All posts by n8rngtd.top

Perennial underachievers, MP, have the chance to make their first final since 1998-99

Srinidhi Ramanujam13-Jun-2022The semi-finals of the 87th edition of Ranji Trophy, India’s premier first-class tournament, will kick off in Bengaluru on Tuesday with Madhya Pradesh taking on Bengal and Mumbai facing Uttar Pradesh. Here is a look at how the teams are placed ahead of the crucial matches.Bengal target back-to-back finals
MP captain Aditya Shrivastava was five years old when they last reached the Ranji Trophy title round, in 1998-99. Chandrakant Pandit was the MP captain then, and 23 years later, he has led them to the semi-finals. None of the current team members were even born when the team – then called Holkar – lifted the trophy, way back in 1952-53. However, the perennial underachievers now have the opportunity to collect the silverware they so yearn for.Coming off a dominating 10-wicket win over Punjab in the quarter-finals, MP will be up against an in-form Bengal, in Alur, the outskirts of Bengaluru.Related

• High-flying Kartikeya believes MP have the ability to 'go all the way'

• Stats: Mumbai's margin breaks 92-year-old record, Bengal shatter 129-year-old record

• Jaiswal: 'I'm so tough mentally because I have to be on my toes all the time'

• With Pandit in charge, MP players have no time to pause – 'must rectify mistakes before semi-final'

• How UP pulled off a heist to reach Ranji semi-finals

MP have match-winners in the likes of Kumar Kartikeya, Akshat Raghuwanshi and Rajat Patidar. Yash Dubey, Patidar and Shubham Sharma have all scored more than 400 runs each in four matches this season, while left-arm spinner Kartikeya sits at the top of bowling charts for the team with 19 wickets from four games. Pace bowlers Anubhav Agarwal and Gaurav Yadav have picked up 25 wickets between them, while Puneet Datey and offspinner Saransh Jain also showed glimpses of promise in the quarter-finals.Bengal, the 2019-20 edition’s finalists, have made their way to the last four having won all their three group games (only team to do so this season in Elite groups), and eking out a draw against Jharkhand after gaining a mammoth first-innings lead of 475 runs in the quarter-finals.They would be banking on the pace trio of Ishan Porel, Mukesh Kumar and Akash Deep, who have accounted for 40 of the 67 wickets taken by the team this season. And then there is Shahbaz Ahmed, who has picked up 12 wickets and piled up 344 runs in four matches and has carried his IPL form into the long format.That their veteran batter Manoj Tiwary found his groove in the quarter-finals – he scored 73 and 136 against Jharkhand – would bode well for the team, who last claimed the Ranji title three decades ago. Having come close to winning the trophy in March 2020, Tiwary, who was also a part of the Bengal teams that lost the finals in 2005-06 and 2006-07, would be keen to help Bengal get hold of the elusive title.Kumar Kartikeya picked up six wickets in the second innings to see Madhya Pradesh through to the final four•ESPNcricinfo LtdMumbai favourites against UP
It didn’t matter that Mumbai just managed to sneak into the knockouts (they also had to rely on other results to go their way in the group stage). Making a strong statement in the quarter-finals with the biggest ever first-class win, of 725 runs versus Uttarakhand, Mumbai begin as favourites against UP at the Just Cricket Academy.Having featured in 46 of the 86 Ranji finals, the 41-time champions will aim to carry forward their confidence from the quarter-final triumph. Experienced wicketkeeper-batter Aditya Tare will miss the game after suffering a finger injury, and so will Suryakumar Yadav and Ajinkya Rahane. However, Mumbai do boast of a batting line-up consisting of Prithvi Shaw, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Sarfaraz Khan and Arman Jaffer that can threaten any opposition. That the debutant Suved Parkar also made an instant impact with his record 252 against Uttarakhand will please Mumbai. In the bowling department, left-arm spinner Shams Mulani has been the headline-maker with 37 wickets, the most for a bowler this edition.Sarfaraz, the season’s highest run-scorer, will be up against the state he belongs to and the team he quit to return to Mumbai. Even Mumbai’s opener Jaiswal has roots in UP.And though UP do not have big-name players like Mumbai nor do they have any titles to show in the recent past (their last Ranji title came in 2005-06), Mumbai would not make the mistake of taking them lightly. Like Mumbai, UP also had to battle for a knockout berth until the last day of the group stage. They have been unbeaten so far, which includes a come-from-behind win against eight-time winners and pre-tournament favourites Karnataka in the last-eight stage.In Rinku Singh, Priyam Garg, and Karan Sharma, Uttar Pradesh have a reliable batting line-up. Pace bowler Yash Dayal, who had a breakthrough IPL season, has only strengthened their bowling department that also comprises Ankit Rajpoot and left-arm spinner Saurabh Kumar.Having scripted a heist to reach the semi-finals, UP would want to extract a small measure of revenge for their 2008-09 final loss to Mumbai.

At a tricky juncture on the fourth day, everything about the way he batted was spot on

Sidharth Monga25-Dec-2022″If Shreyas was not the Player of the Series, I would have definitely shared this award with him, but he is, so I will take this home,” R Ashwin said in the post-match presentation after India’s three-wicket win, pointing to his Player-of-the-Match trophy.Now either Ashwin had been informed and there was a last-second change or he was nudging the adjudicators to do the right thing because Shreyas Iyer was the deserving Player of the Series. Ashwin himself was the top-scorer in a tense chase of 145 after he joined Iyer at 74 for 7, but Ashwin knew Iyer had played the better innings, one that calmed everyone down.Related

• Stats – Ashwin-Iyer's rescue act, India's unbeaten record against Bangladesh

• R Ashwin and Shreyas Iyer make it 2-0 for India in close finish

• Is Rishabh Pant the GWOAT?

