By the time the next Border-Gavaskar Trophy happens, both of them will be 37 or nearing it

Karthik Krishnaswamy02-Mar-20231:55

Jaffer: Pujara knows how to buy time and absorb pressure

“Mid-on is up, for heaven’s sake. Stop blocking everything and go over the top.”Rohit Sharma didn’t say any of this, but his gestures and facial expression, caught by a camera trained on India’s dressing-room balcony, were unambiguous. It’s likely that a stronger word than “heaven” ran through his head.India were 144 for 7 – effectively 56 for 7 – on day two of the third Border-Gavaskar Test match. Cheteshwar Pujara, who alone among all of India’s batters had looked capable of surviving Nathan Lyon and scoring runs against him on a spiteful Indore track, was batting on 52. Rohit’s moment of annoyance coincided with Pujara playing five successive dots against Lyon.Now there were two ways of looking at it. You could say Rohit had no business telling Pujara how to bat given he was compiling something of a minor masterpiece and doing more than anyone else to keep India in the Test match, just about. Or you could say Rohit was justified, and that India, in the position they were in, needed quick runs if they were to set Australia anything like a reasonable target.Related

'Need guys to play like Shreyas Iyer' – Rohit Sharma feels India must bat positively

'It was a massive moment' – Lyon on Smith's catch to dismiss Pujara

Stats – Lyon trumps Kumble, and India's rare batting slump

Lyon banks on dad's wisdom and smart reviews to overcome Indore tussle

Lyon spins India out again; Australia need 76 to win

Pujara didn’t have to look up at the dressing room or the replay screen to know how Rohit was feeling. At the end of the Lyon over, Ishan Kishan ran out in his glow-in-the-dark substitute’s bib and passed on a message.Third ball of Lyon’s next over, Pujara stepped out of his crease and launched him for a clean, sweet six over mid-on.This was partly a response to Rohit’s call for urgency, perhaps, and partly to Lyon changing the angle at the start of the over and going over the wicket. From that angle, Lyon’s outside-off-stump line gave Pujara a little more room to free his arms, and a little more leeway to leave his crease, confident that he could use his trademark bat-behind-pad thrust to kick the ball away if he didn’t get to the pitch of it.This was partly the new-age Pujara who doesn’t mind hitting the odd ball in the air, and partly the age-old Pujara who plays the percentages like no one else. Together, the two Pujaras had combined rivetingly through India’s innings as fortunes fluctuated this way and that.At the start of his innings, Pujara had been endlessly busy: stepping out, stepping back, working the spinners into leg-side gaps as often as he could. India’s batters had been able to employ the flick far more often than their Australian counterparts in the first two Tests; in this innings, Pujara was using the flick to attack, rotate strike and defend. If you judge the length well, move your feet accordingly and roll your wrists over at the right moment, it can be a safer option against offspin than defending with the full face of the bat.Cheteshwar Pujara was the best of India’s batters in the second innings in Indore•Getty ImagesThere was positive intent even when wickets fell at the other end. Virat Kohli was lbw to Matt Kuhnemann when he tried pulling one that scooted low and snuck under his bat. In Kuhnemann’s next over, Pujara rocked back to one pitched a touch short, and pulled him between midwicket and mid-on. It wasn’t the conventional horizontal-bat pull, but something like a straight-bat back-foot punch with an extended follow-through.Aggressive cricket, percentage cricket. Pujara was walking that thin line.”You need to do that on such pitches,” he told at the end of the day’s play. “If you just keep defending then there’s one ball which will bounce and hit your glove. So yeah, you need to find the right balance of attacking and in between, yes, you still need to trust your defence, but my aim was to be a little more positive, try and rotate the strike, try and score as many runs as possible.”Whenever I get a loose delivery I try and make sure that I punish those ones, because you have to work really hard to score those runs, so as a batsman you need to ensure, whenever you get a loose delivery, you just try and put it away.”Sometimes, he manufactured loose deliveries, like he did by stepping out to Kuhnemann: he drilled one back past the bowler, and met another on the full to whip it between mid-on and midwicket.Right through his innings, Pujara showed more obvious urgency against Kuhnemann than against the two offspinners. Perhaps this was because the flick was less of a percentage shot against the turn, which meant he’d have to play the forward defensive far more often against Kuhnemann.Pujara scored quicker against Kuhnemann (22 off 44 balls) than either Lyon (29 off 60) or Todd Murphy (7 off 34). While this had something to do with getting a small handful of