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Plays of the day from the first ODI of the series between England and Sri Lanka

Melinda Farrell at Trent Bridge21-Jun-2016The acceleration
Sri Lanka’s innings had sputtered along in fits and starts but without really finding a smooth gear until Seekkuge Prasanna feasted on the bowling of Liam Plunkett and Moeen Ali. Prasanna utilised the pace of Plunkett in pummelling two stray deliveries over the leg-side boundary but his punishment of Moeen in the following over was even more impressive. The first ball was slog-swept over backward square – by far the longest boundary at Trent Bridge. The next delivery was dispatched powerfully in the same direction, but further and with greater disdain. It was Prasanna’s fourth six in five balls and suddenly Sri Lanka had found some thrust.The run out
Angelo Mathews was all set for Sri Lanka’s assault on the final ten overs, with four wickets in hand and a quick-scoring Dasun Shanaka at the other end, when it all went horribly wrong. On the first ball of David Willey’s over, Mathews drove firmly to extra cover where Liam Plunkett, moving sharply for such a big man, barreled to his right and pulled off a brilliant one-handed stop. Shanaka, who had already backed up several paces down the pitch, was left stranded when Mathews sent him back; the single was never on and Willey completed the run out with an eon to spare.The surprise howler
When the England camp spoke in the lead up to this match about the need to improve their fielding, it is fair to assume no one had the always dependable and often brilliant Joe Root in mind. So when Farveez Maharoof mistimed a slog straight to Root at long-on, Willey was probably already mentally adding a third wicket to his tally. The sight of Root botching such a straightforward chance left the players, the crowd and probably even Maharoof himself wearing looks usually reserved for unicorn sightings. Root’s expression was enough to darken the longest day of the year as he retrieved the ball and hurled it back to the keeper.The review
Sri Lanka – Mathews, in particular – had copped a barrage of criticism over the use of reviews during the Test series. But Alex Hales raised eyebrows when he gave the T-sign after flicking a sharp Suranga Lakmal delivery straight to Kusal Perera running in at midwicket, in what seemed a straightforward dismissal. Hales appeared to believe he had hit his pad with the bat while the ball deflected off the same pad. It would have been a mighty deflection if so, but a splash of white on Hot Spot left no doubt the original decision was correct and a somewhat red-faced Hales was sent back to the pavilion.The catch
Jos Buttler had offered no genuine chances throughout his aggressive but measured innings until he reached 90. He survived when Prasanna was unable to hold what would have been a brilliant flying catch at short cover but the Sri Lankan claimed his scalp in the next over. Buttler attempted to belt Prasanna over long-on, where Shanaka showed superb timing in his leap and balance in the landing to stay inside the boundary rope and deny Buttler a century.The return
But for the cruel heart condition that has prematurely ended his career, James Taylor would almost certainly have been part of the England team to play at Trent Bridge. Before the match, and less than two weeks after major surgery, Taylor was out on the field where he had so often performed admirably for Nottinghamshire, this time as part of his new fledgling career – as an occasional commentator for BBC Test Match Special. It was a poignant reminder of the talent England have lost.

Sri Lanka’s marks out of ten after they bounced back from a winless tour of England to trample Australia 3-0 at home

Andrew Fidel Fernando18-Aug-2016

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Rangana Herath (28 wickets at 12.75, 119 runs at 23.8)In 145 overs of lovable left-arm spin, Rangana Uncle took more wickets than any other bowler in the series, and also claimed many more hearts. His batting has always been wonderfully watchable, but since England, he has struck the form of his life, so the entertainment now lasts longer. He was hit in the box by Josh Hazlewood at the SSC, yet he collected the series’ best bowling analysis there. Really, it was Australia, who after almost every encounter with Herath, were left whimpering squeakily, knees together, clutching the crotch, writhing on the floor.

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Dhananjaya de Silva (325 runs at 65, 2 wickets at 31.50)Batting so effortless it is like he is slung in a hammock at the crease, a cigar between his lips. De Silva stroked Steve O’Keefe for six to get himself off the mark, then went on to top-score in a series dominated by the bowlers. He never failed to get a start, then turned the starts into big scores at the SSC. His offspin is only decent, rather than deadly, but the team already trusts him to field at backward point.Kusal Mendis (296 runs at 49.33)At 21 years old, Kusal Mendis has already played one of Sri Lanka’s great Test innings. The 176 at Pallekele was not just match-turning, it also transformed the series. Then he top-scored on the toughest pitch of the tour, in Galle, as well, and claimed some excellent catches at short leg to boot. Mendis was playing in the Moin-ud-Dowlah tournament merely a year ago. Coaches will encourage him to improve, knowing, no doubt, that at this rate of ascent, he could be overlord of the galaxy in just a few years.

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Dilruwan Perera (15 wickets at 24.80, 116 runs at 19.33)If Dilruwan so much as glanced in an Australia batsman’s direction, at Galle, they would give him their wicket. He generally only plays when conditions are stacked in a spinner’s favour, yet has played the second spinner role so well, he became the fastest Sri Lanka bowler to 50 Test wickets. He was often the straight man to Herath’s hilarity, when they batted together.Rangana Herath’s hat-trick headlined Sri Lanka’s series-clinching victory in Galle•AFPDinesh Chandimal (250 runs at 41.66, one stumping, one catch)Now seemingly a long-term No. 6 and wicketkeeper-batsman, Chandimal made an important 42 alongside Mendis at Pallekele, and played his most mature innings to date at the SSC, where the score had been 26 for 5 when he walked in. That hundred left him sapped. Chandimal is usually so chatty after a good performance that he is often found by cleaning staff the next morning, still answering a question from the previous day’s press conference. This time there were only one-sentence answers. The eight-hour innings was enough.

