A crisis man, a tidy bowler and a compact batter – Chase ticks all the boxes for WI

Shashank Kishore21-Feb-2022Roston Chase wasn’t meant to play any of the T20Is and was only picked as a back-up allrounder. He not only ended the T20I series as the highest wicket-taker across both teams, and all but sealed his spot as a bowling all-rounder, who can offer batting flexibility when the team needs it.Early wickets lost, consolidation the need of the hour? Dial Chase. Wickets needed with the ball to win back some control? Dial Chase. Besides, Chase is also an excellent fielder inside the ring. He bowled his full quota of overs in each game; his six wickets in three games came at an economy of just 5.16.Jason Holder’s bruise on his chest prior to the series opener handed him an opportunity. In a modest 157 chase, India were cruising at 57 without loss when he was brought on. He bowled his four overs at a stretch mostly with a wet ball.He used the crease to vary his lines, and then his tall frame to bowl it into the pitch and extract bounce. By not allowing batters to get underneath the flight on a two-paced surface, he kept India honest. The rewards for these were the wickets of Rohit Sharma and Ishan Kishan. He finished the first T20I with figures of 4-0-14-2.In the second T20I, West Indies won a crucial toss and elected to bowl because of heavy dew. This time, Chase wasn’t a last-minute inclusion, but a first XI player in place of Fabian Allen, who was meant to start. Chase’s terrific effort in the series opener had swayed the team management into playing him again.This time, he had better conditions to show off his wares. India began to get off the blocks quickly, with Rohit and Virat Kohli playing in a refreshingly attacking manner. Kohli batted with freedom and positivity, hitting six boundaries off his first 15 deliveries. When Chase came on to bowl in the eighth over, Kohli had raced to 29 off 18, Rohit was on 18 off 16. The signs were ominous, and he delivered yet again.Chase’s tall frame helps him operate with different trajectories compared to Allen or Akeal Hosein, the other two spin bowling allrounders. And he used every bit of it to his advantage. Four balls into his spell, he dismissed Rohit for the second time in the series, by having him slice a lofted hit to cover.Chase can land the ball on the same spot – much like Washington Sundar does for India – and he mixes this with subtle changes in grip. The one that got Rohit held its line instead of spinning in because he bowled it with a scrambled seam. Rohit, who was looking to muscle it over cover ended up slicing it to the fielder at the edge of the ring. Off his next over, he enticed Suryakumar Yadav to drive, only to get the ball to dip and spin as he gobbled up a forceful push.Chase ensured India didn’t hit a single boundary between the end of the powerplay and the start of the 13th over. After a pulsating beginning, Kohli had managed just 10 runs off his next 15 balls during Chase’s spell, with two big wickets having fallen. Once again, his subtle mastery was at play, allowing Pollard a degree of control over proceedings. Four overs of mayhem at the end – where the fast bowlers repeatedly lost their lengths and bowled into the slot – allowed Rishabh Pant and Venkatesh Iyer to feast on the bowling to set up a target of 187, which the visitors fell short of.On Sunday, Chase was once again at the forefront for West Indies. Not allowing India’s fearless band to break away initially. They wanted to bat with freedom and made four changes with the series in the bag. In came Chase again, keeping them honest and in the process. Kishan’s frustration stemmed from his inability to step out to Chase.The lengths he bowled didn’t allow him to go back and pull either, because it was the “in-between” length Chase often goes back to as a default setting. Eventually, he’d have Kishan bowled trying to pull a delivery that held on to the surface and had him play early. Once again, he bowled out with West Indies having a degree of control, with Rohit and Suryakumar Yadav having to rebuild the innings. Allen, the man who was set to play ahead of him when the series started, bowled just one wicketless over. How the tide had turned. If not for some poor death bowling, West Indies may have found themselves chasing 20 fewer than the 185 they were set.While his bowling has come up leaps and bounds, Chase the batter struggled for any sort of rhythm. In the first game, he pottered his way around before falling lbw to a Ravi Bishnoi googly. In the third, he came in much later, after the cream of the batting had all been dismissed in pursuit of a big target. For someone who is seen as an accumulator, who can shift up and down the order based on conditions, these were disappointing series with the bat.In a line-up full of explosive power, Chase is often seen as the calm amid the storm. His presence gives West Indies a degree of comfort with the bat at the best of times. He is an excellent player of spin because of the assuredness in his footwork. His role is mainly to knock the ball around after the power plays, pick up occasional boundaries and allow the power-hitters to come into their own.This has been the DNA of his T20 game ever since he made a serious pitch as a T20 player in 2020, when he was named as a replacement player in the CPL by St Lucia Kings. In the following season, he repaid the faith by being the season’s MVP, which got him a maiden T20 World Cup call-up. While his bowling continues to be on the rise, Chase will hope his batting returns in India were an aberration. If he can offer West Indies a bit more flexibility, his presence, amid a succession of bowling allrounders in Allen, Hosein, Odean Smith, Jason Holder and Romario Shepherd will help build a bouquet of options T20 teams around the world yearn for.

