What are the peculiarities of the three venues, and what should the teams do, at each of them, if they win the toss?

Gaurav Sundararaman20-Oct-2021Sharjah
The pitches in Sharjah were relaid just before the UAE leg of IPL 2021 began, and the venue was no longer the batting paradise of the past. In the 2020 edition, teams hit a six every 12 balls, but in 2021, that number was 23. In all, only 98 sixes were hit in ten IPL matches in 2021. On these slow pitches, the bowlers who varied their pace had more success, and while seamers and spinners registered similar economy rates – 6.92 and 6.79 respectively – the pace bowlers had better strike rates, taking a wicket every 17 balls compared to 22 for spinners.New Zealand, Pakistan, South Africa and England play two games each in Sharjah in the Super 12s. If the pitches behave the same way as at the IPL, then Pakistan and South Africa have the squads to make the best use of these conditions. Both teams could look to play three spinners, and their batting line-ups, not necessarily brimming with power-hitters, could breathe easy as par scores will be in the range of 140-160 rather than 180-200.ESPNcricinfo LtdDubai
The pitches in Dubai have not changed much over the last couple of years. Some pitches have been slow while a few have helped pacers. The average score has been in the range of 150-160 over the last two seasons of the IPL. The seamers have been more successful here, conceding 27 runs per wicket, compared to 32 for the spinners. Teams will likely look to play three fast bowlers in Dubai, including at least one with extreme pace (if they have the luxury of having one in their squad).Another factor that makes a difference in Dubai is the location of the pitch. The pitches on the edge of the square have short boundaries on one side, making it a tactical battle for batters and bowlers. Most of the strategies in Dubai revolve around having a left-right pair at the crease to target the specific boundary, while the bowling teams need to figure out the right end for the spinners to bowl from. India are scheduled to play four matches in Dubai, and their players could benefit from the familiarity of playing here during the IPL. Depending on the pitch, they have multiple options in their squad to leverage what could be good batting and pace-bowling conditions.ESPNcricinfo LtdAbu Dhabi
Abu Dhabi is the venue that is most likely to witness high scores this World Cup. The conditions are generally excellent for batting, but because the boundaries are the biggest among the three venues, the bowlers are also in play. There isn’t much help for spinners here: they average 33 runs per wicket while the pace bowlers average 29.The presence of a lot of dew in the evening means that the afternoon games could be very different to the evening games here, in terms of the way they play out. There have been several instances of dew in Abu Dhabi making it easier for teams to chase down high totals at night. Australia and West Indies play two games here while Afghanistan play three, out of which two are in the afternoon. Given the conditions, there doesn’t seem to be any major advantage for any team playing here.ESPNcricinfo LtdWin toss, field first, win match
The World Cup is being held in the months of October and November when the weather starts cooling down in the UAE. The numbers from IPL 2020 – a tournament that was played from September to November – presents an interesting tale of two halves. In the first half, when conditions were hotter and there was less dew, the teams batting first won 77% of the matches. In the second half – which is when the World Cup is being played this year – the numbers flipped around, with the team chasing winning 77% of the matches. The numbers were more skewed in Abu Dhabi and Sharjah: the teams chasing won 15 out of the 18 matches at those venues.

And what is the biggest lead in a Test in which a follow-on was not enforced?

Steven Lynch22-Mar-2022Was Babar Azam’s 196 in Karachi a record for the fourth innings of a Test? asked Khaled Ahmed from Pakistan

There have been six higher fourth-innings scores than Babar Azam’s epic 196 against Australia in Karachi last week. All of them were over 200, the highest being George Headley’s 223 for West Indies against England in Kingston in 1929-30 (that match was also drawn).Babar’s 196 was the highest in the fourth innings for Pakistan, previously Younis Khan’s unbeaten 171 in a victory over Sri Lanka in Pallekele in 2015.Babar batted for 603 minutes in all; the only longer knock in the fourth innings of a Test was Mike Atherton’s unbeaten 643-minute 185 for England against South Africa in Johannesburg in 1995-96. Babar lasted 425 balls, behind only Atherton (492) and Sunil Gavaskar, who faced 443 during his 221 for India vs England at The Oval in 1979. (That’s according to ESPNcricinfo’s database; there may be one or two longer innings in matches for which we do not have the details.)Australia led by 408 in Karachi, but did not enforce the follow-on. Was this the biggest lead in a Test where the follow-on was spurned? asked Mahesh Singhia from India

Pat Cummins declined make Pakistan bat again despite Australia’s lead of 408 in Karachi last week. The highest lead of all which did not result in the follow-on being enforced remains 563, by England (849) against West Indies (286) in Kingston in 1929-30; England’s captain Freddie Calthorpe eventually set West Indies 836 to win. There was some excuse for this, as it was a timeless match – although it was left drawn in the end after nine days (the last two were rained off) since England had to catch the boat home!The only other match with a higher lead but no follow-on – and the highest in a time-limited game – was in the first Ashes Test in Brisbane in 2006-07. Australia declared at 602 for 9 then bowled England out for 157, so led by 445 – but Ricky Ponting batted again, going on to win by 277 runs.In the first Test in Mohali, every one of India’s top eight scored 27 or more. Was this the highest score to be achieved by every member of the top eight in a Test? asked Patrick Moran from Australia

