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This match was lost in its first half hour, irrespective of “positives” Root says can be gleaned from the wreckage

Andrew Miller11-Dec-2021Eleven Tests, ten defeats and a draw, and scarcely a whiff of an upset in any of them. Since their last series win in Australia in 2010-11, England’s record Down Under has been abysmal – so poor, in fact, that it was hard to feel especially moved by the totality of this latest loss at Brisbane.When a side has slumped to 11 for 3 inside six overs after choosing to bat first, it’s hard to muster much more than a shrug of recognition when the same outfit squanders its final eight wickets in an unseemly rush for the exits. This match was lost within half an hour of its beginning, irrespective of the “positives” that Joe Root, England’s captain, is adamant can still be gleaned from the wreckage.”We’re game-hardened now,” Root said, after England’s Covid- and rain-wrecked build-up to the first Test. “We’d not had that going into it, so we’ll be better for it. Those guys that have not experienced [the Ashes] before know what’s coming now, and sometimes that [next] game coming around quite quickly is exactly what you need, to get straight back out there and put things right.”Related

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It’s not that Root does not have a point. With the ball, Mark Wood and Ollie Robinson were outstanding in contrasting yet complementary ways, while Root’s own reaction to his first-innings duck was reassuring confirmation that the world’s No.1 batter has not mislaid his touch in the four months since his last competitive outing. His partnership with Dawid Malan was in-game evidence of the strides that this team can make, while Haseeb Hameed and Ollie Pope are among a cast of players who may feel better orientated for their incomplete displays.And yet England, by dint of their glaring inadequacies in Australian conditions, have now set such low expectations that all manner of bouncing dead cats could be mistaken for signs of an impending recovery – maybe even Rory Burns’ triumph in avoiding a king pair, a feat he achieved by avoiding the first ball of the innings for only the fourth occasion out of 264 in his first-class career. Even then, he had to rely on the lottery that was the Gabba’s technology back-up to overturn an lbw verdict two balls later.No amount of marginal gains from first innings to second can disguise England’s current run of 11 Tests – and 11 years – without a victory in Australia. It is a longer run of failure than they managed even in an era commonly recalled as the team’s nadir – the ten-Test stretch from January 1987 to January 1995, which began with Mike Gatting’s Ashes-winners being spun to defeat at Sydney by an unknown debutant Peter Taylor (whom legend has it owed his call-up to a case of mistaken identity) and ended with an extraordinary win against the head at Adelaide – one of those glorious 1990s flashes-in-the-pan that somehow made all of the team’s other indignities worthwhile.In between whiles, those indignities included Graham Gooch “farting against thunder” during a supine 3-0 loss in the “Tiger Moth” tour of 1990-91 – a series in which England managed to take a first-innings lead in each of the opening two Tests, only to then lose them by ten wickets (at the Gabba, natch) and eight wickets respectively. Thereafter, Shane Warne’s supremacy opened such a baffling new dimension in Ashes combat that England could hardly be blamed for taking an entire generation to work out how to play him.Rory Burns trudges off after a second failure•Getty ImagesThere’s no such mystery about Australia’s dominance these days. They have a mighty roster of fast bowlers, and a spinner in Nathan Lyon with sufficient guile to claim 403 Test wickets and counting. And while Steve Smith is a freak of nature who had been averaging 120 in Ashes Tests over the past four years, he’s still not quite Don Bradman – on whose watch England’s record barren run in Australia was recorded: 12 Tests (punctuated by a World War) between 1937 and 1951.Some might counter that Australia’s recent record in England isn’t so flash either. They haven’t won an Ashes series there since 2001, which – on the face of it – goes to underline the suspicion that home advantage is half the battle won in modern-day Test cricket. And yet, that doesn’t square with Australia’s impressive haul of four wins and a draw in their last ten away Ashes Tests.Nor does it square with the fact that there has been just one truly close contest, home or away, since Australia launched their 5-0 whitewash at the Gabba in 2013. Ben Stokes’ miracle at Headingley in 2019 was precisely the sort of heist that encouraged the fallacy (and everyone bought into it to a greater or lesser degree) that there could yet be a twist to this latest tale, despite all reasonable Test-match precedent stating that, when a team trails by 278 runs on first innings, there’s really no hope of salvation.But it’s an addictive narrative nonetheless, and one that England were leaning on during the summer as well, when they lost two series on home soil for the first time since that aforementioned Ashes summer of 2001. And yes, we know that – technically speaking – the India series isn’t over yet. But anyone who witnessed England getting mangled at Lord’s and The Oval knows where the balance of power lay going into the fifth Test at Old Trafford.Everything about England’s Test cricket at present is focused on the individuals within fronting up and giving more to the cause – be it Stokes, only just returned from the abyss after fearing his badly mended finger might prevent him from playing ever again – or more recently Root, on whom English cricket’s every expectation is currently piled. The moment he failed to reach his elusive maiden century in Australia was the moment that the scales fell from the optimists’ eyes. This year’s monstrous haul of 1544 runs at 64.33 could grow larger still at Adelaide and Melbourne, but even Root’s lifetime best hasn’t been able to prevent England from losing seven and winning one of their last ten Tests.But miracle-working is a tenacious narrative – just ask the Bible’s publishers. For Root in this contest, and Stokes in general terms, read James Anderson’s recall under the Adelaide lights next week. While there’s individual brilliance in England’s ranks, there’s always reason to believe that the collective can surge as one. But just don’t look too closely at Anderson’s overall win-loss record in Australia. Nor, for that matter, at the England Lions’ batting card in their unofficial Test against Australia A, which is taking place just down the road. The rot, it seems, is set deep into the system, and not simply restricted to those who’ve been outgunned at the Gabba.

