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We can calculate how effective a batter or bowler is against a specific type of opponent in each phase of a game

Himanish Ganjoo17-Apr-2021In the 54 matches in which he has bowled for England in a T20, Adil Rashid has opened the bowling four times. All four were in the recently concluded five-match series against India. While opening with a spinner in the powerplay is no longer novel in the shortest format, this move was prompted by specific knowledge: googly-wielding legspinners spell trouble for members of India’s top order.In the first T20I, Virat Kohli holed out to a rash shot against Rashid. In the third, Rashid’s googlies kept Rohit Sharma circumspect in the very first over. In the fourth game, he had Kohli stumped, and in the fifth, he troubled Sharma with the wrong’un once again.Rashid’s promotion to open the bowling to counter Kohli and Sharma was the most recent instance of match-ups being used in T20 cricket. In Tests, each strategic play unravels over a long time. In contrast, because time is so limited as a resource in T20, each ball is a substantial determiner of the result. Teams look to optimise every moment to squeeze out the tiniest advantage, making T20 the format where gameplay is most closely “managed”.Related

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Using the bowler who takes the ball away from a batter, or sending a left-hander in ahead of schedule to counter a certain bowler can be the ten-run difference that massively tilts a match in your team’s favour.In Tests, “how” you execute is important, while in T20 the “what” and “when” gain equal importance because each play has a major bearing on the course of the game.With match-ups attaining ubiquity in the T20 landscape, it is important to look at statistics contextualised by various batter-bowler combinations. It is well known that the ball turning in to the batter is advantageous for him. Do the numbers bear that out? If you look at the baseline run rate and dismissal numbers from the last three years of the IPL, they do.The following table shows you the run rate (runs per ball) and dismissal rate (probability of being dismissed) for left- and right-hand batters against different styles of bowling. (Left-arm wristspin is excluded because of very small sample sizes.)Himanish Ganjoo/ESPNcricinfoFor left-hand batters, their overall dismissal rate facing offbreak bowlers is 4.3 compared to just 3.6 versus slow left-arm. The run rate is also lower against offspinners, by 0.26 runs per ball. Similarly, for right-handers, the runs-per-ball figure is almost 0.1 runs higher when facing offspinners as compared to against legbreak bowlers and slow left-armers, both of whom take the ball away from right-handers.Legspinners concede fewer runs to right-handers and are also likelier to get left-handers out. This can be illuminated by further splitting their performance by innings phase. Phase one is the powerplay (overs 1-6), phase two the middle overs, and phase three the death overs (17-20).Himanish Ganjoo/ESPNcricinfoThe table above shows that right-handers play legspinners more conservatively in the middle overs, possibly “playing out” the dangerous match-up while conserving wickets for the end overs. Left-handers try to utilise the advantageous match-up by going harder in the middle overs – scoring quicker but also getting out more often.It’s a similar story when you look at slow left-arm numbers by phase. In the powerplay, right-handers score much slower compared to left-handers and get out more frequently. In the middle overs, they moderate their approach, scoring slowly while preserving wickets. In comparison, left-handers score faster but get out slightly more often.Himanish Ganjoo/ESPNcricinfoThe data shows that match-ups work in a broad sense, but what happens when you look at players individually? Jasprit Bumrah and Bhuvneshwar Kumar are both classified as right-arm fast bowlers, but they execute their skills very differently. A right-arm seamer is expected to perform at a certain level versus right- and left-hand batters, but how much does an individual deviate from that baseline?This can be quantified by dividing their rates of conceding runs and taking wickets by the average runs per ball and wicket probability for each match-up. For example, right-hand seamers overall concede 1.27 runs per ball to right-hand batters in the powerplay while picking up wickets 3.61% of the time. In comparison, Bumrah concedes only 1.1 runs per ball and 4.1% of his deliveries get wickets. We can condense these facts into two simple ratios that tell us how well a bowler (or a batter) performs compared to a particular match-up in a given phase of the innings.Match-up Run Index (MRI) = (runs per ball by a player for given match-up) / (overall runs per ball for given match-up)Match-up Dismissal Index (MDI) = (dismissal rate for a player for given match-up) / (overall dismissal rate for given match-up)An MRI value of 1 means a bowler is as expensive as the average bowler of his kind for a given match-up. A value lower than 1 means he is economical. On the contrary, a higher MDI value than 1 means he is more likely to pick up wickets given that match-up. Continuing from our example, for Bumrah in the powerplay, the MRI is 0.86 (1.1/1.27) and the MDI is 1.14 (4.1/3.61). Here is a breakdown of Bumrah’s performance on these metrics:Himanish Ganjoo/ESPNcricinfoFrom a strategy perspective, this shows that Bumrah is exceptionally miserly versus left-handers in the powerplay but not a great wicket-taking option. He is exceptional against both batting styles in the middle overs, and especially effective against left-handers in both run-saving and wicket-taking skills.Because spinners work with lateral deviation off the pitch, match-up indices are much more relevant for assessing their roles. Here is the same match-up-based performance table for Yuzvendra Chahal, which shows that he is a defensive option compared to other legspinners in the powerplay, but a wicket-taking one in the middle overs, with MDI values of more than 1 against both left- and right-handers, which means he is better at taking wickets than the average legspinner against both batting styles. In terms of economy he is almost as expensive as the average leggie to both kinds of batters (MRI values close to 1), but he is a lot more expensive against right-handers in the death overs.Himanish Ganjoo/ESPNcricinfoSplitting open a batter’s performance in terms of MRI and MDI is also useful – it shows their relative strengths against particular bowling styles. For instance, here is Kohli’s record in the powerplay and middle overs the last three years:Himanish Ganjoo/ESPNcricinfoEngland’s decision to bowl Rashid to Kohli is vindicated, albeit with a small sample size. Kohli scores at the par rate for a right-hander facing a legspinner in the powerplay, as evidenced by his MRI of 1, but with an MDI of 1.15, he is likelier to get out than the average right-hander.But a closer comparison within Kohli’s own record split by match-ups reveals that his real kryptonite might be offbreak bowling. In both the powerplay and the middle overs, he scores slower and gets out slightly more frequently than the average right-hand bat versus offspinners. He falters in a match-up that should be advantageous to him.Last year AB de Villiers, Kohli’s partner in the Royal Challengers Bangalore middle order, was shunted down the line-up to avoid facing legspinners, but he has an MRI of 1.09 and an MDI of 0.79 facing that style of bowling in the middle overs in the past three seasons, which signals that he is less likely to lose his wicket to them compared to the average right-hander.Sharma, Kohli’s partner in the Indian top order, has scored nine runs for two dismissals against legspin in the powerplay, but plays it much better when he’s settled in the middle overs, with an MRI of 1.06 and an MDI of 0.55.Different varieties of spin to differently handed batters are match-ups often used by bowling sides. To find out who is the best at run-scoring and wicket preservation for a match-up, we can calculate the MRI and MDI values for each batter in every phase and take a weighted average of these values to find a combined MRI and MDI for a batter.For instance, the following graphic shows the average MRI and MDI values for all batters who have faced 60 or more balls from legspinners in the last three IPL seasons. The average MRI and MDI account for the match-up and the expected scoring rates in each phase of the innings. Both batting hands can be combined on one plot because the MRI and MDI already account for match-up strength.Himanish Ganjoo/ESPNcricinfoAn MRI of over 1 and an MDI of under 1 are better for a batter; a value of 1 means the player is average.The best batters are in the lower-right quadrant. Nicholas Pooran with his middle-overs aggression and Chris Gayle with his disdainful six-hitting are the best against legspin. A bunch of right-hand openers, Mayank Agarwal, Prithvi Shaw and Robin Uthappa, form a high-risk high-reward group in the top-right quadrant with high MRI and MDI values. Surprisingly, Krunal Pandya occupies the dreaded top-left quadrant, which implies slow scoring and a high risk of losing your wicket.How do batters do against offspin? David Warner outshines his left-hander peers in terms of strike rate and preserving his wicket, while fellow southpaws Gayle and Ishan Kishan are weaker than the average left-hander against offspin when it comes to striking the ball. Hardik Pandya is in a league of his own, with a high MRI and low MDI. MS Dhoni manages to not get out too often, but fails to score against offspin, his numbers heavily influenced by his match-up against Sunil Narine, who himself perches on the far right of this plot, fulfilling his role as an attacker of spin who does not need to value his wicket too highly.Himanish Ganjoo/ESPNcricinfoPlotting the MRI and MDI values summed across phases for a bowler can tell us the kind of role he should play in a bowling attack. As an example of how this can be used, the following plot shows the aggregate MRI and MDI values for spinners who have bowled more than ten overs to left-hand batters in the last three seasons of the IPL. A higher MDI and a lower MRI is better for a bowler.Himanish Ganjoo/ESPNcricinfoPlayers in the bottom-left quadrant are holding bowlers who concede fewer runs than one would expect given the match-ups they face, but who are less likely to get wickets. Such a bowler could be brought on as a defensive play to stem the flow of runs and force the batter to “play out” his overs, as teams have tended to do against Rashid Khan.The tactic of using Washington Sundar as a run-stopper in the powerplay is another great example visible on the plot. Moeen Ali has a small sample size of 108 balls over three seasons, but his high MDI indicates he fares well in comparison to the average offspinner against left-handers.Here is the same plot for spinners bowling to right-handers:Himanish Ganjoo/ESPNcricinfoSurprisingly, R Ashwin is better bowling to right-handers than to left-handers in T20, opposite to his Test bowling strengths. Narine too fares better against right-hand batters. The four best legspinners – Rashid Khan, Chahal, Rahul Chahar and Amit Mishra – are expectedly in the top-left quadrant. Krunal Pandya was slightly high on the wicket-taking MDI against left-handers, but becomes a run-saving bowler facing right-handers.This method of summing MRI and MDI values over different phases is an attempt to integrate context into raw cricket numbers. The aim is to split the ball-by-ball records of each batter or bowler by the phase of the innings and the match-up, and then scale their run rate and dismissal rate by the par rates for that “context”.This adjusts rudimentary statistics by accounting for what the average player does against the same type of bowler. We can then take averages of these scaled numbers to find combined statistics, and then calculate MRI and MDI values for each combination of phase and match-up. We can then add these numbers up across phases and batting styles to get overall MRI and MDI values for each player. This pair of numbers tells us their run-scoring/saving and wicket-preserving/taking ability while accounting for the handedness of the batters and the style of bowler.The concluding plots show aggregate MDI and MRI values for both batters and bowlers in the last three seasons.Himanish Ganjoo/ESPNcricinfoHimanish Ganjoo/ESPNcricinfo