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Lakshan Sandakan (9 wickets at 23)A little raw still, and he didn’t always have control, but when Sandakan got it right, at Pallekele, he was a delight. In that match he relied heavily on his googly. Some batsmen claimed they could pick him, but most looked baffled, like he was bowling hieroglyphs. Was barely needed in Galle, and was superfluous in the second innings at SSC. He bowled the delivery of the series, when in the second innings at Pallekele, the ball came at Joe Burns like a mugger in a dark alleyway.Nuwan Pradeep (2 wickets at 26)Played only in the first Test before taking his government-mandated hamstring injury leave. He is in better control of his swing than he used to be, so he can now stake a claim in Sri Lanka’s top XI, when fit. If he, Dushmantha Chameera and Dhammika Prasad are ever available to play in the same game, Sri Lanka may even have a decent pace attack. But a great many stars would have to align for this to happen. Like the SLC balloon trip in which officials float off into space through an abundance of hot air, this is merely a Sri Lanka fan fantasy.Kusal Perera (146 runs at 24.66, three stumpings, four catches)Having run around the world trying to prove his innocence to the ICC earlier this year, Kusal now finds himself run around in the batting order, sometimes opening, sometimes batting at No. 3, occasionally coming down the order, and at other times, taking the gloves. He played two manful innings at Galle, and made rapid stumpings at the SSC. He says he is happy to bat anywhere the team needs, and given his recent history of success in a polygraph test, fans may be inclined to believe him.

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Angelo Mathews (155 runs at 25.33)Despite looking out of form, Mathews still found a way to make runs at Galle, sweeping, and reverse-sweeping his way to 54 and 47, though his impact in the remaining innings of the series was limited. At times his bowling changes seemed so effective, if he had thrown the ball to a spectator, they might have finished with five wickets. The SSC declaration was too conservative for many. Given the rate at which Australia collapsed, though, perhaps Sri Lanka could have happily batted on.Vishwa Fernando (1 wicket at 16)He had been in at least two Test squads before this tour, without getting a debut. When he got his chance, he was only required for two overs. Thankfully he did take one wicket in those overs, so at least he can claim to have had marginally more impact on the series than, say, the sightscreen attendants.Kaushal Silva overcame an injured left hand, and five single-digit scores in a row, to make a century at the SSC•Associated Press

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Kaushal Silva (133 runs at 22.16)Kept playing loose drives until, by his own admission, having to get six stitches in his left hand, prevented him from playing that stroke, and he went on to get an important hundred. Having learned the cure for that mode of dismissal now, he may consider taking a small knife and bandages with him on future tours. Caught well at Pallekele and Galle, but was slightly less sprightly at the SSC – perhaps understandably so.Suranga Lakmal (1 wicket at 54)Was ruled out of the first two Tests through injury, but took the important wicket of Shaun Marsh at the SSC – breaking Australia’s biggest stand of the series. Was slightly expensive in that innings, but that wasn’t to be of great consequence.

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Dimuth Karunaratne (41 runs at 6.83)He has played some outstanding innings in tough conditions, but the paucity of his recent scores will be difficult for the selectors to ignore. Caught well, especially in Galle.*One of the scores was accidentally omitted at original time of publishing. This has been corrected.

Zafar Ansari believes that Saqlain Mushtaq’s calm influence as England’s spin consultant has helped England’s slow bowlers find their feet on the tour of India

