A failed sweep did not stop him from playing an imperfect sweep, which did not stop him from sweeping a bad ball for four

Andrew Fidel Fernando19-Sep-2024First ball of spin New Zealand face in the first innings, Tom Latham presses gently onto the front foot, transfers weight smoothly back, and punches the ball through cover point for a couple.The bowler is Dhananjaya de Silva, who is far from the biggest turner of the ball in the opposition. But on a pitch on which even Glenn Phillips was ripping it on day one, less confident batters might have preferred to wait and see what the ball was doing. Occasionally, on tracks such as this, the hard seam bites off the dry surface and turns hard.For Latham, this was a stress-free checked square drive for two. It clearly wasn’t tentative. But it wasn’t an eye-catching statement of intent either. It was assured, run-seeking batting.Related

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His judgement of length was brisk. His feet moved fluently enough to take him back into the crease. He timed it nicely, without hitting the leather off it. This is where good batting against spin lives. New Zealand’s top order batted like a team that knows all that.We’re about to get deep into batting-nerd territory here, but you really can’t do justice to the big picture unless you hone in on the molecular. We’ll stick with Latham for a bit, since he played day two’s most substantial innings. In the 15th over, he missed a sweep against Ramesh Mendis, generally Sri Lanka’s biggest turner of the ball. He missed it because he had played over the ball and rolled his wrists. Of all the ways to miss a sweep, this is the safest – even if you under-edge it, it would hit the pitch straightaway, or thud into the wicketkeeper’s boot. You’d have to be quite unlucky to drag it onto the stumps.You’ve missed that ball, but don’t sweat it. You can’t stress not sweating it enough. On turning tracks, balls will be missed. But the job is to make runs. No one cares if you miss the fewest balls.Daryl Mitchell is one of the most conscientious reverse-sweepers in the game•Associated PressLatham, at this stage in his career, is a proficient player of spin. So next ball, Ramesh bowls a similar line, and Latham sweeps again, this time over-correcting, and getting the bat under the ball a little. It goes off the top half of the bat, but because he’s only paddled it, it loops off into vacant space around short fine leg, and Latham gets two. Fifth ball, he gets a ball that pitches on around middle and leg, and this time Latham is all over it, sweeping it fine, along the ground, for four.The first failed sweep did not stop him from playing a second imperfect sweep, which in turn did not stop him from sweeping a bad ball for four. Latham’s playing of spin is partly built around his being able to play variations of conventional sweep nicely. But other New Zealand batters have their own ways of countering spin.Where in previous decades, teams from SENA (South Africa, England, New Zealand and Australia) were often caught in horrendous, traumatic cycles of spin-playing ineptitude, and in response issued team diktats such as “be more aggressive”, “sweep more often”, “come down the pitch more” etc… the approach has more recently shifted. Now it’s about equipping batters with a wider repertoire of shots, encouraging them to either go back or come forward and not get caught in between, encouraging them to seek the run-scoring opportunities, but vitally, having them find their own way.Rachin Ravindra’s strategy was to go back into his crease to create length and club the balls he could in front of square. Daryl Mitchell, who came in late in the day, is one of the most conscientious reverse-sweepers in the game, frequently rolling his wrists on the shot, and almost always playing over the ball, and as a result, sending the ball into the ground inside three metres. Never bogged down, almost always playing with the spin, Mitchell’s 41 not out off 60 was the kind of innings that would make a modern batting coach’s heart sing.We have T20s to thank for fitting batters with a space-age arsenal of strokes, of course. But then the likes of Latham, who is not a white-ball star the way Mitchell is these days, have also found success. Looking for runs is key, he said.

“My plan in these conditions is to be proactive and to use the sweep shot as I’m sure you saw… That’s my mode in terms of how I operate in these conditions”Tom Latham

“In this part of the world, when you’re facing a lot of balls, when you can’t get off strike, it does become harder,” Latham said. He was caught in the deep sweeping in what would have been the last over before tea.He’s got to have regrets about that, right? “No, not really. My plan in these conditions is to be proactive and to use the sweep shot as I’m sure you saw. Other days it doesn’t go to the fielder on the boundary. Today it didn’t work out. But that’s my mode in terms of how I operate in these conditions.” It’s hard to argue with a guy whose score of 70 on Thursday actually brought his average in the country down a touch.That the likes of Latham, and Mitchell, and Ravindra are figuring out their own ways of getting runs in conditions they are not used to, speaks to a fun new evenness of skills in the game. (This article has skirted around Kane Williamson’s 55, because there is no real point talking about Williamson’s spin-playing, when he had arrived more or less fully formed as a batter, as if from a way better universe than ours.)Other SENA sides – England and Australia especially – have also raised their games significantly in an era in which big-turning pitches have been normalised in places like Sri Lanka and India.For New Zealand, getting to 255 for 4 at Galle was especially meaningful. This was their first Test in a five-match sequence in what is likely to be big-turning conditions – one more match in Galle, then games in Bengaluru, Pune and Mumbai to follow.On their first day of batting on this long South Asia tour, they’ve suggested they will do much better than has often been expected – that they are not going to crumble meekly against spin.

And which Test captain was married on the same day as his twin sister, but on a different continent?

