The latter half of Angelo Mathews’ captaincy wore his batting down. As Sri Lanka prepare to face the top-ranked side in the world, they need Mathews the batsman to let the weight fall and rediscover his old freedom

Andrew Fidel Fernando24-Jul-2017Angelo Mathews, 30 years old, former captain, once the owner of a fearsome average, now merely a very good one, potentially a great batsman still, but man, the last 18 months have not been kind.For a player of such indisputable quality, it has been a strange decline.Remember how he had been in 2014 – that last great year of Sri Lankan cricket – when out of nowhere, he hit a harvest so golden, so irrepressible, that he bludgeoned attacks into pulp, nurdled without relent, left no advertising board unstung by his boundary hits, and even when off the field, probably coughed up, sneezed and exhaled runs.There was that monstrous 160 at Headingley, of course, when he threw his bat in anger at a team-mate’s dismissal, then set about busting England up all by himself. There had also been a sweaty 157 not out to save a tough game in Abu Dhabi, and a difficult 43 not out to set up a victory at SSC. At times, Mathews seemed to have supernatural help. Having hooked Sri Lanka towards victory late on the fifth afternoon in Galle, against Pakistan, the furious black cloud that had bore down on a packed stadium held off its torrents until he was taking the winning run. He averaged 87.80 and played the lead role in a famous series victory in England. So thoroughly did Mathews own 2014, that Kumar Sangakkara scored more international runs than has ever been made in a calendar year, and still, quite happily admitted his captain had been the better batsman – prospering on every type of surface from greentop to dustbowl, producing every kind of innings from stonewall to sprint.Now, three years between himself and his best work, Mathews finds himself surpassed. He was once the torchbearer for the next generation of great batsmen, but what’s this? Four younger men have snuck by him, mounting hundreds upon hundreds in years in which he has not averaged thirty. And while Mathews had been stuck attending Sri Lanka’s transition into transition into transition, each of Virat Kohli, Steven Smith, Joe Root, and Kane Williamson have taken the reins of happier, more confident sides. Mathews will be thankful for last year’s Test series against Australia, at least, when he for once got the better of one of those younger men. Otherwise, since the beginning of 2016, his would have been one long, sombre vigil.And this is perhaps the most unfortunate thing about the dip in his arc: where once leadership had unlocked the great batsman within him, the latter half of Mathews’ captaincy so clearly wore him down. Every time he fronted up after a match and declared his team’s performance to be “humiliating” or “embarrassing” or his “worst loss as captain” or “one of the lowest points” in his career, Mathews the batsman appeared a little more diminished in his next innings.Where’s the rampaging Angelo Mathews of 2014?•Getty ImagesThere were no technical failures during this leaner period. Well, not really. He does occasionally hang his bat out against the seaming ball, and that had been the source of some strife in South Africa this year. But far worse has been the lack of conviction in his strokes, pushing tentatively even after he has struck firm boundaries, handing out soft dismissals to every team that rolls up – the recent caught-and-bowled to Graeme Cremer being a prime example.For that Test – against Zimbabwe – Mathews had already handed over the reins, but there was still none of the old freedom about his game. When you are captain, you tie yourself so tightly to the team’s fate, that maybe it takes a little untangling to feel your old self again.India’s last tour of Sri Lanka in 2015 was the last the world saw of Mathews the great batsman. In that series, he had averaged 56.50 on pitches favouring bowlers, and outscored India’s best batsman – Kohli – by more than 100 runs.In 26 innings since, 735 runs at 28.26 have been his returns. This, for a man who once mopped up top-order spills better than anyone in the world, wiped nervous sweat off tail-enders’ brows and charged them to bat better in his company than they ever had before. And if all else failed, and a loss was certain, he would at least hit a few quick runs and make the scoreline more presentable.Sri Lanka have no more need for Mathews the captain. As they prepare to face the top-ranked side in the world, Mathews the batsman they could use plenty of.There is no better time to shed the despondence of the last few months. No better time to let the weight fall, and to discover the joy that once coursed through his game.This time, do it for yourself, Angelo. It could be the best thing you do for your team.

