All posts by h716a5.icu

'It was very lonely here' – Sehwag

by h716a5.icu Uncategorized

In his third innings, Karun Nair became the second Indian to score a Test triple-hundred. Here’s how Twitter reacted

ESPNcricinfo staff19-Dec-2016The only India batsman to have scored a triple-hundred before Karun Nair was Virender Sehwag. He was among the first to welcome Nair to the club.

Wishes poured in from across India.

And elsewhere.

Karun Nair’s highest first-class score still remains his 328 in the 2014-15 Ranji Trophy final.

India declared on 759 for 7 – their record Test total – and Nair’s unbeaten 303 was the first time a batsman had finished on that score in Tests.

Both Jayant Yadav and Karun Nair, who were handed debuts during the England series, have made an impression.

The 31st Test triple soon?

Would you agree with this thought?

That would be cruel.

The mysterious mobile phone at Newlands

by h716a5.icu Uncategorized

Upul Tharanga’s double delight, Faf du Plessis’ sprinkling of luck and a mysterious mobile phone feature in the plays of the day from the fourth ODI in Cape Town

Firdose Moonda07-Feb-2017The one that stuckSri Lanka have struggled to take their chances throughout this tour, but clung on to one of the few they got this time. Quinton de Kock looked in imperious form and was on 55 when he walked out to meet a Sachitra Pathirana delivery. But the ball dipped on him and took the edge that flew to the left of stand-in captain Upul Tharanga, who dived to his left at slip and held on with both hands. De Kock’s excellent record of converting fifties to hundreds was dented but it needed some proper commitment to ensure he did not bat on.Dig this out Faf du Plessis had barely received a challenging ball on his way to his second century in the series, until he was on 98. Lahiru Kumara, whose first four overs cost 32 runs, sent down a toe-crusher on leg stump that would have uprooted it, but du Plessis had luck on his side. Not only did he get the bat down in time, but he dug the ball out with such force that it raced to fine leg for four. He fell over in the process but found his feet and raised his arms in time to celebrate his milestone.Cricket Calling South African grounds have provided entertainment other than what’s happening on-field to create incentives for more people to come and watch. There’s been everything from cook-offs to fancy dress to a bee invasion and today, there was a mobile phone. In the 36th over of the South African innings, a cellphone found its way onto the outfield. Who put it there? And who were they trying to call? Perhaps only Sri Lanka’s 12th man will know. He passed the phone to a man in the crowd – but was it really his?Going for the record After timing the ball magnificently for two-and-a-half hours, Faf du Plessis found himself a shot away from history… and mishit. He was aiming to clear the long-on boundary off the second ball of the final over but did not get enough power behind the shot. Although the fielder had to make some ground, he took the catch. In hindsight, du Plessis may have been better off hitting the ball along the ground, where it may still have found the rope and seen him overtake Gary Kirsten’s record for the highest score by a South African in ODIs.Double delightUpul Tharanga’s clean-hitting made for as eye-catching a contest as anyone would have hoped for but there was one shot that was memorable not just because it was meatily struck. The 73rd ball Tharanga faced was effortlessly lofted over long-on and brought up two much-needed milestones for Sri Lanka. It took their total to 190 – their highest in the ODI series thus far – and gave them their first centurion in any format on this tour.

The six-hitting revolution is only getting started

by h716a5.icu Uncategorized

The power-hitters are breaking new ground. Meanwhile, bowlers are hampered in the development of their skills by a number of factors

Tim Wigmore04-Apr-2017At Loughborough last summer, the ECB hosted a brainstorming session discussing the future of batting. The brave new world envisaged by Graham Thorpe, Mark Ramprakash, Trevor Bayliss, Paul Farbrace and Andy Flower was of batting becoming even more powerful, with more sixes hit than ever before, and bowlers struggling to keep up.Batting’s direction of travel is already obvious. The salient question is just how far it will go.”Watching our players doing range-hitting out in the middle, you realise they’re clearing the boundary by 20 or 30 yards,” reflects Thorpe, now England’s lead batting coach. “It’s about having a range of strokes, not just targeting one area.”Across T20Is and ODIs, teams are rejecting the traditional categories of batsmen, and the compromises inherent in selecting between hitters and more reliable anchors. Now everyone can hit. “You need your batsmen to be able to clear the ropes. That’s a good starting point,” Thorpe says.Initially, the onset of T20 did not lead to a spate of sixes. From 2006 to 2012, the number of sixes per T20 innings remained steady, at about four; the same was true in ODIs, where the number of sixes per innings remained at about three. In the years since, though, there has been an explosion of maximums, in both limited-overs formats. In ODIs, the number of sixes per match rose from 6.09 in 2012 to 8.73 in 2016 – almost a 50% increase in five years. In T20Is, the number of sixes per innings rose from 4.23 in 2012 to 5.18 in 2016. In both formats, sixes were more common in 2016 than ever before, according to the statistician Ric Finlay.

