Poor (or no) planning, a shambolic DRS set-up, player misconduct – it was another forgettable season of the BPL

Mohammad Isam15-Feb-2023Shakib Al Hasan’s prediction that the BPL was headed downwards has turned out to be true.Shakib’s comments on January 4 became quite talked about because he referenced the Hindi-language movie while explaining how the issues in the BPL could be fixed quickly, but the substance of what he said wasn’t lost on anyone – he was, after all, talking about issues that have plagued the BPL for the last few seasons: the delayed players’ draft and poor broadcast quality among them, plus the new one, the clash with other (new and richer) T20 leagues. He had also criticised the (non) marketing of the BPL as being ineffective. While there are no exact figures for TV ratings or stadium attendance, the lack of enthusiasm was reflected by low turnouts in most matches.Sylhet and Chattogram usually have big crowds but apart from the odd weekend game or evening game, it has been sparsely attended. The same was true for the playoffs in Dhaka where the ground was usually half-full. The BCB forgetting to inform the media and public about changed match timings on the tournament’s first day or the lack of clarity about match tickets added to the overall chaos. Not to forget the average cricket and poor player behaviour, and we had another sub-par tournament this year.’BPL is always a last-minute tournament'”BPL is always a last-minute tournament in terms of preparations,” Tahmeed Huq, chief executive of former franchise Rajshahi Kings, said of the situation. “There was nothing different this year. DRS is essential to a tournament like the BPL. I read about the controversies due to the absence of DRS but I didn’t see any improvements.”A fully functional DRS set-up is the bare requirement in major tournaments, but for the league stage, all the BPL had were glorified replays for the TV umpires to use. But even outside of that, there was a general lack of competitiveness on show, which was disappointing.The bottom three teams – Chattogram Challengers, Dhaka Dominators and Khulna Tigers – were knocked out of reckoning for the playoffs with eight matches left in the league stage. Teams for the knockout stages have never been confirmed this early in the BPL. They have usually gone down to the last two or three matches to decide at least one of the playoff spots.

“I came here two days before the first game, so that’s not great for me to see the players. Not enough time. A week with the team would have been really good. You get to know the players’ characters and the roles that they could play”Julian Wood, Chattogram Challengers coach

Dominators, Challengers and Tigers were also the worst hit in terms of quality overseas players. Of the eight overseas batters who scored 200-plus runs in last year’s BPL, only Benny Howell, who played for Challengers last year, appeared in two games for Rangpur Riders in this year’s league phase. Fortune Barishal’s Andre Fletcher, who played for Tigers last year, and Moeen Ali also appeared only in the knockout stage after playing in other T20 leagues.Even for the teams that made the playoffs, availability of overseas players was a serious issue. Those relying heavily on imports had to change their strategy when the Pakistani players, making up the bulk of the overseas quota in the BPL, left for the PSL. In the case of Barishal, even Bhanuka Rajapaksa’s form or big-hitting reputation couldn’t guarantee success. Riders managed to bring in Dwayne Bravo and Sam Billings, but only for just the last couple of games.Add it all up, and we have to go back to what we said before the tournament began, that the BCB just wasn’t moving fast enough. Rather than selling the franchises early and allowing them time to get the best players, they waited till November to organise the players’ draft, allowing the BBL, SA20 and ILT20 to take away the best T20 players.Related

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“I came here two days before the first game, so that’s not great for me to see the players,” Julian Wood, the Challengers coach, said. “Not enough time. A week with the team would have been really good. You get to know the players’ characters and the roles that they could play.”I think they need to look at when they run the competition. You have the BBL, ILT20 and SA20 so you’ve got four tournaments at the same time. You want the best players in the world to play in your tournament. Find a window, maybe November next year [season]. We had six days when we didn’t do anything, so I think you can try to squeeze it in a bit more.”Challengers finished in last place.The lack of preparation, the lack of time, and lack of quality international cricketers is a big worry mainly because Bangladesh don’t really have the greatest T20 talent going around. It’s reflected in their T20I cricket too. As a result, the BPL franchises are heavily reliant on finished products from overseas. This season, no rookie or unknown from the domestic circuit really made a splash.Limited DRS, poor player conductAnd then we come to player misconduct. Many of the incidents this year were due to the Alternative DRS system – a watered-down version with just a few technologies for TV umpire, who had to rely on basic replays and a “pitching zone” that didn’t seem consistent – in place.Soumya Sarkar’s refusal to accept a DRS decision during the third game of the tournament led to incidents of players misbehaving with the on-field umpires.Shakib had a go at the square-leg umpire later on the same day, and then ran on to the field to argue with the umpires when fielding captain Nurul Hasan switched bowlers after seeing which batter was taking first strike. In that same match, Anamul Haque had an argument with the umpires when given out via DRS.Comilla Victorians coach Mohammad Salahuddin was fined for criticising the umpires after Jaker Ali was given out lbw despite the ball pitching outside leg stump in a game. Even when the conventional DRS was put in place during the knockouts, Sylhet Strikers batter Najmul Hossain Shanto argued when given out lbw in the second qualifier.The BCB’s decision to stick with the (not quite) DRS system during the 42-match league phase was disappointing. Fans generally want a free-flowing tournament, but the BPL has been anything but. At the start of the tournament, the BCB explained that they couldn’t bring the personnel to run the DRS equipment, although the equipment has been in their stadium storage unit.Does the BCB have a vision for the BPL at all?Tahmeed, a former cricketer who is recognised as a marketing expert in Bangladesh, said that the lack of proper long-term planning, particularly with no revenue-sharing system with the teams, could put off the franchise owners soon.”Franchises were given three-year contracts but already Barishal have said that they are not coming back next year,” he pointed out. “It gives the wrong impression about the BPL. Compared to other leagues, I don’t see proper, organised planning in place. What is the BPL’s vision? Where does it go from here?”We need to understand the vision of those who are organising this tournament. It has to be a business case,” he said. “Otherwise franchises will say like Barishal that we won’t play next time. It doesn’t give them any benefit, in terms of profitability.”But things can be fixed, they aren’t completely broken, Tahmeed suggested.”The BPL has a future. But it has to improve in a lot of areas,” he said. “Production value has to be better. Wickets were better this year. Consumer-wise, Bangladesh’s market is second only to India. If we cannot use this potential in such a market, then it is our failure.”There will always be competition, which will urge improvement. If you look at the telecom industry in Bangladesh, three compete with each other to improve services. Definitely BPL has a future and potential, but the product has to be attractive. It has to be so much better than other leagues, not just money-wise, but in terms of other factors too.”The difficulty for BPL is the almost water-tight future tours programme drawn up by the cricket boards. It means that the BPL can only be held at a set time for the next five seasons, which will continue to clash with other leagues. There’s no way out in that sense, but the BCB could arrange for a more advanced plan so that franchises are better prepared, and then ensure DRS and other facilities are in place. The BPL has hit rock bottom this year but, as always, it means the only way now is up.