Doing it once is hard enough, but to accelerate so crazily to get three double-hundreds after a sedate beginning is a perfect combination of skill, fitness and the right mental approach to ODI batting

Sidharth Monga13-Dec-20171:01

Rohit, the ODI superstar

It was for long the insurmountable peak for ODI batting, but one man might now have a template to score ODI double-centuries again and again. In Bengaluru, against Australia in 2013, Rohit Sharma reached 20 off 35th ball, 50 off the 71st, and the hundred in the 38th over of the innings. In Kolkata, against Sri Lanka in 2014, he was nearly caught for 4 off the 17th ball he faced, reached his 20th run off the 35th ball, but accelerated slightly earlier to bring up his century in the 32nd over of the innings. On a cold mid-week afternoon in Mohali this season, he was even slower to start, reaching 20 off 37 balls, 50 off 65 balls, and bringing up the hundred only in the 40th over.All three were ODI doubles. One time can be a charm, but to accelerate so crazily three times after having set up the innings and to make it look predictable is a perfect combination of skill, fitness and the right mental approach to ODI batting. You can be all amazed at how he manages to do it, but Rohit’s reaction to it is typically relaxed. “That’s my template, no?” he tends to ask. He remembers the innings clearly: reaching “50 off 70 balls”, bringing up the hundred “near the 40th over”, and then knowing that the bowlers can’t get him out unless he makes a mistake.”That is my style of play,” Rohit said. “You are set and seeing the ball nice and hard and you have understood what the bowlers are trying to do by then, and it’s all about trying to play with the field once you get past 100. It’s all about you not making a mistake and getting out. I am not saying it’s impossible or difficult, but it’s very unlikely the bowlers are going to get you out once you have scored a hundred.”So it was all about me not making a mistake and batting as long as possible. That’s what I did. There is no secret or formula to it. You just have to bat and not make any mistake. The ground is good, the pitch is nice and hard, so you can trust the bounce and play the shots.”Rohit was asked to expand on the mindset. “I started off very slow because I like analysing,” Rohit said. “I like to analyse the situation, conditions more than that because the conditions initially were not so easy and we wanted to play out those initial overs, and then see what we can do. In all the three double hundreds, it is a very similar pattern that you will see… started off slow, then picked up the pace and then in the end I accelerated.”That is only because unless you make a mistake, you are not going to get out because you are set and you are seeing the ball well. Bowlers are trying to get away with their plans because things are not going their way. So all those things, I count, I analyse and I talk to myself about it when I am batting. I feel after you get a hundred, batting will only get easier. You have been there, took out the toughest part of the game which is the initial phase with the two new balls. You have batted that, your team is in a good position and you also have wickets in hand, so all those put together, gives you freedom to play those shots. I exactly did that.”I am not someone like AB de Villiers, or Chris Gayle, or MS Dhoni for sure. I don’t have that much power. I have to use my brain to manipulate the field and I have to stick to my strength, which is to hitting through the line and playing with the field. Once you cross the three-figure mark, batting only gets easier. Unless you make a mistake, you will not get out. It can happen if you get a good ball, but eight out of 10 times you will not.”This might have sounded arrogant had it come from someone other than the affable Rohit. He does make it sound like the six-hitting in the last 10 overs is routine, easy even. “Nothing is easy in cricket,” Rohit said. “May be when you watch it on TV it looks easier, but it is not. Trust me, when you are out in the middle, you have to use your brain and you have to time the ball. Otherwise, it is not easy. I was trying to play with the field, playing a scoop shot, trying to hit over point. Those are my strengths. It is not always that you can clear the rope easily. So that is the advantage of having five fielders inside. You can play with the field and shot selection becomes very important.”How about selecting which of the doubles is closest to him then? They all are, and Rohit went on to talk of the circumstances that made it impossible to choose between them. “I cannot rate this because the others were as important as this one,” Rohit said. “Because the first one against Australia was a series-decider. The second one against Sri Lanka I was making a comeback after three months. I was injured before that and didn’t play any cricket. It was a world record so obviously that has to be right up there. This one also having had a loss in the first game, we wanted to come back as batting group. This is my first captaincy stint, and you know I as a batsman first and then as a captain I wanted to do well.”This one did have an extra icing on the top, coming as it did on his wedding anniversary and in the presence of his wife, whom he saluted with a little peck on his ring finger after reaching the double hundred. “You must have seen on visuals, she was more happy than me,” Rohit said. “She got a little emotional because it was the first double-hundred that she witnessed. It is not that I score double-hundreds every day. The way she came and told me was quite funny. But it was good to have her there and let her witness what I did today. I am very happy about that part. But more than that, winning the game… my first [successful] game as a captain… very happy with that.”

Four years on from the famous leak, how well do you remember England’s much-derided Ashes 2013-14 cookbook?

