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How can the BCCI fill the post of its president, following the death of Jagmohan Dalmiya in Kolkata on Sunday?

Nagraj Gollapudi20-Sep-2015Over the past few months, Jagmohan Dalmiya’s poor health had led to rumblings about whether he could continue as BCCI president for his third stint (including his interim period in 2013). As the 2015 BCCI elections drew close, there was talk among Dalmiya’s opponents about trying to find a way to have him relinquish the position. However, the process to displace him was not as straightforward as they would have wished and so Dalmiya was neither formall
y challenged nor forced to step down.

The way forward for the BCCI

What happens to the BCCI presidency?
The BCCI constitution says that if the president’s post is vacated mid-tenure, “the secretary shall within fifteen days convene a Special General Body Meeting to elect the president who shall be nominated by at least one Full Member from the zone which proposed the name of the president whose term was cut short prematurely. Such person who is so elected shall hold office till the next elections”. It would mean Anurag Thakur will run the BCCI’s affairs until he convenes the SGM to elect Jagmohan Dalmiya’s successor.
Can there be an election to decide the new president?
Yes. Since it is the East Zone’s turn to nominate the president until 2017, and at least one affiliate unit from the zone has to propose a nominee, there is a possibility of up to six candidates entering the fray. All six affiliates – Bengal, Odisha, Jharkhand, Assam, Tripura and Kolkata’s National Cricket Club – had stuck together while proposing Dalmiya’s name in March this year. However, both the pro- and anti-Srinivasan lobbies will likely be at work trying to gain those votes.
Who are the front-runners to take over as president?
Two months ago, former ICC and BCCI chief Sharad Pawar had told his colleagues in the Mumbai Cricket Association that he intended to take over as BCCI chief in the AGM. The AGM has been postponed but Pawar remains a favourite. Rajiv Shukla, the former BCCI vice-president and current IPL chairman, is also eyeing the post. If Shukla, who had lost the BCCI treasurer’s election in March to Srinivasan loyalist Anirudh Chaudhry, does not generate support from the Srinivasan group, then Srinivasan may field one of his key aides – Chaudhry or joint secretary Amitabh Chaudhary.

A senior Board member, speaking with the benefit of hindsight, now says it was “foolish” of the members to elect Dalmiya in March 2015 when they knew such a situation was likely to arise, due to his fading physical condition. Yet the reality was that there was no choice: Dalmiya emerged a consensus candidate because neither of the two rival groups in the BCCI – one headed by N Srinivasan and the other a broad group of his opponents – could force their man through.That rough equivalence of power remains today and is expected to trigger another round of jockeying for the top job. The anti-Srinivasan group now finds its unofficial and undeclared head in Anurag Thakur, who as board secretary holds the second-most powerful post. He latterly served as de facto head of the BCCI due to Dalmiya’s ailments but has been the subject of much grumbling in the board’s offices for his allegedly autocratic ways and unchecked power. Thakur’s critics believe that the situation could have negative consequences on the autonomy of the board in light of the Supreme Court instructions to the Lodha Panel to recommend changes about the BCCI’s constitution and manner of functioning.Replacing Dalmiya will not be easy for other reasons too. BCCI rules state that the six members of the East Zone will have the first say in picking the replacement considering it is their turn to elect the president till 2017. The pre-requisite for a presidential candidate is attendance of at least two AGMs and having been an office bearer (president, secretary, treasurer, joint secretary) or vice-president earlier.One of the most obvious potential candidates is Sharad Pawar, the Mumbai Cricket Association president, who is believed to have told his inner circle about his desire to lead the BCCI once again. But Pawar has decided to play the waiting game, not showing his hand, this modus operandi being the backbone of his longstanding success as a politician for more than half a century.There is also Rajiv Shukla, who has been trying hard to lobby support in the East. And then there’s the spectre of the invisible hand ruling the BCCI, that of the federal government – the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Members believe Thakur, who is a senior BJP MP, will not upset the party leadership, where it is believed that Srinivasan has the backing of a top BJP politician.

ESPNcricinfo staff13-Nov-2015Alex Hales and Jason Roy compiled a century stand for England’s first wicket•Getty ImagesRoy quickly bounced back from his duck in the opening match of the series•Getty ImagesHales responded to his recent run of low scores with a composed knock•Getty ImagesRoy scored to all corners of the ground during his fifty, including some impressive reverse sweeps•Getty ImagesIt was terrific to see a good weekend crowd build up to watch the action•Getty ImagesAfter a disappointing series against Australia, Hales finally scored his maiden ODI hundred•Getty ImagesHis 109 was the bedrock of England’s impressive innings•Getty ImagesEoin Morgan arrived with a terrific platform in place•Getty ImagesGetty ImagesChris Woakes ended a run of six wicketless ODIs when he removed Iftikhar Ahmed•Getty ImagesWoakes and James Taylor combined to dismiss Shoaib Malik•Getty ImagesAzhar Ali made a dour 22 from 45 balls at the top of Pakistan’s order•Getty ImagesMohammad Rizwan was bowled for 17 by Adil Rashid•Getty ImagesMohammad Irfan was the last wicket to fall as England sealed a 95-run win•Getty Images

The stats highlights from the game were mainly about Chris Gayle, as England were left powerless in the face of his 47-ball century

S Rajesh16-Mar-20161:50

Match Day – 180 difficult to defend in Mumbai

9 Wins for West Indies against England in T20Is, the most wins for them against any team in this format, and also the most losses for England against an opposition.2 Centuries for Chris Gayle in World T20 games, which makes him the first batsman to score more than one hundred in this tournament. He scored the first ever World T20 hundred, in Johannesburg in 2007.47 Balls for Chris Gayle’s century, the joint-third fastest in all T20Is, and the quickest in World T20 matches.86 Runs in fours and sixes in Gayle’s unbeaten 100 – he hit 11 sixes and five fours. His remaining 14 runs came in singles.98 Sixes for Gayle in T20Is, the most by any batsman in this format. During the course of this innings, he went past Brendon McCullum’s previous record of 91. In World T20s, Gayle has 60 sixes, which is almost twice as many as the next best: Yuvraj Singh has 31 sixes from 25 innings, compared to Gayle’s 60 from 23. His 11 sixes in this innings is the third best in any T20I innings, and the best in the World T20.Chris Gayle is two short of 100 sixes in T20Is•ESPNcricinfo Ltd208.33 Gayle’s strike rate in this innings, his third best among 15 fifty-plus scores in T20Is. His best is a 31-ball 77 (SR 248.38), while his lowest strike rate among these innings is 126 (50-ball unbeaten 63).49 Dot balls played by West Indies in their innings, compared to just 41 by England. England also took more singles (49 to 33) and twos (eight to two), but West Indies won it in boundaries, hitting 11 sixes (all by Gayle) and 16 fours, compared to nine and 12 by England.106 Strike rate for the rest of the West Indies batsmen – they scored 67 from 63 balls, while Gayle bludgeoned 100 from 48.730 Runs for Joe Root in 14 innings in all international matches in 2016, with three hundreds and three fifties. He has averaged 56.15 in these innings, at a strike rate of 81.74.8.50 Samuel Badree’s economy rate in this match: he went for 34 in four overs. Only twice has he had a poorer economy rate in his 23-match T20I career.572 Partnership runs between Gayle and Marlon Samuels in T20Is, the highest for West Indies.

Former South Africa rugby captain Francois Pienaar talks about his role on Cricket South Africa’s review panel

Interview by Firdose Moonda21-Apr-2016Why did you agree to be involved in the CSA review?
Passion. I love this country and I have been involved in cricket – I’ve played cricket at school, I played Nuffield Cricket, I was involved in the IPL marketing when it came here in 2009. As a panel, we all know things about high-performance and closing out games. I have been involved in a number of initiatives where we’ve put structures in place and they have borne fruit. This is just a privilege, to be honest.