“Our execution was nowhere near as good as we would like,” Eoin Morgan admits

Matt Roller24-Jan-2022Two months after England lost an unlosable game against New Zealand in their T20 World Cup semi-final, they almost lost another. As the wheels came off in the final stages of their eventual one-run win against West Indies in the second T20I in Barbados on Sunday evening, there was a simple conclusion to be drawn: England have a death-bowling problem.Back in November, New Zealand needed 57 to win off the final four overs in Abu Dhabi, an equation that no batting team had solved in T20 international history. They hauled it down with an over to spare, with Chris Jordan, Adil Rashid and Chris Woakes put to the sword by Jimmy Neesham and Daryl Mitchell.Related

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In Bridgetown, West Indies left themselves 61 off 18 balls with two wickets in hand after a mid-innings collapse, a tally which has been achieved only once in the final three overs of a T20 international and never in a run chase. They fell two runs short and could justifiably feel aggrieved by an umpiring decision: Akeal Hosein – who struck 44 not out off 16 balls, a record for a No. 10 batter – was aghast to see a full, wide ball from Saqib Mahmood deemed to have passed him inside the tramlines.The 59 runs that came from the final three overs were the joint-most that England have conceded in that phase, made by India – and primarily Yuvraj Singh – in Durban nearly 15 years ago. Mahmood seemed to suffer the same stage fright that afflicted Stuart Broad on that night as he missed yorker after yorker and was slugged over the short leg-side boundary.Jordan’s over, the 18th, was eerily reminiscent of the 17th in the semi-final – not least because it cost the same number of runs, 23. With one boundary significantly shorter than the other, he planned accordingly and banged the ball into the pitch on a good length; Hosein (over cover) and Romario Shepherd (twice, over midwicket) responded by carting him for sixes over the bigger boundary.For Mahmood, the discrepancy in boundary sizes again informed his plan to bowl full and wide outside Hosein’s off stump. But after his first ball was given as a wide and his second narrowly escaped the same fate, he lost his nerve: Hosein hit consecutive boundaries either side of long-on, failed to reach another wide, then slammed three sixes to leave West Indies two runs short of their target.”Every team in the world is trying to get better at it,” Eoin Morgan, England’s captain said. “It is the hardest job in T20 cricket, death-bowling. Conditions did get a little bit better towards the end – the ball did skid on as opposed to our innings in the first innings – but ultimately, we need to find better ways of going about it. Our execution was nowhere near as good as we would like.”The inevitable question was asked: why aren’t England trying to bowl yorkers? “We are, we’re just getting it wrong,” Morgan conceded. “The majority of our plan today was to bowl yorkers, use the long side, and we missed. That’s being brutally honest. The guys are always honest with executing in order to try and move on [and to] identify areas that we can get better – this is definitely one of them.”They’re games that you want to play in. Looking back at the build into the [2021] World Cup, we didn’t play in many tight games to work on our death hitting and our death bowling, so today is a good example of that. The more experience, hopefully, the better we’ll get at executing.”

“It is the hardest job in T20 cricket, death bowling.”Eoin Morgan

The one bowler to escape with both figures and dignity intact was Reece Topley – ironically, playing his first T20 international since he was hammered at the death by JP Duminy in the 2016 World Cup. He too used the dimensions in his plans, hanging the ball wide outside Shepherd’s hitting arc with a short leg-side boundary and angling the ball into the left-handed Hosein’s pads. Crucially, his execution was significantly better, in keeping with a fine return to the side: he took 1 for 18 in his four overs, had Nicholas Pooran dropped, and pulled off an athletic run-out off his own bowling.One of the men tasked with post-match analysis in BT Sport’s studio, Tom Curran, was better-placed than most to talk about England’s travails, having himself slipped down the pecking order after some rough nights at the death – though he would have played in this series but for a stress fracture suffered in the Big Bash League.”It was interesting to hear Morgs say that they were all going for the yorkers,” he said. “I think a lot of the time what we’ve spoken about over the last year is actually the value of hard, heavy-length balls at the death.”Yorkers are a funny one. You can be nailing them in practice but when you get out there in the middle, it’s hard to describe – it really is a ‘feel’ thing for a bowler. You can find one early on in your spell and get your radar; on other days, you’ll be struggling.”In the long term, the Hundred should help England’s death-bowling depth by exposing young seamers to tough situations at the end of an innings. But in its first season, three of the five best regular death bowlers were overseas recruits (Adam Milne, Lockie Ferguson and Marchant de Lange) and the two domestic players (Jordan and Tymal Mills) are already in the England set-up.It should serve as consolation for England that their first-choice death bowlers, Mills and Jofra Archer, were only onlookers in Barbados due to rotation and injury respectively, and as Mitchell Starc and Shaheen Shah Afridi showed in the other World Cup semi-final, even the best can have off-nights.But this was a chastening night for Jordan and Mahmood all the same. Morgan often says that he wants England to be ruthless in white-ball cricket; across the last 12 months, their death bowlers have been anything but.