ESPNcricinfo staff10-Nov-2017

He has broken records on his home ground, and his last innings at Trent Bridge was 147, but it may not be enough for Hales to keep his place

George Dobell11-Jul-20180:36

WATCH – The moment Hales injured his side

By the time Alex Hales left the pitch at Trent Bridge a couple of weeks ago, he could have been forgiven for thinking he had made his point.He had, after all, just made 147 from 92 balls. And, in doing so, he had helped his side to a second-successive world-record ODI score in completed games on this ground. In the previous one, in 2016, he had smashed 171 from 122 balls. He averages 88.20 in six ODIs at the ground with a strike-rate of 138.24. You might think his position was assured.But it’s not. For with Ben Stokes back to fitness and Joe Root recalled having been dropped from the T20 side, something has to give. And that something, it seems, is likely to be Hales.Who else could it be? Jonny Bairstow has made four centuries in his eight most recent ODI innings; Jason Roy has made two centuries (and an 82) in his four most recent ODI innings; Root averages a fraction under 50 in this format and is seen as essential should England encounter a tricky batting surface and Eoin Morgan is both the captain and the highest run-scorer in England’s ODI history. And Jos Buttler, well he’s Jos Buttler. He might well be on his way to establishing himself as the best limited-overs batsman England have ever had.The management have decided they like the security of playing the extra bowler – with Stokes and Root you could argue they have a seventh bowler – so despite Hales’ record, despite him playing one of his most mature innings as recently as Friday (he made a classy, unbeaten 58 to see England to victory in Cardiff), despite this match being played on his home ground, he looks the most vulnerable. Even with Stokes, at this stage of his recovery from injury, unlikely to be required to bowl more than six or seven overs.This strength in depth is, of course, an asset. It provides reinforcements should injury strike and ensures there can be no complacency in the camp.But it also brings with it some potential issues. For with the standards required to retain a place in the side now so high, it might leave everyone in the squad peering over their shoulder. And once that starts, it can threaten both the stability of the side and the selflessness with which they have played of late.Morgan’s recent record, for example, is comfortably the least impressive of the batsmen. But while it would be fairly typical of England’s previous World Cup campaigns to abandon a long-held plan in the run-up to a tournament, you would think that lessons have been learned and nobody is seriously suggesting one of the architects of England’s revival should be dropped. England could do without a situation where a couple of poor games results in a player’s position coming under scrutiny but, once you leave a man like Hales out, it seems inevitable.Perhaps this is making a negative out of a positive. Certainly Root, who was omitted from England’s T20 side in Bristol on Sunday, suggested so when reflecting on that situation and it’s true that, right now, there are no obvious cracks in the settled, positive environment around this team.To see the squad laughing and cheering together as Stokes did a more than passable Jordan Pickford impression and save three successive penalties in the pre-training football, was to see what gives every impression of being a settled, united squad. The next few months may require some careful management, though.”Being left out is a great motivator to make sure you’re doing everything you can,” Root said. “It is always difficult being left out and you never like that as a player.”But it demonstrates the competition we have for places. It’s part and parcel of having a really strong squad. And, ahead of a World Cup, that’s what you want. You want guys outside pushing as hard as possible and forcing those difficult decisions. It shows where we have come in the last three or four years in this format. It can’t be a bad thing.”It is equally not a bad thing that England are likely to face an almighty test of their newly-acquired reputation in ODI cricket over the next week or so, too. The long-term aim remains the World Cup and the next few days will provide a pretty good gauge for both these sides of where they are and what they need to improve. There are no guarantees, of course, and readers in Pakistan and Australia may disagree, but whoever beats these sides next year is likely to be very close to winning the tournament.The absence of Chris Woakes remains painful for England. It’s not just his bowling – though he is probably England’s best death bowler – but the security he provides with the bat at No. 8. David Willey, while dangerous when the ball swings, has a bit to prove once it does not. Tellingly, he has only once delivered 10 overs in an ODI in the last couple of years and, on that occasion, England lost against Scotland.Equally, England’s spinners are likely to be tested more in this series than they were by a spinaphobic – no, you probably won’t find that word in a dictionary – Australia and the entire batting line-up is likely to be confronted by more skill and more variation. It looks, in short, like being a high-quality encounter between two sides on top of their games. There’s no World Cup on offer but we might well have a better idea of who is likely to lift it in a year’s time after the next week.

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.

