The offspinner showed her versatility with the ball but it was not enough to take RCB past Capitals

S Sudarshanan11-Mar-20242:53

Perry wants RCB to win the ‘little moments’ moving forward

If a picture could capture agony and ecstasy in one frame, it was that final moment of the match between Delhi Capitals and Royal Challengers Bangalore on Sunday night.Richa Ghosh was down at the non-striker’s end after a sprawling dive. She had willed every ounce of power from her body, but fell inches short. Shreyanka Patil was at the other end of the pitch, with the stumps disturbed and the ball lying close by. She did not want that moment to happen. Both had their heads buried on the ground, tears flowing uncontrollably.And not too far off from the two were the Capitals players – relieved and full of smiles. They were hugging each other, sharing high-fives and jumping with joy. They had managed to secure a playoffs spot for the second successive season, this time with a one-run win against RCB, who are still in contention.Capitals were faced with yet another thrilling contest – twice in two games now. They had come out at the wrong end the last time, but not this time, despite RCB being in command for the last half hour. So they knew what Ghosh and Patil were going through.Ghosh’s heroics helped RCB get close after they needed 40 from 18 balls. She exhibited her power and big-hitting chops to score a 29-ball 51 – skills that make her indispensable in India’s T20I set-up as a finisher. That RCB got so close was also down to Patil’s spell earlier in the evening.Related

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Patil showed why she is rated highly in T20 cricket by picking up 4 for 26. She had an economy rate of 6.50 when the opposition scored at just over nine – a creditable feat in itself.A niggle had kept her out of RCB’s first two games of the Delhi leg. She was “fighting it out to be match fit” in the past few days, according to her captain Smriti Mandhana, and returned to the XI on Sunday. The match was not played on the centre wicket, which meant one square boundary was shorter (46m) than the other (63m), and Capitals had raced along to 55 for 1 in seven overs when she was brought into the attack.Patil had switched to being an offspiner – having tried her hand at fast bowling, legspin and wicketkeeping – after seeing there weren’t too many of those in the Karnataka Under-14 trials, and one of her strengths right from those days was her pace. Earlier, most spinners in the women’s game focussed on slowing the pace down. But Arjun Dev, Patil’s coach and mentor, made her understand how she can use it effectively.3:14

Takeaways: Jemimah Rodrigues 2.0 powers Delhi Capitals

That Patil is one of the smartest spinners in the Indian circuit is an open secret. She provided an early glimpse of those smarts with her first wicket, when she varied her pace to catch the batter, Meg Lanning, no less, off guard. With the shorter boundary to the off side, she started from around the stumps, but erred by tossing one up outside off at 73kph. Lanning, who came into the game on the back of three successive fifties, duly lofted it over mid-off to pull the first punch. Patil responded by using pace to her advantage and slipped in the next one at 84.7kph on a length while getting it to spin in a touch. Lanning went back for the pull but missed it and was hit on the back leg, adjacent to middle.Most of Patil’s wickets on the evening were about dangling the carrot with a flighted ball before slipping in the quicker one to outsmart the batter. That Mandhana always bowled her with the longer boundary to the leg side made her job a little easier, allowing her to concentrate on one-upping the batter. Like she did when Jemimah Rodrigues backed away to go over the off side and was met instead by a yorker that she couldn’t get under.A ball later, Rodrigues tried to move towards off to sweep one past short fine leg. But Patil slipped in a very full ball, catching her by surprise. Rodrigues could only drag it back onto her stumps. That dismissal helped RCB end the 97-run stand between Rodrigues and Alice Capsey for the third wicket.Patil then struck twice in the last over. Capsey was on 48 and was in a belligerent mood at the start of the over. Her first instinct was to charge down the track to attack the spinners, and if not, just stand and loft them over the infield. With the field up on the off side, Capsey backed away to a length ball that landed outside off. But it kept coming in and she couldn’t make any contact and was bowled. Patil had fired it in quicker at 86.5kph.Three balls later, she enticed Jess Jonassen out of the crease with a flighted one to have her stumped. Thanks to Patil’s three wickets in two overs, RCB only gave away 38 runs in the last four overs and kept Capitals to 181 for 5.Patil earned special praise from her captain after the game: “Sometimes when you lose, you don’t credit it enough, but Shreyanka’s last two overs were brilliant, the way she bowled, especially the last over,” Mandhana said. “She was not dropped but she had a niggle. A player of her quality, there is no choice of dropping her. She showed a lot of character after the niggle she had.”Patil was inconsolable after the finish. The tears didn’t stop even when she shook hands with the players and walked towards the dugout. Patil and RCB still endure an agonising wait for playoffs qualification.

Leadership has long been a part of the allrounder’s story and he gets the chance to continue the team’s World Cup legacy

Alex Malcolm30-May-2024Mitchell Marsh captaining Australia at a World Cup is equal-parts inevitable and improbable, when you consider his career arc.The inevitability comes from his lineage. He is the son of a former Australian ODI captain and World Cup winning coach, Geoff Marsh. He grew up in the 1990s Australian dressing room around legendary captains Allan Border, Mark Taylor and Steve Waugh. He is one of the most gifted all-round talents of his generation. He captained Australia to an Under-19 World Cup win in 2010 – a squad including current team-mates Josh Hazlewood and Adam Zampa – and there were many astute judges within Australian cricket early in Marsh’s career who felt his ascension to the senior job would only be a matter of time. He is a natural leader.Related

