Though there is ostensibly an organisation to look after their needs, it doesn’t really fulfil that purpose

Karthik Krishnaswamy17-Jul-2024On June 30, BCCI secretary Jay Shah announced a reward of Rs 125 crore (about US$15 million) for India’s victorious T20 World Cup contingent.On July 2, Sandeep Patil appealed to the BCCI via newspaper column to provide financial aid for the treatment of his former India team-mate Aunshuman Gaekwad, who is currently battling cancer in London. Patil wrote that he and Dilip Vengsarkar had sought BCCI treasurer Ashish Shelar’s help on this. “I’m sure he will facilitate this and, at the risk of sounding macabre, save Anshu’s life.”Eleven days later, Kapil Dev stepped in. “I know the Board will take care of him,” he wrote in a letter to the BCCI. “We are not compelling anyone. Any help for Anshu will have to come from your heart.”Related

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Last Sunday, the BCCI announced that it would release Rs 1 crore (about $119,000) for Gaekwad’s treatment.If these two events – the windfall for the World Cup winners, the plight of the former player and coach – don’t already strike you as juxtaposable, throw in this fact: Gaekwad is the president of the Indian Cricketers’ Association, the official, BCCI-recognised body responsible for the welfare of retired cricketers.The ICA, which came into existence in 2019, has through its brief history been more notable for what it isn’t than what it is. Its membership is restricted only to former players, and it isn’t affiliated to the World Cricketers’ Association (formerly known as the Federation of International Cricketers’ Associations). The ICA falls well short of being a genuine player union, and it falls short by design. Even the Lodha Committee – tasked by the Supreme Court to recommend sweeping reforms to the BCCI in the wake of the IPL betting scandal of 2013 – specified, when it called for the formation of the ICA, that it would not act as a union.India and Pakistan remain the only two major cricketing nations without a recognised players’ body.

The BCCI’s munificence towards those at the top of the player pyramid can be viewed as a mechanism for weakening the collectivising impulse within them

Against this backdrop, Shah’s reward begins to look like, well, a Shah’s reward. Who sat and decided what the players, coaches and selectors – all of whom are among the beneficiaries – would receive as a performance bonus? Did the players, coaches and selectors have a say? Or was it all decided, as it seemed to the outside world, arbitrarily, minutes before it went out on X, formerly Twitter?And if the BCCI can make such a decision so quickly, why does it take so long to take notice of other matters?These questions are, of course, rhetorical, because this is how things have always been.The BCCI is the richest cricket board in the world, by far. India’s cricketers are among the richest in the world too, but there’s a caveat here. It’s true – well, kind of – if you’re talking about India the cricket team, but not so much about Indian cricketers at large. Most of the professional cricketers who play in the BCCI’s senior tournaments aren’t contracted in the IPL or the WPL, where the most money is concentrated. They aren’t contracted by their domestic teams either, despite a growing demand for this to happen, and continue to mostly get by on match fees.It’s a precarious way to earn a livelihood, in a career that stretches into your late 30s if you’re lucky. A measure of this precarity came when Covid-19 tore through the 2020-21 domestic season, forcing the cancellation of the Ranji Trophy, the tournament with the most match days and therefore, the highest earning potential. Because of this, the average male domestic player, ordinarily earning somewhere around Rs 12-14 lakh per season (about $15,500 at the current exchange rate), stood to take home something in the region of Rs 3-4 lakh ($4800) for 2020-21.A PCA event in 2023. The UK’s PCA is a full-fledged players’ organisation of the sort India and Pakistan lack•Nathan Stirk/Getty ImagesThe BCCI eventually paid the players 50% of their normal match fees for tournaments cancelled in 2020-21, but that compensation only arrived in January 2022. Another delay to place next to the promptness of the World Cup reward announcement. Or next to another delay: it took the BCCI nearly 15 months to disburse the prize money – awarded not by them but by the ICC – to India’s squad for their runners-up finish at the 2020 Women’s T20 World Cup.The bigger picture is clear enough. There are two Cs in BCCI, and Control comes before Cricket. To this end, it has historically done everything in its power to prevent players from organising – even the Lodha Committee, so adversarial towards the BCCI in so many respects, took on board its “apprehension of unionisation”. Even the BCCI’s munificence towards those at the top of the player pyramid can be viewed through this prism, as a mechanism for weakening the collectivising impulse within them.It isn’t unknown for top international players to look out for their less fortunate colleagues. In 2017, for instance, Australia’s biggest stars rejected a financial deal from Cricket Australia that would make them richer at the expense of domestic players, and stood their ground through a bitter and protracted dispute. It’s reasonable to assume that India’s international superstars worry about the livelihoods of their Ranji Trophy team-mates and their counterparts in the women’s system, but there’s no real way for them to do anything about it. They can ask the BCCI nicely, but that’s about it, in the absence of an Indian equivalent of the Australian Cricketers’ Association (ACA) or Professional Cricketers’ Association (PCA).What exists in this hypothetical body’s place, the ICA, seems to have little scope even to serve the needs of the retired players it represents, including its president. Like everything and everyone else in Indian cricket, it can only appeal to the goodness of the BCCI’s heart.

Maiden Test century follows hot on heels of 95 against West Indies, with more still to come

