Bairstow and Williamson could both feature in their playing XI, but the lower middle order remains a concern

Hemant Brar07-Apr-20213:28

Are Sunrisers Hyderabad stronger than last season?

Where they finished in 2020

After just three wins in their first nine games, the Sunrisers Hyderabad bounced back to finish third on the points table. In the Eliminator, they beat the Royal Challengers Bangalore but lost to the Delhi Capitals in Qualifier 2.

Potential XI

1 David Warner (capt), 2 Jonny Bairstow (wk), 3 Manish Pandey, 4 Kane Williamson, 5 Vijay Shankar, 6 Kedar Jadhav, 7 Abdul Samad, 8 Rashid Khan, 9 Bhuvneshwar Kumar, 10 Sandeep Sharma, 11 T Natarajan

Batting

For the last couple of years, the dilemma for the Sunrisers has been which of Jonny Bairstow and Kane Williamson to leave out from their playing XI. In the second half of the previous season, they found their best combination with Wriddhiman Saha replacing Bairstow at the top, Williamson slotting in at No. 4 and Jason Holder shoring up both batting and bowling.This time, the presence of a fit Bhuvneshwar Kumar and new recruit Kedar Jadhav means the Sunrisers may no longer need Holder’s all-round skills. That opens up an overseas slot, allowing them to play both Williamson and Bairstow.While Saha has exceptional numbers in the powerplay, Bairstow is simply much better across different phases of the innings. Moreover, Warner and Bairstow’s opening pair is among the best in the IPL. On average, they give a start of around 60 in 6.3 overs.Mitchell Marsh’s late decision to pull out of the tournament shouldn’t hurt the Sunrisers much. In fact, it has allowed them to rope in Jason Roy, a perfect replacement for Warner should his groin injury worsen. The lower middle order, though, can still give them some headaches despite Jadhav’s inclusion.Sunrisers Hyderabad’s squad for IPL 2021•ESPNcricinfo Ltd

Bowling

Bowling has always been the Sunrisers’ stronger suit. Last season, they were hampered by Kumar’s injury, but his return – not only on the field but also to form – should please them. In the recently concluded T20I and ODI series against England, Kumar was by far India’s most economical bowler apart from picking up crucial wickets.Kumar should bowl in tandem with Sandeep Sharma in the powerplay and with T Natarajan at the death. Rashid Khan, meanwhile, showed in IPL 2020 that his wicket-taking powers haven’t waned. But if the Sunrisers want to include both Bairstow and Williamson in the XI, Vijay Shankar, Jadhav and Abdul Samad will have to bowl at least four overs between them. Else, they might have to consider playing Mohammad Nabi or Holder in place of either Bairstow or Williamson.The Sunrisers also recruited Mujeeb Ur Rahman at the last auction. And while they are scheduled to play five games on the slow Chepauk pitches, Mujeeb more like a backup for Khan as squeezing both of them in the first XI would weaken the batting.

Young player to watch out for

Eyes will once again be on Abdul Samad. Samad, 19, was picked by the Sunrisers at the 2019 auction for his six-hitting skills. In the last IPL, his strike rate of 170.76 was the fifth-highest among those with at least 100 runs in the tournament. He was also the top scorer for Jammu and Kashmir in the 2020-21 Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy, tallying 140 runs in four innings at an average of 46.66 and a strike rate of 148.93. If he can nail his role of a finisher, the Sunrises will have all their bases covered.

Coaching staff

Tom Moody (director of cricket), Trevor Bayliss (head coach), Brad Haddin (assistant coach), Muttiah Muralitharan (bowling coach), Biju George (fielding coach) and VVS Laxman (mentor)

Poll

Punjab Kings’ 25-year-old allrounder also made a vital 17-ball 25 in only his fourth IPL game

Vishal Dikshit01-May-20210:59

Harpreet Brar explains how he took down Royal Challengers Bangalore

Who is Harpreet Brar?
A left-arm spinner and a hard-hitting lower-order batter, Brar hails from Moga, a small city in Punjab, which is also the hometown of Harmanpreet Kaur. Brar played age-group cricket and several club competitions in Punjab before he was picked by Kings XI Punjab in the 2019 IPL auction for his base price of INR 20 lakh at the age of 23.Related

