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In a big final, England slowed the game to the tempo that their captain had demanded, they had the trophy winking at them from the sidelines, and then…

Andrew Miller at Eden Gardens04-Apr-20161:40

Butcher: Stokes would put his hand up again

The legend of Eden Gardens looms over all first-time visitors to the mightiest stadium in Asia. You can have revelled in all the glories and rolled your eyes at all its quirks, but nothing quite prepares you for the shabby magnificence of the venue.Much like the city for which it forms such a towering and iconic presence, the old lady creaks under the weight of its own history, yet still finds a way to absorb new additions to the annals, to produce tales that resonate down the ages as people turn to one another and sigh, “ah yes, Calcutta …”And so it proved, at the end of an evening that throbbed with instant history, when Ben Stokes sunk to his haunches, his face as red with heat and emotion as the shirt with which he mopped his brow. No amount of acclimatisation, or visualisation, or hours of dedication in the nets, could have prepared Stokes – or any other cricketer for that matter – for the shockwaves that poured forth from the tailor-made bat of Carlos Brathwaite.Brathwaite’s final onslaught (“remember the name!” came the commentary-box cry) was as brutal and immersing as the wall of heat and wetness that seems built into the Kolkata air. It was, quite literally, breathtaking, and the more Stokes thought about the implications, the more the atmosphere drowned him. By the time of that final contemptuous swing over deep midwicket, England’s designated death bowler had long since abandoned the thrash of panic and had moved directly to blank acceptance.

England, to be fair, have learned an awful lot about what that takes, even in the space of a three-week campaign. Each of their four victories upto the semi-final called upon a range of survival skills that no team can know they possess until they are challenged

No blame could be apportioned – none would have been appropriate in any circumstances, really, given how far and how high England’s rebooted white-ball team had flown in the past three weeks. And yet, they had long had an inkling that they were in line for an occasion like this, at some stage of their voyage of discovery. Their young and adaptable team had turned up, in the words of Jason Roy, to play in front of “100,000 people in a World Cup final” with – hopefully – not a care in the world.However, not even their captain, Eoin Morgan – once of Kolkata Knight Riders, and a man who had famously called for England to “embrace the naivety” in their opening rounds – could quite dare to let his players take the field with eyes wide shut.”It’s not just another game,” Morgan had cautioned on the eve of the match. “Tomorrow everything will feel a little bit rushed to start with, but it is important we are in the right frame of mind to slow it down when needed.” His words would prove agonisingly prophetic as the contest began to unfold.The warning signs were there from the moment England began their warm-ups. Attempting to pretend that this is just another game isn’t really an option when your opponents are already deep into their celebrations – or, as it was on this occasion, sharing in those of the gleeful West Indies women’s team, whose stunning dispatching of the three-times champions Australia was a mic-dropping hint as to the focus within their combined camps.The one true difference between the IPL and English T20 cricket isn’t the skill that comes to the fore – the likes of Buttler, Root and Roy prove beyond doubt that talent isn’t an issue – it is the situational experience that comes with asked to be heroes on a daily basis•Getty Images/ICCAnd life didn’t get any less full-on after that. The sweltering night, the packed house, the corridor of pyrotechnics that guided the players out for the anthems. These are the experiences which the West Indies players, by and large, have come to accept as commonplace. After all, the one true difference between the IPL and English T20 cricket isn’t the skill that comes to the fore – the likes of Buttler, Root and Roy prove beyond doubt that talent isn’t an issue – it is the situational experience that comes with asked to be heroes on a daily basis.England, to be fair, have learned an awful lot about what that takes, even in the space of a three-week campaign. Each of their four victories up to and including the semi-final – and even their opening-night crunching by Chris Gayle – called upon a range of survival skills that no team can know they possess until they are challenged: a head for heights in the thrilling run-chase against South Africa; a stomach for the fight as Afghanistan threatened in a low-scoring tavern-brawl; a steady aim as Sri Lanka’s batsmen roared back into contention in Delhi.After all of those tests of character, everything seemed to have clicked during England’s hugely impressive defeat of New Zealand, only for it to unravel just enough in the final. The loss of the toss, and the obligation to set the tempo against a team with no apparent upper limit, was doubtless a contributory factor. Nevertheless England approached their innings as if tumbling down a flight of stairs. They still made it to the bottom, just without the dignity they might have anticipated when first setting foot on the landing.Morgan called the batting “terrible” – and he, alas, would know, after a gruesome end to his own formless campaign – but it was Roy’s frantic two-ball duck that seemed to have set the agenda for England’s efforts. Like Brendon McCullum in last year’s World Cup final, the notion of playing a good-length ball on merit proved anathema when there was momentum to be established, and like New Zealand on that occasion, such a blow to the solar plexus proved too winding to allow a complete recovery.It was the right approach to take, but it had the wrong upshot. In fact, for those first five overs of discombobulation, only one recent contest between England and West Indies could compare – the infamous Stanford showdown of November 2008, when the islanders eyed the prize and secured it with the aplomb of natural showmen.Roy’s trudge back to the pavilion, at a pace reminiscent of Inzamam-ul-Haq, with his helmet half-removed and his bat upside-down in his limp hands, was a picture of conquered dejection. Nine balls later, Alex Hales echoed that agonised self-admonishment after clipping a half-tracker to short fine-leg. And when Morgan came and went for 5, stiffly accepting his fate like a guilty verdict in the dock, England were 23 for 3, and free-falling.Amid England’s gut-wrenching loss, Joe Root produced another classy fifty•Getty ImagesBut then there was Joe Root. There’s always Root, puncturing the gloom with a back-foot drive through the covers, followed by the most sweetly forceful nurdle through the gap at wide mid-on – the sort of shot that fails to fully register because it feels as though you’ve been conned. And, briefly, there was Jos Buttler – beast mode on mute this time out as he reverted to the single-pinching that had kept England’s ambitions on course in the South Africa epic.But Buttler, being Buttler, couldn’t help but smack three sixes into the mix, including two in two balls to ignite England’s ambitions for the second ten overs of their innings, and suddenly it was clear what Morgan had meant in his pre-match comments. Despite the thickness of the air and the fervour of the crowd and their opponents, there was still a sense that England could regain control, by taking deep breaths and trusting themselves to see it through.And so it was, when Buttler picked out deep midwicket in the pursuit of another boundary – an occupational hazard even in the midst of a T20 crisis – his departure was beaten but relatively upbeat, displaying the air of a mission rejoined as he punched gloves with the incoming Stokes before pausing at the boundary’s edge to collect his spare bat – a symbol, perhaps, of England’s desire to bat long, even if their execution was proving wanting.The denouement of the innings, however, proved to be a reversion to the chaos that had launched it. Stokes seemed too bewildered to be disappointed as he left, after getting in a tangle against Dwayne Bravo and lobbing a leading edge to point, while Moeen Ali accepted his leg-side strangle with a shrug and returned whence he came in the dug-out.But it was Root, inevitably Root, whose departure was the body blow. Debates have been raging all tournament long about the relative merits of England’s star batsman and India’s modern icon Virat Kohli (and the greatest point of comparison was still yet to come) but the straight-lined superlatives of each player are what so clearly set them apart from the pack. Root’s 54 from 36 balls was another unhurried masterpiece, underwritten with a diet of easy singles and stamped with seven smooth injections of class.The purity of his angles meant he had no need for cutesy dinks and shovels, and so, inevitably, he fell to one all the same. Had Root’s attempted flick to leg come off, as a similar moment of outrage against South Africa had sailed for six over third man, he would have been hailed for his daring, and for seizing back the initiative after the loss of two quick wickets in three balls – instead, with that tally now at three in four, the moment only deepened England’s mire.

