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There does not need to be panic from Australia after their semi-final exit, but there are a few areas of concern and chief among them is Meg Lanning’s fitness

Melinda Farrell22-Jul-2017It seems ridiculous that anything less than a trophy would be seen as abject failure but anyone who saw the faces of the Australian players after their loss to India in the Women’s World Cup semi-final was left in no doubt how much this hurt. Australia’s women have been so dominant in the sport that the thought of them not being in a final seems almost inconceivable. They must now return home to the doubly grim prospect of a Pat Howard-led dissection of their performance and unemployment, thanks to the ongoing MoU dispute with Cricket Australia (although that does beg the question of how a performance review happens without an employer).England will arrive for the Ashes series – comprising of one Test, three ODIs and three T20Is – in October, possibly as World Champions. Assuming the pay dispute is resolved in time for the series to take place there are a several questions Australia will perhaps look to consider before a home campaign they will be desperate to win.Lanning injuryThere have been a number of brilliant performances by players from other countries but few would argue that Meg Lanning isn’t the best female batsman in the world. Her average of 54.52 in ODIs at a strike-rate of 95.97 is far ahead of the competition. Her shoulder injury cost her two matches in the World Cup and while Australia still won both of them, against Pakistan and South Africa, her absence left a hole that stronger teams may have been able to exploit. There have been times in the field and when batting – notably her dismissals by England spinner Alex Hartley and India seamer Jhulan Goswami – when her movement may have been somewhat hampered. How to handle Lanning’s shoulder injury in the months leading into the Ashes could be hugely significant. Does she undergo intensive treatment and rehabilitation, possibly even surgery? Or push through until after the series and risk making the injury worse? Lanning at 80% fitness is still probably better than most but to ask her to get through a four-day Test with such an injury followed by another six days of match play should be carefully considered.Lack of bowling optionsThe fact Elyse Villani was called on to bowl several times throughout the World Cup including an over in the semi-final – in which she took one wicket but went for 19 runs in the second Powerplay – must be a concern for Australia. Villani is a part-time medium pacer at best. Australia’s bowling line up has simply not contained the same combination of punch and stinginess as previous attacks. Without Rene Farrell and Sarah Coyte there was a lack of international experience in the seam-bowling stocks. Sarah Aley was probably unlucky to be overlooked and, with the spinners being brutalized by Harmanpreet Kaur, Lanning only had limited overs to use from Ellyse Perry and Megan Schutt. Perry has bowled well in this tournament, is a huge asset in any judge’s estimation and would undoubtedly get into the side based purely on her bowling, but she is continuing on the trajectory of becoming more of a batting allrounder (she finished the semi-final as the tournament’s highest run-scorer) than the strike bowler. In the last World Cup she took three wickets bowling virtually on one leg to set up Australia’s victory. In the semi-final loss to India, she took none. The best batsmen in the world are perhaps learning how to face her. The make-up of Australia’s attack across all three formats is bound to be high up on the list of topics in Howard’s review.Ellyse Perry remains an excellent bowler but is there enough seam support?•Getty ImagesFlexibility in the batting line upAustralia bat deep. That is the mantra. And there is no doubt any side containing Ashleigh Gardner – who bats at No. 3 for the Sydney Sixers in the Women’s Big Bash League – coming in as low as No. 9 has the ability to score big at the back end. This was evident when Australia were chasing England’s total of 259 in their three-run loss in the group stage. But, perhaps because of a culture in which players have to earn their stripes, Gardner wasn’t pushed up the order. A similar observation could be made about the semi-final. Villani has opened many times for Australia and is in the side for her quick scoring and powerful hitting. Incumbent openers Beth Mooney and Nicole Bolton have generally given Australia solid but somewhat conservative starts. That’s often served them well, particularly when Lanning has come in and accelerated, but in the semi-final they were faced with a target of 282 in 42 overs. If ever a faster start would have served them, it was when chasing their highest target against India. But the noted fast ODI scorers are kept in reserve below Lanning. And scoreboard pressure took its toll.Lanning-Perry partnershipIt could be argued that it’s turning a positive into a negative to bring up Lanning and Perry’s incredibly consistent partnership. They give a solidity to Australia’s batting line up that would be the envy of any other team. They are also complementary. Lanning generally scores quickly from ball one, is aggressive and innovative, and can convert good starts to big scores with startling regularity. Perry often starts conservatively, likes to play with traditionally good technique and score in the V, collects a half-century and increases her run-rate as her innings progresses. They also follow two openers, in Mooney and Bolton, who tend to build slowly. Mithali Raj pointed out after India’s semi-final victory that if you break open Australia’s top order, it can expose a potential fragility if they need to chase a big score, and there is a growing feeling among those that watch the game closely that the Lanning-Perry partnership papers over potential cracks. If you get two wickets early you’re half a chance, if you get three – and break that partnership – then you’ve given yourself a real tilt at getting through the batting line up. Perhaps Australia need more batsmen spending more time at the crease – how you go about that is another problem.Australia’s spinners were impressive before the semi-final•ICC/Getty ImagesAdapting to adversity and changing conditionsThere were warning signs before Australia’s World Cup exit. One of them screamed for attention: when Chamari Atapattu took apart Australia’s bowling attack in the group game in Bristol. It was a brutal display comparable to Kaur’s destructive semi-final show. The difference was that Atappatu had hardly any partners who could back up her scoring or a bowling line up to make the most of runs on the board and apply pressure. Add to that Lanning played an outstanding innings in response, scoring an unbeaten 152 (with Perry at the other end unbeaten on 39, to emphasise the earlier point) to seal victory for Australia. But when Kaur let loose in Derby, Australia had no answer; they are so used to success that plan B is rarely required, let alone plan C or D. And it could be argued that there was no reason to doubt their spinners could contain any threat. Until the semi-finals Australia’s three spinners had collectively taken 27 wickets at an average of 25 and gone at 3.75 runs per over. But they were rattled and couldn’t recover – “turned to custard”, according to coach, Matthew Mott. When Kristen Beams lost control and wildly bowled a no-ball that landed nowhere near the pitch Kaur launched the free hit for an enormous six and pulled the following delivery menacingly for four. Australia are rarely challenged so forcefully or dominated so completely. They simply had no idea how to counterattack. England were watching and will be planning how to do the same in October.Mind the gapAll of these questions, of course, need to be put into context. Since Australia started playing ODIs they have won an astonishing 77%. The closest team to them is England, with 59%. Such dominance is rarely seen in sport and has led to a belief – by fans as well as the administration and players – that Australia will always make the finals and Australia will nearly always win. That is a huge burden of expectation. Australia has led the way with the introduction of professionalism, the WBBL and the resources allocated to its female players. But other countries are catching up. And players from other countries, playing in the WBBL, are learning how to counter the players Australia would normally bank on to win games. Lanning lamented that Australia had failed to put their complete game together throughout the tournament. In the past that may not have mattered so much.This is no crisis. At the end of a tournament Australia lost one game to one finalist by three runs and a second to the other finalist thanks to one of the finest ODI innings seen in the women’s game. “A bloody good team,” as Mott said. With a player in “red-hot form”. There are more of them out there.The gap is closing and the challenge for Australia to stay ahead of the pack is a significant one.

