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She admits captaining in the Ashes brought new challenges which she hopes to learn from

AAP11-Sep-2023Declaring herself reinvigorated by captaining Australia in the Ashes, Alyssa Healy has halted any talk of retirement by signing a three-year deal with the Sydney Sixers.Off contract since the end of last summer, AAP can reveal Healy has agreed a contract extension to keep her in the WBBL with Sixers until the end of 2025-26.Leaving the club was never realistically an option for Healy, with the main decision for Australia’s stand-in skipper being how much longer she wanted to commit for.The 33-year-old has spoken in the past about considering her future, with an ongoing joke between her and husband Mitchell Starc that she has changed her mind multiple times.Related

• Kapp goes pick one to Thunder in WBBL draft as Scorchers retain Devine

• Lanning ruled out of West Indies series but Healy and Perry return

• Australia's preparation for India day-night Test to begin during WBBL

Players often continue in franchise cricket after the end of their international career, but Healy’s long-term deal is an indication she is not planning to walk away any time soon.After taking the reins with Meg Lanning unavailable for Australia’s retention of the Ashes in England earlier this year, Healy will start the summer captaining the side against West Indies.And the she said her leadership role in England had rejuvenated the way she thought about cricket, with a multi-format tour of India and a T20 World Cup in Bangladesh to come in the next year.”The only thing we pondered was how long we wanted the deal to be,” Healy told AAP of her Sixers contract. “The beauty of the situation is I have had an exciting opportunity to captain the side in the Ashes.”Whether that is something that will happen moving forward or not doesn’t matter. It has reinvigorated the way I think about the game and the way I am enjoying it.”There is an exciting 12 months ahead with World Cups and trips to Bangladesh. I am still loving playing for Australia, but the WBBL is great to be part of.”Elevated to the captaincy a week before the Ashes tour when Lanning was ruled out, Healy had one of the tougher series of her career with 126 runs at 15.75 across all formats.She is desperate to rebound, and be better prepared to juggle the captaincy and her own game at short notice.”It’s made me think about what I need as an individual,” Healy said. “Throughout my whole career it has just been ‘do my job for the team, do what the team needs’.”I have always enjoyed being vice-captain because that is the way you think; you are in the right position to read the game and help the captain out.”But being skipper you don’t have time to think about anything. You are focusing on the game and tactics, and I forgot to think about what I need to make sure I perform. It has made me think about my game and what I can do to be better.”

Duckett shows fine touch with twin fifties as Broad bags four second-innings wickets against Worcestershire

