ball. His action is only one small part of why he is so hard to face. The rest of it comes from the snap of his wrist, which helps him dig the seam into the pitch and extract every bit of help that’s there, whether it’s movement or bounce. The fact that he did all that and the ball still barely rose up off the surface set the tone for the rest of his day.Usually, it’s great being Jasprit Bumrah. Just this once, it wasn’t.He bowled three straight maidens to start his spell, with Zakir Hasan hopping about, unsure of which of his edges were in danger. He also allowed 17 leaves in his nine overs. He was a little up and down. And yet, the genius that he is, he still produced 22 false shots (that’s a ratio of one every three balls) and beat the bat thrice (6) as often as any other bowler.Eventually, even the good work that he was doing brought Bumrah a little bit of frustration – because this time unlike many others – he was really trying to get wickets instead of what he usually does which is settle on a length and slowly prey on the batter’s technique. He kept shifting from over the wicket to around and back again, like a go-between trying to patch up a lover’s quarrel. He had to experiment like this because the softness of the pitch had given Bangladesh a margin of error. On a harder surface, the ball might have gone through quicker and carried through higher and made him more of a threat. On this one, the batters seemed to have an extra second to adjust to all the sideways movement he were getting.India, though, had a deep enough bowling attack and together they kept Bangladesh under enough pressure that at the end of a truncated day’s play, they were still in control of the game. Their decision at the toss to bowl first – a first such instance in a home Test since 2015 – was built on the basis that the three-man pace attack would be able to exploit the overcast conditions. And it can be no bad thing that their fast bowlers are getting as much of a workout as they are in a home season that is leading into a huge away tour of Australia.1:14

Manjrekar: If India’s batting comes good, could be a third series win in Australia

Akash Deep’s performances, not just his wickets, but the way he seems to be getting them in his first spell, are a good sign. If he keeps this up, one of the problems that affect India when they travel – the support bowlers following the lead bowlers and releasing the pressure – may not have too much of a say on the final scorecard.For now, the attention remains on Kanpur. Its weather will keep India’s fast bowlers front and centre and Bumrah will be back on day two – so long as the rain stays away – producing more magic balls. Everybody walked off to the dressing room on the back of one, actually, and as he saw it nip past, instead of taking the outside edge, Bumrah threw his head back and half smiled. Usually, it’s great being him. Just this once, it wasn’t.

New Zealand have decided to move Devine to the middle order so that she can finish off games for them

S Sudarshanan03-Oct-2024Heading into Women’s T20 World Cup 2024, New Zealand had ten games against England – five at home and five away – and three against Australia. Playing two top T20I sides, their preparation could not have been any better, one would think. At the end of it, though, New Zealand have 13 T20I losses to show. This is the most un-winningest they have been heading into a T20 World Cup.Yet, alarm bells are not ringing in the New Zealand camp. The experience in the squad – only wicketkeeper Isabella Gaze is playing her first World Cup – is enough to maintain calm. The core of the unit has been the same for the last few years. And yet, they decided to make a tweak ahead of last year’s World Cup – separate the opening pair of Suzie Bates and Sophie Devine. On the list of the most successful opening partnerships in T20Is, Bates and Devine – known as the Smash Sisters – sit pretty at third. New Zealand needed Devine’s power and hitting prowess in the middle and latter part of the innings and hence decided to make the switch.Georgia Plimmer has partnered Bates at the top after Bernadine Bezuidenhout’s retirement earlier this year but is yet to have the desired effect. It is no surprise because Plimmer is only 20, and facing some of the world’s best bowlers is no easy task. Wouldn’t New Zealand be better off with Devine at the top?Related

