Women’s Ashes thumping the last straw which demanded change at the top

Valkerie Baynes21-Mar-2025As an ECB-employed index finger hovered over the “send” button on Jon Lewis’s sacking announcement, a number of prominent cricket journalists were departing The Oval after Surrey’s pre-season media day.The cynical among us might roll our eyes at the timing which either buries a negative story or steals attention from England’s largest cricket club, depending on how you look at it.But whether you view Lewis’s departure after just over two years as England Women’s head coach as good or bad news, it does – as these things often do – raise plenty more questions.The second line of the ECB’s announcement after the news itself celebrated Lewis’s record of 52 wins from 73 matches at the helm and the fact that England are ranked second behind Australia in T20Is and ODIs.World No.2 they may be but it was the gulf between them and Australia that proved Lewis’s undoing after a disastrous Women’s Ashes defeat.He went on that tour of Australia off the back of a disappointing group-stage exit at the T20 World Cup – a successful tour of South Africa in between notwithstanding.Related

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Clare Connor, ECB Managing Director, England Women, and Deputy Chief Executive Officer, was quoted celebrating “the team’s consistent success in bilateral cricket” which “included a remarkable eight consecutive ODI series wins for which he should take real credit”.But England also suffered their first series defeat to Sri Lanka in the home T20s during his tenure in 2023, exposing a weakness batting against spin which Lewis tried to address with training camps in India and the Middle East in the lead up to last year’s T20 World Cup, where a rash of fielding errors saw them knocked out by West Indies.Connor did admit “the recent ICC Women’s T20 World Cup and Women’s Ashes in Australia have been disappointing” but upon announcing that Lewis had left his position – with no mention of stepping down or mutual agreement as is often the case when that is the case – what else could she say publicly to avoid a PR disaster and hurting a man whose intentions were good?One can only hope that the ongoing review into England Women’s cricket, which Connor announced immediately after an innings defeat in the Ashes Test which sealed the 16-0 scoreline in Australia’s favour, is more introspective about what went wrong rather than clutching onto things that went right.Players have given input to the review, as confirmed by Kate Cross at a Professional Cricketers’ Association (PCA) event earlier this month and Sophia Dunkley at Surrey’s media day on Friday, with the latter pointing out that it was “above my pay grade” to guess at the outcome.”We all want to be part of a successful England team, so we’re going to be doing our utmost to try and make that happen,” Dunkley told reporters.Heather Knight addresses the crowd at the end of England’s Ashes campaign•Getty ImagesSurrey have a big part to play in the future of the England Women’s team, as do their counterparts in the new domestic structure for 2025 whereby the women’s teams will be aligned with counties and therefore more closely to the men’s teams at those counties rather than representing regions as they have done for the past five years.Among the many things the Ashes defeat exposed was a lack of depth in the England set-up with a firm core of players being selected and very few putting pressure on them from outside.Before he became head coach, Lewis had been the ECB’s elite pace bowling coach since 2021, working alongside the England Men’s Test and white-ball teams. That stretch included the men’s own Ashes 4-0 Ashes drubbing but also encompassed a season of Bazball and Lewis attempted to import that mindset to the women’s side without the same depth of players to call upon.Over the past 18 months, attempts to establish teenage quick Mahika Gaur in the side have been interrupted by school commitments and injury. Her selection has obvious parallels with England Men giving off-spinner Shoaib Bashir a platform to become an integral part of their attack seemingly from nowhere. But, amid persistent gender pay disparity, the need for an education to fall back on illustrates the limitations of trying to transfer the men’s “high-ceiling player” selection policy.The introduction of experienced allrounder Paige Scholfield – who scored a £65,000 pay day with Oval Invincibles in the recent Women’s Hundred draft – ended abruptly when she was injured on the December tour of South Africa