The offspinner suffered a stress fracture as a consequence of the way he grips the ball and the injury ripped him of his confidence. This is the story of how he’s getting back on track

Deivarayan Muthu10-Aug-2018When he was ten, British producer Richard Stokes was accompanied by his father to the 1956 Ashes Test at Old Trafford, where Jim Laker took ten wickets. Forty-three years later, while working in India, Stokes watched Anil Kumble repeat the feat against Pakistan at Feroz Shah Kotla. A certain Jayant Yadav was also in the stands at the Kotla that day, watching Kumble’s perfect ten.Seventeen years later, when Jayant made his Test debut for India against England at Visakhapatnam, Kumble was the head coach of India. Jayant claimed four wickets in that game, including that of Ben Stokes and Moeen Ali, in addition to scoring 62 runs. In the third Test in Mumbai, he became the first India No. 9 to hit a Test century.

Holding the ball is a feeling. For example, it’s the feel of a particular pillow you sleep on

Just when his international career was set to take off, Jayant hit a roadblock in the form of a stress fracture of the finger, sidelining him from the 2017-18 Ranji Trophy and leaving him “disheartened”. Following the injury, Jayant spent one-and-a-half months at home, allowing the bone to heal, before finding support from physio Ashish Kaushik and former India legspinner Narendra Hirwani at National Cricket Academy in Bengaluru.”The stress fracture of the finger maybe happened because of the way I grip the ball,” Jayant told ESPNcricinfo. “It just happened to me, it’s a very rare injury. During that phase, you go through a lot of things and think ‘why only me and stuff like that?’ Injuries are a part and parcel of cricket. But until and unless it happens to you, you don’t empathize with the fact about what it takes to overcome it. Not being able to play because of some injury is very, very disheartening. Especially, in my case since it was weird and freak injury.”I spent three months at the NCA here and we did icing and flexion to get fit. Rehabs are sometimes boring, but I was lucky to have the NCA physio Ashish Kaushik with me and it was undocumented injury as far as I know. Hiru was also here only when I started my bowling. We did not speak about skills as such and it was just about that mental strength to bounce back. Because your skill will always be there with you”BCCIJayant, however, conceded that he wasn’t positive enough to tackle the injury and felt he could have done a lot better, mentally. “During that time, you think about how you could have done things differently, but at the end of the day, it has happened to you. In hindsight, I could have done better in terms of my mental preparation during my injury,” he said. “It has happened to you and you have to be just positive. It’s easier said than done. I myself wasn’t positive. If I have another injury, touchwood! I don’t have it, I have some experience to bank on.”So, has Jayant changed the way he grips the ball in light of injury? “I have and I haven’t as well,” he said. “It’s a difficult question to answer. Holding the ball is a feeling and I have been doing it for years and years. So, it’s difficult to describe how I’ve changed it. For example, it’s the feel of a particular pillow you sleep on. It used to play on my mind but now I have freed myself up and moved on.”After returning to action in the 20-over Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy and the 50-over Vijay Hazare Trophy earlier this year, Jayant made it to the India A four-day squad for the England tour. However, he managed only five wickets in 103.3 overs in three games at an average of 73.60. Subsequently, he was not picked for the first four-dayer at home against South Africa A at Chinnaswamy Stadium.

T20 cricket is a like software. If you don’t have updates, you will crash. It’s about updating yourself and making subtle changes

Though Jayant has recovered from the injury, he insisted the fun wasn’t fully back yet. He has a chance to rediscover that fun in the second four-dayer, where chief national selector MSK Prasad is likely to be in attendance.”The fun is not fully back, you have that feel-good factor only when you contribute to a winning cause,” he said.” I haven’t done that since my return from injury. When I do that consistently, the fun will be back.”Jayant’s eyes, though, light up, when you draw his attention to R Ashwin’s near-identical dismissals of Alastair Cook at Edgbaston.”Whoa! That was classic, similar balls first and second innings,” Jayant gushed. “Ash got Cook out in Mohali as well. It’s always a learning curve bowling and training with Ash. In the sense, watching somebody on TV and then training with him is a completely different feeling. When you see India’s premier spinner do the same things you do, you are also motivated and believe you can also get there. Ash always has been a very positive guy in terms of what he wants to and I just admire the way he thinks about the game.”When Jayant started playing cricket, he bowled legspin, but his two first cousins, who were also legspinners, tricked him into switching to offspin. Jayant said he was trying to expand his repertoire, and is currently working on the carrom ball.”When I was a kid, my cousins told me there can be only n number of legspinners in the family (laughs). As for variations, I can’t bowl the , but the carrom ball is something that has been in progress for over a year. It’s not coming out as well as I would like now. Bowling in the nets and bowling in a match are different things altogether. Hopefully, I get it out next year. Especially the way the white-ball game is changing, there is no shying away from variations. T20 cricket is a like software. If you don’t have updates, you will crash. It’s about updating yourself and making subtle changes.”