After a period of good results, things have started to unravel quickly. A strong domestic system is only the first step towards redressing the issue

Firdose Moonda29-Jul-2022The South Africa women’s team has gone from being a beacon through the Covid-19 pandemic and CSA’s administrative chaos, to standing on the brink of an implosion. All in less than six months. They have only lost two white-ball series in England, but the manner in which they have lost, as well as the sense of instability after the loss of some senior players, means they enter the Commonwealth Games desperate to turn things around.It has felt like an especially quick unravelling, one that started shortly after they lost the semi-final of the World Cup. It came on the back of their most successful period – before the England tour, they had not lost a bilateral white-ball series since January 2020 and had reached two major semi-finals.So what’s gone wrong?Related

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Much of it has to do with the nature of women’s cricket in South Africa. It was only eight years ago, after all, that the women’s game turned professional. In a short time, South Africa managed to punch above their weight to help grow the game – but perhaps not as much as we thought. At national level, the set-up has been dominated by the same group of players and administrators for most of the last decade. That is excellent in terms of consistency, and it has paid off handsomely with several players earning superstar status. But it does not create healthy competition and the lack of depth has only been hidden away.Several players have touched on this, citing the lack of a strong domestic system for women. CSA runs women’s provincial one-day and T20 competitions, but the structure is part of the semi-professional arm of the organisation, which means it is not flush with money. Apart from the 15 national contracts, CSA also has ten players on high-performance deals, and there is the provision for each of the top six provincial sides to contract six players. The aim is to have a fully professional domestic system by 2023-24.For now, though, the system is running in a way that does not create a pipeline. That means once the current group of players move on, there will be something of a vacuum. It is already apparent in the wide gulf between the current internationals and the tier below them; the likes of Lara Goodall or Tumi Sekhukhune, for example, cannot be expected to put out performances similar to that of Lizelle Lee or Shabnim Ismail. Some of that is down to experience and some of it because there remains only a small pool of players to choose from.Lee’s recent and abrupt retirement seems to have provided a window into broader issues affecting the team. The news came as a shock to everyone, including her own team-mates, and it has since emerged that she called it quits after failing a fitness test, which could have led to her being dropped from the side as well as missing out on franchise cricket. CSA hoped to prevent Lee from stepping away but when it realised that wouldn’t happen, it chose to keep the reasons for her retirement private. Her decision feels like a prelude, too, as CSA is concerned that she could be the first of many to go.

In October, Hilton Moreeng will have been the national women’s coach for ten years, a long time for one person to be in charge. A team needs fresh ideas and faces and Moreeng’s vast experience could see him deployed into an overseeing role

Mignon du Preez has already chosen to play only T20Is and, after being appointed as a consultant for Fairbreak, is likely to announce her international retirement after the T20 World Cup. Ismail is 33 and though she has said she wants to play till 40 and beyond, a calf injury kept her out of the Test against England and a back problem out of the last T20I. Between those, she wasn’t operating with the same effectiveness she is known for.Trisha Chetty is 34 and has lost ground to Sinalo Jafta. Marizanne Kapp and Dane van Niekerk have affirmed their commitment to the national team, but Kapp has struggled with her health and had to leave the England tour for personal reasons. Van Niekerk has not played for the team since last September and is yet to return to action after breaking her ankle in January. Initially, she was due to be out for three months. That has turned into eight.In van Niekerk’s absence, South Africa have occasionally appeared rudderless. Sune Luus is a capable replacement when things are going well, but her own dip in form and the finger injury which has prevented her from contributing as a bowler have taken their toll. If all these players step away, the core of the team will be gone.On the field, in reactions to defeat or even missed chances, the team has occasionally operated as if under the weight of the knowledge of an impending transition. Across the breadth of South African cricket officialdom, words like “immature” have been bandied about to describe the set-up. While there may be an inbuilt misogyny to observations like that, with the women’s game often described as emotional or reactive, it could also hint at an underlying lack of readiness around the women’s game for the environment of elite sport. They are not used to being asked tough questions, and even less used to having their change-room environment in the spotlight.That’s quite the opposite to the men’s situation, where everything from the songs they sing at fines meetings to the language they use in press conferences is dissected. While the South African men have stressed that they are in a good place now, historical disharmony was unpacked at the recent Social Justice and Nation Building hearings. The same commission only had testimony from one former women’s player and that did not feature in the final report. The many complexities of the women’s team are often left unaddressed.As is the fact that the women’s team contains at least one – possibly more – romantic relationship within it. That adds a new layer to team dynamics. Cricket has only just started to talk about sexuality and CSA, which has only just got a grip on race-related issues, has shown it is some distance away from dealing with the issue. CSA is not the only institution coming to terms with it and other teams face similar realities. But those who have managed to elevate themselves to an elite level (Australia, England, New Zealand) are talking about them. Perhaps that is the kind of evolution South Africa needs to strive for.Once the current lot moves on, South Africa might well be left with a great vacuum•Getty ImagesAt least the new director of cricket Enoch Nkwe has the women’s team high on his agenda and will be seeking answers from them as early as this week. He will be in the United Kingdom, where both the men’s and women’s national teams are playing, and aims to survey the scope of his work and, potentially, the extent of the problem.One of the earliest decisions Nkwe will have to make is putting in a succession plan for Hilton Moreeng. In October, Moreeng will have been the national women’s coach for ten years, a long time for one person to be in charge. His contract runs until April 2023 and, even if South Africa win the home T20 World Cup, it’s difficult to imagine he will stay on. A team needs fresh ideas and faces and Moreeng’s vast experience could see him deployed into an overseeing role, especially if CSA is serious about improving domestic structures.That means Moreeng will likely bow out having taken South Africa to four major tournament semi-finals but, unless things change dramatically in the next week, without achieving one of his big goals: a major trophy. And it hurts.”There’s so many things we came so close to winning,” Moreeng said after South Africa’s T20I series defeat to England. “We had opportunities: 2017 was one of those and if you look at the T20 in Australia, it was a difference of either way – a boundary – for the sides to be in the final. So yes it’s one of those.”Even the last World Cup, it’s one of those missed chances. We played well throughout the World Cup and when it mattered it just didn’t happen on the day. Everyone is feeling it because they worked extremely hard against all odds to be where they are to put the Momentum Proteas on the map to be able to compete with some of the top cricketing teams in the world.”Over the last decade, they have done that and they can be proud. But it’s time for a second iteration of professionalism in the women’s game, an up-levelling, if you will. The Commonwealth Games could be the catalyst for that.

