ESPNcricinfo staff29-Dec-2015Root’s frustration at missing a hundred showed as he left the field•Getty ImagesBen Stokes did not last too long, caught attempting to reverse sweep Dane Piedt•AFPPiedt also had Moeen Ali lbw on his way to his first Test five-wicket haul•AFPEngland maintained their momentum, however, thanks to a run-a-ball half-century from Jonny Bairstow•Getty ImagesHaving been set 416 to win, South Africa got off to a good start through Dean Elgar and Stiaan van Zyl. They put on 53 before van Zyl was bowled through the gate•Associated PressStokes was the bowler to break through – worth a salute from Root•Getty ImagesSteven Finn removed Hashim Amla and Dean Elgar in quick succession but AB de Villiers set about the resistance•Gallo ImagesHe was given a life on 33, however, when Bairstow missed a tough stumping chance off Moeen•Getty ImagesDe Villiers and du Plessis spent almost 24 overs holding off England•Getty ImagesBut Finn made sure they finished the day with a spring in their step by removing du Plessis in the final over•Getty Images

Ziyaad Abrahams is one three South African bowlers to have taken six-wicket hauls at the youth level. He idolises Wasim Akram, Waqar Younis and Shaun Pollock, but hopes his career will follow the path of another young South Africa seamer

Mohammad Isam02-Feb-2016South Africa’s Ziyaad Abrahams says that he bowls medium-fast, but when you see him run off the 14 steps, stretch his arms out to the fullest and deliver the ball with a marginal sling and a hard pump in the follow-through, he seems much quicker.In the game against Namibia, Abrahams tried as hard as the other South Africa bowlers to defend a small total but it was his off his bowling that Fritz Coetzee took the sharp single to win Namibia the game, and leave Abrahams in his haunches.Abraham had bowled 8.3 overs with enough effort, taking 2 for 18. But that was not enough, and as he walked off with the cap pulled down on his face, you could make out that he was spent for the day. He went wicketless against Scotland, bowling six overs for 18 runs. He seemed like a patient bowler.Abrahams comes across as a patient an upright young man. He has taken inspiration from Kagiso Rabada’s performance from the 2014 Under-19 World Cup. Like Rabada, he is one of three South African bowlers at this level to take six-wicket hauls. Growing up, it was Wasim Akram and Waqar Younis who gave him goosebumps with their late swing and yorkers, after which he followed Shaun Pollock closely. His bowling action, though not intended, has mild similarities with Pollock in the way he extends his non-bowling arm high up.About two years ago, Abrahams was lucky to spend a few hours with Hashim Amla and Imran Tahir at the Boardwalk Hotel in Port Elizabeth where over pastas and curries, they spoke about cricket and what it is to be a humble person. Amla later spent some time with the Under-19 squad in 2015, talking personally to each player. But for Abrahams, that dinner gave him a sense of what it is like playing at the highest level.”About two years ago, I had dinner with Hashim Amla and Imran Tahir,” Abrahams told ESPNcricinfo. “We were just chatting about how it is being up there. They said hard work will always pay off. I think the way he [Amla] dresses himself towards the game, how humble he is. Taking the logo off, that just shows the respect for him. The others look up to him also. I asked them a few questions. They are very humble people. They always make their namaaz five times a day.”Abrahams comes from a family of cricketers with his father, brother and uncle all having played in Port Elizabath, his childhood home. He started off as an offspinner and then tried leg-spin before his father told him to bowl pace.”I started off playing soccer at the age of three. I grew up with sports. My dad and uncles played cricket. They played for Western Province and Eastern Province. I grew up in Port Elizabeth. I played my first senior game at the age of 10. I was fortunate to play with my dad. I started off as a right-arm offspinner but four years ago I switched to pace bowling.”My father is also an opening bowler. I have a brother who played a part in my career. His name is Shaakir Abrahams and he bowls left-arm spin. They stay in Port Elizabeth at the moment. I moved out of Port Elizabeth to Cape Town when I was in Grade eight. I bowled legspin in that first year in Cape Town so my dad suggested that I bowl pace because I was quicker and stronger than the other boys in the first team of my school, the Western Cape Sports School. I picked up lots of wickets for them.”Abrahams made it to the South Africa Under-19s through good performances for the Western Province Under-17s team for whom he picked up 12 wickets in a tournament in Stellenbosch. Then, in Gauteng, he was the leading wicket-taker with 15 scalps.”My strength is to hit the areas. I think more or less, hitting the good lines, keeping the pressure building and bowling my yorkers in the death overs. This is what I am good at,” he said, and he was quite accurate in the self-assessment.Abrahams’ immediate aim after the Under-19 World Cup is to get a contract in South Africa’s franchise cricket. He dreams of playing for South Africa one day, and said that he was inspired by how Rabada made it to the national team soon after playing the Under-19 World Cup. The lessons from his dinner with Amla and Tahir would also be handy. Maybe if he can ride high like Rabada, there would a few more of those dinners.

The oldest man to play in a World Cup remembers his journey from Barbados to Netherlands and then to the subcontinent in 1996