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“We see Sophie in particular as an absolute world-class ball-striker and having the power a little bit later in the innings is something that we think is really, really important,” New Zealand head coach Ben Sawyer told ESPNcricinfo.”We flip that [question] a little bit: when there are four [fielders] out and you’re asking someone to go at eight or tens an over and the game’s on the line, who better to have than Sophie Devine? That’s the way we’ve looked at it. To have Sophie up the top is amazing but we also think having Soph in the middle and finishing off games for us is amazing.”We are not expecting Sophie to be able to bat up top, get through a powerplay, do it at a really high strike rate, then bat through the middle and also finish the game off for us. That’s a lot to ask of one player. Getting off to a great start in the powerplay is really important but we also feel that finishing off the game is really important. We’d love to have Soph bat the whole way through, or any other world’s greats bat the whole way through, but it doesn’t tend to happen.”Katey Martin: “The biggest challenge for Sophie in the middle order will be to face spin”•Getty ImagesSince February last year, Devine has opened the batting for New Zealand just once. She has scored two fifties in this period, both at No. 4. In both the warm-up matches ahead of the tournament proper, though, she batted at No. 3, a position she last batted in a T20I at in 2018.”I like Sophie opening because I think the best players want to face the most number of deliveries,” former New Zealand wicketkeeper Katey Martin, who retired in 2022, told ESPNcricinfo. “But I understand the decision around why they see her through their middle order – to elongate the batting order. The biggest challenge for Sophie going from opening to a middle-order role is that you face spin quite regularly [in the middle order]. It’s you might face one over of spin early in the powerplay, but you’re actually facing more spin throughout that middle when you start and what are your options around that?”She is always a slower starter anyway. So it’s not like you’re going to get her exploding when she’s betting in the powerplay. It’s just the fact the number of deliveries she gets to face. For New Zealand, she is such a key weapon and I think maybe the fact that she batted at No. 3 in that warm-up game was to say that a floating role maybe when New Zealand chase. If she is going to bat in that middle order, [the challenge] is how the top three set up the game, so that they are enabling her to be as effective as she can, but also hitting a strike rate that they need in terms of their role.”Since last year’s T20 World Cup, New Zealand have scored 140 or more in an innings only seven times in 22 matches. Their collective batting average in this period is only 19.39; only Scotland and Bangladesh average lower among teams at this T20 World Cup. Their batting strike rate in the same period is 105.47; only Scotland, Pakistan and Bangladesh fare worse.

“She [Devine] is always a slower starter anyway. So it’s not like you’re going to get her exploding when she’s betting in the powerplay. It’s just the fact the number of deliveries she gets to face”Katey Martin on Sophie Devine

Prima facie it does seem like batting is a concern for New Zealand, especially in conditions that may be tough to bat in.”Batting is an area that hasn’t necessarily been developed through a period of time for years in New Zealand and it’s not specifically the batting,” Martin said. “It’s just the development of batters within our domestic game. And you’re not challenged as much [in domestic cricket] as you are internationally, which goes without saying. When you get an opportunity early in your career, not playing too many domestic games going straight away and playing international cricket, you get exposed so much quicker. And that’s not the fault of the players by any stretch of the imagination. It’s just the position that New Zealand cricket is in around developing those youngsters.”While it’s a concern in terms of that, the numbers aren’t necessarily there, when you look at the way that the team are playing, you still see them inventing, you see them moving around, you see them making the effort. So I don’t think it’s a lack of effort. It is a concern, but I still think that they’re trending in the right way.”You look at Australia, they’re all domestic contracted full-time players and they’re playing A tournaments, India A as well. There’s a lot of competition at that lower level below the international stage. WPL, WBBL, the standards, the pressure, the experience is allowing those players to develop a lot quicker. And you’ve seen a number of Indian and Australian domestic players perform at their international stage because they’ve learned that domestically. So that’s just a continued focus around how to develop the players so that they’re prepared for international cricket and prepared in a way that they can be successful straight off the bat rather than having to develop on their international stage.”