His T20 batting in the last three years has been a perfect mix of flair and functionality

Sidharth Monga27-Aug-2022One good way to appreciate some of Suryakumar Yadav’s unbelievable shots is to pause the video at the point of impact.Alzarri Joseph bowls a slower offcutter into the pitch, wide-ish outside off, cutting in, ending up on off and middle. Suryakumar is in his power position when the ball is delivered: back foot on middle, front foot outside leg, hands high, bat in the air.Upon picking up the line and length, he lifts his bat high, looking for a back-foot shot, but the movement back in cramps him up. His back foot lifts in the air, he doesn’t arch his back, and meets the ball with an upwards open face.Related

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It is an excellent recovery and manipulation of the field – point and third are up in the circle – but pause the clip at the point of contact. It looks like the ramp will clear the infield comfortably enough, and teasingly dribble away for four. He doesn’t have room or the pace to do anything more.Now release the pause, and watch both his feet lift off the ground and back away towards leg to give him the slightest bit of room. The wrists then unfurl dramatically to turn this ramp into an upper cut, and, somehow, the ball travels all the way for a six.Richard Gleeson bowls length on leg stump. The line is likely a reaction to Suryakumar, who has backed away to make room. He is likely following him. Suryakumar still manages to move further away and play a drive inside-out.Pause it at the time of connections, and it looks he is going over extra cover. And not just because images are 2D but also because the bat face is pointing towards extra cover.Now release the pause, and watch Suryakumar bend his back knee to get under the ball, and then use the wrists to play a near-impossible slice to send this ball sailing behind point for a six. He has driven this with an open face – possibly even closing on the other side – from outside leg for a six behind point.Just to prove it is no fluke, Suryakumar repeats the exact same treatment to an exactly similar delivery from Chris Jordan in the same match at Trent Bridge.There is another Joseph delivery pitched similarly, but Suryakumar gets inside the line to play a pick-up shot. Only he adds a late flick to it – helicopter-shot-like – to send it for a six behind square on the leg side. At least here you know from the path of the bat that he is looking to go behind square.Since 2020, 2021 and 2022, Suryakumar has been striking in mid-140s in IPL after being stuck in 130s earlier•BCCIPat Cummins possibly sees Suryakumar jump across early and goes wide outside off with a length ball to follow him. Cummins’ natural action gives the ball some shape in. At the moment of connection, it looks like he is going over midwicket but there is serious whippage and helicopterage to take it for a six behind square on the leg side.One thing common to all these shots is how late Suryakumar plays them. He is ready in a power position with a high back lift fairly early, but he executes the shots deliciously late. The ramps to short balls are often connected when the ball is past the wicket – sometimes from outside leg – and occasionally they are played so late they go to the left of the wicketkeeper.If Suryakumar played in a league of another country, there would be enough clips of incredible shots to run a full-fledged Twitter handle. Be that as it may, highlight reels alone do not make a cricketer. Highlight reels are great, but they don’t tell you the context.Suryakumar is also a highly successful T20 batter, who loves fast bowlers but manages himself pretty well against spinners too. The shots he plays are borne out of necessity. Teams try to counter power-hitting by defending boundaries down the ground. Hard lengths have emerged a difficult ball for power-hitters.Suryakumar seeks to use the empty spaces behind square. These are shots he didn’t always play. This is an evolution he has made during the course of his career. He started making big runs in the IPL in 2018 but his strike rate would be stuck in the 130s. But in the years 2020, 2021 and 2022, he has been striking in the mid-140s in the IPL. What he has worked on has worked.Since the start of 2020, 91 batters have scored at least 1000 runs playing in the IPL, BBL, PSL, CPL and T20Is between current Full Members. Suryakumar has scored 46% of his runs behind square; Rohit Sharma is second at 44.2%.However, it is the efficiency behind square that makes Suryakumar stand apart. There are batters who attempt to go behind square more often than him but nobody comes close to his strike rate of 230.40 whenever he goes behind the wicket.Going deeper, Suryakumar hits a boundary behind square every 7.4 balls he faces, and every 2.4 balls he goes behind square. Nobody comes close. He has hit 54 sixes behind square, more than anyone else. He has been in control of 91.1% of the boundaries he has hit behind square – again the best.Over this period he has taken 51 balls from outside off and put them behind square on the leg side for 141 runs. From the line of stumps and outside leg, he has hit 27 balls for 32 runs behind square on the off side.Teams will already be working on how to deny Suryakumar those runs behind square but without opening up easy boundary options down the ground because he can hit a long ball too. How that plays out will be interesting, but for now he has given us a delectable bank of unbelievable shots that would make for a great montage. A highlight reel of both flair and functionality.

