All posts by h716a5.icu

By being aggressive upfront and more busy in the middle overs, they can give themselves a chance to make the playoffs

Deivarayan Muthu12-Oct-2020Veer away from their rigid tactics
Start slowly. Explode in the slog overs. Spin to win. Super Kings’ tried-and-tested template at Chepauk. That, however, has not worked in the UAE. The three-time champions have been the slowest off the blocks (in the powerplay), continued to lag behind in the middle overs thus over-burdening the lower-middle order in the final four overs.Evidence of the pressure can be seen in the middle order where batsmen have been shuffled unsuccessfully. If the two left-arm allrounders Sam Curran and Ravindra Jadeja batted ahead of their captain MS Dhoni in victory in the tournament opener against the Mumbai Indians, two debutants Ruturaj Gaikwad and N Jagadeesan were unsuccessfully promoted to No. 4 in a few matches.Kedar Jadhav, anointed No. 4 by head coach Stephen Fleming, now has been dropped after dawdling to 7 off 12 balls against the Kolkata Knight Riders, having walked in with 39 runs needed from 21 deliveries.Against the Royal Challengers Bangalore, with the asking rate mounting over ten per over right through, Curran only walked in only in the 16th over. His first 10-ball strike rate is 226.67, the best so far this IPL, but the Super Kings have failed to fully utilise his aggressive strokeplay.The Super Kings’ batsmen just don’t need to be bold at all time, but adapt quickly to the match situations and move away from the conservative template of the past.Can’t hit sixes? Then rotate the strike better
The Super Kings have managed only 35 sixes in their seven matches – the fewest this IPL. Sure, the bigger boundaries in the UAE are difficult to clear, but the Super Kings haven’t been able to rotate the strike either.In the middle overs (6-16), they have a dot-ball percentage of 33.09 and they have the second-worst run rate (7.61) behind Royal Challengers’ 7.21. During this phase, the Super Kings have lost 13 wickets – the fewest among the eight teams – and it is this lack of intent and muddled approach that’s ailing them.ESPNcricinfo LtdThe slow-moving legs came into sharper focus during the partnership between Ambati Rayudu and Jagadeesan last Saturday. When the younger Jagadeesan was searching for the double, Rayudu was simply settling for singles. And Jagadeesan himself was run-out while strolling across for a single.This lethargy has often left Fleming animated and it was exposed by Virat Kohli who was turning ones into twos for fun on Saturday. Most of the Super Kings batsmen are still rusty midway into the season, but they need to swiftly find a way past it and show more urgency.Can CSK find a place for Imran Tahir?
Why? And how? Firstly, because pitches in the second half of the tournament will become slower, thus favouring spin. Tahir, who was the highest wicket-taker in IPL 2019, could be a handy option.At whose expense? Probably Dwayne Bravo, considering Shane Watson, Faf du Plessis and Curran have all displayed strong form. Leaving out Bravo would be a tough choice considering he has been a key player in Super Kings’ success over the years. But he has batted only once in four matches this season after recovering from a knee injury. Also, Dhoni didn’t even complete Bravo’s quota of overs against the Royal Challengers.Although the Super Kings have relied on Piyush Chawla and now Karn Sharma, Tahir is one of the most experienced and successful wristspinners. He was also impressive in the CPL recently and can step up in the slog overs, having taken 22 wickets in 34.5 overs at an economy rate of 8.57 between overs 16 and 20 in the IPL.