Six-hitting in ODIs

YearBalls per sixSixes per matchSixes per 100 fours2006111.844.7512.30200777.266.6417.83200888.265.6116.29200984.916.0916.08201092.285.7715.71201185.536.0816.82201285.246.0917.27201372.747.0418.31201467.017.9819.52201559.168.6820.69201659.308.7321.87

Six-hitting in T20s (across T20Is, Big Bash, CPL, T20 Blast, IPL and Champions League)

YearBalls per sixSixes per matchSixes per 100 fours200628.008.0227.67200725.078.2535.17200826.908.1732.32200929.987.6230.43201026.508.4933.37201128.997.5931.28201226.478.3035.17201325.488.8435.89201422.889.8239.42201522.589.9039.25201621.7010.1541.11And there is no reason to believe that the six revolution will halt anytime soon. “I can’t see why this trend wouldn’t continue – maybe not at the same pace, but certainly in the same direction,” says Flower, the England Lions coach, who has witnessed the belligerence of the next generation.Modern players “know they have the power and ability,” says the power-hitting coach Julian Wood. “Mindset is key. They set themselves up to clear the ropes first, then work back from that to a four, a three, a two or a one.”The very existence of Wood, who has done regular consultancy work for the England Lions is evidence of how hitting is now given a greater emphasis than ever before. “As coaches, we’re always trying to get players to grow their self-awareness and to push their boundaries,” Flower explains. “A lot is geared towards hitting the ball more powerfully and more confidently.”The rise in batsmen’s fitness, strength, and tailored six-hitting practice has come in an era when most substantive changes to the game have been advantageous to batsmen. The introduction of free hits for front-foot no-balls (extended to all no-balls in 2015) in limited-overs cricket, a greater emphasis on policing the 15-degree limit for bowlers straightening their elbows, and advances in bat technology, which have helped psychologically as much as physically – all have combined to embolden batsmen.Professionalism also means that teams bat deeper than ever; where sides might once have had five players who could be reliably expected to clear the ropes in the death overs, now they have a full team’s worth. England have used Adil Rashid, a man with ten first-class hundreds, at No. 11 in ODIs and T20Is. Such depth is not only important in its own right, it creates a wider “team confidence”, leading to “greater freedom” among all batsmen, Flower believes.If it’s in the air, they can’t stop it: higher fielding standards have probably contributed to the emphasis on six-hitting•Getty ImagesAdvances in fielding might also have expedited the rise in six-hitting. As modern fielders have become so much more athletic, it has become harder to hit through the field, and thus more attractive to hit over it – and the modern player is not deterred by the presence of a fielder. “Players don’t mind seeing someone on the boundary and just hitting it over them. In days gone by, the general attitude would have been to find areas where people weren’t on the boundary,” Flower reflects. In ODIs in 2006, there were 12 sixes for every 100 fours; by 2016, there were 22 for every 100 fours.Some tinkering around the edges – like restricting bat sizes – will make little difference. “I can’t see the introduction of limits on bat depths affecting the outcome much; I see batters just becoming better at hitting the middle of the bat,” Wood says. Even within the new regulations, bat manufacturers reckon that they can build even more powerful bats than those that are used today – and, in any case, the bats themselves have only a limited impact on the distances that modern players now hit the ball.Perhaps most ominous for bowlers is the notion that batsmen have an inherent physiological advantage, which they are only properly exploring now, in the uber-professional age. The theory here is very simple: that, because of the strain that bowling puts upon the body, bowlers can only do so much. “Bowlers will have limited capacity to practise, whereas batsmen can practise almost as much as they like,” explains Timothy Olds from the School of Health Sciences at the University of South Australia. In all but extraordinary cases, a lack of practice will impede what ambidextrous bowlers, say, can achieve, even as batsmen become more adept at switch-hitting.Physiological advantages will enable batsmen to exploit technological improvements. “I envisage ‘supraphysiologial’ bowling machines that will be able to bowl spin at very high speeds, or bowl hyperspinning balls, which will really improve batting skills, whereas there’s not much can be done on the bowling side,” Olds says. The ECB is even exploring whether virtual reality could aid batsmen, helping them adjust to bowling conditions before facing their first ball.Technology has also helped in another way. There tends to be more mystique and individuality in the best bowlers than in the best batsmen, so video technology, while it can help both, is particularly useful for batsmen. Consider how Ajantha Mendis, after a phenomenal start to his international career, was demystified with the aid of video analysis.Bowlers have a physiological disadvantage with respect to batsmen, in that their skill is more physically demanding to practise•AFPWherever you look, it all adds to the sense that the equilibrium in cricket, the fundamental balance between bat and ball, has never been more disturbed. “You wouldn’t want to be a bowler, would you?” Chris Woakes said recently. “If the game keeps going the way it is going, then 500 [in ODIs] is not going to be out of reach… What can we do? I’m not too sure. I don’t understand where we can go, other than just to execute better.”Another sport provides an intriguing comparison of what is possible, and where limited-overs cricket could go next. In the National Basketball Association league since 2000, the number of three-point attempts per game (that is, shots taken from furthest away; shots from closer are only worth two points) has doubled, from 13.7 to 26.7. The rise reflects how players are more skilled than ever, and so can shoot from further away with greater accuracy. But it has also been driven by analytics.Daryl Morey, the general manager of the Houston Rockets, is among the most innovative coaches in sport. His use of analytics has informed the Houston Rockets attempting threes at a higher rate than any team in history. Ultimately the reason is simple: threes are the most efficient way to score points. They are riskier than normal two-point shots, and fail more often, but the overall average return is higher because the payoff is 50% greater, just as a six is worth 50% more than a four.Similar thinking is beginning to pervade T20 cricket too. A growing number of analysts believe that wickets remain overvalued. Many teams end up with 175 for 4, say, when with more ambition they could have reached 190 for 8.If they are right, then attempts to hit sixes will become more common still in the coming years. The NBA has its three-point revolution; the six-run revolution is long underway in T20 and ODI cricket, but, for all the advances in batting, it remains unfinished. Bowlers could soon have even more reason to feel glum.

