All posts by h716a5.icu

The hosts’ pace attack, with a combined experience of 31 Tests and 56 wickets, is a candidate for being their weakest ever, yet India cannot simply show up and expect to win

Karthik Krishnaswamy in Antigua20-Jul-20161:55

‘We’re expecting a bit of grass cover’ – Bangar

There are 15 champions in Dwayne Bravo’s . Four are cricketers. None are current members of West Indies’ Test team. Even little brother Darren finds no mention in the song.West Indies have won three ICC tournaments this year. Under-19 World Cup? Champions. Women’s World T20? Champions. Men’s World T20? Champions. But they haven’t won a Test series against anyone other than Bangladesh or Zimbabwe, home or away, since August 2012.West Indies’ most recent Test series ended in January. They lost 2-0, and, but for rain, could have lost 3-0. In that series, Australia ran up totals of 583 for 4 declared in Hobart, 551 for 3 declared and 179 for 3 declared in Melbourne, and 176 for 2 declared in rain-ravaged Sydney. They scored their runs at 4.67 runs per over.Champions, West Indies’ bowlers definitely were not.Simmons hopes to build on recent gains

Phil Simmons, the West Indies coach, has said the absence of four back-to-back Tests in their calendar in recent times could make it hard for his team against a formidable Indian side.
“Whether they think they are well prepared or not, they are one of the most dangerous sides in the world,” he said. “Their batting line-up alone tells you that they’re dangerous side and that it’s going to be a hard series. We haven’t played four Tests back-to-back in a long time, so that too is going to make it even harder. But we’re going to try to do our best in every Test match.”
Simmons brushed aside talk of “building a team for the future”, insisting the team was focused on the present instead.
“It’s not just about the future. It’s about now and how we play now. Every series is significant. I think it’s a case where we want to continue winning – we won the last Test match we played in the Caribbean against England, and then we had a couple of Test matches against Australia in which we didn’t do well, we went to Australia, so now we want to just try and build on what we’d been trying to do in Australia, the last two Test matches in Australia were not as bad as how we started, so we’re looking to build on that.”

Above the dressing rooms at the Sir Vivian Richards Stadium in Antigua runs a strip of sans-serif capital letters. Sir Andy Roberts End, it says. At the opposite side of the ground, above the press box, is another strip of capital letters. Sir Curtly Ambrose End.Between them, those two took 607 wickets in 145 Tests at a combined average of 22.53, with 33 five-wicket hauls and five ten-wicket match hauls.On Thursday, when West Indies begin a four-Test home series against India, their squad will contain four fast bowlers with a total of 56 wickets in 31 Tests at a combined average of 40.39, and not a single five-wicket haul.West Indies have lost Jerome Taylor to Test retirement, and have ignored Kemar Roach. While both were abject in Australia – they combined for two wickets an average of 252.00, and gave away 5.79 runs per over – no team can easily replace a new-ball pair with 252 wickets and the experience of 83 Tests, even a pair as capricious, frustrating and injury-prone as Taylor and Roach.Fast bowlers win or lose Test matches, and West Indies enter their latest home season with a pace attack that is a candidate for being their weakest ever: Carlos Brathwaite, Shannon Gabriel, Jason Holder and Miguel Cummins.It isn’t as if West Indies don’t have other issues. They have dropped a wicketkeeper-batsman with 74 Tests behind him, and – Kraigg Brathwaite and Darren Bravo aside – have a top order full of question marks, the biggest among them hanging over the head of Marlon Samuels, who has been on a sensational run of limited-overs form of late, but hasn’t passed 20 once in his last nine Test innings.But it is the bowling that will worry them the most, coming up as it will against the quality of India’s batting line-up and pitches that are likely to be slow and demand long spells of sustained pressure. In recent times, West Indies’ bowlers have not been particularly good at delivering those kinds of spells.”One of the words that we’re going to harp on a lot is how patient we are, because we tend to get bored of bowling [at] one place and doing well and not getting wickets, so we try something [else],” their head coach Phil Simmons said on Tuesday. “So we’re going to harp on this, trying to be patient and do the things that we’re doing well, continuously, so that we get the wickets, and same thing with batting. You bat long and you stick around, you work hard and you’ll get the just reward at the end.”Two days before the first Test, the West Indies team management tried to hammer this point home in the design of their net session. The quick bowlers’ net had an extra stump in it, nailed down on a fifth-stump line a couple of feet behind the wicket. Right through the net session, the only thing the fast bowlers attempted to do was bowl in the channel outside off stump, and the batsmen facing them tried to leave as many balls as they could. The wall of netting behind the batsmen shook violently, again and again and again. Every now and then, the fifth stump went for a spin.The effort was real, and palpable, but translating that sort of discipline into an actual match environment is a challenge of an entirely different magnitude. It will only take one bad session to remind West Indies that they are the eighth-best Test team of the nine that make up the rankings, and that they occupy that lowly spot at a time when there is talk of splitting Test cricket into two tiers.These are not good times for West Indies Test cricket, and the road uphill is steep.For all that, India cannot simply show up and expect to win. They won their last two Test series in the Caribbean, in 2006 and 2011, but only by 1-0 margins, and both those series reinforced their long-held status as a team that has always struggled away from home, seldom asserting their dominance even against weaker opposition. The last Test match they played in these islands, in Dominica, summed it up perfectly: the captains shook hands and agreed to a draw when India needed 86 runs to win, in 15 overs, with seven wickets in hand. India were content with a 1-0 win.”India,” began ESPNcricinfo’s final-day report of the Test match, “will have to wait until 2016 to win more than one Test in a series in the Caribbean – a feat they’ve never achieved.”India’s Test captain Virat Kohli, still fairly new at his job, is an ambitious man. So is their new head coach. They will want a series win, first and foremost, regardless of the margin, but they have surely set their sights a little higher than that.