How about Rashid Khan as opener if they end up chasing?

Vishal Dikshit in Mumbai26-May-20181:00

Sunrisers road to final

Sunrisers Hyderabad have played Chennai Super Kings three times this IPL – at different venues and with different XIs – and lost every time. ESPNcricinfo looks at five things they could do better to try and beat MS Dhoni’s men in the IPL final.Identify their best XI: Play Khaleel and Brathwaite again?
Carlos Brathwaite’s bowling figures in the second qualifier were 2-0-15-2, but he was so close to losing the match for Sunrisers. Defending 18 in the last over, he bowled two length balls “in the slot,” as former England spinner Graeme Swann said later, and had two batsmen caught on the leg-side boundary at Eden Gardens. The Wankhede stadium has a much smaller playing area, and Brathwaite should know, having conceded 20 runs in one over when CSK needed 43 off three.Kane Williamson defended Brathwaite’s death-bowling after losing the first qualifier. But he may still be tempted to bring back Alex Hales because, even without Brathwaite, Sunrisers have five bowling options.One of those five, at least for the first 11 matches, was Sandeep Sharma. He had 11 wickets at a stifling economy rate of 7.02, but fell away in the last couple of games. Sunrisers made the brave call of handing a debut to Khaleel Ahmed in a knockout match and the left-arm quick was taken apart by KKR. Maybe for the final, against a solid batting line-up on a pitch that offers swing early on, Williamson could go with Sandeep’s experience.Fix the top order’s strike rate
All through the season, their fans have been waiting for the Sunrisers middle order to find form, but now they face a new problem with the top order too. Since Williamson moved down to No. 3, they are without a proper opener to partner Shikhar Dhawan, which has resulted in two unimpressive Powerplay scores: 47 for 3 in the first qualifier and 45 for 0 in the second. In both innings, either Williamson or Dhawan was left to do the quick scoring because Shreevats Goswami and Wriddhiman Saha could not get going. They need to change that strategy now. On Sunday, the other opener should go after the CSK bowlers so that Dhawan and Williamson can concentrate on batting long.What’s the chasing plan?
The Sunrisers bowlers are better than any other team at defending totals, no matter how small they are, but their batting is too dependent on Williamson and Dhawan, especially in chases.Williamson has scored 32% of Sunrisers’ runs while chasing, and Dhawan has also found better form after recovering from an elbow injury that made him miss a couple of matches. But no matter how strong a start they provide, Sunrisers need someone to build on that platform.Yusuf Pathan did it once against CSK with a 27-ball 45, but could not see them through. Manish Pandey has been unrecognisable, dropped for Deepak Hooda in the second qualifier against KKR, and Shakib Al Hasan has a high score of only 35 this season. In Mumbai, where most captains chase to win, this lack of middle-order support could be a big problem.Kaul, Bhuvneshwar and who else at the death?
If Sunrisers are defending, we know Siddarth Kaul and Bhuvneshwar Kumar will bowl two of the last three overs. So who will bowl the other one?Against CSK, Williamson kept his strike bowlers for the last two overs, giving Brathwaite the 18th, which turned out to be a match-losing move. On Friday night, Dhawan said they had learnt from that mistake and against KKR, who needed 39 from 18, Williamson gave Bhuvneshwar and Kaul the 18th and 19th overs. They conceded 20 runs, leaving Brathwaite 18 to defend off the final six balls. He pulled it off, but it was far from a clinical performance.A possible solution is to keep two of Bhuvneshwar’s overs for the death. And there’s a good chance of that happening if Shakib bowls his full quota of overs. He didn’t in Kolkata perhaps because there were too many left-handers in the opposition. But CSK have only one in the top six.Use Rashid the hitter more?
MS Dhoni was enjoying himself with the pads on in the dugout when he sent Deepak Chahar and Harbhajan Singh up the order in the last league game against Kings XI Punjab. He wanted to instill a bit of “chaos” he said. Sunrisers could do the same to CSK by using the batting skills Rashid Khan exhibited on Friday night.Batting first, even if they have six or seven wickets in hand, Sunrisers could promote Rashid in the death overs to get those quick runs he scored at No. 8 against KKR.Batting second, will Sunrisers consider opening with Rashid, like Narine does for KKR? Rashid used to open for his club in Afghanistan when he started playing and his range of strokes in the second qualifier proved he is not just a pinch-hitter. It’s something their opponents may not expect, and it’s something that may make a difference after three defeats to CSK.