Cook on shaky ground after Hamilton omission

by h716a5.icu Uncategorized

Did the South African selectors err by leaving out Stephen Cook, who was set to play a bigger role in England, and asking Theunis de Bruyn to bat out of position?

Firdose Moonda in Hamilton25-Mar-2017The secret to the most successful sports teams is that there’s always something, or someone, they are working on. Their goal is to have a support cast that is as good as their starting XI, a depth that can drown out the opposition, and to do that they need to practice some form of player rotation.We see it in cricket often. All-format players have their workloads managed in less-than-crucial clashes. Fast bowlers are rested, some batsmen make way for others and occasionally a struggling player is given a break (read: dropped) to allow them to get away from their troubles. That’s what happened to Stephen Cook, whose struggles on a second away tour this summer saw him sidelined for the Hamilton Test.In principle, it’s not the worst idea. Imagine if you were going through a tough time at work and your boss told you to take a week off and serve your colleagues tea instead? You may not like the waitering part but at least you wouldn’t have to think about unhappy clients or poor customer feedback or whatever it was that caused you to become bad (or just not good) at your job.In theory, it would only work if there was someone else who could do your job at least as well as you during your sabbatical. Your bosses would prefer it if they did it better; you, of course, would not. And in sport, are no such guarantees.When JP Duminy came in for an injured Ashwell Prince in Australia in 2008-09, he helped South Africa to a first series win down under and Prince had to fight his way back. Those kinds of things happen. It may still happen to Cook here and if it does, fair play to Theunis de Bruyn. But it still raises the question of whether this was the best course of action both for de Bruyn, who was asked to play out of position, and Cook, who spent seven seasons banging down the door for a place in the national team.History could give us the first clues. This is not the first time South Africa have done this in the recent past. Stiaan van Zyl sat out the final Test in India after scores of 5, 36, 10, 0 and 5. He was dismissed by R Ashwin all five times and his technique looked as scrambled as his mind.Cook’s situation is not nearly as dire. Although his numbers in New Zealand are worse – 3, 11, 3, 0 – his overall record is better than van Zyl’s at a similar stage. Van Zyl, a regular No.3 or lower, had not scored more than 34 batting in the top two, when he was given a game off; Cook, a regular opener, already has three centuries to his name. Although scratchy at the crease, which is actually how he always plays, Cook does not look nearly as down as van Zyl did, and even if he is feeling a little unsure, this would have been the ideal opportunity to bulk up. He has fallen to Trent Boult and Tim Southee twice each in this series and, neither are playing in this match. Colin de Grandhomme, who has bowled with subtle danger, may have asked questions but Cook should have been given the chance to see if he could answer them and not time off.Stiaan van Zyl was left out for the fourth Test in India after scores of 5, 36, 10, 0 and 5•AFPIt is the least that could have been afforded to a man who is set to play in England later this year. Cook would not have been awarded his first national contract if that was not the case and he probably would not have signed an overseas deal with Durham for the first half the county season if it was not the case In fact, he might have gone Kolpak if he didn’t think he had some sort of international future but that is another discussion.Given how Cook performed under pressure in Adelaide last year – when he followed a lean two Tests in Australia with a century – the last thing he would have wanted was to be prevented from seeing if he could do the same here. Although Hashim Amla explained a “mature,” Cook would have taken the news well, he also suggested any out-of-form player would have preferred game time, “You want to keep playing,” Amla said. “You believe the runs will come and playing is the only way the runs will come.”Then there is the question of Theunis de Bruyn. At 24, he still has a long time to carve out an international career and this may be nothing more than a false start but it probably hasn’t sent out the best message. When van Zyl was dropped, Bavuma was the reserve batsman on the tour and he was asked to open, having already played four Tests in the middle-order. Bavuma knew he wasn’t an experiment, just some emergency relief. De Bruyn may not be so sure.South Africa have history with manufacturing openers (van Zyl is a case in point), especially when there are no other spots for them and he could see this as his only “in,” to a packed batting line-up even if it shouldn’t be. De Bruyn is a No.3 batsman and a middle-order place would be a better place to start especially since South Africa have problems there too.Duminy is also in a drought and actually seems to want a break. He has opted out of the IPL in order to mentally refresh for South Africa’s three-month tour of England. Why not allow that process to begin a week earlier?There are considerations like Duminy’s seniority and the transformation targets (six players of colour, two black African calculated on average over a season) but the former may actually be a reason to give him the time he needs and South Africa are well ahead of the latter.If the selectors felt compelled to give de Bruyn a game that would have been the way to do it. But why might they have felt that way? Well, there is a recent example of a snubbed reserve batsman going rogue. Rilee Rossouw was the spare part in Australia and was said to be so unhappy with non-selection that when Cook was batting he decided to put pen to paper on his Kolpak deal. But the difference is that de Bruyn without a Test cap isn’t eligible to do the same; de Bruyn with one is.South Africa’s selectors have barely put a foot wrong all season and have made many inspired choices, which have seen the emergence of players like Andile Phehluwayo, Lungi Ngidi and Dwaine Pretorius, but this may be their first mistake. Might they have dented the confidence of a man they will need in the next few months? Could they have opened the door for a promising young player to leave when he realises he may have to wait a while for another taste of international cricket? Or are they making a decision to go back to looking for the country’s best batsman and turning him into an opener rather than looking for the best opener?

