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Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Rashid Khan were Sunrisers’ two biggest threats on the night of the IPL final. Shane Watson saw them off and waded into the rest of their attack, validating CSK’s faith in his experience and know-how

Vishal Dikshit in Mumbai28-May-20182:32

‘A lot of emotion in the franchise, a lot of desire’ – Fleming

In Royal Challengers Bangalore’s disastrous campaign last season, Shane Watson played eight matches and scored all of 71 runs. He bowled 26.5 overs for only five wickets and an economy rate of 9.13. He was about to turn 36 then and did not possess a fresh pair of legs, and it seemed only natural when RCB released him ahead of the 2018 auction.There were rumours that he was playing his last IPL, and he himself admitted, “there may be a time when, hopefully, I get a chance to coach somewhere, and it just takes over from my playing days,” at the end of the tournament.When his name came up in the auction with a base price of INR 1 crore, only Chennai Super Kings bid for him initially before Rajasthan Royals joined in. Whenever Royals raised their paddle, Stephen Fleming, the CSK coach, replied immediately with a bigger bid. What was he thinking? Why did he want an out-of-form 36-year-old?Fleming had done his homework. Watson had found some form at home, with 331 runs from 10 innings for the Sydney Thunder in the Big Bash League. Two half-centuries, a strike rate of 139, nothing extraordinary. Fleming explained at the press conference after winning his third IPL title with CSK that he kept a close eye on Watson and had “no doubt” the allrounder would do well. CSK bought him for INR 4 crore.”When you look at his season with RCB, he was in and out, and he batted at No. 4,” Fleming said. “I also watched him closely at the Big Bash and there were signs that he was in good form. Certainly, every team that I have come up against, he seems in good form, so the best way to get rid of him is to buy him. I had no doubt he was going to make an impact. Fitness was an issue as it is a long tournament, but he is more professional than even I thought. He is a bit broken now. [His] bowling, we didn’t have to use much but he has got through with one of his greatest performances.”In the UAE a month after the auction, Watson finished as the fifth-highest run-getter in the Pakistan Super League with similar numbers to the BBL: 319 runs from 10 innings, two half-centuries and a strike rate of 135.With those numbers behind him, Watson got his “favourite” position in the line-up, in the IPL – the opening slot. He first showed against Rajasthan Royals what kind of damage he could inflict from there: a 51-ball century.On Sunday, in the IPL final, he was coming off a duck against the same opponents they were meeting in the final, Sunrisers Hyderabad. Bhuvneshwar Kumar was toying with him again, and it seemed as if Watson had no clue what was happening. The ball was bouncing, swinging both ways, and Bhuvneshwar was making it do whatever he wanted, at speeds in the mid-130s. Fleming admitted later CSK were “lucky” Watson didn’t lose his wicket.”Yeah, it was a good struggle, wasn’t it?” Fleming said. “The opening spell was, I thought, outstanding from SRH. He might’ve been none off 10 balls. It was a real battle in the first four or five overs. It was a great final in that sense. Shane gradually found a bit of range and rhythm. The boundaries aren’t too big for the big hitters like Watson, Brathwaite and Dhoni. He kept patience – again, that was experience – didn’t give it away. He knew his power game would get the team out of trouble, and it did in spectacular fashion. He got his second hundred of the tournament, he’s got over 500 runs. He has been a star performer for us.”BCCIWhen Watson was on 0 off 10 in the fourth over, Sunrisers fans could have made memes already of how Watson was going to cost his team the match, and the trophy. CSK were chasing 179 against the best attack in the tournament on the biggest stage. In Bhuvneshwar’s third over on the trot, Watson and Suresh Raina took four singles. Watson’s first job was done – to act like a sponge, absorb all the threats Sunrisers’ attack was posing, and not give a wicket to Bhuvneshwar. As soon as he was out of the attack, Watson changed gears, smacking a short and slow delivery in the last Powerplay over from Sandeep Sharma over deep midwicket for six. He must have expected the delivery next; he stood still, let the ball come to him, and drilled it back for four.Kane Williamson brought on Siddarth Kaul, Sunrisers’ best fast bowler this season, but he turned out to be a different bowler on Sunday night. He was bowling short, down the leg side, and into Watson’s pads. Watson can flick those away even in his sleep. The result – 16 off the over. All the pressure Watson had absorbed was now being transferred back onto Sunrisers.Williamson now brought on Rashid Khan. As with Bhuvneshwar, all CSK wanted was to not give him wickets. In his first two overs, Watson nudged him into the leg side whenever he spotted a googly and Suresh Raina kept dabbing him to midwicket one ball after another.Fleming explained later that having a strategy against Rashid was a “key focus” to win the final. “[Facing] Rashid Khan was a definite plan,” he said. “We actually have played him quite well, we’ve been more positive in the past, but we were afforded the luxury through Shane’s hitting of being more conservative, even playing out a maiden. At that point in time, we had really nullified his impact and that was a key focus for our tactics to win the final, and we did that well.”By seeing off Rashid’s first two overs without much fuss, the Watson sponge had done its job again. When Sandeep got the ball again, the Watson sponge became the Watson bludgeon again. In the 13th over, Sandeep kept missing his yorkers and Watson kept clubbing them. A drive over wide mid-off for four, three consecutive sixes off misdirected deliveries, and a four off the last ball, expertly guided between backward point and short third man, gave CSK 27 runs from the over. It brought the equation down to 48 runs from 42 balls, which ended the match right there. Rashid still had two overs left and Bhuvneshwar one, and they would bowl them with CSK facing no scoreboard pressure.In Rashid’s last over, Watson completed his hundred and stood still at the non-striker’s end while facing his team’s dugout, with a beaming smile and arms aloft. In the 19th over, Ambati Rayudu hit the winning runs and Watson ambled across the pitch to embrace his partner. His back was to the dugout, so he didn’t realise that a swarm of his team-mates was running towards him. Rayudu quietly slipped away, allowing them to clamber all over Watson.If this team management had not stood behind Watson when he was being written off, he wouldn’t have scored two centuries this season. And if Watson had not shown his patience and experience on Sunday, who knows how CSK would have handled the pressure on this big night.