Had Root’s attempted flick to leg come off, as a similar moment of outrage against South Africa had sailed for six over third man, he would have been hailed for his daring

This was “no consequences cricket” boiled down to its barest essence – the costliest shot at Eden Gardens since Mike Gatting’s reverse sweep in the 1987 World Cup final, claimed some, and yet such recriminations are pointless if you expect your players to back their instincts. Root is hardly the type of player to retort with “it’s just the way I play” – in fact, his departing volley of invective at the Champion-dancing West Indians was significantly spicier than that – but somewhere on a golf course in his state of semi-retirement, a certain former England batsman would doubtless say it for him.But even a half-completed rebuild was better than none at all, for England’s stumble towards a total of 155 for 9 – 40 below par, in Morgan’s estimation – was still more than any side had previously managed to chase in a World T20 final. And what followed was nothing short of extraordinary, as Morgan – displaying the sharp mind that his frail batting could not replicate – set his team to slow the game almost to a standstill, and tossed Root of all people the ball for the second Powerplay over.The impact was electric, and it galvanised a crowd that would finish the night as partisan West Indians but who, for three critical overs, were willing to farm out their support to the team that was gamely reigniting the contest. A first-ball lollipop, smacked unerringly to Stokes at long-off; a second-ball flap, uneasily picking the gap behind point; a third-ball flog, as Gayle of all people, the author of that 47-ball hundred at the Wankhede, had his ego played like a tin whistle before he’d taken the time to find his range.David Willey chimed in with another standout performance – and a ‘champion’ dance – at the start and in the slog overs•Getty ImagesBefore West Indies could regroup, Lendl Simmons, their semi-final hero was gone, David Willey curling an inswinger into his front pad with the same aplomb that Ryan Sidebottom had brought to England’s 2010 campaign in the Caribbean. At first all Marlon Samuels and Bravo could do was rebuild the innings from within a stunned vacuum. Poking the singles that had been rumoured to be beneath their dignity, accepting the tide was no longer in their favour, as Liam Plunkett banged out a Test-match tattoo on a tight, back-of-a-length line and Adil Rashid opened his account with a ripper dipper that dropped late on Bravo and bit away from the bat, before switching to a diet of googlies to negate the impact of the dew.But all the while, you knew it was coming. The West Indies pain train, that fusillade of boundaries that you knew could haul any cause back from the brink. The first six of the innings didn’t land until the 14th over, by which stage the rate was almost exactly two a ball. But when two more followed in Plunkett’s final over, including a fearsome straight smash from a now-psychotically pumped-up Samuels, you realised that the new target, 52 runs from 30 balls, was essentially a case of landing one blow in three.Time can stand still in Calcutta if you find a means to let it. Much like the herds of glorious yellow taxis that patrol the streets but seemed determined to stop for no-one, there’s a random element to life in India’s most storied city. England squeezed and they fought and they wrestled to keep the match in their grasp. They soaked in the setting, and warmed to their task, pouncing in the outfield and daring the West Indians to take their chase deeper than any side has had to go in a World final.They slowed the game to the tempo that their captain had demanded, they had the trophy winking at them from the sidelines. They had once again fiddled a means to make a merit of their imperfections and nothing, surely, could stop them now.But then, at the bitterest of denouements, England’s time froze completely. And as West Indies restarted the party that has barely relented since they landed, the realisation dawned that, for Stokes, part of his persona will remain trapped in that over for eternity – another ghost of Eden Gardens, another layer of legend in the greatest venue of all.