Iyer did come to bat after the 28th over, which means India were near the time when the ball would go soft and misbehave slowly than it did earlier, but still he offered false responses to only four of the 46 balls he faced. Nobody came close to that batting efficiency in the whole Test. Ashwin, batting with him, faltered 12 times in 62. Everything about the way Iyer batted was spot on: judging the length, playing either right forward or right back, always on the lookout for runs, but not taking outrageous risks.It was not just on the outside. Captain KL Rahul spoke of how the panic in the dressing room settled down once Iyer started batting. “When someone’s performing consistently for you, it is very heartening, and Shreyas has been around the team for a long time and he had to really wait for his opportunities,” Rahul said. “And so happy to see that when he has got the opportunities he is really grabbing them with both hands, and he is doing the job for the team.”The way he batted today was phenomenal. He made it look really easy. There was a lot of pressure, there was a little bit of panic in the dressing room, but it didn’t look like there was any panic when we were watching Shreyas bat. He had a really good partnership with Ashwin.”

“He is someone who has been doing really well for 15 months to two years, but unfortunately he had the injury and he went away from the game for a little bit. He has been really patient through all of this. Obviously his journey has not been easy..”KL Rahul

It shouldn’t really come as a surprise because Iyer has been showing how good he is against spin from the time he debuted last year in Kanpur and rescued India from 106 for 3 and 51 for 5. He averages 68.67 against spin and 42.40 against pace. He has played just one match outside Asia, so we should reserve the verdict, but against spin in helpful conditions, he and Rishabh Pant have been India’s best batters since his debut.”He is someone who has been doing really well for 15 months to two years, but unfortunately he had the injury and he went away from the game for a little bit,” Rahul said. “Then he had to wait his turn again. He has been really patient through all of this. Obviously his journey has not been easy, no one’s journey has been easy in the team. The way he is batting is phenomenal, hope that he can continue to do this and keep getting better.”What Rahul said is also acknowledgment of the work Iyer had to do in domestic cricket to get his Test debut. He came into Test cricket with over 4000 runs at an average of over 50 and a strike rate of over 80. Since ESPNcricinfo has been keeping ball-by-ball records, no batter has managed that. And most of those runs came in Ranji Trophy where you have to face a lot of spin.In a series that spin dominated, Iyer made false responses to only 24 balls out of the 244 balls he faced from spinners. In the three innings that Iyer played, his points of entry were 112 for 4, 94 for 4 and 71 for 6. It is in keeping with Iyer’s career: only 54 false responses in 592 balls of spin.A good visual measure of how well you are batting against spin is how often you get neither forward nor back, giving the ball chance to misbehave and not giving yourself any chance to recover if it does. Iyer hardly ever does that.The next indicator is how a batter manages to score relatively risk-free runs off good balls. The one trait that has shone through Iyer’s batting so far is the classic trick against spin, especially on pitches keeping low: look to be pressing forward, but be quick to pounce on anything marginally short of a length. Those two shots, one each in both innings, will resonate for long: on both occasions, right back to a slightly short ball and pulling a left-arm spinner over midwicket. In the second innings, that shot signalled end of panic.Iyer might not have got the Player-of-the-Series award that Ashwin thought he would be, or should be, getting, but there can be no better tribute than that he calmed the panic down in the dressing room with his assured batting.

And when have bowlers dominated? Over 2500 Tests have been played so far – we analyse the numbers

S Rajesh02-Jun-2023The Wellington Test between New Zealand and Sri Lanka earlier this year – which the home team won by an innings and 58 runs – was the 2500th Test match in men’s cricket. It wasn’t a particularly memorable contest, but the landmark was a reminder of how long the format has been around.The very nature of the five-day game means only a limited number of them can be fitted into an annual calendar. In 2022 only 43 Tests were played, compared to 161 ODIs and a whopping 531 T20Is (that last number is also a function of the huge number of teams that play the shortest format). While it has taken 146 years for Test cricket to reach 2500 matches, the other two formats have been rapidly adding to their numbers: in 52 years of the 50-over ODI, 4578 matches have taken place, while 2076 T20Is have been played in only 18 years.That by itself means milestone matches come far less frequently in Tests. The 2000th Test was played almost 12 years ago, in July 2011, and the 1500th about 11 years before that. And that is super quick compared to the first 500, which took 83 years. (Even accounting for the 11 years lost to the two world wars, that’s a long time.)So how has Test cricket changed in this period, and which teams and players have been the most dominant in each of the five non-overlapping 500-Test blocks? Let the numbers tell the story.

Overall numbers in Test cricket, 1877 to 2023

For a format that has been played for more than 145 years, it is remarkable how similar the batting averages are in the five blocks. The early part of the first block featured lower averages due to uncovered pitches, but since then the number has hovered around the early 30s. The averages in the third and fifth blocks vary from each other by a minuscule 0.01, while in the second block (1960-1984), it was only about half a run higher.ESPNcricinfo LtdIn the first decade of the 2000s, the overall batting average jumped to almost 35. That was clearly the batting era, characterised by relatively flat pitches, several batters who averaged above 50, and bowlers who struggled to achieve sub-30 averages. That is the only block of 500 Tests in which more than 1000 centuries were scored – 1042, compared to 766, 854, 791 and 951 in the four other blocks (in chronological order). Since then, bowlers have fought back to re-establish equilibrium, and in the last five years, they have even turned the tables on the batters.What changed, though, are scoring rates, and the number of non-draw results. From a dour 2.54 runs per over in the first block, the run rate has gone well past three now, which seems to be the influence of the 50- and 20-over formats. That’s the one data point where the number has consistently gone up in every period, apart from the last decade, when it dipped marginally in comparison to the previous one, largely due to the more bowler-friendly conditions on offer. The percentage of draws has drastically decreased too, from around one in every two games in the second block of 500 Tests, to one every five games in the last decade.

Team-wise trends in each 500-match block of Test cricket

To start with, England and Australia were the dominant teams. Of the first 500 Tests, in 178 those two teams were pitted against each other, while 310 involved at least one of them. South Africa were the only other team to play more than 100 Tests in this period. However, while Australia and England won many more Tests than they lost, South Africa largely struggled in this period, winning only 27 against 72 defeats.