Vithushan Ehantharajah23-Aug-2024England’s wicketkeeping culture war has raged on for decades. But on Friday, if only for one day, there was peace in the world.A calming equilibrium was established in a void usually filled with conversations pitting technique against tenacity, catching percentages against batting average. A fresh, welcome relief.As Jonny Bairstow and Ben Foakes bagged County Championship half-centuries in Scarborough and south London respectively, Manchester belonged to Jamie Smith and his first Test century. Two impressive careers carry on off-Broadway as Smith takes centre stage for a run that already looks like outlasting either of theirs.Of course, Smith will eventually get sucked into that debate. Already, people are wondering if he needs the gloves at all – his batting is good enough to command a top-six spot outright, even if he only finds himself there because of Ben Stokes’ torn hamstring. But there is no need to get bogged down in any of that just yet. He will be around for a good while.His innings of 111 contained gear shifts, soothing drives and the odd outlandish whip to the leg side, and came one match after he had fallen short of his century by five runs in the third Test against West Indies. At the time of that innings, Smith had been happy with his lot, but he did anticipate feeling “a little bit gutted in a couple of days”. That sorrow never came, and the wait has been no wait at all.Smith showed patience throughout, particularly on Friday morning, taking 39 deliveries for the 28 runs required for his 11th first-class century. His marshalling of Gus Atkinson was particularly mature, helped by the fact that Atkinson can hold his own. The Surrey pair embraced after Smith tucked the ball off his toes for two runs to move to 100, before a subdued raising of his bat and helmet towards the dressing-room and the stands.That reaction was in step with what Surrey’s and England’s age-group coaches have said about Smith; he’s comfortable in his skin, mature beyond his years, and has steadfast belief in the skill at his disposal. He only turned 24 last month, but it feels as if he has been around the block. The nonplussed celebration of a moment every cricketer dreams about, but few ever experience, was a case of point.But beneath the calm exterior was a profound sense of pride. His parents were at the ground, along with his girlfriend, with whom he is expecting his first child. Messages from those watching on from afar were picked up once he walked off the field at stumps, each of them reinforcing the scale of his achievement to have even made it this far.”I probably didn’t show it, but inwardly I was obviously very happy with that milestone and I guess it’s proud,” he said. “I think, it’s when you look back and I guess it’s your phone; it sort of blows up with people that have either watched it or have played a part in your journey, messaging their congratulations.Smith cuts through the off side during his morning stand with Atkinson•AFP/Getty Images”My family are here, my girlfriend was here, so for them to experience it as well, people that played a significant part of being on the journey the whole way, I guess the overriding feeling is definitely pride.”As it happens, one of his earliest champions was sat on the Sri Lanka balcony. Ian Bell, currently acting as batting coach for the tourists, worked with Smith while coaching the England Lions. They also spent the last month together with Birmingham Phoenix in the men’s Hundred, where Bell would bait Smith that he couldn’t wait to arm Sri Lanka with the necessary information to best Smith.Speaking before Smith’s press conference, Bell could not withhold his pride. It was in 2023, on an A tour to Sri Lanka, that Smith struck the fastest century by a Lions batter which led Bell to rave about the keeper-batter to anyone and everyone. “Yeah, annoying,” was Bell’s first response when asked what he made of Smith’s progression to this moment. But the praise was not far behind.”I think he’s going to be a world-class player for England over a long period of time. He is class. And the players have acknowledged that it’s up to us now to find ways of getting him out in this series.”Fair play to him. Today, the game was on the line this morning, and the players have talked about it. We probably weren’t our best for that first hour, and he showed his class as well.Related

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“And you know, the small part that I suppose played in his development; I’ve watched a guy who’s worked extremely hard. He’s confident, and he’s taken to international cricket with ease. Even his celebration just shows the kind of person he is. And I’m sure he’s going to be a massive part of this England team in all formats to come over a long time.”Given Bell’s 118 Tests, he is as sage a judge as any when it comes to assessing what it takes to excel at this level. And Smith is already excellent. Granted, we are only five innings in, but the 318 runs at an average of 63.60, and the three fifty-plus scores speak of a cricketer tailormade for the big time. And it speaks volumes that, of all the talented keepers England have had behind the stumps, at 24 years and 40 days, he is the youngest of them to score a Test century.His glovework has been solid, with 18 catches so far, though he did miss a chance to register his first stumping on Wednesday, failing to gather a full dart from Shoaib Bashir when Sri Lanka skipper Dhananjaya de Silva had 65 to his name. And on Friday, his enthusiasm saw him trigger a rare no-ball law, with his gloves not “wholly behind the stumps”, which was flagged when England reviewed an LBW shout against the unbeaten Kamindu Mendis. Smith admitted he was not totally up to speed with the nature of his indiscretion. “I’ll know the law moving forward,” he said with a smirk.Neither were costly; Bashir eventually snared Dhananjaya for 74, and DRS would have stuck with the on-field not-out decision on umpire’s call for the impact into the stumps. But it was at least a reminder to Smith of the challenges within Test cricket. Not that he was under any illusions that all this was a piece of cake, despite how he has made it seem.”It’s not easy at all, no,” Smith said. “I think everyone knows, especially the way you play cricket, that there’s going to be ups and downs. I think that’s what it is and you’re riding the wave a little bit at the moment.”There’s going to be times when you’re going to be out of form, out of nick, and there’s going to be that judgement coming. When you do feel really good about yourself and the way you’re playing, it’s almost trying to take advantage of that as you can.”

The left-arm fast bowler talks about moving on from the nightmare over, and what he has learned from Virat Kohli, Mohammed Shami and Zaheer Khan

Interview by Nagraj Gollapudi and Nikhil Sharma18-Sep-20241:32

A timeline of Yash Dayal’s incredible redemption

When Yash Dayal helped Royal Challengers Bengaluru seal a spot in the 2024 IPL playoffs by defending 17 in the last over against Chennai Super Kings, his performance was widely described as redemption for failing to defend 29 against Rinku Singh and Kolkata Knight Riders in 2023Earlier this year Dayal, 26, impressed the selectors enough with his skills in white-ball and first-class cricket to be given a fast-bowling contract. And this month, he got his maiden Test call-up when he was picked in India’s squad to play the first Test against Bangladesh in Chennai. Dayal talks here about how he struggled to cope after the KKR match, his thoughts before bowling the final over against CSK, a significant conversation he had with Virat Kohli ahead of the 2024 IPL, and the cricketers who make up his support system.You are one step closer to realising the dream of playing for India. What has it been like since you received the Test call-up?
In 2022 I was named in the Indian squad for the first time – for an ODI series in Bangladesh – but I couldn’t make it due to injury. At the start of the Duleep Trophy [earlier this month], I was aware that there was a spot for a left-arm fast bowler in the Indian Test team. In the first innings, my bowling was normal [1 for 39 for India B against India A], though not to my satisfaction. But the way I bowled in the second innings [3 for 50], I believed I was a strong contender.We comfortably won the match and my performance was very good. I was at the team hotel in Bangalore, watching TV, when I got a message from a friend saying I’d been selected in India’s Test squad. I didn’t believe him, but a little later I saw my name in the Test squad on BCCI’s website.Related