“When you get to the final, it’s a 50-50 call and it’s the smart guys who work out the margins. It’s all about the margins”

How will you and your fellow panelists approach the review?
What we will try and learn is what the trends over the last ten years are. We will look at trends, selection, stats and come up with recommendations.What do you, specifically, hope to bring to the review?

A different thinking from not being in the sport, coming from outside the sport. I have been really privileged to get involved in high-performance teams that have won.Can you talk about some of the teams you were involved with and how they achieved what you call high-performance status?
In 1993, the Lions won 100% of their games. In 1994, we won 90%. As captain and coach of the Springbok rugby team, Kitch Christie and myself, we never lost. There was a certain culture of that side and a way of doing things. Our management team fulfilled high-performing roles in getting us to get a shot at the title. Even then, there are no guarantees. When you get to the final, it’s a 50-50 call and it’s the smart guys who work out the margins. It’s all about the margins.Then I went over to England and rugby was really amateur. I was a player-coach at Saracens, I needed to put those processes in place and, luckily, took the team to win their first ever cup. Those sort of things I am really proud of.A brand to admire: the All Blacks have won the last two World Cups•Getty Images Have you seen anything similar to that in cricket?
I had a magnificent session with the Aussies before the Ashes in the early 2000s. They asked me to do a session on margins and big games and how to close out games. I was sort of embarrassed. The best cricket team in the world by a long shot was asking me, but I found it so interesting. My payment there was that I got an insight into how they run their team. Steve Waugh as a captain and a leader – wow! I got so much from that.What makes a high-performance team?

Culture trumps strategy for breakfast. If you don’t have the right culture in any organisation, it’s very hard to be a high-performance team. The brand must be stronger than anything else. CEOs and coaches and captains come and go but you have to understand the culture and the core of why teams are high-performance teams, and you can’t tinker with that. As soon as you start tinkering with that, then you stand the risk of not remaining a high-performance team.Look at the All Blacks brand [New Zealand rugby], and how they nurture and love and embrace that brand. One of the nicest things for me was at the last World Cup when Graham Henry, who coached them when they won the World Cup in 2011, was coaching Argentina and New Zealand were playing against Argentina in the opening match at Wembley. I was there. My question would be what would happen in South Africa if a team of ours – cricket, rugby, soccer – if the coach who had won the World Cup in the previous outing is now coaching the opposition in the opening match. Would we invite him to lunch with the team the day before the game? I think not. They did that. The All Blacks invited Henry because he loves the guys, he is part of that brand, part of that passion, so why should they not invite him? They knew, if we are not smarter than him, if we don’t train hard, then we don’t deserve to win. It’s about the culture.

“The transfer of knowledge is something I am quite interested in discussing. Do we do that, and what are the reasons for us not doing it?”

Then afterwards, Sonny Bill Williams gave away his medal. Was it him or part of the culture? I would think it’s part of the culture. Same with Richie McCaw. Why did he not retire in the World Cup? Because if he did, it would have been about him and not about the team, and he knew it needed to be about the team. That’s my take. How do you create a winning culture?
Let’s go back to rugby. Every World Cup that has been won since 1987, the core of that winning national team came from the club side that dominated. So that side knew how to win. Like in 1995, the core of our team was from the Lions. If you infuse that culture with incredible players, they will enhance the way you do things.”We will look at trends, selection, stats and come up with recommendations”•IDI/Getty Images Are there other elements that go into creating a winning team?
Form is very important and so are combinations – they have to work very well – and then there is leadership. How do the leaders close a game down, how do they make decisions, and how do you work with other leaders in the team to do that?Rugby is a fairly simple game: it’s about how easy you release pressure, your exit strategy, and how you stay unpredictable on attack. For that to happen, there are certain elements that need to fall into place. But the overarching thing is, do you have the right culture, have the right guys in form, have the right combinations and the leaders? Can they execute? And by leaders it’s not only the captain, it’s the coaches, the management staff. If you can do that right, you will be competitive a lot of the time, and if you can bottle that so that when the next guy comes, you pass the baton – you can’t change that. Bottle it, understand it, love it. You’ll be on the right track.Is one of South Africa’s problems that they have not found a way of gaining or transferring that knowledge?
The transfer of knowledge is something I am quite interested in discussing. Do we do that, and what are the reasons for us not doing it? In rugby, we’ve never had that culture. We don’t have ex-coaches, for example, involved. We have got universities, schools – how can we bottle that, how can we work together? The transfer of knowledge and the sharing of ideas, we need to rekindle that.Will transformation form part of the review?

Everything is open for discussion and it should be. If you want to do a proper job, you should have the opportunity to ask questions about all elements that enhance high-performance.

Stats highlights from the final day in St Lucia where India clinched a series victory over West Indies

Bharath Seervi13-Aug-2016237 Margin of victory for India in this Test – their third-largest win, in terms of runs, outside Asia. They had won by 279 runs at Headingley in 1986 and 272 runs in Auckland in 1967-68. The win by an innings & 92 runs in the first Test was India’s biggest innings-win outside Asia.1986 Last time India won two Tests in a series outside Asia excluding Zimbabwe. Before two wins in this series, they had won two matches of the three-match series in England. Including Zimbabwe, this is only the fifth time India have won two or more Tests in a series outside Asia.15.75 Average of India’s fast bowlers in this Test – their best in a Test in West Indies. The fast bowlers took 12 wickets in this Test.0 India captains who won two Tests in West Indies, before Virat Kohli. Bishen Bedi, Ajit Wadekar, Sourav Ganguly, Rahul Dravid and MS Dhoni won one Test each as captain in West Indies.6 Times five India bowlers took at least one wicket each in the fourth-innings of a Test. India have won five of those Tests and the last such instance was also against West Indies in Kingston in 2011.6 Man of the Match awards for Ravichandran Ashwin in Tests – most by any India player since his debut in November 2011. During that stretch, only Rangana Herath has won more Man of the Match awards than Ashwin, with seven. Stuart Broad, Joe Root, Steven Smith and Ross Taylor are all level with Ashwin on six awards since November 2011, though Ashwin has done it in the fewest Tests, 35.1 Lower totals for West Indies against India in Tests than the fourth-innings 108 in St Lucia. They were all out for 103 at Sabina Park in 2006.1999 Last time West Indies were all out for a lesser total than 103 in the fourth innings of a Test. They were all out for 51 against Australia in Port of Spain in 1998-99. The 108 in St Lucia is their fifth-lowest fourth-iinnings total in Tests.67 Runs added by West Indies’ in this Test by the final six partnerships in each innings – their second-lowest in home Tests batting twice. Their last six partnerships added 23 runs in the first innings and 44 runs in the second innings. Prior to this Test, their last six partnerships had never aggregated less than 100 runs across two innings against India.1997 Last time a West Indies fast bowler took a six-wicket haul in Tests against India. Before Miguel Cummins’ 6 for 48 in this Test, Franklyn Rose took 6 for 100 in Kingston in 1996-97.9 Innings without a fifty-plus score for Darren Bravo in Tests at
home, before making 59 in the fourth innings of this Test. He was dismissed between 10 and 30 in seven in those innings. He averages 46.66 in the fourth innings of Tests – his best in any innings.

