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Australia batted more balls in this Test match than India, a simple but clear indicator that they really did try their very hardest in the face of big challenges

Daniel Brettig in Adelaide10-Dec-20181:06

Laxman: Both bowling units fantastic, the batting will decide series

For an optimistic half an hour, clapped on eagerly by Adelaide Oval’s final day faithful, it looked as though Nathan Lyon was going to be able to live up to his fourth evening talk of heroes.Aided by Josh Hazlewood, he guided Australia to within 32 runs of the most improbable result, before Lyon instead joined another offspinner, Tim May, in being at the non-striker’s end for a narrow defeat in an Adelaide Test. Twenty-five years ago, May and Craig McDermott took Australia within two runs of West Indies; this time around the margin was wider, but the result equally momentous.For decades, Australia’s home-ground advantage has never been more acute than against India. Never before had an Indian touring team won the opening match of a series down under, and only twice since 1988 against anyone have Australia lost. The fact that both these defeats, in Perth and Adelaide, have taken place away from the traditional opening fixture at the Gabba will be the source of a debate about cricket economics versus Australian team performance, but you also have to factor in this line-up’s loss of Steven Smith and David Warner.In addition to the numbness of defeat, the Australians had to cope with a more piercing feeling in the shape of a blow to the captain Tim Paine, resurrecting years of trouble with his right index finger. Paine’s insistence that the finger is “fine” rather resembled the “fit to play” insistence of a battered AFL player in the September finals, but it was also in keeping with the level of determination and “fight” expected of the team by Paine himself and the coach Justin Langer. These qualities were very much on display as the chase crept closer to a target that always seemed to be narrowly out of reach, as India’s unflagging bowlers conjured just enough false shots or wicket-taking balls.For Paine, the performance of the lower order in particular, putting on stands of 31, 41, 31 and 32 for the final four wickets, provided the whole team with sizeable evidence of what can be achieved by an even effort. Pat Cummins and Mitchell Starc also contributed significantly, the former keeping out 168 balls across the match, third-most among the whole Australian XI after Travis Head and Shaun Marsh. “Our whole bowling attack, you see those four together, you can see how much playing for Australia means to them,” Paine said. “Whether they’ve got the bat, ball, in the field, you can’t question those four guys’ commitment. They have a red hot crack for every single ball.

“If you want to be a good team you’ve got to be hard to beat and today we were hard to beat, I think we made India work harder than they thought they were going to have to work.”Australia captain Tim Paine

“That’s what we’re building to. That’s the style of cricket we want to play. They’re some of our more experienced players, I think the more they do that, the more it will rub off on the rest of this group. Couldn’t question any of those guys. I don’t think many people thought we’d get as close as we did today and certainly didn’t think we’d win but we have a lot of faith particularly in our lower order we bat pretty deep and Lyno [Nathan Lyon] is getting better all the time and those four or five have a crack when they in the middle.”It showed that anything is possible if you are prepared to stick it out and face a lot of balls it can change quickly, but we couldn’t quite get there. If you want to be a good team you have got to be hard to beat and today we were hard to beat, I think we made India work harder than they thought they were going to have to work, but sitting back now it is a huge opportunity because we didn’t cash in in the first innings and didn’t have batters out there today when they were tiring. Had we have had either of those we would have won this Test match so it’s pretty hard to take.”Frustrated as he was by the result, Paine maintained his views about how he and Langer were trying to adjust the way the Australian team played. There were moments of tension and hostility throughout the match, not least Ishant Sharma’s steepling bouncer and in-the-face celebration to defeat Travis Head on the final morning – Curtly Ambrose and Merv Hughes rolled into one. But the home side were composed throughout, with their worst moments of excess limited to a handful of extravagant or unwise shot choices.ALSO READ: Kohli reveals how the no-balls ‘pissed off’ Ishant”I thought it was fine. I thought it was played in good spirits. I don’t know about them. We didn’t pay any attention to them and we won’t be for the whole series. We can only concentrate on the brand and style of cricket we want to play,” Paine said. “From a cricket point of view we’ve got some things we need to tighten up and some areas we know we can. I thought today was a nice snapshot of the way we want to go about it. I thought we fought really hard, never gave in, you don’t have to talk rubbish and carry on like a pork chop to prove that.”That snapshot, of course, will be part of a wider picture, and in this sense there was one element of the Adelaide Test that did finish in an Australian victory. In terms of total balls faced, the Australians finished with 216.3 overs batted as against India’s 198.5 – a tally based largely on the obduracy of Cheteshwar Pujara, comfortably the highest scorer in the match. There were issues in terms of Australian shot selection, and also finding the right balance between defence and attack, demonstrated by the range of ways in which they attempted to deal with R Ashwin. But the overall impression was of a team trying, despite obvious limitations, to play a wider game.”We expect this series to be really tight,” Paine said. “So I think days like today when you make their fast bowlers come back two, three, four more times than they thought they probably had to. That can have a really telling impact on the back end of a big series, when it’s four Tests.”There’s a lot of cricket to be played and I thought you could see signs of their attack wearying this afternoon. So it’s a really key element for us, to get lots of overs into them. And I’m sure India are the same with us, they want to see our fast bowlers bowl a hell of a lot of overs. It’s going to be good to get to Perth and see who backs up better.”Over the entire history of Test matches, 54.43% of series have been won by the team facing more balls. It’s the sort of marginal gain that will be critical to this series, and to Australia’s fortunes until Smith and Warner return. In that sense, at least, Lyon and Hazlewood’s ultimately failed effort on the final afternoon may prove more useful to the final outcome than they think right now.