Moeen helps England break 19-year jinx

by h716a5.icu Uncategorized

Stats highlights from Old Trafford where England wrapped up their first home series win over South Africa since 1998

Gaurav Sundararaman07-Aug-20171998 – Last instance of England beating South Africa in a series at home. In 2003 it was drawn, while South Africa won in 2008 and 2012. This was also the first time since 1960 that England won three or more Tests in a series against South Africa.8 – Players to have scored 250 runs and taken 25 wickets in a Test series .This all-round feat has been achieved only nine times in Tests, and Moeen Ali is the only one to achieve it in a four-Test series. The other eight instances were achieved over either five or six Tests. The last to achieve the double was R Ashwin against England in 2016.2 – Players to have scored 250 runs and taken 20 or more wickets in a series comprising four matches or less. Moeen and Richard Hadlee feature in this list. The tally of 25 wickets taken by Moeen in this series was his highest so far in his Test career.ESPNcricinfo Ltd2 – Losses for South Africa in an away series since 2007. Before the defeat to England, South Africa lost to India in 2015. During this period they won 12 and drew three away Test series’.11 – Spinners from England to take 25 or more wickets in a Test series. Before Moeen, Graeme Swann was the last to achieve this, during the 2013 Ashes in England.5 -Man-of-the-Match awards for Moeen Ali in Tests since his debut – the joint most for England, alongside Joe Root, in this period. Only Steven Smith has more such awards with six.3 – Centuries scored in the entire series. There were also 27 half-centuries. The 10% conversion rate is the worst for any Test series of four or more matches. Pakistan’s tour of India in 1979 had three centuries and 26 fifties, which is second worst. Since readmission, this is only the second time that South Africa have managed just one individual century in a Test series of a minimum of four matches. They didn’t score any during the tour of India in 2015-16.113 – Runs made by Heino Kuhn in this series – the second worst for an opener from South Africa in Tests having played a minimum of eight innings. Kuhn could manage a top-score of only 34 in his debut series.2 – Number of century stands for England this series, out of six overall. The last time England had fewer century stands was in the 2013-14 Ashes in Australia. South Africa’s top run-scorer this series, Hashim Amla, was involved in three of four century stands.

