It’s Mr Cool’s 39th birthday. So, time to test whether you’ve been watching closely and taking notes on how to be not just cool but MS cool

ESPNcricinfo staff07-Jul-2020

The young Royal Challengers Bangalore opener on what he learnt from Kohli, de Villiers and Finch, and his India goals

Interview by Vishal Dikshit13-Nov-2020Devdutt Padikkal, the 20-year-old Royal Challengers Bangalore opener, made his IPL debut this season and, with his elegant strokeplay, he even outscored Virat Kohli and AB de Villiers, taking home the Emerging Player Award for his 473 runs, which included five half-centuries, from 15 innings. After returning to India, he talked to us about his unforgettable season, the things he picked up from Kohli and de Villiers, and the bowler he found the most challenging to face.Opening the batting for Royal Challengers, you had a crucial role in the powerplay. How did you plan your innings?

I was just looking to stick to my strengths and do what I do best. In T20 cricket, it’s important how the powerplay goes. We had our roles clearly defined, so it was important to get that opening partnership away at a decent rate. And, to an extent, we were able to do that.How and when did you come to know you’d be opening for RCB?
Simon Katich [RCB’s head coach] came up to me the day before the [first] game in the team room and he was like, “You’re going to be making your debut tomorrow”. It was a huge moment for me and I was really happy about it.You spent a lot of time in the middle with Kohli. You scored 345 runs together this season with four half-century stands. What did you learn from batting with him?
He makes your game easier and helps you build an innings. He knows exactly what to do in every situation because he is such an experienced player, he’s played so much good quality cricket, and he’s won so many things. Every time I batted with him, I could learn something new. It was a really great experience for me. I was just trying to take in as much as I can. I really enjoyed it.ALSO READ: IPL stats review: Uncapped Indians shine, overseas fast bowlers trump IndiansDo you remember any particular conversations with him out in the middle?
Yeah, during the Rajasthan [Royals] game, we were batting together and I got a fifty. We knew that for the next batsman coming into the chase it’s not always easy. It was important that I carried on. I was tiring a little bit and he kept pushing me to get those extra runs – whatever I could. He said it was important that I wouldn’t throw my wicket away at that point. That’s something he helped me out with in that innings.

Passion. Purpose. Progress. #Grateful pic.twitter.com/M7bUTRceND

— Devdutt Padikkal (@devdpd07) October 3, 2020

You also tweeted two pictures with Kohli – one from a while ago in which you’re receiving a medal from him and the other is a recent one in Royal Challengers colours. Can you tell us about the journey between those two photographs?
[The first one] was from a promotional event around five years ago. He [Kohli] had come to our academy [Karnataka Institute of Cricket]. A few boys from the academy were asked to go and play a match and he was there. Even Unmukt Chand [the former India Under-19 captain] was there. They were captains of two teams and I was part of Chand’s team. After that, everyone was given a medal and Kohli gave my medal to me.You didn’t bat with de Villiers as much as you did with Kohli, but you must have picked his brain during the tournament?

Yeah. He’s a special player. Just watching him bat is a treat for your eyes. Throughout the season, he kept telling me to stay in the zone and continue to do what I was doing. I remember when we were travelling back from the Mumbai [Indians] game in which I got the 70 [74], he sent me a text message saying, “Continue to do that and you’re playing really well, just stay in the zone and enjoy yourself”. That was really special because, coming from him, it was a great honour. I really enjoyed batting with him whenever I could because he makes your job so easy. He just takes on the bowlers from ball one and I enjoyed watching him.”I knew that when I came into the IPL, there will be big players around and I knew I’d want to be the one to take the responsibility”•BCCIIn a lot of the videos that the Royal Challengers posted on social media, it seemed like you had a good rapport with Aaron Finch, whom you also opened with quite a few times. What kind of a relationship did you build with him as the season went on?
He’s a really great person and I enjoyed spending time with him off the field as well. Like I said, all these experienced batsmen make your job easier. At the beginning of the tournament, we had this goal to have one of the highest opening partnerships of the season. I think we were third on the list after KL Rahul-Mayank Agarwal and Jonny Bairstow and David Warner, or second, I’m not sure [Padikkal and Finch were second with 444 runs behind Rahul and Agarwal, who made 671 runs together]. That’s something we were looking to do and we were able to do that, to an extent.You’ve scored a lot of runs in the last domestic season, but in the IPL, you were facing bowlers like Jofra Archer, Jasprit Bumrah and Pat Cummins. Did you have to take your batting one level up to face these fast bowlers?
Yeah, it’s a different challenge compared to domestic cricket. But I knew I was prepared enough and we had put in three weeks of intense practice before starting the IPL.Which bowlers made you think, “I’ve never faced this kind of pace before”?
Pace, not really, because there are quite a few bowlers who are pretty quick in the domestic circuit as well. Probably the one bowler I felt was challenging was [legspinner] Rashid Khan, because he has really good pace and turns the ball at the same time. He’s not easy to pick. I think while facing him I felt like, “Okay, this is something I’m not used to.”ALSO READ: Aakash Chopra: Things that surprised me this IPLWhat kind of preparation did you put in with the Royal Challengers over the last two years? Mike Hesson, the RCB director of cricket operations, said in November last year that when you were with the team in 2019, you showed a lot of willingness to learn from the seniors around you.

