Shakib Al Hasan, Mushfiqur Rahim, Tamim Iqbal, Mashrafe Mortaza and Mahmudullah are on the brink of playing their 100th international match as a quintet

Mohammad Isam10-Dec-2018Bangladesh’s second ODI against West Indies on December 11 is set to be the 100th international match to feature the quintet of Shakib Al Hasan, Tamim Iqbal, Mashrafe Mortaza, Mushfiqur Rahim and Mahmudullah. This is hardly rare in world cricket – there have been 64 such quintets – but it is a unique milestone given that the Bangladesh Cricket Board, team management and selectors have not always given players, especially seniors, a long rope.Shakib is the best cricketer Bangladesh has ever produced, the superstar allrounder reaching new heights every season. Tamim holds most of the team’s batting records, having transformed himself, through changed fitness habits, from a fiery young opener to Bangladesh’s top-order rock, and has performed consistently since 2015. Mushfiqur, with the most overseas Test hundreds for Bangladesh, is the middle-order enforcer. Mahmudullah has excelled in niche roles, be it as the designated death-overs hitter in the shorter formats, or in the Test middle order with two tough hundreds recently.Mashrafe, the oldest of the five, has overcome career-threatening injuries to remain the team’s leading fast bowler. Since 2015, he has also shaped the side’s transformation, as a shrewd leader in limited-overs cricket and an excellent communicator in the dressing room.Since Mahmudullah’s debut in July 2007, the group has regularly played together. It’s no coincidence that Bangladesh have progressed rapidly in this period, with milestones like the quarter-final appearance in the 2015 World Cup, ODI series wins over India, Pakistan and South Africa in 2015, and this year’s limited-overs series wins over West Indies.Shakib, Tamim, Mushfiqur and Mahmudullah have also helped engineer Test wins over Australia, England and Sri Lanka over the last two years, and the recent 2-0 win against West Indies at home.Mahmudullah is congratulated by Mushfiqur Rahim upon picking up a wicket•AFP/Getty ImagesWhen they came together, Bangladesh had only begun winning regularly against teams like Kenya and Zimbabwe, with the odd flash-in-the-pan performance against the bigger teams. Until December 2006, Bangladesh had lost 114 of their 147 international matches since gaining Test status. The side appeared unsettled until former captain Faruque Ahmed’s first stint as chief selector, and Dav Whatmore, during his tenure as coach between 2003 and 2007, understood the need for a core group.The five players were crucial during Jamie Siddons’ stint as head coach, particularly during the transition period in 2008, after several established Bangladesh cricketers played in the unauthorised ICL T20 tournament. In 2010, Shakib rose to become the team’s best cricketer with a one-man show in the 4-0 ODI series win over New Zealand, achieved despite the absence of Tamim and Mashrafe, who were injured.After a tough 2011, the quintet nearly won Bangladesh the 2012 Asia Cup before helping beat West Indies 3-2 in a home ODI series the same year. In the following year, they blanked New Zealand 3-0 at home.Then came a year of horrors: before they trounced Zimbabwe at home late in the year, they lost 22 of their international matches in 2014, while winning just two.Mashrafe took over as ODI and T20 captain, and Bangladesh were more consistent in 2015, with a good World Cup and four ODI series wins at home. In 2017, they made it to the Champions Trophy semi-final, and this year won ODI and T20I series in West Indies.
Mashrafe has not played T20Is since March 2017 but in the 50 matches the group has played together since January 2015 (prior to the ongoing ODI series), Bangladesh have a win percentage of 54%. In the previous seven years – September 2007 to December 2014 – it was 39.60%.The quintet’s impact is also seen in a more positive and professional dressing-room environment. They have embraced the need to address specifics in both skills and fitness training, and have also influenced the BCB to think differently about its cricketers.

We have to ensure that when we are done playing, the next generation also creates a similar pattern of performance and behaviour. Legacy only happens with action.Tamim Iqbal

“It is a very special occasion, definitely,” Tamim tells ESPNcricinfo, when asked about the milestone of 100 international matches as a quintet. “Five of us have known each other for almost 15 years, and have gone through ups and downs together. I hope we can make the day of the landmark a special one.”Mashrafe and [Mahmudullah] Riyad are older than Shakib, Mushfiq and me. Three of us have played since our Under-15 days. We share everything. Our relationship is fantastic. I am friends with Mushfiq and Shakib but it is with Riyad and Mashrafe that I spend the most time together. Individually too, we have excellent relations.”Mashrafe said the consistency of the senior players and the understanding in the group made his role as captain easier. “They are all performers so definitely it makes my job easier. Their consistency is great for the team,” Mashrafe says. “It is important now that there are more contributions in the team, especially in top tournaments.”Shakib is an extraordinary talent so he didn’t need any explaining of his role. Mushfiq was always a quality player. Tamim and Riyad went through huge changes. With time, they understood how they have to play and perform in international cricket. There wasn’t need for much explaining.”In an interview to ESPNcricinfo in September, Mushfiqur said Tamim had helped him simplify his thinking, while Mahmudullah had shown how to thrive away from the limelight.”Tamim is one of my most favourite players. His transformation is unbelievable,” Mushfiqur had said. “His records speak for themselves but I think he has a lot more left to give. He has helped my performance. He has a simple way of thinking about aspects of the game. You will get success if you follow it.”Riyad has gone through a difficult period, but he has gone on to give Bangladesh big wins in the World Cup and Champions Trophy. He is the sort of personality who likes to do his job in the background. Maybe it is a blessing for him to have less focus on him.”Mashrafe Mortaza directs an adjustment in the field•Associated PressMahmudullah, who struck twin hundreds in the 2015 World Cup at No. 4 before going on to become Bangladesh’s late-overs hitter in T20Is and ODIs, says he draws inspiration from Tamim, Mushfiqur and Shakib.”I have learned a lot from them,” Mahmudullah says. “I notice Tamim’s way of thinking or Mushfiq’s training methods. I see how Shakib reads the game and goes about his work. I follow how the others are thinking about cricket, and whether my thoughts match with them. All of these things have affected my game.”The goal of the quintet, Tamim says, is to emulate Sri Lanka’s golden generation of the 1990s, who laid strong foundations for their successors such as Mahela Jayawardene and Kumar Sangakkara to build on.”The five players have a huge impact on the team but the next step has to be the reflection on the other players,” Tamim says. “We have to leave a legacy, which I feel is a huge thing. Sri Lanka did it with Sangakkara and Mahela Jayawardene. You can’t buy legacy of that quality in the store.”We have to ensure that when we are done playing, the next generation also creates a similar pattern of performance and behaviour. Legacy only happens with action.”Sri Lanka have nine of the ten longest quintet streaks in international cricket, and 40 such quintets with 100 or more international matches together. The 196 international matches that Marvan Atapattu, Sanath Jayasuriya, Muttiah Muralitharan, Chaminda Vaas and Jayawardene played together between 1996 and 2007 is the most by any quintet. It wasn’t just a testament to the number of matches the team played then but also the importance of a core group.Australia, perhaps surprisingly, have had only one such quintet: Alan Border, David Boon, Dean Jones, Geoff Marsh and Steve Waugh, who played 114 matches together between 1986 and 1992. This was the peak of the rebuilding phase under Border, with the 1987 World Cup and Ashes triumphs in 1989 and 1990-91 as the high points.Mohammad Azharuddin features in all five of India’s 100-plus quintets while South Africa’s ten quintets heavily feature Shaun Pollock and Jacques Kallis. Jeff Dujon features in all six of West Indies’ quintets. Zimbabwe, meanwhile, have had two 100-plus quintets.The road ahead for Bangladesh’s famous five leads to next year’s World Cup but what happens after that is uncertain. For now, they can quietly bump each others’ fists knowing that they have done a tremendous job in bringing Bangladesh to a stage many had thought impossible even a decade ago.