Another India-Australia fifth-day epic beckons with the World Test Championship on the line

Nagraj Gollapudi10-Jun-20232:15

Shami: More time could have been taken on Green catch

“Do it for Rishabh Pant”A young Indian fan flashed a placard for TV at The Oval on Saturday. If you don’t know what he meant, he was asking India to do what Pant did to Australia in Brisbane in 2021 in a fairytale fifth-day finish which would seal a series win for the visitors.Pant, who is recovering from injuries suffered in a car crash last December, would have fancied another go at the Aussies. So can the collective of Virat Kohli, Ajinkya Rahane, Ravindra Jadeja, KS Bharat and Shardul Thakur – the remainder of India’s batting strength – work to blunt the Australia bowling attack and conquer their world-record target on the fifty day to win the World Test Championship final?India fast bowler Mohammed Shami had no doubts India have the batters to win the the WTC final, having lost it first time around in 2021 to New Zealand. “100% everyone believes tomorrow we will win the match,” Shami said, without blinking his ever-twinkling eyes. The reason for his optimism: “The way we have performed overseas around the world so we believe we can always come together to win the match.”Related

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The India-Australia rivalry is now ranked alongside the Ashes as one of the best contests in modern Test cricket. In the last decade there have been some great Tests played by both teams in Australia and India. Before Gabba 2021, India won in Melbourne to draw level and then escaped with a heart-stopping draw in Sydney. Each of those Tests entered the fifth day.Kohli missed all three, while Jadeja did not play in Brisbane where Rahane lead India. But it was under Kohli that India dared to topple a massive 364 on the final day at Adelaide in 2014. India lost by 48 runs but Kohli struck one of his finest Test centuries.Virat Kohli and Ajinkya Rahane show some glove love•ICC/Getty ImagesOn Saturday Kohli combined well with Rahane to stitch together an unbeaten 70-run partnership for the fourth wicket, lifting India from trouble after Rohit Sharma and Cheteshwar Pujara fell in quick succession.Kohli has enjoyed batting on the fifth day: since 2014, in nine innings he has made 584 run at an average of 97.33. Kohli has three centuries, too, alongside three fifties, but has never been on the winning side as India have lost three and secured six draws. Rahane’s batting numbers on the fifth day, though, are weak: in 13 innings, he has scored 220 runs without a single half-century. However, it is because of Rahane’s 89 in the first innings that India are still alive in this Test, so he is bound to remain confident.Jadeja, too, got off to a good start with the bat on Friday and was two short of a half-century before he was sucked in to make a mistake by Nathan Lyon. Shami said: “280 runs, if you bat well, is not a big score. We should bat normally, focus on playing ball by ball, don’t look too far. Your chances of success are more when you set smaller targets.”The Oval pitch, which Shami, like Shardul Thakur on Friday, said was not “well prepared” for an important match, has benefitted the Australia fast men more than India’s. Cameron Green, whose two stunning catches at gully have been the turning points in the Test, believed while the ball had become soft, the overnight break will allow the Australians to regroup and come back fresh in the morning.”[There’s] still a lot in the wicket, potentially it might have been the ball getting a bit softer,” Green said. “Fortunately we’ve got a nice rest now, we can come hard tomorrow…then we have a great opportunity when we get the second new ball as well so not too much stress in the changing room.”Scott Boland and Pat Cummins walk back at the end of the day•Associated PressGreen, who is playing his first Test in England, said that one big challenge was the Indian crowd, which could influence the mood and paint a bright picture for India despite Australia having been in ascendancy so far. “With the Indian crowd they get up and about, make you think you are behind the game when you might not be. Crucial as it was today to keep our nerve and kind of know one or two wickets and we are back on top.”After Australia piled up 469 in their first innings not many were optimistic about the Test lasting five days. For most of this match India have been off the pace. But when they arrive on Sunday they will, as Shami said, believe. What else can they do in a must-win Test?Shami was asked if he would be ready to hit the winning runs. ” [yes, definitely],” he laughed. Australia will not take Shami’s words lightly. They won’t be afraid of some hard yakka. In 2021 Australia missed making the WTC final due to a slow over rate penalty. India made the final but faltered at crucial moments against New Zealand in overcast conditions. On Sunday both teams will have a shot at ultimate Test glory. “We’ve been working so hard for two years to have any doubt of pushing in this game,” Green said when asked if was already thinking about the Ashes which starts next Friday.Fans of the longer format will hope the Test goes down to the wire. At least, Shami does: “The actual joy of a Test match is it should be decided only on the final day. Only that is called a Test match. So the series we have played against Australia in the past 3-4 years, they have been close. Both teams have fought well and won. Hopefully the next day is good [for India].”