India’s consistent effort in their innings of 574 for 8 in Mohali – when the lowest score from the top eight was Shreyas Iyer’s 27 – comes in third on this particular list. When Australia made 695 against England at The Oval in 1930, the lowest score among the top eight was Alan Kippax’s 28. But when India amassed 664 against England at The Oval in 2007, the lowest was Wasim Jaffer’s 35 (No. 8 Anil Kumble made 110 not out – his only century, in his 118th Test).The highest score made by all of the top nine in a Test innings is 25, by West Indies against India in Delhi in 1958-59; the best by all of the top ten is 23, by West Indies against Australia in Adelaide in 1968-69. And there are three instances of all 11 batters scoring at least 12: by India against New Zealand in Dunedin in 1967-68, South Africa vs England in Johannesburg in 2015-16 (no one reached 50, and the total was only 313), and Bangladesh vs West Indies in Mirpur in 2018-19.Jharkhand’s Kumar Kushagra contributed 266 and 89 to Jharkhand’s 880 and 417•PTI In a recent Ranji Trophy match, Jharkhand ended up 1008 runs in front of Nagaland. Have there been any bigger leads in first-class cricket? asked KV Venkatesh from India, among others

In that strange run-soaked match in Kolkata last week, Jharkhand made 880 in their first innings – when the biggest partnership was 191 for the tenth wicket – and, after dismissing Nagaland for 289, batted again and had reached 417 for 6 by the end of the match. That meant they were leading by 1008 – and they were the first team to lead by a four-figure amount in any first-class match. The previous record was 958, by Bombay (651 and 714 for 8 declared) in their Ranji semi-final against Maharashtra (407 and 604) in Poona (now Pune) in 1948-49.In both instances of a team making a total of over 1000, it was the second innings of the match at the MCG: Victoria made 1059 against Tasmania (217) in 1922-23, and 1107 against New South Wales (221) in 1926-27. Bill Ponsford made 429 in the first match, and 352 in the second.Only seven batsmen reached 1000 first-class runs in the 2021 English season. What’s the most runs scored since the number of Championship matches was reduced? asked Phillip Johnson from England

You’re right that only seven men reached four figures in first-class matches last year in England: Tom Haines of Sussex led the way with 1176 (and Derbyshire’s Matt Critchley scored exactly 1000). Two of the others, Jake Libby (1104 runs) and Rory Burns (1038) played 15 matches: in 2006, Mark Ramprakash played 15 first-class games and piled up 2278 runs at an average of 103.54. In 1990, Graham Gooch scored 2746 runs in 18 first-class matches, averaging 101.70. The most in a season overall since 1968 – when the number of County Championship games began to be reduced – is 2755, by Jimmy Cook in 24 matches for Somerset in 1991.Shiva Jayaraman of ESPNcricinfo’s stats team helped with some of this week’s answers.Use our feedback form, or the Ask Steven Facebook page to ask your stats and trivia questions

He had immense skill, charisma and mystique, a terrific cricket brain, and he was an icon like few cricket has seen

Brydon Coverdale05-Mar-2022It’s the 5th of January, 1992.A chubby young Victorian stands in the middle of the SCG and flicks the ball from one hand to the other, his fingers ripping as much turn as they can from the leather. A splodge of white zinc-cream covers his nose, a mullet of blond hair adorns his head. He looks like the kind of bloke who enjoys a beer, a cigarette and a pizza. That’s because he the kind of bloke who enjoys a beer, a cigarette and a pizza. He looks as much an elite athlete as John Daly. But remember, John Daly won the PGA Championship six months before.At deep cover stands another Victorian, this one fit and lean and vastly experienced. The young bowler is on Test debut; his older team-mate is playing his last Test series in Australia, though he doesn’t know it yet. It’s not going well for the Aussies: India are 397 for 4. Sachin Tendulkar is at one end, on his way to another unbeaten hundred, and en route to 15,000 Test runs. Ravi Shastri has a double-century. Tracer bullets are peppering the boundary boards.Related

