Narine has a rare bad day at work, and Rajapaksa is to blame for it

by h716a5.icu Uncategorized

In IPL matches where a batter has faced ten or more balls from Narine, Rajapaksa’s 23 off 11 was the sixth-highest strike rate

Sidharth Monga01-Apr-20231:13

Rajapaksa: ‘Plan was that I attack and Shikhar plays the anchor role’

This is Sunil Narine’s 12th IPL. Only nine times in all these years has he gone for 40 or more runs in a match. That event, rarer than once a season, has already happened in his first match of this IPL. Bhanuka Rajapaksa is to blame for it.Narine, with Andre Russell, is the most loyal Kolkata Knight Riders player, and the team relies too heavily on him. Oppositions have started playing Narine out, and targeting weaker bowlers, which Knight Riders tend to provide enough of.Last year, Narine took just nine wickets through the season, but he went at under a run a ball. His strike rate in every IPL since 2015 has been upwards of 20. The economy, though, has never touched eight.Related

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Even though Varun Chakravarthy made a good start to his 2023 IPL season with figures of 1 for 26, the start of the tournament seems to have demanded more of Narine. He is no stranger to bowling inside the powerplay, but asked to stem a marauding start from the Punjab Kings batters, Narine was taken down inside the powerplay by Rajapaksa.Narine bowled two dots to Rajapaksa in the fifth over to start with, and possibly felt the batter was itching to sweep. So he tried to block that shot, and brought mid-off in to send a fielder back on the sweep. Immediately, Rajapaksa told his captain and batting partner Shikhar Dhawan that if Narine gave it air, he was going to go down the track. He did exactly that.Rajapaksa is an interesting hitter. He is known for his strike rate, but rarely does he use brute power. His favourite shots seem to be the flick and the chip. He made sure he didn’t lose his shape when he went down the track the next two balls, and got two fours. Once over mid-off and then over extra cover. He went in the air but never looked like trying to hit a six.Bhanuka Rajapaksa took 23 runs off 11 balls against Sunil Narine•PTI Narine stuck to his guns, kept the field up, and denied Rajapaksa the sweep. But on the last ball of the over, Rajapaksa also unfurled some power, hitting a six, down the pitch and back over the bowler. This was only Narine’s sixth over in the last three IPLs that had gone for 14 (or more).He came back superbly to concede just four runs in the 18th over, but this was still a momentous occasion in the IPL for Narine – he was taken apart, conceding 40 in four overs.And Rajapaksa didn’t do it blindly. He said later that he gave himself some time because he remembered from the two practice matches in the pre-season that this Mohali pitch was not a belter.In IPL matches where a batter has faced ten or more balls from Narine, Rajapaksa’s 23 off 11 was the sixth-highest strike rate. There was nothing flashy about what Rajapaksa did, but the rarity of Narine having an off day goes against the grain of T20s, where batters will take risks, and they will come off more than once an IPL.Rajapaksa might as well savour this because Narine won’t be taken down often. If indeed he is, Knight Riders might be in for a lot of trouble.

What happens next? Recapping the crazy men's Ashes

by h716a5.icu Uncategorized

There has barely been a session, let alone a day, without some drama

Andrew McGlashan13-Jul-2023The men’s Ashes is poised at 2-1 ahead of the Old Trafford Test next week, but to highlight the extraordinary nature of the series it could easily be 3-0 to either team. There has barely been a session, let alone a day, without some drama.With everyone pausing to take a breath before the battle resumes, it provides a chance to look back on how the first three Tests have unfolded in a contest that is living up to all the hype and arguably matching 2005.1st Test, EdgbastonDay oneZak Crawley drives the first ball of the series from Pat Cummins for four. Australia immediately look on the defensive with spread fields, although it’s part of their pre-series planning. England canter along at five-an-over but trade wickets in the process. Ironically, Harry Brook is bowled padding up to Nathan Lyon. At 176 for 5 when Ben Stokes edges behind it threatens to go wrong, but Joe Root compiles a brilliant century and adds 121 with Jonny Bairstow. Late in the day, England pull their first big trick of the series as, despite Root still flying, Stokes declares and gives Australia’s openers 20 minutes to face. Battle lines have been drawn.Related