The numbers show that the allrounder’s death batting has been below its best in for a few seasons

Karthik Krishnaswamy04-Apr-20251:39

Hardik clearly at the peak of his game’

It wasn’t meant to end this way for Hardik Pandya. A toe-ended single to long-on with his team needing 14 off two balls, bat flung away as he reached the other end.He had done so much, and seen it come to this. A promising chase petering out. A struggling batter retiring out. And then, when it all came down to him, a series of big swings that never quite came off, against bowlers who never quite nailed their yorkers but never quite missed by too much.Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) were there or thereabouts with their lines in the last two overs of Mumbai Indians’ (MI) chase of 204. Shardul Thakur aimed his yorkers wide of off stump and Avesh Khan angled them into the stumps, both looking to force Hardik to hit to the longer side of the ground. And both got their lines right most of the time.Related

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But they didn’t always nail their length. Hardik was on strike for eight of the last 12 balls of MI’s chase, and by ESPNcricinfo’s logs, only two landed on the yorker length. Four were full-tosses, and two landed on a full length.Hardik only managed to hit one of those six missed yorkers to the boundary. Thakur and Avesh didn’t miss by much, but fast bowlers don’t need to miss by much when Hardik is at his best.In the IPL, Hardik hasn’t been at his best as a batter for quite a while. Of the 35 batters who have scored at least 150 runs in the death overs (17th to 20th) since the 2022 season, Hardik (162.09) has the worst strike rate in this phase.His death-overs numbers have been particularly poor since his move back to MI last season. He’s faced 48 balls and scored 70 runs off them, at 145.83, while being dismissed six times.But Friday night certainly wasn’t meant to end like this, with a dissection of Hardik’s batting returns. Truth be told, LSG made things genuinely difficult for him and MI’s other batters on one of the IPL’s best grounds for defending totals. Lucknow has hosted IPL matches since the 2023 season, and in that time, Delhi has been the only ground (minimum ten matches) where teams batting first have enjoyed a better win-loss record. And of the four grounds where teams batting first have won more often than they have lost, Lucknow has been by far the slowest-scoring. LSG were defending only the second 200-plus total ever made on this ground.Hardik Pandya adjusted superbly to the conditions while bowling•BCCIAnd Hardik had been central to keeping them down to 203, despite them scoring 69 for no loss in the powerplay.When Hardik brought himself on, LSG were 88 for 1 in eight overs. Then he had shown his team how to do it on this pitch and at this ground.MI play their home games at the Wankhede Stadium, which is known for the pace and true bounce of its red-soil pitches. When they play away games on grounds that have the option of choosing between soil types, their opponents invariably pick black rather than red.It took until Hardik came on for MI to start bowling in a black-soil way. And he began doing this as soon as he came on. His first over was almost exclusively slower offcutters bowled into the pitch, usually on the shorter side of a good length. The big exception was his fifth ball. This was another offcutter, but it was a lot shorter, and it gripped and bounced to just around head height, turning away from Nicholas Pooran to exaggerate the angle across him from right-arm over. Pooran was in no control of his pull and lobbed a simple catch to short fine leg.Hardik did for another left-hand batter in his next over, with another slower offcutter from the same angle. Rishabh Pant looked to flick against the angle and against the turn and popped a leading edge to mid-off.

“I remember having a conversation with him last year where I said we need a seamer to bowl after the powerplay, not necessarily at the death, and he’s got the attributes to be able to do that”Mark Boucher on Hardik Pandya’s bowling