Worcestershire’s appearance at their first Finals Day is a success for quintessential rural England at a time of great change

David Hopps12-Sep-2018No county better represents the England of the imagination than Worcestershire. So said Matthew Engel in , an elegiac tour around the historic counties; a journey into the half-lost, often forgotten, rural England that is part of the psyche of the cricketing nation.What could be more timely therefore than Worcestershire’s appearance on Saturday at their first Twenty20 Finals Day – only Derbyshire now needed to complete the full set – at a time when trial matches are underway for The Hundred, which is not so much a competition as a deliberately superficial marketing exercise which seeks to reject cricket’s traditions and reinvent it as a clamorous, simple game of the big city?Worcester was The Faithful City in the English Civil War, loyal to King Charles I to the end and suffering the consequences, and nearly 400 years later the cricket club is as compliant as any when promised £1.3m a year from England’s impending short-form competition, buying the view that a collapse in the numbers of recreational cricketers has arisen from the faltering popularity of the game rather than an absence from free-to-air TV and a change in cultural habits which is affecting all team sport.County cricket has long been held to be dying, bringing to mind Engel’s description of Malvern, a pretty Worcestershire town, which he suggests feels as “far removed from surrounding reality” as any in the land. An old schoolmaster tells the author: “People come to Malvern to die and then they don’t.” But Worcestershire, come here for winter training, too and, far from dying, they are committing their future to youth.Worcestershire might not be the biggest county cricket club in the land, and their faith that the ground is still one of the most beautiful in the world does not bear scrutiny – the view to the cathedral is best observed through blinkers so as not to catch sight of the ugly modern architecture that now scars the ground – but the desire have the most reputable academy in English cricket is a sizeable and noble ambition.A fast-maturing young side can now parade its worth on Finals Day. The maturing of Joe Clarke can one day delight England, Ben Cox’s wicketkeeping skills would have attracted greater attention in a different era, Ed Barnard is an athletic all-rounder and Josh Tongue and Dillon Pennington – the latter who has made his breakthrough this season – are two of the most talented young pace bowlers in the country. Not to forget Pat Brown, who came from nowhere this season to be the leading wicket-taker in the competition.Disturbingly for Worcestershire, though, Callum Ferguson, the Australian who has underpinned their season, is now back with South Australia. Moeen Ali is expected to return from England duties to skipper the side but without Ferguson in the top three his task will be much more difficult.Moeen Ali in deliberations with Wayne Parnell during Worcestershire’s win in the Vitality Blast quarter-finals•Getty ImagesAnd disturbingly for Worcestershire, too, they must prepare for Finals Day with a home Championship match against the champions-elect Surrey when they lie in bottom place in Division One, 17 points from safety, with three matches remaining. It is difficult to imagine a more challenging scenario – although at least Edgbaston, venue for Finals Day, is only an hour up the road.Worcestershire’s progress to Finals Day has been overseen by two players with strong county links. Alex Gidman is a former all-rounder at the county, and if you believe his Twitter feed bread-maker extraordinaire; his white cob loaf seemed to rise OK last week so perhaps Worcestershire can do the same. Alongside him, Alan Richardson enjoyed a wonderful late career at New Road, even becoming one of Wisden’s Five Cricketers of the Year at 37. Richardson’s involvement with Brown’s debut season has been crucial.Underpinning it all, however, is Kevin Sharp, the head coach, who is the first to recognise their contribution – ” it was a no-brainer for me to hand a lot of the responsibility to them for the white-ball cricket: they pretty much run the show” – but who also deserves enormous credit for the way he has protected the quintessence of the county following the enforced departure of Steve Rhodes after a power struggle within the club’s hierarchy.Rhodes’ reclamation has come as Bangladesh coach, leaving Sharp, who he first appointed on a temporary contract five years earlier, and who is five years his senior at 59, to assume command.Sharp and Rhodes have links as Yorkshire players during the civil war over the contentious figure of Geoffrey Boycott. For both, the damage they did not just observe, but had to withstand, as players, has translated more than 30 years later into their desire to build harmonious dressing rooms and to create trusting atmospheres in which young players can perform.”I don’t think there’s any doubt that my experiences at Yorkshire have stood me in good stead as a coach,” Sharp agrees. “It was quite a ruthless environment if you felt lacking in confidence and belief.”There weren’t too many shoulders to lean on or people to talk to. It was very much a sink or swim environment. There were times when I probably needed some psychological support but it wasn’t the done thing in those days: even in the Yorkshire club now there will be guys to do that. I feel as though one of my greatest strengths is that relationship building and trust. It takes time to build that.”Sharp was one of several victims of a wholesale clearout of Yorkshire’s coaching staff in 2011 – some heavy-handed grandstanding by the then Yorkshire chairman, Colin Graves, now in the same role at the ECB – which meant that he was unable to enjoy the fruits of his labours as 2nd X1 coach.”When I left Yorkshire six years ago it was tough because I had lads like Joe Root, Jonny Bairstow, , Gary Ballance, Adam Lyth, highly talented young men who were just about to knock the door down at the next level and I had to leave and that hurt and it was difficult. The bond is still there. That’s good and that’s healthy and that tells you that you had some good relationships. But I’ve moved on. Steve Rhodes gave me the opportunity to help out initially and that developed into a fulltime job.”A view of the County Ground in Worcester•PA Images via Getty ImagesNow he gazes down from his office onto the backdrop of Worcester cathedral on a ground where he once made an unbeaten 260 against the West Indies U19: the predicted international career never arrived. Duncan Fearnley, a former Worcestershire chairman and bat maker, became his first bat sponsor at 15. His wife was born in the county. Sacked by Yorkshire, he wrote down his list of favourite counties: Worcestershire were No 1.Sharp is a natural healer. “I feel I’ve been very fortunate to experience two very different clubs,” he said. “I had my issues when I was younger, lost confidence at times. That’s probably just growing up really and finding out about life. But I’ve come here to Worcestershire and it’s a very different club with a different feel. We generally get on well with each other and the lads are quite close. It’s been nice to sample two different environments.”He faces a tough week. While Worcestershire strive to save their Division One status, in the face of the Surrey strut, he admits: “When a few of our batsmen are not involved in the contest they will be slipping off to the nets to practice some white-ball stuff. It’s not easy, but it’s county cricket and you just have to get on with it.”

All the major talking points from the week gone by in the Super Smash

Deivarayan Muthu23-Jan-2019Mitchell out obstructing the fieldIn the fifth over of Northern Knights’ innings against Canterbury Kings, Daryl Mitchell patted a ball from Kyle Jamieson back to him and took a couple of steps out of his crease. The bowler swooped down on the ball in his follow-through and aimed to throw the stumps down, but Mitchell stuck his right leg in the way. Though the ball wasn’t heading towards the stumps, Mitchell was guilty of deliberately coming in the way of the throw.Jamieson gestured that Mitchell knocked the ball away with his leg and launched an appeal for obstructing the field. The on-field umpires Wayne Knights and Ashley Mehrotra got together and referred it to TV umpire Tony Gillies, who ultimately gave Mitchell out.