Since their defeat in the 2015 World Cup quarter-final, whenever Bangladesh have played India, there has been that “lose to anyone but India” mentality

Shashank Kishore in Dubai28-Sep-20183:01

India v Bangladesh: The story of an intense rivalry

Until 20 years ago, India versus Bangladesh was a friendly sibling rivalry. Jagmohan Dalmiya, the former ICC president, was a senior statesman-like figure who received the adulation reserved for heads of states in Dhaka.A year out from World Cup 1999, Dalmiya organised a tri-series in India, featuring Kenya as the third team, to give Bangladesh more game time in the build up to the big event. He fought for their Test status and inducted them in 2000 amid much fanfare and criticism. Dalmiya fought to give them a voice in the ICC. In turn, Bangladesh was BCCI’s 3am-friend when it came to voting on cricketing matters.At some stage, the younger sibling wanted to emerge from the shadows of the older one, perhaps because of being marginalised when it came to cricketing matters. A lot of this was due to BCCI’s indifference in terms of hosting Bangladesh, the Test team. They had to wait for 17 years before playing their first Test in the country, in February 2017.The BCCI found ways to turn down requests to host Bangladesh even for ODIs, citing losses in the broadcast and advertising revenues. Instead, they preferred to tour there at convenient times. Over the years, as Bangladesh started to expand their cricket horizons and develop players who had the X-factor at the world stage, the obsession to beat India grew several fold.When the biggest of upsets finally happened on the global stage, for the first time, in 2007, Bangladesh had arrived. When Tamim Iqbal stepped out to disdainfully hoick Zaheer Khan for six over long-on at the Queen’s Park Oval, it was as if Bangladesh had found new self-belief.When Mushfiqur Rahim hit the winning runs and fist-pumped his senior colleagues – he’d later rue another infamous fist-pump a decade later in Bengaluru – a country celebrated long and hard into the night. Beating India seemed a validation of their ability and talent.However, such instances remained few and far between, and, when in 2014, the BCCI, ECB and Cricket Australia decided to take over world cricket, the gulf started to widen. Bangladesh were now worried about being marginalised even more. They wondered if the regular stream of Tests featuring the “Big Three” would come their way. They feared being pushed to a second tier, and Mushfiqur openly questioned this “bias against Bangladesh”.The administrative distractions took a back seat, and the 2015 World Cup happened. Bangladesh ousted England to make it to the quarter-finals for the first time in the tournament’s history. It was to be a momentous occasion with Bangladeshi emotions running high, and, on cue, all hell broke loose. A no-ball call that reprieved Rohit Sharma triggered online wars, driven by the social media frenzy and a passionate Bangladeshi media. When Rohit went on to hit a century and oust Bangladesh, it turned into a full-blown attack.Rubel Hossain is pumped up after dismissing Virat Kohli•Getty ImagesOff the field, Virender Sehwag’s pre-series shooter of “Bangladesh are an ordinary side, they can’t take 20 wickets”, in 2010 triggered the “lose-to-anyone-but-India” mentality, an obsession even. Since then, even if the players have tried to refrain from making statements or isolate themselves from social media chatter, they haven’t been allowed to. Invariably, at press conferences, there has been the odd question about the “rivalry”.In 2015, the Mirpur crowd was particularly hostile to the Indian team, mocking them with the “” jibe (a Star Sports advertisement) when Bangladesh beat India in the ODI series. Sudhir Gautam, India’s super fan, alleged that he was accosted outside the Shere Bangla National Stadium and had to be given security cover after an ODI in which Dhoni shoulder-barged Mustafizur in frustration. It got uglier when a photoshopped image of Taskin Ahmed holding MS Dhoni’s severed head went viral on social media just before the 2016 Asia Cup final.These instances have contributed to the ‘beat India’ mentality, one that has also resulted in a number of “chokes”, like at the MCG in 2015 and Bengaluru in 2016, where Mushfiqur celebrated prematurely. More recently in the Nidahas Trophy, Bangladesh celebrated with the dance after defeating Sri Lanka and faced India in the final, where they lost yet another nervy clash that was in their grasp until the final 12 balls of the chase.This mentality hasn’t done any credit to their remarkable progress since 2015. As an example of that progress: the side that once looked at Australia with envy, now plots mind games against them, rattles them on dry turners at home, turns around dead games into one-on-one contests, wanting to battle it out to win games for the country. They’re giant-killers no more, they’re dark horses that no side can underestimate, not in England, most certainly not in Bangladesh.There has been a slight change to this mentality, though, at the Asia Cup. Mashrafe has downplayed the magnitude of the occasion, and doesn’t think it’s war. He admits the social media chatter around the teams has resulted in bad blood from the outside. He is clear, though, that there’s nothing festering within here in Dubai.Mashrafe summed it up best when he said: “Frankly, when Tamim took the field with a broken finger, to me I had won the Asia Cup right then. We aren’t going to war in the final. Let’s just treat it like a cricket match and enjoy the occasion.”Over to team now, to show composure and the confidence they’ve gathered over the years, rather than show the “win at all cost” mentality that has perhaps resulted in more pressure on Tamim, Shakib and Mushfiqur than any injury.

