The power of South Africa’s lower middle order has allowed de Kock to take his time early on, and the results have been spectacular

Sidharth Monga01-Nov-20232:13

Harmison: Should SA have gone harder with the bat?

When he knew it was all over, Tony Montana pulled out the machine gun and said the legendary line, “Say hello to my little friend.”It is almost impossible to imagine Quinton de Kock getting so expressive, but in his last World Cup, right at the end of an international career in which he has perhaps felt trapped like Montana at times, he has brought out his own, actual little friend: a desire and a method to bat long.Not that he didn’t always have it. When de Kock first announced himself with three centuries in a week against India late in 2013, back when he was almost the Simba the senior players loved to hold aloft, he was – despite his methods and scoring areas – an old-fashioned ODI opener, who would start off watchfully and look to play deep into the innings.Related

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In the middle chunk of his ODI career, though, de Kock became more of an enforcer and less of a long-innings player. From 2018 to 2022, he didn’t have a single year with more than one ODI century, but his strike-rate over that period (98.78) was higher than it had been before (94.62).And then came 2023. South Africa have developed a strategy where they want to give their power-hitting lower middle order not much more than 20 overs to cause havoc in. It has allowed de Kock to perhaps go back to his original style. When batting first this year, he has struck at just 4.61 an over in the first powerplay, having gone at 6.09 and 5.44 in the same phase in 2021 and 2022.Quinton de Kock is all smiles after bringing up his fourth hundred of this World Cup•Associated PressThe desire to bat longer is clear, and the method is to somehow get past the early movement. Thanks to South Africa’s consistently firing lower middle order, de Kock knows it is okay to start off slowly. So slow that South Africa have gone even slower than Pakistan in the first powerplay in this World Cup.There is good reason for South Africa’s leadership to be fine with de Kock starting off slowly. In 32 innings in Asia, de Kock has gone past 50 on 10 occasions; eight of them have been centuries. In innings where de Kock has gone past 30, he has achieved better control figures in Asia than in any other continent. It clearly suggests an expertise in these conditions. His IPL experience no doubt helps.Even without these figures, if you went just by feel, you can well imagine what nightmare it would be for bowlers if de Kock decides to, and finds a way to, bat deep. For he is not the kind of batter whom fields can restrict. As the numbers suggest, he has a grip on the conditions in Asia. He will always catch up.A good example was this slow start in Pune against New Zealand. He was on 13 off 25 after 10 overs. His reaction was not to do anything dramatic. He sweated on his favourite pick-up pull against Tim Southee. That shot is a hard-length neutraliser like no other. Now de Kock is no surprise package, and Southee is a wily bowler. He kept denying de Kock the shot, mostly by going wide and across him. De Kock waited for just the right ball, and when he got the right line, out it came, at the start of the 16th over.Quinton de Kock waited patiently until he got a chance to play his favourite pick-up pull•ICC/Getty ImagesWith that shot came the fluency although there was never perhaps a time when either he or Rassie van der Dussen got entirely comfortable on what looked like a slightly tricky surface to begin with.There was gradual acceleration until the 30th over, after which he began to manufacture shots, moving inside the line and targeting the long-leg area. It was consistent with how he has gone through this World Cup: watchful at the start, pick up in the middle overs, and then start hitting after the 30th. If it comes off, we are in for Montana-like fireworks; if it doesn’t, South Africa don’t lose out on much because the batters coming in are better off using those deliveries.The result of this change in approach for de Kock is that this was his fourth hundred already in this World Cup with at least three – and possibly four – innings to go. There is a joy to watching him wind down his ODI career with the freedom to bat the way he did when he started out.At 152 innings right now, it is all too brief a career, but this little friend of de Kock has helped him take his frequency of hitting hundreds to bang between the gold standards of ODI batting in his era. Virat Kohli scores one every six innings, approximately, and Rohit Sharma once every eight digs; de Kock is slightly slower than a century every seven innings. It will take a brave person to bet against him improving that rate.

He stood in five games in the men’s ODI World Cup last year, and last month became only the second umpire from his country to officiate in a neutral Test