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Day twoStuart Broad makes early inroads, resuming his hold over David Warner and claiming Marnus Labuschagne first ball with his ‘new’ outswinger. When Stokes (who else?) traps Steven Smith lbw, Australia are wobbling but Usman Khawaja and Travis Head steady things. Stokes’ aggressive captaincy tempts Head into taking on Moeen Ali – whose Test career was over before an SOS to replace Jack Leach – and he perishes, but crucially Cameron Green is missed first ball when Bairstow fluffs a stumping. However, Moeen produces a beauty to bowl him through the gate although England can’t find a way past Khawaja who brings up a first century in England – another landmark in his triumphant return to Test cricket – and celebrates by flinging his bat to the ground.Day threeOnly 32 overs are bowled, but plenty is packed in. Ollie Robinson gives Khawaja an almighty send off after yorking him for a magnificent 141. Stokes goes full funk with his fields and in the end the difference on first innings is just seven. As the weather closes in, Australia make good use of a brief 20-minute window under stormy skies to nab two top-order wickets. England are grateful they don’t get back on.Joe Root gets into position to play a scoop shot•Getty ImagesDay fourIn a completely normal piece of cricket, Root attempts to reverse scoop Cummins’ first ball of the day over the slips. He doesn’t connect, but soon does against Scott Boland sending him for six. Ollie Pope is yorked by a ball-for-ages from Cummins. England won’t rein themselves in and each time they threaten to pull away lose a wicket. In the end, Australia’s target is a tantalizing 281 – one short of the 2005 figure. Warner and Khawaja start well, but Broad does a Broad thing and surges late to remove Labuschagne and Smith.Day fiveAfter a delayed start there is nothing to split the teams all day. Moeen, whose spinning finger is not fit for purpose, removes Head for the second time in the game. At tea Australia need 98 with five wickets in hand, but Green falls shortly afterwards. Stokes, basically on one leg, ends another marathon from Khawaja and Alex Carey is brilliantly caught-and-bowled by Root. Australia now need 54 with just two wickets left. Cummins and Lyon proceed to put on a stand that will go down in Ashes history although Lyon is dropped, a tough chance to Stokes, with 37 needed. It proves England’s last opportunity. Cummins carves the winning runs at 7.21pm.Pat Cummins is jubilant after leading Australia to victory•AFP/Getty Images***Between Tests, England are very vocal. In a column for , Robinson relays what Brendon McCullum said after the game. “We played all the cricket in the game. If it wasn’t for us, the Australians wouldn’t have even had a chance to win… We’ve entertained the world, and we’ve put the Aussies on the back foot. For him to say that after a loss is quite significant for us.” Meanwhile, speaking to , Crawley shows no lack of confidence. “I think it will suit us a bit more, that pitch. So I think we’ll win by, I don’t know, 150 runs?”2nd Test, Lord’sDay oneJust Stop Oil protestors get onto the field. Bairstow carries one of them off. England can’t make the most of favourable bowling conditions and, again, miss vital chances with Warner spilled on 20. He and Khawaja lay the foundation then Smith and Head take control in a stand of 118 in 20 overs. However, Root just about saves England by removing Head and Green in the space of three balls.Steven Smith and Travis Head give Australia early control at Lord’s•ECB/Getty ImagesDay twoSmith reaches a 32nd Test hundred, but a fightback with the ball sees Australia bowled out for 416, their last seven wickets falling 100. England are superbly placed during the afternoon when what appears a pivotal moment occurs: in his 100th consecutive Test, Lyon pulls up with a calf injury. It’s clear his match – and series – is over. However, from 188 for 1, England offer Australia a helping hand as they fall for the short-ball plan, including Ben Duckett for 98, before Stokes brings a sense of calmness.Day threeStokes falls to the second ball of the day, edging Starc into the slips. There are gasps of disbelief when Brook carves into the off side. England lose their last six wickets for 46 and concede a lead of 91. Another solid opening stand puts Australia well ahead on a truncated day.Day fourThe bouncer barrage. It’s almost a complete diet of short bowling from England which doesn’t make for great viewing but removes Khawaja, Smith and Head in quick succession and Australia’s last eight for 88 in total. Lyon, who is barely able to walk, limps out to bat at No.11, adding 15 for the last wicket alongside Starc. But any hopes the home side have of chasing 371 appear to be blown away when they crash to 45 for 4 against Starc and Cummins. Moments before the close it is nearly five down, but Duckett is reprieved when replays show Starc scrapes the ball along the ground. Stokes is unbeaten at stumps.Day fiveJonny Bairstow’s dismissal triggers a huge controversy•AFP/Getty ImagesDuckett and Stokes start nicely and the requirement dips under 200 when the former is superbly caught by Carey off a top edge. A short while later, chaos ensues. Bairstow ducks a bouncer, walks out of the crease (after briefly tapping his back foot in) and is stumped by Carey’s underarm. England are furious. While Broad goes head-to-head with Australia’s close fielders – telling Carey: “That’s all you’ll be remembered for” – Stokes channels his emotions into the most extraordinary 155 including nine sixes. At lunch some of the Australian players are abused in Long Room. Memories of Headingley 2019 abound as Stokes and Broad get down to 70 needed when Hazlewood removes the England captain and it’s too much for the lower order. Australia are 2-0 up, but the fallout has only just started.***The three days between Tests are dominated by the Bairstow dismissal. Unsurprisingly, Broad takes a leading role. “I was angered by Australia’s decision, particularly having heard their lines about creating a new legacy as a team, and how they have changed since the tour of South Africa in 2018,” he writes in the . “I just said to Pat on repeat: ‘All these boos are for you, for your decision.’ And: ‘What a great opportunity you had to think clearly.'”Australia remain unapologetic. “I don’t think there’s any discussion; it’s out,” Cummins says. “If the shoe was on the other foot, I wouldn’t be looking at the opposition, I’d probably be thinking [about] our own batter, and would be thinking it’s pretty silly.”Three MCC members are suspended for their part in the pavilion fracas.3rd Test, HeadingleyMark Wood’s pace rattles Australia•Getty ImagesDay oneThe recalled Mark Wood produces some of the fastest bowling seen for England. His first spell does not dip below 90mph and nudges 96mph. Australia wobble on 85 for 4 when Mitchell Marsh, who has replaced the injured Green, constructs a remarkable 102-ball century in his first Test for four years. But Wood blows the lower order away to finish with 5 for 34. Cummins responds for Australia. It’s a breathless day.Day twoCummins strikes with the second ball of the day to remove Root for the 10th time in Tests. At lunch England are 142 for 7 and the Ashes are within Australia’s grasp. But Wood swings the first ball of the afternoon for six and Stokes plays another magnificent captain’s innings while barely able to stand. In 10 overs England add 95. It’s almost an even game. Warner goes to Broad again (No. 17) but Australia are building nicely and England are still dropping catches when, almost inexplicably, Labuschagne and Smith hand their wickets to Moeen. Khawaja falls, too. The lead is 142.Day threeIn rains, and it rains. Looks like a washout. Silliness ensues as Carey is mistakenly called out for not paying for a haircut. Then the weather clears for a two-hour session. England seize their moment under cloudy skies as Chris Woakes, Wood and Broad work through Australia. When Cummins falls the lead is only 196, but Head replicates Stokes and it grows to 250. Duckett and Crawley do very well to get through to the close and knock off a vital 27 runs in the process.Cummins: “Everyone kind of feels like you could have done something a little bit different that might have contributed to a different result. But we’ve all played enough cricket so yeah, brush this one off, and make sure we get ready for Manchester.”***Old Trafford awaits.

Spotlight on Bulawayo as Netherlands, Scotland battle for World Cup jackpot

by n8rngtd.top Uncategorized

Cricket’s biggest prize on offer this week isn’t the Ashes, but a golden ticket to India later this year

Firdose Moonda05-Jul-2023Don’t be fooled by the hype from Headingley. The biggest game in cricket on Thursday – no, perhaps the biggest game in cricket this year – is happening in Bulawayo where Netherlands and Scotland will compete for a place at the 50-over World Cup.Few would have expected that the final contest would be between the team that finished at the bottom of the World Cup Super League, with only three wins from 24 games, and the team that finished at the top of League 2, a division that should receive much more attention than it does. That it has come down to this speaks volumes about the way cricket is developing outside of Full Member countries and rewards those who have spent the last four years slogging away for recognition they had no guarantee would come.Netherlands played series against Ireland, Afghanistan, New Zealand, West Indies, England, Pakistan and Zimbabwe and lost all but one of them. In that time, they were never able to top 300 but conceded over 300 five times, scored just one century in the entire campaign and were bowled out for under 200 nine times. Did it ever get tiring being beaten so often and so comprehensively? No, said Scott Edwards, in more words than that, at his pre-match press conference.Related

