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The Philadelphia Phillies found a wild way to lose a game Tuesday night as the San Francisco Giants walked them off with a historic inside-the-park three-run homer in the bottom of the ninth inning at Oracle Park.

Giants catcher Patrick Bailey was the hero as his hard hit to right field bounced off the brick wall and shot past Phillies center fielder Brandon Marsh. He was able to eventually chase it down and fire the ball back to the infield but they never had a chance of stopping Bailey.

Phillies announcers Ruben Amaro Jr. and Tom McCarthy had the perfect reactions to it right after Bailey crossed home plate.

"Tom, I've seen a whole lot of things in this game. But I've never seen that," Amaro Jr. said. "That is truly an amazing, astonishing thing. I've just never seen anything like it."

"Nope, not something like that," McCarthy said.

Here's their call of the play:

You gotta love baseball.

From the way their spinners have outwitted opposition batters to the way they’ve backed their youngsters, this campaign has had the late great Australian’s DNA all over it

Karthik Krishnaswamy28-May-2022The shadow of Shane Warne, their captain, coach and talisman during their remarkable title run in the inaugural season of the IPL, has loomed over Rajasthan Royals’ campaign of 2022, and it almost feels like fate that they’ve reached the final for the first time since the heady days of 2008.After scoring his fourth hundred of the season to steer Royals into the final, Jos Buttler was inevitably asked about Warne. “He is such an influential figure for the Rajasthan Royals and having led the team to success in that first season, we will miss him dearly, but we know he is looking down on us with a lot of pride today,” Buttler said at the presentation ceremony. “He made us believe.”The 2022 Royals have an identity of their own, of course, forged by their coach Kumar Sangakkara, their captain Sanju Samson, and a core group of immense skill and experience that includes Buttler, Shimron Hetmyer, R Ashwin, Yuzvendra Chahal and Trent Boult. But if you look for it, you’ll find bits of Warne that remain in the team’s DNA.3:02

Manjrekar: Chahal and Hasaranga are courageous spinners with a big heart

Chahal bowls the pressure overs
Where most wristspinners in the IPL fire the ball into the pitch, attack the stumps relentlessly, and bowl the wrong’un almost as often as their stock ball, Chahal shows immense faith in his legbreak, and is unafraid to give the ball a bit of air and challenge batters to go after him. He’ll never be as good as Warne – who ever will? – but his style of bowling isn’t all that different.And like Warne, he puts his hand up and bowls the difficult overs. Australia’s captains loved using Warne in the high-pressure overs during his ODI career. Think of the Mohali World Cup semi-final of 1996, when Mark Taylor kept four overs of Warne in reserve until the 45th over, which began with West Indies needing 30 off 36 balls, with six wickets in hand. What happened next was three wickets in three overs of Warne magic, West Indian panic and an Australia win for the ages.Warne had retired from international cricket by the time the IPL happened, and his bowling was at a level below what it was at his peak, but that didn’t stop him from bowling the challenging overs. During IPL 2008, he was one of only three spinners – Muthiah Muralidaran and Pragyan Ojha were the others – to bowl 30 or more balls in the slog overs (17-20).At Royals this season, the team management has given Chahal a role very few spinners have ever performed in the IPL. He’s bowled 78 balls in the death overs already – Wanindu Hasaranga and Rashid Khan are a distant joint-second among spinners at 36 balls each – and only Sunil Narine has ever bettered that total in the IPL, doing so in three successive seasons from 2012 to 2014.2:28

Ashwin: ‘I’m extremely confident I can clear the ropes when required’

Ashwin tees off (not recklessly)
Warne sparked widespread merriment on Twitter when he prescribed a radical formula for England to counter India’s unstoppable spinners during the second innings of the pink-ball Ahmedabad Test of 2021. It involved, among other things, promoting Jofra Archer and Stuart Broad to bat in the top three, with the mandate to “tee off (not recklessly) but aggressive.”Warne, as he made clear a million times as a TV commentator, loved pinch-hitters, and he had often been used as one in white-ball cricket, most memorably during – once again – the 1996 World Cup, when he went in at No. 4 and clattered 24 off 14 balls to ease Australia’s progress in a chase of 287 in their quarter-final against New Zealand in Chennai.There’s a bit of Warne in Ashwin’s bowling – the drift, the variations, the intricate plotting of wickets, and above all the competitive edge he brings to contests – and this season, Royals have also looked to maximise Ashwin’s batting ability by pushing him up the order to make up for their lack of depth. They’ve used him in a variety of roles – as a pinch-blocker after a top-order collapse, as a pinch-hitter at No. 3, and even as a genuine finisher – and he’s responded with his best IPL season by far with the bat: 185 runs at an average of 30.83 and a strike rate of 146.82.Along the way, Ashwin also made history by becoming the first batter to retire out in the IPL. We don’t know what Warne would have made of the move, but we suspect he might have approved.Riyan Parag made a crucial half-century against RCB earlier in the season•BCCIRockstar 2.0
In 2008, Ravindra Jadeja was a 19-year-old with immense all-round potential, and Warne recognised that he could become a serious player one day, picking him in 14 out of Royals’ 16 games. Jadeja barely bowled back then, sending down just 2.1 overs through the entire season, but contributed a couple of cameos down the order – Warne called him a “future superstar” after he hit 33 off 19 against Kolkata Knight Riders – and caught everyone’s eye with his electric fielding.In 2021, Riyan Parag, a 19-year-old batting allrounder with immense potential, went through a horror season: 93 runs in 83 balls spread over 10 innings. Royals saw something in him, though, and re-signed him at the 2022 auction. They recognised that he performs a difficult role in the slog overs, and while his overall returns this season – 168 runs at an average of 16.80 and a strike rate of 143.58 – aren’t hugely impressive on the surface, they reflect the role he’s played, usually walking in with next to no time remaining in the innings. On one of the few occasions when he got to spend time in the middle, he scored a priceless, unbeaten 31-ball 56 on a tricky pitch against Royal Challengers Bangalore.And, like the Jadeja of 2008, Parag has been a standout fielder, making countless boundary saves in the hot zones at long-on and long-off, and taking more catches (16) than any other fielder in the competition. He’s celebrated each of them in a cheeky manner that’s rubbed traditionalists the wrong way, but you can bet that Warne would have loved his chutzpah.