At 17, he had Ashwin going “Wow, look at this boy”! Four years later, he had many others reacting the same way to his knock in the IPL final

Deivarayan Muthu31-May-20231:05

Sudharsan: ‘After having to retire out, I realised it’s best to be calm’

Baby Malinga Matheesha Pathirana marginally misses a wide yorker. B Sai Sudharsan stretches out, extends his hands, and laces Pathirana over the extra-cover boundary. Ravi Shastri, on commentary, describes it as the “shot of the match so far”. Sudharsan then immediately betters that shot by launching a 147kph fuller delivery over the bigger long-on boundary. MS Dhoni keeps his poker face and follows the trajectory of the ball. Sudharsan’s captain Hardik Pandya is so impressed that he walks up to Sudharsan, puts his left arm on Sudharsan’s shoulder, and wraps him up in a hug.Sudharsan’s parents Bharadwaj, a former athlete, and Usha, a former volleyball player who has also worked as a strength and conditioning coach with the Tamil Nadu cricket team, had travelled from Chennai to Ahmedabad for a three-day T20 final for these special moments. Sudharsan’s elder brother Sairam, who is pursuing Masters in supply chain and logistics management at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, had originally planned to fly from Australia to Ahmedabad for the final, but he couldn’t get tickets in the end.Related

• Sai Sudharsan: 'I'm more confident now, and that helps me express myself and play my shots'

• Sai Sudharsan counters Saurashtra's spinners to give Rest of India opening-day honours

• TNPL round-up: Natarajan's emotional homecoming

• IPL 2023 takeaways: Runs get quicker and bigger as Impact Players have their say

• Smart Stats IPL 2023 Team of the Tournament: Mumbai Indians batters, Gujarat Titans bowlers dominate

Sudharsan and Gujarat Titans didn’t get the fairytale ending that Ravindra Jadeja and Chennai Super Kings did, but once he returned to his hotel room in the wee hours of Tuesday, he watched the highlights of his shots against Pathirana and savoured them.”In the last over, the shot over extra-cover off Pathirana was my favourite,” Sudharsan tells ESPNcricinfo. “On such a big stage, on such an occasion, I didn’t expect to perform like this. But I was very happy. The trust that GT management gave [me]; in between I didn’t play a few games, but the management always had trust in me. I was ready to play any game. I was definitely very happy; I came back to my room, and I was seeing [highlights] of my shots. It took a long time for me to process it.”For Sairam, who had stayed up until 8am AEST in Melbourne for the IPL final, that extra-cover six made everything worth it. “I’ve always been a big fan of his extra-cover shot,” Sairam gushes. “We worked on it for months along with our parents during the Covid lockdown in Chennai. And the next shot I loved was his slog sweeps [off Maheesh Theekshana and Ravindra Jadeja]. I get nervous and start sweating whenever Sai bats, even during his [Chennai] league games. I feel sad that I couldn’t watch it live this time. Being in Australia and following IPL is one of the toughest things. But I’m very happy that his hard work is slowly reaping the benefits.”B Sai Sudharsan with his elder brother B Sairam, who followed Sudharsan’s sensational innings from Melbourne•B SairamSudharsan was even more emotional when asked about the standing ovation he had elicited from Titans’ dugout after he fell for 96 off 46 balls – the third-highest individual score in an IPL final. Rashid Khan tapped Sudharsan’s gloves as he walked in. Shubman Gill, David Miller, Jayant Yadav, Mohit Sharma and the support staff were all were on their feet. Sairam couldn’t make it to Ahmedabad, but Sudharsan’s ‘big brother’ in the Titans and Tamil Nadu dressing room, Vijay Shankar, welcomed him back with a bear hug. R Sai Kishore, also one of Sudharsan’s closest friends, kept clapping for him until his hands hurt.”I still get goosebumps when I think about the reception from the dugout,” Sudharsan says. “The amount of confidence or the amount of support from my team-mates or support staff… Obviously me, Vijay (brother)… Sai Ki (Sai Kishore) are very close and share everything together. Vijay gave me my first TN cap. We speak a lot about cricket and life as well. To contribute in a big final and put the team in a superb position gives me a sense of satisfaction. Obviously, I didn’t score a hundred, but I felt a sense of satisfaction when I walked back to the dugout.”Sudharsan also received a message from Kane Williamson whose role he had slotted into after the New Zealand captain returned home with a knee injury.”My role was to take the game deep – same as Kane’s role,” Sudharsan says. “Even a few weeks back, after he had left for New Zealand, I was having a conversation with him over the phone. He’s sweet. How sweet? He himself messaged me saying I could call him anytime and have a conversation over cricket anytime. Even last night, Kane texted me: “Very happy. You’ve done a great job!” I feel very happy that I tried my best to fill in Kane’s role. Our roles were fixed during the preparatory camp before the start of the IPL. With that role, I tried to enhance my game and it worked out I feel.”At the innings break, Sudharsan was subbed out for left-arm quick Josh Little. He perhaps thought that he could just put his feet up and