ESPNcricinfo staff09-Oct-2016Wristspinner Tabraiz Shamsi then dismissed Steven Smith and Travis Head to compound Australia’s woes•AFPMatthew Wade, however, counterattacked his way to a half-century•Associated PressMitchell Marsh, meanwhile, played sensibly and made a fifty of his own before becoming Abbott’s third victim. Australia were 111 for 6•AFPAbbott also accounted for Adam Zampa en route to figures of 4 for 40•AFPAaron Phangiso removed Wade and Scott Boland in the 37th over to dismiss Australia for 167•AFPChris Tremain gave Australia hope by reducing South Africa to 29 for 2 in 6.1 overs•Getty ImagesFaf du Plessis and JP Duminy then put the hosts back in control with a 56-run partnership for the third wicket•Getty ImagesThe stand ended when Zampa had Duminy caught by Marsh for 25 in the 20th over•AFPDu Plessis, however, went on to score his second fifty-plus score of the series as South Africa wrapped up a six-wicket win to go 4-0 up•Associated Press

This contest brings together a belligerent bunch of brats and braggers from two countries that are so different, yet share rampant egotism and a high opinion of themselves

Jarrod Kimber25-Mar-2015Australia and India are part of the “axis of admin” currently running world cricket. That shouldn’t mean you confuse them for friends.Administrators from both countries happily badmouth each other. Cricket Australia tells people they will hold the BCCI to their ethics. The BCCI tells everyone that they won’t be given moral lessons by the same Cricket Australia that runs the bully Australian teams.On the field, it is often much the same.There was a time when Australians completely ignored India. On the field, off the field, as a country. Australia spent decades without winning a Test series in India, but they also spent decades hardly playing a series there in the first place. Australia toured India five times in their first 50 years. They played for the first time in India 24 years after India’s first Test, which even when the Second World War is accounted for, is quite some time.Even when Kerry Packer went around the world looking for players for World Series Cricket, the Indians weren’t tapped on the shoulder. Sunil Gavaskar and Bishan Bedi could have played, but one was a blocker and the other a spinner; it wasn’t box office. They weren’t playing the game the right way, the Australian way.Before 2001, this was kind of how Indian cricket was seen in Australia. As this effeminate version of cricket that really wasn’t for Australians. They didn’t bowl fast. They didn’t smash the ball. They didn’t travel well. And Australians had to take food to their country just to survive it.Australia hadn’t won in India since 1969, but now it was just a matter of time. Coming into India’s enforced second innings, Australia had won their last 16 and a half Test matches.Then, VVS.VVS didn’t just beat Australia; he beat their entire system•Getty ImagesAustralia first tried to take his wicket driving. He drove, they took no wicket. Australia then tried to take his wicket pulling. He pulled, they took no wicket. Australia then tried to take his wicket with slower balls. He waited, they took no wicket. Australia then tried to take his wicket with ring fields. He pierced, they took no wicket. Australia then tried to take his wicket with bowling in the rough. He smashed, they took no wicket. Australia then tried to take his wicket in the slips. He middled, they took no wicket. Australia then tried to take his wicket by giving up. He batted, they took no wicket.VVS made 281. When India started to follow on, they were 274 behind. VVS beat the follow-on.If you were taking on a team of Don Bradman, George Headley, Barry Richards, Viv Richards, Victor Trumper and WG Grace, you would not be unhappy to take Glenn McGrath, Jason Gillespie and Shane Warne with you. By the end, Steve Waugh used every player on his roster other than himself, probably due to health reasons, and Adam Gilchrist. Waugh had one of the greatest bowling attacks in cricket, and he was bowling Justin Langer.VVS didn’t just beat Australia; he beat their entire system. He beat their will. He beat their ego. And he did it in such a way that Australia had to give up. India could no longer be ignored. India didn’t play cricket the Australian way, they played it the Indian way.From there on in, you could buy DVDs of an Indian tour in Australian supermarkets. This was a country that only shortly before were happy enough to laugh, or at least cringe in silence, as former Australian Greg Ritchie did a long-running racist portrayal of Indians on TV. Australia went from a country that called Indians “curry munchers” to a country that was now desperate to beat them.Then there was the money. India meant money. Not DVD sales but TV rights. The money jumped up every time Australia hosted India. Hosting 70,000 people at the MCG was nice, hosting India in a Test series was the greatest show on earth.Then the Sydney Test of 2008 happened. Not many people come out of