ESPNcricinfo speaks to three of the world’s biggest cricket tour operators to find out how they’re coping with this unprecedented delay

Nagraj Gollapudi and Shashank Kishore26-Jun-2023On Tuesday, the ICC will announce the schedule for the 2023 Men’s ODI World Cup. That is exactly 100 days from the start of the 10-team marquee event which will be played in India. It is an unprecedented delay in terms of the announcement of the schedule, which was prepared by the BCCI, the hosting board.With just about three months before the World Cup gets underway on October 5, how do fans look at this extreme delay in the schedule coming out? We posed that and other concerning questions to three of the biggest tour operators in the game from around the world.Chris Millard is the managing director of the Barmy Army. Rakesh Patel is the founder of the Bharat Army. Luke Gillian has been following the Australian men’s team all around the world since 1995 and runs Australian Cricket Tours.

What is the biggest challenge of the schedule being released so late?

Rakesh Patel: For a travelling fan, if you’re planning a holiday, you normally plan months in advance. Now, in this situation, it’s difficult to do that because you don’t know where the matches are and can’t book any flights or hotels; you don’t even know when your international flights to come into India will be.We’ve tried to advise our members to not pre-empt and book anything based on speculation because the scheduling has been fluid over the last few months. We know so many fans who have already lost money because they thought certain matches would be at certain locations and booked hotels and flights and are now very concerned that those matches won’t be played there. That has created a bit of a challenge for those fans because they’re trying to get the best deals. Some of them don’t buy refundable hotels because that’s how you get the cheapest rates.Our head office [in India] is in Ahmedabad, so we have quite a few hotels blocked in Ahmedabad through our travel program. We also know, recently, a lot of fans who had booked rooms at Hyatt and ITC [in Ahmedabad], their reservation has been cancelled. Because maybe the teams will be staying there, so they block out the entire hotel. Those are some of the other challenges, where the BCCI or ICC block them for the teams. The fans don’t know which are the team hotels.Chris Millard: The biggest challenge for us is to create packages that people want to go and visit the country. When you have to take into account the short time and logistics involved with the World Cup, it is very frustrating. England are the defending champions, and a lot of people are interested in going, but the more the time goes, ultimately less people will go because they will book different holidays. They may choose to go to visit the West Indies or come to India next year (2024) when England travel there to play the Test series.The big problem for tour operators is the planning involved. We are now trying to get flights and hotel rooms when a lot of them might have been already taken, but also what you are looking for may not be available and you might have to search for alternatives.Chris Millard of the Barmy Army suggests some England fans may give the World Cup a miss and travel to India next year when England tour for a Test series•Getty ImagesLuke Gillian: Cost of travel to India and getting the necessary time off work. That’s always been the crux of my issues over the last 25 years. We know that Australia will be playing India in 2027, but why do we need to wait four weeks before the tour to get a schedule? Why would people want to go because they wouldn’t get the time off work. It is not just BCCI, several other boards wait until the last minute to announce the schedule – it’s plain ignorance.With regards to ticketing, the challenge for me as a licensed tour operator is: if I request say 100 tickets from ICC, and, I get them, but with the schedule being announced this close to the tournament, fans might not get time off work, so I am hamstrung.As far as hotels go, the price can get out of control as soon as the schedule is released. I can give an example: recently (February-March) I was in India taking a tour group during the Border-Gavaskar Trophy and secured a hotel in Indore for AUD 200 [per night]. Two days later that price had risen to AUD 400. The Test match had just been shifted at the last minute from Dharamsala to Indore. So from a price point, the closer the event, travelling becomes inaccessible for many.

In the past when you travelled for tournaments, how soon was the schedule out, and how did that help?

Millard: The 2022 T20 World Cup was a big success for England. The Barmy Army fans travelled in big numbers, but the schedule was in hand significantly earlier than three months. Australia, like India, is a big country and a lot of timing is involved.Gillian: I have never taken a group for world events, but personally I have attended World Cups – the last one was the 2019 World Cup in England. The schedule was announced a year in advance (in 2018), which allowed me to marry that up with the 2019 Ashes. India are playing Australia in white-ball [cricket] immediately after the World Cup (5 T20Is), so if the BCCI could have announced the schedule well in advance, many [Australian] fans could have thought about travelling.The biggest issue for a fan is time: if given more time to prepare, more people would travel to watch cricket around the world.

Who should take responsibility: BCCI, the host board, the ICC, or both?

Gillian: Ultimately the ICC. It’s their event.Patel: ICC can’t tell us anything [even though the Bharat Army is one of their partners] until they official announce the schedule. From a general allocation perspective, for every ICC tournament over the past 10 years, cricket boards have always recognised the Bharat Army as a fan club and given us allocation for tickets. For example, during the WTC final [in June at the Oval], Surrey Cricket gave us two big blocks of tickets to sell to our members on general capacity. We also sold travel packages for fans travelling from abroad. We have that for every ICC tournament. For this tournament, we have the official travel program license from the ICC, but right now we don’t have anything from BCCI. Which is a shame, right? Because we are an Indian fan group, you’d hope that in your home World Cup, you’d get an allocation of tickets.Millard: I don’t have the intricate details and who should be blamed. We have worked with ICC in the past for many tournaments and they know what the Barmy Army brings to the game. I am looking forward to a better relationship with BCCI moving forward because England are going to be in India a lot. The Barmy Army play a massive role in making all forms of cricket a spectacle for everyone to watch – whether you are at home or in the stands.Luke Gillian will be at the World Cup, but he doesn’t yet know if he’ll be leading a tour group to the tournament•Getty Images

Fans are the biggest stakeholders, or at least should be. Are they being taken for granted?