Our correspondent chows down on local delights on the first leg of his tour

Karthik Krishnaswamy08-Aug-2016July 16
Bangalore airport. I’m halfway through WG Sebald’s , and the eponymous protagonist, an architectural historian, is telling the unnamed narrator about a troubling bout of writer’s block. A portentous note on which to embark on a month-and-a-bit-long tour full of writing.I spend ten hours and 25 minutes on a flight to Paris, two and a half hours in the Paris airport, eight hours and 55 minutes on a flight to Saint Martin, eight hours and five minutes in the airport there, and an hour and 20 minutes on a flight to Antigua. I finish . Here I am, 31 hours, 15 minutes, and 243 pages since leaving Bangalore, if my math is right – and it probably isn’t, for the reasons mentioned above – and it is still July 16.Bernadette, who runs the self-serviced cottage I will be staying at, picks me up at the airport. It is a still night and the sound of cicadas fills the air as we drive out. We pass the remains of the old sugar factory, eerily atmospheric at this time of night, its crooked chimney silhouetted against a mysterious glow in the background. The source of the glow is revealed soon enough: the floodlights of the Sir Vivian Richards Stadium. The ground staff are at work deep into the night to get everything ready for the Test match that will begin in five days’ time. If my math is right.July 17
I have arrived in Antigua in time for the Seatons Glanvilles Reunion. Every four years, people from the two villages who have emigrated to other lands reassemble for a week of festivities. Tonight, just up the road from where I’m staying, is a seafood festival, and a concert headlined by David “Krokuss” Edwards, vocalist and bass player from the wildly popular – or so I’m told – soca band Burning Flames.Everyone from Seatons and Glanvilles seems to be here, eating, drinking, having a good time. There are far more kids around the stage than at the average soca concert, I imagine with all the wisdom of a man at his first soca concert. At one point the DJ calls the kids up on stage, puts on a dance-friendly tune, and cries out instructions. “Step to the left! Slide to the right! Criss-cross!” In my head I formulate a theory for why West Indian cricketers dance well. It’s the rigorous coaching they’ve had, right from the time they were five or six, at gatherings like this one.Postcard perfect: sunset at Long Bay beach, Antigua•Karthik Krishnaswamy/ESPNcricinfo LtdJuly 18
I’m at the stadium for the first time, still finding my way around, when I’m stopped by a woman in the stands. “Who’s that Indian player who plays with Chris Gayle? I want to meet him.”I assume she’s asking about a Royal Challengers Bangalore team-mate, and I could quite conceivably have asked her if she meant Yuzvendra Chahal or Harshal Patel. Instead, I ask, “Virat Kohli?””Yeah, him. Tell him Tracy’s looking for him. Tracy from Jamaica.”Well, Virat, I should have maybe told you two weeks ago, but I forgot. Tracy from Jamaica is looking for you.July 19
I wake up an hour before my alarm is supposed to ring. I fire up the stove and the toaster and make myself eggs and avocado on toast and a cup of oolong. I eat slowly, sip my tea meditatively, and reflect on all the time that stretches out before me.Then a knock at the door. Two fellow cricket journalists. “Are you ready yet?””What, already?””Yeah, it’s 8.45.””What? It’s only 7.45. I haven’t even showered yet.”I show them my phone. It says 7.45. They show me their phones, which say 8.45.At some point in the middle of the night, my phone clock has decided to lose an hour. Just because it felt like doing so.In the foyer of the Sir Vivian Richards Stadium is the man himself, resplendent in a crisp, half-sleeved yellow shirt and sunglasses. He’s 64 but looks a lot younger. The opposite can be said about the statue of him just outside. It shows him celebrating a batting landmark, presumably a hundred, right hand holding his bat aloft and left hand on his heart. Richards was 38 when he last played for West Indies, so the man in the statue cannot be any older than that, but somehow he looks much, much older, like a Greek philosopher in whites, Plato with an SS Jumbo.July 20
Test-match eve, and the scorers seem to be playing book cricket. The electronic scoreboards behind the two square boundaries show an imaginary West Indies-versus-India match in progress. West Indies are 6 for 0 in 1.4 overs, with K Brathwaite on 6 and D Smith on 0. India’s opening bowlers are straight out of a fantasy of West Indies breaking the 1000 barrier: R Sharma and Y Pathan.For the third time in three days, we have stopped for a snack at Jennifer’s Delights, a concession stall at the stadium. The saltfish cake, the fried chicken, the banana pancakes are all delightful, living up to the name, and they are all prepared by the wisecracking Jennifer.Just as we’re about to head to the pre-match press conference, she calls us over. “Come back for lunch,” she says. “I’m going to fix you up something special.”We duly arrive after the presser, and Jennifer gives us each a personalised styrofoam box. Mine contains fish and fungi. Not fungi as in mushrooms, but an entirely Antiguan staple made from cornmeal, and pronounce foon-jee. Drier than polenta, simply but perfectly seasoned, it tastes like a cornmeal .A roti shop in Kingston displays a bat signed by the West Indies team of the 2000 Lord’s Test, and gloves signed by Brian Lara•Karthik Krishnaswamy/ESPNcricinfo LtdJuly 21
Driving us back from the stadium after the first day’s play, Bernadette takes us to the Seatons football ground, where tonight’s reunion event is taking place, a football game and food festival.When people from India think of conch, they think of the shell, and its distinctive blare, associated most often with the start of the TV show . We do not immediately associate the word with the shell’s rightful occupant, a marine gastropod mollusc (thanks, Wikipedia) that is edible, and, I have been told, delicious.I spot a man in a West Indies ODI jersey and ask him if I can find conch here. He points me to a stall selling conch water. It’s a cliché of food-based travel shows on television to reassure viewers that the unfamiliar and slightly scary-looking morsel in front of them, whether it’s crocodile meat or a pulsing snake heart, tastes “just like chicken”. Conch water, it turns out, does taste a little like chicken soup, but with a gorgeously subtle oceanic undertone.I ask the man in the West Indies jersey if he’s – duh – a cricket fan. “I live for it,” he tells me, and says he used to play for Antigua in the ’80s – “not first-class cricket but the level just below it”. His name is Adrian Adams. He used to be an opening batsman, and he now lives and works in Florida. He says he has played alongside Richie Richardson and Curtly Ambrose, and that, in his day, “if you wore a helmet, you were a punk”.July 22
Viv Richards is everywhere in Antigua. Including on the cover of the hotel-room phone book. But is he inside it? You bet he is. There are three Vivian Richardses, but only one Sir Vivian Richards, with a home on Lwr Vivian Richards Street. Andy Roberts is in the book too, as is Richie Richardson. Curtly Ambrose isn’t. Curtly, as we know, “talk to no man”.July 23
On the way back from the stadium, I look up at the night sky and see stars, more stars in a patch of sky than the sum of all the stars in all the skies draped over my house in Bangalore in a year. It is spectacular and – cliché alert – humbling.At ground level, we pass what is approximately the 9346th donkey we have spotted by the side of the road in our time in Antigua. We are told they are a relic of their time as beasts of burden from the days of the sugar factory, and from a time before farmers drove pick-up trucks. Antigua has now come up with a novel way to deal with its donkey population. The island now has two donkey sanctuaries.In Antigua, Sir Viv’s everywhere•Karthik Krishnaswamy/ESPNcricinfo LtdJuly 24
In a corner of the press box pantry is a transparent juice dispenser. Every day it holds a different juice, delicious but of difficult-to-place origin. Today it’s a pale orange-pink and tastes to me like peach, but with floral notes redolent of the tropics. I ask the man serving us our food, and he says it’s Antiguan cherry.India wrap up the first Test inside four days. In the press-conference room, the sponsor logos on the series backdrop tell a story of Indian dominance as well. Apart from the title sponsor, every other name is Indian – an Indian cement, an Indian weight-gain supplement, an Indian brand of incense stick.July 25
In the land of 365 beaches, I finally step onto sand. Long Bay Beach seems blessedly full of locals having a good time, and we are the only group here that can be remotely classified as tourists. I put my glasses aside and everything is a gloriously hypnotic blur as I make my way into warm tropical waters with waves washing gently over me.We also stop at Devil’s Bridge, a natural arch formed by waves crashing into the limestone-rich rock at the north-eastern edge of Antigua. It’s called what it’s called, Bernadette tells us, because, back in the days before emancipation, slaves would often throw themselves off it.July 27
I am transiting through Port-of-Spain to get to Kingston. The St Lucia Zouks are transiting through Port-of-Spain to get to Lauderhill for the US leg of the Caribbean Premier League. It is another reminder that cricketers are normal people in the West Indies. Grant Elliott hurries past the check-in counters, no minders around him, wheeling two massive bags. Jerome Taylor waits near the back of a long queue at a KFC, looking bored.Kingston, I decide, is a lot like New Delhi. I’m staying in what seems a posh part of the city, near the Canadian embassy. There are lots of nice houses, but the streets get eerily quiet at night, like some South Delhi neighbourhoods I’ve known, with the occasional car speeding past and almost no one walking. I hardly see a corner shop or grocery, but there’s a 24-hour hypermarket that people drive to. People seem extremely concerned about security. Signs advertising KingAlarm Systems are everywhere.July 28
My first trip to Sabina Park turns out to be an adventure. I walk to the nearest main road and try to hail a passing taxi. Barely any taxis pass, and the few that do refuse to slow down. I ask two young men walking towards me where I can find a taxi. They tell me to walk to the bus stand, and are giving me directions when an older man on a motorcycle stops near us. He wears a plaid shirt that looks like some sort of uniform, and perched on his fuel tank is a flask. He offers to give me a lift and I clamber on. First he takes a little detour to drop off the flask and its mysterious contents. Then he drops me off at the stadium, slowing down each time we pass a young woman to catcall. I am deeply embarrassed by the man and grateful to him, all at the same time.Devon House Bakery in Kingston: You want patties? They’ve got ’em•Getty ImagesSabina Park has some of Delhi’s brusqueness too. Near one of its gates is a sign saying “Keep off the grass. No pissing.” Another sign, on the fence surrounding the nets area, says “No weapons allowed.” The pavilion of the Kingston Cricket Club, however, gives the ground some old-world charm. The bar has plaques commemorating every batsman to have scored two hundreds in the same Test match. Members can watch the cricket while they eat lunch sitting on rocking chairs. A group of us gravitate to these chairs, open up our laptops and steal an unsecured Wi-Fi connection. I order oxtail, and red beans and rice. The oxtail is beautifully cooked. The gravy has the insistent heat of Scotch bonnet peppers, but there is avocado on the side, creamy and soothing. It’s a genius combination.July 29
Before heading to the stadium, I decide to make a pit-stop at Devon House. It is, according to the official website, “the architectural dream of Jamaica’s first black millionaire George Stiebel”, and was “declared a national monument in 1990 by the Jamaica National Heritage Trust”.None of that interests me today. I head directly for Devon House Bakery, to pick up their famous patties – one beef, one shrimp – and then next door, to I Scream, for a scoop of soursop ice cream. It sets off a bell in my head – I last tasted this faintly citrus, faintly guava-like flavour before in a glass of juice in the Antigua press box.July 30
After the first day’s play, we hit a Trinidadian roti shop for some curry goat. On its wall is a glass display case that contains a bat signed by the West Indies team that played the 100th Test staged at Lord’s, in 2000. It also contains a pair of gloves, presumably from the same match, signed by Brian Lara. The team must have been anxious to give away all of this: West Indies were famously bowled out for 54 in the second innings of that Test match, and Lara made scores of 6 and 5.July 31
The food stalls at Sabina Park do fantastic patties, but it’s a hot afternoon, and a group of us suddenly crave ice cream. We can’t find any. “You’ll get ice cream if a big match is on,” the lady at one counter tells us.”This isn’t a big match?””Naah. Come back when there’s a T20 on. You’ll definitely get ice cream then.”August 1
A tropical wave is proceeding westwards across the Atlantic, and Jamaica is in its sights. Meteorologists believe it has a good chance of attaining the wind speeds necessary to qualify to be called a tropical storm. They already have a name for it, Earl. It is the third day of the second Test match, and it rains enough to wash out nearly half the day’s play.Bats are allowed, though•Karthik Krishnaswamy/ESPNcricinfo LtdThe rain stops around six in the evening, and the setting sun turns the sky into a breathtaking vision in gold. The taxi driver pulls down his sunshade. It is Emancipation Day and people are out and about. We pass Emancipation Park, with its statue of a nude man and woman gazing – with just as much astonishment as me, I suppose – at the burning sky. The light turns even the most unremarkable buildings into glowing pillars from another planet.Ice-cream cravings are still upon us and we stop once again at Devon House. It is packed with what looks like a holiday crowd, but a woman tells me it’s actually a far smaller crowd than normal. “The lines would stretch out till there,” she says, seemingly pointing to the horizon. “It looks like the rain has kept everyone indoors.”August 2
More rain. Lots of it. The eye of Earl has missed Kingston, but its outer reaches have done enough to wipe out all but 15.5 overs of day four.Having left the stadium early, I visit Bookophilia, which, according to the in-flight magazine I flipped through on my way to Kingston, is the best bookshop in the city. It’s tiny but the selection is well curated, and you can have a cup of coffee or tea while you browse. It’s James Baldwin’s birth anniversary, and I buy a copy of , among other things.August 4
A visit to Melbourne Cricket Club, which has produced Michael Holding, Courtney Walsh and Marlon Samuels among other West Indies players. Randall, who drives me there, asks me if I play cricket, and I say, yeah, a little bit, the occasional tennis-ball game with friends. He says he does the same thing too. In Jamaica, they have a name for it. It’s a lovely name: “curry-goat cricket”.Randall shows me Samuels’ old house, which is just beyond the club wall, and tells me his mother and her sister used to run a tyre-repair shop. Courtney Walsh lived in the neighbourhood too, he says. Then he tells me Samuels owns a videogame arcade, and I ask if he’ll take me there. He does. It’s shut.August 5
Norman Manley airport, and I acquire a nifty little souvenir. A football in red, green and yellow, with “Jamaica” written on it in black letters, with a zipper running along its equator. Open the zipper, and the football expands to become a bag.My flight is delayed by an hour, and as I wait, a family of four settles into the seats next to me. A three-year-old girl, her mother, with a baby strapped to her, and an older woman who I assume is the grandmother of the two kids. The girl spots my football bag, and we begin to play catch. She is endlessly fascinated by the ball. “Leave the gentleman alone,” her grandmother tells her.The girl sulks. “It’s unfair!” she says, and I agree inwardly. I am torn between giving her the ball and listening to the voice in my head that says, “No way, it’s mine!” I stare at my feet. The moment stretches out uncomfortably until the grandmother does what grandmothers do and works her magic. She turns her hand into a claw, wiggles her fingers at the girl, and says, in a falsetto, “The crab is coming!”The child instantly forgets the football and runs circles around her grandmother, giggling.

