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For a while in the afternoon session it appeared Pakistan were losing their way but, after his role with the ball, Yasir Shah played a starring role again

Jarrod Kimber at Lord's16-Jul-2016Yasir Shah took his sixth wicket early on Saturday morning. It was a good ball that trapped Steven Finn straight in front of the stumps. A few balls later England’s innings is finished. Yasir can put his feet up.The problem is, he isn’t the only person with his feet up.You can see Younis Khan’s toe twitching well before Jake Ball is at the crease, the left foot is weirdly twitching towards the bowler, the right foot is rattling around in his boot. Then he moves into a weird half squat in front of his stumps. When the ball arrives there is a leap at it, across his stumps, towards silly mid-off, as if he has been tickled by a monster made of feathers, or electrocuted, or like he is trying to lead with his belly button.The only real problem is now after all that twitching, shuffling and jumping he has to play a cricket shot against very good bowling on a wicket that has started playing slightly oddly. His head is not over the ball, it is barely still on his shoulders, and his feet seem to be on hot coals, or allergic to grass, or covered with haemorrhoids.Younis isn’t batting, he’s surviving, somehow. Even what should have been a normal cover drive becomes an abnormal monstrosity that has a squat-thrust angled bat. It is only when the ball goes through the field that he moves into the correct foot position with an awkward shuffle that he seems to be doing so he just remembers how he is supposed to be doing this. His feet are playing several shots per ball, his hands, barely one. Neither agree with each other.And when he doesn’t play a shot, it’s like he’s doing an interpretive dance move to represent how a bird flies through a puff of smoke, but with a broken leg, terrible stage fright and no dance training.England just sat and watched, they clearly decided that whatever this was, it wouldn’t, or at least shouldn’t, last, and they went dry. They bowled very well, they kept the field in a ring, and waited for the implosion.It was Azhar Ali who broke first. He nearly ran himself out when he had thought to himself that there was only a single, and then something clicked in his head and he decided it was two. And then it was the pressure of the scoreboard’s stillness. In four overs they scored seven runs, and in the end of that period Azhar was out lbw. If there is a culture with a word that means both unlucky and inevitable at the same time, it was that.Then Misbah-ul-Haq came in. His first ball was a defensive shot that suggested we were going to get austerity Misbah, not world-record quickest-Test-hundred Misbah. Twelve balls come and go, and Misbah brings stability by watching Younis bat from the non-striker’s end and add only one more run. Then Misbah faces Moeen Ali for his second ball. Alastair Cook set a ring field, an outer ring field. Men simply scattered to boundaries, knowing that Misbah may and try to dine.What they didn’t know was that Misbah was going to enter the buffet, strip off his clothes and jump mouth first into the shrimp bowl. He had faced two balls and somehow transformed from Misbah to Shahid Afridi.Somehow, against all cricket logic, Younis survives the session. As does Asad Shafiq, who does it with much more clam and technique.Then Younis hammers a ball back onto his stumps. On a normal day it would be one of his worst shots, today it was among his best. It was the slowest scoring from him since his first Test match.Then there is a brief interlude of Pakistan batting so well through Shafiq and Sarfraz Ahmed that they looked like completely taking the game away before Shafiq misses a good one.And there he is again, Yasir Shah. Promoted four spots up the order, working on what should have been his day off.Not long into their partnership Sarfraz dropped the ball at his feet and tried to invent a single, Yasir said no, saving a horrible run out. The throw hit the stumps and trickled a metre or two away, and Sarfraz was off for another non-existent single. He was like the rat that touched the electric cheese, and went back to make sure. It was Yasir who took the cheese away.It was also another dot ball, and they had been growing, and during the next over, Yasir started to feel it. The further the over went, the louder the crowd got, and the more nervous Yasir bats. He’s not in the UAE now, Lord’s may not be a coliseum like Edgbaston or Old Trafford, but this isn’t home, even a neutral home.This is a real crowd, and they have noticed England’s chance. It is now 15 balls since a run and Yasir is 2 off 23. The last ball is full and stops a bit on the wicket, Yasir tries to turn it, it takes the leading edge and it floats. England fielders start celebrating as it does, the crowd rises with it, but the ball then dips. Broad is the fielder at mid-off and he is on his way in, but it’s low and in front of him, and it’s not a catch made for a man of his height. But he gets there just as it’s about to bounce, and there is grass, hand, and by the time the English players have returned to the ground from their celebratory leaps, it is clear so has the ball.Sarfraz is dropped by Jonny Bairstow, and just like that it is Yasir, in his first Test in England, who is the guy who can score the most runs, the safest way, so that he has a target to bowl at. He is less rattled than Azhar, less airborne than Younis, and less crazy than Misbah. His experienced team-mates at Nos. 3, 4 and 5 had made 48 runs, from a lot of balls, and Yasir gets better with every ball. When Sarfraz is out, he just continues to score runs and give Pakistan hope, right up until the second last over of the day.Yasir drop-kicks one over midwicket, gets his highest Test score and then artfully glances. Two clever shots and then an over later Pakistan’s day is finished.Tomorrow, like today, will start with Yasir. Tomorrow, like today, might finish with him as well. There just won’t be any time in between to put his up feet.