To be an up-and-coming English cricketer that summer was to get a glimpse of the stuff myths are made of

Mark Nicholas16-Jul-2021Wednesday, July 29, 1981: Prince Charles marries Princess Diana. Thursday, July 30: play begins in the fourth Test of the 1981 Ashes – a series of matches as daft and dramatic as any played – the series known to this day as Botham’s Ashes because of the gargantuan part Sir Ian played in further lifting the mood of the nation. Botham’s nicknames were the stuff of legend: Beefy, Beefcake, Monster, and Guy the Gorilla foremost among them. The stakes are a little higher now. Late last year he was appointed by the prime minister to the House of Lord’s for his support of Brexit among other things, so we know him as Lord Botham of Ravensworth. Or, as the lads like to say, the Baron of Beef.Come those heady days of late July 1981, the score in the five-match series was 1-1 after England had drawn level in extraordinary circumstances at Headingley about ten days earlier.On the first Sunday of that August, Hampshire were playing a Sunday League game against Kent at the St Lawrence Ground in Canterbury. The dressing rooms were alongside each other back then but only the home dressing room had a television. I poked my head into the open door and changing right there, under the telly, was Alan Knott, the great wicketkeeper.Related

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“What’s the score?” I asked. “Not good, still three down.” I groaned. “Don’t worry,” Knott added with typical enthusiasm and a bright smile, “the Gorilla will come on in a minute and take five for none.”Which was pretty much exactly what he did.In a match that echoed some of the random cricket played at Headingley by both teams, the Australians had done enough at Edgbaston to leave themselves just 151 to win in the fourth innings. But 151 was 21 more than they had needed in Leeds, and though Mike Brearley, the England captain, doubted lightning would strike twice, he was encouraged by a nervous start from the Australian top order on Saturday evening.Ahead of the second Test of the series, at Lord’s, Botham, the captain, introduces his team to the Queen•PA Photos/Getty ImagesAt lunch in Birmingham on Sunday, the score had crept to 67 for 3. In Canterbury, Kent chose to bat first and as we left our dressing room for the field of play, the fourth Australian wicket fell – Graham Yallop a victim of the wily John Emburey. Then Emburey had Allan Border caught at silly point from a brute of a delivery.Upon which Brearley threw the ball to Botham, who had been strangely reluctant to bowl. He took 5 for 1.The match was over before the beer queues had woken up to the fact it was even alive again. In the field in Canterbury, we heard six reactions from the spectators whose radios were tuned in to Edgbaston.The first, Border’s wicket, was the sort of titter that comes from an embarrassed giggle and says, “Phew, at least we won’t be humiliated.” The second, the uprooting of Rodney Marsh’s middle stump, was louder and almost feral, partly because it was Marsh, the archetypal Australian, whose bet against his own team during the Headingley Test – more of that in a moment – had caused something of a stir.The next reaction was different: it had the men and women of Kent out of their chairs and sharing the detail of Ray Bright’s first-baller, lbw to the Gorilla – whisper, whisper, murmur, murmur; surely not. This had nothing on the roar that followed 20 minutes later: arch-villain Dennis Lillee well caught at the wicket by Bob Taylor after a defiant 19-ball innings of 3 in a partnership of 6 with Martin Kent, which, from afar, seemed to be turning back the tide. That Lillee wicket provoked a guttural roar, a bloodthirst, and was the moment when Kentish folk came together with Hampshire fielders to agree that the possibility of a miracle had become the probability of a victory.Ahead of the Headingley Test, new captain Mike Brearley bats in the nets while Botham, his predecessor, watches from the stairs•PA Photos/Getty ImagesBriefly, none of us gave a stuff about Kent versus Hampshire, only Botham versus the Aussies.Sensing the country alongside him, the Gorilla then ripped one through the game defences of Kent and triumphantly knocked over Terry Alderman with another very fast, full and straight ball. It was over. He ran, right fist in the air, to claim a stump and a famous victory. Indeed, he might have been Caesar returning to the Colosseum for his triumph, so ecstatic were the people.If Charles and Diana had stoked the fires of national fervour, ignited by victory in the third Test, Botham had lit them in the first place in that game and was now fanning the flames at Edgbaston.This brought the most unlikely and visceral reaction from the bleachers in Canterbury. Our match came to a brief halt as the news sank in, whereupon an extraordinary communal feeling of euphoria spread around the ground. Yes, the garden of England had become momentarily triumphalist itself before getting a grip and returning to the polite applause given to boundaries struck in the more sedate environment of the Sunday League. The facts still being digested by all of us were that Brearley’s team had won back-to-back Test matches from nowhere.And by nowhere, I mean nowhere.That a Cowdrey was making a few against Hampshire was irrelevant. England were 2-1 up in a series that only a few weeks previously had offered no hope. Of course, Edgbaston was not story; that was at Headingley a fortnight earlier, and what a story. But Edgbaston underlined the movement on the dial.Little did they know: spectators at Headingley on day one as Australia went about compiling their first-innings 401 for 9 declared•Adrian Murrell/Getty ImagesThe 40th anniversary of Headingley ’81 – a Test that began on 16th July – is, of course, today. In the Times of London last week, Michael Atherton wrote a superb piece about the match and its surrounding events and players. It was accompanied by contemporary black-and-white photographs of them all, except Knott, who lives in Cyprus. They are dressed in black T-shirts and have been asked by Phil Brown, the photographer, to reflect rather than rejoice. These pictures are both a stark and evocative reminder of the passage of time and its effects on a man. We remember these cricketers as heroes and see them now as a part of our history.Bob Willis is missing, and of course, missed, in a way his own self-deprecation could barely believe. It was rather special that the “Blue for Bob” day at Edgbaston last Tuesday went so well and that a huge amount of money was made for research into prostate cancer.Bob Woolmer and Graham Dilley are missing too, men lost to the unpredictable cycle of life and death.It is worth spending a moment on the transformative powers of Botham in his playing pomp. He was more than just a cricketer; more, indeed, than a man of the people, as he has been called so often. By throwing caution to the wind at every turn he single-handedly created hope for a whole nation in a way that few sportsmen have done.Seve Ballesteros – at his best – and Viv Richards are two others but it is a short list.Botham tore at the opposition, not always coming out on top, of course, but always telling them he was around. He laughed in the face of doubt and paid little attention to the weight of public expectation. He saw every game as an opportunity – nothing less, nothing more. He might not be the greatest of the allrounders to stand for that title but he might well be the greatest out and out match-winner. (Eighteen months earlier he had made a hundred and taken 13 wickets in the one-off Golden Jubilee Test against India in Mumbai.)Defending in a 148-ball 149 – who woulda thunk it: Botham during his legendary second innings at Headingley•Adrian Murrell/PA Photos/Getty ImagesIn the Times portrait, Botham looks good, less lined than one might think and still strong. In fact, after a second glance just now, he is surprisingly undiminished and it is easy to imagine that on impassioned issues such as the countryside, woke culture and sovereignty, he is a force in the second chamber.Back in 1981, briefly, he was sour at the game, having lost the England captaincy after a thumping in the West Indies and a bad start to the Ashes in the first two Tests at Trent Bridge and Lord’s. With England one down, the selectors turned to Brearley, who knew Botham better than most, having been his first Test captain. They got on well and Botham tended to perform for Brearley in a way that he might not have done for others.In its way, the Headingley win was a fluke but the notion that the best captains and players make their own luck has some truth to it. Botham batted in the second innings as if he were on the village green and in a hurry for his first pint (he had made a lively 50 in the first innings but with a little more culture). There was no sign of any magic from Brearley when England followed on 227 behind and found themselves 135 for 7 – and all but gone – when Dilley joined Botham at the crease. Dilley made 56, playing a relatively straight bat to Botham’s uninhibited form of expressionism. They were lucky. Any edged boundary – and there were plenty – might have gone to hand on another day. From the dressing-room balcony, an animated Brearley encouraged them to keep going as they were.I remember watching this partnership from the café underneath the Hampshire dressing room in Portsmouth, where I was nursing a broken finger courtesy Sylvester Clarke the day before. The longer the pair of them went on, and especially after England got in front, the more I shouted at the screen for them to rein in and take stock. My entirely misguided view was that they now had the Aussies by the proverbials and should grind out a bigger lead. Seeing Brearley egg them on taught me more about leadership in a single moment than in any other during my career as a cricketer.Dream run: Mike Gatting, Bob Willis, Graham Gooch and Peter Willey scarper off the field at Headingley after the scarcely believable win•PA Photos(I also remember Richie Benaud’s terrific commentary that day, and specifically, his sense of theatre when Botham hit a six into a little hut selling sweets and stuff – “Don’t even bother looking for that, it’s gone straight into the confectionery stall and out again.” I also learnt from this, realising that capturing the moment was more important than making perfect sense. As Richie would later say over a beer, “The ball rebounded onto the concourse, everyone knew where it was!”)Botham finished unbeaten on 149 from 148 balls, dynamic by Test match standards of the time. Australia needed 130 in the last innings to win the match. Easy. So much so that Lillee and Marsh were unable to resist what Lillee called “the ridiculous odds offered for a two-horse race”. With Dilley walking out to bat, the odds hit 500-1 against an England win. Lillee asked the Australian team’s coach driver to put on a tenner and Marsh called him back to add a fiver of his own. A few days later, £7500 was delivered in cash to Worcester and landed on the tourists’ dressing-room table. “It looked like a million dollars!” Border recalled.There was never a suggestion of impropriety, only the daftness of the odds exciting a couple of young blokes who could see the main chance. Of course, it turned embarrassing for those two wonderful cricketers but nothing more. As Lillee points out, “The odds quickly disappeared after Beefy’s amazing innings, and with our score at 56 for 1 in the run chase, we had the champagne ready for celebration with the bet already forgotten. I’d have swapped every penny for a win. Simple as that.”For all Botham’s fireworks with the bat, it was Willis who cleaned up the game and there is a story there too. Concerned about his form and fitness, the selectors left Willis out of the side. Then they heard he had suffered from the flu at Lord’s but was well again, so he was added to the extended party of players for the match. Such science! On the way to the ground, Brearley asked him about the balance of the team. “Four seamers” was the reply, which included Bob himself. He insisted on bowling up the slope to counter his frustrating no-ball problem. Only when Brearley switched him to bowl down the hill on that amazing final afternoon did the tide turn in his favour.Rodney Hogg gets despatched for four at Edgbaston by Botham•PA Photos”Give him his head, switch him round,” said Taylor. “Tell him to bowl straight at Lillee, any length, and forget about no-balls,” said Mike Gatting. Bingo! After Willis’ breathtaking six-wicket burst, Lillee and Bright made 30-odd for the ninth wicket in four overs and seemed to be racing home. Gatt’s advice did the trick, Lillee immediately chipping a full, straight ball to the tumbling Gatting, who held on at mid-on.Finally, Robert George Dylan Willis, with his demonic eye and trance-like demeanour, blew Bright’s middle stump out of the ground with a perfect yorker and ran from the field as if lost on another planet, with 8 for 43. These were simple twists of fate and because of them, the times they were a-changing. (I know, but why not. This was the music that Bobby lived for and the music that made him forever young.)I remember most of this as if it were yesterday, when I was starting out on a career in the game and watched and listened with something close to an addiction. At one time or another I played against all of those who took part in the series and on every occasion, I would think back to these two matches – and the fifth Test at Old Trafford too, in which Botham played his finest innings – when our hearts and minds were captured and held all summer long by a group of cricketers and their incomparable talisman. Sure, England had two captains, three wicketkeepers (??) and 20 players, so it was not a perfect world. But to a young wannabe, it was close.I will leave the last word to Brearley. “I was the luckiest man that summer. If I haven’t dined out on it, I’ve become, for better or worse, along with Botham, Willis and others, part of the mythology. It’s not easy to sort myth from reality.” Amen to that. Which is why our dreams live on.

