Peter Moores talks about life as Nottinghamshire head coach, Datagate, his son Tom, and Joe Root

Jon Culley12-Mar-2017Peter Moores does not seem like the kind of person to dwell on the past. So, as the spring sunshine streams through the windows of the players’ dining room at Trent Bridge and he talks excitedly about the challenge that is about to begin in earnest for him as Nottinghamshire’s new head coach, it possibly does not occur to him that it is two years almost to the day since a defeat to Bangladesh put the mother of all tin lids on England’s abject campaign at the 2015 World Cup.Two years, what’s more, since he sat down in front of a microphone at Adelaide Oval after that game to offer his thoughts on England’s 15-run defeat and appeared, in one short and infamously misquoted sentence, to write his own epitaph as England coach.Our meeting is not constrained by time limits and when the discussion moves away from Nottinghamshire’s chances of making an immediate return to Division One of the Championship to the impact on his own well-being of his second sacking from the national team, he willingly offers his thoughts. At least up to a point.That point arrives when I ask about whether it was ever explained to him, by incoming director of England cricket Andrew Strauss, why he was being dismissed, and he firmly but politely calls a halt. “It didn’t really happen like that,” he says. “And to be honest, I don’t really want to rake all that up again. I’ve moved on. We’re here now, there is a new season to tackle and I’m excited about it.”

“Coaches don’t have to judge a player, the game does that for you. If people get runs, they are good players; if people take wickets, they are good players”

Yet he has said enough for it to be clear that a sense of frustration and injustice is still eating away, just a little, in the background. Particularly when it comes to “Datagate” and the misquote that spawned a misconception of his character that he found hard to stomach.”We’ll have to look at it later” transmuted to “We’ll have to look at the data”, and so was born the mythical figure of Moores the stats nerd, obsessed with analysis, a decision-maker by numbers.”People meet me for the first time even now and say, ‘Oh, you’re nothing like I thought you were going to be,'” he says. “‘I thought you were going to be all clipboards and computers.'”Coaching is a funny thing because people can’t always see you doing it. It is like a hidden art. A lot of the work goes on behind the scenes. But the public perception of me as a coach is just wrong. It is different from what it actually is. The players will tell you that.”That’s why it meant a lot that Joe [Root] should come out and say what he did. It is not because it is an ego thing. It just means that, yes, you did make a difference. It is good for your family to hear that too.”As a coach you become a bit more resilient because you know you’re going to be criticised. But you feel for your kids or for your dad or your mum or whatever [who have to listen to the comments] because sometimes the only version that the public have got is the one that is written.””It is all about building relationships with people to help them try to understand the best version of themselves and how they are going to get there”•Getty ImagesYet he is not so resilient that he did not feel his own pain.”The BBC apologised and said it was an accident. But when it came out, that was the story, that we were trying to run the team by clipboard and whatever, which is frustrating because it goes completely against what you do as a coach and how it works.”You take it on the chin. I’m pretty good at moving on, although it took a few bottles of red wine this time for me to get my head around it.”Slowly but surely, though, you get there. I love the game and it doesn’t owe me anything, so you move on.”As it happens, it was only six weeks before the opportunity arose to become involved at Trent Bridge, less than a half-hour’s drive from home. Moores, originally from Cheshire, has lived in rural Leicestershire since he left Sussex to become director of the ECB National Academy in Loughborough in 2005.It would be an exaggeration to say that the invitation to join the Nottinghamshire coaching staff saved him from falling into some slough of despond but he admits it helped the healing process.

“People meet me for the first time even now and say, ‘Oh, you’re nothing like I thought you were going to be. I thought you were going to be all clipboards and computers'”