The addition of Brewers flame-throwing rookie Jacob Misiorowski to the National League All-Star roster was a controversial one.

Misiorowski was added to the NL All-Star team as an injury replacement. The 23-year-old received the nod over some more experienced players who have also been enjoying strong seasons, despite Misiorowski having made just five MLB starts.

That didn't sit too well with members of the Philadelphia Phillies, who voiced their displeasure after Misiorowski was selected over Ranger Suarez and Cristopher Sanchez, two pitchers who were also deserving of the recognition. Not everyone in the All-Star Game seems to be upset about the call from commissioner Rob Manfred.

Yankees slugger Aaron Judge isn't too worked up about Misiorowski's controversial addition to the Midsummer Classic, though, and even expressed his excitement about potentially getting to face the rookie.

"Try to get one over the plate and see what I can do with it," Judge said when asked about possibly facing Milwaukee's emerging star on Tuesday. "He's a special talent. We've seen it so far in his five or six starts he's had in the big leagues. He's gonna do something special in this league for quite a long time," Judge said.

Judge didn't seem to have any qualms with the relatively inexperienced Misiorowski getting an All-Star nod, and he spoke highly of the potential the young Brewers pitcher has.

Hopefully, that's a matchup we'll get to see take place Tuesday night.

Shohei Ohtani is like the wild card in the card game Uno in that his play can often dictate how the Dodgers—and entire series as a whole—will fare. As National League Championship Series MVP, Ohtani's two-way prowess was on full display during the Dodgers' Game 4 victory, in which he belted three home runs as a hitter and struck out 10 batters over six scoreless innings as a pitcher. Ohtani has continued to amaze in the World Series against the Blue Jays, and he is set to take center stage once again in Game 7 on Saturday night.

The Dodgers earlier Saturday announced that Ohtani will start Game 7 against the Blue Jays, meaning he will also reprise his role as the club's designated hitter.

But, keeping the so-called Ohtani Rule in mind, there are a multitude of other ways Los Angeles could utilize Ohtani. First, let's dive into the rulebook.

What is the "Ohtani Rule?"

While the rule technically isn't named after Ohtani, it has become associated with him given that he's the only player—so far—that the rule largely applies to. Beginning in 2022, the MLB introduced a rule that coincided with the implementation of the designated hitter full time in the National League.

The rule states that if the starting pitcher is also in the lineup as the DH, he can remain as the DH even if he is removed as the pitcher. In the past, if the starting pitcher was also in the lineup, the DH was forfeited and a relief pitcher occupied his spot in the lineup. In starting Ohtani in Game 7, the Dodgers will be making use of the Ohtani Rule as they have for much of the regular season and postseason.

But there are other ways, within the rules, that Los Angeles could use the two-way star.

How could the "Ohtani Rule" affect Game 7?Ohtani starts the game, leaves for a reliever and remains the DH, then returns to close the game

Ohtani entering the game in relief would have been a possibility even if he wasn't named Saturday's starter. Amazingly, it's still a possibility that he could be the game's starting pitcher and come into the game later on as a relief pitcher.

Here's how.

Ohtani could start, be removed from the game in favor of a Dodgers reliever, and remain the team's designated hitter as he always does per the "Ohtani Rule." Here‘s where the twist comes into play. If the Dodgers are clinging to a ninth-inning lead and require his services once more, Ohtani could then re-enter the game as a relief pitcher, but the Dodgers would forfeit the DH spot. Just imagine the peak theater that Ohtani re-entering Game 7 of the World Series as a closer would be. However, this also means that if the game were to continue beyond the ninth inning, a pitcher or pinch hitter would be required to bat in the Dodgers' lineup and Ohtani would not be able to hit again unless…

Ohtani starts the game, leaves for a reliever and remains the DH, then returns to close the game, then becomes an outfielder

This would be the work-around to losing Ohtani's bat after his relief appearance, should the game play out that way. We saw the Dodgers and Blue Jays play an 18-inning contest in Game 3, so another extra innings affair can't be ruled out. Should that happen, Ohtani, after exiting as a reliever, could remain in the lineup as an outfielder. It's a position that Ohtani played in the Nippon Professional Baseball league in Japan, appearing in 62 games for the Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters. However, he has not played the outfield since 2021, when he made six appearances for the Angels. It would be pretty amazing to see Ohtani be a starting pitcher, hitter, relief pitcher and outfielder all in the same game.

This scenario would seem to be less likely than the previous, but Dodgers manager Dave Roberts left all options on the table for Ohtani.

"We’ll talk about everything,” Roberts had said on Ohtani playing outfield. “We’ll talk through whatever’s the best. If we get to that point, we’ll see, but he’s not going to play the outfield [in Game 6], I do know that. But, if we get to Game 7, we’ll have a good discussion about everything."

With a repeat championship on the line in Game 7, everything could indeed be on the table for the Dodgers when it comes to Ohtani.

The Quad Cities River Bandits lost to the Great Lakes Loons in a Midwest League matchup on Thursday. It was a particularly rough outing for the River Bandits as they lost by six runs and had their manager, catcher and a ballboy ejected by home plate umpire Richy Arredondo.

It all started in the top of the seventh when catcher Canyon Brown was thrown out during a mound visit. Coming off two straight walks Brown was talking to his pitcher and the pitching coach on the mound when Arredondo walked over, listened for a second and ejected the catcher.

Two batters and two runs later Loons first baseman Joe Vetrano swung and missed on a fastball that was not caught by catcher Chris Brito, who had just come in the game for Brown. The runner on second advanced to third as it was ruled a wild pitch, but the River Bandits argued it was a foul ball with manager Jesus Azuaje arguing so passionately that he got ejected.