chill, but a tense finish left him anxious.”Actually, I didn’t have dinner after the innings,” Sudharsan recalls. “Around the first strategic time-out, I went upstairs [from the dugout to the dressing room] and then in the next over, we got the wickets of both Ruturaj Gaikwad and Devon Conway. So, I didn’t even move from that place and so I watched the entire game from that place (laughs) on TV. But, yeah, mixed feelings. I finished the first innings on a happy note, but the end was a little upsetting. But I feel we can learn from that and get better next year.”Wow, look at this boy: The Gujarat Titans dugout welcomes B Sai Sudharsan back after a stunning knock•Associated PressDespite the defeat, this was an incredible turnaround from Sudharsan, who had been retired out by Titans in the second qualifier against Mumbai Indians after he struggled to find a higher gear. It might have dented the confidence of most 21-year-olds. But Sudharsan is not most 21-year-olds. He took that strategic move in his stride and spoke about the significance of emotional detachment in T20 cricket.”I had mixed feelings during that game too,” Sudharsan says. “I think the first 20-25 balls went well for me. After a matter of a few dots, we had to make that strategic move, but that’s 100% accepted and I took it in my stride. Because the way our batters were playing – Nos. 4,5,6,7 were explosive this year and also last year. I also felt, instead of me, it would be more fruitful for the team if those power-hitters were there in the middle at that point. I take it as an opportunity to learn because if I want to be there with the best, in terms of skill, I have to get better. In a way, I’m happy that it happened on such a big stage because it is now known to me that I’ve to get better in certain aspects of the game.”I also had a chat with Vijay about retiring out after the MI match. If you’re emotionally connected to the match, it becomes difficult because the IPL happens very quickly. They come thick and fast. It’s about forgetting the previous game and moving onto the next game. If you do that, your season will be better. That was our conversation.”After being bought for his base price in the IPL 2022 auction, B Sai Sudharsan became the highest-paid player at the inaugural TNPL auction in 2023•ESPNcricinfo LtdSudharsan started slowly against CSK in the final, too – he was on 36 off 27 balls at one point – but he cranked up the tempo to smash 60 off his last 20 balls. Against Pathirana alone, he scored 34 off 14 balls. In the second qualifier against Mumbai, Sudharsan had tried to over-hit the ball and kept losing his shape. Against Pathirana, he sussed out that his balls were skidding on from the Ahmedabad pitch and focussed on maintaining his shape while meeting the ball.”Pathirana is a very skiddy bowler. If you go too hard at him, you find there’s less time,” Sudharsan says. “If you try to time it rather than over-hit it, you can hit the right spot on the bat. The more side-arm [darts] you face, you might get used to that speed too and you can develop the habit to time the ball.”As a batter, you have less exposure to such actions from a different release. I’d say I have a bit of an advantage facing slingers like R Silambarasan (net bowler at SRH) and G Periyaswamy (net bowler at RR) in the TNPL. I think subconsciously it might have been a little bit easier to face Pathirana.”The Junior CSK side during their tour of Yorkshire in 2018. Sai Sudharsan is seated to the left of Ambati Rayudu (second from right, middle row); S Sharath is to Rayudu’s right•Chennai Super KingsSudharsan also had a plan against R Ashwin when he was just 17. He had stayed back to defend balls, forcing the spinner to overpitch. Ashwin had left midwicket open, as he often does against left-handers, but Sudharsan stayed deep in his crease until he got a ball full enough to hit against the spin. He then played a cover drive, forcing Ashwin to adjust his line. Sudharsan then stepped out to hit Ashwin over midwicket for four. Recalling that Chennai league battle on his Youtube channel, Ashwin marvelled at Sudharsan: (Wow, look at this boy!)This boy has since won the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy, TNPL, IPL and helped Titans defend their title this season. Sudharsan has been rated highly in the Tamil Nadu cricket circles since his age-group cricket days. Also, around the time he was 17, he was picked in Junior Super Kings’ side, CSK’s grassroots programme, for a tour of Yorkshire under the mentorship of Ambati Rayudu. How strange was it to go up against Rayudu in his last game in Indian cricket?”More than being strange, I enjoyed playing against CSK,” Sudharsan says. ” (Chennai is CSK). (Chennai is Thala). It was a great opportunity to represent CSK’s Junior team. Reading the game was something I learnt from the Yorkshire tour. The conditions were cold, and it was new for me to play cricket there. I remember I used to ask Rayudu how he bats in the IPL, how he tackles bowlers in the IPL, and I used to ask him questions.”Sudharsan just has a two-day break in Chennai before he travels to Coimbatore to join Shahrukh Khan’s Lyca Kovai Kings for TNPL 2023. His TNPL contract (INR 21.6 lakh) is worth higher than his IPL contract (INR 20 lakh). If he keeps levelling up, the rest of the world will also go: “Wow, look at this boy!”