Peter Della Penna13-Mar-2016On Tuesday, Ryan Campbell set a new mark as the oldest debutant in a T20I at 44 years and 30 days when he opened the batting for Hong Kong against Zimbabwe. As remarkable as that accomplishment was, it was still well short of a similar achievement made at a World Cup in India by another opener 20 years earlier.”If I was in England, I wouldn’t be able to do it,” Nolan Clarke says matter-of-factly when recalling his World Cup and ODI debut for Netherlands at age 47 against New Zealand in Vadodara. “If I was in Australia, I wouldn’t be able to do it. They’d say, ‘Thank you, we’ve got someone who might not be as good as you but we’ve had enough investment [in them].’ I was able to do it in Holland because Holland was low in talent and needed to compete.”Peter Cantrell, Flavian Aponso and I were three Hoofdklasse cricketers at that time. Even at that time, we were still the best. I didn’t do it to inspire people, but the Indian public and Pakistan public would say: if a man at 47 years can still run around and play a bit of cricket, well, that is enough hope for people.”Born and brought up in Barbados, Clarke made his first-class debut for his home island in March 1970 at 21 and four years later struck 159 against an MCC side captained by Mike Denness during England’s 1973-74 tour of the West Indies. Two years later, he was still toiling away in the Shell Shield when an offer to coach in Netherlands came up.”There were two English pros that played in England. One was a coach here in Holland and he was in Barbados in a tournament,” Clarke said. “We sat and talked and he said to me, ‘Are you interested in coming to Holland?’ I said, ‘But I don’t even think they play cricket in Holland.’ He said, ‘Yeah, they do play a bit of cricket.’ I said okay and that’s when it started.”He arranged the contract with a guy named Dries Kost in Deventer and that’s when I started, in 1976. How many people years ago knew that the Dutch really played cricket? People in England, but [people in Barbados] know Holland differently – for cheeses and stuff like that. The level at that time wasn’t that bad, but you just played cricket differently. It wasn’t a serious level of cricket – a bit of fun, not results.”

“I should have taken the World Cup a little more serious. For some reason, I was like, ‘I’m here now and I’ve come here to have a good time'”

Despite the lack of intensity in the Dutch domestic competition, Clarke says the lifestyle in the Netherlands grew on him. The relative anonymity of the sport allowed him the sort of freedom cricketers were unaccustomed to back in Barbados.”Nobody knew me in Holland, and you walk the streets and nobody knew you. I liked that kind of life. In Barbados you had to be involved all the time, day and night, and it was all around you. Some people like that, but it wasn’t my kind of thing. I managed to do it but I had a bit of peace when I came to Holland, and I really enjoyed that.”Clarke played just one more first-class season for Barbados in 1977 and was shuttling back and forth to Netherlands before he decided to take a break from the game altogether. In 1981 he moved to New Orleans to work for RJ Tricon, an industrial-equipment supplier, and spent two years in the USA before a chance meeting – one he tells of with a big grin on his face – brought him back to cricket.”Call it a miracle or what have you. I was sitting at home one morning and I decided to get in the car and take a nice drive into town. When I got into town and parked, I saw a guy walking on the other side of the pavement and I looked and said, ‘I know that guy.’ It was Dries Kost, the same guy who got me the job in Holland when I started. He was in New Orleans! So I parked the car and got out, started to walk on the other side of the street behind the guy.”Some people had the impression on their faces like, ‘Uh oh, I think he’s going to rob that guy.’ You should’ve seen their faces. I put my hand up and when I moved, he looked and said, ‘Nolan!'”He was over there working for his company back in Holland. He said, ‘Man, what are you doing down here? Don’t you want to play cricket again?’ I said, ‘No problem.’ He said, ‘I’ve got a job for you’, and in three weeks he arranged a job again and I was back in Holland.Clarke (extreme left) with his Netherlands team-mates in Peshawar, 1996•Getty Images”The timing was super. I had a reasonable life there in New Orleans, but this normal desk work wasn’t for me. I came back and started at a club called Hercules, then Quick Den Haag asked me to join them. I did it for ten or 11 years, coaching at Quick. I discovered that after all, what I was doing was heaven on earth. Thank God that I had actually done that. That was a blessing. Sometimes you need a rest or a change to appreciate the things that you have.”In 1989, Clarke made his Dutch debut as a 41-year-old in style, scoring 77 in a Netherlands total of 176 that wound up being just enough for a famous three-run victory over an England XI featuring Alec Stewart, Nasser Hussain and Derek Pringle, and captained by Peter Roebuck. A year later, he was the leading scorer at the ICC Trophy, held in the Netherlands, with 523 runs at 65.37, including two centuries. But with a single 1992 World Cup qualifying berth up for grabs, Netherlands fell short to Zimbabwe in the final, at the Hague, by six wickets.The following ICC Trophy in 1994 was held in Kenya, but unlike in previous editions, where only the winner advanced to the World Cup, the top three finishers would now qualify to go to the subcontinent in 1996. It was a fortuitous change because Netherlands lost a semi-final to UAE, setting up a showdown with Bermuda in the third-place game. Aside from his time in Holland and the USA, Clarke had also spent some time in Bermuda and had mixed feelings about the encounter.”All the Bermudans were my friends,” Clarke said. “We’d eat, drink and go into the town together years before that. I went to the bus in the morning before we left and hugged them. I got 121 against them and we won the game. I had a feeling that I had done something wrong. That was one of the special things in my life when the Bermuda guys still came over and hugged me and said, ‘Well played.'”After working so hard with so many great performances for Netherlands over the years to get to the World Cup, Clarke finally played to his age two years later at the main event. He made 50 runs in five games, including two ducks, with a best of 32 against South Africa. Looking back, he says he was just happy to be there.

“I have to be grateful playing for Holland. I had 99 games for Holland, but it could’ve been no games at all. A guy coming from Barbados, coaching and playing here, they could have said, ‘We don’t need foreigners'”