Things only got weirder from there as a balk was called almost as soon as action resumed. And that's when the ballboy came out to give Arredondo more baseballs and did something to get himself ejected. As was the case with Brown, it isn't clear what exactly he did to earn the ejection, but Arredondo was emphatic with both of them.

The six-game series between these two teams will resume on Friday and go through the weekend with the same umpires working the game.

When this series concludes the Loons will return home to host the West Michigan Whitecaps. The Whitecaps are currently 81–35 and have a legitimate chance finish with the best record in the history of the Midwest League. The 1978 Appleton Foxes currently have that distinction after going 97–40.

From Nairobi to Lord’s, Durban to Rajkot, and all points in between

Himanshu Agrawal18-May-2020What We’re WatchingThe coming of age: Nairobi, Lord’s and Sydney
India were reeling from the sting of the match-fixing scandal when the 2000 ICC Knockout got underway in Nairobi. With two of their experienced middle-order batsmen serving bans, they were forced to turn to youth. Into the side came Singh, only 18, and a star of India’s Under-19 World Cup triumph earlier that year. Batting for the first time in international cricket, he immediately showed he belonged, scoring 84 off 80 balls against an Australia attack that included Glenn McGrath, Brett Lee and Jason Gillespie.Two years later, India, chasing 326 in a tri-series final against England, were 132 for 4 when Singh walked in. That soon became 146 for 5. You know what happened next: the partnership with Mohammad Kaif, the tense finish, and the sight of an ecstatically shirtless Sourav Ganguly on the Lord’s balcony. Some of Singh’s shots that day, as you can see here, were truly jaw-dropping.Come 2004, in a tri-series game in Sydney, he stitched together 213 with VVS Laxman, 139 of which came from his own blade. The shots flowed all around the ground, and one of the high points of this video is a pull off Jason Gillespie: the sound of the ball leaving his bat leaves the commentators purring.The years of plenty
Even as he piled up an impressive highlights reel, Singh could be maddeningly inconsistent in his early years. From the start of 2005 to the end of 2007, however, he was easily one of the world’s top ODI batsmen, scoring 2975 runs at an average of 46.48, with six hundreds.He was indispensable in this period, a clinical middle-order finisher. Pakistan bore the brunt of his power and timing, across formats. He scored his first two Test hundreds against them, in 2004 and 2006, and was a constant scourge, along with MS Dhoni, during the ODI series in Pakistan in 2006; the best of his innings in that series was probably his unbeaten 107 – made while battling a hamstring injury – in a brilliant chase of 287.A year later, Singh showed just how destructive a six-hitter he could be. First, he hit seven sixes in a 46-ball 83 against Bermuda in the 2007 World Cup, in India’s mammoth total of 413. It was barely a consolation in a tournament that India crashed out of in the group stage, but it was a warning for what was to follow six months later. Look away, Stuart Broad.”How d’you like the crust on that?” Kevin Pietersen called Yuvraj Singh a pie-chucker, but he didn’t do badly with the ball at all•Getty ImagesThose six sixes powered Singh to a fifty off just 12 balls – still the fastest fifty in all T20 cricket. In India’s next match of that inaugural World T20, the semi-final against Australia, he continued his rampant run by smacking 70 off 30 balls, including the longest six of the tournament,The destructiveness of his T20 hitting could carry over into ODIs too; in Rajkot in 2008, he smeared 138 off just 78 balls against England, while wearing a brace to protect his injured back. He scored another hundred in the next game, in Indore, and took that form into the 2008-09 tour of New Zealand, where he hammered 87 off just 60 balls in Christchurch.The electric fielder, the “pie chucker”
India are now a top-class fielding side, but it wasn’t always so. Singh played his part in the transformation, and in the early part of his career he was a livewire at backward point, capable of turning short, wide hit-me balls into wicket takers with his feats of athleticism. Two of his most memorable catches helped turn around the Champions Trophy semi-final of 2002: a leaping, two-handed grab at full stretch to send back Graeme Smith, and a sensational swoop at short fine leg off a top-edged sweep from Jonty Rhodes. Oh, and he had a fantastic arm too.Singh’s left-arm spin appeared entirely innocuous, but he varied his pace and release angles cleverly and made some good batsmen look foolish. Kevin Pietersen famously called him a pie chucker, but Singh had the last laugh, dismissing Pietersen five times in international cricket. You can see from this gleeful celebration just how feisty their rivalry was.More What We’re Watching

He awarded England six runs instead of five for overthrows, and that proved crucial to the result