The Australia batter has begun 2023 by making his highest Test score

Andrew McGlashan05-Jan-2023Until today, Usman Khawaja had been the one member of Australia’s top five to not make a century this season. It should probably come as no surprise that he put the record straight at the SCG.It was on this ground, a year ago to the day, that Khawaja returned to Test cricket against England, largely by accident when Travis Head was ruled out with Covid. It remains one of the great ‘what ifs’ of this current team if that opportunity hadn’t presented itself.Related

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Khawaja would memorably go on and make twin hundreds in that match which meant he was undroppable. He ended 2022 with 1080 runs at 67.50, and that even included a lean finish in the first two Tests against South Africa. Now he has started 2023 in style. He has been one of cricket’s great comeback stories of recent times.When Khawaja completed the second run in the 76th over he became just the fourth batter to make three consecutive hundreds at the SCG after Wally Hammond, Doug Walters and VVS Laxman. By the end of the day, when he sat unbeaten on 195 with rain scudding across again, he was averaging 130.83 at the venue, almost double his next best where he has played more than a single Test.

“When I played him here in 2016 and then again in South Africa in 2018, you can see he plays all around the wicket, he trusts his defence really well and he knows his scoring opportunities. He’s got really good hands. He’s worked really hard and he’s a different player to what he was four years ago against spin”Keshav Maharaj on Usman Khawaja

There is a lot of talk about how long this Australian Test team will stay together with a thought that the potentially era-defining seven months which lie ahead could be the last time for this group. Khawaja turned 36 a few weeks ago, the same age as his opening partner and good friend David Warner, leading to questions about the transition.”We’re going to enjoy the next 12 months, enjoy it as much as we can,” Warner told during the opening day’s play. “For us it’s about not leaving this team with a big hole. I know through those five-year transition period when a lot of the greats left, they’re big holes to fill with the amount of games you play.”We always talk about games played and how much that means into a team’s performance and perspective with experience. You can’t fill that void.”Whether Warner’s MCG double-century has re-energised his Test career to last beyond the overseas tours of India and England remains to be seen – he was coy last week on potentially playing Boxing Day again and has previously hinted Tests will be the first to go – but as a single-format player there would appear no reason, if the hunger remains, that Khawaja could not push towards 40.”At the moment he’s at the top of his game, he’s scoring runs at will and batting beautifully so at the moment think he’s pretty comfortable and playing really nicely,” Steven Smith said. “Guess him, like Davey, they can play for as long as they like and hang them up when they want.”Usman Khawaja drives through the covers•Cricket Australia via Getty ImagesThe West Indies series had been a curious one for Khawaja. Twice he reached the 60s and looked set for more only to fall to medium-pacers – Kyle Mayers in Perth and Devon Thomas, who was really the reserve wicketkeeper, in Adelaide. Against South Africa, Khawaja was squared up by a peach from Anrich Nortje in the first innings at the Gabba before carving to point in the small chase. Then at the MCG he nibbled outside off against Kagiso Rabada before watching much of the rest of batting take apart South Africa’s attack. But Khawaja has found a way to remain very level-headed about the vagaries of the sport.This innings Khawaja was back in control. He was given lbw reverse sweeping against Simon Harmer on 25 but the DRS showed glove. The offspinner caused a few more uneasy moments on a pitch offering occasional assistance, but Khawaja was largely serene.Facing Harmer and Keshav Maharaj, there were plenty of the elements to Khawaja’s batting that had been on display in Pakistan, where he made 496 runs in three Tests. He had a strike-rate of 87.30 against the struggling Maharaj, who sensed a different player than the one he last came up against in 2018.”He’s obviously come back and really worked hard,” Maharaj said. “When I played him here in 2016 and then again in South Africa in 2018, you can see he plays all around the wicket, he trusts his defence really well and he knows his scoring opportunities. He’s got really good hands. He’s worked really hard and he’s a different player to what he was four years ago against spin.”Smith, who shared a 209-run stand with Khawaja, sees a player completely at ease with his game.”Think he’s just really comfortable the way he’s playing,” he said. “He’s got scoring options all around, if you set a field a certain way he can play a certain way to get a boundary and force you to put someone there, then play another way and force you to put someone there.”He’s got the horizontal bat shots against spin which are really effective, he hasn’t played the reverse as much as I thought he would have today, but probably didn’t need to because of the lack of spin.”Khawaja has started 2023 as he started last year. Whether he can continue and replicate the type of returns he had over the preceding 12 months may well have a significant bearing over the success the Test side enjoys.

Here’s a look at where the game between Gujarat Titans and Mumbai can be won and lost in Ahmedabad

Sidharth Monga25-May-2023This is a classic tussle between an incomplete team going all out with the bat and a more rounded, consistently successful team looking to back its bowlers and their experience to contain the aggressive batting. Mumbai Indians have scored 65.9% of their runs in boundaries, the highest; only Sunrisers Hyderabad and Delhi Capitals have done worse than Gujarat Titans’ 58.65%. Mumbai have tried to hit a boundary every 2.3 balls, Titans every 3 balls.On the other hand, the top two wicket-takers in the league are Titans bowlers. They have taken a wicket every 17.3 balls, Mumbai every 20.5 balls. These bowling exploits let Titans play a more conservative game with the bat. Perhaps forced on Mumbai because of the injuries to their bowlers, their style has now become a clash of T20 cultures. It will all come to a head in Ahmedabad.Here’s what advantage the teams will look to take over the other.Related

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Target Shami?