It was more [about] the mental side of the game, because after a certain point the physical aspect is in a set place. Then it’s more about how you handle the pressure and the situation. So that’s what I was working on and whenever I got a chance, even in domestic tournaments, I wanted to make sure that I took responsibility and tried to take the team home even though there were some international cricketers in our Karnataka side. That’s something I really wanted to work on because I knew that when I came into the IPL, there will be big players around and I knew I’d want to be the one to take the responsibility.Which senior batsman or coach in the Royal Challengers set-up did you approach the most when you had questions or doubts?
To an extent, it was Simon Katich, because he was really approachable. Whenever I felt like there was something I needed to work on and if I had any doubts, I would go to him.You impressed everyone a lot with your strokeplay and flair, but statistics show that your strike rate dips after the powerplay. Did that bother you at any point? Did you feel it was something you needed to work on?
Definitely, sometimes you may not get the shots off the middle of your bat. That’s part of the learning and hopefully I can continue to work on that and keep improving. It didn’t really affect me too much because I knew that as I improve and learn, I can get better at that as well.You have got plenty of runs in domestic cricket for Karnataka and an Emerging Player Award in the IPL. What’s your next target?
Now the next step would be to play for the country. It’s something everyone dreams of as a cricketer, so I’m looking forward to doing that soon. I’ll continue to work on my game, continue to improve and, whenever I get the opportunity, I’ll take it with both hands.

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.

With the domestic game set to be restructured next summer, several players made a strong white-ball claim

Firdose Moonda01-Mar-2021The Lions won the last edition of Cricket South Africa’s franchise T20 tournament, with the domestic game set to be restructured next summer. The Johannesburg-based franchise are four-time champions in the format, two fewer than the record-holding Titans, and have claimed the last two titles. All of South Africa’s six franchises have won the competition at least once.This year’s tournament was held in a biosecure environment in Durban where surfaces mimicked subcontinental-style strips in their spinner-friendly and tough-to-score-on nature. The average score across the 17 matches was 139, with no total above 181 and an average run-rate of 7.22. While the tournament has been unsponsored for the last four editions and does not have the profile of leagues around the world, it is an important feeder for the South African team. In this T20 World Cup year, it will prove particularly significant in finding solutions for the national squad, specifically in the death-bowling, top-order and spin departments. Here are some of the key takeaways from the final franchise T20 cup.Related