Andrew Fidel Fernando30-Sep-2020Come to Think of itIf unkind memes are the pitchforks of the age, Kumar Dharmasena has spent more than a year being mercilessly winnowed. Not Planet Cricket’s favourite umpire even at the best of times, his wrong decision in the final over of the 2019 World Cup final tipped the game in favour of England, and conceivably changed the tournament’s outcome. But does he deserve a little sympathy? Is the law he misapplied so impractical as to be kind of stupid?We remember how the story goes, right? England need nine runs to get off three balls to win the World Cup. Trent Boult bowls a low full toss, and Ben Stokes – batting like a demigod – batters the ball to deep midwicket, where Martin Guptill swoops in, and fires off a rapid throw. (In the semi-final, Guptill’s direct hit from the deep to dismiss MS Dhoni had sealed New Zealand’s progress to the final.)ALSO READ: Why count boundaries to determine who wins a World Cup?The ball comes in low and fast, and although Stokes has been timing it beautifully during this innings, his timing will never be as consequential as it is in this moment. He throws himself and his bat toward the crease, with no other intention than to make his ground before the ball potentially hits the stumps. A kinetic freak event transpires. The thrown ball hits the thrown bat, though neither thrower intended this. The point and angle of impact could not have been more perfect if you were an England fan. The ball’s eventual path could not have been more horrifying if you were not. It skims off behind the keeper, where no fielder ever stands. Surely it will slow down before it hits the boundary? It doesn’t.On air, Ian Smith is screaming.”Is this going to go all the way to the boundary off the bat?”Can you believe this?”It has!””I do not believe what I’ve just seen!”Into this astonishingly charged situation steps our man, Dharmasena. Initially, while fans around the world are still gasping, no one is surprised by his decision to award six. Stokes made his ground long before the ball hit the boundary. So there are two runs, plus the four overthrows. Simple arithmetic. In fact, just moments before, Nasser Hussain had announced as much on the world feed. And Dharmasena has checked with the leg umpire before making the signal.It is not until the match, and that incredible Super Over, had finished that anybody catches on to Dharmasena’s mistake. In the minutes after his nation has won its first World Cup, ESPNcricinfo’s UK editor Andrew Miller reaches for the rule book – of all things. He comes across law 19.8. The run in progress only counts if the batsmen had crossed “at the instant of the throw” it says. So in this case, only five should have been awarded. What’s more, Adil Rashid – England’s No. 10 – should have been on strike for the next delivery, further denting England’s chances. Uh oh.Players routinely refuse to run extra runs after the ball hits their body or the bat on the way in from the field, so why not officially disallow runs that result off such deflections?•Getty ImagesNot helping things is a photo on Dharmasena’s social media feeds – a selfie in front of members of the distraught New Zealand team at the presentation. At least one of the players is scowling. Remember that scene in where the Joker blows up a hospital and walks away gleeful? Same energy. All across the cricketing interwebs, and you suspect in more than a few New Zealand bars, the man is pilloried.There is no contention in this article that Dharmasena made the right call. He didn’t. He has admitted as much. The law is unambiguous, and Stokes and Rashid were not even close to crossing when Guptill released the ball from deep midwicket. But would any umpire have made the correct call? Or is the law so ludicrous that no umpire could possibly apply it correctly?ALSO READ: Do you really want Virat Kohli in your T20 XI?When batsmen are running, umpires are expected to watch the crease to ensure they ground their bats correctly before they turn for another run. Frequently, as was the case here, the throw is made very shortly after the batsmen turn, meaning the umpire’s eyes have to switch from focusing a few metres in front of them to the outfield. They are also then required to make note of each batsman’s position at the exact moment of the throw, just on the off chance that overthrows result and this information becomes relevant. This is a rule so demanding, it’s virtually impossible to properly adjudicate. As Dharmasena has said, on-field umpires are also not allowed to consult replays before making their decision in this situation.In the wake of the tied Super Over, the ICC amended the bad rule that handed England the World Cup despite there having been nothing to separate the teams. Perhaps this is another rule worth changing.What if the run in progress is counted regardless of where the batsmen had been at the point of the throw? And what if, when the ball, thrown by a fielder, hits a batsman or any of his equipment, it becomes dead the moment the ongoing run is completed? Which would mean that in this case Stokes would have been awarded two, and would have stayed on strike. But the four overthrows off his bat would not have counted. Surely unintended deflections should not result in runs when the fielding side has done nothing wrong. Already batsmen frequently refuse to run overthrows when the ball has struck them, believing those to be unfair runs.Cricket is complex enough without umpires having to watch several unfolding events at once, and without batsmen essentially being required to police themselves. Umpires will perhaps justifiably claim they have one of the most thankless jobs in the sport. They are taken for granted in success, and cut down in public when they fail. Dharmasena has won multiple Umpire of the Year awards, which suggests he has the respect of his peers, but he seems to get it in the neck from fans more than most. This time, unfairly.Nobody, though, can argue that the year of Dharmasena memes has not been hilarious.Come to Think of it

How did India, Australia, Pakistan, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Zimbabwe and Afghanistan fare this year?