What is the first thing that comes to mind when you talk India v Pakistan in the UAE?

Shashank Kishore22-Sep-2018India v Pakistan, Wills Trophy, 1991Ravi Shastri, Sanjay Manjrekar and an 18-year-old Sachin Tendulkar defied a fiery attack of Wasim Akram, Aaqib Javed and Imran Khan, before relaxing a wee bit. Then they saw an equally fiery 18-year old Waqar Younis, who had debuted in the same Test as Tendulkar in 1989, reverse swing the ball wildly at searing pace.Manjrekar and Tendulkar had added 85 for the fourth wicket and India were cruising at 219 for 3 in their chase of 258, when Akram dismissed Manjrekar and Kapil Dev off successive deliveries. Tendulkar then took the bowlers on to bring India to within 17 of the target before being the sixth wicket to fall. India eventually needed 12 off the final over, bowled by Waqar. It was nearly pitch dark and fans put on their torches in the stands to enhance fading light.Waqar’s late reverse and Kiran More’s wild heaves allowed India with a slim chance. They needed five to win, but even a tie would’ve ensured an India win on account of fewer wickets lost. More swings and misses, and Pakistan had scampered home by four runs. Two days later, Aaqib rocked India by picking up 7 for 37, including a hat-trick that accounted for Shastri, Mohammad Azharuddin and Tendulkar, as Pakistan won by 72 runs to emerge champions.India v Pakistan, Pepsi Cup, 1996Twenty-five years after their first ODI, India became the ninth Test nation to breach the 300-run mark for the first time. This was achieved courtesy a breathtaking 231-run second-wicket stand between Tendulkar and Navjot Sidhu, who raised their eighth and sixth ODI centuries respectively. As effective as their partnership was, the final kick came courtesy Azharuddin’s blistering 10-ball 29 not out. Twenty-four came off the final over bowled by Ata-ur-Rahman, who finished with 1 for 85 off his 10 overs. Pakistan were on course with brisk half-centuries from Aamer Sohail and Rashid Latif, but fell short by 28 runs.India v Pakistan, Coca Cola Cup, 1999Shahid Afridi, Saeed Anwar, Ijaz Ahmed and Inzamam-ul-Haq were all gone inside 14 overs. Then India ran into Moin Khan and Salim Malik, who put together industrious half-centuries to set India 206, by no means an easy proposition against Akram, Waqar and Shoaib Akhtar, who was nearing the peak of his bowling prowess, having broken through just two years earlier. Amay Khurasiya lost his leg stump shuffling across to Shoaib. But S Ramesh and Rahul Dravid scored 82 and 81 respectively as India ended an eight-match losing sequence against Pakistan.Two days later, they were in battle again for the final. With the World Cup just two weeks away, momentum was at stake, and Pakistan ran away with the contest from the first ball. Akram, who nearly didn’t play because of high fever, dismissed Ramesh and Dravid inside the first over to set the tone for a collapse. India made 125, far from enough against a strong batting line-up; Pakistan won by eight wickets to lift the cup.India v Pakistan, Abu Dhabi, 2006India and Pakistan were in the midst of an intense love affair. It was the cricketing equivalent of India-Sri Lanka bromance that bloomed a few years later. India had toured in 2004, Pakistan reciprocated in 2005. Then in January 2006, India toured again. So when the series was scheduled in April, it seemed insane on many counts, the harsh weather being the foremost reason.This was also the first time the two sides were meeting in the UAE but not in Sharjah, at the brand new US$ 22 million Sheikh Zayed Stadium in the country’s sprawling capital. Inzamam, who kept churning runs for fun against India during this period, made a match-winning 40 along with Younis Khan’s 71 not out to win the first ODI. In the second match, Inzamam waged a lone battle to make 79 before his opposite number – Dravid – who also made a key 92 in India’s 269 – ran Inzamam out to turn the game. His 100 metre Imran Tahir-like dash afterwards was the highlight of the series that finished 1-1.

