Dawid Malan rises above the scrutiny to reassert his No. 1 status

by n8rngtd.top Uncategorized

Promoted to open, Malan nails his match-up with Hasaranga to propel England to 3-0 win

Matt Roller at the Ageas Bowl26-Jun-2021The long-standing debates over England’s best batting line-up in T20 international cricket will roll on and on until October’s World Cup but this 3-0 thrashing of an abject Sri Lanka side has been a reminder of the oddity of the tournament itself.The draw for the World Cup – initially scheduled for Australia last year, but since shifted to India and now the UAE and Oman – took place 18 months ago, and in the intervening period it has become apparent that England have done well out of it: they have avoided West Indies and New Zealand, both of whom will be significantly stronger than their ICC ranking implies, and will see themselves as favourites against both South Africa and Afghanistan.The result is that even if they are beaten heavily by India in the group stage, they need only beat those two teams, plus the two qualifiers from the preliminary phase, and they will reach the semi-finals, and be two wins away from their long-standing ambition of becoming the first men’s team to hold both World Cups simultaneously.This series proved that, while there are decisions to be made about the side’s best combination and structure, the most important thing for England is that they have a deep, versatile batting line-up which is filled with players that can single-handedly win a game on their day. For Saturday’s thrashing at the Ageas Bowl, they were without three of their first-choice top six – Jos Buttler (calf), Jason Roy (hamstring), Ben Stokes (returning from a hand injury) – while their first-choice No. 3 and No. 4 opened the batting and their back-up finisher came in straight after, yet their win was still a procession.England’s collapse from 143 for 1 after 15 overs to an eventual total of 180 for 6 looked for a fleeting moment like it might cost them after Danushka Gunathilaka punched the first ball of the chase through cover; as it turned out, it would have taken a declaration with five overs left to turn this into a competitive game, as Sri Lanka’s batters collapsed in a heap. This was the sort of clinical performance that should help them annihilate the weakest teams in their World Cup group; unless they come unstuck in two of the other three games, they will cruise through to the semis.Only then will their answers to the important questions come under real scrutiny. Where should Jonny Bairstow bat? How can they get more out of Stokes? Should Mark Wood bowl mainly in the Powerplay, at the death, or a bit of both? And the randomness of certain events – in particular the importance of the toss in floodlit games in the UAE, bearing dew in mind – could render such discussions useless anyway.Related

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And so to Dawid Malan. Countless column inches have been filled, including on this website, by debates over Malan’s value to England’s side: nobody has ever started their T20I career with such compelling numbers and he has ensconced himself at No. 1 in the ICC’s player rankings, but with such a strong set of batting options available to them, his slow-starting method and his occasional struggles on slower pitches, such as the ones expected in the UAE in October, has come under intense – and perhaps unfair – scrutiny.This series has encapsulated the debate: his two low scores on two-paced Cardiff pitches were wholly unconvincing, but his dominant innings of 76 off 48 balls on a better pitch at the Ageas Bowl was one of high class: the other 72 balls in the innings brought only 92 runs off the bat. Even if his form “only has one way to go”, as Eoin Morgan put it at the toss, his rate of success in T20I cricket has been phenomenal.On Saturday, Malan managed what no other England batter has in this series by getting after Wanindu Hasaranga, Sri Lanka’s blond-haired, bright-booted rockstar of a legspinner. Realising that ball spinning into his arc towards the shorter boundary represented a favourable match-up for him, Malan treated Hasaranga with disdain, thumping him for two fours and three sixes and scoring 34 off the 10 balls he faced from him; Roy was the only other man to hit him for four across the whole series.The slog-swept sixes were brutal, but there was a touch of class, too: on 18 off 15, he reverse-swept him into the gap between short third and backward point, and in the same over nailed him over deep backward square leg and lofted him inside-out through the gap in the covers that his reverse-sweep had created.”When you do your match-ups and look at the dimensions of the ground, with a right-hander in [at the other end], my match-up is to take down the legspinner towards that shorter boundary,” Malan explained afterwards. “Even though it was into the wind, that was my role: to take the positive option against him.”If that was an offspinner on that side, Jonny would probably have been over-aggressive against him because that was his match-up. I faced him the other night at Cardiff and didn’t see him that well, and my movements weren’t very good, so it was nice to face him a couple of days later in different conditions and get on top of him.”During his difficult series in India, it seemed as though the drawbacks of Malan’s method outweighed the benefits, but in this innings, the opposite was true. He may not mind the debate rolling on: “I quite like proving a point so when I do get criticism I do like going out there to show those people that seem to have their opinions,” he said.There are similar questions to weigh up in the bowling attack: are Chris Woakes and David Willey viable options as new-ball specialists? Is Chris Jordan still a banker at the death? The absence of much new information from this series means they will not be answered definitively until the knockout stages of the T20 World Cup – and even then, there is another one to follow only 12 months later.

Of course it had to be James Anderson to stop Rohit Sharma in the end

by h716a5.icu Uncategorized

Just where would England be without “old man Jimmy” rolling along?