You don't see this everyday – Mitchell dismissed for obstructing the field. #BKSupersmash #wearecanterbury #cricketnation #KnightsvKings pic.twitter.com/T6IUrLeXvD

— Canterbury Cricket (@CanterburyCrick) January 16, 2019

Four days later, in the final over of Otago’s chase of 185, Auckland Aces’ Mitchell McClenaghan bowled an inch-perfect yorker from round the wicket and Leicestershire’s Ben Raine hastily jabbed his bat down and set off for a single. In the process, he collided with McClenaghan, who recovered and scooped the ball onto the stumps at the striker’s end, where Nathan Smith had reached his crease in time.McClenaghan, though, appealed for obstructing the field but replays indicated that Raine hadn’t changed his line while running. The soft signal was not out, and TV umpire Derek Walker sided with it.Sun stops play in NapierSun squinted into the eyes of the batsmen and forced a 25-minute interruption in the match between Central Districts and Canterbury at McLean Park in Napier. Moments before the players and the officials walked off the field, legspinner Todd Astle had drawn a thick outside edge from Dean Foxcroft, but Tom Latham, the keeper, had dropped it. The action resumed once the sun moved away.The setting sun was at an awkward angle again during the first ODI between India and New Zealand and interrupted the visitors’ chase on Wednesday.ALSO READ: Sun stops play in New Zealand v India ODI

Sun stopped play…love it! #SuperSmash pic.twitter.com/Odjwzgmywp

— Sean Brown (@sean_brown235) January 19, 2019

Astle, Neesham watchHaving been asked to prove their fitness in the Super Smash and audition for the last two ODIs against India, Todd Astle (knee) and James Neesham (hamstring) had low-key returns. Astle began promisingly and created the aforementioned chance, but lost his lines and lengths once Will Young and Tom Bruce began teeing off. Astle wound up leaking 44 runs in his four overs, including 14 in his last.Turning out for Wellington Firebirds against Auckland, Neesham was dismissed for 1 by Colin Munro. He then bowled only two overs, conceding 15 runs.Mitchell McClenaghan sends down a delivery•Getty ImagesMatch of the weekThe clash between Northern Knights and Canterbury Kings at Seddon Park. After being sent in, the Knights posted 154 for 5 in a rain-hit 16-overs-a-side game on the back of opener Nick Kelly’s maiden T20 half-century.Then the Kings lost Tom Latham to Mitchell Santner off the first ball of the chase. The returning Henry Nicholls flickered briefly for 40 off 25 balls before Ish Sodhi reeled him in with a wrong’un. Cam Fletcher and Leo Carter, however, put on a 56-run stand off 40 balls and took the game deep.When the Kings needed 19 off the last two overs it was anybody’s game. But Knights’ overseas recruit Kyle Abbott and Daryl Mitchell sewed up a six-run win (via DLS method) with a variety of cutters and yorkers. The result put the Kings out of contention for the knockouts.Batsman of the weekLatham exploited the short boundaries and the fast McLean Park outfield, cracking his maiden T20 century – and the first in this season’s Super Smash – off 57 balls against Central Districts. He was particularly severe on left-arm spinner Ajaz Patel, smashing him for 30 runs from nine balls before holing out off him. However, the rapidly rising asking rate was too much to overcome and Canterbury came up short in a chase of 226.Bowler of the weekMcClenaghan is an excellent bowler in the Powerplay, but he hasn’t been as effective in the end overs. Against Otago, he nailed one yorker after another and defended 16 in the final over against the well-set Raine and Smith. He is currently the second-highest wicket-taker in the competition with 11 scalps in five matches at an economy rate of 7.95. Jamieson, who has played two more games, leads the list with 14 wickets.

How bad was Knight Riders’ start, and how MS Dhoni smiled sweetly and cocked a snook at cricket data

