Plays of the day from the third ODI between New Zealand and Australia in Hamilton

Brydon Coverdale05-Feb-2017The boundary-line acrobatics
After his heroic century in Australia’s unsuccessful chase in Auckland, Marcus Stoinis needed something spectacular if he was to live up to his new reputation. He very nearly provided it in the penultimate over of New Zealand’s innings, when Tim Southee smashed the ball high towards the midwicket boundary, where Stoinis leapt high and clutched the ball above his head, then threw it back in just as he landed. Stoinis’ momentum carried him over the boundary and Pat Cummins nearby was unable to complete the catch. After a series of intensely scrutinised replays, the third umpire decided the back of Stoinis’ foot had kissed the boundary while the ball was still in his hand, and for all of his magnificent athleticism, it was ruled a six.The non-review
One of the peripheral tasks that a stand-in captain must handle in international cricket is the decision whether to review umpiring decisions in the field, and Finch faced that challenge early in this match. In the very first over of the game, Mitchell Starc produced an excellent inswinging yorker that trapped Tom Latham dead in front, but umpire Ruchira Palliyaguruge turned the appeal down. Finch opted against a review. It cost Australia little, though: Latham was out in Starc’s next over, without having scored.The comeback
Dean Brownlie had not played an international match since 2014, and he certainly impressed on his return with an innings of 63 opening the batting. However, Brownlie was almost unrecognisable to viewers who had last seen him clean-shaven in his previous incarnation as an international batsman. Here, he sported a magnificent beard in the WG Grace tradition. It was as if he had spent his two years in the metaphorical wilderness in the actual wilderness.The drop
Kane Williamson brought himself on to bowl at an important time in Australia’s chase, with Aaron Finch starting to look threatening. It proved an inspired piece of captaincy, for Williamson’s first ball was driven in the air back towards the bowler – the problem was that Williamson was slow to react and couldn’t make the catch. As if to rub it in, Finch dispatched the next two balls for a four and a six.

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.

The IPL auction has often been partisan to potential and recent form over reputation and aura. Here’s a look at some superstars who found themselves unsold over the years

