Kolkata Knight Riders were at the mercy of the rain gods for more than three hours, but Gautam Gambhir and the unheralded Ishank Jaggi ensured that the wet weather ended as a mere footnote in victory

Shashank Kishore in Bengaluru17-May-2017For over three hours, Kolkata Knight Riders were on edge. A thunderstorm in Bengaluru threatened to have them packing up and boarding the first flight out on Thursday morning, instead of staying on for the second qualifier. Players and members of their support staff kept pacing up and down the stairs to check the intensity of the rain. Nathan Coulter-Nile, who spent large parts of the last two weeks recovering from concussion and headaches, had played a key role in restricting Sunrisers Hyderabad to 128. To go out now would be a bitter pill to swallow.Understandably, the players were by themselves, quietly huddled inside the cozy comforts of the dressing room, not sure if their botched chase in the final league game against Mumbai Indians, where they needed 25 off the last three overs, would come back to haunt them. Finishing a point ahead of Sunrisers could have left them sipping a hot cup of tea on the rainy night, probably grooving to the DJ beats along with their celebrity owner Shah Rukh Khan. Now, it all seemed like torture. All they had played for during the course of the last 40 days now hinged on Chinnaswamy’s revamped drainage and playing conditions being stretched by two hours for the playoffs.At the other end, Sunrisers were calm and comfortable as they watched the rain hammer down; they wouldn’t have much to worry about if it continued to stay that way. The forecast was for more rain. But if there’s one thing you don’t trust in Bengaluru, apart from light-traffic notifications, it is any rain prediction. The 15,000 odd fans present, alternating between chants of “K-K-R!”, “S-R-K!” and, quite inexplicably, “Are-Ceee-Bee!”, remained patient. Nearly two hours after the scheduled start of the second innings, there was a glimmer of hope.The covers were being peeled off and the revamped drainage was at work. Resumption wasn’t far off. A full chase was on. But just as they were set to resume, the rain returned to tease KKR some more. The players retreated to a game of box cricket inside the change-rooms. They did anything that could put their restless legs to work. Sitting around wasn’t an option.As the clock ticked past the point where the game was certain to be reduced, Sunrisers, sensing they now had no option but to defend a revised score, brought out a bucket full of wet balls. Bowler after bowler rolled his arm over to get acclimatised. After a short wait to know the target they were to defend, it was finally conveyed to them that it would be 48. Six overs. Twenty-four minutes to determine if the defending champions would spend two more days in Bengaluru and earn the right to play Mumbai Indians in another elimination shootout.Even on a tacky surface where the ball was gripping, as has been the norm at Chinnaswamy this season, it wasn’t a stiff target. But Knight Riders came out and made it look like an arduous task. Chris Lynn allayed nerves by slashing his first ball off the tournament’s best bowler – Bhuvneshwar Kumar – for six. But he fell next ball to a yorker-length delivery. Knight Riders were one down in the very first over.Yusuf Pathan was sent in at No. 3 with desperation writ large on his face. After attempting a mistimed pull, he committed hara-kiri, taking off for a run blindly. By the time he turned back, Bhuvneshwar had flicked the ball back onto the stumps in his followthrough. Knight Riders, two down.Now the crowd was behind local boy Robin Uthappa, but in trying to play to the gallery, he pulled one straight to the deep-square leg fielder. As he walked off, he did well to not make eye contact with his captain Gautam Gambhir, fuming at what he’d just seen. Knight Riders, three down – for 12, seven balls into the chase.Now, it was Ishank Jaggi’s turn. For two months, he’d carried drinks. In his career, he had only played five IPL matches, the last of them with Deccan Chargers in 2012. Until the eve of the game, he had no inkling that an opportunity would come his way in a knockout game. He’d nearly seen the team’s net session finish and was winding up when he got a tap, asking him to pad up. He was the last man to have a hit. Manish Pandey’s rib injury meant an opening, an opportunity to feature in an IPL XI for the first time in five years, an opportunity to steer a tense chase with his captain.At the domestic T20 tournament, the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy, earlier this year, he left a lasting impression on Gambhir by hitting three fours and six sixes for East Zone. The captain ensured his name was a forced into the IPL auction pool at the last moment. Here, there wasn’t enough time to impress the man responsible for picking him, but he had to remain calm nevertheless. He got right behind the line first ball to play a proper back-foot defence. Gambhir walked across to punch his gloves at the end of the over. Perhaps never before had Gambhir celebrated a glorious back-foot defence this wildly.Then, realising the need to take the chase upon himself, Gambhir showed smarts to pick his spots. When there was width outside off, he steered the ball behind point. If it was short, he was happy to use the pace and pull or hook. In doing so, he reeled off crucial boundaries.Off in-form legspinner Rashid Khan, he was beaten twice, but showed why he is regarded one of the best players of spin, driving inside-out.The target was now into single digits. Jaggi, at his end, held his shape, held his composure, and hit the winning runs with four balls to spare. Gambhir pumped his fists and let out a roar. It was the roar of an angry man who had seen his side nearly wilt yet again. Then came the rare smile and the satisfaction of a win that could put them in a position to lift their third IPL crown.

Samit Patel’s rich vein of form has left him wondering, at 32, if he is a better player than he ever imagined – not a bad mindset before a Lord’s one-day final