After a rollercoaster ride with RCB, the young batsman may have found his niche batting higher up the order at his new franchise

Sruthi Ravindranath in Jaipur27-Mar-2019 (Fear? I’d left it back at the hotel before coming here).”It sounds like something straight from a Bollywood movie, but that was Sarfaraz Khan’s response when asked about an audacious scoop shot he had played during Kings XI Punjab’s season opener against Rajasthan Royals on Monday.In the 20th over of the Kings XI innings, Sarfaraz got the Sawai Mansingh Stadium roaring with an adventurous scoop off a Ben Stokes short ball that sailed over the third-man boundary. Sarfaraz later dropped that Bollywood-esque remark while speaking with team-mate KL Rahul on after Kings XI’s win.The scoop was just one of the highlights of his stroke-filled 46 not out off 29 balls. There was a sweetly-timed textbook sweep and a wristy cover drive off K Gowtham, and, to top it off, one that was powerfully dispatched over midwicket off the last ball of the innings.Amid the highly-anticipated IPL return of Steven Smith, Chris Gayle’s boisterous 47-ball 79, and R Ashwin mankading Jos Buttler later in the day, Sarfaraz had managed to stand out. Sure, he might have had the limelight taken away from him, but for a 21-year-old batsman who had endured a rough couple of years – mainly due to fitness issues – the knock proved to be an opportunity to shine again.”I’ve done a lot of hard work,” Sarfaraz told ESPNcricinfo. “I don’t think a lot about comebacks and things. I’m here to show my game and will try to do my best. If it is destined to be that way then nobody can stop me.”I hadn’t played any cricket because of my knee injury. I had a surgery and I had to take rest so I lost touch. But this year I’ve worked really hard. I’m focusing on fitness but more than that, I’m focusing on batting because of what happened last year.”Sarfaraz had been a surprising choice as one of three players retained by Royal Challengers Bangalore ahead of the 2018 IPL auction. The other two were Virat Kohli and AB de Villiers. While Sarfaraz made an impact in his debut season in 2015, that was followed by a dismal campaign in 2016, when he was benched for most parts of the season because of his lack of fitness. In 2017, he missed the entire tournament with injury. So the retention did raise a few eyebrows.In six innings last year, Sarfaraz made just 51 runs, and his strike rate of 124.39 wasn’t very rapid either. In addition, he had fitness woes to deal with. He was eventually released by Royal Challengers ahead of the 2019 auction before finding a second home in Kings XI, who picked him up for just INR 25 lakhs – a fraction of what he had been paid (INR 1.75 crore) when retained by Royal Challengers in 2018.Amid all of this, he had troubles with his domestic side as well. Having switched from Mumbai to Uttar Pradesh in 2015 upon his father’s insistence, Sarfaraz endured an average run of form and was eventually dropped from the side on fitness grounds. After much contemplation, he returned to Mumbai last year, where he was asked to serve the mandatory one-year cooling off period.”I know it was my dad’s decision to shift me from Mumbai to UP… but there I did not get many chances as I expected because of injury issues while I was there. They thought that I was not fully fit so I was dropped from the one-day side. From then it was my decision to go back to Mumbai and play there.”When I returned to Mumbai after being in UP for two years, I had a cooling off period because of which I missed out on top-level cricket,” he said. “But even then I worked hard on my game. I played in the DY Patil tournament and in the Goa Corporate League, a lot of IPL players play there usually. It’s not like if you don’t play domestic cricket, you completely lose out on quality game time.”While the big stars usually manned Royal Challengers’ top order, Sarfaraz mostly batted at No. 5 or lower, bearing the mantle of being the finisher or providing a late flourish. At his new franchise, he is already impressed with the communication within the team and is hopeful he will get to play a new role – mainly to bat higher up the order, like he did against Royals.”I’m very happy here in KXIP. The thing about playing here is the players communicate well. They say ‘this is your problem, this is where you can improve.’ Ashwin also talks a lot and says a lot of positive stuff.”I’m playing to expand my roles. I never used to get to play in the top order for RCB. I only batted at 5 or 6. But this year, I feel if I get to bat at the top, I’ll do well.”The presence of his former Royal Challengers team-mates in the likes of KL Rahul, Gayle, and Mandeep Singh, among others, has further helped Sarfaraz settle down in the new environment.”It feels like I’m 19 again. Feels like I’m still in my old team that we are together. Off the field, we enjoy as well.”

Spinners took 10 out of 13 wickets that fell as CSK got their combination and tactics right in the season opener