ESPNcricinfo staff24-Sep-2016Ravindra Jadeja constantly attacked the stumps – and pads – with his wicket-to-wicket line•BCCI9.3 – Yadav to Guptill: Trapped in front! Swing. Inswing. Careens into the pads, slipping Guptill’s defences. He fell over again, the front leg planted on middle and off stump. And from that position it is very hard to handle a very quick, full ball darting back into you51.5 – Ashwin to Latham: Goes straight on! These aren’t tricks, folks. This is pure skill from Ashwin. Putting a lot more body into his action, which helps him drift the ball into the left-hander from around the stumps. And that drift happens late. Latham is prodding forward, defending outside the line and his front pad is ripe for attack52.3 – Jadeja to Taylor: Happens all the time in India. All it takes is one strike. Jadeja sneaks in the slider, the news has not reached Taylor’s front pad. He was defending around it, which is never good. At first, it seemed like it may have slid down leg. Off was visible, so was a slight bit of middle. Umpire Kettleborough is confident enough to give him. Then again, it might end up as umpire’s call if DRS was in playR Ashwin threatened with deliveries that turned, and also with ones that slid on with the arm•Associated Press79.1 – Jadeja to Ronchi: Ooof, that looked bad. I was convinced it had hit Ronchi on the full, while he was sweeping a ball that was in line with the stumps. Misses it completely – his shot selection was poor. Umpire Tucker sends him on his way, but it is later that I, at least, realise the ball was not a full toss hitting him on the front pad. It dipped and turned. Hit Ronchi on the back pad after turning quite a bit. May well have missed off stump94.2 – Jadeja to Craig: Traps him in front of middle and off! Given by umpire Kettleborough and he’s bang on. The ball is quite full, and it may have stayed a touch low as well. Craig was trying to flick, and with a closed face of his bat, he hasn’t given himself a chance. Exemplifies the threat Jadeja poses. With his accuracy, all it takes is one ball to misbehave94.3 – Jadeja to Sodhi: Two in two! Another quicker delivery, strikes Sodhi in front of leg stump, and he wasn’t entirely forward either. It may just have straightened enough.