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The young leggie comes in and tosses up a delivery that drifts in, drops and spins away from Shastri, who tries to loft the ball down the ground but miscues, and skies it to deep cover. The Victorian veteran runs in and takes the catch; the spin rookie is relieved to have his first Test wicket. Thirty years later, they are gone, Dean Jones and Shane Warne both having died overseas in their fifties, suddenly, unexpectedly and far, far too prematurely.But while the cricket world is consumed with an overwhelming sadness at Warne’s early death, it is intensely thankful for his contribution to the game. That moment – Shastri, c Jones b Warne 206 – was the beginning of something extraordinary. Something unique. It was the first of 708 Test wickets, a tally that has since only been surpassed by Muthiah Muralidaran, and which might never be bettered by anyone else.Warne was the first to reach 700 Test wickets, a milestone that once seemed unfathomable. But judging Warne on statistics alone is like assessing Shakespeare based on how many plays he wrote. It misses the point. Warne was one of the few people who truly changed their chosen art. When he arrived, legspin was a dying skill. He single-handedly revolutionised it, made it popular, and weaponised it.In the hands of Warne, legspin was a danger the likes of which cricket hadn’t seen before. When he stood at the top of his mark, adjusting the field, ripping the ball from one hand to another, intimidating the batter through the power of his aura, anything could happen. He could bowl the world’s best batters around their legs, or squeeze out a flipper to trap them in front, or deceive them with drift and drop.When he bowled, you . You didn’t have the cricket on in the background while doing the vacuuming or catching up on your paperwork. Warne bowled every delivery with intent, so you watched with intent. Spin bowlers are the illusionists of cricket. Their art is sleight of hand. But no matter how closely you watched Warne, you could never work out how he did what he did. You just sat back and enjoyed the ride.Just as important as his immense skill was his charisma. His apparently unwavering confidence. He believed he could take a wicket with every ball and he projected that belief so strongly that viewers and opponents believed it too. Just ask Daryll Cullinan. He was convinced he could win a game from any position, even if nobody else really thought it was possible. Exhibit A: Adelaide, 2006, when England started the fifth day one down and 97 runs in front, only for Warne to bowl Australia to an unthinkable victory.Warne bowls good mate Kevin Pietersen around the legs on the last day at Adelaide in 2006, when he took 4 for 49 to set up a grand win•Getty ImagesThat Adelaide win fits neatly in a catalogue of Warne’s finest moments, but it’s a big catalogue. Of course, everyone remembers the “ball of the century”, when, with his first delivery in a Test match in England, Warne turned a ball further than the width of Mike Gatting to clip the top of off stump. Never has a cricketer planted his flag more immediately and more vividly than Warne did with the Gatting ball.There was the hat-trick, taken against England at the MCG in 1994. There was his 700th Test wicket, also at his home ground, 12 years later. There was his dominance in the 1999 World Cup, the first of Australia’s three consecutive tournament victories. There were his heroics in a losing cause in the 2005 Ashes in England, when his 40 dismissals topped the wicket tally with daylight second and Andrew Flintoff next on 24.The sum of the parts of Warne’s career is almost infinite, and yet the whole is greater still. Every spin bowler who has come along since Warne has been, in some way, is his shadow. But Warne always fought in their corner. When he commentated, he argued passionately for the spinners to be brought on. To be used as a weapon. Even if they were a smaller calibre than Warne – and, really, everyone was – he believed in their ability to cause damage.As a thinker on the game, Warne was as sharp as they come. He led Australia in 11 ODIs but in Test cricket, he was the greatest captain Australia never had. While commentating, time and again he would predict what was about to happen and suggest a tactic, always reading the play correctly. Always one or more steps ahead. He even did it while miked up and bowling in the BBL.When it came to the health of the sport, he was a forward thinker, open to new ideas, and a champion of the T20 concept. Two years ago, he observed how important it was for cricket to come up with a plan to survive the challenges of climate change. Faced with facts, he was not one to bury his head in the sand and think of the good old days.Of course, he was far from perfect. Very, very far. Controversy seemed to follow Warne everywhere. His reputation was tarnished by the controversy that arose in 1998, when he and Mark Waugh were revealed to have given pitch and weather information to an Indian bookmaker. Then there was the year-long ban he served after failing a drug test ahead of the 2003 World Cup, which he claimed was due to a fluid tablet his mother had given him.Camera magnet: wherever he went, the photographers flocked•Getty ImagesAnd there were the sex scandals, the tabloid headlines, the constant fascination with his private life. Why? Because he wasn’t just a cricket star, he was a . We tend to think that pop culture means music and film and television, but sport is a massive part of pop culture as well. And Warne was, by any definition, a pop-culture icon. At its peak, the fascination with his life rivalled interest in the royal family.Warne had a musical written about him. He was engaged to Liz Hurley. He briefly hosted a TV chat show in Australia. He played a Shane Warne impersonator on the comedy series Kath & Kim, one of the biggest Australian TV shows of the 2000s. He had a cameo on . Mick Jagger, Elton John and Ed Sheeran have posted on social media about their devastation at his death.Meanwhile, fans have left tributes at the statue of Warne at the MCG. Someone left a can of beer, a packet of cigarettes, and a meat pie. That sums up Australia’s relationship with Warne. Yes, he was flawed. Yes, he mixed with megastars. But he was always still the chubby kid from Melbourne’s outer suburbs, born to Keith and Brigitte Warne in 1969. Australians watched him soar, but they also saw him as down to earth.Mike Hussey, in his book , recalled that as he prepared to walk out for his first Test innings in 2005, he was called over in the Gabba dressing rooms by Shane Warne. Standing in the bathroom in his underpants, relieving himself, while a cigarette hung out of his mouth, Warne gave Hussey some advice: “Be yourself.” If ever the medium was the message, that was it.Warne was the unconventional, unknighted larrikin who joined Sir Donald Bradman, Sir Jack Hobbs, Sir Garfield Sobers and Sir Vivian Richards as one of ‘s five Cricketers of the Century. Note that he is the one of the five who was primarily a bowler. Cricket is, so often, a batter’s game. Not when Warne was involved. He wasn’t a once-in-a-generation cricketer. He was a once in all generations cricketer.It’s hard to imagine the cricket world without Warne in it. But then, it was hard to imagine music without John Lennon, or the royal family without Princess Diana, or basketball without Kobe Bryant. True icons leave holes of iconic proportions. But still, the world turns. Australian cricket goes on in Rawalpindi. Cricket existed before Warne and it exists after him. But few people have left such an indelible mark on the game.Warne was a cricketing genius. You can’t do him justice with mere words. It’s like using interpretive dance to sum up Albert Einstein’s contributions to science. All you can do is sit back and marvel that such a person existed. And be thankful to have witnessed a genius at work.