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Sisanda Magala’s death bowling The leading wicket-taker of this season’s competition, Sisanda Magala finished with 13 wickets from six matches, at an average of 12.84, and took most of those at the death. In the Lions’ opening match against the Warriors, Magala took three wickets for six runs in eight balls. In their third game against the Knights, he took three for one run in the last over, and finished with a career-best 5 for 20. In the final, against the Dolphins, he claimed two wickets for six runs in a mid-innings burst that reduced the opposition to 60 for 5.His clever use of variations including the knuckle ball has made it almost impossible to look past him for national selection, especially as South Africa have struggled to contain opposition tails in the past. Magala is clearly in the national selectors’ plans and was part of the South African set-up for white-ball series against England and Australia in the 2019-20 summer but fell short of making his debut because he failed to meet fitness standards. Since then, he has worked on his conditioning, appears to have lost weight and has passed the required fitness tests to play in this tournament. As long as he stays on the park, all roads point to the T20 World Cup.Reeza Hendricks could make his first appearance at a major tournament for South Africa•AFP / Getty ImagesReeza Hendricks’ form With 257 runs from seven innings at an average of 36.71, Reeza Hendricks was the competition’s leading run-scorer and most fluent batsman. To date, Hendricks has not been part of a South African major tournament squad – he was particularly unlucky to miss out on the 2019 World Cup – and has made a strong case for inclusion for the T20 World Cup.Hendricks’ clean stroke-play and aggression was all the more notable because it came with a misfiring opening partner (Ryan Rickleton averaged 5.00 in the tournament) at the other end on pitches where free-flowing runs were rare. Hendricks formed useful stands with his captain Temba Bavuma, who was second on the batting charts, and shared in two half-century stands (84 against the Cobras and 93 against the Knights) and two partnerships of more than 35 runs. He may even provide South Africa with a hint of how to use the pair in the national team.Bavuma has been earmarked as a potential opening partner for Quinton de Kock at the T20 World Cup, but another option would be for Hendricks to open with de Kock and Bavuma to slot in at No.3.File pic: Keshav Maharaj was Dolphins’ leading wicket-taker with eight scalps•AFP via Getty ImagesKeshav Maharaj’s captaincy and white-ball credentials It’s difficult to tell if anyone took Keshav Maharaj’s national captaincy aspirations seriously but he has made it difficult to ignore his enthusiasm for the job in some capacity. Maharaj led the Dolphins to a second table-topping white-ball run in two seasons and has shown himself to be an astute leader. Last season, Maharaj took the Dolphins to the top of the one-day cup log, and they were awarded the trophy after the playoffs were cancelled because of the Coronavirus pandemic. He also guided them through the group stage unbeaten in this competition, only for them to fall at the final hurdle.Maharaj also appears to have blossomed under extra responsibility. He finished as the leading spinner, with eight wickets, bowled more overs than anyone else and had the second-best economy rate of 4.54. Even if that is not enough for Maharaj to seriously challenge for the national leadership, it has to put him front of mind for a T20 World Cup spot, although he has yet to play for South Africa in the shortest format. That could mean South Africa take five frontline spinners to the tournament with Imran Tahir available for selection, and the likes of Tabraiz Shamsi, George Linde, Bjorn Fortuin and Maharaj making up a new-look attack.Robbie Frylinck was the fifth-highest wicket-taker and batted at a strike rate above 130•BCCI Depth across the board While the top performers came from the two teams in the final – the Lions and Dolphins – there were impressive showings all round which bodes well for the national talent pool. Pite van Biljon and Raynard van Tonder from the Knights were in the top ten run-scorers and van Tonder’s unbeaten 81 off 57 balls against the Warriors was among the tournament’s most authoritative knocks while Zubayr Hamza made a welcome return to form with two successive half-centuries before injury ended his participation.Warriors’ medium pacer Mthiwekhaya Nabe was the joint, second-leading wicket-taker and his 4 for 21 against the Titans contributed to the biggest upset of the tournament. Lungi Ngidi took the same number of wickets, with consistent displays throughout while left-arm spinner Siyabonga Mahima, from the Cobras, announced himself in this competition. Linde was joint-fourth on the bowling charts and had the highest strike-rate (167.60) among anyone who scored more than 30 runs. But the best two-in-one player was Dolphins veteran Robbie Frylinck, who was the fifth-leading bowler and batted at a strike rate above 130.All the extras, ill-discipline and an ailing Cobras outfit Scores would have been even lower if more catches had been taken with spillages aplenty in this competition and if bowlers across all six franchise had been more disciplined. In total, 160 wides and 18 no-balls were delivered – an additional 29.4 overs all-told – and one team was responsible for more than a third of those extras. The Cobras sent down 59 wides and three no-balls, which lost them matches and added to a disappointing season.Across all formats, the Cobras have won three out of 15 matches, fewer than any of the other franchises. They were without Janneman Malan and Nandre Burger, who were both injured, for this competition but that won’t excuse a worrying trend. The franchise last won a trophy in the 2014-15 season, six summers ago, and though there are other teams that have not lifted a cup in that time too (notably the Warriors), a strong South Africa needs a strong team in Western Cape.

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.

Maiden overseas Test century contains all the familiar traits, as opener ends long wait