Dropped after scoring tough runs on tough tours, Sami Aslam is back, and in his comeback innings scored a half-century that highlighted both his strengths and his puzzling inability to convert his starts

Osman Samiuddin in Abu Dhabi30-Sep-2017Here is the ballad of a Pakistani opener. In his 12th Test he was playing with his third different opening partner. After 11 Tests he had six fifties, which included two nineties and an eighty. In 2016, his first proper year of Test cricket, he was Pakistan’s fourth-highest run-scorer. As Azhar Ali, his opening partner in most of those, was top-scorer, it meant Pakistan had a workable opening pair. Also, he didn’t really have any easy Tests in 2016. He played in England, New Zealand and Australia.After 11 Tests, though, he was dropped, four innings after a 91 in Hamilton on a tour in which that innings – and one more from Babar Azam – were literally the only batting highlights. He was replaced by a man who is now banned, having been found guilty of corruption. He was then replaced by a man better known for taking selfies. And, finally, he was replaced by the man who is his partner in this Test, whom he has never partnered before. And if he fails now, by the way, the selectors seem inclined to replace him with a guy who only recently finished a five-year ban for corruption.Hello, Sami Aslam. Meet Pakistan, who have tried 16 different opening combinations in the last five years of Test cricket, the most by any nation. England, you may think you have issues too (with 14 different pairings) but at least you have Alastair Cook.This was not the innings that made a mockery of Aslam’s dropping and vindicated his return. Fifty-one is useful only as a statistical landmark – otherwise, in nearly all circumstances, it is a waste of a start. And not converting fifties into hundreds, as Aslam hasn’t, is precisely the kind of problem that can be held against a batsman if it lingers.His commitment to fitness was also said to be an issue around the time he was dropped and this regime at least seems to be serious in implementing these standards.Still, being dropped when he was, with what he had done that year behind him, must have stung. It did a little, though much in the vein of modern-player parlance. “In 2016, in 9 Tests, I scored 600-plus runs so I think it was a good performance,” he reasoned. “The tours were tough as well. When you are dropped you feel it a bit, but I’ve taken that positively.”I have worked hard. I got better results in my fitness tests than before. It wasn’t an issue before, but in domestic cricket, I did well. I am feeling better about myself now, so I utilised that time well.”But he is back for now and making light of unfamiliarity with Shan Masood, with whom he was opening for the first time at any level. Together the pair gave Pakistan the kind of start that makes it difficult – but not improbable – for them to lose.”If you have an understanding with the other partner, then it [being unused to a new partner] doesn’t make a difference,” Aslam said. “At the start it could be an issue, but in practice matches in Lahore, we became familiar. After that, in your calling and stuff, you become familiar, you develop an understanding and it’s not that difficult.”He was unfortunate with his dismissal, Dilruwan Perera trapping him with one that crept through low. It was another missed opportunity to break through to a maiden hundred, though it isn’t the kind of thing that occupies Aslam unduly.He gives the impression of a man who knows it will come, which, given his first-class record and hundred-scoring capacities seen at U-19 level, is not outlandish.”It is in my mind that I have to score a hundred,” he said. “As an opener, or anywhere you play, you want to score big runs for the team. I’m trying, but you saw what happened today – I was done by a ball that kept low and I played it wrong as well.”No, it’s nothing like that [getting nervous as he nears the landmark]. I am used to it. But I think each time the situation has been such. Once I was run out, then once, the team was going for runs and I got out hitting out. It’s nothing like that – I’m hoping I’ll get there soon.”

Ben Stokes led the reactions on Twitter to England’s first hundred of this Ashes series

ESPNcricinfo staff14-Dec-2017

Awesome @dmalan29 !!#Ashes pic.twitter.com/1ScjBy4Iqq

— Stuart Broad (@StuartBroad8) December 14, 2017

Dawid Malan

— Ben Stokes (@benstokes38) December 14, 2017

Absolutely fantastic Day England … What a day for @dmalan29 … Magnificent innings under a huge amount of pressure … Welcome to the Test 100 club … #Ashes

— Michael Vaughan (@MichaelVaughan) December 14, 2017

Take a bow – @dmalan29!
Quite brilliant 100! #Ashes

— KP (@KP24) December 14, 2017

You beauty @dmalan29 !!!! Just when the team needed it! #ashes

— Sarah Taylor (@Sarah_Taylor30) December 14, 2017

Special day for @dmalan29 what a knock!!