The BCB has striven to retain Bangladesh’s top-tier status in Tests – but now it needs to focus on developing a consistently competitive team in the longest format

Mohammad Isam01-Nov-2016The buzz surrounding Bangladesh’s two-match Test series against England is yet to wear off but the decoration at the Shere Bangla National Stadium, the home of Bangladesh cricket, has already changed to T20 colours. This was inevitable due to the schedule but the quick shift of attention on this occasion seemed jarring.That’s because arguably for the first time since their inaugural Test 16 years ago, Bangladesh has been competitive in a Test series against a major team. The 1-1 result could have been even better for the home side had they overcome tight corners in the Chittagong Test but in Dhaka, they finally beat a team ranked much higher than them.While the players involved will enjoy at least couple of days off, they will soon return to the hectic world of the Bangladesh Premier League, which is designed to swallow up attention spans, airwaves and column inches in the country. The win over England, a seminal moment in Bangladesh’s cricket, will not be given the rightful time to sink in, and be reflected upon.The general apathy towards Test cricket has been around for a very long time, and much of it is due to better results in ODI, which was already a format highly relatable with the public due to Bangladesh’s historic proclivity towards one-day cricket.It has also partly caused a disconnect between the BCB’s protection of Test status and its efforts to keep Tests as the primary format for the Bangladesh team. The BCB has vehemently opposed the idea of a two-tier Test system, and whenever discussions surrounding this proposal have come up, the board has successfully wiggled out of it.In early 2014 a working group of the Finance & Commercial Affairs committee of the ICC proposed that teams ranked Nos. 9 and 10 (Bangladesh at the time) play in the Intercontinental Cup from 2015, but it was an idea that was ultimately shelved along with many other proposals of the “Big Three” era. The BCB also opposed the two-tier structure, which was discussed this year at the ICC, and ultimately prevailed after the plan was shelved once again. But its opposition in board meetings hasn’t necessarily contributed to an attitude towards giving the team more Tests.The latest gap, which lasted more than 14 months, was the team’s longest period without a Test match. While it is true that Australia postponed their two-Test series in October 2015 due to security fears, and Bangladesh’s first-ever Test in India was moved from August this year to February 2017, the BCB also shelved plans to play Tests against Zimbabwe in November last year, January this year and even after the World T20 in March.Scheduling around the Under-19 World Cup was given as one of the reasons for the postponement of hosting Zimbabwe but the BCB generally prefers to play the format of the ICC event in the lead-up. So after playing three ODIs and two T20s against Zimbabwe in November last year, Bangladesh played against the same opposition in four more T20s in January so that they were in the groove for the subsequent Asia Cup and World T20.Previously, Bangladesh’s longest stretch without a Test was exactly 14 months (from June 4 2010 to August 4 2011), while there have also been gaps of 13 (once), seven (twice) and six months (three times).Attentions will quickly switch to the return of the Bangladesh Premier League•BCBBefore the 2007 and 2011 World Cups, Bangladesh put all their focus on ODIs, which for the first instance was reasonable because they had a poor 2003 tournament in South Africa. But ahead of the 2011 World Cup at home, postponed Tests against New Zealand were hardly given a thought because of a 4-0 victory in the ODIs.Most teams schedule more ODIs before a 50-over World Cup but Bangladesh’s focus shifted away from Tests in 2000 – when they gained Full Member status – to ODIs by 2006 mostly due to the lack of progress in the longer format during this period. Their only series win was against Zimbabwe at home in 2005, and only after they had lost most of their top players, and the next wins came against a third-rate West Indies side in 2009. Beating Zimbabwe in Harare back in 2013 was perhaps their most well-earned win, given how they had to bounce back from a massive defeat in the previous game; another notch in their belt was drawing against Sri Lanka in Galle that same year. But these are slim pickings for a Test nation that promised much in the beginning.What has also been frustrating of late is the absence of A-team tours, which has disappointed many in the Bangladesh team management. If they had been arranged, then Test specialists like Mominul Haque and Taijul Islam could have been in touch with top-quality cricket. Instead, they had to rely on long net sessions and some domestic first-class matches in the build-up for England.Even for the Test series against New Zealand, Bangladesh’s preparation would entail four weeks of BPL followed by a ten-day camp in Sydney and then three ODIs and three T20s in New Zealand. Then they play the one-off Test against India after which a tour of Sri Lanka with Tests and ODIs is also being discussed before they head into the Champions Trophy. Even afterwards, there will be a push for ODIs as they would also like to ensure automatic qualification to the 2019 World Cup, though the BCB president Nazmul Hassan has suggested that is already within their grasp.Bangladesh cricket has a lot on its plate in 2017, with more focus on ICC events like the World T20s as well as in the home front where the BCB elections are knocking at the door. Test cricket will continue to have less attention but if they are really interested to get better at it, perhaps proper succession planning is the answer. It should include four-day matches against Afghanistan and Ireland, which sounds unsexy but even if Bangladesh A play the games, they would get opposition that is better than the fare at the domestic level.The talk of two-tier Test cricket will not die down any time soon so if Bangladesh wants to keep itself relevant as a Test-playing nation, focusing solely on keeping their status won’t be enough. Playing more Tests gives them more chance of winning, which would in turn make them more watchable and commercially viable as a cricket nation. The win against England should not be treated as an exception; it is a firm stepping stone for Bangladesh towards greater progress.

Stats highlights from the third day in Chittagong where Ben Stokes and Shakib Al Hasan dominated the action

Bharath Seervi22-Oct-20161045 Previous highest aggregate by a wicketkeeper in a year, by Andy Flower in 2000. Jonny Bairstow went past that mark in the second innings of this Test to set the new record. England have six more Tests to play this year.7 Consecutive partnerships of 50 or more runs for the sixth-wicket for England which include both innings of this Test. The sequence began from the second Test against Pakistan at Old Trafford. In these seven innings their average sixth-wicket stand has been 92.57 including two century stands.0 Instances of a Bangladesh bowler taking more than five wickets in a Test against England prior to this match. Incidentally, in this match, two bowlers have taken more than five wickets – Mehedi Hasan and Shakib Al Hasan. Both have picked up seven wickets each so far. This is only the fourth instance of two Bangladesh bowlers taking five-wicket hauls in a Test.85 Ben Stokes’ score in the second innings – the best by an England No. 6 batsman against Bangladesh. The previous highest was Ian Bell’s 84, also in Chittagong, in 2009-10.10 Left-arm spinners who have picked up 150 or more wickets in Tests. Shakib became the tenth left-arm slow bowler to reach the milestone. His strike rate of 65.4 balls per wickets is second only to Rangana Herath among those ten bowlers.17 Wickets taken by Bangladesh spinners in this Test – the second-most for them in any Test. The most wickets picked up by their spinners in a Test is 18, on three occasions. England have two more wickets left in their innings as at stumps.5 Runs added by England’s second and third wicket partnerships in this match – the lowest for them in any Test. Those wickets added 0 and 3 in the first innings and 1 each in the second innings. Their previous lowest from those two wickets was 12 on three occasions, two of those in the 19th century.2005 Last time England lost their first three wickets for less than 30 runs in both innings of a Test – against South Africa in Centurion. They were three-down at 21 in the first innings and 28 in the second innings of this Test. This is their first such instance in a Test in the subcontinent.49 Balls faced by Alastair Cook in this Test – his third-least in a match in Asia. The two instances of him facing fewer balls than this in a subcontinent Test have both been in Sri Lanka.2 Instances of Bangladesh opening with two spinners in a Test innings. Their second innings of this Test was the second such instance. The first was against Zimbabwe in Khulna in 2014-15.55/8 Runs and wickets in the first session of this day – Bangladesh collapsed from 221 for 5 to 248 all out and England lost 3 for 28. However, in the next two session only five wickets fell for 200 runs.