Shamya Dasgupta09-Apr-2019Chahar – the Powerplay Super KingA baby at 26 in MS Dhoni’s ‘Dad’s Army’ – otherwise known as Chennai Super Kings – Deepak Chahar is among the most important members of the team.”Under the radar” and “relatively unsung”, Stephen Fleming said of him the other day, while gushing about the paceman’s consistency, skills, and ability to tone things down for the benefit of his team. Consistency, especially in the Powerplay. No one has done more in the Powerplay in IPL matches than Chahar since the start of the 2018 season – just look at the numbers.ESPNcricinfo LtdLittle surprise then that he returned 3 for 14 in three Powerplay overs against Kolkata Knight Riders on Tuesday. His wickets: Chris Lynn, Nitish Rana and Robin Uthappa, one in each over.For the record, he bowled 20 dot balls in his four overs on the night – including five in the 19th over of the Knight Riders innings when, admittedly, Andre Russell was farming the strike and trying to go big. That is the most number of dot balls in an IPL innings, ever.That said, Russell scored 50 not out in 44 balls to keep his fantastic sequence going – that’s 46% of Knight Riders’ runs on the night.Chepauk pitch not yet ‘a lot better’The first match of this year’s IPL pitted Chennai Super Kings against Royal Challengers Bangalore. In Chennai’s MA Chidambaram Stadium. Batting first, Royal Challengers rolled over for 70 – they haven’t quite gotten back on their feet yet.ESPNcricinfo Ltd”It was too slow,” Dhoni had told Sanjay Manjrekar in the post-match chat then. “Definitely it needs to be a lot better than where it is right now. Even with the dew, it was still turning a bit.” He explained that 140-150 was the minimum in a T20 game, and the pitch wasn’t good enough for that.His team-mate Harbhajan, however, had disagreed. “We’re so used to watching matches on good wickets where no one complains when people score 170-180,” Harbhajan Singh, man of the match then for his 3 for 30, had said.Over two weeks on, it definitely hasn’t become . Take out Russell’s unbeaten 50 – at a strike rate of 113.63, which is much, much slower than his usual belligerent efforts – and it could have been another 70 all out.Wonder if it’s the sort of home advantage anyone wants; Dhoni certainly didn’t back on March 23, what do the fans have to say?Don’t bowl spin to Sunil Narine, unless it’s ChennaiLogic, and common sense, suggests that teams shouldn’t bowl spin to Sunil Narine early on, in the Powerplay, which is typically where he does most of his batting. Try telling that to Dhoni, though.At the toss, Dhoni was asked if he paid heed to T20 analytics before making decisions. “No, not much,” he responded with a smile. Therefore, it was no surprise that he threw the ball to Harbhajan for the second over after Chahar had sent back Lynn in the first.Harbhajan Singh accounted for Sunil Narine in the second over•BCCIBefore this game, Narine had a strike rate of 254 against spin in IPL Powerplays, and 166 against pace in the same period.But, even though Dhoni doesn’t care much for numbers, he may have remembered the Narine v Harbhajan match-up the last time they met in Chennai: one ball, one dismissal, in IPL 2018. This time, Harbhajan bowled four balls to Narine, conceded one run, and then had his man again.That left Knight Riders at 8 for 2 in two overs, and by the end of the Powerplay, they were 29 for 4 as Chahar picked up two more wickets. Not their worst Powerplay performance ever – that stands at 22 for 4, also in Chennai against Super Kings, in 2010 – but in the top (or bottom!) five.

Did Kieron Pollard’s appointment as West Indies’ white ball captain surprise you? Here’s looking at a few more from the past