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Immediately I kept my phones aside to try to process what was happening inside me emotionally.I had become too emotional, because getting a Test call-up is very big. I started recalling my journey across the years. I then called my family: my mother and my sister were equally emotional, tears of joy were rolling down their faces. I spoke to my dad in the evening. It was like a festival at home. A lot of people had gathered and the and [types of drums] were being played. The BCCI fast-bowling contract you got earlier this year – was that the first signal that you were in the India management’s plans?
I was already in the targeted pool after the 2022 IPL. But now, getting a fast-bowling contract given to a select few – I was aware that if I do well in domestic cricket, it could be easy to get the India call-up.At first I wasn’t aware what exactly happens with players in the targeted pool. But soon I understood that everything about my game would be looked after and monitored by the National Cricket Academy (NCA). That includes not just my bowling but my workload, training sessions, how much strain was on my body.A lot has changed in the last two years. When I see senior players from up close, when I talk to them, I notice [that some of them] travel with personal chefs, they measure what they eat, how much rice they consume, how much protein had, things to avoid to enhance their training. When I see them looking that lean, it naturally motivates me.In the 2023 IPL, after that match against KKR, I became slightly weak and my focus wasn’t there. But slowly I started to cope with what had happened. After that I made a set-up so I would not turn back – whether it be in training or my diet, I would be so clear that when I make the comeback, I would leave no stone unturned. I took the decision to focus on the assignments given to me and the targets I need to meet. Because of that I now feel that this call-up has come at the best time.”My basic bowling strength has always been swing. Then I developed speed to go with my swing, which is very difficult for batsmen to confront”•BCCIYour sister, Suchi, is a nutritionist. What role has she played in your career?
[MS Dhoni] hit Lockie [Ferguson] for a four in the 19th over [CSK scored 18 in that over]. At that point there was this anxiety in my head. I hoped CSK would need a lot of runs in the final over. There was this [changes direction]. I have always believed without swing nearly 90% of my bowling strength will be reduced.Dayal on what defending 17 runs in an over against CSK: “[Kohli] told me take my time between deliveries, not to worry about what happened, but that I needed to believe in myself”•BCCIWhile you were at the NCA with other fast bowlers in the targeted pool, Mohammed Shami, your team-mate at Titans was also there for his injury rehab. How has he helped you with your bowling?
I have spent a lot of time with Shami bhai at GT, both on and off the ground. He spoke to me a lot about the importance of backspin on the ball and suggested I work on that. He said the more backspin you have, the faster you will be able to bowl.Then there’s Ashu pa [Titans head coach Ashish Nehra], who has played a big role in my professional career. He has supported me a lot. He is the one who got me into the IPL. In the beginning, I used to face problems bowling in first-class cricket. Ashu pa worked on my [bowling] volume. In the IPL, you have to bowl only four overs, but he would say you cannot prepare for just four. You shouldn’t feel tired by the 24th ball. He would make us prepare in a way that even after bowling the 24th ball, you felt you could bowl another six overs. That helped change my mindset and become better at bowling longer spells.Your 27th birthday will fall in the middle of India’s tour of Australia. You wouldn’t mind celebrating your birthday bowling in a Test in Australia, will you?
If given a chance, it will be like the ultimate dream coming true.Having picked you in the ODI squad in 2022 and now in the Test squad, it looks like the selectors are considering you an all-format bowler.
That does feel really good that the selectors, the BCCI, people at the NCA, show trust in me. Yes, if you are here after performing in the IPL, then it’s obvious that you can do well in white-ball cricket. But now when I was picked for red-ball cricket, I realised they had been observing me for quite some time in domestic cricket.I was first picked for the Bangladesh tour [in 2022]. Since then I’d been wondering if I would ever get another chance [to make it to an India squad]. I have heard from others that it’s a big thing to make a comeback. I get that boost that I have made my comeback to such a big Test team that has all these big names who will play alongside me.

The South Africa and MI Cape Town batter talks about his start in the game, his successful 2024, and about being mentored by Hashim Amla

Firdose Moonda08-Feb-20256:28

Ryan Rickelton: “With T20s, there’s a lot more pressure on every delivery”

Players often remind us that Test cricket is thus named because of the challenges it poses, but for Ryan Rickelton there was something more difficult: T20s.South Africa’s first Test double-centurion since 2016 found scoring those runs easier than the 303 he compiled in seven innings for finalists MI Cape Town in this season of the SA20.”I grew up wanting to be a Test player and thought that in T20, you can just whack a few, but T20 cricket is flipping hard. It’s different, but it is harder,” Rickelton says.Related

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“Test cricket is very hard, but with T20s, there’s a lot more pressure on every delivery. In Test cricket, you can bide your time and work your way through it at a lower intensity. In T20s, you’ve got to score [off] every ball. There’s always pressure on you, internally, externally, there’s more detailed analysis on you as a player, and against your opposition. They’re always trying to hit your weaknesses. There’s a lot more to it than it seems.”And it took some time for Rickelton to work that out. While he has largely consistently averaged high in first-class cricket, he had a pronounced blip in T20s a little over three years into his career, after which his average came back up to 25 and his strike rate to over 130 last year. He finished as the top scorer at the 2023-24 SA20, which was around the time that he began to think about how to change techniques for different formats after talking to Hashim Amla, his batting coach at Lions and MI Cape Town.Related