Steven Lynch20-Aug-2024Shamar Joseph took a five-for in the second Test at Providence. What are the best bowling figures by a Guyanese bowler in a Test in Guyana? asked Ravindra Persaud from Jamaica
Shamar Joseph collected 5 for 33 in the first innings of the second Test against South Africa in Providence last week. Joseph, who comes from the remote village of Baracara in the west, is only the second Guyanese bowler to take a Test five-for in the country, after the great offspinner Lance Gibbs, who did it three times, at the Bourda ground in Georgetown: 6 for 29 against Australia in 1964-65, 6 for 60 vs England in 1967-68, and 5 for 80 vs Pakistan in 1957-58.There have also been 13 five-fors by visiting bowlers: the best figures of all were the Australian captain Ian Johnson’s 7 for 44 at Bourda in 1955. For the full list of the best innings figures in Tests in Guyana, click here.Which Test captain was married on the same day as his twin sister, but on a different continent? asked Bryan Marriott from Trinidad
Your location was useful here, as the answer is Trinidad’s Jackie Grant, a member of the family who owned the Geddes Grant trading company. After studying at Cambridge University, Grant captained West Indies in all his 12 Tests in the 1930s before devoting himself to teaching and missionary work around the world. His brother, Rolph Grant, succeeded him as West Indies’ captain.Jackie Grant married Ida Russell in Southern Rhodesia in 1932, on the same day as his sister tied the knot halfway round the world in Canada. The 1980 book Jack Grant’s Story gives the details: “We fixed our wedding date for 9th May, 1932 – my birthday. It so happened that my twin, Jill, had also planned to be married in May. When she learned that I had chosen 9th May, she decided that her wedding would also be on the 9th. Thus Jack and Jill were married on the same day – Jack in Bulawayo and Jill in Toronto.”Is Tharaka Kottehewa the only man to take two hat-tricks in the same innings in a List A match? asked Nirmal Mendis from Sri Lanka
The Nondescripts medium-pacer Tharaka Kottehewa took his two hat-tricks in Ragama’s innings of 92 at the Moors club in Colombo in Sri Lanka’s Premier one-day tournament in December 2007. Kottehewa finished with 8 for 20, still the fourth-best figures in all List A (senior one-day) matches.You’re right in thinking that no one else has taken two hat-tricks in the same List A game. The Australian fast bowler Graham McKenzie took two for Leicestershire in 1972, about six weeks apart, and the Bangladesh seamer Rubel Hossain took two in the space of five matches in 2013-14, one in an ODI against New Zealand in Mirpur. The Sussex fast bowler Billy Taylor also took two in the space of six weeks in 2002.Only four bowlers have taken three List A hat-tricks during their career: Sri Lanka’s Lasith Malinga (all in ODIs), the Pakistan pair of Saqlain Mushtaq (two in ODIs) and Wasim Akram (two in ODIs in Sharjah in 1989-90), and India’s left-arm spinner Kuldeep Yadav (two in ODIs, and one for India A).Apart from those mentioned above, ten others have taken two List A hat-tricks: Trent Boult (both in ODIs for New Zealand, in 2018-19 and 2019), Andy Caddick (1996 and 2000-01), Darren Gough (for Yorkshire in 1997 and 1998), Nantie Hayward (for Eastern Province in 1996-97 and 1998-99), another South African fast bowler in Garth Le Roux (1982-83 and 1985), Sri Lanka’s Farveez Maharoof (in an ODI in 2010 and a domestic match in 2015-16), Bangladesh’s Mohammad Sharif (2016 and 2017-18), Graham Napier (for Essex in 2011 and 2013), Gurinder Sandhu (in Australia in 2018-19 and 2021-22), the West Indian fast bowler Jerome Taylor (in a Champions Trophy game in 2006 and a county game in 2017) and Sri Lanka’s Chaminda Vaas (both in ODIs, in 2001-02 and the other in the 2003 World Cup). For the list of List A hat-tricks, click here.Steve Waugh took 244 Test innings to get to 10,000 runs•Getty ImagesWho was the fastest to reach 10,000 runs in Tests? asked Rajendra Krishnan from India
The answer to this depends on how you calculate it. The fastest to 10,000 Test runs in terms of time is England’s Joe Root, who needed only nine years and 171 days to reach five figures. He’s the only one to do it in less than ten years. His long-time England team-mate Alastair Cook is next, at ten years 87 days.Probably a better way to look at this is to consider the number of innings each batter took. Of the 14 men to have made it to 10,000, Root and Cook stand 10th and 11th by that measure. There’s a three-way tie for top spot, as Brian Lara (West Indies), Sachin Tendulkar (India) and Kumar Sangakkara (Sri Lanka) all got there in 195 innings, while Australia’s Ricky Ponting took 196. The slowest to 10,000 by that yardstick was another Australian, Steve Waugh (244 innings), while the slowest by time was the West Indian Shivnarine Chanderpaul, at 18 years 37 days. For the list, click here (note that the times shown there are from the day of debut to the start date of the match in which they passed 10,000).Who has scored the most first-class runs without ever playing in a Test match? asked Kevin Richards from Scotland
The answer to this one is, oddly, slightly complicated! The Glamorgan left-hand opener Alan Jones piled up 36,049 runs in a 26-year first-class career – but he never played an official Test match. However, he did play for England against the Rest of the World at Lord’s in June 1970, which was marketed as a Test at the time but was later ruled unofficial. Many years later, Jones was presented with England cap number 696, so features in the official list of England Test players.If you include Jones, then the man with the most runs who remained uncapped is Sussex’s John Langridge, who finished his equally long career in 1955 with 34,378. He did later stand in seven Tests as an umpire. For the list of the batters with the most first-class runs, click here.And there’s an update to last week’s question about bowlers taking caught-and-bowleds with successive deliveries in Tests, from James Tiver in Australia
“The Australian legspinner Jimmy Matthews also had two consecutive caught-and-bowleds, in his second hat-trick against South Africa at Old Trafford in 1912. He got the two hat-tricks all by himself – two bowled, two lbw and two caught and bowled!”You’re right that Matthews’ second hat-trick in the match in the Triangular Tournament included successive caught-and-bowleds – South Africa’s Reggie Schwarz (low to the bowler’s right) then the unfortunate Tommy Ward, who marked his debut by becoming the third victim of both Matthews’ hat-tricks. According to the Manchester Guardian: “Ward played his first ball exactly as Schwarz had done, and cocked it up. The ball, however, was hit so gently that for an instant no-one thought of a catch. Then one saw a nimble little figure flying up the pitch and making a frantic dive with both hands for the ball. Matthews went tumbling over, and it was not until he had flung the ball wildly in the air that the onlookers could believe that he had made the catch.”I’m sorry we missed Matthews last week, but it still means there are only three known instances – and none since 1912 – of caught-and-bowleds off successive balls in Tests before slow left-armer Jomel Warrican did it for West Indies against South Africa in Port-of-Spain earlier this month.Use our feedback form, or the Ask Steven Facebook page to ask your stats and trivia questions