ESPNcricinfo staff10-Jun-2016Matt Prior rang the five-minute bell before the start of play …•Getty Images… then settled in to watch from the England balcony•Getty ImagesJonny Bairstow quickly picked up where he had left off•Getty Images… with Chris Woakes bedding in at the other end•PA PhotosWoakes went to fifty for the first time in Test cricket•PA Photos… before Rangana Herath made Sri Lanka’s first breakthrough•PA PhotosWoakes departed for a well-compiled 66•PA Photos… but Bairstow reached lunch on a Test-best 156 not out•Getty ImagesAfter lunch, Sir Garfield Sobers rang the Lord’s bell in memory of Muhammad Ali•Getty Images… while pictures of his visit to Lord’s in 1966 were shown on the big screen•AFPSuranga Lakmal removed Stuart Broad to a catch in the gully•Getty Images… while Steven Finn chanced his arm in a brief stay, helping England to pass 400•Getty ImagesBairstow’s 167 not out was the highest score by an England wicketkeeper in a home Test•Getty ImagesHowever, Bairstow’s stock dropped shortly after when he missed a straightforward edge off Dimuth Karunaratne•AFPThe bowler was Woakes, who was also luckless with a tight lbw appeal against Karunaratne•Getty ImagesKaushal Silva ticked over as he and Karunaratne reached tea with Sri Lanka steady on 62 for 0•Getty ImagesEngland’s bowlers had to find other ways to amuse themselves•PA PhotosKaushal Silva made his third fifty in three innings at Lord’s•Getty ImagesSteven Finn broke the century opening stand when Dimuth Karunaratne was caught down the leg side•Getty ImagesKusal Mendis reached the close on 25 not out•Getty Images

ESPNcricinfo staff01-Sep-2016… and invited England to field first•Getty ImagesSami Aslam started cautiously for Pakistan•Getty Images… but Ben Stokes’ safe hands accounted for both openers•Getty ImagesLiam Plunkett was the beneficiary of Stokes’ second catch, as Aslam fell for 24•Getty ImagesAzhar Ali was Pakistan’s mainstay in an innings that never really got going•Getty Images… despite two emphatic sixes from Pakistan’s captain•Getty ImagesPakistani supporters were out in force but had little to cheer•Getty ImagesMoeen Ali didn’t concede a boundary in his spell of 10-0-39-2•Getty Images… while Adil Rashid claimed three wickets in his own spell•Getty ImagesSarfraz Ahmed was the first of Rashid’s victims•Getty ImagesChris Jordan conceded 14 runs in his final four overs•Getty ImagesOnly Imad Wasim looked fluent in striking 57 not out off 41 balls•Getty ImagesHowever, chasing 248, England lost Jason Roy for 14•AFP… to Mohammad Irfan, who soon added Alex Hales for 8•AFPJoe Root missed out on his sixth fifty in a row when he top-edged Hasan Ali to fine leg•Getty ImagesAnd England were reeling at 72 for 4 when Eoin Morgan edged Umar Gul to slip•Getty ImagesBut Ben Stokes led England’s fightback with a mature innings•Getty Images… with the local boy Jonny Bairstow alongside him in a fifty-run stand•Getty ImagesStokes made his fourth ODI fifty before being caught at deep midwicket•Getty ImagesBairstow also passed 50 as he and Moeen took the chase closer•Getty ImagesA direct hit saw Bairstow run out for 61 with 23 still required•Getty ImagesMoeen clubbed a couple of sixes to finish of the job and give England a 4-0 lead in the series•AFP