He has upped his six-hitting game to wreak havoc on bowlers this season

Mathew Varghese, ESPNcricinfo stats, Illustration by Kshiraja K11-May-2022ESPNcricinfo Ltd

This IPL has seen a few feisty reunions, featuring Warner, Rashid, Kuldeep, Chahal, and others

Yash Jha07-May-2022A player-franchise association of years breaks down every few years. Now with a new home side, a player meets his old friend and turns up big against them. It’s a script that plays out often and with much interest around it. Like in football, the IPL, now that it is a decade-and-a-half into existence, is seeing its own share of feisty reunions, and a fair few players have turned the heat on their past employers this season. We pick the most notable such contributions so far in IPL 2022:David Warner (Delhi Capitals): 92* (58) vs Sunrisers Hyderabad, Brabourne StadiumDavid Warner scored a match-winning knock against Sunrisers Hyderabad•BCCIIt’s hard to think of a more publicly acrimonious fallout in the IPL than the one between Sunrisers and Warner in 2021: team legend, he led them to the 2016 title, three Orange Caps in six completed seasons alone for Sunrisers, and yet reduced to a reserve.Warner quashed any arguments of how much was left in the tank with a Player-of-the-Tournament medal in Australia’s title win at the T20 World Cup that followed the IPL season last year. Well into this IPL campaign came his chance to take on his team of the previous seven years.He grabbed it with both hands, playing that quintessential Warner knock that had heralded so many Sunrisers victories in the past: cautious to begin with, unaffected by wickets at the other end, upping the gears with ease, and batting it out till the end. He took his time and picked his battles – 15 off 13 balls against Bhuvneshwar Kumar, but 47 off 25 versus Umran Malik and Kartik Tyagi combined – and was the fulcrum of Capitals’ charge to 207 for 3, which proved too good for his old team.Rashid Khan (Gujarat Titans): 31*(11) vs Sunrisers Hyderabad, Wankhede StadiumRashid Khan finished on 31 in 11 balls•BCCIThe absence of Rashid from Sunrisers’ list of retained players ahead of the 2022 auction sparked off the most blazing debate with many questioning the franchise owners and team management’s logic.It turned out to be an evening to forget for Rashid when he came on to bowl against Sunrisers. It was probably the familiarity that helped Sunrisers’ batters taking Rashid apart: he conceded 40-plus runs for only the third time in the IPL, with Abhishek Sharma smashing him for 34 from just 15 balls.But Titans – who had gleefully lapped Rashid up as one of their three draft picks – would have the final laugh.The tie seemed beyond Titans with 56 needed from the final four overs when Rashid joined Rahul Tewatia in the middle. The equation became 37 off 14 after Rashid hit his first six – a helicopter flick off Bhuvneshwar – and some blows from Tewatia brought it down to 15 off four, with Rashid on strike, facing Marco Jansen. Six, dot, six, six: a stunning sequence left Sunrisers seething, the usually-calm Muthiah Muralidaran fuming, and Titans extending their stay at the top of the table.Wriddhiman Saha (Gujarat Titans): 68 (38) vs Sunrisers Hyderabad, Wankhede StadiumWriddhiman Saha reached fifty in 28 balls•BCCIThat Titans were still in the hunt in the back-end of that chase was down to another ex-Sunrisers man. Saha got a late entry into the XI after the move to play Matthew Wade at the top didn’t work, and he hadn’t done much in his first two outings (11 off 18 and 25 off 25).But he took the attack to Sunrisers, comfortably outscoring Shubman Gill in a strong start to Titans’ pursuit of 196. The openers faced 18 balls each in the powerplay – Saha scored 39 and Gill 15. Saha brought up a 28-ball fifty and continued to motor on, leaving Titans with 74 to get off 40 balls by the time he was done.Saha was fluent against his former Sunrisers team-mates, taking 10 from seven balls off Bhuvneshwar and 13 off six off T Natarajan, while taking Marco Jansen to the cleaners: 26 off nine balls, laced with four fours and a six.Kuldeep Yadav (Delhi Capitals) : 4 for 35, Brabourne Stadium and 4 for 14, Wankhede Stadium, both vs Kolkata Knight RidersKuldeep Yadav was a thorn in KKR’s side•BCCIFrom 2019 to 2021, Kuldeep Yadav had bowled 270 balls for Knight Riders in the IPL and picked up just five wickets. By the time he bowled his 27th delivery against them this season, the Capitals’ lead spinner had crossed that tally, and he is the second-highest wicket-taker this IPL right now.The first rubber was a high-scoring clash at Brabourne, and Kuldeep had gone wicketless while conceding 28 runs from his first 16 balls – but his last eight deliveries would decisively turn the game in Capitals’ favour. He had Shreyas Iyer stumped for 54 off 33 before dismissing Pat Cummins, Sunil Narine and Umesh Yadav in the space of four balls – the last an excellent caught-and-bowled effort.Kuldeep took it to another level 18 days later. After getting rid of B Indrajith and Narine off consecutive deliveries in his first over, he got the wickets of Shreyas and Andre Russell in his third. It could have been more than a four-for, but Capitals – for some reason – didn’t bowl out Kuldeep’s quota.Yuzvendra Chahal (Rajasthan Royals): 2 for 15 vs Royal Challengers Bangalore, Wankhede StadiumYuzvendra Chahal also struck against his former side•BCCIChahal’s exclusion from Royal Challengers’ shortlist was one of the talking points when the retentions were announced ahead of the mega auction. Between 2014 and 2021, Chahal picked up 139 wickets in 113 games for Royal Challengers; no bowler took more wickets in the IPL in that period.That provided enough intrigue as the legspinner lined up against his old unit early in the 2022 season, and although his new team – Royals – couldn’t get the win, Chahal was arguably the best bowler on the night. He returned superlative figures of 2 for 15 from his four overs, accounting for Faf du Plessis and David Willey, and also playing a part in the run out of his former captain Virat Kohli.Rahul Tripathi (Sunrisers Hyderabad): 71 (37) vs Kolkata Knight Riders, Brabourne StadiumRahul Tripathi brought up his half-century in just 21 balls•PTI With 397 runs in 16 innings at a strike rate of 140, Tripathi was key to Knight Riders’ run to the final last season and second only to Gill on their run-scoring charts. Knight Riders did stay in pursuit of him till the INR 6-crore mark at this year’s auction, before seeing Sunrisers eventually acquire the 31-year-old for INR 8.5 crore (USD 1.1 million approx.).Tripathi walked out early in Sunrisers’ chase of 176, and took the attack to Knight Riders. Sunrisers went from 15 for 1 at the end of the third over to 105 for 2 after 11, with Tripathi flaying 53 of those runs off just 23 balls. He was particularly severe on Varun Chakravarthy, taking 19 runs from six balls off him, including two magnificently-driven sixes on the off side.Aiden Markram and Nicholas Pooran (Sunrisers Hyderabad) vs Punjab Kings, DY Patil Stadium
Aiden Markram and Nicholas Pooran took their side home•BCCIMarkram and Pooran had been part of the Punjab Kings line-up that found ways to not finish over the line in 2021. The pair, most notably, was in the middle for that Kartik Tyagi over last year when Kings contrived to lose to Royals in Dubai.So what could be more IPL than the same duo being tasked to finish off a chase against Kings? It wasn’t the most nerve-wracking equation – 75 needed from 57 balls when Pooran joined Markram in the middle – but they assembled knowing there wasn’t a lot to follow for Sunrisers. Shashank Singh, who hadn’t batted in the IPL until then, was slated at No. 6, and J Suchith at No. 7.They took Sunrisers home with little trouble. Markram was fluent in his 41 off 27, Pooran solid in his 30-ball 35, and Sunrisers were over the line with seven balls to spare.