There were funky lines drawn on the practice pitches, a serious focus on the sweep shot, and an army of net bowlers on the job to help the batters

Alagappan Muthu30-Oct-2024There was something new at the India nets on Wednesday. They had commandeered four pitches on the square at the Wankhede Stadium. Two for fast bowling. Two for spin bowling. On each of them, two lines had been drawn, extending perpendicularly outward from the batting crease, one from the base of off stump and another from the base of leg stump. They hadn’t been there in Pune.These lines came in particularly handy when Washington Sundar got down to sweep the ball and Ravindra Jadeja appealed for lbw. Washington kept his front foot where it had been when he played the shot and it did seem fairly adjacent to off stump. Rishabh Pant found them beneficial, too. He could identify balls that weren’t in line with the stumps easier and as soon as he saw one, he went on the attack.India are in an almost unprecedented situation – having to prevent a home series whitewash, which has only happened once before, against South Africa in 1999-2000. And it reflected in the work they have been putting in to prepare for the Mumbai Test. It even showed in the work they had put in. The Mumbai Cricket Association, reportedly responding to a request from the team management, had trucked in 35 net bowlers. Many of them looked like school children, teenagers.Related

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An offspinner struck Sarfaraz Khan’s pad while he was defending on the front foot, but according to umpire Gautam Gambhir, the impact could have been outside the line of off stump. Sarfaraz erased that memory with a full-blooded sweep shot in front of square leg against a left-arm spinner next ball. There was a whole bunch of left-arm spinners, actually. Mitchell Santner couldn’t hope for a more heartfelt compliment.A lot of India’s wickets, in Pune in particular, were the result of batters being stuck on the crease. One reason for that might be the level of uncertainty that pitch helped in creating. One ball turned. Another from the same spot went straight on. Others scooted through really low. And with New Zealand making sure they targeted the stumps as often as possible, at times it didn’t feel like there were a lot of options for run-making.”You need to understand when certain balls are turning, certain balls are going straight, it tends to play with your mind,” Abhishek Nayar, India’s assistant coach, said on Wednesday. “So, at that point, it’s really important for a batter to then try and understand how the ball is coming out of the hand, which balls are undercutting [which have an increased chance of skidding through], which balls are overspinning [which are more likely to grip and turn]. I think that’s where you need to focus a little harder [on the bowler’s release].

“We all understand the sport and we all understand we’re going to go out there we’re going to win most times, lose some times. And the losing may be emphasised, but we know it’s part of the team. So, we just go out smiling and give our best all the time”Abhishek Nayar

“That’s the cricketing, technical side of it. But when that tends to happen, a lot of times it’s not so much about the batter who’s playing it, but it’s about the atmosphere outside because sometimes it can be intimidating when you see a ball turning and [another] going straight on. But I think, overall, everyone’s equipped [to deal] with that. You’ve gone through that in your career. When you play domestic cricket, you play on black-soil pitches. You’ve seen that. But, like I said, sometimes the conditions and the position that you are in, the form that you are in, can get the better of you. But the exact science to it is focusing more on the release points. That’s it.”The other thing that batters tend to do on pitches with variable turn is to deny the bowler easy access to good-length areas. Visiting teams turn to the sweep shot to accomplish this. New Zealand, for example, attempted 73 of them in Pune for the cost of three wickets. India typically prefer to combat spin by using their feet, either charging out to the pitch of the ball, or shifting back to exploit the depth of the crease. They played 37 sweeps in Pune, even though they have been encouraged to do so.Rohit Sharma addressed their reluctance to use the shot in the aftermath of the defeat in the second Test. “That’s one thing that we wanted to do as a team, try and play the sweep and reverse sweep because when you do those kinds of things, they have to take one extra man from the front and put it behind, and that allows you to then play straighter and hit those gaps. That is what New Zealand did.”2:06

Manjrekar: Rohit should be wary of using T20 tactics in Tests

Devon Conway and Tom Latham, in particular, are excellent sweepers. They spend a great deal of time practicing that shot, which in turn enables them to see the risk associated with it differently. Even in Pune, where the lack of bounce was a significant deterrent to the shot. There was a Test in Delhi where Australia tried to get out of trouble by sweeping at everything but the ball kept scooting under the bat and crashing into the stumps. So going cross-bat doesn’t always work, but there is perhaps merit in having it as an option.India’s batters focused on that at training in Mumbai, with Yashasvi Jaiswal in particular taking every opportunity to get down on one knee. He went through virtually every variation of the shot, and its offshoot, the scoop, as well. Virat Kohli attempted to reverse Kuldeep Yadav early into his stint and nailed it. He went conventional against Jadeja who spotted it soon enough to shorten the length and get so much kick off these red-soil pitches that it hit the batter on the chest. There’s the other advantage India might gain if their batters are willing to go unconventional. The bowlers will have a better idea of how to deal with it in a match situation (not that they don’t already, of course).Axar Patel saw Washington shaping up for a sweep and looped the ball wider outside off stump. Kuldeep, with his wristspin, was able to get the ball to dip sharply enough that the sweep became problematic. R Ashwin pulled his length back and didn’t provide the room to pull off the sweep. That then forced the batters to adopt other means. Stepping out of the crease was a popular choice. The Wankhede pitch will test both teams. It looked dry. It lacked grass. Ajaz Patel said it is definitely going to turn, just a matter of when. But one saving grace might be that here, the batters will be able to trust the bounce.It’s true, there was some fun and games at the training session too•Getty ImagesIndia began their training on Wednesday with a huge huddle. That’s fairly normal, although this one did seem to go on forever. Then they had a smaller huddle and that seemed to go on forever too. It was around this time that the army of net bowlers descended on the pitches, measuring their run-ups with tape. (Jaiswal, a local boy, seemed to recognise a couple of them, he went and hugged them right at the end.) The team management had given the players a small break but they appear to have made the training sessions in Mumbai mandatory and Wednesday’s had a feeling of leaving no stone unturned, starting with the lines drawn on the pitch to reflect balls with an increased chance of hitting the stumps, to the effort every batter put in to try and avoid being caught on the crease. India haven’t always had to work this hard in a home series but they aren’t letting it get them down.”I think when India lost the [ODI] World Cup in India, that was a low point in Indian cricket for everyone, for the fans, for the players,” Nayar said, “In the same breath, a couple of months later, they were [T20I] world champions. So, I always feel sometimes low point in a cricketer’s, you know, I forgot the word, but through what a cricketer goes. And then coming back is always a great journey. That’s how stories are made. That’s how legacies are created.”So, hopefully, we can be part of creating something as special as that in the future. But the atmosphere is great. Still a lot of jokes and bubbly cricketers in the dressing room. And as you watch, you’ll see our sessions filled with fun and nothing’s changed. We all understand the sport and we all understand we’re going to go out there we’re going to win most times, lose some times. And the losing may be emphasised, but we know it’s part of the team. So, we just go out smiling and give our best all the time.”