Mohammad Isam01-Feb-2024Be honest and admit that Shakib Al Hasan kung-fu-kicking stumps comes to mind every time you hear the phrase “Bangladeshi umpire”.Shakib has often screamed at them. Charged at them with the bat held high over his head like an axe. Charged at them wearing flip-flops. The former Bangladesh captain has made the country’s umpires part of cricket’s pop-culture lexicon – giving weight to the notion of them as a hapless, bumbling breed, somewhat like WWE referees.Enter Sharfuddoula Ibn Shahid. When the slim, genial umpire stood in last week’s blockbuster Brisbane Test match, it was just the second time a Bangladeshi had officiated as a neutral umpire in a Test.Sharfuddoula had a good match in Brisbane. He was also an on-field umpire in five World Cup matches in India last year, the first from Bangladesh in the tournament’s history. He was also the first from the country to officiate in both formats of the women’s World Cups.But set his recent high-profile assignments aside and Bangladesh’s umpiring record on the international stage is quite thin. Masudur Rahman stood in the Asia Cup final couple of years ago. Former international player Enamul Haque was the first Bangladeshi to officiate as a neutral umpire in a Test match, in 2012. The late Nadir Shah stood in an India-Pakistan final in a 2008 tri-series.Bangladesh’s umpires, however, have been in the news off and on for various scandals and controversies, and for making glaring errors. A few years ago when there were allegations of umpires being used to manipulate domestic limited-overs matches. Things came to a head in ugly fashion with Shakib kicking down the stumps in a Dhaka Premier League game in 2021 after being refused an lbw decision.Bangladesh hasn’t exactly been a country that has produced top-shelf umpires and match referees. The ICC has never been confident enough in their quality to hand them neutral umpiring assignments, and so they have usually only got home ODIs. The BCB for its part has never taken umpiring seriously enough to develop a pathway for umpires to come up through.Sharfuddoula (right) with Indian colleague Nitin Menon at a 2023 ODI World Cup warm-up game•Matt Roberts/ICC/GettyIf you consider the extreme, in-your-face pressure the average Bangladeshi umpire has to endure in domestic leagues, particularly the DPL, you would think they would be well equipped to handle top-level pressure too. Given the right training and international experience, they could well have done far better than they have. But as things stand, Sharfuddoula remains the lone flag-bearer for Bangladeshi umpiring on the world stage.A former left-arm spinner who played for Bangladesh in the ICC Trophy in 1994, where he took six wickets in three matches, Sharfuddoula spent a brief time working as a coach, and then joined the BCB in an administrative role. He umpired his first domestic game in 2007, and his international debut came soon after, when he stood alongside Simon Taufel in a Bangladesh-Sri Lanka ODI in 2010He had to wait 11 years to stand in a Test match – that opportunity came due to Covid 19, which forced the ICC to appoint Bangladeshi umpires for home Tests for a while. Sharfuddoula spent the intervening years on a diet of domestic first-class, List-A and T20 matches. He also umpired Associate ODIs and stood in the men’s World Cup Qualifiers (ODIs and T20Is) in 2018 and 2019.He officiated in the women’s ODI World Cups in 2017 and 2022, and the women’s T20 World Cup in the West Indies in 2018, apart from several women’s T20I World Cup qualifiers, starting in 2013. He also stood in the men’s Under-19 World Cups in 2016 and 2020. Still, though he had a fair amount of white-ball experience, before his 2023 World Cup appearance he had made only a handful of appearances as a neutral umpire in ODIs or T20Is where both teams were from Full Member nations. And before his umpiring Test debut in 2021, his only times standing in first-class cricket overseas were from some matches in West Indies’ regional competition in 2016, and in a handful of Associate first-class games.

Having started to play from when he was four years old and inspired by Shai Hope, Jewel Andrew finally has a chance to make his name

Firdose Moonda23-Jan-2024Jewel Andrew was four years old when his future was put in his hands, literally.He was sitting boundary-side at the Young Masters Sports Club in Antigua, watching his brother Hillroy play but unable to join in because he was too young for a team of six-year-olds. “But one of the boys hit a six and Jewel collected the ball and threw it in. The coach said he could join the next day,” Veronique Hill, Jewel’s mother, told ESPNcricinfo.That was exactly what Hill, a single mom, hoped would happen when she took her sons to the club. “We were living in a bad neighbourhood so I didn’t want them to get into trouble,” she said. “And I grew up watching cricket with my father on a black and white television so I knew I wanted my kids to play this sport.”Related

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Hill was raised on the triumphs of West Indies’ attack and grew to admire Courtney Walsh and Curtly Ambrose but not for the obvious reasons. “They bowled very well but couldn’t bat to save their lives. Especially Walsh. He was so clumsy with the bat and I quite enjoyed that.”Her sons turned out to be the complete opposite. They prided themselves on run-scoring and spent their time determined to outdo each other. “If one scored runs on one day, the other would say, ‘wait until tomorrow and I will show you what I can do’,” she recalled, laughing. “They were so competitive as young kids and they still spend all day talking about cricket.”Not just talking. Analysing. Strategising. Experimenting. And of course, playing. For that to happen, they needed equipment. “That was really hard for me,” Hill said. “Cricket gear is expensive.”Hill’s income from a store she runs that sells bags and was not enough to afford everything the boys needed. Instead, they relied on support from well-wishers, including donations given to the sports club from former players and found a way. The more exposure they got, the clearer it became that Jewel “was really good.”The little hands that threw the ball when he was four years old ended up being used both to bat and to keep wicket. He rose through the age group structures in Antigua, scored five successive centuries in a schools’ league, captained the Leeward Islands under-15 side and played in the Cool & Smooth T20 tournament, a local event intended to assist in the development of players in the region. He also found someone to model his game on in Shai Hope. “He would watch videos of Shai Hope and every shot that he played and then try to copy that. Soon, I started to see a little Shai Hope in him,” Hill said.Veronique Hill always wanted her sons, including Jewel Andrew, to play cricket•Veronique HillLate last year, Jewel had the opportunity to meet his hero when he was selected as the flag bearer for the start of the ODI series between West Indies and England. “That was really special and he could feel one step closer to someone like Shai.”But just when it seemed everything was aligning for young Jewel, he suffered a setback. “They had a tournament to select the Under-19 squad and he just wasn’t getting off. He was scoring 30s and 40s and crying himself to sleep,” Hill said. “And then before the last day, he said to me that he was not going to worry about anything or what anyone said, he was just going to play his own game and see if that could get him in. I send him a bible verse every morning to help him believe in himself and I did it that day as well. He scored 126 and that was how he got selected for the Under-19 side.”When Jewel called his mom to tell her the news, he was filled with emotion. “He cried and I cried along with him,” she said. “He said to me, ‘Mom, I am living my dream. I will give you something to watch’.”And he kept his word. In their first game of the tournament, West Indies found themselves in pursuit of 285. Jewel kept West Indies in the fight and Hill awake from 2 am, with a 96-ball 130, that ultimately went in vain and left her with mixed feelings. “I am happy for him but I was a little disappointed too. I could see his disappointment too.”There’s time to turn that around. West Indies have two more group matches against Scotland and England this week and victory in at least one of them will give them a chance of advancing to the Super Sixes. And for Jewel personally, there is a chance to establish himself as among the top batters in the competition, secure a spot for the next tournament and even earn a regular place in the Leeward Islands’ team.”He is still young and can play another Under-19 World Cup but he also wants to make the step up to the regional side. Jewel is all about Leeward and West Indies cricket,” she said. “He is very focused and doesn’t have time to do anything besides cricket. He runs every morning for 45 minutes and then he works on his game. He knows he has made all of us in Antigua very, very proud.”So Jewel is living up to his name but why was he given it in the first place? “I had a difficult time having him. He was two weeks overdue and wouldn’t come out,” Hill said. “When he eventually did, he was so loving and I just thought to myself that he was a special baby, a precious baby. That’s why I called him Jewel.”