ESPNcricinfo staff01-Apr-2017Brian Lara, 2011 auctionBase Price – $400,000Lara had largely been out of action for nearly three years when he put his name in for the 2011 auction. At 41, Lara’s only experience of T20 cricket had come in the form of three matches in Zimbabwe’s domestic circuit the year before, and he was trying to make a comeback of sorts. Unfortunately, he would find no buyer at the auction, missing out on joining the growing list of players to have been part of both the Indian Cricket League and the IPL.Sanath Jayasuriya, 2011 auctionBase Price – $200,000Despite going at half of Lara’s base price and a smashing opening season to back it up, Jayasuriya’s was another case of older, non-performing players being snubbed. A poor 2009 season, which he finished with just 221 runs from 12 matches , and higher standards for overseas selections due to the limited spots available, meant his time in the tournament was all but over.Sourav Ganguly, 2011 auctionBase Price – $400,000Dropped by his home franchise, Kolkata Knight Riders, Sourav Ganguly attracted no bids at such a high base price. While he would later be snapped up by Pune Warriors in the middle of the season as replacement for the injured Ashish Nehra, it was yet another reminder that form, age and potential carried much more value than reputation and star status.Chris Gayle, 2011 auctionBase Price – $400,000Having rejected the West Indies Cricket Board’s annual retainer contract on the eve of the tournament, Gayle found himself in the “unsold” bucket, largely due to his high base price and uncertainty over his availability for the entire season due to international commitments. But, like Ganguly, his time would come just two weeks into the tournament, called up by Royal Challengers Bangalore after Dirk Nannes picked up an injury. He went on to blast 608 runs, including two centuries, in the 12 matches he played. Since then, there has been no looking back for the Jamaican superstar, as he continues to plunder bowling attacks at will for his franchise.Irish hero Kevin O’Brien was much sought after following his blistering performances in 2011•Getty ImagesKevin O’Brien, 2012 auctionBase Price – $50,000The one player on this list who cannot compare to the rest in terms of star value, O’Brien is precisely the kind of story franchises have embraced time and again in the past. After performances such as that manic century that sunk England in the 2011 World Cup, O’Brien had shot into prominence, and Kochi Tuskers Kerala had already approached Cricket Ireland to sign him up as a reserve player for the 2011 edition. Unfortunately, he was ineligible as per IPL rules, having not enlisted himself in the long list for the auction. O’Brien, however, continued to enhance his reputation and smashed the fastest domestic T20 hundred in English cricket, and looked like a shoo-in for franchises at his base price. Surprisingly, though, he was unsold, and his reputation has since taken a hit.Aaron Finch, 2013 auctionBase Price – $200,000Finch had just had a lean run in Australia’s three home T20 internationals after completing one of his better seasons in the Big Bash League for Melbourne Renegades, when a combination of recency bias and high base price rendered him team-less for the 2013 season. Eventually, like all near-misses do, he was called up by Pune Warriors as replacement for his national team captain Michael Clarke, who was ruled out with a back injury. Finch has since found buyers at all auctions, and now plays for Gujarat Lions.Kumar Sangakkara, 2015 auctionBase Price – INR 1 Crore (approx. $150,000)Sangakkara’s run of 120 runs from 9 games in the 2013 season, followed by his opting out of the auction in 2014 due to international commitments, meant his goal of securing a better contract in 2015 proved fruitless. Franchises had swiftly moved on, as they have often shown. Besides, after retirement from international cricket, Sangakkara’s stock seemed to be on the wane, at least amongst franchise owners. Two years on, he continues to ply his trade across the world in similar franchise T20 competitions.Martin Guptill has found the going tough at IPL auctions in recent years•BCCIMartin Guptill, 2016 auctionBase Price – INR 1 Crore (approx. $148,000)Guptill was one of only eight “marquee” players unsold at the 2016 auction. He could not find a buyer even when franchises requested for a second round under the hammer. His New Zealand captain Kane Williamson said he would have picked Guptill if he owned a team. And then, in the third week of the tournament, he finally took the flight to India, replacing the injured Lendl Simmons in the Mumbai Indians squad. This year, Guptill was picked up during the second iteration, and it was Kings XI Punjab that broke the eerie silence in the room.Imran Tahir, 2017 auctionBase Price – INR 50 Lakh (approx. $75,000)Despite his unassuming base price, the No. 1 ODI and T20 bowler in the world went unsold this year. After three patchy seasons with Delhi Daredevils, it was another reminder that international form and achievements count for little beyond a point. Tahir, however, has now found a home, with Rising Pune Supergiants calling him up after Mitchell Marsh pulled out with an injury.Ishant Sharma, 2017 auctionBase Price – INR 2 Crore (approx. $300,000)Ishant has not played an international limited-overs game in over a year, and last played a T20 international in 2013. He also has not particularly stood out for his consistency in the IPL. While that only makes his base price inexplicable, Indian cricketers in the IPL have got away with such outrageous numbers in the past, considering each side has at least seven starting slots to fill and a minimum of 14 slots in the squad. With a number of India’s international stars now pulling out of the tournament due to injuries from a long home season, he could yet have a shot at playing some part of this year’s edition.

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.

The tears flowed – on and off the match, before and after the match – as an emotional day was decided in a devastatingly close finale