A deep dive into patterns of runs scored and wickets taken at halfway points of Test matches and innings

Anantha Narayanan13-Nov-2021A few years back, I wrote an article containing one of my most intriguing measures, called the Halfway Value. I have decided to revisit that theme now, and have widened its scope considerably.I have expanded the halfway concept to the wickets taken in the innings, and broadened the measure to cover entire matches, and both teams, not just one innings. This allows for greater insight. About 200 more Tests have been played since then and some of these factor nicely in this concept set.There has always been a lot of discussion about the contributions of lower-order batters. One day, during a shower, I had a brain wave, a la Archimedes – why not use the halfway score as a reference point? Fortunately, unlike Archimedes, I stayed in the bathroom. I have developed this concept further over the past few years. I can say honestly that I have never been so excited by the possibilities of a measure like I am with this one. It is also very easy to understand, and derive, for the regular cricket follower.The idea is simple. The measure, let us call it IW-HS (Innings Wickets at Half-Score), is the exact wicket equivalent of the innings when the halfway score was reached. The measure is applicable only to completed innings. Say, a team scores 410. The halfway mark is 205. When the score of 205 was reached, the fourth-wicket partnership was in progress. The third wicket fell at 180 and the fourth at 270. The IW-HS value is 3.28 (3.0 + (205-180)/(270-180)). In another innings, the team scores 283. The halfway mark is 142. When the score of 142 was reached, the eighth-wicket partnership was in progress. The seventh wicket fell at 131 and the eighth at 201. The IW-HS value is 7.16 (7.0 + (142-131)/(201-131)).Related