Even at 38, he found new ways to worry bowlers and fielding captains in IPL. Who knows what heights his India career might have reached had Dhoni not happened to it?

Karthik Krishnaswamy23-May-2024It could have been the most poignant of endings: the last ball faced by Dinesh Karthik as a top-level cricketer, edged into MS Dhoni’s gloves. One last tangle of intertwined fates.Who knows what heights Karthik’s international career might have reached had Dhoni not happened to it, and by what factor he may have multiplied his 26 Tests, 94 ODIs and 60 T20Is? Add all that up, however, and you get a measure of the cricketer Karthik has been: a wicketkeeper-batter capped 180 times by India even though he played the bulk of his career in Dhoni’s all-encompassing shadow, and a batter good enough to be capped 94 times as a specialist in matches involving Dhoni.Karthik is younger than Dhoni by nearly four years, but he jumped the queue and made his India debuts first: a month and a half before Dhoni in ODIs, and more than a year before him in Tests. Both were part of India’s first T20I XI, and Karthik the Player of the Match.Related

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Karthik’s India career outlasted Dhoni’s too: his last Test, in 2018, and his last T20I, in 2022, coming three-and-a-half years after Dhoni’s respective farewells. Both, of course, went out of ODIs together, on that fateful day in Manchester in July 2019.It would have been poignant, but the edge to Dhoni wasn’t the end for Karthik, with Royal Challengers Bengaluru making the playoffs at Chennai Super Kings’ expense on the day. It would seem, then, that Karthik – though we can never be entirely certain until Dhoni actually tells us – outlasted his great rival in the IPL too, by one match.It’s fitting, because Karthik has been one of the IPL’s great survivors. He’s featured in every season, and played more matches than anyone other than Dhoni and Rohit Sharma, and while he hasn’t become a figurehead at one franchise like those two, he’s been a vital member of six different dressing rooms. He’s always had elite T20 skills, and he’s always kept adding to them, evolving with the format and staying relevant, season after season.It’s as true of his career as it is of his manner on the field that Dinesh Karthik has never stood still.

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An example of this came one ball before Karthik edged Tushar Deshpande to Dhoni.Karthik had stepped across to the off side, shaping for the scoop over short fine leg, and Deshpande had responded by shifting his line wider, so wide that the ball was nearly in line with the return crease when it reached the batter. Karthik reacted like he’d expected this all along, manipulating his hands expertly to reverse-scoop the ball past the right glove of a leaping Dhoni and out of reach of the short third fielder throwing himself to his left.Over the course of IPL 2024, Karthik played a total of nine reverse-scoops, including one off a wide. We’ll come to the reverse-scoops he nailed, but let’s first spend some time with the one he missed against that wide.It came on day one of the season, and the bowler, once again, was Deshpande.In IPL 2024, the reverse scoop brought Dinesh Karthik 21 runs, including five fours•BCCIThis was a contest with a bit of history. Deshpande had dismissed Karthik in their teams’ only meeting of IPL 2023, getting him caught at deep midwicket. Fine leg had been inside the 30-yard circle on that occasion too, and Karthik had stepped across his stumps, no doubt eyeing the vast spaces either side of and beyond that fielder. Then too, Deshpande had shifted his line wider.On that occasion, Karthik’s response had been a low-percentage one. He went for the slog-sweep, a difficult shot to nail since he was fetching the ball from well outside his eyeline, and one that didn’t give him too much margin for error since long-on and deep midwicket were out on the boundary.By the time IPL 2024 rolled around, Karthik had worked on a different response to the same situation. He didn’t connect with the reverse-scoop the first time round, and his second attempt, against the same bowler in the same game, didn’t quite come off either, producing an inside-edged single to fine leg. But Karthik had clearly worked on this shot in the lead-up to the tournament, and he clearly believed it would give him an edge in these death-overs battles of wits.It’s safe to say now that the reverse-scoop has worked brilliantly for Karthik over the season. He’s played the shot more often than anyone else this season, and it’s brought him 21 runs off eight non-wide balls, including five fours, at a strike rate of 262.50.The shot has helped Karthik score 45 runs through the fine third region off the fast bowlers, off just 15 balls. Of this season’s top ten run-getters against pace in that sector of the field, only Suryakumar Yadav and Sunil Narine have (marginally) better strike rates than Karthik.!function(){“use strict”;window.addEventListener(“message”,(function(a){if(void 0!==a.data[“datawrapper-height”]){var e=document.querySelectorAll(“iframe”);for(var t in a.data[“datawrapper-height”])for(var r=0;r<e.length;r++)if(e[r].contentWindow===a.source){var i=a.data["datawrapper-height"][t]+"px";e[r].style.height=i}}}))}();

Some of Australia’s players have made a statement in the IPL in the week the selectors are picking the provisional 15-man T20 World Cup squad

Alex Malcolm28-Apr-20242:32

Rapid Fire Review: Fraser-McGurk to open for Australia at the T20 World Cup?