that Test well. Not either cricket boards or key players from either side. And when India threatened to travel home, Australia for the first time truly realised that they were no longer the masters of their relationship. To use the language of George Costanza, they had no hand.Thanks to the IPL, Australian cricketers are treated like rock stars in India•BCCIThis was India’s relationship, this was India’s sport, this was India’s money.Matthew Hayden had called India third world and he had called one of their players an obnoxious weed. Yet, in the corner of N Srinivasan’s India Cements office there is a bat given to him by Hayden. Now Hayden can be seen doing embarrassing video selfies for an Indian TV company.Thanks to the IPL, Australian cricketers were treated more like rock stars in India than they ever had been at home. At the Wankhede stadium there was once a 30-foot-high picture of Aiden Blizzard. In Australia he could wear an “I am Aiden Blizzard” sandwich board in Bourke St and not be recognised. Before most Australians knew who Aaron Finch was, he could be seen in hair product ads in India.Steve Waugh had taken to India out of love for the country. And Australian cricketers had always felt much love from Indians. But now they felt it in their wallets. Brett Lee ended up in Bollywood films. Even John Buchanan has given speeches on business in India.Then there is the Australian success in the IPL. They win a lot of titles, as captains, as coaches. Their players win a lot of personal awards. Many have pointed to the amount of useless Australian players in the IPL as a weakness of the tournament, but they are there because they have shown a lot of success. The IPL rated David Warner and Glenn Maxwell as much as, or in some cases long before, the Australian selectors did.These same players are often now team-mates one week, adversaries the next. It has forged strong friendships and epic feuds. The more you know someone, the more chance you will like them or despise them. And with the IPL, Champions league and Australia v India matches being seemingly played 11 months of the year, it can brew a lot of hate.You could see that when India lost the last Test series. Even during the Test that was as close to a memorial game as Test cricket has produced, the players got in each other’s faces. Some former team-mates, others constant rivals.India were easily beaten on the field, but with their mouths they fought out more than the two draws they managed. They didn’t seem to even turn up for the ODIs in the tri-series; they even lost to the second-tier ODI side England. They haven’t lost since.Team-mates, constant rivals•Getty ImagesThis is all different. This is a bragging right over your friends and enemies for life. This can help a cricketer turn from a hero to an immortal. Madan Lal played 39 Tests, but he is remembered for one ball in a World Cup. This matters to virtually all fans. Even the Test fans who still look down on ODIs. This is a World Cup semi-final. Australia are playing for a home final. India are playing for back to back. And they are playing each other.For years India wanted to prove they could be the best. Now they want to prove they are better than the best. They’ve won three ICC tournaments since their World T20 in 2007. They probably should have won more. Last World Cup they lost to South Africa and tied with England. This time they have been magnificent. So a loss now, as champions, to Australia, is unthinkable.For Australia, this is their World Cup. Even the promos have sometimes forgotten that New Zealand existed. Even their loss to New Zealand was so tiny, dramatic and chaotic that it was seen more as a great bad game of cricket than an actual loss. But a loss to India, at the SCG, will not be explained away, it will fester.Australia are attacking with bat and ball. Their only spin option is a batsman who often talks better than he bowls. They have so many players who can hit sixes, a few of whom do it better than they rotate the strike. Their fielders are loud and athletic. Their bowlers are fast and aggressive. There is no doubt, even at a glance, that this is an Australian ODI team.India are batting slower than they did last tournament. They seem to be backing themselves to get near 300 on autopilot. Their batsmen are almost all below 100 strike rate. Their fast bowlers seem excited by the two new balls and the bounce in the tracks. The rest of us are excited by their wickets. R Ashwin is in control. MS Dhoni wrote the program on modern ODI cricket. It’s sensible caution with flashes of all-out attack.This is a clash of strategy. And of methods, culture and politics. This is a new-era rivalry. Not as ancient as the Ashes, or as passionate as India-Pakistan. Two countries that are so different, yet share rampant egotism, high self-opinion and a belief that being born in their country is superior to other births. This brings together a belligerent bunch of brats, bullies and braggers.This is the “battle of the bullies”.