There was always something a little titillating about Broad’s best spells, a slightly guilty pleasure

Osman Samiuddin01-Aug-2023Most of us thought it would be Jimmy first, right? That made sense. Older, more miles in the legs, more grump in the soul. But the unexpectedness of Stuart Broad’s exit is a neat motif to his entire career in one sense, always not being what you thought he would be, or was becoming. And he may have emerged as teenaged prodigy but who could’ve expected Broad to build the career he has done while playing it entirely alongside the greatest fast bowler England has produced?Only a couple of days ago Ben Stokes went further and called James Anderson the greatest fast bowler to play the game. That’s a big call but when he is your weapon, it’s not a crazy call. At the least, Anderson is in those conversations. Nobody will call Broad the greatest fast bowler, though it is worth noting that in 2016, he – and not Anderson – was the first England Test fast bowler to be ranked No. 1 in the world since Steve Harmison in 2004.Anderson replaced him that year, which seemed not a correction but a bend towards a natural order. Anderson has since been back to that spot several times, most recently earlier this year; Broad has not.Related

• Did the teams catch up after the Oval Test? Yes, at a nightclub, Stokes clarifies

• Showman Broad entertains to the end in fitting finale

• Last-ball wicket to win Ashes Test was 'pretty cool'

• Broad conjures one last burst of magic at The Oval

Which is just fine. Not all fast bowlers are – or must be – great. It’s enough for them to create a great spell or two which aren’t spells of great bowling so much as total life events, occasions you will remember forever but will never quite be able to make complete sense of (see: childbirth, weddings, funerals and the day Elon Musk took over Twitter); days when the world was a little tipsy and so life moved fast very slowly.A great spell or two, but with Broad we were spoilt. Entire mornings, afternoons and days lost entirely, unexpectedly and indisputably, to Broad, ones that he had conjured from scratch and, lucky us, let us in.There was always something a little titillating about his best spells, a slightly guilty pleasure. You knew you should be sitting stroking your chin at the cant of Anderson’s wrist and his reverse-reverse wobble, but all you wanted to do was to be an absolute lout watching Broad wreck stuff. Anderson satisfied the intellect, an arthouse spectacle scaled up for mass consumption like a Chris Nolan film. Broad, for all his evolution over the years, for all the roles he took on, for all his smarts, remained at heart, an out and out big-action banger, all breath-taking, set-piece stunts stitched together to make the movie.ESPNcricinfo LtdWhich is why, as tempting as it is to treat with due deference the sheer gargantuan nature of the headline numbers of his career – only four bowlers, one fast bowler, with more wickets, only one bowler with more Tests played – Broad’s best self will always live in his brief, sharp jags of anarchy into an otherwise perfectly civil day’s play.Like the two Test hat-tricks, the second of which he didn’t even realise he’d taken and the first of which (against India) came with bonus and massive DRS schadenfreude; his breakthrough at The Oval, four wickets in 21 balls; eight in 9.3 overs at his home ground; six in 7.3 overs in Durham; seven in 11 at Lord’s; the smallness of these numbers, the compression, speaks to the truer magnitude of his work. In them is a distinct mood: Broad, full lengths, nibbling away at an edge, nipping into a pad, smashing stumps, careening away in celebration, total upheaval in his trail.Is it sacrilege to say there was a little bit of Warne in Broad’s theatre around a delivery, enough that watching him was as compelling as the bowling itself, that a spell could be measured and experienced purely through his expressions? The arms flung in the air at repeated play-and-misses, the frowns and eyebrow shrugs and wry smiles, the wide-eyed disbelief and cupped-hand-over-mouth shock and, of course, the teapots. Broad’s last day will always be memorable for clapping Zak Crawley when he spilled a catch off his bowling, a sure sign that this was the end, of Broad, and, perhaps, of times.The most endearing was when, after beating a batter, or even being hit for a boundary, he would stop in his follow-through, fold one arm across the chest and hold his chin with the other, absorbing what had happened professorially. It was an unusual pose for the occupation, though in hindsight it works alongside a visualisation of one of his great early quotes, in a interview from 2010: “Tea just helps me fight”. Tea? For fighting?Which was your favourite Stuart Broad reaction?•ECB via Getty ImagesThere was always some game within the game, especially when there wasn’t, the bail-switching last week an absolute Broad classic. Is it the imagination or did umpires have to be the most switched-on bodies on the field when Broad was on one, turning him down, answering a hundred queries, humouring him, regularly being proved wrong by him, admonishing him. Parents will recognise and sympathise.After all of it, the walk back to the mark, with the intent, form and purpose of a self-important civil servant. Some days his knees pumped more on that walk back than in the run-up.He was not the first celebrappealer but there’s never been a better one and it captured something central in him. The sense of entitlement in dispensing with the need for the umpire’s adjudication that his critics loved to hate, but also the rakish hustle that his fans loved. Some of that manifested itself in a mid-career trait of wasting reviews while batting, prompting an irritated Mike Selvey to coin the L’Oreal referral (because he’s worth it).If there’s an absence of an appreciation so far of the nuts and bolts of his bowling, it is only because, 17 years from his international debut, what is not known about it? Once you have taken as many wickets as he has, it kind of stands as monument to the career by itself. Of course, he’s a giant, because you don’t get that many wickets otherwise.2:10

Broad: I wanted to finish playing at the very top

Some might argue he got that many because he played so many Tests, like it’s some sort of a caveat. Well one, taking 604 wickets is in no way an inevitable consequence of playing 167 Tests. No wicket comes easy in Tests. Two, he played as many as 167 Tests because he was good enough. And three, staying fit enough to play that many is a feat on its own. None of this was inevitable.The other thing is that once we’re slicing up that many wickets and Tests, of course there will be skews, to home conditions, to specific opponents, to bits of stats padding. That is inevitable. It applies to every player with a long career. All of that is what makes a career, it doesn’t take from it.And Broad’s has been as rich as it is long, sustained by a thirst for self-improvement. He was never still, forever learning, adapting, tinkering, experimenting, right up to the start of this, his final series. One of the by-products of that, and what sets him apart from Anderson perhaps, is the suspicion that, had he really wanted, he could still cut it amidst the helter skelter of white-ball cricket.The end came as a career had gone, with proof of his durability. When Alex Carey nicked behind, it was the fourth ball of Broad’s seventh over in that spell. At the end of day five. Of a five-Test series. In which he played every single game. In which he bowled nearly 26 more overs than any other bowler. During which he turned 37.That was overshadowed by the set-piece moment to sign-off, the last two wickets to seal an Ashes win, a wicket off his last ball and hugs with Jimmy at mid-off. It’s a shame there weren’t more wickets left because with two in 13 balls, one dropped catch and numerous plays and misses to balls he was shaping in and swinging away as much as ever, we all had that sense, one last time, that Stuart Broad is about to get on one and we best be there.

Hailing from Bengal, she talks about learning from Jhulan Goswami and rising up the ranks to play for India

S Sudarshanan06-Jan-20242:33

Titas Sadhu: ‘Jhulan Goswami has been a big part of my life’

Titas Sadhu had a smile on her face as she walked to deep backward square leg during the opening T20I against Australia at the DY Patil Stadium. If she was a tad dejected, it did not show. Only moments earlier, she was denied her maiden five-wicket haul in international cricket but the damage was already done.Her T20I best of 4 for 17 helped India bounce back from the 3-0 loss in the ODIs and thrash Australia by nine wickets on Friday. In the process, she became the youngest woman to pick up a four-for for India in T20Is.It was a late decision to play Sadhu in the XI instead of a third spinner in Saika Ishaque. She was brought on as first change in the fourth over and troubled the Australia batters with her seam movement and hard lengths in the powerplay. Sadhu struck with her fifth ball by dismissing Beth Mooney, and in her second over, she had Tahlia McGrath edge one that fell just short of slip. A ball later, she eventually dismissed her – a hard slash flying straight to deep third.Related