And was Bangladesh’s 159 in Chattogram the lowest innings total to include a century partnership?

Steven Lynch12-Nov-2024Ajaz Patel has played two Tests at the Wankhede Stadium, and taken at least ten wickets in both. How many other bowlers have multiple ten-fors on a single ground away from home? asked Ahmedul Kabir from Bangladesh
The New Zealand slow left-armer Ajaz Patel has played two Tests against India in Mumbai – the city of his birth – and taken 25 wickets there: 14 for 225 (including all ten in the first innings) in a defeat in December 2021, and 11 for 160 as New Zealand completed their unprecedented 3-0 whitewash at the Wankhede Stadium last week.Only seven other bowlers have taken two ten-fors in Tests on the same ground away from home. The first was England’s George Lohmann in Sydney, and he was followed by the Australian Hugh Trumble at The Oval, a pair of Englishmen in Colin Blythe (Cape Town) and Sydney Barnes (Durban), Lance Gibbs of West Indies (Old Trafford), and the Australians Dennis Lillee and Shane Warne at The Oval. Barnes did it twice in the same 1913-14 series, with 10 for 105 in the first Test and 14 for 144 in the fourth at the old Lord’s ground in Durban.Was Bangladesh’s 159 at Chattogram the lowest Test total for an innings that included a century partnership? asked Tarif Sherhan Shuvo from Bangladesh via Facebook
Bangladesh were bowled out for 159 in the first innings of their second Test against South Africa in Chattogram last week despite a ninth-wicket stand of 103 between Mominul Haque and Taijul Islam, which rescued them somewhat from 48 for 8.It’s not quite the lowest all-out Test total to include a hundred partnership: New Zealand’s 158 against Australia in Auckland in March 1974 began with an opening stand of 107 between Glenn Turner and John Parker. West Indies were all out for 160 against Sri Lanka in Galle in November 2021 despite an seventh-wicket stand of exactly 100 between Nkrumah Bonner and Joshua Da Silva.When South Africa were all out for 140 at Lord’s in July 1907, Dave Nourse and Aubrey Faulkner put on 98 for the fourth wicket (no one else scored more than six).The lowest completed innings in a one-day international to include a century stand is Pakistan’s 161 against Sri Lanka in Karachi in January 2009, when Salman Butt and Shoaib Malik put on 108 for the fourth wicket.Mominul Haque was out twice in a session during the Chattogram Test. Was this unique? asked Neville Flood via Facebook
After top-scoring with 82 in Bangladesh’s first innings in the second Test against South Africa in Chattogram last week, Mominul Haque was out for a two-ball duck in the follow-on. There were only 14.3 overs between the two dismissals, which both came in the middle session of the third day.The Australian statistician Charles Davis, the king of the ball-by-ball scorecards, says of being out twice in a session: “It happens occasionally in Tests, but is not common. The previous one was Lorcan Tucker of Ireland, against Sri Lanka in Galle in April 2023 – he was out twice in the first session of the third day.”A related statistic is the fastest pair bagged in a Test. For years I thought this was by Pakistan’s MEZ “Ebbu” Ghazali, against England at Old Trafford in July 1954 – he was out twice in the space of about two hours – but actually it seems the record is held by the South African wicketkeeper Tommy Ward, who marked his Test debut in May 1912 by becoming the final victim in both Jimmy Matthews’ hat-tricks for Australia at Old Trafford. Ward collected a king pair within the space of 110 minutes’ playing time.Clem Hill got within touching distance of a hundred in three successive Tests, only to fall for 99, 98 and 97•Getty ImagesApparently someone once had successive Test scores of 99, 98 and 97. Who was this? asked Pete Spencer from England
This unlucky batter was the Australian left-hander Clem Hill, who would have improved on his career total of seven centuries in 49 Tests with a little more luck. In the second Test of the 1901-02 Ashes series, in Melbourne, he was caught by Arthur Jones off the bowling of Sydney Barnes for 99. Then in the next Test, on his home ground in Adelaide, Hill was caught by JohnnyTyldesley off Len Braund for 98, and bowled by Gilbert Jessop for 97.In Hill’s reminiscences, which appeared in an Adelaide newspaper in the 1930s and were later published in book form, he claimed it wasn’t really a case of the nervous nineties. “In the first of them I was in with [Reggie] Duff. He and I had not been partners before, and did not know each other’s ways in running between the wickets. When I was 99, I asked him to be on the move to run a short one. Barnes sent up a short-pitched ball, which I could have square-cut to the boundary – but uppermost in my mind was the thought that I had told Duff to be ready for a single. I attempted to pat it down to third man, but instead touched it into the slips.”The second dismissal was on the Adelaide Oval. I hit a ball from Braund to the north-eastern boundary, where Tyldesley stepped on to the asphalt cycling track, threw out his left hand, and caught the ball. He did not know that he had brought about my dismissal. The arrangement used to be that if a fieldsman took a catch with his foot on the asphalt the batsman was not out. As, however, the umpire could not always tell if a fieldsman’s foot was on the paved track, it was decided by the captains that a catch anywhere on it was out. I knew this, but nobody had told Tyldesley about it.”I was dismissed the third time when facing Jessop, a fairly fast bowler. He bowled one just outside my leg stump. I went to glance it fine but played it onto my pads. The ball rolled between my legs and I watched it go slowly towards my wicket. It was some seconds before the bails fell off.”During New Zealand’s recent historic 3-0 win in India, there were only two centuries scored. Is this a record low for a Test series of three or more matches? asked Matthew Walsham from New Zealand
The only three-figure scores in the recent series in India both came in the first Test in Bengaluru – Rachin Ravindra’s 134 for New Zealand, and Sarfaraz Khan’s 150 for India.But this isn’t very close to the record: there were no individual centuries at all in the three-Test series between Australia and England in 1882-83 and 1888, India vs New Zealand in 1969-70 and 1995-96, Pakistan vs West Indies in 1986-87, and Pakistan vs Zimbabwe in 1993-94. There are 13 series that featured only one century, and 27 others with two (that includes four series of four matches: West Indies vs England in 1934-35, England v Pakistan in 1954, Pakistan vs West Indies in 1980-81, and India vs South Africa in 2015-16).Shiva Jayaraman of ESPNcricinfo’s stats team helped with some of the above answers.Use our feedback form, or the Ask Steven Facebook page to ask your stats and trivia questions