He made the batters play more often than his seam-bowling colleagues, and ended the day with three key wickets

Daya Sagar01-Sep-2022When India A lost the toss in their unofficial Test against New Zealand A and were asked to bowl first, all eyes were on the seam duo of Yash Dayal and Arzan Nagwaswalla, perhaps for understandable reasons.Both offer the left-arm angle, both are known for their accuracy, and while Dayal is coming into the new season on the back of an IPL-winning run with Gujarat Titans, Nagwaswalla has been an India A regular for a while now.Related

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As it turned out, the first day honours went to Mukesh Kumar, the 28-year-old Bengal seamer turning out for India A for the first time in his career. As it turned out, Mukesh received his India A cap ahead of the game from bowling coach Sairaj Bahutule, who had been Bengal’s coach when he first turned out for them in 2015.On a day when the clouds played hide-and-seek with the sun for the most part, before a downpour brought proceedings to a halt well before time, Mukesh picked up three big wickets in his 13 overs, conceding just 34 runs in the process. New Zealand went to stumps at 156 for 5.Mukesh bowled at good pace throughout the day, and his experience came through in how he made the opposition play at a much greater percentage of his deliveries compared to the others who bowled seam on the day.”My only plan was to make the batters play as often as possible,” he said at the end of the day. “This was something I had discussed before with the bowling coach. On Indian pitches, you neither get great pace nor obtain enough bounce. This makes the cut and the pull slightly tougher as shot options.”My plan was to pitch the ball as far up as possible and make them play. I aimed to get at least four or five balls in each over right up, so that the batter was forced to play rather than leave.”Over each of the past three Ranji Trophy seasons, Mukesh has taken 20-plus wickets at averages of less than 25, and he provided an insight into that consistency as early as the fifth over of the morning. He rushed opener Chad Bowes into an indiscreet pull off a short ball that went into his body, and his top edge flew towards short fine leg, where Ruturaj Gaikwad completed a fine catch running from the slips cordon.After lunch, he got the ball to come back into opposition captain Robert O’Donnell and wicketkeeper Cam Fletcher, trapping both in front. “I am actually a natural outswing bowler, and I am just grateful to god that sometimes these balls pitch and move back in on their own,” was his unusual take on his two leg-before victims. “Of the last of my wickets today, I was actually looking to get the ball to move away, but it went the other way and gave me a wicket.”Originally from Gopalganj in Bihar, Mukesh was 20 by the time he played any organised cricket. His father drove a taxi in Kolkata, and a time came when he asked his son to join him in the city. He began playing club cricket to earn his daily income, and grabbed eyeballs at the Cricket Association of Bengal’s (CAB) ‘Vision 2020’ trials in 2014. It accelerated his progress into becoming one of Bengal’s bowling spearheads; higher honours may come his way too, in due course.Mukesh is matter-of-fact about his journey. “Stories like mine are common,” he says. “Everyone has their own story. My aim is to play for India – I’m giving my 100% to be able to achieve this.”

Opener channels free-scoring younger self in bid to win recall to Ben Stokes’ Test team

Vithushan Ehantharajah16-Jan-2023England’s warm-up match against the Lions in Abu Dhabi last November was an understandably selfish affair. The Test side needed some intense preparation ahead of a three-match tour of Pakistan, and two days into the three-day game, they decided to call it off altogether. They had got what they needed.Beyond a much-anticipated return for Jofra Archer, who bowled nine overs on the opening day, there was not too much attention paid to those on the opposition. The Test side racked up 501 for 7, and by the end of day two, the Lion’s score of 415 for 9 was secondary to the 77 overs of work from the senior attack.However, it was on “day three” that Ben Stokes, an observer for this encounter, singled out one Lions member who had caught his eye. Someone whose game the England captain is familiar with, though perhaps not like this.”He’s someone you wouldn’t necessarily have down for that type of innings,” Stokes said of Haseeb Hameed, who peeled off 145 from 172 deliveries against an attack featuring James Anderson, Ollie Robinson and Jack Leach. “It’s amazing to see a player like Has, who has done what he’s done over five or six years, realising the potential that he can play that way, against our frontline attack.”Related