— Moeen Ali (@MoeenAli) December 14, 2017

Brilliant century by Dawid Malan … gutsy, first century for Eng of the series and could prove to be most important moment of the test!

— Ebony Rainford-Brent (@ejrainfordbrent) December 14, 2017

Cracking from Malan
Great intent , patience and cover driving skill#FirstEngland100ofSeries #ashes2017

— Damien Fleming (@bowlologist) December 14, 2017

Malan

Malan, in the middle of our team

Malan, batting like you’ve never seen

Malan, makes it good to be alive

Malan, when you see his cover drive#Ashes @TheBarmyArmy

— Matthew Broughton (@Broughts89) December 14, 2017

This one from Malan could count among the more significant Ashes hundreds for England. Of course, how it will be remembered will depend a lot on the outcome of the Test. #Ashes

— Sambit Bal (@sambitbal) December 14, 2017

Superb innings by Malan, stylish and steely. England's 11th century at the Waca; 8th by a left-hander; and the 5th of those 11 that has been the batsman's first 100 in Tests (also Brian Luckhurst, Chris Broad, Jack Richards, Ben Stokes).

— Andy Zaltzman (@ZaltzCricket) December 14, 2017

Last England batsman to score his maiden Test century in #Ashes was Ben Stokes, also at the WACA, in 2013-14. Dawid Malan does it this time.

— Bharath Seervi (@SeerviBharath) December 14, 2017

A look at fielding and decision review system metrics as we head into the final stages of IPL 2018

ESPNcricinfo staff14-May-2018RCB’s silver lining in the field
Royal Challengers Bangalore may be having issues with their death-overs bowling, but their fielders have done superbly to try and offset that. They have saved a net total of 36 runs in the field.* Kings XI Punjab, who had identified fielding as a weakness, have conceded a net total of 31 runs.ESPNcricinfo LtdMumbai’s safe hands, Royals’ butter fingers
Rajasthan Royals dropped three catches against Mumbai Indians on Sunday, and took six. This was below their normal catching rate this season – 74% – which is the lowest for any team.ESPNcricinfo LtdDRS calls in review
Kolkata Knight Riders have the worst ratio of unsuccessful reviews this season, with 62.5% of their reviews being unsuccessful. Sunrisers Hyderabad are the most successful by the same metric, with a 50% success rate over a relatively large number of reviews.ESPNcricinfo Ltd

A line-up of the best individual performances this season that went in vain

Gaurav Sundararaman18-May-2018ESPNcricinfo LtdRishabh Pant’s 128 of 63 balls against Sunrisers HyderabadComing in to bat in the fourth over, Pant had to negotiate some tough conditions, facing the best bowling attack in the tournament on a tricky pitch. At the end of ten overs, Daredevils were 52 for 3. He began his onslaught from the 12th over, scoring three boundaries off Rashid Khan. Pant’s first 26 balls yielded just 30 runs while the next 37 balls got him 98 runs. Pant went on to make the highest score by an Indian batsman in T20 cricket, and did it by scoring 70 runs off Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Rashid, from just 24 balls. In all these years, no one has hit them for more in an IPL game. He smashed Bhuvneshwar for 43 off just 11 balls – the most by any batsman against him in a T20 game.However, as the match progressed and the pitch became easier for batting, Sunrisers chased down the target of 187 with seven balls to spare, losing just one wicket. In a match where every other Daredevils batsman struggled, Pant’s innings was worth 43 extra runs according to Smart Stats, ESPNcricinfo’s new metrics for T20 cricket.ESPNcricinfo LtdKL Rahul’s twin 90sKL Rahul has scored 33% of the runs Kings XI Punjab have made, en route to topping this season’s batting charts (as of May 17). In the first half of the tournament, his runs largely came in winning causes but the rest of the batting order has failed to support him in the second half of the season. Against Rajasthan Royals, Kings XI were chasing 159 and against Mumbai, they were chasing 186.ESPNcricinfo LtdThe chases panned out in contrasting manners, with Rahul being the fulcrum both times. Against Royals, Kings XI lost early wickets and were behind the game from the second over while against Mumbai they were in a dominant position until the 17th over and then fell short. The common strand in both the games was Rahul batting almost till the end of the innings with very little support from the other end.ESPNcricinfo LtdKane Williamson’s 81 off 42 balls against Royal Challengers BangaloreSunrisers’ strength has been their bowling, but over the last three games, their bowlers have been below par, conceding huge totals and letting opposition batsmen get away. Their top order, as a result, has had to rise to the occasion. While they did manage to canter to victory against Delhi, they failed to close out another steep chase against RCB. Having lost only three wickets, it was expected that Sunrisers would cross the line. It was the brilliance of Kane Williamson that got them close to what could have been a record IPL chase.Williamson’s eighth fifty of the season came at a phenomenal strike rate of 192.85, his personal best while chasing in T20s (minimum 10 balls faced). However, as the chase approached the final overs, Williamson got little time at the striker’s end, facing just eight balls in the five overs prior to his dismissal, leading to some lost momentum. His innings was proof once again that one does not need the power game to be successful in this format, as he stuck to his strengths: playing the ball as late as possible with deft touches and identifying gaps in the field. Williamson’s consistency has been remarkable this season, but this was one instance where he could not get his team past the line.ESPNcricinfo Ltd MS Dhoni’s 79* from 44 balls against Kings XI Punjab Chasing 198, MS Dhoni arrived at the crease as early as the seventh with three wickets down for 56 runs. The master chaser decided to arrest the flow of wickets and scored 31 runs in his first 25 balls. With the run rate required close to 16 runs an over, Kings XI managed to keep Dhoni off strike in the 16th over. Chennai needed 67 runs from the last four overs, and Dhoni managed to hit just one boundary in the 17th over off Andrew Tye. By doing so, he might have delayed the onslaught by an over, which proved to be the difference in the end.In the next three overs, Dhoni smashed 41 runs from 14 deliveries against Tye and Mohit Sharma. However, it was not enough. Although they lost this game, Dhoni has since timed his hitting to perfection, guiding CSK to an improbable chase against RCB a few days later in Bengaluru.