Haseeb Hameed’s tour has been ended prematurely by injury but he has already made a lasting impression on team-mates and opponents

George Dobell in Mohali29-Nov-20162:00

Ganguly: What stands out for Hameed is his age

They say it is best to never meet your heroes, but Haseeb Hameed may well disagree.The night before this series, he spoke with wide-eyed wonder about how “amazing” it would be to meet Virat Kohli. He was one of his cricketing heroes and the thought of playing against him was clearly a thrill.Now he has not just met him, but won his respect. For while the relationship between these teams is not especially good – they came into the series with baggage from 2014, in particular – it was noticeable that Kohli not only applauded Hameed upon reaching his half-century in Mohali, but ran up to shake him by the hand at the end of his innings.He had, to his great credit, recognised not only an innings of class and bravery, but perhaps something of a kindred spirit, too: this was one fine batsmen acknowledging another, albeit one who has achieved little by comparison at this stage of his career. It is a moment that is likely to console Hameed long after he has made the journey home to have surgery on his left hand.”He’s showed great character for a 19-year-old,” Kohli said. “He put his hand up when his team wanted him to do it and the way he played with Anderson showed great maturity. You can sense it as a captain: this guy is intelligent, this guy knows the game.”He’s a great prospect for England. He’s definitely going to be a future star in all forms if he keeps persisting with his skill. I’m really impressed and that’s why I patted him on the back. It was an innings full of character and something that you need to applaud.”It may be relevant that Hameed, unlike some of the other players involved in this match, let his cricket do the talking and therefore hasn’t irked the opposition. He doesn’t feel the need to posture or pose; he doesn’t feel the need to give opposition players a send-off when they’re out or give them abuse when he is fielding.Any thought that such behaviour equates to strong or brave cricket should have been banished years ago. Hameed has reminded us that you can be gutsy and determined without denigrating the opposition. And, both with his batting and his demeanour, he might have reminded one or two how this game could, and should, be played.There were many impressive aspects of this innings. There was the range of strokes – including a delicious late cut, a slog-sweep for six and a front-foot hook – that showed he had been playing within himself in previous innings and hinted at an ability that could well feed into white-ball cricket. There was the sight of Hameed going to meet his new partner – James Anderson, a man with 118 more Tests than him – to offer some advice and encouragement and there was his ability to rotate the strike so effectively that Anderson only faced 11 out of the 40 balls they batted together.But perhaps the most impressive feature of this innings was his ability to adapt to the physical imposition he faced and the bravery to attempt to do so.

“To change the way you play to combat [an injury] … There’s a lot of guys in there in awe of what he’s been through”Trevor Bayliss, England’s coach

Hameed batted three times in the nets on Monday. The first two times were unsuccessful: the pain was such that he could hardly hold the bat, far less control it. It seemed he would bat only in an emergency and perhaps at No. 11. But then he experimented with a different grip where he was able to take his little finger off the bat. And, after some practice in the nets, reported that he was happy with the new technique.So, as a 19-year-old in his third Test, he not only went out to bat with such a badly damaged finger that he knew it required surgery, but he did so with a makeshift grip. And then he played England’s best innings of the match. It was hardly surprising that Trevor Bayliss, the England coach, described the team as “in awe” of their young colleague.”It’s a hell of a skill to have,” Bayliss said. “To change the way you play to combat that. A couple of headache tablets and out he went. It is a lesson for others. There’s a lot of guys in there in awe of what he’s been through. The lack of showing any pain, and guts and determination is a good sign. There’s plenty of other guys who have got hit and make a big song and dance about it. Obviously he’s got a big pain threshold.”They were sentiments echoed by Alastair Cook. He has been searching for an opening partner since July 2012 and the retirement of Andrew Strauss. But the search is over. Hameed is likely to be his regular opening partner for the rest of his career.”He has impressed us all with technique, his talent and now his bravery,” Cook said. “He has shown us he will do anything to get out there. That was a very special knock. We will hold him in huge respect for it.”International cricket is brutal though and, when Hameed does return, he must know he will face a sustained examination of his technique against the short ball. While his bravery is not in question, his habit of playing with low hands might render this the sort of incident that could reoccur.Keen to test him with the bouncer here, India started with a short leg, leg slip and deep-backward square for him in the second innings. But while there were a couple of times he looked hurried by the short ball – and Mohammed Shami has bowled terrifically this series – he managed to get on top of the ball and play it straight down into the ground at his feet. And each time the follow-up full delivery demanded a forward stroke, his feet moved without hesitation and his judgement over which ball to play and leave remained impeccable. He looked, once again, calm and composed.Within a couple of overs the leg slip had gone. An over later, the short leg had gone. Instead of just tucking the ball off his ribs or into the ground, Hameed had started to pull and hook. He is learning and adapting with every innings. It is a shame his series is over.Haseeb Hameed changed his technique to bat with a broken finger in England’s second innings•AFPHe was desperate not to go home. He has loved this experience and pleaded with the medical team to tape up the finger and let him carry on. But sense prevailed. He will leave in the next day or two and have the operation as soon as possible. You can be quite certain, however, that he will be opening the batting for England when their Test schedule resumes in July.”He wants to stay and play the last two Tests,” Bayliss said. “He wouldn’t take no for an answer. He wants to stay. His old man said ‘Just tape it up, he’ll be all right’.”It’s a great sign. It’s the sort of attitude you want. Not only can he play but it’s great to see an attitude like that. We’ll make sure he gets back and gets it done so he’s right to go early next season.”It seems Hameed may have come into the match carrying the injury. He took a blow to the hand in the second innings in Visakhapatnam – his first ball was a sharp bouncer that he played poorly – and was then dismissed in the first innings here by a ball that jumped off a length and hit his glove in exactly the same place.”The medical people think he probably cracked it in the second Test,” Bayliss said. “He’s copped another one in the same spot. It’s a break that is all the way through the finger. The finger’s in two pieces so it’s an injury that the medical people say if he gets another knock on it, especially in the field, it could bend it right back. It’s best to get it done as soon as we can.”Indeed it is. And for all the disappointment England may well have at the end of this series – it is hard to avoid the conclusion it reached tipping point on Monday – they will go home consoled in the knowledge that they have found a batsmen who should serve them well for a decade or more. You suspect Bayliss and Cook thought so after Rajkot. In Mohali, Kohli recognised it, too.

The series was on the line – or at least that’s how it felt – and after 90 overs of the best Test cricket in a long time both Australia and India are still in with a shout