Nine games in, the tournament has already thrown up some unpredictable results and some extraordinary individual performances

Vishal Dikshit11-Mar-2022The opening game the World Cup needed
New Zealand vs West Indies was not expected to be the most high-profile match of the league stage, and, what was worse, it had to fight for eyeballs with Virat Kohli’s 100th Test and the return of the Australia men’s Test team on Pakistani soil after 24 long years.Related

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But, on opening day, the two teams still brought out a match for the ages when their power-hitters – Sophie Devine and Hayley Matthews – struck centuries to set the bar high for the other teams to follow.The five minutes of mayhem from Deandra Dottin at the end stole the show, though.Having not bowled in her last eight ODIs, or in training recently, Dottin went on to defend just five runs in the final over in dramatic fashion and gave the World Cup the perfect advertisement it needed.West Indies win, England don’t
West Indies were next up against defending champions England. This time, West Indies were defending a lower total – 225 – and by not letting England score just 14 runs from the last 24 balls, they threw the qualification race wide open with two wins in two games. For England, it was two losses in a row.England came into the World Cup on the back of a forgettable and winless Ashes campaign in Australia. Against the same opposition in their opening game, England showed class in getting to 298 chasing 311 for victory. There was a “shift in mindset”, as Nat Sciver said after the match, after they had not scored 200 even once in the three Ashes ODIs earlier.But they went right back to their Ashes ways in their second game. Only one of England’s top six got to double-digits and left too much to do for the lower order, and went down to West Indies for the first time in the Women’s World Cup, losing their first two matches in the World Cup for the first time too.Battling Bangladesh, and near upsets
Ranked higher than West Indies and Pakistan in ODIs, Bangladesh exhibited in their opening match with a solid bowling effort that they should not be taken lightly. Led by the 19-year-old left-arm quick Fariha Trisna, Bangladesh bowled out South Africa for 207, allowing only one fifty partnership. But South Africa’s bowling firepower was too much for them as they went down by 32 runs.Bangladesh’s batters, however, stepped up against New Zealand by getting off the blocks with 45 without loss in six overs against a wayward attack, but they fell flat later in the rain-curtailed game when the hosts pulled up their socks. The 50-plus opening stands in both matches was a testament to Bangladesh’s improved quality at the top, as they had put up only two 50-plus opening stands in 41 ODIs before this World Cup.Ayabonga Khaka and Shabnim Ismail have been at the forefront of South Africa’s bowling efforts•ICC via GettyThe near-upsets kept coming in the tournament, especially against South Africa. On Friday, Pakistan did a Bangladesh by limiting South Africa to a chaseable 223 with a middle-order collapse and their batters were on their way to seeing them through. But South Africa’s bowlers, led by Shabnim Ismail, once again kept their nerves under pressure and got them two points in the six-run win.Fielding, forgettable
The opening game did set high standards for the thrill quotient of the rest of the World Cup but not on the fielding front. Devine was dropped twice that evening, amid other sloppy efforts, after New Zealand had put down two as well.It barely got better from there. Laura Wolvaardt dropped two the next day, Australia spilled two sitters against England, and although there was the odd extraordinary effort – like Deandra Dottin’s stunner at point against England – the same match had as many as seven spills overall.India have been okay on the field. Pooja Vastrakar hit the stumps down for Suzie Bates’s run-out but she also dropped Katey Martin later, while wicketkeeper Richa Ghosh has pushed the bar high with sharp work behind the stumps.Overall, ESPNcricinfo’s ball-by-ball data has recorded a total of 35 drops and missed stumping chances so far, which is a terrible average of nearly four chances gone down per match. England lead the list with a total of eight misses, West Indies seven, and Bangladesh, South Africa and India have the least (two each).Those runs are coming fast
This World Cup has seen some low-scorers but it is so far also the best as far as scoring rate goes, at 4.76, going past the 4.69 of 2017. The tournament had also started off with a bang, seeing as many as four centuries on the first three days, from Devine, Matthews, Rachael Haynes, and Sciver.There haven’t been any since then but the conversion rate in this World Cup (four centuries in nine matches) is almost the same as in 2017 (14 in 30 games), which puts the current tournament on course to set a new record.

Cricketer. Captain. Mother.

An inspiration to all #IWD2022 pic.twitter.com/J5C6G3lewM

— ESPNcricinfo (@ESPNcricinfo) March 8, 2022

Munim’s 161.81 strike-rate has easily made him the most talked-about Bangladeshi batter in the tournament

Mohammad Isam17-Feb-2022Eight months ago, Munim Shahriar faced a make-or-break situation in his fledgling cricket career. Abahani Limited had dropped him after he made 69 runs in four matches in the Dhaka Premier League T20s.One day during training, Abahani coach Khaled Mahmud took the young batter aside. He couldn’t give the young opener enough chances that season, so he understood that Munim perhaps needed a bit of attention from him. Mahmud had a talk with Munim, convincing him that he should continue to bat the way that came to him naturally.”After I was dropped for two matches, (Mahmud) Sujon sir told me, ‘Why are you so worried? Just play freely.’ Those words really had an impact on me,” Munim tells ESPNcricinfo. “In the next game, I made 92 off 50 balls against Prime Bank, and followed it up with a 40-ball 74. I finished the league with 355 runs at 143 strike rate.”Mahmud had first met Munim during the 2019-20 Dhaka Premier League, when Abahani were looking for an opener in the 50-over competition. Mosaddek Hossain, a senior figure in Mymensingh, which is also Munim’s hometown, and Najmul Hossain Shanto, Munim’s Under-19 team-mate, had recommended him to Mahmud.