Plays of the Day from the second day of the Chittagong Test between Bangladesh and New Zealand

Mohammad Isam in Chittagong10-Oct-2013The let-off I
Bangladesh were on a roll in the morning session when it got even better. Rubel Hossain had BJ Watling driving, and the ball caught the edge and flew to gully where Nasir Hossain took the catch. New Zealand would have been 290 for 8, when the umpires went to check for a front-foot no-ball. The replays showed a big one. Watling came back, and took his score from 4 to 103.The let-off II
Anamul Haque was also as lucky as Watling to be caught in the slips off a no-ball. The offending bowler was Doug Bracewell in the second over of the Bangladesh innings. But unlike Watling, Anamul didn’t make it count. He had the let-off on 1, and added two more before falling to the same bowler.The gap
There was just a small gap between Doug Bracewell’s bat and pad as he tried to paddle the ball. But Sohag Gazi somehow found the opening through it to hit the stumps. The much-needed wicket amused the bowler, who kept pointing at the gap as he walked towards the other fielders to celebrate. He was finding it hard to believe that the ball had actually sneaked through.The comeback
No 11 Trent Boult batted two hours and 27 minutes to make an unbeaten fifty, so his first-ball wide to Tamim Iqbal was perhaps fatigue. The recovery was complete off the next ball when he pitched one just a little away from Tamim’s reach, outside off stump. The drive came out, and the edge was well caught at slip.The elbow
Boult, like any No 11, had little to lose. As he settled down, he looked to play more shots and started attacking Bangladesh’s most successful Test bowler. Shakib Al Hasan was smashed for six over long-on, with the bat perfectly pointed towards the direction he intended to hit. Boult charged the left-arm spinner, moved slightly to the leg side to make room and lofted the ball high. The elbow was right up there, perfectly balanced.

Sri Lanka dug themselves a hole in Galle but had their captain to thank for digging them out of it again

Andrew McGlashan in Galle26-Mar-2012Sri Lanka have been playing one-day cricket for the last three months and it showed on the opening day in Galle. With one notable exception. Mahela Jayawardene has the ability to make batting effortless even when others around him are digging a hole and he single-handedly defied the England attack to ensure Sri Lanka had enough runs on the board to be firmly in the contest.To say that Jayawardene has jumped at the chance to captain Sri Lanka again, after replacing Tillakaratne Dilshan, is stretching his enthusiasm for the job. “It’s a new challenge for me and I’m enjoying it at the moment,” he said the day before the Test started. The captaincy, though, does appear to inspire his batting as he averages more than 70 as as leader – not that his overall mark of 51.14 is shabby. Perhaps the more remarkable statistic is his 13 hundreds from 29 Tests as captain, a phenomenal conversion rate of nearly one every other match.And this one, his 30th overall and seventh against England, can go down as one of his best partly because, unlike many of his team-mates, he has seamlessly switched from one-day cricket to Test mode. He was at the crease in the third over after James Anderson struck twice in two balls and set the tone by calmly playing out the hat-trick delivery. There is not much that gets Jayawardene flustered. His first scoring shot was a cut behind point and three deliveries later he whipped another boundary off his pads to send ominous warnings to England.”Everyone is very aware what a special innings it was,” Graham Ford, the Sri Lanka coach, said. “It’s very tough to go in in that situation on a pitch that doesn’t look to be that easy to score freely on. When you are under pressure you need to absorb and it was a fine example of that. Gradually he fought into the innings then put the pressure back on the opposition.”Not that Jayawardene entirely shelved one-day mode. His play of Graeme Swann showed all the hallmarks of the limited-overs game as he milked the offspinner, having greeted him third ball with a slog-sweep for six, to the extent that he took 59 runs off the 68 balls Swann delivered to him.”He’s been around the game for such a long time and everyone knows what a great cricketing brain he’s got,” Ford said. “That was a decision to try and disrupt things, he was battling like crazy to get us out of a hole and one of the ways to do that was to disrupt the bowlers and he’s a good enough player to carry it out.”The importance of his wicket was shown when Andrew Strauss used up England’s final review – the first having been wasted in the opening over the match – for an lbw shout by Swann during the first session. It was perhaps worth a gamble with two in the bank, but England were desperate to remove Jayawardene.He was dropped on 90, when he chipped a slower ball back at Anderson, and next ball swung a good-length delivery over midwicket. Yet even that was grace mixed with power. The innings, already a gem, became a masterclass as he farmed the strike with the lower-order for company. The eighth and ninth wickets have so far added 100 runs with Rangana Herath and Chanaka Welegedera contributing 15 between them.”It’s one of the better Test innings I’ve seen, considering no one else got much above 20,” Anderson said. “He had the knack of knowing when to go for a big shot and when to grind it out a bit.”Last year when Australia played at Galle the pitch received an ICC warning for excessive early turn. Yet Jayawardene still managed to score 105 in the second innings. By comparison, this first-day pitch will have felt like a featherbed. That’s not the reality, however. This surface is far better than the one produced last August – Galle could not afford another dodgy strip – but there was still enough turn to suggest spin will play a key role as the match develops.One delivery, in particular, from Swann leapt from a good length and took Jayawardene’s glove only to loop just out of the fingertips of a diving Anderson running back at slip. It was the exception rather the norm but, as often in Sri Lanka, batting last won’t be easy. Yet the ease with which Jayawardene batted as shadows lengthened also showed that all is required is a bit of application.It should come as no surprise that Jayawardene has made runs at Galle. When he collected a boundary off Monty Panesar to move to 69 he reached 2000 runs on the ground and became the first batsman to cross that landmark at two venues, the other being the SSC in Colombo. After being reminded of what Jayawardene can produce England will be grateful that the second Test is at least being staged at the P Sara Oval where he averages a positively human 41.Edited by David Hopps