Recent middle-order mainstays make it to Pakistan’s all-time XI selected on the occasion of the country’s 400th Test

ESPNcricinfo staff20-Oct-2016ESPNcricinfo LtdThe XI had three changes from the one our jury had picked in 2010: Younis Khan, Mohammad Yousuf and Saqlain Mushtaq make the cut in place of Zaheer Abbas, Fazal Mahmood and Abdul Qadir.Ten of the 11 have led Pakistan in a Test, but who would you pick to captain this all-time XI? Or is that a no-brainer?The captain

The catches that India put down in the first innings in Rajkot

ESPNcricinfo staff10-Nov-20161:31

Compton: Seemed like India were not expecting the chances

0.3 Mohammed Shami to Cook, no run, dropped! And it’s Rahane of all people. Back of a length, angling into a fourth-stump line, and Cook plays an uncharacteristic shot, punching away from his body with no footwork and an open bat face. Flies to the right of gully, where Rahane gets both hands to it on the dive but can’t hold on1.2 Yadav to Cook, 2 runs, edged again. Length ball slanting across, maybe nips away off the seam as well. Cook doesn’t move his feet again, jabs at it, and I’m not sure if the edge carries to Kohli falling to his left at second slip. Dies at it reaches him, and the runs away. Not sure it carried … the TV commentators are convinced it was another drop5.5 Yadav to Hameed, 1 run, put down again! This time it’s Vijay at first slip. This is bizarre, and it’s terrible fielding. Simplest of the chances so far. Low, by his feet, no need to dive. It’s back of a length in the corridor, and Hameed pokes at it with hard hands and no footwork. Thick edge, going down towards Vijay’s right boot, and he got both hands to it while sinking to his knees112.5 Yadav to Stokes, 1 run, put down! Back of a length outside off and Stokes goes hard at it, slashes away from his body with an angled bat, and it was a few inches above the ground when it hit Saha’s glove and popped out as he threw himself horizontally to his left114.4 Yadav to Stokes, 1 run, another chance dropped! Wriddhiman Saha, what are you doing? Again it’s shortish outside off, again Stokes slashes at it, again he gets a thick edge, and this time Saha doesn’t even have to dive as far to his left. He gets both hands to it at a comfortable height and puts it down

The key the moments of an impressive performance in the field from Eoin Morgan’s team which meant India never escaped their clutches

Vishal Dikshit in Kanpur26-Jan-20171:15

Agarkar: Morgan showed why he is the leader of this team

Jordan changing ends and strategyChris Jordan had bowled a no-ball and a wide when he opened the bowling. Perhaps Something didn’t feel right. Eoin Morgan switched him to the other end and Jordan changed his field setting to 5-4 by removing the lone slip and bringing three fielders inside the circle on the leg side – short fine leg, midwicket and mid-on – and a square leg in the deep. Once KL Rahul got strike, Jordan brought the field into play by banging in a short ball and the batsman top-edged a pull for a dolly to short fine leg. It was the second time in two innings, after his dismissal in the third ODI, that Rahul skied one while trying to pull a short ball. A few more back-of-length deliveries and a slower one to end the over meant Jordan conceded only three from the over.Constant bowling changesEven though Jordan’s change of ends worked for England, Morgan made two more bowling changes once Liam Plunkett leaked two fours off Suresh Raina in the sixth over. With the Powerplay done, Stokes was brought on and he bowled varied lines and lengths for two overs to keep the India batsmen guessing. In between, Morgan placed himself at midwicket while introducing Moeen Ali and a whip of wrists from Virat Kohli handed a catch straight to the captain. The constant bowling changes and fall of wickets shifted the momentum towards England as India went without a boundary for 17 balls. Even later, when Plunkett was brought back and dismissed Yuvraj Singh in his third over, Morgan took him off the attack again and returned to Stokes who had seen Raina was shuffling across the stumps way too often and bowled him with a leg-stump yorker. The continuous bowling changes and smart plans meant India never got any big partnership going.Choking the death-overs specialistIndia were desperate for late runs, being only 106 for 5 after 15 overs. Plunkett and Moeen had bowled their quotas and England’s pace-bowling options were Stokes, Jordan and Tymal Mills against MS Dhoni. Morgan believed in them – not giving Adil Rashid a single over in the innings – and in the final four overs Jordan and Mills stifled Dhoni cunningly.In the 17th over, Mills mixed his lengths and brought his pace down from around 145kph to around 105-115kph to get the wicket of Hardik Pandya and keep Dhoni off strike for half the over. Next over, Jordan bowled a flurry of yorkers to Dhoni, who faced four of the six balls but could not score more than four runs off them.When four balls were left in the penultimate over, Dhoni asked for a different bat, probably a heavier one but left-armer Mills came around the wicket and kept cramping Dhoni for room with the angle and pace – the way Kagiso Rabada had done in late 2015 – and conceded only seven from the over. In the last over, Dhoni creamed two fours off Jordan’s slightly inaccurate yorkers but the bowler pulled things back by persisting with his full lengths for the last three balls of the innings. In the end, India managed only 41 runs off the last 30 balls.Moeen Ali’s stifling spellMoeen had struck with his first ball to claim the big wicket of Kohli. It helped the offspinner in two ways because he was now bowling to two left-handed batsmen – Raina and Yuvraj Singh – who can smash boundaries more easily against spinners who turn the ball into them. Moeen did overpitch a ball to Yuvraj in the 10th over, but once it was dispatched for a cracking four down the ground, he stuck to good-length deliveries, tight lines and did not offer much pace to the batsmen. As a result, he did not concede another boundary. So good were his lines against right-handed batsmen, too, that when Manish Pandey missed an innocuous-looking delivery on off stump, he was pinned lbw and Moeen finished the over with his best T20I figures of 2 for 21. It is not often that Indian batsmen are not able to score freely off a spinner in a T20 on a small ground.Liam Plunkett’s comeback spellWhen Plunkett was used to help Jordan switch ends early on, his first two overs saw him leak four fours and his figures read 2-0-22-0. He was taken out of the attack and some would have thought Morgan would try Rashid sooner or later. But Morgan had seen that Plunkett had not bowled all that badly. Three of those four fours were not from the middle of the bat and went to the fence only because Plunkett was bowling in the Powerplay.”If you watched that first spell, the balls that were hit were a couple of bad balls and there were a couple that actually bounced, the cross-seamers that he bowled,” Morgan explained. “That is always an encouraging sign for a tall fast bowler that if he hits the wicket he will get some reward.”Morgan brought Plunkett back at the halfway stage with protection on the leg side. Plunkett banged in a short ball straightaway and struck when Yuvraj tried to swat it to the leg side awkwardly but it only induced a top edge. Plunkett went on to bowl more short-of-length deliveries and didn’t offer much room to the middle and lower-order batsmen. He finished his overs by conceding only three runs in the 15th over, setting the tone for the slog overs which went England’s way.