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Let me define IW-HS in simple terms. A team scores “rrr for ww”, in a completed innings. If the halfway mark is “hhh”, the IW-HS is defined by the phrase “hhh for IW-HS”, with IW-HS being the exact wicket value, in decimals.This measure, a ridiculously simple one indeed, packs a punch. It is a clear indicator of how the innings progressed. A lower IW-HS values indicate that there have been collapses in the middle and late order. A higher IW-HS values indicate recoveries by the late-order batters. Let me illustrate this.Let us say that the IW-HS is 0.91. There was a terrific first-wicket partnership, which exceeded the halfway score mark. Soon after the first wicket fell, there was a huge collapse and the last nine wickets contributed less than half the score.Say, the IW-HS is 2.42. The top order performed quite well and the team reached the halfway mark, two wickets down. There was a collapse of sorts and the last seven wickets did not contribute a lot, well below half the score.If the IW-HS is, say, 6.91 instead, there was loss of top-order wickets and the halfway mark was reached six down and the seventh wicket was lost soon afterwards. However, the last three partnerships saved the day and added nearly half the final score.If the IW-HS is 8.75, it tells us there was a huge collapse and the ninth wicket fell soon after the halfway score was reached. The last wicket pair played outstandingly well and helped reach the final score. And so on.For this article, in the first place, I have extended the concept to wickets also. What was the score reached at the fall of the fifth wicket (not forgetting that we only consider situations where all ten wickets have fallen in an innings)? The only requirement is that this is not a number like IW-HS. It was possible for IW-HS to be fixed as a number because the total number of wickets was fixed (at ten). In this case, since the final score could be just about any number up to about 700, the IS-5W (Innings Score at five wickets down) is a percentage value.Here are a couple of examples taken from the England-India Test played at The Oval in September. In their first innings, England reached 290, after losing their fifth wicket at 62. The IS-5W is 21.3%. In their second innings, India reached 466 after being 296 for 5. Their IS-5W is 63.5%.A reader may raise a valid query: Aren’t both measures the same? Shouldn’t the results be similar? Surprisingly, no. The collection of Tests that are featured are quite different. I have checked the collections of featured Tests and there is almost no common Test between these. That is because the innings dynamics change considerably when we look at different aspects, especially the middle-order partnerships.I will present the results with a brief coverage of the top few Tests in each category. I leave it to the readers to look at the other Tests and derive their own conclusions.In the second part, I will look at Tests as a whole. If I set a minimum limit of 40 wickets, only wins by runs will be included, which is wholly inadequate. It is also clear that innings wins have different dynamics and should be excluded. If the winning team bats first, it is a high score followed by two low scores and the halfway stage will perforce be somewhere in the first innings. If the winning team bats second, it is low-high-low and the halfway stage will appear in the second innings. It is also true that teams are chalk and cheese in their batting in such matches. As such, I have to exclude all innings wins and also ten-wicket wins. This is done by the simple method of fixing the minimum cut-off at 31 wickets. A total of 1266 Tests (of the 2433 played to date) qualify.In the analysis of Tests, I will look at the same two things. However, in this case, both measures will be percentage values since both the total match runs and total match wickets vary between Tests. The runs could be anything and the wickets will range from 31 to 40. The first measure, let us call it MW-HS (Match Wickets at Half-Score), is the exact wicket equivalent in the innings when the halfway score was reached. This could be in any innings. The second measure, let us call it MS-HW (Match Score at Half-Wickets), is the runs accumulated until the fall of the halfway wicket. It could be in any innings but the first.I recently analysed pitches using Pitch Quality Index (PQI) values. This measure is similar but it offers a lot more insights since it straddles the two teams and recognises the primacy of the pitch. The PQIs are innings-dependent and the two teams could have been chalk and cheese.Finally, I look at the Test as a whole, but from the innings point of view. What were the IW-HS values reached and what was the mean for the Test? This highlights the Tests in which in almost every innings there was a either a significant recovery or a significant collapse.Anantha NarayananA feature of the IW-HS table above is that the top is almost totally dominated by recent matches. There are eight Tests played before 1982 and eight after 2000, indicating that late-order batters have come to the party in a significant manner recently.In the first Test featured, at Trent Bridge in 2013, Australia collapsed disastrously to 117 for 9 and then had a last-wicket partnership of 163, well over half the score. Philip Hughes and Ashton Agar staged this recovery. The IW-HS value was an incredible 9.14. Agar was unfortunately dismissed for 98.In November 2011, it was a different sort of recovery for Australia. After having taken a big lead in the first innings in Cape Town, they slid dramatically to 21 for 9 – five runs short of the all-time low score. Somehow, Peter Siddle and Nathan Lyon managed to add a “whopping” 26 runs to the total, which let Australia finish at 47. That South Africa won comfortably is another matter. The IW-HS was only a fraction lower than for the first entry on the table – at 9.11.England were in a similar predicament against New Zealand in Auckland in March 2018. Batting first in a day-night match, they managed to go past 26 but slid to 27 for 9 before Craig Overton and James Anderson took them total past 50. The IW-HS was 9.06.A year later, Ireland, playing in Dehradun against Afghanistan, slumped to 85 for 9 before recovering to 172 with a good partnership between George Dockrell and Tim Murtagh. The IW-HS was 9.01.In August 2019 in Antigua, chasing 419 to win, West Indies collapsed dramatically to 50 for 9 against India. Their last-wicket pair, Kemar Roach and Miguel Cummins, put on 50 runs, leading to an IW-HS value of exactly 9.0.Anantha NarayananIn the table above we see the other end of the spectrum as far as the IW-HS is concerned: amazing collapses after excellent starts. It is dominated by matches between 1980 and 2010.The first of these matches contained, in some ways, the strangest innings ever played. When Adrian Griffith and Sherwood Campbell had taken the score to 276 for no loss in Hamilton in December 1999, their captain, Brian Lara, must have had visions of a 500-plus score and an innings win. Instead, West Indies collapsed to 365, losing all ten wickets for 89 runs, and New Zealand won by nine wickets. After 276 for 0, West Indies lost 20 wickets for 186 runs. The IW-HS was an amazing 0.66 – all of two-thirds of a wicket.At Old Trafford in 1946, Vijay Merchant and Mushtaq Ali were sitting pretty at 124 for no loss before an avalanche of wickets, and India could only reach 170. They managed to hold out for a draw, but the IW-HS for the first innings was a measly 0.68.Against West Indies in Karachi in December 1997, Pakistan reached 298 for no loss, courtesy Aamer Sohail and Ijaz Ahmed, but could add only 119 more before being bowled out by West Indies. That Pakistan still won comfortably is another thing. The IW-HS for Pakistan was only 0.70.That figure was emulated by Zimbabwe against West Indies in December 2001. They were over 400 runs behind on the first innings, but Dion Ebrahim and Alastair Campbell launched a fightback with 164 for no loss. However, the inexperienced West Indian attack ran through the line-up for a mere 64 runs more.In October 2018 in Dubai, Australia collapsed to 202 all out after being 142 for no loss against Pakistan. The IW-HS was 0.71.Anantha NarayananFour centuries and two 450-plus scores did not prepare anyone for what happened on the fourth day of the Ahmedabad Test between India and New Zealand in November 2010. India’s top order – Gautam Gambhir, Virender Sehwag, Rahul Dravid, Sachin Tendulkar and Suresh Raina – was back in the pavilion, with the score reading 15 for 5. But VVS Laxman scored a magnificent 91 and Harbhajan Singh an unlikely 115 to take India to 266, an amazing recovery indeed. The IS-5W was an unbelievable 5.6% (15/260).A few decades earlier, India had performed a similar escape at The Oval, in 1952. Their top order, led by Vinoo Mankad and Pankaj Roy, scored 5, 0, 0, 1 and 0 and slid to 6 for 5. Then they recovered to 98 all out and, aided by heavy rain, managed to draw the match. India’s IS-5W was 6.1%.Sri Lanka set Pakistan an imposing target of 357 in Sialkot in September 1995. The hosts slid disastrously to 15 for 5 before Moin Khan played one of the great retrieving innings and took Pakistan to a respectable 212 – an IS-5W value of 7.1%.On the opening day of the Colombo Test against Australia in August 2016, Sri Lanka slid to 26 for 5 before recovering to an excellent 355, thanks to hundreds by Dinesh Chandimal and Dhananjaya de Silva. The IS-5W was 7.3%.Bangladesh were down in the dumps in Harare in February 2004, at 14 for 5 before reaching a respectable 169 – the IS-5W being 8.3%.Anantha NarayananThis is the other end of the five-wickets-down situations, in which the last five batters did very little before returning to the pavilion.In Melbourne in March 1979, Pakistan claimed one of their most memorable victories, defeating Australia by 71 runs, through arguably the greatest bowling spell in away matches – Sarfraz Nawaz’s 9 for 86. Australia, who were set 382 to win, were well placed at 305 for 5 when they lost their last five wickets for five runs. The scores of the batters who were dismissed from Nos. 6-11 were 0, 0, 0, 0, and 0. Australian IS-5W value was an amazing 98.4%.Pakistan had inflicted a similar assault in Wellington in January 1965. New Zealand were sitting pretty at 261 for 5 when the bottom gave way and they were dismissed for 266. The IS-5W value was an imposing 98.1%.In the Boxing Day Test at the MCG in 1990-91, England, having secured a first-innings lead of 46, were well placed at 147 for 5, when lightning struck a few times. They could add only three more runs and Australia won the Test comfortably. The IS-5W was 98.0%. These are the fewest runs added for the last five wickets.At Trent Bridge in 1953, Australia moved from 244 for 5 to 249 all out. England nose-dived from 493 for 5 to 507 all out in Karachi in February 1962. The IS-5W values for these two Tests are either side of 97%.Now I will move on to the new idea incorporated into this article. The idea of half-score or half-wickets, taking the entire match into consideration. This offers great insights since it’s across teams.Anantha NarayananFirst, let me take a look at the half-score state in the match. For this purpose, the total runs is the match aggregate runs. Since there is no other consideration, this helps tell us how the pitch performed across the two halves. In this table, I will feature matches in which there was a great recovery in the second half since the pitch improved dramatically.When India played New Zealand in Wellington in February 2014, the match aggregate was a huge 1476. However, when the 738th run was scored, the match scoreline was New Zealand: 192, India: 438 and New Zealand: 108 for 5. A huge innings defeat stared New Zealand in the face before Brendon McCullum, BJ Watling and Jimmy Neesham rescued them. New Zealand finished at 680 for 8 and India rattled up a quick 166 for 3. The wicket value was 25.04 (out of 31) and this resulted in an amazing 80.8% MW-HS value. Here, even the wicket count is a percentage value since the total number of wickets varies from match to match.When West Indies toured Pakistan in 1974-75, the match aggregate in the Lahore Test was 1044, which meant that the halfway mark was 522. After two low first innings, of 199 and 214, Pakistan were floundering at 58 for 3. The halfway mark was reached at a match wicket value of 23.6 and this represented an MW-HS value of 76.3%. Then Mushtaq Mohammad, Asif Iqbal, Len Baichan and Clive Lloyd produced valuable innings and the match finished in an eventless draw.A total of 1348 runs were scored by Sri Lanka in Pakistan in Colombo in July 2009. The halfway point was 674. The match scoreline was 299, 233, 425 for 9 and 391 for 4. It took 23.7 wickets (out of 33) to reach the halfway mark, which gives this match an MW-HS Rating of 74.6%.The highest value of MW-HS when all 40 wickets have fallen comes in a match much later in the table. The match scoreline of an Ashes Test at the MCG in 1901-02 tells a resounding story: 112, 61, 353 and 175. The halfway mark of 350 in a low-scoring Test was reached when 28.2 wickets had fallen – an MW-HS value of 70.4%.Anantha NarayananNow, on to matches in which the pitches turned square as the match progressed. Pakistan and West Indies scored 1348 runs in Dubai in October 2016. The halfway mark, of 674, was reached just after the fall of the fifth wicket and the MW-HS value is 15.8%. The scores tell the story – 579 for 3, 357, 123 and 289. A sea change in the pitch, for certain.At the WACA in December 2009, Australia scored 520 for 7 and West Indies responded with 312. Then Australia collapsed to 150 but won, dismissing West Indies for 323. The halfway mark of 652 runs was reached around the fall of the first West Indies wicket; 8.0 wickets, out of 37, leads to an MW-HS of 21.5%.In the Pallekele Test between Sri Lanka and Bangladesh earlier this year, the match scoreline was 493 for 7, 251, 194 for 9 and 227. The halfway stage was reached at 7.9 (out of 36) and the MW-HS was 22.1%.In matches where all 40 wickets were taken, the highest value of MW-HS is in an Ashes Test – at The Oval in 1934. The scores were 701, 321, 327 and 145 – leading to a monumental 562-run win for Australia. The halfway stage, of 747 runs, in a high-scoring match was reached with as few as 10.4 wickets taken, leading to an MS-HW value of 26.1%.Anantha NarayananNow, we move on to the half-match-wickets analysis. The main difference between this and the corresponding Innings analysis is that there the numbers were fixed at ten and five respectively. However, here the total number of wickets varies from 31 to 40. So, the halfway mark is fixed at 50% of the total wickets. It is variable. If the total number of wickets is odd, say 35, the exact score is calculated by adding half the partnership value for the 18th wicket.Eighteen wickets fell on the first day of the Delhi Test between India and West Indies in November 1987. India scored 75 and West Indies could only take a 52-run lead. In the second innings, India made 327 and West Indies chased down the target of 276 with some difficulty. Only 124 runs were scored at the fall of the 17th wicket (match total 35) and this represented just 18.7% of the match total of 805 runs – that being the MS-HW value.Going back nearly 100 years from then, to the MCG Ashes Test in 1894-95, the first-innings scores were almost identical to the Delhi match – England 75, and Australia 123. Then the pitch improved and England, with a second-innings total of 475, managed to win comfortably by 94 runs. The match wicket aggregate was 40. This meant that the first two innings could be taken to determine the MS-HW value rather easily – 198 runs out of 1006 comes to a MS-HW value of 19.7%,.The first two innings of the Centenary Test, between Australia and England in Melbourne in March 1977, were miserable efforts – 138 and 95. Then came two virtually identical 400-plus totals and Australia’s first-innings lead gave them a 45-run win. The match total was 1069 runs and the first-two-innings’ total was only 233, leading to a MS-HW value of 21.4%.Still in Melbourne, for the New Year’s Ashes Test in 1936-37 – the two first innings were forgettable but tactically brilliant efforts – 200 for 9 and 76 for 9. Then Don Bradman came in at 97 for 5 (having reversed the batting order to deal with a drying pitch) and played one of the all-time great innings, of 270. England were set 689 but could not get even halfway there. The match aggregate was 1163 runs and the first-two-innings’ total was only 276, leading to a MS-HW value of 23.7%.Anantha NarayananNow on to situations in which the pitch got considerably worse. When West Indies played in Mirpur in November 2012, the two first innings were huge 500-plus run-bonanzas, for only 14 wickets. The next two innings were contrasting efforts – 273 and 167 – and West Indies won by 77 runs. The total runs scored at the fall of the 17th wicket were 1295, which formed a huge MS-HW value of 85.0% of the total match aggregate of over 1500 runs.When South Africa toured England in 1951, Trent Bridge showed its Jekyll-and-Hyde qualities. The two first-innings scores were 483 for 9 and 419 for 9. Then there were two miserable efforts – 121 and 114. South Africa won the topsy-turvy match by 71 runs, mainly because of their first-innings lead. The MS-HW is a rather high 80.4%.When Pakistan toured Australia in 1972-73, the MCG Test again proved to be a yo-yo match. Australia declared at 441 for 5 but saw Pakistan take a lead of 133. The hosts stitched together an excellent third innings of 425 and then won by 92 runs. All this meant that at the halfway mark of 16 wickets (out of 33), the MS-HW was 79.8%.Anantha NarayananIn this concluding part, I have taken the IW-HS as the base and looked at Tests as a whole. This has allowed me to identify Tests in which both the teams either recovered superbly or collapsed dramatically. Only Tests in which there were three or more such occurrences are considered. And all IW-HS values should be greater than 5.0. Let us first look at the recoveries.In the 1999 Edgbaston Test, there were three good recoveries. First, New Zealand came back from 104 for 6 to 226 (IW-HS of 6.11). Then England fell to 45 for 7 before making it to 126, leading to an IW-HS of 7.26. New Zealand slumped disastrously to 52 for 8 before getting to a three-figure score. The IW-HS was a huge 8.04. This Test had the highest IW-HS average of 7.13.In Kanpur in 1983-84, India lost by an innings to West Indies. All three innings had excellent recoveries. First, West Indies, from 157 for 5 to 454. Then India, from 90 for 8 to 207, and in the follow-on, from 43 for 5 to 164. The three IW-HS values were 5.46, 98.11 and 5.62 respectively.At the SSC in Colombo in 2005, West Indies slumped to 113 for 5 before scoring 285 (IW-HS 5.37). Then Sri Lanka reached 227 after being 113 for 7 (IW-HS 7.02). Finally West Indies slid again, to 48 for 6, before crossing 100, although still losing the Test by a large margin.There are two occurrences of all four innings exceeding IW-HS values of 5.0. The first was in Lahore in November 1996. The four values were 5.50, 6.19, 5.39 and 6.74 respectively. Pakistan and New Zealand recovered from five-down and six-down situations. In 2015 at the SSC, India and Sri Lanka posted five-plus values of IW-HS in all four innings. Sri Lanka’s recovery from 47 for 6 to 201 was the most noteworthy one.Anantha NarayananFinally to Tests in which both teams suffered collapses. All IW-HS values should be lower than 3.0 to qualify.In Antigua in July 2012, New Zealand reached 223 for 2, yet managed a total of only 351 (IW-HS of 2.47). Then, West Indies were 304 for 1 and could add only 218 more (IW-HS of 1.13). Finally, New Zealand were 170 for 1 and could put on only 102 more (IW-HS of 1.72). The average was a very low 1.78.West Indies went from 114 for 2 to 216 (IW-HS of 1.98) in December 1997 in Karachi. Then it was Pakistan’s turn to fritter away a good start of 298 for no loss to 417 all out (a very low IW-HS of 0.70 – this innings was featured earlier). In their second innings, West Indies were doing reasonably well at 140 for 2, but could only reach 212 (IW-HS of 2.71).At the SCG in January 1968, Australia could not capitalise on a start of 219 for 2, and reached only 317. India responded in kind, converting a good position of 178 for 2 to 268 all out. In the third innings, Australia were sitting very well at 222 for 2 (a bogey score indeed) and could only add 70 more. To complete the sorry tale, India reached 120 for 1 but were dismissed for 197. This is the only Test featured in which all four innings had sub-2.50 IW-HS values (2.27, 2.34, 1.63 and 1.43 respectively. The average was an incredible 1.92, across all four innings.Calling for an all-time XV
In 2013, I ran a readers’ poll to determine a group of 15 players to be considered for an all-time World team. There was excellent response and the results were very insightful and interesting. I now call for submissions again, since new contenders have emerged, as also new measures for selection. You can email your entries through one of the three routes below, with the subject “All-time XV – 2021”.- Send an email to my personal mail id, if you have it
– Send an email to the email id at the bottom of this article
– Send an email to the Talking_Cricket group, more on which is below.When sending in your XV, provide your name, place of residence, and your list of 15 players (no more, no less). The team must be an all-terrain one. A manager/coach is optional. If you send multiple entries from one email id, I will consider the last one sent. Thus, you have the opportunity to change your selections. You don’t have to justify your selections; I prefer short emails. The entries should reach me by November 30. I will write a summary article, which will probably be published in January. The entry that matches the final selection or comes closest to it will be acknowledged.- eight batters/allrounders
– one wicketkeeper
– four pace bowlers
– two spinnersTalking Cricket Group
Any reader who wishes to join the general purpose cricket-ideas-exchange group of this name that I started last year can email a request for inclusion, giving their name, place of residence and what they do.