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“The confidence we got from coming up against these Full Member teams throughout the Super League was massive for us,” he said. “Look at our youngsters like Aryan Dutt, Shariz Ahmed, Vikramjit Singh. These sorts of guys were thrown in the deep end at the start of the Super League, so where they are now, whether they are coming up against Scotland or Sri Lanka, there’s no spotlight to it. It’s just another game of cricket. They’ve been on top of other batters and we feel like coming into this sort of tournament, we’ve done it all before. We took a lot of confidence from that and it shows where we are now.”That’s why the Dutch don’t use the word “Associate,” to describe themselves anymore. They’ve been around the big boys and, as Vikramjit Singh said two days ago, they simply call themselves “the Netherlands’ cricket team.”They believe in their ability to take down top teams and why wouldn’t they? Eight months ago, they dumped South Africa out of the T20 World Cup. Asked at this event how they digested their giant-killing ways, head coach Ryan Cook was pragmatic. He told ESPNcricinfo that because of the way his team had been preparing, they always knew they would be able to stub out a few of the more star-studded sides and it was a matter of when and not if. He also predicts there’s more to come from other so-called smaller teams and already he’s been proven right, partly about his own camp and partly about someone else’s.While Netherlands dented West Indies in the group stage, it was Scotland who sent them out of contention for a World Cup place. “We’ve put three Test nations out of the World Cup now. What more can we say?” Michael Leask, Scotland’s offspinning allrounder, said.Scotland started their campaign with a one-wicket win over Ireland, then stunned West Indies and most recently robbed the host nation, Zimbabwe, of their chance to complete a dream run to the World Cup and arguably, they’ve done it in tougher circumstances than anyone else. League 2 is gruelling with 36 matches grouped into nine triangulars, and as result, is supremely competitive. Scotland lost a third of their games but still finished top and it was not until the final phase of the tournament, when Scotland and Namibia travelled to Nepal, that they were able to confirm their spots at the World Cup Qualifier.

“We’ve put three Test nations out of the World Cup now. What more can we say?”Scotland’s Michael Leask is confident the team can pull off one more memorable win

They did all that while their organisation was found to be institutionally racist with 448 examples cited in a report, and investigations ongoing. We have seen in South Africa and Yorkshire how damaging and divisive the issue of race can be, and how it can impact results. While the Social Justice and Nation-Building hearings were held in South Africa, the national men’s team stumbled through the World Cup Super League and almost ended up in Zimbabwe themselves. As for Yorkshire, they were relegated at the end of last summer. The rights and wrongs of the cases in Scotland are still being assessed (and it’s not easy to do so because instances of racism don’t come with receipts) but the team has somehow managed to put that to one side and play well, and they recognise how difficult that has been.”We have been through a bit of a tough time but we wear this shirt with a lot of pride, and for us it’s all about leaving the shirt better than we found it,” Leask said. “Yes, there’s been some tough times, but we’re out here competing and we’re doing a very, very good job of it at the moment. The biggest thing is leaving this shirt in a better place than you found it. I believe this group’s going a long way to doing that.”That is true of them over the last five years. Scotland came close to qualifying for the 2019 World Cup but were on the receiving end of some poor decisions in the 2018 qualifier, which was played without DRS in its entirety. Eight members of the squad who participated in that tournament are back to put things right and they’ve come with an attitude of extreme determination and resilience. They treat every match like it matters more than anything else, because in their case, it does. “2018 hurt a lot of us and a lot of the squad are still here. The performances have shown that we’re not going to give up,” Leask said. “We are a side who, every time we play, we play as underdogs. But we play every game like it’s a final. We’ve fought unbelievably hard in every fixture.”Scotland have already dumped out West Indies, but can they plot their biggest victory yet on Thursday?•ICC via Getty ImagesThe Dutch say the same thing. “Going into every game in the tournament, we feel like it’s a must-win game,” Edwards said. Despite the pressure of the situation, he describes his squad as “pretty level-headed,” going into their last, and most important game, and he has good reason to. The Dutch have managed to triumph in these crunch encounters without their entire first-choice bowling attack, the bulk of whom were unavailable due to county commitments (read: need to earn a salary rather than spend three weeks competing for a one-in-10 chance to play in a World Cup). Scotland are in a similar situation, with four frontline players missing. And therein lies the cold, hard, financial truth of Thursday’s match: it could change lives and cricket boards, literally, because of the economics of the game.In English football, the championship playoff game – the match which decides which team will be promoted to the Premier League in the following season – is known as the richest game in football, because of the massive monetary benefits promotion brings. With a guaranteed participation fee of US$1 million – more than most associates get in grants from either the ICC or their governments – reaching the World Cup could prove the cash injection to keep cricket comfortably afloat in the country that gets there. Consider that they could then also attract commercial partners, and the health of the game in the country that qualifies will receive a significant boost.For teams who spend most of their time in the small print, this is their opportunity to do more than just steal a headline: it’s the chance to make a serious statement about cricket in their country and to create the investment into its future. It’s also one of the last chances to really stand out because this is the last 10-team World Cup (the next T20 World Cup is 20 teams and the next ODI World Cup will expand to 14) and, hopefully, the growth of the game will only continue from there. Now, though, it’s about that one chance to “play in a World Cup in India which is a dream for our guys,” as Edwards said.Both Netherlands and Scotland have already experienced that dreams can come true and as far as the promise of a World Cup place goes neither will want to be the one who wakes up first.

How Phoebe Litchfield moved up the ranks and made 2023 her own

by n8rngtd.top Uncategorized

She made a splash at the WPL auction, played memorable knocks across formats, and has now been part of a record chase

Sruthi Ravindranath29-Dec-2023India had not seen much of the Australian batter Phoebe Litchfield.She was the first player to come up for bidding at the 2024 WPL auction. When she was sold for INR 1 crore (USD 120,000 approx) to Gujarat Giants, many wondered why she’d gone for a huge price.Litchfield isn’t unknown in the cricketing world. When she was 16, she became a social media sensation after a video of her playing cover drives at the New South Wales nets went viral in 2019. She’s played memorable knocks at the domestic level and in the WBBL. She scored an unbeaten 106 in a massive win against Ireland in June. She also showed Pakistan her big-hitting skills. India’s Jemimah Rodrigues, whom Litchfield has played with at Northern Superchargers in the Women’s Hundred, has seen what she’s capable of. And so have Giants and UP Warriorz, who tussled for her at the WPL auction table.Related