Jos Buttler has barely played red-ball cricket since being dropped from the Test side in 2015, and he believes that has helped him discover his game

George Dobell in Mumbai09-Dec-20161:05

Buttler calls for more consistent bowling

Jos Buttler has credited a lack of first-class cricket as a crucial ingredient in his successful return to the Test team.Buttler made 76, his second highest Test score, to help England reach 400 in their first innings in Mumbai. It was an impressive contribution for a number of reasons, not least the restraint Buttler exhibited against testing bowling. It was also his first half-century in first-class cricket since May 2015.More pertinently, it was just his fifth first-class innings since he was dropped from the England Test team in the UAE in October 2015.But far from seeing that lack of red-ball cricket as a disadvantage, Buttler insisted it was a factor in his relative success.”I don’t feel like having not played first-class cricket mattered to me at all,” Buttler said. “Probably the best thing for me is having not played any red-ball cricket for a year and having some time to think about my game.”We play so much cricket that sometimes there isn’t enough time to think, break down your game and work out what is vital to get the best out of yourself. I feel like the last year I’ve probably learned the most about myself and about cricket in my whole career.”While Buttler’s words clash with conventional wisdom – Alastair Cook described Buttler’s lack of first-class cricket as “clearly not ideal” ahead of the Mohali Test – there appear to be a growing number of players arguing for the benefits of a fresh body and mind over the virtues of regular games. Certainly Eoin Morgan has previously said he felt “twice the man” for a month’s rest ahead of an ODI series – while Kevin Pietersen has often remarked that England’s cricketers are obliged to battle not only their opponents, but their own schedules.At the time Buttler was dropped from the Test side, he seemed confused and lacking in confidence. He had failed to reach 50 in his 12 most recent Test innings – he had not reached 10 on six of those occasions – and later admitted he was “relieved” to have been left out.”I got to a stage where I was not concentrating and did not want to be there,” Buttler told The Telegraph this time last year. “It was a relief to get dropped. I was not enjoying walking out there and feeling like I didn’t know where the next run was coming from.”Crucial to Buttler’s improvement now – and it does have to be said, these are early days in his recall and the returns, while pleasing, are relatively modest – has been a renewed belief in his own abilities. And while these haven’t been demonstrated in copious amounts – or even sparse amounts – of first-class runs (injury and white-ball commitments limited him to a single County Championship match in the 2016 season), they are real nevertheless.Jos Buttler’s highest Test score carried England to 400•AFPAfter all, Buttler is the scorer of the three quickest ODI centuries made by an England player. He has shown, in many T20 and List A situations, that he has a rare ability. Few doubt his talent.But, after a series of failures in Test cricket, he had begun to doubt himself. And without the time and space to reflect and then work on his game, he felt he was sinking deeper into the mire with every dismissal.”I’ve learned one of the big things you have to have, that the top players have, is belief in your own game,” he said. “You have to be confident that, when you get a chance, you’re going to perform.”You’re your own best coach. There’s plenty of people out there to speak to, but probably one of the things I was doing when I struggled was speaking to too many people. It is better bringing it back to a few close people you trust and to yourself. No one can do it for you.”You can receive great advice, but you’ve got to believe in yourself.”Part of the reason for Buttler’s limited appearances in first-class cricket in 2016 was a decision to appear in the IPL. While there still appears to be some controversy about such decisions in English cricket, Buttler’s decision was fully supported by the ECB – indeed, they currently encourage players to gain experience in high-profile T20 leagues – on the basis of their increased prioritisation of white-ball cricket.If Buttler goes on to help England to that elusive global ODI trophy – and he may well – it may well be credited as a contributory factor. Anyway, had he not subsequently broken his thumb playing T20 cricket for Lancashire, he would still have been able to play several Championship matches.Besides, he feels the experience of representing Mumbai Indians in the IPL may have helped him deal with the conditions and the environment in Mumbai.”It probably helps, having practised and played here,” Buttler said. “Having experienced IPL, you get used to the noise and chaos going on around you. You learn to deal with it and not get distracted. I think familiarity is good and definitely helps.”Might there be a bit of contradiction there? After all, he argues that “familiarity is good” when it comes to batting in Mumbai, but freshness is best when it comes to building an innings against a red ball.It doesn’t really matter. Just as Ben Duckett’s success in the English domestic season didn’t much matter when he came up against Ravi Ashwin and co. And just as Mark Ramprakash and Graeme Hick’s century of first-class centuries didn’t matter when it came to Test cricket. Success in county cricket is no guarantee.All that matters is whether their method works in Test cricket. So while you would think that Buttler would benefit from more experience, while you would think he would benefit from learning how to build an innings – he has, after all, a modest first-class record (just four first-class centuries and an average of 32) – if he can demonstrate that his method works, he should be encouraged to embrace it.This was an impressive innings. While Parthiv Patel’s description of the early part of it as “very lucky” is somewhat graceless (and antagonistic), it is not entirely without truth. But while Buttler found batting a desperate struggle against the spinners on the first evening, he had the confidence and composure not to try and thrash his way out of trouble.While there were glimpses of the fine limited-overs player he has become – a few reverse-sweeps and one heave over mid-on for six – it was the less eye-catching skills that helped him here: his patience; his soft hands (not least when playing Jayant Yadav in front of leg slip when he had scored only 1), his ability to manoeuvre the ball and his maturity in dealing with the periods of pressure. Only once – in his 73 against New Zealand at Leeds in 2015 (his most recent half-century before this) – had he faced more deliveries in a Test innings.The game has changed. We live in an age where players reach centuries on debut with reverse-sweeps, where catches are routinely taken by fielders using the both sides of the boundary, where switch-hits and doosras have become part of the lexicon of the game. If Buttler wants to do things his way – and if it works – that should be just fine.