Jon Culley29-Jun-2017In the days when it was often a necessity rather than a gratuitous boost to the bank account, a player’s benefit year tended to indicate that his career was moving towards the winding-down phase, that he had done his bit for club – and country – and that the public should feel free to show their appreciation via the collection buckets.What generally didn’t happen was that the beneficiary would suddenly discover, halfway through this valedictory tour of duty, that he was actually a better player than he thought he was and that, far from contemplating a life away from the game, he was looking forward to many more years in its pay.Samit Patel, 32 years old, 16 seasons a first-class player, 20,000 runs, 650 wickets and 60 England appearances in the account across all formats, is feeling a little like that as he prepares for a Lord’s final on Saturday in which Nottinghamshire’s presence is down to him as much as anyone.In the space of five innings in two competitions over 17 days last month, Patel scored 774 runs, his unbeaten 122 in an epic record run chase in the Royal London One-Day Cup semi-final against Essex at Chelmsford coming between consecutive double-hundreds in the Championship.Surrey, beaten in two successive Lord’s visits in this competition, now await at Lord’s.Yet while it may be the purple patch of his life, Patel does not believe it has come out of the blue. Working at Trent Bridge with Peter Moores, the former England coach who was the first to see Patel as an international player a decade ago, the middle-order stylist with the sideline in orthodox left-arm spin has had his eyes opened to improvements he didn’t know he could make. Rather than contemplating the end, he is thinking about a new beginning.”Mooresy is up there with the best coaches I’ve worked with,” Patel said, which is high praise indeed from a player whose comments on the value given by those who ply the cricket coaching trade have not always been complimentary.”He always makes you feel good about yourself and as a cricketer you need that, you need your tyres pumping up a bit. Yes, you also need the occasional kick up the backside but Mooresy is generally very supportive and, regardless of the way you’ve got out, he will always find a positive spin on it.”Where we have been working is on the tempo of my batting and on making decisions on when to attack and when to sit in. Mooresy has had me concentrate on playing the ball late. We talk about cushioning the ball, hitting it into the ground, because that eliminates me being caught point, or caught cover or mid-on, all the soft dismissals I have been labelled with.”I’d never really made big scores. I’d get to 110, 120 and think my next 50 would have to come off 20 balls. I’d get kind of giddy and just want to smash every ball.”Now I’m learning how to bat longer. On both occasions that I got to 200, not once did I think as I did before. I thought ‘just carry on doing what you are doing’ and I’ve never thought like that before so something must have happened to me to make me change.Samit Patel celebrates a remarkable victory in the semi-final•Getty Images”In your mind, you really do go back to when you aren’t getting runs and you are scratching for form, which reminds you that when it is your day you’ve got to try to cash in and make it your day as long as possible, and keep your form as long as you can. I’m 32 now, I’ve been around a few years – but you never do stop learning.”His popularity with the Trent Bridge crowd is never more evident than on sunny Twenty20 nights, when a Patel innings, lit up with classy cover drives, stylish clips and soaring sixes, inevitably dressed up further with a flourishing full follow-through, has often been the highlight of the night. His part in the semi-final at Chelmsford, when he was there to execute the winning strike, prompted an outpouring of warmth both on the ground and in front of countless TV screens back in Nottingham and around the county.There is affection for him in the dressing room, too, although in part thanks to the comedy value of his unpredictable timekeeping and his susceptibility to embarrassing run-outs.In the semi-final at Chelmsford, where Nottinghamshire were in uncharted territory in chasing 371 to win, Moores remarked on the calm assertiveness with which Patel and Steven Mullaney went about compiling their record 185-run fifth wicket partnership, Patel keeping his head even after the run-out of his fourth-wicket partner, Brendan Taylor, which could have derailed the chase.”The way Steven played – I’ve never seen anything like it,” Patel said. “He was hitting it at will in areas that had no fielders and he made it look risk free. The way the partnership developed it just got to the stage where I kept handing it back to him because he was hitting it and I didn’t need to.”In the end we got down to needing 80-something off 10 and you should do that. When he started to struggle a little bit you have to take it on yourself.”Victory was only achieved with two edges in the final over off Paul Walter, but Patel has such self-confidence he can make it all sound a natural route to victory.”I rode my luck at the end and we got there but I’m confident now that if I stay there I will probably get the team over the line. In the past, I probably would have thrown it away. I would have got to 50 and then got caught long off or some other soft dismissal. But I showed myself I can do it.”Patel celebrates the wicket of Tom Westley in the semi-final•Getty ImagesPatel’s achievements as a player are already impressive. Apart from his international career, dotted with frustrations but with some special moments to look back on – his match-winning 5 for 41 in an Oval ODI against South Africa in 2008 being one – he has been a member of two Championship winning teams at Trent Bridge, in 2005 and, more influentially, in 2010, and was man of the match for his bowling in the final of the Yorkshire Bank 40 final in 2013, having taken 3 for 21 in the 87-run victory over Glamorgan. The exhilaration he felt at Chelmsford was on a par with that.What has not changed about Samit Patel is his attitude to that hoary topic of his physical shape. He really does wish the questions about it would stop, even though the issue it became with the England management undoubtedly limited his international appearances.”I think that’s been put to bed now,” he said. “Things have moved on and I’ve been on a Test tour since then. I’d like to think there is still a chance for me to fulfil my ambitions. Mike Hussey and Paul Collingwood played on until late in their careers. I’m 32 and I’m still learning.”With my game I could go on for eight years and still be playing when I’m 40. So don’t write me off just yet.”

Dan Christian’s constant and rapid evolution is very much the story of T20. From a sloggy allrounder he is now a professional franchise cricketer touring the world

Jarrod Kimber24-Aug-2017This time last year Dan Christian was about to lead Nottinghamshire to T20 Final’s Day. He hadn’t played IPL since 2013, or for Australia since 2014. He was playing for Nottinghamshire as a batsman; his last Big Bash season was middling. He was just another player on the T20 circuit.Since Nottinghamshire lost on Finals Day last year, Christian has changed his game, changed his worth, and changed his future.It all started with some video analysis. “At the start of the season I saw some footage of my action, and my load up was going where it shouldn’t be. So I worked harder getting that tighter, then the rhythm came back, then the pace came back.” Unless you are a change-up superstar like Andrew Tye, being able to bowl quick is a great extra bow to have. “Now I have that pace back, that I lost for a couple of years. It certainly helps, certainly being able to run in and bowl a bouncer, stopping the batter getting on the front foot.”Christian’s season with Hobart Hurricanes started with him not thought of much as a bowler. Like with Nottinghamshire he’d become a middle-order batsman. The 2015-16 season he averaged 80 with the ball at more than eight an over, so they didn’t use him for a few games at the start of 2016-17. When they did he struck with every 12th ball he bowled, had an average of 14, and went at 7.44 an over. The improved bowling was helpful, because his year with the bat was a bit more ordinary, he only made 87 runs for the year.”I just batted flat out five where I’m probably better off just waiting until the ninth, tenth or eleventh, regardless of how many wickets we’ve lost. We played the Strikers at Adelaide, and Billy Stanlake ripped through us, and I went in at five and was out first ball, and the innings wasn’t over, but it meant that I wasn’t able to capitalise at the end. In hindsight Jon Wells, or someone like that should have gone in, who is a bit more adaptable.” Hobart’s season was poor and they didn’t qualify for the finals.Christian put himself into the IPL auction thinking he wouldn’t get picked, and that it would be okay if he didn’t, so his price tag was high for a guy coming off an average season. But Pune went for him at roughly USD150,000. “I didn’t think I’d play at all, and I only missed one game in the end, maybe two.” It was evident from Pune’s list that Christian wasn’t going to bat as high as four or five as he had for Hobart and Notts. “We had Stokes, Smith, Jinks [Rahane], up top, and Faf Du Plessis. So I knew if I was going to play it was going to be finishing the innings kind of role, and offering some overs in the middle period.” With Mitch Marsh injured Christian played a lot, and fulfilled the role asked of him perfectly. He hit a boundary every five balls, scored at a strike rate of 161. With the ball he took 11 wickets and went at 7.45 an over.He was a role player, but it turned out, a role player on a team that made the final, and with four balls to go in the final, he went in to bat. “I was stood at the other end and we needed seven off four with Steven Smith facing. Then Steve hit the first one out to deep point, amazing catch. Now Washington Sundar was on strike; first ball missed it, we ran the bye through. So we needed six off the last two.”