Andrew Miller12-Aug-20213:18

Steve Harmison dissects James Anderson’s excellent bowling

Shortly after 10am, on a grey morning at Lord’s that seemed as shrouded with unanticipated gloom as the England Test team itself, a diffident figure shuffled out of the pavilion, hands thrust deep into the pockets of his training top, seemingly a man apart from his peers, and almost certainly alone with his thoughts.For James Anderson, the script for the second Test seemed already to have been written. His demeanour at the best of times tends not to veer too far from hang-dog, but in a 9am briefing with the written media, even his big boss at the ECB, Tom Harrison, had written him off as injured; so too the MCC souvenir scorecards, which had inked Saqib Mahmood in for a debut, ahead of his return south of the river for Saturday’s Oval Invincibles’ clash.All around him during the warm-ups, Anderson’s colleagues were presenting a similar narrative. To a man, they were sporting Strauss Foundation red caps, specially commissioned for this match, which seemed to telegraph their involvement at his bare-headed expense. But then, almost as an afterthought, Anderson joined a half-formed circle for an impromptu game of keepie-up, and as he belied his dodgy quad by flicking out his left leg at a passing football, the jungle drums began their beat. “He can’t…? He won’t…? He bloody will, won’t he?”Sure enough, the Black Knight of the England dressing room was preparing to remount his horse, muttering “tis but a flesh wound!” as he warmed up on the practice pitch before slotting back in for a 164th tilt at Test cricket, and an extraordinary 25th match at Lord’s alone.In hindsight, it shouldn’t have come as a surprise. Four years ago, after all, Anderson belied the inconvenience of a fractured shoulder, of all the ailments, to demand his place back for England’s tour of India, of all the venues, where his lack of match fitness ended up being exposed in a 4-0 series beating, but where his unquenchable lust for combat has rarely been more obvious.And now, in his team’s hour of need, and with Stuart Broad already ruled out for the series, was it ever actually in doubt that he’d be ready? In fact, it transpired that he was more ready even than the weather – Joe Root won the toss, with no compunction about unleashing his hobbled veteran under the brooding skies, only for those same heavens to call a rain-check just as he was preparing to bowl the first ball, as if the Almighty himself was questioning the wisdom of England’s all-in approach.Related

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For it’s in such moments that series are decided. Bowl first at Lord’s under leaden skies? England did just that against India in the corresponding fixture three years ago, when Anderson himself claimed 5 for 20 in 13.2 overs to torpedo the visitors for 107. Rush back your creaking spearhead because you cannot countenance his absence for such a crunch clash? That was also what England chose to do at Edgbaston 12 months later at the start of the 2019 Ashes, and when Anderson’s calf popped on that occasion after four overs, so too did his side’s hopes of regaining the urn.Despite Root’s insistence that a scan of Anderson’s thigh had come back “clear as anything”, it felt like a roll of the dice one way, or another, and quite conceivably both – a desperate bid to latch onto that unlikely rain-induced let-off at Trent Bridge, and land a very English haymaker on an India team that, with bat and ball, had looked uncommonly primed for the challenge of victory in these conditions.Instead, what we witnessed was a scene that could have been transposed from Chennai or Ahmedabad earlier this year – a transcendent Rohit Sharma, bossing every bowler bar England’s senior statesman (and to a lesser degree, his admirable understudy, Ollie Robinson) and, for the best part of two sessions, outscoring his team-mate KL Rahul by more than four to one.James Anderson belts out an appeal•AFP/Getty ImagesThat’s to take nothing away from Rahul’s own more measured mastery, as he and Virat Kohli came out to bloom in the late-evening sun. But Rohit in particular has been threatening such a break-out performance ever since India’s arrival in England. His scores on the tour to date – 34 and 30 in the World Test Championship final against New Zealand, 36 and 12 not out at Trent Bridge last week – had each been immaculate until the very moment they were not; totemic and imperturbable in the face of some of the finest new-ball bowling in the world, but as incomplete as his overseas average which, after today’s away-best of 83, remains a scandalously unrepresentative 29.08 – more than 50 runs shy of his home mark of 79.52.Of course, it had to be Anderson to stop him in the end. But not before Rohit had feasted on the men who could not match up to his methods. Sam Curran scurried with renewed licence as the fifth man of the attack, but found his quest for magic balls too easy to disassemble – not unlike Anderson at the same age, in fact – most damningly between balls 17 and 28 of his spell (to switch to a contemporary vernacular), as Rohit filleted him for six of his 11 fours, only one of which went anywhere other than intended.Moeen Ali toiled with adequate discipline on his comeback – his judgement can be deferred on this first-day deck – but then there was Mark Wood. Unused in any format since July 1, he was unseen throughout an ominous morning session, as England strove for subtlety in still helpful conditions. Instead, they caused even less bother than they had done on an energetic fourth evening at Trent Bridge which, despite the endless oohs of ball beating bat, had still ended up being 52 for 1 by the close, and surely checkmate but for rain.Wood bent his back with typical elan – touching 94mph early in his spell – but his average in England is now pushing 45. Before the day was done, he was leaping wide on the crease at regular intervals, and pounding it in from round the wicket in between whiles, busting a gut to force an error, in an ominous premonition of what may await in Brisbane and Adelaide this winter if England cannot find a line-up that can exert pressure for 80 overs at a time.Anderson managed his part of the bargain, of course. But in keeping with a strange phenomenon this summer – which could be a surfeit of caution from his opponents every bit as much as a failure of Anderson’s own methods – his new-ball spell went wicketless for the seventh time out of seven this summer. Eight overs for 11 was exactly as we have come to expect. Nothing given away, and no liberties taken either – a dim-and-distant echo of a bygone era of Test cricket, when the first session would be given to the bowler, and hay would be made thereafter.As if to prove his own transcendent abilities, Anderson’s breakthrough came once his quarry had settled deep into his innings. As far as Anderson’s own day went, he needed just ten more balls to prise the opening, jagging one back through Rohit’s gate after nibbling the previous two in the other direction. But by then he hadn’t been seen for the best part of a session, and though he did his damnedest to claw back the ground that England had lost in between whiles – just as at Trent Bridge, when the Pujara and Kohli double-whammy had also come after the 40th over of the innings – the wholesale wrecking proved beyond him this time.It was another good day at the office for James Anderson•PA Photos/Getty ImagesThat’s the trouble with England’s methods right now. They are over-reliant on miracles from men of whom expectations are already unhealthily high – be it the burnt-out Ben Stokes or the one-man batting unit that Joe Root has become in his absence. And while Anderson, at the age of 39, is a miracle among physical specimens, it’s not fair or feasible for him to presume that that tendency has to extend to every spell he bowls.After all, he’s not the messiah, he’s just old man Jimmy, rolling along like a Silver Ghost – a breathtaking piece of vintage engineering, and so stunningly preserved that not even the most crass batting vandal could wish to take a lump-hammer to him (well, maybe excepting Rishabh Pant…)It’s been a year and counting since Anderson was last dispatched at more than 3 an over in any given Test innings. In that time, he’s claimed 33 wickets in 16 innings, or a shade over two at a time. He’s bowled 291.2 overs, or 18 and a bit per innings. He’s conceded 658 runs, or an average of 41 a pop.And therefore, today’s analysis – 20-4-52-2 – wasn’t far from a perfectly average example of late-stage Anderson excellence. These are standards that England take for granted at their peril, for where would they be without him? Troublingly, the evidence at the other end of the pitch – with the honourable exception of Robinson – suggested that they would be more or less as deep in the mire as they are now.A team that has struggled to win away for the past five or more years is currently struggling to win at home with every bit as much consistency. Perhaps that script for this Test had been written in advance after all.