Fraser-McGurk’s mindblowing form is hard to ignore

Jake Fraser-McGurk is causing the selectors a massive headache this week. He has become the first player in IPL history to post two 15-ball half-centuries. Even more impressively, he posted them a week apart, inside his first five IPL matches, and he destroyed the IPL’s best bowler Jasprit Bumrah on Saturday afternoon in Delhi in his jaw-dropping 27-ball 84. He is taking T20 powerplay batting to another level and Delhi Capitals have not missed David Warner at all while he has been recovering from a finger injury.Fraser-McGurk has not played a T20I yet, although he has played two ODIs. Australia had long settled their top three for the upcoming World Cup with Warner, Travis Head and Mitchell Marsh set to reprise the ODI World Cup-winning combination. At the same time, the middle-order is also settled with Glenn Maxwell, Marcus Stoinis, Tim David and Matthew Wade having worked well in combination over the last two years. Josh Inglis is the back-up wicketkeeper and arguably the most flexible back-up batter in Australia having made a T20I century in India late last year.Related

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Australia will likely need a second spinner, a spare fast bowler, and a spare allrounder in their 15. That leaves no room for a spare specialist top-three batter. But Fraser-McGurk’s form is incredible. The thought of pairing him with Head at the top is salivating. Putting that combination together would mean either moving Warner down the order or dropping him from the XI or the 15 entirely, which is extremely unlikely given he is Australia’s most experienced and successful tournament player.The World Cup matches are also going to be played without an impact sub, which has emboldened players like Fraser-McGurk to play fearlessly with the insurance of an extended batting line-up behind him. Australia will also play exclusively on pitches in the Caribbean where the scoring rates are lower and spin has been far tougher to score against than pace. If the selectors are to find a spot for Fraser-McGurk in the 15, they will need to risk going without a spare wicketkeeper as they did in 2022 at home, or without a spare spinner in the 15 as they did at the 2023 ODI World Cup. But flying a replacement for one of those two needs, halfway around the world promptly in case of injury is not as simple as it was for the previous two tournaments.

Warner’s finger adds to the worry, Starc also injured

David Warner has bone bruising on his finger•BCCIWarner’s injury absence is set to extend for another week as the bone bruising on his finger has not subsided, which is a slight concern for Australia. What Fraser-McGurk is doing in his absence, plus recency bias, has led to some external noise about his place in Australia’s best XI for the World Cup. It is unlikely the same queries have been tabled internally by the Australian selectors given how much credit he has built over a 15-year career. There has been a tendency for critics to conflate the lean end to his Test career with his white-ball form for Australia, which has remained strong despite the age on his birth certificate. It had been a lean IPL by his standards prior to his injury but his form had not been alarming. Warner’s experience will be invaluable in the Caribbean if the pitches play the way they are expected to. But if Australia get some good pitches in the Caribbean and Warner is selected over Fraser-McGurk, he will need to re-find his fearless former self. No doubt, he will be spurred to prove that he is still one of Australia’s best T20 openers.Meanwhile, Mitchell Starc suffered a bizarre finger injury and missed Kolkata Knight Riders’ most recent match against Punjab Kings. It’s also not the first time he’s lacerated his bowling finger with his spikes. Starc’s form before the injury had been very up and down and the rest may well have come at a decent time in the middle of the tournament. KKR’s attack fared poorly in his absence as they failed to defend 261. KKR were confident he would return in one of their next two games. Australia’s selectors would love him to find some consistency ahead of the World Cup.

Green finds touch at the right time

Cameron Green exults after dismissing Pat Cummins•BCCICameron Green has found some form with bat and ball playing in an unfamiliar role for Royal Challengers Bengaluru and it has come at the right time ahead of the World Cup squad being selected. He made 37 not out off 20 in a finishing role against Sunrisers Hyderabad, nailing his Test captain Pat Cummins for four boundaries in the death overs. He has also bowled well in two of his last three games picking up 2 for 35 against KKR and 2 for 12 against SRH including claiming Cummins, with his execution and unpredictability as a T20 bowler improving. Although he was clattered for 42 from just three overs in RCB’s win over Gujarat Titans on Sunday.Part of the complication of finding a place for Fraser-McGurk is Australia’s absolute need for a spare fast-bowling allrounder in the 15 due to the injury concerns over Marsh and Stoinis. Marsh is currently at home recovering from a hamstring injury that ended his IPL. He is expected to be fully fit for the tournament and is set to be captain. But his ability to bowl in every game is an unknown. Stoinis is in fine form with bat and ball. But he missed Australia’s last four T20Is during the summer with a back issue and missed three of the nine pool games in the ODI World Cup due to niggles after an injury-riddled lead-in. He was then squeezed out of the XI for the semi and the final. Green played a crucial role in one of those ODI World Cup pool games against England making 47 when he replaced Marsh who was absent for family reasons.