before the series began. Ryana MacDonald-Gay, the 21-year-old seamer, held her place between England’s tour of Ireland last September to the Ashes Test but she is five matches into an infantile international career.All three are part of the England A series about to get underway in Australia in which England will attempt to start bridging the gap to their fiercest rivals longer term.Meanwhile, the senior Australia side have unearthed 21-year-old opener Georgia Voll to step seamlessly into the void left by injured captain Alyssa Healy.Lewis’s clumsy attempt to explain the chasm between the teams opened him up to criticism. His suggestion that Australia’s outdoors culture fostered the development of natural athletes overshadowed another improbable storyline – a furphy to use Australian slang – when he said: “On Sunday morning, pretty much every Australian in the eastern suburbs was in the water. There’s about a million kids down there, and they were doing surf lifesaving, or playing touch rugby. For me, that’s a cultural difference. I definitely think Australia have an advantage in terms of athleticism, and also our talent pool at the moment is small, so it’s important for us to grow the game.”The talent pool line doesn’t hold water – pardon the pun. With a population more than double that of Australia, England cricket should be able to catch more, not less of the potential out there.Sure, they’re not all playing cricket – yet – but Lewis’s parting words, beyond his telling “unfortunately I won’t be able to finish this incredibly challenging but enjoyable job of developing this young team…” confirmed a steadfast belief in his own approach, which at its heart was about growing the game.”I am proud that we have seen unprecedented bumper crowds in 2023 and 2024 and I am determined to continue to help drive women’s cricket forward in whatever comes next for me,” he said.The “bumper crowds” thing harks back to what became a hackneyed phrase during Lewis’s tenure – their desire to “inspire and entertain” the next generation of cricketers, a kind of Bazball if you will. That the “how” appeared to take precedence over the on-field results, at times, ensured that the phrase came back to bite him. Praising a manner of defeat can only work so many times if the defeats pile up in the biggest games.Charlotte Edwards has enjoyed great success on the global franchise circuit•Mumbai IndiansCross toured Australia but didn’t play as she battled a back injury. She gave one of the first player interviews following the ill-fated 2025 Ashes at the launch of the PCA’s Women’s Impact Report, highlighting advances made in the game since 2020. There, she acknowledged that the manner of England’s defeat would have done little to attract new players and fans.”Ultimately as players, we still want to try and get young girls interested in the game and us losing quite drastically isn’t going to do that,” she said. “So we’re going to have to have a real look at how we want to portray ourselves as a team moving forward and try and get a bit of love back from our fans because we, or certainly I, felt that we kind of lost a lot of that from our Ashes series, so hopefully we can move in the right direction now.”So what is the way forward?We are yet to hear whether Heather Knight will stay on as captain or whether any sweeping selection changes will be made. In fairness to Knight, she was one of England’s best performers of the Ashes as the second-highest run-scorer overall with 229 at an average of 32.71. Nat Sciver-Brunt followed with 227 at 28.37, but their efforts paled in comparison to Beth Mooney’s 409 at 68.16. A lack of an obvious successor as England captain also makes her position look more tenable.Connor said the ECB would look to appoint Lewis’s successor shortly as England prepares to host West Indies and India ahead of the 50-over World Cup followed by a home T20 World Cup next year.Charlotte Edwards stands out as a potential candidate, the former England captain having forged a highly successful coaching career in women’s franchise leagues globally and domestic women’s cricket.Before taking Mumbai Indians to their second WPL title in three years last weekend, Edwards had led Southern Vipers to five titles, including two Charlotte Edwards Cup victories, and Southern Brave to three Women’s Hundred finals, winning the 2023 edition.As women’s cricket in England embarks on its next move, it makes sense that the woman who has been an integral part of the game’s initial move to full professionalisation since 2020 oversees this next phase from the top.