Glenn Maxwell and Avesh Khan take Smart Stats honours

by n8rngtd.top Uncategorized

Why Harshal Patel came in second on the Smart Wickets list, the top match performers and more

ESPNcricinfo stats team16-Oct-2021Glenn Maxwell was the MVP of IPL 2021, according to ESPNcricinfo’s Smart Stats. Maxwell, who was bought for INR 14.25 crore in the 2021 auction by Royal Challengers Bangalore, put together a stellar performance with the bat and exceeded most expectations. It was not just the 513 runs that he scored at a strike rate of 144.10 in the season, but the manner and the difficult conditions in which he scored them. While most batters found it hard on the dry pitches in Chennai and Sharjah, Maxwell struck at 149.15 and 138.33 respectively on these grounds. He was also the second best player of spin in the tournament, scoring 264 runs from 171 balls at a strike rate of 154.38 and average of 52.8 against spin. Ruturaj Gaikwad was marginally ahead of him. But Maxwell’s impact was not limited to strike rates and averages. He scored when others struggled, and ensured that conditions were taken out of the equation.However, these numbers don’t do full justice to his performances this season. For that, we need to look at Smart Stats, which looks at every batting and bowling performance through the prism of match context, and the pressure on the batsman and bowler at each delivery when they batted or bowled. Maxwell’s 513 runs were worth 624 runs. Coming in at 9 for 2 against Kolkata Knight Riders in Chepauk, Maxwell smashed 78 off 49 to help his team reach 204. This was against a bowling attack that was spin heavy. Similarly, on another tough pitch at Sharjah against Punjab Kings, Maxwell hit 57 off 33 to help Royal Challengers post a competitive total. On several occasions, Maxwell had to soak up the pressure of slow run rates to help his team score above par.ESPNcricinfo LtdMaxwell’s match impact of 46.53 is marginally ahead of the second-placed KL Rahul, who had a match impact score of 46.23 (for a minimum of 11 matches played, to account for those who had done well in India and the UAE). Rahul once again was Mr. Dependable for the Kings. He scored 626 runs in 13 matches. The reason Rahul’s impact was so high is because barring his opening partner Mayank Agarwal, there were not many other contributors with the bat for his team. Rahul often played the anchor’s role for Punjab; in several innings, he scored at a conservative pace due to the middle order’s failures.There is little to separate the rest in the list. Rashid Khan, Avesh Khan and Prithvi Shaw complete the top five. The Chennai Super Kings opening batters – Gaikwad and Faf du Plessis were eighth and ninth respectively in match impact. The reason for their lower impact compared to Rahul was mainly because both Gaikwad and du Plessis had ample support through the batting order.ESPNcricinfo LtdESPNcricinfo’s Purple Cap

The list of bowlers with the highest Smart Wickets is different from the list of top wicket-takers, because Smart Wickets takes into account the quality of batter dismissed, their score at the time of dismissal, and the match context at that point. Taking all those factors into account, Avesh, who is second on the wicket-takers’ list with 24 wickets, tops the Smart Wickets tally with an aggregate of 31.5. Harshal Patel, who was the tournament’s Purple Cap winner with 32 wickets, is marginally behind with 30.7 Smart Wickets. The main reason Avesh’s wickets were valued higher than Harshal’s is because Avesh took wickets of better batters, when the match was still in the balance. While 25% of Harshal’s wickets were of lower-order batters (Nos. 8 to 11), the figure for Avesh was just 16%. Of the 24 wickets Avesh took, 12 were of the top-four batters, including eight dismissals of openers. Avesh also took eight and six wickets respectively in the middle overs and the powerplay, while conceding runs at just 6.5 and 6.8 in those two phases. Harshal’s late wickets were crucial on some occasions, but others came when the match result was a formality. These added to the tally for conventional wickets, but don’t add much to the Smart Wickets count.One of the bowlers who struck crucial blows was Shardul Thakur. He took 21 wickets, but they were worth 26 Smart Wickets. His scalps included Shikhar Dhawan, Venkatesh Iyer (twice), Andre Russell, AB de Villiers, Agarwal and Sanju Samson, to name a few. Most of his dismissals involved either breaking a partnership, or getting a set batter out. Because Smart Wickets takes into account the quality of the batter and the score at which they were dismissed – getting a good batter out early before they can inflict any damage fetches higher points.ESPNcricinfo LtdBest Match Performance
While Maxwell and Avesh took pole positions in terms of MVP and best bowler, the match-wise top impact position was dominated by all-rounders. Kieron Pollard’s outstanding performance with bat and ball against Super Kings took the top spot. Pollard took 2 for 12 in two overs, and scored an unbeaten 87 runs from 34 deliveries. He came in to bat in the 10th over when the score was 81 for 3, and helped win the match off the last ball, chasing a mammoth 218 smashing eight sixes and six fours. Ravindra Jadeja’s brilliantall-round show against Royal Challengers was in second spot, and Jason Holder’s 3 for 24 and 29-ball 47 against the Kings was the third-best match performance.