Mumbai Indians won a match that could have gone the other way, all thanks to the genius of Jasprit Bumrah who outshone a few greats on the field

Shashank Kishore in Bengaluru29-Mar-20193:48

Dasgupta: Clarity of thought Bumrah’s biggest asset

AB de Villiers v Lasith Malinga. One retired international cricketer, another trying to prove the fire’s still burning. One hitting sixes for fun, another a shadow of the legend who sent down toe-crushers for fun. One playing without the pressure of proving a point, another down on pace, relying on cutters and dipping full tosses that no longer dip like they once did.Six out of Malinga’s 24 legal deliveries on Thursday were bowled in excess of 130 clicks, but not exceeding 136.8kph. The rest – all under 120 – were delivered with little zip or deviation off the pitch. De Villiers doesn’t move until the bowler has released the ball. On Thursday, he gave Malinga a candid view of all the three stumps. This was an open challenge to send down a yorker if he wished to, yet Malinga could only see the ball disappear.The Malinga of the year 2011 would have sent inswinging yorkers to the base of middle. Here, he can only helplessly watch de Villiers’ disdainful flick pepper the solar panels on the roof. Backing away to the off side to set himself for the lap, scoop or flick is de Villiers’ base. Bowl length, and he clubs you over deep midwicket. Bowl full on the stumps, and he brings his bat down to scoop. Bowl full outside off, and he scythes you over cover. Go yorker-length on fifth stump, and he carves you behind point. De Villiers doesn’t have a hitting arc; he’ll hit you anywhere. It’s that simple, the essence of his batting philosophy.De Villiers v Malinga is a no-contest in T20s. Not even when Malinga was a feared yorker-on-demand expert. Before Thursday, de Villiers had shellacked Malinga’s 61 deliveries for 100 runs in the format; the most successful IPL bowler had dismissed him only once. There’s an air of predictability to it all. Malinga knows what he wants to bowl; de Villiers knows what’s coming. Yet, Mumbai Indians fans believe they’re still in it. Why?It’s because of Malinga’s once-upon-a-time understudy who has now evolved into a blockbuster lead actor. Jasprit Bumrah wasn’t supposed to be playing. All indications were he was to be rested; wrapped in cotton wool because he’s India’s most valuable commodity at the moment with the World Cup months away. At training, Virat Kohli, the opposition captain, kept checking on him, speaking to him, joking with him. Just before the game, Malinga went full-tilt, Bumrah watched. How the roles were reversed! A man who couldn’t utter much more than “Thank you, sir” to his franchise’s bona fide legend was now emphatically saying, “Well bowled, Mali.”The pair is to hunt in a pack. And while they’re at it, Mumbai know de Villiers has the elegance of Kohli to rely on at the other end. His shots aren’t brutal – like those straight out of the Chris Gayle school – but the effect is still the same. He never scores ugly runs. Not definitely in Bengaluru, not even when the Chinnaswamy pitches are tired. Where de Villiers moves around, Kohli’s destruction isn’t based on pre-meditation and getting bowlers to second-guess. It’s pure magic, pure hand-eye coordination, strong wrists and the steely belief that he can hit any ball in any direction playing orthodox shots. That’s enough pressure for a bowler to contend with.Jasprit Bumrah picked two wickets in the 18th over•BCCIAnd so, invariably when two batsmen are on song, the way Kohli and de Villiers were on Thursday, Bumrah is given an unenviable task. In such situations, the batsman wins most times. He’s on so much of a roll that it can be hard for the opposition captain to set fields. Coming into the game, Kohli had picked Bumrah for 112 runs off 72 balls, a strike rate of 155. In 10 innings, he had been dismissed by Bumrah only twice. The third time was truly game-changing.”World best batsman ,” (I’m yet to break the stumps of the world’s best batsman. I’m coming), announces Jasprit Bumrah in an IPL commercial. There wasn’t just one ” (breaking the stumps) moment, but many. It didn’t come through a toe-crusher, but a mean bouncer. For a batsman who picks lengths very quickly, Kohli was surprised by the zip of the short ball and mistimed a pull to midwicket, with Royal Challengers needing 72 off 38 balls. This was a comeback of sorts for Bumrah, who had been taken for three boundaries by Kohli in his previous over.The end result may have been different had Colin de Grandhomme held his cool, but with Royal Challengers needing 22 of 12, Bumrah did what Bumrah does, getting every variation right, his precision freakishly to the point.An off-colour de Grandhomme looked to let de Villiers do the hitting, except Bumrah’s aim was inch-perfect: yorker, bouncer, yorker. Even de Villiers could only manage 1 off 3 with one leg bye, and it left Royal Challengers needing 17 off the final over. This was as classic a contest as it could get: a fast-evolving legend keeping in his cross hairs a bona fide legend. A match won when it should’ve gone the other way, two points stolen from right under the nose of the master. IPL 2019 woke up truly, and how.