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It was as engaging as the scorecard suggests: the strike rate of 84.30 through 20 fours and a couple of sixes. There was a bit of fortune, with a questionable “not out” when pinned on the pad early doors. But otherwise, Hameed was an authoritative presence in the middle.A new dawn for a player previous feted – and latterly derided – for his high elbow and low strike rates? Not quite. Even Stokes made a note of how this knock was a continuation of Hameed’s work over the summer: 1235 runs at an average of 58.80 to propel Nottinghamshire back into Division One. All at a strike rate of 62.40 – almost double what it had been across his 10 Tests caps (32.02) and considerably higher than a career rate of 41.59 in all first class cricket.Speaking ahead of the Lions’ tour of Sri Lanka, in which he will act as captain for the red-ball leg of a warm-up and two four-dayers against Sri Lanka A, Hameed will take cues for the man skippering above: ‘I’ll have my own style (of captaincy) of course but the brand that Stokesy and co have implemented is now the England brand, whether you’re with the Lions or the Test side. This whole idea of playing to win and being prepared to lose the game in order to win. One hundred per cent, I’ll try to replicate that.’He also appreciated Stokes’s words from November and was open about shifting up a few gears. Not least after a dispiriting 2021-22 Ashes in which he averaged just 10 from four appearances.”For him [Stokes] to come out and say that meant a lot to me,” Hameed said. “It’s nice because I guess the changes he’s implemented with the England team coincides with the changes I’ve made on a personal level in terms of my game.”I came back from that Australia tour and I was clear in how I was going to go about my game and start to look to score runs at every opportunity and accepting the fact that everyone gets out. Especially against some of the best bowlers in the world. You’re going to face good balls that will get you out so the other balls you may as well try to cash in and, with your style, score runs and put the opposition under pressure, which is what I’ve tried to do.”

“I feel some people have said ‘he’s had a bad tour, he’s done’. My view is different. I’m 25 now, there’s a huge opportunity for me to learn from that tour. Why can’t I get better? It’s happened, but it’s not the complete journey”

Some of that “doing” has been away from the nets in the form of conversations with those that matter. Director of men’s cricket Rob Key, Test coach Brendon McCullum and performance director Mo Bobat, who oversees the Lions programme, were consulted over the summer over where Hameed was in the pecking order and what could be done to move up. With that came clarity of worth and, ultimately, purpose. Hameed is venturing into 2023 with a clear idea of what is required, both to progress and change perceptions.”I had a conversation with Rob Key in the summer about where I was and how things were looking for me and all that kind of stuff. He mentioned that for the England team what was important was this idea of soaking up pressure when necessary and then being able to apply pressure at different times. As soon as you sense a moment, being brave enough and strong enough to take your opportunities in the middle and the fact that you’ll be backed for it.”Maybe the challenge in some people’s eyes was being able to show that side. I feel like I was able to show that side for Nottinghamshire through the course of the summer and in the game [for the Lions] just gone as well. In that sense, it’s been nice for me for people to see that up close. I’m confident and I have trust that that game is also within me and that’s why I’m very optimistic.”This isn’t about reinvention for Hameed, but rather a regression of sorts. Much of what England have done successfully since the start of last summer is regain access to an expressive way of playing that is a hallmark of youth – one that gets understandably clouded by professionalism. And it is important to note that, before he made his Test debut in 2016, Hameed had plenty of white-ball cricket in his diet. Most notable was an Under-19 ODI series against South Africa in 2014 when, aged 17, he walked away as player of the series with 389 runs at 77.80. As he says so himself, much of what has come since was his attempts at trying to mimic how Test cricket was being played at the time.”I guess it’s an interesting one because you have your typical Test match opener which is what I was trying to play like. And there’s also a side of me – which maybe a few more people have seen now – which takes me back to my junior days. Showing a side of me that maybe a lot of people haven’t seen at that level. A side that enjoys hitting the ball, hitting these shots and letting the uniqueness in the way that I play come out.Hameed endured a tough time in Australia in 2021-22•Getty Images”You forget how much you enjoy the game and everything becomes a lot more enjoyable [again]. Obviously with that, there has to be an acceptance that you’re going to make mistakes but I feel like that starts from practice. You have to prepare in that way.”I remember as a 16-year-old, I scored two hundreds in a day in two T20s playing for my school and that was me just having fun. It’s amazing how by flipping that mindset you find yourself playing shots that you ordinarily wouldn’t do. Shots find you because you’ve got that intent and over time, you understand that those are shots within you and when you have that mindset, they find you rather than you going looking for them.”I had a lot of success in white-ball cricket growing up so I feel like a lot of those qualities are within me. It’s just constantly making sure that I’m giving myself the best opportunity to bring them out because they are there.”As for when we might get a glimpse at this new iteration of Hameed, the next month in Asia will primarily be about reinforcing long-recognised strengths against spin – and could put him on track to be the spare opener for England’s five-match series against India at the start of 2024, behind Zak Crawley and Ben Duckett.Robustness against pace remains a question mark as far as an appearance in the 2023 Ashes later this summer is concerned, even if there were marked improvements noted in the UAE. The Lions camp in Dubai that preceded England’s warm-up match gave Hameed the opportunity to showcase more assured footwork against the quicks, particularly in middle sessions against Anderson and Archer.Has he moved on from his displays in Australia? The man himself, who turns 26 on Tuesday, thinks so.”By the age of 24 I’ve had all that experience. The way I look at it, I’ve had one bad tour. At the height of the pressures and the exposure of the game, maybe that heightened it a little bit. But a lot of very, very good players have had one bad tour. I feel some people have said ‘he’s had a bad tour, he’s done’. My view is different. I’m 25 now, there’s a huge opportunity for me to learn from that tour. Why can’t I get better? It’s not the be all and end all. It’s happened, but it’s not the complete journey. I’m not 35, 36.”Let’s not hide away from the fact that it [Australia’s] is the best bowling attack in the world in the toughest of conditions. When they come this summer in the Ashes of course it will be challenging again, but for sure that experience would help me better prepare. The environment too, I feel what’s been created by Stokesy and McCullum feels like the right way to challenge them as well.”The way to challenge them is taking them on, it feels, and that’s been led by those two guys. It feels like any player in that team will be backed to that point.”