Firdose Moonda at Bristol18-Jul-2017There were tears.At the beginning, they were tears of joy. Chloe Tryon and Marizanne Kapp, playing in their second and third World Cups respectively but first knockout match, could not hold back their emotions when the national anthem was played. They were overjoyed, they were expectant, as was a nation.Today is Nelson Mandela day. The great man would have been 99. Incidentally, it is also WG Grace’s birthday. He would have been 169. Perhaps more to the point, it is Ayabonga Khaka’s birthday. She is 25. And she gave South Africa as good a chance as they could have wanted in an attempt to defend 218.Khaka’s 10 overs, delivered in one spell, cost just 28 runs and she picked up two wickets, including the biggest one. Tammy Beaumont, the tournament’s leading run-scorer, had her middle stump taken out by Khaka as she tried to heave a full delivery down the ground. Before that, Khaka had Lauren Winfield caught off a top-edge at point. Before that, South Africa did not really seem to have a chance.England put on 41 in the first eight overs and the South African bowling and fielding appeared to be overwhelmed. The wicketkeeper, Trisha Chetty, dropped a catch, and then cost Kapp five wides when she could not get to a ball that slid down leg, Shabnim Ismail overstepped, on the free-hit overstepped again, and on the next free-hit overstepped a third time but the umpire didn’t spot the last offense. The first eight overs confirmed 218 was not going to be enough.Anya Shrubsole tries to console Dane van Niekerk•Getty ImagesSouth Africa had suspected that at the break when they thought they were 30 runs short.From the sidelines, it looked more like 50 runs short. And those 50 runs were not unachievable for their line-up, even though they lost Lizelle Lee early. South Africa have batsmen who can score more substantially than they have managed at this event but who have had the same handbrake holding them back. As soon as they lose a few wickets, they panic. And when they panic, they don’t communicate. And when they don’t communicate, they run themselves out.In this tournament, South Africa have had eight run-outs, more than any other team. Run-outs have made up 18.6% of their 43 dismissals, more than the overall run-out average of 11.48%.Today, Kapp was run-out three balls after the departure of Laura Wolvaardt, whose 66 had been her fourth fifty of the World Cup, and so the middle-overs were needed to rebuild, not push on. Still Mignon du Preez saved her best for the big occasion and her unbeaten 76 was her highest score of the tournament. But she didn’t have a lot of support at the end, so South Africa had to settle for a below-par total.There were tears in the middle as well. The South African team huddled before taking the field, prayed as they always do and van Niekerk delivered what looked like a rousing speech before leaving the circle wiping her eyes. But she quickly had to dry them and find a way to pull England back from their strong start, and she could not have done that without Khaka.Though not as celebrated as Ismail or Kapp, Khaka has been crucial to the South African cause because of her ability to hold an end. She has been the most economical of the South African seamers in this tournament, conceding just 3.85 an over – only van Niekerk, with an economy rate of 3.46, has been tighter. In the semi-final, they bowled eight overs in tandem between the 16th and 24th overs and gave they gave away only 30 runs at 3.75 an over. They brought South Africa back into the game, but they needed wickets to keep them in it.van Niekerk leaves the field teary-eyed•ICCIt was not until the Suné Luus double-strike in the 35th over that South Africa really looked as though they believed they could win. Their gestures became more animated, they started to scold each other for misfields, and praise each other for saving runs. They were clapping and talking and giving van Niekerk ideas of what to do next. Maybe too many.With the required run-rate at six an over, van Niekerk employed what looked like an uncertain strategy of switching the seamers’ ends around and not using herself because she was convinced the quicks knew what to do at the death. But Kapp’s ninth over cost eight runs and Ismail’s ninth over cost 10, and they just did not have that many to play with. Of course, there were other issues, Trisha Chetty’s keeping being the main one, but mostly South Africa needed more to scrap with, and they didn’t have it.Of course, there were tears at the end. When Anya Shrubsole threaded the third-last ball of the match through the gap at point to the boundary, the South African side slumped to the ground just as their men’s team had done at Auckland in 2015. And they cried. Kapp hid her face in her hands from that moment until she left the field, well after the media engagements were over. Ismail cried, and maybe swore, and was immediately consoled by the England batsmen. Khaka and Daniels cried on their own. Tryon and Lee cried together.Hilton Moreeng, the coach whom van Niekerk credited with being the main reason for the team’s massive improvement between the 2014 World T20 and now, cried on the sidelines and then ran onto the field to envelop van Niekerk in a hug so they could cry as one. Even Danie van den Burgh, the representative from the Momentum, the company whose sponsorship allowed the women’s game in South Africa to professionalise and thrive, and who flew in specifically for the semi-final and only booked his return ticket for Monday because he believed the girls would be in the final, cried. He confirmed, through his tears, that he was more proud than sad and said there was “no way” the company would not continue to back the girls.After van den Burgh joined the squad on the field, they all cried and the team prayed and cried some more. In the change-room afterwards, they cried. Van Niekerk was still crying a little at the press conference, her tears a salty mixture of pride and disappointment. “Losing in a game so close just makes it hurt even more,” she said.Every time they think about just how close they came – one catch, fewer extras, a couple more runs – they may all cry a little again. You can hardly blame them. Take the context out of it and this will go down as just another semi-final failure. Put the reality into it and a senior South African team, of either gender, has still yet to reach the final of a World Cup.This team thought they could change that. This team came so close to changing it. So damn close. In a few days’ or weeks’ or months’ time, knowing that should make them smile.