Dutch legend would enjoy the journey more if he had his time again in international cricket

Matt Roller16-Jun-2022Perfect endings are rare in sport, as Ryan ten Doeschate might well reflect. He signed off from an 18-year professional career by sitting in the dugout at a near-empty Sharjah, watching his Netherlands team-mates stumble to 44 all out against Sri Lanka after opting to sit out of a dead rubber at the end of the T20 World Cup’s preliminary group stage.The Netherlands had gone into the tournament with a strong squad and high hopes but lost all three games and headed home early; ten Doeschate faced a single ball, pinned lbw as the second victim in Curtis Campher’s four-in-four, and did not bowl. “I had got nothing going at Essex last season and was in a really bad place,” ten Doeschate recalls.”I explained that to Cambo [coach Ryan Campbell] and the guys did everything they could to help: I really felt like I was up and running again. Then I got hit on the pad against Ireland, slipped down the order against Namibia and by the time the Sri Lanka game came around, we were already out so it was an opportunity to give someone else a chance.”It was a disappointing end, but ten Doeschate’s second wave as a Netherlands player had surpassed his expectations. After returning to orange kit in 2017, he was part of squads that secured spots in the ongoing ODI Super League and last year’s T20 World Cup by winning the World Cricket League and the 2019 qualifiers respectively. “I really felt like I was part of something,” he says.