Osman Samiuddin04-Sep-20211:45

Laxman: Rohit’s ability to adapt speaks volumes of his character

Just wait. It’ll come as sure as night after day. Most likely it’ll come from one of the shots that defines Rohit Sharma in white-ball cricket. England will bounce him, put two men out and he’ll pull it to one of them. Like he did at Trent Bridge after he’d batted nearly 40 overs. Like at Headingley where, having batted nearly three hours for 19, he pulled one very awkwardly to short mid-on. Like he did in Sydney earlier this year when, on 52, he pulled Pat Cummins straight to backward square leg. “Rohit will be filthy with himself,” ESPNcricinfo’s ball-by-ball commentary noted.England didn’t have anyone of real pace on this surface but in the 50th over of the innings, they sent two men back and Chris Woakes bowled one short. Earlier this series, in a interview with Dinesh Karthik, Rohit had pushed back against the impression that he somehow had more time than other batters when at the crease. Probably it’s true but in playing this Woakes short ball, ABBA had time enough to break up and then reform. Wrists rolled over it, a single, to move from 55 to 56.Never mind, it’s coming. Any moment now.Look, Moeen Ali’s on. Rohit’s going to try and assert the ordained hierarchy of cricket here: Indian batter >> offspin. He’ll sweep him, like he once did to Nathan Lyon, over six years ago at Sydney. He was on 53, and he under-edged it on to his stumps. Moeen’s found some turn and unsettled Rohit pre-lunch so it’s bound to happen. The first ball Moeen bowls after lunch, Rohit, on 56, sweeps. It rolls along the ground to square leg. No run.Rohit Sharma’s first overseas century contained all the quality of his numerous missed opportunities in previous Tests•Getty ImagesIt’s written. Give it some time. Now, because England might start going straighter at him on this surface, it’ll bring the stumps into play. Ages ago, when Rohit was a different Rohit, he was pinged by one from Angelo Matthews (eyebrow-raising is allowed here) that seamed back in when he was on 79, and the day was nearly done.Already a couple of times today, he’s hit uppishly in the general direction of mid-on. On 36 he got away with it when Woakes moved in the wrong direction first, and then was close to getting to it. Ollie Robinson starts probing away with Rohit nearing 60. He gets beaten by one that nips back in sharply – but it’s high – and then pushes one, in the air, but well short of mid-on.England bring in a short mid-on in Robinson’s next over, the last before afternoon drinks. Rohit gets hit on the thigh, he inside-edges a block for four but, of course, short mid-on is now redundant. Memo lads, the horse, she has bolted.So…No really, it’s here. He’s already gotten a little lucky post-afternoon drinks when, in one Moeen over, he’s beaten by the drift and nearly slices a drive to James Anderson but it goes instead for a boundary. Because you may remember him lobbing one back to Lyon at Adelaide when he was 43. Anyway, he’s on 80 in the following Moeen over, there’s a man at deep midwicket and he sweeps Moeen. Not in control, top-edged and it hangs in the air. And drops safely on the way to the boundary.Related

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Maybe now it isn’t coming?Wait. A good ball can still do it. That’ll get him. This is England, this is the Dukes ball, the two are enough for a party. Except that there’s a Debbie Downer at this party and it’s the England slip carousel (no, it’s not a cordon right now). The good balls turned up when Rohit was on 6 and then 31, so those chances are long gone.It’ll come because it must. Because it has all those times when an overseas Test hundred has looked a formality for Rohit Sharma only for it to not be. All those occasions which, increasingly and especially this year, have been anti-climactic in the way hitting middle age is, when one morning you realise this is it and there’s not really a whole lot else.And then he zips through the 90s like the 90s are an aberration in the counting system and we’ve been counting wrong all these centuries, that after 89 comes 100, and he’s dancing down at Moeen and launching one over long-on and the Met Weather Office didn’t record any sunshine today at The Oval but here, unmistakably is a glimpse of it. (It had, incidentally, peeped out once five minutes before lunch too, when he pulled Craig Overton for four.)It’s not coming.No, that six means that the brain-fade, the carelessness, a fatal breakdown in the process – whatever you want to call it – whatever it has been that has seen Rohit hit eight overseas fifties and zero hundreds, it’s not coming today.We’re a species of box-tickers, so now that the hundred is here, let’s be real about this. If Rohit had gotten out for 99 today it wouldn’t have meant he’s any less of the batter he’s been through this series. If anything, his body of work in this series, this year, have shown that the landmark of a hundred can sometimes feel an arbitrary one. That we sometimes invest too much into the reaching of landmarks, mistakenly ascribing traits such as ruthlessness to it. Of course, it does mean something, not least to Rohit, because we are also a species that seek unending validation – and none more than athletes.But let’s also allow ourselves the thought, however briefly, that as he understood he had struck that six, and celebrated so understatedly that Cheteshwar Pujara was the more excitable fellow, some small part of Rohit also thought: “I have seven Test hundreds already and I am a little bit good whether or not that went over the ropes.”After all, his various not-hundreds in this series – the first-innings 36 at Trent Bridge, the 83 at Lord’s, the 59 at Leeds – have not been any less important or made him any less than the most secure batter here, other than perhaps Joe Root.It hasn’t needed this hundred to recognise and appreciate the one shot that has defined him this summer – other than the leave – and not least in this innings. That forward defensive, leant into gently not strode into, and possessed of a balance, and the stillness of body and mind of a tightrope walker.More than any attacking stroke, time and again this has been the act that has signalled a comprehensive end to the individual battle each delivery in cricket is. Time and again today it was his response to the reality he found himself in, a little like Leonardo DiCaprio’s recurrent spinning top in , reminding him of which world he was in. To the balls before he was beaten, to the balls after he was beaten, to balls before the boundaries and to the balls after them, to the balls that meant nothing and to the balls that meant everything, and most tellingly to the ball right after that six off Moeen.It did finally come though. It did yes, except by then the world was no longer what it was when we started this.

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.