George Dobell in Visakhapatnam15-Nov-20162:20

‘Saqlain acts as our cheerleader’ – Ansari

At first glance, Saqlain Mushtaq seems an unlikely cheerleader. At second glance too.Certainly in the modern sense. He’s never been seen with a pair of pom-poms and his dancing days are probably behind him.But that was the description of his role on England’s tour of India offered by Zafar Ansari. It was not meant as faint praise, either. It was meant to underline the unstinting support he has given to England’s spinners in his role as coaching consultant and, in a subtle way, it recognises the sensibly soft touch he has taken.These brief coaching stints are tricky. On one hand, the coach is keen to make as much of an impact as possible in the short period they are with the team. In the case of Saqlain, that was originally only going to be for two weeks on this tour, though it has now been extended to something approaching a month.On the other hand, such short-term coaches can be reluctant to force themselves on players. One highly respected batting coach who was invited to spend a session or two with the team during the summer departed having hardly spoken to the players for fear of tinkering without sufficient time to make substantial progress.Saqlain understands this. He understands that, as a consultant, his role is not to completely overhaul anyone’s technique and that, going into a game, the worst thing he could do is inject any negativity or doubt into a player’s mind.”He has made it explicit that he didn’t want to come in and change anything,” Ansari said after England’s training session at the not especially catchily named Dr. Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy ACA-VDCA Cricket Stadium in Visakhapatnam. “He hasn’t had time to change our actions and, in the lead-up to Test, the last thing you want to be doing is changing what you’re doing.”He acts as our cheerleader to some extent. He boosts us and makes us feel good about ourselves. And as someone who has been so successful to come in and say ‘I think you’re a good bowler and I think you can take wickets at this level’, that gives you a lot of confidence and that is important for Test cricket.”Saqlain may have learned a thing or two in this regard. During his first stint with the England team, just ahead of the Manchester Test against Pakistan, he mentioned to Moeen Ali that he may like to alter his grip a little in a bid to gain more bounce. But when the result was a couple of head-high full tosses, they both concluded that the time for technical changes is not a couple of days before a Test.His input is not limited to bowling, either. Moeen credits his improvement against spin bowling in part to Saqlain’s comments. So when Saqlain mentioned that Javed Miandad had recently told him how much he admired Moeen’s batting, Moeen was thrilled and more receptive to the advice – advice offered many times previously by Mark Ramprakash – that he might like to come down the pitch more often against spin bowlers. Sometimes the source of the advice is just as important as the subject.Zafar Ansari felt more settled in his second Test than he did in his first•Getty ImagesThat’s not to say that Saqlain is nothing but a cheerleader. He also has the experience to offer practical advice. So, while Adil Rashid’s Test career has previously been characterised by coaches suggesting that he would need to bowl quicker to succeed in international cricket, Saqlain has recognised that Rashid has several gifts but that speed will never be one of them.Instead, he has encouraged him to embrace his natural strengths: to give the ball some air, to give the ball a rip and to back his own skills to defeat the batsmen. On the evidence of the Rajkot Test, where Rashid produced probably the best bowling performance of his Test career, it seems to be working well.”It’s more about your approach to bowling and bowling in Test cricket,” Ansari said. “How you can maintain your composure when batsmen are coming at you, when the crowd is loud and when you’re playing on TV. All these external factors, he brings a certain perspective to that.”Saqlain’s background may be relevant, too. Four of this England squad identify as British Muslims and three – including all three of the spin bowlers from the Rajkot Test – have family roots in Pakistan. Saqlain is a man they can identify with, and not just as a cricketer.Ansari, while reluctant to think of himself as a role model as an individual at this stage of his career, nevertheless celebrates the success of the collective and feels their visible success is “a good thing for society”.”As a group of four British Muslims there is something in that,” he says. “There’s no doubt. That’s really exciting and something we’re proud of. A lot of people outside the group clearly care about that and value that a lot. And that is a good thing in our society.”From a personal point of view, I wouldn’t hold myself up as a role model. At least in that way. I’m from a very privileged background. I don’t necessarily challenge norms in a particularly obvious way or even in a superficial way. So I wouldn’t necessarily characterise myself as breaking down boundaries. But Moeen, Adil and Haseeb Hameed – all of them are doing a wonderful job representing their communities. And that’s not an easy role to play.”On a day of optional nets – the seamers from the first Test plus Joe Root and Jonny Bairstow took the opportunity to rest – James Anderson ran in hard and looked as if he was raring to go. But it was Steven Finn who troubled the batsmen most, generating unpleasant bounce from just back of a length. Both are set to be frustrated, though, with England likely to play the same XI that featured in Rajkot.And that would mean another chance for Ansari. Though he is modest about his own talents – he describes himself as “not a natural ball-player” and seems somewhat in awe of Moeen having spent a month or so watching him at close quarters – he concedes that he is growing more comfortable with the glare of life in international cricket.”The second game felt easier from a psychological perspective,” he says. “Just the attention being removed from you to some extent – as an England player, people are always observing – but that singular attention shifting away is a big thing for the second Test and going forward. It allows you to play the game as a game rather than as an event that you are the centre of.”I’m not a natural ball-player. I guess it’s all relative. I’m probably comparing myself with Moeen or people like that. They work incredibly hard but, from the outside, they have a certain touch that maybe I don’t feel like I quite have. But this is just my perspective. Other people might say you’re talking rubbish; you’re being self-deprecating. But that’s genuine.”Ansari’s skills are likely to be tested to the full in the second Test. While the pitch at Visakhapatnam currently has some grass on it, the groundsman expects it to turn from day two. It is likely that spin will play a greater part than it did in Rajkot and likely that the toss will, once again, prove important.

After a promising first day in Port Elizabeth things quickly unravelled for Sri Lanka, and that was meant to be the ground most suited to them. It does not bode well

Andrew Fidel Fernando31-Dec-20165:25

Five things we learned in Port Elizabeth

If you are a Sri Lanka fan with plans to come to the picturesque Newlands ground to watch your team play in the New Year Test, perhaps you will think to do something more useful with your money, like feed it to a goat.At Port Elizabeth, Sri Lanka’s five-Test winning streak was punctured. The Australia-series bubble was popped. Reality set in.In place of the optimism of the last few months in which five consecutive Tests were won and promising players bucketed down upon the island, there is now sudden fear the whitewashers could become whitewashees. Before the series, the Port Elizabeth pitch seemed the low-slow promised land. It was thought Sri Lanka could ease themselves into the series with manful batting and Rangana Herath’s sleight of hand. Instead Herath’s fingers took a battering, and the batsmen wound up nursing blows to their outside edges. Perhaps it was inevitable. Watching the edges of your bat blush redder and redder through the course of several weeks has recently become the essence of a Sri Lanka batsman’s away tour.You can see the parallels with the Australia series can’t you? Due to a quirk of scheduling, that tour had begun in Pallekele, where Australia hoped to establish their dominance on one of the most seam-friendly pitches on the continent. Instead they were mugged by Sri Lanka’s trio of spinners, and then were led down an alley and merrily stabbed, at Galle. At the SSC, the corpse was briefly reanimated only for Herath to draw his shiv and waddlingly chase Steven Smith and his men around the field again.If Sri Lanka have failed to score 300 in Port Elizabeth, how will they fare at Newlands, where South Africa have never lost to an Asian team; where Sri Lanka themselves have been defeated soundly thrice (by an innings and infinity on one occasion)? The Wanderers, where the third Test is scheduled, is also spoken about by locals as a bouncy, high-altitude, cricketing abattoir. Will Sri Lanka make it down the hill alive?Perhaps the selectors’ and management’s most pressing question is what they can now do at No. 3. Since Sri Lanka’s greatest Test batsman retired, the best remaining batsmen have been reluctant to bat there, as if the ghost of Kumar Sangakkara still haunts his old spot. Angelo Mathews likes it down there at No. 5, as he also fancies himself as a first-change bowler. Dinesh Chandimal prefers to take the gloves and come in at No. 6. Kusal Mendis’ returns have been so much better at No. 4 that selectors are reluctant to move him. And Dhananjaya de Silva is still so green and goes so purringly at No. 7, there is a strong case for his retention there as well.The No. 3 spot has now chewed up at least three batsmen, and each time a new man plays a bad shot to get himself out, the ghost of Sangakkara can be seen cover-driving the same ball to the boundary. When a stumping chance is missed, as with Chandimal in the second innings, Sangakkara’s ghost has so much time he collects the ball between butt cheeks and backs seductively into the wickets.Strategic problems in the field – which had a long and lavish airing in England – have also re-emerged. Mathews’ Plan A in Port Elizabeth seemed to be to attack conventionally with the seamers; Plan B was to wait endlessly for Plan A to work; while Plan C was to make fans want to throw themselves from tall buildings. Any semblance of energy fled the fielding effort. New batsmen were practically welcomed to the field with garlands and offers of massages. And the (mis)use of Herath was brought into relief by Faf du Plessis’ excellent handling of a much less experienced spinner: Keshav Maharaj.There are brief and brilliant glimpses of potential in this Sri Lanka squad, but on away tours, how atrociously it has been harnessed. If Sri Lanka don’t activate the ability at their disposal, if they fail to prod consistency from batsmen, or fashion coherent tactics for their limited seam attack, they may as well find something more worthwhile to do with all their talented youth. Like feed them to a goat.