Jarrod Kimber in Bengaluru05-Mar-2017″India is done”.That is what my auto-rickshaw driver shouted out at some Indian flag-holding fans on their way to the ground. He had seen enough; they were finished, gone, broken. According to him, there was little reason even to play the second day in Bengaluru.But even coming in, it was the most important day of the Test, and the series. If Australia put on a big total, it would be hard to see how India could win this match or even draw the series. Hell, they be done. And even as good as Australia have been – they have dominated only three and a half days of cricket on this tour – a couple of bad sessions and all those Indian memories come back. The third innings of the second Test in India has devoured them before.So India couldn’t be done until the battle for day two had been won.*****Steven Smith is leaving the ball like it is an act of war, never has a leave had so much naked aggression. Kohli is yammering away, India’s fielders lean into Smith, clapping fiercely, and Ishant Sharma stares long and hard after almost every delivery.There is no doubt this is tough cricket, India are determined to stay in this series, Australia are desperate not to allow them. Smith’s first run had almost brought a tussle, when he had pushed one down the pitch and Renshaw didn’t move, meaning R Ashwin crashed into him, and then the umpire had to intervene.It was tough, dirty, sweaty cricket. Every over seemed to have a half-chance, a low bouncing ball, or an act of aggression from someone. Smith would defend and pull a face, Ishant would mock that face. An lbw shout would almost end up in a run-out. Ishant would fall over after bowling, but even mid-tumble, continue his death stare at Renshaw. Smith is almost out lbw again, and the same ball Renshaw is almost run-out again. Ashwin is ripping the ball a body width and a half. Then the ball would run along the ground and Kohli would make sure the Australians remembered it.Ishant Sharma and Steven Smith engaged in a war of facial expressions•Associated PressAt one stage almost every player on the ground and the umpires are in the middle of the pitch, talking, arguing locked in an endless battle of mental disintegration. There were 21 runs and a wicket in the first hour; 14 overs of cricket dripping in sweat after being punched in the gut.Even as they have their drinks, the Indian team form a shape that allows them to continue to sledge the Australians, and the Australians sledge back. Smith and Kohli are engaged in an epic rap battle to the death.All this while Ishant and Umesh Yadav are bowling the spells of their lives. They are using the natural deviation of the pitch, cracks and general lowness, plus the man-made reverse swing, to torture Smith into an innings of by-any-means-necessary survival. They just didn’t bowl bad balls, they attacked the stumps, attacked his leaves, and attacked his ears. And they did it all morning.Smith did survive, and while thriving was never really an option, with Jadeja coming on, he would have at least felt relief at seeing Ashwin off. But then, the Australian captain got an inside edge, and 20.1 overs only ended up only counting for 30 runs, so India is not yet done.*****In the final scene of the film , Chance the gardener walks on water. The meaning of that, though widely debated, is in the honesty of his ignorance he is able to do something impossible. Essentially, Chance walks on water because he has never thought about it enough to know he can’t.Steve O’Keefe said of Matt Renshaw in the last Test that he didn’t have the scar tissue of playing in Asia. For Renshaw, this is all marvellous; he looks as relaxed in the back of car smiling for the locals as he does out in the middle facing Umesh’s testing reverse swing. In eight overs Umesh bowls five maidens, and goes for 14 runs, 12 of which are from the edge of Renshaw’s bat. At one point, Umesh storms down the wicket to tell the batsman about it and Renshaw shrugs like a lovable doofus from a sit com.Matt Renshaw loved being out in the middle•Associated PressRenshaw’s main scoring shot is through slips, and it is, for most of the morning, his only scoring shot. Whether it zips through Kohli’s hand, or through the gap, Renshaw beams like he is just happy to be there. He bats as if uninterested in the outside world, while others fight and scrap.Shaun Marsh seems to either get grubbers that just hit him outside the line, or be rapped on the gloves by one of the few balls that truly rise. But there is one over when Marsh decides not just to defend. When Ashwin bowls one on a similar line and length to those he had been bowling all day – a foot outside leg stump, ripping across the left-hander – Marsh chooses not to stand up and play it, but get inside and sweep. A few balls later he is inside the ball again, he misses it, but it trickles down the leg side for byes. Then he handles a ball from Ashwin with no trouble at all, and takes nine off the over. The next over, he smashes a pull of Umesh. Australia score 13 runs off the last two overs. Before that they had scored 13 runs in the 13 overs.You could almost feel day two breathe, for the first time.It is right there, with the runs trickling for the first time all day, with Marsh set and surviving and Renshaw batting in a coma of childhood ignorance that Australia look like they are finally going to pull away. Renshaw is walking down the wicket and hitting Ashwin to wide long-on, Marsh is finding runs easily, and when Jadeja comes back on they seem to want to make sure Kohli doesn’t feel like using him again.CricViz says that Renshaw came down the pitch four times in his first 185 balls and then ten times in his last 11 balls, a period coinciding with the introduction of Jadeja. The third-last ball he comes down, he bonks a six over long off. The second-last time, he chips to midwicket for no run. The last time, he telegraphs his intention to Jadeja about four seconds before the ball is bowled. And again, India is still not done.*****Shaun Marsh might be forging a career for himself as a specialist batsman in Asia. He is not very good against seam but is brilliant against spin. He is not particularly good at home, he is worse than that in most places, but in Asia, he averages almost 60. There are many who don’t think he is good at all, but he is tasty in Asia.In the 57th over, Marsh survives a ball that keeps very low, tails in, thumps into his pad, but is just outside the line of off stump. The next ball, landing in a similar spot, hits a crack, jumps up, leaves him, and probably takes his thumb on the way through to Saha, who ends up being the only guy who believes it did.Shaun Marsh showed his class against spin•AFPMarsh squiggles across the crease to the seamers, he handles the spinning ball, and his whole innings seems like a cacophony of chances, but on the only real one he gave India don’t review. And so for 197 balls, Marsh hears the howl of a half chance, always finds himself just outside the line or just missing the edge to collect a battle-scarred fifty.Matthew Wade joins him, and while far from convincing, the two of them put on the fastest partnership of the day. They even bring up the lead, which, had felt a long way off for most of the dayThen Umesh fires another one at Marsh’s pads, and this time, it looks pretty close, and is given. Marsh reviews, and he was outside the line. Next over, Ishant hits Marsh even plumber, there is no mistaking this one, Marsh is right in front, and it would had been out had Ishant not overstepped.Twice India think they have him, twice he escapes.Now all Marsh has to do is make it to stumps, if he does that, the chances of India being able to match the incredible intensity, and bowling performance of today, seems pretty unlikely. If Marsh makes it to stumps, maybe India is done.If anyone is going to survive this day, it should be the specialist who has fought against the pitch with vicious worm balls, angry cracks, heaving reverse swing, and devious turn. It looks like he will fight his way through one of the greatest, and toughest, days of Test cricket you are ever going to see. That he will change his narrative and score the seminal Marsh hundred that parents tell their kids about.Then he limps one to short midwicket. All that trench-warfare batting, the great escapes, the scratches and bruises, are tossed away to the fielder like a child throwing away a doll they don’t want to play with anymore.Australia make 197 runs, India take six wickets, both teams trade blood, sweat and insults, and according to the bookies, win predictors and cricket pundits, the chances of victory are roughly the same as they had been at the start of the day.Australia fought well but didn’t win the battle of day two, and India struggled but are not yet done.

We often hear fans cry out for them as batsmen rack up the runs in T20, but there are reasons for why they aren’t as effective as they once were

Jarrod Kimber16-Apr-2017″Where has the real good yorker gone in the game? Where’s it gone? It’s not bowled enough,” says Kevin Pietersen. Ravi Shastri replies, “It’s not practised enough.” Pietersen agrees and adds, “Lasith Malinga before every game he bowled, all he would do is bowl at a cone, and you know he was trying to do one thing, and he was a master.”Ah, the yorker of yore, yes, why can’t we go back to that time, and make yorkers great again?This is a pretty typical conversation you hear on cricket commentary. This one came during the opening game of this season’s IPL. Just after the conversation fizzled out, something bizarre happened: Deepak Hooda went across until he was outside off stump, and then he went behind his stumps to play a shot.Pietersen made a huge deal about Hooda going behind the bowling crease. But the shot was a perfect explanation of why the talk about yorkers these days is so poor. Bowlers do bowl yorkers, and they do practise bowling yorkers. But no cone jumps outside off stump and then behind the stumps. Cones stand still.

Bowlers do bowl yorkers, and they do practise bowling yorkers. But no cone jumps outside off stump and then behind the stumps. Cones stand still

In 2016, more successful yorkers were bowled than in any other IPL season before it.

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ESPNcricinfo analysts have decided that a successful yorker is a ball that lands on a length where it yorks the bat. It couldn’t be more simple. If it bounces too short, it’s a half-volley; if the batsman hits it on the full, they mark it as a full toss. It doesn’t matter if the ball was a wicket or a four – to us they are yorkers.What we don’t have data on is unsuccessful yorkers – balls that were bowled the perfect length, but where the batsman changed the length through his footwork or shot, because there is no camera permanently above the wicket feeding us that data. We know that hardly ever is a full toss intentionally bowled, and that many are failed yorkers.Even without the empirical evidence that proves more successful yorkers are now bowled, it makes sense. In ODIs we have almost doubled the number of sixes in the last ten years, from 4.75 per match in 2006 to 8.73 in 2016. T20 seems as if it’s about to free itself of cricket norms and reach for the stars. Run rates in both formats are up, and bowlers are gasping for air. Would they really not try the ball even a casual fan would tell them is the hardest to score off?