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After making a quiet international debut in India last December, 20-year old Litchfield announced herself in the country with a crucial innings in a tough chase in Mumbai. During her 78 off 89 balls in the first ODI at the Wankhede Stadium, where players from both sides struggled in the heat and humidity, Litchfield showed she was capable of handling such conditions, especially with the next ODI World Cup to be played in India in 2025.”The WPL auction was pretty cool,” Litchfield said after the match. “I think to play in India, I’d come for free. It was so cool to be picked up [in the auction]. So I’m really excited for that. And then to be over here for the Test match [one-off Test] in India for the first time, it was an awesome experience and one I’ll never forget.”To have a win today is sort of the icing on the cake for a good December. I think any experience you get on these pitches and these arenas is so good for our cricket. Any time in the middle is good.”Litchfield has quickly established herself as a batter capable of being effective at any position in the order. On ODI debut earlier this year, she scored an unbeaten 78 at the top of the order against Pakistan in Brisbane, followed by 67 not out in the second ODI. An Ashes call-up followed, and she contributed 46 in the second innings to Australia’s victory in the one-off Test in Nottingham. She became the second youngest Australian woman to hit an ODI century when she scored a 106* against Ireland in July.Phoebe Litchfield took her time initially before moving to a higher gear in Mumbai•Getty ImagesLitchfield found success in the T20I format too when she scored the joint-fastest fifty, off 18 balls, coming in at No. 6 against West Indies in October. Throw in her excellent performances at the Women’s Hundred and the WBBL, where she plays for Sydney Thunder, and she’s had a year to remember.But how does she assess her 2023?”It’s been a challenge, to put it frankly,” Litchfield said. “I think the Ashes was a really big learning curve for me and then to score runs in Ireland was enjoyable, but yeah, I think Indian conditions is a whole different beast. It’s a really good challenge, but also enjoyable. [I’m] pretty happy with the score.”On Thursday, Litchfield teamed up with Ellyse Perry for the second wicket to set up a the highest successful chase away from home in women’s ODIs. She was cautious early on but grew in confidence as the innings progressed – her 78 metre six over bowler Renuka Singh’s head in the ninth over was a highlight – to put the pressure back on India’s bowlers. She also used the sweep and the reverse sweep to good effect against the spinners.”Reverse sweep’s probably one of my get-out-of-jail shots if I need to score a four or release some pressure,” she said. “I usually go to that shot if there’s some space there. I think in the Test match it probably wasn’t the greatest scenario to bring out the reverse sweep. I definitely learnt from that. I think if you know we’re 200 runs ahead, you can bring out the reverse sweep. So we’ve had chats about that and I learnt from it. But I felt it’s a strength of mine and I like to play it, so I brought it out today.”Phoebe Litchfield added 148 runs with Ellyse Perry for the second wicket•Associated PressAt the other end, the experienced Perry batted aggressively at the start of the partnership. The duo added 148 runs in 150 balls to take Australia past half the target. Perry, however, battled cramps in the middle of her innings, a sight that reminded Litchfield of Glenn Maxwell during his sensational knock at the same venue against Afghanistan in the men’s ODI World Cup in November.”She started to cramp in her calves, which was quite a funny thing… I sort of got flashbacks to Glenn Maxwell’s innings,” Litchfield said. “She just was pretty much like cramping here, probably struggling a bit, but she was hitting the ball. I think she cramped and then she hit a six down the ground. So, that’s Ellyse Perry for you. She sort of just took the game on a bit more after she started cramping, because she was like, ‘I probably won’t be out here for long’.”Litchfield has had a pretty perfect year in international cricket, but she’s identified areas she needs to improve in: scoring off more balls, taking the game on “a bit more”, and more importantly, “not getting out on 80”.

Stats – Cape Town the shortest completed Test ever

by h716a5.icu Uncategorized

The second Test broke some long-standing records, and came close to breaking a few more iconic ones

Sampath Bandarupalli04-Jan-20243:01

SA vs India – The shortest completed Test ever

642 Total number of balls bowled in Cape Town, making it the shortest completed Test ever. The previous shortest Test lasted 656 balls, played between Australia and South Africa in Melbourne in 1932.ESPNcricinfo Ltd1 India’s seven-wicket win at the Newlands is their first victory at the venue, failing in their previous six attempts. It was also India’s first Test win while batting second in South Africa, as their four previous wins came batting first.2 Test matches won by India where none of their batters got a fifty-plus score. Virat Kohli’s 46 was the highest individual score here, while Murali Vijay’s 40 was the highest during their 124-run win against South Africa in Nagpur in 2015.Related

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India prove their golden age still has plenty of kick left

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4 Men’s Test matches hosted at Newlands that finished in two days – South Africa against England in 1889 and 1896, and South Africa against Zimbabwe in 2005 are the others. Kennington Oval is the other venue with as many as four two-day Test matches.8 Five-plus wickets for Jasprit Bumrah in the 28 Test matches outside Asia, the joint-second most for an Indian. Only Kapil Dev has more five-fors outside Asia in Tests than Bumrah – Nine in 45 games.Three of Bumrah’s nine Test five-fors have come in South Africa, the joint-most for an Indian bowler, alongside Javagal Srinath.ESPNcricinfo Ltd2 Instances of two six-plus wicket hauls by Indian pacers in a Test match, including Mohammed Siraj and Bumrah in Cape Town. Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Ishant Sharma did the same against England at Lord’s during the 2014 tour.60.23 Percentage of South Africa’s second-innings total scored by Aiden Markram. It is the highest contribution for an individual in a completed Test innings for South Africa. The previous highest was 59.89% by Herbie Taylor, who scored 109 out of 182 against England in Durban in 1913.8.83 Ratio between Markram’s 106 and the second-highest innings score (Dean Elgar’s 12) in the fourth innings. It is the second-highest ratio between the highest and second-highest individual score in an all-out innings in men’s Tests.Charles Bannerman holds the record as his 165 in the first-ever Test match in 1877 had a ratio of 9.17, as the second-highest score was 18* by Tom Garrett.12 Dean Elgar’s score is the second highest for South Africa in their second-innings, behind Markram’s 106. It is the lowest ‘second-highest’ individual score in an all-out innings featuring a century. The previous lowest was 13 when Daryll Cullinan scored 103 against Sri Lanka in Centurion in 1998.Markram also became the first batter to score a century despite no other teammate scoring 20 runs in any innings (where teams got bowled out twice) in a Test match. Kyle Verreynne’s 15 in the first innings is the second-highest individual score for South Africa in this Test.

3 Test matches where the winning side had no individual fifty-plus scores, but the losing team had a century, including the Cape Town Test. New Zealand vs England in Christchurch in 1963 and West Indies vs Zimbabwe in Port of Spain in 2000 were the previous instances.