It’s not only India fans who are obsessed with him

Melinda Farrell14-Jan-20191:37

Has a cricketer ever had as much attention as Virat Kohli in 2018?

“If you want to win a series away from home, it has to be an obsession. And once you are obsessed, changing your decisions according to opinions is not an option at all. Instinctively, you have a gut feeling of playing a shot or bowling a particular ball. And inside if you feel good about doing something in a particular Test match, you should just follow that. You can’t change for someone else.”

***In the concrete bowels of the SCG, Virat Kohli climbs the steps and takes his seat at the table, behind the microphones, facing around 35 journalists and more than a dozen cameras.India lead the series 2-1; the Border-Gavaskar Trophy has been retained but the historic series win is not secure. Australia could still draw the series with a victory in Sydney.A journalist asks if history matters to Kohli.”If you ask me very honestly, no,” Kohli replies. “Because what’s gone is not in our control and what is going to come is not something you need to think about. We need to stay in the present and focus on the things we can do.”Kohli goes on to talk about “the controllables” and regurgitates the standard lines that a captain is wont to do when the game ahead means everything and a loss is too awful to contemplate. Best to minimise and deflect expectation. Control the controllables. Focus on the present. Any Test victory is special.The table in the press conference room is draped with Cricket Australia’s slogan in its attempt to reconnect with fans after an annus horribilis: “It’s Your Game.” It could be there solely for Kohli. It’s his game, after all.Before the series started, it was all about Kohli. It’s always about Kohli. Six months earlier, in England, it was the same, and it precedes every other series involving India. How do you stop him scoring? How do you take his wicket? Can he be provoked? Will he provoke? Is his captaincy up to the mark? What about that other time Kohli did that thing and people reacted?Other Indian players starred in the series win in Australia, so why are we still obsessing over Virat Kohli?•Getty ImagesIndian fans laugh at the opposition. Kohli lives in your heads, rent-free, they say. They are right.Kohli has moved in, set up his furniture and is sitting on his comfy couch in a smoking jacket with his slippered feet up, watching a highlights reel of a historic series victory. If he smoked, he’d be puffing on a stogie. If he drank, he’d be sipping a fine whiskey.But it’s not just opposition fans, it’s India fans as well. It’s the media in every country he visits, it’s the media at home.The phenomenon that is Kohli could not have happened in any previous era. There have been other rock-star cricketers in India, from the moment Sunil Gavaskar became a national obsession, to the age of the venerated Sachin Tendulkar, but they came before the world transformed into its own social media microcosm.ALSO READ: Bat, breathe, bat: the essence of KohliBut it isn’t also just a question of timing. Kohli is a magnet for attention because of who he is as a cricketer and a person. His playing style is as attractive, domineering and entertaining as it is technically and tactically sound, and as a result, it seems to eclipse all else. A video of his nets session in Adelaide caused worldwide rapturous swooning of Beatlemania proportions. In terms of the contest about to unfold it was meaningless. Kohli himself had a modest – by his ludicrously high standards – series, although his century in Perth ranks among the best of his career. A more telling video would have shown Cheteshwar Pujara modestly practising his forward defence and his patient leaves in the Adelaide nets – turn sound on for the gentle thwack and whoosh of the ball hitting the net, folks! – but that wouldn’t have generated the views or the clicks. It’s all about Kohli, Kohli, Kohli.Fox Cricket commissioned at least two promos for their coverage in Australia that feature only the visiting captain. One shows him in action with the bat – familiar scenes: smiting the ball, interspersed with intense close-ups and the message, The King is Coming. In another, a cartoon Kohli appears smiling in different heroic guises: as a flying Superman, as Usain Bolt striking his winning pose, as Ethan Hunt carrying out a Mission Impossible.***You suspect he is acutely aware of his own magnetism and uses it to the team’s advantage. Last time India toured Australia, Kohli was majestic with the bat, took over the captaincy from MS Dhoni, and lost the series. This time around, with all eyes and cameras on him again, Pujara and Jasprit Bumrah were the chief destroyers; one an immovable object that blunted Australia’s bowling attack, the other an irresistible force whose quirky, jerky catapult action scythed through the fragile batting.1:17

Throwdowns and majestic pulls: Kohli hits the Adelaide nets

But Pujara is so modest and quietly unassuming, he fades to almost invisibility around his more boisterous team-mates as they cheerfully mock his inability to dance. And Bumrah is the smiling puppy of the team, bounding around the field and politely answering questions with the refreshing demeanour of a newbie who suddenly realises he is one of the world’s best bowlers and can’t quite believe it.Kohli, meanwhile, sucks eyeballs and camera lenses his way. No other player has their own islolated camera follow them for such extended periods of time. Whether it’s intentional or a natural consequence of his animation, even on days when India are fielding, the agency photo files are crammed with Kohli shots. And why not? He glares, he laughs, he gestures with more intensity than anyone else.ALSO READ: How Kohli has changed India’s attitudeThe moment of his century in Perth was pure Virat. Having withstood a peppering by the quicks and a stinging blow to the elbow, he leaned into a slightly overpitched delivery from Mitchell Starc and imperiously drove straight back down the ground past the bowler to equal Sachin Tendulkar’s tally of centuries in Australia. He pointed to his bat and made talking motions with his hand. I let my bat do the talking, he seemed to be saying. But Kohli doesn’t just talk with his bat. His hands and his eyes do plenty of talking, whether it’s flipping the bird as a tempestuous youth, admonishing Joe Root’s mic-drop celebration with his own, or blowing kisses to his wife. After Bumrah took six wickets in the first innings at the MCG, Kohli doffed his hat in a show of deference as they walked off. That image, more than the one of Bumrah holding up the ball, was the one that captured the imagination. Even when he tries to shift the spotlight away it’s impossible for him to hide.***

“With the stump mics and cameras and all these things, honestly, when the bowler is bowling you aren’t thinking whether the stump mic is on or the camera is on or not. And when you are facing that ball, literally there is no one in the stadium apart from you and that ball. So, these things are totally irrelevant, and you are actually not aware of them when you are on the field. It’s never bothered me, it’s never been something that’s of importance to me.”