Tactically I learnt a lot, playing under Smith, talking to Dhoni, du Plessis, and Stephen Fleming off the field. I’ve seen a couple of times where I’ve seen a situation for Notts and thought, oh yeah, we saw this happen in the IPL, and we tried this, and it’s ended up working

The pitch was hard to score off all game, Mumbai’s 129 proving like Everest to Pune. Even with Smith and MS Dhoni batting it was more than defendable, and Christian wasn’t facing a standard bowler, he was facing Mitchell Johnson. “I’d done okay batting at the death, lap sweeping and standing still as well, I just tried to trust myself that Mitch would hopefully just miss one yorker out of the two. And I’d be able get it just by standing still and hitting it over midwicket or mid-on. But with his angle, and the ball just tailed a bit, and I couldn’t hit the middle of the bat. Plinked them. Plinked ’em both out to deep midwicket. With hindsight I should have tried to lap one and used his round-the-wicket angle and gone over short fine leg.”Christian’s game theory didn’t work, yet he would end with the second-best strike rate of the match with his 4 from 2, but without the extra two runs needed to win the match.It was December last year, as he was about to start for Hobart, that he was officially signed by Nottinghamshire as captain. “Once I re-signed we just started talking about planning. It’s more about team make-up, we had a really good season last year and stumbled in the semi-final, so we know we didn’t have to change too much. Obviously, we talked a little about who the second overseas would be, Imran Tahir had already signed at Derby, Andre Russell [their overseas from last season] was floated and then he got banned, and we got Ish Sodhi. And that just sort of finishes the pie off”.Nottinghamshire have made big noises with their batting, but their bowling line-up is incredibly deep and close to ideal for T20. On top of Sodhi, Christian says: “We’ve got two good quicks in Harry Gurney and Jake Ball, Steven Mullaney bowling medium pace, Samit Patel bowling spin, so we’ve got all bases covered.” That’s not including the man himself. And with good reason, last year he barely bowled: 11 overs with an economy of 12 and only two wickets. Although he scored over 300 runs at a strike rate of 158 and hit a boundary every 3.5 balls.This year, with Russell not playing and Christian back in bowling form, he has been used a bit more, 17.5 overs, taking eight wickets, and going at 9.9 an over. That economy is actually better than the average at Notts this year.His high economy and strike rates can somewhat be attributed to Nottinghamshire’s home ground of Trent Bridge with small boundaries and an incredibly good pitch for batting. Trent Bridge is the highest scoring ground in the T20 Blast. Actually, Trent Bridge is the highest scoring ground in all T20 cricket. Over the last two years matches at Trent Bridge have gone for 9.14 an over, no other ground is over nine. This season alone Trent Bridge is at 10.45, one run more than anyone else in England, and even the world over the last eight months. The runs-per-over in the Blast this season is almost two runs behind Nottinghamshire at 8.60. They are playing a different form of T20.Dan Christian celebrates a wicket•BCCIOver the last two years Nottinghamshire have won 10 and lost three at home.That is great, but brings in different problems for the captain. “We had all these plans at the start of the year here playing at Trent Bridge, where we were going to bowl and what fields we were going to set. And for the first few games we went for 222, then 195 the week after that, 208 again the next week, and then 223. We were tearing our hair out. We thought our plans must be wrong, but then we sat back and looked at some of the footage, and we thought that’s just a half volley, that’s short and wide, that’s supposed to be a straight yorker and it’s a half volley on the pads. So we just went back to the basics of trying to be as honest as we could in our appraisal of what we do, and then just try to change our execution.” The next two games teams only (only for Trent Bridge) scored 183 and 180.Christian is a pretty recent captain, he captained the indigenous team in Australia, and also a handful of games for South Australia, but until last year he was not really thought of as a skipper. That makes his last year at Pune quite helpful where he played with a quite extraordinary team of leaders. “Tactically I learnt a lot, playing under Smith, talking to Dhoni, du Plessis, and Stephen Fleming off the field. I’ve seen a couple of times where I’ve seen a situation for Notts and thought, oh yeah, we saw this happen in the IPL, and we tried this, and it’s ended up working.”Nottinghamshire lost their opening two games, and have gone eight and two since with the opening batsmen making all the runs, and a bowling line up so deep they play with seven bowlers some games, so Christian’s role is different again.And that’s what is so fascinating about his last nine months and T20 in general. In three of the main T20 competitions, he’s had three completely different roles. In Hobart he was a No. 5 five batsman at the start of the season, who became a traditional allrounder bowling one over at the top, a couple in the middle and finishing at the death. For Pune, he was a middle-overs bowler and death batsman. And for Nottinghamshire he’s the occasional third seamer, bowling up front and in the middle, usually as back up if the spinners are going for runs, and a batsman who comes in anytime from the eighth to twelfth over no matter what has gone on before him.And after all this chopping and changing, and going from competition to competition, he’s now been picked in the Australian T20 squad. Most likely to fulfil whatever one of these roles (most probably the Pune one, as it’s an Indian tour) the Australia team thinks it needs.Christian’s constant, and rapid evolution is very much the story of T20. He began as a sloggy allrounder with a bit more pace than most. That got him into the New South Wales T20 team, alongside Andrew Johns, the Rugby League star who was brought in as a novelty for the crowds. A few years later he received USD900,000 for the 2011 IPL season (it’s the law that this must be mentioned in all Christian articles) which surprised everyone in cricket, including Christian. And now he is a professional franchise cricketer, touring the world, fitting into teams in whichever role they need, and evolving his game as T20 changes.When he first started “we just turned up and played, it was just the last 20 overs of a one-dayer, and you’ve got ten blokes in the shed and see what happens,” he says. “That’s changed now. “There’s a real science to it these days. You’ve got to be so much more precise.”When asked if he’s a better player than he was when he was nearly an IPL millionaire he says, “Definitely, 100%. 100%.” The weird thing is, T20 moves so fast, he’s also definitely a better player than he was this time last year. In T20, everything happens quickly.

The 22nd day of Ashes combat in this series stretched the mental reserves of both teams, but some players coped better than others