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“He just genuinely cares about everyone,” Ashton Agar told ESPNcricinfo. “It’s not about trying to be everyone’s mate. It’s about actually caring about who they are, caring about their families, and that makes you feel good. You might not always remember what he says but whenever you speak to Mitch you walk away feeling like you’ve been understood, you’ve been cared for, you’ve been listened to and that he’s going to remember what you’ve said to him. And he doesn’t discriminate. He talks to everyone. He talks to his best mates like he talks to a random human on the street. And I think that’s such a great quality to have.”Such is his popularity amongst his peers, he was installed as Test vice-captain in 2018 when new coach Justin Langer held an internal player vote to find out who should be part of the revamped leadership group following the nadir of Cape Town.The improbable part is that it’s Mitch Marsh. This is a man who once said, “most of Australia hates me”. A man who was booed by an MCG crowd during a home Test match when he came onto bowl. A man who broke his hand punching a changeroom wall after being dismissed when captaining Western Australia and missed six weeks of cricket. A man who has been dropped as the Test vice-captain and rarely if ever felt a sense of surety about his place in the Australian team in any format over the last 13 years. He was even left out during Australia’s 2021 T20 World Cup triumph, a tournament where he was player of the final. He gave up the Perth Scorchers captaincy just days out from the 2020-21 BBL season because he did not think he could commit fully to what the role required while also trying to fight his way back into the Australian team.Captain Mitch: Marsh had long been viewed as a leader, but his journey to the top wasn’t easy•Cricket AustraliaHe is the same Mitch Marsh who seeks fun and frivolity in every situation rather than carry a serious and steely disposition that is supposed to be the hallmark of an Australian captain.As seen in the first season of documentary, in the deeply solemn sanctuary of the Australian dressing room during an intense Ashes series in 2019, there was Marsh trying to make his team-mates laugh by pretending to be a music DJ spinning tracks. He would stop whenever Langer entered the room, carrying the look of a guilty schoolboy trying to hide his actions from his teacher. There is also widely viewed footage elsewhere of Marsh turning a routine Australian gym session into a dance rave with Marcus Stoinis and Zampa just to make himself and his mates giggle. In the latest edition of the documentary, charting last year’s tour of England where Marsh made his remarkable comeback century at Headingley, he is again a central figure with a good dose of humour among some candour.Captaining Australia at a World Cup is supposed to be serious business. Border, Waugh, Ricky Ponting, Michael Clarke and Aaron Finch were serious, hard-nosed, ruthless competitors at their core. Marsh is not built like them, despite his lineage. He is as competitive as those men, but he gets the best out of himself in a different way. There is a sensitive and social soul underneath what has now become, by his own admission during his iconic Allan Border medal speech, a softer exterior.

Even when he played good cricket, he’d just be copping it. So he had to weather that and show extreme resilience, but in order not to crumble he had to understand his emotions, and how to manage them effectivelyAshton Agar on Mitchell Marsh

“I’m a bit fat at times and I love a beer,” Marsh said.It was in that same emotional speech that Marsh paid tribute to his current Test and ODI World Cup-winning captain Pat Cummins, and his current coach Andrew McDonald, for believing in him and allowing him to be himself.The relationship of Cummins and Marsh as Australia’s two modern leaders is at the heart how the current Australian team functions.The pair have a friendship that dates back to their ODI debut together as teenagers in 2011. They spent time together during Cummins’ brief spell at Perth Scorchers as he was working his way through his back injuries. They rode the bench together in the 2015 World Cup.Those within the Australian team will tell you that they share the same values towards cricket and life despite being slightly different characters. They play cricket for fun. It is their profession, and a handsomely paid one at that. They are both incredibly good at it, but it doesn’t define them.Cummins has long lived by that mantra and it has held him great stead. Marsh has taken a long time to reach the same conclusion, but he’s finally reaping the rewards.Pat Cummins and Mitchell Marsh flex have a strong bond•ICC/Getty ImagesTravis Head is another who has found the same sweet spot in the modern environment. They tried the hard-nosed, ruthless, our-way-or-the-highway professionalism that Australian cricket was once built on, and it did not help them play their best cricket. The calm, free-range farm that Cummins and McDonald have cultivated has helped Marsh and Head thrive.”I think those guys have been really comfortable in their own skin, comfortable with the way they go about it on the field and knowing that they have the full backing of their team-mates and coaches to go out and play their own way,” Cummins told ESPNcricinfo. “I think you’ve seen those guys go to a different level, maybe that’s part of what’s been different.”

We are all there if he needs us, he can lean on us any time when he needs help but it’s his show so we’ll let him run it however he sees fit and he’ll do a great jobPat Cummins

There would have been a temptation to just rinse and repeat the success of Cummins’ captaincy at the ODI World Cup at the 2024 T20 version. But Cummins’ workload as a three-format quick and permanent Test captain made him a campaign-by-campaign proposition in the ODI format and an unrealistic option in T20I cricket given he is often rested from bilateral series.Australia needed to fill the leadership vacuum left by Finch in the T20I side. Marsh is seen as the perfect leader for this group at this time, although there is a feeling he can be a successful long-term captain as the white-ball team transitions beyond the upcoming World Cup.He no longer holds the title of Test vice-captain, an honour that sits on the shoulders of Steven Smith and Head, but Marsh is regarded as a key counsel for Cummins even in the long form. He was Cummins’ vice-captain for the ODI World Cup and deputized for him in the lead-in.In the build-up to 2024 campaign, which started in South Africa last year, Marsh was the obvious and popular choice provided he was comfortable to take it on.Mitchell Marsh has become a powerhouse at the top of the order•Getty Images”It’s been quite a journey for him to get to this point of leading a World Cup team and being an Allan Border medalist,” Agar said. “I think the hallmark of true leaders or really good leaders is that they have a great sense of self awareness. And Mitch has that now.”That’s what he’s tried to develop as much as anything else. He’s trying to understand who he is so he can be really comfortable with that. And I think that’s because he went through a really tough time. People were just on his back for no good reason at all. He just copped it and I know he’s spoken about that before. Even when he played good cricket, he’d just be copping it. So he had to weather that and show extreme resilience, but in order not to crumble he had to understand his emotions, and how to manage them effectively. So now he’s doing that so effectively, that his performance is so consistent.”There is a sense Marsh won’t reinvent the wheel at the World Cup. He himself has said he hopes to create a calm and fun environment where players can play their way and express themselves just as he has under Cummins. He has already won the three T20I series he has led over the past 12 months, including dropping just one match in eight, with the players enjoying the leadership vibes he exudes. There also isn’t concern over the tactical challenges he may face in a high-pressure World Cup given the experience he will have around him.”Mitch will be brilliant,” Cummins said. “He’s a really experienced captain. He’s captained WA, Scorchers and the Aussie team. He’ll be super well supported. Everyone in that team loves playing underneath him so he’ll do a great job. We are all there if he needs us, he can lean on us any time when he needs help but it’s his show so we’ll let him run it however he sees fit and he’ll do a great job.”