In the year of ball-tampering and bans, a weakened team found a way to survive more overs than any Australian side before them to snatch a dramatic draw

Daniel Brettig in Dubai11-Oct-2018For the first time in 2018, new territory for Australian cricket represents a point of pride rather than a moment of madness. In the year of ball-tampering, bans and backlash, a severely weakened Test team found a way to survive more overs than any Australian side before them to snatch a draw from Pakistan out of the dust of Dubai. History made, leaving a series still to be won.When Australia began their occupation on day four, they faced the prospect of 140 overs to block out; more than a day and a half of batting on a pockmarked and spinning pitch. In the team’s rearview mirror was the loss of all 10 wickets for 60 runs on day two; looming in the headlights were Yasir Shah, Bilal Asif and Mohammad Abbas.Never had Australia lasted more than 90 overs in the fourth innings for a draw in Asia. A team shorn of Steven Smith and David Warner? Forgeddaboutit! To paraphrase Ray Warren’s call of an end-to-end Queensland try in a famous State of Origin encounter, that’s not a draw, that’s a miracle.And whose miracle was this, forged amid enervating heat and all sorts of mental blocks. It belonged, chiefly, to Usman Khawaja, conjuring the greatest of his Test innings and one of the greatest save-a-game efforts in all of Test history. Only Michael Atherton, for 643 minutes at Johannesburg in 1995, had batted longer in a fourth innings than Khawaja’s 524 minutes for 141. Much as the Wanderers has remained Atherton’s signature moment, so too Dubai will always be associated with Khawaja.From the very start of his first-innings 85, Khawaja showed evidence of strong planning, deep concentration and vastly improved fitness. While he joined his team-mates in the hole they fell into after an initial opening stand of 142 with Aaron Finch, Khawaja had provided an example for others, as underlined by a post-play discussion in the middle with the rest of the side’s left-handers. As Travis Head attested, Khawaja’s strength of mind and sureness of method was something to be followed.In the second innings, Khawaja added a fusillade of reverse sweeps, 21 in all, to confound Yasir in particular. In the consistency of the shot’s use and its proficiency, Khawaja recalled a famous World Cup innings by Graham Gooch at Mumbai in 1987, when he swept Maninder Singh and India out of the tournament. But the use of attack as the best form of defence over such a prolonged period provided a reminder of how much quality may be found in Khawaja’s cultured hands, now without peer as the most skilled in this Australian batting line-up. He played the innings of a senior player, and a leader. As so many in the team had said before this match, it should not require the bestowal of a formal title to make one.Accompanying Khawaja for the best part of 50 overs across close to two full sessions was Head, the South Australian captain and debutant. Here was another example of deep concentration but also rapid learning. Having looked lost in the first innings, Head found his way through the testing early passages on the fourth evening and slowly gathered confidence, punching the ball with clear intent off both front and back feet. He did not always get it right: the sweep did not work for him and he may easily have been lbw playing it against Yasir when he was on 44. But overall Head showed he was a willing pupil in these conditions, and with Khawaja turned the draw from a theoretical possibility to a tangible one.Usman Khawaja gets down the track to hit straight•Getty ImagesAfter Head and Marnus Labuschagne both fell to skidding deliveries made possible by the second new ball, Tim Paine walked to the middle with a keen desire to salvage more from this day. He had, as a far younger man, made quality runs in Asian conditions on the 2010 tour of India – at the time describing conditions as the toughest he had ever encountered. But now as Australian captain, having also delivered 222.1 spotless overs behind the stumps, Paine was highly invested in this team and this scenario.His early overs in the middle were fraught just about every ball. One Yasir legbreak, left alone with a clear sight of the stumps, failed to disturb the off peg by approximately one millimetre, and there were numerous other strangled appeals. But little by little, Paine gained a foothold, aided by Khawaja’s serene presence at the other end. Slowly the minutes ticked past, and tea arrived without a further wicket. Five left to survive the match’s final session, in which an average of 4.75 wickets had fallen across each of the previous four days, meant that Paine’s Australians now had a glimmer, however slight.When eventually fatigue and sweeping got the better of Khawaja, lbw to a perfectly pitched googly by Yasir from around the wicket, the final hour had already begun. Time was running short, but there was plenty for Pakistan to conjure a win – just ask the West Indies and their inattentive No. 11 Shannon Gabriel. Mitchell Starc and Peter Siddle were unable to endure, as 15 overs with five wickets left became 12 with a measly two. Nathan Lyon, so often the last man out in Australian defeats, marched to the middle at No. 10.The closing overs were incredibly tense, with the benefit of a Paine inside edge onto pad meaning that Pakistan were out of reviews. Yasir, Abbas and Bilal all tried their wares, with Sarfraz Ahmed unwilling to try a wayward Wahab Riaz, despite his greater pace. Paine’s bat, for the most part broad, also found fortuitous edges, one fractionally over the stumps from Yasir, another marginally past them from Abbas. Strained smiles from Pakistan’s fielders and an increasingly grimacing face from their coach Mickey Arthur told a tale that climaxed with something as simple as a Paine forward defence, and then a fist pump. Australia did not, in the end, bat out 140 overs, but only because Sarfraz offered his hand to Paine after 139.5.For the coach Justin Langer, this was a result to epitomise the type of Australian team he and Paine are trying to build – hard to beat at first, and then ever more frequently victorious. Langer, of course, had been involved in one other result commonly viewed as miraculous, the fabled Hobart chase against Pakistan in 1999. Where that victory, complete with centuries to Langer and Adam Gilchrist, had jumpstarted Australia’s reign of dominance, this one picked a previously forlorn team off the Newlands killing floor.Langer has reflected on that result, where his outward positivity when Gilchrist arrived had masked a sense of impending doom, and thoughts mainly of keeping his tenuous spot. “Gilly walks out, and I’m being positive, saying, ‘If you just hang in there, you never know what could happen. Let’s see if we can stick it out till stumps, it might rain tomorrow’. He goes, ‘Yeah, yeah, no worries’,” Langer said last year. “I was just trying to say the right things but thinking to myself, we’re going to lose this Test but if I get 50 not out I might get another Test match…”Similar exchanges were had between Khawaja and Head, then Khawaja and Paine. In the closing overs, Paine and Lyon tried to relax by talking about watching episodes of . But at the end of all that talk, the nerves, the sweat and the sweeps, was salvation of a kind Australian cricket had not previously seen. In it came a significance that recalled Hobart, as Langer has often said: “It was significant personally, but for the Australian cricket team, it was actually the [third] of our 16-match winning streak. I think we thought if we could win from there, we could win from anywhere.”This wasn’t a win, but very close to it for the psyche of this team. At the end of another famous draw, in 1984 against the West Indies, the then recently retired Rod Marsh rang the Caribbean to inform the batting hero Allan Border and the captain Kim Hughes that a rare non-winning rendition of the team song had his blessing. In the heat, dust and glare of Dubai, another Australian team forged a similar piece of history, at a time when it was so sorely needed.