Former South African umpire Cyril Mitchley remembers his days on the circuit, giving Tendulkar run out at square leg and Atherton caught off the thigh pad

Luke Alfred05-Feb-2017Cyril Mitchley hears a voice rather than sees a face when you ask him a question nowadays. Eighteen months ago he started suffering from a hereditary disease of the retina – called macular degeneration – which blurs everything he looks at directly. His peripheral vision is fine but in the middle it’s indistinct and blurred, a soggy mess.He struggles in the garden and shouldn’t be driving his Toyota Tazz, but carries on regardless, vaguely relieved that he no longer needs to see whether Saeed Anwar or David Boon has feathered an edge to the keeper. “My paternal grandmother was an artist,” he said. “She painted water. When she started painting red and yellow water we realised that something was up and that her eyes were packing in. I’ve got the same thing.”There was a pinch of the showman about Mitchley the umpire. In his early umpiring days he used to go into a prize-fighter’s crouch before jabbing his index finger at you not once but twice or three times. “Dave Richardson complained – he said I took too much pleasure in it, so I didn’t use the flourish so much after that. Even when I wasn’t crouching I always used to stand with my head at a slight angle so my good ear was facing the batsman. I had one season as a 20-year-old inside-forward with Sheffield United – I had the choice of Charlton, Wolves or United, God alone knows why I chose United – and someone kicked a wet, heavy ball at my head. It burst my eardrum. After that my hearing in the left ear was always a bit dodgy.”Mitchley wasn’t about to allow the imperfections of a wonky ear get in the way of a job he loved. He was always engaged, never distant, always part of the game without allowing his personality to overshadow bigger names or larger spectacles. He remembers giving Sachin Tendulkar run out from square leg in South Africa’s first readmission Test (beside the third-umpire bells and whistles, the match was unspeakably dreary) and was scandalised by a stranger who he at first assumed was an autograph-seeker, offering him $50,000 to make sure Pakistan didn’t lose the third Test of their 1994-95 home series against Australia. He reported the approach to John Reid, the match referee, and promptly forgot about it. The high-scoring Test was drawn, so Pakistan wrapped up the series 1-0.Launching from the haunches: Mitchely crouches as fast bowler Brett Schultz bowls in a tour game against India, 1992-93•Getty Images”The best umpire I ever stood with was [the Tasmanian] Steve Randell, said Mitchley. “I thought he was brilliant. I was the first neutral umpire to stand in an Ashes Test [at the Gabba, in November 1994] and I stood with Steve, although he couldn’t stand Ian Healy for some reason. He came to me once and said: ‘If he steps out of line for anything we’re going to nail him’.”The biggest decision Mitchley ever made was when he was asked to judge on Sanath Jayasuriya’s run-out in the 1996 World Cup final in Lahore. Jayasuriya was later named Man of the Tournament, and Mitchley was well aware his decision would have far-reaching consequences. “[Steve] Bucknor and [David] Shepherd got the final and I wasn’t even sure I was going to be in Lahore because I was in Delhi, but Dave Richards [the ICC chief executive] phoned and said: ‘Look, we think there’s going to be a bit of shit and we want you there as TV umpire. We’ll send you a ticket.'”To cut a long story short, many of the tournament umpires had flown to the final in Lahore and we were all sitting in the same box-like booth, so when I worried about giving Sanath run-out there were many eyes on me. Not long after that we get a Sri Lankan delegation who’ve come to complain. I’m not happy but Clive [Lloyd], the match referee, says, ‘Relax, Cyril, let’s all have a look at the slow-motion together.’ So we look at the replay and he then asks them: ‘Are you happy with the decision?’ They say they are, and then he tells them in no uncertain terms to get the hell out of there.”Mitchley describes the 1996 World Cup – co-hosted by India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka – as a tournament of considerable behind-the-scenes strain. With such a broad sweep of venues, competition logistics were already demanding, and with the Australians and the West Indians refusing to visit Sri Lanka, tensions rose. He had to be present in Colombo, just in case the Australians arrived, and signed an affidavit in the presence of an attorney to that effect. He remembers tournament organisers like Sunil Gavaskar and Kapil Dev (“They didn’t trust the Australians”) being exceptionally tense and the competition unfolded in an atmosphere of mutual watchfulness. “I suppose the upside of the trip to Colombo was that I had four or five days free to visit the tea plantations and the hill stations and that was fabulous,” said Mitchley.Mike Atherton walks back past Mitchley, who gave him caught off the thigh pad, in Port Elizabeth, 1995-96•PA PhotosHe wasn’t one to dwell on mistakes but remembers a shocker he gave Mike Atherton in Port Elizabeth in 1995-96. “As soon as I saw his face he just knew I’d stuffed it up,” recalls the man many in South Africa still call “Squire”. Mitchley apparently gave Atherton, a man for whom he had immense respect, out caught off the thigh pad and the decision perched darkly on his conscience for the rest of the day.Squire’s humiliation was softened only slightly when Ian Botham told him to forget it after the close, but turned to wry amusement when he was later presented with the signed leg of a white plastic chair by Dermot Reeve. Atherton had smashed the chair in a fury once he returned to the dressing room and the token of his esteem was duly delivered by a smirking 12th man – Reeve. To this day it remains one of Mitchley’s treasured mementos, along with signed shirts and equipment from Brian Lara and Malcolm Marshall, two of his favourite players.Mitchley says he was a dogged wicketkeeper-batsman with a good eye, not much to look at but plucky. He kept to Hugh Tayfield (“what a taskmaster”) as a young club cricketer and reserves special praise for a long-forgotten Transvaal fast bowler called Ken Walter. “When he played at Pioneer Park [in Johannesburg’s Southern Suburbs] he could be well-nigh unplayable. John Reid brought the New Zealanders to South Africa in the early sixties. They always said that Ken was the best South African bowler they faced by far.”Mitchley was the first umpire to refer an on-field decision to the TV umpire•PA PhotosMitchley once hit a lippy young Brian Davison (yet to make his mark as an elegant middle-order batsman at Leicestershire) back over his head after Davison had terrorised a handy Transvaal B batting line-up during an away fixture in Salisbury. Mitchley had been put on the plane by the irascible Eric Rowan, who warned him to stay off “the sauce” and nail down a regular place.”Brian was giving our guys a send-off, telling them that they’d just been bowled by the legcutter and what not,” said Mitchley. “I didn’t have a good bat, I couldn’t afford one, but he bowled me one in the slot and I just pumped him onto the grass embankment for six.”‘You can call that whatever you like here in Rhodesia, sonny,’ I told him as I marched down the pitch, ‘but in the Southern Suburbs, where I come from, we call that a six.’ It was my highest first-class score, 66, I was proud of that.”Mitchley’s route past 66 soon took him into umpiring. He umpired in one B section game before being promoted and was always a firm favourite with the players. He was verbally adroit and exuded a kind of cheery calm that instantly made them comfortable. He enjoyed his time at square leg and is mildly relieved that he escaped much of the current culture of super-scrutiny. “We probably had an easier time because we actually made the decision. Every decision nowadays can be referred with the exception of a wide. We weren’t watched quite as much.”His capacity for the verbals must have had something to do with his love of poetry. He never did very well at school, receiving a couple of O levels, including 8% for Latin, but he can still recite poems by John Masefield and Sir Henry Newbolt by heart. He loves *”In Flanders Fields”, by Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, and takes comfort from their heft and rhythm now that he can’t actually see the words on the page. “The degeneration happened about 18 months ago over two or three days. At first I thought to myself: ‘What’s wrong with my eyes, they’re going cockeyed?’ Then I thought it was cataracts, but that wasn’t it. I don’t have an income now, so I’m thankful that my wife still works. I’ll be 79 on Independence Day.”If anything, his fading eyesight has sharpened his memory. He remembers Harry Wolf, the Southern Suburbs chairman, walking around the change room and deftly placing folded five pound notes into the Tayfield brothers and Walters’ shoes. There were never any coins, they were liable to roll across the floor and so raise awkward questions. Notes were discrete, even delicate. Mitchley, the young whippersnapper, watched it all, knowing he had some way to go before he found a note in his.*The name of the poem was corrected