“I should have taken the World Cup a little more serious. For some reason, I was like, ‘I’m here now and I’ve come here to have a good time.’ I did not focus and I missed something along the line, the seriousness of the World Cup. It was only afterwards that I realised I could have done a lot better in the World Cup if I had actually put my mind to it. What I enjoyed, which was my dream, was to qualify the Dutch team [for the World Cup]. I think after we qualified, everything just went flat.”In general Clarke feels it was just a reflection of the general attitude of Associate cricket at the time. Teams were talented but mostly run in amateur fashion. Even though Associate funding for countries like Netherlands remains nowhere close to an ideal amount, the differences are noticeable compared to 20 years ago.”There wasn’t that kind of money around. The competition was good. Canada was a strong team. United States, Holland, Kenya, Bermuda were strong. It was difficult because those guys never really played together until they arrived in a short tournament, but they were fantastic cricketers. If that money was around then and it was run like they do now, the standard of that cricket would’ve been close to top-class cricket.”After the World Cup ended, Clarke stayed active on and off in the domestic scene in Holland. After a six-year break, he came back in 2005 with club side VVV at age 56, and he finished fifth on the domestic Hoofdklasse run charts with 782 runs, not far behind Tim McIntosh, George Bailey and Neil McKenzie. He still keeps himself busy with a regular game of golf nowadays, though every so often he’ll pop in to watch a local cricket match in Den Haag.”I think that I’ve been blessed. First, to be born in Barbados in a tropical country to good parents who supported my cricket and my life and put me on the right path, and then from there having the right role models that you can look at, and being blessed to go into one of the best cricket clubs we had at that time in the Caribbean, Spartan CC, where all the top-class cricketers came through – Wes Hall, David Holford, Peter Lashley. When you’re in a dressing room with Garry Sobers at 19 – at that time he was magic – you have a lot of people around you and just being in their presence was enough to make you a good cricketer and a good human being.”I have to be grateful playing for Holland. I had 99 games for Holland but it could’ve been no games at all. They didn’t have to give me a game over here. A guy coming from Barbados, coaching and playing here, they could have said, ‘We don’t need foreigners.’ To be in the right place at the right time most of the time, travelling around and playing, you can’t get it better than that. It’s not possible.”

Entrusted with the captaincy in all three formats, Luke Wright will demand high standards and unstinting effort to make the sun shine again in Hove

David Hopps07-Apr-2016Feed off Luke Wright’s energy and optimism and it is tempting to believe even at your lowest moment that anything in life is possible. Donald Trump could be nice to women, Panama would still be famous only for its canal and, yes, Sussex are about to emphatically arrest a decline which last season saw them relegated in the Championship, finish bottom of their group in the Royal London Cup and fail to reach Finals Day when David Willey gave them a pummelling in a home quarter-final.Sussex’s recovery, it has to be said, is by far the most likely of the three, but even this possibility is far from automatic. Worcestershire, Essex, perhaps even Kent, all have potential to question their favourites’ rating in a Championship Division Two season where only the top side is promoted.Sussex face questions. An ambitious cricket budget last summer brought failure and a heavy loss. A fine stalwart, Mike Yardy, has retired and James Anyon has followed with the season only a few days away, an always vulnerable fast bowler’s body unable to take any more. Most jarring to all at Hove was the tragic death of Matthew Hobden in Scotland as he celebrated New Year, robbing the county of a promising fast bowler and a fine companion.Time then for one of county cricket’s most positive figures to take charge: a man who openly accepts that “selfishness” can naturally take hold when a player is trying to forge an international career or make decent money in IPL or the Big Bash, but when that career is as good as spent it can be replaced by a powerful desire to return the favour to the county side that provided their opportunity. As with Ian Bell, skipper of Warwickshire this summer, it is good to see England players make this transition.Wright is already asserting himself, so critical of Sussex’s weak fielding last season and the excessive sense of entitlement amongst some younger professionals that it can be seen as a tacit criticism of the faltering later period under Mark Robinson’s 11-year reign as head coach.An abiding memory of Wright: a training session somewhere up country in India; a sultry day, a low point of the tour, the coach Duncan Fletcher ignoring the media in the lift, yet always Wright’s sheer exuberance in training. Chase this; catch that. Find the most enthusiastic ball-chasing dog on the planet and his tail would droop with exhaustion long before Wright would be spent. Sussex, valuing such energy, have made him captain in all three formats – quite rare these days – inviting the suspicion that even he could be weary by September.

“People moaning about not playing when they are averaging 30 in the seconds – that’s not good enough. Come to me when you’re averaging 80 in the second team”

“I think my kids will break me before these boys break me,” he said. “It’s going to be something I’ve got to manage but I try to move on quite quickly and even as a player I’ve never been a kit thrower or anything like that. I’m pretty good at letting things go once I get home. Glass of red and move on.”Ed Joyce, his predecessor, a heavy county run-scorer and international with Ireland and England, probably found it harder to let go as Sussex’s marked decline in Robinson’s last season as coach took hold. “Ed’s a deeper thinker,” Wright smiled. A mid-season defeat against Durham at Arundel, when Ajmal Shahzad’s comeback lasted only four overs, and a loss against Hampshire at Hove – the team who eventually condemned Sussex to Division Two – were two critical junctures.”Talking to Joycey when we were struggling I knew potentially he might step down, but I wasn’t exactly encouraging the lads to nick off so we went down,” he said. “I knew that if the captaincy came up, I was willing to listen if they wanted to talk to me and luckily they did.”County cricket is packed with off-season New Zealand players this summer, some identified as T20 joy bringers such as Brendon McCullum and Mitchell McClenaghan at Middlesex, some like Tom Latham around in all formats for Kent for the bulk of the season. Ross Taylor is in the second mould, signed until late July after Steve Magoffin, the veteran Australian metronome, secured a UK passport and freed up an overseas spot. Wright expects Taylor to be an influential figure.”It’s my first time of really doing it full on, and I’m learning on the job as well. Ross Taylor is one of the best people to learn off and I think bowlers should be setting their fields most of the time anyway. If I’ve got to set them then it’s a bit of a worry to be honest.”Another Kiwi, Stephen Fleming, coach of Melbourne Stars’ in the Big Bash, has also had a major influence on Wright’s approach. “He was amazing: in terms of a T20 coach, he was almost the best I’ve ever worked with. He was so relaxed but with man management and planning for games he was very, very good.”But to propose a player who could have most influence on Sussex’s cricket this season it is hard to look past Danny Briggs. While Wright exudes energy, Briggs floats around, a gentle, slender surveyor of the scene. If there is bitterness about his move from Hampshire, he is not one to show it. Hampshire were variously taken by the all-round talents of Liam Dawson (so, too, were England in naming their World T20 squad) and the legspin promise of Mason Crane, Briggs lost his place in all but T20 and had the nerve to request a move a year before his contract ended.There was a time when Briggs’ graceful left-arm spin would have been predicted to figure in the World T20 that has recently departed India’s shores; he postponed his wedding in 2012 to join England’s squad for the tournament in Sri Lanka. But the last of his six T20Is came in Hobart more than two years ago – a young player not quite battle-hardened enough to make it.Danny Briggs on…