Despite its share of hiccups, the opening night of Pakistan Super League 2017 showed the competition may be starting to gain a foothold in its home away from home

Osman Samiuddin in Dubai09-Feb-2017Fahad Mustafa is the king of Pakistan television. Pakistanis know this, but to those who don’t, take it as true that he is. By occupation he is an actor but really he is the host of a wildly successful game show that works on the simple formula that you cannot go wrong if you give prizes to anyone with a pulse within a 100m radius.He is the show. Imagine the Energizer bunny. Imagine that Energizer bunny a few cans down of an energy drink. Imagine the Energizer bunny a few cans down of an energy drink and then a shot of pure adrenaline to the good. Then multiply that by some. What you have is about half the energy Mustafa brings to his shows, day in, day out.So to have him as the hype man for the opening ceremony of the second Pakistan Super League in Dubai was, at so many levels, the rightest thing organisers could do. This wasn’t quite the canvas for him to do his thing, and the crowd was already feeling the occasion, but still: he was just the man for the moment and mood.He was one of a few things they got right. Altogether there was something more polished about this opening than last year. That evening had burned through on emotion alone. Until the very last moment, it had felt like it might not even come to be. There had been little marketing in the build-up because the budgets were so tight. Ticket sales had been an issue. The broadcast deal was unheard of. There was confusion over where they would play. It was sharing space with the Masters Champions League – which then seemed like a workable idea and even a threat.But somehow they got it up and running and Peshawar Zalmi flew in 143 students and teachers from the Army Public School, the scene of a terrible terrorist attack the year before, and the stadium had enough people in it, and it didn’t matter that the opening ceremony felt slightly disjointed and nervous because the night felt so redemptive. Pretty much the whole season surfed through on the emotion of that night.This year there has been more control. In the run-up there has been greater promotional visibility around Dubai for the league. And it showed, in the number of fans that had been streaming into the ground a good 90 minutes before the opening ceremony was due to start.Big names at the PSL? Of course•Pakistan Super LeagueIt showed in the ceremony itself, slicker, smarter and not averse to a few tugs at the heart. Any other time, for instance, a rendition of “Dil Dil Pakistan” might pass by unnoticed – it is just what you get at any Pakistan game. Nobody missed the significance this time, just two months removed from the death of its singer Junaid Jamshed. And there is no occasion that isn’t fit for a little Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan. Feels, they say these days, proper feels.But like Sean Paul last year, Shaggy was an odd intrusion. When and where indeed was Shaggy not an odd intrusion other than, perhaps, for a brief period in the 90s? Perhaps not as odd as the PSL’s original wish – Justin Bieber – would have been though. Given how much Pakistan’s music industry is bubbling currently, another Pakistani to accompany Ali Zafar and Shehzad Roy could not have been difficult.This being a Pakistani production, there had to be a fashionable delay before the game actually began. Last year there had been a 20-minute delay. Tonight it took 50 minutes to start because of what appeared to be difficulties in dismantling the stage without affecting the sightscreen behind it. Don’t miss the symbolism, given how long and how many delays there have been in getting the league off the ground in the first place. By this point the stadium was all but full – in itself a revealing achievement given how sparse crowds have been for recent Pakistan internationals here. Some of the energy that Mustafa had generated had gone though.And once the game began, the evening assumed an oddly familiar feel, as if this is precisely what we have come to expect – a little razzmatazz, the biggest Pakistani names, team-mates and opponents to some of the world’s finest talent. Yep, this is what the PSL is. Which is odd given that it is not being played in the country it is supposed to be played in and that it was only the 25th match in the short history of the league. Increasingly, this is the thing about popular T20 leagues, that you can identify with them and that you pretty much know what to expect as an experience when you go to any one of their games.Indeed it would have passed by in that haze of familiarity had it not been interrupted by a brief shower. Those are not as unusual as you might think, especially as it comes at the end of an unusually cold spell. But still – how many would have predicted that? Coupled with the late start and the shower – which came after midnight with the second innings not yet 10 overs in – it meant that about a third of crowd had left well before the end of the game.Which is a shame because the action – the very thing that will sustain this league – was promising. Last year, slow surfaces had made for lower-scoring Twenty20 cricket, intriguing in its own way, but not necessarily a recipe for long-term success. If this game is anything to go by – a first innings total near enough 200, a significant chase by the champions, though with only two balls to spare – this season might be a correction.

Pat Cummins was outstanding on the third day in Ranchi, but he couldn’t find a way past Cheteshwar Pujara

S Rajesh and Bharath Seervi18-Mar-2017Two players took all the honours on the third day in Ranchi – Cheteshwar Pujara and Pat Cummins. Pujara batted all day, stitched together useful partnerships with M Vijay, Ajinkya Rahane and Karun Nair, and ensured that India remained in the game; Cummins bowled with pace and hostility all day, took three wickets off superbly directed short balls, and ensured that Australia still had a chance of taking a handy first-innings lead.The battle between the two was engrossing as well. While Cummins troubled most of the Indian batsmen with his pace and variations in length, against Pujara he came out second best. Pujara scored 35 from 50 balls off Cummins, while all the other Indian batsmen collectively managed only 24 off 100. Pujara’s control stats against Cummins were outstanding too, compared to his team-mates.While the other Indian batsmen struggled to score against Cummins, Pujara went at more than four runs an over against him. The key was his ability to get the short balls away for runs: he scored 23 of his 35 runs off 29 deliveries that were either short, or short of a good length. The cut shot fetched him ten runs, including two fours. The other batsmen only managed 16 off 51 such deliveries that Cummins bowled.