A haphazard player acquisition strategy meant Gujarat Lions never had a realistic chance of stopping their slide when injuries began to deplete their squad

Varun Shetty14-May-20174:07

Agarkar: Raina’s captaincy was not great

Where they finished

Seventh, with four wins and ten losses

The good

Lions were among the best teams in the Powerplay this season. The explosive potential of players like Brendon McCullum, Suresh Raina, Dwayne Smith and Aaron Finch was utilised effectively, in rotation. They hit 28 sixes in the Powerplay, the most by any team, and scored 50-plus in 10 out of 14 Powerplays.His team struggled for the majority of the campaign, but Raina was consistent. At the end of their final game, he was the third highest run-getter of the season, and finished with 442 runs in 14 innings. He had a strike rate of 143.77 and made seven 30-plus scores.Australia fast bowler Andrew Tye failed to take a wicket in only two of the six games he played – the second time was because of a dislocated shoulder against Mumbai Indians. That injury ended his season, but not before he took 12 wickets at an economy of 6.71. His peak was in his first match, when he took a hat-trick and a five-wicket haul, besides unveiling the the powers of his knuckle ball.

The bad

Lions’ impressive stats in the Powerplay came at the cost of imbalance in the middle order. They had five specialist openers in the squad, and all of them were given a chance at the top – they used five opening combinations this season. This meant at least three players were always out of their favoured position in the batting order: Aaron Finch and Dwayne Smith struggled, averaging less than 25 for the season.Lions used 16 regular bowlers over the season, indicating that they never found their best combination. Four bowlers played only one match, three played only two, and one played three – they managed only three wickets in total.ESPNcricinfo Ltd

The ugly

With an unsettled middle order and James Faulkner’s waning ability as a finisher, Lions desperately missed a specialist allrounder. They missed Dwayne Bravo, in particular, and the impact of his absence was exacerbated by a poor strategy at the player auction in February, and a poor replacement plan during the tournament.Bravo’s injury had looked serious the moment he picked it up at the end of December, a month and a half before the player auction. He joined the Lions squad, though, and the franchise clung on to the slim hope that he would regain match fitness before it was too late, while the other teams raced ahead in the league. In the end, Bravo pulled out of the season, and Lions roped in Irfan Pathan, who was unimpressive in the only game he played.Lions’ poor performance at the auction was further highlighted when their overseas players began to become unavailable because of injury or national duty. At one point they had only four overseas players available for selection, one of whom was UAE’s Chirag Suri, whom they had bought despite him not having played a T20 game. They eventually played their last three games of the season with only three overseas players in the XI.

The missing ingredient

Lions’ spinners were the worst in the league by a long way – they took nine wickets at an average of 90.55. Spinners for every other team apart from Delhi Daredevils took at least 25 wickets. Ravindra Jadeja had a poor tournament, taking only five wickets in 38 overs at an economy rate of 9.18.

Out of their control

Lions were hampered by injuries to key players. Bravo missed the entire season, Faulkner came in with an injury and was only available for eight games, and Ravindra Jadeja also became available for selection only after their first two games. They then lost Tye and McCullum to injuries in the second half of the season.