• Accuracy and pin-point yorkers on world champion Titas Sadhu's mind

• New Test dawn for India, but focus firmly on road to T20 World Cup

• Sadhu, Shafali and Mandhana dismantle Australia with ease

On the next ball, Sadhu had Ashleigh Gardner caught and bowled for a first-ball duck with her in-between length. She could have had a fourth wicket in her next over had Richa Ghosh managed to hang on to a tough chance – an inside edge off Phoebe Litchfield’s attempted scoop.Sadhu then returned for her final over in the death – the 18th – and had Annabel Sutherland caught at mid-off a ball after she had been hit for a six. She also had Georgia Wareham given out lbw for her five-for, only for the DRS to deny her. Not even a Shafali Verma half-century in a stunning chase was to deny her the Player-of-the-Match honours, though.”I was really excited [to play] because I had been sitting out for a while now,” Sadhu said at the press conference. “I get really excited while playing a match and I was waiting for my turn to bowl. I just wanted to hit my lengths and make the ball move a little.”Her hard work with bowling coach Troy Cooley did not go unnoticed. Despite making the XI in only two of India’s home white-ball games against England recently, Sadhu kept at it during the nets and each session would have a single-wicket bowling stint with Cooley standing at the striker’s end a la a batter, but without a bat, and move at the crease.”What Troy does essentially is stand there [at the stumps] and move as the batter would move,” Sadhu explained about the drill. “I get a real-time feel of what the batter would do and keep following her. That helps as it gives a good simulation of what you have to do in the match.”Titas Sadhu had a near-perfect day picking four wickets for just 17 runs•BCCIFor someone who initially did not take an interest in the sport, Sadhu has come a long way. She was used to watching a lot of cricket in Chinsurah, a city 50 kilometres to the north of Kolkata. Sadhu used to score for the matches at the Chinsurah Rajendra Smriti Sangha, a club where her father was the secretary, and run drinks for the players before a rainy day gave her father a chance to get her to bowl. There was no looking back.”I was not interested in cricket before; I was not interested in sports per se,” Sadhu had told this writer after a T20 between India Under-19 girls and New Zealand Women’s Development side in December 2022 in Mumbai, a month before she played the Under-19 World Cup and won India the final with a Player-of-the-Match performance. “I was like proper (go to play in the evening and come back) and sit to study.”She started playing as a 13-year-old but then missed the 2018-19 season due to her 10th standard exams – needless to say, she was good in academics. The following cricket season was affected by Covid-19 and in 2020-21, she made her debut for Bengal’s senior women’s team.”Initially I used to only bowl, but then especially in Bengal, getting into the team as a pace bowler is very difficult,” she had said. “When I started Jhulan Goswami was playing, Rumi [Rumeli Dhar] was playing, Suku [Sukanya Parida] was playing. So, I had the conscious thing I will have to bat as well to get into the first XI.”A fast bowler from Bengal can perhaps never escape the glowing shadow of Goswami, which is not necessarily a bad thing. And the former India fast bowler, who retired in 2022, has been a big part of Sadhu’s life.”The first conversation I had with Jhulan , she had said, ‘stop thinking about everything else and just bowl fast. If you are a fast bowler, you have to bowl fast’. I first saw her when I was 13 and since then she has been a constant presence. Working with her is a great opportunity not a lot of people have. You get that experience. How many players have played more than 100 matches for India, for 20 years? I am not even 20 years old!”Titas Sadhu made her India debut at the Asian Games•AFP/Getty ImagesSadhu was picked by Delhi Capitals in the inaugural WPL auction but she did not get a game. It was a learning curve for her. “Coming from that U-19 high to sit [out] for the whole tournament was rough. After the first couple of matches, it was clear that I probably won’t get a chance until very late [in the competition]. But I had this conversation with our trainer Wayne.”In men’s IPL there are 25 players. Greats sit out for two-and-a-half months. Any opportunity you get, you have to make the best out of it. I think that became the key. After the first two weeks, I just went in every practice thinking I will learn as much as I can.”Sadhu made her India debut at the Asian Games last September and also had a couple of wicketless outings against England last month. But in her first match against Australia she put on a near-perfect show. The wise one that Sadhu is, she is quick to give herself a reality check.”Cricket is a very humbling game. Today’s high can be tomorrow’s low. Whoever you are, you always come back to the ground and the next match is a new match. What you have done yesterday is gone.”

The offspinner showed her versatility with the ball but it was not enough to take RCB past Capitals

S Sudarshanan11-Mar-20242:53

Perry wants RCB to win the ‘little moments’ moving forward

If a picture could capture agony and ecstasy in one frame, it was that final moment of the match between Delhi Capitals and Royal Challengers Bangalore on Sunday night.Richa Ghosh was down at the non-striker’s end after a sprawling dive. She had willed every ounce of power from her body, but fell inches short. Shreyanka Patil was at the other end of the pitch, with the stumps disturbed and the ball lying close by. She did not want that moment to happen. Both had their heads buried on the ground, tears flowing uncontrollably.And not too far off from the two were the Capitals players – relieved and full of smiles. They were hugging each other, sharing high-fives and jumping with joy. They had managed to secure a playoffs spot for the second successive season, this time with a one-run win against RCB, who are still in contention.Capitals were faced with yet another thrilling contest – twice in two games now. They had come out at the wrong end the last time, but not this time, despite RCB being in command for the last half hour. So they knew what Ghosh and Patil were going through.Ghosh’s heroics helped RCB get close after they needed 40 from 18 balls. She exhibited her power and big-hitting chops to score a 29-ball 51 – skills that make her indispensable in India’s T20I set-up as a finisher. That RCB got so close was also down to Patil’s spell earlier in the evening.Related

• Shabnam is young, quick, takes big wickets, and is just a bit different

• Heartbreak for Ghosh as Capitals qualify for playoffs in thriller

Patil showed why she is rated highly in T20 cricket by picking up 4 for 26. She had an economy rate of 6.50 when the opposition scored at just over nine – a creditable feat in itself.A niggle had kept her out of RCB’s first two games of the Delhi leg. She was “fighting it out to be match fit” in the past few days, according to her captain Smriti Mandhana, and returned to the XI on Sunday. The match was not played on the centre wicket, which meant one square boundary was shorter (46m) than the other (63m), and Capitals had raced along to 55 for 1 in seven overs when she was brought into the attack.Patil had switched to being an offspiner – having tried her hand at fast bowling, legspin and wicketkeeping – after seeing there weren’t too many of those in the Karnataka Under-14 trials, and one of her strengths right from those days was her pace. Earlier, most spinners in the women’s game focussed on slowing the pace down. But Arjun Dev, Patil’s coach and mentor, made her understand how she can use it effectively.3:14