Neil McKenzie has called for more consistency among Bangladesh’s batsmen after impressive hundreds from Imrul Kayes and Soumya Sarkar

Mohammad Isam26-Oct-2018Soumya Sarkar in full flow, driving on the up, cutting smoothly, crashing spinners over midwicket with a cross-legged follow-through, is a sight to behold. But it is rare, and his 117 against Zimbabwe in the third ODI was his first in international cricket in more than three years.Imrul Kayes finished the series with rare consistency, hammering 144, 90 and 115 to become the second highest run-getter in a three-match ODI series, just 11 runs behind the 360 Babar Azam made against West Indies in 2016. Both Soumya and Imrul have only just returned to the ODI squad, midway through the Asia Cup.Liton Das had two bad games on either side of a sublime 83. He also made 120 against India in the Asia Cup final. It is going to be hard to not consider any of these three batsmen when the selectors pick the next ODI squad, against West Indies in December.Bangladesh batting coach Neil McKenzie said that batsmen like Soumya, Imrul, Liton and Mohammad Mithun have to continue being consistent due to the competition for places once Shakib Al Hasan and Tamim Iqbal return to the side from injuries.”When you have a lot of competition for places, you have to be consistent,” McKenzie told ESPNcricinfo. “It is no use getting a hundred and then nought, nought, five, seven. If you just look outside the squad and the guys who didn’t get to bat today, just look at how much batting you’ve got. There’s a lot of batting coming through. It is all about competition for places. It would make selection a little bit tricky. You have to select what’s best for the team.”McKenzie said that if more of Bangladesh’s batsmen think like Soumya did in Chittagong, by trusting his own method, style and techniques, they could bat at higher tempo, show more consistency and bat with more confidence.”It is nice to see them get rewards for their hard work,” he said. “A guy like Soumya has so much happening for him. He is a great striker of the ball, he is tall and imposing on the opposition. It is down to some confidence. He got a hundred against Zimbabwe in the warm-up game. He got some runs in the domestic games.”It is all about confidence and trusting your game plans. I think they are allowed to be themselves in this environment. They have to bat like Soumya does. You can’t bat like anyone else. You have to trust your own style.”McKenzie, known among his coaching staff as someone who becomes restless when batsmen play dots, said that Bangladeshi players have a talent for finding gaps as much as possible, and ensuring ones and twos are not missed. It sets them up for big hits – a case in point being the nine sixes they hit in this game.”It is down to game plans: when to hit and when not to hit, and hit spaces. We talk a lot about the skillsets of a Bangladeshi batsman. There’s no use trying to bat like West Indians or South Africans. You have to bat like a Bangladeshi. Use your skills.”Bangladeshi batsmen hit space. They should be agile between wickets. They are very skilled hitters. Hit space and run hard, and the big hits will follow. We have had some big sixes there. Guys were in good positions, and it comes from confidence.”One of the things that McKenzie has stressed upon is using the depth of the crease and not reacting too slowly to certain bowlers. Bangladesh’s struggle against Rashid Khan this year is well documented but in the must-win Asia Cup game in Abu Dhabi, Mahmudullah and Imrul batted sensibly against him, mostly by not moving on to the front foot when the bowler is delivering the ball.”I think it is just positions with the spinners. I think a lot of the time we get into position a little bit too late,” McKenzie said. “We are still moving our front foot when the ball is being released. By being nice and set as the bowler is about to release the ball, it gives you options off the front and back foot.”With a guy like Rashid Khan, who is quick in the air, we played him a little bit too rushed. Getting into an early position that you can transfer your weight forward and back, and a lot of the emphasis, chatting to Steve [Rhodes], is on having opportunities to score off the front and back foot.”Bangladesh have treated Zimbabwe’s spinners with disdain in this ODI series, something that has come from their confidence in dealing with spinners in the Asia Cup. “A lot of our guys today are very happy with good drives through the covers but when it is slightly short you see them jumping back quite far back on to their stumps,” McKenzie said. “Either cutting it square or picking up over midwicket. I think it is just that early position and giving yourself options.”The three batsmen in Bangladesh’s top order have shown in this ODI series that following their own style and sticking to batting plans brings rewards. Anamul Haque failed to cement his place in the ODI opening slot despite being given seven chances this year. Nazmul Hossain Shanto struggled in three Asia Cup matches before Liton, Imrul and Soumya raised the stakes in the space of four ODIs.So who will open with Tamim when he returns to the side? Normally, the answer was a difficult one because no one else would be scoring, a problem that has been as lengthy as Soumya’s drop in form since 2016.It remains a difficult answer, but only because there are now three candidates for two vacant top-order places.