Leaving Hampshire
“The second half of the year was fairly frustrating – I missed 50-over games and four-day cricket on pitches I thought I could have bowled well on. I was playing T20 cricket and not a lot else. I had a year left with Hampshire but I spoke to them and they were happy for me to look around and luckily Sussex came in pretty much straightaway.”
England aspirations
“It is such an amazing feeling to play for your country and you want more and more of that but it is also good that in county cricket I have had time in the last couple of years to improve. I know that if I can put a few good years in and contribute as much as possible with the ball and hopefully a bit with the bat then hopefully I can stake my claim again and second time around it will be a lot more successful.”
The secret of T20 success
“A lot of it is momentum. In the group stages you find a formula – who is bowling when and who is batting where. I think with Hampshire we probably found that most years. You still have to be a little bit flexible when things don’t go quite right but when you have momentum you tend to win the close games. Our aim at Hampshire was to get through to a quarter-final and back ourselves. And then if someone performs you are through to a finals day. Get to finals day and anything can happen.”

For all that, he has colossal experience, at 24. Hampshire have figured in six successive Twenty20 Finals Days and Briggs has been at the heart of that record. Wright is convinced that Sussex have signed a bowler who can change the shape of their season.”Danny is a great signing. He’s one of those players that I have found an absolute pain in the backside playing in white-ball cricket. He’s hard to get away… he’s just smart. You forget he’s 24 – he’s like a 30-year-old bowler in a young man’s body, because he just knows what to do, and makes you take tough options.”At Hove, you target down the hill a lot and whoever has to bowl that end has the tough job and he managed always to deal with that. I think Hampshire will miss him. They’ve had a lot of white-ball success and a lot of that has been down to Danny’s bowling. Even watching him going about his four-day bowling, he’s smart, you know he’s going to go at two per over on any wicket, but I think he’s got more than that.”He’s given up more money to come here and play. It shows his desire to improve and play. It would have been easy to just sit there and play white-ball cricket but he’s wanted to learn, especially in four-day cricket. He’s one of those guys I’ve wanted to play with again for a long time so as soon as the chance came up, we took it.”The retirement of Yardy, influential not just as a batsman but as a defensive left-arm spinner in limited-overs cricket, was another consideration. “When we’ve done well, Yards has been a huge part of it so to get a like-for-like was massive for us.”Wright’s demands with regard to personal fitness will be unyielding. This is part of his own make-up, but it is also a reminder of his time as a young professional under Sussex’s then director of cricket, Chris Adams, who supervised one of the most productive periods in the county’s history, skippering them to three titles between 2003 and 2007. Adams’ star has waned – Sussex resisted his return in a coaching capacity despite his unhidden enthusiasm for the role – but his influence on Wright lives on.”We are going to have to look at younger guys and they will have to improve because on the financial side – you see what money we lost last year – we can’t go out and there like Surrey and others and just sign people,” Wright said. “We will have to produce better within.”I’m happy to play youth, as long as they’ve earned the right to play. In the second team, the results weren’t good enough. People moaning about not playing when they are averaging 30 in the second team. Sorry that’s not good enough. Come to me when you’re averaging 80 in the second team.”I’ve had huge issues with this. I was brought up on the idea that you had to churn massively to even get a look in. Knock on Grizz’s [Adams’] door and ask if you can play and he’d laugh at you if you were averaging 40. It’s not good enough. Going into club cricket, asking around who’s done what and people saying I got 20 or 30 – that’s not what we are trying to breed.”Wright’s condemnation stretches to Sussex’s fielding. Only Magoffin, a senior seam bowler whose skill is extending his career beyond the norm, will be partially exempt from high expectations. “Fitness and physicality is important. Our fielding has been awful, and it’s hard to win things if that’s the case. Sometimes you naturally get athletes coming through your academy and sometimes you don’t. But it’s about making yourself as good as you can be.”As a club we’ve always driven massively on work ethic and making you the best you can be and I didn’t think we had done that for the last few years. In fielding everyone can improve – you’re not going to suddenly turn everyone into Jonty Rhodes but for young lads coming through we’ve said it’s not acceptable to be a passenger.”The captaincy has come at a great time for me. The majority of my career was just spent hunting down an England place, or preparing for the next tournament or the next series, and you’re always quite selfish when you’re doing that. When you’re not involved with England for a few years you look for that next thing to get you going and captaincy was good for me last year. I loved it. The club has given me everything I could have dreamt of, and now I want to get us back fighting where we should be.”

Plays of the day from the game between Mumbai Indians and Delhi Daredevils in Visakhapatnam