Plenty of bowlers bowl offcutters into the pitch. Few – Pat Cummins and Jasprit Bumrah are notable examples – get them to grip and bounce like Hardik does.On ESPNcricinfo’s show, Mark Boucher, who worked with Hardik as MI’s head coach last season, gave an insight into why his offcutter does so much.”Hardik loves the new ball,” Boucher said. “He likes to see the ball swinging around. I remember having a conversation with him last year where I said we need a seamer to bowl after the powerplay, not necessarily at the death, and he’s got the attributes to be able to do that.”He hits good lengths, he’s quite a smart bowler as well, but he’s got a really good change of pace, and he’s got the rolling of the wrist, so he took it upon himself to say, right, that’s the challenge, let me do that.”As much as Hardik loves the offcutter, though, he isn’t wedded to it. He bowled 15 on Friday night, according to ESPNcricinfo’s data, and 13 in Ahmedabad on March 29, when Gujarat Titans (GT) gave MI a black-soil welcome. In between, though, when he took 1 for 10 in two overs in a home game against Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR), he only bowled one offcutter, and primarily bowled hard lengths with the seam up.2:53

Was Suryakumar’s wicket the turning point?

“I’ve always enjoyed my bowling,” Hardik said in his post-match interview. “I don’t think I have many options, but I’ll always try to make sure that I read the wicket well and use some smarter options.”And I think I’ll never try to take wickets. I’ll always be aggressive from my mindset, but it is to always bowl more dot balls and create pressure and let batters make mistakes.”Against LSG, the smart option also extended to the lines he bowled. He held himself back after two overs in the middle phase, and came back to bowl the 18th and 20th; now he made LSG’s batters play on his terms, forcing the right-hand batters to hit to the off side and the left-hand batters to go leg side – the longer boundary from his end. Nine of his 12 balls went where he wanted them to go, and brought him three more wickets, including those of set batters Aiden Markram and David Miller.It was Hardik’s first five-wicket haul in T20s. It was the first time a captain had picked up a five-for in the IPL. Hardik could do no wrong.But MI were already chasing the game, and they would continue to do so until Hardik was front and centre all over again, called upon to clean up another mess. Twice in the same day, on this day, was asking for too much.

Captain immersed in challenge of firing county to rare heights, with England days long behind him