02-Jan-2021IndiaBy Sidharth MongaHardly any cricket at home, most of the time spent in lockdown and biosecure bubbles worrying about their own health and that of their families back home, India’s players ended the year with a win for the ages. They were rolled over for 36 in the first Test of the series in Australia, were missing their full-time captain and two key bowlers, and still outplayed Australia in the Boxing Day Test to level the series 1-1, underlining their status as the best Test team of recent years despite the 0-2 loss in New Zealand earlier in the year.In keeping with the spirit of the upside-down year that 2020 was, India excelled in the format that on paper is the one they are least proficient in, T20Is. They expectedly beat Sri Lanka in T20Is at home, but they followed it up with a 5-0 whitewash of New Zealand in New Zealand and a 2-1 win over Australia in Australia. With a home T20 World Cup scheduled next year, India will feel they have a fair idea of how to plug the well-documented holes in their limited-overs cricket: the middle-order power-hitters and allrounder.India lost their ODI series in New Zealand and Australia, but that format is the lowest preference with the ODI World Cup still three years away.It was off the field that India’s cricketers triumphed the most perhaps. Through the lockdown, the cricketers made an effort to stay in touch with their fans through their Instagram interviews with each other, and once the cricket began they wore their privilege lightly, respecting their biosecure bubbles and dealing with on-field events with admirable perspective.Results
Tests: P4 W1 L3
ODIs: P9 W2 L6
T20Is: P11 W9 (two ties) L1 NR1No Australian victory in 2020 came bigger than Meg Lanning and Co’s T20 World Cup triumph•Daniel Pockett/ICC/Getty ImagesAustraliaby Daniel Brettig
Due in part to Covid-19, but largely the seminal nature of the event, the singular moment of 2020 for Australian cricket belonged not to the teams of Tim Paine or Aaron Finch but Meg Lanning.To host and win the women’s T20 World Cup in such emphatic fashion, watched by more than 86,000 enraptured spectators at the MCG, was a moment of great cricketing performance but also social breakthrough as far as the women’s game was concerned. It remains the responsibility of all boards, not just Australia’s, to ensure the momentum of this magical occasion is not lost. Lanning and company can be expected to hold up their ends of the bargain.As a men’s Test team, Australia spent much of the year luxuriating in recent performances against England, Pakistan and New Zealand and their place at the top of the World Championship table while keeping one eye on their next opponents, India. That they postponed a WTC series against Bangladesh and a separate one-off Test against Afghanistan underlined the complexities of the year, but in all, their trajectory was little changed in terms of looking ever forward towards an assignment against the team led by Virat Kohli and Ajinkya Rahane.Over the course of three matches separated by almost 11 months, the pre-eminence of Pat Cummis, Josh Hazlewood and Mitchell Starc as the game’s premier pace attack was maintained: they rounded up New Zealand in Sydney in January and then razed India in the second innings in Adelaide in December. But the fortunes of the batting line-up, seemingly so settled at the beginning of the year, were not so straightfoward.A groin injury to David Warner upset the balance at the top, Joe Burns lost his way, and neither Matthew Wade nor Travis Head benefited from the reshuffling. Meanwhile Seven Smith continued to climb down from his 2019 Ashes peak, while Marnus Labuschagne found India’s attack a much harder assignment than those of Pakistan and New Zealand had been. A hefty defeat at the MCG ended the year in a state of some uncertainty, even if the WTC lead remained.In ODIs and T20Is, Aaron Finch led combinations that were reset after the 2019 World Cup, with mixed results. One-day series defeats away to India and South Africa slipped largely under the radar before series against New Zealand and Zimbabwe were overtaken by Covid-19. All stops were pulled out to ensure the white-ball tour of England took place, made memorable by a 2-1 series win that featured perhaps the best innings yet by Glenn Maxwell and Alex Carey. At home, India were thumped in the ODIs as they found their feet after post-IPL quarantine, but the T20Is fell the other way.Results
Tests: P3, W2, L1, D0
ODIs: P13, W6, L7
T20Is: P9, W4, L5, T0, NR0Cricket made itself very much at home in Pakistan last year•AFPPakistanby Danyal Rasool
For every country, what felt important in 2020 wasn’t how the cricket panned out, but that it happened at all. That cannot be true of any other side more than Pakistan, who have marked a few milestones that might allow them to look back at they year with something other than profound distaste.In this most abnormal of years, one thing began to feel normal – the mere act of playing international cricket in Pakistan. Bangladesh and Zimbabwe visited, and there is more promise on that front with South Africa and England potentially arriving next year. The PSL was held in the country for the first time, and went off without a security hitch.On the field, it was a surprisingly predictable year, with Pakistan winning the games they were meant to and demonstrably off the pace against the elite sides. A 1-0 Test series loss to England might be the biggest missed opportunity, given how close the visitors came to inverting that scoreline. Zimbabwe and Bangladesh were, one Super Over loss notwithstanding, swept aside at home, while New Zealand edged out the tourists in a T20I series to round out the year; the 2-1 scoreline in that series was perhaps not indicative of quite how far Pakistan have fallen behind in the format. The T20I slide was officially recognised by the rankings, with Pakistan’s 27-month grip on the top spot broken in May; they have now slid back into mid-table mediocrity.There was, of course, the usual musical chairs with the captaincy: the selectors got rid of Azhar Ali after just a year in charge, and replaced him with Babar Azam. Captain in all three formats now, Azam remains Pakistan’s brightest star by some distance, and their premier batsman.Results
Tests: P4 W1 L1 D2
ODIs: P3 W2 L1
T20Is: P11 W7 L3 NR1The Black Lives Matter movement exposed deep schisms within cricket in South Africa•Getty ImagesSouth AfricaBy Firdose MoondaIf you thought 2019 was South Africa’s annus horribilis, think again. Things got even worse in 2020 at all levels, in every aspect from administration to on-field efforts.After ending 2019 with victory over England in Mark Boucher’s first Test as coach, South Africa went on to lose the series 1-3, their batting becoming progressively more ragged. Pressure on Faf du Plessis mounted and he stepped down as Test captain at the end of the series and was removed as white-ball skipper, with Quinton de Kock installed in his place. Under fresh leadership, South Africa played an energetic brand of shorter form cricket against England and Australia but won only one series – a 3-0 ODI sweep of Australia.Then came Covid-19 and the postponements of a white-ball tour to Sri Lanka and a two-Test, five-T20I tour of the West Indies. A proposed three-match T20 series against India never happened. But the winter was far from quiet.Amid Cricket South Africa’s meltdown, which saw the CEO sacked, one acting CEO resign and another get suspended and the entire board step down after the sports minister threatened to intervene, it collided with the Black Lives Matter movement in a series of incidents that exposed schisms in the country’s game. At the centre of it were debates around the symbolism of taking a knee, which the national team have not done. Instead, they raised a fist at the start of their first Test of the summer, which they won.Results
Tests: P4 W1 L3
ODIs: P6 W4 L1 NR 1
T20Is: P9 W2 L7Sri Lanka picked a pandemic year to launch the Lanka Premier League, and executed it with remarkable success•Jaffna StallionsSri Lankaby Andrew Fidel FernandoSri Lanka, generally one of the most active teams on the cricket circuit played 21 days of cricket in 2020. Fourteen of those were Test cricket days, as Sri Lanka won one in Zimbabwe, drew the next, and many months later, lost both the match and half their players to injury in their last game of the year, in Centurion. They were good in the one ODI series they played, and terrible in the two T20I series.There’s not a lot you can read into all that. In the ODIs they dominated, Sri Lanka were playing West Indies, who don’t field anything approaching their best team in non-World Cup years. Sri Lanka were slammed in the two T20I series they played in January and February, but were trying out combinations and perhaps had a better idea of the talents at their disposal at the end of the year.There’s not a lot to offer in terms of analysis in a year with this little cricket, but here are some Lankan cricket truths that are good for every year: Chamari Athapaththu rocked the planet, but the rest of her team did not. Kusal Mendis was fleetingly awesome but frequently awful. Angelo Mathews got injured. Lasith Malinga got older and probably rounder. A new spinner emerged (Wanindu Hasaranga this time) and the selectors immediately thrust him into every XI available. There was one unusual thing in 2020: the head coach of the men’s team didn’t get sacked.Sri Lankan cricket doesn’t operate according to steady or predictable laws, so the pandemic year was of course the one in which they successfully launched a franchise T20 tournament. There was the fantastic story of eventual winners Jaffna Stallions, whose aim was not just to win the tournament, but also develop cricket infrastructure in a neglected part of the country. Also, for the first time, there was clarity on the depth of T20 talent in the country, and at least one breakout star in Dhananjaya Lakshan.Results
Tests: P3 W1 L1 D1
ODIs: P3 W3
T20Is: P5 L4 NR1Blessing Muzarabani starred in Zimbabwe’s only ODI win, taking five wickets in regulation time, then two more in the Super Over•AFP via Getty ImagesZimbabweby Firdose Moonda
A team that usually gets the scraps of the international schedule had to make do with even less in 2020, despite relatively fewer coronavirus cases in the country. Zimbabwe played little more than a handful of fixtures in each format in series against Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Pakistan, and had scheduled visits from Ireland, India and the Netherlands and a tour to Australia postponed.Perhaps much worse than the scarcity of matches was the almost absolute absence of victories. Zimbabwe won just one of their 14 fixtures, but only after it was tied first. They prevailed in the Super Over against Pakistan thanks to Blessing Muzarabani, who returned from a Kolpak deal over the winter. Muzarabani was also their joint-leading ODI bowler and highest T20 wicket-taker in 2020, though Zimbabwe continued to struggle in the shortest and longest format.They suffered five heavy T20I defeats, where the only positive was the emergence of Wesley Madhevere. The former U-19 international was their only batsman to score more than 100 runs in the format, was their third highest run scorer in ODIs, and will doubtless graduate to Tests soon.In Tests, Zimbabwe’s best result was a draw against Sri Lanka in Harare, but they lost the series and a one-off Test in Bangladesh.They also lost the services of veteran allrounder Elton Chigumbura, who called time on his 16-year career after a string of injuries. Chigumbura was Zimbabwe’s third most-capped ODI player.Despite the lack of cricket, things remained stable at board level, which is not always something that can be said of Zimbabwe Cricket. Their challenge will be to secure fixtures for 2021 and to get on track for 2023 World Cup qualification.Results
Tests: P3 W0 L2 D1
ODIs: P6 W1 L5
T20Is: P5 W0 L5Despite a nearly empty international calendar, Afghanistan’s players had star turns in franchise leagues: Mujeeb ur Rahman was the leading overseas wicket-taker in the CPL•Randy Brooks – CPL T20 / GettyAfghanistanBy Peter Della PennaAfghanistan’s international calendar was short and sweet, featuring three T20Is against their longtime frenemy Ireland. As has been the case for much of the past five years, Rashid Khan’s impish grins disguised the pain he dished out along with his mystery spin twin Mujeeb Ur Rahman to clinch the series in the first two matches before falling short in a Super Over that denied Afghanistan a clean sweep in the final one.Though the rest of the men’s national team’s fixtures were wiped out by the pandemic, Afghans continued to make their mark on the franchise T20 scene. Khan duelled with Yuzvendra Chahal for the title of best spinner in the IPL, finishing one wicket behind the Indian leggie. Mujeeb was the leading overseas wicket-taker in the CPL, while Mohammad Nabi’s all-round heroics helped propel long-time losers St Lucia Zouks into the CPL final for the first time ever.Twenty-year-old Qais Ahmad, buried behind the aforementioned two spinners in Afghanistan’s squad, followed up solid performances in the CPL by ending as the leading overseas spinner in the inaugural Lanka Premier League, highlighting the depth in Afghanistan’s spin stocks. Meanwhile, medium-pacer Naveen-ul-Haq carved out a regular spot in the Guyana Amazon Warriors and Kandy Tuskers starting XIs with his canny variations at the death.Perhaps the most significant achievement for Afghanistan cricket in 2020 was a pledge by the board to award 25 central contracts to female players. The country was exempted from having a women’s programme as a requirement for a successful application to Full Member status in 2017. But a women’s national team camp organised in October 2020 indicated that may be changing sooner than later.Results
T20Is: P3 W2 L1More in our look back at 2020