Nikhil Kalro15-May-2016Zaheer’s cunning change-up
Early signs of a slow Visakhapatnam surface were on display when Shahbaz Nadeem got the first two balls of the game to grip and spin. Zaheer Khan, returning from a niggle, started his spell with an offcutter that ripped past Rohit Sharma’s outside edge. In the fifth over, however, Zaheer deceived Martin Guptill with deceptive change in pace and length. He banged a bouncer on leg and Guptill, hustled for pace, was late on the pull and caught between trying to play the stroke and sway out of the way. The ball pinged him on the helmet and almost detached it.A sloppy forehand error
If a long list of some of the best fielding efforts of the season were to be drawn up, it’s unlikely that Imran Tahir would feature in it. Krunal Pandya swiped an Amit Mishra delivery to Tahir’s right at deep midwicket. He scampered towards the ball and got there. All good so far. But instead of patting the ball back into the field of play, Tahir ended up parrying the ball over the boundary for four while trying to awkwardly swat it. Tahir’s apology didn’t soothe Mishra’s pain.Brothers in arms
Krunal Pandya took apart Delhi Daredevils’ spinners in an exhibition of power hitting. He smashed seven fours and six sixes in his 37-ball 86. After almost every boundary, he wore a flashy smile and gestured effusively. After racing to a fifty, he imitated his brother Hardik Pandya’s stance and pointed in his direction. Hardik was seen applauding many of Krunal’s boundaries. Krunal’s blitz ended when he chopped a full delivery onto his stumps. As he walked into the dugout area, he went straight to Hardik and hugged him in celebratory embrace.De Kock’s unchanging fate
Krunal hammered a 37-ball 86 to set up Mumbai’s fifth-highest IPL score of 206 for 4. His night was about to get better. Bowling to Quinton de Kock, he darted a slider outside off. De Kock rocked back for a late cut but missed the ball, and instead chopped his bat into wicketkeeper Jos Buttler’s gloves. A thin noise and a vociferous appeal resulted in de Kock being wrongly adjudged caught behind, again, for the second consecutive game. De kock had his hands on his head as he trudged off.

The likes of Alzarri Joseph and Miguel Cummins could narrow the gap between the two sides in Jamaica, on what looks set to be a green pitch

Karthik Krishnaswamy in Kingston29-Jul-2016Shortly before joining his team-mates for his first day of training as a member of West Indies’ Test squad, Alzarri Joseph was made to climb a staircase at Sabina Park’s North Stand. From somewhere near the middle of the ground, the WICB’s media manager trained a 300mm lens on him. He took a few backward steps, eye glued to viewfinder, and stopped moving only when the framing was just right: Joseph on top of the staircase, hands on balustrade, and below him a sign saying “Courtney Walsh End”.No pressure, young man.Walsh bowled 30,019 balls in Test cricket, the most by any fast bowler, ever. Joseph is yet to play Test cricket, of course, and has only bowled 949 balls in first-class cricket. He is only 19.The cricketing world has seen what Joseph can do in short bursts. At the Under-19 World Cup, he sent the leg stump of Zimbabwe’s Brendan Sly flying with the fastest ball of the tournament, measured at 143kph, and, in the semi-final, showed he could be just as nasty at the other end of the length spectrum, roughing up the Bangladesh opener Pinak Ghosh with a series of bouncers, one of which clattered into the side of his helmet.Can Joseph sustain that pace, and that intensity, into his third spell of a sweltering day, the way Walsh did time after time in a 16-year Test career? Will West Indies pick Joseph for the second Test against India, and give the cricketing world the opportunity of finding out?Marlon Samuels will not make that decision, but he made his thoughts as clear as possible when he spoke to the media on Thursday.”Me? I would definitely play him,” he said. “Fit, fast and fearless. When are you going to play him? At 25? He’s 19 now, it’s the best time to just let him go and enjoy himself and express himself.”Conditions at Sabina Park might just allow Joseph – or any combination of fast bowlers West Indies pick – to do that. Two days before the Test match, the pitch wore a thick coat of grass. At 10.45am, when the white sheet covering it first came off to allow the umpires to look at it, it was a bright, almost neon green. In the afternoon, when the West Indian players arrived at the ground, and sang “Happy Birthday” to Sir Garfield Sobers on his 80th, it was still green, but not alarmingly so.Nothing had happened to the pitch in the interim. Perhaps it looked less green because the shock of first seeing it had worn off; perhaps it was just the sun sucking away the morning’s moisture. It was just a different shade of green.By the time the Test match commences, the grass might lose a few millimeters, and some of it might get rolled into the surface, but much of it will probably remain in place.Behind the western square boundary is the Kingston Cricket Club’s pavilion, and mounted on the roof beams of the members’ bar are plaques commemorating every batsman to have scored centuries in both innings of Test matches. If the pitch for this Test match plays true to its appearance, it will take some effort for anyone to join Clyde Walcott and Lawrence Rowe in achieving that feat at Sabina Park.But batsmen, according to the groundsman Charlie Joseph, will enjoy true bounce, at least on the first two days.”Mikey [Michael Holding] always used to tell me, you need bounce on the first two days,” Charlie Joseph said. “What happens on the third and fourth day, that’s not up to you. That’s nature. But you want true bounce on the first two days. You want to put your foot here,” he says, planting left foot firmly forward, “and do that” – a shadow cover drive, on the up. “That’s good cricket.”We will only know for certain on Saturday, but conditions could cause both teams to alter the strategies they employed in Antigua. West Indies are chasing the series, and a green pitch gives them as good a chance as they’ll probably get to bowl India out twice. A green pitch could also narrow the gap between the bowling attacks, but West Indies will need to do some of that narrowing themselves. That will mean picking Joseph, or Miguel Cummins, or both, to partner Shannon Gabriel and give the pace attack more bite.India played five bowlers in Antigua, on a slow pitch that offered bounce but little sideways movement. Here, four bowlers could do the job, with the legspin of Amit Mishra potentially surplus to requirements. This could allow them the security of an extra batsman. With only four players – Cheteshwar Pujara, Ajinkya Rahane, KL Rahul and Bhuvneshwar Kumar – turning up for an optional session on Thursday, India did not reveal any of their cards. By Friday, a clearer picture should emerge.Whichever way the teams go, they will probably need to contend with a green track. Kent Crafton, the WICB’s regional curator, who is overseeing the preparation of all the pitches for this series, said the board has made a concerted push to prepare quicker, bouncier pitches. “We want to get it back up here,” he said, bringing his hands up to chest level.Going by the bounce seen in Antigua, and the look of the pitch in Kingston, the efforts seem to be paying off. It’s a positive sign, a rare one in West Indies Test cricket.