A new book chronicles the league’s off-field progress over its nine seasons and offers a strong argument for why India needs laws to deal with sporting fraud

Suhrith Parthasarathy16-Jul-2016″I am extremely proud that whatever we have seen over the last 44 days is a product of India,” said the president of the BCCI, Sharad Pawar, after the final of the IPL’s inaugural edition in 2008. At that point it was perhaps not immediately evident that the league’s bedrock wasn’t strong enough for it to continue to instil in its organisers a sense of pride. Indeed, over the course of eight further seasons, the IPL’s regression – via controversies both on and off the field, and deeply entrenched conflicts of interest – has been so complete that in spite of maintaining a sense of legitimacy amongst its participants, it has increasingly, for at least some of the public, become synonymous with all that is wrong with modern-day cricket.Amid the hullabaloo, though, it has been undeniable that the IPL has had a deep impact on cricket as a sport and as a business. And it’s the latter aspect that , the Delhi-based sports lawyer Desh Gaurav Sekhri’s book, seeks to concentrate on.Thus far, in spite of the fact that in just nine seasons the IPL has transformed the way we view cricket, we haven’t had a detailed account, of any reasonable length, chronicling its story. In to sport.For those undoubting of the IPL’s contribution to sport, as to those more sceptical of its inherent values, Sekhri’s book offers a useful reminder of the facts that underscore the various arguments.Not Out! The Incredible Story of the Indian Premier League
By Desh Gaurav Sekhri
Viking
256 pages, Rs 330

The likes of England and New Zealand have them already, and West Indies need to consider them seriously if they are not to be deprived of their best players

Tim Wigmore13-Oct-2016West Indies have always been vulnerable to their players earning more by representing someone else. Garry Sobers almost played in English league cricket in 1963 instead of for West Indies. Two rebel tours took place to apartheid South Africa in the 1980s, exploiting the financial insecurity of fringe players. So those who harrumph that today’s Caribbean stars lack the pride of their forebears in representing the region miss the point. West Indies will not return to having their stars available for every game through appeals to romance.Incentives matter. It is not in the financial interests of West Indies’ T20 stars to devote themselves to the national side. While that remains the case, the dispiriting cycle will continue: at full-strength in the World T20, West Indies will remain formidable, but the rest of the time they will be deprived of most of their best players, with predictable results.The heady talk in April of a resurgent West Indies, after the men and women had triumphed in the World T20 and the Under-19s had won the World Cup, already seems like an age ago. There are a few more trophies on the mantlepiece, but nothing has changed. The internecine squabbling between the players and board continues. Phil Simmons, the most popular coach with the players for many years and the man who oversaw the men’s World T20 triumph, has been sacked. Some stars from that tournament are now absent friends; others are only glimpsed in a West Indies shirt when they are underprepared.Dwayne Bravo arrived in the UAE the day before the first T20I against Pakistan, highlighting how West Indies are emasculated by the absence of contracts for their white-ball specialists: the only WICB contracts are for those who play Test cricket too. All the while, other countries are successfully grappling with the notion of white-ball specialists. England have just introduced lucrative new white-ball contracts, which could allow leading limited-overs players to earn more than Test players. Could West Indies’ limited-overs cricket be reinvigorated by doing the same, and creating six to eight contracts for white-ball specialists?It is much easier for the ECB to award bumper central contracts than for the WICB to do so because the ECB has so much more cash: the result of more lucrative commercial deals. A lack of cash is the reason why, in order to fund the creation of 90 professional contracts in the domestic game, the WICB had to reduce the amount that the top international players earned, and phase out the seniority principle in international payments, under which senior players received higher match fees than less experienced ones did.What West Indies players are paid

US$1735 per T20I

$2300 per ODI

$5750 per Test match

Plus $1000 image rights per day if selected in a game

Three contract tiers: Category A, $140,000; Category B, $120,000; Category C $100,000