balls from Kuhnemann to cut and pull, it also felt like a consequence of feeling slightly less at ease against him. While he achieved control percentages of 88 against both offspinners, he went at 81 against Kuhnemann.It’s a nerdy and vaguely unsatisfying way of describing things, but it said everything about Pujara’s innings that he achieved a control percentage of 88 against Lyon, over 60 balls, when he was running through the rest of India’s line-up in utterly treacherous conditions.Nathan Lyon on Cheteshwar Pujara: He’s an unbelievable cricketer•BCCILyon had only admiration for Pujara after the day’s play was done.”I wouldn’t describe him as flashy or anything like that, but he’s an unbelievable cricketer and I’ve got a lot of respect for the way he goes about it,” he said. “Nothing seems to faze him, when it’s bouncing at the Gabba or spinning here in Indore, he seems to find a way and a method.”I think as I said last week at his 100th Test, a lot of boys and girls can really watch the way he goes about batting and learn from it. He doesn’t have all the big reverse-sweeps and everything like that, but one thing he does have is an unbelievable defence. In my eyes, Test cricket is built around defence – not if you are England at the moment – but it’s all built around defence. Hats off to Pujara and we saw the class of him on a pretty challenging wicket yet again.”In his pomp, Pujara regularly showed his class on challenging Indian pitches – the fourth-innings 72 on debut in Bengaluru, the twin fifties in Delhi in 2013, the 135 in Mumbai, and the 92 in Bengaluru are a handful of examples – but that hasn’t quite happened in the recent past. Since the start of 2021, he’s averaged 23.28 at home, and that’s including this Indore innings.At times during this stretch it’s felt like the old certainty against spin had disappeared. But it was fully in evidence on Thursday, even against Australia’s most dangerous bowler.Along the way, Indore was treated to another gripping chapter of Lyon vs Pujara, and its final pages were a tribute to both.Through the bulk of his spells to Pujara, Lyon had bowled from round the wicket with a 6-3 leg-side field. As Pujara neared and passed his fifty, it became 7-2 as Lyon took his slip out to strengthen an already packed leg side.There were now two catchers close to the bat – two short legs sometimes, short leg and leg gully at other times – and two fielders to deny Pujara the flicked single – either two short midwickets or a short midwicket and a short square leg.Lyon’s explanation for this field change was simple.”There was a period there where we thought if we could just try and build some pressure on Pujara – we understand he’s got a really good defence and he’s able to rotate the strike really well – so if we can just build some dots, hopefully we may be able to create a chance or build some pressure on the other batsman as well. There’s no rocket science, its just about building pressure and shifting pressure on the other team.”Cheteshwar Pujara was caught by Steven Smith at leg slip•Getty ImagesFrom 43 off 83 balls, Pujara went to 52 off 134 – that’s nine runs in 51 balls – before he hit that six. During this time, India lost the wickets of Shreyas Iyer, KS Bharat and R Ashwin, and a potential push towards setting a tricky target seemed set to spiral out of control.On a pitch where so much was happening for him, Lyon gave up trying to get Pujara caught off the outside edge, and tried to play on his patience. Utterly pragmatic, but in its own way a measure of how well Pujara was batting.Even at seven down, Pujara felt India had a chance if he could stitch a partnership with Axar Patel, so he was in no hurry to take risks. He’s done this before – delaying outright risk-taking until he only has genuine tailenders for company – and he’s done it to telling effect; his hundreds in Southampton and Adelaide followed just this template.On this day, however, Pujara didn’t get that far, and an attempted flick, at 59, ended up as a miraculous Steven Smith one-hander at leg gully. A most fitting end.Lyon vs Pujara has now spanned 1265 balls – the most of any bowler-batter combination in Test cricket since the start of 2010 – bringing Pujara 561 runs and Lyon 13 wickets. No batter has scored more runs against any one bowler in this period, and only one bowler has dismissed any batter more often – Stuart Broad has taken David Warner’s wicket 14 times.It’s possible we’re seeing the last of Lyon vs Pujara. There’s one more Test to go in Ahmedabad and potentially a World Test Championship final in June. After that? The Border-Gavaskar Trophy’s next iteration will be in Australia in 2024-25. There’ll be five Tests, but both Lyon and Pujara will be 37 or nearing it.They may still be at it then, or they may not. In either case, we can feel blessed to have watched their grand battle unfold over all these series and all these years. Lyon has been ascendant sometimes, and Pujara at others. Indore may well have been their closest-fought battle of wits.