Sublime Stoinis sends a reminder of his quality

Injury worries aside, Stoinis sent a reminder of his ceiling as a T20 cricketer with a stunning unbeaten 124 to guide Lucknow Super Giants home against Chennai Super Kings. It was a masterclass in T20 batting having been promoted to No.3. He also showed that he can be more durable than he has been in the past by bowling four overs, including the 20th, before batting almost 20 and guiding his team home. He strangely only bowled one over in LSG’s next match against Rajasthan despite picking up the vital wicket of Yashasvi Jaiswal and conceding just three runs after missing out with the bat. But a fit, versatile, in-form Stoinis heading to the World Cup bodes very well for Australia.

As the IPL nears the halfway point, here’s a recap of the main storylines involving the Australians in the last week

Alex Malcolm15-Apr-20240:54

Starc: ‘Taken me longer than I would’ve liked to get back into rhythm’

Starc finally sizzles after early struggles

Five games into the IPL, Mitchell Starc is starting to roll after claiming 3 for 28 in Kolkata’s Knight Riders’ big win over Lucknow Super Giants on Sunday night. Starc’s form had been a major talking point after his expensive start to the tournament given his huge price tag at the auction. But it is worth remembering he had not played any T20 cricket since the 2022 T20 World Cup when Australia’s selectors dropped him for the final game. He bowled the tough overs against LSG including three in the powerplay and the final over of the innings and had a huge impact. He delivered 12 dots in 18 deliveries in the powerplay and took the wicket of Deepak Hooda to stall LSG on a decent batting strip. His last over was outstanding. He bagged the dangerous Nicholas Pooran and then blew out Arshad Khan’s stumps off the last ball. He conceded one boundary, a streaky top edge, and one single in the final over with the other run coming via a leg bye as LSG only managed to post 161 for 7 before KKR ran that down in 15.4 overs with eight wickets in hand. Starc said after the match he is starting to get back into the tactical groove of T20 bowling.”It’s T20 cricket; for the guys who have played a lot of Test cricket, this is definitely a lot easier physically,” he said. “It’s more [about] getting used to the tactical side of it. I haven’t played a lot of T20 cricket in the last couple of years, so it has probably taken me a little bit longer than I would have liked to get back into the rhythm of things and make a better impact. So today was nice in that regard.”Related

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Another Australia multi-format quick who has found the T20 groove is Pat Cummins. He continued his phenomenal form last week with 1 for 22 from four overs in Sunrisers Hyderabad’s tight win over Punjab Kings. Cummins has been the second-best fast bowler in the IPL this season behind Jasprit Bumrah. The form of both Cummins and Starc bodes very well for Australia ahead of the T20 World Cup.

Marsh heads home and injuries worries mount

Mitchell Marsh has suffered a hamstring injury•BCCIMitchell Marsh has headed home to Perth after suffering a partial hamstring tear at the IPL and it is unknown as to whether he will return to India before the T20 World Cup. Marsh missed Delhi Capitals’ last two matches after scans revealed the injury over a week ago. He will head home to rehabilitate the injury with Australia’s team physio Nick Jones, who is also based in Perth. Meanwhile, Marsh’s Delhi teammate David Warner was hit on the finger on Friday while attempting to play a lap over short fine-leg. It is understood that Warner experienced some swelling and underwent scans upon landing in Ahmedabad on Saturday.There were also some concerns over Glenn Maxwell’s right hand after he left the field and did not return during Royal Challengers Bengaluru’s loss to Mumbai Indians last Thursday. Maxwell copped a blow on the right hand as he dropped a hot chance off Suryakumar Yadav at backward point. He immediately winced in pain and left the field holding his index and middle fingers. It is understood Maxwell had a scan that night in Mumbai and has been monitored ahead of RCB’s clash with Sunrisers on Monday night. RCB director of cricket Mo Bobat said on Sunday Maxwell is “okay at the minute” and “there’s no injury concerns”.

Maxwell’s batting misery continues, Green dropped

If the blow to the hand wasn’t enough, Maxwell’s batting woes have only added to the pain. He bagged his third duck of the tournament against Mumbai. After the extra pace of Mayank Yadav and Nandre Burger had brought him unstuck in his previous two games, he surprisingly fell to the legspin of Shreyas Gopal against Mumbai when he was trapped lbw failing to pick a wrong’ un. Maxwell has scores of 0, 3, 28, 0, 1 and 0 in the tournament so far. There is still a long way to go in the IPL and plenty of time to find some touch ahead of the T20 World Cup, which is also a long tournament that could feature plenty of fluctuations in form for individual players. But he will be hoping to find some form soon to build some confidence heading to the Caribbean.Meanwhile, Cameron Green’s hopes of making Australia’s T20 World Cup squad have taken another blow after he was dropped from RCB’s line-up for the match against Mumbai. Green had also failed to make his mark with both bat and ball in his first five games. He had been shuffled around in the order moving from No. 3 to No. 5. RCB opted to replace Green with Englishman Will Jacks at No. 3 against Mumbai Indians without success. Unless Green can regain his place in RCB’s XI and put some performances on the board, it will be tough for him to make Australia’s 15-man squad for the World Cup. His only other chance would be if Marsh was not able to recover from his hamstring injury.