Mohammed Shami has emerged as Titans’ banker ever since they have come into existence, taking a wicket every 15.6 balls. His numbers this year are even better. However, in three matches against Mumbai as a Titans bowler, Shami has not taken a single wicket.On the flatter pitches in Mumbai, he went for 53 and 42 in his four overs. Mumbai won both games.In Ahmedabad, the ball moved for Shami, and he registered figures of 0 for 18. Titans won that match. So, Mumbai will look to take every opportunity to target Shami. With him, they know what they will get: hard lengths, upright seam, high pace. In the last match against Shami, they stepped out three times for 11 runs as they took Shami for 53 runs in a total of 218.If the ball moves around, though, attacking Shami could result in wickets as well. In night matches in Ahmedabad this IPL, Shami has nine wickets for 64 runs in 15 powerplay overs. However, that risk is something Mumbai have been happy to live with.ESPNcricinfo Ltd

The Titans spinners

Mumbai have not gone out of their way to attack Rashid Khan, but in both the matches that Noor Ahmad has played, they have looked to take him down. In the first match, Noor ended up with 3 for 37, but that didn’t deter Mumbai from targeting him in the reverse fixture for 0 for 38.

Sweep Rashid

Rashid is a difficult bowler to step out to or sweep, but Mumbai have tried to deploy the sweep against him. In two matches this IPL, Mumbai batters have played 15 sweep shots of all varieties against him for 26 runs. No team has swept Rashid as much or scored as many off him through that shot, although Kolkata Knight Riders have been quite effective with seven attempts for 25 runs.ESPNcricinfo Ltd

Time for Little to come back?

Unless there is a fitness concern with Josh Little, Titans have been going with the Dasun Shanaka-Yash Dayal/Darshan Nalkande combination only to give a bowling option as a failsafe as Hardik Pandya has now gone four matches without bowling. Because if they are playing Shanaka as a pure batter, it says something of the confidence they have in Abhinav Manohar and Sai Sudharsan.ESPNcricinfo Ltd

Titans’ experience

Titans have shown they are not a team to make knee-jerk reactions. They will go back to trusting their bowlers, three of whom are experienced and near the top of their game. They won’t go for funky fields or big changes. They have won 22 matches out of 31 with pretty much the same core. They will ask for Mumbai to do all the running, and back themselves to be good enough in home conditions to get the better of them.

Titans need to sort out Nos. 3 to 5

Perhaps Hardik wanted to be the man for the tough fight on the big night, but Vijay Shankar was probably better suited for the No. 3 slot in their defeat in Qualifier 1 against Chennai Super Kings. Either way, Titans are better served to have Hardik, Shankar and David Miller as the engine room from Nos. 3 to 5. Even if Shanaka has to play, he is a better fit in the slot he takes for Sri Lanka, in the lower middle order.

Win the toss and?

Interestingly, three out of the five night matches in Ahmedabad have been won by sides batting first. More interestingly, the powerplay of the second innings seems to be the toughest time to bat in Ahmedabad with an economy rate of 6.27 and an average of 14.12. In the league match, Titans defended 207 easily against Mumbai. If there is no dew on the days leading up to the match, there might be a case for batting first. Mumbai might want to chase anyway.

Before Yashasvi Jaiswal overtook him, the former Kings XI Punjab batter had the record for the highest IPL score by an uncapped Indian

Matt Roller05-May-2023″It’s such a fast-paced city. If you don’t live up to the pace, you’re gone, you’re out of the race. It can be brutal.”Paul Valthaty is talking about Mumbai, sitting on a terrace overlooking Brabourne Stadium. The night before, around 700 metres away, at the Wankhede Stadium, his long-standing IPL record for the highest score by an uncapped Indian batter was broken by another young man who cut his teeth on the city’s maidans, Yashasvi Jaiswal.”That word, ‘uncapped’, won’t last with him too long,” Valthaty says. “He’s someone who has grown up in the Mumbai stable and has got runs in all formats. The way he attacked bowlers, taking someone like Jofra [Archer] apart, it shows the kind of talent that the boy has. It was a terrific innings.Related