Dustin Silgardo23-Mar-20192:56

Hodge: RCB’s lack of clarity around batting unit a worry

The Chepauk pitch turns square
With a spin-heavy home side, a spin-friendly pitch for the opener at the MA Chidambaram stadium would not have surprised many. But few would have expected balls to be turning from well outside off to leg and gripping and stopping so dramatically. Spinners accounted for 10 of the 12 wickets taken by bowlers in the match, and went at just 3.57 runs per over.Only once before has a team reported an IPL pitch. In 2011, Mumbai Indians lodged a complaint against the Jaipur pitch – the BCCI, according to then Rajasthan Royals captain Shane Warne, asked the Jaipur staff to change the pitch ahead of Royals’ next home game. It’s unlikely RCB will go down that route, but the Chepauk pitch will be under the scanner. Virat Kohli, the RCB captain, said after the game it was the kind of pitch neither team would have wanted in a T20 game.CSK get their XI right
CSK have always had wicket-taking spinners – only KKR have a greater percentage of their IPL wickets taken by spinners – and they decided to play three front-line spinners against RCB, with Suresh Raina and Kedar Jadhav available to bowl some extra overs of spin too. This meant sacrificing a batsman, Faf du Plessis, which also meant they went in with just three overseas players. Their spinners ended up with eight wickets, the joint-most number of wickets by spinners in an IPL innings.Chennai Super Kings’ spinners have taken more than 36% of all their IPL wickets•ESPNcricinfo LtdDhoni keeps the spinners on
Dwayne Bravo bowled just one ball and Shardul Thakur didn’t bowl at all – that should tell you what MS Dhoni’s strategy was once he saw what the pitch was doing. With two left-handers in RCB’s top three, he opened the bowling with Harbhajan Singh, who had not taken a wicket in his last three T20s. He then bowled out Harbhajan at the top and did the same with Deepak Chahar from the other end. He also gave Ravindra Jadeja and Imran Tahir full four-over spells, banking on them to finish off the visitors before he had to bring the fast bowlers in the death overs.RCB read the conditions wrong
A sign that RCB had no idea what was in store for them was that they went in with three quicks – Umesh Yadav, Mohammad Siraj and Navdeep Saini – and just Yuzvendra Chahal and Moeen Ali as frontline spin options. Kohli admitted after the game they were expecting the pitch to play much better.Their batsmen didn’t adjust quickly enough to the slowness of the wickets. Virat Kohli and AB de Villiers were both out playing cross-batted shots and Shimron Hetmyer was out looking for a quick single on a pitch where 100-120 could have been a competitive total. Kohli said they were aiming for 140-150 at the start but 110 could have been sufficient.

“At times, we felt the way Nabi was playing was irritating” – Mohammed Shami

Andrew Fidel Fernando in Southampton22-Jun-2019KL Rahul is on one knee. The bat is turned in his gloves. His reverse sweep is in motion. But the ball he is awaiting is hanging in mid-air. Like a painting in a gallery. When eventually it arrives, Rahul is so off balance, he can only send it floating to short third man, those extra split seconds of flight having drawn the power from his shot. It is not a remarkable ball. There are no eye-catching revs. No drift. Barely an iota of turn.But the bowler, Mohammad Nabi, is not trying to be remarkable. He is not trying to dazzle you. Man is here to hustle.Sixteen overs later, another less-than-special delivery, another swindle. On a sticky pitch on which other batsmen are dragging the weight of their own labours around, Kohli is gliding, transcendental. Nabi has bowled 18 deliveries at Kohli, and never appeared threatening. But looking like getting him out is not the thing; the thing is to get. With his 19th ball, this humdrum bowler floats a slightly wide ball at perhaps the most extraordinary batting being on the planet right now. He invites the cut. A little overspin. A half-bat width of extra bounce. Another catch at third man. A hustle.Watch on Hotstar (India only): Highlights of Nabi’s performanceAlmost no bowler in the world appears to be doing so little, and yet leaves an imprint so indelible. Without Nabi’s outstanding returns through the middle overs – nine overs in which he did not conced a single boundary, and only one two – India’s innings might have entered those higher gears – the kind which, so often, there is no shifting them down from. Beyond the two vital wickets, his economy rate of 3.66 was the best for Afghanistan.Bat in hand, Nabi is almost more nondescript. His cut shot looks like it was mass produced in Japan – a sturdy, working, repeatable thing. His drives are prefabricated, cement and stone. There is a little grace to his pull, but he never admires the shot. His weight has moved forward the moment the ball has left bat, pressing forward in search of another run. When Afghanistan were hounding India down though those tense, late stages, it was always Nabi calling his partner through, turning those ones into twos. It was always Nabi who was hustling hardest. Nabi, who kept coming at India, refusing to go away.”At times, we felt the way Nabi was playing was irritating,” Mohammed Shami, who ended the match with a hat-trick, said. “But we were also conscious of the fact that we did not want to show the opposition that we were irritated. We were very clear that if we get his wicket, then the match is ours. He alone was a batsman who could build his innings and score. You have to remain aggressive in those situations.”Mohammad Nabi goes after Mohammed Shami•Getty ImagesNabi’s four off Shami at the start of the 45th over re-energised a chase that seemed to have acquired a limp. His six over midwicket in the 47th over made death-overs master Jasprit Bumrah seem human, if only briefly, before the bowler started nailing his yorkers again.With 16 needed off the last over, and a specialist wicketkeeper for company, the match seemed beyond Afghanistan, but a mighty four down the ground off Shami raised the final hackles of hope, before they were lowered again, with Nabi’s holing out to long on – the wicket that precipitated the hat-trick.It was no surprise, though, that it was Nabi that very nearly delivered a famous victory, and turned Afghanistan’s campaign around. Rashid Khan is an otherworldly talent. Mujeeb Ur Rahman has his sleight of hand. But when the team is in a destructive spiral, going from loss to embarrassing loss, it took Nabi and his hustle to bring Afghanistan roaring back.