His quickfire fifty played a part in what has suddenly turned into a very exciting Test match

Danyal Rasool04-Dec-2022For the first three days, it was England who shouted their intentions from Rawalpindi’s rooftops; they were here to win this Test match. That was made obvious by the record-smashing onslaught of the first day. Will Jacks said 24 hours later Pakistan looked like they were content with a draw, whereas his side was going all in on victory. Joe Root on day three echoed those sentiments. Pakistan, meanwhile, were rather more taciturn; the match situation had ensured a more optimistic assessment would have bordered on the delusional.But at stumps on Sunday evening, setting up a final day climax this pitch scarcely deserves, Pakistan’s tenor began to change, and the first hints of confidence seeped back into their outlook. A surprise declaration at tea from England had set them a target of 343 on a surface that looks like it could withstand another four days before the first signs of deterioration. It looked foolhardy at the time, though two quick wickets – including that of Babar Azam – had sceptics swiftly putting their faith in England’s intrepid tactics once more. Add to that an injury to Azhar Ali that threatens further involvement in this match, and a tail that begins at No. 8 for Pakistan, and the ingredients for a historic English win had begun to blend together nicely.But an unbeaten half-century stand under the setting sun between Imam-ul-Haq and Saud Shakeel, with neither batter looking troubled in the least, meant Pakistan’s hopes of running England’s score down were reinvigorated. Pakistan now need a further 263 runs for victory, and with a full day’s play left, the draw has been taken out of the equation altogether. This time, though, it is Pakistan who were bullish with their match evaluation.”We’re talking in the camp that we need to go and win this match,” Agha Salman at the end of play. “We don’t know how the pitch will react on the fifth day, but we have it in our minds that we’ll go for it and try to win it.”England managed to pack so much into another truncated day of Test cricket it’s easy to forget that when play commenced, Salman was the only roadblock to the visitors taking complete control over this Test. Pakistan were still 160 runs behind in their first innings when the seventh wicket fell overnight. A collapse from that point would have left the hosts facing an insurmountable target and the best part of two days to survive. The sledgehammer is England’s scoring rate had virtually guaranteed that.But Salman, playing just his third Test, and the first at home, counter-attacked in a 67 run-stand where his partner, Zahid Mehmood, scored just 5. By the time he fell, Pakistan had whittled England’s lead down to just over 100, and taken most of the first session out of the game. It was a breezy knock (though given England’s truculence, that is relative), his 67-ball 53 decorated with seven fours and a six.”The management tells us to play as we naturally play,” he said. “My game is such I try and score runs and attack. I applied myself today and looked to keep them on the back foot. When you’re playing with the tail, you know you have to score runs, so that decision gets made for you.”The day wasn’t all rosy for him, though. With England making a mockery of a Pakistan bowling attack further depleted by the loss of Haris Rauf, he had the misfortune to be called upon to turn his arm over for five manic overs. England plundered 47 off those 30 balls, but Salman said that was simply a matter of accepting how England play and the advantageous position they found themselves in at the time.”When we started bowling, we tried to restrict the runs and not give them boundary opportunities. But you have to give them credit, they’re playing positive cricket. That shows in their declaration too, which was quite positive. The way they’ve been playing in the last few months, this was expected from them, and we believed they’d put us in to bat around this sort of target. But now we have a chance to win, and that’s what we’re aiming for.”There’s little reason to doubt England’s commitment, but the tone post-match had shifted ever so subtly. The visitors had spoken only of the pursuit of victory over the first three days, but for the first time this Test, assistant coach Paul Collingwood framed the same point in slightly different terms.”It’s been pretty clear we’re willing to lose games for the sake of putting ourselves in a position to won. Some will say it was an early declaration, we’ll see tomorrow if it was. We’re not scared of losing, it takes the consequences away from the players – tomorrow we can hopefully get on the right side of it.”It’s exciting isn’t it – on a pitch that’s been docile, to be in a position to watch an exciting game on the final day is great for everyone. The bigger picture for Ben Stokes and Brendon McCullum is for Test cricket is to be entertaining.”That now looks set to happen in spite of the conditions both sides have had to play in, rather than because of them. In a Test where every string has been pulled by England. But tomorrow, they might find out that in Test cricket, control and victory are two very different things.

Rohit is at that point now where a small set of results could be decisive, and the fourth Test against Australia is the first step towards that

Karthik Krishnaswamy08-Mar-20239:27

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Pakistan could have been eliminated in the round-robin stage of the 1992 World Cup, but rain saved their campaign after England had bowled them out for 74 in Adelaide. New Zealand only reached the 2021 World Test Championship final because Australia copped an over-rate penalty.You know what happened next, in both cases, and unless you’re being wilfully pedantic, you probably don’t put an asterisk next to the world titles those two teams won.India can get to the WTC final without winning the Ahmedabad Test against Australia. They will have to rely on other teams helping them, but the odds are in their favour even if it comes to that. They may even lose heavily in Ahmedabad, sneak into the WTC final with only rain denying Sri Lanka a 2-0 win in New Zealand, and go on to beat Australia at The Oval and get their hands on the Test mace.Related

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All to play for as fascinating series reaches climax

All that could happen, but a loss in Ahmedabad would still be shattering to India. They only rarely lose Test matches at home. To lose two in a row?Think back to the last time that happened, in Mumbai and Kolkata back in 2012-13. A decade on, that 2-1 series-loss to England looks like the midpoint of a full-on transition. Rahul Dravid and VVS Laxman had retired a few months before the series, and Sachin Tendulkar followed them a year after it. Zaheer Khan, Harbhajan Singh, Yuvraj Singh, Virender Sehwag and Gautam Gambhir only played a handful of Tests after that series.In the lead-up to this Border-Gavaskar series, ESPNcricinfo had noted that India could be on course for a similar sort of transition, with R Ashwin, Rohit Sharma, Umesh Yadav, Cheteshwar Pujara, Virat Kohli, Ravindra Jadeja and Mohammed Shami all in the 32-37 age range, and with Ishant Sharma and Ajinkya Rahane having possibly played their last Test matches already.This generation has been India’s greatest Test-match collective, but as good as the players still are, they aren’t getting younger. Time is what it is.2:06

What is the blueprint for playing on rank turners?