“I was just watching my son Tom, who was in the 2nd XI here,” he said. “Mick [Newell] put it to me that a fresh voice in the dressing room would be quite good for them at the time and said to come along and try it.”I hovered a little bit and I wasn’t really going to do it at first but he said, ‘Let’s give it a couple weeks and see how it goes.'”In fact, it was a good thing to do, a healthy thing. When this sort of thing happens, part of you wants to hide away but it got me back out there.”I’ve got loads of mates in the game and loads of people who I’ve spent a lot of time with in the game, and to talk cricket again with people who know you becomes pretty therapeutic.”What was at first a semi-formal consultancy role for the second half of the 2015 season turned into a contracted position for the 2016 campaign, at the end of which the head coach role became vacant when Newell, who had done the job since 2002, acknowledged that with relegations (three) outnumbering Championships (two) on his record, it was time for a change.In a wide-ranging shake-up, Newell became director of cricket – in which capacity he was operating anyway as well as being senior coach – with Notts stalwart Paul Franks promoted from 2nd XI duties to assistant head coach and Ant Botha, the South African-born former Adelaide Cricket Club coach and Derbyshire assistant coach, hired to look after the 2nd XI and Academy teams. James Pipe, meanwhile, has arrived from Derbyshire as first-team physio.Matt Prior is one of the players Moores guided from a young age•Getty ImagesMoores will focus solely on the first team, which will free him to devote his energies to the skills that he employed in helping both Sussex (2003) and Lancashire (2011) win the Championship, a unique achievement in that no other coach has won the title with two different counties, and one that doubtless escaped the knowledge of some of those critics lining up to trash his reputation two years ago.A big part of those successes was his talent, universally acknowledged within the game, for working one-to-one with individual players to bring out their best, in which the only analysis he draws on is instinctive, the product of years of accumulated knowledge about how to tap into a player’s character and help make the most of their ability to play.”I love that part of coaching,” he said. “For me, the role of the coach is to try to see in people what they could be rather than what they are.”It is all about building relationships with people to help them try to understand the best version of themselves and how they are going to get there. You can’t do it for them but you can sometimes help raise their awareness about what they are doing at the moment and whether it works or not for them.”When people learn to make the right connections [between doing something and achieving their goal], then you don’t have to tell them to do it because it makes sense to them.”Lots of things have given me lots of satisfaction as a coach but helping a player become the best player they can be is especially fulfilling.”

“I’ve got loads of mates in the game, and to talk cricket again with people who know you becomes pretty therapeutic”

The example he quotes is that of Matt Prior, the former England wicketkeeper and his protégé at Sussex.”I was coaching Matt when he was 12 and you could see even at that time that he could go on to play for Sussex or even England.”At 12 or 13 a player might dream about those things but once he begins to see the reality of that and then starts doing it and the dream starts to become real, then that’s really exciting.”Those with the potential to excite Moores in that way at Trent Bridge include Jake Libby and Billy Root – Joe’s brother – among the younger batsmen, and the pacy Ben Kitt, who took 100 2nd XI wickets last year, among the bowlers, inspired by the rapid progress of Jake Ball.And then there is Tom, his 20-year-old son, like him a wicketkeeper-batsman, who impressed on loan with Lancashire last season and had broken into the Nottinghamshire team by the end of the season. He has since signed his first full professional contract.”Tom is doing well,” he said. “He had an ankle operation three weeks ago and he is coming back from that. He and Ben are both trying to find the consistency to put a bit more pressure on the players in the team. Tom is an aggressive player with an exciting style as a batter and as a keeper.”Moores with his son, Tom•Getty ImagesMoores admits that coaching his own son presents a challenge. They are both learning about their relationship as coach and player as well as father and son.”The hard thing in some ways is not to be too hard on your own,” Moores said. “You want to be fair.”What was good for Tom was that he went to Lancashire on loan last year and under his own steam got into the T20 side and then the Championship side, which was good experience for him.”Both Tom and his older sister live at home still; 23-year-old Natalie works for a PR and marketing company on the southern outskirts of Nottingham.”She is loving it and putting up with the cricket,” he said. “Tom loves the game, loves talking about the game. We don’t have any special rules [about not taking cricket home]. If he wants to have a conversation about cricket, I will talk to him about cricket. If he doesn’t want to talk about it, that’s fine. I’m led by him.”He is a good player but I would say to him, like anybody else, that coaches don’t have to judge a player, the game does that for you. If people get runs they are good players, if people take wickets they are good players.”

Moores helped both Sussex (2003) and Lancashire (2011) win the Championship, a unique achievement in that no other coach has won the title with two different counties

If Moores is proud of Tom, you sense there is an almost paternal pride, too, in seeing Joe Root elevated to the England captaincy, given Moores’ role in restoring the young Yorkshireman’s confidence after the battering he and others took on the 2013-14 Ashes tour.”It’s the right time for him,” he said. “He is a natural, very open, has a good cricket brain and always gives everything. He has that right level of humility, I think, and I think the players will have the utmost respect for him.”If there is a pang of regret, of jealousy even, that he is not in the England dressing room to see Root realise his potential, he hides it well.”I’m excited about the challenge here,” he said. “I am always confident I can build something better. How long it takes, you never quite know. We didn’t play well enough last year and we need to step up.”It is not simple but to me the goal is absolutely clear, to get back into the First Division and do it this year and to win a one-day trophy. In my head it is pretty clear. Then you get stuck in and try to do it.”