Promoted to No. 3 ahead of Rohit Sharma in a chase of 179, Nitish Rana’s late charge blindsided Kolkata Knight Riders just when they had the match nearly in the bag

Vishal Dikshit in Mumbai 10-Apr-20171:47

Agarkar: Mumbai have found a gem in Rana

Gautam Gambhir and Nitish Rana have been team-mates in the Delhi state team for a few years now. In March, during the Vijay Hazare Trophy, Gambhir, a senior player in the Delhi team, had a spat with coach KP Bhaskar over the exclusion of a few youngsters, including Rana, from the team. Gambhir felt Bhaskar was “creating an atmosphere of uncertainty” among youngsters, who were left feeling insecure, and insisted he was trying to make a secure environment for them.”I could not have let this man (Bhaskar) play with careers of young players like Unmukt Chand and Nitish Rana,” Gambhir had said last month. Gambhir may not have thought then about the bundles of confidence his actions would have drilled into Rana.On Sunday, in the IPL 2017 match between Kolkata Knight Riders and Mumbai Indians, the two were on opposite sides. Sitting in the dug-out because of the hot and humid conditions, Knight Riders’ captain Gambhir watched Rana take the match away from his side. Mumbai had promoted Rana to No. 3 in a surprise move, and he more than surprised the opponents.With the Mumbai openers adding 65 in a chase of 179, the stage had seemed set for Rohit Sharma at No. 3. Instead, Rana, who had batted at No. 4 in Mumbai’s first match, emerged unexpectedly. Mumbai soon lost Jos Buttler and Rohit in the space of nine balls and, at 74 for 3 with the required rate over 10, and the onus was mostly on Kieron Pollard. Rana did his bit too. Offered some flight by Kuldeep Yadav in the 12th over, he slog-swept a four and executed a beautiful lofted drive over cover for a six.A collective effort of accurate bowling from Kuldeep, Chris Woakes and Sunil Narine brought the equation to 60 off 24 before Pollard fell for 17. Rana and Hardik Pandya were the only recognised batsmen left in the Mumbai line-up. Two points to Gryffindor Knight Riders, almost certainly.Nitish Rana has batted at No.3 only twice in six IPL games but has made fifties in both matches•BCCIRana, however, showed exemplary composure and brought out his lower-order experience. He dispatched two international bowlers – Woakes and Trent Boult – to different parts of the ground, using drives, pulls and flat-batted shots and, with help from Hardik, brought the equation down to 30 from 12.That innings alone would have made Gambhir proud of Rana, although the Knight Riders’ captain would also have wanted his side to win. Instead, Rana was gifted two full tosses by Ankit Rajpoot: one was scooped all the way and the other lofted over mid-off for 10 runs in two balls. Rana brought up a half-century off 28 balls and with 20 to get, the Mumbai crowd was not going anywhere. He handed a catch straight to point the next ball but Hardik stayed on to clobber a six and two more fours to stun Knight Riders.Mumbai coach Mahela Jayawardene later said Rana was moved up the order to get the left-right combination, and was part of a strategy they intend to try out against different oppositions.”We’ve just been very flexible with our line-up since we have that left-hand right-hand combination, we can play around with different oppositions,” Jayawardene said. “The way Nitish batted today…he’s a very talented player and showed a lot of character. Hopefully, he grows stronger in the tournament and we can see more of that from him.”Gambhir would have liked it had Rana struck a quick-fire fifty a month ago for Delhi – he was dropped after scores of 5, 5, and 0 – and if he had played more games. Had Knight Riders held on to their catches and won the game, he may have been singing praises of Rana’s valiant fifty in a losing cause. Instead, Rana caught Gambhir and his team by surprise after they had done most of the hard work for a win, creating some uncertainty over whether Knight Riders can shut out oppositions in close matches.