Players say such things all the time, of course. They don’t pay any attention to the media or fans or critics, they tell you. But Kohli gives the impression of being more intensely focused than most. Perhaps his ability to switch off the outside world was gained when he suffered a great loss. He was 19, playing a first-class match for Delhi, when his father passed away. He famously went on to make 90 runs.Now he has to shut out the obsession of the entire cricketing world, and since the start of his relationship with Anushka Sharma, the world of Bollywood celebrity. He sits in the intersection of scrutiny few others inhabit. While there is adoration for actors, they don’t have to bear the responsibility of carrying an entire nation’s obsession with them.The media feeds on Kohli as much as he feeds them. Run a story about Kohli and you’ll get clicks. Videos get views, social-media posts get likes. Mention him in a tweet at your peril, such will be the passion and sensitivity of the response. Some love him, some hate him. When Kohli plays well, he is the story, when he doesn’t play well, he is the story. It’s a never-ending circle between the man, the fans and the media.Kohli is not only a sporting hero, he’s also one half of a celebrity couple, which makes him ideal fodder for the paparazzi•Getty ImagesAt ESPNcricinfo, as at any other media organisation, it becomes a matter of editorial judgement and even debate: go for an easy win or search for something else? It’s not always a straightforward answer; you can’t ignore the story of the day. Some journalists hate it. Others enjoy it. Many accept it. The plethora of random photos available beg to be used. A day in the life of his helmet. A series of his reactions.Around 45% of this site’s Instagram posts from this series feature Kohli. Sometimes an intervention is required. Conversely, you can’t ignore the world’s best player. Because here you are, reading almost to the end of another piece centred on a man we don’t really know.***

“What I do or how I think, I am not going to take a banner outside to the world and explain that this is who I am and you need to like me or stuff like that. These are things that happen on the outside. I literally have no control over that.”

We can only guess at what life must be like at the centre of this hurricane, but he at least gives the impression of residing in the calm eye. In the final days of the fourth Test, with victory in the series all but assured, Kohli seemed more relaxed than he had ever been. After becoming just the second Indian captain to enforce the follow-on in Australia, he walked out and took his place at second slip, next to Pujara. He looked over at Ajinkya Rahane in the gully and laughed. After bad light forced the players off the field, he was laughing with Ravi Shastri and the umpires. The intensity had made way for satisfaction.Kohli walked up to the dais on his own and collected the trophy, a moment alone on the stage. When his team-mates joined him on the stage, he handed the trophy to Mayank Agarwal and stood to the side. But there was no missing his presence.***After the celebrations, in the concrete bowels of the SCG, Kohli climbs the steps and takes his seat at the table, behind the microphones, facing about 35 journalists and more than a dozen cameras.India lead the series 2-1; the Border-Gavaskar Trophy has been retained and history has been made.A journalist asks if history still doesn’t matter and, just for a moment, the standard replies of inward focus and shutting out the world are put aside. He smiles.”We all play mind games, don’t we?”Because whether we – or he – like it or not, Virat Kohli is living in our heads.

With two power-packed line-ups in West Indies and England first up at a high-scoring Trent Bridge, Pakistan’s top order might need to look at their scoring rates

Nagraj Gollapudi in Nottingham30-May-2019Pakistan batsmen have scored nine centuries this year in 15 ODIs. That is the most by any team. Yet, stunningly, all those hundreds have come in defeats. And that might well be down to the pace at which those runs have come. The numbers suggest so. What might hurt Pakistan further is that they don’t seem to have identified their slow scoring rate as an issue.Since the 2015 World Cup, in terms of the combined strike rate for the top three, Pakistan are seventh among the ten teams taking part in the 2019 event. Imam-ul-Haq features among the top ten for batsmen with the lowest strike rates (with at least 1000 runs since the 2015 World Cup); Mohammad Hafeez is in there too.Of those nine centuries, four were scored by the top-order trio of Imam (two), Fakhar Zaman and Babar Azam. The three of them were integral to Pakistan scoring 300-plus totals consistently in the recent ODI series in England, but they lost that series 4-0.One of the talking points in that series was around the Trent Bridge ODI, where England hunted down a target of 341 with three balls to spare. Babar scored 115 in that match, but at a strike rate of 102.67. In contrast, Jason Roy’s match-winning 114 took 23 balls fewer (89), and came at a robust strike rate of 128.08.In the previous ODI, in Bristol, Imam helped Pakistan to what seemed a formidable total of 358 for 9. He hit 151 at a brisk pace, off just 131 balls. But that seemed sluggish when England chased down the target with more than five overs to spare, with openers Jonny Bairstow and Roy blasting the Pakistan bowling to ransack 159 runs in the first 17.3 overs (105 balls).Sarfaraz Ahmed slams another shot over the leg side•Getty ImagesAs for Fakhar, in his first 18 ODIs, he had a strike rate of 101 and an average of 76. In his last 18 matches, the strike rate has dropped to 91 and the average to 32.In the last three years, Babar and Imam have scored a number of centuries, but the average balls taken by the pair are 107 and 108 respectively. The top two in that list, Bairstow and Roy, have taken 75 and 83 balls on an average for their three-figure scores respectively.In a World Cup where big hitting and big scores are expected to be the norm, this could be a problem, but do Pakistan even recognise it? Before leaving for England, Babar responded to a question on him chasing milestones by pointing to his No. 1 rank among T20I batsmen (he is also No. 7 in ODIs). “If I can be No. 1 in the world without power-hitting, then I don’t need power-hitting,” he said.Even Pakistan captain Sarfaraz Ahmed was reluctant to concede that there was an issue.”As far as a strike rate is concerned, I don’t think it matters a lot,” Sarfaraz said on the eve of Pakistan’s World Cup opener against West Indies at Trent Bridge. “If England played at 140 (in that ODI series), our batsmen played at a strike rate of 120. Both teams scored similar runs: If they made 370, we also made 360 and 340,” he said. “Their playing style is different, ours is different. We will try and play as far as possible according to the situation.”If we have to hit at a strike rate of 130, we will do that. We will play as per the requirements of the scoreboard.”To be fair to Pakistan, they batted first in all but one of those games against England, but ‘situational awareness’ is not just a fancy term that coaches like to spew. T20 cricket has forced think tanks to mine deep data on every player. The importance of instinct can never be undermined, but Pakistan would be foolish to ignore the fact that metrics have a place in modern cricket, and their opponents will be aware that Pakistan fail to up the ante as the game progresses.In overs 11 to 40 since the last World Cup, Pakistan’s run rate of 5.35 is a mid-table figure among the ten teams playing in this World Cup. Their batsmen take 13 balls per boundary, which is three more than England, who are perched at the top. Even in the last ten overs, Pakistan have struggled, hitting at 7.54 runs per over, which is sixth among the top ten teams.Pakistan’s first two opponents at the World Cup are West Indies and England, and both matches are at Trent Bridge, which is likely to be sunny and warm and, in any case, often makes batting look easy. Andre Russell has already warned that West Indies will target scores in the region of 400, and England are – unofficially – targeting 500 at some point in the tournament. Can Pakistan match them?