In what might seem a paradoxical pick for India, they have six quick bowlers in their line-up – and the decision to pick them all was never really all that tough

Matt Roller07-Oct-2023When England’s selectors met at Trent Bridge in August to select their World Cup squad, a non-negotiable quickly emerged. For all India’s historic associations with spin bowling, there was a clear consensus that England should select six frontline seamers in their 15-man squad.Including those six, Sam Curran, Chris Woakes, Mark Wood, Gus Atkinson, David Willey and Reece Topley (Ben Stokes is in as a specialist batter) meant a squeeze on batting spots – even if England have more allrounders than most sides. Harry Brook was initially left out, but eventually forced his way in at Jason Roy’s expense; almost any other team in the tournament would have found room for both.Related

• Can England defend their World Cup title?

• Chastened England need to make a noise, but Bangladesh can be loud too

• Trott warns England of Dharamsala outfield concerns ahead of Bangladesh fixture

• Archer misses out on England's World Cup squad

• Ben Stokes returns to England ODI squad ahead of World Cup defence

But during the month-long saga over which player would miss out, there was never any serious consideration given to the idea it would be a fast bowler.”We’d have loved a couple more spots to get another batter and a spare spinner in,” Luke Wright, part of England’s selection panel, admitted. “It pushes another position out of the squad.”But with a lot of travel and a lot of games in a short space of time, we are aware that with some of the injury risks our bowlers have, we need that cover,” Wright said. “It gives us a chance to rotate the bowlers as needs be through a long tournament. The chance of having all those bowlers in the XI, playing all the games, all the way through is very slim.”Rob Ahmun, the England cricket board’s head of performance science and medicine (top right) at a training session: “[W]e try not to get lost – it’s not the data making the decisions”•Surjeet Yadav/AFP/Getty ImagesEngland landed in Guwahati last Thursday for their warm-up games, and over the next 35-odd days, they will have played nine group games in eight different cities, with a flight after each one. It is a brutal schedule; India, the hosts, are the only other team who do not play consecutive games in the same city at least once.”This will be a real significant task for the lads, especially given the schedule we’ve got,” said Rob Ahmun, the ECB’s head of performance science and medicine. “There’ll be multiple flights and everything that comes with travelling in India, the actual physical demands of the game, and environmental challenges as well.”England’s players will have to adapt quickly: after Thursday’s tournament opener in the heat of Ahmedabad, they fly north to Dharamsala, where the stadium is nearly 1500 metres above sea level and the temperature will be nearly 20 degrees cooler.Four years ago, England’s success at home owed at least in part to their players’ fitness. Nearly two years before the tournament, the ECB formed a working group comprising assistant coach Paul Farbrace, psychologist David Young, medical services lead Ben Langley, and strength and conditioning (S&C) coach Phil Scott. “We wanted to make sure everyone came in fresh, mentally and physically,” Langley said.England only used 13 players across that 2019 tournament but a similarly packed schedule like this in this year’s World Cup – albeit with no internal flights – took plenty out of the squad: Eoin Morgan suffered a back spasm against West Indies. Roy missed three games with a calf strain. Adil Rashid and Jofra Archer had pain-killing injections to manage shoulder and side injuries.Mark Wood trains in a GPS vest. The ECB’s studies show England players ran nearly twice as much in 2019 World Cup games as against regular ODIs•Getty ImagesWood – who strained his side with three balls left in his spell in the final – and Woakes both look back at photographs from that epic game and laugh at how skinny they were. “I’m thin anyway, but that World Cup took so much out of us,” Wood said. “Everyone was tired, carrying niggles; we’d put in such a huge effort.”It is no surprise that they looked slim. Last year, the University of Essex published research in collaboration with the ECB that revealed “a notable physical transformation” in England’s cricketers between 2014 and 2020, one “that has likely resulted in an increase in lean mass and aerobic capacity”.The ECB’s data, collected from GPS units worn by players, suggests that their total sprinting distance – defined as metres covered at a speed of at least 20kph – increases by 50-100% for most players between a bilateral ODI and a World Cup match. “And Woody had something like a 300% increase in his total volume of high-intensity sprint metres,” Ahmun adds.Just like cricket itself, sports science has been transformed by data. “When I started, we didn’t have access to anything like what we do now,” Ahmun said. “But we try not to get lost in it: it’s not the data making the decisions. You can quite easily fall into that trap and say, ‘He’s bowled too many overs’, but bearing the human element in mind is vitally important.”He ain’t heavy, he’s my masseur: Jos Buttler gives Mark Saxby a boost during the 2019 World Cup win celebrations•Getty ImagesAll of England’s long-term planning for 2019 was “designed to get the lads to peak for that final”, Ahmun said. “And they probably did: two of the fittest lads in the squad, Stokes and [Jos] Buttler were the two out there when it mattered, and in that Super Over.” Langley said it was a source of pride that “come the final, everyone was available for selection”.Under Andrew Strauss’ management, England made a point of taking a long-term approach – one that was inspired by Cricket Australia’s management of their “big three” quicks: Pat Cummins, Josh Hazlewood and Mitchell Starc. “If you don’t have a dedicated team focusing on bespoke planning, you just get drawn into the game-by-game, series-by-series approach,” Langley said.All six of the fast bowlers whom England have taken to India have spent time out of the game through serious injuries in the last three years – as has Archer, a travelling reserve who hopes to make his comeback from injury in the latter stages of the World Cup. Willey, who has the best long-term fitness record of the seamers, believes his inclusion owed, at least in part, to his durability.”Me staying fit, touch wood, is probably an asset to the group with guys who sometimes struggle with niggles,” Willey said last month, before engaging in some horseplay: “Call me a donkey if you want, but [on] a tough trip, you just might need a donkey. They keep going, donkeys, don’t they?”Resist this: Jofra Archer gets some strength training in with S&C coach Phil Scott•Getty ImagesThe ECB’s research suggests that 50-over cricket is the most physically demanding format. “You’ll cover anywhere from 12-15km in a day, with a significant proportion of that at high speed,” Ahmun explains. “Players always say if they haven’t played a 50-over game for a little while, it’s a rude awakening when they get back to it. And T20 is only making 50-over cricket faster.”England’s players have been preparing for India all year, but their focused build-up started in their series against New Zealand last month. They started taking probiotics two weeks before travelling in order to mitigate disease and were joined in that series by Charlie Binns, an ECB nutritionist.During the World Cup, ICC limits on personnel mean that England’s science and medicine team will be relatively lean, comprising Craig de Weymarn (physio), Andy Mitchell (S&C), Mark Saxby (massage therapist) and Rob Young (team doctor). As with players, IPL experience among backroom staff is considered helpful, and encouraged by the ECB. Young has spent several seasons working with Rajasthan Royals, while team manager Wayne Bentley fulfils the same role at Kolkata Knight Riders.Saxby – and Mahesh Aarya, a local massage therapist who has been enlisted for the tournament – will be particularly important on travel days. “We’ll have massage on hand whenever we arrive at a new hotel,” Ahmun says, “just to help players get over sitting around cramped up for four or five hours.” Langley, who joined Mumbai Indians earlier this year after 15 years with the ECB, believes flights are the “toughest bits” of a home-and-away IPL season.England will go from the heat of Ahmedabad to the cool mountain surrounds of Dharamsala in their first two games•ICC/Getty ImagesThe prohibitive cost of charter flights means teams often travel on commercial airlines: England’s squad travelled in economy class on a flight from Mumbai to Guwahati last week. Langley said: “At the IPL, we had some big tall fast bowlers like Cameron Green: quite often, they were sitting in economy seats that just had a little bit more legroom.”Ahmun said: “Reece Topley is 6ft 8in; if he sits in a normal seat on a plane, the lad’s knees are up by his ears. What the schedule tends to be is, they’ll play a game, go about their recovery practices, and then the following morning it’ll be up and then transfer. We always want the lads to be as active as possible on the day following the game to get their bloodflow going, so flying is probably the last thing the body needs.”When Rob Key joined the ECB as managing director of men’s cricket last year, he quickly introduced separate management teams for the red- and white-ball squads, which has extended to backroom staff. It means a slightly lighter workload – even if the World Cup is followed almost immediately by a month in the Caribbean.”They will be available 24/7 for the guys during the World Cup,” Langley says. “They will be flat out, working the whole time.” If England’s decision to lean towards seam pays off over the next seven weeks, it will owe plenty to the team behind the team.