India’s 30-over sprint, Kohli’s century dart, and other statistical highlights from India’s innings in the fourth ODI at the Premadasa

Bharath Seervi31-Aug-20173 – Number of double-century partnerships between Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli – the joint-highest for a pair, along with Gautam Gambhir and Kohli, Sourav Ganguly and Sachin Tendulkar, and Mahela Jayawardene and Upul Tharanga. Kohli already holds the record of being involving in the most double-century partnerships; this was his tenth.2 – Number of bigger ODI totals in Sri Lanka than India’s 375 in this match. Sri Lanka hold the record for their 398 for 5 against Kenya in the 1996 World Cup. India’s total is also the fifth-highest by any team against Sri Lanka, and India’s third-highest against them.168 – Margin of defeat for Sri Lanka – their biggest in a home ODI beating their 147-run loss against India at the same venue in 2009. For India, this is their third-biggest win over Sri Lanka.7 – Centuries for Kohli against Sri Lanka, in 44 innings. Only Tendulkar has more against a side: nine against Australia and eight against Sri Lanka. Kohli also completed 2000 runs against Sri Lanka. Only Tendulkar achieved the feat quicker, having done so in 40 innings against Australia. Viv Richards also did so in 44 innings against Australia.25 – Team overs in which Kohli completed his century, his quickest. His previous fastest came against Pakistan in the 2012 Asia Cup, when he raised one in the 30th over and went on to notch up a career-best 183.230 – India’s score in 30 overs. Only once they have done better: 261 against Sri Lanka in Rajkot in 2009. India slowed down after that and added only 54 runs in the next ten overs. But a tally of 91 in the last ten overs shored them to 375.Getty Images136.45 – Kohli’s strike rate in this innings – the highest of his 11 centuries when batting first. Out of his 29 centuries, this is the fourth-quickest innings. His tally of 17 fours is his third-highest among his century knocks.104 – Rohit’s score – the lowest for which he has been dismissed in his 13 ODI centuries. His last 10 centuries were all of scores of more than 120. This is the third time he has scored centuries in successive ODIs.2 – Number of bigger second-wicket partnerships for India after losing the first wicket for less than 10 runs. India lost Shikhar Dhawan with 6 on the board, after which Rohit and Kohli added 219 runs. Rahul Dravid and Sourav Ganguly’ 318-run stand is the highest in this case.300 – Wickets for Lasith Malinga in ODIs. He became the eighth fast bowler and 11th overall to reach the milestone. He dismissed Kohli for his 300th scalp. Kohli’s 131 is the highest score at which Malinga has dismissed any batsman in his ODI career.73 – Instances when MS Dhoni remained not out in ODIs – the highest for any player. He went past Shaun Pollock and Chaminda Vaas, who had 72 not outs each. Dhoni has remained unbeaten in all three innings in this series and six times in his last seven innings.8 – Instances of Malinga conceding 80 or more runs in an ODI – the most for any bowler. Wahab Riaz is next, with four such instances.

There is a Test series to win, and another to follow, but minds are starting to drift towards the Ashes series and the questions still looming over England