The IPL has been no stranger to controversies and scandals that have hogged endless hours on primetime television

ESPNcricinfo staff25-Mar-20171. IPL betting : An “enthusiast” takes down CSK, 2013Gurunath Meiyappan’s arrest on charges of “cheating, forgery and fraud” has possibly been the most serious and damning setback the IPL has suffered in its history. Meiyappan, a top official with Chennai Super Kings and son-in-law of then BCCI president N Srinivasan, was arrested for betting against his side in a match against Rajasthan Royals. Srinivasan then put a different spin on it, calling Meiyappan just a “cricket enthusiast”, who was nothing more than an honorary member of the franchise.In the course of the investigation, Royals owner Raj Kundra also confessed to betting in matches involving his franchise, and it all ended with both franchises receiving a two-year ban from the tournament, starting from the 2016 season.2. Kochi’s end kickstarts Lalit Modi’s expulsion, 2010In April 2010, Lalit Modi revealed the shareholding pattern of Kochi Tuskers Kerala with a series of strongly worded tweets, alleging how Shashi Tharoor, who at that point was a minister in the Congress government, facilitated the franchise’s bid and accused him of conflict of interest. One accusation led to another, and soon, Tharoor was forced to resign from his post in the government. It would also send Modi into a downward spiral of his own, after he was found guilty of rigging bids, apart from a host of other charges pressed against him by a special disciplinary committee set up by the BCCI.3. Sahara’s many withdrawals: Auction-morning antics and Pune Warriors’ ouster, 2012-13 After just one season in the IPL, Sahara, the promoters of the Pune Warriors franchise, who were then also the sponsors of the Indian team, pulled out an hour ahead of the supplementary auction in 2012, over disagreements on player retention rules and the number of matches that were promised to them over the course of a season. Sahara’s disputes with the IPL were long-standing, including their claim that a bid in 2008 was “thwarted” by the board. After multiple attempts at a truce between both parties, the BCCI encashed the franchise’s bank guarantee and ousted them from the IPL after two seasons in the tournament.4. “Thanks. You are most sweet” : the Freddie purchase, 2012Nearly two years after his expulsion from the tournament that was his brainchild, Lalit Modi had made it a habit to break behind-the-scenes events during his tenure through regular tweet-storms and appearances on national television. One of these related to the sale of Andrew Flintoff to Chennai Super Kings in the 2009 auction, which he said he was “arm-twisted to allow” by N Srinivasan , the then BCCI secretary and managing director of the franchise’s owners India Cements. E-mails exchanged between the duo revealed how Modi successfully held off Rajasthan Royals from bidding for Flintoff, to which Srinivasan replied, “Thanks. You are most sweet. Srini.”Sreesanth arrives in Ahmedabad for a meeting regarding the Harbhajan Singh slapping incident•AFP5. Harbhajan Singh slaps Sreesanth, 2008In what was among the first ever “gates” in the IPL, Harbhajan Singh was banned from the IPL for 11 games, after footage showed he had slapped Sreesanth without any provocation whatsoever. The duo embraced at the end of their hearing, and Harbhajan did not appeal against the ban. However, it has occasionally resurfaced, when the Kerala fast bowler accused Harbhajan of being a “backstabbing person”, in a series of tweets in 2013.6. Shah Rukh Khan’s lock-out from the Wankhede, 2012 Claims, counter-claims and good old speculation – cricket and Bollywood fully enmeshed themselves when Shah Rukh Khan was banned from entering the Wankhede stadium for five years, after his scuffle with security guards. The Mumbai Cricket Association alleged that Khan was “drunk and abused officials” before entering the ground without accreditation after an IPL game between Kolkata Knight Riders and Mumbai Indians. Four years later, he was given a clean chit, after a Mumbai police investigation declared that no “cognisable offence” had taken place.7. The “rockstar” is banned : Jadeja goes looking for trouble, 2010After two seasons in the IPL representing Rajasthan Royals, Ravindra Jadeja was accused of trying to secure a deal with another franchise between seasons. The confusion was over when his agreement with Royals had ended – Jadeja later appealed that it had ended on December 31, 2009 – and his plea was subsequently dismissed. He was then signed by Kochi Tuskers Kerala in 2011, after missing out a full season in between.8. Asif’s other ban : out for steroids, 2009Over a year before his spot fixing ban, Mohammad Asif was found to have tested positive for nandrolone during the tournament’s inaugural edition in 2008. He had already been released by his side, Delhi Daredevils, and remained suspended by the Pakistan Cricket Board as well. While the announcement came in February 2009, he was handed a one-year ban effective retrospectively from September 22, 2008, the date when the IPL had imposed the suspension order.Sri Lankan cricketers were banned from playing matches at the MA Chidambaram stadium in 2013•Getty Images9. Politics in cricket : No Sri Lankans in Chennai, 2013Political developments at both the central and state levels forced 13 Sri Lankan stars in the IPL to be banned from playing IPL games hosted in Chennai. This was a result of multiple events in the lead up to the 2013 season, related to alleged atrocities towards ethnic Tamils in Sri Lanka. While all franchises eventually agreed to lose a player or two for one game rather than the whole tournament, the ban was predictably not received well by Sri Lanka’s political elite, including former captain Arjuna Ranatunga, who urged his countrymen to boycott the IPL.10. Sreesanth, the towel and the life ban, 2013In the middle of IPL 2013, Delhi Police announced that they had arrested Sreesanth, Ajit Chandila and Ankeet Chavan – all Rajasthan Royals players – for allegedly fulfilling promises made to bookmakers for money ranging from US$36,000 to 109,000 for each over. Sreesanth, it was alleged, had made a signal to ask for a towel for his second over in a match against Kings XI Punjab, before conceding 13 runs in an over in which he had promised to give away 14. He has since been acquitted by a Delhi court, and has ventured into politics and acting, while remaining banned by the BCCI.