While Pujara kept him at bay, Cummins won the battle against the other Indian batsmen: Vijay scored one run off 19 balls against him, Rahul 17 off 37, Rahane three off 13, and Ashwin three off 20, while Virat Kohli was dismissed off the first ball he faced from Cummins.Cummins’ pitch map shows how well he changed his length to combat a slow pitch that wasn’t offering much by way of pace and bounce. And even though he changed length and pace quite liberally, he consistently maintained a line on or around off stump, thus giving the batsmen few opportunities to work him away for easy runs.Pat Cummins varied his lengths superbly, but the line remained consistent outside off•ESPNcricinfo Ltd

More stats from day 32010 The last time India’s top three all made 50-plus scores in the same innings, against New Zealand in Nagpur. India had eight such instances between 2006 and 2010, but this innings is the first since then.6 Century partnerships between Vijay and Pujara in the 2016-17 season, the second most for a season. Matthew Hayden and Ricky Ponting had seven such stands in 2005-06. No other Indian pair has more than two century stands in the season.7 Centuries by Pujara in this first-class season in India. Only VVS Laxman has more in a season – eight tons in 1999-2000. MAK Pataudi in 1964-65 and Sunil Gavaskar in 1978-79 also made seven centuries each. Pujara scored four centuries in Tests and three in domestic first-class games.2.76 India’s run rate in this innings – 360 for 6 in 130 overs – is their fourth lowest in last 10 years when scoring 300-plus. They made 120 in 40 overs on the second day, scoring at three per over, but on day four they accumulated only 240 runs in 90 overs at 2.67. Apart from Rahul, no batsman scored at a strike rate of more than 50.0-179 Nathan Lyon’s figures since he picked up 8 for 50 in 22.2 overs in the first innings of the previous Test. He went wicketless for 82 runs in 33 overs in the second innings of the Bangalore Test, and had figures of 0 for 97 at stumps on the third day in Ranchi.

From being on the verge of giving up the game five years ago to making a comeback on the sheer weight of his runs, the stand-in India opener has come quite some way

Sidharth Monga in Galle28-Jul-20172:19

Agarkar: India could have had another crack at Sri Lanka on day three

On what was largely a pointless day of Test cricket – India furthered their advantage against a prone host team with no needle left in the contest – an otherwise similarly mundane arithmetical calculation assumed significance. As you saw Abhinav Mukund try to cash in and score a hundred that wouldn’t tell you a lot about his future, and as you saw a smile at the end of the day even though he didn’t get the hundred, you realised eight years ago he was a bubbling 19-year-old. And what the subsequent eight years have brought him.”Baby” they used to call him in the Tamil Nadu side captained by Dinesh Karthik and coached by WV Raman. Abhinav was one half of the best opening partnership in Ranji Trophy – Virender Sehwag and Gautam Gambhir were opening for India – and Karthik reckoned Abhinav and M Vijay were not just the best opening combination but individually too the best openers outside the India Test XI.That year, Vijay replaced Gambhir, who had been banned after making physical contact with Shane Watson on the field, and immediately felt at home. Abhinav soon followed Vijay into the India Test side as Sehwag and Gambhir both pushed their injury treatments post-IPL and into the Test tours of the West Indies and England. It was a tough initiation, especially the tour of England, where India lost all four Tests. Abhinav scored 49 against a red-hot England attack at Lord’s, but played only one more Test in the next six years.These were years of hell. He would score runs in domestic cricket, but that wouldn’t matter. Sadly, even when he didn’t score runs in domestic, even that wouldn’t matter. He told ESPNcricinfo last year how he wanted to give up on cricket in the season just after his brief tryst with the Test side, how he didn’t even want to watch cricket. Then there was a time when he wanted to play and didn’t have a side.”I was just raring to even put on whites,” Abhinav said of this period after he fell on 81 in India’s second innings. “I wasn’t part of any team, I wasn’t part of any first-class team. There was a time when I was dropped from my own first-class team. To have this opportunity to be part of the Indian team is such a huge bonus. I take every game as an opportunity, that’s all. If I am part of the team, not part of the team, again, I will try to do my best wherever I am.”It was clearly a dark period for him. “I had a lot of time to think about it,” Abhinav said when asked if he felt unlucky to be dropped when he was. “I had six years to think about it. I think you [the media] had too. I don’t want to talk about it. I have gone through my ups and downs, and that is a long long time back. I don’t even want to get there. I am happy I am back in the squad.”Abhinav did put on the whites in style in the seasons leading up to his comeback to the Test side, scoring runs in Ranji Trophy, and in Duleep Trophy, with the pink ball. Unfortunately, he was now the No. 3 opener in the squad, and had to wait for his chance. As he waited, he dropped – as a substitute – Steven Smith in the Pune Test that India lost. He dealt with the frustration a little differently to how he did earlier.”I felt really bad,” Abhinav said. “Once you drop a catch, it is not like you can go back and do something. It wasn’t a difficult chance either. It was quite a sitter. Ninety-nine times out of 100, I would have caught it. Haunted me a couple of times. Again I knew my opportunity would come where I could take something, I could prove that I was a good fielder at that position.”The opportunity came in Galle where he ran Upul Tharanga out from silly point when the batsman had barely stepped out, following it up with a stunning catch at the same position to send Niroshan Dickwella back.”Hopefully two more-three more come tomorrow and I can prove myself better,” Abhinav said. “I wanted to be a specialist somewhere. In the Indian team, it is very important that you be a specialist fielder somewhere. I have worked a lot with [R] Sridhar [the fielding coach]. He has been a great asset for me. He has made it mandatory that we take a certain number of catches every day. Also the fitness aspect as well. It is important that you are fit to stand under the helmet for 70-80 overs. So a lot of credit to Mr Basu [Shankar, the trainer].”It would have been nice for Abhinav to get a Test century, just get the maiden one out of the way, but he fell to what turned out to be the last ball of the day. A century, though, should not be the point. As it is, even if he had got the century, he would possibly would be left out for Colombo, with KL Rahul now fit: Shikhar Dhawan, who was behind Abhinav in the queue, played a better innings when it meant more.If Abhinav is left out, though, he is likely to deal with it much better than he used to deal with disappointments. He is better equipped now. Life has equipped him better. His smile when admitting he dropped a “sitter” tells you that. He was a bubbling 19-year-old “baby” eight years ago, but Abhinav Mukund is a man at peace with himself now.