The WICB has made some effort to compromise with leading limited-overs players. Outside pre-existing arrangements, the WICB has created a window for the IPL in the cricket calendar. “That is a big chunk of the prime cricket months in the Caribbean. It is also lost revenue for WICB not scheduling cricket in that window,” says Richard Pybus, West Indies’ director of cricket. “Having done that, we wanted players committing to play in West Indies domestic cricket, to give value to fans and sponsors and bring depth to the competitions. So they would have been able to play in the IPL and CPL, then give a commitment to West Indies cricket, international and local. This hasn’t been the case.” The WICB has ruled that ODI selection is predicated on playing in the Nagico50, the regional 50-over competition, but as that clashes with the Big Bash, the ruling has left a coterie of players unavailable for ODI cricket.So while the WICB is far from blameless, to some extent it is also simply a victim of wider financial imbalances in international cricket. And yet even New Zealand, a board with similar financial realities, finds a way to accommodate white-ball-only contracts.An insider believes that US$100,000-150,000 a year would persuade West Indies players to sign up to limited-overs contracts that allow them to play the entirety of the IPL and CPL but otherwise gave the WICB first refusal over their services, and the right to manage the players’ workloads. With such security, players would be less inclined to play in every possible T20 competition.In Florida in August, the WICB held discussions with limited-overs specialists on how to work together; among the options proposed by the players’ representatives was including white-ball contracts and relaxing the requirements to play in the Nagico50. As yet nothing has materialised from the conversations, though the WICB is understood to be considering introducing some form of limited-overs contracts.

An insider believes that US$100,000-150,000 a year would persuade West Indies players to sign up to limited-overs contracts that allow them to play the entirety of the IPL and CPL but otherwise gave the WICB first refusal over their services

There would be significant advantages if they did so. While the cash needed for white-ball contracts – probably close to $1 million a year, depending on the number of contracts – is not insignificant, it could be seen as an investment. If West Indies are able to tie down their limited-overs stars, they would become a much more attractive proposition to broadcasters, sponsors and opponents alike.In March, Bravo suggested that West Indies could dominate T20I cricket just as they had dominated Tests in the 1980s. While the West Indies of the 1980s generated cash by being invited to tour the wealthiest nations – they toured Australia six times that decade, including four times in Test series – so the side of the 2010s could become huge draws in limited-overs cricket, leaving West Indies better off financially and in cricket terms. Few want to watch the T20 world champions play as meekly as in the two whitewashes by Pakistan in the UAE.Of course, a new system could create new problems. The WICB’s current contracts show an organisation that puts Test cricket above the other two formats. If that changed, then West Indies’ limited-overs sides might be strengthened – but at the expense of a further decline in their Test team.”One of the West Indies’ challenges is to keep their best players playing Test cricket,” says Tony Irish, the executive chairman of the Federation of International Cricketers’ Associations. “Lucrative white-ball contacts may bring some of their current ‘free agent’ players back to playing ODIs and T20Is but it may well also encourage future West Indies players to make that choice over Test cricket.” Irish believes new contracts need to be more lucrative across the board to keep players playing all three formats – emphasising how West Indies are hampered under the ICC’s revenue distribution model. However much it is maligned, the WICB faces a series of unenviable choices.The beating at the hands of Pakistan has left West Indies in a precarious position in regards to the World Cup•Getty ImagesBut the current impasse between the itinerant T20 stars and the WICB is debilitating and, without substantial reform, shows no signs of improving. “My feeling at the moment is that things could get worse before they get better,” says Eddie Tolchard, managing director of Insignia Sports International, which represents, among others, Samuel Badree, Kieron Pollard, Sunil Narine and Darren Sammy. “There are financial considerations, of course, but in any form of employer-employee relationship, there is a duty of mutual trust and confidence.”For players to enter into any form of retainer with the WICB, it wouldn’t be purely down to the financials. The relationship would need to be better. Goals aligned. Continuity and confidence installed, with everyone knowing where they stand and what exactly they are agreeing to commit to each year, and importantly, a thriving and positive environment for the youngsters to be exposed to created.”If that does not happen, the current batch of T20 globetrotters will be trendsetters in the Caribbean, and young players might use West Indies as little more than a vehicle to attract T20 scouts. Already the lack of availability of West Indies’ best players has cost them a place in the Champions Trophy, and the $250,000 participation fee that comes with it. Now, having slipped back to ninth in the ODI rankings after their drubbing by Pakistan, West Indies are at risk of not merely having to play the World Cup Qualifiers, but doing so shorn of their best limited-overs players, jeopardising their chances of reaching the World Cup itself, and thus potentially losing out on the $1 million given to each qualifier.A new contract system would be no panacea. But increasing the incentives for leading players to represent West Indies would give the team a chance of ending the blame game, and fielding something resembling their best side in the two limited-overs formats. Without substantial reform, the fear is that West Indies’ performances in bilateral limited-overs cricket will get even worse.