What do the qualifying scenarios look like for Sunrisers, KKR, Kings XI and Royals?

S Rajesh03-May-2019While the top three teams have distanced themselves from the rest of the pack, there’s plenty at stake in the lower half of the table, with four teams still in the hunt for the last playoff spot. Ahead of the Kings XI Punjab v Kolkata Knight Riders game, here is a look at how that race could pan out.Knight Riders and Kings XI are both on 10 points, and while Knight Riders have the better net run-rate (0.1 to -0.296), that factor is unlikely to come into play, given that Sunrisers Hyderabad are so far ahead at 0.653.Hence, Friday’s game is a virtual eliminator.

• If Knight Riders lose on Friday, even by a slim margin of, say, five runs, they will have to win their last game – away, against Mumbai Indians – by about 75 runs and hope that Sunrisers lose to Royal Challengers Bangalore by around the same margin, to squeeze past Sunrisers on NRR (The sum of the margins needs to be around 150, so if Sunrisers lose by 50, Knight Riders will have to win by 100.)
• For Kings XI, the margins are even more improbable: if they lose by five runs, then the sum of the margins will need to be around 240 for them to go through. That is, if Kings XI beat Chennai Super Kings by 100 runs in their last game, they will need Sunrisers to lose to Royal Challengers by 140 runs.This means it’s more than likely that it’s the end of the road for whoever loses Friday’s game.
• Even the winners of Friday’s game will have to wait on the result of Sunrisers’ final league game to know their chances of qualifying. If Sunrisers win, they will almost certainly take the fourth playoff spot. If, for example, Sunrisers end up beating Royal Challengers by five runs, Knight Riders will have to win each of their two remaining matches by around 75 runs to surpass Sunrisers’ NRR.If Sunrisers lose to Royal Challengers, then the winner of the Kings XI-Knight Riders game will make the playoffs if they also win their last league game.
• The other team in the hunt for a playoff spot is Rajasthan Royals, who are on 11 points with a game to play, against Delhi Capitals (away) on Saturday. Mumbai Indians’ Super Over win on Thursday means Royals still have a chance of qualifying. That will only happen if they beat Capitals, if Sunrisers lose to Royal Challengers, and if the winners of the Kings XI-Knight Riders game lose their last match.

Tourists thankful for David Warner and Marnus Labuschagne staving off the potential of a 2015 Trent Bridge horror show

Daniel Brettig at Headingley22-Aug-2019We were told Headingley can be a great place to bowl under cloud cover. It was. We were told Headingley can be a tremendously fast-scoring ground if the batsmen can get in and the bowlers lose their line. It was. We were told David Warner needed to be more proactive to score runs and get into the series. He did. We saw at Lord’s that Marnus Labuschagne had what it takes for Test cricket. He still does. And we knew Australia’s batting line-up without Steven Smith would be decidedly brittle. Yes it is.If all these major themes ran more or less to expectations on day one at Leeds, Australia’s survival to the end of a truncated day, having been sent in, allowed them the conditional satisfaction of not having lost the Test on day one. They had been committed to batting and England to bowling no matter what happened at the toss, which was intriguing given the conditions.Undoubtedly, the captain Tim Paine and the coach Justin Langer reasoned that the second of back-to-back Tests meant fresh bowlers were worth the gamble of getting runs on the board, even if Stuart Broad, Jofra Archer, Chris Woakes and Ben Stokes had plenty of advantages to begin with.ALSO READ: ‘I had a lot of luck’ – WarnerThe few members of the Australia side who had experienced the key matches of the 2015 Ashes series, namely Warner, Josh Hazlewood, Nathan Lyon and Pat Cummins, knew that there was every chance they could be shot out in the blink of an eye here. At Trent Bridge the team led by Michael Clarke lasted just 18.3 overs, not without knowing to a good degree what they were going to be up against. As Chris Rogers put it in :”At Edgbaston I’d been going back to Broad and I felt that contributed to my two dismissals, so for Trent Bridge I decided to concentrate on getting forward to try to smother his swing and seam, a bit like covering a spinner’s turn on a helpful pitch,” he wrote. “Second ball I moved forward to do just that, and thought I had it covered. To my horror, I didn’t hear the gentle thud of ball onto a defensive bat, but a sharper snick to Cook. I left the crease thinking ‘What the hell happened there?’ That sensation would run through the rest of the team.”There was plenty of analysis afterwards saying we were pushing too hard at the ball, but I can honestly say as someone who’d played a lot in England, I was trying to smother away movement I knew to be there. As Broad had got me lbw with a similar ball at Birmingham, I knew I couldn’t just let these balls go. Sitting back in the dressing room and watching the carnage that followed, it genuinely felt like there was a wicket every ball. I had my head down, but I could hear appeal, after appeal, after appeal.”It was extraordinary. If anyone needs reminding, we were out for 60. What’s more, we all knew it meant the end of the series, and a few careers, in the most humiliating circumstances possible.”That day, as subsequent investigations concluded, saw an inordinately large number of deliveries take catchable edges. In other words, England bowled well but had all the good fortune, Australia batted in mediocre fashion but had none of it.