The constant and universal appeal of Mitchell Starc

by h716a5.icu Uncategorized

T20 franchises won’t be too bothered by his middling T20 numbers as long as he brings genuine pace, left-arm angle, height and swing

Sidharth Monga22-Mar-2024When Mitchell Starc runs in at Eden Gardens on Saturday and lets the ball go for the first time in an IPL match since 2015, it will cost his franchise upwards of INR 6 lakh (approx. US $7,200). It’s the cost of every legal ball that Starc delivers, assuming he bowls his four overs in every game, plays every match, and that Kolkata Knight Riders play 17 games. If you look at cold numbers, you might call this a big gamble.Since the start of the T20 World Cup in 2022, Starc has played just two T20 matches outside World Cups in one-and-a-half years. The last time he was available for a T20 World Cup match, Starc was dropped by Australia. Outside his replacement Kane Richardson, Starc was Australia’s most expensive frontline bowler at that World Cup at home in 2022.The last time Starc played T20s outside international cricket, he was representing Royal Challengers Bengaluru in the IPL in the year 2015. Since that game, Starc has conceded 8.14 runs an over across all T20s, as against his overall career economy of 7.47. His average in the intervening period, meanwhile, has been 25.53 versus a career average of 19.74. And during the same period, Starc has gone at 9.62 runs an over in the death overs – his career economy in that phase is 8.74 – which ended up becoming the reason for his being dropped during the World Cup in 2022.Related

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'Harden the f*** up' – Stern words that led to Starc's durability

'Nothing I could've imagined' – Starc reacts to becoming costliest IPL buy

And yet, Starc is one of the most sought-after players at the IPL. Only seven players made more than Starc’s INR 5 crore in the 2014 auction, the first time he played in the IPL. RCB retained him, and that yielded 20 wickets in the next IPL. Injury and workload management kept him away in 2016 and 2017, but in 2018, only five players attracted higher bids than the INR 9.4 crore Starc got from KKR. Injuries, preference to ODIs and Tests, and other personal reasons kept Starc away from the IPL since then until he came back for this season as the most expensive player bought at an auction ever: for INR 24.75 crore (approx. US $2.97m).Even if you set aside the idiosyncrasies of auctions, Starc’s appeal to the IPL has been constant and universal. In throwing big money at Starc, the IPL teams show they appreciate two things about T20 cricket: that bowlers have limited agency, and that potential trumps non-recent form. In a crunched format with ten wickets still available, it becomes even more important to separate actions from results when assessing bowlers in particular.When it comes to Starc, the IPL doesn’t see his numbers from the five matches he plays every year on an average. What it instead sees is the genuine pace, the left-arm angle, the height, the ability to swing the ball, and that he is an absolute great in the other two formats. There is also acknowledgement that it is easier for longer-format specialists to adjust to T20 than the other way around.This year will see just the 28th IPL match for Mitchell Starc•BCCIThere is not a substantial amount of cause you can establish for Starc’s middling numbers in T20s. Yes, the new ball swings less, and there is hardly any reverse, but that is true for all bowlers. Starc’s handicap perhaps is his smooth action, which makes for spotting the ball sooner than irregular actions, thus making his pace appear lesser to the batter than what the speed gun registers. Still, if he can consistently stay north of 145kph, it is a big asset in the IPL regardless of the smoothness and the orthodoxy of his action.Evidently, we have precious little to go by. Starc has hardly ever played a tournament for long enough for proper analysis or match-ups to develop, or for him to make alterations against certain players and come back. On Saturday in Kolkata, Starc will begin addressing one of the anomalies of our times when he goes up against Sunrisers Hyderabad, the side led by Pat Cummins, another great fast bowler in other formats, and who also happens to be the second-most expensive buy at an IPL auction ever.This year will see just the 28th IPL match for Starc; he has played fewer in the BBL, and none in any other league.Not only is Starc fit and available and ready for a full IPL season, but he will also get on the ride to try to correct his own numbers and reputation in T20s. The last time he was left out by Australia, Starc said he had some “pretty strong” feelings about the decision, and he had let his team management know. Now comes the IPL and the T20 World Cup hot on its heels, where he can actually demonstrate why he shouldn’t have been left out.

Ravindra, and an unlikely Wellington reunion in Chennai

by n8rngtd.top Uncategorized

Thrown into a pulsing bowl of noise at Chepauk on Friday, his IPL debut was one to remember

Deivarayan Muthu25-Mar-2024Chepauk has a Westpac Stadium vibe to it. Yellow stands. Yellow jerseys. World-class Wellington batters.In IPL 2023, a Wellington boy thrilled the Chepauk crowd. In a bizarre three-day rain-hit final that season, Devon Conway produced a Player-of-the-Match performance, against Gujarat Titans in Ahmedabad. On Tuesday, Chennai Super Kings will face Titans in a rematch of the final, at Chepauk, but Conway is back in Wellington, recovering from thumb surgery. He has been sidelined until May.No Conway? No problem for CSK. Because another Wellington boy has slotted directly into the top order and enjoyed a sparkling debut, against Royal Challengers Bangalore. Thirty-seven runs off 15 balls at an eye-watering strike-rate of 246.66. It’s his highest in 57 T20s. It’s also the highest strike rate by a debutant across 17 seasons of the IPL (for a minimum of 30 runs scored).Related