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.

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?

Not up to scratch on what happened in cricket in April? No fear – here’s the lowdown

Andrew Fidel Fernando02-May-2017Retirement dramedies
If expecting to be drinking pals with opposition players you have abused for weeks on end is an Australian persuasion, and defecting to English counties is a South African thing, then in parts of South Asia, retirement is a leading cricketing art form.Like with any creative enterprise, every country has its own particular iteration. Sri Lanka, for example, is the home of the encore. When some players announce their retirements, they do so gazing hopefully at the nation’s sports minister, who makes a point of cajoling certain players into staying for one more series, as long as it makes political sense for him to do so.Often these second comings don’t work out. Sanath Jayasuriya spent his last few innings slashing balls to off-side fielders. Kumar Sangakkara kept getting out cheaply to high-quality spin. In both cases, fans clamoured for renditions of the players’ best work, but were reminded instead of the players’ great flaws – a little like screaming for “Billie Jean” at a Michael Jackson show, only for Jackson to climb onto the roof and dangle a baby from it.India is not beyond unusual retirements either, giving Sachin Tendulkar the grandest farewell of all in a made-for-purpose series from which Tendulkar’s speech remains more vividly in the memory than any of the cricket.But the undisputed grand masters, of course, are Pakistan. Imran Khan scripted one of the great cricketing comebacks when he came out of retirement to play in, and win, a World Cup. More recently, Shahid Afridi has un-retired so many times that for fans to truly believe he is gone for good, he will have to publicly saw his own arms off. Shoaib Malik went in a different, but still dramatic, direction, hitting 245 in his first Test innings in five years, before springing a shock retirement at the end of that series.So has the baton passed to Pakistan’s present old-timers. Misbah ul Haq’s approach to retirements has been the more classical of the two. He first took fans on a rare journey into his mind, despondently raising the possibility of retirement in a stream-of-consciousness press conference following last year’s loss at the MCG, then stating days later that he would play on for a bit. Only now has he confirmed the West Indies series will be his last.Younis Khan, however, has aimed for something fresh and daring, and the genre is so much richer for it. He first came to us in a press conference in Karachi. “People are calling me and asking me not to make any announcement to leave but now is the time,” he said. All settled, then?But wait. What’s this? Two weeks later another Younis quote emerges, in which he suggests he could extend his career, “if my team needs me”.Having ratcheted up the drama with two opposing announcements, Younis returned to us in a gloriously fulfilling final act. Looking dead serious in a video message from the West Indies, this third, authoritative Younis told us: “Younis Khan will retire even if he scores a hundred in every innings of every match”. The way he glowered, and spoke in third person, he seemed to not just be telling fans off for doubting “Younis Khan’s credibility”, but also scolding the other two Younis Khans for speculating on Younis Khan’s future.Misbah and Younis may be two of the more straight-talking men in their nation’s cricket pantheon, but no one can fully avoid the drama vortex that is a Pakistan retirement.[Insert drink-driving joke here]•Getty ImagesLeft behind by the IPL
Thanks to the IPL, many cricketers can finally rub shoulders with international stars and earn the kind of money worth dodging taxes for, but spare a thought for the folks who did not earn a contract.Denied the chance to party in a glam club in Mumbai or a plush Delhi hotel, New Zealand fast bowler Doug Bracewell had to resort to getting drunk in his home town of Hastings, like some kind of worthless pleb. Worse, Bracewell didn’t even have access to a team chauffeur, and – get this – had to personally open the door to his own car, put behind the wheel, and wound up getting picked up by the police and sent to court for drunk-driving.April’s horseman of the Kolpakalypse
With several South Africa players having signed county deals over the last few months, taking advantage of what was effectively a post-Brexit going-out-of-business sale for British visas, county cricket has gained a greater international profile this season than it would otherwise command. The foreign player making most waves last month was none other than the biggest signing of the season: Kyle Abbott. In three matches for Hampshire, Abbott returned 20 wickets at an average of 16.8. This included an especially impressive match-turning 7 for 41 against Yorkshire.The low-key goodbye