And has anyone gone in at every batting position in the IPL?

Steven Lynch15-Apr-2025Has anyone gone in at every batting position in the IPL? asked Mahesh Gupta from India

There’s only one man who fits the bill here: the West Indian spinner Sunil Narine started as a tailender with the bat – he had only two innings in 15 matches in his first IPL, in 2012. He batted in three innings at No. 11, then started to move up the order.Gradually Narine developed his left-hand pinch-hitting to the extent that he now usually goes in first, and he has scored more than 1300 IPL runs as an opener. In 2024 he clobbered his maiden century – 109 from 56 balls for Kolkata Knight Riders against Rajasthan Royals at Eden Gardens.Narine has also taken 185 wickets so far in the IPL – only three men have more as I write. He’s one of only five men to have done the double of 1000 runs and 100 wickets in the IPL, the others being Dwayne Bravo, Ravindra Jadeja, Axar Patel and Andre Russell.Two Bangladesh bowlers took five wickets in a recent women’s one-day international. Has this ever happened before in an ODI? asked Ahmedul Kabir from Bangladesh

The match you’re talking about was a Women’s World Cup qualifier against Thailand in Lahore last week: Bangladesh’s legspinner Fahima Khatun took 5 for 21, while offspinner Jannatul Ferdus had the eye-catching figures of 5-3-7-5 as Thailand slid from 65 for 3 to 93 all out.This was the first case in a women’s ODI of two bowlers taking five wickets apiece. It’s also happened just once in men’s ODIs, back in 1977 when Greg Chappell took 5 for 20 and Gary Cosier 5 for 18 for Australia against England with their medium pace at Edgbaston. “It wasn’t a day for the regular bowlers,” wrote Chappell, Australia’s captain that day. “At our lower pace we made the ball bend in the air and seam off the pitch, and with the help of some undistinguished batting by the England batsmen, whose footwork often left a lot to be desired, we finished off the innings for 171.”Is MS Dhoni the oldest man to captain in the IPL? How about in all T20 matches? asked Ajit Venugopal from India

The Chennai Super Kings captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni is due to celebrate his 44th birthday on July 7. He’s actually been the oldest IPL captain for a couple of years already: the previous record was held by Adam Gilchrist, who was 41 when he captained Kings XI Punjab for the last time, in Dharamsala in 2013. Gilchrist celebrated his impending retirement by bowling the last over of the innings – he was fairly safe, as Mumbai Indians needed 51 to win with the last pair at the crease – and took a wicket with the only ball he ever bowled in a senior T20 game.The table of the oldest captains in all T20 matches is skewed by the weird and wonderful selection of teams who now play official T20 internationals: there was a recent change at the top when 56-year-old Alan Dawson skippered the Falkland Islands against Costa Rica in Guacima last month.In all T20s, Ajit Ekanayake (46), Imran Tahir (45), Pearson Best of the Cayman Islands (44) and Misbah-ul-Haq (43) have captained when older than Dhoni, although Misbah is about to be overtaken.Imran Tahir (centre), who leads Guyana Amazon Warriors in the CPL, is currently the oldest captain on the T20 circuit, at age 45•Getty ImagesWhat’s the connection between Garry Sobers and the 1991 Cheltenham Gold Cup winner? asked Trent Jackson from England

I smell a sports-quiz question here! The Cheltenham Gold Cup, one of Britain’s premier National Hunt (jumps) horse races, was won in 1991 by Garrison Savannah, trained by Jenny Pitman and ridden by her son Mark. The same year, the horse finished second in the Grand National at Aintree, just failing to pull off a double achieved only by Golden Miller in 1934.The horse got its name from the Garrison Savannah racecourse in Barbados, just outside Bridgetown. The track’s most famous race is the Barbados Gold Cup. Horse racing has taken place there since the area was an army garrison, hence the name. And the link with arguably the island’s most famous son is that the former West Indies captain Garry Sobers was knighted there by Queen Elizabeth II in 1975, becoming Sir Garfield Sobers in front of a crowd of around 50,000.You wrote in last week’s column about the players who played the most Test matches without ever appearing in a white-ball international. What’s the reverse – who has played the most white-ball internationals without ever winning a Test cap? Is it David Miller? asked Liam Binyon from Australia

You’ve got it in one: the South African batter David Miller has so far appeared in 308 white-ball internationals (170 ODIs and 138 T20s) without ever playing in a Test match. Kieron Pollard, the West Indian, played 234 white-ball games (123 ODIs and 101 T20s), while Scotland’s Richie Berrington has so far appeared in 230 (123 ODIs and 97 T20s; Scotland haven’t yet played a Test). Another current player, the Australian legspinner Adam Zampa, comes next with 216 (111 ODIs and 95 T20s).Shiva Jayaraman of ESPNcricinfo’s stats team helped with some of the above answers.Use our feedback form, or the Ask Steven Facebook page to ask your stats and trivia questions

The five T20Is in England offer India an early glimpse of the World Cup venues and a chance to narrow down personnel that could do the job for them

Sruthi Ravindranath26-Jun-2025T20Is back in focus for IndiaThis series will be India’s first T20I assignment of the year. Their last series was against West Indies at home in December, which they won, but 2024 was all about heartbreaks: a loss in the Asia Cup final followed by a group-stage exit in the T20 World Cup. Most of the players were, however, in action at the Women’s Premier League (WPL) in February.They do have several T20Is lined up after this series before the T20 World Cup next year – they will be playing three home T20Is against Bangladesh, three in Australia in February 2026 followed by a tri-series in New Zealand which will also feature England in May – but this will be their chance to try out new faces. India will also be playing across five venues, all of which will be hosting T20 World Cup matches next year.New (and old) faces in the T20I squadThe returning Shafali Verma is likely to slot straight in as opener, given her superb form in the last few months in domestic cricket and the WPL. In her absence during the West Indies T20Is, Uma Chetry opened with Smriti Mandhana but failed to make an impact.Related