Warner was able to push through the early moments of his outside edge being singed and his ego being punctured, importantly taking almost every opportunity to score

Certainly Warner, who watched his first ball from Mark Wood drift down leg side before inside edging behind a near unplayable nip-backer from his second to be out of the picture almost as early as Rogers, had no opportunity to impose himself that day, and enjoyed a far more liberal supply of luck as he sought to break a sequence of seven Test innings without passing 50. Eleven times in his first 26 balls Warner was beaten, as Broad gained the swing and seam away from around the wicket that had so confounded Rogers four years ago.But he was able to push through those early moments of his outside edge being singed and his ego being punctured, importantly taking almost every opportunity to score. At the other end Marcus Harris and Usman Khawaja did not last long, but Labuschagne got himself in as skilfully and comfortably as he had managed at Lord’s, showing once again that his prolific run of scoring for Glamorgan was indeed a useful indicator of his readiness for the Ashes, Division Two county cricket or not.Critically, Warner and Labuschagne were able to jump on the early waywardness of Woakes and Stokes, neither of whom looked immediately limber for the task of a second Test in four days. Though the ball still swung and seamed, runs accrued as freely as at any time in this series so far, helped by a pair of fives for Warner, one via his bat in the manner that favoured Stokes amid the drama of the World Cup final’s conclusion.Together they put on 110 in a mere 23 overs, priceless runs made even more so by what was to follow. There was a widespread feeling at the ground and elsewhere that Joe Root lingered too long before reverting to Archer and Broad – particularly the latter’s angle around the wicket to Warner. But then Root’s thinking was also influenced by the short turnaround between matches, and when Archer did return and cranked up his pace into the 89mph range to find Warner’s edge, the captain reacted as much with frustration as celebration.As if to signal the game’s entry into a third distinct phase, the Headingley crowd roused itself and England enjoyed some measure of counterbalance to the good fortune they had felt was missing earlier. Broad, pitching a fraction fuller and straighter, found lavish movement to beat and bowl Travis Head, then Archer was the recipient of a bowled dismissal when Matthew Wade saw the ball rebound off thigh pad to disturb the leg bail.So 110 for 0 in 23 overs had become 3 for 3 in 15 balls, and Australia struggled for the sort of Smith-inspired lower-order stands of Edgbaston thereafter. Labuschagne fought as best he could, but lost Paine to an lbw that looked more marginal than ball-tracking was ultimately to show, then Cummins to an “edge” that appeared to take place before the ball passed the bat. In this closing passage was another lesson of Headingley: tight bowling and pressure can make innocuous balls dangerous, as proven when Stokes pinned Lauschagne lbw with a full toss.In the conditions, Australia could possibly have been rolled for 60, the 88 they cobbled here against Pakistan in 2010, or the 102 England made in 2009. But they had been intent on batting anyway, taking on a commission that only Warner and Labuschagne managed to take up. We knew an Ashes Test without Steven Smith would bring the teams even closer together. It has.

It will be India’s first Test match in eight months, and while quite a few players select themselves, some spots remain up for grabs

Sidharth Monga20-Aug-2019Who bats after Kohli?For a change, India don’t have to debate over their top four. Prithvi Shaw’s absence makes it an easy call to open with Mayank Agarwal, who debuted with an impressive 76 and 42 in Melbourne, and KL Rahul. Cheteshwar Pujara comes into a rare series with no sword hanging over his head. Virat Kohli is a certainty at No. 4.It is after this that calls have to be made. With Hardik Pandya not available, it is likely India will play two more batsmen. Especially if pitches in the West Indies continue to be seam-friendly, it makes sense to bolster the batting – and taking 20 wickets is not that much of an issue as witnessed in Australia. At any rate, picking two out of the three options is not an easy task, leave alone picking just one.Whom would you pick as India’s openers?Contender 1 – Hanuma Vihari: In a short career, Vihari has done his bit to find a place in the side, and even opened in Melbourne. He was promised that Melbourne was a stop-gap arrangement, and that he would be given a fair go in the middle order. He comes with the advantage of having been on the shadow ‘A’ tour of the West Indies, and with a century in that unofficial Test series.Contender 2 – Rohit Sharma: Rohit doesn’t get to play much first-class cricket between his infrequent Test opportunities, but it is no surprise that the team management is often tempted to punt on his promise. Rohit’s last first-class game was in December last year, but it was the MCG Test and he scored a composed unbeaten half-century there. Since then, his competitor for the middle-order slot, the next contender, has done nothing to push him out of contention.Contender 3 – Ajinkya Rahane: Rahane is the vice-captain of the side and as such has the public backing of captain Kohli. But he is going through a wretched run of form. It’s over two years and 17 Tests since he last scored a century. In first-class cricket since the Australia tour – Ranji Trophy and second division county – Rahane has averaged 27 with one century.Which two middle-order batsmen would you pick?Saha or Pant?There is often an unwritten pact in international cricket sides that if an established performer goes out with injury, he gets his spot back when he returns. In Wriddhiman Saha’s case, though, his one injury became three, and he has spent 18 months out of Test cricket. In his absence, Rishabh Pant has scored the only centuries for an India wicketkeeper in England and in Australia. On his return to first-class cricket, Saha has hit two fifties in the two unofficial Tests for India A on the shadow tour of the West Indies.In a two-Test series, you don’t expect the decision made in the first Test to change unless there is something drastic. So whoever gets selected should stay for the second Test too.What about the spinner(s)?If India play six specialist batsmen, it leaves space for only one spinner; the three fast bowlers – Jasprit Bumrah, Ishant Sharma and Mohammed Shami – select themselves. Now if only one spinner plays, it will be interesting to see how much has changed since coach Ravi Shastri called Kuldeep Yadav India’s No. 1 Test spinner away from Asia in response to the left-arm wristspinner’s five-for in Sydney. If Kohli agrees with Shastri, they could be leaving out the Man of the Series from the last time India toured the West Indies, R Ashwin, who has failed to finish India’s last two overseas tours with fitness issues.If India do play two, there could equally be a case made for Ravindra Jadeja, who has done nothing wrong as a Test spinner, and also brings his batting to the party. If there’s a consolation for the team management taking these tough calls, it is that unlike the middle order, the choice of the spinner and the wicketkeeper is an embarrassment of riches.