Bangladesh have recently had success forging their own path, and in a departure from South Asian tradition, Mashrafe Mortaza – who has led his side with elegance and charisma – made about as nonchalant a retirement announcement as possible. Striding to the pitch for the toss ahead of the first T20 at Khettarama, Mashrafe casually let slip to Dean Jones that this was his last series like he was relaying a hike in the price of bananas, or telling Jones that his fly was down.The parallel
For so long the cricket world laboured under the illusion that N Srinivasan was our very own Senator Palpatine, but in recent months it has emerged that it is in fact Shashank Manohar who has adopted that role. 
Like with Palpatine, Manohar’s rise to the ICC’s top job was as deft as it was swift. By overseeing the ICC’s new financial proposal he too seeks to weaken the very federation he was once charged with protecting, the BCCI.The dream chaser

Less than six months after he played for England, 25-year-old Surrey allrounder Zafar Ansari announced he is retiring from cricket, possibly to pursue a career in law. Perhaps looking across the Surrey dressing room, Ansari caught sight of an older man, hair greying now, whose own dreams of becoming a lawyer lay broken and unfulfilled. Who, after all, would want to end up like Kumar Sangakkara?Heartbreak of the month

No one has ever been sadder about a bust hamstring than Dwayne Bravo, who last month had to pull out of the IPL because of the injury. Below is a brief rundown of that unforgettable press release.Dwayne Bravo: can bat, can bowl, can field, can make ’em weep•CPL/Sportsfile”It is with deep regret that I announce my decision to withdraw…” “My body is not ready to perform at its fullest potential…” “…[I] undoubtedly have the love support of the best sports fans in the world. It is for them that I perform at my best every time I go on to the pitch.” “I sincerely apologise to my Gujarat Lions team-mates, franchise owners, and all my wonderful fans…” “I, too, am deeply saddened and disappointed, particularly because I know how much my fans were looking forward to my return.” “This is one of the hardest decisions I have had to make in my career.”I thank everyone for the love and encouragement.The weird fetish
The smell of freshly mown grass has been repeatedly cited as one of the pleasures of the early English season.Come on, county cricket fans. This is why people don’t respect you.The misheard word

In world news, North Korea has raised global alarm by testing ballistic missiles, but Kieron Pollard has found it demeaning to North Koreans that so many people are questioning whether they have the “brains” to reach North America.The who-do-they-think-they-are-fooling announcement.
Sri Lanka Cricket has declared its players will undergo “high-intensity and altitude training” in Pallekele, ahead of the Champions Trophy. While the benefits of training at this venue – among the faster, more seam-friendly pitches in the continent – are clear, it is less certain whether a ground that is not much more than 500 metres above sea level qualifies as an “altitude” venue. There were even suggestions the mountain air would pre-acclimatise Sri Lanka’s players for the weather in England, forgetting that, this being a tropical island, temperatures still regularly breach 30 degrees around Kandy in May, and that pre-series training in Pallekele last year had not, in fact, led to a single win on the tour of England.SLC is also reportedly advising a group planning an expedition across the Sahara to prepare by standing under a lightbulb for a few hours.