Vithushan Ehantharajah16-Mar-2025Does Rory Burns feel old? The laugh in response to the question suggests he probably does. Not because he turns 35 in August, but more the fact 2025 will be Burns’ benefit season.At Surrey, the decision to award benefit years to celebrate a player’s service is not taken lightly. Two members independent of the club management must write in to formally request one for a player, before that request is subsequently approved at board and general counsel level. That being said, commemorating an academy product who debuted in 2011 and is currently plotting a fifth County Championship as captain, feels like a no-brainer.”It’s something that I’m delighted to be awarded with,” Burns tells ESPNcricinfo. “I’d say it’s certainly making me level up my admin game, which, if you ask anyone that knows me, is fairly poor what with the dinners, golf days and matches.”Those that watch Burns operate will have a different take on his logistical skills. The batting, for instance, requires a great deal of organisation. The twitch of arms, canting of head and trigger-shift of feet are idiosyncrasies that require order to function effectively, which they did for 1,073 runs at 53.65 last term. It was the eighth time in the last 11 summers the left-handed opener’s first-class haul has breached four figures. And, really, how much of a scatterbrain can someone really be if they have marshalled a hat-trick of successive Division One titles?Indeed, as thoughts turn to going four in a row this summer, the computing wheels of Burns the cricketer are clearly in good order. Certainly, when it comes to history and ambition.”It is as cold now as it was when I lifted that trophy in September,” he recalls. “Big coats and beanies.Burns was a reassuring presence at the top of England’s order for much of his 32-cap tenure•Getty Images”In the immediate moment, with the trophy lift, you take stock of what you achieved and know you’ve done something pretty special,” referencing the fact Surrey became the first team since Yorkshire, 56 years ago, to win three back-to-back.”But then you look at Yorkshire; they won eight out of 10 (through the 1930s and after the Second World War). Or when we went seven in a row (1952-58). I think if you get the chance to go four in four, you want your next piece of history, I suppose.”Pursuit of another Championship – Surrey’s 34th – comes with change in the air at the Kia Oval. Alec Stewart is no longer director of cricket, but remains in a part-time high-performance cricket advisor role. New Zealand’s impressive bowling allrounder Nathan Smith will join the squad from May, while tall quick Matthew Fisher has moved down south from Yorkshire. Yet again, it is hard to look beyond the south London strutters as favourites.That Burns can be so open about chasing history speaks to what many at Surrey have known about him. He was always destined to lead, in part because of a level personality that seems to allow him the knack of compartmentalising his game and responsibilities.A diligent notetaker, he would constantly be scribbling in a pad during his early years, particularly when it came to details on opposition bowlers. When he was appointed Surrey captain at the end of 2017, it happened to coincide with a book he had on the go – “The Obstacle Is The Way” by Ryan Holiday, which Burns describes as “stoic philosophy”.During his time with England, he undertook a sports leadership and directorship course at the University of Liverpool, via a link-up between the Team England Player Partnership and football’s League Managers Association. He passed with distinction.”You have to write an essay on yourself at certain points – of how you see your leadership and what’s important to you. And realistically, the most important thing that comes across about leadership I think I’ve learned is you’ve got to be yourself.”I place an emphasis on the team and basically how I can do my bit – by leading from the front in my way. As an opening batter, I was focussing on that before captaincy, and I’ve tried to keep doing that. Because I suppose in leadership, when you’re looking for the first thing to do, it’s, the easiest thing to do is making sure you get your bit right. Being yourself.”Taking those learnings and applying them to what is to come in 2025 casts minds back to a time when Burns’ priorities were split between club and country. Surrey’s push for greatness runs parallel with a seismic year for England’s Test side, with an India series this summer followed by an Ashes tour. It is a carbon copy of the schedule from 2021 into the start of 2022. Those happened to be Burns’ last engagements as a Test cricketer.Out of context, Burns’ international record is modest; three centuries and 11 fifties across 59 innings, with a 30.32 average. But for most of his 32 caps, the first coming at the start of the 2018 winter in the immediate aftermath of Alastair Cook’s retirement, he was something of a banker. A rare point of a reliability in an inconsistent era.From Burns’ debut to the beginning of Brendon McCullum’s and Ben Stokes’ leadership at the start of the 2022 summer, England won just 17 of 44 Tests played, with 18 defeats. When opening batters were first on the block when things went wrong, Burns carried a degree of stoicism, to the point of being ear-marked as a future England captain.Burns endured a harrowing experience in Australia in 2021-22, and hasn’t featured for England since•Getty ImagesHe would eventually become part of that collateral. As ever, the final throes were the toughest. A dispiriting Ashes for all involved, a 4-0 loss exacerbated by Covid-19, began with Burns bowled leg stump by Mitchell Starc with the first delivery of the series. He was dropped after the first two Tests, then back for the last in Hobart, on hand to see Australia confirm a 4-0 shellacking, before missing out for the pre-Bazball tour of the Caribbean – Joe Root’s last as Test captain.Dropping straight back into the Kia Oval to plot the first of those hat-trick of titles helped ease the angst. Three years on, however, Burns has still not quite come to terms with his England career.”I don’t think I’ve actually fully taken stock of it,” he says. “I was so fortunate to keep jumping back in with Surrey and captaincy, I never had to overthink it. Where it had gone, where it had not gone.”It led me to some technical changes during that period. Thinking about it now, if I was exposed at a younger age to different conditions, some Lions stuff when I was growing up and scoring a lot of runs, would I have changed my technique rather than just churning out a load of runs in county cricket and got in that way? Would that have helped? I think I’m a better batter now than I was when I was playing Test cricket. But I’m going to think that because I’ve made some changes, and I’ve seen that they’ve worked.”The disappointing thing is it ended with just a 30-second phone call telling you that you’re back-up go on the tour to the West Indies instead of taking you. That was probably one thing that hurt the most. It wasn’t the last dropping (in Australia).”Related