Patel: The general feeling is, ‘Why does this happen in India?’ In 2011, there were last-minute changes which spoilt the experience. Many people were booked to Kolkata for India vs England but it was changed to Bangalore last-minute. In 2016 [T20 World Cup], we’d nearly booked for 400-450 people to go to Dharamsala for India vs Pakistan but the game was moved to Kolkata. Now in 2023, we’re in a situation where we have issues around the tournament. The general feeling is: It doesn’t happen anywhere else, so why does it happen in our country?The tie-ups we have with travel companies, hotels etc don’t allow us to factor in late cancellations or changes. Having to manage 1000 people and making late changes – some people want to change, some won’t – that creates a lot of confusion.We have known this tournament was happening in India for many, many years, but why have we got to a point that three months out we’re still having to have a negotiation on where these matches are going to be taking place? Why hasn’t this been sorted out months ago? Ultimately the stakeholders who suffer the most are the fans. There’s a sense that the fans are the lowest common denominator in this situation, but we also know come tournament time the stadiums will be full [for the India games, certainly].Millard: Unfortunately, as fans, we normally fall towards the bottom of the pecking order. And what we saw during Covid was how important fans are to cricket. When you are looking at the volume of finance that comes with TV rights deals, it pales into insignificance whether or not stadiums are sold out and whether people are travelling or not. But ultimately TV rights holders do want full stadiums so it is within their best interest to try and make it possible.

How can fans ensure this doesn’t happen again?

Gillian: They can’t. It will happen again.

Will you still go … have some fans have already dropped out?

Millard: Fans are still excited to travel, but undoubtedly the delay has caused some bother to people travelling. People have not directly dropped out, but some are saying they might look to travel to India next year during the Test series. If they have been waiting this long for the tournament schedule, they will continue to wait because it is a World Cup, because it is in India, because England are the world champions. I do think they will wait. We would expect bonkers numbers for the World Cup.We have absolutely not started making any bookings. We have searched for accommodation with regards to planning to ensure making the trip as big and good as possible for our members. We have got ideas based on the rough schedule we have seen in the media.Gillian: Yes, I am booked to fly in to India for the World Cup. What I don’t know is if I am leading a tour group.

Which match are you most excited to watch?

Gillian Pakistan vs India. I want to be part of a world record 130,000 [crowd in Ahmedabad]Millard England will be in the final. England vs India will be a fabulous experience.

There’s a reason why Icarus is remembered, not the dreary dad who warned him about flying too close to the sun

Matt Roller29-Jul-2023If one shot encapsulated the state of this Ashes series, it came in the 75th over of England’s second innings on a heady evening in south London. Mitchell Starc, the leading-wicket taker on either side, charged in with three men out on the hook; he dug the ball in short at 88mph.Moeen Ali, a 36-year-old with a groin strain who was retired from Test cricket two months ago, swivelled on a pull shot, fully extending his arms. Steven Smith ran around to his right, sprawling at full stretch as he attempted to flick the ball back into play on the bounce. He couldn’t reach it, and thudded into the LED advertising boards as he landed.Smith briefly lay prone, resting his arm on the hoardings as the crowd revelled in another England boundary, their 48th of the day. It had taken England six balls to wipe out the 12-run lead that Australia had painstakingly accumulated across 103.1 overs; now, they were 357 ahead.England cannot win this series but that might now be incidental. They have scored at 4.74 runs per over, averaged 36.58 runs per wicket, and most importantly, have been utterly compelling to watch. “Can Bazball really work against Starc, Pat Cummins and Josh Hazlewood?” They have unequivocally won the argument.This was England at their best, forcing the field back with early aggression before cruising along with singles to boundary-riders as though they were batting in the middle overs of an ODI. Six of their batters will end the series with at least 300 runs at an average above 35; Ben Stokes’ strike rate of 64.69 was the slowest among them.Zak Crawley and Ben Duckett led the charge, their final partnership tally of 79 in 17 overs reflecting a slow-down once Cummins finally pushed the field back. England have not always found batting in the third innings easy in the last 14 months, without the lucidity of a run-chase; as if to dispel any doubts, Crawley crashed the first ball of the day through cover for four.Joe Root nails a reverse-scoop for six over deep third•Getty ImagesBut it was Joe Root who best personified England’s dominance, settling into fifth gear after a jittery start. His best shot, a crisp whip through midwicket while wandering down the pitch against Hazlewood, was soon followed by his most outlandish: a now-characteristic reverse-scoop for six over the slips off Mitchell Marsh.It is a mark of Root’s transcendence in this series that his run aggregate – 412 at 51.50 – feels lower than it should, given the ease with which he has scored whenever he has been set. Root mastered the art of middle-overs batting during the 2015-19 World Cup cycle, and Cummins has generally posted 50-over fields as soon as Root has reached 20.Twice in his last three innings, he has been denied a century after being bowled by balls that have hardly got off the pitch after bouncing: the first from Hazlewood in Manchester, the second from Todd Murphy at The Oval on Saturday. Yet by the time he walked off with England 320 ahead, he had reasserted his status among the world’s elite batters.There has been plenty of scoffing about England’s perceived superiority complex in recent days – much of it justified. The inescapable facts are that they are 2-1 down, having let multiple chances slip in both of their defeats, and cannot now regain the urn until 2025-26.Related