On paper, Jason Holder looks like an obvious weak link in West Indies’ team. But his fighting qualities kept his side just about in the ascendancy

Jarrod Kimber at Headingley27-Aug-2017Jason Holder was out for a golden duck, Stuart Broad never even bothered to look behind and appeal. Jermaine Blackwood and Roston Chase had gone in quick succession, and it was Holder’s job at Edgbaston in the second innings to stand up. He didn’t.Holder was in early on day three at Headingley after Shai Hope’s great innings was ended first ball of the day by James Anderson, then Shane Dowrich was out second ball of the day. West Indies had been talking about fight all through this Test, and after yesterday, where they battled all day to get in front, two balls into the day they were losing it.Second ball he faced, Holder drove one off the back foot to the boundary. And then he didn’t score for nine balls until he lifted Anderson over mid-on to the rope. Then more dot balls and a two, before three straight boundaries off Stuart Broad. The upshot of which was that, seven overs and four balls since he came to the crease, West Indies had scored 42 runs and gone beyond a 100-run lead.The last of Holder’s boundaries was a cover drive so full of grace, the pages of coaching manuals felt under-dressed in comparison. It looked so perfect, but it wasn’t from a perfect cricketer.***Holder played as the fourth seamer at Edgbaston, the major reason for doing so was to keep the scores low. But all game he struggled to fulfil his role. He looked as if he was battling injury and even had to abandon bowling mid-over at one stage because of cramp.Today, West Indies’ seamers served up eight leg-side deliveries in their first seven overs. And that is not counting the short balls; this was just the length balls. Their line was so poor, it seemed like a plan to get England’s batsmen out strangled down the leg side, except for the lack of fielders in those positions and the fact that they also bowled everywhere else to go with it. England hadn’t got away from them, but they would have been put under as much pressure had they been chased by a newborn lamb sucking on a lollipop.Holder brought himself on; he bowled a maiden, his second over went for one. After six overs he’d allowed only nine runs, the seventh over was even better. The scoreboard pressure got to Cook as he kept trying to push at Holder, ball after ball, beaten and worried, he eventually pushed too hard at one and was caught behind. Holder had beaten Cook in a battle of patience.***In 2015, Jason Holder’s average delivery speed was 82mph; at Edgbaston, he couldn’t have reached speed like that in a fighter jet. Every ball that came out his hand seemed to be pushing through a swarm of pace-hating gnats who were determined to thwart its progress. When you start at 82mph as a Test-match seamer, slowing down is not really a good idea.Today, Holder was slightly up on pace from the last Test, only by two or three miles, but from his first spell at Headingley, he looked a better bowler. The ball that made him look his absolute best was when he came around the wicket to Stoneman. He dropped one a bit short, it seemed to hit a crack and it slammed into Stoneman’s little finger and dislocated it. It might not have been pace like fire, but it looked quick enough, and while Stoneman batted on, he did so while not holding the bat correctly, and only added 19 more runs.***Jason Holder picked up his second wicket when Tom Westley fell for 8•Getty ImagesAlmost all aspects of West Indies’ cricket at Edgbaston were terrible. They were poor in the field, their bowlers didn’t do their jobs, they used bizarre tactics, and on the final day, they lost a wicket about as regularly as the Victoria Line tube arrives in rush hour. While Holder couldn’t be blamed for all of that, all game long he did virtually nothing to better any of it.West Indies in this game have been much better in every facet, bar catching. But there was a time when it all looked like falling apart. England were one-down, the sun was out, the ball was doing a little, but not enough, and while Stoneman and Westley were playing for this win, and their futures, neither looked willing to budge.But it was a communication error that brought out the worst fielding of the game. Stoneman always wanted two, Westley never seemed to notice, and so when the throw came in, all Devendra Bishoo had to do was take the throw, take the bails off, and collect the easiest run out in history. Instead Bishoo fumbled, and not just any old fumble, but one that coughed the ball up away from the stumps. He scurried after it, turned and fired, and missed the stumps. Bishoo managed to miss two run-outs in one ball.The next over featured another comical fumble, yet again the West Indian failures seemed like an airborne virus. But in that same over, Holder suddenly found Westley in his sights. Three straight balls, just outside off stump, were followed up by the most obvious sucker ball you’ll have seen in a while. Westley threw his hands at the ball, and Holder’s figures were 11-2-17-2.***Jason Holder had about as bad a game as you can possibly have at Edgbaston. He took a pity wicket, didn’t capitalise on the pink-ball “witching hour”, completely buggered up the second new ball, captained as if cricket tactics were a seven-dimension Rubik’s cube and then failed twice with the bat.Most of this was overlooked as the entirety of the West Indies team was so damn terrible.Today one of our #PoliteEnquiries, from @BarneyT10676, asked: “what exactly is it that Jason Holder brings to the Windies? gentle bowling & average to poor batting ?” And on paper, it is hard to know. Coming into this Test, he took a wicket every 88 balls, Joe Root takes one every 96 balls. In 24 Tests he had 42 wickets, making him at best the fifth option with the ball. With the bat, he has one hundred, but only averages 29 runs. Even as a captain, you could argue that Darren Sammy (sorry, two-time World T20-winning captain Darren Sammy) is roughly the same player, but with far more experience and a better win-loss ratio (albeit against weaker opponents).Holder looks like the sort of person who only gets the job because there are issues with the better players, or there are no better players available, and finds himself not quite qualified for any job, and having to do all of them.But there is one thing that Holder does – he fights. He was the leader when West Indies won their first overseas Test against a top-eight side in nine years. There was no way his team was going to be as poor under him again as they had been at Edgbaston. When West Indies dropped Joe Root for the second consecutive innings, right after making a match-winning knock the match before, Holder went at him.It should have been one of the greatest mismatches in modern cricket, the medium-fast (at best) Holder who averages less than two wickets at Test, up against one of the Big Four. To make matters worse, the movement from the pitch had gone, and Holder was starting to leak a boundary every over. And yet, just after another bad ball, one of the slowest seamers in world cricket nipped one into Root’s pads. It looked plumb, but Root reviewed. Root won, and later Holder would go within millimetres of taking Dawid Malan as well.Today Jason Holder made 43 runs and took 2 for 44, on paper it didn’t look like much. But for West Indies, it was a lot. Holder is certainly not a perfect cricketer, he is not even a top Test cricketer, at best he’s a battler, at worst a bandage. But today he had to stand up. He did, over and over again.