Daniel Brettig at Sydney05-Jan-2018Late on the second day, as another bounteous SCG crowd lazed in the January sunshine, Tom Curran tried one of his (even) slower back-of-the-hand balls to Steve Smith. It was what can colloquially be called a “pie”, over-pitched, wide and begging to be gobbled up. Smith, who has pared down his once expansive game in order to achieve maximum efficiency, had acres of free space to hit it into, but managed only to slice it straight to backward point. Bowler and batsmen alike were united in their embarrassment.In many ways, this vignette summed up proceedings, which were of the kind that sap meaning from the term “absolute village” because it can be used so often. There was Pat Cummins and Josh Hazlewood competing for the simplest dropped catch of the series, James Anderson and Mason Crane conspiring for a run out to end England’s innings, then Crane offering a steady diet of half-trackers, full tosses and false starts at the bowling crease for all cricketers of modest skills to relate to.Little reasoning for all these passages of play could be found in an excellent pitch, which offered something for everyone, nor in the environs of the SCG, which under an azure sky offered up conditions that might have been termed Mary Poppins: practically perfect in every way. Instead it seemed that the aforementioned instances of indiscipline, inattention or plain old ordinariness had more to do with representing the 22nd day of an Ashes duel that in the 21st century is the longest such battle in Test cricket – Australia and England are now the only country who play a fifth Test with any level of regularity.”I don’t know whether it is because the end’s in sight, it’s been a long series, or because we’re up 3-0 or maybe we’ve just got to know each other more, played more cricket together, but here it just feels like we’ve got a job to do but enjoy it along the way,” Cummins said. “When the series is on the line and there’s so many unknowns with two or three matches left it was certainly pretty fiery and every over, every session you’re fighting. Here we know each team so well now and you know your role in the team after five Tests, those uncertainties are taken out of it, I think.”Ashes fatigue, then, provided a test of its own, as distinct from those posed by individual batsmen and bowlers to each other, most either weighed down or bolstered by the experience of crossing paths with the same opponents on multiple occasions now.No-one on either side has fallen into the former category quite like Cameron Bancroft, the West Australian opener who entered this series with a considerable head of steam. Innings of 76 not out and 86 against the Australian Test attack, followed by 228 not out against the Adelaide 12th man in Chadd Sayers, seemed to have put him in the best possible technical and temperamental frame for Ashes combat. A firm, undefeated 82 to help David Warner reel in a fourth-innings target in Brisbane only enhanced that sense.But from a point where Bancroft seemed capable of taking off, he has instead trailed off, afflicted with increasing acuteness by technical flaws that Stuart Broad and James Anderson have exploited with no little efficiency. Put simply, Bancroft has struggled to avoid edging or being bowled by the sorts of deliveries that an international standard batsman must be able to cope with. Balls of a length and line demanding coverage on the front foot, either to defend or attack.Numerous theories have been thrown around the press and commentary boxes of Adelaide, Perth, Melbourne and Sydney about why this is so, ranging from the angle at which Bancroft’s bat comes down (roughly third man to mid on) to the fact that his pre-ball routine has the bat being tapped at the moment of release so there is precious little time to complete a backlift and stroke before the ball arrives at the other end.Whatever the specifics, Bancroft was left horribly exposed by the first ball he received from Broad, aiming a drive at a well-pitched delivery that also seamed. It was, in fairness, a very useful ball, very much of the kind Broad has made a habit of taking wickets with – 399 in all as of the end of day two – but one that Bancroft’s method turned into the nigh-on-unplayable. Perhaps, given the seam movement, Bancroft might have fallen lbw to it had he covered up in defence, but as it was his optimistic drive left open a gate of the dimensions that the SCG will supposedly need to have installed if it is ever to acquire a drop-in pitch.Where his debut press conference about the Jonny Bairstow “headbutt” had left Smith in stitches, here Bancroft has sounded and looked like he is in need of a mental break, followed by a technical rethink. Before this match, Bancroft had expressed hope that he would demonstrate to watching teammates, coaches and selectors that he had progressed, but instead his dismissal confirmed the impression given earlier in the week when he spoke in ways that suggested a muddled mind.The phrase “every day I wake up” was repeated, as was “life is too short”, and then it all came together with the following bit of life-coachspeak: “Life rewards action and every day I wake up and come to training, come to Test matches to play, I’m learning more about Cameron Bancroft.” He may well be, but so are the world’s bowlers. Undoubtedly, Dale Steyn, Vernon Philander, Kagiso Rabada and Morne Morkel have been given plentiful evidence as to how they should attack him in the event that the selectors choose to persist with him. On the evidence of day two, they will be questioning the wisdom of doing so.Lights, out: Cameron Bancroft was bowled for a duck•Getty ImagesBancroft’s exit brought Usman Khawaja to the middle. With a top score of 53 for the series and numerous starts wasted, he has been unable to maintain the sort of substantial contribution to an Australian Test summer that he made in both 2015-16 and last season. After Moeen Ali defeated Khawaja early on in Brisbane, he has faced concerted challenges from the same bowlers who have so confounded Bancroft, with the moving ball – both conventional and reverse – proving fiendish.Khawaja’s languid manner at the crease and at the microphone has not always endeared him to everyone, suggesting plenty of self-belief but also a touch of inflexibility in his methods. He has shown indignation this summer about the way he was shuffled out, then back in, then back out of, the Test team during two Asian tours, and then expressed mystification about why his comments to that effect were reported as such. At the same time Khawaja has tried not to fuss too much over the fact that the big scores have not come, instead reassuring himself that he is not out of form, merely out of runs.As he told ABC Radio in Melbourne: “Definitely less than what I hoped for, I think the difference is probably I got a couple of starts in the last couple of Test matches, 50s, and probably haven’t gone on to make a big score and got out pretty much right when I got to 50. The first time I played a bad shot, the second time was an umpire’s call 50/50 and they can go either way. If I score a hundred in one of those games then you set the game up for your team. So it’s probably disappointing in that respect, but I still feel good. I feel like I’ve contributed to the first three wins in some respect, so for me it’s just about going out there to do as well as I can to hopefully set up games. I haven’t done it this Test match, but hopefully next Test match.”That equanimity was evident in how he took his time at the SCG, strolling safely and unhurriedly to 10 from 31 deliveries before striking his first boundary. With the exception of a couple of plays and misses, Khawaja negotiated England’s pacemen with aplomb, and if he still looked somewhat uncomfortable against Moeen and the fledgling wrist spin of Crane, it was not to the extent that he worried himself into a hasty shot or a loose dismissal. At the other end Warner looked assured until the moment of his dismissal, then Smith used edge as much as middle to play in Khawaja’s slipstream.Neither Khawaja nor Smith, then, looked at their best, but in a series of this duration, the ability to overcome Ashes fatigue and simply keep going is meritorious in itself. Certainly the older pair have dealt better with the mental and technical wages of five Test matches than Bancroft. They should in turn be much the fresher and more effective in South Africa, where they will be required to play to a higher standard than the one that defined this particular day’s cricket.

They began the year with stories of the captain alleging the coach was creating an insecure environment. They may end it by becoming Ranji Trophy champions

Vishal Dikshit in Indore28-Dec-2017It was only last season and earlier this year that Delhi’s on-field performance was shrouded by off-field controversies. Their captain Gautam Gambhir had altercations with coach KP Bhaskar, and both were later summoned by the High Court-appointed Delhi & District Cricket Association (DDCA) administrator. There were allegations of Gambhir abusing Bhaskar, reports of Bhaskar making some youngsters feel “insecure” and “dividing the dressing room”.They failed to qualify for the knockouts in both the Ranji Trophy and the Vijay Hazare Trophy. While they won only two of their eight first-class matches, in the six one-day games, they managed three wins but it wasn’t enough.Despite the quarrels and squabbles, the DDCA continued with Bhaskar as coach but changed the captain from Gambhir to Ishant Sharma. When the fast bowler was playing for India, they were led by Rishabh Pant, who turned 20 at the beginning of the season On Friday, they will play a Ranji final having been unbeaten all season.