Ahmedabad, then, could be pivotal to their legacies, and those of Rohit and Rahul Dravid as India’s captain and coach, the last lap of a series that’s been high-pressure for India from start to finish. The pressure has intensified now, after the loss in Indore, but it’s been there throughout: at 0-0, 1-0 and 2-0.Winning at home is India’s default setting, and India win so often, and by margins so thumping, that it’s easy to underestimate how hard they have to work to get those results. It’s easy to underestimate the pressure to win when winning looks so simple. And when you begin a four-Test series needing at least three wins to guarantee qualification for the WTC final, that pressure only heightens.It’s why India have rolled out turning tracks in each Test so far, and put themselves in situations where winning and losing were the only possible options. Losing at home has seldom seemed like a realistic prospect for India over this last decade, but only for those watching from outside. India have always known that results like Indore are possible. It’s happened now, and Ahmedabad is a tenser occasion than most will have foreseen before the series.Through it all, Rohit has been, well, Rohit. His speech patterns and manner are the closest thing in international cricket to those of thousands of suburban Mumbai boys who play tennis-ball cricket in apartment parking lots. He speaks with a lazy drawl, his accent and vocabulary remain more or less unaffected by media training, and he seems not so much immune to pressure as unaware of the concept. There have been moments through this series, though, when that facade has cracked a little.When Pujara was out attempting a rarely-seen sweep in Nagpur, Rohit jumped at the non-striker’s end and slapped his bat against his pad. He showed similar, though less outwardly expressive, frustration when India burned two reviews early in Australia’s first innings in Indore, and failed to take another that could have brought them the wicket of Marnus Labuschagne. Later, Rohit was seen gesticulating on the dressing-room balcony, in what seemed like annoyance, as if to tell Pujara to get a move on against Nathan Lyon’s constricting lines and lengths.5:23

Will Ahmedabad give the best batting pitch of the series?

Everyone feels these emotions, of course, but Rohit has shown them far more frequently since taking over the India captaincy. It’s natural. It comes with the job.And a series as high-profile and competitive as this one magnifies the significance of every gesture and tic. The matches themselves have been brief, low-scoring, and intense, and every on-field decision has seemed to come with immediate consequences. It’s why Steven Smith looked like a genius when his field changes worked like a charm on day two of the Indore Test, and why Rohit looked both desperate and unimaginative when he plugged away with Ashwin and Jadeja for over after over, ignoring his other options.But the same wait-and-see style had worked beautifully in the previous Test in Delhi, where Rohit had felt his spinners tried too many things while letting Australia get away to a quick start in the third innings. On the third morning, Rohit told them to stop messing about with their fields, and to bowl in good areas and wait for the pitch to do the rest. He bowled Ashwin from one end, Jadeja from the other, and made no bowling changes. Australia collapsed.Australia didn’t collapse – or collapsed a little too late for India – in Indore, and there’s no way of telling if another approach may have brought another outcome. It’s how captaincy works. There’s only so much a captain can control.But it’s part of the job to take the plaudits and the blame. Rohit is at that point now where a small set of results could separate him from the extremes of one or the other, and Ahmedabad is the first step to either fate.

Five players who were almost forgotten but are now putting in match-winning performances

Deivarayan Muthu20-Apr-2023

Ajinkya Rahane (Chennai Super Kings)

He had struggled to keep pace with T20 cricket in the past. More recently, he was dropped from India’s Test team. But Ajinkya Rahane has scripted an unexpected turnaround in IPL 2023 – his strike rate of 222.22 in the powerplay is by far the best among those who have scored at least 100 runs during that phase in an IPL season.After a hamstring injury had curtailed his stint in IPL 2022, where he managed just 133 runs in seven innings at an average of 19.00 and strike rate of 103.90, he was bought by Chennai Super Kings in the IPL 2023 auction for his base price of INR 50 lakh. Rahane didn’t start for Super Kings this IPL, but after Moeen Ali was sidelined with a stomach bug, he dashed out of the bench and regularly hit over the top against both pace and spin in the powerplay.ESPNcricinfo LtdSuper Kings would have expected Rahane to perform the role Robin Uthappa used to do before his retirement from international and Indian cricket. But, with his high intent and role clarity, Rahane has exceeded all expectations so far.Rahane hasn’t been fielding at slips – MS Dhoni has often posted Moeen in that position – but he has been manning the hotspots in the outfield. His spectacular leap right at the edge of the long-off boundary at the Chinnaswamy Stadium denied Glenn Maxwell a six and saved five runs for Super Kings. Royal Challengers ended up hitting one six fewer than Super Kings’ 17 and losing by eight runs.

Sandeep Sharma (Rajasthan Royals)

After having played every IPL season from 2013 to 2022, Sandeep Sharma went unsold in the most recent auction. However, after Prasidh Krishna was ruled out of the entire IPL 2023 with a stress fracture, Sandeep joined Rajasthan Royals as his replacement and has been a reliable bowler in both the powerplay and at the death.Sandeep Sharma nailed yorkers in the final over against MS Dhoni and Ravindra Jadeja to seal a tense win at Chepauk•BCCITasked with defending 20 in the last over against Dhoni at Chepauk, Sandeep started the over with two wides and then conceded back-to-back sixes, but he held his nerve to stop Dhoni and Ravindra Jadeja with back-to-back yorkers. Sandeep had also set up Royals’ defence of 175 by dismissing Ruturaj Gaikwad in the powerplay. After the game, Sandeep said that he had been nailing his yorkers at the nets and perhaps that’s why Sanju Samson backed him to bowl the final over to Dhoni ahead of Kuldeep Sen, who can generate extra pace and bounce.After Sandeep helped Royals breach CSK’s fortress, he took the key wickets of Shubhman Gill and David Miller to set the scene for another away win, this time against Gujarat Titans in Ahmedabad.Related