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Amla was once regarded as a red-ball specialist but he broke the record for being the fastest player to 5000 ODI runs and ended his career with the most hundreds in the format for South Africa.”I spend a lot of time with Hash,” Rickelton says. “He was a phenomenal player and a calm guy in the way he dealt with his success and his failure, so that’s awesome. It’s just hard to obviously deal with both sides of the spectrum, but he was an incredible player and he’s a very good coach.”Batting is very relationship-based, and having spent three years with him, I can trust his eyes and his perspective as a coach. It’s also nice to have someone that’s around frequently. Even when I move up into the Proteas space, he’s still the guy I call back. He’ll watch [me play] and I’ll toss some thoughts to him. It doesn’t mean that I disregard anyone else’s [views], but the guys that can see little intricacies coming into your game or what you’re thinking behind the scenes are the kind that can relate to you a little bit more.”Under Amla’s guidance, Rickelton had the best year of his career in 2024, bookended by topping the SA20 run charts and scoring his first Test hundred, against Sri Lanka in December. Suddenly, high-level cricket in any format seemed fairly easy for a batter who wasn’t even sure South Africa was where he wanted to carve out his career.Growing up as the son of the director of sports at one of the country’s most prestigious schools, St Stithians, Rickelton finished school with no idea what to do next, so he moved to New Zealand to try and play for New Zealand, he says.”My dad’s best mate worked for Wellington Blaze. He called my dad and said, ‘Why don’t you just send Ryan over?’ I was young, so I went.”Rickelton’s 259 against Pakistan is the joint seventh-highest Test score for South Africa•Rodger Bosch /AFP/Getty ImagesHe describes his New Zealand stint as something of a gap year, where he discovered how little he actually knew.”I still don’t understand why I went. I think it was just that I wasn’t quite sure what to do. I wanted to go to Stellenbosch [university] because all my mates were going there, but I think that could have derailed a few things. It was one of those things where I thought: let me just go have a look. We chatted to Grant Elliott [former Wellington and New Zealand allrounder] as well, and he said [it’s] a great set-up at Wellington – and it was. Maybe if I went two-three years later, I would have probably stayed there. But I was just a kid. All my mates were on this side, having a good time, my whole family was on this side, and I’m 12 hours ahead in Wellington, not really sure who to talk to or what to do. It really forced me to grow up quite quickly.”Though Wellington offered Rickelton the opportunity to come back for another season, he decided to stay at home and started studying at the University of Johannesburg (UJ) in 2016. The coach of the university cricket team, Richard das Neves, the current Titans interim head coach, knew Rickelton from the Johannesburg club cricket scene and took him under his wing.”I did a finance degree through UJ for three years, played my Varsity Cup, and I always kind of said to myself at the end of this degree, I’ll know if I’m good enough or not. I’ll give it these three years, I’ll be in and around the Gauteng system. I got an amateur contract and gave myself three years to have a full crack at it. And if it worked, cool. If not, I didn’t want to be just plodding about. It was either going to work or it wasn’t.”It worked. By the time Rickelton graduated, he was upgraded to a professional contract. And so began the journey to try to earn national honours.He was third on the One-Day Cup batting charts in 2019-20 and fifth in the 2021-22 first-class competition. In March 2022, he got his first call-up to South Africa’s Test squad, for a series against Bangladesh. Several first-choice batters were unavailable since the series clashed with the IPL, so Rickelton played both games and went on the 2022 tour to England, where he played one match.Rickelton (seated, first from right) was part of the South African side that reached the 2024 men’s T20 World Cup final•Matthew Lewis/ICC/Getty ImagesHe scored 224 runs at 22.4 from his first seven Tests and did not look convincing.”I was just trying to make it work and I had played a little bit of county cricket, but the conditions where I played [Northamptonshire] compared to that Test match [at The Oval] was chalk and cheese,” he says. “I was facing Stuart Broad and Jimmy [Anderson] at a packed house in The Oval on a green one, and that was always going to test me. Obviously, we got hammered in that Test and it wasn’t pretty. But you look back and say, well, at least I got the opportunity. I could physically learn and see for myself.”Rickelton was ruled out of South Africa’s Test tour to Australia in December 2022 as the board’s medical team was concerned about a bone spur in his ankle. He says he chose not to have surgery for it at the time under the advice of his own physiotherapist, who said he could go two years without having surgery and could keep playing for the summer, one Rickelton said he “was not willing to miss.”The physio’s advice seemed justified when Rickelton scored four hundreds across formats in five weeks while South Africa crashed and burned in Australia. “It looked like a tough tour,” he says.He eventually had the surgery in April 2023, which ruled him out of county cricket that summer but also gave him the best chance of playing for South Africa. However, he had to bide his time. Rickelton has mostly been seen as the reserve batter and only got a regular run this summer after Wiaan Mulder broke a finger in the Durban Test against Sri Lanka.Fortuitously, in Gqeberha, Rickelton was also given the chance to play higher up the order, which is what he prefers, so he knew it was his time to shine. The pressure he always feels in T20 was on him.In three SA20 seasons so far, Rickelton has scored nearly 1000 runs at a strike rate of 161.28•SA20″I’d only played seven games at the time and there was that question mark over me from you guys [media] and from myself as well: ‘Can he do it?’ So when I walked in there, I locked in. I was chatting to Hash about just trying to watch players and how guys aren’t sticking to their strengths, and trying to emphasise what I do and do it well for the whole day, if not the next day as well. It was very against how people think I play, but I can do that as well and spend lots of time out the crease and score slowly if it’s needed.”In the end, he described the knock as one of relief, not celebration, and it was followed by three low scores. Then came 2025 and the 259 at Newlands against Pakistan and Rickelton is starting to realise his life has changed.”To get 250 is definitely not something I would have thought of, but as I walked off, KG [Rabada] gave me a hug and he said, ‘This is so massive. This is huge.’ And I told him I actually [didn’t] understand it. Maybe you don’t know what it really means until late in your career,” Rickelton says. “It has maybe increased my profile and it was incredible to be part of history. I can’t remember too much, but I can remember the roar for both the hundred and the double. It was spectacular.”The accolades have kept coming. At Newlands, Rickelton has established himself as one of MI Cape Town’s darlings and his opening partnership with Rassie van der Dussen is the most reliable in the competition. His three half-centuries in this SA20 have been scored with freedom and confidence, the signs of a player who is comfortable in his own game, and it’s a feeling he hopes to take into his first IPL later this year.”I’m not sure what to expect. I’ve chatted to lots of guys about the IPL and you hear all these things and you think, ‘This is big boy stuff.’ I’m probably a little bit nervous of how the whole two or three months are going to play out. But you never know if you have a good two months here anything can happen.”That is how Rickelton is approaching things from now on: being open to the possibility of achieving things he didn’t dream of. “I’ve got a big six months ahead. If I can get a bit of the rub of the green, work hard and things can go my way, a lot can change quite quickly. I know I’m going to fail along the way. It’s normal, but just try and balance it out and say, you know what, in the bigger picture, if I have a good six months now, anything can happen. A year ago, I wasn’t sitting near here. Today, after one tournament, everyone says: this guy knows what he’s doing.”However difficult or easy it is.

More than anything else, it was a chance for India’s two most celebrated batters – Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma – to do something big. They failed, as did India

Alagappan Muthu30-Dec-20241:17

The big mistakes that cost India the MCG Test

There were already 50,000 people in the morning to watch the final day’s play of the Boxing Day Test.Four results were possible.It was AUD 10 entry for adults and free for kids under 15.One man had come in with a sign saying “Chase master Kohli” and on the back it said “All the way from Canada”.Virat Kohli – the brand, not the person – has long graduated to King Kohli. Chase master was a long time ago. He aced them so often and so easily that the catchphrase was losing meaning. But it might be coming back now. With a different meaning. A less flattering one. Referring to his natural response to seeing balls angled across him.Related

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India needed 340 to win. Ninety-two overs to play. This was a day made for India’s two celebrated senior batters. A day to atone because it was a day with life. By the end of it, they were in a tortured place.”A lot of the things that I am trying to do is not falling in the place that I would want to,” the captain Rohit Sharma said. “But mentally, it is disturbing without a doubt.”Rohit had come through a very disciplined, hour-long examination by the three Australia fast bowlers. Twenty-two for no loss after 15 overs. Seven balls after the drinks break, though, Rohit went for a big shot. A flick across the line and the ball went 180 degrees in the opposite direction into Mitchell Marsh’s hands at gully.”When you come here chasing 340 – we did that last time around, so there’s no way that we were not thinking of the target,” Rohit said. “But to get that target, you need to lay the foundation.”India were 33 for 3 in the 27th over. They had lost three wickets for 11 runs on a pitch where Australia’s Nos. 10 and 11 had put on a fifty partnership. “Wicket was slowing down a fair bit,” Rohit said. So if you wanted to sit in, you could. If you wanted to back your defence, you could.Kohli fell to the sucker ball in the over before lunch.