Sometimes it is good when you feel bad about something that has been said about you or your team or your associationGautam Gambhir

Gambhir is their highest run-scorer so far and is among the top 10 this season, with an average of 63.20. It seems like the events in the Delhi dressing room over the last 12 months have acted as a “trigger” for the team to re-focus.”DDCA has been in the news for all the wrong reasons,” Gambhir tells ESPNcricinfo. “Deep down, each and every player that I have played with or the support staff that I have been involved with… [for us] it hurts. Sometimes it is good when you feel bad about something that has been said about you or your team or your association. That hurt actually was the trigger point.”There’s a lot said about the difference of opinion that I had with the coach, and that was taken to various extensions. And that led to a bloody-minded attitude which was only about winning the competition and winning the next game. We wanted to show the world that it’s not only the negative that exists in the Delhi dressing room. There is positivity, there are things we want to do to restore the glory days of the association which has given me my identity and a platform to play for India.”Gambhir, like he often is on the field, talks with sentiment and passion about his state side. He expresses barely any remorse about how things unfolded with the coach or why the captain was changed and not the coach. In his own words, Gambhir now plays the role of a “big brother” and is optimistic about Pant’s leadership skill.”In any format you play, the captain is as good as his team, and it holds here as well,” Gambhir says. “I think Rishabh is learning, the good thing is that he wants to learn, he wants to evolve as a player and as a captain. Rishabh can plan and strategise, but if you can’t pick 20 wickets, then all those plans will be canned. So it doesn’t really matter whether you are a young captain or an experienced captain. If you are determined to achieve your goals, that’s what matters and the bloody-mindedness that a sportsperson has to win a competition. We’ve seen with the Australians, the team that Steve Waugh led or Mark Taylor led or Ricky Ponting led; you could have made anyone the captain and they would have done what was required.”Rishabh Pant became the third-youngest Indian to score a first-class triple century•Prakash ParsekarThe decision to name Pant the new captain may have helped Delhi after the controversies. He is from a new generation. He will have a fresh perspective and would not carry the baggage of the previous seasons when Delhi could not make the knockouts. In a way, their performance in 2017-18 has made up for all the disappointment.Delhi are now in their first Ranji final since the 2007-08 season, when Gambhir was the captain and had scored a duck and an unbeaten century in a chase of 230 to lift the trophy. Now, Gambhir is the senior-most player in a squad where only one other player – Vikas Tokas – is older than 30. Vikas Mishra, their 24-year old left-arm spinner, has a massive 32 wickets and medium-pacer Navdeep Saini is one short of his 30th victim this season. Apart from their three draws, they have registered three innings wins, including a thrashing of Bengal in the semi-final.

For a sportsperson, nothing can be more pleasurable, nervous, anxious and at the same time satisfyingGautam Gambhir on playing a final

“We are just one step away from recreating what we did in 2007 and it’s a really proud feeling,” Gambhir says. “The young boys are playing the first final of their life in top-grade cricket. It will help them mature not only as cricketers but as individuals also. Playing the final will be an experience they wouldn’t have had ever in their life. For a sportsperson, nothing can be more pleasurable, nervous, anxious and at the same time satisfying.In addition to praising his young team-mates, Gambhir emphasises that people should look at scorecards not to see individual performances but assess how a team has done on the whole. He is adamant that winning tournaments is the “bigger picture” and personal achievements only its “byproduct”.”There are two ways of looking at sport, especially cricket. One is you look at the scoreboard and you see who has picked up five wickets or who has scored a hundred. But there’s a lot the guy at the other end is contributing. I always maintain whatever be the format – T20s, one-dayers or Test matches – it’s the bowlers who win you matches. The batsmen set things up but it’s the bowlers who win you games. I won’t say that it’s only the spinners, it’s also the guy who is bowling at the other end, whether he’s a fast bowler or a part-time spinner, who has ensured the pressure that has been exerted from one end continues at the other end as well.”Delhi will face first-time finalists Vidarbha and though we will all have to wait a week for the result, Gambhir hopes this season will be remembered for him and his team-mates giving their “200%”.”I would want people to think that the players tried their best,” he says. “For me that is the key. If you try your best, whatever the results may be, that is irrelevant. But if you give your 200%, that’s what counts.”

IPL 2018 showed there might no longer be a place for batsmen who build innings and that DRS might need some fine-tuning for it to truly work in T20s

Sreshth Shah28-May-2018 Goodbye, accumulatorsBased on ESPNcricinfo’s Smart Stats, if Ajinkya Rahane hadn’t batted at all this season, Rajasthan Royals would have scored 51 more runs. Rahane’s 370 runs this season – at a Smart strike-rate of 101 – was the antithesis of how T20 cricket has evolved since last season: similar numbers in IPL 2017 for Rahane had almost helped Rising Pune Supergiant win the IPL.He’s not the only one. Quinton de Kock, Gautam Gambhir, D’Arcy Short, Manish Pandey and Robin Uthappa fall in the same bracket and have the season’s poorest numbers. Each of them has cost their teams between 33 and 41 runs. They didn’t make any noteworthy performances to offset these numbers either. It’s not impossible to turn it around – Kane Williamson and Ambati Rayudu, are your best examples.Spin’s a Powerplay power moveIt’s long been a theory that bowling a spinner in the innings’ first over helps the fielding side get an over out of the way cheaply, and it’s been implemented this season in the IPL. Piyush Chawla and Nitish Rana did that for KKR this season, while K Gowtham did so at Royals.But apart from the first over, teams have used spin in the Powerplay much more in IPL 2018. Shakib Al Hasan bowled at least two overs in the Powerplay for most of the season, Mayank Markande for the early part of the tournament, and R Ashwin’s innovative use of his spin resources stood out in that regard.In Kings XI Punjab’s game against Royal Challengers Bangalore, Ashwin chose to bowl five overs of spin in the Powerplay, rotating his three spin options to strangle RCB’s batting effort. The tactic doesn’t always work, but it’s one that’s being used more than ever. In 2016 and 2017, spinners bowled 130 and 158 overs in the Powerplay. This year they bowled 191. One giant leap for big-hittingThe most number of sixes hit in IPL 2017 was Glenn Maxwell’s 26. This season, there have been nine who have hit more than that. Rishabh Pant, third last season with 24 sixes, finished this season as the topper with 37. But Pant wasn’t the only one to increase his big-hitting prowess. Last year, Williamson hit 10 sixes, this year it’s 28. Even six-hitting phenom Sunil Narine increased his tally from 10 in 2017 to 23. Dhoni almost doubled his tally from 16 to 30, Shreyas Iyer went from 10 to 21, Shikhar Dhawan from nine to 14. The list goes on.And it’s not just that the number of sixes has coincided with a rich vein of form. Their balls-per-boundary ratio has also seen a remarkable improvement since last season.Players like Gowtham and Deepak Chahar have also shown that range hitting has become a skill that batsmen from Nos. 1 to 11 practice at the training. The season saw a record 872 sixes, 167 more than last season and more than 141 since the second-highest six-hitting season (731 in 2012).Sunil Narine frustrated RCB with a chancy innings•BCCI The diminishing value of wickets in handTime and again this season, both when teams have lost and when they’ve won, the low value of having wickets in hand has been endorsed.Chennai Super Kings had no business to send in Harbhajan Singh and Deepak Chahar when they were 24 for 3 against Kings XI Punjab, but they did, knowing that even if they lost two more wickets for no real addition to their total, they still saved two full-time batsmen from facing the swinging ball at that stage.Rajasthan Royals realised that when they tried using Gowtham as a floater after he caught people’s attention after an 11-ball 33. R Ashwin, too, tried to use himself as a No. 3, but that experiment didn’t turn out well, but it shows that teams are thinking along those lines. Super Kings showed glimpses of that style in the season’s first match, when they won with one wicket in hand. Dwayne Bravo, with CSK seven down, continued to hit the ball knowing fully well that getting out at that stage was curtains for CSK.Kings XI Punjab, too, played in that manner, and that helped during their winning run in the season’s first half, when quickfire twenties and thirties from Karun Nair and Mayank Agarwal were enough for a team where they batted as low as No. 8. It did not pay off as the season carried on, but they did not waste their resources. Royals, on the other hand, tried so hard to protect wickets – Rahane, Short, and Ben Stokes, were all guilty of this – that they often lost their steam in a chase of a par score. Or take Sunrisers Hyderabad, who for all their bowling supremacy, struggled with the bat as Manish Pandey attempted to anchor the innings.IPL 2018 saw the most number of wickets fall per innings, barring the edition that was held in South Africa in 2009. DRS is here to stayIt’s been only a year since Dhoni was pulled up for doing a mock DRS sign during a game, but the IPL has come a long way since then. It was the first season that each team had one review per innings, and the outcomes have shown how crucial getting correct decisions on the field are.In the season opener, Markande’s lbw shout against MS Dhoni was turned down. But the DRS came to the youngster’s rescue there to cap off a memorable debut IPL outing. Another howler was to follow, when Kedar Jadhav was erroneously adjudged not out by the umpire, but the blame on not reviewing that falls on Mumbai.Interventions from DRS helped Faf du Plessis overturn an lbw decision in Qualifier 1 while a rampaging Chris Lynn’s bat-pad catch to Watson at first slip are some other examples.In fact, the powers of DRS should, perhaps, be allowed to clear on-field no balls. Tom Curran was called no-ball during a crucial stage against Mumbai Indians, only for the replays on the big screen to show he was behind the line. There was clear visual proof, but the umpires could not correct their decision despite the glaring evidence.