Root’s side look increasingly accomplished, bringing much-needed cheer for supporters locked down at home

George Dobell18-Jan-2021England supporters have never had it so good.Yes, the lockdown is rubbish. And yes, as the pandemic continues to ravage the UK, you can almost imagine plague-ridden Londoners of the 1660s looking on and sighing: ‘those millennials are having it tough’. There’s no disputing that life in general is pretty grim right now.But on the cricket pitch, at least, this England team is achieving things which their predecessors could scarcely imagine.Victory in Galle means England have won four successive away Tests for the first time in more than 60 years. To put that in perspective, when the first of those previous four victories was achieved (against New Zealand, in March 1955), Winston Churchill was Prime Minister. By the time of the last (in January 1957), the country was in the middle of the Suez Crisis.If this sounds like a modest achievement by comparison with some other sides, it should never be forgotten how awful England have been for really quite sustained periods in their cricketing history. Even recently, from October 2016 to November 2018, England went 13 Tests in a row without an away Test victory.Across the 1980s and 90s, they won 16 of the 96 away Tests they played. At least three of those came in dead rubbers, with four more against a post-Hadlee New Zealand side in transition and one against a Sri Lanka team still finding its feet. Between December 1986 and February 1990, they didn’t win away at all.Ahead of one Ashes tour, England said their aim was simply to “compete.” Which is one up from saying the aim was to turn up on time in the right clothes. And even that proved too much to ask at times. You’d need Wes Craven to direct a documentary that really conveys how awful it was following England in the 90s.So yes, Sri Lanka (who have now lost five times in a row to England at home) were remarkably poor in their first innings in Galle. And yes, South Africa are not the side they once were. But these are significant, historic victories from an England perspective. It would be churlish to explain them away entirely.At the centre of all this is Joe Root. With a double-century – his record-equalling second as captain – he went a long way towards defining the course of this game. In the course of doing so, he passed 8,000 Test runs in fewer innings than any England player except Kevin Pietersen and with a higher average than any of those above him on the overall list.Almost as impressively, he marshalled an attack which included two obviously rusty spinners – Dom Bess and Jack Leach – sufficiently well that both claimed five-wicket hauls – the first time a pair of England spinners have done this in the same Test since 1982 – and grew in confidence as the Test wore on.Root was rewarded for his faith in Buttler, Bess and Leach•SLCHe was also rewarded by keeping faith with Jos Buttler, who put in perhaps the most accomplished performance of his Test career with the gloves. This was England’s first away victory when batting second since 2016 and Root’s first as captain without his key allrounder, Ben Stokes. For one reason or another, he was without Moeen Ali, Jofra Archer, James Anderson, Rory Burns, Ollie Pope and Chris Woakes, too. Whichever way you look at it, that’s a good effort.Root has now led England to victory in 24 Tests. Only Michael Vaughan, who led the side to 26 wins, has more victories as captain for England, while only Mike Brearley has a higher win percentage out of regular captains than his 53.33%.Of course, there are far fewer draws in Root’s era, meaning his loss percentage is higher too. But Brearley never captained against West Indies, the outstanding side of the age, and his Ashes results were skewed by Australia’s World Series absentees. And crucially, his batting average as captain (22.88) was less than half of Root’s (48.80).Regrettably, England’s Test captains are still judged disproportionately on their success in Ashes series, particularly away from home. As a result, Root’s legacy will be determined by events over the next 12 months, and it would take something approaching a miracle for England to win in both India and Australia.But with his boyish face and soft voice, Root can easily be underestimated. He doesn’t have the obvious authority – or World Cup-winning CV boost – of Eoin Morgan. He doesn’t have the gravitas bestowed on Brearley by his academic background, or the free-to-air platform of Vaughan. And, most of all, he doesn’t have the complete lack of expectation that accompanied previous England captains on tour.Related