Also, who has the most Test scores between 80 and 99?

Steven Lynch01-Aug-2017How many people have finished a Test with a hat-trick, as Moeen Ali did at The Oval? asked Richard Whitehead from England

Moeen Ali’s hat-trick to wrap up the match at The Oval yesterday was actually the fourth time a Test had been concluded in this way. The first instance was in 1895-96, when England’s George Lohmann ended the South African resistance in Port Elizabeth: they were all out for 30, with Lohmann taking 8 for 7. Not long afterwards, in 1901-02, the Australian offspinner Hugh Trumble ended an Ashes Test in Melbourne by taking the last three wickets in successive balls, then in Cape Town in 1957-58 Australia’s Lindsay Kline’s hat-trick clinched victory for Australia. (Moeen’s was the first Test hat-trick against South Africa since that one.)And Moeen’s Oval hat-trick set some other records, too. It was the first in Tests to feature three left-handed batsmen, the first in 100 Tests at The Oval, and the first in the same Test innings to include both an opener and the No. 11. Merv Hughes (for Australia in 1988-89) and Jermaine Lawson (for West Indies in 2002-03) also dismissed an opener and the last man, but both of those were spread over two innings, with the opener being the final element in the hat-tricks. For the full list of Test hat-tricks, click here.Shikhar Dhawan was out for 190 before tea on the first day at Galle. Has anyone had a higher score at tea on the first day of a Test? asked Amit Shukla via Facebook

In his remarkable innings in the recent Test against Sri Lanka in Galle, Shikhar Dhawan was out for 190 in the last over before tea on the first day. There has only been one higher score: at tea on the first day of the Ashes Test at Headingley in 1930, Don Bradman was sitting pretty on 220 – he finished the day with 309 not out, another record. I’m indebted to Charles Davis from Melbourne for unearthing the next-highest, Jack Hobbs’ 180 not out before tea on the first day for England against South Africa in Cape Town in 1910-11.I wondered during the Oval Test whether Alastair Cook now has more scores between 80 and 99 than anyone else? asked Rajiv Radhakrishnan from England

Alastair Cook’s 88 in the Test that has just finished at The Oval was the 15th time he had been out for a score between 80 and 99 in Tests. There are a trio of batsmen who had 16 such scores: Brian Lara (including one not-out), Mike Atherton (two not-outs) and Shivnarine Chanderpaul (a remarkable seven asterisks). But there are two others with even more innings in this range, and they’re the usual suspects, really: Rahul Dravid had 21 scores from 80 to 99 (one of them not out), while Sachin Tendulkar had 22, all of them ending in dismissals. Another Indian, Chetan Chauhan, had seven scores between 80 and 99 in Tests – and never did make it to 100.Seven-for on Test debut? What’s not to like?•Getty ImagesWas India’s victory at Galle their biggest over Sri Lanka? asked Ian Hugo from Nigeria

India won the first Test in Galle by 304 runs, their fourth-largest by runs against any team. They beat Australia by 320 runs in Mohali in 2008-09, New Zealand by 321 in Indore in October 2016, and South Africa by 337 in Delhi in 2015-16. India’s previous-biggest victory over Sri Lanka by runs was 278, at the P Sara Oval in Colombo in August 2015. India have also won 15 Tests by a margin of an innings and 100 or more runs, the highest being an innings and 239, against Bangladesh in Mirpur in May 2007.How many England players have taken a five-for on Test debut, as Toby Roland-Jones did at The Oval? asked Paul Greaves from England