From the sweet melody of cleanly struck boundaries to the crowd’s spine-tingling renditions of ‘Flower of Scotland’, The Grange pulsed with noise and emotion on a historic day for Scotland

Peter Della Penna in Edinburgh11-Jun-2018Five minutes before the start of play on Sunday morning at The Grange, a bagpiper led the players onto the field. Moments later, the Scotland players cleared their throats to sing “Flower of Scotland”. The consensus amongst local journalists in the media box who had stood on the boundary edge to take it in was that none of Scotland’s 13-man squad was ever going to stand a chance against Paul Potts in a sing-off, let alone any other contestant past or present on Britain’s Got Talent.But a funny thing happened. As the players’ off-key voices grew louder, so did those of the Stockbridge faithful who had poured into The Grange through the gates off Arboretum Avenue to the east and Portgower Place to the west. The fans didn’t care how they sounded, and the players had sung their last false note of the day. From here on, their willows would produce a melody for the ages.Kyle Coetzer and Matthew Cross were the first to pick up their instruments and take the field. As the opener-wicketkeeper, Cross was the drummer in the band. He established the rhythm and beat in the second over, cracking David Willey for the first boundary of the day. When necessary, he could kick it up a notch with a crunching drive or ease back slightly with a back-foot punch.Coetzer used the saxophone to mesmerize the home fans. Every one of his jazzy drives through the V is a tribute to John Coltrane and a reminder that there’s room for a classical instrument or two in any decent band. When he wants to hit a higher note, he just gets under the drive a bit more, as he did to Liam Plunkett to bring up his half-century and break the record for Scotland’s highest ODI stand against England.When Coetzer finished his tune, Calum MacLeod played to the heavy-metal fanatics with his electric guitar strokeplay. Cuts and drives early to the medium-pacers, sweeps and slog-sweeps to the spinners, pulls and flat-bat cracks over cow corner to the medium-pacers. His unbeaten 140 off 46 balls was up-tempo from start to finish. It was an innings worthy of a hat-tip from the Rolling Stones, who had played to a sold-out Murrayfield Stadium the night before and took in part of the day at The Grange.Vice-captain Richie Berrington was the bass guitar to MacLeod’s electric. Berrington didn’t have to do anything fancy. While MacLeod dominated their 93-run partnership, Berrington was content to just keep the bass notes consistent, turn over the strike to keep MacLeod in rhythm, and chip in the odd boundary when the opportunity presented itself.George Munsey arrived later to join MacLeod. Like the harpsichord solo from The Beatles’ “In My Life”, he pulled out his trademark reverse-sweep in his first over on strike to show there’s room for a bit of unorthodoxy in Scotland’s lineup too. By the end of his fine little ditty, he’d marked up his maiden ODI fifty and helped MacLeod take Scotland past 300 in another century stand.But England had some high-profile talent in their ranks too. Jonny Bairstow demonstrated the simultaneous grace and power of a cellist while at the crease. Just like Sheku Kanneh-Mason at last month’s Royal Wedding, Bairstow stole the show for his effortless brilliance. His virtuoso run of centuries continued at The Grange and the 40 pounds it cost to get into the ground was a bargain to witness him flay spinners Mark Watt and Michael Leask around the ground late in the Powerplay on his way to a 54-ball ton.England were in perfect sync halfway through the chase and then out of nowhere came the first door knock in Beethoven’s Symphony Number 5, the needless run-out of Joe Root called through by Alex Hales for a non-existent single to short fine leg. The second ominous knock at the door came a few overs later when Eoin Morgan and Hales fell off consecutive deliveries to make it 245 for 5 and suddenly England’s line-up was playing with broken strings.From then on, a sellout crowd but one that had relied on the players out in the middle to provide the soundtrack of the day began to find their voice. The raucous cacophony of Scottish cheers grew louder with each diving stop, each run saved with a slap back at the boundary. Moeen Ali did his best to quiet them with a violin score, driving elegantly to 46 off 33 balls, but with victory in sight the bow slipped off his strings.By the end of the 47th over, the match was still in the balance and with no music playing over the loudspeakers, the sound of silence triggered tension in the air. England needed 16 off 18 with two wickets in hand, and Scotland needed the crowd to get behind them once more.As if on cue, the Grange members on either side of the sightscreen at the Pavilion End began singing “Flower of Scotland” once again. It was hard not to get goosebumps listening to the collection of voices grow in unison, sensing that a famous victory was a matter of fate.Peter Della PennaWhen Adil Rashid was run out to start the 49th over leaving England’s last pair with ten runs to get, Cricket Scotland CEO Malcolm Cannon could no longer hold back his emotions. From his position near the front of the VIP area on the southeast boundary, Cannon started to wave his arms furiously like an orchestra conductor and exhorted everyone around him to get as loud as they possibly could.Four balls later, the top blew off The Grange. Safyaan Sharif let out a tenor’s scream after nailing Mark Wood on the toe with a yorker. When Marais Erasmus reflexively raised his right index finger, a chorus of euphoric screams rang out around The Grange. Grant Bradburn’s Ode to Kaizen had reached its climax.”Flower of Scotland” took over the loudspeakers stationed around the ground as the players and fans continued to bask in the glory of the moment. Those who didn’t spontaneously invade the pitch in jubilation were shedding tears of joy from the boundary. After an hour’s worth of unprecedented demand for interviews, Bradburn’s troops gathered back in the change rooms for one more full-throated rendition of “Flower of Scotland”: the pre-match anthem was now the post-match victory song.Coetzer then led his travelling band back onto the field for a group photo to look back on for posterity’s sake. By this point, the only sounds echoing around the ground were bottle caps being snapped off of celebratory brews as Coetzer drenched Macleod in a fizzy-ale shower to honor his epic century.But of all the enchanting sounds that carried around The Grange over the course of the most famous cricket result in Scottish lore, one stood out. It rang out while the Scotland squad circled the ground for a victory lap in the early part of the celebratory festivities once the match had ended.It was sung by a group of young fans in their teens and early 20s pressed up against the boundary near the Portgower Place entrance. Their song consisted of a basic four-word chorus, repeated over and over. It was a hymn not just for Scotland but for all Associate teams around the globe who yearn for an opportunity to take the field against England or any other Full Member.”Are you watching, ICC? Are you waaaaaaaaaaatching, I-C-C?”