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“For him to break my uncapped-player record, it just gave me pleasure that it was a solid batsman and a top cricketer who did it – someone like Yashasvi, who has had a wonderful season. Not just this year, but for two or three years he’s been doing really well. It’s very heartening to see someone coming from such humble beginnings, and the level he has reached.”Valthaty knows better than most how fickle the sport can be. Twelve years ago he was the breakout star of IPL 2011, hitting an unbeaten 120 for Kings XI Punjab against Chennai Super Kings in a 463-run season. Yet he played only seven more games in the competition, losing form and favour after an injury that derailed his professional career.Having watched Valthaty emerge and then disappear from back home in the UK as a teenager, I decided to track him down in Mumbai to find out what happened. “My close friends, my family, they know that I speak about my career in two halves – and the IPL [doesn’t mark the end of] one of them,” Valthaty says. “It’s before 2002, when I got hit, and after.”At the start of that year, he was opening the batting for India at the Under-19 World Cup when a short ball snuck through the gap between the visor and grille of his helmet. “It popped up and hit my right eye,” he recalls. “And everything came to an abrupt standstill.”The ball shattered his retina and put his cricketing career on hold. He eventually came back after “four or five laser surgeries” but his vision remained imperfect. To this day, he suffers from diplopia or double vision. “When I started playing again, I couldn’t judge depth because of the mismatched vision,” he says. “I used to be in tears after net sessions.””I realised that suddenly the entire crowd that was cheering for Dhoni are now taking my name”•AFPAfter impressing at a trial, Valthaty played two games for defending champions Rajasthan Royals in the 2009 IPL in South Africa but it was not until 2011 that his big break arrived. Kings XI offered him a deal on the back of his form for Mumbai in the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy; after batting at No. 3 in their opening game, he was promoted to open alongside captain Adam Gilchrist in a chase of 190 against CSK.”The stage got the better of me in 2009 – a huge occasion, live TV, all these top cricketers around me,” Valthaty says. “Coming into 2011, I was aware of what I had to overcome. My good friend Abhishek Nayar and I did a lot of training in the two-three months prior, and I felt really prepared; somehow I felt as though this was going to be the season for me.”I thought, ‘If they are getting 190, it’s a good pitch’, and I tried to erase the crowd and focus. I hit my first four, then I got a chance when Albie Morkel dropped me at mid-off. From there, I almost functioned like a machine, working out which bowlers I needed to target, which fielders I could take on.”As Valthaty slashed Morkel over short third for four to reach a 52-ball century, “I realised that suddenly the entire crowd – which were before that cheering against us because [MS] Dhoni was playing and India had just won the World Cup – suddenly they are taking my name.”DK [Dinesh Karthik] came down and hugged me tight, and told me to keep focused. He didn’t let me celebrate too much, because we still had to win the game.” They duly did, Karthik clinching the victory with Valthaty unbeaten on 120 at the far end.It was the night his life changed. Amit Yadav, an offspinner from Goa, turned to him on the bus on the way back to the hotel. “He said, ‘When we were going to the game, you were one of us, a normal cricketer. Right now, you have become a star.’ Suddenly I was the centre of attention.”Of all the adulation he received, one interaction sticks in his mind. “I was doing my sets in the gym before we played Mumbai Indians,” Valthaty says, “when suddenly, Sachin Tendullkar is in front of me. He spoke to me in Marathi and said, ‘I’ve seen your batting, you’re doing really well; keep pushing. All of us in Mumbai are proud of you.’From 463 runs in 14 innings in 2011 to 30 runs in six innings in 2012, Valthaty’s downturn was swift and brutal•AFP”That’s the one thing that will always remain close to my heart. He’s always been my role model: I used to idolise him and everything he did. Our coaches used to make us watch his batting and copy his style in everything. For him to come to me and congratulate me, that was special.”Everything went Valthaty’s way that season. In his next game he took four wickets then hit 75, and by the end of the season, he was being touted for further recognition across formats. But when selected for the 50-over Challenger Trophy in late 2011, he started to feel constrained at the crease by a wrist injury.He visited John Gloster, the former India physiotherapist, who diagnosed a ganglion in his left wrist – “the body part I used the most in my batting” – and suggested surgery. “I was so naïve,” Valthaty says. “I was so happy that I was getting opportunities, and didn’t want to miss them.” He delayed the operation, instead attempting to treat the injury with cortisone injections.When IPL 2012 arrived, Valthaty was out of form and struggling to hold the bat properly. “I had a horrible season,” he recalls. He made 30 runs in the six innings, including five successive single-figure scores, and found himself in and out of the side. He eventually had surgery in London later that year but managed a solitary appearance in IPL 2013 and drifted out of the professional game.”The bus had moved on,” he says. “I knew Mumbai wasn’t going to wait for me. Without trying to blame anyone, I feel like someone – whether it’s my franchise, my state – could have handled me better, but it wasn’t meant to be. The Almighty had other plans for me.”The IPL’s evolution over the last decade – better scouting, deeper support networks, more professionalism – means that Valthaty’s story is unlikely to be repeated. He bristles at the phrase “one-season wonder” and frames his experience not as a case of unfulfilled potential but as a triumph against the adversity of injury.”Nothing happens by fluke,” he says. “After the struggle, I feel like I had a successful career – not hugely successful, but I paid my dues. I’m pretty happy and satisfied in life: cricket has been very kind to me.”Now 39, Valthaty made forays into broadcasting last year and also runs two academies on the outskirts of Mumbai – one in Kandivali, the other in Thane. “Being from the suburban part of the city, we didn’t always have a lot of cricket grounds,” he explains. “Young players save a lot of time if they have some kind of facility in their suburb.”And who knows? Perhaps, in time, one of them will rival Jaiswal’s new record.

Our XI also features, along the way, a Chin, a Butt, a Back and a Knee

Harigovind S29-Jun-2023

Michael Chin

A right-hand opening batter from Berbice who played a solitary first-class match for Guyana in 1983, scoring 57 and 0 not out. If you’re mulling whether a single first-class match should secure entry to this club, Chin would point to the fact that it was not his fault that the league stages of the Jones Cup (later renamed the Guystac Trophy) were not granted first-class status.

Salman Butt

His elegant left-hand batting and supple wrists drew comparisons with the legendary Saeed Anwar, but he’ll be remembered most of all for his role, as Pakistan captain, in the Lord’s spot-fixing scandal of 2009.