ESPNcricinfo staff24-Jun-2016Danushka Gunathilaka’s one-handed six gave Sri Lanka a lively start•Getty ImagesBut he was caught behind off Liam Plunkett for 22•Getty ImagesBruce Oxenford wore an arm shield for the first time in international cricket•Getty ImagesLiam Plunkett picked up his second wicket when Kusal Mendis was lbw•Getty ImagesJason Roy pulled off a brilliant run out to remove Kusal Perera•Getty ImagesDinesh Chandimal helped rebuild the innings with a half-century•AFPUpul Tharanga made a valuable fifty from No.7 to lift Sri Lanka to 254•Getty ImagesAlex Hales started brightly in England’s reply•Getty ImagesAs did Jason Roy at the other end•AFPHales continued his fluent form with his sixth half-century in seven ODIs•Getty Images… and soon turned that into his third ODI hundred•Getty ImagesRoy worked the angles in a record-breaking opening stand, England’s highest in ODIs•AFPRoy’s second ODI ton swiftly followed•Getty ImagesThe pair walked off after completing the highest successful chase without losing a wicket to put England 1-0 up in the series•Getty Images

England showed four years ago that India can be beaten at home with the help of four key attributes. New Zealand possess all of them, to a degree, and if they click together, anything can happen

Sidharth Monga in Kanpur20-Sep-20161:52

‘Spinners will play a massive part’ – Hesson

On the eve of their first match during their previous visit to India, New Zealand coach Mike Hesson asked the curator in Nagpur what the pitch was expected to do. Hesson says he was told it was a hard and bouncy pitch. New Zealand went ahead and left out Tim Southee and Trent Boult, played three spinners, attacked the new ball because they knew the old ball would be impossible to go after, scored just 126, but their spinners delivered them a 47-run win. New Zealand’s reading of the conditions, and then adapting to them, were big reasons behind their unbeaten run in the league stages of the World T20.That was Twenty20. This is Test cricket. New Zealand will draw confidence from that showing, but they won’t be deluding themselves based on the World T20. This three-Test series has all the makings of this group’s biggest test. New Zealand have only ever won two Tests in India, and may need to double that tally to win this series. But there is anticipation around them, mostly because of what they did in the World T20, in particular their two spinners whose performances suggested they could translate their promise into longer forms. Now, Mitchell Santner and Ish Sodhi are joined by Mark Craig.Never in recent memory has more been expected of a New Zealand tour of India. Never in recent memory have India looked this dominant at home. India have three spinners with much more pedigree and experience of these conditions. Ever since India decided to play on pitches where the ball starts turning early and turns big, beating them in a home Test series has become arguably the biggest challenge in world cricket.With cricket being a game of conditions, it couldn’t be more loaded against New Zealand. The only preparation they have had in the move from their tracks to this intense, relentless trial by spin is two training sessions in Delhi, a three-day game on a flat track against unthreatening spinners, and two more training sessions in Kanpur. The heat is stifling. There is high humidity and no breeze in Kanpur right now.The curator at Green Park has said the turn won’t be as alarming as it was in Nagpur, but the pitch looks really dry and has cracks. In unusual scenes two days before the Test, the ground staff asked some net bowlers to bowl on the match pitch. It is technically allowed – the pitch is handed over to the match referee on the morning of the Test – but this is hardly ever done. The “poor” rating for the Nagpur pitch after the Test against South Africa last year plays on the minds of groundsmen now. There were no puffs of dust, which relieved them. However, there was turn. Don’t be surprised either if the spinners’ business area is drier and rougher than the rest of the pitch, negating Neil Wagner’s bounce, and accentuating the turn.”He hasn’t told us it is hard and bouncy as the Nagpur groundsman did,” Hesson joked when asked about any conversations he might have had with the groundstaff here.Hesson is not surprised by what he has seen. “Unless some grass grows over the next two days, there will be plenty of assistance for the spinners,” he said. “I think the pitch will deteriorate, as it should. Spin will play a massive part, as will reverse swing. So there are no surprises here.”Hesson knows knowing what to expect is different from reacting to it. If one jumps at them, Ravindra Jadeja will keep firing in that general area all day with slight variation of angle, and let the pitch do the rest. R Ashwin will add dip to it. He will swerve it with the new ball. Amit Mishra will add the legspinner’s X-factor. There will be catchers around, there will be deep fielders to choke easy runs, and there will be no relenting from the heat and humidity. Not in Kanpur and Kolkata at least.The ability to respond with a clear mind and quick feet when the ball starts jumping and staying low comes with solid defence and lots of practice playing on such tracks. Knowing the international schedules today, Hesson said this is possibly the best preparation his side could have had. He has now put it down to the ability to adapt.”The conditions here are slightly different than they were in Delhi,” Hesson said. “It’s up to today and tomorrow to make sure we adapt the best we can. And we know even during the game the pitch is going to change, so we have to keep adjusting.”Hesson summed up the dual challenge of playing India in these conditions by saying that you have to prepare for the worst, but, at the same time, guard against “jumping at shadows”, by building it up too much and failing to recognise easier conditions when they come their way.”We have watched the Test matches against South Africa, absolutely,” Hesson said. “We saw the conditions in that series, and they were challenging. There is no doubt about that. If you prepare, over-train in terms of preparing for those conditions and then you get something slightly better, then that’s great. You have got to prepare for the harshest conditions and see how it goes from there.”I think you can jump at shadows at times [if you prepare for the worst]. I think you need to adapt to what you are confronted with. We have got an idea how we think how the surface might play, but it might be quite different. We are capable of adapting.”Adapting quickly won them games in the World T20, but there won’t be any quick wins here. “We have won two Test matches in our history here,” Hesson said. “So we know it is a tough place to come and win, as it is for any touring side. And India are playing good cricket at the moment, but we have got a group of cricketers who will be highly competitive. That’s our challenge – to be highly competitive and stay in the game for long periods of time. Then, anything can happen.”There is no set formula to beat India in India in this mood, but England showed it can be done if you have four attributes: a solid defensive batsman in Alastair Cook, who showed to the rest that it was possible to bat, a maverick in Kevin Pietersen, who could drive the nail in, two spinners in Monty Panesar and Graeme Swann, who were accurate and quick, and reverse swing in James Anderson. Lower-order runs can be a big factor as South Africa learned in their defeat, despite having reduced India to 120-odd for 6 on more than one occasion.New Zealand have a defensive batsman in Williamson, they have a potential maverick if Ross Taylor can have a big series, they have a variety of spinners, although unproven at this level, and they have the possibility of reverse swing. They bat deep. If all, or most these factors click, they can take games deep. Then, anything can happen.