A look at how the India internationals fared in England’s county circuit this summer

ESPNcricinfo staff08-Jun-2018

India’s move to wristspin has reaped rich dividends – how they fare against a fire-breathing batting line-up in conditions similar to the World Cup will show exactly where they stand

Karthik Krishnaswamy10-Jul-20185:05

England – the new batting paradise in world cricket

Last month, when England’s fire-breathing white-ball line-up was expanding the possibilities of 50-overs cricket while whitewashing Australia, Sachin Tendulkar sparked a debate over the use of new balls from both ends in that format, calling it a “recipe for disaster”.Virat Kohli agreed with Tendulkar, calling two new balls “brutal” for bowlers, but felt one kind of bowler, a kind India were fortunate to have two of, could still threaten batsmen, even in this unforgiving climate.”There’s hardly any room for attacking cricket left from the bowler’s point of view if you don’t provide them pitches that assist them with the new ball,” Kohli said. “I have played ODI cricket when there was only one new ball allowed and reverse-swing used to be a massive factor in the later half of the innings, which I think as a batsman was more challenging.”Nowadays it’s… honestly I feel it’s very very difficult for bowlers with two new balls and the pitch is flat and they literally have no way out, unless you have wristspinners in your side, which can do the job in the middle overs. Not every side has that cushion, so they find it difficult. Probably we have wristspinners, that’s why we haven’t felt that factor, but I’m sure it’s very difficult for bowlers who cannot get purchase off the wicket when the balls are nice and hard.”Kohli made this statement during India’s pre-departure press conference ahead of their tour of England. Intentional or otherwise, his words contained a challenge, to both England’s batsmen and his own wristspinners, Yuzvendra Chahal and Kuldeep Yadav, on the eve of a short, sharp limited-overs series a year before a World Cup in the same conditions.This, then, was set to be the defining contest within the bigger contest: between two young, wicket-taking wristspinners and a batting order packed with hitting ability from start to finish.The T20Is came first, and over the course of three matches, this mini-contest calmed from a rolling boil (Kuldeep’s five-for at Old Trafford) to a slow simmer (Kuldeep not featuring at all in Bristol) as India won 2-1.What bearing those events will have on the ODIs is unclear. England are a far better side over 100 overs than over 40. Since the end of the 2015 World Cup, they have a best-in-the-world 46-19 record in ODIs as against a middling 15-14 in T20Is.In that time, their batsmen have averaged 59.03 and scored 6.33 runs per over against wristspin in ODIs. No team has come close to that scoring rate, and only India have a better average.Datawrapper/ESPNcricinfo LtdEach of England’s main batsmen in this period has a strong record against wristspin, with the low averages of Ben Stokes and Moeen Ali possibly a function of coming in with the mandate to hit out from ball one.

Batsman Innings Runs balls dismissals Average SRJoe Root 24 394 403 3 131.33 97.76Alex Hales 14 272 210 2 136.00 129.52Eoin Morgan 22 208 206 5 41.60 100.97Jos Buttler 20 184 166 4 46.00 110.84Jason Roy 11 169 159 3 56.33 106.28Jonny Bairstow 11 154 113 2 77.00 136.28Ben Stokes 16 142 145 5 28.40 97.93Moeen Ali 15 90 71 5 18.00 126.76At home, in the same period, England’s record against wristspin is even more frightening: a scoring rate of 6.95 and an average of , with just three dismissals in 16 innings.Chahal and Kuldeep are yet to face an examination this daunting. So far, their biggest ODI challenges have come at home, against Australia and New Zealand, and their one major away series, in which they took a combined 33 wickets in six matches, coincided with a spate of injuries that left South Africa missing a number of key batsmen at various points. Still, they have passed every test they have been posed so far, and solved niggling issues that had limited India as an ODI bowling team.India’s embrace of wristspin began after last year’s Champions Trophy in England, a tournament played on mostly flat pitches where their inability to take wickets in the middle overs contributed heavily to their two defeats – to Sri Lanka in the group stages and Pakistan in the final. They immediately set about changing the composition of their attack, phasing out the fingerspin of R Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja, and bringing in Kuldeep and Chahal over the course of their next two ODI series.It was a slightly belated recognition of a global trend. In 2015, fingerspinners had bowled roughly 3.4 balls to every ball delivered by a wristspinner in ODI cricket. That ratio has steadily declined, year on year, and the figure for 2018, 2.0, is set to fall further over the next week or so, when England’s Adil Rashid will be in action alongside Chahal and Kuldeep.Datawrapper/ESPNcricinfo LtdIndia’s shift from fingerspin to wristspin has been hugely successful. Since the end of the Champions Trophy, they have won 21 of their 26 completed ODIs and claimed six successive series victories.In that time, their bowlers have taken 116 wickets (not including run-outs) in overs 11-40 in 26 innings, at an average of 29.93. None of the major ODI teams has a better middle-overs average in this period, and only Pakistan has a better middle-overs economy rate than India’s 4.83.Between the end of the 2015 World Cup and the end of the 2017 Champions Trophy, India had been far less effective in the middle overs, averaging 37.90 and conceding 5.09 runs per over.Comparing the six main specialist spinners India have used since the end of the 2015 World Cup is also instructive. The three wristspinners – the current two and Amit Mishra – have near-identical middle-overs averages, all between 22 and 23, with fingerspinners Ashwin (42.64), Jadeja (61.66) and Axar Patel (36.47) trailing some way behind. Axar has done a job as a holding bowler, conceding only 4.24 runs per over, but both Ashwin and Jadeja have economy rates north of five.ESPNcricinfo LtdThe fact that the wristspinners have been economical as well as incisive might have come as a bonus for India. They were brought in primarily with strike rates in mind, with the hope that they could take wickets even in high-scoring games on flat pitches. Ashwin and Jadeja weren’t able to do this in the Champions Trophy, and India wanted bowlers who could, in similar conditions in 2019.Two recent games stand out for the wristspinners making this kind of impact.The first came in September 2017, in Indore, where Australia, 2-0 down in the five-match series, were 224 for 1 in the 38th over, with Aaron Finch batting on 124 and Steven Smith on 51. Australia seemed set for 330, but they slumped to 243 for 4, with Kuldeep and Chahal picking up three quick wickets, and eventually only managed 293, which India chased down with ease.Despite Kuldeep having conceded 55 off his first seven overs, Kohli stuck with him, reckoning he was likelier than the part-timers to make an impact on a road of a pitch, and was rewarded with two wickets that undid most of Australia’s momentum. This was a similar game to the Dunedin ODI this March, when Ish Sodhi’s legspin precipitated an England collapse from 267 for 1 to 313 for 9. New Zealand chased down 336 courtesy an all-time-great ODI innings from Ross Taylor, but they could easily have been chasing 400 that day.The other example of the value of India’s wristspinners on flat pitches came in Kanpur, in October 2017, in the decider of a three-match series against New Zealand. India eventually won it by six runs. Here, New Zealand were chasing 338 and were serenely placed at 153 for 1 in the 25th over, with Colin Munro and Kane Williamson compiling a century stand for the second wicket. Chahal dismissed both of them with flight and guile, and somehow went for only 47 runs in his 10 overs on a pitch that produced 668 in 100.It is these qualities that India most love in their wristspinners. Chahal has a real feel for a batsman’s intentions, honed over years of bowling on flat IPL decks at the Chinnaswamy Stadium, and knows exactly when to fire it flat at middle and leg and when to dangle it slower and wider. Kuldeep will keep flighting the ball and varying his pace even when he’s gone for a few, trusting his own skills to trump those of the best of batsmen.The ODIs against England will test all those qualities, and show India exactly where they stand as a bowling unit a year from the 2019 World Cup.