Toby Roland-Jones, who took 5 for 57 in South Africa’s first innings at The Oval, was the 47th bowler to take a five-for on Test debut for England. Four of them – Fred Martin (1890), Tom Richardson (1893), Charles “Father” Marriott (1933), and Ken Farnes (1934) – took two in the match, so this was the 51st instance. The best figures on debut for England remain Dominic Cork’s 7 for 43 against West Indies at Lord’s in 1995. Four other bowlers took seven in an innings in their first match for England: John Lever (7 for 46 v India in Delhi in 1976-77), Alec Bedser (7 for 49 v India at Lord’s in 1946), James Langridge (7 for 56 v West Indies at Old Trafford in 1933), and Jim Laker (7 for 103 v West Indies in Bridgetown in 1947-48).Roland-Jones is the first England player with a double-barrelled surname since 1935, when Mandy Mitchell-Innes played against South Africa, and the first to take five wickets in an innings for them since George Simpson-Hayward, who claimed 6 for 43 in the first Test of 1910-11, in Johannesburg, and 5 for 69 in the third, also at the Old Wanderers. Bowling underarm lobs, Simpson-Hayward took 23 wickets in that five-match series, his only taste of Test cricket.Leave your questions in the comments

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.

The BCB president was a strong voice for Bangladesh in the ICC, but closer home, issues of conflict of interest clouded his first tenure

Mohammad Isam17-Oct-2017The Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) election on October 31 for the directors’ positions is a foregone conclusion. With no opposition, the board president Nazmul Hassan’s panel is set to retain the majority of the posts.Directors voted into the board have to elect a president and, unless there is late drama, Hassan is expected to continue in his role as BCB president, and it is unlikely his position will be challenged for the next four years.Regardless of an extension, Hassan’s first term as BCB president should be assessed on the day it ends. One parameter to gauge the success of the BCB president is the performance of the Bangladesh team. In Hassan’s case, the other significant aspects of his tenure include his handling of the Bangladesh Premier League (BPL) and his leadership at home and abroad.Hassan’s tenure coincided with Bangladesh’s longest period of success as an international team and his major contribution was to back some critical decisions. He agreed to appoint Chandika Hathurusingha as coach despite more luminous names in the shortlist in 2014. When Shakib Al Hasan took on Hathurusingha soon after his appointment, Hassan decided to suspend Shakib for six months, a risky but bold move. In the short term, Bangladesh lost badly in West Indies but it became clear that the board was serious about team discipline.Hassan then approved splitting the Bangladesh captaincy for the first time. This was a practical solution at the time but proved to be a masterstroke as Mashrafe Mortaza led an ODI revival.Within a year of this success, however, Hassan enlarged the selection committee by including Hathurusingha and two other directors. Faruque Ahmed resigned as the chief selector, citing a lack of independence, but Hassan pressed ahead and ratified the changes.When making these changes, Hassan said it was a relief for him to no longer discuss selection issues with the selectors. In the following 12 months, however, he suggested many names to the selectors through press briefings and on many occasions, those players were subsequently chosen.Mominul Haque’s axing, and then reinstatement, for the first Test against Australia caused a major outcry, and there were hints that chief selector Minhajul Abedin had little to do with such decisions.Hassan’s proximity to the senior team also raised eyebrows on several occasions, particularly as he proceeded to make public contents of team meetings. From talking about players’ inability to raise issues with the coach, to revealing their World Cup plan and discussing the mentality of the Test captain, Hassan gave the media a rare look into the not-so-perfect world of an international cricket team. However, this also made some players appear weak.At the start of Hassan’s presidency, the BCB had to deal with the prickly issues of payment and match-fixing allegations in the 2013 edition of the BPL. He responded by forming a tribunal to deal with the allegations. There were flaws in the investigations but the ban handed to Mohammad Ashraful set an important precedent. Hassan also made sure the tournament would not continue until the investigating tribunal had made its decisions and much of the pending player payments were cleared. The tournament was not played in 2014 and returned in 2015.Nazmul Hassan managed to keep the BCB strong despite the flux within the ICC•AFPAnother affliction of the BPL also affected Hassan: conflict of interest. His employers, Beximco, bought the Dhaka Dynamites franchise. The man Hassan appointed as BPL secretary, Ismail Haider Mallick, also works at Beximco, while franchise coach Khaled Mahmud is a BCB director. As the most powerful trio in the BCB, Hassan, Mahmud and Mallick were part of a growing number of conflicts of interest across all levels of Bangladesh cricket, especially evident since BPL 2015.There were further problems for Hassan on the domestic front. There have been murmurs for the last four years that two factions in the BCB have been trying to allegedly manipulate the different levels of the Dhaka league system. Abahani is recognized traditionally as the most powerful club in Bangladesh sport – it’s the club from which Hassan held his BCB councillorship and where Mallick is the cricket secretary, and Mahmud the coach. In 2016, Abahani were on the right side of the umpire’s poor decisions in the Dhaka Premier League match against Prime Doleshwar Sporting Club, which prompted allegations of bias towards a powerful, well-connected club.While Hassan acknowledged the umpiring problem, he took the allegations against Abahani to heart and held angry press conferences. On one occasion, he didn’t allow three journalists to enter a press briefing at his Beximco office as they had questioned him about Abahani at a previous press conference. The umpiring issues, however, continued.The situation came to a head earlier this year when a bowler, Sujon Mahmud of Lalmatia Club, frustrated by alleged biased umpiring, gave away 92 runs off just four deliveries in a Dhaka league match. The day before, Tasnim Hasan of the Fear Fighters Sporting Club voluntarily conceded 69 runs in 1.1 overs. Both players were banned for ten years, and their clubs were also punished, but the umpire in question got away with a slap on the wrist.Hassan did have a better time at the ICC, where he secured important committee posts and could successfully position the BCB first with the Big Three and later with Shashank Manohar, when the latter brought in reforms. Siding with the Big Three gave the side more matches against India. Agreeing with Manohar’s moves made sure the ICC chairman also heard out Hassan’s views on not demoting teams from Full Membership status.In some ways though, the BCB’s leadership was a continuation of the previous man in power: AHM Mustafa Kamal. Hassan’s leadership method was similar to Kamal’s hands-on style as board president, though Hassan also listened to what the players had to say, most evident in the slight increase in player salary in 2017.There are two key differences between Kamal and Hassan, however: while the former did not trust his captains and gave them assurances on a series-by-series basis, Hassan’s confidence in Mashrafe went a long way in stabilising the senior team.Secondly, unlike Kamal, who was regularly challenged by a faction of board directors, Hassan’s regime has been known to have a “with us or against us” policy. Some directors were close to him and those who chose to toe his line were welcomed. Disagreement wasn’t welcome, however; a case in point being Ahmed Sajjadul Alam, who questioned Hassan’s stance on the Big Three position paper in 2014 and has become a pariah within the board.A more democratic approach may not have resulted in so many questions around Hassan’s first tenure. The next four years will see many changes in world cricket, so he will have to continue being proactive and methodical, to shape Bangladesh cricket in such a way that everyone feels included, and the world keeps seeing the progress of the cricket team.