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

It was always going to take at least two players to even come close to replicating what one of the great allrounders offered and at Trent Bridge that pair may have been found

Firdose Moonda at Trent Bridge17-Jul-2017″Absolutely not.”Vernon Philander had to deny the comparison Faf du Plessis made between him and South Africa’s best. “He is becoming the new Jacques Kallis the way he is batting. We joke about it because his technique is becoming the same as Kallis’ as well,” du Plessis said.”Absolutely not.”Of course not. Kallis was South Africa’s highest Test run-scorer and fifth highest wicket-taker. For more than a decade he was the ultimate luxury. Kallis gave South Africa a 12th man in an 11-man team and attempting to replace him had proved futile.Because top-order seam-bowling allrounders are a lesser-spotted species, South Africa have had to settle for compromises in their search for team balance. Most commonly, they fielded a three-pronged pace attack with a spinner and seven specialist batsmen but occasionally they went for an all-pace line-up and sacrificed the spinner entirely. They have been reluctant to cull a batsman, except on two occasions – on a green-top in Centurion March 2014 and on a big tuner in Mohali in November 2015 – and both times it backfired badly. Now they have an exception.Nottingham 2017 is where South Africa might have found the beginnings of a solution to the Kallis-sized problem that crops up every now and then. They still needed to find two players, but two allrounders, to do the job someone like Kallis would have done and it worked. Philander and Chris Morris scored 90 between them in the first innings and 55 in the second – more than a fifth South Africa’s total runs – and took 10 wickets. Together, they played a key role in securing a crucial win.Philander’s performance with the ball should hardly come as a surprise. Since making his Test debut at the end of 2011, he has been consistently threatening with the new ball, even more so in conditions which offer a little something. In Hamilton during 2012, in Hobart last November and now here at Trent Bridge, Philander has out-bowled home bowlers and outfoxed home batsmen in their own conditions.His strength is in his discipline. Philander lands the ball in the same area outside off stump almost all the time. It’s not glamourous, it’s not fast, it’s not flashy and it’s definitely not new-age. Philander doesn’t steam in or snarl, his veins don’t pop, his eyes don’t dance, he doesn’t bounce anyone and maybe he doesn’t like someone who should be tearing through sides. But he asks the same question over and over and over again and batsmen, especially batsmen who aren’t entirely sure of themselves, don’t have answers.In this Test, Philander was particularly impressive in his approach to left handers. He burst through Keaton Jennings’ bat-pad gap with a ball that came back in from off stump and then insisted on a review when he had Gary Ballance stuck in the crease and struck on the pad by a ball that straightened. Philander’s instincts were correct and the review well-used.Philander believed England’s top three may continue to find it difficult to play him. “With the moving ball here it’s difficult because you can’t just leave me, with the odd one nipping back. I’m looking to attack off stump consistently and that makes life difficult for those left-handers.”But that is not his only job. Philander was also asked to bat a place higher than usual – No. 7 instead of No. 8 – and to contribute runs as a genuine allrounder would. It’s a task he takes seriously. With two fifties in two successive matches, Philander has shown temperament top-order players would envy. His technique is solid, if not Kallis-esque, and he puts a high price on his wicket. For du Plessis that’s what made Philander’s Trent Bridge performance so special.”In this game he had a new challenge on his shoulders. We left a batsman out to play two allrounders and with that comes extra responsibility on his shoulders,” du Plessis said. “We gave him the promotion to seven because I back his technique and his batting and he responded beautifully by getting crucial runs for us. The ball will always be the ball for him, he is a machine but now he is doing it with the bat as well.”Vernon Philander’s set-up of Keaton Jennings in the second innings was world class•Getty ImagesAnd it’s not entirely wrong to compare him with Kallis, at least not in England. In this country, Philander averages 40.28 with the bat, with three vital