New Zealand’s plan to undo Virat Kohli at Eden Gardens was rather obvious, but India’s captain could not remain patient long enough to beat it

Sidharth Monga in Kolkata30-Sep-20160:49

WATCH – Wagner bowled nine balls at Kohli, all of them were short and well directed

Test sides bowl with plans to get batsmen out. The field, your history with certain bowlers and certain dismissals, the bowler’s strengths, and your own habits usually indicate what that plan is. Rarely does the plan catch you by surprise. So the big screen at Eden Gardens did not need to show Virat Kohli’s dismissal in Kanpur just after Neil Wagner had bowled his second bouncer at India’s captain. From the end that that Wagner was bowling those bouncers, the High Court End, the big screen was right in Kohli’s eye line at long-off. It is possible he saw it too. Wagner bowling short with a deep fine leg and a deep square leg, right between his chest and his shoulder, Kohli hooking and top-edging it for an easy catch. They might as well have played Kohli under-edging a hook in Auckland to a ball wide enough to be cut.It was no secret, what the plan was. Bounce him, deny him, then bowl the sucker ball. If he wants to take the short ball on, you have the field. This time a forward and a backward short leg to go with deep fine leg and deep square leg.Different batsmen deal differently with plans. Some prefer to see that period out; let the bowlers give their best, absorb everything they have got, and then take on lesser or tired bowlers. Some hate to allow bowlers to bowl to a plan. They want to defeat the plan. The batsman’s ego then takes over. Kohli usually falls in the second category, which is why New Zealand felt they could play on his patience.To be fair to Kohli, both times in Kanpur he came out in situations where he could attempt to dominate. Perhaps the situation of the innings made him play the shots he did. Here he was going to show more patience, having walked in at 28 for 2 on a pitch helpful enough to quicks, thereby allowing the New Zealand bowlers to bowl to a plan. One of the reasons you felt this patience was going to be short-lived, though, is Kohli’s insistence on not letting the bowler dominate.The other big reason was that “between chest and shoulder” is Wagner’s “top of off”. And he is a beast when it comes to fitness and endurance. He has the field, and he can bowl to that field for long periods. You feel he will tire at some point, he doesn’t. Once, in Christchurch, he took six wickets with bouncers after Australia had dominated their way to 356 for 2. None of his first five wickets was a fend, they were all aggressive shots. The batsmen had just tired of ducking and weaving. Wagner hadn’t tired of bowling bouncers. Add to that that Kohli has that batsman’s ego, which hates it when the bowlers think they have an obvious plan.Virat Kohli has had a run of poor scores since his 200 in Antigua•BCCISo started this great dance. Wagner bowling bouncers. None of them to be sanctioned by the umpire. Kohli looking to show patience – for how long, you wondered. Duck. Duck. Replay on big screen. Fended in front of rib cage. Get inside the line with the short ball worryingly following you. Behind the line to fend. Another duck.Six balls were enough. Having watched Mitchell Santner tie Pujara up at the other end, Kohli pulled the first ball of Wagner’s next over, but he was on it too late and was lucky the mis-hit didn’t go to hand. Two more bouncers followed in that Wagner spell. Kohli ducked one, and then rose to his toes to fend off the other.With nine bouncers bowled to Kohli, with the batsman on 4 off 22 balls, New Zealand thought Wagner had done his job. Wagner had softened the joint with many blows, now a precision artist was required to break it. Enter Trent Boult. For a moment, when he drove beautifully off the first ball he faced from Boult, it seemed like Kohli had seen off the tough period. The bowler corrected his length for the next two balls, denying Kohli the drive, and then bowled the sucker ball that was part of the original plan. Short of driving length but full enough to draw the batsman forward, wide outside off, away from Kohli’s reach.Teams have always tried to get Kohli out by denying him outside off, bowling out of reach of his cover drive. Kohli doesn’t want that to happen. On flatter pitches he bulldozes that plan, as he did in Australia. This is not to say that his way is always the wrong way or the right way. Arguably you need different characters in the team, who handle bowlers’ plans differently. As Kohli said a day before the match, as cricketers all you can do is prepare the best you can because of the amount of luck involved in the game.The shot that Kohli eventually played, there was no way he could have controlled it. Now it was all down to luck. Perhaps the edge would go too fast. Too high. Perhaps the man at gully would drop it. Perhaps the bowler has overstepped. Through his impatience and shot selection, Kohli had brought luck into it. It did not go his way. New Zealand celebrated a plan well executed.