No one fully knows why he’s not played Tests since 2021, but he has kept taking the wickets, be it in Southampton, Gujranwala or Swabi

Danyal Rasool25-Dec-2024Mohammad Abbas marked his run-up, and trundled up to the bowling crease. He landed one on a length, as usual, and at the other end, Babar Azam defended with conviction. As Khurram Shahzad readied himself to bowl the next one, Abbas shared a word of advice. This one landed slightly shorter, and beat the outside edge. The bowlers shared a smile and a high-five. With darkening skies over Centurion, there was some Christmas cheer around after all. Abbas had slotted right back into this group.There is no mystery, no hidden secrets with Abbas, which is what makes the last three years so mysterious. He is a team man, popular, mild-mannered, helpful to a fault. He doesn’t have the ostentatious aggression of the express quicks like Shoaib Akhtar, nor the insouciant arrogance of the not-so-expresses like Mohammad Asif. No one seems to fully know why he spent the last three years out of the side, and everyone thinks bringing him back was a great decision.Graeme Welch, who has been Abbas’ bowling coach at Hampshire, calls him “one of the best blokes I ever met” as well as “one of the best bowlers I’ve ever seen”. At Hampshire over the past three seasons, Abbas’s consistency has been relentless, averaging 19.26 for his 180 wickets.”I’ve got on really well with him, even to the extent I call him one of my friends now,” Welch tells ESPNcricinfo. “I can’t speak highly enough of the fella”.Abbas wasn’t exactly ordinary before he joined up with Welch and Hampshire, either. He last played for Pakistan in Kingston in August 2021, the same place he made his debut four years earlier. In those four years, he had already packed in a stellar international career, a ten-wicket haul in Abu Dhabi against Australia, 14 in a two-Test series against England, and a sensational new-ball spell that culminated in a famous dismissal of Ben Stokes. By the time he’d played his most recent Test, he had taken 90 wickets at 23.02; the only Pakistan bowler to have taken more wickets at a superior average is Imran Khan.”I couldn’t believe he wasn’t in the Test team,” Welch says. “Looking at the last coaching regime [in Pakistan], I think they went down [the route of] looking at pace. I spoke to Shan Masood and he’s a big fan of Mo and wanted Mo in the team.”Mo was just, I think, waiting for the management structure to change or something like that, because obviously they went down the pace route. It’s nice to have pace but with our bowling attack we’ve got down here, it just shows accuracy just as good as anything. And if you can have a group of bowlers with a batting group not going anywhere, that’s just as good as anything. It’s testament to him as a bloke that he hasn’t lost his desire, he didn’t lose his will to play for Pakistan and that’s why he is taking his game to a next level by getting fitter.”Related

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• No, no way! You cannot do that, Mohammad Abbas!

During Abbas’s absence, pacers Naseem Shah, Shaheen Afridi and Haris Rauf all succeeded in Test cricket to varying degrees. However, bowlers of Abbas’ mould also came and went, with Mohammad Ali, Khurram Shahzad and Mir Hamza all called up to the Test side. In terms of sheer numbers, Abbas outshines them all, taking 223 at 20.24 since his last red-ball involvement with Pakistan; no other Pakistani bowler was as prolific or as efficient at first-class level during this period.Masood, too, believes Abbas belongs in the Test side. “I’ve been captain for a year so I can only speak for the conversations that happened during that time,” he said at a press conference on the eve of the first Test. “Abbas was someone who was my type of bowler in that if you want to build up stocks of fast bowlers, he definitely slots in there.”A year ago, during the Australia series, we had six fast bowlers who were in the side and who had performed well in domestic cricket. You’ve got to give players a full chance and look at conditions. The England series was such that Abbas’s skillset wasn’t as important, but we felt that going into South Africa, we needed a bowler who gave our bowling lineup a number of overs and control. His skill is second to none.”Mickey Arthur, who was Pakistan head coach when Abbas made his debut, and later team director while Abbas was out of the side, has spent much of the last three years watching him from the opposition dugout as head coach at Derbyshire.”I think it’s a very good selection,” he tells ESPNcricinfo. “Mohammad Abbas still bowls incredibly well in England. I think there may have been a consensus he might have lost a bit of pace. I don’t know that for certain.”But if he gets it right, Abbas has the ability to bring the ball back. He challenges the front pad of the batter and he challenges the stumps. And any bowler that does that consistently in South Africa can have decent returns.”It might be hard to justify depriving Abbas of three years of Test cricket in his early 30s, but the timing of his selection opens up the possibility of a much-deserved redemptive arc.’No. No way. You cannot do that, Mohammad Abbas’•Getty ImagesIt was here, six years ago, that Abbas’s performance threw up the greatest disparity between his potential and his end-product. Having missed the first Test of that series through injury – one of the other concerns that has occasionally kept him out of the Pakistan side – his battle with South Africa’s own medium fast seam bowler Vernon Philander was tipped as one of the decisive plot points of the series.However, that would be a series defined by exceptionally high pace, to the point Arthur at the time was coruscating about the quality of the South African wickets. Abbas, for his part, was never at his accurate best, and an errant spell on the first evening in Cape Town was heavily punished. He ended up bowling much too wide, far too full and a touch too slow. Abbas was largely ineffectual, finishing with five wickets at 46.20.”He bowls good lines and lengths, and that’s what you need in South Africa to challenge their top order,” Arthur says. “If he’s confident and comfortable in his own ability and he bowls with that confidence, gets through the crease, he has enough pace to challenge people with the new ball in South Africa.”