Takeaways: Jemimah Rodrigues 2.0 powers Delhi Capitals

That Patil is one of the smartest spinners in the Indian circuit is an open secret. She provided an early glimpse of those smarts with her first wicket, when she varied her pace to catch the batter, Meg Lanning, no less, off guard. With the shorter boundary to the off side, she started from around the stumps, but erred by tossing one up outside off at 73kph. Lanning, who came into the game on the back of three successive fifties, duly lofted it over mid-off to pull the first punch. Patil responded by using pace to her advantage and slipped in the next one at 84.7kph on a length while getting it to spin in a touch. Lanning went back for the pull but missed it and was hit on the back leg, adjacent to middle.Most of Patil’s wickets on the evening were about dangling the carrot with a flighted ball before slipping in the quicker one to outsmart the batter. That Mandhana always bowled her with the longer boundary to the leg side made her job a little easier, allowing her to concentrate on one-upping the batter. Like she did when Jemimah Rodrigues backed away to go over the off side and was met instead by a yorker that she couldn’t get under.A ball later, Rodrigues tried to move towards off to sweep one past short fine leg. But Patil slipped in a very full ball, catching her by surprise. Rodrigues could only drag it back onto her stumps. That dismissal helped RCB end the 97-run stand between Rodrigues and Alice Capsey for the third wicket.Patil then struck twice in the last over. Capsey was on 48 and was in a belligerent mood at the start of the over. Her first instinct was to charge down the track to attack the spinners, and if not, just stand and loft them over the infield. With the field up on the off side, Capsey backed away to a length ball that landed outside off. But it kept coming in and she couldn’t make any contact and was bowled. Patil had fired it in quicker at 86.5kph.Three balls later, she enticed Jess Jonassen out of the crease with a flighted one to have her stumped. Thanks to Patil’s three wickets in two overs, RCB only gave away 38 runs in the last four overs and kept Capitals to 181 for 5.Patil earned special praise from her captain after the game: “Sometimes when you lose, you don’t credit it enough, but Shreyanka’s last two overs were brilliant, the way she bowled, especially the last over,” Mandhana said. “She was not dropped but she had a niggle. A player of her quality, there is no choice of dropping her. She showed a lot of character after the niggle she had.”Patil was inconsolable after the finish. The tears didn’t stop even when she shook hands with the players and walked towards the dugout. Patil and RCB still endure an agonising wait for playoffs qualification.

Family connections run deep for England’s next generation in their series with Sri Lanka

Andrew Miller29-Jun-2024The transient nature of age-group cricket means it is both part of the journey and the destination in itself. For some of the players on show in Chelmsford on Friday afternoon, their experience of playing for their country at Under-19 level will, in a few years’ time, be just another treasured memory – an interesting anecdote to slip into conversation from time to time, to remind those around them that they, too, were contenders once.For a select handful, however, by the time their careers have reached full bloom, this first ODI between England and Sri Lanka will be looked back on as just another stepping stone in what might come across as an inevitable rise to the top. Some kids, the pundits are bound to tell you in glorious hindsight, just looked the part from the very start.Never mind that such sweeping judgements are sure to gloss over all manner of pitfalls along the way. Loss of form and injury are common to even the most established of sports stars, but loss of mojo, motivation … mentors even. Who knows what obstacles will be sent to try this latest crop of talented teenagers, but you only have to click on a random scorecard from the long and illustrious history of Under-19 Internationals, to realise that the players who reach the game’s true heights are not just the exception, but exceptional.Related

• Can Freddie Flintoff stop English cricket's slow march to wider irrelevance?

• Farhan Ahmed, Rehan's younger brother, signs for Nottinghamshire aged 16

• Rocky Flintoff named in England Under-19 squad for Sri Lanka series

• Rocky Flintoff signs first Lancashire contract aged 16

• Sri Lanka secure the spoils in opening Under-19 ODI at Chelmsford

Which brings us to Rocky Flintoff, the 16-year-old son of a man who made his own England Under-19 debut in the Caribbean in January 1995, before going on to greater things, to put it mildly.The family connections within the current England U19 set-up are something to behold. Flintoff’s team-mates in his maiden international appearance included Haydon Mustard, son of former England keeper Phil, and Farhan Ahmed, brother of current England legspinner Rehan, as well as the captain Luc Benkenstein, whose father Dale captained Durham to their maiden County Championship triumph in 2008. “None of us see it as a burden,” Benkenstein insisted, when asked about the pressures of living up to such standards. “We’re all pretty grateful to have family members involved in the game and I think we have all used it to our advantage. It’s cool that we’re all in the same boat.”But no matter what sort of hot-housing and expectation management has gone into this latest crop of prodigies, there’s been something especially compelling about Rocky Flintoff’s brief explosion into the public consciousness.In part this can be explained by his father’s incredible profile – not simply because he was the hero of the 2005 Ashes, but because of what happened next: the injury-enforced retirement in 2010, followed by a brief T20 comeback, and the sense in the subsequent decade that he had left cricket behind to move onto shinier media opportunities.But if, in 2022, Flintoff’s acclaimed Field of Dreams documentary was the first inkling that his love of the sport had not been diminished by his absence from it, then that feeling was shown to be entirely mutual last summer, when – after being invited to get involved with England’s backroom staff – he was able to reveal the scars of his horrific Top Gear accident, safe in the knowledge that cricket fans would never dream of judging him by the same superficial standards that might have existed elsewhere in his public life.Flintoff made 22 off 25 balls•Getty ImagesAnd now, in the midst of this maelstrom, a mini-me has emerged. Footage of Rocky’s second XI exploits for Lancashire started doing the rounds in April, and not simply because of the novelty factor of seeing another Flintoff in action (or two in fact, with his elder brother Corey making his twos debut in the same match against Yorkshire).Moreover it was Rocky’s mannerisms that stopped the live-streamers in their tracks. That indefinable economy of power in his most formidable strokes, whether lofted down the ground or picked up off the hips; the extra split-second that he seems to have to assess the ball’s length and thump it right beneath his eyeline. Everything, including the down-swing of his pull shot, coupled with that coy saunter down the pitch even as the ball was still sailing over the ropes, could have been grafted from his father’s glory years of two decades earlier.None of which guarantees anything like the same levels of success as Rocky’s career develops – particularly, dare one say it, because of the scrutiny that is already built into his performances. But if his maiden England innings of 22 from 25 balls is anything to go by, he’s got the gumption to roll with the expectations. In an already losing cause, he held his own with three confident boundaries and a third straight drive that smashed the non-striker’s stumps, before taking one liberty too many and holing out to mid-off.In the end, though, the details matter not at this stage of the journey. For the record, England were unpicked by a typically canny, hard-edged Sri Lanka team whose skills were just that little bit more rounded – as is often the case for Asian teams at age-group level, unrestricted as they are by bowling limits and equipment prerogatives, and other ECB regulations that safeguard on the one hand but throttle spontaneity on the other.And they too have a host of heroes, of whom imitation will forever be the sincerest form of flattery. The enduring influence of Lasith Malinga, and latterly his original clone Matheesha Pathirana, is abundantly clear in the splay-stanced slingers of Dumindu Sewmina, armed with the new ball. Then, through the middle overs comes a conveyor-belt of wicket-to-wicket spinners, in particular Thisara Ekanayake and Vihas Thewmika, who hustle through their overs, backed up by raucous support in the field, to claim five wickets between them.At times while the match was slipping inexorably away, it was not unlike watching the fate of England’s senior team in Guyana the previous day – trial by spin clearly remains a national shortcoming, even if a gutsy stand of 90 in 16 overs between Benkenstein and his fellow Essex rookie, Noah Thain, at least guarded against a more comprehensive margin.Harry Moore bore more than a passing resemblance to Steven Harmison•Getty ImagesBut the rich promise on display could not be diminished by the scoreline. Among the most eye-catching was another of England’s four debutants, Harry Moore, who was born on April 26, 2007 – two days before that year’s World Cup final in Barbados, for those who really like to feel old.Despite having only just turned 17, Moore is a sky-scraping 6ft 5in already, and there were clear shades of Steve Harmison in his gangly-limbed approach and fierce lift from back of a length. Last summer he became Derbyshire’s youngest-ever debutant in the Metro Bank Cup; the prospect of him and Leicestershire’s own bean-pole Josh Hull leading the line into England’s future is a tantalising one.The class act of England’s top-order, meanwhile, was at the other end of the growth charts. Keshana Fonseka is barely 5ft tall in his little stockinged feet, but armed with a crunchy cover-drive, he launched England’s chase with a fluent 25 from 27 balls. The glee with which he was extracted, via a loose cut to gully, betrayed the extent to which Sri Lanka rated his game.Who knows how far any of this kids can take their games, but they are surrounded by inspiration wherever they turn in this formative stage of their development. Among those who have been assisting the team’s preparations for the Sri Lanka series are Graeme Swann, who played in England’s only Under-19 World Cup winning team in 1998, and Ian Bell, who was famously described by Dayle Hadlee as the best 16-year-old he had ever seen.It is arguable that Bell’s greatest achievement, over and above his 22 Test centuries, 13,331 international runs and four Ashes victories, is the fact that he lived up to those expectations of his precocious youth. He stands as proof that it has been done, and can be done again.