Walking in at 31 for 3 and battling cramps in sweltering conditions, Suryakumar unveiled a masterclass of selective destruction

Vishal Dikshit07-May-20241:23

Moody: Surya consistently does things very few can

Suryakumar Yadav could well be the most cartoonish character in Indian cricket. He cracks jokes in press conferences, fools around before matches, and is always flashing that beaming smile, and if you trawl through his Instagram stories on a non-match day, you’ll find him watching some classic Hindi comedy in his hotel room.No wonder he makes a joke of bowling attacks around the world and across conditions.What he does and how he does it continue to mystify viewers, and this feeling was heightened on Monday when he scored his sixth T20 century, for Mumbai Indians against Sunrisers Hyderabad, and his second in the IPL. The bewilderment that his batting generates doesn’t come from the numbers, which are hard to match anyway, but from the style of his shot-making, and this was especially true on Monday.Related

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It was far from a flat track at the Wankhede Stadium. Suryakumar had to face a potent pace attack that was loving the movement on offer. And he had not even gotten off the mark when Mumbai slipped to 31 for 3 in the fifth over.That third wicket could have been of Suryakumar off any of the three deliveries before Naman Dhir’s dismissal. The ball was seaming and swinging, and Pat Cummins had his tail up having just dismissed Rohit Sharma. The first ball Suryakumar faced betrayed him like a waiter you think is bringing your plate to your table but turns to another just before reaching you. The second ball also pitched in the channel and straightened to beat the outside edge. The third wasn’t very different and Suryakumar tried to punch it away, but missed again.The straight-bat shots were a feature of Suryakumar Yadav’s century on a challenging Wankhede pitch•Associated PressSometimes it takes just one shot to get you going, even if it’s off the edge. When Suryakumar got on strike in Cummins’ next over, he went for a flick off his pads, but the ball flew almost off the back of his bat for a six over the deep third boundary.And if it’s not one shot that gets you going, it’s one over. Even though the powerplay was done, Suryakumar may have seen Marco Jansen, the least experienced of the SRH quicks, running in, and thought to himself, “this is the over.” There was a wide gap between mid-on and deep midwicket and Suryakumar was happy to clip the ball on his pads to the vacant boundary. When Jansen went full next, he went too full, and with mid-on in the circle, Suryakumar drilled him back along the carpet for another four. What follows a full delivery? Jansen banged one in short next, angling into the stumps, and even before the ball could reach Suryakumar, he had shuffled to off for one of his trademark pick-up shots over fine leg. When he got the strike back for the last ball, Jansen gifted him a dolly on the pads and Suryakumar flicked it for six to make it a 22-run over of which he had smashed 21.Having waltzed from 11 off nine to 32 off 14, Suryakumar was in his zone. When Cummins returned and hammered away in the corridor outside off, Suryakumar unflinchingly and patiently offered the straight bat. He scored only one run off five balls in that 10th over, but it was a mini-victory because SRH were desperate for his wicket.”I feel it was the need of the hour today,” he explained at the presentation. “When I went in to bat, three wickets were down and it had to be someone to play till the end and that’s what I did. I knew as the dew was heavy and as soon as the seam goes off, it will be easy for a batter to play those shots.”The traditional shots are from the Mumbai school of arts,” he said of his straight-bat shots. “I’ve played a lot of first-class cricket for Mumbai and a lot of games at Wankhede. I know when the ball is seaming, what’s the right option at that time, that’s what I tried to do today. When the ball stopped seaming, I played all my shots which I practise in the nets.”‘When the ball stopped seaming, I played all my shots which I practise in the nets’•BCCISoon, though, Suryakumar began to hobble. It could have been cramps, because it was barely below 30 degrees Celsius in Mumbai despite being past 10pm and he was playing his first proper tournament after coming back from groin surgery, which had kept him out of action since December 14, 2023, the day of his last T20 hundred.It’s possible that Suryakumar felt he would have to go off the field soon, and seeing the equation at 69 off 48, and the ball in Jansen’s hand again, he upped the gears once more. Having brought up his fifty off 30 balls, he smacked the left-arm quick for back-to-back fours again, and when Cummins tried to stem the flow of runs by bringing on Shahbaz Ahmed, a left-arm spinner (the one match-up that’s kept him relatively quiet in recent years), Suryakumar dispatched him for boundaries with two good-looking sweeps.”He’s one, by nature, instinctively very aggressive,” Mumbai batting coach Kieron Pollard said at the post-match press conference. “So he wants to take the bowlers on more often than not. At times it’s just a matter of understanding the situation and respecting the new ball when it’s moving around, and the conditions are not suitable for certain kind of shot-making. We have that discipline in order to be there for a period of time and then get into your work.”The ball was sodden with dew now, it was as hard to control as it was to curb Suryakumar. In the 17th over, Cummins tried the slow cutters into the pitch that had worked for him against Rajasthan Royals, but Suryakumar dispatched two of them to the vacant midwicket boundary. When Cummins sent long-on to deep midwicket and banged in another short ball, Suryakumar pummeled it over square leg for six to reach 96.He completed his century with his sixth six in the next over, and that shot also took Mumbai past their target. He took his sweat-soaked helmet off and, as handshakes were exchanged next to the pitch, he went and stood alone at one end of the 22 yards and looked down at the track, as if to say, “you were a little tricky today, but I got you in the end.”

Ten years on from Hughes’ tragic death, Simon Katich fondly remembers his batting partner and the twin centuries that announced his talent to the world

Andrew McGlashan26-Nov-2024″The way he went about it was breathtaking.”Simon Katich had among the best seats in the house when Phillip Hughes, then 20 years old, took apart one of South Africa’s greatest ever attacks in just his second Test in Durban in 2009 for a maiden Test century, followed by 160 in the second innings, becoming the youngest player to make twin hundreds in a Test.He would make another 20 first-class centuries after his hundreds at Kingsmead, but that was the game where he announced himself to the world.”Dale Steyn was at the peak of his powers, as was Morne Morkel,” Katich recalled. “Makhaya Ntini was still a handful, and they had the best allrounder ever in Jacques Kallis. They just had no idea where to bowl at him.”November 27 marks ten years since Hughes’ tragic death, two days after he was struck by a bouncer during a Sheffield Shield game at the SCG in 2014.Hughes’ Test career had started at the Wanderers in Johannesburg, a week before Durban, after he had been selected as Matthew Hayden’s successor following a prolific start to his first-class career only 14 months before. He did not make it through the first over, top-edging Dale Steyn for a duck, but made a hard-working 75 in the second innings to help set up Australia’s victory when the South Africa quicks went after him with the short ball.Related