It has been a far from simple build-up for Joe Root with injury and form concerns to deal with. The final XI looks exciting, but also a gamble

George Dobell at the Ageas Bowl29-Aug-20185:46

Compton: England top-order lacks backbone

When England were at their best between 2009 and 2011 or so there was a predictability about almost every aspect of their cricket.They had a settled batting line-up, a settled slip cordon and a settled bowling attack. Squad announcements could be cut and pasted for months at a time.Those days are long gone. It might just prove that England have stumbled upon the perfect line-up ahead of the fourth Test in Southampton, but it feels patched together rather than engineered.There is some justification behind the tinkering. Jonny Bairstow, for example, has a finger injury that necessitated he relinquish the gloves, while Chris Woakes has a long-standing quad issue that rendered him unfit for selection. Ben Stokes also has a knee problem that will limit the number of overs he can deliver. The knock-on effects of those injuries was bound to create ripples.But England go into this game looking just a little vulnerable. Few of their batsmen are in their regular positions, after all, and there are four left-handers in the top seven against an attack that favours them. And, as well a new keeper and slip cordon – well, not new so much as revisited – they appear to have abandoned their continuity of selection policy. Meanwhile, their most pressing problem – the fragility of their opening partnership – has not been addressed at all.None of that necessarily makes the selection of the side wrong. It’s just that England have a side stacked with aggressive allrounders most of whom would be best placed batting at No. 6 and very few candidates to strengthen the top three. And in asking Bairstow to move up to No. 4 – an unusual response to a man breaking a finger – they are asking him to fulfil a role he has almost never attempted in county cricket and for which he expressed little enthusiasm on Tuesday.It is not impossible he could make a go of it. He has the talent and it could even be the making of him. But if he is to make it work, he may well have to curb the natural aggressive instincts that have earned him much of the success he has enjoyed to this point. If, as is entirely possible, he comes to the crease within the first 10 overs and continues to push at the ball, he will quickly expose a middle-order that looks more exciting than reliable.The same could be said for most of the batsmen. Joe Root wants to bat No. 4, Stokes has spent most of his career at No. 6 and it is only a few months since Ed Smith, the national selector, talked about Jos Buttler as an ideal No. 7. A few days ago, Moeen Ali scored a double-hundred against a strong Yorkshire attack while batting at No. 3. There is, for sure, some method in the madness of mixing all that up. But there may be some chaos, too.Collision course: Ben Stokes and Alastair Cook bump into each other during training•Getty ImagesEngland have altered their slip cordon, again, too. Root, whose catching gained a far from effusive review from Trevor Bayliss only a couple of weeks ago, will field at second slip with Stokes at third replacing Keaton Jennings. It said a lot for England’s lack of confidence in the position that Root explained the changes not by way of suggesting they would catch better as much as they would deal with the disappointment of drops better.”The hardest thing to get your head around in Test cricket is dealing with when you’ve dropped one,” Root said. “It’s easier to ask experienced guys who have done that a lot more to handle it better.”Ollie Pope is a particularly unfortunate victim of all the tinkering. Asked to fulfil a role that was alien to him – he bats No. 6 for Surrey but was required to bat at No. 4 for England – he has been jettisoned after just three Test innings. As a result, he could be forgiven for wondering what happened to the policy whereby a player was given “one Test too many rather than one too few” that has been touted so often in recent times.Dom Bess (two Tests) and Jack Leach (one Test), who appear to have become England’s third and fourth-choice spinners, could be forgiven similar thoughts. Perhaps Sam Curran, who was dropped a couple of Tests after producing a player of the match performance, too. You wonder whether such treatment – and the insecurity it can breed – compromises their development and confidence within the dressing room. And if it doesn’t, why can’t Alastair Cook, or other experienced players, be dropped when out of form? It seems, at present, as if England find it much easier to drop according to age than merit. Bess, Curran and Pope were all 20.”That’s part of international sport,” Root said in explanation of the Bairstow decision. “You don’t always get what you want. And hopefully he uses it in the right way to continue to work really hard at that side of his game. And he and Jos two can push each other to keep improving in that department.”There were no guarantees that Bairstow would win the gloves back, either. With every chance that his finger will not have improved sufficiently for England to make any change ahead of the final Test at The Oval, it seems Buttler will retain the job. Then, when the side travels to Sri Lanka, it will be unclear who the first choice keeper has become.Admirably meritocratic? Or unnecessarily destabilising? We’ll see. But you do wonder how many people in that dressing room are starting to look over their shoulders.There was one nice moment at the end of training on Thursday. Once all the players had left the field, Mark Nicholas and Robin Smith – both hugely popular and significant figures in Hampshire cricket – emerged from one of the function rooms overlooking the ground and took some pictures of one another playing imaginary shots on the Test pitch. Smith has had some tough times in recent years so to see him in fine fettle and, even without a bat, unleashing that famous square-cut was heartening and reviving. How England could do with a batsman of his class now.