Fraser-McGurk fires on IPL debut

Jake Fraser-McGurk started his IPL career with a bang•BCCIOne beneficiary of Marsh’s injury was Australian youngster Jake Fraser-McGurk who made a big statement on IPL debut for Delhi Capitals as he smashed 55 off 35 balls in their much-needed win over LSG. The 22-year-old had been a controversial replacement for Lungi Ngidi given Delhi’s bowling woes but he repaid Ricky Ponting’s faith and belief in his ability with a stunning innings that featured five sixes. He hit his second ball in the IPL for six and smacked another just three balls later to burst out of the blocks. He slowed down thereafter and was 25 off 23 at one stage but didn’t panic. He then proved he can hit spin as well as pace, clubbing Krunal Pandya for three successive sixes. Two of them were inside-out with the spin over cover and long-off. His 77-run stand with Rishabh Pant broke the back of the chase. Fraser-McGurk is still a fair way down the pecking order of Australia’s top-order options for the World Cup. But if he gets on a roll at the IPL and Australia have any injury concerns closer to the tournament, then he will be seriously considered as a power-hitting option in the top-order.

From being injury prone in 2023 to “leaner and lighter” in 2024, he has become KKR’s reliable bowler this IPL

Alagappan Muthu20-May-2024There are fragile things in this world. Hopes. Dreams. Glass. Andre Russell’s 35-year old body in IPL 2023. He didn’t bowl at all for the first three matches of the season. But when he did he started with a wicket. He had two by the time he finished his first over. But then when he came back to start the third, he pulled up after one ball – which by the way was another wicket – and then left the field.Even in this small and arbitrary sequence of play that really has no relevance right now, it is still clear just how talented this man is and the biggest threat that stands in the way of its expression. At least, he was able to play that whole season, and managed so very carefully that he only bowled an average of one over per game. There was an injury in 2021 which put him out of the tournament. And he was in such good form too; he took his T20 career-best 5 for 15 against Mumbai Indians.Russell’s 36-year old body in IPL 2024 seems to be free of such misfortune. Fuelled by the desire to represent West Indies when the T20 World Cup is played on their own soil in just a couple of weeks’ time, humbled by the fact that his old captain and now coach Daren Sammy lived up to his word of ‘do well and I’ll get you back in the squad’, and inspired by people who take a beating for a living but simply refuse to ever go down – UFC fighters – it is looking good.Related

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“At the moment, I have four packs, so working on the next two,” Russell said with a smile two months ago. “Definitely being leaner and lighter is working for my body and it shows in my performance as well. I like watching the UFC. To see those guys looking strong and lean is a motivation for me, so I set myself a goal. I know it is going to help in my cricket – bowling, fielding, and also in my batting.”Russell did not play any international cricket for two years from the end of the 2021 T20 World Cup. He was, of course, a staple on the franchise circuit. Eighty-eight matches of 20-over cricket for nine teams across seven countries. Sixty-three of those saw him in the colour purple (there’s a smidge even on the new Trinbago kit). Russell is West Indies first. He’s always insisted on that. But he has just as strong feelings about the Knight Riders. They’ve taken good care of him and he’s pushed himself to pay them back. This IPL season it’s been with his bowling because he hasn’t really been needed with the bat.Russell has sent down 25.2 overs, a 66% increase from 2023. He’s actually still to face as many balls as he’s bowled (120 vs 152). He’s become one of their bankers. Or at the very least an important part of their all-round threat. Because he does this thing where he can, if needed, start his spell really late in the game. He doesn’t need a warm-up. He’s too experienced to be scared. He’s quick. And he’s clever. Batters sometimes expect him to target the nose and toes at 150kph and he sucker punches them with his slower balls, which account for five of his 15 wickets this IPL. At times, he even starts celebrating, arms spread wide, running off to some distant corner of the ground, right after he induces the false shot. He just knows it’ll be caught. He just knows he is too good.

“I like watching the UFC. To see those guys looking strong and lean is a motivation for me, so I set myself a goal. I know it is going to help in my cricket – bowling, fielding, and also in my batting.”Andre Russell

This flexibility that Russell offers – he’s said yes to bowling 25% of his deliveries in the death – enables Sunil Narine and Varun Chakravarthy to come on at a time they much prefer and as a result of that do very well themselves. Thanks to those two mystery spinners, KKR have been the most dangerous bowling unit in the middle overs this year, with 47 wickets (rank 1) at an economy rate of 8.42 (rank 2).IPL 2024 has been all about the batters and ESPNcricinfo has an algorithm that ranks them based on not just the runs they’ve scored but the difficulty they faced – the quality of bowling, the match situation, whether their performance was the key to securing victory. Here it is. Russell has had them for breakfast, lunch and dinner in the league phase and now he’s coming for dessert. Eight of his 15 wickets are of batters who are in the top 20 on this list. That’s Suryakumar Yadav and Rajat Patidar (twice each), Abhishek Sharma, KL Rahul, Nicholas Pooran, and Marcus Stoinis (once each).KKR haven’t played in Ahmedabad yet in this IPL. It is a ground that tends to neutralise spinners. But till date, it is hard to tell if anything but his own body can neutralise Russell. He produced a match-winning 64 off 25 balls and backed that up with two wickets when they faced Sunrisers Hyderabad earlier in the season. Tuesday could be time for an encore.