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What was Brar’s childhood like?
When he was a kid, Brar saw a flyer for a cricket academy stuck on a wall in a nearby market. Excited with the ambition of becoming a professional cricketer, Brar took the flyer home and showed it to his mother to which she said, “‘See, you can join if you wish, but only if you put your heart into it,” as reported by the Kings website in 2019.She said so because Brar came from a family that played cricket but most of his cousins gave up the sport due to “financial difficulties”. With a lot of pressure on him to make it big once he grew older and started representing Punjab in Under-16 and Under-19 competitions, there was even a time when Brar protested going to marriages because his relatives would tell his mother, “Cricket? The whole world plays cricket, nothing will come of it”.But Brar wanted to prove them wrong. If not cricket, he was destined to either join the Punjab Police, where his father worked as a driver, or move to Canada on a study visa for higher studies. But he decided to give cricket one final shot.How did he make it big?
When he was playing at the Under-23 level in 2018, Brar knew time was running out for him. He had already appeared in two trials for the Mumbai Indians but couldn’t make the cut.It was then that Punjab’s Gurkeerat Singh made Brar represent a Mohali district team where Brar shone with his performances, even though he didn’t have enough money to buy new bats at times. Gurkeerat helped him with that as well.”The bats were expensive, so we had to make them last longer by threading it,” Brar told the Kings website in 2019. “Or hope that a senior hands one down. One time Gurkeerat gifted me one.”The tournament that stamped him as a bowler for the next level was the 2018 Under-23 CK Nayudu Trophy in which he ended with a whopping 56 wickets from 11 games at an average of 16.41, that included six five-wicket hauls and best figures of 7 for 23.Not surprisingly, he was handed an IPL contract by the Punjab franchise in November 2018 for the 2019 season.The Punjab Kings left-arm spinner’s match-winning returns•ESPNcricinfo LtdWhat has his journey been like so far since 2019?
Brar made is T20 debut in the 2019 IPL against the Delhi Capitals, when his captain R Ashwin described him as a “mystery spinner” at the toss. Brar impressed with an unbeaten 20 off 12, that included a six off a Kagiso Rabada bouncer, but he was given the tough task of bowling in the powerplay. Brar’s spin was struck for a six first ball by Shikhar Dhawan in a 17-run over, and he went on to play just one more game for a wicketless five overs that season.Brar played the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy later that year and ended as Punjab’s highest wicket-taker with a tally of 14 and an economy rate of 6.89, in a bowling line-up that also featured Sandeep Sharma, Siddarth Kaul and Mayank Markande. Brar’s victims that season featured a star cast of Devdutt Padikkal, Dinesh Karthik, and Prithvi Shaw, among others.Around 10 months later, he flew to the UAE for the 2020 IPL but got just one game and this time he was taken to the cleaners by Shane Watson and Faf du Plessis for 41 runs off his four overs in a 10-wicket loss.In the Mushtaq Ali Trophy at the beginning of 2021, Brar rose again. This time his seven wickets at an economy rate of just 5.70 from seven games played a pivotal role in Punjab’s run to the semi-final after remaining unbeaten in the league stage. By now Brar was one of the main Punjab bowlers along with Sharma, Kaul, Markande and Arshdeep Singh.The magical IPL night
After losing four of their first six IPL games this season, the Kings made three changes against the Royal Challengers, and gave Brar his fourth IPL game.Brar first batted with his captain KL Rahul to finish on an unbeaten 25 from 17 at No. 7 that included 18 runs off five balls against Harshal Patel, this IPL’s highest wicket-taker, with the help of two sixes and a four, that took the Kings to a challenging 179 for 5.But the real magic from Brar came with the ball. Even though his first ball was struck for a six again, by Kohli, Brar broke the back of the Royal Challengers’ chase with his first two IPL wickets off consecutive balls that had the names of Kohli and Maxwell on them; one losing his leg stump and the other his off.And in his next and last over, he even had de Villiers caught at extra cover for a fairytale ending that left the chase at 69 for 4 from where the Royal Challengers never recovered.His first 11 overs in the IPL starting from 2019 went for a wicketless 106 runs, and his next seven balls didn’t concede a single run while removing not one but three big fish.”My first IPL wicket is Virat ‘s wicket so I was very happy when I got that,” Brar said after receiving his Player-of-the-Match award at the presentation. “Once you get one wicket, the mentality changes a bit, you get confidence that you’re landing the ball nicely, so I got the flow and more wickets.” (It feels like a dream).”

Jurgensen reveals Southee’s unusual inswinger was developed at a camp in Lincoln just before the England tour

Karthik Krishnaswamy28-Jun-20211:41

Southee: ‘Not having express pace, I look to skin the cat differently’

There’s a lot more to it, of course, but at its deadliest, Tim Southee’s method is all about that old three-card trick: outswing, outswing, and the one that goes the other way.Except it isn’t just the “one” that goes the other way, but three different ways of delivering a ball that moves into the right-hander.Take the second-innings wickets of India’s openers in the World Test Championship final in Southampton. Both were lbw, playing for non-existent outswing, but the balls that dismissed them were entirely different.Shubman Gill, first to go, was out to Southee’s well-known three-quarter-seam ball, which is delivered with the seam scrambled, and moves into the right-hander off the pitch. Rohit Sharma, however, was bamboozled by something that hasn’t been seen all too often.Every now and again on this tour of England, Southee had delivered the traditional inswinger, with the seam canted towards fine leg, but most had come out of the hand noticeably slower than Southee’s stock ball. The ball to Rohit wasn’t the traditional inswinger; the seam was canted towards slip, like it is for an outswinger, but the ball was flipped around so its rough side – this was the 27th over of India’s innings – was facing the leg side. And unlike Southee’s attempts at bowling the genuine inswinger, this one came out at normal speed.It’s entirely possible that Rohit saw the seam position, judged the ball to be leaving him, and decided to shoulder arms. Instead, it veered in towards the stumps and struck Rohit’s front pad.3:21