“The England series was such that Abbas’s skillset wasn’t as important, but we felt that going into South Africa, we needed a bowler who gave our bowling lineup a number of overs and control. His skill is second to none.”Shan Masood, Pakistan Test captain

Whether he does have enough pace, though, remains an open question. He made his name on the dustbowls of the UAE, his unerring accuracy when he honed in on the front pad proving claustrophobic for batters. The manner with which he has got batters out belies his line; in the absence of swing, outside edges are harder to find, and so he simply hones in on the stumps with 47 of his 90 Test wickets being either bowled or lbw. Philander, with whom his skillset is sometimes compared, picked up just 72 of his 224 wickets this way, with 152 caught dismissals, revealing the wider corridor conditions have permitted him to bowl in.A possible lack of options led Abbas to ask Welch for ideas about what to change in his game. “I did try to get him to do was bowl bouncers,” Welch says. “He looked at me as if I was stupid, but actually, I think he got about five or six wickets with bouncers last year, so he’s added that to his game a little bit. There’s a few things technically, which he wanted me to keep an eye on. It’s just as about as he’s getting to the crease, if he isn’t feeling fully in rhythm or he isn’t into his spell, he slows up just a little bit before the crease, which stops his momentum and he doesn’t bowl as quick, so we kept an eye on that for a little bit.”These perceived issues, though, have never hindered him from gobbling up wickets at a ferocious rate. Before he was called up to the Pakistan squad, he found sizzling form in the Quaid-e-Azam Trophy. He is currently the joint second-highest wicket-taker (31) this season at an average of 14.38. While none of those games were televised, it is hard to imagine pitches being too similar to the ones in Hampshire where he’s built up a reputation of such esteem that apparently no one can knock him off his perch.An anecdote suggests Hampshire demonstrated that value when Manchester City came to stay at the Hilton last season, and requested the penthouse suite for their manager Pep Guardiola for a few nights. They were turned down because Hampshire just couldn’t bring themselves to take it off Abbas.Welch says that was “100%” true. “Mo’s got the suite on the left-hand side as you look out from the changing rooms. Pep wanted that suite but couldn’t kick Mo out of there. We always have a laugh and a joke about that. Everybody loves him at the club. He’s been a great ambassador and I’m sure everybody just wishes him so wishes him well. I definitely do.”Respect and fondness have never been hard too hard for Abbas to achieve. Now he now has a shot at the one thing that proved strangely elusive – another chance with Pakistan as he pushes into his twilight years, one that most seem to think he should have got a long time ago.
Abbas has always been patient, though, and if he can make amends to his indifferent performances in South Africa last time around, it might just be one of the few things more precious than a Hilton Penthouse suite. After all, as even Guardiola is finding out now, even the best can stumble into a rough patch.

In the most thrilling game of the WPL season, she was involved in all the big moments and she won them all too

Shashank Kishore25-Feb-2025It seemed a no-brainer Royal Challengers Bengaluru would open the batting with Smriti Mandhana and Richa Ghosh to knock off the nine runs they needed to win in the Super Over against UP Warriorz on Monday night.And while they were in discussion, Sophie Ecclestone quickly yanked her pads and gloves off and was ready to go again. As Deepti Sharma stood beside head coach Jon Lewis, Ecclestone walked across with ball in hand, having been the very reason the game had gone this far.After bowling an outstanding final over in regulation time that went for just six runs, after walloping Renuka Singh for two sixes and a four in a different final over to force a tie, she now had to bowl the Super Over to decide the winner. No pressure.Related

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If you’ve endured what England did at the hands of Australia in the Women’s Ashes recently, you’re unlikely to want the ball back in your hands this soon.But Ecclestone is different. She was happy to be back in a pressure situation, with the game rested entirely on her shoulders. She gave Deepti and Lewis no chance. She was taking the ball. She was bowling the Super Over.”I don’t think there was a conversation,” Ecclestone told . “It was just ‘give it to me’. I have a great team around me, Jon knows me very well. I was quite lucky to have people around to help me execute my plans.”It became clear the Warriorz were going the Ecclestone way. Her mantra: No room to free the arms, no length to hit. She was going full and straight, towards the base of the stumps from around the wicket.”I feel like it was a great wicket, [the ball] was skidding through,” Ecclestone said. “There wasn’t much bounce, if I felt I could get it as full as I can, and get it under the bat, then I could try and give them little chance to score runs.”Sophie Ecclestone’s big hits took the game to the last ball•BCCIIt hadn’t been that simple a while ago, though, when she was batting on 3 off 8, struggling to force the ball off the square. But when Renuka faltered in the final over, Ecclestone walloped her for 6, 6 and 4. It wasn’t blind slogging; it was a proper, calculated takedown of India’s pace spearhead.The first ball was a gift – a full toss – and she moved across her crease to hit it over short fine. Having missed her length, Renuka now went into the pitch. Ecclestone stayed still, deep in her crease to wind up before she muscled the half-tracker over deep midwicket.The four was equally ferocious in how she was able to manufacture pace on the ball when there was none. There was precision involved as well, the ball bisecting backward point and short third. Yet with two still needed off two, it could’ve all been for nothing.