A journey through the World Twenty20 champions’ win against the odds

24-Jun-2009

Grace Harris has replaced Darcie Brown in Australia’s ODI squad for their tour of Bangladesh.Brown was ruled out because of a navicular stress injury in her left foot. A Cricket Australia statement said that an exact timeframe for Brown’s return will be determined in due course.Harris had previously been selected only for the T20Is but will now leave sooner. Her WPL stint with UP Warriorz has already ended after they failed to qualify for the playoffs. Australia have not brought in a replacement for Brown in the T20I squad.Related

• Jonassen omitted for Bangladesh tour, Vlaeminck recalled

• Harris doesn't want to be the big dog, just the best she can be

In another update, allrounder Heather Graham, who was a stand-by for the series, is now unavailable following an illness.Jess Jonassen had been omitted from Australia’s squad, which was announced last month, and Tayla Vlaeminck had earned a recall.Australia will play three ODIs and as many T20Is in their first ever tour of Bangladesh, starting March 21. The ODIs will be part of the Women’s Championship.Australia are currently at the top of the table with ten wins in 15 games and Bangladesh are placed seventh with four wins from 15 games.

Updated Australia squad for Bangladesh tour

Alyssa Healy (capt), Ash Gardner, Kim Garth, Grace Harris, Alana King, Phoebe Litchfield, Tahlia McGrath, Sophie Molineux, Beth Mooney, Ellyse Perry, Megan Schutt, Annabel Sutherland, Georgia Wareham, Tayla Vlaeminck

The Hong Kong captain was always a hard hitter of the ball, but now he has extended that aggression to the rest of his game, and infected his team-mates

Peter Della Penna12-Mar-2018In Chinese culture, perhaps there are fewer symbols that are more well-known to outsiders than the yin and the yang. It represents the balance between opposite forces to keep things in harmony.Babar Hayat, the 26-year-old Hong Kong captain, is an embodiment of such duelling dualities. “I’m a quiet person,” he says in matter-of-fact manner during a sit-down interview with ESPNcricinfo ahead of the World Cup Qualifiers in Zimbabwe.That’s putting it mildly. Despite his imposing physical presence and reputation as one of the biggest hitters on the Associate scene, it takes some effort to coax words out of Hayat. Yet, his resume speaks for itself.Leading scorer in the most recent edition of the ICC Intercontinental Cup. Three centuries in his first six first-class matches. Third overall in runs in the WCL Championship. Hitting 16 off the final over to beat Afghanistan in a T20I for the first time, at the 2015 World T20 Qualifier in Ireland, and sending Hong Kong to the World T20 in India.Those are heady accomplishments for someone who never really had any ambition to become a professional cricketer, let alone captain his adopted homeland when he first arrived on Hong Kong shores as a 15-year-old. The transformation from a once timid boy to a quiet yet confident man – especially with a bat in hand – was made possible through hard work, grit and perseverance over the last 11 years.”When I started playing cricket, nobody knew me. I didn’t have any fame,” Hayat says of the path that led him to where he is today. Growing up in Attock, Pakistan, he played tape-ball cricket regularly, but when his father, a banker who had been living on and off in Hong Kong for 45 years, took the family to the island for good, Hayat had never played with a seasoned leather ball.Hayat didn’t know any English, or Cantonese either, when he found himself in Kowloon as a teenager. He was shy to begin with, and the language barrier made his transition to a new homeland more challenging. Enrolling at the Islamic Kasim Tuet Memorial College for his high school years in Hong Kong gave him a small buffer, allowing him to interact with students who might know Urdu, and also provided him a gateway into a whole new cricket community.