Dale Steyn explains the concept of the three-quarter seam

The Dukes ball that is used in England moves significantly more – in the air and off the pitch – than the Kookaburra that’s used in New Zealand, and this allowed Southee to try and develop the inswinger on this tour.”I think all players in any sport are always looking to try and get better and looking at ways you can improve your game,” Southee said in a media interaction on Monday. “I obviously don’t have express pace, so you’re looking to skin the cat differently, and that’s using subtle variations and I obviously rely heavily on my outswing, but with the Dukes ball and the ability to move the Dukes ball a little bit more than what you can with the Kookaburra, a lot of work went in, leading into that series, about just trying to get the ball to move both ways.”Shane Jurgensen, New Zealand’s bowling coach, said Southee came up with the new variation during the camp New Zealand held in Lincoln before they left for England.”I actually think that wicket of getting Rohit out was a long time of Tim trying a few things and always trying to improve,” Jurgensen said. “I think that goes for every bowler in our group and I think that’s really stood out more in the last two years. It has always happened, but I really think it really started in our camps in May at Lincoln, when he was playing around with bit of an inswinger and it was good.”It took him a while to sort of get it and all of a sudden he learnt of possibly turning the ball around the other way and bowling it the exactly same way. [It] probably has a little more pace on it compared to the [traditional] inswinger and I think that’s been a credit to Tim.”He’s always looking to improve and he’s been such an outstanding performer for New Zealand for such a long time; 600-plus wickets for New Zealand now and that breakthrough of Sharma was at a really crucial time. In fact both of those wickets were, to give us a chance to get Virat Kohli in early.”

In the ECB’s new competition you are free to support who you want – even if it’s just your favourite player

Cameron Ponsonby27-Aug-2021During the early stages of the Hundred I got chatting to a Southern Brave fan named Shilly.Shilly was from Leicester but had no interest in her more local side, Birmingham Phoenix. So why Brave?”Jofra! I’m in love with Jofra.”And if Jofra Archer moved?”I would move with him.”This phenomenon of supporting an individual (and in this case an individual that didn’t even play in the tournament) as opposed to a team has been arriving steadily across sports over the last decade. But not in the UK. It’s been a very American thing, or Asian, or somewhere else. But not us.Here in England we thump our chest and pronounce that we will support our local team till the day we die. Cut me open and I bleed the blue-and-white hoops of Queens Park Rangers. Always have, always will. “We hate Chels…” you get the point. You Rsssssss!Related

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But a new competition brings new opportunities.You can still support your local team if you want to, but you don’t have to. Those historical ties aren’t as strong and households aren’t going to be divided when a child walks cap in hand to their parents to announce they are now in fact a Trent Rockets fan and not a Birmingham Phoenix one.”Get out,” says dad, crying. “Get out. After everything Benny Howell has done for you and you come in here and say you’d rather support a team with Tom Moores in.”All this means that people can choose. And the way that people make that choice is different now to how it used to be. And it seems that the pull of a specific individual is far stronger than it ever has been.But why has this trend begun? And what does it mean from a business point of view for the Hundred in the future?You need only look at La Liga having lost Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi to see the pitfalls of individual branding. La Liga was Ronaldo vs Messi. And now they’re both gone. Individuals leave, teams don’t.So is it something the ECB should be wary of, if the pull of an individual becomes greater than the competition itself?Simon Chadwick is a Professor of Eurasian Sport at Emlyon Business School in Lyon. He is recognised as a leading voice on commercial issues regarding elite sport and regularly contributes to CNN, Al Jazeera, and the .”It’s a really good question and it’s actually quite a profound question because I don’t think it’s necessarily associated with sport,” Chadwick says.Chadwick points to the late 19th century and early 20th century as being the general time that sports in the UK were being codified and subsequently professionalised. Teams and leagues were being created and fans began to associate themselves with particular sides.