Given the circumstances – a turning pitch and very little support – he played a very calculated innings

Sidharth Monga06-Nov-20201:21

Gautam Gambhir: You want someone like Kane Williamson in such tricky chases

Twenty20 cricket will probably evolve to a form one day where many sides will look like Mumbai Indians. A side whose batsmen will never let the bowlers get on top. Many sides will one day have enough efficient power hitters to just keep going. In the here and now, though, we have sides in the IPL reaching the playoffs with no back-up for their two or three big hopes. Once the game gets down to them, it is either AB de Villiers or bust. Or Kane Williamson or bust. That is why they can’t play with the freedom of a Suryakumar Yadav or an Ishan Kishan.Add to it memories of two blown chases. Against these same opponents, in their first match of this IPL, Williamson’s side sat pretty at 121 for 2 chasing 164. They lost by 10 runs. On another night, chasing just 127, they lost by 12 runs to Kings XI Punjab.Add to it the pressure of a knockout. Not just any knockout, but a knockout that you have entered on the back of three wins in three must-win matches against the three top sides in the tournament. Add to it an injury to one of your few good batsmen. Add to it a dodgy DRS call to send back the other.Most importantly, add to it a slow pitch with appreciable turn and four international spinners in the opposition. The choke is well and truly on. Williamson is part of that choke, crawling and spluttering. When he was joined by Jason Holder, the last 49 balls had brought just 24 runs and three wickets.There are two ways of dealing with such a situation: counterattack and break the back of the chase, which is 65 off 49 now or absorb the pressure and be calculating. If you are Mumbai, you probably take the first option, knowing there is Kieron Pollard and Hardik Pandya behind you to do the job. You probably don’t even let it get to this stage. If you are Williamson and the Sunrisers, though, you know you are not winning this before the 19th or the 20th over.Kane Williamson drives down the ground•BCCIWilliamson’s biggest enemy was the conditions and the big boundaries. Any attempt to hit a boundary had to be precise and to a ball was that either too short or too full. Anything else was not an option. And while the format takes its time to evolve, Williamson is the best man conceivable for these calculations.Before he got to the fast bowlers, Williamson only just tried to hit two boundaries. The spinners were not giving him anything short so he had to wait for something too full so he could attack it before it could misbehave. It is easy to say perhaps live time that pressure got too much and Williamson took two calculated risks, but go back and look at the pitch maps. When he first slog-swept Washington Sundar for a six with the requirement 59 off 38, it was the only full ball of the over. So all that while when pushing singles down the ground, Williamson had been on the prowl, waiting to launch into an error in length. And this ball was not that full either, just fuller than the usual Sundar cluster that you see. One half error, and he jumped onto it.With Yuzvendra Chahal, whom Williamson slog-swept for the second six, it was a matter of line. This was the last ball of Chahal’s spell – his figures 3.5-0-18-1 till then and with 41 still required off 25 – and this is the most leg-side he ever got to Williamson. Everything else had been off, off and middle, but this one allowed him to open the front leg up. Just the two attempted big shots, both nailed, and Sunrisers needed just nine an over with pace on the ball in the last four overs.Even then Williamson didn’t take any extravagant risks. He drove Shivam Dube along the ground, and then looked to repeat the delicate late-cut he played off another slow medium bowler, Andile Phehlukwayo, in the World Cup match at Edgbaston. In a way these are similar chases. The pitch was slow, the bowlers were making it tough, and you couldn’t trust a new batsman to get going immediately. He finally managed that dab and that boundary off the pacier Navdeep Saini.Given the resources, this was a perfectly paced chase for a side used to messing these chases up. If the future will have place for Williamson or not, if Williamson will adapt enough to fit himself in the future or not, here and now is the time to revel in the efficiency and the calm of Williamson, without whom Sunrisers probably would have been out of the tournament.

It is a matter of a shift in attitude and some time to get used to England’s style of play