Stats – Rishabh Pant's lone rescue act, Marco Jansen's dream debut series

by h716a5.icu Uncategorized

India become the first side to lose 20 wickets in a Test match as a result of catches

Sampath Bandarupalli13-Jan-20221 Rishabh Pant’s century was the first for India in an all-out total under 200 in Test cricket. Twelve players before Pant have scored a Test hundred in an all-out innings of less than 200, but none while batting at No.6 or lower.58.82 Percentage of team runs contributed by Pant in the second innings. Only one batter made a higher contribution for India while batting at No. 6 or lower in a completed Test innings – 62.32% by Kapil Dev with his 129 against South Africa in 1992.

3 Number of wicketkeepers to score a Test hundred in all of England, Australia and South Africa – Adam Gilchrist, Jonny Bairstow and Pant. No Indian keeper before Pant had scored a Test century in any of these three countries.4 Number of hundreds for Pant in Test cricket. These are the second-most for an Indian wicketkeeper, behind MS Dhoni’s six centuries. Three of Pant’s four hundreds have come outside India – no other Indian keeper has more than one Test hundred away from home.19 Number of wickets for Marco Jansen in this series. Only four bowlers have taken more wickets in their debut Test series of three or fewer matches. Jansen’s 19 wickets are also the most in a Test series for South Africa since their re-admission in 1992.

20 Number of wickets lost by India as a result of catches in Cape Town, the first team to lose all 20 wickets to this kind of dismissal in a Test match. There have been five previous instances of a team losing 19 wickets as a result of catches in a Test match – the last of those by South Africa against England in 2020, also in Cape Town.55 Number of wickets lost by India as a result of catches in the series against South Africa, the most by a team in a three-match Test series. The previous highest for this kind of dismissal was 48 wickets by Pakistan against New Zealand in 2009.94.75 Keshav Maharaj’s bowling average in Test cricket against India. It is the worst average in Tests against India for any player to have bowled 1000-plus balls. Only seven players have a worse bowling average against an opponent in Tests (min: 1000 balls bowled).

Dravid's playing days had many delicate situations, and as coach he will have plenty more

by n8rngtd.top Uncategorized

Past coaches have had revolutionary plans, but they’ve not been easily accepted. Will Dravid be able to stamp his signature with this crop?

Sidharth Monga04-Nov-20214:23

Moody: Dravid’s challenge will be to manage the schedule

Early in his captaincy career – well, he was just a stand-in at that point of time – Rahul Dravid experienced the dark side of superstar power in Indian cricket. He declared an innings closed with Sachin Tendulkar on 194. The furore that followed shocked him. His full-time captaincy, lauded for his tactical nous and forward thinking, was littered with troubles with superstars, one who refused to move on, another who resented a change in his batting position. It eventually ended in the captain’s resignation and a sense of unfulfillment even though he had led India to their first Test win in South Africa and a rare series win in England.This was perhaps why Dravid has long been reluctant to take up the head coach role. Now that he has agreed to it, he is arguably India’s most high-profile coach ever. And he walks into a similarly challenging prospect of transitioning the team from the current superstars to the next ones. Make no mistake about it, Dravid inherits an extremely successful team. They have won two successive Test series in Australia, are a single draw away from winning one in England. India are nigh unbeatable at home, and have made at least the semi-finals of the last seven ICC events.Yet it a delicate turn for Indian cricket because the core of this team is in the last quarter of their careers. Their leader on the field, Virat Kohli, is showing signs of wear and tear, and wants to cut down on responsibilities. Every other automatic captaincy choice is older if not the same age. Not that Kohli is in a tearing hurry to give it all up either.Along with the selectors, Dravid will have to manage this transition as smoothly as he can with all the personality clashes that crop up during such times. The role of selectors can be easily overlooked, but they play a potentially bigger role than the coach.The previous team management led India on some really tough tours, two each to Australia and England and one to South Africa, but they had one advantage. Their stint was the most straightforward one in Indian cricket. In the team, there was no other power head. Unlike MS Dhoni and Dravid before him, Kohli didn’t have to manage any senior or difficult character. He got rid of the only possible dissenting voice, coach Anil Kumble, fairly early in his captaincy.They didn’t need any of the diplomacy a team management needs to deal with the BCCI. In the name of a board was a Committee of Administrators, which never denied anything they wanted. One of the things that has probably worn Kohli down, of late, is the board making sure that player power is kept in check. This is the reality of leading an Indian cricket team, a reality Kohli and Ravi Shastri were immune to, but Dravid – and whoever the next captain – is won’t be. While transitioning, they will still have to get the best out of these senior superstars.Dravid’s success as coach at the junior level has been unparalleled, but the biggest job in world cricket is a different ball game•Getty ImagesOn the field, challenges for Dravid are more direct. He has to make India’s white-ball sides more modern while maintaining the Test intensity. To run down India’s limited-overs sides based on ICC tournament knockout matches will be unfair, but there is a sense that despite running the biggest league in T20 cricket, India are always playing catch-up. Their default position in these formats is conservative. Only when they are pushed up against a wall do they unshackle themselves. The results are often spectacular, which frustrates the observers even more. Dravid will need to get rid of that handbrake.With the largest talent pool available to them, Dravid and the new captain will have to realise the vast potential India have in limited-overs cricket. Those who observe India’s limited-overs talent pool at grassroot levels, especially in the batting, are underwhelmed at what India achieve on the international scene. The test will be immediate: there are two World Cups coming up in the next two years, the T20 one in Australia in 2022 and the ODI World Cup at home in 2023.Related

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More than Shastri’s, like it or not, popular perception will judge Dravid’s tenure on these two events. Dravid is well equipped, though. He brings great experience in both team formation and strategising both as captain and coach in the toughest league of them all, the IPL. That is his big advantage over a man-manager kind of a coach. He also brings experience of overseeing players through their formative years at NCA and in Under-19 cricket.Dravid will find out not much has changed in India’s limited-overs setup since he was captain. The immediate problem is that everybody wants to bat inside the top three when the ball is hard and new. Back in 2006 and 2007, Dravid and coach Greg Chappell were ahead of their time in recognising the issue, but their solution, to ask the most versatile batter they knew to take up the responsibility in the middle order, backfired spectacularly because of lack of buy-in. What solutions will he bring about now? How will he manage a buy-in if he has similar revolutionary ideas?