The historical data on the number of yorkers bowled per match in the IPL says a little about what has happened to batting in T20. An average of over four successful yorkers were bowled each game in the first three seasons. Then, as the real improvisations in batting took full effect, that dropped to under four, and in 2013 it was at 3.05. Since then bowlers have fought back and 2016 was the first season on record that was over five.The types of bowlers who have produced the most successful yorkers have also changed. In the first season of the IPL it was Munaf Patel and Glenn McGrath: tall, not very fast, accurate bowlers. Bowlers of that type have never led the league in yorkers since. The only time tall bowlers make that list is when they are out-and-out speed guys like Shaun Tait and Morne Morkel – every other bowler is regular-human size, not giant-fast-bowler size.So what happened after that one season?The data is conclusive: short, accurate bowlers like the Kumars Vinay, Praveen and Bhuvneshwar all feature in this list, as does fellow shorty Ashok Dinda. Umesh Yadav, Brett Lee and Dirk Nannes are there with their extra pace. None are that tall. And the bowlers with unpickable slower balls or weird actions, like Dwayne Bravo, Malinga, Jasprit Bumrah and Mustafizur Rahman are well accounted for.Short, accurate bowlers like Bhuvneshwar Kumar are more likely than tall ones to bowl good yorkers these days•AFPThe images that we have when we think of yorkers are of Joel Garner, Waqar Younis, Curtly Ambrose, Darren Gough and McGrath rattling stumps. Guys like Waqar and Gough still exist – shorter guys with more round-arm actions – but the taller guys have all but disappeared. As almost nothing in cricket happens by accident, the reason bowlers of this type don’t bowl as many yorkers anymore is that their yorkers aren’t working.A tall, accurate bowler has a larger chance of getting a yorker wrong than a shorter, skiddier bowler – that’s just science. Taller bowlers often have classical actions, as they are trying to make the most of their height, meaning nothing of their actions is a surprise for batsmen. And while some taller bowlers have great slower balls – Clint McKay is a perfect recent example – most of them haven’t had to master skullduggery, because in the lower levels of cricket their height and pace was more than enough.The perfect bowler of a yorker in T20 would be a 90mph unorthodox bowler with a low-arm action who has a hard-to-pick slower ball. Aka Malinga.

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When I was a teenager, the yorker tormented me. At the start I’d never got out to many, but then suddenly it was every second dismissal for months on end. This wasn’t just to the odd express bowler; I missed some kind-old-man medium pace as well. Not being very talented, all I could rely on was thinking my way out.And when I thought about yorkers, I realised how silly they were. I loved to drive; I could drive all day, full tosses and half-volleys, and yet when the ball was in between, instead of taking a big step down the wicket and playing a cover drive, I suddenly froze and was trying to dig them out.

Run rates are up and bowlers are gasping for air. Would they really not try the ball even a casual fan would tell them is the hardest to score off?

Did a yorker even exist, or was it a psychological construct that slowed my feet? Was I being tormented by myself and not the bowlers?The truth is somewhere in the middle. At pace, I don’t have the skill to just take a step forward and knock back a low full toss. Really accurate bowlers also found that exact yorker length that makes you doubt you can change the length. And then there is the surprise factor. In most proper cricket innings, the yorker is one of the balls you are least likely to face, so having an entire plan for it seemed kind of weird. Eventually I just reduced my backlift and went back to only being dismissed by a reasonable number of yorkers.There is obviously a science as to why the yorker is a good ball. If you try and play an attacking shot, your bat won’t be flush with the ground, opening up a chance for the ball to go under it. Unlike other balls, it makes you feel like you need to dig, not bat, which changes the way you bat, and often the face of the bat is not as straight. Plus, hitting the ground with the bat means you are not in control of it. And for generations the toe of the bat had the effectiveness of a piece of wilted lettuce.But batting is no longer a skinny kid with a cheap bat and endless cricket dread when facing a yorker; it has grown up too.

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In the ’90s, kiddies, things were different. If you wanted someone to go in and bash the ball, you often sent in a pinch-hitter, who was usually a big, strong bowler, like Pat Symcox or Craig McDermott. Batsmen hit the odd six, but if you needed a bunch, you sent in a strongman bowler or a strapping allrounder.Batsmen weren’t all little guys or slim-hipped fleet-of-foot types, but they were regular human size. Sure, cricket had flirted with bigger batsmen, but batsmen weren’t built for power. Lance Klusener only made international cricket because he was an allrounder. He wasn’t built like a batsman, and when he started in first-class cricket, he batted 11. In Tests, he batted as low as ten. But when he became a batsman, it was spectacular.Lance Klusener was among the few batsmen of his time who was seemingly impervious to yorkers•PA PhotosAt the 1999 World Cup he made 281 runs, averaging 140 at a strike rate of 122. The top order had been weaponised since 1996, but the middle order was still a place for human calculators like Michael Bevan, Russel Arnold and Chris Harris, with an allrounder thrown in to hopefully slog a few. Klusener combined both roles, and hit boundaries like an axeman while producing like a calculator; a middle-overs killing machine.There was no real way to contain him in that period, and that is largely because of what he did to yorkers. Other batsmen, like Carl Hooper, Martin Crowe and Dean Jones, had tried ways to make yorkers easier to play, with shorter backlifts or by batting deep in the crease or way out of it. But Klusener didn’t just chip yorkers around and score the odd boundary; he crushed the life out of them. Other batsmen struggled to get power from low full tosses; if you slightly overpitched to Klusener, he hit the ball with Thor’s hammer through cover or midwicket. If you underpitched even slightly, he’d destroy the ball over long-on. And even when you hit the perfect length, he dropped his massive bat made of anvils on the ball and it sped off square of the wicket.Klusener’s bat seemed ideal to handle yorkers, and he was range-hitting almost a generation before it became commonplace.Now there are many batsmen of Klusener’s size and strength. Batsmen, not bowlers, are now the big-muscle guys. The bats are also better, the middle longer, there is much more wood at the bottom, and they are lighter than when Klusener was playing. Range-hitting and getting your front foot out of the way are now just everyday cricket.

The perfect bowler of a yorker in T20 would be a 90mph unorthodox bowler with a low-arm action who has a hard-to-pick slower ball. Aka Malinga

The shots have changed too. Cricket has a long history of batsmen coming up with a shot that completely changes what bowlers have to do. In modern cricket, short fine-leg came up into the circle as batsmen started peppering the leg-side boundary in front of square, and so Douglas Marillier played a lap to that position. Ryan Campbell took it a step further. And then there was Tillakaratne Dilshan’s scoop, which was essentially an overhead sweep shot. None of those shots was specifically aimed at stopping yorkers, but all of them played a part in yorkers coming under attack.The one that seems to have directly come from yorkers was the helicopter shot that Santosh Lal gave his friend MS Dhoni. Instead of a normal drive with weight on the front foot, this was played off the back foot, and because of it, a yorker often became a half-volley. It’s about looser wrists, and flicking a ball in the air that you would normally have to hit down on, turning yorkers and near-yorkers into sixes.Recently Nasser Hussain did an incredible masterclass on the yorker. He starts off with a bunch of cones placed around the crease from just outside leg stump all the way to wide on the off side. The space enclosed, he explains, is where you could bowl a successful yorker five or ten years ago. Gradually, for a variety of reasons (reverse swing going, umpires getting stricter on leg-side wides) he starts removing cones until he’s standing within a tiny space.This space is bigger than the handkerchief that bowlers claimed to hit when practising bowling yorkers in the old days, but not that much bigger. It is there in this tiny little yorker place that he asks, even after allowing for everything he has just said: “Why aren’t they finding the hole more often?”Dilshan’s trademark scoop was one of the shots that made bowling yorkers a trickier business•AFPThese cones, like the ones Malinga aims at before his bowling, don’t move. The yorker hole is as small as it has ever been, and it moves more than ever before, depending on the batsman’s whims. The damn thing can run behind the stumps, be outside leg, or not be on the pitch on the off at all. Not to mention bigger batsmen and bats, better training, smaller grounds, and a format that practically begs for more sixes to be hit. And people ask why they’re not finding the hole?