That Gill had prepared intensely against left-arm pace leading into the game showed in his audacious powerplay display

Andrew Fidel Fernando10-Sep-2023It’s not as if Shubman Gill had an obvious weakness against left-arm seam bowling. It is a small sample size, but before his innings on Sunday, Gill had hit 118 ODI runs against left-arm seam bowlers, off 108 deliveries, and been dismissed three times. An average of 39.33 against this kind of bowler pales against his otherwise spectacular average of 63.08, but it hardly represents a weakness in his technique.But if you’re an opener about to play one of the biggest matches of your career so far, and if the opposition has one of the great first-spell bowlers in the world, no one will blame you for taking the battle seriously. Gill had been intense in his preparation against left-arm seam in the approach to this match, training in repeated sessions with India’s left-arm throwdown specialist Nuwan Seneviratne.On match day (the first of two, at least), he set India on a scorching path, first picking off some poor Shaheen Shah Afridi deliveries – glancing a length ball on the legs to the fine-leg boundary, sending a half volley screaming over midwicket – before, later in that same over, stroking even one of his decent deliveries for four. This was almost a good-length ball outside off stump, but so quickly and confidently did Gill move into his checked drive, he beat mid-off.Related

Virat Kohli, KL Rahul and Kuldeep Yadav craft India's biggest win vs Pakistan

Shreyas Iyer forced to miss Pakistan game due to back spasms

Bat, analyse, brainstorm, repeat: Gill preps hard for left-arm pace

In Afridi’s next over, Gill was imperious. Such was his confidence, he took steps towards bowler and struck him sweetly back over his head. To a bowler currently ripping up the tournament, this was a shot of sparkling audacity.There were two further boundaries in this over, the second consecutive Afridi over he had bowled only to Gill and been struck for three fours. The first of these was drilled between mid-off and cover, the second flayed in front of point.These were not easy batting conditions at this stage and, at the other end, Rohit Sharma was proving it against Naseem Shah. Of his first 20 deliveries to Sharma, 19 were dots (there had also been a wide). Naseem was bowling quicker than Afridi, sure, but extracting bounce and seam movement as well. Afridi was moving the ball through the air, but perhaps did not have his usual first-spell control. Gill had prepared fiercely enough to pounce.Against Naseem, Gill had a bit of luck. He top edged a shortish delivery outside off in the eighth over, and Iftikhar Ahmed at first slip probably should have caught it above his head, but didn’t even attempt the catch. Gill would eventually fall to Afridi, who deceived him with a legcutter and had him caught at cover.But by hitting nine fours in the powerplay (he hit 41 off 30 in that period), and dominating Afridi within this phase, Gill allayed fears that Pakistan’s quicks would deck India’s top order again. In what little play was possible under heavy skies on Sunday, Gill’s innings glittered.

And was Mahika Gaur the youngest player to debut in a T20I at age 12?