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A few new faces have been added to the bowling department. Left-arm spinner N Shree Charani and seam-bowling allrounders Kranti Goud and Sayali Satghare have received their maiden T20I call-ups, while batting allrounder Amanjot Kaur has been recalled into the T20I squad.Sneh Rana has returned to the T20I squad for the first time since February 2023 on the back of her impressive performances with the ball – and on one occasion with the bat – in WPL 2025. She also picked up two wickets in the three overs she bowled in the tour game against ECB XI in Beckenham.There’s a bit of inexperience in the fast-bowling unit with the likes of Renuka Singh and Pooja Vastrakar out of this series. They had not played India’s last assignment – the ODI tri-series with Sri Lanka and South Africa in April and May – due to injuries. India might field a completely new bowling line-up from the West Indies T20Is in December, barring Radha Yadav. With Renuka and Vastrakar expected to be back at some point, India will be looking to build their fast-bowling reserves in this series.Amanjot could be the new-age finisher India are looking for•BCCIThe gaps India will look to fillIndia have persisted with Harmanpreet Kaur as captain in the format despite the criticism she faced after the T20 World Cup exit. Between then and now, she’s proved her capabilities as a T20 leader by taking Mumbai Indians to their second WPL trophy this season. She is also one of India’s best batters in the format, having been their go-to during pressure situations, as she showed during India’s T20 World Cup group-stage game against Australia where she top-scored as the rest of the line-up collapsed around her. Last year, she had spoken about the need for India to develop the “mindset” to deal with nerves. With two global tournaments to be played in the next year, captain Harmanpreet’s focus will be on assembling a squad specifically with players who can handle pressure situations better.The batting department looks solid with Mandhana, Shafali, Jemimah Rodrigues, Harmanpreet and Richa Ghosh making the top five. However, India have been hurt by a lack of contribution from the lower middle order, which also troubled them during the T20 World Cup last year. Their batters from No. 6 and further down strike at just 104.05 and have just hit just four sixes in total in 42 matches since 2023.Spin-bowling allrounder Deepti Sharma, who’s played in the middle order, has a strike rate of just 99.10 since 2023. India will also want to nail down the rest of the line-up, which has seen several changes in the last few years. Amanjot, who showed off her skills as a finisher in the WPL, will be one of India’s options to fill that gap in the middle order, though she played at No. 3 in the tour game in Beckenham, with Rodrigues dropping to five.India have also not been able to nail down their go-to spin option in the format. Deepti aside, they have tried as many as ten spinners since 2023. While Rajeshwari Gayakwad has been out of favour recently, the likes of Saika Ishaque, Shreyanka Patil and S Asha – who were part of the last few series – have not found a place in this squad. One of the three spinners in the squad – Radha, Rana and youngster Charani will want to make the most of their chance to make sure India’s search for a reliable spinner ends.Where India have improvedIndia will also want to define the brand of T20 cricket they want to play, with their batting approach having come under scrutiny over the last few years. While Ghosh has the highest strike rate of 148.80 among all players since 2023 (minimum 200 balls faced), India’s next best is Mandhana’s strike rate of 122.66, which exposes this gap. Ghosh also has the best balls per six ratio of 18.75 since 2023, while Mandhana, who’s hit the most sixes for India in this period, has hit one every 40 balls.India’s overall scoring rate, however, has seen an improvement: they were at their best-ever in 2024, scoring at 7.99 per over compared to 6.93 in 2023. They also posted their highest-ever T20I total of 217 (in the third T20I against West Indies) in 2024. But their run rate at the death since 2023 is 8.86 compared to Australia’s 10.16, the best on this list.

And what’s the earliest in their career that a player has scored a hundred and taken a five-for in the same Test?