Dustin Silgardo11-Sep-2019Kieron PollardYears since last ODI before being named captain: 3A bright prospect in his early days, Kieron Pollard had become essentially a T20 mercenary by 2009, playing in various leagues across the world but rarely for West Indies. Disputes with Cricket West Indies resulted in him being dropped from the 2015 World Cup squad, last play an ODI in October 2016 and feature in just 14 of the 36 T20Is played by West Indies between 2016 and 2018. But with a change in the presidency of the board, a door opened for Pollard’s return to regular international cricket. While he did not make it from the probables list to the final squad for the 2019 World Cup, he was included in the side for the home T20Is against India. Still, it was hard to see a leap from just returning to the side to becoming West Indies’ white-ball captain, but that is exactly what was announced on September 9. Here’s a look at some other such surprising captaincy appointments.Dimuth KarunaratneYears since last ODI before being named captain: 4 Imagine naming a World Cup squad with a captain who hasn’t played an ODI in four years! Sri Lanka found themselves in that position after two years of turmoil in their cricket. Angelo Mathews had been axed after the 2018 Asia Cup, leading to a strained relationship between him and the coach. Lasith Malinga had come in but lost the ODI series in South Africa 0-5. With reports of infighting, the one man seen as a reliable leader was Test captain Dimuth Karunaratne. He had only taken over the leadership in Tests in February 2019, but the side’s massive upset of South Africa away under him had made him a favourite among supporters.The problem was that his cautious approach to batting was not suited to the shorter formats; one of the reasons he had not been a member of Sri Lanka’s white-ball plans since the 2015 World Cup. He was made captain, leading the side in a one-off game against Scotland before jumping straight into the World Cup.Tim PaineTests before captaincy debut: 12In 2017, Tim Paine had all but given up hopes of making an international comeback and was seriously contemplating a post-cricket career with sports equipment manufacturer Kookaburra. Then, the selectors picked him for the 2017 Ashes against England. He had not played a Test in seven years, after a serious finger injury in an ACA All-Stars game put his future in doubt.In the aftermath of the ball-tampering scandal in Cape Town, Steven Smith and David Warner were stood down, and Paine found himself taking temporary charge in the middle of the Test match. Following Smith and Warner’s one-year bans, Paine was announced as permanent captain, capping one of the most dramatic career turnarounds in recent times.Australia captain Tim Paine walks out to the toss•Getty ImagesGeorge BaileyInternationals before captaincy debut: 0When Test and ODI captain Michael Clarke gave up the T20I captaincy in 2011, Australia were looking for a young captain and went with Cameron White, who was six years into his international career. When White’s form dipped, they turned to someone with even less international experience, in fact, none. Bailey became the first man since Dave Gregory, in the first Test match in 1877, to make his Australia debut as captain. He was selected thanks to his reputation as a leader with Tasmania, though he wasn’t actually captaining in the Big Bash, where he played under White for Melbourne Stars. Nevertheless, Bailey went on to captain Australia through the 2012 and 2014 World T20 tournaments and frequently stepped in for Michael Clarke as ODI skipper too, including at the beginning of the successful 2015 World Cup campaign.James HopesGames for Delhi Daredevils before captaincy debut: 6The IPL has seen its fair share of surprise captains, but none stand out quite as much as the appointment of James Hopes. He played just two seasons of the IPL, one for Kings XI Punjab, one for Daredevils, and didn’t do much with bat and ball, but he did take over as captain for three games at the end of Daredevils’ dismal 2011 campaign. With Daredevils nearly out of contention for the play-offs with three games to go, Virender Sehwag, their captain, took the call to undergo shoulder surgery. Looking for someone to stand in till the end of the season, Daredevils turned to Hopes, the captain of Queensland. While Hopes’ run as Queensland captain lasted till 2015, his stint with Daredevils ended after just three games, and he never played