It was exciting for them to play against Sachin Tendulkar and take photos, have bats signed, which I didn’t really get. Maybe I got that wrong as well: if I had the chance again, I would approach it differentlyTen Doeschate on the 2011 World Cup campaign

The first half of his international career, from 2005 to 2011, played a key role in building ten Doeschate’s profile. His ODI batting average, exactly 67, is still the highest ever (minimum 30 innings); he scrambled back to the non-striker’s end for a second run when Stuart Broad’s famous overthrow gave the Netherlands their most famous win on the opening night of the 2009 World T20; his 307 runs at the 2011 World Cup remain (by a distance) the most by a Netherlands batter at a World Cup.And yet, ten Doeschate looks back on that stage of his career with regret. “I was very ambitious,” he says. “I had big goals for those guys and I wanted to be professional then and maybe that was an unfair expectation of guys who were working in full-time jobs. It was exciting for them to play against Sachin Tendulkar and take photos, have bats signed, which I didn’t really get. Maybe I got that wrong as well: if I had the chance again, I would approach it differently.”The England win was so much fun, certainly the biggest victory we had and in isolation, it was an absolutely great night. It was one of the first major upsets for Dutch cricket, on the first night of the World Cup. But we didn’t get out of that group: England beat Pakistan, and we lost badly to Pakistan and went out on net run-rate.”I’ve always focused on where you’re moving to: for me, getting out of that group ahead of Ireland and Namibia [at last year’s T20 World Cup] would have been a far bigger achievement than beating England at Lord’s. At the end of the day, that was just a bit of fun which didn’t mean anything. Maybe that was where I got it wrong in terms of my attitude: I did appreciate it, but I always wanted more; I wanted success in a bigger context.”Netherlands victory at Lord’s in 2009 was their greatest moment, but ten Doeschate regrets not reaching the knock-outs•PA PhotosAfter the 2011 World Cup, ten Doeschate put his international career on hold, a hiatus that lasted six-and-a-half years before Campbell brought him back into the fold. “I didn’t agree with how things were run, what was being expected of me, how I was treated,” he says. “The next series was during the English summer and I had goals that I wanted to achieve with Essex. It wasn’t even a close call.”Personally, the first half was far more successful than the second half, but the second half was far more enjoyable. The changes that they’d made in that period where I was away, making it a bit more professional. I remember meeting Cambo in Hong Kong and he said: ‘Here’s what we’re trying to do. You’ll really like it, just give it a chance.’ And he was right – I did.”Now Kent’s batting coach, ten Doeschate was a consultant coach on the Netherlands’ curtailed tour to South Africa last year and while open to similar roles in the off-season, he is not actively involved with the current squad. He was encouraged by the recent series against West Indies despite their 3-0 defeat – he covered the tour as a commentator for talkSPORT – and believes that there is plenty of young talent coming through.Related

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“Without exaggerating, the West Indies series was one of the best that Holland have ever been involved in: they had no county players available but pushed them really hard in two of those three games, and really should have won one of them. It should be an absolute walk in the park for England but it would be a result for Holland to push them and get close; with the Super League ending, it’s not all about the results and they’ll be looking ahead to the T20 World Cup qualifiers in Zimbabwe in July.”There’s some serious talent: Vik Singh, Shariz Nadeem, Aryan Dutt, Musa Nadeem – if you can get these guys to become bankers at associate level, that’s a good result. We’ve not seen the best of Bas de Leede either: I think he’s got all the attributes of being a proper allrounder. The lack of exposure in the way he plays shows at times because he’s often out in the same way, but in terms of technique and shots, he’s as good as any young player in England.”The absence of county-contracted players during the home summer is a source of frustration for Dutch supporters, not least because the ICC’s “mandatory release” policy dictates that the KNCB should be able to pick them. In practice, “it’s a pretty worthless mandate,” ten Doeschate says. “I know from my experience that if the Dutch had tried to enforce that, I’d have said: ‘OK, then I’ll just retire from international cricket.’ There has to be a bit more give-and-take from both sides.”It’s tricky: you look at someone like Rashid Khan – they are obviously very different circumstances, but he can afford to miss six games for Sussex or leave tournaments early. The Afghans are very good in that sense: their players are always available. Maybe because they’ve achieved more, maybe there’s a bit more purpose, maybe the set-up is a bit more professional and the set-up is designed in that way – I don’t know what the answer is but it can be done.”

Jamie Overton, Harry Brook and Matthew Potts are among the contenders for selection on Wednesday morning

Alan Gardner17-May-2022Openers
A perennial problem area for selection, from the cast of thousands who partnered Alastair Cook to frequent chopping and changing among four or five familiar candidates over the last couple of years. Zak Crawley and Alex Lees are the incumbent openers, but they averaged just 21.33 across six Tests in the Caribbean, with a highest stand of 51. Since coming back, Crawley has struggled for form with Kent – four single-figure scores and a best of 54 from eight innings – but can point to innings of 77 at the SCG and 121 in Antigua, not to mention his mammoth 267 in 2020, as reasons to stick with him.Lees, meanwhile, has scored two Championship hundreds and two fifties for Durham, and might potentially benefit from having the England captain as a county team-mate. Among the recently discarded, Rory Burns and Haseeb Hameed have a century apiece but not much else, while Dom Sibley looks to have rediscovered his mojo to average 53.83 for Warwickshire. Two ghosts of summers past, Keaton Jennings and Sam Robson, are in even better form – Jennings has scored 348 runs from two innings, including a career-best 238 in last week’s Roses match – but may need a sustained season of run-scoring to return to contention.Probable: Zak Crawley
Possibles: Alex Lees, Dom SibleyCrawley impressed over the winter but has struggled this season•AFP/Getty ImagesMiddle-order batters
Some clarity here, at least. Two of the very few selection certainties are Root and Stokes, who have already been inked in at No. 4 and No. 6 respectively. That means England are looking for a No. 3 – another position that has tended to be filled by locums – and a No. 5, with a variety of fresh faces and previously capped players making a case among the glut of early season run-scoring. Of those actually batting at No. 3 for their counties, the three with the best numbers are Ben Duckett, Tom Abell and Nick Gubbins, none of whom has been close to selection recently. For that reason, England could return to Dawid Malan, who was first drop in Australia over the winter and has 482 runs at 80.33 this season, mostly batting at No. 4 – though he will miss this round of Championship fixtures with a sore Achilles – or even shuffle Crawley back down.Related