The lack of partnerships at the top and in the middle order hurt the visiting side in the first Test, and they’ll need to change their approach to the turning ball

Mohammad Isam in Chattogram24-Nov-2018Over the course of their first Test against Bangladesh, West Indies had only two stands that went past 50, one in each innings. Shimron Hetmyer and Shane Dowrich put on 92 runs for the sixth wicket in the first dig, while Sunil Ambris and Jomel Warrican added 63 runs for the ninth wicket in the second essay.It highlighted not just the lack of partnerships, but also how the top order hadn’t been able to stick around. After a 64-run defeat inside three days in Chattogram, captain Kraigg Brathwaite said those two factors made the difference.”The key is partnerships, whether the top or middle order. We didn’t get partnerships early, so it cost us. We didn’t put up any good partnership. We lost wickets too quickly. The ball was doing a lot more off the pitch,” he said.The batsmen failed individually, too, with only Hetmyer making more than 20 in both innings. In their second innings, chasing 204 for victory, West Indies crashed to 11 for 4 in the 5.5 overs that were bowled before lunch. Things didn’t get much better from thereon, with the score reading 75 for 8. The Ambris-Warrican stand that followed ensured the margin of defeat would be shortened, with the duo counter-attacking their way out of trouble. Their approach was similar to the methods Hetmyer employed in both innings, hitting 63 off 47 and then 27 off 19. Brathwaite said that Hetmyer sticking to his own style was good, but hinted that a dash of caution was sometimes necessary too.”He bats in that way. He is quite an attacking batsman,” Brathwaite said. “But you have to be good in defence as well. Obviously he can attack quite well. Each batsman have their specific game plan, so that’s his game and he did well.”Being slightly more circumspect could have helped Hetmyer score more perhaps, though he showed during both innings that his style of play did cause the bowling side to go on the defensive. On the other hand, there was Dowrich, who did well in the first innings by adopting a watchful approach, showing that given the right skills or application, either method could yield results. So perhaps for Kieron Powell, Shai Hope, Roston Chase and Brathwaite himself, it was more about a lack of application than anything else.Powell was lbw in the first innings and played a poor shot in the second, stepping out of the crease and trying to smite Shakib Al Hasan. He missed the ball entirely, resulting in an easy stumping for Mushfiqur Rahim.Hope also fell to Shakib, in the first as well as the second innings. He had needlessly jumped out of his crease to meet a delivery on the leg stump, but didn’t get to the pitch of the ball and was bowled. He was more cautious in the second innings, but going forward with bat tucked behind pad, he feathered an outside edge to the keeper.Brathwaite looked uncomfortable against spin in both innings, first falling over while edging Shakib before going back to Taijul Islam’s arm ball in the second innings. Roston Chase fell in the same way, to the same bowler, in the second innings. Perhaps he was hanging back because a front-foot jab against Nayeem Hasan had resulted in a catch to short leg in the first innings.The second Test is in Mirpur, Dhaka from November 30 and the Shere Bangla National Stadium also has a reputation of being a spinners’ den. West Indies have a week to polish their skills for a better show against spin, and the aspect they might want to work on most is their approach, rather than their skills.

Eoin Morgan’s men have been World Cup front-runners for two years now. But their lack of adaptability on sporty pitches is a concern

George Dobell in St Lucia03-Mar-2019Just ahead of this ODI series, Eoin Morgan called on his England side to show an ability to adapt to conditions. At the time he made the comment, he foresaw a series played on slow, turning surfaces which could test England’s aggressive approach to batting. As it was, most of the series was played on very good batting tracks, with the final match played on a surface offering pretty steep bounce by modern standards.But the principle was the same: Morgan was calling on his side to show an ability to adapt and they failed to do so. While it would be simplistic to dismiss this England team as flat-track bullies, it wouldn’t be totally untrue, either. On flat wickets where the ball neither seams, spins or bounces especially high, England are world beaters.On other surfaces? Well, they were knocked out of the Champions Trophy by Pakistan on a pitch offering help to spin and reverse swing. They were bowled out for 153 by South Africa on a green surface at Lord’s (they were 20 for 6 at one stage) and 196 by Australia on a seaming surface in Adelaide (they had been 8 for 5 at one stage). If they come up against such a surface in a knock-out game at the World Cup – and they did in both the 2013 Champions Trophy final and the 2017 Champions Trophy semi-final – they look vulnerable.”We didn’t adapt,” Morgan admitted afterwards. “It was a terrible batting performance which is a disappointing way to end the series. We need to learn from the experience.”The time for learning is up, though. Well, just about, anyway. England will have named their provisional World Cup squad before they play another ODI and they are committed to the batting line-up that played in this series.They are, in many ways, an admirable bunch. They have improved vastly and expanded the bounds of what we thought possible in this format. On the sort of surfaces which are expected during the World Cup – true, flat and even-paced – they will worry any bowling attack in the world. They have, after all, thrashed the two highest scores in ODI history in the last three years and have four of the five highest totals made in the format since the last World Cup.And perhaps it is inevitable, if you progress at such pace so often, that you will occasionally fall. For, in the 39 completed first innings England have had in ODI cricket since the last World Cup, they have passed 400 four times and won on each occasion. They have passed 300 on 24 occasions and won 19 of those games. And, yes, on four occasions, they have failed to reach 200 and have been beaten on each occasion. If we praise them for their boldness on the days the shots end up in the stands, we have to be very careful about criticising when those same shots end up in hands. This was a drawn series, after all; not a defeat. They have still not lost a bilateral ODI series (so excluding the one-off game against Scotland) since they were in India in early 2017. That’s 10 series with nine victories.Losing the toss was significant here, too. Perhaps due to heavy rain overnight, the pitch started just a little tacky. With England reasoning it would ease during the day, they felt the need to attack in order to set a winning total. This is not a team that tries to limit the extent of their loss; it’s a team that tried to win. Always.Morgan, to his credit, refused to use the toss as an excuse. Reasoning that winning the toss is always, to a greater or lesser extent, an advantage, he knows that England cannot expect to have things – the pitch, the toss, the conditions – their own way all the way through a World Cup campaign.Shimron Hetmyer and Darren Bravo celebrate winning the match•Getty Images”The toss is an advantage across every game we play,” Morgan said. “I might have argued that if we’d lost by one or two wickets, but we weren’t at the races today.”One of the frustrations with this England side is that it seems, with just a little better judgment, with just a little more nous, they could improve markedly. As Morgan admitted, it was clear from the first few minutes that this pitch offered the bowlers some life and clear that England would have to bat accordingly. For reasons that are not clear, they were unable to do so.”It was evident from the first two overs [that we had to adapt],” Morgan said. “You could see it from the changing room. We did have that conversation. But we didn’t adapt. Trying to curb your natural ability, to try to go from high-risk to low-risk and still get a score in the morning that will be good enough in the afternoon, is difficult.”Whose job should that be to gauge what a winning total is on each pitch? Well, this team has been together for a long time now. Every option for the opening position has played more than 60 ODIs and should be able to show the sophistication to know when to take the foot off the accelerator. Joe Root, too, is an experienced player who has scored more ODI centuries for England than anyone else. He should be able to adapt his game as required. Morgan, with more than 200 caps to his name, should also be able to do so.Morgan disputes the suggestion that England are slow learners, however. While he accepts there is a general problem in adapting to new conditions, he felt England have shown improvement on slow, low surfaces and simply haven’t experienced a pitch with as much bounce in it as this.”When we come up in conditions for the first time it has gone wrong,” Morgan said. “When we’ve come back in conditions that are similar to where we’ve made mistakes, we’ve actually played really well. It’s easy to gloss over things like that because when we play well some of our guys make things look quite easy.”We learned from that Champions Trophy defeat. We went away from home and played on slow, low wickets and improved our game from that experience.”These was a surface that we rarely come up against. It was just the bounce. And I don’t think we dealt and adapted with that. We continued to play as if we were on the same pitch in Grenada. A low-risk shot there was high-risk today.”There are other areas of concern. And the England bowlers’ failure to learn to deal with Chris Gayle throughout the series – if anything, he became more destructive as the series progressed – is one of them.Gayle is an exceptional player, of course. But England will come up against several exceptional players during the World Cup and, if their batsmen get the run-filled pitches they want, their bowlers will have nowhere to hide. They have to find a way to at least stem the bleeding. Gayle hit a six every 8.10 balls he faced this series. It’s hard to imagine a World Cup-winning bowling attack allowing that.Where could they have bowled to him? Well, the Hawkeye pitch map for this innings suggests England attempted to bowl three yorkers at him. The two aimed at the stumps were dot balls, while the one aimed down the leg-side, as Gayle attempted to give himself room, was inside-edged to the boundary. They bowled five yorkers at him during his innings of 162 in Grenada, too. None of them went to the boundary and four of them were dot balls. And they didn’t bowl any yorkers on the line of the stumps at him during his innings of 135 in the first ODI. It seems odd that it was not a line of attack pursued more often.”Gayle is probably in the best form of his life,” Morgan argued by way of mitigation. “Our execution needs to be near on perfect and that’s a really good test because we are going to come up against similar players in the World Cup.”So, here they are, on the brink of the World Cup and with lessons to learn with bat and ball. They’ve been the front-runners for this tournament for a couple of years now. But as we get closer to the event, it feels as if the field is starting to close.