Pink ball, green grass an Ashes wildcard

by h716a5.icu Uncategorized

Adelaide under lights looms not only as a historic moment in the saga of Australia-England encounters, but also a shift in the balance of home and away that has prevailed over the previous two series

Daniel Brettig27-Oct-2017A pink ball and a grassy pitch might just have built Jerusalem on Adelaide’s green and pleasant oval. On a day when Mitchell Starc and Pat Cummins returned to the Sheffield Shield by way of Ashes preparation, it was the lower velocity offerings of Trent Copeland, Chadd Sayers and Daniel Worrall that opened up a fascinating poser for Australia ahead of England’s arrival to defend the urn.The pitch prepared by curator Damian Hough for the meeting between South Australia and New South Wales is effectively a rehearsal for the surface on which the second Test of the series will be played, complete with the same amount of grass left on the surface to help aid the longevity of the pink Kookaburra ball. In front of a vocal Friday afternoon crowd, Copeland made the very most of it, before Sayers and Worrall also enjoyed themselves.In both the day-night Tests played so far in Adelaide, there has been plenty of assistance for the seam bowlers, capitalised upon most ably by Josh Hazlewood on both occasions. While the strip prepared for the dead rubber between Australia and South Africa last year was less verdant than that used in the first pink-ball Test between Australia and New Zealand in 2015, it still offered the prospect of the seam gripping in grass oft-described as “thatchy” by competing players.This was certainly the case for the delivery Cummins summoned to claim the first wicket of the Shield match, a sharp nip-backer that proved much too good for John Dalton. Australia’s captain Steven Smith will hope that Cummins can find similar deviation during the corresponding Test match, but he will also be given pause by the way Copeland was subsequently able to make the ball talk when putting together a spell that routed the Redbacks.When lined up against the likely Ashes bowlers, Copeland is much closer to the fashion of a Chris Woakes or James Anderson than Cummins or Starc, and they will note with some interest the way he was able to exploit seam movement well before the Adelaide Oval’s lights needed to be switched on.One-Test man Callum Ferguson was tempted to play at a ball nipping away towards a fifth stump and edged to third slip. Jake Lehmann was pinned lbw by a break-back delivered from around the wicket. Tom Cooper found himself bowled first ball by a delivery that held its line after pitching to flick the outside of the off stump. Travis Head was taken at mid-on from a ball that held up after the seam held momentarily in the aforementioned grass, and a couple of tail-end wafts gave Copeland figures of 6 for 24. An innings lasting a mere 33.3 overs afforded Alex Carey, the last man out, precious little chance to press his Test claims.The pitches produced for Australia’s 5-0 Ashes sweep in 2013-14 – especially those for the decisive first three matches in Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth – shared in common a hardness and bounce that played into the hands of Mitchell Johnson, Ryan Harris and Peter Siddle without offering too much in the way of sideways deviation for Anderson and Stuart Broad. But when Michael Clarke’s heavily favoured team toured England in 2015, it was the green seamers of Birmingham and Nottingham, both explicitly requested by England’s coach Trevor Bayliss after a lop-sided Australian win on a drier Lord’s pitch, that exposed many Antipodean weaknesses against a moving ball.England, of course, are much the poorer in terms of experience against the pink ball, having played only one day-night Test against West Indies earlier this year as opposed to Australia’s three, not to mention a plethora of floodlit Shield matches over the past five seasons. But the sight of a ball darting around off the seam – of any colour – is something Englishmen are habitually more comfortable with than Australians, and the lead taken by Cricket Australia in pushing the pink ball has offered Joe Root’s tourists an opportunity that they would not previously have expected in Adelaide, of all places.The failure of South Australia’s batsmen to cope with Copeland, plus the concurrent, rapid fall of Queensland and Victoria wickets on a grassy-early season pitch at the Gabba, provided a reminder that the moving ball blind spot still exists Down Under. Once New South Wales took their earlier-than-expected chance to bat, Worrall and Sayers were likewise able to deceive Nic Maddinson and Smith, who was artfully squared up by a trio of away seamers before falling lbw to another angled in.So it is that Adelaide under lights looms not only as a historic moment in the saga of Australia-England encounters, but also a shift in the balance of home and away that has prevailed over the previous two series.

'I have done this almost a 100 times'

by h716a5.icu Uncategorized

The reactions on Twitter to a controversial moment at the Under-19 World Cup, in which South Africa opener Jiveshan Pillay was given out for obstructing the field

ESPNcricinfo staff17-Jan-2018

Who has taken the most Test wickets at a single ground?

by h716a5.icu Uncategorized

And has anyone else scored a T20 hundred from No. 7 like Andre Russell did?