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Dan Lawrence had his moments in the Caribbean but has yet to make a score in the Championship and has been sidelined by a hamstring injury, potentially handing Ollie Pope (417 at 69.50) another bite at the cherry; Jonny Bairstow revived his Test career over the winter but would have to make a swift transition from playing at the IPL. Also in the mix will be Yorkshire batter Harry Brook, who has made three centuries and 758 runs at an average of 151.60 amid a stellar start to the summer. The 23-year-old, who won a T20I cap in February, looks cut out for Test cricket and would be a bold choice to debut between Root and Stokes at No. 5.Definites: Joe Root, Ben Stokes
Probables: Ollie Pope, Harry Brook, Jonny Bairstow
Possibles: Dawid Malan, Tom Abell, Nick Gubbins, Dan LawrenceBairstow has found form at the IPL but would face a tight turnaround if selected for the first Test•BCCIWicketkeeper
England seemed to have finally made up their mind to give Ben Foakes a crack at proving his credentials as the world’s best gloveman – copyright, Alec Stewart – during an extended run in the Test side. But his keeping in the West Indies was a little scruffy, and neither did the runs flow… meanwhile, over at the IPL, Jos Buttler has slipped seamlessly back into his groove as one of the most-domineering forces in the white-ball game. Could his friendship with Stokes, as well as the support of a fellow T20 maverick in McCullum, lead to Buttler making yet another Test comeback? The fact the first Test begins just four days after the IPL final, with Buttler’s Rajasthan Royals very much still in contention, mitigates the chances – but stranger things have happened. For that reason we can’t entirely discount Bairstow either, a key man alongside Stokes in the engine room during his best years in Test cricket. But Foakes, who has made 395 runs at 98.75 for Surrey, remains the frontrunner.Probable: Ben Foakes
Possible: Jos ButtlerParkinson has started the county season in fine form•Getty ImagesBowlers
It is almost a decade since England rested both James Anderson and Stuart Broad from a home Test against West Indies as part of some attempted succession planning. But here we are, a couple of months after they were both omitted for the tour to the Caribbean, with the old stagers primed to take centre stage once again. Stokes has already intimated that he considers them both part of his best XI, and they are – somewhat ironically – among the few fit options at England’s disposal. A lengthy list of those in the treatment room includes Chris Woakes, Mark Wood, Saqib Mahmood, Matthew Fisher and Jofra Archer, while Sam Curran is easing his way back from a back stress fracture and Ollie Robinson has only delivered 59 overs – some of that bowling offspin – across two outings for Sussex.Durham’s Matthew Potts is the bolter most-likely to benefit, having claimed 35 wickets already this season, including four five-fors and match figures of 11 for 101 in his most-recent game; Jamie Overton could also win a first call-up, having offered a sustained pace threat with Surrey.As for the spinners, Matt Parkinson is the leading wicket-taker in the country among spin bowlers and can surely do no more to make England pick him, but Jack Leach did an admirable job in against West Indies and produced a timely eight-for in Somerset’s win over Gloucestershire last week.Definites: James Anderson, Stuart Broad
Probables: Matthew Potts, Jack Leach
Possibles: Jamie Overton, Ollie Robinson, Craig Overton, Matt Parkinson

Even before the squad was announced, several players were locked in, with only a few slots still up for grabs. Here’s the logic behind the picks for those spots

Nagraj Gollapudi15-Sep-2022Arshdeep Singh
When fully fit, Jasprit Bumrah, Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Harshal Patel were always going to be the three frontline quicks with Hardik Pandya for support. India had to pick one or two back-up fast bowlers in the squad. They went for one: Arshdeep Singh, who pipped Deepak Chahar and Avesh Khan.Related

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It is learnt that there was hardly any debate over whether Arshdeep should be the one on the flight to Australia. The selectors and the team management agreed that he showed composure and calmness in two tight final overs – against Pakistan and Sri Lanka – during the Asia Cup. Praising Arshdeep recently, India captain Rohit Sharma said the young left-arm fast bowler deserved to be part of the India team because he had the temperament to execute under pressure. He also brings the left-arm angle, which is not available otherwise.Arshdeep only made his international debut earlier this year during India’s UK tour, but the selectors also considered his IPL form; he had consistently bowled tough overs for Punjab Kings.Chahar can consider himself unlucky because of injuries, but he also is quite similar to Bhuvneshwar, which leaves room only for one of them in the main squad. Chahar, though, finds a place in the reserves.Deepak Hooda scored his maiden T20 century on the UK tour•Sportsfile/Getty ImagesDeepak Hooda
A maiden T20 century against Ireland on the UK trip helped Deepak Hooda become a serious contender for the T20 World Cup. With his flexibility to bat in any position, his versatility as a stroke-maker, his athleticism as a boundary-rider and his ability to bowl part-time offbreaks, Hooda is an asset in any T20 side. The selectors, too, felt he could add to India’s batting and bowling depth in the absence of Ravindra Jadeja, allowing the team management to work with different combinations.The selectors went with the experience of R Ashwin•Michael Steele/AFP/Getty Images R Ashwin
Wristspinners have been the dominant entity in T20 cricket in Australia in the past few years, but the selectors opted for senior pro R Ashwin over young legspinner Ravi Bishnoi, who had an impressive outing in the Asia Cup. The selectors felt that Ashwin and his fingerspin could be used both as an attacking and defensive option in the powerplay, middle overs or even at death. It was also felt that on pitches that offer good bounce and on bigger grounds, Ashwin could pose more difficult questions to the batters compared to a second wristspinner (behind Yuzvendra Chahal), especially someone in the infancy of their international career.Mohammed Shami is part of the India squad for the series against Australia and South Africa•ICC via GettyMohammed Shami
Mohammed Shami has not made it to the main squad, but he is still a surprise selection for the reserves: he has not played for India in T20Is since the 2021 T20 World Cup last November. Shami is also part of the India squads for the home T20I series against Australia and South Africa before the World Cup. His recall caught many by surprise, but Shami is part of a group of players the selectors believe can turn up and play in any format thanks to vast experience as well as top control over their skillset. In Shami and Chahar, India have good cover in case there is an injury to any of the four quicks in the main squad.

Few home comforts at Chelmsford for nominal series hosts, but plenty of lessons for the international game

Andrew Miller10-May-2023They came in droves. From Newham and Whitechapel, from Dagenham and Redbridge, all #BackingGreen as the Cricket Ireland hashtag implored, and turning an improbable suburban enclave in Essex into the ultimate home-from-home.Unfortunately for the nominal hosts Ireland (although not, it must be said, unexpectedly), the #Green in question had a more tigerly tinge to it, as London’s Bangladeshi community seized on the chance for a raucous day out in Chelmsford – and by the time they’d all been sent hurtling back towards the tube network by a dramatic late-afternoon thunderstorm, it was as if they’d come armed with Dhaka’s rainy-season weather too.And so, when Mark Adair spoke afterwards to Ireland’s lone media representative in front of an abandoned, waterlogged outfield, to reflect on the washout that had ended his side’s hopes of automatic World Cup qualification, the day’s prior events all felt a bit like a fever dream.Related

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The flags, the drums, the face-paint, the cuddly tiger toys. None of that remained, just a desperately dank media marquee with raindrops sheeting down the plastic windows – which, ironically, was perhaps Ireland’s first true taste of home (dis)comfort, seeing as a washout in temporary facilities at Malahide was exactly what they had been seeking to avoid when the decision was made to outsource this, their final Super League campaign.But, with apologies to Ireland’s now-deferred tilt for World Cup qualification, this had still been one of the more notable rain-wrecked ODIs. Not so much for the performances (mighty though Mushfiqur Rahim’s birthday half-century had been), but for the lessons that were learned about the resilience of the format.At a time when the international game is feeling the squeeze like never before – with the return of Ireland’s star seamer, Josh Little, from the IPL embodying the wrench of priorities that the world’s leading players are currently feeling – there was a vitality to the day’s events that underlined what stands to be lost if an endless treadmill of T20 leagues becomes the norm.All things being equal, Ireland versus Bangladesh is precisely the sort of contest that even the most fervent of cricket fans could be forgiven for overlooking, but if the Chelmsford experience reminds us of anything, it is that passion cannot be faked. It may be the smallest ground on the county circuit, but with more than 3000 Bangladesh fans packing out its stands, it offered up a stage on which those supporters could celebrate the ties that still bind them to a homeland that, in many cases, they left behind several generations ago.The top deck of the Tom Pearce Stand throbbed all day long, with its oversize Bangladesh flag shimmering to every half-chance, and with the whole crowd bursting into a rendition of “Happy Birthday” (complete with specially printed banner) as Mushfiqur made his way to the middle in the 22nd over of the day.They came in droves, and turned an improbable suburban enclave in Essex into the ultimate home-from-home•Cricket IrelandAnd even when the rain arrived to ruin a keenly poised contest, a significant throng stayed back to the bitter end, braving the lightning strikes that at one stage even fried the grimly static replay screen, so that they could line the route from the pavilion to the team bus to bid their heroes goodnight.”When the crowd comes to see the match, players always enjoy,” Najmul Hossain Shanto said at the close. “It is always helpful for our game. Some of the players have family here, probably they will come in the next match as well. The crowd here was 80-90% from Bangladesh. We didn’t feel that much [like visitors].”And so the inevitable question arises. Could any of this be adapted to help safeguard the long-term future of international cricket? Of course, the notion of neutral-venue internationals isn’t exactly a new one. It’s 111 years since the 1912 Triangular drowned in weather not dissimilar to Chelmsford’s denouement, while Pakistan spent more than a decade in the desert – metaphorically and otherwise – after their security situation drove them from their homeland in 2009.Prior to setting up a new base in the UAE, Pakistan also played two memorable Tests against Australia in England in the summer of 2010, including a second Test at Headingley that tapped into Yorkshire’s diaspora every bit as effectively as Chelmsford did for East London’s. The fact that that ECB-PCB relationship did not continue into future seasons owed rather more to the events at Lord’s later that summer than to any sense that the bottom line did not add up.This time, however, you wonder if the timing feels more apposite. Perhaps not for Ireland in the short term, whose years as a Full-Member Nation have inadvertently come to epitomise the international game’s slow-puncture (although let’s judge the strength of their own diaspora if cricket ever manages to tap into the US market).