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But he’s a decent man, an indecently talented batsman and hugely respected by a team that see him as their natural leader and unifier. He has not only improved his team’s results, but improved their standing in the eyes of the public. In Galle, he actually raised his bat to the one England spectator on the fort when he reached his 200 and then took the time to phone him afterwards.He’s embraced the requirement to pose for every selfie, accept every interview request and ensure a team which was in a state of something approaching civil war at the start of 2014 has developed into something entertaining, likeable and generally pretty successful. And he’s accepted the sacrifice in his own returns – he averages 44.33 as captain and 52.80 when not – without complaint.Perhaps there is a lesson here. Root could doubtless have done with more preparation time coming into this game, but it is also relevant that he was fresh. Having missed out on selection for England’s T20I squad in South Africa, he came into this Test without playing competitively since September.His work ethic is admirable: at the end of the summer, he played for Yorkshire in the Blast the day after his release from the England bubble. His love for the game is charming: “I love playing cricket” is his typical answer when asked about his T20 future. But as someone already juggling the demands of fatherhood, captaincy and the pressures of being his side’s best batsman, he is a man of whom a huge amount is required.If England want to continue to get the best out of Root, he does need to be treated with the same care as Archer and Stokes seem to be. It may well make sense to officially lay his T20I career to rest and tell him he will not be required for ODI cricket again until at least the other side of the Ashes.Joe Root thrived on the sweep shot during his double-century•SLC”With the time off, the thing that’s really benefited me is having a period of time to work on my game,” he said after the Galle Test. “To have time to think about things and take stock and look where I can improve. That’s where I think I’ve benefited the most.”There will be occasions where I might have to miss out here and there. I’m desperate to play as much as I can. I love playing cricket, love playing for England and feel very privileged to get the opportunity. I suppose getting the balance right is very important. But the way I thought about things in that period of time off, I will look to replicate.”I don’t think you can ever be a finished article as a captain. I certainly don’t feel it’s the case with me. I will always look to improve and get better; I feel I am getting a better handle on things.”Captains of a previous vintage will look at the job now and wish they had central contracts in their day. And it’s true, they are a major asset. But Root has not been dealt a handful of aces by a set-up that renders it difficult to produce red-ball players and demands its best international players adhere to a schedule a Victorian factory owner might feel excessive.Don’t forget that England are likely to play 17 Tests this year, alongside a T20 World Cup and what amounts to a goodwill tour of Pakistan. Like several other sides, they have spent a large part of the last eight months in bio-bubbles that vastly inhibit the freedoms we used to take for granted. In doing so, they’ve ensured the English game – including the counties, women’s cricket and the disability sides – has been able to keep its head above water despite the storm that threatened to wash it away. There has barely been a squeak of complaint from any of them.Whatever happens over the next year, Root’s England side have provided some much-needed cheer for a land going through its bleakest period since World War 2. For that, he deserves rather more respect, rather more appreciation and, crucially, rather more nurturing than he sometimes receives.

Retired batter opens up on his decision to call time and the “mental burnout” he suffered after 2013