“It’s a culture within our dressing room where people tend to gravitate toward the best player, and that’s why we looked at Babar as being one of those characters”Simon Cook, Hong Kong head coach

“It was the first or second week of school and he was playing tape-ball cricket,” Aizaz Khan, a former high school classmate of Hayat’s and long-time Hong Kong team-mate, says of their first interaction, just a few weeks after Hayat had arrived in Hong Kong.”We had a big ground and I saw him smacking some big sixes. He looked very good and played some big shots and I was thinking whether I can get him to play in the Under-17 club team of ours since I was the captain.”I spoke to his cousin, who was in the same school, and asked, ‘Can you get Babar to play for us?’ Babar was new and didn’t really know anybody there. The first game he went there, he scored 40-plus and hit some huge sixes. The coach got him to play in the Sunday senior league. Since then, Babar’s been scoring runs everywhere.”Though he had only newly begun playing with a hard ball, it didn’t take long for Hayat to make his presence felt in Hong Kong’s domestic scene. In his second season playing in the Sunday premier division, he was named Player of the Year while representing Vagabonds CC. In demand, he was recruited to join the prestigious Kowloon CC for his third season, but Hayat says that despite the glamour, his still limited English language skills left him feeling uncomfortable in his surroundings, prompting a move to Little Sai Wan CC, where he got to work with former Hong Kong captain Munir Dar.”They had a good structure while building up youngsters, Little Sai Wan,” Hayat says. “They always wanted young guys to come up, and gave chances. When we played club cricket in Hong Kong, we played four to five U-16 guys in the team in the high-standard premier league. When they grew up, after three or four years, they’d get better.”Those opportunities as a teenager helped put him on the Hong Kong selection radar for junior teams. But he could not go to the 2010 U-19 World Cup in New Zealand – having migrating in 2007, he was just short of the required four years of residency to qualify for his new home. He did, however, make his senior team debut a year later as a 19-year-old, opening the batting while surrounded by 15,000 screaming Nepal fans at the 2011 Asian Cricket Council Twenty20 Cup in Kathmandu.”That was my first tour and I was shocked when I saw all the people around,” Hayat says.Babar Hayat poses with fans for photos while playing for Kowloon Cantons in a Hong Kong Blitz match•Getty Images”It was really tough for me to play for Hong Kong. Every time when I would go to bat, I was feeling nervous. You can say I was not a proper cricketer. They just sent me as a floater, and I’d open with Irfan Ahmed. That was not a great tour for me. I did not perform for my first three or four tours.”Part of the lack of confidence was the way in which his raw skillset, honed by tennis-ball bashing, was exposed against higher-class bowling.”When I first saw him in the national set-up, he was a player who could control a game but didn’t have the skills to do that, to bat for long periods of time,” says Simon Cook, Hong Kong head coach, who first came across Hayat on the club scene in his previous position as head coach at Hong Kong Cricket Club. “He didn’t have the technique.”Though his defence in particular was unrefined, Hayat’s mental toughness began to emerge as a dependable trait. It first showed up at the 2013 World T20 Qualifier in the UAE during a knockout match against Papua New Guinea. Having lost a final-ball heartbreaker to Nepal in the previous playoff match, Hong Kong had a second crack at clinching a maiden berth at a major ICC global tournament a day later. However, they needed to do it without captain Jamie Atkinson, who was injured in the loss to Nepal. The task became even more difficult when they collapsed to 19 for 4 inside the first four overs after choosing to bat.Hayat started to rebuild the innings, first with his Little Sai Wan club team-mate Dar in a 35-run stand. A match-defining 62-run partnership with future New Zealand international Mark Chapman followed, and Hayat’s 48 off 47 balls carried Hong Kong out of trouble and to an eventual 29-run win.Two summers later, at the next World T20 qualifier, in Ireland, Hayat would conjure up an even greater escape against Afghanistan, a team they had not beaten in six previous attempts in T20 cricket. Though Hong Kong had plenty of wickets in hand, the run rate started to climb in the final overs of chasing a target of 162.

“I didn’t want to bat. My legs were gone, my hamstrings were tired, my body was sore. I didn’t want to play the next game because I was so tired”Hayat on struggling with his fitness