Throughout the series Ravindra Jadeja has played a crucial role in offering control when the pitches have often been at their best for batting

Sidharth Monga in Chennai16-Dec-20162:06

Chopra: Cook’s plan of playing outside off not working

He stifles you with his accuracy, turns balls sharply past edges, beats the inside edges with straighter ones, gets them to kick at left-hand batsmen, takes their edges with balls that don’t turn, but there is one mode of dismissal that Ravindra Jadeja is not often given credit for: caught on the drive.Quite expectedly, 46 of Jadeja’s 104 wickets are either bowled or lbw. Three of the six stumpings off his bowling have come through sharp turn. Add 32 of the 52 catches that are either inside, outside or top edges caught by the wicketkeeper, slips, short legs or silly points, and you are left with 23 caught wickets that are not typical Jadeja wickets. Many of these 23 are slogs or inexplicable shots from tailenders.Right-hand batsmen generally tend to keep their pads away from him, and don’t mind driving him, unlike say R Ashwin or even a legspinner. On pitches that are not turning, and early on in Tests, it is considered easy to line him up and play him like a seam bowler. Ashwin, for example, is not that easy to drive because he gets the ball to dip and drift. Jadeja is considered dangerous when the ball is turning from the centre of the pitch. In this series, though, on two occasions, on day-one pitches, Jadeja has displayed he can get batsmen out caught at short cover.On the surface, caught at short cover looks like an innocuous dismissal, but it involves getting the ball to dip out of the batsman’s reach. In Mohali, Jos Buttler had been part of a 69-run partnership on a good opening-day pitch when he chipped one to short cover. He had left the crease to play a drive, but failed to dispatch this Jadeja delivery. On day one in Chennai, with England in a much better position, and Jonny Bairstow one short of a half-century, Jadeja again created the gap between the bat and the pitch of the ball.Jadeja will continue to be a spinner who relies on not giving batsmen time to recover, but as his career has grown he has become more adept at changing his pace and trajectory. In this series he has got the batsmen to drive him more. When he had Ben Stokes stumped in Mohali, he didn’t do it with turn, but with drift. The movement outside the crease then was brought about by the pressure he had built through tight bowling. Here, too, Bairstow had scored five runs in the last 19 balls before he felt he could drive when he saw the ball in the air.Before he removed Bairstow, Jadeja had extended his domination of the England captain Alastair Cook, taking the opener’s wicket for the fifth time in this series. Apart from an uncharacteristic stumping in Mumbai, each of the other four wickets have involved persistence and subtlety. Cook has looked to get across to cover Jadeja’s quick turn, but Jadeja has kept drawing him wider millimetre by millimetre before bowling slightly straighter: it can’t be too much turn because then the ball can’t both impact within the stumps and also go on to hit them.In Chennai, the natural variation came into play, with Cook playing for the turn. There was no giveaway this was going straight, and the edge was taken at slip. Again, though, Cook was not to the pitch of the ball, which is why the natural variation came into play. The Buttler and Bairstow dismissals, and the Cook ones through the series, demand a lot of persistence and patience, and are less reliant on the pitch.At the least they depend on maximising the effect of the assistance from the pitch, which happens if you beat the batsmen in the air. That Jadeja is doing so is a facet of his game he didn’t need to show on the more helpful pitches. He has always maintained that he just focuses on being accurate and bowling fast when the pitch is doing the job for him. In this series the pitches haven’t done that much for the spinners, and also India have been asked to bowl first on four occasions. Jadeja might average 31.10 this series, but he has responded well to his first real extended test from the conditions.Jadeja has taken 12 of England’s 34 wickets in the first innings of a match. Only nine of Ashwin’s 27 wickets this series have come in the first innings of the match. Statistically he is a slow starter into a match, with numbers saying he takes 14 overs on an average to claim his first wicket. When he does get into the groove, though, he can run through sides. Until such a time arrives, though, it is Jadeja who has provided Virat Kohli the control he needs, with not just his accuracy but also subtlety.

Australia knew that the pitch for the first Test would spin, and it spun. Instead of bracing for the challenge, however, they ended up losing most of their wickets in a manner that had little to do with the track