“Along with the selectors, Dravid will have to manage this transition as smoothly as he can with all the personality clashes that crop up during such times. The role of selectors can be easily overlooked, but they play a potentially bigger role than the coach.”

Dravid will have to use all his diplomacy to manage the mental and physical health of his players. Kohli has cried himself hoarse in press conferences about the unsustainable schedules of the Indian team. This might just be the time to take the England route and invest in a completely different limited-overs outfit to better manage players’ bodies and minds. With some help from the BCCI, he will have to harbour a sense of security within the team, if he aims at such a shift.Test cricket has relatively easier assignments and challenges apart from the tour of South Africa and the last Test of the unfinished series in England. Leading that England series already, India will be favourites to make the final once again. However, during Dravid’s tenure, the futures of a few Test stalwarts will come up for review. Delicate decisions will have to be made.While the wild dream of being Test, ODI and T20I champions at the same time can’t be ruled out in the next two years, we will do well to not judge the team on those three or four knockout matches alone.That is one thing that will change from his current job where he himself makes a conscious effort to not focus on the results on the ground. To him, winning an Under-19 World Cup is less important than seeing his players holding their own against older, battle-hardened men in first-class cricket within one year of playing Under-19. His A-team tours are more about judging who can go on to serve India and then providing him enough chances to develop his game. Now Dravid will have to rely on someone else to do that for him.A recent TV commercial plays on the popular image of Dravid. They show him in road rage a moment after the narrator says their offer is as ridiculous as Dravid having anger issues. Because, well, if Dravid can have road rage, their offer is not so ridiculous after all. It works because it is an extremely clever advertisement, based of real-life perception of Dravid: a good boy with a neat side-parting who represents those qualities of people that they want projected.Yet the advertisers needn’t have created a fictional scene of road rage. They could have just shown him fling his cap into dirt as Rajasthan Royals coach when his players didn’t execute well. Welcome back to that life, Rahul. It’s quite a rush. Hope you don’t have to bring out that side too often.

IPL 2022 orange cap: Jos Buttler, purple cap: Yuzvendra Chahal

by n8rngtd.top Uncategorized

Who are the top run scorer and top wicket-taker in the 2022 IPL?

ESPNcricinfo staff04-Apr-2022 • Updated on 30-May-2022Who is the orange cap holder in the 2022 IPL?
Rajasthan Royals finished runners-up in the 2022 IPL, but their opener Jos Buttler remained the leading run scorer, with 863 runs at a strike rate of 149.05, scoring four hundreds along the way. He was also named the Player of the Tournament. Lucknow Super Giants captain KL Rahul came second with 616 runs. Rahul’s team-mate Quinton de Kock is in third place with 508 runs. The title-winning Gujarat Titans captain Hardik Pandya, who made 34 in the final, is fourth with 487 runs and his team-mate Shubman Gill rounds out the top five with 483 runs.Sixteen batters scored 400 runs or more – among them David Miller of Titans, Kolkata Knight Riders captain Shreyas Iyer and Liam Livingstone of Punjab. Eight centuries were scored this season – four by Buttler, two by Rahul and one each by de Kock and Rajat Patidar of Royal Challengers Bangalore.Here’s the full list of the top scorers in the 2022 IPL.Who is the purple cap holder in the 2022 IPL?
Rajasthan Royals legspinner Yuzvendra Chahal finished as the top wicket-taker of the 2022 IPL, with 27 wickets at an economy of 7.75. He has also taken the only hat-trick of the season. In second place is another legspinner, RCB’s Wanindu Hasaranga, who took 26 at an economy of 7.54. Punjab fast bowler Kagiso Rabada is third, with 23, followed by SRH pace sensation Umran Malik, who has 22. Delhi Capitals left-arm wristspinner Kuldeep Yadav rounds out the top five with 21 wickets.Four five-fors were taken in the tournament: one each by Chahal, Hasaranga, Malik, and Jasprit Bumrah of Mumbai Indians.Here’s the full list of the top wicket-takers in the 2022 IPL.

Shikhar Dhawan's knock underlines his value in India's ODI side

by h716a5.icu Uncategorized

On a sluggish wicket, he scored 79 off 84 to keep India on track in the chase and showed he can still thrive under pressure

Hemant Brar19-Jan-20222:00

Manjrekar: India must tweak their line-up to make middle order ‘wholesome’

“Champions thrive under pressure.” That was Shikhar Dhawan’s message to India’s Under-19 cricketers ahead of their World Cup campaign in the West Indies. Having struck three centuries in the 2004 edition of the tournament, Dhawan knows what it takes to perform there. But he could have used the same words to motivate himself too.At 36, Dhawan is in the twilight of his career. Last July, he led a second-string Indian side to Sri Lanka and hoped to utilise the tour to make his place “stronger” for the 2021 T20 World Cup. Dhawan has stepped up his T20 game in the last couple of years, but the selectors preferred Rohit Sharma, KL Rahul and Ishan Kishan as their openers for the global tournament.Related