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Yet it has become increasingly clear as this series has worn on that Australia are rattled by England’s approach. Since arriving in the UK they have thrashed India to become World Test Champions, and gone 2-0 up in the series; barring an improbable run-chase, they will fly home next week ruing a missed opportunity to secure their legacy.And yes, there have been times in this series when England’s batters have flown too close to the sun. If they had the chance again, they would surely have reined themselves in just a fraction during the third innings at Edgbaston, and similarly on the third morning at Lord’s, when they lost 6 for 47 while repeatedly taking on the short ball on a sluggish surface.But there’s a reason you remember the name of Icarus, and not the dreary dad who warned him about the consequences. Two years ago, England were a drab, dull side who were best to follow via wicket notifications and social media low-lights; now, a similar group of players are arrestingly watchable, and their supporters want to watch every ball.Two days of rain in Manchester denied this series the finale it deserved, and the type of showpiece event that cricket in England so desperately cherishes as it battles for mainstream attention amid constant existential crises. Even so, for all the hand-wringing about the schedule, the Ashes has been the main event of the sporting summer.Australia have played some brilliant cricket, and nobody is disputing their right to return home having retained the urn. But England have undeniably been the protagonists of this series, exuding relentless main-character energy; it was only fitting that Stuart Broad, the hero of this drama, would steal the show late on Saturday evening.

A subcontinent-type pitch in Port-of-Spain actively worked in favour of the visitors

Alagappan Muthu21-Jul-20231:09

Dasgupta: Kohli ‘wired in’ for his 76th century

There was once a time when it felt like abject cruelty to stick a 21-year-old in the middle of a giant green field only 22 yards away from a West Indian fast bowler.Things are a bit different now. Yashasvi Jaiswal was moved to defence a mere seven times in the first hour of play. It wasn’t like he had made a conscious effort to bat this way. He was just reacting to the knowledge that the conditions were entirely in his favour.Rohit Sharma took even more liberties. Once he combined the ills of playing away from his body and against the swing all for the meagre reward of one run through square leg. But he absolutely middled the shot.Related

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Vettori, Vaas, Lee or Akhtar: who has Virat Kohli not faced?

The hundred came up in the 21st over. It should’ve felt manic but never really did. At least, not until the collapse.India racked up 32 false responses in the morning session in Port-of-Spain. None of them led to a wicket. By the time they offered 12 more, they’d lost not one, not two, not three, but four of their best men.Into this mess walked Virat Kohli. He spent 20 balls on zero and in that time Kemar Roach got two to straighten past his outside edge. The tempo of the game had changed and it needed an experienced hand to ride it. Good thing that he’s done this 500 times.Kohli stood firm because he knew that was all he needed to do. The urge to get off the mark was there. He tried to drop and run to point several times but the field was too close in. He had to wait, but it didn’t throw him. West Indies played on his patience and they lost, emphatically too because his first runs came through a gorgeous straight drive that went all along the ground and all the way to the boundary.From 0 off 20, Kohli was suddenly 41 off 72. He held the pose on his cover drives. He took pride in his running between the wickets. He even returned to the pavilion with a souvenir, the front of his shirt and his trousers muddied from a dive to complete a second run that few would have made. On 87 not out, this was Kohli just bubbling. An innings with enough of his signature moments but still very much incomplete.It helped, perhaps, that he knew the route to take to lead India’s recovery mission. The pitch bore striking resemblance to those found in the subcontinent – there were already footmarks outside the left-hander’s off stump for R Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja to work with – and West Indies extended their hospitality further by opting to bowl when they won the toss.In the era of the World Test Championship, almost every team has been trying to maximise home advantage and give themselves the best chance of accumulating enough points to make it to the top of the table and then the final. But here was a Test match in Port-of-Spain being played on India’s terms. There was spin on the first day, Jomel Warrican pressed into action as early as the 10th over and made to shoulder nearly 30% of the bowling workload.A focused Virat Kohli dug India out of a hole•AFP/Getty ImagesBack in the day, batters visiting these parts were owed ballads if they could merely resist the fury that was headed their way. Even one of the greatest ever never really tamed this place, or this team. In fact, the most memorable innings that Sachin Tendulkar ever played in the Caribbean yielded only 44 runs.Here’s the current India coach talking about it. “I saw so many great innings but if I could pick one it would be an innings of 40 he made in a one-day match against West Indies in Trinidad and Tobago.”It was a tough wicket, we lost the toss and the Windies had excellent fast bowlers in Curtly Ambrose, Courtney Walsh and Ian Bishop. The ball was moving all over the place, some were bouncing, taking off, and we were struggling.”Sachin decided to take them on and he got 44 off 43 balls. He played all sorts of shots, he cut them, pulled them, hit over the top and this was against a formidable attack. In the end he got a poor decision but it was great to watch. It’s an innings I always remember.”Rahul Dravid might be hard pressed to say the same about this pitch. The Queen’s Park Oval showed none of the venom it had 26 years ago. In fact it was in open war against the fast bowlers, offering no pace and barely any movement. Roach, Alzarri Joseph and Shannon Gabriel combined for 16 overs in the first session and came away with an economy rate of five or worse.West Indies have greeted other subcontinent teams with much spicier pitches, most notably against Bangladesh in 2018 and 2022. Pakistan in 2021 and Sri Lanka in 2018 were cut up by the quicks too. Not doing the same against India, especially when their own fast-bowling firepower is limited with both Jasprit Bumrah and Mohammed Shami absent, seems sub-optimal.