“A day like today is a celebration of the trust and confidence in our relationship with the Bangladeshi community”Arfan Akram, Essex’s East London Operations Manager

But for the international game as a whole – faced with a haemorrhaging of TV revenue that hastens a vicious spiral of decline – there’s never a bad time to be reminded that the game exists because of its fans, and not because of its rights deals. Bangladesh’s supposed lightweight status has meant that latter factor has been allowed to determine their value to England – by whom they haven’t been invited in a bilateral capacity since 2010 – even though the sheer joy that they bring to their support has lit up two of the last six English summers, thanks to their involvement in the 2017 Champions Trophy and the 2019 ODI World Cup.And there’s another pressing factor at play too, one that Essex in particular recognise all too well. English cricket’s ongoing racism reckoning is set for another seismic moment when the Independent Commission for Equity in Cricket (ICEC) finally sees the light of day, and when it does, the game as a whole can expect a litany of criticism on the grounds of class, race and gender. What’s more, Essex themselves are also braced for the findings of Katherine Newton KC’s report into specific allegations at the club, many of which were raised by their former player, Jahid Ahmed, who also happened to be the first British Bangladeshi to play county cricket.And, right there, is the nub of the issue for the English game. Tower Hamlets, where a third of London’s Bangladeshi community lives, is barely half an hour door-to-door from the County Ground while Jahid himself was born in the city of Chelmsford, even though he described the club on his doorstep as “a white man’s world where brown people were outsiders”.It is all evidence of a huge and shamefully untapped market. And yet, those same fans who flocked to Tuesday’s game might not have turned out in such force had it not been for the chance to congregate around their heritage, and effectively embrace that outsider status. It all points to a design flaw at the heart of international cricket – one that effectively runs counter to the expectations of multiculturalism – and if the ICEC is to offer any sort of closure to English cricket, it will be obliged to map out a resolution that cuts both ways.BCBBut to judge by an undeniably uplifting afternoon at Essex, English cricket is already better prepared to deal with whatever fallout awaits, not least because the concessions required to make Bangladesh’s fans feel welcome on such an occasion – the installation of a prayer room in the indoor school, for instance, or the provision of halal food, and the scaling-back of alcohol outlets in anticipation of a predominantly Muslim crowd – are now part of the club’s everyday considerations, rather than just tacked on reluctantly at the end of a planning meeting.”A day like today is a celebration of the trust and confidence in our relationship with the Bangladeshi community,” Arfan Akram, Essex’s East London Operations Manager, told ESPNcricinfo. Akram’s remit includes the ECB’s acclaimed new hub in Leyton, where much of the face-to-face engagement with those communities takes place. On any given night in the nets, club players are likely to rub shoulders with current Essex players such as Feroz Khushi or Aron Nijjar, and even the former Bangladesh spinner Enamul Haque, who is now a coach at Newham College.And the net effect of that grassroots outreach has already been felt in the lead-up to these three matches, as Akram explained.”Demand for cricket in East London is outstripping supply,” he said. “The beauty of these three games is that we haven’t been using a central sales platform, it’s us sending WhatsApp messages and the system going mad in ticket sales. That can only happen if there’s a culture in the club that people want to be a part of.”The historic incidents will need their time, and fair process, and we’ll be able to move forward when we have closure. But this will help us in the long-term transition of the club.”None of which is of any immediate consolation to Ireland, of course. On the eve of the game, their captain Andy Balbirnie had conceded that his team’s presence in England for such a crunch contest was “slightly disappointing”, and that their “home” status was set to be anything but. And yet, here they were regardless, embracing the fanaticism that their opponents brought to the occasion, and accepting into the bargain that the health of one is the health of all when it comes to the fragile ties that keep international cricket viable.

All the key numbers from India’s record win against Afghanistan

Sampath Bandarupalli11-Oct-20237 – Hundreds for Rohit Sharma at the men’s ODI World Cup, the most by any player, surpassing the six scored by Sachin Tendulkar. Four of those seven hundreds by Rohit came while chasing, while no other batter has more than two batting second.ESPNcricinfo Ltd556 – Sixes hit by Rohit in international cricket, the most by any batter, going past Chris Gayle’s tally of 553. Out of those, 297 have been in ODIs, the third most in the format.ESPNcricinfo Ltd63 – Balls needed for Rohit to complete his hundred against Afghanistan, the fastest by an Indian at the men’s ODI World Cup. The previous fastest was by Virender Sehwag, who took 81 balls for his ton against Bermuda in 2007.31 – ODI hundreds for Rohit, the third most in the format, going ahead of Ponting. Only Tendulkar (49) and Virat Kohli (47) have more ODI tons than Rohit.ESPNcricinfo Ltd29 – …of Rohit’s 31 ODI tons have come while opening the batting. He now has the second-most hundreds in ODIs as an opener, going ahead of Sanath Jayasuriya’s 28 and only behind Tendulkar’s 45.21 – Number of centuries scored by Rohit since turning 30 in ODIs, the joint-most by any batter. Tillakaratne Dilshan and Jayasuriya also had 21 tons each in ODIs after turning 30.19 – Innings taken by Rohit for 1000 runs at the ODI World Cup, the joint-fastest batter to the milestone, equalling David Warner, who got there in 19 innings on Sunday against India.ESPNcricinfo Ltd4 – Hundreds by Indian batters in men’s ODIs that were faster than Rohit’s 63-ball century in Delhi. It is also the sixth-fastest hundred for any batter at the men’s ODI World Cup.2 – Rohit’s 30-ball fifty was also the second-fastest for India at the men’s ODI World Cup, behind Tendulkar’s fifty off 26 balls against Bermuda in the 2007 edition.76 – Runs scored by Rohit in the first ten overs of the Indian innings. These are the most by a batter for India in a men’s ODI innings in the first ten overs since 2002. The previous highest was 70 runs by Robin Uthappa against West Indies in Chennai in 2007.6 – Player-of-the-Match awards for Rohit in the ODI World Cup. Only Tendulkar – nine awards – is ahead of Rohit, while Glenn McGrath also has six.35 – Overs India needed to chase down the target of 273, the fastest successful 250-plus target chase in the men’s ODI World Cup. The previous fastest was off 36.2 overs by New Zealand in the 283-run chase against England in the opening game of the ongoing edition.90 – Balls remaining when India reached the target, the third biggest win in terms of balls remaining in men’s ODIs when chasing a target of 250-plus runs. South Africa chased down 261 with 123 balls to spare against West Indies earlier this year, while England defeated Sri Lanka with 95 balls to spare in 2016 while chasing 255.

Australia head to India for a three-match series ahead of the World Cup with plenty to ponder after a 3-2 series defeat against South Africa

Alex Malcolm18-Sep-2023Australia’s injury list lengthensAustralia entered the five-match series missing Pat Cummins (wrist fracture), Steven Smith (wrist tendon), Mitchell Starc (groin soreness) and Glenn Maxwell (ankle) but were buoyed by the opportunity to test their bench strength before those players returned. All of those players still need to get up to match fitness and intensity in India ahead of the World Cup but Australia leave South Africa with more injury issues.Travis Head has a fractured hand and is in severe doubt for the World Cup. Coach Andrew McDonald confirmed after the final ODI that he is unlikely to be available for the first half of the tournament and the selectors have to decide whether to carry him in the squad or not. Sean Abbott has split the webbing in his hand and will be monitored in India.Ashton Agar played just one game in South Africa coming off a calf tear. It was planned that he would play more but he experienced soreness and missed the second and third matches of the series before heading home for the birth of his child and he won’t play in the series in India starting on Friday.Nathan Ellis (adductor) and Spencer Johnson (hamstring) aren’t in the World Cup 15-man squad at the moment but both are key back-up fast bowling options and both leave South Africa with niggles. Australia has five more matches before the World Cup to get players up and running but they also have to factor in nine World Cup pool games in eight cities over the course of only a month in the tournament proper. It is a heavy workload for even a fully fit squad.Related

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Dismal death bowlingAustralia’s death bowling was woeful in the last three games of the series and it is a major concern heading to the World Cup. Cummins and Starc were missing, while Mitchell Marsh was unavailable to bowl and Cameron Green missed two of the last three games due to concussion. All of those issues meant Marsh was limited in his options as stand-in captain.Agar’s absence was also keenly felt. While he does not bowl at the death, his middle-over skills can help build more pressure on opposition teams heading into the death overs. But even the experienced trio of Josh Hazlewood, Adam Zampa and Marcus Stoinis were mauled by South Africa’s middle-order in the death overs.!function(){“use strict”;window.addEventListener(“message”,(function(a){if(void 0!==a.data[“datawrapper-height”]){var e=document.querySelectorAll(“iframe”);for(var t in a.data[“datawrapper-height”])for(var r=0;r<e.length;r++)if(e[r].contentWindow===a.source){var i=a.data["datawrapper-height"][t]+"px";e[r].style.height=i}}}))}();