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The Test team have since moved in an altogether different direction. The days of grinding your way into the XI off domestic performances, as Burns had done, are long gone, with McCullum and Stokes, governed by men’s managing director Rob Key, keener on raw talent rather than seasoned pros, and high ceilings over high domestic output.As far as Test cricket is concerned, the success rate of this policy has actually been pretty good, with Burns’ Surrey teammates Jamie Smith and Gus Atkinson among the players who have settled into the squad with instant results. But his measured take from his own experiences at the sharp end of the world game is that experience is a vital crutch to lean upon when the going gets tough.”I think when you’re just trying to cherry-pick or find another bolter, it might work and they might have good series. But in the long run, I think the churn of your players in your team will probably become more and more, and it’ll be less settled as it goes on. That’s just my opinion, and the guys in charge are making the decisions that they think are right.”Tom Banton’s a great example. I know it was white-ball, but how he got there (England) was, domestically, doing his thing, improving. Because he’s had that, he’s got more resilience about him and he understands his game that bit more. He also understands the ebbs or flows of when things don’t go right.”In terms of international cricket, it’s pretty tough up there. You need players who have somewhere to go when it doesn’t go right. And for that I think it helps massively to have those experiences first, before you can go and fly at international level.”Burns makes clear he would never say no to a recall, but acknowledges his nuggety, 50-strike-rate ways are not getting a look-in: “The profile of player they’re looking for probably isn’t, well… it isn’t my profile at the minute!”It is not time or distance that underpins Burns’ phlegmatic outlook, rather comfort given the situation he finds himself in at this stage of his career. Purpose and hunger undimmed, another legacy-enhancing summer awaits for Surrey and one of a storied county’s most revered leaders.

Reliving five of the Sri Lanka allrounder’s best performances in Test cricket in the lead-up to his final match

Madushka Balasuriya15-Jun-2025Angelo Mathews laid down a marker early in his captaincy in Abu Dhabi, 12 years ago•AFP

A showcase of mettle

91 & 157* vs Pakistan, Abu Dhabi (2013/14)The retirements of longtime stalwarts Mahela Jayawardene and Kumar Sangakkara were fast approaching, and Mathews’ Test captaincy, still in its infancy, was, perhaps unfairly, being compared to that of his soon-to-be-gone predecessors.But as Sri Lanka’s batting wilted under not-very-testing conditions, slumping to 124 for 8 after being put in, Mathews began to showcase a hitherto unseen Test mettle. A counterattacking 91 off 127, shielding the tail, dragged the visitors to a subpar but acceptable 204, though the main course was still to come.Sri Lanka wound up conceding a 179-run first innings lead, but if the first innings was Mathews fighting back, the second showed a side many hadn’t yet seen as he ground his way to an unbeaten 157 off 343 deliveries.It helped set a final day target of 302, but more importantly ate up time, ensuring Pakistan had little chance to attempt the chase. Mathews’ efforts eventually secured a hard-fought draw and a deserved Player-of-the-Match award.A Galle special: Mahela Jayawardene celebrates Angelo Mathews and his rain-thwarting cameo•AFP

The rain man

25* vs Pakistan, Galle (2014)This one is a rogue entry in our list. As day five began, a draw seemed foregone – Pakistan still had nine wickets in hand, there was little in the pitch for the bowlers, and even if Sri Lanka did pick up those wickets cheaply the heavy rains forecast meant the chance of a result was virtually non-existent.Fast forward a few hours, and a Rangana Herath masterclass had manifested the impossible. While a target of 99 off 21 overs was eminently gettable, the certainty of rain – a case of when not if – was a problem. In fading light, the brazen attempts at time wasting from the Pakistan players was a necessary evil.Related