With the Australian struggling to find his touch, Chennai Super Kings could look at either Sam Billings or M Vijay to slot in and give the top order some solidity

Deivarayan Muthu in Chennai22-Apr-2019After racking up seven wins in their first eight games in IPL 2019, Chennai Super Kings have suffered back-to-back losses – one without and one with MS Dhoni in the XI. That they lost by one run against Royal Challengers Bangalore on Sunday was down to Dhoni’s sheer brilliance.There is, however, trouble in Super Kings’ paradise, and it begins right at the top. Shane Watson, the man of the 2018 IPL final, is now walking a tightrope like WWE’s Kofi Kingston does at Royal Rumble events.Only six players have featured in each of the ten matches Super Kings have played so far, and Watson features among them. Yet, he has struggled to get starts, forget converting them. All up, he has laboured to 147 runs in ten innings at an average of 14.70 and strike rate of 112.21. Among openers that have faced at least 50 balls this season, Watson has the third-highest dot-ball percentage (54.96).Let us not forget that Watson was one of the most valuable players for the defending champions last season. Then, at 37, he became the oldest centurion in the Big Bash League. He followed it up with a bumper stint in the Pakistan Super League, where he amassed a chart-topping 430 runs in 12 innings at an average of 43 and strike rate of 143.81.The ball largely came on to the bat in Australia and then in the UAE, but then the slower-than-usual Chennai pitch has posed a difficult challenge for Watson. He set up Super Kings’ victory against Delhi Capitals at Feroz Shah Kotla with a typically punchy 44 off 26 balls, but otherwise hasn’t made a noteworthy contribution on the road since. His struggles at Chepauk have been starker: he has managed just 56 runs in four innings at an average of 14 and strike rate 100.Suresh Raina, Sam Billings and Ambati Rayudu at a Chennai Super Kings training session•PTI Having been unable to rotate the strike, he has turned to his go-to big shots – the slog-sweep and the pull – but has holed out while attempting to clear the longer leg-side boundaries. The inclusion of Faf du Plessis, who is more adept at wedging the ball into the gaps, briefly masked Super Kings’ top-order meltdowns, but both him and Watson fell to reckless strokes at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium on Sunday.Similar risky strokes worked for Watson in Pune (the home base) last year, where the ball slides on to the bat and the outfield is much quicker than the one in Chennai. Watson had a ball in Pune, chalking up 264 runs in five innings at an average of 52.80 and strike rate of 168.15. In Chennai, he can’t quite get the ball away. To add to Super Kings’ concerns, Watson is among the slower movers in the field, and rarely bowls these days – he hasn’t bowled at all in the IPL this season.Super Kings’ coach Stephen Fleming has admitted to the top-order wobbles ramping up the pressure on Ambati Rayudu and Dhoni in the middle order, but he continued to back Watson to come good, while batting coach Michael Hussey pointed out that Watson has been hitting the ball well in the nets.So, with the promising Sam Billings and a hungry M Vijay on the bench, should Super Kings rethink their top order? Perhaps Watson could do with a mini break too, having constantly been on the road for the past two months in the PSL closely followed by IPL.Billings can’t muscle the ball like Watson, but he has a reputation of being a busy player and he showed he can stand up to pressure last year when he sealed a tense chase for Super Kings in the homecoming at Chepauk.Meanwhile, this Vijay isn’t the Vijay of 2010, but he has recent form on his side and is keen to prove he still has it in T20 cricket. After being ignored for the initial phase of the 20-over Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy that preceded the IPL, Vijay entered the Tamil Nadu side as a replacement player and hit 261 runs in four innings at a strike rate of nearly 150.Dhoni’s team are in pole position to make the playoffs, but the think tank would want the top order to be solid rather than stuttering in the knockouts. Is that going to happen with Watson or without Watson?