“We controlled for quite a lot of the game and then suddenly it started to get a bit dicey,” said Cook, who was then an assistant coach on the Hong Kong staff. “He was batting in the middle order, and coming into the final over I was actually very confident. I said to Charlie Burke, who was head coach, ‘As long as Babar is still there when we’re facing the last over, we’ll still win this.'”As was the case in Abu Dhabi, Chapman and Hayat steered Hong Kong through a big chunk of the chase against Afghanistan with a 48-run stand, but Chapman fell caught on the boundary on the first ball of the final over, bowled by Mohammad Nabi, leaving 16 off five balls to win. Hayat came on strike for the second ball and clubbed a four and six to make it six off three balls.A wide and a three followed, putting Hayat’s fresh partner, Tanwir Afzal, on strike with two needed off two. A calamitous dropped return chance that ended in a run-out by Nabi allowed Hayat to get back on strike for the final ball, with his old high-school friend Aizaz at the non-striker’s end. Despite being known as Hong Kong’s biggest basher, Hayat instead showed maturity and clear-headed thinking given the situation.”When I went in and spoke to him, he wasn’t nervous or feeling the pressure,” Aizaz said. “He just said he’s not gonna go for a big hit, that he’d hit it along the ground, get one first and try to get the second, and that’s what happened. Nabi tried to bowl a quicker one and Babar just played it to long-off, toward extra cover, enough so we could get the second run.”Early in 2016, Hong Kong headed to the Asia Cup T20 Qualifier for some crucial preparation ahead of the World T20. Hayat produced the highest score by an Associate player in T20I cricket, making 122 off 60 balls against Oman in a match more infamously remembered for Chapman being mankaded at a key moment in a five-run loss for Hong Kong. However, those involved on the Hong Kong side felt the bigger culprit for the loss was ironically Hayat – his poor fitness, to be precise, in the heat and humidity of Fatullah.Babar blasts off during the World Cup Qualifiers•IDI/Getty Images”I was totally gone,” Hayat said. “I didn’t want to bat. My legs were gone, my hamstrings were tired, my body was sore. I didn’t want to play the next game because I was so tired. I didn’t want to mention it to the coaches because they knew my fitness wasn’t good because I was cramping.””He ended up on the losing side because he was over 100 kilos in weight and he wasn’t able to sustain his innings over 20 overs,” Cook said. “At that point, [122] was the third highest T20I score in any nation. So he had a fantastic innings, but his physical condition ended up costing us the game effectively. And it was that innings that cost him from being able to perform in the World T20 because he was so physically exhausted still, three weeks after that innings.”At the opening round of the World T20 in India, Hayat turned in scores of 9, 0 and 15 as Hong Kong went winless. The spillover fitness issues from the Asia Cup hundred against Oman opened his eyes, and prompted the coaching staff to sit him down for a frank discussion.”It was after those two back-to-back tournaments that we sat down outlining plans for the next four-year cycle,” Cook said. “I sat down with Babar at that point in player reviews and said to him: your weight is an issue. That was the time we were just converting to full-time contracts. The skinfolds, yo-yo tests, 20-metre sprints – the players were starting to become more accountable. It was no longer such a club-cricket environment of pitch up, play and go home. We had quite a harsh conversation. He took it on board and really rose to the challenge.”The combination of a full-time contract, working with the Hong Kong Institute of Sport and their dieticians – he went from just over 100 kilos to 89 or 88 kilos prior to the 2016 WCL round five against Ireland and Scotland.”

“Whenever we’d see Babar at the gym, we’d all want to work hard and get fit”Team-mate Aizaz Khan

Aizaz witnessed first-hand the work that Hayat put into shedding the weight. Hayat would often recruit him and one or two others for late-night runs above and beyond the afternoon training routine for squad players.”Those two or three months, whenever we’d see Babar at the gym, we’d all want to work hard and get fit,” Aizaz says.As his waistline got slimmer, Hayat’s run-scoring column got fatter. Early in 2017, he made 173 against Netherlands in their Intercontinental Cup clash, then scored two half-centuries in the one-dayers that followed. At the end of the year, he batted the better part of two days to score an unbeaten 214 against PNG.”Between where he was in 2014 to where he is now, there’s a number of differences. One, he’s technically much, much better,” Cook said. “In 2014, he wasn’t particularly fit. He couldn’t bat for 50 overs potentially. His physical condition is much better and his technical ability to bat for long periods of time has allowed his free-scoring intent to now flourish.”He can keep all the good balls out and continues to score very freely off the balls that are into his strength areas. A key area of development going forward is just giving him the ability to bat for long and not feel like he has to try to take scoring options because it’s a matter of time before he gets out.”The mental fortitude Hayat has demonstrated, whether at the crease in key moments during crunch games or in waging a weight-loss battle in the gym, is something he has worked hard at spreading to the rest of his team-mates. It’s a trait that helped them in a hard-fought win over Afghanistan in Zimbabwe, their first ODI victory over a Full Member.If Hong Kong make it through to the Super Sixes, there will be an uphill battle: they will need three wins and some help on tiebreakers to reach the World Cup. An equally daunting challenge may await them in the consolation bracket should they end up there, needing to secure two wins to keep ODI status, and essentially the funding that will keep players like Hayat on full-time professional contracts. Whatever the challenge, the Hong Kong squad will look for Hayat’s bat to set the tone.”What you see is what you get with Babar,” Cook said. “He’s not one to stand up and give big Churchillian speeches and all of that sort of stuff. He’s very much ‘lead by example’ and the guys do follow him. It’s a culture within our dressing room where people tend to gravitate toward the best player and that’s why we looked at Babar as being one of those characters. We did feel he had the potential to really become a dominant force in Associate cricket and fortunately that has come true.”