Steven Lynch15-Jul-2025I heard that KL Rahul was the 100th player to be out for 100 in a Test. Who did it most often? asked Arqam Fazal Mirza from India
You heard correctly: KL Rahul’s round 100 at Lord’s last weekend was indeed the 100th time a batter had been dismissed for exactly 100 in a men’s Test. The great England opener Len Hutton managed it four times between 1937 and 1951, while a later Australian opener in Graeme Wood had three round 100s. Four others were out for exactly 100 twice – both Waugh twins, Gordon Greenidge and Kevin Pietersen.There have also been 69 cases of 100 not out, including two by Allan Border, Inzamam-ul-Haq and Saleem Malik (and another one by Steve Waugh). There are also three instances (plus one not-out) in women’s Test matches.England and India tied on the first innings at Lord’s. What are the highest and lowest such instances? asked Ahmedul Kabir from Bangladesh

Both first innings at Lord’s last week ended at 387: this was the ninth time such a tie had happened in all Tests.Twin totals of 387 come in fifth – exactly halfway – on the list. The highest was 593, by West Indies (who declared five down) and England in St John’s in April 1994, in the match in which Brian Lara first claimed the Test record with an innings of 375. The lowest such instance involved two totals of 199, by South Africa and England at the old Lord’s ground in Durban in January 1910 (England were 198 for 7, but lost their last three wickets for one).Corbin Bosch scored a hundred and took a five-for in just his second Test. Has anyone else done this? asked Nelson from South Africa

South Africa’s Corbin Bosch scored 100 not out in the first Test against Zimbabwe in Bulawayo at the end of June, and then took 5 for 43 in the second innings.He was the fourth man to do this in his second Test, following Jack Gregory, for Australia against England in Melbourne in January 1921, Roston Chase for West Indies vs India in Kingston in August 2016, and one of his opponents in the match in question – Zimbabwe’s Brian Bennett, against Afghanistan, also in Bulawayo in December 2024.But there’s one man who achieved this all-round feat on his Test debut: New Zealand’s Bruce Taylor followed 105 with 5 for 86 against India in Calcutta in March 1965. There’s also one woman: Chamani Seneviratna made 105 not out after taking 5 for 31 in Sri Lanka’s only women’s Test to date, against Pakistan in Colombo in April 1998.Bosch was the fourth to do this particular double for South Africa in Tests, following Jimmy Sinclair, Aubrey Faulkner and Jacques Kallis (twice). It was also Bosch’s maiden first-class century: he was the fifth South African to do this in a Test – but the first since 1955, following Sinclair, Percy Sherwell, Tuppy Owen-Smith and Paul Winslow.Corbin Bosch was the fourth man to score a hundred and take a five-for in his second Test•Zimbabwe CricketLhuan-dre Pretorius scored 157 runs in all on his Test debut. What’s the record for this? asked Biraj Bohara from Nepal

The South African left-hander Lhuan-dre Pretorius had scores of 153 and 4 on his Test debut, against Zimbabwe in Bulawayo at the end of last month.Rather surprisingly, perhaps, no fewer than 46 men have made more runs in their first Test: the list is headed by Lawrence Rowe, who marked his debut for West Indies – against New Zealand in Kingston in February 1972 – with 214 and 100 not out. The only other batter to score more than 300 runs in his first Test is England’s Reginald “Tip” Foster, who followed his 287 against Australia in Sydney in December 1903 (the highest individual debut score) with 19 in the second innings.The South African record is held by Jacques Rudolph, with 222 not out against Bangladesh in Chittagong in April 2003.Has anyone ever scored centuries in the second and third innings of a Test? asked Nirmal Mendis from Sri Lanka

This is obviously quite a difficult thing to do, as it requires your team to bat second and then be forced to follow on. But it’s dangerous to say “never” about this sort of thing, because actually it’s happened twice in Tests! The first to do it was India’s Vijay Hazare, who contributed a valiant double of 116 and 145 (his first two Test centuries) as his side slipped to an innings defeat in Adelaide in January 1948. In the opening innings of the match Hazare had bowled Don Bradman – but unfortunately he’d made 201 by then, and Australia were well on their way to a total of 674.The other instance came in a match in Harare in September 2001. After South Africa romped to 600 for 3 declared, Andy Flower made 142 in Zimbabwe’s total of 286. He was soon back at the crease in the follow-on, and this time remained undefeated after almost ten hours with 199 out of 391. His epic resistance forced South Africa to bat again, and extended the match close to tea on the final day before the visitors finally won by nine wickets.Flower was only the second man, after South Africa’s Jimmy Sinclair against England in Cape Town in April 1899, to score more than half his side’s runs in a match in which they were bowled out twice. They were later joined by Brian Lara, with 221 and 130 as West Indies (390 and 262) lost by ten wickets to Sri Lanka in Colombo late in 2001.Shiva Jayaraman of ESPNcricinfo’s stats team helped with some of the above answers.Use our feedback form, or the Ask Steven Facebook page to ask your stats and trivia questions