As an ever-aggressive opener, he has given his side an advantage to capitalise on more often than not

Ian Chappell17-Dec-2023Yet again David Warner, by amassing a scintillating century, has proved his immense worth to the Australian cricket team as an aggressive match-winning opener. He will be sorely missed by the Australian Test team when he retires after the SCG match of this series.There are varying opinions on him announcing his preference for an SCG send-off. I prefer the former great Australian allrounder Keith Miller’s version. Miller wanted to retire while people asked “Why did you?” rather than “Why don’t you?”Warner could have been following the example set by Steve Waugh in 2003-04 of having a season-long send-off. Protracted farewells like that can make cricket decisions difficult for members of the players’ own team. Damien Martyn found that out in the Gabba Test in that 2003-04 series against India, sacrificing his wicket when a mix-up led to the prospect of Waugh being run-out. It can also test the resolve of the selectors if the upcoming retiree endures a bad start to the season.Related

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Or Warner might have been following the example set by Greg Chappell in 1983-84. Chappell announced before the final Test against Pakistan at the SCGNot only does an aggressive opener make life easier for his side, the opposing captain is also wary against him, particularly with field placings

However, Warner’s value to his team doesn’t just start and finish with his aggressive batting. As we saw in Australia’s recently achieved 50-over World Cup victory, his brilliant outfielding is an enormous asset in a team’s success.There is also his catching. He’s not the best slip fielder at Test level, as Australia are fortunate to have had a number of brilliant specialists, but he’s competent.All of that says why Warner will be a hard man to replace in Australia’s Test side. The selectors’ choice will be difficult and currently there is no one on the horizon who is even close to Warner’s value to the team.Warner has been a polarising figure in the Australian side and much of the love-hate relationship stems from the part he played in the controversial 2018 sandpaper affair in Cape Town. If he does expose his version of events in a book following his ultimate retirement, it will make for extremely interesting reading. It also ensures there will be a lot of very nervous people around Australian cricket awaiting any revelations.Whether you love or hate Warner, you should never underestimate his value to Australian cricket. Warner is a rare gem and Australia have been lucky to have his services in a long and distinguished career.

Pat Cummins, Josh Hazlewood and Mitchell Starc have won everything there is to win, and they triumphed again in conditions designed to nullify them

Sidharth Monga19-Nov-20233:18

Pat Cummins explains his decision to bowl first

Recency bias affects almost everything in life, but cricket is especially cursed. It lives with both recency bias and its opposite, nostalgia bias, at the same time. While there is a new GOAT identified every day, we also run the risk of not recognising actual greatness while it is still amid us.That’s perhaps why Mitchell Starc, Josh Hazlewood and Pat Cummins are perhaps not spoken of in the same breath as, say, Glenn McGrath, Brett Lee and Jason Gillespie. In the cricket circles in Australia, there is even frustration that these three get selected whenever they make themselves available in limited-overs cricket even though they play very little of it. Or maybe they are just too woke for certain people.Consider the body of work, though. They have now won two ODI World Cups (Cummins was in the squad but didn’t feature in the XI in 2015), a T20 World Cup, a World Test Championship, have kept the Ashes ever since they got together, and are the men behind the second-most dominant Test side at home in their time.Related

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The only blip on their careers is losing two home series to a generational Indian side, and not winning a Test series in India. That’s not because they are any less as bowlers, but because India have almost been unbeatable at home, were better than their depleted side during the 2018-19 tour, and the 2020-21 series could have gone either way.The trio will want to be around to correct that blip but they have already done enough to cement a legacy across formats in an era when so much cricket is played that it is difficult to imagine fast bowlers playing all formats, let alone win world titles eight years apart. It is a tribute to their fitness, their workload management, their commitment, their priorities, and of course their skill.They are an irrepressible trio. Starc is direct and the most attacking: full, fast, at the stumps, swinging the new ball, reversing the old one. He holds the best strike rate among those who have taken 200 ODI wickets and seventh-best in Tests. Hazlewood doesn’t have the pace but he has the impeccable control of length, the ability to put the ball exactly where he wants to put it.Among the six bowlers ahead of Starc in terms of strike rate in Tests is Cummins, the complete fast bowler. He has pace, he swings the ball, he seams it, and he bowls perhaps the meanest bouncer in the world. Like the hyperextension of the other complete fast bowler in this era Jasprit Bumrah, he also has another “gift”, a partially amputated middle finger that apparently gives him a great grip on the ball.Josh Hazlewood, Pat Cummins, Mitchell Starc: Australia’s World Cup-winning pace trio•ICC/Getty ImagesFor some reason, they were never considered a real threat in these World Cup knockouts. You can sort of see why they would give that impression. Starc was not picking up wickets at 10 and 19 apiece as he did in the last two World Cups. Hazlewood was accurate and miserly but No. 16 on the wickets’ tally in the league stage. Cummins was doing the grunt work in the dirty overs, averaging 43, going at 6.15 an over. They almost lost defending 388 against New Zealand, conceded 291 to Afghanistan, and could hardly take a wicket after reducing India to 2 for 3 in their first fixture.Who would fear such a bowling attack?Anyone given the right conditions, that’s who.It was one of those freak things where they didn’t get the right conditions in the whole league stage. The new ball didn’t swing at their venues. Mumbai and Lucknow went ahead and made them look even poorer with the conditions changing dramatically when Australia came out to bat. There wasn’t even reverse at their venues. In a candid press conference before the semi-final, Starc said as much.Then came the semi-final, which coincided with a sudden depression in the Bay of Bengal. A cloudy day, floodlights in the afternoon, South Africa chose to bat because they had only one option, and all three showed their class, taking eight wickets between them for 97 runs. Starc swung the new ball, Hazlewood nibbled it, and Cummins again did the dirty work of bowling bouncers and cutters once the movement died down.The final was going to be different. The photo of Cummins taking the photo of the pitch told a story. It was almost a collector’s item for Cummins, also the captain. The pitch was dry on the edges at a spinner’s length and expected to have no life in the middle. In other words, kryptonite.And yet, it was all going to come down to the three quicks if Australia had to have a chance against the marauding Indian side. The only perceivable way for them to win was to insert India, restrict them, and then hope the pitch quickens up in the evening as it did in the match between England and New Zealand at the same venue.Restrict India – that’s easy to say. To do it, they would have to firstly withstand the onslaught of the quickest batting side in the powerplay with no new-ball movement to work with. Then they would have to get past the most consistent batter, the Player of the Tournament, as it turned out. They would also have to make their spinner look better because he isn’t a great match-up against the Indian middle order.Pat Cummins taking a photo of the Ahmedabad pitch should be a collector’s item•Getty ImagesCummins was at the heart of it all. He chose to field despite the threat of the Indian spinners on a slow pitch. The slowness actually brought Australia into the game. From ball one, they didn’t have a deep third for Rohit Sharma, the quickest and most prolific batter in that phase of the game. The deep point instead let them bowl defensively. In the first two overs, that fielder saved five runs.As expected, Rohit charged at Hazlewood to try to disrupt his length and succeeded. Pretty quickly, the bowlers started testing the middle of the pitch. A cutter appeared as early as the fourth over. The first ball Cummins bowled was a slower one. Coming into this match, Cummins had bowled a higher percentage of cutters than anyone. It tells you the kind of conditions they had to deal with.Two wickets came not with magic balls but one short ball that skidded on and then the catch of the tournament. Cummins again took on the job of bashing the middle of the pitch in the middle overs. And he got his fielders to throw the ball every chance they got. They even conceded overthrows but the throws were mandatory. They were going to get it to reverse. India had done the same at the same venue, and this was an even drier pitch.Cummins kept switching the bowlers at the other end. Overs 16, 18, 20 and 22 were bowled by four different bowlers. One-over spells from that end continued till the 24th. These were the lesser bowlers, and he didn’t want the batters to be able to line them up.Then Cummins bent his back to draw bounce from the surface that surprised even Virat Kohli, which led him to play with a diagonal bat. “There’s nothing more satisfying than hearing a big crowd go silent,” Cummins had said before the match.1:56