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“I was always a huge fan of his and when he did make his Test debut, even though he missed out in that first innings, it never flustered him,” Katich said. “After the first Test, the way he got out in the first innings in Johannesburg, there were some questions raised. But he never let it affect how he was around the group. He was one of those happy-go-lucky young guys.”In Durban he showed the full range of his talent, which had fetched him a first-class debut as a 19-year-old in late 2007. Early in the first session, he took four boundaries off an over from Morkel. Hughes’ power behind square on the off side had already become a trademark, but here he unfurled shots all around the wicket, including some princely straight-driving.”I remember looking at the wicket and we weren’t all sure what to do,” Katich said. “I know Punter [Ricky Ponting] wasn’t quite sure at the toss because it didn’t look like a great wicket, but it actually played pretty well. Hughesy just completely dismantled them in the first couple of hours.”Katich on his front-row seats to the Hughes show: “It was watching a youngster play with the freedom of youth and not a care in the world”•Getty ImagesHughes left his senior partner in his wake. At lunch he was on 74 with 14 boundaries and Katich had 32. “It was a bloody good partnership,” Katich joked.”The thing that stood out to me was that in between overs it didn’t feel like we were playing a Test match because he was so relaxed and chilled,” he added. “I think at one stage we were talking about his bulls back in Macksville. We all knew he was special, but to do that in your second Test, against that quality of attack, in those conditions, was outstanding.”You only had to be marginally wide of probably middle and off stump because he just had this amazing ability to take the ball from the top of the stumps, which is a good ball to most, who would play it defensively or leave it, and he would be carving it behind point or in front of point.”Ten overs after the interval, Hughes had moved to 89 and was facing left-arm spinner Paul Harris. Six balls later he had become Australia’s youngest Test century-maker in 43 years. He went to 99 with a straight six over long-on, then next delivery dragged another slightly wider over deep midwicket. He eventually fell to Kallis for 115, brilliantly caught by Neil McKenzie in the gully, ending a stand of 184 in 44 overs with Katich.”They’d crowd the off side with a 7-2 field and he still kept picking the gaps. Then, as soon as Harris came on, he decided to launch him onto the hill,” Katich said. “He was going to back himself, and I encouraged that. We were always talking about building the partnership in sets of ten runs; the beauty about that was he was knocking off ten runs in a couple of balls!”What he did in Durban was superb to watch, and to be at the other end witnessing it firsthand was inspiring. It was watching a youngster play with the freedom of youth and not a care in the world. He was a remarkable player.”

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The first time Katich, the New South Wales captain at the time, saw Hughes play was in a grade game at Pratten Park in Sydney. Katich had been aware of other notable names coming through the system: he played alongside Usman Khawaja as a 17-year-old and had seen the volume of runs being churned out by Steven Smith.”I hadn’t probably heard as much about Hughesy but the New South Wales selectors had been talking to me about him,” Katich said. “Once I saw him play, that was when I realised this guy has some serious hand-eye because I watched his footwork and thought, this is different to most. It looked a bit unorthodox, but he hits the ball sweetly and he’s got a bloody good eye.New South Wales celebrate their 2008 Pura Cup win. Hughes made 559 runs at 62.11 that season•John Buckle/PA Photos/Getty Images”That’s the beauty of the game, everyone’s got a different style and you play according to what suits. We picked him not long after that club game – he only made 30 from memory – but we thought this kid had something about him ,and he kept making runs. We gave him a chance and he grabbed it with both hands.”Hughes made 51 on his first-class debut, opening the batting, with five more half-centuries in his next five matches, which built towards the 2007-08 Sheffield Shield final (or Pura Cup, as it was known then). Having fallen to Peter Siddle for six in the first innings against Victoria, he became the youngest player to score a century in a Shield final, putting New South Wales in an unbeatable position. They would eventually win by 258 runs.”When he debuted for New South Wales, it was phenomenal to watch,” Katich said. “That first few months, it felt like he was my little shadow. Wherever I was, he would be right beside me and if we were both out, he’d be sitting beside me in the viewing area.”He had a cheeky grin and talked his way into third slip. We spent quite a bit of time at the crease together. Great memories of him.”Out of all the guys I’ve played with in my career, don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone say a bad word about Phil Hughes.”At the end of that season Hughes was straight into the Australia A side for a trip to India, then in his second game of the 2008-09 summer, he struck 198 against South Australia. Three more centuries followed in consecutive matches, which booked his ticket to South Africa.

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Back in Durban, Hughes was far from finished. After Australia skittled South Africa for 138, Ponting declined to enforce the follow-on. This time the stand with Katich was cut off at 55, but Hughes ploughed on. After the largely fluent display on the opening day, this was an innings of different stages: his first fifty took 78 balls, his second 169, and his third 66.Fittingly, his hundred arrived with an upper cut through backward point. At 20 years 98 days, Hughes had broken George Headley’s record as the youngest player to make two hundreds in a Test.Katich on Hughes’ likeability: “Of all the guys I’ve played with, I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone say a bad word about him”•Getty Images”It’s a great snapshot into not only his hunger but his skill and mental application to start again,” Katich said. “A lot of senior players find it hard to score twin hundreds. It doesn’t happen that often. To be able to go out there as a young player in your second Test and do it against that quality of opposition, particularly when conditions can change, it started to go a bit up and down, to be able to go out there, back-up, have the hunger to start again, mentally and physically, it was remarkable.”A few months later Katich saw Hughes go through the first setback of his career. Before the 2009 Ashes, Hughes was averaging 69.36 in first-class cricket with ten centuries from 24 matches. But he was dropped two games into the series after Andrew Flintoff worked him over from around the wicket.”I was as shocked as anyone and hurt for him,” Katich said. “It was a brutal call and that lived with him for a bit, he was in and out of the team, and it’s always tough when you get back in and you’re trying to make the most of it. That had played on his mind a bit.”It heralded a period where he couldn’t nail down a regular place in the Test side, although he scored a third hundred against Sri Lanka in 2011 during a longer run back in the XI. A return to South Africa in 2011 brought 88 in Johannesburg, in the Test Pat Cummins made his debut in. In 2013 there was a century on ODI debut against Sri Lanka, with then chair of selectors John Inverarity saying they had Hughes in mind for the 2015 World Cup.In what would prove to be his penultimate Test, against England at Trent Bridge, he made an unbeaten 81 alongside Ashton Agar’s record-breaking 98 at No. 11. In August 2014, he scored a career-best 243 not out against South Africa A, which came two weeks after a one-day double-hundred against the same side.”When the accident happened, there was a real sense that he wasn’t far away from being back in the team and would stay there,” Katich said. “He was an all-format player. He was still young and we’d seen plenty of examples of players who have been dropped and come back stronger for it. Most, if not all of us, agreed that Hughesy would have been in the same category. He had so much more to come.”