Steven Lynch22-Aug-2023Has any wicketkeeper done the “match double” of 100 runs and ten dismissals in a Test? asked Andrew Taylor from Australia
This is a very rare feat: for a start, as this list shows, only seven wicketkeepers have so far taken ten or more dismissals in a single Test. And only one of them allied that to 100 runs: AB de Villiers scored 31 and 103 not out, and also took a record-equalling 11 catches, for South Africa against Pakistan in Johannesburg in 2012-13.There are only 12 further instances of this wicketkeeping double in all first-class cricket, two of them by Rod Marsh. Perhaps the most eye-popping performance by a keeper in any first-class match came from the Zimbabwean Test player Wayne James in 1995-96: captaining Matabeleland in the Logan Cup final against Mashonaland Country Districts in Bulawayo, he hoovered up 13 dismissals to add to scores of 99 and 99 not out.A wicket fell to the first ball of both innings in the UAE’s recent T20I against New Zealand. Had this happened before, in T20s or ODIs? asked Elamaran Perumal from the United States
In last week’s match in Dubai, Chad Bowes was out to the first ball of New Zealand’s innings, then the UAE’s captain Muhammad Waseem was dismissed by the first ball of the reply.It seems this is the first such instance in men’s T20Is, but there is one additional case in an ODI: in Cape Town in February 1993, Pakistan’s Ramiz Raja was dismissed by the first ball of the match, and Desmond Haynes fell to the opening delivery of West Indies’ chase.During the women’s T20 World Cup in the West Indies in November 2018, Yasoda Mendis (Sri Lanka) and Sanjida Islam (Bangladesh) fell to the respective opening deliveries of their matchin St Lucia. Less than a year later came the only such instance in women’s ODIs: Australia’s Rachael Haynes was out to the opening delivery of the match, and West Indies’ Natasha McLean went first ball in the chase, in Coolidge (Antigua) in September 2019.Has anyone who only has one Test wicket taken a better single scalp based on the batsman’s career average than David Gower, who dismissed Kapil Dev (average 31.05)? asked Matt Barrett from England
It’s true that David Gower’s only wicket, in 117 Tests, was that of Kapil Dev, caught for 116 in the closing stages of a draw in Kanpur in 1981-82 – but 31.05 currently only makes it to 116th place on this particular list.The man whose solitary wicket accounted for the man with the highest Test batting average was the old Essex player Jack O’Connor, whose one and only victim in Tests was the great West Indian George Headley, who finished with an average of 60.83: he was bowled by O’Connor in Bridgetown in 1929-30. According to Wisden, O’Connor “bowled slow legbreaks and offbreaks mixed, and had the advantage of looking a good deal simpler than he was”.Just behind O’Connor comes the New Zealander Doug Freeman, whose only Test wicket was that of England’s Herbert Sutcliffe, who ended up with a Test average of 60.73. Freeman was 18, and still at school, when he played two Tests against England in 1932-33; in the second, in Auckland, he had Sutcliffe caught by Lindsay Weir for 33, but had no further success as Wally Hammond purred to 336 not out. A tall legspinner, Freeman did not play again: his Test career was over before his 19th birthday.There are currently 20 other bowlers whose only victim in Tests was someone with an average of more than 50. The list includes Andy McKay (New Zealand) and Ujesh Ranchod (Zimbabwe), who both dismissed Sachin Tendulkar (53.79), and – for the time being at least – England’s Harry Brook, whose only wicket to date is Kane Williamson (54.89).Playing her first T20I at age 12 for UAE, Mahika Gaur is currently the 16th youngest T20I debutant in women’s cricket•Asian Cricket CouncilI noticed that Mahika Gaur, who has just been called up by England, played for the UAE in 2019 when she was only 12. Was she the youngest person to appear in a T20I? asked Mohit Karve from the United States
You’re right that left-arm seamer Mahika Gaur, who was added to England’s T20i squad after some impressive displays for Manchester Originals in the Hundred, had previously played for United Arab Emirates. She was born in Reading in March 2006, but her family was living in the Gulf when she played the first of her 19 T20Is for the UAE, against Indonesia in Bangkok in January 2019, when she was still two months short of her 13th birthday.The proliferation of T20Is since all matches between ICC members were declared official means that no fewer than 15 women younger than Gaur have now appeared in such matches. Six of them come from Jersey, including the youngest of all – Nia Greig, who was just 11 years 40 days old when she played against France in Nantes in July 2019.The youngest in a women’s ODI remains Sajjida Shah, of Pakistan, who was 12 years 171 days old when she made her debut against Ireland in Dublin in July 2000.The youngest to feature in a men’s T20I is Marian Gherasim, who was 16 days past his 14th birthday when he played for Romania against Bulgaria in a Balkan Cup match in Ilfov County in October 2020.The youngest in a men’s ODI is Hasan Raza, 14 years 233 days when he played for Pakistan against Zimbabwe in Quetta in 1996-97. The previous week, Hasan had become the youngest male Test player, in Faisalabad, although it should be noted that there are those who dispute the accuracy of his date of birth.Saud Shakeel has now played seven Tests, and scored at least a fifty in all of them. Has anyone had a more successful start in this regard? asked Zahid Ahmed from Pakistan
The Pakistan left-hand batter Saud Shakeel is unique in kicking off his Test career with a score of 50 or more in all of his first seven matches. Four men started with half-centuries (or better) in each of their first six Tests: Bert Sutcliffe (New Zealand), Saeed Ahmed (Pakistan), Basil Butcher (West Indies) and Sunil Gavaskar (India). Three men managed five: David Steele (England), Roy Dias (Sri Lanka) and Devon Conway (New Zealand).Saud Shakeel has 875 runs after his first seven Tests, a number surpassed at that stage of a career only by Everton Weekes (878), Gavaskar (918) and, almost inevitably, Don Bradman (1196)Shiva Jayaraman of ESPNcricinfo’s stats team helped with some of the above answers.Use our feedback form, or the Ask Steven Facebook page to ask your stats and trivia questions

We are just nine matches into the 2023 ODI World Cup but the batters seem to be enjoying their time in India

Sampath Bandarupalli12-Oct-2023

Climbing up the ladder in the first week

Though only one-fifth of the tournament has been completed by Thursday, the 12 hundreds have already surpassed the total tally scored in the 1975 (6), 1979 (2), 1983 (8), 1987 (11), 1992 (6) and 1999 (11) editions. If we only take into account the first ten matches in a World Cup, the 12 centuries in 2023 are by far the highest in any of the 13 editions. None of the previous 12 editions had more than five centuries in the first ten matches.

Wickets in hand and six-hitting at the death have been the two pillars of their exhilarating successes, with Quinton de Kock and Heinrich Klaasen at the heart of it all

Firdose Moonda24-Oct-20231:44

The secret to South Africa scoring huge totals

Too much of a good thing, they say, has the opposite effect of just the right amount but try telling that to South Africa. With victory margins of 102, 134, 229 and 149 runs, it may read like they’ve scored far more runs than is required to beat opposition including defending champions England, but too many? What’s that? This is the era of gluttony with more matches, more choices and more everything else but a team that has historically had batting as their weaker suit at World Cups was never going to go for less is more.The top three totals at this World Cup belong to South Africa, including the only one over 400, which is also the highest tournament total ever. Six of the 19 hundreds scored so far come from South Africans. The leading run-scorer so far – Quinton de Kock – is South African and he also has the best individual score to date.In his 150th ODI, de Kock slammed 174 – 14 short of the South African record still held by Gary Kirsten – and 26 shy of a double-ton, which batting coach JP Duminy confirmed is on de Kock’s wishlist as something to achieve before he quits the format after this World Cup. That de Kock appears to have saved his best for last has been obvious since the Sri Lanka game in Delhi but to suggest he is simply throwing his bat in his last few innings and hoping for the best would be doing a disservice to a player in scintillating touch.Related