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One justification behind Dhawan’s exclusion could have been that a top three of Rohit, Dhawan and Virat Kohli makes the T20I side too anchor heavy. When Chetan Sharma, the chairman of selectors, was asked about it, he said, “He is a very important player for us… The need of the hour was that we wanted to look at other players while we give rest to Dhawan.”Make of it what you will but the bottom line is ODIs is now the only format Dhawan finds a place in. But in stand-in captain Rahul’s words, Dhawan was “in a great space” coming into the South Africa series.”He’s a senior player, he understands exactly what is expected of him,” Rahul said on the eve of the first ODI. “He has come out here and is really having fun, really enjoying his cricket. For me as a captain, it will just be about trying to keep him in that space, and give him that confidence and freedom to go out there and do what he has been doing for so many years.”On Wednesday, Dhawan did exactly that. Chasing 297 on a sluggish wicket, he scored 79 off 84 to keep India on track. South Africa eventually won by a comfortable margin but Dhawan’s knock once again underlined his value in the ODI side and showed he can still thrive under pressure.Shikhar Dhawan lays into a drive•AFP/Getty ImagesWith the pitch helping spinners and the ball not coming on to the bat, South Africa opened the bowling with part-time offspinner Aiden Markram. While Rahul played Markram cautiously, Dhawan skipped down the track and lofted him over mid-on.From the other end, he hit Marco Jansen to the square boundary on either side of the wicket. That meant despite Rahul scoring 12 off 17 balls, India’s scoring rate hovered around five.Keshav Maharaj was introduced in the tenth over but started with a wayward delivery down the leg side and Dhawan enchased that too for four.Luck was on his side as well. In the second over of the innings, he got inside edge off Jansen but the ball missed the stumps and went for four. Later, when he was on 43, he played back to a fuller delivery from Maharaj and got an outside edge but with no slip in place, it fetched him another boundary.That meant Dhawan reached his fifty off just 51 balls without taking much risk. Along with Kohli, he added 92 off 102 balls for the second wicket to put India in a commanding position.But with the target still 159 runs away, Maharaj got one to turn sharply from outside off. Dhawan was shaping for a cut and was bowled. Kohli fell soon after, which allowed South Africa to wrest back control.

Before the series, there were talks about Dhawan’s place in the side. One reason for that could be India haven’t played a lot of ODIs of late, which makes it easier to forget his contribution. Since 2020, Dhawan has scored 666 runs at an average of 60.54 with a strike rate of 91.98. Nobody from India has more runs in that period.Another reason could be Dhawan is coming off a poor Vijay Hazare Trophy (India’s domestic one-day tournament), where he managed only 56 runs in five innings. In the same number of innings, Ruturaj Gaikwad, the standby opener for the series, scored 603, including four centuries.But Dhawan said it was his self-belief and clarity about his game that helped him do well in the first ODI. “Talk [about form] will always be there,” he said after the match. “I am used to it and I know how to give my best. I always make sure my preparation is good. I know that with my experience and my self-confidence, I will do good, and I am happy that I did well today.”I know what my calibre is and what type of game I have. I have great clarity about that. And I stay calm. Ups and downs are always there, it’s not happening for the first time or the last time in my career or my life. This only makes me stronger.”

Nathan Ellis on final-over drama: 'It was a little bit of cat-and-mouse'

by n8rngtd.top Uncategorized

“I was conflicted in my own mind. I knew they were expecting the slower ball, but I didn’t know when to bowl it”

Matt Roller17-Jul-2022It is hard to comprehend the contrasting emotions that Hampshire’s players experienced at 9.48pm on Saturday night in Birmingham. Nathan Ellis yorked Richard Gleeson and charged towards the Hollies stand, roaring “COME ON!” as he peeled away in celebration. His team-mates sprinted over and engulfed him, and the Edgbaston events staff set off the fireworks to mark Hampshire’s record-levelling third T20 title.And then, umpire Graham Lloyd held his arm out and called them back from the deep-point boundary: Paul Baldwin, the TV umpire, had spotted that Ellis had over-stepped. James Fuller sank to his knees. Chris Wood flung the stump he had pulled out as a commemorative souvenir back towards the pitch. “My heart sank,” Ellis said. “All I could think about was the fact that we’d just carried on like that, and I’d carried on celebrating for the last 30 seconds. And now we were in trouble of losing the game.”Related