He has transformed himself and his multi-faceted team to prioritise winning above all else

Alagappan Muthu03-Oct-20242:35

Manjrekar: ‘This is the legacy Rohit Sharma will leave as captain’

A century is a sacred thing. Everybody understands its significance, its pull. When Sachin Tendulkar was touring the world with 99 of them in his pocket, all anyone wanted to talk about was that next one, which would’ve been fine except he was trying not to think about it. It became awkward every time he went down to breakfast and they were giving him his tea with a side of knowing looks.The hundred is the most recognisable feature of our sport, to the extent that others have found reason to tap into it to generate that sweet, sweet engagement. Premier League champions Manchester City marked the occasion of their star striker, Erling Haaland, scoring 100 goals by putting a picture of him in full cricket gear on their socials.India just finished a Test match that flew in the face of all that. In Kanpur, Yashasvi Jaiswal not only had the chance to bring up three figures but do so quicker than anybody else from his country. He could’ve walked it in singles. Bangladesh had spread the field all the way out. Instead, he saw a little gap at third and went for the ramp shot. Now, there weren’t a lot of reasons for him to be in such a hurry. The one he had, though, was extremely compelling.Related

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“When we gathered inside [the dressing room] for a small huddle, Rohit Sharma mentioned that we are going to go hammer and tongs and try and make, you know, 400 runs, probably, in 50 overs,” R Ashwin said after India found a way to win a five-day game in half that time. It involved a lot of risk. It wasn’t going to happen without a collective buy-in, especially from the batters, particularly the out-of-form ones.KL Rahul came into this series with an average of 34.08. He has only one century at home, a casualty of overarching plans to make the most of spin-friendly conditions. He might have liked to bed in at Green Park. The pitch wasn’t doing very much and time at the crease is a magical thing. It can erase all the doubt that had ever been cast on you, not from the outside, but also on the inside. It just settles you.Under a less adventurous captain, with a less willing group of men, facing a better quality of opposition and no pressure of World Test Championship points, India would’ve got in a bit of batting practice and left with a draw.”Rohit walked out and just tonked the first ball for a six,” Ashwin said. “So when you walk the talk, I think obviously the dressing room doesn’t have any other choice but to follow that same pattern. We had 50 runs out of three overs. There was no looking back after that.”Rahul made 68 off 43. He had two boundaries within the first ten balls and he was charging and reverse sweeping by the 15th.India have had many captains that have transformed the way they play. Mansur Ali Khan Pataudi yanked them out of defeatism. Kapil Dev won them their first world title. MS Dhoni ended the wait for another one. Sourav Ganguly made being bad look sexy. Rahul Dravid broke the ODI chasing curse. Anil Kumble stood up right against wrong. Virat Kohli triggered a fast-bowling revolution. Rohit might just be outdoing them all because he is cutting right into one of the core values of Indian cricket.1:14

‘India exhibited a kind of dominance we’ve never seen before’

Batting means scoring big. You’re almost excused if you get out for a duck but if you get a start and then throw it away, you’re less than nothing. Rohit actually comes from the one place in India where this is basically gospel. He is Mumbai , which means come rain or shine, famine or plague, if you have a bat in hand, you have a responsibility not to get out. You are obliged to score those grand, daddy hundreds that utterly break the oppositions and make them question why they ever woke up that morning. His three double-tons in 50-over cricket are a tribute to this method and its far-reaching consequences. His next best score caused a bit of a flutter too.Rohit made 171 in Perth during a series where India faced questions about whether they cared more for milestones than victories, because their batters kept slowing down and it did have an impact on the final scoreline. Back then, the team was heavily reliant on its top order and so they had to play with a great deal of caution. It is only with time and effort and investment and experience that they now have a batting line-up with threats all the way down.In 2023, Rohit wanted to maximise that, weaponise that. So a man who used to set up to bat the full 50 overs went into a home World Cup and showed a very different side of himself. He kept hitting from ball one because he thought that was the best way for India to win. By then, he’d found strong influences that backed his beliefs.

“In the past, I know of players who have got a fifty in a game like that, they might have just walked out 52 not out. He chose to go for the gallery shot. It is just in his head to see the ball and hit it”R Ashwin on Yashasvi Jaiswal

“When Rahul Dravid was here,” Ashwin said, “he used to mention you will not remember the runs and the wickets that you take but you will definitely remember the memories that you create.”That’s so old school, right? Especially in 2024 where athletes have discovered they aren’t just people, they’re brands. There is incentive to putting themselves first; to safeguarding their success and minimising their risks. The power of a simple individual – let alone those with global acclaim – is sky high right now. It isn’t ludicrous for them to want to cash in, or at the very least have questions when their captain says things like “we’re gonna score 400 in 50 overs”. No one did in Kanpur. Even though the same social-media phenomenon that makes them walking bags of money opens them up to incredible rebuke whenever they fail. And this had potential for failure.Green Park is by no means a template. India will not be scoring at nine runs an over when they go to Australia. But even so, for Rohit to convince his men to follow him like that, in merely the hope of a result, and for them to do it, is no small thing. It’s been a hallmark of his captaincy, across formats. He helped Kohli reassess the price he puts on his wicket in T20s. He protected Jaiswal, genuinely worried he might jinx the opener during his coming-of-age performances against England. In that same series, when Sarfaraz Khan finally broke into the national team, Rohit spent an entire training session looking after him. He has been rewiring his own generation and encouraging the next one to put the win above all else.1:56