How did a man who had not bowled a ball in the previous eight months come to be at the top of his mark with Sri Lanka in dire need?

Andrew Fidel Fernando at Chester-le-Street01-Jul-2019Gather round, kiddos. Let me tell you a story about Sri Lankan cricket. What would you like to hear? The story about how Dimuth Karunaratne, who hadn’t played ODI cricket for four years, became captain for the 2019 World Cup. Ah, that is a good one. Crazy, no? Unbelievable even. All the things you want in a good story. Or what about the tale of the Sri Lankan selectors who picked about five wrong players in a squad of 15 for the tournament? That is not that hard to believe, I suppose, but it’s not bad as well.But actually, , the one I’m thinking about is even better than those two. It’s dramatic. It’s funny. It’s colourful. It is hauntingly sad and fabulously uplifting at the same time. Like the best stories, it has so many layers. Most of all, it’s beyond insane.Let me tell you about the time Angelo Mathews took a wicket with his first ball of the World Cup, and won the match for Sri Lanka.So there once was a player called Mathews. He was captaining the team around late 2018, if I remember right. Then he ran out two team-mates at the Asia Cup, and the selectors sacked him from the captaincy, and dropped him from the team. As if that was all not enough, the coach who had asked him to become captain in the first place, essentially called him fat in the most roundabout and traumatic way possible.This sounds like this should be the ending of the story, no? It’s not. Just wait. This is just the start.So this Mathews mopes around for about a month after being left out of the limited-overs teams, but soon enough, he gets picked for Tests. Fellow is still bloody seething at the coach. So when he makes a couple of half-centuries in the Test series against England, he points to his bat and does a yapping sign with his gloves, to show that he’s “letting the bat do the talking”. You know these young buggers, no? Always have to make a big show of everything.ALSO READ: Avishka, bowlers hand West Indies another defeatIn the next series, in New Zealand, he does something even bigger. With Sri Lanka battling to save the Test, fellow bats a whole entire day with the same partner, against one of the best attacks in the world. He gets to a hundred, and guess what? He drops to the ground, does 10 push ups, looks at the dressing room, and flexes his biceps. Can you imagine? Bugger is basically at open war with the coach. He’s telling him: look how strong I am. Look how fit. I can bat an entire day, and another session besides. He even started bowling again in that series. Foo! Fellow was giving his critics a nice slap.Oh. What does he do in the next Test the following week, you ask? He tears a hamstring while running a two and is ruled out of all cricket for another four months, of course.Now, Mathews’ calves and hamstrings are not like your legs or my legs. He played a lot of cricket in three years when he was captain, and ever since then he seemed to be missing more cricket than he played, because of injuries. He stopped bowling for months on end. He broke down as soon as he started again. It got to the stage where he would get injured if he even thought about bowling.So eventually, Mathews made it back into the one-day team, thanks to the sacking of the selectors who had sacked him. During this period there is so much infighting within the national team, that the sports minister gets Mathews and some other senior players together for a chat after Lasith Malinga’s wife makes fun of Thisara Perera on Facebook (this is a crazy story for another time).Anyway, Mathews rolls up to the World Cup, and Sri Lanka would love for him to be bowling. They could really do with the seam movement he offers with the new ball, and the control he gives during the middle overs. If they got overs from him, they could have played an extra batsman, which could have solved some of their batting issues (but probably not, though, who are we kidding?).

Then in it comes, a 115kph, floating petal of a delivery – a ball Pooran should send screaming through the covers. Instead, through some quirk of physics, he edges it