West Indies beating England. Bangladesh beating Australia. The cricket world celebrated two incredible Test results on Twitter

ESPNcricinfo staff30-Aug-2017

After winning the test match vs Australia…great job boys specially this super man… pic.twitter.com/iy0hZIboIo

— Mushfiqur Rahim (@mushfiqur15) August 30, 2017

What a win! Shakib & Tamim bhai were phenomenal! Special thanks to the crowds. BTW, Celebration is going on! pic.twitter.com/bgTY8upoxQ

— Mustafizur Rahman (@Mustafiz90) August 30, 2017

Congratulations Bangladesh didn't think I would be writing this tweet but you need to give credit where credit is due. #testcricket

— Michael Clarke (@MClarke23) August 30, 2017

Well done Bangladesh. Special effort to beat Australia. #BANvAUS

— Virender Sehwag (@virendersehwag) August 30, 2017

Great to see Bangladesh win against mighty Australians. Test cricket still is and always will be the ultimate form of the game @BCBtigers

— Wasim Akram (@wasimakramlive) August 30, 2017

2 upsets in 2 days! Inspiring performance by @BCBtigers! Test cricket is thriving #BANvAUS

— sachin tendulkar (@sachin_rt) August 30, 2017

Two amazing Tests in two days! Shows why it is still the pinnacle of the game. Congratulations Bangladesh.

— Jimmy Neesham (@JimmyNeesh) August 30, 2017

Congrats Bangladesh on a special victory. Getting 86/8 when 107 were needed.
2 wonderful test finishes in 2 days. A treat to watch#BANvAUS

— Mohammad Kaif (@MohammadKaif) August 30, 2017

Bangladesh humble Australia, West Indies upset England. Two brilliant, brilliant results for Test cricket #BANvAUS

— Brydon Coverdale (@brydoncoverdale) August 30, 2017

Well played @BCBtigers on historical test win. Very good test match.

— Mahela Jayawardena (@MahelaJay) August 30, 2017

What a game of test cricket! An absolute thriller.. Congratulations @BCBtigers

— Shikhar Dhawan (@SDhawan25) August 30, 2017

Congratulations @BCBtigers for creating history by winning the test match against @CricketAus Great show @Sah75official @mushfiqur15

— Harbhajan Turbanator (@harbhajan_singh) August 30, 2017

4 days. 942 runs. 40 wickets. And the margin of victory-20 runs. Test Cricket at its very best. Well done Bangladesh. History created.

— Aakash Chopra (@cricketaakash) August 30, 2017

From a nuggety get-out-of-strife type, the Australia batsman, who is set to play her 250th international match on Sunday, is now the side’s most versatile player

Adam Collins in Coffs Harbour28-Oct-2017The day after Alex Blackwell’s international debut in 2003, Belgium became the second country to legalise same-sex marriage. A fortnight after her 250th at Coffs Harbour on Sunday, Australia should finally begin the process to become the 24th.There are many ways to illustrate the longevity of a career that has spanned 5387 days, but marriage equality seems most fitting given Blackwell’s persuasive work to convince Australian voters.In both the current public campaign and women’s cricket as a whole, the terrain has changed strikingly since Blackwell made her bow at age 19. Now, she is Australia’s most-capped female player; on Sunday, the latest in a string of milestones.Professionalism has been the biggest transformation. When the national vice-captain started her journey, pay for women cricketers was not part of the conversation. Major tournament preparation would consist of a training camp squeezed into a long weekend, if they were lucky. “Everything was jammed together and you left in a world of hurt,” she had recalled earlier in the year.Then back to the university Blackwell would go, to continue her medical studies, then into a full-time career in genetics. “I never thought it would be professional for me,” she said of the game. “I always had to equally think about my academic life and the career I wanted to pursue to earn an income. You were stretched pretty thin.”It is a familiar story for women athletes worldwide. But in Blackwell’s case, full-time cricket was a welcome arrival a dozen years later. While there are many commercial indicators of a game on the rise, Blackwell’s batting embodies it better than any.From a nuggety get-out-of-strife type, she is now Australia’s most versatile player, something she attributes to recalibrating her game for T20. She excelled in the Women’s Big Bash league, leading Sydney Thunder to the inaugural title. That broader set of skills is now evident every time she sets up at the crease.”One of the best things Al’s been able to do is really adapt her game,” Australian captain Rachael Haynes said in toasting her deputy’s “outstanding” career. “You’ve always got to look to evolve. If you look at players over time who are able to do that, they’re generally the ones who have had the longer careers and the most success.”Blackwell is now equally comfortable with the straight bat as she is lapping or reversing or walloping. Her 56-ball 90 nearly saved the day in the World Cup semi-finals this July. It’s a game methodically curated for all seasons; a game that got Australia over the line in the opening match of this Ashes too, with an unbeaten 67.This narrative also applies to Haynes, previously known for compact accumulation rather than the plundering she subjected England to in the second Ashes ODI. “There were some good moments in there the other day,” she said modestly of her 56-ball 89. “And I’ve still got more to give as a player.”Alex Blackwell steers one into the off side•Getty ImagesHer task in the second Coffs Harbour contest – the last ODI of the multi-format series – is to avoid a Big Banana peel that would cede momentum to England ahead of the standalone Test Match. Haynes knows this is a crucial opportunity.”Don’t be satisfied,” was her message to her players. “This match is a really important game, we’ll be looking to really assert [ourselves]. That’s the really big thing. The moment you get comfortable and relaxed in what you’re achieving, perhaps, it leaves the door open.”Haynes will have the services of the dynamic 20-year-old all-rounder Ashleigh Gardner, who is likely to return after concussion had kept her out of Thursday’s 75-run victory. “You saw a glimpse of what she’s capable of, so it’s exciting that she’ll come back in,” the captain said. Legspinner Kristen Beams will likely make way.Thursday’s toss generated scrutiny, after Heather Knight gave Australia first use of friendly batting conditions. England coach Mark Robinson later elaborated on his captain’s decision to ESPNcricinfo.”Had that rain come an hour later and we looked at a shortened target, Duckworth-Lewis can make things look very, very simple,” he said. “Had we elected to bat first and it rained and Australia had an easy target you would be criticised with everyone knowing the forecast. As it happened, the rain came at the worst time. It’s a lot more clear-cut tomorrow.”Knight recognised that bouncing back from four points down is “potentially” the biggest test of her time in charge. “But, it is still very much a contest. There is still a hell of a lot of cricket to be played. We have got to wrestle back that momentum. But it is important that we move on from what has happened and don’t feel sorry for ourselves.”Robinson, however, wasn’t prepared to declare it a must-win game. “I don’t look it like that. It puts too much emphasis and can become too big and that can actually start to suffocate you.””We’ve given the girls all the space they needed yesterday then had all the chats we needed today,” he said of the mood in the camp. “What you have got to do is keep it simple as you can. We’re not trying to build anything up too much.”With the bat, only bowler Katherine Brunt has made it to a half-century so far in the two games, while both she and her fellow opening seamer Anya Shrubsole were wicketless and expensive in their last start. Knight, however, is backing her quick bowlers, whom she assessed as bowling “brilliantly” early before Australia’s aggression took over.Sophie Ecclestone, the 18-year-old left-arm spinner endorsed by Knight and Robinson, will play again after her Ashes debut on Thursday,. There is no sign of panic yet, as both the captain and the coach hinted they would go in unchanged. World Champions at home, this is a prized opportunity for England to show what they are made of away.