T20 champs for a reason? India break batting records in Kanpur

In Kanpur, it meant playing fast-forward cricket, the kind that didn’t just put pressure on the opposition, it caught them completely by surprise. Bangladesh admitted to needing a couple of overs to realise what was happening on that fourth afternoon when India, having batted for less than three hours, had enough on the board for a first-innings lead. Then they came out with similar intent to chase a target of 95, Jaiswal helping himself to another better-than-a-run-a-ball fifty.”It’s just the way he plays,” Ashwin said. “In the past, I know of players who have got a fifty in a game like that, they might have just walked out 52 not out. He chose to go for the gallery shot. It is just in his head to see the ball and hit it.”It’s probably the next generation of players and they are going to be like that. It’s us that need to be able to adapt to their style and be able to facilitate them with the best environment for them to be nurtured for them to prosper.”There are much sterner challenges ahead – the Border-Gavaskar Trophy starts in November and then there’s the Champions Trophy in February and, very likely, the WTC final in July. Each of them will require India to dig deep in various ways. They may come up short. It can happen. But they won’t die wondering. If there’s a chance – even the slightest, most outlandish one – they’ll grab it and they’ll run with it. Rohit won’t let them settle for anything less.

Deandra Dottin was among those battling injury but she was almost able to turn the game West Indies’ way

Shashank Kishore19-Oct-2024

Hayley Matthews tries to hide her emotions after the loss•ICC/Getty Images

Hayley Matthews’ face sank into her cap as tears ran down her cheeks. Stafanie Taylor had her eyes closed to prevent tears from gushing down. Deandra Dottin was aimlessly staring into the distance. Afy Fletcher was looking skywards and young Zaida James trying to console her. Chinelle Henry had her right eye covered with soft cotton and ice to reduce swelling.The common thread running through all of this: pain and raw emotions; the hurt of having stumbled with victory within their grasp was all too evident.West Indies came into this T20 World Cup as rank underdogs and remained that way until they bowed out. But in between, they displayed exemplary skill, the ability to adapt and play a flavor unique to them – one that Matthews had spoken of, time and again during the campaign. Of trying to “have fun” and “dance like the world ain’t watching.”Related

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It’s this attitude that heralded fearlessness and a turnaround from a 10-wicket hammering from South Africa in their opening game. It’s this enterprise and naked aggression, especially on the batting front, which sent England packing in a shootout. But by the time they got to the semi-final, it seemed as if the threshold of physical pain that they had to endure, which the fun element had largely help mask, left them running on fumes.Matthews was nursing a sore thumb after coping a hard knock at training. Zaida had just about recovered from a blow on the jaw and a bruising on her hand. Taylor had her right knee heavily taped, huffing and puffing her way between deliveries. Even a limp seemed to elicit excruciating pain but bailing out of it wasn’t an option. Her inability to run left the batters looking for the big shots that they couldn’t execute as often as they would’ve liked.This was evident never more prominently than it was between overs four to eight of their chase which brought West Indies just 11 runs. Singles had become non-existent because of Taylor’s injury, leaving her to rely on boundaries that led them both to take more risks.”She was battling soreness and pain, and she was just battling to get through it all the time,” head coach Shane Deitz said of Taylor. “It was amazing that she was able to come up today. She looked probably better than she did for the last few weeks. She really was mind over body. She gave everything and obviously couldn’t get so over the line. But she put everything in for the team, which we all respect and thank her for that.”Another player who was battling her way through the tournament was Dottin. The entire women’s cricket fraternity waited as she announced a much-awaited comeback after walking away from cricket “dishearten by the system”. Here she was, clutching her sides as she bowled, which Deitz later revealed was due to a side strain that she had been nursing all along.Deandra Dottin was so nearly the match winner for West Indies•Getty ImagesIt didn’t stop her from putting her hand up to bowl when asked to in a crunch game. Dottin’s four wickets were among the primary reasons why West Indies found themselves chasing only 129. Her lack of pace and cutters, while not fully a 100% bowling fit, told you of her determination to contribute. It was the kind of superhuman performance that can uplift a dressing room.Yet an hour later, it was Dottin who had to muscle the big sixes to get West Indies back into the chase with their asking rate creeping up. Dottin was on 7 off 10, showing no inkling of rhythm to her batting. Until she decided to hit her way out of trouble with a slog sweep shelled by Rosemary Mair at deep square leg. An over later, Dottin was once again let off the hook by Eden Carson off another slog. West Indies needed 64 off 36.You knew then Dottin stood in the way of New Zealand and a World Cup final. As if her bowling performance wasn’t enough, the ‘world boss’ still needed to deliver a blockbuster with the bat to give West Indies a chance. Despite those early struggles, Dottin had steely belief that she can hit the ball anywhere for six. It probably made her look at her dangerous best. When she muscled Lea Tahuhu for a 79-metre hit over the longest boundary to start the 16th, an over that went for three sixes, you wondered if the momentum had swung the West Indies way.Dottin had injected belief. It was as if a cheat code had been activated with a prompt to hit the ball far and long. But the physical toll it had taken on her had been so immense that when she was out to a top-edged a slog, it was as if she had only held up until then on adrenaline and nothing else.The shush in the West Indies camp was one of dejection. They needed 33 off 21, but it almost seemed as if the numbers were immaterial at that very moment. They eventually fell eight short – a margin they would’ve so easily covered up with two boundaries on another day. But this was knockout pressure, and a bandaged team willing themselves to fight as much as their bodies allowed them. And on Friday, it wasn’t enough.The long flight home will be tough. But they can be massively proud at what they achieved in UAE, despite all their systemic shortcomings that merely a Women’s CPL can’t help tide over. But in having fun and playing with flair and flamboyance, West Indies sparked conversations of a revival. Now to build on it and show there’s more to them than just the Matthews, Dottins and Taylors.