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We have all heard a commentator, or our drunk uncle, say, “Just bowl 24 yorkers, it’s simple.” It isn’t simple. Garner couldn’t bowl 24 successful yorkers in a row. And that is with a batsman standing in roughly the same place on the crease each ball. If you went at 0.8 runs per yorker (the rough average across IPL history) for 18 balls, and the other balls in your spell went for two sixes, two fours and a couple of twos, you’re still looking at almost ten an over.Some modern batsmen actually like it when a bowler tries six yorkers in an over. It means they can formulate a plan, and they know that even if they don’t move in the crease much, one will be over- or under-pitched, and that one is gone. Five singles and a six is still 11 an over.Not all modern batsmen have power, not all improvise. There are some batsmen – let’s call them Pakistani – who are still playing T20 cricket in a pre-Klusener way, where against pace everything must go over midwicket. Other batsmen don’t have a lot of power, so usually they play their power shots to leg, so bowling wide yorkers to them can restrict them when the ball gets softer or they get tired.Most batsmen now do play all the shots. England bowled well to Carlos Brathwaite at the start of his innings in the World T20 final. Chris Jordan went with a wide yorker so that Brathwaite couldn’t use his power. Then David Willey tried straighter yorkers to cramp Brathwaite. He was new to the crease, he couldn’t find his timing, and the full bowling was doing the job. Then Brathwaite realised that this was their plan, so when Willey tried another one, he played a lap scoop, the first one he had ever played in a match, and it went for four. That was his only boundary before the final over.

We have all heard a commentator, or our drunk uncle, say, “Just bowl 24 yorkers, it’s simple.” It isn’t simple

Against Ben Stokes he stood deep in his crease, and after trying one into the pitch first ball, Stokes didn’t nail one good yorker in the next three he attempted. Had he tried a ball that wasn’t a yorker, he might have at least made Brathwaite think. Instead Brathwaite, like he did against Willey, knew where they were going to be, and used it to win the game.You could use Stokes’ over to prove how important yorkers can be, but it also shows what happens when you miss them now. The reward for yorkers has never been greater, but neither has the risk.When you look at data for the best Test bowlers, even on surfaces that help them, with no one moving around the crease or trying to slaughter each ball, they have groupings where the balls can pitch up to a metre apart, and usually more. And that is a bowler who is trying to run in and hit the same spot ball after ball for an entire day, whose body is grooved into that length by muscle memory. And yet they can’t do it. If they miss by 25 centimetres, looking for a good back-of-a-length ball, or a well-flighted offbreak, not much happens.Try missing a yorker by that much. The ball is gone.

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It started with coaches putting shoes on the crease and then asking their quicks to hit them. Then some bowling coaches tried having a piece of string set up a few inches above the ground and the bowlers have to bowl under them. Now there is a different system for England bowlers like Jordan.He puts one cone out for the wide yorker, one for the straight yorker, and one for the yorker down leg, for when the batsman backs away and gives himself room. Then as he comes in to bowl, his coach, Ottis Gibson, shouts out which colour cone he needs to aim for as he hits the crease. It is still not as exact as bowling to a batsman doing the same thing, but it’s clear that bowlers are trying to work this out. Bowlers have never practised yorkers more, or smarter, than they do now.Almost 10% of Malinga’s deliveries in the IPL have been yorkers – but they are still outnumbered by full tosses•BCCIThere is a clip online of Chris Woakes, Jimmy Anderson and Jordan bowling that shows them attempting to pitch it underneath a specially designed gate. The clip shows how good Jordan is at this; the other two regularly hit the gate (and Woakes and Anderson are renowned as very accurate bowlers) whereas Jordan regularly goes under the gate and hits the stump. The ECB put this video online, apparently to show how often their bowlers were hitting the yorker length; but even so, their bowlers did not hit it every ball. And one commenter, CallMeSir, said, “They play international cricket!! They should be hitting yorkers every time.”In basketball, if you are fouled when shooting, you receive a free throw. A shot with the game clock stopped, with no defenders in your face, where the player can take his time, from 15 feet, a shot that has been practised their entire life. NBA players in total still only hit that shot 77% of the time. They play in the best basketball league on earth! They should be hitting their free throws every time.

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Malinga was the first great T20 bowler. In seven IPL seasons he has 143 wickets at 17, with an economy rate of 6.67. Even as his pace has gone down over the years, even as his knee has troubled him and his midriff has occasionally ballooned out, he has been incredible year after year. And in all seven seasons he has played, he has led the league the in number of successful yorkers bowled.

Of Malinga’s 143 IPL wickets, 18% are from yorkers. The next best is 8% for Tait. Tait also has the second-highest percentage of yorkers bowled (among bowlers who have bowled in over 20 games) with 6.13% – Malinga is at 9.48%. And you want to know how hard it is to bowl yorkers? The man that everyone in cricket says is the best yorker bowler in cricket bowls more full tosses than yorkers. And we don’t even have data on how many half-volleys he bowls.Malinga leads the league in percentage of full tosses bowled, 11.49%. From those, he has around 12% of his wickets. So from around 20.9% of his deliveries he takes 30.07% of his wickets. The next closest are Bumrah and Chris Morris, who bowl 15% and 12% of their balls as full tosses or yorkers, and those get them 11% and 12% of their wickets.

But it gets better when you look at the full-toss stats on their own. When Malinga bowls a full toss in the IPL, his bowling average is 18.5, and his economy is 7.18. He is better when bowling full tosses than most bowlers are when hitting the pitch. All the other top yorker bowlers go at over nine an over when bowling full tosses, because they are normal human beings. With the worst delivery in cricket, Malinga is still a gun. That is because even his full tosses and half-volleys are hard to play, because his deliveries do something that very few bowlers have ever managed to make theirs do: they dip.A normal high-arm action doesn’t let the ball dip much and even a roundish-arm action like Mitchell Johnson’s or Fidel Edwards’ doesn’t. Malinga’s action is so much lower than that of a normal bowler that he’s almost more of a freak than Murali. You can see at times the ball is not rotating end over end, like with an average seamer, but instead hovering like a UFO, and is just as unpredictable. And when he bowls a slower ball, they drop off a cliff. The number of times Malinga gets a wicket from a full toss that the batsman plays over the top of is incredible. So even when you pick the slower ball, and the length, the ball isn’t quite where you need it to be.

The reward for yorkers has never been greater, but neither has the risk

You can move around the crease to him, but when you do that, he either slides one through that skids low off the surface, making you mis-hit it, or he bowls one of these savage dipping cutters that goes underneath or over your blade. Not to mention that he’s still more than quick enough for a shock short ball. Angled-bat shots are more risky with him than with any seamer before him, and all you are left with is straight-bat shots, over his head or over your head.Why don’t more people bowl yorkers like Malinga does? The answer is simple: no one bowls yorkers like Malinga does. Asking another bowler to deliver yorkers like that is like asking another person to bowl at Shoaib Akhtar’s pace or with Shane Warne’s spin and consistency – it’s not going to happen. A tall bowler who bowls at the same pace as Malinga, with a standard action and a decent slower ball, would get murdered if he tried as many yorkers as Malinga.Forget your romantic image of the yorker of yore, the Malinga golden unicorn of destruction, and making the yorker great again. The yorker of reality is being tried. Sometimes it is bowled well, sometimes it isn’t bowled well; sometimes it works, and sometimes it ends up in row 17.That is the fate of the modern-day yorker.