“The way she executed her bowling in the end, it shows her class. It’s not easy for a left-arm spinner. To bowl that last over, the 20th [which went for just six], plus Super Over – she’s an extremely valuable player”Jon Lewis on Ecclestone’s heroics

Ecclestone took a single to leave the game in the hands of a rookie No. 11, who was batting for the first time in front of a boisterous crowd of 28,000. Neither spoke a language the other understood.”Kranti [Goud] was laughing at me,” Ecclestone said. “She had no idea [what I was telling her], she doesn’t speak English, and I don’t speak Hindi.”I think it was interesting, I don’t know why I ran. I think maybe I thought I could hit it into the gap and run two. But to Kranti, I was like ‘just smile, try to hit the ball and run as much as you can’. Yeah.”When Goud missed, they ran for their lives. Only to be denied by Ghosh who did an MS Dhoni, running up to the stumps to break the bails rather than risk an under-arm flick. But moments later, the euphoria of a tied game dissipated when Mandhana and Ghosh ran out of gas, with Ecclestone denying them yet again.”The way she executed her bowling in the end, it shows her class,” Lewis said. “It’s not easy for a left-arm spinner. To bowl that last over, the 20th [which went for just six], plus Super Over – she’s an extremely valuable player who performs week-in, week-out wherever she goes.”An over is all it took for Ecclestone to turn into the wrecking ball of WPL 2025. While everyone around her was visibly elated, pumped even, Ecclestone, who’d delivered a popcorn thriller, was in her little bubble, having silenced 28,000 fans who’d been cheering against her.

It’s a format where you need a slice of luck to be able to showcase your skill, which Abhishek did, and how!

Karthik Krishnaswamy13-Apr-20251:54

Jaffer: Abhishek has given SRH a new lease of life

“He was a bit lucky as well, even though he played an exceptional knock which was out of this world, to be honest.”This was Shreyas Iyer, interviewed immediately after his team, Punjab Kings (PBKS), had suffered an extraordinary defeat at the hands of Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH), who had chased down 246 with nine balls to spare courtesy a 55-ball 141 from Abhishek Sharma.If you hadn’t watched the match, Iyer’s words may have come across as a little churlish, a losing captain’s immediate reaction to losing a match from a position of immense strength.As a description of this innings, though, it was spot-on. Abhishek played an exceptional, out-of-this-world knock. He was also lucky. More than a bit.Related

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Abhishek Sharma's whirlwind 141 leads SRH to second-highest IPL chase

We’ll come to the luck, but first, a recap of Abhishek’s form coming into this game. His last four innings had brought him scores of 6, 1, 2 and 18. Abhishek’s top-order colleagues had also experienced lean runs over these four games, and SRH had lost all of them. At the start of IPL 2025, much of the talk surrounding SRH revolved around whether they could break the 300 barrier. Five games into the season, they had just one win and had lost more powerplay wickets (12) than anyone else. The approach of their top order, which had driven them to so many stratospheric totals, was now coming into question.Even SRH’s head coach seemed to be feeling the heat. He wasn’t yet asking his batters to tone down their aggression, but he was asking them to “respect conditions”, and “respect how well other teams are bowling”.As things turned out, those options weren’t exactly open to SRH when they began their innings on Saturday. They had just been asked to pull off the second-biggest chase in IPL history.This was the kind of chase that called for frantic boundary-hitting. It also called for a bit of luck.And luck smiled on SRH from the start. Both their openers got off the mark with boundaries that went in unintended directions, Abhishek’s via a slice to the deep-third boundary. And Abhishek hit his next ball in the air, over the fielder at short cover, where the leaping Marcus Stoinis only managed to get his fingertips to the ball.How good do you have to be for an opposition quick to give you a warm hug?•Getty ImagesLuck. It has four letters, but cricket discourse tends to treat it like a four-letter word, something to be spoken of in whispers, if spoken of at all. It has a significant influence on the fortunes (a revealing word in itself) of players and teams, but to talk about luck is to risk being accused of downplaying skill and effort.Let’s talk about luck, then, but let’s talk about both kinds of luck. Go back to Abhishek’s four previous innings before this one: 6, 1, 2, 18. A lot of things went into those scores: the bowlers and conditions he faced, the oppositions’ plans and how they were executed, and so forth, and also luck. Over those four innings, he only played seven false shots, and they brought about three dismissals. That’s outrageously bad luck by itself, before you factor in how his other dismissal came about: a mix-up when he was at the non-striker’s end.Abhishek was due a bit of luck when he began his innings against PBKS. And so were his top-order colleagues. Travis Head had been dismissed four times off 15 false shots, and the desperately unlucky Ishan Kishan four times off eight false shots.It’s unusual for every member of a top three to endure this sort of wretched luck at the same time. Perhaps SRH’s issues coming into this game didn’t stem from their approach, or not respecting conditions and their opponents’ plans. Perhaps they had just been plain unlucky.SRH were due a bit of luck, then, and they found it on Saturday. Abhishek was the biggest recipient, surviving seven false shots within the powerplay alone, including that chance to Stoinis and a catch at the backward-point boundary in the fourth over when Yash Thakur overstepped. The luck extended beyond the powerplay too, with mishits falling into no-man’s land multiple times, and a high, swirling chance that Yuzvendra Chahal couldn’t quite hold on to after aborting his follow-through and running towards the mid-on region.2:44

When everything comes together as it did on this surreal Saturday, Abhishek Sharma can make things look absurdly easy

Luck. It isn’t the opposite of skill, but as a batter, you sometimes need one to be able to showcase the other.Showcase was just what Abhishek did. Take the two balls either side of the Thakur no-ball, both hit for effortless sixes over the on side. Both balls were angled across Abhishek, one pitching on a good length and finishing around the top of off stump, and the other full enough to deny most batters elevation. He made light of the difficulty of working against the angle and slightly inconvenient lengths, putting both balls away with mere flicks of his wrist.Both these shots came within the first ten balls Abhishek faced. He’s made a habit of playing these types of shots early in his innings, and it perhaps takes a run of bad luck to truly appreciate how difficult it is to get off to starts like he does.His opening partner Head is blessed with this rare ability too, but even he wasn’t his usual self on Saturday; he went as far as leaving alone two of the first three balls he faced. It’s possible that the low scores and defeats leading up to this game had some effect on how he started.”Giving ourselves a chance,” Head said, when asked what he had discussed with Abhishek before SRH began their chase. “I was probably a little bit more patient in the first couple of overs in this game. They’ve got a quality couple of new-ball bowlers, I knew the sort of plans they were going to come [with]. Yeah, probably a little bit more quiet, and Abhi got off to a flier. So just trying to support him as much as I can.”You’ve got to be some player to make Travis Head, of all people, take on a supporting role.