How Heinrich Klaasen bosses spin with a destructive quasi-pull

A Mumbai mauling for the Tigers

Report – De Kock, Klaasen lead South Africa's demolition of Bangladesh

Stats – South Africa's year of big scores and big wins

South Africa have another 'C' word to deal with

Watch carefully, and you will see a more discerning de Kock, who takes a little more time to settle in and then dictates the pace. At the Wankhede tonight, he manipulated the spinners’ length early on, then eased down to 31 off 37 balls and then dominated partnerships with Aiden Markram and Heinrich Klaasen. In terms of shot-selection, with de Kock, we’ve seen it all but his takedown of spinners in this game was special, specifically of Bangladesh’s returning captain Shakib Al Hasan. De Kock faced 33 balls from Shakib, and scored 46 runs. In some books that’s called cutting off the snake at the head, a metaphor that may be particularly relevant to Bangladesh given their relationship with the dance. That reading of the situation and opposition is what South Africa are benefitting so well from, and what makes de Kock’s contributions stand out.”We all know Quinny to be a free-spirited guy he is but he has a really good cricket brain,” Aiden Markram, South Africa’s stand-in captain, said afterwards. “He assesses conditions well and communicates that to us even before we get out onto the field. You never want to clip his wings, you just want to let him fly.”In this innings, de Kock flew for all but 4.5 overs of South Africa’s 50. In the games against Sri Lanka and Australia, he was dismissed in the 31st and 35th over respectively, but helped set South Africa up for the final 10 overs – the phase where they have been at their most dangerous.ESPNcricinfo LtdTheir batting at the death is a major contributor to why they are being considered among the best line-ups at this event and a quick glance at the numbers reveals why. South Africa scored 137 runs in the last 10 overs against Sri Lanka, 143 against England and 144 runs today. Against Australia, they scored 79 which doesn’t sound as impressive but on a slow pitch was more than enough. All told, from the 40th over – and bear in mind South Africa’s defeat to the Dutch was reduced to 43 overs a side – South Africa have a run rate of 12.28, which is more than one-and-a-half times their closest rivals, New Zealand at 8.16.There’s two reasons that they have been able to set off these kinds of fireworks: wickets in hand and six-hitting.To the first point, and in consultation with ESPNcricinfo statistician Shiva Jayaraman: on average South Africa have found themselves with around 250 runs on the board and between three and four wickets down at the start of the 41st over – thanks largely to de Kock – while other teams have been in an average position of 216 for 5.To the second: South Africa have hit 32 sixes in the last 10 overs of their five innings, while New Zealand and India have totalled only 10 more and three more than that overall, across their entire five innings. That’s thanks mostly to Heinrich Klaasen, who followed up his 67-ball 109 against England with a 49-ball 90 against Bangladesh. Klaasen hit all four of his sixes in the last 10 overs against England and five of his eight in the last 10 against Bangladesh, and is the second-leading six-hitter of the tournament. As long as South Africa are able to give him a launchpad, he has shown he can almost guarantee he will take off.Quinton de Kock’s purple patch has him pleased•Associated PressAll that becomes even more important when you consider that Klaasen is the fifth of just six specialist batters and that if things start going wrong before he comes in, South Africa will be in trouble. That remains an area yet to be fully exploited by opposition but on one of the occasions where it threatened to be an issue – against England – Marco Jansen played an innings which suggests he will make a solid No. 7.So, all that said, have South Africa found their magic formula when it comes to batting first at big tournaments? They won’t be quite so certain yet. “We haven’t spoken about a blueprint as a unit. We’ve had no definitive roles given, but everyone knows what they need to do to help this batting unit peak at their best,” Markram said. “There isn’t necessarily a blueprint, but guys understand how to approach it. We have a big focus on playing conditions and not necessarily situations too much. As a unit, we keep saying to look down at the surface and not up at the scoreboard and play exactly what’s in front of us on the pitch.”Duminy described it as “taking the positive option wherever possible”, and in previous interactions with members of the South African camp they’ve spoken about a balance between smart and brave cricket. But those are all platitudes. The proof is on the scorecard and four out of South Africa’s five at the World Cup are in their favour. The fifth was the game they lost to the Netherlands, in the only match in which they’ve chased at this tournament, and the jury is still out on how they will perform under pressure in a crunch encounter again.There is also another caveat to be added to this analysis, which may otherwise read as though South Africa’s line-up is untouchable. India, who have the second and third leading run-scorers in the tournament, have chased in all their games to date and so we don’t know what they would and could do if given the opportunity to put runs on the board first.Apologies if the ifs and what-ifs dampened the mood somewhat. That was not the intention of this story or, indeed, of South Africa’s performance against Bangladesh. Both were a celebration of what too much of a good thing can do for this tournament and, in the absence of any close games, perhaps it’s as much excitement as we’re going to get for now.