They don’t have the fanfare that some of their peers do, but they are among the best in the game

Dustin Silgardo05-Oct-2019Associated Press Dean Elgar
Dean Elgar has 23,000 Twitter followers. Yes, sure, your Twitter following doesn’t define how popular you are, but 23,000? The Chennai Super Kings team manager, @russcsk, has six times as many.Elgar’s record since the beginning of 2017 is remarkable. He averages 43.53, more than Joe Root, David Warner, and even his captain Faf du Plessis – compare Google search results for Elgar with any of those three and his average score returns as either 1 or 0. Despite being South Africa’s highest run-getter in the period, with 2046 runs, seven hundreds and nine fifties in 50 innings. Not to forget that 1281 of the runs have come opening in South Africa, arguably the hardest batting assignment in cricket today.There were rumblings Elgar might take a Kolpak deal at the beginning of 2017. He ended the year in the ICC and ESPNcricinfo Test teams of the year. But, despite the feel-good story, Elgar’s rise hasn’t got the attention it might have – heck, we haven’t even updated his player profile since 2012. Part of this is because he entered the South Africa team at a time when greats such as Hashim Amla and AB de Villiers were still around partly because he doesn’t excel in the white-ball formats, partly because his batting style is kind-of-but-not-quite Shiv Chanderpaul, and then just sheer bad luck. It’s almost funny how many of Elgar’s hundreds have ended up being overshadowed by other events. He got a century against Sri Lanka in January 2017 only for Kagiso Rabada to announce himself with a ten-wicket haul. Then he got a 140 in Dunedin, but it was a few days after Steven Smith had his DRS brain fade in Bengaluru, and that’s what Elgar’s captain ended up being asked about in the press conference. He carried his bat against Australia in Cape Town, and two days later Sandpapergate exploded. You get the picture.Getty ImagesBJ Watling
Search ‘BJ Watling + Cricinfo’ on Google and the first two stories that pop up are about how under-rated he is. As Andrew Fidel Fernando writes in one: “If New Zealand are the team that do great things that barely get noticed in the wider cricket world, BJ Watling is the New Zealand of New Zealand.”Watling has made a career out of getting tough, important, unflashy runs for his team in Test cricket, either supporting one of the bigger-name top-order stars – he’s been a part of two triple-century stands for the sixth wicket, one with Brendon McCullum, the other with Kane Williamson – or digging his team out of trouble. He’s played more matches, 55, scored more runs, 2887 at an average of 40.66, and effected more dismissals, 214, than any wicketkeeper since his debut in December 2009. Not enough to be in your team of the decade, is he?It was always going to be hard for Watling. Firstly, he’s from New Zealand. Secondly, he took the gloves from McCullum, the most blockbuster cricketer the country has ever produced. And he’s the type of guy who, when asked a question earlier this year, said, “I don’t even think I’m one of the best, to be honest. I think there’s some quality keepers going around who are also fantastic batsmen. So I don’t look at that too deeply… Winning a Test match and having a beer at the end of it and knowing you’ve put in five days of hard work to try and achieve that – that’s why you play the game. I’m happy with that.”AFPJason Holder
Jason Holder is the No. 1 Test allrounder in the world according to the ICC rankings. That’s right, not Ben Stokes, not Shakib Al Hasan, but Holder, medium pacer and No. 8 batsman. Before you dismiss the rankings, have a look at the extraordinary improvement in his bowling stats in the past three years. At the end of West Indies’ first Test in the UAE in October 2016, his bowling average had risen to 49.69. Since then, he has averaged 20.65, bringing his overall average down to 27.26. And consider this: he has two five-fors against India, one five-for against Pakistan, and two four-fors against England in the past three years. Just as a bowler, he is now No. 4 in the rankings. Add in his batting average of 33.10, his match-winning double-century in the series win over England last year, and you have a player who at least belongs in the conversation about the best allrounder in the game.The problem for Holder is that he has never quite fully shaken off the reputation he gained early in his career of a bits-and-pieces player whose main role is to maintain order in a team in disarray. He was considered not quick enough to be picked as a bowler and came in too low to be considered a batsman. But Holder has swung the ball more consistently, making him a threat despite the lack of pace, and many people now feel he should bat higher.Getty ImagesNeil Wagner
Trent Boult is sexy. His hair gets prettier the more he sweats, he fires the ball along the pitch, getting it right up so it swings miles, he goes for big money at the IPL auction and takes photos with Ed Sheeran that he posts on Instagram for his 270K followers. Neil Wagner has a slightly receding hairline. Sweat sits heavily on him, settling in and accentuating the crinkles on his face over a day’s work. He thuds the ball into the pitch. He doesn’t get to play in the IPL; he has, in fact, never played an ODI or T20I for New Zealand. The only time he gets more than ten comments on an Instagram post is when it’s a photo of him with Boult. Yet, since the start of 2016, Wagner has a better average, strike rate and economy rate than Boult.Boult’s role is to create havoc with the new ball, Wagner’s is to be the enforcer and keep batsmen honest with long spells of tight lines and tough lengths. Boult is always going to be the one in the limelight, but Wagner is now finding his unsexy hard work pay dividends. He has six five-fors in the past four years, including two six-fors and a seven-for, and is fast closing in on 200 Test wickets.AFPAzhar Ali and Asad Shafiq