Steven Lynch21-Aug-2018I wondered about what you might call the “non-honours board” at Lord’s – how many batsmen have, like Murali Vijay, bagged a pair in a Test there? asked Derek Butcher from England
The unfortunate M Vijay in 2018 became the 28th man to be out for a duck in both innings in a Test at Lord’s (Kuldeep Yadav later became the 29th). The only other openers to have suffered this fate are Australia’s Alick Bannerman (1888), Clifford Roach of West Indies (1933), South Africa’s Jackie McGlew (1955), John Wright of New Zealand (1986) and Pakistan’s Saleem Elahi (2001).There are some distinguished English names on the non-honour roll, including John Murray (1967), Alan Knott (1973), Ian Botham (1981), Mark Ramprakash (1995), Matt Prior (2013), Ben Stokes (2014) and Stuart Broad (2018).Vijay was only the sixth Indian opener to bag a pair in a Test, following Pankaj Roy (1952), Farokh Engineer (1974-75), Wasim Jaffer (2006-07), Virender Sehwag (2011) and Shikhar Dhawan (2015-16). Jaffer’s pair, against Bangladesh in Chittagong, was the only other time before Lord’s that India had lost their first wicket at 0 in both innings of a Test.Has anyone else taken 100 Test wickets at a single ground, as Jimmy Anderson has at Lord’s? asked Mick Harrison from England
Jimmy Anderson’s 100th Test wicket at Lord’s – which completed M Vijay’s pair mentioned above – made him only the second bowler to take 100 at one venue. But Anderson has quite a way to go if he’s to top the table: Muttiah Muralitharan took no fewer than 166 wickets in 24 Tests at the Sinhalese Sports Club in Colombo. Murali also took 117 in Kandy, and 111 in Galle.Someone who may join them soon is Rangana Herath, who has so far claimed 99 wickets in Galle, the venue for the first Test between Sri Lanka and England in November. Herath also has 84 wickets at the SSC, but is unlikely to reach three figures there unless he reconsiders his retirement plans.Stuart Broad now has 83 Test wickets at Lord’s, while Dale Steyn has taken 67 in Cape Town.Ian Botham was dismissed for a pair in the 1981 Ashes Test at Lord’s•PA Photos/Getty ImagesAndre Russell scored a Twenty20 century from No. 7 the other day. Has anyone else managed this? asked Russ Kendrick from Jamaica
The West Indian allrounder Andre Russell smashed an unbeaten 121 from 49 balls as the Jamaica Tallawahs beat the Trinbago Knight Riders in their Caribbean Premier League match in Port-of-Spain. Russell entered in the seventh over, with the Tallawahs floundering at 41 for 5 in pursuit of 224, but put on 161 with Kennar Lewis, before winning the match with his 13th six. Just for good measure, Russell had earlier taken a hat-trick in the last over of the Knight Riders’ innings.Russell’s hundred was the first by a No. 7 in senior T20 cricket: the previous-highest was Mohammad Nabi’s 89 for Afghanistan against Ireland in Greater Noida in India in March 2017, which remains the international record. No one has made a higher score at No. 6, either, where the record is Dan Christian’s 113 not out for Nottinghamshire in Northampton last month.What was the shortest Test match – in terms of balls bowled – that produced a result? asked Ravi Kumar from India
The shortest Test match that produced a positive result lasted only 109.2 overs – 656 balls. It was played in Melbourne in 1931-32, on a pitch that was almost impossible to bat on after rain (the pitches were not covered in those days). South Africa were shot out for 36 and 45 – slow left-armer Bert Ironmonger, who was 49, took 11 for 24 in the match – and in between Australia managed to score 153. Don Bradman, who might have added a few more, was unable to bat after injuring himself in the dressing room.Another match on a rain-affected pitch in the 1930s – West Indies v England in Bridgetown in 1934-35 – lasted only 112 overs, or 672 balls. For the full list, click here (this also includes drawn matches).In terms of time, there have now been 21 Test matches that were completed inside two days. The most recent of these was Afghanistan’s unsuccessful debut, against India in Bengaluru in June. For that list, click here.Paul Stirling and Aaron Finch both hit hundreds in a recent T20 Blast match. Was this a first for a Twenty20 game? asked Daniel Surkes from England
Those hundreds in the recent London derby at The Oval was actually the 18th time there had been two tons in the same senior T20 match. Two of those involved batsmen from the same side: Stirling’s Ireland team-mate Kevin O’Brien and Hamish Marshall both scored hundreds for Gloucestershire against Middlesex in Uxbridge in 2011, while Virat Kohli and AB de Villiers repeated the feat for Royal Challengers Bangalore against Gujarat Lions in the IPL in Bengaluru in 2016.Use our feedback form or the Ask Steven Facebook page to ask your stats and trivia questions

England's rocky foundations become a potentially series-defining shift

by h716a5.icu Uncategorized

An India side billed as one of England’s toughest challenges of recent times is facing the prospect of being 2-0 down