Since the start of 2022 no batter with a significant portfolio against spin has scored quicker than him, and this shot, which goes against what makes a pull a pull, plays a big role in that

Karthik Krishnaswamy26-Oct-20232:25

Klaasen on being labeled as the ‘best finisher’ and working on his six-hitting

When is a pull no longer a pull? If you’re the kind of person who spends an unhealthy amount of time dwelling on the precise meanings of cricketing terms, you might find yourself pondering this when you watch Heinrich Klaasen play the pull.Defined most simply, the pull is a horizontal-bat shot hit across the line of a short-pitched ball. Klaasen’s pull, particularly against spin bowling, routinely fails to check all three of those boxes.Consider the one he hit off Adil Rashid en route to his 67-ball 109 against England at the Wankhede Stadium. It could hardly be described as a horizontal-bat shot, since his bat was at something like a 45-degree angle to the ground. He didn’t hit across the line of the ball as much as through it, his bat swing tending towards that of a back-foot drive on the up.A rendition of the pull that has brought Heinrich Klaasen so much success against spin•ICC/Getty ImagesAnd the ball from Rashid was really not short at all. It was a more-or-less good-length ball, a wrong ‘un probably destined to miss leg stump at slightly below stump height. Klaasen shifted his weight on to the back foot and swung his hip open so his front leg was well outside leg stump, brusquely reclaiming the room that the bowler had tried so assiduously to deny him. From this position he swung his bat through an arc both smooth and ferocious, his arms at full extension, and launched the ball well beyond the wide long-on boundary.This was a shot that occupied the outer limits of what a pull is and does – not really a pull at all, but nonetheless the most devastating of pulls. The Klaasen pull may, in fact, be even more than that; it may well be the most devastating weapon against spin in all white-ball cricket.!function(){“use strict”;window.addEventListener(“message”,(function(a){if(void 0!==a.data[“datawrapper-height”]){var e=document.querySelectorAll(“iframe”);for(var t in a.data[“datawrapper-height”])for(var r=0;r<e.length;r++)if(e[r].contentWindow===a.source){var i=a.data["datawrapper-height"][t]+"px";e[r].style.height=i}}}))}();

The Mitchell Starc-led pace attack is otherwise short on experience but there’s a strong Indian middle order in place

Sreshth Shah18-Mar-2024Where Kolkata Knight Riders finished last seasonWith six wins and eight losses, KKR finished seventh. They were four points away from being in the fray for the playoffs.Knight Riders squad for IPL 2024Shreyas Iyer (capt), Andre Russell*, Nitish Rana, Rinku Singh, Venkatesh Iyer, Rahmanullah Gurbaz (wk)*, Sherfane Rutherford*, Phil Salt (wk)*, KS Bharat (wk), Manish Pandey, Angkrish Raghuvanshi, Anukul Roy, Ramandeep Singh, Sunil Narine*, Suyash Sharma, Mujeeb Ur Rahman*, Dushmantha Chameera*, Sakib Hussain, Harshit Rana, Vaibhav Arora, Varun Chakravarthy, Mitchell Starc*, Chetan Sakariya*Overseas playersPlayer availability – Shreyas Iyer’s fitness a concernJason Roy (personal reasons) and his compatriot Gus Atkinson (workload management) have both pulled out. They have been replaced by Phil Salt, currently the world’s No. 2 T20I batter, and Dushmantha Chameera, respectively. However, Chameera recently suffered a quadriceps injury and is racing to get fit.There are also some concerns over Shreyas Iyer’s fitness. He did not field on the last two days of the Ranji Trophy final because of back spasms.What’s new with KKR this year?Between seasons, KKR announced Gautam Gambhir’s return to the franchise, this time as team mentor. He captained KKR to their only two IPL titles, in 2012 and 2014. He will work closely with head coach Chandrakant Pandit.At the auction table, there was another reunion as former KKR batter Manish Pandey returned to the franchise for INR 50 lakh. Other notable additions were Mujeeb Ur Rahman, Sherfane Rutherford, Chetan Sakariya and Ramandeep Singh. But the most eye-catching pick was Mitchell Starc – for an all-time auction high of INR 24.75 crore – who will significantly bolster a relatively inexperienced fast-bowling group.Mitchell Starc will lead an otherwise inexperienced pace attack•Getty ImagesThe good – Indian core and spin attackShreyas Iyer, Venkatesh Iyer, Nitish Rana and Rinku Singh make up a strong Indian core in batting, even if they lack the cumulative experience compared to some other teams. Hard-hitting wicketkeeper-batters Salt and Rahmanullah Gurbaz together at the top is an explosive prospect, and both are also in red-hot form.Rinku and Andre Russell also pose an intimidating challenge for bowlers in the death overs. Rinku struck at 148.71 and 149.52 in IPL 2022 and 2023, respectively, and enters this season with the fresh experience of being a capped Indian player.The spin trio of Sunil Narine, Varun Chakravarthy and Suyash Sharma will aim to add to their solid 2023 as a group, and with Mujeeb’s addition, that department is even stronger. With Gambhir’s preference for spin at home, the pitches could also turn more than usual, which also works well for their Indian batters, especially Shreyas and Nitish.The not-so-good – over-reliance on StarcKKR’s Indian fast-bowling group of Vaibhav Arora, Harshit Rana and Sakariya is exciting but inexperienced compared to other teams. That could have been one major reason why KKR have invested so heavily in Starc.They will also need to carefully manage the workloads of Russell and Starc, for whom the franchise have no like-for-like replacements. Both matchwinners have been a bit fragile over the years when it comes to injuries.Schedule insightsThey play only three games in the first leg of the season with long breaks between games. At the start, they play at home against Sunrisers Hyderabad on March 23 before flying to Bengaluru to face Royal Challengers Bangalore (March 29) and Visakhapatnam to take on Delhi Capitals (April 3).The big question