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The equation had shifted into Lancashire’s favour. With two runs awarded for a no-ball in English domestic cricket, they needed only two runs off the last ball to lift the trophy by virtue of a higher powerplay score. After James Vince, Hampshire’s captain, delivered a team talk, Ellis stood at the top of his mark and tried desperately to clear his mind enough to make a decision as to what he should bowl.”I hadn’t bowled a slower ball to him [Gleeson],” he explained. “My thought process was: ‘what’s the best way to try and get a play-and-miss?’ That was it. Once I’d made that decision, it was just try and execute.” His back-of-a-length, back-of-the-hand slower ball flew past Gleeson’s outside edge, bounced over the top of the stumps and through to wicketkeeper Ben McDermott on the half-volley.Despite Lancashire’s protestations, Hampshire celebrated for a second time. Ellis finished wicketless but his spell, conceding 23 runs from his four overs, must rank among the best none-fors in T20 history. Even before closing out the win (at the second attempt) he had conceded only nine runs across the 15th and 17th overs as Lancashire froze in their chase; all told, he bowled 10 dot balls and conceded a single boundary, which came during the powerplay.Ellis’ strategy at the death was a microcosm of the planning behind modern T20 cricket, and illustrated the unique challenges of the Blast’s Finals Day. After winning their own semi-final at the start of the day, Lancashire had watched Hampshire beat Somerset immediately before the final; Ellis realised that they would have seen how many slower balls he had bowled during his spell of 3 for 30.Ellis – “My role in T20 cricket has never been as a wicket-taker”•Getty Images”It was a little bit of cat-and-mouse,” he said. “I was conflicted in my own mind. I’d bowled three on-pace attempted yorkers and I knew they were expecting the slower ball, but I didn’t know when to bowl it. I was fully aware that I’d bowled a lot of slower balls in the semi-final earlier in the day, and aware that they [Lancashire] were probably watching.”Ellis is shorter than most fast bowlers and has a whippy action, bowling at good pace from tight to the stumps. His back-of-the-hand slower ball, honed playing Sydney club cricket for St George, is difficult to pick since the seam stays upright throughout and he has been a revelation for Hampshire, conceding just 6.87 runs per over across the season.He was only their fifth-highest wicket-taker, with 15, but his death-over economy rate (6.61) was the best in the competition by a distance. “My role I’ve played in T20 cricket has never been as a wicket-taker,” he said. “It’s not something I even think about or look at: it’s probably more damage control or defend. Those moments to me are way bigger than wicket tallies or anything like that. If we get the win, I couldn’t care less.””The way he regrouped and then his confidence to go to that slower ball in that situation… he’s executed so well at the death so a lot of credit has to go to Nelly,” James Vince, Hampshire’s captain, said. “All the other guys were there spectating on the off-chance it came to them but for him to re-group and have the ball in hand and be as calm as that was outstanding. He’s played a bit for Australia, but I’m sure he’ll play a lot more.”ESPNcricinfo LtdAlong with McDermott, his Hobart Hurricanes team-mate, Ellis was signed on the back of his BBL form which Vince has experienced as an opponent, playing for Sydney Sixers. “We’ve got a good relationship with George Bailey, the Australian selector, from when he played at Hampshire,” Vince said. “Although there was [Australia] A cricket and other squads going on, we had good confidence that we’d have him for the whole competition. That makes a big difference.”Ellis was a travelling reserve when Australia won the T20 World Cup in the UAE last year and will now come into consideration as a squad option for their title defence in October – particularly if he can secure a replacement deal in the Hundred and continues to impress in that competition.But those thoughts can wait. Finals are not about the future, but the unfiltered emotion of the present. And as Ellis, still in his full kit and wearing a Hampshire bucket hat, sat in the dressing room with his team-mates deep into the small hours on Sunday morning, he was left to reflect on the surreality of a final that he won twice

Mitchell Marsh, the comeback king

by h716a5.icu Uncategorized

Time and again he has been written off, time and again he proves people wrong

Shashank Kishore12-May-2022″Most of Australia hate me. There’s no doubt that I’ve had a lot of opportunity and haven’t quite nailed it, but hopefully they can respect me for the fact I keep coming back… hopefully I’ll win them over one day.”This was Mitchell Marsh, speaking after picking up his maiden Test five-for in 2019. It was supposed to be a happy occasion, but it was overshadowed by a decade of under-performance. After all, Marsh had first made heads turn in 2010, at the Under-19 World Cup, and later that year for the Deccan Chargers as an 18-year-old.At the time, Adam Gilchrist, captain of the defending champions, spoke glowingly of the boy from Perth who could hit a long ball and take big wickets. He was deemed the “perfect package”.Little did Gilchrist, or anyone else, know that Marsh would play all of 27 IPL games over the next 12 years. Or for that matter, no more than 36 T20Is for Australia since his debut in October 2011. But he kept coming back. Not quite as the finisher that everyone expected to be, but as a No. 3 who would go on to win a T20 World Cup.Related

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On Wednesday, nearly six months after that surreal innings in the final in Dubai, Marsh was at it again. And like then, there was no inkling of this being his night. Covid-19 had pushed him to the sidelines of an IPL season which began while he was nursing a hip flexor injury.When you’ve been as injury prone as Marsh has been, you’re playing as if every game is possibly your last. Remember the opening game of IPL 2020? A hobbling Marsh, who was one of Sunrisers Hyderabad’s big-ticket signings, had to leave the tournament due to a “moderate- to high-grade syndesmosis injury” in his right ankle and saw his season go up in smoke.This wasn’t a final, but the stakes were still high. Delhi Capitals, his third IPL franchise, had outbid Sunrisers, his former team, and new entrants Gujarat Titans to secure his services of INR 6.5 crore (USD 866,000 approx) for precisely magic like this. A chase of 161 a sluggish pitch was no walk in the park for a team that had to win to keep their playoff hopes alive.Then, he walked into bat at the fall of the first wicket in the very first over. The scoreboard didn’t move for the next two, as Rajasthan Royals, perhaps the best bowling attack in the competition, kept coming at him. Marsh’s season – not to mention his whole team’s as well – was going to be defined by the passage of play over the next 90 minutes.He was initially at sea when Prasidh Krishna tested him with hard lengths. Inside edges rolled off the pads, out swingers whizzed past the outside edge, cut shots going nowhere, playing and missing at deliveries that reared up – it was all happening. But Marsh didn’t seem agitated, not even after playing out a maiden over.In the third over, he had a massive slice of luck. The ball from Trent Boult swung in late and struck him on the boot right in front of the stumps. Royals appealed but the umpire was unmoved. Everyone thought there had been an inside edge. There wasn’t. Marsh was on 1 off 9 deliveries. As he looked at the replay on the giant screen, there was a grin and a fist bump with Warner.Marsh: Warner opening and me batting at three, we’ve had a lot of great partnerships•BCCI”If you looked at the powerplay tonight for both teams,” Marsh said later, “the ball was swinging around, also nipping around, probably one of the toughest powerplays I’ve batted in since I started playing T20 cricket. We just had to get through that unscathed. If we are two or three down, the game gets really hard. So we assessed that we have got to cut back on our runs and make sure we’re just one down at the end of the power play.”Lot of credit to them [Royals], they bowled exceptionally well in the powerplay to us and made it really tough, but chasing 160, you only need that one big partnership and that was our main focus. The last 18 months, I’ve loved batting with Davey [Warner]. Him opening and me batting at three, we’ve had a lot of great partnerships. Tonight was a memorable one for the Delhi Capitals.”Marsh made the plan sound simple, but it needed a lot of work, starting with a change in stance. Normally, he bats on leg stump and then shuffles across just as the ball is delivered. But that was leaving him wide open to Boult’s inswingers. So, he took guard just a little outside leg stump. Now he could keep his natural trigger movement and not worry about the lbw.R Ashwin came on for the next over. Marsh had seen enough. Length deliveries into the pitch were causing batters some discomfort. He knew that because that had been his earlier in the night – mixed in with cutters and slower ones – to pick up two massive wickets. At the first sign of something full, Marsh opened his shoulders and crunched Ashwin for six over long-off. He had picked the carrom ball off the hand and went inside-out. It came as a massive relief. The fist bump with Warner after the shot, which he stood back and admired on the giant screen, told you how much he enjoyed it. It was the start of superb spell of batting.Marsh was in control even without really imposing himself. He played to his strengths rather than trying to outfox the bowler or second guess what was coming. It was just simple and clean hitting that comes from picking the lengths – and the spin – early. It must have helped that he was batting with a great mate. Warner was with him at the other end on that famous night in Dubai. And he was with him again, just turning the strike over so he could sit back and watch from the best seat in the house.As if to say thank you, Marsh provided a power-hitting exhibition. The two sixes he hit off Kuldeep Sen in the seventh over – dead straight and over the sight screen – were right out of the top drawer, By then he’d raced to 39 off 28 even as Warner was a run-a-ball 12. The six to bring up his fifty as he took on Chahal was a sign of complete mastery over his batting. From there on, it was a cruise.”In terms of the way he goes about it, he’s someone I’ve looked up to for a long time now,” Marsh said of Warner. “I’ve been very lucky, over the last 18 months, to have been able to bat with him a lot and form a great partnership and great friendship. The friendship side of things comes out in the middle of the game. His experience, calmness – you can all see how much he loves winning. It feels like he’s back to where it all began for him. He’s been super consistent this year, I love batting with him.”Marsh couldn’t quite finish the job, but by the time he was dismissed in the 18th over, he’d made 89 off 63 and taken the Capitals to the doorstep. As he walked back, soaking in the applause, he had served a quiet reminder, something that he has had to right through the career. That he wasn’t to be counted out. Not now, not for the next few years. At 30, the possibilities are endless.