another IPL match.Misbah-ul-HaqTests before captaincy debut: 19Misbah was 36 and had played just 19 Test matches over eight years since debut when he took the reins of Pakistan. In fact, a few months before his captaincy debut, he was contemplating retirement from all forms of cricket. In 2010, Pakistan cricket fell into crisis after three cricketers, including captain Salman Butt, were charged with spot-fixing. Butt had already been the third captain Pakistan had tried that year; Shahid Afridi had retired from Tests, and Mohammad Yousuf had lost seven straight games in Australia. Meanwhile, the senior-most member of the team, Younis Khan, was feuding with the board chairman, Ijaz Butt. So, Misbah not only returned to the Pakistan team, but was named captain.Floyd Reifer, Darren Sammy and Jason HolderTests before captaincy debut: 4 (Reifer) and 8 (Sammy and Holder)Since 2009, the West Indies board has been embroiled in a series of disputes with senior cricketers. Their first surprising move was appointing Floyd Reifer, who had made his Test debut in 1997 but had soon been dropped from the squad. He had, in fact, moved to Scotland and only in 2007 announced he was still willing to play for West Indies. In 2009, during a home series against Bangladesh, the West Indies players decided to boycott a Test a day before its start. The board scrambled to organise a replacement side and named Reifer, the oldest player, its captain.Also part of that team was Darren Sammy, the first international cricketer from St Lucia. He had debuted in 2007 but had not been able to hold down a place in the side. After Reifer’s brief stint as captain, Chris Gayle and Dwayne Bravo returned to the set-up as captain and vice-captain, but when they refused to sign central contracts in 2010, it was Sammy, who had played just eight Tests by then, who was named captain. A few years later, Sammy joined the long list of players feuding with the board, and it was now Jason Holder’s turn to take over. Holder made his international debut in 2013, was named ODI captain just a year later and then took over in Tests in 2015.West Indies captain Jason Holder during a net session•Getty ImagesSourav Ganguly, Chris Gayle, Brendon McCullum and Brad HodgeThere’s nothing strange about any of those names in a list of captains individually. But the four of them leading the same side, at the same time? That’s something no one saw coming. In the second season of the IPL, the Kolkata Knight Riders coach, John Buchanan, decided to try a split captaincy, with four different captains, each leading the team in different games. Many saw it as an attempt to undermine Ganguly, who was the sole captain the previous season, but Buchanan’s explanation was that you needed different views and ways of thinking in T20s. Buchanan was replaced after the season’s end, and the experiment was not revisited, with Ganguly announced as the only captain for the 2010 season.Adam HollioakeODIs before captaincy: 5He only captained England 14 times, but his stint was significant as it was one of the first attempts by a team to split their Test and ODI captaincy, handing the latter to a short-format specialist. Hollioake, a successful captain at Surrey, was just five ODIs into his career when he took over England’s ODI captaincy in 1997 from Michael Atherton, who continued to lead the Test side. He was picked ahead of more experienced players such as Alec Stewart and Graeme Hick as he was seen as a natural leader and also someone who understood the shorter format. Even when Stewart replaced Atherton as Test captain, Hollioake continued to lead the ODI team despite Stewart being a regular member of that squad.Lee GermonTests before captaincy debut: 0During New Zealand’s 1994-95 tour of South Africa, three young cricketers admitted to smoking marijuana at an informal function in Paarl. That and the team’s poor form in the following home season caused a shake-up in management. Glenn Turner was brought in as coach and he wanted to appoint a captain with proven leadership skills, who had the respect of the players and could maintain discipline both on and off the field by his own example. Lee Germon had not played Test cricket, but was renowned as a leader after moulding Canterbury into the best provincial team in the country. So, he was named Test captain on debut in 1995 and, in his first-ever Test, led a side featuring a number of senior players, including Martin Crowe, Mark Greatbatch and Danny Morrison.