Sidharth Monga26-Mar-20214:35

Manjrekar: Rahul seemed to be encouraged by Kohli to play the long innings

10-0-47-0On a day that a lot will be said about India’s bowling, these figures of the opposition’s fingerspinner are the story. Moeen Ali, who averages 51 runs for a wicket and concedes at 5.30 an over in ODIs, bowled at 4.70 an over in a match where 336 was gunned down in 43.3 overs. In all, Ali was hit for one boundary, that too thanks to a misfield by Ben Stokes at the 30-yard ring. ESPNcricinfo’s scorers recorded only one aggressive stroke attempted off Ali’s 60 balls that were bowled in a single unbroken spell starting at the 17th over, by which time India’s third-wicket partnership was 7.2 overs old.Ali is no mystery bowler. He doesn’t bowl the carrom ball. He was bowling to two right-hand batsmen, one of them among the greatest ever to play the format. The pitch was not turning: spinners have combined figures of 67-0-489-2 in this series. All Ali did was avoid bad balls, and India didn’t bother to attack the good ones. This was a period of ceasefire where England didn’t try to manufacture a middle-overs wicket, and India didn’t go out of their way to hit the spinners out of the attack.Consequently, for a second match in a row India needed a crazy two-run-a-ball innings to get to what was still a second below-par total in a row. In the last game a freak collapse gave India the series lead, this time the bowling reverted to type: since the start of 2020, the first wicket has cost India 115 runs on an average at 6.40 an over. And for a majority of this time, India have had their best attack barring Bhuvneshwar Kumar to choose from.Related

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Stats: Sixes galore in record England win

India are a very good ODI side. In the last three World Cups, they have won one and made two other semi-finals. They are consistently among the top three ODI sides at any given point of time. Their win-loss ratio is always impressive. Their batting takes care of itself when they are chasing. It is when batting first that their conservative attitude is keeping them from becoming the undisputed leader of the field.To put it in one sentence, they don’t subscribe to England’s principle: they would rather be aggressive and risk falling short by 70 than consistently staying par or 10 below par. India like to take games deep. Just stay in games for long period of times and never risk losing out too early. That’s the cricket this team’s leaders, Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma, learnt under MS Dhoni. It is not that they lack the skill. When Australia chased successfully with 10 wickets to spare in 2019-20, India responded with a 340 in the next ODI. West Indies won with eight wickets in hand, and India came back with a 387 three days later. Every time they are pressed against the wall, they respond with aggressive and successful cricket batting first, but drop back to conservative cricket at the start of every series.The last time India were presented with such a challenge in ODI cricket – they consistently found out their 325s were not the above-par totals they would have liked to believe – they responded by overhauling their bowling. The two wristspinners worked like a charm, but now the world seems to have caught up with them. With just four fielders outside the circle, they are getting attacked. Yuzvendra Chahal is a completely different bowler in T20Is when he has that extra fielder out. ODI cricket has thrown a huge challenge at spinners – as R Ashwin points out in this video – and this time India’s spinners are not immune.It was interesting that Kohli said at the post-match presentation that he felt India had posted a decent total on the board, and that they were blown away by a freak partnership. Three of the last 11 successful chases of 300 in ODIs have come against India. Make it 280, and India have lost four of the last nine successful chases.The way Rishabh Pant and Hardik Pandya bat, especially with KL Rahul now as that dynamic middle-order batsman, it is scary how good India can be if their top order decides to bat the way England do. To be fair, Kohli takes more risks now than he did a couple of years ago, but there is a chance that with three such similar batsmen at the top, India are still lagging in that regard.Not long ago, with Dhoni and others struggling in the middle order, there might have been a case for the top order to be conservative so that they can be at the back end to maximise the death overs, but that is not the case now. Even if Sharma sets himself up for a crazy assault at the end, he won’t be going much faster that what Pant, Rahul and Pandya anyway do. With the bowlers getting further marginalised, there might be a case for India to relook at how they bat in the first 30 overs when batting first.India have all the skill to be as good if not better than England; it is a matter of a shift in attitude and some time to get used to that new style of play. Perhaps even a slight change of personnel.