“The place that you were born was normally where you died and in between times you went to school, you got a job and you engaged with the local sports team. Locality was a crucial part of your identity”Simon Chadwick

“But that took place at a time when, not just in Britain, but I think globally, we had a relatively static population,” he said.”So the place that you were born was normally the place that you died and in between times you went to school, you got a job and you engaged with the local sports team. And locality, that’s the crucial thing, locality was a crucial part of your identity – it was programmed into your DNA.”What’s happened since then is that the world has become both bigger and smaller. Smaller, in that advances in transport and technology means we can travel long distances to work and talk to people across the globe as if we were sat next to them. And bigger, in that those changes mean the world extends beyond the four walls of your hometown. You can move. And people, including Chadwick, do.”Demographically, we’ve got a more transient population,” he says. “So then, when people like me are moving around the world and having children, our children are not wedded to a particular geographic location. So their notion of nationality and ethnicity and locality I think are more fluid.”Meanwhile, at the same time as traditional notions of locality and geography and identity are starting to dissolve, new notions, such as celebrity and influence within the modern digital environment, are on the rise.”So I think when you add all of those things together, it means that now, younger age groups and, kind of Generation Z and Generation Alpha are identifying with individuals rather than teams of their geographic location,” Chadwick said. “And this is not just cricket, we see the same thing in football [Messi to PSG] and we see the same thing in basketball [LeBron James to LA Lakers].”Chadwick is keen to express that while the reasons for this happening are in fact quite profound – “What we are experiencing and what we’re commenting on is a reflection of the ideological context within which we live” – the answers to what it means, are entirely practical.In short, individuals can transcend boundaries. So if you can sell Jofra Archer in one market, you can sell him in two markets. And if you can sell him in two markets, you can sell him in three and so on.And this is where the commercial potential of an individual holds an advantage over that of a team anchored to a location.”Short-to-medium term [that’s] great,” Chadwick says. “Our fans are in Wales, our fans are in London, our fans are wherever else they might be. But medium-to-long term, that’s a relatively finite market. And that market will mature, and you’re not necessarily going to get people switching from one team to another or one player to another.”So it’s at that point you then start thinking medium-to-long term and thinking, okay, how do we engage audiences in India or audiences in Australia and it’s at that point I think where the notion of locality becomes a more problematic one.”Brave 4 life? Or just here for Jofra?•Harry Trump/Getty ImagesWhilst not a direct analogy, an example of this can be found in IPL teams purchasing majority stakes in Caribbean Premier League sides. Most recently, the owners of Rajasthan Royals bought a controlling stake in Barbados Tridents in a move that will see Barbados rebranded as Barbados Royals. Rather than needing to be from Rajasthan to support the Royals, you simply support the Royals. And if you support the Royals, you can now support the Barbados Royals too.The emphasis on locality has been diminished and in turn the opportunity to support the team year round, and also to build the brand, has increased.Overall, Chadwick emphasises the fact that all the research over the past 30 years has shown that individuals are important. It’s just that now we are elevating them higher than we ever have before.From a commercial standpoint, it is both lucrative and also dangerous if done incorrectly. For it to be the former and not the latter is to “embrace the notion of succession”. Have your stars and lift them up in front of the rest of the world, but also have an eye on who is coming through next. And if played correctly, you can then have the best of both worlds, the strength of loyalty through locality, and also the reach of the individual to grow the game across markets.”The cricket authorities can’t just leave consumers, leave fans, for their minds to work and for them to get used to it,” Chadwick said.”They have to continue to reassure older viewers that ‘hey, you know this is still cricket, this is still the cricket that you love’. But at the same time they’ve got to assure new consumers that they’re not going back to the old times and this is modern and vibrant and lively and exciting and it’s going to stay that way.”And that requires really, really good leadership and good management and it requires strategy. So I think there is something about that which is walking a fine line between history and heritage and contemporary relevance.”Balancing history and heritage with contemporary relevance. Welcome to the Hundred. You Rsssssss!The Hundred Rising is providing eight aspiring, young journalists the opportunity to tell the story of the Hundred men’s and women’s competitions through their own eyes

Will Young, Matt Henry ponder return to drinks duty despite starring roles in Edgbaston win

Matt Roller13-Jun-2021If you want to know what sort of shape New Zealand’s Test side is in right now, just ask Will Young.Young, a top-order batter from Central Districts who has had to bide his time for an opportunity in international cricket, came into this series on the back of two hundreds in three innings for Durham in the County Championship, having signed an early-season deal to help him acclimatise to English conditions. After missing out on selection at Lord’s despite those runs, he came into the side this week with Kane Williamson resting his sore left elbow.Young was the top-scorer in this Test, with scores of 82 and 8, and was unfortunate not to be named player of the match. He was given an early reprieve in the first innings, dropped by Joe Root at first slip on 7, and was visibly furious after chopping on with five runs required in the second, but his willingness to dig in during tough periods – notably probing spells from Stuart Broad and James Anderson on the second afternoon – marked him out as a player well-equipped to succeed at this level.Related