When he was dismissed, the batsman stood motionless in shock and disappointment at giving up his innings

Daniel Brettig at the Gabba23-Nov-2019For decades, selectors not wishing to be made redundant by simply using numbers to determine who should play in the Australian Test team, have offered the consistent refrain that “you can’t just pick a team on stats”.After the events of 2019, culminating in a sparkling 185 at No. 3 against Pakistan at the Gabba, they can now add a new conclusion to the argument along the lines of “… look at Marnus Labuschagne”.This year dawned with Australia facing a vexing Test match assignment against India in Sydney, having just been beaten out of sight by Virat Kohli’s men at the MCG. In response to an underperforming top order, shorn of Steven Smith and David Warner but also featuring an out-of-place Aaron Finch, the call was made to bring in Labuschagne and to bat him at No. 3.It was a decision that, on a statistical basis, looked decidedly ropey. Labuschagne, given a start in Test cricket in the UAE as a wristspinning allrounder, had struggled for Queensland after his return home, and had never in five first-class seasons averaged better than 39 for his state. The selectors and Justin Langer may have loved his attitude, appetite for hard work, and willingness to learn, but there was only the flimsiest empirical evidence to back up these impressions.Marnus Labuschagne was into his stride early on the third day•Getty ImagesHanded such a steep assignment, Labuschagne did his best, carving out a fighting 38 that seemed, at the time, to be about the best anyone could have expected. He went away from the home summer with another couple of Tests against Sri Lanka under his belt, and took up a county contract with Glamorgan where, bolstered by the experience, he made the technical change that seemed to be the key to unlocking so much more of the potential that the selectors saw more keenly than others.There was an intriguing subplot here. Glamorgan coach Matthew Maynard had previously coached at Somerset, and been far less a technocrat than his assistant Chris Rogers. But their mix of approaches seemed to give Maynard a greater wellspring of advice to pass down, and in straightening up Labuschagne’s back lift and alignment, gave him the ability to play down the line of balls that he had previously chopped across, making him a ready lbw candidate.His defence suitably strengthened, Labuschagne found himself able to not only survive but dominate attacks in challenging English conditions, resulting in a breakthrough run of scores that surpassed anything he had managed for Queensland at home. That was enough to put Labuschagne in Australia’s 25-man Ashes trial group in Southampton, where a battling 48 on a borderline dangerous pitch gave him enough credits to make the final squad.

This limpet-like desire to stay in the middle, searching every part of himself to do so, is something that was first glimpsed well away from the spotlight, and then seen when he was granted that oft-criticised chance to bat No. 3 against India in January