Their economy rates dramatically shot up towards the end of the season, leaving Sunrisers dependent on two bowlers

Dustin Silgardo27-May-2018What happened to Kaul and Sandeep’s seasons?After the first 12 games of Sunrisers Hyderabad’s league campaign, Siddharth Kaul and Sandeep Sharma were being talked about as critical to Sunrisers’ outstanding bowling unit. With Bhuvneshwar Kumar, they gave Sunrisers three reliable Indian seamers, something no other side had. Kaul had gone at a smart economy rate of 6.45, gained a reputation as one of the most effective death bowlers and got a call-up to India’s ODI and T20I squads for the tour of England. Sandeep had gone at a smart economy rate of just 4.12, saving his side 26.22 runs over the six matches he played. Since then, Kaul’s smart economy rate is 10.55, while Sandeep’s is 11.31. In the final, Super Kings targeted the pair, taking them for 95 runs off seven overs.ESPNcricinfo LtdSo what happened to Kaul and Sandeep’s seasons? While they played a lot of home games early on, they then had to play three consecutive games on batting friendly pitches in Delhi, Pune and Bengaluru. They took some tap in those games, which may have dented their confidence. It’s also possible teams realized the pair were benefiting from the pressure created by Bhuvneshwar and Rashid Khan and needed to be attacked. Their declining form meant Sunrisers went from a bowling unit of five reliable options to one trying to fill in overs by a sixth bowler.Did Williamson give it away between overs 12 and 14?After 11 overs, Super Kings were in control, needing 84 to win off nine overs with nine wickets in hand. Sunrisers had to go for wickets or the game might’ve ended inside 18 or 19 overs. But Williamson took his most potent threat, Rashid Khan, out of the attack and bowled Carlos Brathwaite, Sandeep and then Brathwaite again. Those three overs went for 50 runs, and by the time his best bowlers, Rashid and Bhuvneshwar, came back in to the attack, the game was already gone. Williamson had his reasons. He didn’t have a lot of death options, and possibly wanted Rashid bowling to some of the middle order players rather than Shane Watson and Suresh Raina, who were happy to defend him. But your decision making doesn’t look great when the opposition gets it down to 34 to win off 36 balls and you still have two overs from Rashid left.ESPNcricinfo LtdDid Sunrisers start too slow?Sunrisers Hyderabad scored just 42 runs off the Powerplay, 14 runs less than the average first-innings Powerplay score at the small Wankhede ground. It meant they were always looking at a 160-180 score rather than a 200-plus one, which may have been necessary given the conditions and the strength of Chennai Super Kings’ batting line-up. However, Sunrisers have felt compelled to start cautiously because of their reliance on Shikhar Dhawan and Kane Williamson, who had together scored 47% of their runs before the final. In the final, they could not afford to lose those two at the top, as there was no one else in the side who had even scored a fifty in the season.ESPNcricinfo LtdKarn Sharma justifies his placeFor the second IPL final in a row, Karn Sharma was selected ahead of Harbhajan Singh. Last season, the two were in the Mumbai Indians squad, and Karn bowled his four overs for 18 in the final. The principal reason for selecting Karn this time was that Super Kings wanted a legspinner in their side. Wristspinners have been by far the most successful bowlers this season. After the game, Harbhajan even said fingerspinners were playing an increasingly limited part in T20 cricket. While Karn’s figures in the final, 3-0-25-1, look mediocre, the one wicket he got was of Williamson, Sunrisers’ best batsman.ESPNcricinfo LtdWhy Hooda ahead Brathwaite and Rashid?In the second playoff, Rashid showed what he could do as a batsman. His 34 not out off 10 balls was key to Sunrisers winning against Kolkata Knight Riders. In the eliminator, Carlos Brathwaite had struck the ball cleanly in a 43 not out off 29 balls. Yet, when Sunrisers lost their fourth wicket in the 16th over, they sent in Deepak Hooda. The logic was, perhaps, that Hooda was the specialist batsman and does have a reputation as a big-hitter himself. But this season, in seven games, his smart strike rate was 87.59. Brathwaite’s was 179.31 and Rashid’s 263.80. Hooda ended up getting three off three, which delayed Sunrisers final surge. Rashid did not bat at all.