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And yet he is almost certain to find himself left out of the side for the World Test Championship final against India at the Ageas Bowl next week. Devon Conway has made an irrefutable case to open the batting alongside Tom Latham, while Ross Taylor and Henry Nicholls are immovable in the middle order and Williamson and BJ Watling are both set to return for the showpiece.What would England give to have a player of Young’s temperament and record running the drinks for them? His first-class average of 42.68 compares favourably with that of a generation of England batters; of the side they fielded this week, only Joe Root and Ollie Pope’s are significantly higher. New Zealand have won four and drawn three of their last seven Tests against England; for a country of five million people, their strength in depth is remarkable.Will Young got to his maiden Test fifty in the first innings•PA Images via Getty ImagesMatt Henry is in much the same boat as Young. He took the new ball following the decision to rest Tim Southee and Kyle Jamieson ahead of the main event next week, and pipped Young and Trent Boult to the match award thanks to three wickets in each innings – five of them top-order (if not top-quality) batters. He is, in many ways, an English-style seamer, with no great pace but immaculate control of line in particular.But like Young, he has very little chance of retaining his place next week barring injury, with Southee and Jamieson both due to return. Even Neil Wagner, the joint-fourth best Test bowler in the world according to the ICC’s rankings, is not guaranteed a spot, given New Zealand’s instinct towards balancing their side with an allrounder – most likely to be Colin de Grandhomme – at No. 7.Like Young, Henry has benefitted from stints in county cricket, in particular with Kent in 2018, when he took more Championship wickets than anyone in the country with 75 at 15.48. For all the fingers pointed in its direction when England lose series like this, the county game is still seen as a finishing school overseas which has shaped the careers of a number of the world’s best players.”[Henry] was fantastic,” Tom Latham, standing in for Williamson as captain, said. “We’ve got a bigger group [with us] and through a mixture of injuries and guys being rested for next week, those guys that came in certainly took their opportunity. Matt has been with the group for a long period and probably hasn’t got the game time he would have wanted. For him to come in and put a performance on the board, that was really important, especially the work that he did yesterday with that new ball.”It was amazing from a personnel change of six guys. That hasn’t happened for a long time in this group and it has been a hard team to crack into. For all those guys to get that opportunity, Young, Henry, [Ajaz] Patel, was fantastic. They performed their roles really well.Matt Henry claimed six wickets in the match•Getty Images”It was a complete team performance. Different guys stood up at different times. A lot of these guys have been around the group for a while and probably haven’t played as much as they would have liked, but I think those experiences around the group in different conditions has held them in good stead.”Since their last series win in England back in 1999, New Zealand’s away record against the top teams in the world has been abysmal: two wins in 50 matches in Australia, England, India and South Africa ahead of this tour. Making six changes – some through injury, some through rotation – did not speak of a team desperate to address that record but it was testament to their strength in depth that the quality of the side hardly dropped off.Sixteen of the 20 wickets they took were shared between Boult, Henry and Ajaz Patel, none of whom played last week. For all the success of their seam attack, Patel returned match figures of 4 for 59 in 23 overs, demonstrating the folly of England’s refusal to field a spinner in either Test on dry pitches that have offered them some assistance. With some rain in the forecast next week, New Zealand may be tempted to follow suit, but will surely reflect that Patel merits retention.Patel is the picture of economy in his action, with five short paces at walking speed, a jump into his delivery side, and a single-step follow-through, and his control of line and length made him a potent weapon. While there may be a temptation to pick Mitchell Santner against India, if the cut on his finger heals in time, and field a four-man seam attack alongside him, Patel is far and away the better bowler in this format; if he is included, it is a toss-up between de Grandhomme and Wagner as to who should be left out.Given India’s remarkable win in Australia at the start of the year and the numbers of proven performers that New Zealand will leave out, it is clear that the final will be played not only between the two best Test teams in the world, but the two best Test squads.

In just this one innings, he has already left alone almost as many deliveries as he did across five Tests in England in 2018, and it’s already paying off