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It was in the face of all this that Mathews walked out with 40 needed off 55, though realistically it was more like 40 off 30 – 20 perhaps? Whatever it was, Mathews wasn’t to know. All he knew was that he would have to make the most of the time that was ticking.In the end he wound up facing 13 deliveries; two went for six, two more for four. The 13th? A single that was never on, leading to a direct hit that never happened.With half the batting still to come afterwards, a direct hit would in most scenarios have been inconsequential, but here, in the time it would have taken for the next batter to walk to the middle, the clouds that had been hovering menacingly all day would have finally given way. Instead, when the rains did come, it was no longer as spoiler, rather just another celebrant of the most improbable of wins.”It was one of the best games I have taken part in,” Mathews would proclaim afterwards, and all these years later you’d be hard pressed to disagree.Angelo Mathews at Headingley in 2014 was a total vibe•Ben Radford/Getty Images

The peak

160 & 4/44 vs England, Leeds (2014)Mathews the allrounder has reached almost mythical proportions in Sri Lankan cricket folklore. An all-time what-could-have-been. But in the summer of 2014, Mathews was at the peak of his powers.Following an uninspired Sri Lankan first innings, England were threatening to bat Sri Lanka out of the game. The hosts had lost just two wickets by the time they surpassed Sri Lanka’s 257, but Mathews’s 4 for 44 snaked through England’s tail and ensured the lead didn’t go beyond 108.It was with bat though that Mathews truly shaped the game to his will, in an innings that was every bit the line between victory and defeat. His partnership alongside Mahela Jayawardene had helped extend Sri Lanka’s lead, but certainly not to match-winning territory. Jayawardene’s fall led to two more wickets, stunting Sri Lanka’s progress and leaving their lead below 200 with just three wickets in hand.It was here that Mathews steeled his resolve, as might an Anime hero on the verge of collapse. Sri Lanka’s collective hand weakened, but Mathews’ power grew as he shepherded an equally dogged Herath to dismantle England with precision and a devastating sense of clarity. Their 149-run stand for the eighth wicket was the second-highest for Sri Lanka.His 160 came off 249 deliveries, perhaps regulation by modern standards, but blazing in that era – particularly in a Sri Lankan context. Mathews steered his team to a 350-run lead and, eventually, a quite dramatic final-day victory.Angelo Mathews made his eighth Test hundred in Delhi•BCCI

A show of defiance

111 vs India, Delhi (2017)Sri Lanka had never won a Test in India, and going into this series any hope of that stat changing was as low as it had ever been. The first match had ended in a draw but in the second, India had scampered home by an innings. The third was seemingly heading in the same direction, headlined by a first-innings Virat Kohli double-ton.Adding to Sri Lanka’s misery was the weather. Air pollution levels in Delhi had reached “very unhealthy” levels, with several Lankan players struggling to cope and one even vomiting in the dressing room. At one point Sri Lanka were left with just 10 available players on the field, a contributing factor towards India’s eventual declaration.This served to bring an edge to an already tetchy contest, with India unimpressed by the number of medical stoppages in play called for by Sri Lankan players. Perhaps it was this which spurred on Mathews, as he and Dinesh Chandimal put on a 181-run fourth wicket stand.Mathews had passed fifty just thrice in his 10 previous Tests, and had openly spoken of the unending pressure of his role as captain and senior batter. But here he dipped into his reserves of experience, to negate the varying threats posed by the quartet of Mohammed Shami, Ishant Sharma, R Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja.Despite his best efforts, Sri Lanka would still end up over 150 in the red, but it showed the youngsters in the side that grit and hard work could get the job done, even in conditions as tough as this. And so it proved as Sri Lanka’s young vanguard led the way in batting out day five to secure a hard-fought draw.Angelo Mathews hit back at his coach for questioning his fitness with a push-up celebration of his century•Getty Images