“After I was dropped for two matches, (Khaled Mahmud) Sujon sir told me, ‘Why are you so worried? Just play freely'”Munim Shahriar

That conversation was the turning point in Munim’s career. His performance for Abahani impressed Mahmud, who then picked him for Fortune Barishal for this season’s BPL. Munim was picked up belatedly, after no one turned his way in the players’ draft. But ahead of the final, he has the highest strike rate for any Bangladeshi batter in a single campaign (minimum 100 runs).Munim has a very modern style of batting: mostly standing still and hitting through the line of the ball. He has played some breath-taking shots in the BPL, particularly over mid-off. During the first qualifier against Comilla Victorians, there was a moment of silence when he smashed Mustafizur Rahman for a six over midwicket. It was a normal pull shot, but Munim made a last-second adjustment by straightening his wrist slightly. It not just looked stylish, but showed that he could take on the country’s best T20 bowler too. And win.Munim’s strike rate of 161.81 has easily made him the most talked-about Bangladeshi batter in the tournament. He has made 178 runs in five innings, and if you have followed Bangladesh’s plights in T20Is the last seven months, it’s easy to see why everyone is excited. He might now be a shoo-in for a call-up for the two T20Is against Afghanistan in early March.The 23-year-old Munim, however, isn’t looking that far ahead just yet. He has the BPL final in mind, and he wants to focus on the job at hand.”After I missed out the first few matches because of Covid, I needed a bit of time to prepare for the BPL,” he says. “The team was trying a few opening combinations. (Jake) Lintott and (Dwayne) Bravo opened with (Chris) Gayle at one point. The night before my first game, Sujon sir told me that I would get to play four matches. It gave me the freedom.”Munim Shahriar has the eagerness and batting style that Bangladesh have long needed in white-ball cricket•AFP/Getty ImagesMunim is very aware that getting runs like he does – going after the bowling from the word go – on Bangladeshi pitches is a high-risk game. “I have only played two tournaments so there’s a long way to go. I know that I have batted this way, and it is far more important to be able to play in this manner in the long-term.”Those who know me are aware that I have an aggressive mindset as a batsman. I follow the process and stick to the plan too. I try to take advantage of the circle, and I like batting against the new ball. I have batted like this since my school days. I even batted like this in three-day matches as well. My coach (the late Hayatul Islam Hannan) always trained me to bat this way.”There are enough cautionary tales in Bangladesh cricket for Munim to keep in mind. One-hit wonders are many, though a few Bangladeshi batters have used the BPL as their launching pads.Shamsur Rahman struck six fifties during the 2013 BPL, which got him into the senior side the following year. Mahedi Hasan did well in the 2019-20 edition, giving him a road into the T20I side. Mehedi Maruf’s splendid 2016-17 season didn’t amount to much, while Sabbir Rahman also took a bit of time to convert his hot-and-cold BPL performances into a national call-up.But Munim has the eagerness and batting style that Bangladesh have long needed in white-ball cricket. There’s reward in backing a talent like him – think David Warner. Whether he stays the course or not is another matter, but he could well change Bangladesh’s batting approach in T20I cricket if he gets a run.

New captain endures tough baptism as whirlwind itinerary leaves England in a spin

Vithushan Ehantharajah25-Jul-2022Jos Buttler had his backpack on when he walked into Sunday’s press conference. Like an exchange student on the London Underground, he was not entirely sure where he needed to be next but knew he had to get there in a hurry.It’s been quite the whirlwind for England’s new white-ball captain. No sooner had he come back from a tour of Amsterdam, he was at Edgbaston during the India Test match at the start of July to perform his first media engagements following Eoin Morgan’s impromptu retirement. Later that week he began the first of 12 white-ball matches in the space of 24 days taking him to Southampton, Birmingham, Nottingham, south London, north London, Manchester, Durham, Manchester again and then, here, Leeds. By this time next week, he’ll have done Bristol, Cardiff and Southampton once more. He’ll have ticked off so many cities, you may as well call him Greyhound.One day he’ll get home, but even when he does take his shoes off and grip his toes into a familiar floor, his mind will be trying to untangle the last month like wire headphones from a pocket of his mind. And among the nagging will be what to make of this ODI side.All told, it’s not a pressing matter, with a T20 World Cup far sooner than the 50-over one exactly a year later, in October 2023. But it’ll be there, dripping like a faulty tap, bearable for now but eventually needing to be addressed, for his own peace of mind at least.It might help that this ODI series with South Africa was a little too abstract. A Proteas-instigated blowout in baking heat in the first, a 29-over haymaker counter in the second, before this third and deciding fixture was washed out inside 28 overs.Throwing back a little further to the 2-1 defeat to India helps add some meat to the bones of any analysis. But not necessarily in a good way. A side whose superpower was big scores only made it past 270 once – in that opening defeat by 62 runs to South Africa. Only Jonny Bairstow averaged more than 27 (27.20) with just three fifty-plus scores shared among him, Joe Root and Buttler.”I don’t want to sound like a broken record,” Buttler began when pushed on what he had learned from the five completed ODIs, seemingly bored with himself when talking about the batting blunders. “But it’s a strength of ours for a long time, and we haven’t quite lived up to the standards that we know we can.”There is some mitigation to that. The pitches, to borrow a phrase Root used after the defeat at Durham, have been “unusual white-ball wickets”. The modern English game has been grooved on flat decks, so it was no surprise to see the tyres struggle when this juggernaut of a top six was taken off-road. “It’s been conducive to a very different kind of cricket,” said Root. “I prefer to face a red ball in the last series [against New Zealand and India] rather than the white ball. They seem to be doing all sorts.”Related