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Piyush Chawla (Mumbai Indians)

Piyush Chawla was ignored at the mega auction in 2022. In the next auction, the 34-year-old was the last player to be bought by Mumbai Indians for his base price of 50 lakh before the start of the accelerated rounds. Chawla is currently Mumbai’s highest wicket-taker this season with seven strikes in five games at an economy rate of 7.15.He rolled back the years against Delhi Capitals , when he took 3 for 22, including the wickets of Rovman Powell and Manish Pandey, at the Arun Jaitley Stadium. Chawla also got his legbreaks and wrong’uns to rip against Sunrisers Hyderabad at the Rajiv Gandhi International stadium, where he sent their chase into a tailspin with the wickets of Abhishek Sharma and Heinrich Klaasen.Piyush Chawla is currently the leading wicket-taker for Mumbai Indians•BCCI

Amit Mishra (Lucknow Super Giants)

Just like Chawla, Amit Mishra had gone unsold in the IPL 2022 mega auction. Just like Chawla, he got a gig this year and has proved once again there’s still room for old-school flight and dip in the age of fast legbreaks and mystery spin.Mishra, 40, was the oldest player at the auction, where Lucknow Super Giants snapped him up for his base price of INR 50 lakh. Super Giants unleashed him on Sunrisers on a black-soil turner at the Ekana stadium, where he came away with 2 for 23 from his four overs. He could be a regular feature for Super Giants at home, especially if they continue to use black-soil pitches. Plus, the introduction of the Impact Player rule means he doesn’t have to toil in the field like Rahane and can just put his feet up in the dressing room after finishing his bowling shift.

Mohit Sharma (Gujarat Titans)

Before IPL 2023, Mohit Sharma’s last season as an IPL regular was in 2018. Before that, he was the Purple Cap winner in 2014 and was part of the India team that reached the semi-final of the 2015 ODI World Cup.Injuries then ravaged his career, but a net-bowling stint in IPL 2022 with the eventual champions Gujarat Titans paved his way back. Ashish Nehra, the Titans coach who had also worked with Mohit at Super Kings, liked what he saw in the nets and Titans bought him at the IPL 2023 auction for his base price of INR 50 lakh. He was then brought into the XI ahead of Shivam Mavi and R Sai Kishore, after Yash Dayal was smashed for successive five sixes by Rinku Singh in the final over the match.Mohit marked his return, against Punjab Kings, with into-the-pitch offcutters and back-of-the-hand slower ones that had once impressed Dhoni at both CSK and India. He conceded only 18 runs in his four overs to go with the wickets of Jitesh Sharma and Sam Curran in a Player-of-the-Match-winning performance. Comebacks don’t get better than this.

The intent machine Mohammad Haris and the extraordinary Rashid Khan also find a place in the XI

Danyal Rasool and Umar Farooq19-Mar-2023

Mohammad Rizwan (wk)

Rizwan will go down as a PSL legend, and it’s because of seasons like these. Not only did he retain his incredible consistency – he was the highest run-getter of the tournament – he also demonstrated he can continue to add layers to his batting. Often criticised for his strike rate, it was up to 142.85 this year from under 127 the previous year. His magnum opus was an unbeaten 64-ball 110 against Karachi Kings. He flew from 50 to 100 in 18 balls, and was the only player to score a hundred this PSL at a ground other than Rawalpindi. He was, expectedly, flawless behind the stumps, all while leading Multan Sultans to their third straight final, and ending up agonisingly close to another title.

Saim Ayub

Not quite the find of the PSL, since he’d already been lighting up the domestic circuit, but the effortless step up was still a sight to behold. Having struggled with Quetta Gladiators as a teenager in 2021, Ayub’s reinvention as an aggressive top-order ball-striker was instrumental to Peshawar Zalmi’s successful season. A 37-ball 53 was a statement of intent, but he hit the heights during the Rawalpindi leg, taking full advantage of the shorter boundaries and flat pitches. Three successive fifties ignited Zalmi’s campaign, propelling them through to the play-offs and earning him a maiden call-up to Pakistan’s T20I side.

Mohammad Haris

This isn’t Pollard’s finest T20 season by any means, but then again, he sets high standards. Deployed mainly as a lower-order bludgeon, the West Indian produced several useful cameos. They might not have grabbed headlines, but they won games. An unbeaten 6-ball 15 and another undefeated 21-ball 32 gave Sultans crucial wins early on, while a 25-ball 52 in Rawalpindi helped them chase down 243 with relative ease. He saved his best for the first Eliminator, though, his 34-ball 57 coming in a remarkable counterattack that blew the Lahore Qalandars away. It included smashing Shaheen Afridi for 20, his most expensive PSL over, and he even chipped in with three wickets through the campaign.ESPNcricinfo Ltd

Azam Khan

What he lacked in consistency he made up for in pure, exhilarating power hitting. Playing with an Islamabad United side that’s best set up to maximise his ability, the free license he had in the middle order was used to devastating effect. It was all evident in two blistering innings: his 42-ball 97 against Gladiators was probably the innings of the tournament, pulverising an attack that comprised Naseem Shah and Mohammad Hasnain at the death. He followed it up shortly after with an unbeaten 72 in 41 balls that helped chase down 201 against Kings, earning himself a call-up to the national T20 side.

Imad Wasim

Kings’ captain endured seven losses out of ten matches after taking over from Babar Azam. Though Kings finished fifth, Imad’s all-round performance helped him earn a recall to the Pakistan side for the T20I series against Afghanistan.

Rashid Khan

Rashid’s economy rate of under seven stood out in a campaign where he also ended as the third-highest wicket-taker. Only Zalmi took him for 40-plus runs this season. He played a crucial role with Qalandars winning seven out of ten group games.