Nagraj Gollapudi06-Aug-20213:54

Laxman: This could be a breakthrough innings for Rahul’s career

At times things are simpler when you don’t have too much time to think about them. KL Rahul might agree.On August 2, Rahul had walked into Trent Bridge for India’s training session thinking he would not be playing the first Test starting two days later, even though his century against a County XI during the warm-up game, batting at No. 5, put him in contention. Mayank Agarwal – one of Rahul’s best mates, and Karnataka team-mate – batted alongside Rohit Sharma in the nets, preparing to play the Test. Then, about a quarter of an hour into the session, Agarwal was hit by a short delivery from Mohammed Siraj, and he was ruled out of the match with a concussion soon after. Things moved swiftly from thereon for Rahul, who was given extra time to bat during that nets session. Two days later, at the toss, India captain Virat Kohli said Rahul would be opening alongside Rohit.It was on India’s previous trip to England when Rahul’s technique and temperament unravelled against the England fast men. In the first four Tests, Rahul had an average of just 14.12, and overall he was bowled five times and out lbw three times, a higher tally of such dismissals than any player across both teams. Despite that wretched form, Rahul finished the tour on a high note at The Oval, with a belligerent 149 in the final innings of the series. Failures followed in Australia and in the West Indies, though, and convinced the selectors that they had to drop Rahul.Still, Rahul went about his business. He made runs in white-ball cricket, both in the IPL and for India and eventually made his way back into the Test reckoning, with the idea being to shift him from the opening slots down into the middle order. With his ability to accelerate quickly and being a 360-degree batter, the team management and Rahul agreed that he could be a good option in middle now that Rohit along with Shubman Gill, Agarwal and Prithvi Shaw were slotted as openers.But now, with an injured Gill back in India, Shaw still in quarantine after heading over to England from the limited-overs series in Sri Lanka, and Agarwal concussed, doors reopened at the top of the order for Rahul. He might have overthought and over-complicated things in 2018, but three years later, at 29, Rahul is more experienced, more assured, more responsible. Perhaps taking charge of the captaincy at Punjab Kings in the IPL has given him that extra confidence.KL Rahul readies himself for day three at Trent Bridge•Getty ImagesAll this matters only because opening in Test cricket is the most demanding of batting jobs, especially in the overcast conditions that have persisted over the first two days of this Trent Bridge Test. Rahul was posted seemingly out of his comfort zone and asked to help set the tone for India, not just for this Test but for the series.Being naturally aggressive and one of the best stroke-makers in cricket at present, the biggest challenge for Rahul – and Rohit too – was to curb his enthusiasm. But, especially as an opener in England, abstinence does pay. Ask M Vijay. In the first two Tests of the 2014 England tour, played at Trent Bridge and Lord’s, Vijay left 122 (first innings) and 101 (second innings) deliveries respectively. Vijay scored 146 in the first innings in Nottingham and then 95 at Lord’s where India went 1-0 up having drawn the first Test.In this Test, Rahul invoked his inner “Monk” – as Vijay is nicknamed by the cricketing fraternity. In this innings, Rahul left 76 deliveries, which is next only to those efforts by Vijay for an Indian batter in England since that tour. More strikingly, it is also only 10 fewer deliveries than the 86 Rahul had left alone in the entire five-Test series in 2018, when he played 10 innings and faced 450 deliveries.One important reason Rahul could leave all those balls alone was because he was absolutely confident about where his off stump was, something he struggled with three years ago. That allowed Rahul to pick the right deliveries to play. What also helped him get settled in was that, in the first hour on Thursday, the England fast bowlers bowled well outside off stump and limited fuller deliveries. Runs did not come easy but Rahul respected the conditions. He stayed patient.That helped in the animated contest he had with Ollie Robinson, who tried to disrupt his concentration by exchanging words at times. While he did not shy away from responding, Rahul seemingly stayed calm and responded most deafeningly with the bat. Robinson’s plan involved pitching consistently on a good length, on the fourth stump, and nipping the ball away with the idea to lure Rahul to push at it. Rahul did not budge; he would stretch forward and upon reading the line leave the deliveries confidently. Rahul was also aware that with Robinson’s height, he could trust the bounce.Rahul also made subtle technical tweaks as compared to 2018. According to former India keeper Dinesh Karthik, who is on television commentary for Sky Cricket, Rahul has narrowed down the wide stance he had in 2018. Along with that, Rahul had also straightened and shortened his backlift – combined with a big stride, all these changes were allowing Rahul to meet the ball quickly and with a full face of the bat.Related

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• James Anderson proves he is as hungry and potent as ever

• Calmer and stronger Rahul hopes for Test revival

There were some errors of judgement, of course. Twice Anderson induced edges of Rahul. Twice it flew to the slips. Twice Rahul survived: first on 52 when Dom Sibley spilled one to his left, and then on 78, as Joe Root failed to grasp a thick edge with the reverse-cupped hands. England’s plan was now to bowl fuller, attack the stumps, make the Indian batters play more to create the chances. Root’s drop came in Anderson’s first over after lunch.In his next Anderson persisted with his plan. Rahul pushed an on-drive for a double and then punched an elegant cover drive for four. Anderson pushed Rahul back with a short delivery that climbed to Rahul’s shoulders. Two balls later Anderson lured Rahul with length delivery on the fourth stump, the type of ball that Rahul had previously been taking a good stride towards, having a good look at, and leaving alone. This time, though, he went for a drive and watched Anderson celebrate.For a moment Rahul stood there even as Anderson and England were celebrating. The umpire had to raise his finger to force him to retreat back to the dressing room. Rahul was furious at his mistake. Furious at getting carried away, at getting distracted.As ESPNcricinfo’s expert VVS Laxman said today, this was a “breakthrough innings” for Rahul. On his comeback in whites, Rahul showed what he has learned from his time away from Test cricket: respect the conditions, respect the format, read the match situation, and wait for the loose ball.The chance might have come courtesy unfortunate circumstances for his friend and team-mate, but Rahul has so far proven that he has earned this recall.