Jarrod Kimber in Pune 23-Feb-20174:22

Ask Sanjay: Renshaw batted like a seasoned domestic Indian batsman

Australian cricketers have been travelling to India for over 80 years now, the last 60 of those for Tests. They also come here for ODIs, world tournaments and Indian leagues. They send under-age and A-teams here, they develop and work on their game here, and hire local coaches to prepare for it all. They know exactly what Indian cricket will be like before they get here. This isn’t their first time.But when they get here, you hear it straightaway. Murmurs, eyebrows are raised, eyes are rolled, heads are tilted, elbows are nudged. Have you seen the pitch? Well, you should, go check it out. It looks like a day-eight pitch now, it’s overcooked; it’s drier than a papadum, it’s gonna rag, explode, combust and devour.And then the spinner comes on, second over, Virat Kohli in peak trolling mode. That’s it; this is all over, we’re naked and alone in this fiery spinning pit of hell, and nothing can save us. Except, David Warner and Matt Renshaw bat well. Warner waits for bad balls like an England opening batsman of the 1960s. Renshaw refuses to try and score on one entire half of the field. The pitch is spinning every bit as much as they always thought it would, but they are handling it, building a platform, playing quality cricket.But then Warner falls. He could have had a straighter bat and, had he wanted to, could have left the ball entirely or committed more to the attacking or even the defending stroke. Warner was playing Umesh Yadav, a bowler who Kohli had almost forgotten was on the ground, when he was well-set, and he had done all the hard work, so the fact the pitch didn’t contribute was just a savage, elaborate practical joke.And then Shaun Marsh is out – that damn pitch, satan’s sub-continental spawn, is quiet again as Marsh has just not quite perfected his sweep shot and is a bit unlucky.But what about Peter Handscomb? After the spinning savagery, the ripping, ragging revolutions, he gets a straight skidding one that traps him straight in front. Yes, it is finally here, the weaponised pitch of doom. Handscomb might have been back, and Jadeja might be the sort of bowler most likely to skip one through, but this is it.And that almost makes sense as to why Steven Smith – having come down the track so many times and having played no real shots in anger or otherwise – comes down the pitch the over after Handscomb is out, done in by the pitch and its effect on his sidekick.But if Smith’s wicket has nothing to do with the pitch, then surely Mitch Marsh’s does. The man who is in the team to bowl a few overs and make people angrier that Usman Khawaja is not. Marsh walks to the middle like this pitch has dismissed him seven times already. Instead of seeing the odd clump of dust fly up from the surface, Marsh sees a million venomous robot spiders jumping up. And that perhaps is why he is so easily claimed by the flat, straight, skiddy one from Jadeja.Mitchell Starc hauled Australia from 205 for 9 to 256 for 9, playing India’s spinners confidently•AFPAnd then there is Matthew Wade, a man who was picked for this tour based on the empirical evidence of his pluck, determination and spit-in-your-eye style of playing. His innings looks like it was only that long because the bowlers were arguing among themselves about who would take his wicket. He falls to pace – the pace that strikes him straight in front as his head falls over – which at least gives him a different view of the pitch that played no part in his downfall.But Renshaw, who had been batting as well as anyone after returning from the bowels of the stadium, is taken by a spinner. He falls to good bowling and no real pitch viciousness. It would be hard to say Renshaw had played a poor innings, just as hard as it seems to be for him to score through the off side. Or convince people he should be allowed a toilet break.And we cannot forget the last two wickets of the day, which, despite the devilish nature of the pitch, also fall to pace bowling. Or that after they fall, it is Mitchell Starc – with a Test batting average of 25, who bats behind Mitchell Marsh and Wade – who treats the Indian bowlers like something he found on his shoe, despite the dust and despite India being more on top then than any time on the day.What he does find on his shoe are bits of the Pune pitch. Which, after all of the chagrin, is good enough for an unbroken tenth-wicket partnership of 51. Good enough for Starc to smash Jadeja out of the park, to score quickly off Jayant, and to handle Ashwin. Good enough to give Australia a far less embarrassing total than the one they clearly deserve.And so Australia are left with a score of 256 runs with one wicket remaining at the end of the day. They can, and probably will, cast a sneering eye over the pitch. But they can’t use it as an excuse for most, or nearly all, of their wickets. Those who hear even the slightest complaint or whisper that this pitch is why they underperformed will do a collective eye-roll, eyebrow lift and shoulder nudge.Australia’s batsmen knew the pitch was going to spin, and it spun. There could have been comfort in that predictability; instead, there was horror and dread. When the dust settled on the Pune pitch at stumps, the constant fear and loathing seemed a bit silly. Australia were in trouble, and the pitch couldn’t be blamed. This isn’t the first time.

ESPNcricinfo previews Gloucestershire’s prospects for the 2017 season

David Hopps29-Mar-2017Last season:

In: Phil Mustard (Durham)
Out: Tom Hampton (released), Hamish Marshall
Overseas: Michael Klinger, Cameron Bancroft, Andrew Tye (T20) (all Aus).2016 in a nutshell
Gloucestershire looked unstoppable in the group stages of the NatWest Blast only to lose their best chance of a trophy by falling to Durham in a home quarter-final in Bristol on a night when Mark Wood’s fast bowling was at his most explosive. Their Royal London Cup standards were disappointing, especially after winning the trophy the previous year, and they finished sixth in Division Two of the Championship, despite the satisfaction of beating the eventual winners Essex at Cheltenham, a campaign in which they suffered most markedly for the lack of an influential allrounder. Chris Dent was the mainstay of the batting in the Championship and Benny Howell’s sleight of hand made him a stand-out bowler in the Blast.2017 prospects
Gloucestershire’s head coach Richard Dawson makes no bones about the fact that the absence of the prolific Michael Klinger, who will play only limited-overs formats this season, and Hamish Marshall, who retired from county cricket at the end of last season, will put the club’s Championship batting under immense strain. Australian Cameron Bancroft, a short-term replacement for Klinger last season, will hope for better things as he returns for the whole season and Phil Mustard, signed from Durham as a wicketkeeper-batsman, has a big challenge ahead of him. Twenty20 again seems to be their strongest suit.In charge
Dawson made an immediate impact at Gloucestershire as they won the Royal London Cup in his first year and followed up with a strong performance in T20, but third time of asking could be his biggest test. Australian Ian Harvey is his assistant. Klinger, finally selected by Australia this winter at 36 when he played three T20Is – and successfully too – leads in both one-day formats. The toughest challenge faces wicketkeeper-batsman Gareth Roderick who oversees the four-day side. It would ease the weight on his shoulders if Mustard held down a Championship spot.Key player
Mustard was a crowd-pleaser during his time at Durham, a dishevelled and somewhat untamed force with bat and gloves, and there was much sorrow in the northeast when he was moved on. Whether “The Colonel” can win such approval in Bristol remains to be seen. When he left Durham in July, he had not played in the Championship for the county for more than a year, and had not played well in four-day cricket for even longer. He put that right at the end of 2016 to win a contract at Gloucestershire, but expect his greatest impact to come in the limited-overs formats where his appetite remains strong.Bright young thing
Matt Taylor, a powerful left-arm quick, has spent time this winter with England’s Pace Programme in South Africa. Taylor, younger brother of Jack, who is also on the books, had an excellent NatWest T20 Blast campaign in 2016, even managing a collector’s item by bowling a maiden at Chris Gayle. Not many can claim to have done that. One of several seam bowlers who Gloucestershire need to progress once more.ESPNcricinfo verdict
Gloucestershire make the best of their resources under Dawson, and as long as Klinger’s potency remains they will also be dangerous in Twenty20, but it is hard to make much of a case in the Championship unless their young seamers hit the jackpot all at once.Bet365 odds: Specsavers Championship, Div 2: 12-1; NatWest Blast: 16-1; Royal London Cup: 20-1

Pick which players you think Delhi Daredevils should keep, if they are given a limited choice ahead of next year’s reshuffle

ESPNcricinfo staff18-May-2017Next year, the IPL will see another reshuffle, with most players going back into the auction. Teams may be allowed to retain a few players – a maximum of four retained players were allowed in 2011 and five in 2014. If Delhi Daredevils can keep some of their players, who should they use their quota on? Swipe right for the players you think should stay and left for those who should go back into the auction.

Coming up to the South Africa Tests in England, we present a quick glossary

Compiled by Firdose Moonda04-Jul-2017First, the basics:Try translating these

Kastaiings uit die vuur krap
Pronounced: Cas-tie-ings eight de fuur krap
Literal translation: Scratch chestnuts out of the fire
In English: Get the team out of a crisis
For example: Hashim Amla
Or: Hashim Amla saved the team after they lost three wickets.

Die bal maak aapstert
Pronounced: Di bal maak aap-start
Literal translation: The ball becomes a monkey’s tail
In English: The ball has looped up, most commonly off bat and pad, to a close-catcher.
For example: JP Duminy
Or: The ball turned a lot. JP Duminy tried to play it deep and the ball looped to the short-leg fielder.

Krieket
Pronounced: Krii-ketKolwer
Pronounced: Coal-ver
Literal Translation: Batter
In English: BatsmanSnelbouler
Pronounced: Snell-bowler
Literal translation: Speed bowler
In English: Fast bowlerDraai-bouler
Pronounced: Dry-bowler
Literal translation: Turn bowler
In English: Spin bowlerPaaltjiewagter
Pronounced paal-kie-wagghh-ter
Literal translation: Small-pole watcher
In English: WicketkeeperSkeidsregter
Pronounced: skates-regghh-ter
Literal translation: Separate judge
In English: UmpireKolfkampie
Pronounced: Colf-kamp-y
Literal translation: Batting camp
In English: CreaseNulletjie
Pronounced: Nil-le-kie
Literal translation: Baby zero or little zero
In English: DuckAnd now a few more specific terms:Nag Uiltjie
Pronounced: Nagghh-eil-kie
Literal translation: Night owl
In English: NightwatchmanWegbreekbouler
Pronounced: Vegghh-breek-bowler
Literal translation: Getaway bowler
In English: OffspinnerGoelbal
Pronounced: Ghoel-bal
Literal translation: Magic or ghost ball
In English: GooglyAnd here’s one we all remember because it was part of incriminating messages sent by a certain Englishman about one of his team-mates:Doos
Literal meaning: Box
Also used as a profanity in the same line as “idiot” (and other, ruder, terms)ESPNcricinfo LtdAnd then there are the fielding positions:Gangetjie
Pronounced: Ghh-ang-e-kie
Literal translation: Small hallway
In English: GullySlagyster Posisie
Pronounced: Slagghh-ayster-po-zees-ee
Literal translation: Slaughter-rron position
In English: Short legVlak weg
Pronounced: Flak-vegghh
Literal translation: Shallow away
In English: Silly mid-off

And how many cricketers played 100 Tests but never made a fifty?