Andrew Miller at Lord's11-Aug-2018Up until the moment that Jonny Bairstow and Chris Woakes came together in the afternoon session, to batter India out of the Test and potentially the series, it had looked like being another day in which England’s batsmen would end up doing just enough.When Woakes replaced Jos Buttler at 131 for 5 in the 32nd over, England were on course for just enough runs to keep their team in the ascendancy, having held onto just enough slip catches to keep their hard-toiling bowlers from throttling them.There was probably going to be just enough play on what promises to be a dank and miserable Sunday to cement their dominance. And if, come Monday, England found themselves 2-0 up with three Tests to come, there would just about be enough cricket left in the series for India to claw their way back into contention.As a recipe for long-term success, it left rather a lot to be desired. As a means to retain the drama in what is threatening to turn into a deeply flawed series, England’s lingering air of flakiness was looking like the best leveller available. On the evidence of these past few days at Lord’s, their opponents seemed to have left their competitive spirit on the red-eye rattler from Birmingham to Marylebone.But then Bairstow and Woakes starting climbing into their day’s work – showing, surely not for the last time in the Trevor Bayliss era, that the depth of England’s batting options can often be a pretty decent proxy for the quality of some of those options. The ball lost its hardness, India’s under-stocked seam department ran out of puff, and R Ashwin was left to graze in the outfield until there was no control left to exert – by which stage Kuldeep Yadav (the wrong Yadav in the circumstances) had provided a shadow of his menace from the one-dayers, when the onus had been on England to attack his variations rather than sit and wait for the bad ball.And thus, in the space of two hours either side of tea, the contest slipped as quickly down the gurgler for India as those second-afternoon floodplains on Lord’s super-absorbent outfield.”There wasn’t a huge amount of turn there, so when the spinners were on we felt we’d done our job,” said Woakes, England’s centurion and Lord of Lord’s, who became only the fifth player in history to etch himself a place on all three of the dressing-room honours boards. “I wasn’t looking too much at the scoreboard in terms of what lead we needed. But the ball got a little bit softer, and it made it a little bit easier.”Hardik Pandya celebrates Ollie Pope’s dismissal•Getty ImagesThat is not to say, however, that England were simply gifted the upper hand (or any balance of power that remained to be claimed after their first-innings bowling efforts). In the first instance, the momentum was seized by Bairstow, who produced a pocket battleship of an innings, studded with the sort of piercing drives through the covers with which he has kickstarted so many ODI onslaughts in recent times.He arrived to a scene of familiar false dawns from England’s top order – three scores between 11 and 28, which soon became four when Joe Root was pinned on the shin for 19 by a Mohammed Shami nipbacker that kept a touch low. For the Alpha and Omega of England’s batting, Alastair Cook and Ollie Pope, scores of 21 and 28 in their 158th and first Tests respectively said as much or as little about their respective games as you’d care to read into them – Cook looked composed until, once again, he attracted the sort of jaffa that his former self would surely have survived, while Pope’s wristy intent telegraphed both raw and powerful talent, as well as the inevitable naivety that a man who had never previously come to the crease in the first ten overs of a first-class fixture was bound to display.But that was the context of the contest when, in the 39th over, Bairstow nudged Ashwin’s first delivery of the match off his hip and become the first player in either team to reach 30. And when, two overs later, he dumped Ashwin back over his head for a one-bounce four, he surpassed Hardik Pandya’s 31, in the second innings at Edgbaston, which remains the highest score in the series by any Indian batsman who is not Virat Kohli.These are not the parameters by which you are usually judged when squaring up to the world’s No.1 Test team. Thereafter, England capitalised on a baffling combination of Indian team selection and tactical deployment, to power themselves in a position from which their opponents have no realistic hope of salvation other than the elements – and given the aforementioned resilience of that outfield, the prospect of more cloud cover on Sunday and Monday is actually likelier to contribute to their downfall.”If there is a little bit of rain around tomorrow, that might play into our hands,” Woakes said. “A bit overcast, bit of moisture around, we hope it might move around like it did [on Friday]. I’m sure it won’t quite do that – but with a significant lead, whenever we do come to bowl, we hope we can put the Indian batsmen under pressure.”When, at the start of the summer, word filtered out that Kohli was sizing up a month at Surrey, with the likes of Ishant Sharma and Cheteshwar Pujara already bedding into county stints of their own, it seemed a given that India would provide the sternest test yet of England’s four-year unbeaten record in home Test series – a record that has been threatened by more than a few less vaunted opponents in recent years. The anticipated challenge came to pass in fleetingly glorious fashion at Edgbaston, but it’s gone the same way as the heatwave in these past few days.