Having barged the selection door open, Burns has an opportunity to stand unfazed on the face of immense scrutiny and pressure

George Dobell in Colombo28-Oct-20182:15

‘Brilliant’ England can win in the subcontinent – Sangakkara

Ask any of England’s recent Test caps what struck them most about the experience, and chances are, they will tell you the same thing.As challenging as Australia’s pace attack, as challenging as the turning ball in Asia, as challenging as trying to find the edge of Virat Kohli’s bat, is the scrutiny that comes with promotion to international cricket.It’s not just the microphones and cameras that are suddenly thrust in your face. It’s just getting used to your boyhood heroes dissecting your technique on TV as if you were a diseased fish. And it’s not just getting used to having strangers tell you they love you or hate you on social media. Or even having every word you utter analysed and amplified.It’s learning to deal with the self-doubt.You want some examples? How about Gary Ballance. Despite making 1000 runs in his first 10 Tests, it suddenly became received wisdom that he could not play top-class swing bowling, especially of the left-arm variety. It didn’t matter whether it was true or not – no doubt there was an element of truth; who does look comfortable with top-class, fast swing bowling? – it eventually became self-fulfilling. So instead of trusting what he was doing, Ballance began to doubt it. And once that happens, the battle is as good as lost.Much the same could be said about Nick Compton. Having won selection on the back of his solid game, he was suddenly confronted by a barrage of opinion that insisted solidity wasn’t enough any more. Batsmen needed to push on. They needed to be positive. So instead of trusting his own method, he strayed into news area and started trying to impress. And, as the pressure and doubts mounted, the runs and results fell away.Now, you could argue that the media criticism of them was accurate. And that’s fine. The point is, players have to learn to deal with the seeds of doubt they plant. And it takes a special sort of person – either magnificently talented or magnificently unintrospective – to do that. And while there is always room for improvement, it is a huge risk to change everything that earned their selection once they have exposure to the highest level.The good thing for England on this tour is that their squad contains, alongside the experienced cricketers, some experienced men. So Joe Denly and Jack Leach have both, to some extent, confronted their demons already – Denly when he came to terms with being dropped by England the best part of a decade ago and Leach when he was told his action was illegal – and come back stronger, wiser men. Sink or swim, they seem well-equipped to deal it.The same appears to be true for Rory Burns. If he wins a place in England’s Test line-up in the coming days – it is almost impossible to predict what England’s team will look like at this stage – he knows his method will attract scrutiny. He knows many doubt him. He has, after all, had to work long and hard for this opportunity. Almost every other opening batsman with a pulse and bladder control has already been tried by England. Burns isn’t quite ‘the last man standing, but he could be forgiven for feeling that way.Getty ImagesBut Burns has long had to fight for what has come easily to others. He progressed to the edge of international cricket via the scenic route. Unlike some of the abundantly talented cricketers, he emerged alongside in the Surrey system — such as Jason Roy, with whom he played in the Surrey Under-15 side – he didn’t graduate to the professional game in his late teenage years. Instead he went to university – he is the latest success story from the MCCU system (and the admirable Cardiff MCCU in particular) – where he was given time to mature, as a cricketer and young man, and work out what works for him. Despite the years of run-scoring, it took until midway through the 2018 for him to win a first Lions cap.Maybe that will prove no bad thing. Along the way, he has developed a resilience. And, it would appear, a sense of personal responsibility. He isn’t looking for approval or hoping to win awards for artistic merit. Having just led the club he supported as a boy to the County Championship title and become engaged, he may feel, on some levels, fulfilled and content. He is still desperate for success – he reckons he has dreamed of a Test debut since he was two – but he is, perhaps, a little less desperate than some others.His method is a little unusual. He squats in his stance as if ‘mooning’ the square leg fielder and, to ensure his left eye is trained on the ball – he is a left-handed batsman and says he is left-eye dominant – appears to glance towards midwicket as if the fielder there has just said something appalling about him just before the bowler delivers the ball. There is also a little flurry of the hands that he says relaxes them.It’s not especially pretty but, seeing as he has scored a thousand first-class runs in each of the last five English seasons, it does seem to be pretty effective. He was, by a country mile, the most prolific batsman in the Championship in 2018 – he scored almost 300 runs more than the second-highest run-scorer, Ian Bell, who played in the lower division – and before anyone accuses him of filling his boots on the relatively flat Oval surface, it should be acknowledged he averaged 87.90 in away matches. He is good off his legs, has a pleasing drive and seems to know where his off stump is. He might never have been here before – the closest he has come is playing in the UAE – but he has earned this chance.And, having earned the chance doing things his way, he isn’t going to change now.”I don’t think you can prepare for the scrutiny fully,” Burns says. “I am expecting a certain level of media scrutiny but I’ll just try to remain strong between my ears and go about my business as I have for Surrey. Probably the weight of runs I’ve scored in county cricket will help me do that as I’ve got that little bit of self-belief.”My trigger movement might get commented upon but it’s not going to change. It’s just one of my nuances. It’s a rhythm thing. It’s just a feel thing for me as I get prepared to face the ball.”It’s just about taking the opportunity and doing it your way when you get your opportunity. I’m just trying to replicate what I do for Surrey and trust my own way of going about things. I’m going go about things the way I have in county cricket.”While those players – and coaches – involved in Saturday night’s T20I were given the day-off, Burns was among the England players who trained at Nondescripts Cricket Club in Colombo on Sunday. The entire Test squad will be there again on Monday before two, two-day games start on Tuesday.There are no guarantees for Burns and co, but by sticking to his guns, by doing it his way, by trusting himself, he is giving himself the best chance.