The Australia allrounder produced a stunning spell of seam and swing to dismantle Mumbai Indians

Vishal Dikshit12-Mar-20245:01

‘A chocolate ice cream and brownie’: How Perry celebrated her six-for

The crowd in Delhi finally turned up for the WPL. A sea of blue had spread far and wide on the stands occupied by 22,834 people, likely the most attended match in the city this tournament. The jerseys were predominantly of Mumbai Indians, the flags were all blue too, some hawkers were even selling the India Test whites outside the ground, having probably come downhill from Dharamsala after an early finish. The colour of the three stripes on its sleeves? You guessed it.You’d have to squint your eyes to spot even a hint of red at the ground. Even the few seats that were vacant in the first tier were painted blue. The music blaring in between overs was almost all Punjabi, as often is in Delhi, apart from some Hindi movie songs.Related

• Ellyse Perry: 'We're lucky to play in front of such big and fanatical crowds'

• Beth Mooney 74*, Shabnam three-for keep Gujarat Giants' faint playoff hopes alive

• WPL 2024 scenarios – RCB, Warriorz and Giants in three-horse race to third place

• The Perry show floors Mumbai, puts RCB in playoffs

There was absolutely nothing the Royal Challengers Bangalore players could have looked at and thought of “home” on this neutral ground. The RCB fans that had flocked the stands in Bengaluru in the first leg were over 2000kms away now.Ellyse Perry was seemingly unbothered by all this. What might have worked for her was that she had probably played more T20s at this ground – three at the 2016 T20 World Cup – than a lot of the Indian players featuring in the WPL. It showed in how she nearly struck three times in her first six balls after having gone wicketless this WPL.First Sajeevan Sajana’s catch wasn’t taken at extra cover because the fielder lost the ball in the lights. Then she jagged one so sharply towards leg that Nat Sciver-Brunt played all over it and yet survived the lbw. The very next ball Sajana was almost caught at the circle. It was as if Perry knew all about this fresh pitch while others were still finding their way.In her next over when Perry pegged Sajana’s off stump back with a cutter, she jogged along expressionless towards extra cover, as if saying, “yeah, what else do you bowl on this pitch?” The crowd loved it and rooted for her as if she was from Saket and not Sydney.

I’ve been working on it a little bit, especially with our coaches back home and kind of felt very suitable conditions for me tonight; the ball nipped around a little bit and it was really good funEllyse Perry

The real celebration came when she had Harmanpreet Kaur chop on off a wide delivery that didn’t even move off the pitch at a regulation 114.2kmh. Not expecting a wicket off it, Perry stuck her tongue out in between her lips that went from ear to ear. There was now a deafening roar from the same crowd that had cheered for Harmanpreet in a record chase a few days ago. The Australia allrounder whose jaw-dropping fielding in the deep had hurt India in the dying moments of the T20 World Cup semi-final a year ago was getting louder shrieks than the India captain, who bagged a duck.Two balls later in her spell, Perry belted out an appeal for lbw after an inducker that was on a length perfect enough to beat Amelia Kerr. But Perry’s finest gambit was the wicket of Amanjot Kaur. The price of the wicket not the most rewarding, but the manner of dismissal so spectacular that it could create the most poignant memory in Perry’s T20 career of 366 matches. Delivered from just wide of the crease, she made the ball seam in so sharply that Amanjot was beaten by both pace and movement off the pitch to hear the ball rattle the stumps behind her.Perry was making the ball talk on her own terms as if this was one of the seaming pitches in Australia (nevermind the lack of bounce). On a ground where even the slightest of width was pummeled by Harmanpreet and Richa Ghosh on successive nights over the weekend, Perry targeted the stumps with unflinching accuracy and perception of the right length.She got all her six wickets bowled or lbw, and 22 of her 24 deliveries landed on good length or short-of-good-length to fetch her all her six wickets for just 11 runs. Perry’s 6 for 15, the best figures in the WPL, was only her second five-wicket haul in T20s and the second-best bowling figures for an Australian in T20s.”I’ve really enjoyed bowling,” Perry said after being named the Player of the Match. “Sometimes I think I go years just getting walloped around the ground everywhere, and then every now and then it kind of goes my way. I’ve been working on it a little bit, especially with our coaches back home and kind of felt very suitable conditions for me tonight; the ball nipped around a little bit and it was really good fun.”Ball by ball, Ellyse Perry’s devastating spell against Mumbai Indians•ESPNcricinfo LtdCharlotte Edwards, head coach of Mumbai, has watched Perry’s excellence since the allrounder’s international debut nearly 17 years ago, and was also her second Test wicket. Having worked with her closely in the WBBL for Sydney Sixers – where Edwards is head coach and Perry the captain – the coach was “surprised” by the movement off the pitch in Delhi, but not by Perry’s performance.While recalling how she had called Perry “the greatest female player we’re ever going to see,” in 2019, Edwards said: “She’s a wonderful cricketer and I’ll still stand by what I said five years ago. She is the greatest player that I’ve seen play the game with bat and ball and in the field and as a person.”What I admire most about Ellyse is the fact that it doesn’t matter if she’s playing club cricket or WPL or international cricket, she plays it the same way and that’s really highly commendable and something I absolutely love.”Having restricted Mumbai to their second-lowest total, 113, Perry then chaperoned the “tricky chase” with an unbeaten 40 that also saw her fittingly smash the winning runs for four.The music had now switched to English, the crowd was chanting “Aar See Bee, Aar See Bee” and “Perry, Perry” in turns, and now even a few RCB jerseys had turned up in Delhi of all the places.