George Dobell26-May-20212:02

Quickfire questions with Ian Bell

There’s just a moment, when you see Ian Bell with a bat in his hand, when you wonder if he might have retired too soon.It’s true the bowling (supplied by the golfer, Andrew “Beef” Johnston) is not the most threatening you’ve ever seen. And it’s true there isn’t much match intensity, either. This is a video shoot for Bet365. Bell is relaxed and having fun.But he looks so good. So damn good. He’s slim, he’s fit, he still loves the game. Put simply, he looks full of runs. And it’s not as if England have adequately replaced him. James Anderson is less than a year younger. Darren Stevens is six years older.Bell, it could be forgotten, was actually contracted to Warwickshire for the 2021 season. He could easily have accepted a salary commensurate with his position as the club’s greatest homegrown player and fulfilled the role of senior pro. Yes, injuries had hampered him, and yes, the torrent of runs had dwindled a little. But he made 140 runs (split across innings of 50 and 90) in his final first-class match. There was nobody pushing him into retirement.But he knew. He knew his body could no longer accede to the commands his eyes gave it. Or not as quickly as it once did, anyway. And, having excelled for so long, he wasn’t content to be “okay”, as he puts it. He might, he says, pull on the whites once more when his son reaches club third XI standard – just so they can play a game together – but, in essence, he is fulfilled.”I didn’t want to just sit on a contract; I didn’t just want to be okay” – Bell walked away from a deal to play in 2021•Getty Images”It didn’t feel like a hard decision to retire,” he says. “I didn’t really feel sad. There’s definitely things I miss. I miss that feeling of winning. I miss the hard work that goes into helping Warwickshire win a Championship game. And I’ve loved having a bat today. But I don’t miss the fielding and the soreness in the morning, especially as you get older.”I feel like I gave everything I had. As a kid, my dream was to play 100 Test matches and I achieved that. I had 22 years as a professional cricketer. When I look in the mirror, I know I tried everything I had.”I know I was blessed with some talent. But there’s stuff that people don’t see behind the scenes. I gave it everything I had in training. No stone was left unturned in terms of my preparation and trying to be as good as I could be. Some days it turned out well; some days it didn’t. That’s sport. That’s life. I feel very satisfied with the efforts that I made to be as good as I could be.”I was very lucky Warwickshire offered me a contract to play this year. I signed it. But I’d been out the whole year [2019] injured and, until you’re in the middle, or you’re fielding or running between the wickets, you’re not sure. I just didn’t feel I was moving how I wanted to. And that was restricting me a little bit from getting the best of myself. I didn’t want to just sit on a contract. I didn’t just want to be okay.”And we [Warwickshire] have some good young players coming through. There’s Dan Mousley, Rob Yate and Jacob Bethell. I didn’t want to just take up a spot and block some young, homegrown players from coming through. That would have hurt me more.”So, it felt like the right decision if I’m honest. I’ve enjoyed the media and events work I’ve done and I’m trying to go down the coaching route. I’m very comfortable with I’m doing now.”He accepts, however, that burnout played its part in the ending of his international career. For though there were more obvious casualties of the schedule in 2013 and 2014 – Jonathan Trott, notably – in their own ways, Andy Flower, Kevin Pietersen, Alastair Cook and Graeme Swann were all broken, too. Those who decry England’s recent rest-and-rotation policy, would probably do well to reflect how things might look if such a policy was not in place.

“The mental side of the game for me got to a point where I probably needed to take a backward step, take some time off, re-energise and go again”Bell on suffering from burnout

The decline in Bell was less obvious. Indeed, by the end of the 2013 Ashes – in which he scored three centuries and was named Player of the Series; his proudest achievement he says now – it seemed his game had risen to a new level. He had the confidence and experience to add to his obvious class. From Christmas 2009 until August 2013, he averaged 57.51 in Test cricket with 12 centuries in 43 matches. England went to No. 1 in the Test rankings and he went to No. 3 in the ICC’s batting rankings.In retrospect, though, the summer of 2013 was the beginning of the end. In his final 25 Tests, a period which coincided with two more Ashes series (one of them a whitewash), a disappointing World Cup campaign (Bell was actually England’s highest run-scorer in 2015, but we’re in “tallest dwarf” territory here) and a World T20 campaign in which he was a non-playing squad member, he scored two more centuries and averaged 29.52. And there’s nothing more ageing than the cocktail of weariness and disappointment.Reflecting on this period now, Bell accepts he should have taken Andrew Strauss, the managing director of England men’s cricket at the time, up on his offer of a few months’ sabbatical.”That wasn’t physical,” Bell says. “That was more mental burnout. At the time, I was one of those guys who thought I should keep ploughing on. Andrew Strauss, to his credit, offered me the winter off.”But I’d just accepted a central contract. So I didn’t feel taking winter off was the right option. When I look back, probably that was the wrong decision. It probably would have been a good option.Bell was Player of the Series in the 2013 Ashes•Getty Images”Whether it would have changed things and I’d have gone back in and had another two or three years with England, I don’t know. But the mental side of the game for me got to a point where I probably needed to take a backward step, take some time off, re-energise and go again.”There are no serious regrets, though. Marriage and fatherhood suit him nicely. While he remains modest, he has the good-natured honesty to admit, while filming a feature for ESPNcricinfo about the perfect 360-degree batter, that he wouldn’t swap his cover drive with anybody. And really, why would he?He’s not finished with cricket, though. He hopes to move into coaching and has particular interest in the fortunes of his old team-mates, Joe Root – “the best player of spin England have ever had” – and Dom Sibley, who “at his best, he is just what England need,” Bell says. “There are lots of different ways to be successful.”And then there’s Ollie Pope. The similarities between Bell and Pope are lost on nobody and Bell admits there are moments he double-takes and wonders whether his TV is showing live coverage or highlights of the old days. Perhaps partly as a result, there is an almost paternal attitude to analysis of a 23-year-old who is currently coming to terms with the burden of high expectations.”I had that from 16 myself in terms of some quite big statements,” Bell says, referring perhaps to that Dayle Hadlee line about him being the best 16-year-old he had ever seen. “But I think that comes with playing for England.”It always makes me laugh when people say that certain innings weren’t under pressure. You’re always under pressure when you play for England. You have to be able to deal with expectation. But there’s no doubt [Pope] has the ability. And he has the people around him too. I used to tap into Alec Stewart, his coach at Surrey, a lot about batting.Related

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“But my advice to him – to any, player, really – would be staying in the moment. And that’s really hard to do. A lot of the time, as a batsman in particular, you’re chasing outcomes. You want to get a hundred, for example. So you’re desperate to get those big scores and sometimes you put a little bit too much pressure on yourself.”When I look back in the partnerships I enjoyed with Trotty, or Cooky, or KP or Matt Prior, we just broke things down into small, achievable targets. I used to try and get to five. And then 10. And then 15. So, I’d say don’t look too far ahead.”But don’t worry about him. He scores big runs whenever he goes back to Surrey. He learns fast. He’s going to be a fine, fine player. I love watching him.”So, no need for a Bell comeback then? “No chance,” he says with a smile. “I played for more than 20 years. I played around the world and enjoyed some success with some really good teams. I did my bit.”