Aakash Chopra also throws the spotlight on Colin de Grandhomme’s intent against spin, and India’s rolling No. 4 spot

Aakash Chopra25-Oct-2017India’s plan against Latham
Tom Latham’s innings in Mumbai was one of the finest played by an overseas player in India. The way he swept the Indian spinners reminded one of Matthew Hayden and Andy Flower. The only place that he didn’t target against spin was the long-off region (he had scored only one run towards long-off on Sunday) and it felt that the hosts fielded with only eight men. The Indian bowlers and captain Virat Kohli learnt from that experience, prepared a plan and executed it well. The spinners bowled only a couple of balls within the stumps and constantly had both fine-leg and square-leg inside the circle. The line and the field placement meant the option of padding a single from outside off was cut off, and the only way to find the fence was to go aerial. In addition to that, even after Latham was well set, India had six men inside the circle, which included a fielder at mid-off instead of long-off. The outside-off line forced Latham to walk across all the time and that’s where the change of angle from Axar Patel worked. That was the only time Axar went around the wicket and instead of throwing it outside off, he pitched it towards leg and Latham played down the wrong line.Bhuvneshwar’s tight lines
It’s a little difficult for a swing bowler to maintain tight lines but Bhuvneshwar Kumar has shown that he’s capable of doing so without comprising on his ability to swing the ball bowl both ways. His beehive from today’s match was a testament to his accuracy; most bowling coaches tell you to bowl the length that will make the ball hit the top off stump, and he did that consistently. He dismissed Martin Guptill with a ball that was too close to leave but still a little wide to play at and it moved away after pitching. Against Colin Munro he went around the stumps to bowl bouncers and came back over the stumps with a his knuckle ball that tends to float into the left-hand batsman, which accounted for an inside edge. Even for Henry Nicholls, he used the angle from around the stumps and hit the top of the wicket after going through the gate.How spinners bowled to Colin de Grandhomme•ESPNcricinfo LtdDe Grandhomme v spin
The arrival of Colin de Grandhomme at No. 7 for New Zealand dispelled any thoughts about the quality of the pitch, for till his arrival India’s spinners had a vice-like grip on things. He came out with a positive intent and challenged India’s strategy of having more fielders inside the 30-yard circle than was necessary. Two shots that he played against Yuzvendra Chahal and Kedar Jadhav showed his range of shots against spin. Both balls landed at the identical spot but against Chahal he went aerial down the ground and against Jadhav, he whipped the same ball over midwicket. He is also one of the few batsmen who can hit the long ball against spin without leaving the crease and thereby giving no advance notice of his intentions. The ball that dismissed him might have shown the way for Indian spinners to tackle his threat in the future. The ball he got out to was the only one thrown wide, challenging him to go over extra cover while the ball was turning away. The same had plan worked against Glenn Maxwell and it won’t be surprising if the same continues to be the plan against de Grandhomme after today’s dismissal.Dhawan’s technical adjustments
Tim Southee and Trent Boult present different kinds of challenges and demand a radically different response. Southee brings the ball back into the left-hand batsmen while Boult takes it away. In Mumbai, Shikhar Dhawan stood on the leg stump and didn’t shuffle against Southee, keeping his front pad out of harm’s way. But the same tactic brought about his downfall against Boult, as he ended up going towards the ball with his hands. In Pune, while he stood on the leg stump for Southee, he stood on middle and off against Boult. In addition to that, he played extremely close to his body with soft hands to the fuller balls, ensuring that the edge didn’t carry.India’s No. 4 spot still up for grabs
Since the 2015 World Cup, India have tried more players (11) at No. 4 than any other team in the world. Among them, only Yuvraj Singh has got eight consecutive chances to bat at that position while the rest have got no more than three chances on the trot before the next man in. Manish Pandey had failed twice at No. 4 against Australia, and was pushed down the order for the remaining games in which he got runs. But he is no longer a part of the playing XI now. Kedar Jadhav started at No. 4 in this series but Karthik was sent at that position in the second ODI. Selection isn’t only about having faith in a player’s ability but, also, faith in your own eye for talent.