fifties to his name, and 21.60 with the ball. Kallis, who played more 10 more Tests in England than Philander’s five to date, averaged 35.33 with the bat and 29.30 with the ball. Not much in it, is there?Philander’s challenge will be keeping up with Kallis’ numbers and many will expect him not to. He is entirely used to being under-rated. “You will always be judged and have people making comments but that’s something we have to put out of our minds,” he said.For a lot of his naysayers fitness is an issue and his stumbling in the field at Trent Bridge didn’t help, but whatever physical condition he may appear to be in, Philander is not as clunky and as he looks. He can bowl longer spells or return for a fourth or fifth spell; he didn’t because he has come off an injury that could have ruled him out of the first Test but South Africa were desperate for him to play, so desperate that they managed him.”Going into that Lord’s Test I was probably a bit undercooked,” he admitted. “I had a chat with the higher powers but they wanted me to play. I’ve just got back from an ankle injury and literally bowled that week before the Test match. I found my rhythm in this one. Hopefully I’ll be a bigger threat for the last two.”South Africa’s whole attack is thinking that. Their success at Trent Bridge will likely mean that they keep the four-seam attack for The Oval with Duanne Olivier dropping out for Kagiso Rabada and Morris keeping his place. That means Morris will be rewarded for pace and persistence and given an opportunity to work on consistency, which he has shown he could have.After three wayward overs in a first-spell in which he “got excited” according to du Plessis by the amount of swing and overwhelmed by the options available to him, Morris returned to deliver a solid second spell at the end of the first innings and two of the best balls of the match in the second to get rid of England’s two best batsmen. He bowled Joe Root with a yorker which straighten late to beat the edge and had Alastair Cook in a tangle against a vicious short ball, signs of how quickly he learnt from his first three overs.”What happened was that Chris is new to Test cricket, the ball was moving all over the place and he got excited by how much it was swinging,” du Plessis said. “There was a lot of thinking going on: ‘Okay I want to bowl inswing, outswing, I want to seam the ball. I want to keep the run rate down, not go for boundaries.’ So there was a lot of information going on in his head. I thought at the time it was important for him to clear his head completely. I could see his head was spinning. So I said just bowl as fast as you can, and after that hopefully your action will come through.”Philander also saw that Morris could offer something and told du Plessis, “we should just trust him and give him an opportunity” and Morris rewarded that trust. “His control surprised me. We know he is an x-factor bowler, so to see now that he has some consistency creeping in is huge for us. That adds to our x-factor as a team now that we have four very high quality seam bowlers.”So do they have anything close to Kallis? The answer is not absolutely not.

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.

With a power-packed batting line-up, England have racked up massive scores more consistently than any other team in the last three years

S Rajesh10-Jul-2018The England-India ODI series pits two of the best teams in this format against each other. England have clearly been the standout team, with a 46-19 win-loss record since their horrendous 2015 World Cup campaign, but India haven’t done badly either, winning 39 and losing 19 in this period. They are the top two teams in the ICC ODI rankings, and the only ones who have won twice as many matches as they have lost over the last three years.ESPNcricinfo LtdThey are clearly the two best ODI teams, but the way they have gone about their business has been quite different. England have relied almost exclusively on their batsmen to deliver the wins – their run rate of 6.26 is well clear of the next-best, 5.77 – while India have been more balanced, relying on their bowling as well. Their economy rate of 5.33 is third among the top ten teams, while England’s is ninth.In fact, England’s economy rate of 5.71 is only 0.03 better than Sri Lanka’s, who are in last place at 5.74. And yet, while Sri Lanka have a dismal 20-39 win-loss record in ODIs during this period, losing two games per victory. England, meanwhile, are soaring high with 2.4 wins per defeat. What makes the difference is their batting.