He did it all day

83 & 120* vs New Zealand, Wellington (2018)Mathews had come into this game with a point to prove. Dropped from the white-ball side by then head coach Chandika Hathurusinghe over fitness concerns, he was a man on a mission. In the first innings he had struck a defiant 83, but saved his most pointed retort for the final innings.With Sri Lanka staring down the barrel at 13 for 3, some 283 runs behind New Zealand, and two full days of cricket ahead, Mathews was joined at the crease by Kusal Mendis. What followed was a bloody-minded display of batting that nobody seemed quite prepared for, even if the pitch that had begun to ease out.Against an outstanding New Zealand attack that contained Neil Wagner, Tim Southee and Trent Boult, Mathews and Mendis gave nothing away over a whole day’s play. New Zealand captain Kane Williamson conceded as much afterwards, exclaiming that his side had tried every trick possible but to no avail.This was an innings most memorable for Mathews’ push-up celebration upon reaching his century, directed at the dressing room. This though would not detract from Mathews’ and Mendis’ focus, as the pair batted out the entirety of day four, as well as 12 overs on day five – their stand worth 274 off 655 deliveries – before rain brought an end to the game.

Stats highlights from the fourth day of the World Test Championship final at Lord’s

Sampath Bandarupalli14-Jun-20251:53

Dale Steyn: ‘We saw the biggest of the biggest come through’

9722 Days between South Africa’s two ICC titles – the Champions Trophy in 1998 and the World Test Championship (WTC) in 2025.282 The target South Africa chased to win the WTC final against Australia was their fifth-highest chase in Test cricket. Four of those five wins have been against Australia.It is also the second-highest chase at Lord’s.8 Consecutive wins for South Africa in Test cricket, a streak that began in the West Indies last year. It is their second-longest winning streak in the format, behind the nine successive wins in 2002-03. Their eight-match streak is also the longest winning run in the WTC; India and New Zealand had won seven in a row during the first WTC cycle.Related

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138 South Africa’s first-innings total in the WTC final at Lord’s – their lowest first-innings total in an away Test win. Only three times have they won a Test after scoring fewer in their first innings.3 Number of teams to win a men’s Test in England by scoring the highest total of the match in the fourth innings, before South Africa in the WTC final. West Indies won by scoring 344 at Lord’s in 1984 and 226 at The Oval in 1988, while England made 362 against Australia at Headingley in 2019.9 Test wins and a draw for Temba Bavuma in ten matches as South Africa captain. Only England’s Percy Chapman (9) had as many wins as Bavuma in his first ten Tests as captain.136 Aiden Markram’s score in the fourth innings of the WTC final after bagging a duck in South Africa’s first innings. Only the West Indian Roy Fredericks had a higher fourth-innings score – 138 against England at Lord’s in 1984 – after making a first-innings duck.3 Hundreds for Markram in the fourth innings in Tests. Only Graeme Smith (4) has more fourth-innings tons for South Africa.74 First-innings lead South Africa conceded at Lord’s. The previous time they won a Test after conceding a lead of more than 50 was in 2011, when they beat Australia in Cape Town.

A difficult selection call looms for Australia when all of Cummins, Starc and Hazlewood are available to play T20Is

Alex Malcolm07-Aug-20250:45

Nathan Ellis strikes back after Shepherd’s six

There is a debate raging in Australia about whether Scott Boland should be a first-choice bowler in the Test team at the expense of one of the big three.Concurrently, there is a similar debate occurring, though far less public or vociferous, around Nathan Ellis being a first-choice bowler in Australia’s T20I side when the big three are fit and available for the 2026 T20 World Cup.Related

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Boland is a national cult hero, in whose honour Australian taxpayers would happily fund a statue outside the MCG. Apart from Hobart, where he is a BBL title-winning captain, Ellis could walk down most streets in mainland Australia without being recognised.Yet the latter has arguably an even stronger case than the former to be permanent fixture in an Australian team at the expense of one of Josh Hazlewood, Mitchell Starc and Pat Cummins.Even with Hazlewood’s return in the upcoming series against South Africa, Ellis has the chance to continue to build on a case that is fast becoming irrefutable following his astonishing performance in the batter-dominated series in the Caribbean.