Absence of express pace leaves England with few answers on day when India got away

George Dobell04-Sep-2021England supporters could be forgiven for thinking they might have caught a sight of the ghosts of Christmas past and future at The Kia Oval on Saturday.For England bowled pretty well here. They attempted to build pressure, they attempted well-considered plans and they made India work for nearly every run. But in conditions where they could not find assistance from either the ball or the surface, it looked an uneven battle against hungry, talented batters. It was, in short, all a little bit reminiscent of the last Ashes tour in 2017-18. And, you fear, a foretaste of the Ashes tour of 2021-22.Let’s give credit where it’s due: India’s openers, in particular, have batted with admirable fortitude and skill in difficult conditions throughout this series. They weren’t likely to pass up the chance to fill their boots in more comfortable conditions. Rohit Sharma and KL Rahul are now the only two men, besides Joe Root, to have scored centuries in the series and may well have earned their side an opportunity to win it.But England will reflect that, the last time they left Australia in January 2018, they vowed to return with an attack which had the pace and aggression to extract more from the flat surfaces anticipated. And now, as they reflect on the certain absence of Jofra Archer and the possible absence of Olly Stone and Ben Stokes, it will be dawning on them that they face the prospect of returning with a very similar attack to that which was defeated four years ago. Very similar and four years older.Certainly there was a familiarity about the England attack here. Each of the four seamers operated at somewhere around 80mph, each of them was right-arm and each of them struggled to gain assistance from the pitch or the ball. Only Craig Overton should look back on this day with any sense of reproval. As willing as he is, he will know that to concede 37 from nine overs on the day allowed India a release from the pressure built by his seam-bowling colleagues. And in conceding more than four an over, Moeen Ali, the off-spinner, was unable to provide his captain with the control he required.At such moments, it is tempting to look beyond the team and wonder what might have been. The pace of Mark Wood or left-arm angle of Sam Curran might have added some variety. But Curran, it might be remembered, has played three Tests in this series – all of them on more helpful surfaces – and taken his wickets at a cost of 79.33 apiece. While Wood, for all his qualities, takes his Test wickets in England at a cost of 40.71. He’s only claimed one (albeit in one Test) at The Oval. Besides, England may well want him for the Test at Emirates Old Trafford later in the week and, given his unique value to the team, there may be a reluctance to risk him in back-to-back matches. Different isn’t always better.Not for the first time, England looked a little short of ideas once the Dukes ball refused to swing. Without an outright fast bowler to turn to, it fell to Chris Woakes and Overton to test batters with the short ball. At one point Woakes, with two men back for the hook, tested Rohit with a bouncer; the ease with which he rolled his wrists on the ball and accepted the single to fine-leg spoke volumes. Later, Overton went round the wicket in an attempt to discomfort Rohit and Cheteshwar Pujara; it was a Labrador barking at a lion, really.Related

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“We tried everything,” Paul Collingwood, one of England’s assistant coaches said later. “But we couldn’t get the ball moving. And they played beautifully. Rohit has reined himself in and been very watchful.”Weariness may have been a factor. James Anderson, for example, is 39 years old and playing his fourth Test in a month. Woakes is playing his first first-class game in more than a year and Ollie Robinson has bowled more overs than anyone else in the series. They gave this challenge everything they had. It would be unreasonable to ask for more from any of them.One area England really have to improve is in their catching. They have, at this point in the match, missed six chances in the field including Rory Burns reprieving Rohit twice in the second innings; once on 6 and once on 31. Given that they have taken only 13 wickets, it suggests the bowlers are having to create anything up to 30 chances a game if they are to have a chance of bowling the opposition out twice. Eventually, that is going to come back to bite.Collingwood pointed out, with some justification, that The Oval has a reputation for being a tough ground for fielders to pick up the ball. But this is not a problem that has only occurred at The Oval. England’s catching has been fallible for some time and they are consistently rated as one of the worst Test teams in terms of taking potential chances. And in placing Burns at second slip, there was always a risk this could happen.Burns, to be fair, is a fine fielder. He has taken some sharp chances for England over the last couple of years. But they have tended to be in the gully. So to ask him to take on such a specialist position in such a big game was always a high-risk strategy. He doesn’t even field there for his county, Surrey. It seems incongruous that, at a time when attention to detail and data are such buzz phrases in coaching, that England should find themselves with a makeshift slip cordon and trust that things will be all right on the night. The ability to catch – and to catch in such specialist positions – really does have to be factored in to selection.And maybe England will reflect, once again, on their batting. Perhaps, had they extended their first-innings total to somewhere around 350, they could have put India under a little more pressure or at least reduced the size of their own task in the fourth innings. Once they pitch had settled, there really was an opportunity to be a little more ruthless. Some of those dismissals, not least Moeen’s and Robinson’s, look more than a little soft.The good news for England is that this pitch really does not hold many terrors. And there’s not much evidence of it deteriorating as the match progresses in recent years. It’s not at all impossible India’s bowlers could also find it hard work over the last day or two. We could yet have a memorable finish ahead of us.