Having overcome a lean period in age-group cricket, Peter Moor has worked his way up Zimbabwe’s franchise system and is ready to reap the rewards

Firdose Moonda27-Oct-2016If you want to understand patriotism, you need to meet the Moors. Dad’s a lawyer, mom’s a school teacher and among their brood of four are professionals in various disciplines including a sportsman. They are the kind of people who are skilled enough to find success anywhere but have chosen to stay at home in Zimbabwe, even as it lurches from one crisis to the next.”All of my family lives here despite the troubles that the country has been through. We don’t want to leave,” Peter Moor tells ESPNcricinfo. “I am extremely patriotic and even if financially, this is not the best place to be a cricketer, I don’t want to go somewhere else.”Especially not now, considering Moor is finally making it after years of trying to break into the international side. Having made his Test debut earlier this year, against New Zealand, now is an opportunity for him to build on his credentials against Sri Lanka at home.***A product of the prestigious St John’s College, Moor’s talent as wicket-keeper batsman was recognised young. He was picked for the Zimbabwe Under-19 side as a 16-year old and represented them at two youth World Cups – in 2008 and 2010 – on either side of what is regarded as among the most chaotic periods in Zimbabwean cricket. They had withdrawn from Test cricket, were muddling through limited-overs formats and the general unease had dripped down to lower levels.”In 2008, Zimbabwe cricket was in shambles and we were underprepared and out of our depth,” Moor remembers. “When we got to the Under-19 World Cup, I remember seeing the other teams and being envious of the different kits they had, like the warm-up gear and the actual match shirts. We didn’t seem to be on the same level.”Zimbabwe lost all three group games by more than 70 runs, lost the ninth place playoff quarter-final by 99 runs to Nepal. They won the 13th place playoff semi-final before being defeated in the 13th place playoff to Ireland. It’s fair to say it was a disastrous tour for all including Moor, who played four matches and scored 59 runs.Two years later, Zimbabwe had started to pull themselves together. They were attracting former internationals into the setup, begun to plan for a Test comeback and had the 2011 World Cup on their minds. At Moor’s age-group level, things were looking up. “We had Kevin Curran as our coach and we were much better prepared. The important thing there was that we had the right selection. We didn’t have hugely improved results but we had a better tournament.”At that event, Zimbabwe still suffered heavy defeats to New Zealand, Sri Lanka and Ireland but beat the USA and Hong Kong to win the 13th place playoff. Moor had another average outing with 95 runs from five games, but returned home to a revamped domestic structure and a realistic possibility of turning cricket into a career.He was contracted to the Harare-based Mashonaland Eagles and had his parents support in his sporting endeavours. “My dad was really happy that I was choosing cricket,” he says.But it proved more difficult to establish himself than Moor imagined. For the first few seasons, he was unable to secure a regular spot in the team and began to wonder if he had made the right decision. He went on club stints to Ireland and England and concluded that the northern scene, “wasn’t for me.” Although he doesn’t go as far as saying he was homesick, he just “couldn’t see myself spending a lot of time there.”Moor credited Grant Flower for his success at Mid-West Rhinos•AFPMoor found his way in the 2013-14 season, when he moved to the Mid-West Rhinos, ushered by Grant Flower. “He was my biggest coach and mentor, someone I talked to a lot and admired a lot.”That season, Moor finished among the top 10 run-scorers in the Pro50 Championship . Even though his overall numbers were dominated by one century, he had made his mark. He was picked for Zimbabwe’s ODI squad to tour Bangladesh later that year, an outing that proved anything but fun.By the time Moor joined the touring party, Zimbabwe had lost the Test series 3-nil. He sat out the first two ODIs, which they also lost, played the next two, also as a member of the vanquished and was dropped for the final match. Zimbabwe returned home without a single victory.It would be more than a year before Moor was given another look in.In questioning himself again, Moor turned to cricket literature and immersed himself in biographies. He concluded his only option was to make his own luck. “The biggest frustration was the lack of opportunity. I told myself that when I do get the chance, I have to make the most of it and be hard on myself about that. I worked on being mentally tougher,” he says.Moor played for Zimbabwe A against Bangladesh A in November 2015 and scored two centuries in two first-class matches. Later that month, he scored another hundred in a first-class match. His form could not be ignored and, in the absence of Brendan Taylor who retired after the World Cup, Moor was picked for Zimbabwe’s limited-overs series against Afghanistan in 2015-16. He scored two half-centuries and a 42 in five ODIs games and showed his ability to adjust between formats.

“I’d like to play in T20 leagues but one of my biggest goals is to captain Zimbabwe. “Not now because I am not established enough but maybe one day.”

“The way I bat is maybe more suited to short-format cricket because I like to play my shots and know my boundary options well but I have learned to bat for longer periods of time as well,” he says of his game.He was only able to demonstrate the latter in August this year, when he was included in the Test squad to face New Zealand. Moor made his debut in the second match. There were tears when he received his cap from former Zimbabwe international Wayne James. His parents travelled from Harare to watch and he admitted to being “quite emotional,” about taking the field in whites. Then, he managed to out those feeling aside and proved himself a composed cricketer.With Zimbabwe 147 for 5 in response to New Zealand’s 582 for four declared, they needed someone to helped Craig Ervine restore respectability and Moor answered . He scored 71 in a 148-run partnership with Ervine but was “not happy about getting out to a long hop after doing all the hard work.”His chance to change that will come. Moor is part of the squad that will play Sri Lanka in two Tests starting Saturday, their last before another lengthy break. While he is not sure whether he will also keep wickets, his focus is on the collective performance Zimbabwe can put on. “For us, it’s really important to compete and do well and show we are not a walkover. Maybe that will encourage other teams to tour us,” he says.A triangular ODI series follows the Tests, which will be a chance to begin early preparations for the 2019 World Cup qualifier. For Zimbabwe, that tournament is as big as the World Cup itself. It is new coach Heath Streak’s mandate to ensure Zimbabwe do not miss out on the showpiece event but Moor knows Streak cannot do it alone.”It is everyone’s dream to play in a World Cup and we are desperate to qualify. We will do everything we can to make sure we get there,” he says. Moor also hopes that in trying to improve, Zimbabwe will be able to retain their best players. Though he won’t say it, he is an example of what can happen when they do. “Zimbabwe definitely has a lot of talent but a lot of the guys leave before they reach the peak of their potential. Hopefully things come right soon.”If they do, Moor wants to be at the forefront, which is why he has stayed. “I’d like to play in T20 leagues but one of my biggest goals is to captain Zimbabwe. “Not now because I am not established enough but maybe one day.” His family would want nothing else.