That innings was played out to a chorus that Labuschagne had become quite familiar with over his years in Australian domestic cricket, one that had only grown more fervent after his speculative elevation to the Test team the previous summer. Taunts of “you’re not good enough” and other fruitier variations rained down on him from fielders who would soon be Ashes team-mates, as Labuschagne was drafted in as Smith’s concussion substitute at Lord’s.What was immediately evident that tense final afternoon of the second Test and in virtually every innings after it was that Labuschagne had added the requisite technical tightness to the work ethic, eagerness and attitude of learning that had caused the selectors to smile upon him in the first place. At times in England, there was a tangible sense of disbelief among players and spectators on both sides that Labuschagne was now looking so at ease in Test match company, despite all earlier statistical evidence to the contrary.For the national selectors Langer, Trevor Hohns and Greg Chappell – who retired from his post at the end of the Ashes series – it was a vindication. As Hohns put it at the end of the series: “With regards to Marnus, all credit to him, he got thrown in the deep end when Steven Smith got ruled out and he’s made the most of that opportunity and that’s all we can ask of anybody. He’s another one of those players who just eats cricket balls. He works so hard, so it’s no coincidence that the hard workers reap the rewards and we’ve seen that with Marnus.”What all this meant in determinations for the first Test match batting lineup of the summer was that Labuschagne was one of the first names on the team sheet, not only to bat in the team but to be placed at No. 3. Granted the advantage of a staunch opening stand by David Warner and Joe Burns at the Gabba, Labuschagne unveiled further exponential growth since England in how he not only showed how much he belonged in international company but now how badly he wanted to bat all day when conditions gave him the chance to.Marnus Labuschagne walks off for 185•Getty ImagesThe biggest challenge of the Gabba innings was not so much technical as mental, being a test of Labuschagne’s desire to spend hours in the middle repeating all the disciplines he has learned ball after ball. And, across days two and three, he passed it comfortably, unleashing a more expansive array of shots in an innings that was assertive as well as attentive, finding the boundary 20 times amongst century stands with Warner and Matthew Wade.As an exemplar of how early exposure to Test cricket had helped Labuschagne, giving him a chance to think through the problems he had encountered and find solutions to them quickly, there could scarcely be a better symbol than the fact that he was able to turn his first Test hundred into the highest score of his first-class career. Following five years of Australian first-class cricket in which he had never managed to average 40, Labuschagne has totted up averages of 65.52 for Glamorgan, 50.42 in the Ashes, 43.33 for Queensland in the Shield this summer, and now 185 at the Gabba.The neatness underpinning Labuschagne’s every shot, the shrewdness of his shot choices and the discipline of his defence moved the YouTube cricket maestro Rob Moody to upload inverted footage of Michael Hussey as a right-hander, creating an eerily striking resemblance. Hussey, of course, had been another player to dominate at Test level when chosen after years of solid if not quite spectacular returns in first-class cricket, because his attitude of learning was given its very best outlet at the top.When, finally, Labuschagne succumbed to mental and physical fatigue to slice a catch to gully, he stood motionless at the crease for several seconds in a combination of shock and disappointment at giving up his innings. This limpet-like desire to stay in the middle, searching every part of himself to do so, is something that was first glimpsed well away from the spotlight, and then seen when he was granted that oft-criticised chance to bat No. 3 against India in January.So, while Labuschagne’s emergence as something close to the finished article will be widely lauded this year, it is worth remembering the circumstances in which those asked to make judgements on the merit of cricketers do so, and how every now and then they will find a diamond in the rough. Or, in Labuschagne’s case, some batting gold in the Klerksdorp dirt.

His sublime skills with the new ball ensure he will go down as one of the finest exponents of seam bowling

S Rajesh22-Jan-2020There are few bowlers, if any, who have exploited seam-bowling conditions more effectively than Vernon Philander. His ability to pitch it on a coin ball after ball, coupled with the skill to move it both ways, meant there was no respite for batsmen: both edges of the bat were under threat with the ball seaming in or out, and the lengths he bowled coupled with a relatively low-arm action meant that lbw and bowled were also regular dismissal options for him.Philander’s overall Test numbers are a testament to his skills: an average of 22.32, at an economy rate of 2.63. Among bowlers with at least 150 wickets since Philander made his Test debut in November 2011, no bowler has a better average, and only one fast bowler, James Anderson, has a better economy rate. Five bowlers had better strike rates – Kagiso Rabada, Dale Steyn, Mitchell Starc, Mohammed Shami and Kemar Roach – but then Philander’s forte was his relentlessness, not the ability to blast batsmen out.ESPNcricinfo LtdEven in the all-time list of bowlers with 200-plus Test wickets, Philander is right up there: among the 76 bowlers in this list, Philander is ranked eighth in terms of average. In fact, the average of 22.32 and the economy rate of 2.63 are very nearly identical to the numbers for Richard Hadlee, another bowler who operated in much the same way as Philander.