Shaheen Shah Afridi (capt)

Shaheen lifted the PSL trophy for the second time in succession, thus establishing his credentials as leader. He also scored a lot of valuable runs, with 133 at a strike rate of 168. to stun the opponent. That included a half-century against Zalmi, before smashing 44 not out from only 15 balls in the final. As for his bowling, he was the tournament’s fourth-highest wicket-taker, with one five-for and two four-wicket hauls.ESPNcricinfo Ltd

Zaman Khan

A last-over specialist, seems to have a knack for defending a handful of runs. He bowled the 20th over in both the opening match and the final, defending 14 and 12 runs respectively. In only his second season, he showed temperament and control to become a part of Qalandars’ core. He and Rashid bowled the joint-second-most dot balls – 106. He did not pick up a player-of-the-match award, but there’s no denying the impact he had. He was rewarded with a maiden call-up for Pakistan, in the T20I side for the Afghanistan series.

Ihsanullah

Pakistan unearthed another bowling talent this season. Ihsanullah was picked by Sultans last season, but was injured after one game; this season he has come back as the finished product. The 20-year-old bowled some furious spells, clocking 150kph and announced himself in his second game with figures of 4-1-12-5 against Gladiators. He tested almost every batter he came up against this season and was top of the bowling charts all through before his team-mate Abbas Afridi pipped him at the end, pushing him down to second. He registered his trademark “archer” celebration, and was also rewarded with a national call-up for the Afghanistan series.

Abbas Afridi

He was on his way to becoming one of the forgotten men of West Indies cricket, but has now been named in their World Cup Qualifier squad

Deivarayan Muthu08-Jun-2023Johnson Charles became the forgotten man of West Indies cricket after their – and his – second T20 World Cup title in 2016. Since the end of that tournament and the start of the 2022 T20 World Cup in Australia, Charles had played just five T20Is.But, after strong returns in CPL 2022, he returned to West Indies’ T20I set-up and earlier this year, and smashed a 39-ball hundred in Centurion – the fastest by a West Indian in men’s T20Is, bettering Chris Gayle’s 47-ball effort.Charles, however, wasn’t supposed to travel to the UAE with West Indies’ ODI squad for the ongoing three-match series, but Devon Thomas’ suspension opened the door for an unexpected comeback in the format.Related

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In his first ODI in almost seven years, Charles scored a 19-ball 24 and followed it up with a match-winning 47-ball 63 in the second ODI, indicating that he is by no means finished, and shouldn’t be forgotten.Charles’ main strength is still intact: clear the front leg and swat the ball to the leg side. But he has also expanded his game by hitting with similar power down the ground and through the off side. The new-found range was on display on a hot and humid evening in Sharjah on June 6.”I just had to work on the basics,” Charles said after the second ODI. “It’s not much, but just trying to keep my balance and not trying to over-hit the ball and having a strong base. And hit the ball where it has to be hit and that’s what I’ve been working on.”The Daren Sammy impactCharles 2.0 appeared at CPL 2022, where he tallied 345 runs in nine innings at an average of 43.12 and strike rate of 133.20 for St Lucia Kings. His coach was Daren Sammy. Charles and Sammy go back a long way. Sammy was Charles’ first T20I captain and they went on to win two T20 World Cup titles together. Charles has a stand named after him at St Lucia’s Beausejour Stadium, which has been renamed in Sammy’s honour.Charles hailed Sammy’s leadership skills after West Indies wrapped up a 2-0 series victory against UAE with one game to go. “Not just mine. It [Sammy’s leadership] has a positive impact on everybody’s performance because he’s an inspirational leader,” Charles said. “So that positiveness will run down on the other guys, and it will definitely push us to bring out our best.”Positiveness is definitely up there as No. 1, and inspirational. These are the two main things about his coaching that I could highlight right now.”UAE are currently ranked 19th in ODI cricket and their team is in flux, with Robin Singh recently ending his role as director of cricket following a prolonged lean patch, and Mudassar Nazar taking temporary charge of the team. Charles, though, insisted that West Indies haven’t taken UAE lightly, and are pleased with their own progress in the lead-up to the 2023 ODI World Cup qualifier, which is set to start in Zimbabwe on June 18.Darren Sammy and Johnson Charles go back a long way•Sportsfile via Getty Images”People could say what they want, and people make their judgements,” Charles said. “It’s fair enough but we know we never take any opposition for granted. So, saying that, it’s very nice we came up with a series win. Two out of two so far, and you know I find that the team is gelling very well as a unit. We’re definitely playing to our strengths and working on that and playing to how we want to play in the World Cup qualifiers and going forward. So, I think that we’ve played well, and we’ve definitely not taken them for granted. So, that’s a good thing.”Since CPL 2022, Charles has had a good run in franchise T20 leagues. Notably in the BPL 2023 final in February, where he cracked an unbeaten 79 off 52 balls from No. 4 to give Comilla Victorians their fourth title. He even earned a call-up to Kolkata Knight Riders’ squad for IPL 2023, but didn’t get a game.”Going back to the basics and trying to get them right all the time; if not, then most of the time,” Charles said of the change. “That has been working for me [in T20 cricket] along with the positive mindset. Yes, I just lapsed a little bit [in the second ODI in Sharjah] and that cost my wicket and you know it [hundred] is going to come.”Charles was on Thursday added to West Indies’ ODI squad for the World Cup qualifier in Zimbabwe*, replacing injured spinner Gudakesh Motie. And although Kyle Mayers, fresh off an IPL stint with Lucknow Super Giants, is set to partner Brandon King at the top, further contributions in the oppressive Sharjah heat could put him contention for a starting spot.Not many gave Charles a chance to return to the West Indies side, but he is now the only man from the XI that beat England in the T20 World Cup final in 2016 to be involved as a player with this current team.*1955 GMT – This story was updated with news of Charles’ call-up