Against a side that boasted of six international players, they not only had all their plans in place but also showed they had the fitness to do it

Vishal Dikshit25-Jan-2025Sweaty palms. Shuffling feet. Restless bodies.That’s what the Jammu & Kashmir (J&K) dugout looked like as their batters inched closer to their target of 205 against heavyweights Mumbai on the third day. Even though J&K were 144 for 4 and only 61 runs away, their last three wickets had been thrown away to left-arm spinner Shams Mulani on a pitch that barely had any turn on offer. The plan was, perhaps, to gun down some of those runs to pile some pressure on Mumbai. But when their two set batters stepped out, Shubham Khajuria (45) lost his stumps, and Vivrant Sharma (38) holed out to long-off.It was nerves, both in the middle and in the dugout. The big-hitting Abdul Samad hammered five fours in his 20-ball stay to wipe out 24 more runs, but he was stumped when he danced down and missed. The crowd that had been quiet was brought back to life, and they had another reason to cheer when J&K’s experienced captain Paras Dogra was caught spectacularly by a diving Shardul Thakur.Related

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Ajinkya Rahane rubbed the ball incessantly on his trackpants to try and maintain the shine. Forty-six to go, five wickets in hand. A few heads turned towards each other in the J&K dugout. Should they keep attacking or should they resort to a more cautious approach? Twenty-eight-year-old Abid Mushtaq and 23-year-old Kanhaiya Wadhawan, with an experience of barely 35 first-class games between them, took the more aggressive route.Mushtaq lofted Tanush Kotian for a six, Wadhawan swept Mulani and Kotian for more runs, and when Mushtaq swiped Kotian for a six to the midwicket boundary for the winning runs, the celebrations took off in the dugout. There were hugs and huddles, shrieks and high fives, while Mushtaq and Wadhawa completed the more formal handshakes in the middle with their opponents.These unknown names – except a couple that have featured in the IPL – had taken down the star-studded defending champions in their backyard. They overcame nerves, they read the conditions better, they overcame the gulf between the two teams on paper, and went to the top of the Group A table with a big chance of making the knockouts.It was a lot like how J&K had scripted their first Ranji win against Mumbai, over ten years ago at the Wankhede Stadium, while chasing a 200-plus total in tense moments. A side that comes from a state with troubled political history and violence, and with cricket infrastructure incomparable with what the Mumbai team has, is now among only three teams that have beaten Mumbai twice on their home ground in this format since 2006.Only a couple of players in the current J&K XI know what it’s like to beat Mumbai twice: Khajuriya and fast bowler Umar Nazir Mir. And they both played a starring role in the win on Saturday.Vivrant Sharma scored a steady 38 in the chase for J&K•PTI Khajuriya top-scored in both innings whereas Nazir handed Mumbai the big blows of Rohit Sharma, Rahane and Shivam Dube on the first morning with his movement and bounce. Nazir is the most experienced of J&K’s pace trio, which also has Auqib Nabi and Yudhvir Singh, and he led the attack with his towering frame to pounce on the pace-friendly conditions once Mumbai opted to bat.The Mumbai side had prepared by watching videos of the pace trio. But as it turned out, that wasn’t enough. The three J&K fast bowlers sent down the bulk of the overs – 90.2 out of 107.2 – and took all 19 wickets that fell to the bowlers. They were up against the most accomplished batting line-up in this Ranji round and bossed them like they were the least experienced. They were bowling to the most successful side in domestic history by a distance, but didn’t let it get to them. Did anyone even give them a chance against a side that boasted of six international players? Because J&K had none.If they got instant success in their first spells to reduce Mumbai to 47 for 7 and 101 for 7 across both innings, they showed they had the fitness to bowl long spells of eight or nine overs under the sun beating down when Mumbai’s tail tried to stage a comeback.Their accuracy in sticking to the tight lines and lengths with the new ball was a testimony to the plans they had in place. Their short-ball attack to centurion Thakur was proof that they had a Plan B for when the ball would get older, and conditions better for batting.”I think this season they’ve been doing really well,” Rahane said of J&K’s pace attack after the game on Saturday. “Their fast-bowling unit, we saw their videos [before the game]. I thought their bowling unit has been doing really well by bowling in the right areas. I thought they read the conditions really well at this wicket.”Nabi, who accounted for Yashasvi Jaiswal, Shreyas Iyer and Dube, and later Thakur on the third morning, is not surprisingly the second-highest wicket-taker of the season so far with 38 wickets while averaging a stunning 12.94 with as many as five five-fors. Yudhvir took home the Player-of-the-Match award with his tally of seven wickets, and has 22 overall this season at 19.68. Nazir has 17 from just three games, and averages a barely believable 13.41.Even without the more accomplished and much quicker Umran Malik, the J&K quicks showed no challenge is impossible and no dream out of reach. Their next stop is Vadodara where they take on an in-form Baroda, and where conditions might favour spinners more. But first, it’s time to relish this rare feat and wipe the sweat off their forehead.

Stats highlights from Punjab Kings’ victory against Chennai Super Kings

Sampath Bandarupalli08-Apr-20252:37

Jaffer: Hope to see Arya in India colours soon

39 – The number of balls Punjab Kings (PBKS) batter Priyansh Arya took to score his century against Chennai Super Kings (CSK), the second-fastest by an Indian in the IPL behind Yusuf Pathan’s 37-ball hundred against Mumbai Indians (MI) in IPL 2010.4 – Arya’s hundred is also the joint-fourth-fastest in the IPL and the second-fastest for PBKS behind David Miller’s 38-ball century against Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) in 2013.310.00 – Arya’s strike rate against CSK’s fast bowlers – he scored 62 runs off 20 balls. Only two batters have had a higher strike rate against quicks in an IPL match (minimum of 20 balls) – 348.00 by Suresh Raina vs Kings XI Punjab (now PBKS) in 2014 and 342.85 by Jake Fraser-McGurk vs MI in 2024.Related

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136 – Runs that PBKS scored after the fall of their fifth wicket against CSK – the most any team has scored after that point in an IPL innings while batting first. It is also the joint-fourth-highest by any team in an IPL innings.2 – Number of batters before Arya with centuries in a men’s T20 in which none of the others in the top six got to double-digits.Michael Bracewell scored 141* for Wellington batting at No. 3 against Central Districts in 2022 when 5 was the next-highest from among the top six.Saber Zakhil scored 100* from No. 8 for Belgium against Austria in 2021, where all the top seven batters got out for four or fewer.12 – Catches dropped by CSK in IPL 2025, including five against PBKS on Tuesday – the most by any team in this tournament. Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) and PBKS are joint-second with six.9 – Catches dropped in Mullanpur on Tuesday – five by CSK and four by PBKS, the most in an IPL match, according to ESPNcricinfo’s ball-by-ball logs, surpassing the eight dropped catches by Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) and Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) at Eden Gardens in 2023.