Nair is not the first batsman to have gone through selection mismanagement in recent times, but his handling by the team management, in particular, has been baffling

Sidharth Monga30-Sep-2018Manoj Prabhakar was a brave, street-smart cricketer, whose spirit of rebellion Indian cricket could have well done without. Those who played with him tell you he carried a deep-rooted resentment for the system ever since Kapil Dev called up Madan Lal from the England leagues to replace the injured Chetan Sharma in the Headingley Test on the 1986 tour of England. As a member of the squad already, Prabhakar believed he had earned the right to play the Test when Chetan got injured. But the India captain had other ideas.Ajinkya Rahane in recent times has gone through similar mismanagement. He and Rohit Sharma went through the whole Australia tour of 2011-12 giving throwdowns to each other in a corner even as India stumbled from one defeat to another. In the year that followed, Rohit played himself out of the Test side through poor form on the tour to Sri Lanka. Two players retired; Cheteshwar Pujara took one place, and out of nowhere came Yuvraj Singh to usurp Rahane in the queue. He didn’t get a chance either in first-class cricket, to score the runs needed for selection, or in the Test XI. So much so that when Yuvraj was finally dropped, India picked Ravindra Jadeja, a bowler, ahead of Rahane.There wasn’t much in the name of a support system to help these players out. They had to fend for themselves. You hope there is someone talking to Karun Nair right now, explaining to him why he is not part of the Test squad against West Indies and what the future holds for him. By all accounts – Nair told as much – the team management did not do so when they kept him out of the XI for six straight Tests.At some level, Nair seems to be caught in the crossfire between the selectors and the team management. One thing was clear from the South Africa tour earlier this year: the team management rated Rohit Sharma ahead of even Ajinkya Rahane, leave alone Nair. The selectors gave them Nair as the reserve batsman in England. The team management responded by refusing to play Nair even when the situation and conditions called for the reinforcing of the batting.Even when the team management gave in and finally played an extra batsman, it was not Nair. A bolter, Hanuma Vihari, made his way into the squad through first-class runs, something Nair could not have done sitting on the bench on a long tour where India didn’t play a single first-class game outside the Tests. Nair spent close to two months with the India squad impressing Shankar Basu, the trainer, with his fitness.The handling of Nair drove Sunil Gavaskar to anger during the England tour. “I know he has not been your favourite player. You don’t want to pick him,” was one of the instructive things Gavaskar said after India picked Vihari for the Oval Test, “you” being the team management. Vihari, of course, scored a half-century at The Oval, and has now got a chance to book his place for the Australia tour. India don’t have the services of the injured allrounder Hardik Pandya for the home series against West Indies, which means a sixth batsman is likely to play, and these are home runs against a much lower-ranked opponent. These are runs that ensured Rohit played ahead of Rahane in South Africa. These are runs Nair would have thought he should have had a chance to score. And this is being said with no ill will towards Vihari, who was at the right place in the right time and grabbed his opportunity.As usual, the selectors refuse to comment. This particular selection process has been especially curious. The selectors met in Delhi three days before the actual announcement of the squad but the BCCI said the meeting had nothing to do with this selection even though the secretary had called for a selection meeting that day. The announcement was made through a release that omitted to mention when the selectors actually met, or if they did actually meet.Yet the selectors need to be given that slim benefit of doubt. They possibly realise that if Nair is going to warm the bench during this series – which, let’s face it, seems to be his fate – he may as well score runs in domestic cricket. Except that the only domestic cricket on at that time will be of the shorter variety. There is still time for Nair, though. There is inspiration for him in his state team-mate Mayank Agarwal, who has scored so many runs again and again that it has been impossible to look away. Do that, and who knows Nair might see the selectors fight for him again when they have room for 17 men on the Australia tour.