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Good batters can adjust, but England’s good ones couldn’t. And were it not for four blockbuster chases in the Test matches leading into this period, this might have been a line about batters simply not having the wares to tailor their aggression to a bit of sideways movement.The only standout performer has been Reece Topley, and maybe that’s not a coincidence given where he is in his career. A series that was made to feel like an afterthought was only likely to be treated that way subconsciously by some, whether that was those with Test cricket on their mind or others trying to spread their energy levels accordingly.Topley, however, is as strong, hungry and in form as he ever has been. The 11 wickets across five matches – at 12, and an economy rate of 4.28 across 30.5 overs – were mostly prime cuts: notably Shikhar Dhawan and Rohit Sharma twice each, including getting them both in the career-best six for 24 at Lord’s.Buttler described Topley as a “great find” before correcting himself given the 28-year-old has been around the set-up since 2015, even making the squad to India for the T20 World Cup six years ago. Topley probably won’t mind if people had forgotten he was part of the 2016 tournament given his collective figures of 4.1 overs, one for 55 across the group matches against West Indies and South Africa. Even given the injuries that followed, it was a period that changed him going forward. He learned not to cloud his mind with too many thoughts or outside noise, and in turn has never been more diligent in his preparation and more believing in his output.Evidently, England are struggling to replicate their pre-2019 form, and don’t even look like a facsimile of the dominant group they were when losing just two one-day series in the four years prior to earning their tag as World Champions. And the real fear is the recent defeats, while often pinpointing weakness and encouraging improvement, are so late in the cycle that only so much can be done.It’s important to say they have not sleepwalked into this position, but rather have been frogmarched by the pandemic. The separate Covid squads in the 2020 summer, then the Pakistan series in 2021 that required a full line-up change after an outbreak in the first-team group could have highlighted some of the issues around a lack of incision in the attack (ergo, pace) and the need for as much of the regular XI as possible to consistently tick over their 50-over work in order to retain muscle memory.No doubt all this reads like a list of excuses, but that does not make it any less relevant to the current uncertainty. The global apathy to the format, in part because of the schedule and some high-profile detractors, has filtered into the changing room. And because of the T20 World Cup taking most of the focus, so much of the last two weeks is, with all due respect, an irrelevance.Perhaps that right there is the only thing Buttler should heed going forward. The tactics, the personnel are likely to work themselves out. His focus should be on reminding his players – even himself – that ODIs remain a format of substance.

The team’s top run-getter in T20Is talks about making her debut as a 13-year-old, and juggling a radiography course with cricket

Firdose Moonda14-Jul-2022If Irish cricket had a royal family, Gaby Lewis’ would be it. Her father and grandfather played first-class cricket for Ireland between the 1960s and 1990s, her older sister, Robyn, played alongside her at the 2016 T20 World Cup, and last month, at 21, Lewis became Ireland’s youngest captain. Born and raised in the game, it’s almost all she knows.”My first memory is being down at my club in YMCA in Sandymount,” Lewis says. “I don’t have any memories of my grandfather playing, but I definitely have memories of my dad. I even played a few games with him and batted with him. And my mom coached us for a bit. I was always down at the club, me and my sister. We were just born into it.”Ireland are currently hosting Australia and Pakistan for a tri-series, and last month they had South Africa over for three ODIs and three T20Is. Ireland won one match in that series – a ten-run victory in the opening T20I in Dublin, in which Lewis top-scored with 52 off 38 balls. In the process, she went past Clare Shillington to become Ireland’s leading run-getter in women’s T20Is. She’s also their only century-maker in the format.Even though she’s so young, Lewis has already played international cricket for nearly eight years now, making her Ireland debut as a 13-year-old, in a T20I against South Africa in 2014.Related

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“It’s always been like that,” she says. “You’re used to playing against people older than you. Back then, cricket was quite small, and everyone who played cricket knew everyone else. It didn’t seem strange because other younger players like Lucy O’Reilly [who also made her debut at 13], who I was quite close to, had gone through it as well. I just absolutely loved it.”Lewis started off in the middle order but two years later was promoted to open the batting with Shillington, her club team-mate. And before she made her ODI debut, in 2016, Lewis had already featured in a T20 World Cup, getting a taste of playing against teams with fully professional set-ups and greater match experience than Ireland had. “I remember that I wasn’t scared because I’d batted with Claire before and she made it quite easy,” she says.”World Cups are the best tournaments to play in,” Lewis said. “You’re playing against high-quality opposition. Being from Ireland, we play against teams with a mixture of abilities. We have Qualifiers where we play against the likes of the European teams and then you can go to World Cups and play against the likes of Australia – there’s a huge gap.”By the time Lewis played her second World Cup, the 2018 T20 event in West Indies, she realised that cricket was growing and a professional expansion was on the horizon for her.”We were playing against teams where you know their players have had a career, and that’s what I knew I wanted. I thought it was only a matter of time before it would filter through the countries.”Lewis became Ireland’s youngest captain, at 21, when she led them in place of regular captain Laura Delany last month against South Africa•George Tewkesbury/Getty ImagesIt took another four years before professionalisation came to Ireland. In March this year, seven women’s cricketers were given full-time contracts and nine more, including Lewis, who is a student, got part-time deals.”I am studying radiography full-time,” she says. “I think it’s very important to study as a cricketer. There’s only so many hours you can train, especially when you are on tour. It’s important to plan for that time after cricket, and if I can work one day a week while I am playing cricket, I think it’s very important. I got into the course through my school exams and it was an opportunity I couldn’t turn down. It’s hugely important, especially on tour, to have something to take my mind off cricket.”Being a student-sportsperson comes with its own challenges, as Lewis discovered when the Women’s World Cup Qualifier in Zimbabwe last November was called off after the spread of the Omicron variant of Covid-19 in southern Africa. While packing to return home, Lewis put her study notes in her suitcase, which was mislaid in transit.It took the team almost five days to get home, via Oman, and their belongings were only returned to them two weeks later. “Oh, the stress, the stress! I didn’t think that putting my notes in my suitcase would end up like that,” Lewis says. “It’s a lesson learnt. Always carry your notes in your hand luggage. But it turned out okay – I passed the exam.”Although Lewis started off in the game as an allrounder, in the last four years, she has put away her legspin to focus more on her batting, and has also worked on the mental side of her game.”Over the last few years, I struggled with my bowling and that started to creep into my batting, so I just decided to park it [bowling] for the time being. I went through quite a hard patch a year and a half ago and worked with a psychologist about sticking to my routines and processes and trusting the game.”Lewis: “I love playing for Ireland, and I love the girls that I play with. Once we execute our skills and stick to our plans, I have no doubt we can win games. It won’t happen quickly and that’s fine”•Sam Barnes/Getty ImagesIn September 2019, Lewis scored only 21 runs in four matches in a T20 World Cup Qualifier, which was the worst of her bad patch. Since then, she has averaged nearly 40 in T20Is, with three 50-plus scores, including the century, and 51.14 in ODIs with four fifties.”I don’t have specific bowlers that I fear or that I enjoy,” she says. “With us as a nation, you play a variety of standards, so it’s important to focus on what we do and not so much the opposition we play. I just focus on the ball that’s coming down and how to react as opposed to who’s bowling it.”She’s been rewarded for her form with contracts in two franchise leagues – the Hundred and the Fairbreak Invitational, which has broadened her cricketing experience and allowed her to rub shoulders with different players. Lewis was her country’s only representative in the Women’s Hundred last year and one of three Irish players at the Fairbreak event this May.”The Hundred was brilliant,” she said. “It’s a great format of the game for people who don’t really know that much about cricket, especially people who don’t really have such high concentration levels. It simplifies the game. And the crowds they got – they are very lucky with the timing of it being just after Covid – so people went after work and it’s got that kind of vibe.”The Fairbreak competition was really nice to have everyone come together from different parts of the world and play together. It was a great opportunity for players to bowl to world-class players and know what it takes to take their cricket to the next level.”Despite cricket’s increasing franchising, she doesn’t see either tournament as having the same pride of place as the international game, especially for someone who has Irish cricket in her blood.”I love playing for Ireland and I love the girls that I play with. I can see a place for both,” she said. “There’s a lot of belief in our group. Once we execute our skills and stick to our plans, I have no doubt we can win games. We know it takes time. It won’t happen quickly, it’s a slow process and that’s fine.”