MatériaMais Notícias

Se a estreia do São Paulo contra o Ituano desagradou, o Tricolor pode apostar no bom retrospecto contra a Ferroviária para conseguir a primeira vitória do Campeonato Paulista 2023. As equipes se enfrentam nesta quinta-feira (19), na Arena Fonte Luminosa. Ou seja, também é o primeiro jogo fora de casa no ano.

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O empate por 0 a 0 com a equipe de Itu, em partida disputada no estádio do Morumbi, desagradou os 45 mil torcedores são-paulinos presentes. Ao término do confronto, o elenco de Rogério Ceni deixou o gramado sob vaias. Agora, contra o time de Araraquara, existe a chance de buscar uma certa ‘redenção’.

ATUAÇÕES: Ataque do São Paulo é pouco eficiente em empate na estreia; veja as notas

Veja tabela do Campeonato Paulista e simule os próximos jogos

Veja as movimentações do São Paulo no mercado da bola

De acordo com levantamentos do historiador Michael Serra, o Tricolor paulista não é derrotado pelo clube desde 1995. Nesta ocasião, encarou a Ferroviária na Fonte Luminosa, também pelo Paulista, e perdeu por 1 a 0. Desde então, foram sete jogos realizados, com quatro empates e três vitórias. O jogo mais recente aconteceu em 2021, pelas quartas de finais do Paulista, e foi um resultado importantíssimo para o clube do Morumbi.

Na época, o São Paulo encarou a Ferroviária em casa. Venceu por 4 a 2, com gols deGabriel Sara, Liziero, Igor Vinicius e Pablo. Graças ao resultado, a partida – que foi válida pelas quartas de finais do estadual – classificou o Tricolor para a semifinal da competição.

Mais tarde, o São Paulo se tornaria campeão paulista e romperia um jejum de títulos que era mantido desde 2012. Dos marcadores deste confronto, Liziero e Igor Vinícius ainda fazem parte do plantel.

Em um retrospecto geral, o São Paulo também conta com um saldo positivo contra o adversário. Ainda segundo os dados do historiador Michael Serra, dos 78 encontros na história, o Tricolor venceu 39, empatou 21 e foi derrotado em 18. Na Fonte Luminosa, palco da partida desta quinta-feira (18), foram 38 jogos. Destes, 15 vitórias, 11 empates e 12 derrotas.

O duelo desta quinta-feira (19) será o primeiro da sequência de dois jogos longe do Morumbi que o Tricolor terá. Logo no domingo (22), encontra o Palmeiras no Allianz Parque, em jogo válido pelo primeiro clássico do ano. O confronto com a Ferroviária será às 19h30.

Relembre os encontros do São Paulo com a Ferroviária desde 1995

08/06/1995 – Ferroviária 1 x 0 São Paulo
16/07/1995 – Ferroviária 0 x 0 São Paulo
14/03/1996 – Ferroviária 1 x 1 São Paulo
15/05/1996 – São Paulo 2 x 0 Ferroviária
25/02/2018 – São Paulo 0 x 0 Ferroviária
09/03/2019 – São Paulo 1 x 1 Ferroviária
29/01/2021 – Ferroviária 1 x 2 São Paulo
14/05/2021 – São Paulo 4 x 2 Ferroviária

It’s not impossible, though rather improbable. Here’s a look at how things might go

S Rajesh24-Apr-2024How can RCB make the top four?
For a moment, however unlikely it might seem, let’s assume that RCB win each of their remaining six matches, starting with the one against Sunrisers Hyderabad on Thursday. They will then finish on 14 points. Then, if other results go their way, they could finish in the top four without going into an NRR scenario.The best-case scenario for RCB will be if the top two or three teams run away with plenty of wins, leaving the rest of the teams fighting for the crumbs. Given the current IPL 2024 standings, it’s most likely that those teams will be Rajasthan Royals, Kolkata Knight Riders and Sunrisers.If we assume that Royals will win four of their remaining six, and KKR and Sunrisers five of their remaining seven, then they will finish on 22, 20 and 20 points respectively. In that case, it is possible that RCB, with 14 points, will finish fourth with the other teams on 12 or fewer points.Can RCB even make it to No. 3?
Since you – RCB fan – are being rather greedy, let’s see.Let’s assume Sunrisers and KKR both suffer a sudden, and acute, slump in form and finish on 12 points – so just one win in the remaining seven matches. Let’s also assume that one of the other teams, say Lucknow Super Giants, strike a purple patch and win five of their last six. Then LSG will get to 20, and finish in the top two along with Royals. RCB will then finish third on 14 points, with six teams tied on 12. That scenario is also possible if one of KKR and Sunrisers finish in the top two.So RCB can make it – mathematically – even if they lose to Sunrisers
Yes. With 12 points – the maximum they can get then – they will still be in contention. In a bizarre points-distribution scenario, it’s possible for eight teams to finish on 12 points, fighting for two spots.However, for any of these scenarios to work for RCB, they will have to start winning, and keep winning, ideally by sizeable margins.