Australian cricket has long prided itself on the independence of its curators and the quality of its pitches, but the ICC’s ‘poor’ rating for the MCG strip is a warning sign that the surfaces at the major Test centres are no longer what they used to be

Daniel Brettig03-Jan-20181:11

‘We have prepared a traditional SCG pitch’

Throughout this Ashes series, travelling English cricket correspondents have wondered at the Australian phenomenon of holding a press conference with the curator at each Test ground.It is a practice born of enormous Antipodean pride, even sanctimony, about the quality of pitches prepared in this part of the world and the independence of the curators themselves. They are free to talk, it seems, because no one is worried they might let slip about being leaned on to follow instructions for “doctoring” wickets to suit the hosts. As Ian Chappell has written on this website:”I’ve always believed that there should be a divide between players and groundsmen. Let the experts prepare the best pitch possible and then it’s up to the players to perform on that surface. As captain, if I’d asked any Australian curator for a certain type of pitch, the answer would have been: ‘Get stuffed. I’ll prepare the pitch, you play on it’.”For Cricket Australia, the assertion of the independence of ground staff around the country is tantamount to preaching the doctrine that separates church and state. A pointed contrast, as well, with the experience of Australian touring teams in other parts of the world, where pitch preparation is shrouded in greater secrecy, and visiting players and journalists are often kept in the dark as to what exactly is being done with the surface on which a match is to be played.Australian touring teams have long whinged about the sorts of pitches laid out for them in Asia in particular, looking down their noses at the way surfaces are seemingly prepared according to the precise wishes of the home dressing room. In England, too, they have been angered by pitches and harboured conspiratorial thoughts at regular intervals ever since the 1972 Headingley pitch was afflicted by a bout of “fusarium” limited exclusively to the cut strip and helped Derek Underwood confound Australia and decide the fate of the Ashes.One member of that side, Rod Marsh, was the selector on duty when in 2016 Steven Smith’s team staggered through a 3-0 defeat in Sri Lanka. After heavy losses on slow, spinning surfaces in the first two Tests, Marsh made a show of taking touring journalists out to the middle of the ground in Colombo to let them get a close look at the the pitch for the final match. The underlying message was to show everyone back home what the team has to put up with – symptomatic of a “complaint culture” that did not help Smith’s side as they lost once again on a surface that actually played far better than expected.Australia’s players have since come a long way in terms of improving their mental approach to tackling difficult assignments overseas, as evidenced by improved showings in India and Bangladesh in 2017, but the high-minded attitude to pitches has remained, even as numerous spot fires suggested a major problem was looming. In Sydney the SCG had a Sheffield Shield match abandoned due to an unsafe infield in 2015, before a new drop-in square at North Sydney Oval produced a below average surface for this summer’s women’s Ashes Test.Elsewhere the WACA Ground has faded both in terms of its pitch and its facilities, now eclipsed by a new stadium with another drop-in surface. Brisbane’s Gabba, long vaunted for its pace and bounce and inhospitable welcome for touring teams, has now spent several seasons creating furrowed brows for Australia’s players as they have witnessed its slowing. Adelaide has stood out as a beacon of progress and quality, but its lessons went unheeded by the MCG right up until a bungled preparation for the Boxing Day Ashes Test – coinciding with a changeover in curators – led to the ICC’s “poor” rating and an abrupt wake-up call for Australian cricket.Given the vast amounts of money and excellent climate available in contrast to many other parts of the world, the state of the MCG pitch was little short of disgraceful, and a definitive indicator that Australian cricket cannot afford to look down on any other nation so far as pitches are concerned. “As I said after the game, I thought it was a pretty poor wicket,” Smith said of the MCG. “They’ve got to do something there to get the bowlers into the game because it was just hard to get anyone out.”So it is a wake-up call to them and we’ll see what they come up with next year. Obviously they can’t afford to have another poor rating – I don’t know next year if they’ll leave some grass on it or – I don’t know, do something to rough it up. They’ve tried that before though and it hasn’t worked, so I dare say they’ll go down the path of leaving some grass on the wicket.”While the outgoing Cricket Victoria chief executive Tony Dodemaide has suggested that the MCG’s pitches need to be dug up and replanted, the fact of the matter is that the biggest ground in Australia has been dealing in outdated drop-in technology for quite some time. The individual pitch trays do not allow for moisture underneath the top to escape into other pitches, in contrast to Adelaide’s more porous trays, while the pitches themselves lie on a bed of concrete that has always led players to remark that the “tinny” sound of the ball striking the pitch is different to anywhere else they’ve played.Getty ImagesAdelaide’s drop-in pitches have gone on their own journey since first being installed in 2013, starting with a drier and more traditional preparation plan before the curator Damian Hough settled on using thicker grass coverage to reach the right conclusion. The ground is an example that drop-in pitches in themselves are not the problem, so long as they are done well. Equally, the Gabba, the WACA Ground and the SCG have shown that a natural wicket block is far from a cure-all, if variables of soil, clay and moisture are not carefully modulated.”Look at the Gabba this year, I thought that was a reasonably disappointing wicket as well, it started a bit slow and didn’t quicken up as much as it normally does,” Smith said. “But it’s nice to go there and have the pace and bounce, the WACA Ground normally has pace and bounce. Adelaide is a bit different with the pink ball, you know I think that’s probably the best wicket in the country in terms of everyone being in the game. Quicks, spinners and batters if you apply yourself.”In Sydney, the SCG has been subject to criticism from New South Wales this summer for being unable to host even a single Sheffield Shield fixture due to the relaying of the turf across the outfield. Justin Groves, the new grounds manager who worked at the Adelaide Oval in both its traditional and drop-in iterations, said he wanted to ensure that the SCG returned to a far more expansive place in the Australian season.”The reason why there was no cricket here earlier was that the outfield was redone,” he said. “So the early games were scheduled off the ground. We were happy to take a couple of games, but they did get moved away, Cricket Australia made those decisions. Red-ball cricket is what we want to do, we love four- and five-day cricket, so we want to have as much of that at the SCG as we can.”In moving from Adelaide to Sydney, Groves epitomised the open network that exists in Australia, with plenty of recent movement between venues. Matthew Page has moved from the WACA Ground to the MCG, David Sandurski from the MCG to the Gabba, and most famously Nathan Lyon moved from the Adelaide Oval’s ground staff – where he worked under Groves – to the Australian Test team. As such, the MCG’s poor rating has left a mark on the entire fraternity.”It certainly does [reverberate],” Groves said. “We feel very compassionate about all our curators around Australia, so to see some comments like that for the MCG it doesn’t sit well with our team. We like to pride ourselves on our work and we do the best we can in all conditions. We’re very happy as a team moving forward and we do communicate. We do the best we can.”I have worked with drop-in pitches in Adelaide. It’s different. The way you make pitches is very different, but you’ve got to know your own surface. It’s all about your soil base and your turf type and every pitch in the country is different. It’s definitely different the way you make your pitches. All the curators around Australia we talk to each other quite a lot. It’s part of what we do because we’re good friends and we’re in that community of curating pitches. It’s great that we can share stories and ideas with each other.”That sharing will surely now need to be increased, as Adelaide in particular becomes an example for the rest to follow in terms of transition from one season to another. A conspicuous figure in the middle of the MCG at the end of Melbourne’s Test and the SCG before Sydney’s has been the CA team performance manager Pat Howard, in conversations that Groves described as making sure the ground staff had all the support they needed, “but nothing towards how we’re going to prepare the pitch”.The independence implicit in that exchange was part of what had made Australian pitches so great and varied in the first place. After the problems of Melbourne it is time that CA, and Australian cricket as a whole, stopped to reconsider exactly what made that possible. If they do not, those curator press conferences are going to start to veer into some pretty embarrassing territory.