“The batters, they sometimes perform, they sometimes don’t. But, it is much more painful if you don’t get the desired results [as a team]. But why don’t you get the results? It happens when you have the opportunity to grab hold of a game, then you should”Rohit Sharma

Mitchell Starc was the bowler. He wasn’t 100%. “He’s a warrior,” Pat Cummins gushed in the end.But that was a point of vulnerability. Australia batting on day five was partly to get themselves as big a score as possible and partly because their battering ram of a left-arm quick needed to be managed slightly. Cummins was seen putting his arm around Starc as he began a new spell.India did something really cool at the Gabba in 2021. But the coolest thing about it is that it helped them win that series and that was only possible because they were able to come out with a draw in Sydney. They lasted five overs longer (97) than they needed to here (92) even though they had only eight wickets to work with. Hanuma Vihari and R Ashwin kept a full-strength Australia attack – that one included their regular allrounder Cameron Green – waiting for basically ever. There were three No. 11s below them: Navdeep Saini, Jasprit Bumrah and Mohammed Siraj. All of them could have put their feet up.There was a time when this team could have done that too. For 32.5 overs, Yashasvi Jaiswal and Rishabh Pant showed admirable application. Jaiswal was being stalked by Starc with his smiles and his awayswingers. Eleven times the fast bowler went past his bat. On the fifth, Jaiswal smiled back. He knew he had done what he could do. Play the line of the ball and not follow the movement. That gave him a bit of pride. It took him straight into the contest. Earlier, he was driving away from his body and getting beaten.A record number of people came in to the MCG across the five days to watch a compelling contest•Getty ImagesPant showed such restraint. Of all his innings that have lasted more than 15 balls, only three others have seen him forget about scoring as much as he did today. And those didn’t last beyond 33 balls. This one went up to 104. India were taking time out of the game. They were putting overs into the Australian bowlers’ legs, which, if the series had remained 1-1 and considering the short turnaround to Sydney, would have been a tangential benefit. They were getting closer and closer to safety. They had seven wickets in hand to negotiate the last 38 overs. They failed.”The pain of losing a Test match is more,” Rohit said. “The batters, they sometimes perform, they sometimes don’t. But, it is much more painful if you don’t get the desired results [as a team]. But why don’t you get the results? It happens when you have the opportunity to grab hold of a game, then you should. Be it bowling or batting, batters or bowlers, both have the same role. We had the chance…”Cummins gambled that Pant and Jaiswal, having seen off the main bowlers, might chance their arm against a part-timer. Travis Head came on. Pant took on the long square boundaries at the MCG even though Australia had three men posted there and was caught at deep midwicket. Jaiswal, who ended up as India’s last recognised batter, went for another aggressive shot, trying to pull a slower bouncer from Cummins and gloving behind to the wicketkeeper. Ravindra Jadeja received an unplayable ball. Earlier, KL Rahul had received an unplayable ball. The other batters fell to shots that weren’t really conducive to what they were trying to accomplish – what one injured batter and one injured bowler who could bat accomplished in Sydney.”Today, we had the opportunity to win or draw the game,” Rohit said. “We tried but a lot of the boys about whom you are talking, the ones that have scored runs, could have played longer. But they are new, the more they play, they will learn.Steven Smith gets into position to take the catch to dismiss Nitish Kumar Reddy off Nathan Lyon•Getty Images”Sometimes I know you want to do the target, you want to chase the target, you want to be positive and stuff like that. But you’ve got to be realistic as well sometimes. And getting six an over [India needed 228 off 38 overs] on that pitch, it seems a little tough.”Cummins rated this win as his best. Certainly something to rival Edgbaston 2023. Three-hundred-and-fifty-thousand people came through the gates creating a raucous atmosphere. The game ebbed and flowed. Both teams had periods where they were under the pump and fought through it. And really, in the end, it went to the one that made the fewest mistakes. Australia didn’t have any mix-ups running between the wickets. India did and 153 for 2 – a position from which they could at least contest for a first-innings lead – all of a sudden became 159 for 5.Rohit and his men were playing catch-up from that point on and as well as they tried it just wasn’t going to happen. In the end, they were stuck in the dressing room watching their bowlers, who have given everything on this tour, being raked over the coals. Washington Sundar had so many close catchers that Mitchell Marsh who had been asked to join them didn’t know where to go because there was no place. Eventually, Steven Smith moved off to his right basically becoming a second wicketkeeper to facilitate a field that had a silly mid-off, silly point, two gullies, a slip, short leg and leg slip.Bumrah’s wicket – the penultimate one that Australia needed for victory – produced such a visceral roar that the sea gulls sat on top of the MCG roof scattered as a group; fleeing the scene of danger. Eventually they took over the ground. Scores of them were on the outfield as day turned to night. The MCG had turned peaceful. India, though, look a long way from peaceful. They have to digest a loss that needn’t have happened.

The England and GT batter’s power game stems from his supreme game awareness

Alagappan Muthu19-Apr-202510:24

Boucher: Buttler’s takedown of Starc sealed it for GT

A very important thing happened in the third over of the Gujarat Titans (GT) innings in IPL 2025 on Saturday. Jos Buttler missed the scoop.There is inherent risk in this shot. Its success depends on taking the number one rule of bating and throwing it out the window, because to pull it off, you need to give up the stumps and use less than the full face of the blade.Yet, the scoop is Buttler’s go-to shot. When he got hit in the gut by Mitchell Starc, and lay flat on the ground, winded, he already knew what he was going to do next ball. He kicked himself off-balance with his back leg so that he would be position to scoop.Related

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And when he plays it, he means for the ball to hit bat. He is never looking for power. Having opened himself up to trouble – giving up his stumps, giving up his balance – all he wants from this point on is to bring the odds back in his favour. That’s why he only ever focuses on making contact.The other thing he makes sure to do is stay on his feet. The scoop requires premeditation. The bowler almost always knows what you’re trying to do before he has to release the ball, so he can adjust his length. Buttler has thought of all this. In a masterclass for six years ago, he said, “That’s the other reason I quite like doing it in this way. You dug one in there and because I’m still upright, I can manage to [motions the ball hitting his bat and going over his shoulder] almost help it away. So, I feel like here I’ve got a chance with the varying different deliveries.”When Buttler began playing his cricket, the people who were accessing the area behind the wicket often did so by going down on their knees – Tillakaratne Dilshan, Brendon McCullum, AB de Villiers. These are all great players and all of them had great success playing this shot. Buttler could easily have adopted the same methods, but he didn’t. He was clever enough to spot a flaw and then come up with a solution for it.