Phil Salt was crucial to KKR winning the IPL title in 2024, and he’s been crucial to RCB’s run to the final this season

Sidharth Monga02-Jun-20252:02

Aaron: Kohli-Salt ‘the backbone of RCB batting’

Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) have always had openers who score big runs. This year’s opening partnership, though, has been their fastest in IPL history while also scoring their third-highest aggregate in any season.RCB’s opening partnership is also the third-quickest among all teams in IPL 2025, ahead of even Punjab Kings (PBKS), who have looked more aggressive to the naked eye.Virat Kohli has been the constant and he’s improved his intent over the last two years, but the point of difference that’s helped RCB’s opening stand race along at 10.29 per over is his partner Phil Salt, who has 387 runs at a strike-rate of 175.9 this season.Related

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That strike rate is the fourth-highest for any RCB batter who has faced 200 balls in a season. Salt is doing for RCB what Glenn Maxwell did in 2023 – 400 runs at 183.48 – and what Rajat Patidar did last year – 395 runs at 177.13. Among those who have opened in at least eight matches this season, only Abhishek Sharma and Priyansh Arya have scored faster than Salt.Salt gives the other RCB batters time to catch their breath. He’s attempted to hit boundaries off 124 of the 220 balls he has faced this season, a rate bettered only by the finisher Tim David among RCB’s batters. Among openers, who have faced at least 200 balls, only Abhishek and Travis Head have shown more intent.Salt’s approach and ability has allowed Kohli and Devdutt Padikkal – who is indisposed now – to bat without taking undue risks. Together they have made up for Patidar and Jitesh Sharma’s middling seasons.A major part of Salt’s effectiveness is that you can’t shut him down with spin. He’s scored quicker against spin than against pace this season. Even against legspin, his strike rate is 200, though he has got out twice in 23 balls to that sort of bowling. He’s been slowest against left-arm pace (strike rate 155.38). Arshdeep Singh has got him out cheaply twice in three matches this year with balls pitched short of a length and either angling or seaming away. In the third, Salt scored a scintillating half-century on a brutish pitch to help RCB win Qualifier 1. The contest between Salt and Arshdeep could play a major role in Tuesday’s final in Ahmedabad.2:03

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This is a happy time for Salt; he and his partner are expecting a child soon. RCB’s head coach Andy Flower doesn’t like to reveal possible player absences to the opposition before the match. He’s even been known to make injured players warm up until minutes before the game just to keep the opposition guessing.Salt was not at the ground when RCB trained on the eve of the final, but that isn’t unusual. Quite a few players choose to prepare by themselves instead of having one more net. If Salt is not in Ahmedabad and has dashed home to be with his family, RCB won’t let it be known until match day. Not with a player so important.The average opener in all IPL matches involving Salt has a strike rate of 157.38 while averaging 35. Salt’s numbers are 176.8 and 35.92, which puts him among the elite openers of his time in the IPL. Yet he was let go by Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR), who won the title last year.As KKR have faltered this season, the debate has centred on whether their former mentor Gautam Gambhir or ex-captain Shreyas Iyer was the magic ingredient. If he helps RCB win their maiden IPL title, the dasher Salt might be the answer.

A chance move away from his hometown in South Africa unlocked a door he never knew existed

Shashank Kishore10-Sep-2025When Martin Coetzee was let go by his provincial team in South Africa in 2019, he felt like it was curtains on his cricket career.He had hovered on the fringes of the first-class set-up for years without really breaking in. As he contemplated what next – “the thought of moving to another provincial team, or quit cricket altogether and explore another path, like coaching” – the Covid-19 pandemic struck.He was 29, and time was ticking.Then came the move to Hong Kong, far from a cricketing decision. His wife, Lindy, a teacher, had just landed a job at a private school, and the couple decided to take the plunge into the unknown.Related