South Africa ignore the dramatics but captain’s heroic shift keeps home ambitions alive

Vithushan Ehantharajah18-Aug-2022Lord’s early in a Test match has never been a ground conducive to cheering. That was especially true on day two against South Africa.The first innings was done and dusted within the first 13 of the scheduled 98 overs, as England’s final four wickets fell for just 49 more runs. A small-fry first innings of 165 usurped soon after tea by South Africa without having to overexert themselves. For the most part, play hummed along as background music to those of an English persuasion in the stands, easing them steadily towards Thursday night and the start of the pre-kend. Paying too much attention to on-field matters risked killing the buzz.Related

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There were, however, two moments when a crowd usually distracted by the peripheral greens of this ground were squarely focused on the main one in the middle, and in their best voice. The first was on 41 overs – South Africa just 16 runs behind for the loss of two wickets.Jack Leach was stood at the top of his mark at the Nursery End, preparing to bowl. His previous Test appearance against India at Edgbaston had been far from ideal: 1 for 99 in 21 overs. The period since even less so: just 68 overs and one wicket under his belt for Somerset in the County Championship and time warming the bench in the men’s Hundred for Birmingham Phoenix.The second came around 15 overs later. Ben Stokes had the ball in hand at the Pavilion End, raking the ground beneath his feet with Kyle Verreyne in his sights. The skipper had taken out Sarel Erwee and Rassie van der Dussen in a spell that had shades of the Stokes of old: sharp, late movement, occasionally short. And as he stomped in towards Verreyne, the tourists now five down with Leach accounting for Aiden Markram, and just 27 ahead, the crowd crescendoed with him and let out a roar as a delivery into the ribs had South Africa’s wicketkeeper turning away to square leg to cope with the blow.The interest and complexion of the match had shifted dramatically. And it felt apt that Stokes and Leach had done the shifting together. The empowerer and the empowered in tandem, both primarily last resorts here. Stuart Broad revealed at stumps that Stokes had to be convinced to take his less-preferred end because of the turn Leach was getting.And above all else, his ceding to Leach, who he backed with compact, attacking fields, while getting almost comically creative with his own – at one point he had a leg side of bat-pad, leg slip, wide mid on, fine leg (up), fine leg (back), deep square and a position you could only really describe as “short cow” – there was a compulsion to believe in what England were doing. Because, at the moment, everyone on the field and in the home dressing believed in what they were doing. The morning and early afternoon of farce and toil, all broadly well-intentioned, corrected by sheer force of spirit.By the end of play, however, there was no time for whimsy on courage. South Africa’s lead was now 124 for seven down, Marco Jansen and Keshav Maharaj turning the match their way once more with with a 72-run stand. Leach and Stokes were back on to see out the day, visibly more weathered and audibly less backed. The crowds had withered, just like the belief. The spirit ever-willing, characterised by Stokes chasing down a shot through mid-off from his own bowling, dropping to the floor as he spun and hurled in an instant. Brendon McCullum instilled in them that these are the things that count. But it was hard to see the upside as Stokes laboured to his feet with the help of Broad, who valiantly chased from mid-on knowing he was going to come second.”He carries an inspirational style about what he does,” said Broad of his captain, who was rewarded with a third dismissal when Maharaj clothed a short ball to Matt Potts at midwicket. “I thought it was Stokes who bought great theatre in that sort of middle period after tea.”Truth be told, even the action either side of that “middle period” held the attention. Stokes maintained a sense that something could happen with his decisions, even when sunny, relatively sedate conditions suggested otherwise. As well as the funky fields were more regulation cordons, either packed with four slips and a gully or five bunched up together next to Ben Foakes. The issue, though, was South Africa, barring a couple of missteps, largely kept their focus on their steadfast methods of patience rather than the concocted dramatics around them. Beyond the spell of three wickets lost to Leach and Stokes in 11.2 overs for 32.The new ball and the second innings of this Test is just three overs and three wickets away, respectively. The former needs to bring the latter sooner rather than later if Broad is to get his wish of a first-innings deficit of 150 that he reckoned could be seen off by one solid partnership. Then it will be down to the rest to provide England with a target to defend. Broad still believes.”We’ve proved this summer that anything can happen and we feel really positive in the change room that we’ve got ourselves back in the game because it was 130 for one.”Yet again, England are looking for another hall-of-fame performance in the first match of this series. We will see if they are fifth-time lucky.