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When Rachin Ravindra was snapped up by CSK at the auction last December for INR 1.8 crore, he wasn’t a certainty in their XI though he was the breakout star of the ODI World Cup held in India that year. But when he was thrown into Chepauk, which was a pulsing bowl of noise on Friday, Ravindra was at home away from home.IPL debuts can often be unnerving – some of the biggest international names have had harsh initiations into the IPL – but Ravindra’s was nerveless. After taking the catches of both Faf du Plessis and Virat Kohli in the hotspots at the boundary, he tore up the powerplay with the bat, in CSK’s chase of 174. With his hairstyle and athleticism, you could easily mistake him for another Ravindra from CSK – Jadeja.Rachin Ravindra with his domestic team-mates and former coach Sriram Krishnamurthy in Wellington•Sriram KrishnamurthyRavindra’s former Wellington and New Zealand A coach, Sriram Krishnamurthy, was part of a packed crowd at Chepauk. Sriram, who now works at the Super Kings Academy, CSK’s grassroots programme, isn’t a Chepauk regular for the CSK games, but on Friday he was right there for Ravindra’s IPL debut.”It was surreal for sure,” Sriram tells ESPNcricinfo. “We started working together in Wellington in 2015 and we set small goals. But our reunion at Chepauk was simply surreal because it was never ever part of the plan. Even until last year we would have never entertained the thought of meeting in Chennai.”In the lead-up to Ravindra’s first IPL stint, many on the outside wondered whether he had the game and gears to succeed in T20 cricket. After all, he came into the IPL with a modest T20 record: 673 runs in 48 innings at an average of 16.41 and strike rate of 126.26. On the opening night of IPL 2024, he struck at nearly 250. Sriram isn’t surprised one bit, though.”He’s always had the skill and the shots,” Sriram says. “What is aiding him to bring runs to his name is his mental switch. Right from when he was 14-15, he could cut, pull, drive, sweep, he could play the lofted drive. When you’re playing on some flat wickets, even against good bowlers the margin for error is so small; so he’s able to play all these shots. Which is what he was able do against Australia at the Westpac Stadium and then against RCB at Chepauk, which wasn’t the usual Chennai wicket.”I feel it’s a mental switch: he understands that in a T20 game if he can think about the batting in a way that he can play all the shots, based on his reaction to the ball…Whereas when he goes back to New Zealand, where he’s going to play at least 50% of cricket, he needs to be more careful. In the 50-over games against Bangladesh at home during the day games, the ball was seaming and holding in the pitch, he needs to be more selective with his shots there.”In the IPL season-opener, Ravindra hooked Alzarri Joseph for six, whipped Mohammed Siraj for four, but it was his rasping back-foot pull off a not-so-short ball from Karn Sharma that stood out. Ravindra picked the length early and made a blameless hard-length delivery look like a rank long-hop.”He always looks good when he plays the square-drive between cover and point, but that didn’t come for him in that opening game,” Sriram says. “We will see more of that as the tournament goes on. When you’re quick on our feet and use the depth of the crease…that’s the difference between punching it back to the bowler or hitting it to the boundary. He was able to cash in, but you still need to put them [bad balls] away.”Rachin Ravindra with CSK CEO Kasi Viswanathan and his former Wellington coach Sriram Krishnamurthy (far right) who now works with the CSK academy in Chennai•Chennai Super KingsRavindra has had a habit of making striking first impressions. In his first game for Wellington Under-19s, Ravindra, 15 at the time, scored a century. On the opening day of the 2023 ODI World Cup, he cracked an unbeaten 123 off 96 balls against England in Ahmedabad.Then came the first-day first act at Chepauk.”Making that first impact is a quality of good players-in-the-making,” Sriram says. “Let’s go back to 2021, when he made his Test debut for Black Caps in Kanpur, he helped save that game. Then in the World Cup first match against England, in a different role. There was a Test comeback against South Africa. Now this CSK debut. He has always taken his opportunities and that’s something that resonated when I first met him. That also tells you about the person he is.”The day after Ravindra’s IPL debut, Sriram got together with him once again, at the Super Kings academy, and introduced him to the kids there. “We have met almost every alternate day in Chennai since the first two games are in Chennai,” Sriram says. “It meant so much to the kids. For him to walk into the indoor facility and see the kids get as excited as they did… that selfie picture. We had a tough time to control those boys from jumping around him and falling on him (laughs).”When Anirudh Immanuel, a messy-haired mystery spinner from the USA who is with CSK as a net bowler, walked out to train on the eve of the IPL opener, he was mistaken for Ravindra. One game in, Ravindra is a more recognisable face and could well become the “flavour of the season” in Chennai.

Should India start worrying about Rohit and Kohli?

by h716a5.icu Uncategorized

They haven’t yet fired as a combination, and with the USA leg over and conditions getting better for batting, India may need more from them

Sidharth Monga21-Jun-20241:21

Kumble: India unlikely to change Kohli-Rohit partnership against Bangladesh

At this T20 World Cup 2024, India have made it clear they want to be flexible with their batting order – with one caveat.”Besides the openers, none of the guys’ positions are fixed as such,” Rohit Sharma said ahead of their game against Pakistan in New York. “We want to be very flexible in that and the message has been given to them very clearly about it, that only the openers will stay stagnant unless it’s a Super Over or it’s a five-over game. But otherwise, the openers will stay the same.”Related

Struggling Bangladesh in fight for survival against Bumrah & Co

Rohit and Virat Kohli have been India’s constants at the top of the order, and so far they’ve put on stands of 22, 12, 1 and 11. This wasn’t a matter of concern to the team management in the first round, because the openers were getting out early, looking to play aggressively, and those losses weren’t a dampener on the rest of the batting order, with the challenging surfaces of the USA not calling for power-hitting.Now, though, with pitches in the Super Eight stage getting better to bat on, with conditions calling for a little more inventiveness and power, there might be a bit more concern around Rohit and Kohli.India have some breathing space, having opened the Super Eight with a win, but two familiar scenarios played themselves out in that match against Afghanistan. Rohit scored six off nine deliveries from the left-arm quick Fazalhaq Farooqi and got out to him. Since 2022, he has struck at just 120.12 against left-arm pace, a variety of bowling he will likely face in India’s remaining matches. Bangladesh, their next opponents in their Super Eight group, have Mustafizur Rahman, and Australia Mitchell Starc.Then the offspinner Mohammad Nabi rocked up and bowled through the powerplay without conceding a boundary to either Rohit or Kohli, both right-hand batters, conceding nine off 12 balls to the pair. Eventually, it was the left-hand batter at No. 3, Rishabh Pant, who innovated against Nabi and salvaged the powerplay for India.Kohli looked in better touch than Rohit, and batter for longer, but that is not necessarily a good thing in T20s. An opener batting into the ninth over and going at a run a ball on a pitch that isn’t treacherous can be counterproductive. You could even make the argument that an opener getting out for a single-digit score having faced single-digit balls is better than a run-a-ball 24.Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli have put on 22, 12, 1 and 11 in India’s four matches so far•ICC via Getty ImagesThen, in case you feel out of form, how do you play yourself into form in a tournament with such a short turnaround between matches? Perhaps that’s why both Rohit and Kohli turned up for optional nets in the one-day gap India had between the Afghanistan and Bangladesh matches, this after having travelled from Barbados to Antigua on the evening of the Afghanistan match.Batting coach Vikram Rathour was asked whether he was happy India were winning even without any major contribution from Kohli so far. Rathour said he wasn’t. “I’m not happy. I would love if he gets going and scores more runs,” he said. “But yeah, it is good that when you are challenged at times and you know the guys who are not getting too much of batting in India sometimes, they are the ones who put up scores. Our middle order came to play. So it was good to see.”Bangladesh can test India with left-arm pace and spin so it will be a challenge for the openers again. “They’re a good unit. They have a lot of guys who can [challenge us with] spin bowling and they are good in certain conditions,” Rathour said, but he wasn’t speaking in the context of India’s openers. “And these conditions do suit them a little as a team because the wickets seem to have a bit of help for the spinners and they do have spinners in their team. But again, in this format I think every team is a tough team.”I don’t believe there is any contest in T20 cricket which is an easy contest. It might look like [it] in the end, I mean today [against Afghanistan] we won by almost 50 runs, so it looks easy but I’m sure when the game was on it felt pretty tight.”That last bit tells you a lot about how the contest felt in the first half of India’s innings. Kohli and Rohit are among the greatest batters India has produced. They take pride in continuing to earn their places in the side, and set an example with their work ethic. This is surely not the time to second-guess the combination India have gone with. And they have the batting depth and the bowling attack to make up for any shortcomings at the top of the order.Still, the openers will want to be at their best by the time they face bigger opponents. They don’t want Rohit’s proclamation about their being the only constants turn into famous last words.