Compromise is key to overcome scheduling carnage

by n8rngtd.top Uncategorized

Teams in the Hundred are looking very different with players off to the CPL and international duty

Jake Lintott29-Aug-2022It’s been a bittersweet week. We had two really good wins, against Welsh Fire and in a difficult game against Trent Rockets, and it’s still special to win, even if you’re not really in the running for the knockout stages. You want to play for personal pride through to the end, and to trip other teams up if you can.It’d be great to finish with a win against Northern Superchargers on Wednesday, but we’re still disappointed with the position that we got ourselves into at the start of the season. It’d be great for us to finish on a real high by winning at Headingley. It’s crazy how tight the table is and if we win, we wouldn’t end up missing out on the knockout stages by many points at all.The atmosphere at our home games has been great and the fans have really got behind Southern Brave. That’s not been the case at every venue we’ve been to so we’re pretty lucky in that regard. It still feels like there’s a real hype around the Hundred and it feels like the standard has gone to the next level this year.Related

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When you look through the squads, they’re much stronger than last season because of the number of top overseas players that have been involved. It’s been awesome to go up against some of the world’s best but some of the teams are looking very different in terms of personnel heading into the final stages with players leaving for international duty or other leagues like the CPL.There’s so much cricket being played at the moment, all around the world, and the schedules are carnage. I’d love competitions to try and work together a little bit more: when they go up against each other, you end up with worse availability in both, which obviously affects the standard.There’s been lots of chat about the schedule all summer and it has been interesting to hear about the high-performance review. I haven’t played much first-class cricket but I look at the guys who are playing four-day cricket week in, week out and it makes me tired just looking at them. There’s going to have to be some kind of compromise somewhere.Personally, I think you could have three groups of six in the Blast and play 10 group games each, rather than 14, and you could have a three-division County Championship too. That would make Division One really strong and we’d still have 10 first-class games in the season – the same number they play in Australia, for example.I don’t envy Andrew Strauss having to make decisions on it because it is so hard to please everyone involved in the game, but ultimately, I think they will have to cut things back a little bit. There’s just so much going on at the moment: if you play in the Hundred final this weekend, you might start a Championship game 36 hours later.You have to try and find a way of looking after players. People don’t always take travel into account and most of our training is geared towards preparation for the next game: finding time to do much technical work when you’re playing so often is really hard. Volume is a big concern from the players’ perspective.I made my List A debut while playing for England Lions earlier this year and I’m desperate to play more 50-over cricket. It should be a big part of the schedule, for me: if you have 50-over World Cups to prepare for, you have to be playing one-day cricket consistently. At the moment, because I don’t play much red-ball cricket for Warwickshire, I find myself training with them for most of the year, but I only play for them for about five weeks, in the Blast.There are some very good players who have missed out on Hundred contracts this year and in future, you could have more than one wildcard pick per team. I got wildcarded last year because Southern Brave needed a wristspinner and I had done well in the Blast. It would be great for other players to have the same opportunity after breakthrough seasons for their counties.We travel to Leeds on Monday and we have a team meal with our women’s team there. We’ve got a great relationship with them and do lots of stuff together. They’re a great team to watch and we always try to get there before we play to watch their games: it’s really impressive how Charlotte Edwards has got them playing.They’ve got all bases covered. Smriti Mandhana and Danni Wyatt are a pretty formidable opening partnership and Amanda-Jade Wellington’s legspin has been huge for them. For me, they’re far and away the best team in that competition, so hopefully they’ll go all the way.

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