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One man who seems to have lost backers in the selection committee is Shikhar Dhawan. In Tests, he is that peculiar cricketer who seems fortunate to be there, and at the same time unfortunate when he is eventually left out. That’s possibly because he makes his comebacks through limited-overs runs or injuries to others, then scores massively at home, and fails to score those runs in difficult conditions away from home. However, he also seems unfortunate when dropped because you can see he is putting in all the effort to try to succeed. He fights himself, he fights his natural game, he does all that with a smile, and still something or the other gets the better of him.Shikhar Dhawan blows a kiss to the crowd•Getty ImagesAnd so Dhawan is out again, yet again having failed to complete an away series: before England, he has been dropped midway in South Africa, Australia and also on the last tour of England. Yet it is possible to say Dhawan is unlucky to miss out. As the numbers of other top-order batsmen will tell you, the conditions in England were really tough for the openers. Dhawan showed the will to guts it out, consistently asking the bowlers to bowl good balls to get him out. After the first four Tests – the live Tests – Dhawan was easily the best of the five openers that played that series.It was at The Oval that the openers finally managed to score centuries, Alastair Cook for England and KL Rahul for India. This Test featured the best batting conditions of the series, and bowlers at their most tired in a dead rubber. It is quite possible Dhawan might have secured his place had he scored runs here, but he got two really good balls to get out. It is also imaginable that Dhawan could have done well in Australia where the sideways movement is less pronounced and much shorter lived, but there won’t be too many crying for Dhawan because he has had a lot of opportunities and doesn’t have the difficult runs to show for it.There is a sense of finality to this blow from the selectors. The message is clear: we know you can score two centuries in two sessions in these two Tests against West Indies but that’s no good if you don’t get even fifties in England or Australia or South Africa. There also seems no way back for Dhawan now; during the West Indies Tests, there is no other first-class cricket going on in India. When the first-class domestic cricket will begin, Dhawan will be busy with the limited-overs internationals. The only way back for this Australia tour seems a combination of ODI runs and failures for the new openers but the selectors seem to be in no mood to budge.

Genuine on-field progress remains hard to gauge, but Root comes through personal test of leadership, in words and deeds