England opener shows way ahead of must-win games against Afghanistan and South Africa

Vithushan Ehantharajah22-Feb-20251:26

Knight: The way Duckett rotated strike put Australia under pressure

It was as fine a consolation hundred as they come. An innings which rubber-stamped Ben Duckett as one of England’s best multi-format batters, further vindicating his move to open the batting in ODIs. It also highlighted the shortcomings of his team-mates.Duckett’s 165, the highest individual score in Champions Trophy history, made up 47% of England’s 351. A total which Australia chased down with 15 balls and five wickets to spare in Lahore thanks to Josh Inglis’ own collector’s item century.The way Duckett approached Adam Zampa was particularly fresh, scoring 50 from the 36 balls faced. The rest of the line-up managed just 14 off 24 balls from the legspinner, who dismissed Joe Root (the only other batter to make a score of note) and Harry Brook.”We’ve been wanting that from our batters,” a downbeat Jos Buttler told Sky Sports immediately after the match, referencing Duckett’s journey to three figures. In 15 ODIs since the 2023 World Cup, England have only produced four centuries, and Duckett has been responsible for half of them.Related

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There is a lot to be said for England’s woeful run of 50-over form since the botched defense of their 2019 title. Much of it is summed up by the fact this, their 11th defeat in 15, already has them in “must win” territory for the final Group B games against Afghanistan and South Africa. And the fact Duckett was able to play an innings of such substance will be of some comfort.That comfort is solely down to Duckett’s reliability rather than a blueprint to adopt. The left-hander’s methods are very much his, from the way he chokes the neck of the bat with his bottom hand, to his ability impart a “slap” into every shot in front of the wicket. Both short balls from Spencer Johnson despatched down the ground for successive fours to take him to his hundred from 95 deliveries were fine examples of this.Duckett’s consistency has been something to behold, underlining his maturity and leadership capacity, which is why he finds himself at the forefront of Brendon McCullum’s white ball refresh. Since his return to the Test side in 2022, Duckett has been England’s third-highest runscorer in whites, averaging 43.20 as an opener. Last year, he was also third across all formats, despite not playing a single T20I. And since moving to the top of the order in ODIs, his nine appearances – six against Australia, three against India – have produced 601 runs, with five 50-plus scores and a strike rate of 113.82. By way of comparison, Jonny Bairstow and Jason Roy, one of the greatest 50-over opening partnerships, went at 105.98 and 105.53, respectively.This knock was as much about persistence. At three hours and 35 minutes, with 143 balls faced, taking him from the start of the innings through to the 48th over, this was comfortably the lengthiest of Duckett’s 86 List A innings. In fact, of his 60 Test innings to date, only two have been longer in terms of balls faced.Ben Duckett brought up his second ODI hundred against Australia•Associated PressIt also showcased Duckett’s evolution, underpinned by a sense of responsibility. “I was certainly not fluent at the top – it was probably my slowest powerplay,” Duckett told Sky Sports, having been 17 off 24 before striking the last ball of the 10th over for four. “But I knew in my head that they were gonna bowl a lot of spin through those middle overs, and it was spin that I could target.”The way he played Zampa was smart, but the way he used his array of sweeps (or didn’t, in this case) was smarter.”I think the beauty now is people are cutting off the sweeps for me, which allows me to hit straight. On that pitch, it felt like really early, actually, I’m not gonna sweep too much with the bounce being a little bit invariable. But, I’m gonna commit and run down and and make sure I can hit the ball straight and I think that’s probably the biggest part of my game that I’ve tried to change.”Duckett’s first swept boundary came once he reached three figures, a reverse for four at the end of the 33rd over against Zampa. His three sixes went down the ground – one off Zampa and two off Glenn Maxwell, having clocked the latter’s traits during their recent Big Bash League stint together for Melbourne Stars.As ever with Duckett, there was a bit of light relief when assessing how this particular approach could fair going forward. “I might get caught mid-off next time, who knows… but it’s something that I back myself to do now and you know, I’ve only got to clear the ring.”That, however, was as meme-able as Duckett got. Amid the high of another fine performance was an admission of feeling “flat” at how the match itself transpired.England return to the Gaddafi Stadium on Wednesday to face Afghanistan, needing to match Duckett’s verve. He himself will be required to match his own – even if this majestic century, comfortably one of England’s best at a major event, was not enough.It was not even the best century of the day.

The England batter had the stellar ability to make games change course, and that made him worth more than his numbers