“Buttler’s scoop sets him apart, and not just as a 360-degree batter but as a critical thinker, a problem solver, a smarty pants”

Buttler’s scoop sets him apart, and not just as a 360-degree batter but as a critical thinker. A problem solver. A smarty pants. Here, when he missed his signature shot, he understood that the Ahmedabad pitch didn’t have enough pace. That was crucial information. It helped him focus his strength – which wasn’t in ample supply given he had fielded for 20 overs in 40-degree heat. He cramped up the tenth ball he faced. Still sent it for six, though. Buttler was the fourth-oldest player on the park on Saturday. The oldest had to leave the field for dehydration.”It kind of takes you by surprise actually, how much fluids you need or how draining it is,” Buttler said. “I certainly felt that batting. But it’s obviously part of the game. You’ve got to be fit and to be able to perform under pressure and in the heat.”ESPNcricinfo LtdFor the better part of four hours, Buttler was exposed to the kind of weather that makes it impossible to think about anything else. And yet that’s what he did. Think. He made 97 off 54 deliveries as GT chased 200-plus for the first time in the IPL. He found ways to combat spin – saw off Kuldeep Yadav (12 off 12, with one four) but pounced on Vipraj Nigam (29 off 14, with one four and three sixes). And he dismantled Starc.The DC fast bowler trusts his yorker. It pushed a game his team should have lost into a Super Over and he won it for them. So, he went for them again, except Buttler is built different. He understands the value of ball hitting bat.Starc was coming around the wicket. Four of his five deep fielders were on the leg side. Buttler knew all he had to do was pierce the ring on the off side. He didn’t need power for that. He didn’t need any of his tricks. He just had to plant an open face down on the ball and let Starc’s own pace work against him.The second ball of the 15th over – which went for 20 runs – was the epitome of Boss Buttler. He isn’t about aesthetics or technique or right or wrong. He just does whatever necessary to find a gap.

He surpassed Rahul Dravid, Jacques Kallis and Ricky Ponting during his knock against India in the fourth Test

Sampath Bandarupalli25-Jul-202513,409 Runs scored by Joe Root in Test cricket. Only Sachin Tendulkar (15,921) has scored more in this format. Root moved up three places during his century against India in the fourth Test at Old Trafford. He surpassed Rahul Dravid (13,288), Jacques Kallis (13,289) and Ricky Ponting (13,378).ESPNcricinfo Ltd38 Hundreds for Root in Test cricket. Only three batters – Tendulkar (51), Kallis (45) and Ponting (41) – have more in Test cricket, while Kumar Sangakkara also has 38.Root now has 104 fifty-plus scores in Tests, surpassing Ponting and Kallis’ tally of 103. Again, only Tendulkar, with 119, have more.12 Test hundreds for Root against India, the most by any batter, going ahead of Steven Smith’s 11. Only Don Bradman (19 against England) and Sunil Gavaskar (13 against West Indies) have more Test hundreds against a particular opponent.Nine of Root’s 12 hundreds against India have come in England, the most by any batter against an opponent at home, going past Bradman’s eight against England.23 Test hundreds for Root in England, the joint-most for any batter in a country. Ponting in Australia, Kallis in South Africa and Mahela Jayawardene in Sri Lanka also have 23 each.Root has scored 7195 runs in Tests in England, the third-most by any batter in a country, behind only Ponting (7578 in Australia) and Tendulkar (7216 in India).ESPNcricinfo Ltd1128 Test runs scored by Root at Old Trafford. He is the first batter to aggregate 1000 Test runs at this venue. Old Trafford is the second venue where Root has scored 1000-plus Test runs; he has 2166 at Lord’s.588 Runs Root scored in Tests against Ravindra Jadeja so far, across 37 innings for nine dismissals. These are the most runs any batter scored in Test cricket against a bowler. He went past Steven Smith, who has 577 runs against Stuart Broad across 49 innings and was dismissed 11 times.

Though just two international matches old, Rhys Mariu has given enough evidence of being a good fit for the highest level

Deivarayan Muthu23-Aug-2025Rhys Mariu was a run machine at the 2024-25 Plunket Shield, churning out 747 runs in 11 innings at an average of 74.70 for Canterbury.The 23-year-old Mariu’s remarkable consistency earned him a New Zealand ODI debut against Pakistan towards the end of the previous home summer. In his second match, he made a fairly smooth transition into top-flight cricket with 58 off 61 balls in Mount Maunganui.Mariu has always had the potential – he was New Zealand’s highest run-getter in the 2020 Under-19 World Cup. More mature now, he has found a method to pile on the runs in red-ball cricket too.Related

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“I think I found a good formula for batting last season,” Mariu told ESPNcricinfo on the sidelines of a camp at the Chennai Super Kings Academy in Chennai in June. “Obviously, with cricket you go through patches of scoring runs and not scoring runs. But I think I just found a good base and sort of worked through that and managed to find some success through that.”Then it was just about staying level, I guess. I was understanding that I’m not always going to be scoring lots of runs, so just trying to stay consistent with it even if it’s not successful. But at that time, I was lucky that it went well.”Mariu credits mental-skills coach John Quinn, who has also worked with Rugby NZ and Black Sticks Men (hockey team), for his success in the previous season.”Yeah, I think it’s mainly down to my mental routines and all that I’ve been working on,” Mariu said. “I work closely with John Quinn back home – a mental skills coach – and he’s really helped me sort of find a routine that I can repeat, and it just keeps me consistent. And when I am tired or things are changing, then I can just go back to that. It’s helped me play long innings as well.”Rhys Mariu hones his skills at the Super Kings Academy•Super Kings AcademyMariu hails from a cricketing family. His father Marcus and older brother Josh represented Canterbury at the Hawke Cup level. When he was younger, Mariu had even operated the manual scoreboard for Canterbury matches at Rangiora’s Mainpower Oval. Years later, he’s troubling the scorers with his prolific batting for Canterbury.”Dad played a little bit and it’s good playing with my brother,” Mariu said. “Obviously, I sort of just followed him [his father] in terms of choices to play cricket, but I was always [watching cricket] on TV and playing in the backyard, so it was good fun.”We would just sit up on the balcony and spend most of the day, especially four-dayers, just watching games and putting the numbers and names up, which was cool at the time. We just got paid 50 bucks a day [for operating the scoreboard], but it was just really good fun spending days with him [my brother] and some of our mates would also come down.”Like most New Zealanders, Mariu played a lot of sports while growing up, cycling through cricket, rugby, football and hockey. He believes that his hockey background has had a positive effect on his cricket.