Stats highlights from Ross Taylor’s long and storied international career

S Rajesh08-Jan-2022With an aggregate of 18,145 runs, Ross Taylor has scored 2679 more runs than the next-best for New Zealand across all international formats. He has scored more Test runs, ODI runs, ODI hundreds and overall hundreds than any other New Zealand batter. That speaks of a career which has combined longevity with prolific run-scoring. He hasn’t always been counted among the very best batters in the world – and we’ll see the reasons for that later – but that in no way diminishes his overall contribution to New Zealand cricket.ESPNcricinfo LtdTaylor’s Test career can neatly be split into three phases. Till 2011 he was a competent, but not exceptional, middle-order batter, averaging 40.81 from 33 matches. He was superb in home conditions, averaging 49.62, but it dropped to 32.58 in away games. Similarly, in the period since the start of 2018 the returns haven’t been impressive: the average has dropped to 34.36, and away from home he averages only 25.82.

And how many players have outscored the opposition on their own in a Test innings?

Steven Lynch19-Oct-2021In a recent IPL game, Kieron Pollard was Player of the Match though he only meaningfully participated in 14 deliveries in the entire game. What’s the lowest number by someone who received the award in a T20 match? asked Nathan from Australia
You’re right that Kieron Pollard was only actively involved in 14 deliveries during Mumbai Indians’ IPL victory over Punjab Kings in Abu Dhabi on September 28 – he faced seven balls, bowled one over, and took one catch. Pollard was the third man to win the award having been involved in only 14 deliveries in an IPL game, after Nuwan Kulasekera, for Chennai Super Kings against Pune Warriors in Chennai in 2012, and Munaf Patel, for Mumbai Indians against Pune Warriors in Mumbai in 2011.But they’re not top: there are two cases of 13 by IPL match award-winners – Mark Boucher for Royal Challengers Bangalore against Kolkata Knight Riders in Durban in 2009, and James Faulkner for Rajasthan Royals against KKR in Abu Dhabi in 2014. Boucher faced 13 balls and didn’t take a catch, but he was keeping wicket, so would undoubtedly have been actively involved in rather more deliveries.The record for all T20 matches, as far as we can establish, is active involvement in just eight deliveries before lifting the match award. This was achieved by the South African David Wiese, for Titans against Dolphins in Centurion in 2012-13, and Dinesh Karthik for India vs Bangladesh in the Nidahas Trophy final in Colombo in March 2018. The scorecard for Yorkshire against Leicestershire at Headingley in 2014 suggests that Adam Lyth was involved in only eight deliveries, but he shared the award in that match with Aaron Finch after a spectacular relayed boundary catch – and since Finch ended up with the ball, Lyth doesn’t feature on the scorecard. But he thus played a major role in at least one other ball in addition to the eight he faced while batting.There are a few caveats with these figures. First, we only have full statistics for around 70% of T20 games. Most significantly, we can only consider scorecard entries – so a player who, for example, received the award in part for outstanding fielding wouldn’t show up. We’ve also ignored matches reduced by rain or other reasons. So Shiva Jayaraman of ESPNcricinfo’s stats team had a fun time totting up the rest!What’s the highest Test score by a batter outside his home country? asked Kevin Millard from England