A gaffe-strewn soft-launch of the ECB’s new competition begged yet more questions than answers from its advocates

Andrew Miller16-May-2019The gestation period for a camel is approximately 13 months. Appropriately enough, that is also how long it’s been since the conception, last April, of the ECB’s very own horse-by-committee, the “new city-based 100-ball competition”. On Wednesday, amid much grunting, groaning, and frantic dung-shovelling behind the scenes, the infant Hundred made its first wobbly public appearance … and was instantly overshadowed by all the elephants in the room.First, let’s address the day’s avoidable errors. In its infinite lack of wisdom, the ECB chose to illustrate the big unveiling of its tournament logo with a stock photo of an exclusively male audience at a gig by the American rapper, Logic. As if that wasn’t bad enough, they then compounded the error with four further changes of image (including a girl at a generic football match, with shirt digitally altered from red to pink), before finally settling on a bunch of kids in England cricket gear, at … you know … a cricket match. One of those things that kids these days apparently don’t watch.On one level it was, as Sanjay Patel, the tournament MD, insisted: “just an image on a website”, the sort of gaffe that would be forgotten in an instant when the real excitement of The Hundred starts to take hold – ideally as soon as October 20 this year, when the “First Major British Sport Player Draft” takes place live in front of a Sunday-evening prime-time audience on Sky Sports.And yet, having controlled the narrative so jealously for so long, the ECB must have known that every last detail of the launch would be pored over and picked apart. Instead, at precisely the moment that they had hoped to start convincing people of the real and rigorous merit behind their new competition, they instead reiterated an impression of aloof incompetence, not to mention an embarrassing lack of faith in the product that they believe is so in need of reinvigorating.”We’ve definitely made mistakes in the build-up, but this is about the future of the game; this is about growing cricket,” said Tom Harrison, the ECB’s chief executive – and that was before the full extent of Stockgate had taken hold. “It is about giving more people the opportunity to be part of cricket’s future.”Cricket fans only ever want one thing•AFPBut back to the main thrust of the day. The board’s Hundred omerta had been punctured by a curious briefing in January in which Harrison attempted to row back on suggestions (from Eoin Morgan, no less…) that the aim of the new competition was to “upset people that already come to a game”. But Wednesday was the first time that the media had been properly invited inside the tent, to be serenaded with statistics, and browbeaten with buzzwords, as the research and rationale for the sport’s dramatic reboot were finally laid bare … or selected highlights of that research, at any rate.According to Patel, there were some 100 million “data points” in the ECB’s original analysis – exhaustively gleaned from more than 100,000 “potential fans” as well a raft of market research across sports and society. Disappointingly, that had been condensed to a single side of A4 by the time the media were allowed anywhere near it, although a few compelling numbers still managed to survive the crunching.At present, cricket tucks in alongside rugby with a latent interest from some 10 million potential fans, and it remains the second most popular team sport in the country behind football. Furthermore, there are 21 million adults in what might be described as “sporty” families, who will form the basis of The Hundred’s potential audience.

Those Average-Joe Has-Beens in the ECB’s research were 15 years younger when the board committed its Original Sin of selling the sport, lock stock and barrel, to Sky in 2004