'I want to go to Australia and India and win a match'

by h716a5.icu Uncategorized

Dinesh Chandimal looks back at his 18 stop-start months in charge

Interview by Andrew Fidel Fernando15-Dec-2018You took over the captaincy when the team was in a rough state. What were those first few months like?
It was a big challenge. We had Zimbabwe first up, and we had to get through that with a win. After that there were some tough tours. What I’ve talked about is how to be a team player, and what we individually had to do to benefit the team. You can’t do those things by yourself. You need support. And I got that support from everyone.Almost 18 months in, is there anything that has surprised you about the job?
I didn’t notice anything especially different. I’ve captained teams since the under-17 level, in my school, club, development and Sri Lanka A teams. So that experience really helps. I was T20 captain for a while too. So I learned a lot through those experiences.What’s different about the captaincy at the top level?
On the pressure side of things, it’s a lot different. Sometimes it feels like everyone in the world is watching how the Sri Lanka team is doing.Do you think you have grown as a captain since getting the job?
I think there has been a lot of growth. I got the captaincy at a very challenging time. We’ve been able to progress a little in Tests since then. When I took the captaincy itself, I said, I can’t turn things around all of a sudden. Give me a little time. My ultimate goal is to take us to No. 1. We’ve had our opportunities to make progress in that direction, but because we didn’t have the ability at the time, we’ve probably had a few setbacks. But we were No. 8 when I took the captaincy, and now we’ve moved to No. 6. I do think that’s a good achievement, given the challenges we have had recently.What moments have you really enjoyed in your captaincy?
Winning that second match against Pakistan in Dubai – when that last catch was taken, there was a spilling over of joy. That’s the best feeling I’ve had in my captaincy.AFP/Getty ImagesYou must have regrets as well.
There are, and they would be those Tests in India – in Kolkata and Delhi. I really feel as if we could have won one of those games. But those things are in the past. If we had won one of those games, it would have been a big achievement. We haven’t won a Test in India yet. We’ve also not won in Australia. I have that aim in my heart, to go to these two countries and win a match.You’ve missed six Tests in all since taking over the captaincy, for various reasons. How tough has it been to watch the team play without you?
I think I’ve missed at least one match in all the last three series. I had an injury in one series, and a suspension in another. I couldn’t be with the team, and that does have an impact, because everyone’s captaincy style is different. You can’t be with the team and go through the same experiences as them and not have that unity. The best thing I can do is to make sure I am clear of injury by maintaining my fitness. I really made that a focus over the last few weeks.Do you feel you’ve not been able to roll out your vision with this team because you’ve missed so many games?
Well, Suranga’s been the stand-in captain, and generally we are on the same page on what the team should be doing, so that’s made it a lot easier. When I can’t play, the two of us have talked and he goes in that direction. The main thing is my not having been able to be with the team.How disappointing was the 3-0 against England, just as the team seemed to be building up some Test form?
It was very tough. I wasn’t able to play the second and third Test, and as I watched those games at home, I really thought we had chances to win both of those matches. With some of the dismissals we didn’t have a lot of luck. When we seemed to be doing well, something would happen that turned the game their way.What are your realistic expectations from the three big southern-hemisphere tours in front of you now?
They are three big challenges, given the conditions we will face. What we’re thinking about with the team that we have is: “How do we compete?” If we can get to a stage where we are consistently competing, those opportunities to push for victory will come as well. That’s our plan, and if we can execute that, there will be chances to win matches.AFP/Getty ImagesYou’ve got a few promising young fast bowlers in your team now, which is not something a lot of Sri Lanka captains have been able to say. What has been your approach to managing them?
Just to give them the benefit of my experience, and the confidence to do well. The good thing about the young bowlers is that they ask a lot of questions. That’s a big plus point. “How do we react to the kinds of conditions we will face here?” has been something they’ve asked a lot. If they can do well in these three series, they can take some steps up on their personal journeys.There can be a high turnover rate in the Sri Lanka captaincy, sometimes by the captain’s own choice. Are you in it for the long haul?
I don’t have a timeframe for it. That’s a selection-committee decision. All I’m doing is try to give my best to it while I’m here, and also to groom a new generation of young leaders within the team.Some captains have faced pressures from administration in the job. How have it been for you?
Pressure is something we have to deal with, not just as a captain but as a player as well. But one thing I will say is that once a tour starts, I really restrict the time I spend on my phone. I control how much time I spend reading news or going on social media. Until the tour ends I try to block out as much of that as possible. There are times when there are unavoidable complications. But you have to learn to deal with that.Since you’ve been in New Zealand, the new chief selector Ashantha de Mel has criticised your captaincy a little bit. What was your response to that?
Has he said something like that? I honestly don’t know. If he’s said something like that, he should tell me. The chairman of selectors hasn’t said anything to me.What’s your relationship with coach Chandika Hathurusingha like?
The captain and coach should pull in the same direction. We have to make those short- and long-term plans together, and decide together what the team needs. We all know how good a coach Hathurusingha is. What we can do is get the best out of him. There are ups and downs in personal life and in your career as well. Just because you’re down, you don’t have to stay that way. We’re hoping we can turn it around in New Zealand.Who are the key players for you over the next couple of weeks?
Everyone has a big role to play, but we know how good Angelo Mathews, Dimuth Karunaratne and Kusal Mendis are. They are guys who can change a match at any time. There are others who have put in a lot of effort over the last few weeks in preparation as well, and anyone could play an important role.

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