“At this camp, I’ve worked on hitting straight, which is what I wanted to do coming over here […] Just keeping everything a bit more square-on and finding ways of hitting down the ground. So, that’s been the main work here”Rhys Mariu on the experience in Chennai

“Yeah, I think I’ve always been decent at sweeping just because I think that comes from playing hockey at school. That [sweep] has always come naturally to me.”Given his long reach and strong base, there are shades of Daryl Mitchell in Mariu, especially when he sweeps and reverse-sweeps. It was only fitting that Mitchell had handed Mariu his maiden international cap.”Yeah, it was pretty special with Daz presenting me that,” Mariu said. “He’s been really, really helpful with Canterbury and then making the jump up. He’s always let me know that if I have any questions or need anything, I can go to him. So, it’s nice having someone like that in your corner.”Mariu’s golden run last season included a career-best 240 in just his ninth game for Canterbury and first as captain, against Central Districts at Saxton Oval. His mammoth score led Canterbury to a ten-wicket win.”Yeah, it was a decent CD attack,” Mariu recalled. “I think the conditions were sort of in the favour of the batting team on those couple of days. And I think we just found good partners through that. Like, [Matt] Boyle was really helpful. He obviously had a hell of a knock there as well [116 from No. 4]. It was a young team and there was a really good vibe around for the whole week. Things just sort of fell into place in that game.””I think I’ve always been decent at sweeping just because I think that comes from playing hockey at school”•Getty ImagesMariu, however, wasn’t satisfied. He’s always hungry for runs and improvement. During the New Zealand winter, he travelled to Chennai and focussed on holding his shape for long enough and hitting the ball down the ground.”At this camp, I’ve worked on hitting straight, which is what I wanted to do coming over here,” Mariu said. “Sri [Sriram Krishnamurthy, former NZ pathway coach and current CSK Academy head coach] has been really good. Just keeping everything a bit more square-on and finding ways of hitting down the ground. So, that’s been the main work here.”In the recent past, Canterbury have supplied a number of players to the Black Caps, including Will O’Rourke, Zak Foulkes, Mitch Hay and Chad Bowes. Mariu draws inspiration from his domestic team-mates and hopes to emulate them.”Fults [Peter Fulton] and Brendon Donkers [the Canterbury coaches] have created a good environment,” Mariu said. “With a lot of Black Caps being churned out, success breeds success. It’s cool seeing those guys go up to the next level. It makes it feel like it’s less of a jump because you spend a lot of time with those guys and then you go see them play up high. It’s cool and it doesn’t make it seem too far away.”Mariu’s next assignment is an A team tour of South Africa, which comprises three one-dayers and two four-dayers. If Mariu can maintain his consistency, he might not be too far away from breaking into the Test side either.

Puja Pujara talks about how she came to write a book chronicling the career of her famous husband, the former India No. 3