David Hopps30-Apr-2022Normal service has been resumed as Nottinghamshire, beaten in their first home match of the season by Glamorgan, made it six wins in seven at Trent Bridge with a five-wicket defeat of Worcestershire.The prospect of a lengthy rain delay on the final day heightened their anxiety to chase down a target of 233 in 56 overs by the close and they timed it to perfection as Joe Clarke on-drove the winning boundary from the last ball to leave recourse to an extra half-hour unnecessary.The choicest innings came from Ben Duckett, whose 78 from 85 balls had almost but not quite broken the chase when he hacked at a ball from Charlie Morris and was caught at the wicket, a puff of dust from the surface offering him an alibi for his error.Duckett can be an exhilarating watch, a figure of barrel-shaped invention. That barrel could be full of real ale, frothing and intoxicating, blissful in its belief that anything was possible, unaware of the potential for disaster. Josh Baker, an 18-year-old left-arm spinner playing only his eighth first-class match, has probably faced no more untameable opponent, enduring cuts, sweeps and reverse sweeps from a batter who is addicted to adventure whenever a spinner comes on.In such a frame of mind, it is possible to understand what England saw when they chose Duckett, then at Northants, for the 2016 tour of India. The gamble failed – “I got worked over by one of the best spinners the game has ever seen” he once said of his agonies against Ravi Ashwin. He has rarely entered England’s thoughts since and he is unlikely to enter them again soon as the pressing need is at the top of the order, but he now has a century and four fifties from his last five innings and is arguably in his best touch since those heady days.Batting is often something of an escapade for Notts, who can be careless with their talent. They are awash with character, alive with strokeplay and their flaws are always lurking just below the surface. They are not the sort of side to look at an iffy weather forecast, mutter “you can only control the controllables” and leave their run chase to Sunday and hours of peering at leaden skies from dressing room windows. They are all the more welcome for that.Worcestershire, spearheaded by the admirable Ed Barnard, fought valiantly, but ultimately, they were found wanting. They deserved better luck than to be a man down because of an injury to Dillon Pennington. A Baker’s dozen would normally have been too many, but he had to bowl 19 overs and went for 90, recovering his poise a little after Duckett’s dismissal, although Jack Haynes did not welcome his half-tracker which meant he took a painful blow from Clarke at short leg.Worcestershire needed new-ball wickets and they managed one with their fourth ball when Morris had Ben Slater caught low at first slip. The indefatigable Barnard, who followed up more than five hours at the crease with 15 overs, squeezed one past Haseeb Hameed’s outside edge to clip off stump, took a fine catch at slip to intercept Lyndon James’ reverse sweep (note to James: don’t reverse-lap when the man who can do no wrong is stood at slip) and he was still passing the outside edge on occasions as Clarke assembled his first half-century of the season to guide Notts home.Neither had Barnard quite finished with Nottinghamshire with the bat. His unbeaten 101 on the second day had organised Worcestershire resistance that few expected, and he extended that to a career-best 163 from 310 balls, unconquered to the last as Worcestershire’s innings finally came to grief on 339. The target felt very achievable but with the potential to be messed up.Barnard did not give a chance, although he did pack an over’s worth of misjudgements into a single one from Dane Paterson, on 120, when his thought processes briefly went haywire.Stuart Broad finished up bowling 27 overs, which was probably a heavier workload than he would have preferred in his first of three matches designed to win back his England place. Figures of 4 for 72 in 27 overs will do him no harm. He quickly dislodged Jamie Cox with an excellent ball that bounced and left him before resorting to a succession of wicket-taking theories and unconventional fields which owed something to the nature of the surface, but also a little perhaps to his own impatience.”To be impatient is to be hooked on the future,” said the American psychiatrist, Gerald Jampolsky, which seems appropriate to Broad, whose priority is to be in mint condition for the Lord’s Test. That said, he doesn’t appear to be the sort who gives much credence to Californian self-help books.

Playing more “back and across” a safer way for batsmen to succeed on the bouncy pitches in Australia, says the former India captain