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.

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

Maybe you should stop doing it. Whether we like or not, it’s law in the game. As for spirit of the game, the players didn’t do anything wrong right? #healthydebate

— Mitchell Johnson (@MitchJohnson398) January 17, 2018

Disgusting! Once again WI junior team involved in a matter that goes against the spirit of the game. Law or not, I’ve seen @ABdeVilliers17, @stevesmith49 and @imVkohli pass ball back to fielder. Follow their example youngsters! Play hard but play fair within spirit of game! https://t.co/wePF1N3rKS

— mark boucher (@markb46) January 17, 2018

Follow the rules, that’s the spirit of the game right?

— Mitchell Johnson (@MitchJohnson398) January 17, 2018

So what will happen now..a player should practice what happens in the field.

So when you bowl to me in the nets. You come down and get it out of the net! #iamnottouchingit https://t.co/jqxbyTQpIG

— Dean Jones (@ProfDeano) January 17, 2018

Can't believe what I am seeing @ICC #U19WorldCup. WI appealed for handling the ball. The ball had stopped rolling & the player picked it up.

— Lisa Sthalekar (@sthalekar93) January 17, 2018

God that is ugly. But a lesson to all. Don’t ever touch the ball when batting. https://t.co/2LF2AyfE2J

— Peter Lalor (@plalor) January 17, 2018

Technically the correct decision, but this type of dismissal is different from virtually all others in that the batsman is actually trying to help the fielding team rather than gain advantage. https://t.co/G3n9j0UxcW

— Brydon Coverdale (@brydoncoverdale) January 17, 2018

ICC need to scrap it from the law as a dismissal. Perhaps say the batter can be punished under normal penalty for getting sweaty gloves on the ball if the umpire deems unsportsmanlike conduct. But cannot be dismissed for it.

— Tim Cutler (@timcutler) January 17, 2018