Eng and Ind with bat and ball since Apr 1, 2015

Team Run rate Rank Econ rate RankEngland 6.26 1 5.71 9India 5.77 3 5.33 3The aspect that stands out about England’s batting is their boundary-hitting ability throughout their innings. Overall, they hit a four or a six every 8.5 balls, compared to India’s 9.6. (To give an idea of just how much England have improved this aspect of their batting, in the period between January 2012 and March 2015, their boundary-hitting rate was one every 12 balls.)ESPNcricinfo LtdThat power-hitting has helped England rack up 300-plus totals like no other team. In 68 innings since the 2015 World Cup, they have gone past 300 31 times, which is once every two innings. India have achieved it 16 times in 59 innings. England have also gone past 350 on 11 occasions, and breached 400 three times. Those are far superior numbers to any other team, including India.

Big totals for England and India in ODIs

Team Innings 300+ 350+ 400+England 68 31 11 3India 59 16 4 0Breaking up the numbers further into over-wise phases, the biggest difference between the two batting units is their approach to the Powerplay overs. England’s openers have gone hard at the bowlers from the start, while India have been far more circumspect. England’s first-10-overs run rate of 5.63 is the best among the top teams during this period, while India are in sixth place at 4.92, only above Bangladesh, Pakistan, West Indies and Afghanistan. England hit a four or a six every 7.13 balls and their opening stand averages 6.36 per over, compared to India’s 8.59 balls per boundary and a run rate of 5.24 for their opening partnerships.

Teams in first 10 overs in ODIs, since Apr 1, 2015

Team Run rate BpB Dot %England 5.63 7.1 61.0Australia 5.56 7.8 61.3New Zealand 5.50 7.7 63.2Sri Lanka 5.37 8.3 60.9South Africa 5.19 8.1 60.8India 4.92 8.6 65.2Bangladesh 4.81 8.7 66.9Pakistan 4.76 9.5 66.0West Indies 4.61 10.1 67.3Afghanistan 4.19 10.8 69.4This early aggression from England’s openers allows the rest of the line-up to feed off of them, while also putting the opposition bowlers on the back foot from the start. Among the 17 openers from the top teams who have scored 500-plus runs in the first 10 overs of ODIs since the 2015 World Cup, Jonny Bairstow has the best strike rate of 108, while Jason Roy (96) and Alex Hales (93.3) are also in the top five. In comparison, Rohit has a strike rate of 79.5 in the first 10, which is 13th among these 17 batsmen. (He often makes up for it later in his innings, but India’s Powerplay numbers still suffer because of this approach.)Datawrapper/ESPNcricinfo LtdIn the middle and death overs, too, England are well clear of the rest of the teams, though India are up there too in terms of run-rate rankings among the top ten teams. On average, England gain around seven runs on India in the Powerplay overs, 13 in the middle overs and five in the death, which means about 25 more runs than India on average. (The actual run rates of the two teams – 6.26 and 5.77 – are lesser than these average totals because teams don’t always play each of their last ten overs in every game.)ESPNcricinfo LtdIndia’s bowlers have a better ODI record than England’s, but they will have to contend with tough conditions: in the last three years, bowlers have conceded 5.92 runs per over in England, the highest among countries which have hosted at least 20 ODIs in this period; India are third at 5.63. England is also the toughest country for spinners: they have gone at 5.82 and concede almost 46 runs per wicket, compared to 5.37 in India.Add England’s home record in these three years – 28 wins, 8 losses, including no defeats in the last ten games – and you know that India will be up against it. But as India showed in the T20I series, they have the resources to overcome one of the toughest teams in ODI cricket.

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.