Nagraj Gollapudi15-Dec-2020Former India captain Sunil Gavaskar believes several batsmen are getting concussed after being hit on the helmet because of the “front press” in their trigger movement. According to Gavaskar, one of the greatest Test openers, the best way to avoid getting hit on the head is to play on the back foot where the batsman can “ride” the bounce and has more options to respond with greater confidence.Ever since Australia batsman Phillip Hughes died in 2014 as a result of being felled by a bouncer, which he played too early, the dangers associated with concussion have been looked at more closely in cricket. In the last month itself however, there have been several instances of batsmen being hit on the head, some of them suffering concussions. That list includes Indian allrounder Ravindra Jadeja who was ruled out of the final two matches of the T20I series, having top-edged onto his helmet in the series opener. The following week, Victoria batsman Will Pucovski, who is just 22 years old, missed out on a potential Test debut against India in Adelaide, after suffering a concussion during a multi-day warm-up game, the ninth one in his career.By contrast, despite never wearing a helmet, Gavaskar said he was hit just one time on his head through his career – by the late West Indies legend Malcolm Marshall – during a Test match. “It’s more to do today with the fact that everybody has got this front press, where they are technically moving forward, which is a little bit difficult, which is the reason why on bouncy pitches you have [batsmen struggling],” Gavaskar said on Monday.Gavaskar was speaking on a show on host broadcaster Sony Sports Network, alongside former Australian captain Allan Border, while previewing the four-Test series between Australia and India which begins with the day-night Test in Adelaide on Thursday. “In Australia you want to ride the bounce, to get onto back foot so you are able to ride the bounce – which is not what a lot of people are doing today,” Gavaskar said. “They are so much onto their front foot, they are not able to transfer their weight and then get out of the way. As a batsman you tend to get a little bit locked.”According to Gavaskar, a safer way for batsmen to succeed on the bouncy pitches in Australia was to play more “back and across”.”See, Virat Kohli plays [the] bouncer so well. Why does he play the bouncer so well? Because he has got that back-and-across movement, so he is sort of waiting on the back foot for that short ball. Rahul Dravid, he used to wait on the back foot [to play] back-and-across. Sachin Tendulkar had a minimal front press, not a big front press. Therefore, he was still balanced when he played the short ball.”Playing back and across has a distinct advantage, as former Australian offspinner Ashley Mallett pointed out in his column for ESPNcricinfo in 2019. “Against fast bowling a back-and-across first movement allows the batsman to get in behind the line of flight,” Mallet wrote. “If the ball is wide he can allow it to pass, but he can hook a short ball that is passing over leg stump if he is back and across his stumps, with his head inside the line of flight. This technique is terrific because even if he makes a mistake and misses the ball, his head is inside the line and out of harm’s way.”Gavaskar underlined Mallet’s point. “It is just a little technical thing which is the reason why a lot of these people are getting hit on the helmet. Most of the times batsmen getting hit on the helmet are in between the crease: where their front foot is outside the crease and their back foot in the crease. You will very seldom find a batsman getting hit if both his feet are inside the crease, near the stumps, because it has given the batsman that extra yard to either duck under the ball or sway out of the way. But that is not what is happening and that is the reason I believe they are getting hit.”

India swiftly ended West Indies’ innings, went 299 ahead, decided to bat again, collapsed against Kemar Roach, and still ended the day comfortably ahead