No other swing bowler has been as lethal at the highest level for as long as Anderson has

Ian Chappell14-Jul-2024Jimmy Anderson retired as the greatest swing bowler the game has seen.There have been many other fine swing bowlers but none have plied their skill for such a long period at the highest level. Anderson had that rare ability to swing the ball both ways with very little change to his action. Where other good bowlers gave the batter a clue with their change of arm slot, Anderson was able to produce swing both ways minus the early warning signal.This is a remarkable skill and it made Anderson an extremely tough opponent.Twenty-one years at the top is a tribute to his fitness, skill and ability to learn. There was also his desire to keep playing when big life changes, like having a wife and kids, could easily have surpassed the priority of Test cricket.His subtle skills became more obvious as he continued to run in with the same smooth rhythm and produce a probing delivery on a testing line. He continued to do so no matter whether he was bowling to a right- or left-handed batter. That was another skill that set him apart from many swing bowlers – it made little difference what type of batter he was facing.Related

• Woakes not 'ruling out' 2025-26 Ashes as England's new senior seamer

• Root sad to see Anderson go but hails Atkinson as Ashes weapon

• 'You've inspired generations': The cricketing world reacts to James Anderson's retirement

• James Anderson in numbers: How England's greatest got even better

• In pictures: James Anderson bids goodbye to international cricket

At the 2009 Lord’s Test, along with Andrew Flintoff, Anderson produced a wonderfully consistent spell of bowling.
There wasn’t a bad ball from either bowler and Michael Clarke and Brad Haddin played brilliantly just to stay in the fight against such a prolonged examination.It’s difficult to explain how tough it is to maintain a high standard of swing bowling for an extended period.I had the good fortune to captain the prodigious swing bowling of Bob Massie at Lord’s in 1972. Massie claimed 16 wickets in a miraculous debut which involved sustained swing bowling where he made the ball swerve both ways with unerring accuracy.This wasn’t a one-off performance as Massie took four wickets in the first innings of the next match at Trent Bridge and claimed 23 for the series in four Tests. He won a place in the Australian side by bowling Bill Lawry twice – no mean feat – in a Western Australia vs Victoria Shield match at the MCG.

Where other good bowlers gave the batter a clue with their change of arm slot, Anderson was able to produce swing both ways minus the early warning signal

Massie then played against the World XI at the SCG in early 1972 and took seven first-innings wickets, including the prized scalps of Garfield Sobers, Sunil Gavaskar and Graeme Pollock. Massie was no one-match wonder as a swing bowler, but his Test career lasted just 234 days.Anderson’s sustained swing bowling performance spanned 21 years and 188 Tests. That is a remarkable achievement involving skill and resilience.On the 2010-11 Ashes tour, Anderson produced another of his sublime outswingers to dismiss Ricky Ponting at the Adelaide Oval. That was Anderson’s best tour of Australia with 24 wickets, but by claiming captain Ponting for a duck and sending the scoreboard into a two for nought frenzy, it put England well on the way to victory.Despite Australia winning the next Test, by claiming the captain’s scalp in Adelaide, Anderson commenced England’s charge to a rare Ashes victory away from home.The tributes for Anderson have been many, touching not just on his undoubted bowling skill but also his grumpiness, the changes of hairdo and his stubbornness with the bat. It’s not surprising that he was occasionally grumpy, which resulted in the odd terse comment. Most people’s patience would be severely tested if they regularly charged in to bowl only to beat the bat and receive no reward.Despite the occasional outburst Anderson retained his patience, which was partly responsible for his amazing success.As retirement loomed, the thing that stood out most in Anderson’s often reluctant comments was his desire to win. This was a crucial motivating factor in his success.England will miss Anderson as it’s difficult to replace his rare skill. Importantly, though, Anderson’s career is now a celebrated one where he’s recognised as the best swing bowler the game has produced.