And how often have Sri Lanka been whitewashed at home in a Test series?

Steven Lynch27-Nov-2018How often have Sri Lanka been whitewashed at home in a Test series? asked Chandra de Silva from Sri Lanka

England’s 3-0 victory, which they completed yesterday by winning at the Sinhalese Sports Club in Colombo, was only the third time Sri Lanka had been on the wrong end of a whitewash at home.The first such setback was in March 2004, when Australia won 3-0 even though Sri Lanka claimed a first-innings lead in all three matches. Then India repeated the dose in 2017, winning 3-0 on a tour in which they won all nine international matches played.Sri Lanka have pulled off four whitewashes at home themselves. They beat West Indies 3-0 in 2001-02, despite Brian Lara piling up 688 runs, and had similar results against Zimbabwe shortly afterwards, also in 2001-02, Bangladesh in 2007 (three innings victories), and most impressively, against Australia in 2016, again despite conceding first-innings leads in two of the Tests.Kieran Powell was stumped first ball against Bangladesh. Was this a first for an opener in a Test? asked Mike Walker from England

Kieran Powell’s dismissal in the second innings in Chittagong last week was indeed a first for a Test. There had been three other instances of an opener being stumped for a duck, but none of them went first ball. Remarkably, two of those involved the same man, South Africa’s Louis Tancred, who was stumped for 0 on his 16th ball against England at Headingley in 1907, and repeated the feat – fourth ball this time – at The Oval in 1912.The first opener to be stumped for a duck in a Test was the England captain AN “Monkey” Hornby, against Australia at Old Trafford in 1884. He fell to the third ball he received, which was the 15th delivery of the match: this remains the earliest stumping in any Test.Two other openers have been dismissed in the first over, though not in the first innings of the match. England’s Archie MacLaren was stumped for 1 in Sydney in 1894-95, while Alastair Cook fell, also for 1, to the fifth ball of England’s second innings in Kolkata in 2012-13 (he had scored 190 in the first, and England needed only 41 to win).Was Nayeem Hasan the youngest man to take a five-for in a Test? asked Mithun Ahmed from Bangladesh

Bangladesh’s new offspinner Nayeem Hasan, who turns 18 next week, became the youngest from his country to take five wickets in an innings in a Test, in the course of claiming 5 for 61 against West Indies in Chittagong a few days ago. Nayeem beat, by about a month, the record of Enamul Haque Jr, who was just past 18 when he took 6 for 45 against Zimbabwe in Bangladesh’s first Test victory, at a different ground in Chittagong in 2004-05.But there are two Pakistanis on the list who took five-fors at a younger age. Mohammad Amir was 17 when he took 5 for 79 against Australia in the Boxing Day Test in Melbourne in 2009-10, but Nasim-ul-Ghani was just 16 when he claimed 5 for 116 against West Indies in Georgetown in 1957-58. A slow left-armer, Nasim took 6 for 67 a fortnight later in Port-of-Spain – and never managed another five-for in a Test career that stretched to 1972-73.Nayeem Hasan bagged five wickets in an innings on his debut, becoming the youngest Bangladeshi to take a five-for in a Test•Getty ImagesI noticed that six England bowlers took wickets in both innings of the final Test against India at The Oval. Has this happened before? asked Kurshid Patel from India

That’s a good spot, because that achievement by England’s bowlers at The Oval in September – James Anderson, Stuart Broad, Ben Stokes, Sam Curran, Moeen Ali and Adil Rashid all took at least one wicket in both innings – is unique in Test history.Overall there have been more than 100 Test innings in which six bowlers took at least one wicket – but only four cases of seven. These were by England against Australia in Melbourne in 1897-98; by South Africa against England in Durban in 1922-23 (six of them took a wicket in the second innings as well); by Australia against South Africa in Johannesburg in 1966-67 (a regular bowler, offspinner Tom Veivers, also bowled 18 wicketless overs); and by New Zealand against South Africa in Centurion in 2005-06.Is it true that in an official ODI, a batsman was given out lbw by his own father, who was the umpire? (Must have led to an awkward conversation at dinner that evening!) asked Taimur Mirza from Australia

Yes, rather surprisingly it is true. The umpire in question was Kenya’s Subhash Modi, who stood in 22 one-day internationals between 2001 and 2010. Three of those featured his son, Hitesh Modi, an obdurate left-hander who had a spell as Kenya’s captain. Against Bangladesh in Nairobi in August 2006, Hitesh was rapped on the pad by Mashrafe Mortaza – but having his father at the other end didn’t save him: Modi Sr raised the finger to end his son’s innings (and, as it happened, his ODI career, after 63 matches). Subhash proudly admitted: “Yes, I gave my son out – and I gave him out in the first match too, bat and pad.”