The Report by Varun Shetty01-Sep-2019Stumps
India ended West Indies’ first innings without much fuss, took a 299-run lead, decided to bat again, faltered against Kemar Roach, and still ended the day comfortably ahead of West Indies. Having set the home side 468 to square the series, India dismissed both openers to reduce West Indies to 45 for 2 at stumps.For the first time in three innings, West Indies’ top-order batsmen looked like they were comfortable against India’s fast bowlers, although much of that was down to a lack of swing in the evening. Left-handers John Campbell and Darren Bravo nailed the timing on many of their favourite front-foot strokes, scoring rapidly after Kraigg Brathwaite had edged behind off a straightening Ishant Sharma delivery. But shortly after he was dropped at first slip by Hanuma Vihari, Campbell threw his bat at a wide delivery from Mohammed Shami and found Virat Kohli at third slip. West Indies then slowed down for the last five overs of the day, the only notable incident being a bouncer from Bumrah that struck Bravo on the helmet in the last over. Bravo chose to stay on for the last two balls of the day.Quick scoring was also a feature of the partnership between Vihari and Ajinkya Rahane, who rapidly turned the game after tea, scoring at nearly six per over to add 95 as India declared to put West Indies in for the last hour. They put up a hundred stand in the process, got to individual half-centuries, and finished the series with two fifties and a hundred each.Unlike the afternoon session, where ball dominated bat, West Indies had little control over the two, who clearly had the declaration in mind. It began with two glorious Vihari on-drives early in the session, followed by both batsmen stepping out to Rahkeem Cornwall and chipping him either side of square leg.West Indies went on the defensive and bowled spin from both ends. The move almost paid off, with Rahane sweeping one straight to Shannon Gabriel at deep backward square, only for the fast bowler to lose balance and fluff the chance. That over ended with Vihari chopping one to point and Rahane drilling a full toss to the cover boundary.The move to bowl spin played into India’s hands, and might have been a relief in comparison to when they came together at 57 for 4 in the post-lunch session, when West Indies, and Roach in particular, had given them a jolt. The seamer went past Wes Hall’s 192 wickets into ninth place overall for West Indies. He also came close to emulating another Wes Hall feat – a Test hat-trick – but missed out by inches.Not much had changed about Roach’s attacking strategy. It was the same length – just full enough to get batsmen forward – and the same line, just outside off, with which he’s troubled India all series. Having already pinned Mayank Agarwal deep in the crease and poking across the line before lunch, he persisted with the attack in KL Rahul’s corridor after the break.Rahul once again showed indecisiveness outside off, often finding himself halfway between a guide to third man and a leave. This was a telling feature through his entire innings, which lasted 63 balls and during which he scored only 6 – he added no runs in the 11.1 overs after the break.His dismissal was built upon that indecisiveness. Roach went stock – wide of the crease, angled into off stump, moving away off the surface. Rahul, in similar fashion to his first-innings dismissal, was caught inside the line and followed the ball with his hands a touch, guiding it straight to wicketkeeper Jahmar Hamilton.The very next ball, he got one to straighten even more subtly from wide of the crease. Virat Kohli’s guard and shuffle across got him well into the off side as he looked to defend on the front foot, but Roach had done just enough to find the edge and get him for a first-ball duck.For the hat-trick ball, Rahane walked into yet another tricky situation, and with catchers all around him, looked tentative as he got on the back foot to try and poke one into the off side. The resulting inside edge narrowly missed leg stump, as all the leg-side catchers tumbled in despair. It seemed Roach’s bad luck, briefly forgotten, had returned.Earlier in the day, India took just over an hour to end West Indies’ innings, with Shami, Ishant and Ravindra Jadeja splitting the last three wickets between them. West Indies were bowled out for 117.Shami got a sharp, well-directed bouncer up at Cornwall’s throat and had him fending. He could only manage to get his gloves on it from that position, a gentle lob for Rahane to hold on to coming in from gully.Roach, who has also been one of West Indies’ most confident batsmen in the series so far, looked it when he came out. He played stylish square drives off both Jasprit Bumrah and Shami, with a neat tuck through midwicket sandwiched in between. At the other end, for almost ten overs, Hamilton added no runs to his overnight score of 2.He became Ishant’s only wicket of the innings. Hamilton’s 57-ball 3, an exercise in survival, ended with an outside edge to slip as he went with his trusted forward block. Jadeja extracted prodigious turn in his very first over of the day and soon had Roach slicing one to cover.With that turn, he activated a potential fourth menacing bowling option for India, and a follow-on wouldn’t have been out of the question. But conditions have been humid and sapping fast bowlers all through the match, and that is likely to have influenced Kohli’s decision.

Solomon Mire, who broke the record for the highest individual score by a Zimbabwean in T20I cricket, said he wasn’t distracted by the prospect of reaching a century