Dinesh Karthik, the survivor who never stood still

by n8rngtd.top Uncategorized

Even at 38, he found new ways to worry bowlers and fielding captains in IPL. Who knows what heights his India career might have reached had Dhoni not happened to it?

Karthik Krishnaswamy23-May-2024It could have been the most poignant of endings: the last ball faced by Dinesh Karthik as a top-level cricketer, edged into MS Dhoni’s gloves. One last tangle of intertwined fates.Who knows what heights Karthik’s international career might have reached had Dhoni not happened to it, and by what factor he may have multiplied his 26 Tests, 94 ODIs and 60 T20Is? Add all that up, however, and you get a measure of the cricketer Karthik has been: a wicketkeeper-batter capped 180 times by India even though he played the bulk of his career in Dhoni’s all-encompassing shadow, and a batter good enough to be capped 94 times as a specialist in matches involving Dhoni.Karthik is younger than Dhoni by nearly four years, but he jumped the queue and made his India debuts first: a month and a half before Dhoni in ODIs, and more than a year before him in Tests. Both were part of India’s first T20I XI, and Karthik the Player of the Match.Related

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Karthik’s India career outlasted Dhoni’s too: his last Test, in 2018, and his last T20I, in 2022, coming three-and-a-half years after Dhoni’s respective farewells. Both, of course, went out of ODIs together, on that fateful day in Manchester in July 2019.It would have been poignant, but the edge to Dhoni wasn’t the end for Karthik, with Royal Challengers Bengaluru making the playoffs at Chennai Super Kings’ expense on the day. It would seem, then, that Karthik – though we can never be entirely certain until Dhoni actually tells us – outlasted his great rival in the IPL too, by one match.It’s fitting, because Karthik has been one of the IPL’s great survivors. He’s featured in every season, and played more matches than anyone other than Dhoni and Rohit Sharma, and while he hasn’t become a figurehead at one franchise like those two, he’s been a vital member of six different dressing rooms. He’s always had elite T20 skills, and he’s always kept adding to them, evolving with the format and staying relevant, season after season.It’s as true of his career as it is of his manner on the field that Dinesh Karthik has never stood still.

****

An example of this came one ball before Karthik edged Tushar Deshpande to Dhoni.Karthik had stepped across to the off side, shaping for the scoop over short fine leg, and Deshpande had responded by shifting his line wider, so wide that the ball was nearly in line with the return crease when it reached the batter. Karthik reacted like he’d expected this all along, manipulating his hands expertly to reverse-scoop the ball past the right glove of a leaping Dhoni and out of reach of the short third fielder throwing himself to his left.Over the course of IPL 2024, Karthik played a total of nine reverse-scoops, including one off a wide. We’ll come to the reverse-scoops he nailed, but let’s first spend some time with the one he missed against that wide.It came on day one of the season, and the bowler, once again, was Deshpande.In IPL 2024, the reverse scoop brought Dinesh Karthik 21 runs, including five fours•BCCIThis was a contest with a bit of history. Deshpande had dismissed Karthik in their teams’ only meeting of IPL 2023, getting him caught at deep midwicket. Fine leg had been inside the 30-yard circle on that occasion too, and Karthik had stepped across his stumps, no doubt eyeing the vast spaces either side of and beyond that fielder. Then too, Deshpande had shifted his line wider.On that occasion, Karthik’s response had been a low-percentage one. He went for the slog-sweep, a difficult shot to nail since he was fetching the ball from well outside his eyeline, and one that didn’t give him too much margin for error since long-on and deep midwicket were out on the boundary.By the time IPL 2024 rolled around, Karthik had worked on a different response to the same situation. He didn’t connect with the reverse-scoop the first time round, and his second attempt, against the same bowler in the same game, didn’t quite come off either, producing an inside-edged single to fine leg. But Karthik had clearly worked on this shot in the lead-up to the tournament, and he clearly believed it would give him an edge in these death-overs battles of wits.It’s safe to say now that the reverse-scoop has worked brilliantly for Karthik over the season. He’s played the shot more often than anyone else this season, and it’s brought him 21 runs off eight non-wide balls, including five fours, at a strike rate of 262.50.The shot has helped Karthik score 45 runs through the fine third region off the fast bowlers, off just 15 balls. Of this season’s top ten run-getters against pace in that sector of the field, only Suryakumar Yadav and Sunil Narine have (marginally) better strike rates than Karthik.!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}}}))}();

It’s not an area of the field Karthik is known for scoring heavily or quickly in. Against fast bowling, he’s only made 20 or more runs in that sector in five previous seasons, each time at a strike rate of less than 150.At 38, in his 17th IPL season, Karthik has opened up an entirely new area of the field, and found a new way to worry bowlers and fielding captains. Do we push deep third back? If so, who do we bring into the circle? How does that change the lines and lengths we want to bowl?This isn’t the only way Karthik has levelled up in IPL 2024. He’s also found ways to combat a long-standing weakness.Over recent seasons, Karthik had become a hyper-specialist in the IPL, an end-overs pace hitter to the exclusion of everything else. He had specialised in this role to the extent that other batters would routinely get promoted ahead of him to ensure he had the ideal entry point, and opposition teams would routinely save up one or two overs of spin to match up against him.In three successive seasons, from 2020 to 2022, Karthik had struck at less than 120 against spin in the IPL. He improved his spin strike rate to 135.18 in 2023, but that was only a teaser of what was to come this year.In IPL 2024, Karthik faced 38 balls of spin and scored 63 runs at a strike rate of 165.78, without being dismissed. This was his quickest-scoring season against spin; only once before, all the way back in 2008, had he gone at above 150.It will please Karthik particularly that the three spinners he scored the most runs off this season were legspinners – a type of bowler he had long been reputed to struggle against. He hit Rahul Chahar for 12 runs in four balls and Mayank Markande for 13 in six, and when he walked into a sticky situation against Gujarat Titans – RCB had lost 5 for 19 after a blazing start to a chase of 148 – he clattered Rashid Khan for 18 off 7.