Steven Lynch10-Oct-2017Aiden Markram scored a century in his second Test, after being out in the nineties in his first. Has anyone else done this? asked Cameron Bishop from South Africa
Aiden Markram who followed 97 against Bangladesh in Potchefstroom with 143 in Bloemfontein, was actually the fifth batsman to atone for a near-miss ninety in his first Test by making sure of a century in his second. Stanley Jackson made 91 on his debut, for England against Australia at Lord’s in 1893, and 103 in the next Test, at The Oval. Frank Worrell made 97 in his first Test for West Indies, against England in Port-of-Spain in 1947-48, and 131 not out in the next Test, in Georgetown. Another West Indian, John Holt, made 94 on debut against England in Kingston in 1953-54, and 166 in the next match, in Bridgetown. And after Colin Milburn made 94 on debut for England against West Indies at Old Trafford in 1966, he cracked an undefeated 126 in the next Test, at Lord’s.Two players have followed up a dismissal in the nineties by making a century in the second innings of their first Test: England’s Paul Gibb, against South Africa in Johannesburg in 1938-39, and Gordon Greenidge, for West Indies v India in Bangalore in 1974-75.Mehidy Hasan finished with none for 247 in the first Test against South Africa. Has anyone conceded more runs in a Test match without taking a wicket? asked Bilal Hossain from Bangladesh
Offspinner Mehidy Hasan toiled away for figures of 0 for 178 and 0 for 69 in Bangladesh’s first Test against South Africa in Potchefstroom last week. Only two bowlers have conceded more in a Test without the consolation of a wicket: the South African legspinner Imran Tahir went for 260 runs – 0 for 180 and 0 for 80 – against Australia in Adelaide in 2012-13, while seamer Khan Mohammad had figures of 0 for 259 in West Indies’ only innings in Kingston in 1957-58. Poor Khan toiled through 54 overs as a depleted Pakistan attack conceded 790 for 3, with Garry Sobers hammering 365 not out. For the full list of the most runs conceded in a Test, click here.Of the batsmen who have scored 1000 runs before the end of May in an English season, who’s the only left-hander? asked Derek Marchant from England
There have been only nine occasions in which a batsman has passed 1000 first-class runs in an English season before the end of May. And the only left-hander among them is perhaps the least famous of the group: Charlie Hallows, of Lancashire, who achieved the feat in May 1928. He went into the last match, against Sussex at Old Trafford, needing 232 runs to complete the feat – and was out on the second day (May 31) for exactly 232. Wisden reported that his “memorable innings” was “marred only by a chance when 175”. Hallows had had a near-miss the year before, scoring 925 runs in May 1927.Makhaya Ntini: 101 Tests, 390 wickets, no fifties•Getty ImagesThe other batsmen to reach 1000 runs before the end of May in an English season are WG Grace (1895), Tom Hayward (1900), Wally Hammond (1927), Don Bradman (1930 and 1938), Bill Edrich (1938), Glenn Turner (1973) and Graeme Hick (1988). Only three of these – Grace, Hammond and Hallows – actually scored a thousand runs during May; the others had some innings in April. With the season now starting at the end of March, it’s rather a surprise that no one has yet added their name to this famous list.The most runs in any calendar month in England is 1294, by Len Hutton in June 1949. He also made 1050 runs that August, to become the only man ever to score a thousand in two separate months of the same year.Has anyone played more than 100 Tests without ever scoring a hundred, or even a fifty? asked David Dudgeon from Japan
There are currently 66 players who have played in 100 or more Tests. Of these, only six never scored a century: Shane Warne (145 matches, with a highest score of 99), Muttiah Muralitharan (133 matches, HS 67), Courtney Walsh (132, 30 not out), Jimmy Anderson (129 so far, 81), Glenn McGrath (124, 61) and Makhaya Ntini (101, 32 not out). From this you can see that the only ones who never made a fifty were Walsh and Ntini – but they did manage over 900 wickets between them.Turning your query round, 15 of the 66 hundred-cap men never took a Test wicket: Kumar Sangakkara (134 matches), Alec Stewart (133), Brian Lara (131), Inzamam-ul-Haq (120), Ian Healy (119), Dilip Vengsarkar (116), Colin Cowdrey (114), Stephen Fleming (111), Hashim Amla (109 so far), Gordon Greenidge (108), David Boon (107), Justin Langer (105), Matthew Hayden (103), Graham Thorpe (100) and Andrew Strauss (100). Of these, Healy, Fleming and Strauss never even bowled in a Test match.How often has the first-innings score in a Test match been a tie? asked Vikram Tirupati from India
There have now been eight Tests in which the teams were level after the first innings, the most recent coming at Headingley in 2015, when New Zealand and England both totalled 350 first time round. The highest total involved is 593, by West Indies (who declared five down) and England (all out) in St John’s, Antigua, in 1993-94 (the match in which Brian Lara scored 375).The first such instance was at the old Lord’s ground in Durban in 1909-10, when South Africa and England both made 199 in their first innings. And it has happened since in Kanpur in 1958-59 (West Indies and India 222), Auckland in 1972-73 (Pakistan and New Zealand 402), Kingston in 1972-73 (Australia 428 for 7 declared, West Indies 428), Edgbaston in 1986 (England and India 390), and St John’s in 2002-03 (Australia and West Indies 240).