Liam Brickhill in Harare04-Jul-2018Eleven years ago in Harare, Solomon Mire played his first professional cricket match. Just 17 years old and batting at no. 9 for Centrals in Zimbabwe’s domestic one-day cup, he cracked 94 from just 67 deliveries, hitting five sixes. The very next day, he was shifted up to no. 8 and made an unbeaten 79, this time with two sixes. Before the week was up, he added an unbeaten 52, this time from no. 7, and his reputation as a fearsome hitter started to precede him. Fast forward a decade, and Mire has transformed from a rangy teenager into one of the best strikers of a cricket ball in Zimbabwe.He’s moved all the way up to the top of the order now, and against Pakistan – the world’s top T20I side – he came within one stroke of becoming the first Zimbabwean to hit a T20I hundred, providing a neat little bit of symmetry by once again making 94 (but from 63 balls this time) in the city where he made his start as a pro. Not that that was playing on his mind – he didn’t even know about the feat he was so close to, and was thinking only of trying to keep pushing his team’s score up.”I actually didn’t know that stat until it got mentioned during the break,” Mire said. “At that point it was more about getting the runs. I didn’t really feel nervous at all being in the 90s because it wasn’t important for me today. It was more about trying to hit out at the end. I realised that I was seeing the ball a bit better than I had anticipated, and I knew I had to kick on. Today was about trying to utilise the good form I feel I have at the moment.”Mire has looked in the best touch of all Zimbabwe’s batsmen in this tri-series so far, despite the fact that he has played no serious cricket since the World Cup Qualifiers in March and wasn’t part of the warm-ups against Kenya. But after a couple of 20s in the first two matches, he took the attack to Pakistan today and put together Zimbabwe’s best start of the tournament with the recalled Cephas Zhuwao.”I try and complement Cephas a bit because he’s obviously an attacking guy and I just try to reinforce that he has to play his game,” Mire said. “For someone like him, it’s very small things like telling him to stay still and not move around too much. Because for a striker the worst thing you can do is move around. I’m just trying to help him clear his mind so he can hit the ball better. And if he’s going off I just try and give him as much of the strike as possible, because he can go much faster than I can. If it’s not working, then I take that role. But the most important is just trying to build a partnership.”Against Pakistan, Mire shared in partnerships of 49 with Zhuwao, 33 with Hamilton Masakadza (of which Mire scored 30) and 64 with young batsman Tarisai Musakanda, with whom Mire shares a special connection. “Tari and I go back a long way, so I’m happy to see him starting to find his feet,” he explained. “We’re both from Kadoma. I knew him as a young kid, and I also know his dad very well. I try and guide him as much as possible. He looks up to me as a bit of a big brother to him. I try to help him as much as possible on the field too. I’m sure he’s going to kick on from here.”Mire is, in many ways, the perfect role model for a young cricketer, particularly in a Zimbabwean context. He might have been building a reputation even as a teenager in this country, but he quickly realised the value of expanding his horizons. After a couple of years in domestic cricket, he emigrated to Australia and found a home playing for Essendon in the Victoria Cricket Association Premiership. His first grade ton came against St. Kilda, and in 2014 he made community paper headlines when he walloped 260, including 21 sixes, for Waratahs to set a new tournament record in the Darwin and District Cricket Competition.
“That was just one of those days where everything came out of the middle,” he remembers. “Every cricketer dreams of those days. You saw it with Finchy the other day. When it comes off, it’s really nice.”Grade success led to some games for Victoria Under-23s, and then a rookie contract with Melbourne Renegades, where he was captained by Aaron Finch (before he left for national duty) and played alongside the likes of Dwayne Bravo and Muttiah Muralitharan. His time in Australia has been vital to the player he has become today.”I had to develop certain skills [in Australia]. Just swinging at the ball wasn’t enough. I had to devise a gameplan and work around having a more stable technique. A more stable base to hit from. Also being able to rotate the strike, which is still an area of concern. I’m still working on it. But playing consistently in a competitive environment was the best thing. Having that week in week out, that competitive structure, really helped my cricket. I’ve been in a few academies as well, and I’ve worked with some great coaches. But the continuous improvement [in Australia] was the biggest [factor].”Continuous improvement is a mantra that would serve Zimbabwe well, and Mire insisted that their remaining games in the tri-series – as well as the ODIs which will follow – are an opportunity for his team to get better even if they’re not winning. “It’s an opportunity for the team to keep improving,” he said. “There are also a couple of guys there still looking at this as an opportunity to make a name for themselves and cement their position in the squad. For us, it’s also about confidence building because there’s also a one-day series after this.”You have to be careful making promises, but I’ll try and be as consistent as possible with my game. If I’m seeing the ball well and timing it well, I’ll definitely keep playing my shots.”