However, cricket’s interest levels among teenagers and primary school children were way below the levels that you’d expect of the national summer sport, and it is upon this point that the success or failure of The Hundred will pivot. Because, to give Harrison the credit that he does deserve, his ambition for English cricket isn’t merely a laudable aim, it is an existential imperative.After all, no-one with the sport’s best interests at heart – least of all those, like myself, who still play the game recreationally and can sense the average age of the participants rising year-on-year – can be blind to the challenges posed by a society that expects everything here and now. It is not a betrayal of a wonderful and beloved sport to concede that standing in a field for hours on end, often to no apparent end, can be of limited appeal to the uninitiated.On that note, here’s a side-serving of cautious optimism. For reasons of time and (gently) advancing years, I play far less often than I would like to. As a parent I cannot justify spending every spare Saturday with my team-mates rather than my children, and as a consequence, most of the cricket I now play is of the parks league variety – starting at 6pm, 16 overs a side, eight in a row from one end to speed things along. It is still recognisably cricket. It is not “cricket in clown suits, on your heads”, as Ashley Giles, the director of the England men’s team, rather flamboyantly said of The Hundred’s perceptions at the launch.Andrew Miller runs into bowl in a parks league match•Matilda MillerBut that potential for common ground makes the ECB’s botched attempts to reach out to their elusive new audience all the more frustrating. Despite insisting that the sport’s aim is for unity and shared vision – of embracing a “growth mindset”, as Harrison put it – their default setting is still to vanquish rather than engage, not least in their patronising tone and subtle blame-shifting towards the affluent, white, 50-year-old males who make up the average current cricket watchers.To address each element of that demographic in turn. It is not the fault of those lucky few who will attend the Ashes this summer that ticket prices for ECB events are so extortionate that only the richer elements in society can afford to cough up for them (and on that note, the ticketing structure for The Hundred is one of many aspects of the tournament that haven’t yet been finalised).Also, it is clearly not the fault of the enthusiastic Asian cricketers who make up some 35 percent of the country’s 670,000 active club players, that their numbers dwindle to mere dozens once they’ve been filtered through – and for the most part discarded by – the sport’s existing coaching set-ups. The ECB, to be fair, has made significant strides in recent years with its South Asian Engagement Programme, but they have been stewards of the sport for considerably longer than they have been actively nurturing it.

At precisely the moment that they had hoped to start convincing people of the real and rigorous merit behind their new competition, the ECB instead presented an embarrassing lack of faith in the product that they believe is so in need of reinvigorating

As for the age issue, well, we all get older, and it’s bloody annoying. But it is disingenuous to ignore the fact that those Average-Joe Has-Beens in the ECB’s research were 15 years younger – and in many cases still active players in their mid-30s – when the board committed its Original Sin of selling the sport, lock stock and barrel, to Sky in 2004.As then-editor, Matthew Engel, wrote the following year: “Live cricket has now disappeared from the screens of more than half the homes in the country. The damage will be incalculable.”The sport’s participation levels have been holed below the water-line ever since. And therefore, instead of denigrating the lifelong love of the game of those who grew up on free-to-air cricket, the ECB ought to be pathetically grateful for their continued patronage – not least because, in many cases, that love is now being passed onto their own kids (daughters included), the very players that English cricket requires to stay afloat until it works out what it’s really going to take to address its participation crisis.That was a point that Harrison, with the deft swerve of the seasoned politician, avoided addressing head-on. Sky are, he insisted, “cricket’s best friend”, and a “huge part of [this] opportunity has been created by the[ir] investment”. But when it was put to him, by one journalist who has been conducting his own research in clubs up and down the country, that the majority of people that he had spoken to hated the concept of The Hundred, Harrison inadvertently channelled his inner SS Kommandant.Tom Harrison and Ed Smith, ECB chief executive and selector•Getty Images”I respect that there are some pockets of resistance around,” he said. “It’s no surprise to any of us, it was the same 17 years ago [when the Twenty20 Cup was launched], it’s the same every time something disrupts. We will do everything we can to excite cricket fans about this, cricket fans will absolutely get behind this. I think cricket fans are going to love it.”Well, we’ve got no choice really, do we? As Daryl Mitchell, the Professional Cricketers’ Association chairman, put it recently: “If it doesn’t work, then we’re all in trouble.”The format aside, the wider worry is that numerous other elephants are still in the room, and will need urgent addressing before the ECB’s ambitions can hope to fulfil even the most basic aims of their inception.We still don’t know any team names – Surrey’s significant status as a Hundred sceptic remains to be adequately resolved – while the claims that the tournament will feature “Best v Best” players is slathered in significant doubt. India’s superstars are sure to give the tournament the flick, while England’s own marquee names – Joe Root, Jos Buttler, Jonny Bairstow, Ben Stokes (and by then, you’d presume, Jofra Archer) – are doubtless going to be double-booked in Test series against West Indies and Pakistan. After all, 90 percent-plus of the board’s income will still be derived from international cricket, long after they’ve reinvented the wheel.”There are inevitable challenges with the schedule,” said Harrison. “We are a sport that does not have enough time to fit everything in. and our windows are becoming more and more challenged as ICC events and domestic leagues grow.”Well quite. As might have been mentioned once or twice before – is a fourth format of the game really the way to make life simpler?

Scores level after 100 overs. Scores level after the Super Over. England beat New Zealand 26-17 on the number of boundaries hit in the final to become world champions. Can’t believe it? That’s how the sporting fraternity reacted as well

ESPNcricinfo staff14-Jul-2019

A game that ebbed and flowed from the 1st ball to the 612th!
Feel for New Zealand who did everything that England did and still fell short.
Congratulations to England.#CWC19 #NZvENG @ECB_cricket @BLACKCAPS pic.twitter.com/FlEJb0NfId

— Sachin Tendulkar (@sachin_rt) July 14, 2019