George Dobell in St Lucia13-Feb-2019It would be nice to report that England’s win in St Lucia shows they are back on course.And it’s true there were some aspects of this performance – not least Mark Wood’s first-innings bowling – that may prove relevant for the months ahead. If England can keep Wood fit and if he can reproduce the hostility of his spell in West Indies’ first innings, there will be a new dimension to England’s attack. No batsman, in the Ashes or at the World Cup, wants to face that.But like winning the raffle on Titanic just after that pesky incident with the iceberg, the value of a win in a dead rubber does have to be kept in perspective.There were some moments in this match when it seemed quite apparent that West Indies were struggling to retain the intensity they had demonstrated earlier in the series.Consider Kemar Roach, for example: he was immaculate in the first Test – and in some stages of this one – but in his first spell here, he barely hit the cut strip. And then there’s Kraigg Brathwaite, who has batted with an abundance of caution all series, who suddenly fell to a slog to the midwicket boundary. West Indies were without their captain and key allrounder, too.That’s not to say England’s win was not deserving of praise. Quite apart from Wood’s pace, there were other aspects of this performance that England could look to learn from and replicate.The hunger of Joe Root, for example. Quite early in his century, he received a long-hop from Roston Chase that, many times, he might have tried to hit for four or six. It crossed his mind here, too, you could see: he was quickly in position and on the brink of unleashing a full-blooded pull.Instead, though, he considered the man back on the boundary, rolled his wrists, hit the ball down and settled for one.It was a moment that immediately brought to mind another Root innings: his 254 against Pakistan at Old Trafford, when he made exactly the same decisions against Yasir Shah, concluding the percentage option – the wise, mature, long-term option – was to play a bit safer and grind out the huge score his side required.If that sounds simple, well it probably is. But it also isn’t the way England tend to play these days. All that talk of “you don’t win games by batting long periods of time”, which Root said ahead of the series, has seeped into the DNA of this side. Root’s innings here – an innings that contained 57 singles – showed he was learning and adapting.Might it be relevant that this innings and the one in Manchester came when Root had something to prove? On this occasion, he was hurt by the series defeat and disappointment in his own performance. In Manchester, meanwhile, he had just moved up the order to No. 3 and was keen to show what he could do.Root has to retain that hunger. He has to retain that understanding that it is not vignettes that win Tests; it’s epics. England are not a good enough side that they can see their best batsman settle for simply expressing his talent. He also has to grind and resist. He has to add rigour to his many other qualities.Joe Root and Shannon Gabriel shake hands at the end of the St Lucia Test•Getty ImagesThere were other differences in this game. Jos Buttler and Ben Stokes both made their best contributions of the series (with the bat, at least) with Stokes showing a welcome ability to go up and down the gears as the situation warranted. If he and England are to fulfil their potential, he will have to improve that Test batting average of 33.89 by at least five and quite possibly 10. There is no reason at all he should not.So that’s all fine and good.But the win in St Lucia shouldn’t mask what went before. It’s shouldn’t obscure the fact that four more catches were dropped in West Indies’ second innings; it shouldn’t obscure the fact that England still have little idea who their top three should be and it shouldn’t obscure the fact they don’t seem to know who to pick as wicketkeeper.Most of all, it shouldn’t detract from some poor selections both ahead and throughout this trip. The continuing persistence with Keaton Jennings – who really might be a worse driver than Prince Philip – is starting to look stubborn and irrational. With Trevor Bayliss – and, perhaps, James Anderson – having just participated in their final overseas Tests, it’s hard to argue that England are all that further progressed than they were when Bayliss took over in 2015.There was another aspect to this match. Playing, watching, writing and talking about cricket is, on the whole, a pretty frivolous way for grown-ups to spend their time. It’s beautiful, of course, and it’s enjoyable. But it’s not life and death and very little that happens really matters.But just occasionally there is a chance to make a difference. And, in making it clear that it is inappropriate to use somebody’s sexual orientation as a term of abuse, Root took that opportunity. His stance will have been noted – maybe only subconsciously – in playgrounds and streets and maidans across the world. It was another tiny step in the right direction for sport and society.While there may be some sympathy for Shannon Gabriel – we are all a product of our culture, after all, and homosexual acts are considered illegal across much of this region; we know of worse comments from players of all nations that have gone unpunished in other series because broadcasters (often host broadcasters) cannot isolate the audio or because the protagonists have made them in a more sophisticated (or cynical) fashion – cricket has to move beyond this nonsense. The fact that spectators, led by the Barmy Army, sang “YMCA”, “It’s Raining Men” and “A Little Respect” throughout Gabriel’s innings suggested they are keen to do so.Cricket fluffed such an opportunity at Edgbaston – when Moeen Ali was disgracefully booed – and cricket fluffed such an opportunity during an ugly Ashes series which became boorish and boring. It’s fluffed such an opportunity many, many times.The opportunity was taken here. Root may well have a bit to learn about captaincy and even a bit to learn about batting. But he has a great many good qualities and he is, very much, the natural leader of this side. England haven’t always been the most attractive or likeable side. In St Lucia they were a side of which their supporters could be proud.

We break down the numbers as England’s leading Test wicket-takers reach a combined four figures

Alan Gardner23-Jan-2019With his second wicket during England’s late rally in Barbados, James Anderson claimed a significant – if slightly contrived – landmark for himself and regular new-ball partner Stuart Broad. With 567 and 433 wickets respectively, the English pair had reached 1000 in Tests, albeit with Broad currently out of the team.ESPNcricinfo LtdAnderson and Broad are, by some distance, England’s leading Test wicket-takers and they have taken plenty while on the field together – 851, to be exact, which is behind only two other combos: Glenn McGrath and Shane Warne, and Muttiah Muralitharan and Chaminda Vaas. If we narrow things down to pace partnerships, they are well out in front, having overtaken Curtly Ambrose and Courtney Walsh a while ago.