Paralysed by their history at World Cups, South Africa put in a performance so timid it was scarcely believable

Danyal Rasool06-Nov-2022It’s not the most famous ABBA song by any stretch, but as South Africa stumbled to another premature World Cup exit, they were at the stage where that question must have felt real.Temba Bavuma looked close to tears as he spoke to media after the match. While there was a lot of tiptoeing around the “c” word when Mark Boucher spoke at the press conference, Bavuma was far more direct at what Netherlands’ 13-run victory – and South Africa’s elimination – meant for his side. “It [the chokers’ tag] will always be there until we find ourselves in a situation when we get to a final and we come up on the right side of a result,” he said.Related

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The despondency is only exacerbated by the knowledge that theirs is a very powerful side, especially in the conditions on offer. Bavuma’s own form with the bat was certainly an Achilles’ heel, but one more than covered by the explosiveness of Quinton de Kock, the consistency of David Miller’s fire and fury, the century-hitting wrecking ball that is Rilee Rossouw, and the dependable Aiden Markram. Keshav Maharaj as a nail through the middle overs? Of course. Kagiso Rabada – even an off-colour one – and Anrich Nortje and Lungi Ngidi in Australian conditions? Yes, please.They scored 51 in three overs against Zimbabwe in Hobart. They mauled Bangladesh by 104 runs in Sydney. They held their nerve to beat India in a low-scoring thriller in Perth and go top of the group. That it came down to a sleepy Sunday morning in Adelaide was because Pakistan found the sublime best they sometimes do when on life support, with a World Cup on the line.But on a triple-header day – the last of the Super 12s – at the World Cup, South Africa’s equation was the simplest: beat Netherlands, play the semi-final. Yes, it was a knockout game, but going by the team rankings, this should have been straightforward.But, paralysed by a history South African cricket increasingly looks like it has no idea how to break free of, a side that bore little resemblance to the title contenders who had strutted about Australia this last fortnight turned in a performance scarcely credible in its timidity. Kagiso Rabada found himself carved through the offside first-ball by Stephan Myburgh, and spent the entire over, guessing and second-guessing a man who simply backed himself against one of the fastest bowlers in the world. Myburgh knew this was his last international match, and he felt the freedom to score. South Africa, fearing it was their last match this tournament, flew themselves into a cage that slammed shut on them.As the World Cup door slams shut on them once more, it’s difficult to say when it will open again•Getty ImagesWhen Netherlands posted 158, and it became clear the easy win South Africa so craved wouldn’t be handed to them, the magnitude of the moment seemed to weigh South Africa down.De Kock averages just 11.4 in T20I cricket against left-arm pace this year, and he ended up pushing that average down further when he managed just six off eight balls – out of 13 off 13 – and lost his wicket to Fred Klaassen.As the game pushed its way into the middle overs, and it became apparent that it might become a battle of nerves at the death, Netherlands grew into the contest, occupying the space a retreating South Africa were handing them. Forty-eight runs off five overs isn’t the most intimidating equation, but Netherlands had Brandon Glover to turn to for three overs – no one has a better T20I bowling average for them – and with South Africa needing to preserve wickets, that bred uncertainty.Uncertainty that translated into Miller snatching at a pull, and Roelof van der Merwe – who else, really? – snaffling a glorious catch to all but eliminate his old side.2:21

How did Netherlands pull off the unimaginable?

One of the tragedies of South Africa’s fate at World Cup competitions over the years is the power of the narrative to cloud all sensible judgements of the actual merits of the team. South Africa have taken fairly ordinary teams to world events at times. Their T20I side of the last 12 months, however, is not one of those. They were a side with a the pefect mix of youth and experience, of power-hitting and quality batting, of fast bowling and spin bowling. You might almost contend it was something of a T20 golden generation, with two cracks at breaking the hoodoo in the space of a year.But every ICC white-ball event is now something of a parole hearing for this South African side. There’s anticipation, character development, rehabilitation, and that most cruel of things: hope.But on this sun-washed Sunday morning in Adelaide, the darkness of evenings past – Sydney 1992, Birmingham 1999, Dhaka 2011, Auckland 2015 – seemed to envelop them. That amount of heartache might have made South Africa immune to such pain, but as they turned in a performance more limp than on any of those wretched days, it became clear that those wounds have never quite healed.The sun continued to burn bright in Adelaide all game, but it was just about after dawn back home in South Africa that their fate was sealed. Some might laugh, some might cry, some might just go about their day, swearing they will never place their faith in this team again. But they will be back, of course, because they can’t help believing one of these parole hearings will finally result in liberation. But as the door slams shut on them once more, it’s increasingly difficult to say when.