To have to succeed a hero is about the most unrewarding task, especially when the demand comes from the kind of passionate mob that believes in heroes and, consequently, villains. Younis Khan and Misbah-ul-Haq were heroes of such stature that Azhar Ali and Asad Shafiq had lost this one even before they had started. How were they supposed to match men who took Pakistan out of the darkness of spot fixing and no home cricket and tuk-tuked them right up to the No. 1 spot?Azhar and Shafiq have not quite stepped into the shoes of MisYou either. You could even argue that their form, in particular Shafiq’s, have been on the wane. But the two are now among Pakistan’s top ten run-getters ever in Test cricket. Both of them have more runs than Saeed Anwar and Hanif Mohammad. Between them, they have 27 centuries and 54 half-centuries. It’s likely that they will always be seen as pale imitations of MisYou. It’s equally likely that once they’re done, people will look at Azhar and Shafiq and say they’re going to be a hard act to follow for the next set of Pakistan middle-order batsmen. They may even bag themselves a hashtag.Associated PressDimuth Karunaratne
Sri Lankan cricket is in a bit of a crisis. Yet, somehow, they have still sort of kept it together as a Test side, losing just two of six home series since the start of 2017, and winning series away in the UAE and, to the cricket world’s amazement, in South Africa. A big part of that is Dimuth Karunaratne, the current captain.When Kumar Sangakkara retired, in 2015, all eyes were on Angelo Mathews and Dinesh Chandimal to steer the ship forward. Karunaratne, who was also in the team, was a bit of a side note, a sturdy opener from the Alastair Cook school. It wasn’t till 2017 that Karunaratne began to hit his stride, and he has more runs than any other opener since, 2180, at an average of 41.13. His 196 in Dubai, in 2017, sealed an improbable away series win for Sri Lanka against Pakistan, and he was a fortress among glasshouses on the turners prepared for South Africa’s tour of Sri Lanka next year, scoring more than double the number of runs as the series’ next highest run-getter.And as captain, Karunaratne is doing his job well by all accounts and, though he did not get many runs there, got a lot of credit for the miracle in South Africa earlier this year. Despite all this, Karunaratne still doesn’t get talked about much in conversations about the best batsmen or leaders going around.Associated PressKemar Roach
Since the retirements of Curtly Ambrose and Courtney Walsh, the narrative around West Indian fast bowling has been that of an edifice disintegrating. Somewhere in the rubble has been lost Kemar Roach’s 193 wickets and nine five-wicket hauls. Like several of the players on this list, Roach’s career has been up and down, with poor form and injury keeping him out of the Test team at times. But since August 2017, Roach has been on a tear, with a remodelled action and a more disciplined approach helping him take 71 wickets at an average of 21.28, better than that of Jimmy Anderson, Stuart Broad, Boult, Mitchell Starc and Josh Hazlewood in the same period.A quick check of Google Trends and social media will let you know Roach doesn’t get nearly as many plaudits as those players, and he’s not as much of a celebrity as other West Indies players such as Chris Gayle, Andre Russell and Kieron Pollard are, perhaps for obvious reasons. Still, a career spanning ten years and a more than decent bowling average of 26.94 – the same as Anderson and better than Mitchell Johnson, Broad, Starc, Boult and Morne Morkel – deserves more attention than it gets.Associated Press Dilruwan Perera
“As a cricketer, over the past five years, it is difficult to think of anyone, anywhere who has been more incognito.” Andrew Fidel Fernando wrote that in a 2018 piece about Dilruwan Perera, during a Sri Lanka-England Test series in which he was the top wicket-taker. The plea was for people to take notice of this quiet grinder, who was making a decent fist of taking over from Rangana Herath as Sri Lanka’s friendly neighbourhood fingerspinner. It’s been a year since, and not much has changed.Dilruwan’s numbers don’t make for pretty reading – he is a Sri Lanka spinner with a bowling average of 34.03 after Muttiah Muralitharan (22.72) and Herath (28.07). It doesn’t help that the man is an orthodox spinner who relies on accuracy and control and not the doosra or the carrom ball.Yet, take a look at any of the major victories Sri Lanka have had since Dilruwan’s debut and you’ll find that in most cases, he has contributed in some form. Sometimes, it’s just three important top-order wickets, like he got in Abu Dhabi in 2017, or a lower-order contribution with the bat, such as his fifty in Dubai, 2017. You know a guy is underrated when he’s topping series charts and is not even in the top two of most popular Pereras going around.AFPKeshav Maharaj
When you’re a tidy but unspectacular left-arm spinner who relies on drift and changes of pace playing in a team with Kagiso Rabada, Vernon Philander, Lungi Ngidi, Dale Steyn and Morne Morkel, you are probably just worried about keeping your place in the XI. Despite having to sit out at times when South Africa field all-pace attacks at home, Keshav Maharaj is South Africa’s second-highest wicket-taker since his debut, in November 2016, with 97 wickets at 29.51. Only Rabada is ahead of him. He’s also the fourth-highest wicket-taker among spinners in the same period, behind Nathan Lyon, R Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja, and ahead of Yasir Shah, Shakib and Moeen Ali. What makes Maharaj’s efforts more impressive is that he has played just four Tests in Asia and has managed to take five-wicket hauls in South Africa and New Zealand. Yet the only time Maharaj has gone anything close to viral was when he got hit in the backside by a throw from his own keeper in the Vitality Blast.