Moody: Cummins’ field placements were a masterstroke

Sure enough, once the ball got reversing, Hazlewood and Starc came back with renewed threat. They both moved the ball against the angle, Starc at higher pace, angling it in from around the wicket and then swinging it away to take edge of KL Rahul, who was batting on 66 and was the only one who could take India to an above-par total.Reversing it against India in a World Cup final would have felt extra special after their helplessness during the 2018-19 Test series because they couldn’t even think of reverse in the fallout of the Newlands scandal whereas India kept getting the old ball to move.Between them, the three bowled 30 overs for 154 runs and seven wickets. Cummins, whose experience of bowling cutters into the pitch throughout the tournament came in handy, ended with figures of 2 for 34.They would have had a sense of déjà vu when the new ball started to hoop around in the evening, but it turned out Cummins, the first out-and-out bowling captain to win an ODI World Cup, had read the conditions just right.This is fast-bowling royalty setting up wins across formats and conditions. Their last two limited-overs World Cups in two years have come in Asia with just one frontline spinner. In doing so, they have smashed a few cliches. Fast bowlers can’t be captains. Test bowlers don’t make good limited-overs bowlers because you need variations. Runs on board in a final. Fast bowlers shouldn’t be nice or woke.One conventional wisdom remains, though: you can’t ever count out quality fast bowlers. Especially when there are three of them.

Chelmsford new boy talks about his busy winter, learning from the best and adding a “fourth string” to his bow

Andrew Miller02-Apr-2024What does it take to build a career in professional cricket’s modern, itinerant era? In this fragmenting landscape, the days of biding one’s time and awaiting that international call are receding, and in their place a new generation of go-getter cricketer is emerging, with a restless curiosity and an increasingly clear understanding of how to cash in on their athletic prime.Players such as Jordan Cox, for instance, a 23-year-old whose seemingly inevitable England debut remains, for now, just beyond his reach, but who isn’t about to let that circumstantial setback restrict his career progression.Midway through last summer, Cox secured a high-profile and not-uncontroversial move from Kent to Essex, a club he describes as being “best suited for what I want at this moment in time”, which hardly smacks of the fulfilment of a lifelong dream.Related