Travis Head

A match-defining 163 in the first innings of the recent World Test Championship final may or may not etch his name in history, nor might his 96-ball 92 against South Africa in the second-shortest Test since World War II, on a bowler-friendly Gabba pitch, but what will eternalise Head’s memory is his prized possession: arguably the coolest moustache in 21st century cricket.Look, Travis, that’s you in the Headline•ICC/Getty Images

Doug Insole

A fine batter with over 50 first-class centuries, Insole had a modest Test career of nine matches spread over seven years. He was the vice-captain when England visited South Africa in 1956, and topped the England Test batting averages. He would later go on to be the Test and County Cricket Board (precursor to the ECB) chairman and the MCC president.

Graeme Beard

An allrounder who batted in the middle order and could bowl both medium-pace and offspin, Beard played three Tests for Australia, all on the 1979-80 tour of Pakistan, scoring 39 and 49 in the drawn third Test in Lahore. That was to be his last appearance in Test cricket; he was a non-playing member of the touring party for the 1981 Ashes, and retired a year later to focus on his job with the Australian Workers’ Union. Beard, disappointingly, appears to be clean-shaven in most of his photographs.

Miriam Knee

Miriam Knee was the heart and soul of Australia Women’s attack between 1961 and 1973. A right-arm bowler from Victoria who could bowl both seam and spin, Knee took 35 Test wickets in eight matches at an average of 16.28 – the eighth lowest in women’s Test history (minimum 1000 balls).

William Back

A first-class record spanning two matches with 12 runs at an average of 3.00 may cause you to turn your back on him, but William Back featured in Western Australia’s inaugural first-class match back in 1893. He was at the forefront of leading Western Australia to the first-class scene, opening the batting for them. Later, ironically, Back went on to work as a forwarding agent.

David Brain

Tall and fast – the perfect combination to go with his daredevilish brain, which he used to spearhead Zimbabwe’s attack in Pakistan in 1993-94, and to produce numerous cameos with the bat. Eventually, the conflict between cricket and profession – the family hardware business in which he was heavily involved – ended his professional career.Give me a Hand, will ya?•Getty Images

Henry Foot, Charles Foot, or Anthony Foot

Cricket has a long history of Foots (Feet?). There was, of course, David Foot, the cricket writer who wrote, among other things, the acclaimed biography , and the . There were also the cricketers Henry, Charles and Anthony, born in 1805, 1855 and 1957 respectively, who played one first-class game each. Owing to that sample size, we leave to you, reader, the choice of which of the three to pick in our XI.

Josh Tongue

Tongue is many things at once – Smith’s marked nemesis, Lord’s specialist, and capable – in Ben Stokes’ words – of being two different kinds of third seamer. But his battle with David Warner on the first day of the second Ashes Test may have settled his identity as the man who gave Australia a tongue-lashing that no other England bowler seemed capable of.

Fionn Hand

Hailing from Dublin, Hand’s best moment on the cricket field probably came against eventual champions England, when he bowled Ben Stokes with what was widely described as the ball of the 2022 T20 World Cup. But there was perhaps even more debate among cricket fans when he debuted opposite Tongue in Ireland’s one-off Test against England in June: who else, they wondered, would join this duo in the All Time Anatomical XI?

Former South Africa speedster says the team moved on from that defeat within 24 hours, which left many players dealing with emotions in their own way

Sreshth Shah13-Nov-202313:33

Steyn: If South Africa win the semi-final, they can go on and dominate the final

The last time South Africa reached the men’s World Cup semi-final in 2015, it was yet another heartbreak in their pursuit of an elusive world title in cricket when New Zealand’s Grant Elliott knocked them out in a dramatic finish. Dale Steyn was at the centre of that defeat, and looking back eight years later, he says that the team moved on from that loss very quickly, or perhaps, even too quickly.”I think we dealt with it really well in that 24 hours, and then we went home and everyone went our own way. But getting together the next time as a South African team and walking back to the dressing room, I felt like we hadn’t spoken about what happened few months ago,” Steyn told ESPNcricinfo. “And we needed to make sure that that elephant was out of that room. It was certainly still in the room for what I felt was a long time.”Describing the aftermath of that evening in Auckland where a golden generation of South Africa ODI cricketers lost their chance to reach the final, Steyn said that the first thing he did was “put a smile on his face and be a professional.”Related

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“I went into the dressing room and I sat down and I was like ‘this is where you have to be the true professional you are. You are a senior player.’ I went around to some of the younger guys, the Quinton de Kocks. Morne [Morkel] was incredibly upset, visibly upset even on TV.”But I thought to the public eye, when you’re on TV, you have to maintain that professional image. Put a smile on your face, be professional when you’ve been beaten in a big game. You’ve got to take the losses with the wins and the good with the bad. But as soon as you get in the dressing room, my role was to pick up all the players around me. And that was very heavy. We all kind of went to our rooms that night, I’m sure everyone was upset.”The next morning there was a group message, ‘guys, there’s a breakfast planned somewhere’, and we all got together. Then it was as if the night before never happened. We tried to move on as quickly as we could.”A year or two years after that had happened, did we start to address it as a team. As individuals, everyone dealt with it their own way. But as a team, we hadn’t unraveled it or spoken about it.”

'That one picture right there could mean so much to so many more people'

Dale Steyn talks about that iconic moment from the 2015 World Cup pic.twitter.com/WVJIxdLah5

— ESPNcricinfo (@ESPNcricinfo) November 1, 2023