But of course, either fellow doesn’t want to bowl, or the trainers have told him not to. It’s too much of a risk. He gets into the team because of his batting anyway. And look at the way he moves around the field. Children in the stands have become middle-aged slobs with beer guts in the time it takes him to complete one chase down to the boundary.Now, listen. Remember all that. Because it all comes to a head in the game against West Indies. Sri Lanka have batted well for the first time in the tournament and put up a big score, but what do you know, these Carribbean fellows seem desperate to chase it down. One young guy, Nicholas Pooran, is playing the innings of his life, hitting every bowler – the great Malinga included – to every part of a pretty big ground in Durham. They only have to get 31 off three overs, and the Sri Lankan captain has a huge problem: there is no one to bowl two of the last three overs. The selectors have screwed up the squad so much that the only specialist spinner they’ve brought on tour has been taken apart by the West Indies middle order. He’s going at well over seven an over. There’s no way he can bowl his full 10.And then it happens. Mathews goes to the captain. Not the captain that replaced him as captain. Oh no. This is the captain that replaced the captain that replaced the captain that replaced him. All in the space of nine months. He says to this captain: “I know I haven’t been bowling, but I have experience.” So this sometime allrounder, who now has legs so fragile that you can’t even look at them for more than five seconds straight because even that is too much of a strain, playing in a World Cup he was so set on not bowling in that he’d not delivered a single ball in the nets for eight entire months, playing for a team coached by a guy he’s recently been at war with, getting ready to bowl the high-pressure 48th over in a match that the opposition is very nearly winning.Eight months! Not a single rolling over of the arm for eight months. How does he possibly hope to even land it on the pitch? Forget bowling in a high-pressure international – if a normal person tried to so much as scratch their nose after not having done it for eight months, they’d probably get it so wrong they’d punch themselves in the face.But, incredibly, Mathews steams in almost from the sightscreen like a stampede of water buffalo, wind flowing throw his hair, a kinetic portrait of machismo, and hurls down a monstrous 150kph bouncer that has flames coming out of it, which Pooran has no choice but to fend straight to gully.No, I’m kidding, of course. That would be crazy for Mathews. But what actually happens is in some ways, even crazier. Instead, our guy ambles in, off his very modest run-up, taking the most ginger steps. Pooran, who has been middling everything like he has a bazooka hidden in his bat, awaits him, low in his stance, like a wound-up spring, but muscular. And, in it comes, a 115kph, floating flower petal of a delivery. (Most fast bowlers have slower balls that are a good 5kph faster than this.) It wafts in with the breeze, pitches on an utterly unintimidating length, squirts off the surface, a little wide of off stump – a ball Pooran in this form should send screaming through the covers. Instead, through some inexplicable quirk of physics, he edges it. The keeper completes the catch. Mathews is punching the air with more vigour than he bowled that ball with. Team-mates coming into mob him are at risk of getting their lights knocked out.The match is basically over. West Indies fans have their heads in their hands. Sri Lankans are screaming and dancing. On air, Kumar Sangakkara, who will have known every detail that led up to this wicket, is trying to contain his giggles and failing. Nothing was riding on this match in reality, but for half an hour it had felt like everything was. Pooran, out for 118 off 103 balls, is devastated. Malinga bowls the next over, but even if he concedes three sixes, it doesn’t matter – there’s another over from flower-petal bowler Mathews coming up.Sri Lanka win by 23, and there’s dancing all around the ground. And that, children, is the story of the craziest ball of the 2019 World Cup.

Ten years into his Test career, the numbers indicate that the West Indies quick, in his second coming, has a place among his generation’s best

Karthik Krishnaswamy29-Aug-2019James Anderson’s Test bowling average is 26.94. Kemar Roach’s is 26.95.Among Roach’s other contemporary fast bowlers, Trent Boult, Morne Morkel, Mitchell Starc, Mitchell Johnson and Stuart Broad all have poorer averages than Roach.Is Roach one of the world’s best fast bowlers at the moment then?

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Back in the Australian summer of 2015-16, no one would have dared ask that question. In a collective nightmare of a tour for West Indies’ bowlers, Roach had it worse than his colleagues. In three Test matches, he sent down 246 balls, conceded 247 runs, and failed to pick up a single wicket.It was the culmination of Roach’s worst phase as an international cricketer. He had suffered two major injuries – shoulder and ankle – which had sent him home from tours of India in 2013-14 and South Africa in 2014-15. In between, in April 2014, he had escaped mostly unhurt from a car crash.When he came back from the ankle injury, his pace – which had once consistently hovered around 90mph – had dropped significantly, and so too had his wicket-taking threat. He averaged more than 50 in three successive Test series – in England, against Australia at home, and in Sri Lanka – and the Australia tour brought him the ignominy of no average, and an economy rate of 6.02.West Indies dropped Roach after that series, and he would spend 19 months out of the side before returning for the tour of England in August 2017.

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Speaking to the recently, coaches Peter Vaughn and Richard Straker revealed how they had helped Roach turn his bowling and mental state around after his axing from the West Indies team. Among the changes they made were adjustments to his run-up and pre-delivery leap, which enabled him to attain greater stability at the crease.The work that went into Roach’s action is evident when you view before-and-after footage of his bowling. In videos from the MCG Test in December 2015, he appears to be out of balance at the point of delivery, his left foot pulling away towards the off side as it lands on the crease.

Kemar Roach to Steven Smith at the MCG in 2015 (left) and Kemar Roach to Jonny Bairstow at Kensington Oval in 2019. Focus on the front-foot landing. pic.twitter.com/m1I8pQgLa0

— Karthik Krishnaswamy (@the_kk) August 29, 2019

In videos from the home series against England earlier this year, Roach is a bowler transformed. At release, his front leg is more or less perpendicular to the ground, and forms a lovely vertical line with his bowling arm.With the mechanics of his bowling back in place, Roach has enjoyed the purplest of patches since his return, picking up 67 wickets in 17 Tests at an average of 20.98 and a strike rate of 43.7. Of the 31 bowlers with 50 or more wickets since the start of 2017, Roach has the sixth-best average and the third-best strike rate.

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AFP”Make the batsman play” – to understand that old adage, watch Roach’s bowling from last week’s Antigua Test against India. Four of his five wickets were from balls delivered from wide of the crease – from around the wicket in the case of the left-handed Rishabh Pant – angling into a tight line close to off stump, and straightening late to catch the outside edge. Each time, given the line and the initial angle, the batsman simply to play. And the length was such that they had to defend.The other wicket, of Cheteshwar Pujara in the second innings, came off a similar delivery, except it kept coming back in with the angle to bowl the batsman through the gate. That gate had been created by all the balls that Roach had moved away from the batsman, from roughly the same spot on the pitch.ALSO READ: West Indies’ run drought at the topIn Antigua, Roach made the batsmen play – that is, made them play defensive shots – more than any other fast bowler on either side. Of the 270 balls he bowled, batsmen defended 144 (roughly 53%) and were able to leave only 52 (19%).The batsmen left a comparable percentage of deliveries from Miguel Cummins and Mohammed Shami too, but they also played more shots off those two than they did off Roach, who instead forced them to defend ball after ball. His line was relentlessly probing, his length seldom gave away the drive, cut or pull, and there was movement both ways to complicate life further.