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And little wonder, given the winter he’s just had. With apologies to his new county, and with no sense whatsoever that he’ll be stinting on his efforts as Essex’s season begins, next week’s County Championship opener against Nottinghamshire at Trent Bridge will be Cox’s fifth professional debut of the past five months.His string of new beginnings began back in November, when Cox stepped out for Bangla Tigers in the Abu Dhabi T10, where his six matches produced 265 runs, two half-centuries and a strike-rate of 232, including a ferocious 90 not out from 36 balls against the eventual finalists, Deccan Gladiators.By the time that final took place, however, Cox had already swapped continents for what became a four-match stint with Melbourne Renegades in Australia’s Big Bash League, which then gave way to a return to the UAE in January to play for Gulf Giants in the ILT20.And, having previously sampled the SA20 and the Lanka Premier League in the 2022-23 winter, Cox then capped this year’s travels by making his first appearances in the Pakistan Super League, with six matches for Islamabad United in February and March prior to his link-up with his newest new squad for Essex’s pre-season in Abu Dhabi.”I left on November 10, and I was back 10 days ago, so I’ve been aware a fair chunk,” Cox says during Essex’s pre-season media day in Chelmsford. “I love it. I went to private school, I was a boarder. So my parents were like, ‘have fun at school, see you at Easter holidays, see you at Christmas’. So I’d only go home like three times a year, so I’m pretty used to being away from home.”That sense of adventure is palpable as Cox lifts the curtain on the touring lifestyle to reveal a glimpse of what this new world is really like. The SA20, he says, is “carnage … the flights are full on … fly, rest day, game, everywhere.” The ILT20, by contrast, was just 40-minute bus rides between Dubai, Sharjah and Abu Dhabi. “It was the first time I’ve ever unpacked in a franchise environment.”The Eagle has landed: Cox arrived in Chelmsford after a busy winter on the franchise circuit•Getty ImagesAs for the PSL, on one extended break between matches, Cox and his Islamabad team-mate Alex Hales took a leaf out of England’s book from their recent tour of India, and decamped to Abu Dhabi for “99 holes of golf”. “People think that’s crazy,” he says. “But for us, that’s actually paradise.”Hales is just one of a host of world-class contemporaries with whom Cox has been rubbing shoulders all winter long, be it team-mates at his various franchises, such as David Miller, Aaron Finch and Shimron Hetmyer or opponents such as Kieron Pollard, Andre Russell and Faf du Plessis from whom he’s eager to soak up as much knowledge as possible.”It’s a lot better than sitting in the indoor school practising skills,” Cox says. “Watching Andre Russell hitting a cricket ball is fascinating. I was keeping in one of the practice T10 games, and he hit this monster six. And I was like, ‘cor, that’s a big hit’, and he was like, ‘I didn’t even catch that’.”It’s so interesting watching Faf too, he has a different technique, but he still scores runs. Even if you’re not playing, you learn to learn off the people that have done it for years. If you train hard, you realise that you don’t have to be like someone else, you be yourself and you’ll naturally score runs.”Quite apart from his ball-striking abilities, however, Cox is making quite the name for himself as an explosive boundary-riding fielder. This was perhaps best epitomised in the T20 Blast final at Edgbaston in 2021, when he stretched over the rope at midwicket to palm back a crucial relay catch off Somerset’s Lewis Gregory, as Kent surged to their first silverware for 12 years.Since then, he’s become quite the fixture in the outfield for his various franchises, becoming something of a cult figure during his PSL stint in particular.Cox was in fine touch for Oval Invincibles in 2023 until a broken finger ended his season•ECB via Getty Images”I think once you do those catches over the ropes, you learn different things like where you think your stride is going to be,” he says. “You work on it, so that when you see the ball come in, you look at the boundary rope and know roughly [where it is].”I’ve always been lucky in the fielding sense, I seem to read the play pretty well. When batters are trying to run two, you know roughly where the ball’s going to be, so I’m looking at them before the ball comes, and then I zone back in on the ball. It’s about not being lazy, and making sure that every single ball that comes to you, you’re going to make an impact.”Quite apart from his desire to be as involved in the action as possible, there’s a quiet pragmatism at play in Cox’s attempts to make himself more valuable to the teams that are bidding for his services, not least because, at Kent, his wicketkeeping opportunities were restricted by the presence of both Sam Billings and Ollie Robinson.”I think my batting gets in most [franchises] because I can bat one to six in T20 cricket,” he says. “The only problem with that is, if you don’t do as well, you’re the first one to get dropped because you’re not an allrounder, you’re just a batter. So there’s definitely downsides to it. But to have strings to your bow should definitely help you.”It’s quite handy for owners if you’re able to keep and field. They don’t go, ‘he’s a liability’, instead it’s ‘let’s get him in because he’s got those three strings’. I do work pretty hard at my fielding, probably harder than I do with my keeping. Because I know that, in T20 cricket, I can change the game. When you come to the ground I’ll be the last person out catching balls, trying different things, being stupid in a way. But no, that’s definitely not luck.”

“If I’m learning to bowl, that’s four strings to my bow. Why wouldn’t a team want me? It’s tough because I’ll have to show people I’m good enough to bowl but hopefully, one day, I’ll be able to hold an end in T20 cricket”

But why stop at three strings? Cox is already working on a fourth, “farting about” as he puts it with Azhar Mahmood, his bowling coach at Islamabad and with Oval Invincibles in the Hundred, to develop a range of cutters, spinners and carrom balls that could one way offer another cutting edge to his game.”Why can’t I be like Glenn Phillips?” Cox says, recalling how New Zealand’s unlikely allrounder went from keeping wicket in the early months of his international career to playing a pivotal role with the ball across formats. “Everyone thought three years ago, ‘what is this?’ Now he’s got a Test five-for!”I’m giving it the Liam Livingstone-style, off-spin to left-handers, leg-spin to righties, and I’m trying this new carrom ball which is tough … in Pakistan, [Azhar said to get] a tennis ball, I was flicking it against the wall, and in one of the games, you’d have seen me bowling 20 sets from one end.”But why not? If I’m learning to bowl now and practising these stupid little balls, that’s four strings to my bow,” he adds. “Why wouldn’t a team want me? It’s tough because I’ll have to show people I’m good enough to bowl but hopefully, one day, I’ll be able to hold an end in T20 cricket.”It was also in Pakistan two winters ago that Cox had his first taste of the international lifestyle, as an unused squad member during England’s T20I tour. Since then, he suffered an untimely finger injury that arguably denied him a home debut against New Zealand last summer, but his hunger to get the recognition he feels he deserves is undeniable.”I’ve thought about [Pakistan] plenty of times. I was picked for England when I was 20. I’m 23 now, I still haven’t played for England, what am I doing wrong? But actually if you think about it, my finger put me out for 14 weeks – though for a finger I’d rather just chop it off and carry on, you know? But I can’t see why I won’t get any more [chances].”But seriously, add those strings to your bow. It’s good for franchise cricket, it’s good for Test cricket. If they need an allrounder, and then potentially a back-up keeper. It’s like okay, well, I can do that.”