Jarrod Kimber18-May-2025In December 2013, when covering a Test at the WACA, journalists started putting their laptops in the fridge as they overheated. It was hot every day of this Test, with 37°C the maximum temperature. The sort of heat that melts your soul after a day or two.Some batters say that it gets harder to think in hot conditions. They resort to trying to get as many runs as they can before fatigue gets them out. This was one of those days. England were well behind in the Test, needing to score 504 to win. At the crease was Kevin Pietersen.The chances of winning were low. The heat had split the WACA pitch like a fault line, with cracks everywhere. Australia had Mitchell Johnson in peak form, and burly chested fast bowler Ryan Harris, who was almost as good. They were both too fast, too much. With a big total to chase, the wicket and the heat, nothing was on England’s side. But they did still have Pietersen, the player who changed things with his strokeplay. His strike rate at the end of his career was 62, which was nowhere near some of the quickest players. But when he went hard, it was violent. “Kevin Pietersen, he’s the best player I’ve ever seen play for England,” says David “Bumble” Lloyd.At The Oval in 2005, Pietersen was yet to make a Test hundred. He was facing Brett Lee and Shaun Tait – two of the fastest bowlers, then and now. As well as Glenn McGrath and Shane Warne – two of the best bowlers, then and now.Pietersen slog-swept Warne like he was a part-timer in a village team. The champion legspinner took 40 wickets in that series. Pietersen brought his hundred up from 124 balls, though for a period Warne bowled defensively around the wicket into the footmarks just to slow him down.But it was the attack on Brett Lee that was the most exhilarating. After 60 balls, Pietersen was on 35, and most of those were boundaries from attacking Warne. Lee decided to bounce Pietersen.It started with a bruise, clocked at 93.7mph. All Pietersen could do was glove it and almost fall over into his stumps. Straight after that, Lee went all in on the short ball. Pietersen went on the hook.The second ball of this plan was hooked for six. Lee’s speed was 91mph. It cleared fine leg by some distance. Pietersen was not a great hooker; like many other tall batters, he didn’t face as many short balls growing up as others. He often made the decision late, and it was more of a panicked swipe. He also often tried to play it off the front foot, which he was even worse at. He averaged far less on the pull and hook than the top six batters of his era.After a watchful start against Brett Lee at The Oval in 2005, Pietersen laid into him, hitting three sixes and five fours•Hamish Blair/Getty ImagesPietersen used this shot differently compared to other players. He was daring quicks to keep bowling it to him. Lee did. Looking back, it felt like this contest went on forever. Lee kept getting faster and shorter, and Pietersen swung more and more frantically. Lee was forced to give up the plan.No one who saw that innings live has ever forgotten it.Pietersen was no one’s idea of a perfect batter. His technique involved hitting balls on the up, dragging deliveries from outside off to leg, and hitting the ball in the air. Playing across the line might have been why he struggled in the second innings of matches, averaging only 38, as the ball kept lower. Overall, the risks he took stopped him from averaging 50 in what was a great era to bat.He is not an automatic selection for the top 50 Test batters of all time, but his ability to turn a match in an innings was like few others in history. It means his average of 47 is more significant than others.About eight years after 2005, Pietersen is facing fast bowling from Australians again – this time on a faster wicket, at the WACA. But he is also going up against a new Australian spinner, Nathan Lyon, bowling with the breeze.Australia have attacking fielders and boundary riders, an in-out field. Many batters would simply rotate the strike, punish any bad deliveries and keep their wicket intact. Lyon is the bowler to milk, to stay in against, to save your real energy for Johnson’s thunderbolts or Harris’ Mack Truck-like force. However, it is hot, and the Australian quicks are all rotating through their second spells. To give them more time to rest, Lyon’s offspin is floating on the breeze.Pietersen starts to attack him almost immediately, smashing one back, which is stopped. Next, he comes down the wicket and drop-kicks a shot over mid- on. He gets three. The next over, there are two more boundaries: one from a fine sweep and another from a cover drive against the spin. Lyon stays on, and Pietersen wants to emphasise that he should not. So he runs down and smashes the ball over the long-on fielder into the crowd. It is audacious, wild, and exactly how Pietersen thinks.He was averaging more than 50 against Lyon then. He has the match-up, has put him in the crowd, and scores off him with ease. One more blow will change Australia’s rest strategy.BloomsburyPietersen runs down the wicket at Lyon one more time and goes for glory. But something doesn’t work; his head isn’t perfect, the ball doesn’t come from the middle, it hangs in the famous Fremantle Doctor and the catch is taken by Harris, one of the quick bowlers he is trying to tire, at long-on.Though we were almost a decade into Pietersen’s career at this point, and he’d taken that sort of risk so many times, he was still taken to task for it.People saw it as arrogance, a lack of patience, or just plain stupidity. But there was solid thinking to how he played. If he did knock Lyon out of the attack, Johnson would probably have to come back too early. Getting him tired was the key to making runs against Australia if you’d managed to survive Harris and the new ball.Johnson and Harris were the threats. You could try handling them for hours and do that over time, or you could speed up the process by making the player who rests them unbowlable.Pietersen often chose the faster, more dramatic option. And when it worked, England won the 2005 Ashes due to his 158 at the Oval. When it didn’t, Australia won the 2013-14 Ashes at the WACA. In terms of game theory, Pietersen was risk and reward. He was hailed as a hero when it worked and abused as a pariah when it didn’t.The Art of Batting: the Craft of Cricket’s Greatest Run Scorers

By giving bowlers a little leeway down the leg side, cricket will bring new skills and forgotten strokes into play

Abhinav Mukund13-Aug-2025After the thrilling finish in the Oval Test earlier this month, Shubman Gill said that nothing should be changed in terms of the Test cricket playing conditions. Rightly so, with all the games in the England-India series going the full distance.But what about the other formats? The ICC has made a few changes in their playing conditions for white- ball cricket. One change in particular, which is to be trialled from October, has piqued my interest. This relates to the wide-ball rule.This change, which aims to provide a certain amount of wriggle room for a bowler when faced with a batter moving around in their crease before or during a delivery, says that the position of the batter’s legs at the point of delivery will be used as the reference point for a wide. Further:Related

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[…] A ball that passes the popping crease between the leg stump and the protected area marker [will not be] called a Wide. To help with this, the protected area marker line will be extended to the popping crease and act as a guide for the umpires.

Any leg side delivery that passes behind the batter’s legs and outside of the line at the time the ball reaches the popping crease may still be called a Wide. Previously, a wide had been called for a delivery that would not have been called wide if the batter had retained their normal batting position.