Despite missing several senior players, Tamil Nadu had a well-rounded squad to clinch two domestic T20 titles in three seasons

Deivarayan Muthu23-Nov-2021.A well-rounded squad
Tamil Nadu’s current side has almost all the ingredients needed to succeed in T20 cricket. They have a reliable legspinner in M Ashwin, a tall fingerspinner who can bowl across phases in R Sai Kishore, an explosive finisher in Shahrukh Khan, a yorker specialist in T Natarajan, a left-handed opener in C Hari Nishaanth and anchors in N Jagadeesan and Vijay Shankar. All these players bring with them IPL experience and even if they are not available, Tamil Nadu have back-ups in M Siddharth, GS Raju, Vivek Raj, P Saravana Kumar and R Silambarasan, who was more recently part of Chennai Super Kings as a net bowler.Aparajith’s offspin has often been deemed surplus to Tamil Nadu’s requirements in the past. But when the team needed him in the 2019-20 white-ball season in the absence of both R Ashwin and Washington, he stepped up to line up the left-handers.Aparajith was unavailable for this Syed Mushtaq Ali knockouts and was instead on India A duty. Tamil Nadu, however, had another fingerspin-bowling allrounder in R Sanjay Yadav who marked his homecoming from Meghalaya with sharp spells and cameos against Goa and Kerala.Related

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• Ageless Dinesh Karthik 'extremely proud' of Tamil Nadu's title run

Consistency in selection and role clarity
Hari, Jagadeesan, Vijay and Shahrukh have become regulars on the batting front while Sai Kishore continues to bowl the tough overs at the top-tail of the innings. These players have all earned a consistent run, thus forming the core of a new-look side.”First thing I’d put down TN’s success is to the management that has backed almost the same team in the last three years,” Sai Kishore tells ESPNcricinfo. “We haven’t had much chopping and changing and if you see, it’s more like CSK as we play almost the same team. We all know our roles and what we need to do in the bowling attack. When Ash (M Ashwin) or Momi (M Mohammed) or Sandy (Sandeep Warrier) is coming into bowl or myself, we know our job and say when I go out of the line, everyone else will know. We have that openness in the dressing room, and the coaching staff has backed us always.”Vijay Shankar hit 199 runs in six innings at an average of 66.33 and a strike rate of 130.92•NurPhoto/Getty ImagesImpact of the TNPL
That Tamil Nadu have back-up options for every role and so much depth is down to the 20-over Tamil Nadu Premier League. What started as a league that would entertain the local fans when CSK were serving a two-year suspension from the IPL, has now become a strong feeder to the TN state side and IPL franchises. Cases in point: No.1 Hari to reserve player Saravana Kumar.When Natarajan was down with a knee injury during the Syed Mushtaq Ali tournament, Tamil Nadu roped in Saravana Kumar, who was the top wicket-taker in the 2021 TNPL, with 13 strikes at an economy of 7.84. After leaking 48 runs in 3.3 overs for zero wickets on his TN debut, he struck back in the very next match, bagging 5 for 21 in the semi-final against Hyderabad. B Sai Sudharsan, who was also plucked out of TNPL 2021, played his part for TN, making four thirty-plus scores.”It has given them the confidence to go out there and express themselves,” Tamil Nadu captain Vijay says of the TNPL. “That is why, maybe, we have played three consecutive finals. To qualify for that itself, I feel we’ve done something right. A lot of credit to the TNPL and the support staff. Sometimes I go with my instincts and when they back you for that, it is easier as a captain. We were on the same page when it came to making decisions. Saravana Kumar took a five-for, but we had to take a call for the final. Nattu [Natarajan] was fit and is one of the best death bowlers not only in Tamil Nadu but also in India.”Sai Sudharsan, Siddharth or Saravana Kumar everyone played their own game, they got comfortable [in their roles] and ready to accept the challenge at this level. You can’t go out in a T20 game and keep hitting. Sometimes, you need to understand the situation. In a couple of games, Jaggi and Hari had to bat out the initial phase, especially against Maharashtra, this may be a small thing, but it matters a lot. I always ask them to put their hands up and be ready for the challenge – it doesn’t matter if you lose or don’t perform well; it’s all a part of life.”

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This match was lost in its first half hour, irrespective of “positives” Root says can be gleaned from the wreckage

Andrew Miller11-Dec-2021Eleven Tests, ten defeats and a draw, and scarcely a whiff of an upset in any of them. Since their last series win in Australia in 2010-11, England’s record Down Under has been abysmal – so poor, in fact, that it was hard to feel especially moved by the totality of this latest loss at Brisbane.When a side has slumped to 11 for 3 inside six overs after choosing to bat first, it’s hard to muster much more than a shrug of recognition when the same outfit squanders its final eight wickets in an unseemly rush for the exits. This match was lost within half an hour of its beginning, irrespective of the “positives” that Joe Root, England’s captain, is adamant can still be gleaned from the wreckage.”We’re game-hardened now,” Root said, after England’s Covid- and rain-wrecked build-up to the first Test. “We’d not had that going into it, so we’ll be better for it. Those guys that have not experienced [the Ashes] before know what’s coming now, and sometimes that [next] game coming around quite quickly is exactly what you need, to get straight back out there and put things right.”Related