David Hopps at Old Trafford03-Aug-2017Just add water. If the recipe for Ashes success is as simple as that then Joe Root’s England side will find all the sustenance they need in the final Test of the series against South Africa.Weeks of incessant rain in Manchester have left the outfield saturated and the pitch an unknown quantity. It is here that England must first strive to secure their first home series win against South Africa for 19 years, but as they do so preparation for the Ashes will never be far from anybody’s mind.Such is the state of the Old Trafford outfield that Root embraced suggestions that fielders might have to tread warily lest they picked up the sort of injury that put Simon Jones out of the Ashes series in Brisbane in 2002 when he ruptured an anterior cruciate ligament.Last year, the same concerns were raised because the outfield had been heavily sanded after concerts at Old Trafford by Beyonce and Rihanna. This time there have been no pop stars on show quite so close to the match, although the outfield is doing a decent impression of Wet Wet Wet.”It is about being street-smart with it,” Root said. “The outfield is not going to be 100% and we will have to be quite clever about things. It is difficult to tell people not to play with 100% in Test cricket.”Whether they go about it slightly differently is up to them. It is definitely important they are made aware of it and there are no unnecessary injuries that occur.”England might be 2-1 up in the series, but they do not yet have a settled Ashes line-up that they can imagine slapping down on the match referee’s table ahead of the first Test in Brisbane on November 23.Of the two batting debutants at The Oval, Tom Westley has made a good first impression at No. 3 and now must cement that impression both here and in the three Tests against the West Indies later in the summer. Dawid Malan has much more to prove after his dominant off-side game did not reap rewards at The Oval. There also remain significant question marks over Keaton Jennings as Alastair Cook’s opening partner.Dawid Malan will hope for another chance after a lean start to his Test career•Getty ImagesRoot accepts that “it is very difficult to work out” precisely what England’s best line-up is and hopes “over time that should become a little bit clearer.” One pragmatic argument for playing an extra batsman, and again omitting Liam Dawson, is that at least it leaves room for more Ashes batting auditions. The unsettled weather, in any case, suggests that Dawson will not force his way back into a side that won so impressively in south London.”I think from this series there are a few guys who have really stood up and put their name in the hat for the future,” Root said.”It is all about backing up performances. You know what it is like: sometimes you can have a really tough series and all of a sudden the scrutiny is on you. That is the world of Test cricket unfortunately and it is about trying to be as consistent as you can.”The majority of the top 7 or 8 is pretty settled so that is nice to know. Ideally you want to get the other slots nailed on so. We have to make sure we are doing everything we can to give those guys the best chance to nail those spots down.”Root was doing a lot of nailing down in his captain’s media conference. Some wonder whether his discussions with England’s coach, Trevor Bayliss, over the balance of England’s side in the Ashes could yet become a bed of nails.Bayliss makes no secret of his belief that England are better balanced with the likes of Dawson – or even Adil Rashid – in the top eight. Root was granted an extra batsman at The Oval and the upshot was a 239-run win, but he might press his case more vehemently on Australian pitches.Root on DRS

“At times in the first two games I was maybe slightly emotional and went with what I wanted the decision to be rather than necessarily seeing for what he was. It is so difficult to make some of the calls.
“You have got to try to remember that they are there for the howlers and not there to try to burgle a wicket. That is something over time that I will hopefully get better at.”

“Early on in my captaincy I am trying to find out what I want and what works and what’s going to be the most successful formula moving forward,” Root said. “I suppose it’s very difficult to use Test matches as experiments but it’s important to find out what works early on so you have the opportunity to be more consistent and more successful.”You are trying to get the balance right between that consistency and making sure that we are playing a side that suits the surface that we come up against. Moving forward that is something we will have to get nailed down before we go to Australia. Hopefully we will stumble across it very quickly.”One aspect of England’s performances in the last two years has been their relative weakness when batting second, and facing a substantial opposition score. It would be no bad thing in road-testing the development of their side for that to happen in Manchester.Root suggested that, in an odd sort of way, this had happened at The Oval, with the need to respond arising not from a large opposition score but the hammering they had taken in the media for their reckless batting approach at Trent Bridge.”It’s a slightly different response because it is not a response to a score set by the opposition, but we wanted to set things right and respond to the mistakes we had made in the previous game. It’s important that we drive that forward and it’s not just a one-off thing.”England’s resolve grew from the first-day example set by Cook. “A lot of that was down to the example Cooky set at the top of the order: – he played with a lot of determination and grit,” Root recognised.At Old Trafford, where it will be an optimistic batsman who imagines the sun beating down on a golden surface, it is down to others to capture that mood.

If M Vijay and Cheteshwar Pujara protect Virat Kohli and Ajinkya Rahane from the new ball, India know they can score plenty of runs in the quick-scoring grounds of South Africa