S Sudarshanan26-May-2025A lot happens in a cricketer’s life. The binaries of wins and losses aside, there are various other ups and downs. For a cricketer’s family, they experience these vicariously when they hear from or watch and read about their loved one.Cheteshwar Pujara’s family might have been less aware of the ins and outs of his career than other cricketers’ families. Pujara, by his own admission, is a private person. Sharing his thoughts didn’t come naturally to him, and indeed, he did not want to put second-hand pressure on his family by telling them about the trials and stresses in his life. But he worked on opening up over the years and got better at it.His wife, Puja, did not follow cricket or know who Pujara was before marrying him. Coming to the sport afresh, she wanted to know more about it and took a deep interest in his career. Over time, she learnt more about the game and its various aspects. Inspired by Andre Agassi’s book, , she began journalling her experience as the wife of an India cricketer.An MBA graduate, Puja quit her corporate job, which she loved, after her wedding. When the couple’s first daughter was three, she wanted to get back to work, but decided that as Pujara’s manager, she didn’t have the time to give to a full-time job. On the other hand, accompanying him on long cricket tours would leave her with not a lot to do. Over the years, she had made notes about conversations with the Pujara family. Her father-in-law, Arvind, would describe their struggles from years gone by, talk about the challenges the family went through so Pujara could play cricket, and describe the bond Pujara shared with his mother. Puja would listen keenly, and thanks to her sharp memory, write it all down in her diary later.In 2021, Pujara suggested she collate her notes into a book. That had been Puja’s motive for keeping a journal, which she had not spoken of before – the hope that it might turn into a book someday. That book has now been published: is an unusual memoir, Puja’s account of the bumpy ride the family of a cricketer goes through. It belongs in a sparsely populated genre, of which the best known are perhaps the tour books of Frances Edmonds, wife of former England spinner Phil Edmonds, though those were more by way of humorous travelogues and therefore different in nature and tone from Puja’s book.”I had to be very prepared before suggesting [she] write the book,” Pujara says. “I was a little uncomfortable at times about what people would think about what I was doing or what my thought process was. But I told her I don’t mind [the book] because this is the truth and you have seen my journey.”On watching Pujara fend off body blows in Australia in 2021: “I don’t know if I have it in me to relive it again”•AFPPuja agrees. “I told him I am not going to portray you as a saint. You are a good human being, but the book won’t be just glorifying everything. There will be the hard parts and vulnerabilities. You have an inspiring journey, and I want someone to take inspiration.”I think most [cricketers’] partners would relate to what I’m saying – that you are riding the same highs and the same lows. And while it is easy to say, it is a whole new thing when you are actually experiencing it.”Puja had to get used to being a public figure after their marriage, and become aware that she needed to be careful of her image too, for the effects it might have on her husband’s. Even if she didn’t end up enhancing Pujara’s image, she did not want to damage it.It is relatively easy for a sportsperson to be in the public eye when things are going well. Pujara was in good form around the time of their courtship and marriage. The challenge came when the going got tough. When he was dropped for the Sydney Test in 2015, it was heartbreak for Puja, she says. She felt it like a personal loss and like the world had turned upside down. She was in Australia for the tour and did not want to go to the SCG to watch the match.That experience taught her the value of detachment – that as a family member, she needed to offer her husband support rather than having her own emotional reaction to the incident add to his distress. “I had to gather courage, swallow that news and be there for him in whatever way he needed,” she says. “While it is very disheartening, you have to understand that only 11 players can play. That somebody else’s family is happy that the other person is getting to play. It took time for me to mature… We realised over time that [being dropped] is fine, but I wouldn’t take away any disappointment I had at that point in time.”Perhaps unsurprisingly, it was not Pujara who broke the news of his omission in Sydney to Puja. He found it tough to give his family updates of that sort. He dealt with failures in his own way; instead of opening up, he would withdraw, trying to “protect the family” from disappointment.”He wouldn’t realise that he’s going through something,” Puja says. “I had to tell him, ‘Boss, I think you need to take a step back and just pause for a second. I feel you are not on your A game mentally. Let’s talk about it.’ In a country like India, things like mental health weren’t addressed until recently. You’re so used to the hardships and the difficult times that you don’t realise sometimes [that] you may need to seek help.”Stand by me: from not being a cricket fan before marriage, Puja went on to become her husband’s manager•BCCIPujara credits his wife with helping him deal with failures better. She helped him stick to his cricket routine when he didn’t want to, during a low phase. His county stint with Yorkshire between 2015 and 2018 also enabled him to open up. The mental conditioning coach at the club helped him be less hard on himself, making Pujara realise that scoring a fifty was an achievement too, not just a hundred. “That was the first time I realised that I need to switch off from the game, divert my mind and talk about my failures also,” Pujara says. “When you succeed, you know what you have done has worked for you. But when you fail, it isn’t always about the technique; it could be a very small thing – like, you are not resting well or not sleeping well.”While Puja could help her husband out with his mental battles, the blows inflicted by bowlers on the field were his alone to deal with. During the Brisbane Test in 2021, Pujara stood like an immovable force in the middle, staving off a bowling attack of Mitchell Starc, Josh Hazlewood, Pat Cummins and Nathan Lyon. He repeatedly took blows to his body – elbow, thigh, neck, finger – and on the helmet grille, while scoring a crucial second-innings fifty. As a fan or a viewer, those hits added to the narrative of the Test match. Not for the wife, though.”It was just a nightmare,” Puja says. “Watching it, I had a gush of many emotions all at once. I was worried and got in touch with the physio and team manager. I messaged so many people, because some of [the blows] were closer to the head and that was very scary. I don’t know if I have it in me to relive it again,” she laughs.When Pujara picked up his phone after the match, he saw a flood of text messages from her. “I am fine,” he wrote back. They spoke briefly and he rushed back to join the team celebrations for India’s second successive Test series win in Australia. “I was in pain, but it was a sweet pain because the Indian team had won the game and the series,” he says.A year and four series after his Gabba knock, Pujara was dropped again from the Indian Test side. He was recalled six months later and played eight more matches, the World Test Championship final in June 2023 being the last.Puja suggested a while ago that he look at life beyond playing cricket, and take up coaching or broadcasting, but he wasn’t on board then. Slowly his reluctance gave way and he took up some media work. He has been an expert on ESPNcricinfo’s match-analysis shows, which, he says, has enabled him to explore another side of the game and understand his own game better in retrospect.Pujara is 37. It has been close to two years since he last played for India, but he is not thinking about retirement just yet. The fire in him still burns. He enjoys the grind of preparing for a match, and the routines that help him stay hungry.Irrespective of what happens in his journey from here on, Pujara will know he has a pillar of support alongside him. The one who told his story to the world as she watched and lived it off the field.

Performances in the tri-series featuring Pakistan and Afghanistan saw them squander advantageous positions in about every game

Danyal Rasool06-Sep-2025United Arab Emirates (UAE) are set to play their second Asia Cup which begins later this month. ESPNcricinfo takes a look at how the home team shapes up ahead of the tournament.

How did they make it?

UAE qualified for the Asia Cup by winning the ACC Men’s Premier Cup 2024. The tournament in Oman featured ten sides, with the top three guaranteed qualification for the eight-team Asia Cup. After finishing second in their group, UAE defeated Nepal in the semi-finals, before going on to beat Oman – the side they lost to in the group – in the final.

Recent results

UAE’s recent results show quite a gap between their floor and ceiling. Since May 2025, and before the recent tri-series with Afghanistan and Pakistan, they had won six out of nine. That included a come-from-behind series win over Bangladesh. It was followed by an inconsistent tournament in Uganda, where they won three of their five games, but were ultimately pipped to first place by the hosts. The tri-series has seen them squander advantageous positions in just about every game, demonstrating flashes of quality even against the more decorated sides, without quite the experience to sustain it over 40 overs.

Who are their key players?

As with most sides on the fringes of the elite, match outcomes depend heavily on individual stars having good games. Sides like the UAE do not quite have quality running through each position in the way the more established teams do. The first name on the team sheet is their talismanic captain and opener Muhammad Waseem, whose explosiveness up top is instrumental to useful starts with the bat. He strikes at over 155 in 2025, and has proved a focal point of quality for the Asia Cup hosts.Left-arm spinner Haider Ali could be key if the tracks in UAE are slow and low•Emirates Cricket BoardThe only batter in the side with a more explosive record is Asif Khan, more specialised at finishing the innings off with his big hitting straight down the ground. On lower, slower tracks like the kind the UAE is likely to throw up for the tournament, left-arm spinner Haider Ali has the record to instil optimism. He was the leading wicket-taker in that tournament in Uganda, and the pick of the bowlers in the team’s second fixture against Pakistan in the tri-series.

Who do they play at the Asia Cup?

UAE have been placed alongside defending champions India, Pakistan and Oman in Group A. They take on India to start off in Dubai, before a fixture against Oman in Abu Dhabi, and then one versus Pakistan in Dubai two days later. They will need to finish in the top two to make it to the Super Four.

How have they fared in the Asia Cup before?The UAE has only ever played one T20 Asia Cup in the past – in 2016 in Bangladesh. That year, the qualifying stage was melded in with the tournament proper, and the UAE eased through that first stage with wins over Afghanistan, Hong Kong and Oman. In the second stage, they finished bottom, losing all four games.

UAE squad

Muhammad Waseem (capt), Alishan Sharafu, Aryansh Sharma (wk), Asif Khan, Dhruv Parashar, Ethan D’Souza, Haider Ali, Harshit Kaushik, Junaid Siddique, Matiullah Khan, Muhammad Farooq, Muhammad Jawadullah, Muhammad Zohaib, Rahul Chopra (wk), Rohid Khan, Simranjeet Singh and Saghir Khan