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It’s not that Root does not have a point. With the ball, Mark Wood and Ollie Robinson were outstanding in contrasting yet complementary ways, while Root’s own reaction to his first-innings duck was reassuring confirmation that the world’s No.1 batter has not mislaid his touch in the four months since his last competitive outing. His partnership with Dawid Malan was in-game evidence of the strides that this team can make, while Haseeb Hameed and Ollie Pope are among a cast of players who may feel better orientated for their incomplete displays.And yet England, by dint of their glaring inadequacies in Australian conditions, have now set such low expectations that all manner of bouncing dead cats could be mistaken for signs of an impending recovery – maybe even Rory Burns’ triumph in avoiding a king pair, a feat he achieved by avoiding the first ball of the innings for only the fourth occasion out of 264 in his first-class career. Even then, he had to rely on the lottery that was the Gabba’s technology back-up to overturn an lbw verdict two balls later.No amount of marginal gains from first innings to second can disguise England’s current run of 11 Tests – and 11 years – without a victory in Australia. It is a longer run of failure than they managed even in an era commonly recalled as the team’s nadir – the ten-Test stretch from January 1987 to January 1995, which began with Mike Gatting’s Ashes-winners being spun to defeat at Sydney by an unknown debutant Peter Taylor (whom legend has it owed his call-up to a case of mistaken identity) and ended with an extraordinary win against the head at Adelaide – one of those glorious 1990s flashes-in-the-pan that somehow made all of the team’s other indignities worthwhile.In between whiles, those indignities included Graham Gooch “farting against thunder” during a supine 3-0 loss in the “Tiger Moth” tour of 1990-91 – a series in which England managed to take a first-innings lead in each of the opening two Tests, only to then lose them by ten wickets (at the Gabba, natch) and eight wickets respectively. Thereafter, Shane Warne’s supremacy opened such a baffling new dimension in Ashes combat that England could hardly be blamed for taking an entire generation to work out how to play him.Rory Burns trudges off after a second failure•Getty ImagesThere’s no such mystery about Australia’s dominance these days. They have a mighty roster of fast bowlers, and a spinner in Nathan Lyon with sufficient guile to claim 403 Test wickets and counting. And while Steve Smith is a freak of nature who had been averaging 120 in Ashes Tests over the past four years, he’s still not quite Don Bradman – on whose watch England’s record barren run in Australia was recorded: 12 Tests (punctuated by a World War) between 1937 and 1951.Some might counter that Australia’s recent record in England isn’t so flash either. They haven’t won an Ashes series there since 2001, which – on the face of it – goes to underline the suspicion that home advantage is half the battle won in modern-day Test cricket. And yet, that doesn’t square with Australia’s impressive haul of four wins and a draw in their last ten away Ashes Tests.Nor does it square with the fact that there has been just one truly close contest, home or away, since Australia launched their 5-0 whitewash at the Gabba in 2013. Ben Stokes’ miracle at Headingley in 2019 was precisely the sort of heist that encouraged the fallacy (and everyone bought into it to a greater or lesser degree) that there could yet be a twist to this latest tale, despite all reasonable Test-match precedent stating that, when a team trails by 278 runs on first innings, there’s really no hope of salvation.But it’s an addictive narrative nonetheless, and one that England were leaning on during the summer as well, when they lost two series on home soil for the first time since that aforementioned Ashes summer of 2001. And yes, we know that – technically speaking – the India series isn’t over yet. But anyone who witnessed England getting mangled at Lord’s and The Oval knows where the balance of power lay going into the fifth Test at Old Trafford.Everything about England’s Test cricket at present is focused on the individuals within fronting up and giving more to the cause – be it Stokes, only just returned from the abyss after fearing his badly mended finger might prevent him from playing ever again – or more recently Root, on whom English cricket’s every expectation is currently piled. The moment he failed to reach his elusive maiden century in Australia was the moment that the scales fell from the optimists’ eyes. This year’s monstrous haul of 1544 runs at 64.33 could grow larger still at Adelaide and Melbourne, but even Root’s lifetime best hasn’t been able to prevent England from losing seven and winning one of their last ten Tests.But miracle-working is a tenacious narrative – just ask the Bible’s publishers. For Root in this contest, and Stokes in general terms, read James Anderson’s recall under the Adelaide lights next week. While there’s individual brilliance in England’s ranks, there’s always reason to believe that the collective can surge as one. But just don’t look too closely at Anderson’s overall win-loss record in Australia. Nor, for that matter, at the England Lions’ batting card in their unofficial Test against Australia A, which is taking place just down the road. The rot, it seems, is set deep into the system, and not simply restricted to those who’ve been outgunned at the Gabba.