The highest individual score away from home in a Test remains Hanif Mohammad’s epic match-saving 337 – in a record 970 minutes – for Pakistan against West Indies in Bridgetown in 1957-58. That just edged out Wally Hammond’s 336 not out for England against New Zealand in Auckland in 1932-33.In all, there have been 11 triple-centuries by batters in overseas Tests, two of them by Don Bradman at Headingley, in 1930 and in 1934. (There are 12 if you count Azhar Ali’s unbeaten 302 for Pakistan against West Indies in a “home” Test in Dubai in 2016-17.)How often has a player scored a hundred and a duck in the same Test? asked Bevan McAllister from New Zealand
In all, this has now happened 172 times in Test matches. The most recent instance involved Najmul Hossain of Bangladesh, against Sri Lanka in Pallekele in April. The first time it happened was in the first ever Test in England, at The Oval in 1880, when Australia’s captain, Billy Murdoch, made 0 and 153 not out.Two men have done it three times: Shivnarine Chanderpaul for West Indies, and England’s Andrew Strauss. A further 22 batters managed it on two occasions.Wisden records the 11 leaders given honorary MCC life membership in 1946•WisdenI noticed that Matthew Hayden outscored Pakistan’s match aggregate on his own in his only innings of a Test in 2002. Has anyone else done this? asked Abdul Shabeer from India
Matthew Hayden was the fifth man to exceed the opposition’s aggregate score on his own in his only innings of a Test with a definite result: Pakistan made 53 and 59, while Hayden hit 119 for Australia in Sharjah in 2002-03. The others to achieve this were Bobby Abel (120) for England against South Africa (43 and 47) in Cape Town in 1888-89, Len Hutton (364) for England vs Australia (123 and 201) at The Oval in 1938, Don Bradman (185) for Australia vs India (98 and 58) in Brisbane in 1947-48, and Inzamam-ul-Haq (329) for Pakistan vs New Zealand (73 and 246) in Lahore in 2002.For batters who went in twice, Justin Langer (191 and 97) outscored Pakistan (179 and 72) in Perth in 2004-05, while Gordon Greenidge (134 and 101) made more than England (71 and 126) managed at Old Trafford in 1976, as did Patsy Hendren (169 and 45) vs Australia (122 and 66) in Brisbane and Dimuth Karunaratne (158 not out and 60) vs South Africa (126 and 73) in Galle.I read that Dwight Eisenhower was the only American president to attend a Test match. But is it right that he was also a member of MCC? asked Syed Iliyas Hussain from England
President Eisenhower witnessed at least part of a somewhat somnolent day’s play in the third Test between Pakistan and Australia in Karachi in 1959-60. During the day, which was uninterrupted apart from a break while the teams were introduced to Eisenhower, Pakistan scored 104 for 5 in 65 overs, so it’s unlikely the distinguished visitor was terribly excited.This was the last Test played on a matting pitch. Australia’s captain in that match, Richie Benaud, in his book Willow Patterns, wrote that Eisenhower “made the remark that he thought this cricket game was supposed to be played on grass rather than mat. The Pakistan president [Mohammed Ayub Khan] then said, ‘This is the last time a Test match will be played on matting in this country’, and he gave orders to that effect.”It’s also true that Eisenhower was a member of the Marylebone Cricket Club, although it wasn’t because of any particular liking for the game. General Eisenhower, as he then was, was one of 11 leaders given honorary life membership of MCC in 1946, in recognition of their efforts in the Second World War. Eisenhower was the only American; the other ten were all British. Winston Churchill, the wartime prime minister, was one of those honoured, along with the top brass from the army, navy and air force. Arguably the most famous of the others were Field Marshal Montgomery of Alamein, and Admiral Lord Louis Mountbatten, the Queen’s second cousin and uncle of the Duke of Edinburgh.Use our feedback form, or the Ask Steven Facebook page to ask your stats and trivia questions