Sidharth Monga31-Dec-20172:15

Prepared to face balls that may surprise us – Kohli

Since December 2013, when he replaced Sachin Tendulkar as India’s Test No. 4, Virat Kohli has been the most prolific No. 4 in the world. Steven Smith has averaged more than his 62.04, but the Australian captain hasn’t played as many innings at that position. Kohli has achieved these incredible numbers despite having two utterly forgettable series in between. He did, however, have the advantage of, on an average, walking out later than any other No. 4 in the world.Over this period, India have lost their second wicket at roughly the end of the 27th over, six balls later than Pakistan and 10 balls later than Australia. In England in 2014, India were two down at around the 21st over, and somewhere near the 29th in Australia later that year.In England, Kohli averaged 13. In Australia, 87.Kohli is not a batsman without weaknesses – the moving quick ball troubles him often – but if the bowlers are even slightly off or if there isn’t swing or seam, he takes full toll. The bowler knows Kohli can be taken out but he also knows the margin of error is almost non-existent. It will be unfair to attribute all the difference between Kohli’s England and Australia tours to it, but for a batsman such as him, walking out to face an older ball and less-fresh bowlers makes a sizeable impact.Every side needs players like Kohli, frontrunners who demoralise opposition attacks, but, as he himself would have realised, India need M Vijay and Cheteshwar Pujara to shield him from the new ball. Kohli the captain has a history of dropping them for more exciting batsmen, and in the one Test they both missed, Kohli – batting at No. 3 to accommodate Rohit Sharma – was exposed to the new ball and lasted 25 balls across two innings.Virat Kohli smashed a double-hundred at his home ground•AFPThe man who follows Kohli in the batting order also likes to dominate bowlers. Ajinkya Rahane, in fact, matched him shot for shot in the Boxing Day Test of 2014 as both batsmen scored superlative hundreds. The thing is, Rahane is also one of the worst starters in Test cricket. He has been dismissed for less than 20 in 47% of his innings over the last three years. Only Kusal Mendis fares worse among middle-order batsmen, and even if batsmen from the top three were added to the mix, only five of them paint Rahane in better light. To complicate matters, he is coming off his first series without a meaningful contribution in even one innings.Having said that, and quite like Kohli, Rahane is an extremely important player for India. Apart from having the ability to run away with the game quickly, he is that rare batsman who plays better away from home, who has to work harder against spin than pace. India’s only win in their 13-Test jaunt in England and Australia in 2014 and 2015 came on the back of a Rahane century on a green seamer.For various reasons, these two domineering batsmen need a bit of tender care. India can’t have them exposed to fresh bowlers and the moving ball too often. That is exactly why they need Vijay and Pujara at their best. Since December 2013, visiting No. 4 batsmen have been walking out, on an average, in the 20th over in South Africa. It is a tough place to face the new ball. You will see the seamer’s version of intended offbreaks that don’t turn. The top order will have to negotiate high-speed outswingers that pitch and suddenly either hold their line or nip back in. So when the ball is new, you almost have to play to have your outside edge beaten. Cover for the seam back in, never mind the one that beats your outside edge.Ajinkya Rahane lifts one over midwicket•AFPYou have to leave a lot of balls, and as it turns out, since December 2013, only Alastair Cook has done so more often against fast bowling, because he faces more of it, than Vijay (1158 balls). Pujara with 1065 leaves is not far behind. In terms of percentage of balls left alone, only Tom Latham is ahead of Vijay. Over the last three years, on an average, only four players have dealt with more fast bowling per innings than Vijay (59 deliveries).You look at numbers outside Asia, and Vijay comfortably faces more fast bowling than any other Indian – 80 balls per innings to KL Rahul’s 64 – and he faces them at their freshest. However, much like winter clothing, this is a game he leaves in the loft when playing at home or in similar conditions, which he has been doing a lot of over the last two years. He leaves alone 38% of quick deliveries outside Asia, and only 24% in Asia.It is surreal that India toyed with the idea of not playing Vijay until as recently as the Sri Lanka series; he has appropriately come back with successive centuries, but he will have to quickly go back to being watchful again. He will be physically challenged, forced to duck and weave, and mentally taxed, with a lot of effort spent for few runs. He is also 33 now and has had a wrist surgery to go with back issues this year. It will be tough for him to replicate the restraint and technical expertise he displayed over long periods on India’s last leg of tours outside Asia.M Vijay and Cheteshwar Pujara rehydrate during the drinks break•AFPA similar batsman, Pujara will have to fight what he doesn’t always like: extra bounce and metronomic bowling. His last hundred outside Asia came in South Africa, but it has been four years now. He has always maintained that he didn’t have technical issues. He got quite a few starts; 41% of his innings outside Asia since Johannesburg 2013-14 have been under 20, which, for the sake of comparison, is a better rate than Rahane overall. Now he goes to South Africa in the form of his life.Between Pujara and Vijay, their first job is to shield Kohli and Rahane, strike-rates be damned. The other opener will take care of scoring quickly. India seem to have locked in on Shikhar Dhawan for the first Test, not least because he is the only specialist left-hand batsman in the squad. Dhawan has one hundred outside Asia and an average of 30, and seems to struggle against the moving ball, but it seems India are willing to gamble, at least at the start of the series. And even if Rahul gets his chance, you suspect he will be briefed to bat with urgency to balance the approach of the other two top-order batsmen.Over the last two tours to South Africa, India have had only two real shockers with the bat: the first innings in Centurion in 2010-11 and the second innings in Durban in 2013-14. They all know – most of them from experience – that there are runs to be had on quick-scoring grounds. They will go into the New Year’s Test with form, confidence and clarity of roles. They will back themselves to be all right if they start well. And if the pitches have extra spice, the batsmen will have to adjust on the fly and a find a way to not collapse in a heap.