Effectively, a ball that passes just a little behind the batter’s legs will not be ruled a wide. But before we get into the details, I want to talk about the existing playing conditions. (The Laws of Cricket and the ICC’s playing conditions are interconnected, with the latter supplementing and sometimes modifying the former for specific competitions.)The wide law as it stands currently states that if the ball passes wide of where the striker is standing, or has stood at any point after the ball came into play for that delivery (and if it would also have passed wide of the striker standing in a normal batting position), it should be given a wide. And while a wide is called as soon after the ball passes the batter’s wicket as possible, it is considered to have been a wide from the time the bowler entered their delivery stride.So, according to the Laws, the movements of the batter during the delivery are taken into account for adjudging a wide – which gives the batter leeway to move about their crease to possibly attempt to manipulate a wide call in their favour. In contrast, the ICC’s new proposed playing conditions state that the ball needs to pass within the protected area marker on the leg side when it goes past the crease. This is a fixed reference point. If the ball passes close to the pad near the batter’s legs and moves away afterward, outside the protected area line between that point and the bowling crease, it will be called a wide.Ashwin KumarIn the recently concluded Tamil Nadu Premier League, a similar wide law was trialled, but using the framework of the Laws of cricket. A three-point system was used to judge wide calls:Where was the batter standing at the point of the release of the ball?
How close to the batter was the ball when it passed them?
How close to the stumps was the ball when it went past them? This ensures that, even if the batter was moving all over the place before the ball was bowled, the wide call was based on the position of the batter at the point of the bowler’s release.How did the new rule play out in the TNPL?In the 2023 tournament, 319 wides were bowled; in 2024, 311; and in 2025, 275. So there was a significant drop in the number of wides called this year, under the new rule. But surprisingly, that did not impact the scores at all; rather, the scores were higher.In 2023, 9570 runs were scored. In 2024, this grew a little, to 9659. And in 2025, it went up more substantially, to 10,048. In a power-hitting, flat-batting world, it was wonderful to see the batters adapt and play the leg glance or flick against the ball going down leg. You don’t often see those shots in a T20 game.Did the new rule give an advantage to the bowler?T Natarajan, who has played multiple years of IPL and won the TNPL title with the IDream Tiruppur Tamizhans this year said, “There is a definite advantage in terms of bowlers who have control – especially in the death, when the go-to delivery is a wide yorker. The stump yorker comes into play with this [new] rule, as it gives you the margin of error to miss your line by a few inches.” This puts doubt in the batter’s mind, he said. “It adds an element of variety in your bowling.”Mystery spinner Varun Chakravarthy thinks the rule presents fast bowlers with more of an advantage than it does spinners. “While the pacers can add a lot more variety with a yorker or bouncer, the only advantage I had was if I got the googly slightly off target and it beat the batter on the leg side – it wouldn’t be called a wide. Otherwise, spinners who have the ability to bowl the yorker can use it to their advantage in a T20 game.”Batters win you sponsorships, bowlers win you championships. The T20 game, in particular, is built on batting exploits and the long sixes that batters hit. As fans, we generally tend to want to see more sixes being hit and not lower scores.Did the new bowler-favouring rule mean we saw fewer sixes this year in the TNPL? Surprisingly not: 418 were scored in 2024, 463 were scored this year. Batters found a way to adapt. The battle between bat and ball was heightened thanks to this rule.The ICC has announced the revised rule will come into effect from October on a trial basis for six months in ODIs and T20Is. In ODIs, with two new balls for the first 34 overs (another new rule) we might see bowlers attempt to swing the ball without fear of being called wide for going fractionally down the leg side. We might see reverse swing attempted a lot more at the death. Tactically, having a leg-side-dominant field in the middle overs could be an option for captains, as you are allowed only four fielders outside the 30-yard circle in that period.Batters will need to work on their leg-side game – not many have the leg glance or flick in their repertoire because of the strong hold that flat-batting has on the game. There will be a definite need for batters to alter their technique ever so slightly if they want to succeed against a bowler who has good control.Personally, I would like the ICC playing conditions to mirror the Laws of cricket, and account for the batter stepping out or moving around in the crease before the ball is bowled, without just making it a standard rule of judging whether the ball passed inside the protected area markers or not.This could, however, make it a nightmare for the umpires, who will have to note when the bowler starts his delivery stride, and also keep in mind where the batter was in his stance when making their decisions. In the TNPL and IPL you are allowed to call for the DRS for wides; in an international game you are not. I am pretty certain this will change soon, though the pace of play may be affected. Certainly the modified rule in the ICC playing conditions will have an impact in deciding the results of games.As a batter myself, I am overall in favour of the new rule. It provides an exciting element, especially in the closing stages of a T20 game, bringing an element of unpredictability to what a bowler can do, without the fear of being penalised. It gives bowler and batter another layer of skill to display. I won’t be surprised if we have games decided on one or two legal deliveries that previously might have been called wide.

Jasprit Bumrah hadn’t conceded 20 or more runs in an over since 2020 before Josh Inglis tore into him in Ahmedabad on Sunday night

Sampath Bandarupalli02-Jun-20252:30

Why didn’t Hardik and Santner complete their quota of overs?

204 – The target that Punjab Kings (PBKS) chased down on Sunday, is the highest by any team in the IPL playoffs (or knockouts). The previous highest was 200 by Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) against Kings XI Punjab (now PBKS) in the 2014 final.1 – PBKS became the first team to successfully chase down a 200-plus target against Mumbai Indians (MI) in the IPL. The previous highest was 196 by the Rajasthan Royals (RR) in 2020.MI won all the previous 18 instances where they set a 200-plus target in the IPL, and the record was 19-0 in all T20s. Before Sunday’s defeat, they were the only team in the IPL not to lose while defending a 200-plus target.ESPNcricinfo Ltd87* – Shreyas Iyer’s score on Sunday is the second-highest by a captain in the IPL playoffs behind David Warner’s 93* against Gujarat Lions in 2016.8 – Number of successful 200-plus target chases for PBKS in the IPL. No other team in T20 history has successfully chased down 200-plus targets more than five times.Australia, India and South Africa in international cricket, and MI (all IPL), RCB (three in IPL, two in CLT20) and Quetta Gladiators (PSL) all have five successful chases of 200-plus targets.9-2 – MI’s win-loss record while defending a total in the IPL playoffs (or knockouts). Sunday’s defeat was their second in 11 matches while batting first, following the seven-wicket loss to Chennai Super Kings (CSK) in the Eliminator in 2014.8 – 200-plus totals for PBKS in IPL 2025, the joint-highest for any team in a men’s T20 tournament, alongside Gujarat Titans (GT), who also had eight in this year’s IPL.3 – Number of teams that Iyer has led into the finals in the IPL – Delhi Capitals (2020), Kolkata Knight Riders (2024) and PBKS (2025). No other captain has led more than one team to the IPL finals.2:31

‘Such a big over’ – Aaron on Inglis taking 20 off Bumrah in the fifth

1271 – Sixes hit in IPL 2025 so far, the most in an edition, surpassing 1260 sixes in 2024. PBKS batters hit 159 of those 1271, only behind 178 by Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) and 165 by Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) in 2024.717 – Runs scored by Suryakumar Yadav in IPL 2025, the highest for any player while batting at No. 3 or lower in a men’s T20 tournament. He bettered the mark of AB de Villiers, who scored 687 runs in IPL 2016.242* – Runs scored by Iyer without being dismissed across the three IPL matches in Ahmedabad. He had unbeaten fifties in all three games, all coming at a strike rate of over 200.20 – Runs that Josh Inglis scored off Jasprit Bumrah in the fifth over on Sunday. Only two other batters have scored as many in an over off Bumrah in the IPL – 26 by Pat Cummins in 2020 and 20 by Dwayne Bravo in 2018.