****

Find new ways of dominating pace, and address a long-standing issue against spin. Karthik did these things at 38, in his 17th IPL season and his 23rd year at the senior level. He did them at a time when he’d become, in his own words, a full-time commentator and part-time cricketer.So good were Karthik’s numbers through IPL 2024 that it would have been perfectly reasonable for India to pick him as a left-field selection in their squad for the T20 World Cup. It just so happened that they had, in Rishabh Pant and Sanju Samson, two other excellent candidates.The same story, one last time. Over a career of remarkable length, Karthik competed with Parthiv Patel, Dhoni, Wriddhiman Saha, Pant, Samson and scores of others, and kept himself in the conversation, season after season, always moving with the times, never standing still.

English cricket's Kookaburra experiment: 'Fantastic' or 'worst decision ever'?

by n8rngtd.top Uncategorized

Opinion divided after first two rounds of 2024 County Championship produce glut of runs and only one positive result

Vithushan Ehantharajah and Matt Roller16-Apr-20243:58

Roland-Jones reacts to Kookaburra chaos in County Championship

Sixteen matches played, 27,840 balls bowled, 16,817 runs scored, 378 wickets taken – yet only one outright result. The first two weeks of the Championship season have been a grind. The second round of games was historic: for only the third time when all 18 counties played simultaneously, not a single one registered a win.The first two weeks of April rarely produce gripping cricket in England, but this year has been worse than usual for a number of interdependent reasons: wet weather through the winter creating particularly soft, slow pitches; the trial of a Kookaburra ball instead of the usual Dukes; and the loss of hundreds of overs due to rain.In the first two rounds of the 2023 season, there were 11 positive results in 16 completed matches. But bowlers across the country have struggled to get batters out in the early stage of this season: a wicket fell every 54.9 balls in the first two rounds last year, compared to one every 73.7 balls to date in 2024.Related

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  • Sam Cook: The England Test hopeful with a sub-20 bowling average

The difference between the balls is well-established: the Kookaburra is machine-made in Australia, while the Dukes is hand-stitched in the UK. “It doesn’t swing as much as the Dukes,” James Anderson explained on the Tailenders podcast. “There’s a different lacquer that coats it… the Dukes, for some reason, swings more and for longer.”The idea came from Andrew Strauss’ high-performance review, which highlighted the dearth of genuine pace and spin in English domestic cricket. “We aren’t encouraging the development of the ‘extreme’ skills required to succeed in international cricket,” the review said. It proposed a pilot trial to “test the impact on bowlers’ skills development”, and two rounds were played with the Kookaburra last summer.The pilot has not been universally popular. Alec Stewart, Surrey’s director of cricket, has described the Kookaburra’s implementation as “the worst decision ever”. Alfonso Thomas, the Leicestershire coach, said it has “made average batters look very good”. When Somerset skipper Lewis Gregory was asked for his view, he replied: “Can I swear?”The need to hit the deck hard with the Kookaburra has been offset by the fact that early season English decks are not hard. That also meant short-ball plans — something bowlers turn to when a ball of any shape stops moving through the air — were ineffectual. Some teams were also bemused that no two balls seemed to behave the same.Others saw the merit. Grant Bradburn, Glamorgan’s coach, believes the trial will “help bowlers become better”. Cameron Steel, Surrey’s legspinning allrounder, is the leading wicket-taker in Division One. “Spinners around the country are happy to have had more of a bowl than they probably otherwise would’ve in previous seasons in April,” he said after his second five-wicket haul in as many games.And Sam Cook, the Essex seamer, pressed his England case when forcing the only win of the season so far, taking 10 for 73 at Trent Bridge. Cook has been a consistent wicket-taker for five years but was particularly pleased to prove himself with a Kookaburra. “When it does get a little soft, it’s about using your skills, whether it’s a little bit of wobble-seam or reverse-swing,” he said.Seamers across the country will breathe a sigh of relief when they get the Dukes back in their hands on Friday, which will be used for the foreseeable future. This year’s trial will see two more rounds played with the Kookaburra in late August and early September, at which point pitches should be drier, firmer, and therefore more receptive to the ball.Use of the Kookaburra ball has come in for much scrutiny•Getty ImagesSpeaking on Monday, England men’s managing director Rob Key hailed a “fantastic” first two rounds, not least because it seemingly nullified those seamers who lean heavily on the movement of the Dukes. If it were up to him – rather than the ECB Professional Games’ Committee – the red Kookaburra would be the default county ball.”You see what four-day cricket is meant to be,” Key told the . “I’ve watched quite a bit this week and seen some bloody good cricket. I would use the Kookaburra all the time. English cricket would be much better off for it.”The pitches are slow this time of year but watching medium-pacers is a waste of time. Teams need to find quicker bowlers or ones who will force a wicket. You can’t just keep running up bowling at 75mph. And in terms of those guys who are not express, you really work out who can bowl. Sam Cook, that was seriously impressive what he did.”Why do we think in India their batters come into the Test side averaging 70 [in the Ranji Trophy]? Do you think they’re playing with a little nibbly Dukes ball where it’s doing all sorts? What do we want to be? I want us to be the best team in the world for a generation; this will be one way to do that.”Key’s words might seem harsh, but they tally with his view on county cricket before the success of England men’s teams – particularly overseas, and especially the Ashes in Australia – fell under his brief. As he described in his autobiography, : “County cricket exists only because of the money from Test cricket, the England Test team only because of the Championship conveyor belt. They are the ultimate odd couple: worlds apart, but unable to get divorced because they are so utterly reliant on one another.”Ultimately, the debate over the ball boils down to a fundamental question: what is the purpose of the County Championship? It has two main functions: to help develop English cricketers who go onto play internationally; and as a sporting competition in its own right, which still attracts interest both at home and overseas and which every male professional in the country would love to win.If using the Kookaburra emboldens counties to bowl their spinners and throws up a contender for England selection, like Cook, does that outweigh the drawbacks of a single result in 16 matches (with two complete abandonments) and some dreary cricket played in front of sparse crowds? That is the question that Key and the ECB must weigh up when they decide whether this experiment should continue.

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