A look at how Rajasthan Royals’ new opening pair made Dhoni change tactics, what lengths were bowled to the CSK captain, and where CSK lost the match

Sidharth Monga11-May-20182:16

Five reasons why Royals outfoxed CSK

The opening gambitWhen Rajasthan royals came out to chase 177, the common feeling was the target was slightly over-par. And then Royals sprung a surprise. Out came Jos Buttler and Ben Stokes to open. All the firepower right at the top. This was the first time Stokes was opening in the IPL. He had a strike rate of 110 in IPL Powerplays and 120 in all Powerplays.Yet, it made sense to go all out at the top. The main reason wasn’t too different to why the target was considered over-par. On this slow pitch, the heavy lifting happened against the new ball and with only two fielders outside the circle. The other reason was the match-up: Stokes had previously scored 28 off 14 David Willey deliveries. The biggest, perhaps, was the impact. MS Dhoni loves to get his quicks through inside the Powerplay and then control the game through spin in the middle overs. Now with two foreign batsmen opening the innings, they were almost obliged to bowl spin. For the first time this season, they bowler four overs of spin inside the Powerplay, for the second time they went up to three.The closing remarksYou could clearly see Dhoni was not happy with what Willey bowled in the 19th over. Royals needed 28 in two overs, hitting off-pace deliveries had proved of late, Buttler had gone from 50 off 26 to scoring just 31 off the next 27 balls he had faced. And then Willey went ahead and bowled seam-up to K Gowtham. However, Dhoni will do well to ask himself why Willey was bowling the 19th over in the first place.You will usually see captains bowling their best bowlers of the night before the last over in an attempt to break the game open before going into the finale. On this night, Dwayne Bravo was Dhoni’s best option. Yes, Bravo did bowl the 18th and thus could not have bowled the 19th, but Dhoni could have calculated this better. There has been a previous to this too. This season, Dhoni has captained a little like Virat Kohli, keeping his best bowler for the last. In the game against Mumbai Indians, with 22 required in the last two, Dhoni bowled Shardul Thakur in the 19th, lost the game there, and then bowled Imran Tahir in the 20th for some desperate magic. With 3-0-21-1, Bravo was left unutilised. And on that occasion, Bravo’s last over had been the 17th unlike here.ESPNcricinfo LtdCumulative numbers don’t lie: Super Kings have the worst economy rate in the 19th over – 16 – when defending totals this season. It is no coincidence the best option has often not been used in the said over.Unadkat is too awareHow many times has it happened in the neighbourhood playground? You run somebody out but the batsman comes up with the rule that tells you that you had to take the whole stump out because the bails had been removed already. That’s how we all learn this rule, and it can be embarrassing to be caught unawares of it at higher levels. Jaydev Unadkat was alert after a straight drive from Dhoni hit the stumps at the bowler’s end. Unadkat collected the ball, ran towards the pitch and used his two hands to pluck a stump to try to complete the run-out. In the process, he lost valuable time, which let Sam Billings get back in. To Unadkat and Rajasthan Royals’ annoyance, it emerged that one of the bails was still on, and that a simple underarm flick would have done the job.Lengths to DhoniWith the form Dhoni has hit this IPL, Royals were looking at a lot of punishment when Dhoni walked out at the fall of the second wicket in the 12th over. However, they managed to keep him quiet in the first half of his innings: it took Dhoni 17 balls to hit his first boundary. Straightaway, the difference here was the lengths bowled to him: six of the 18 balls that Dhoni faced from pacers were short of a length. Dhoni managed just seven runs off those.ESPNcricinfo LtdIt is debatable, though, if Royals’ plan to dig the ball in was a response to Dhoni or to the slow pitch. A look at numbers earlier in the tournament might suggest the latter, for before this match, Dhoni had taken 44 runs off 22 balls pitched short of a length by quick bowlers.