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Just prior to leaving South Africa, though, Coetzee was told casually by his wife’s school principal, “Don’t forget to pack your cricket bags.” The principal happened to be a former New Zealand first-class cricketer, Ben Hart.”It seemed an odd comment at the time,” Coetzee laughs at the memory. The 36-year-old top-order batter is now in Dubai, part of Hong Kong’s squad at the Asia Cup. “I thought at best this may be a way to play recreationally, get to know a few people at the cricket club, it will help with keeping myself in shape. Nothing more.”When they landed, Hong Kong wasn’t the buzzing global hub he had imagined it to be. Covid restrictions had made the city unrecognisable. “Restaurants were shuttered, masks were compulsory, and residents had to line up for regular blood tests,” Coetzee says.But amid all that, Coetzee found comfort in the fact that he could get outdoors for a few hours. And that outdoor place happened to be the Hong Kong Cricket Club.”I turned up there with no expectations honestly, it was just to get outdoors, rather than being locked in,” he says.

“I thought at best this may be a way to play recreationally, get to know a few people at the cricket club, it will help with keeping myself in shape. Nothing more”

Over time, Coetzee discovered the city’s cricket culture was far more organised and ambitious than he had imagined. He saw talented players fiercely compete, and was explained the pathways into club cricket and possibly international cricket if he stayed the course.”That got me dreaming,” he says. “Suddenly, a three-year qualification criteria didn’t seem to matter, I thought let me start playing and put myself up there. Yes, the wait was long, at times frustrating, but in that period, I played a lot of club cricket, made a lot of friends and enjoyed competing. It got me hooked.”It’s only then I thought of all the things I take for granted back home. In South Africa, you tend to take some things for granted – outdoor nets, fields, space,” he explains. “In Hong Kong, the biggest challenge is facilities. Say, just leading up to our prep tour here, all we had were indoor nets. No grass. It makes you appreciate what you had growing up. But it also makes you work harder.”By the time Coetzee’s qualification period ended, he went on to become one of Hong Kong’s key batters and a regular fixture in the national squad. When not playing, he is a professional coach at the club he represents.”It still surprises me how much Hong Kong has given me,” he says. “You won’t believe it, but there’s a rivalry that is always packed,” he says. “Kowloon Cricket Club and Hong Kong Cricket Club – mate, it’s fiercely competitive as well. The talent is immense.Hong Kong are playing their fifth Asia Cup•Asian Cricket Council”My own team-mates – Nizakat Khan, Anshuman Rath, Kalhan Challu – these guys are all so dedicated. It makes you feel good to be playing with a group that’s as enthusiastic and keen to show what they’re capable of. From day one, Hong Kong cricket felt like a family.The “family” has recently had to channel the disappointment of not qualifying for the 2026 T20 World Cup – their chances at the Asian qualifiers were scuppered by the weather.”Yeah, that still hurts,” Coetzee says. “We were having dinner last night, watching the tennis [US Open final] and one of the UAE lads just mentioned it as a joke and it actually still stung a little bit.”We are very disappointed with that, but with the new coach [Kaushal Silva] and the whole new group and vibe we have got going, we try not to think about that too much, and we are excited about everything that’s ahead. The next week or so is a good example. There’s always the next one to qualify for.”The game has also taken him places – Nepal, Oman, and the UAE – he never imagined visiting when he was lying on a South African rugby field with a broken leg, convinced his sporting life was over. That injury when he was 17 had driven him back to cricket, but the end of his Lions contract had almost pushed him out for good. Yet here he is, living a second chance, wearing new colours, and having a new perspective at 36.”We love the city so much,” Coetzee says. “We’re based just outside the hustle and bustle, in Green Pulse Bay. We can see ourselves living here for quite a while. The cricket crowd is growing, the local kids have so much talent, and the passion is unbelievable.”I never thought I’d find this in Hong Kong. But now I know exactly why Ben told me to pack that cricket bag.”

Harry Brook walked out at 5 for 3, which soon became 10 for 4 and 56 for 6 before his six-laden 101-ball 135 lifted England to some respectability

Sampath Bandarupalli26-Oct-202560.53 – Percentage of England’s total of 223 that came off Harry Brook’s bat as he scored 135. It is the highest contribution by a batter in a completed innings for England in men’s ODIs. The previous highest was 60.28 by Robin Smith, who scored an unbeaten 167 in England’s total of 277 for 5 against Australia at Birmingham in 1993.Brook’s contribution is also the sixth-highest by any batter in an all out innings in men’s ODIs.