“They had a pretty good plan for us, outside off [stump], but I just wanted to invent a few shots, which I think was very easy on this pitch because of the bounce and the size of one side”Abhishek Sharma

You’ve got to be some player to take a good-length ball from wide outside off stump and helicopter it 106m over midwicket. You’ve got to be some player to do this against a bowler as tall and bouncy as Marco Jansen. Abhishek played this shot because PBKS were trying to force him to hit to the longer square boundary on the off side, and he wasn’t going to let their plans constrain him.There were even two occasions – off Jansen and then Thakur – when he walked right across his stumps, exposed all three, and clipped yorker-length balls to the fine-leg boundary.”If you’ve seen me close enough, I never play anything behind the wicket, but still I was trying a few shots,” Abhishek said during his Player-of-the-Match interview. “They had a pretty good plan for us, outside off [stump], but I just wanted to invent a few shots, which I think was very easy on this pitch because of the bounce and the size of one side.”Yes, this was a beautiful pitch to bat on, and yes, Abhishek was hitting these shots to the smaller boundary. But no, they weren’t “very easy”. Not for most others.For Abhishek on this unreal day, though, anything seemed possible. SRH, chasing 246, became favourites nine overs into their innings, according to ESPNcricinfo’s Forecaster. Six balls later, their win probability had climbed to 79.38%.Abhishek Sharma finished on 141 off 55 balls, the highest individual score for an Indian at the IPL•Getty ImagesBy this stage, Abhishek had already reached 87. Three overs later, he went from 98 to 100 with an utterly uncharacteristic pair of clipped singles to long-on. Despite that hint of slowing down as he neared the landmark, he had brought it up in just 40 balls.To get to a century at that rate demands sustained risk-taking, and pulling it off demands an extraordinary amount of skill – and, sometimes, a little bit of luck. This was Abhishek’s third T20 hundred in 40 or fewer balls; no one else has done it as many times, and only three other batters have even done it twice.For a batter to score big and quick and do it on multiple occasions requires an ability to hit boundaries from the get-go and sustain that momentum through an innings, against pace and spin, within the powerplay and outside it. Abhishek can do all of that. And he has the self-belief to keep backing his methods even when he’s gone through streaks of low scores and rotten luck.When everything comes together as it did on this surreal Saturday, Abhishek can make things look absurdly easy. Don’t ever let that fool you.

With little prior intel and an unpredictable pitch history, neither side really knows what to expect, although the WI captain feels it will be a better batting surface than Barbados

Andrew McGlashan03-Jul-20251:13

Konstas and Green face vital test for Australia

Pat Cummins has urged his top order to adapt quicker to conditions in the second Test but is enjoying the challenge of coming to venues without much, or any, prior information. This is Australia’s first Test series in the Caribbean for ten years and the first time any of this squad have played in Grenada.The pitch looked as though it would be rather more benign that at Kensington Oval, but even there the talk at the toss was a surface that both sides thought would play reasonably well only for it to become a fast-bowlers’ shootout, which finished in three days.Australia have kept things simple in selection with Steven Smith’s return at the expense of Josh Inglis the only change, but Cummins has prepared his batters to be ready to switch gameplans should things play out differently than expected.Related

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“Just being a little bit quicker to adapt. It got difficult at times [in Barbados],” he said. “That’s a test for you. Even with the ball changes, each time you kind of got a new ball, that made [it] a little tricky period for the batters. So I think just being sharper… a lot of the conversations about keep the scoreboard ticking over, make yourself hard to be bowled at.”You don’t 100% know what you’re going to get coming up against players that we haven’t played a lot against on a field that we’ve never played on before. It’s [about] staying fairly open-minded. Our message is always: remember what makes you a good player, play to your strengths. But if the information takes you in a different direction just make sure you’re sharp and adapt.”With the last Test at the National Stadium played three years ago – out of four overall – plus the ground’s previous first-class fixture being back in early 2023, there is precious little research available.”I think it’s fun coming when there’s a few unknowns, you’ve kind of got to think on your feet and you’re not quite sure how a game’s going to play out,” Cummins said. “When you go to Australia, you kind of know how the conditions are going to be.Sam Konstas had a tough time of it in Barbados•Randy Brooks/Associated Press”I think that was something we did reasonably well in the first Test. We thought it was going to be really flat, and it ended up being a pretty bowler-friendly wicket. You’ve got to try and find a way to score runs differently to how you think, and I like that part of it.”Smith’s return brings the middle order back to full strength after the trio of Travis Head, Beau Webster and Alex Carey hauled Australia out of trouble in Barbados. He is renowned as one of the great problem-solving batters and will add further insurance against a top order that remains uncertain as Sam Konstas and Cameron Green work through their challenges.”He’s scored runs all over the world and whilst he’s not played a game here, he seems to work out pretty quickly what needs to be done and where your scoring areas are,” Cummins said of Smith. “So, of course, having that knowledge is going to be helpful, particularly to the guys that haven’t really played too many Tests or first-class games.”But it’s not only the Australians who are short on knowledge about the ground. Even West Indies captain Roston Chase has only played two games here in his entire career: an ODI against Ireland and a first-class match for Barbados back in 2015. Overall, West Indies will likely have four players who were part of the 2022 Test against England.”I’m not really accustomed to the facilities but the pitch looks a good one,” Chase said. “It looks evenly grassed. It looks way better than the Barbados pitch, although I’m a Barbadian.”Australia’s selectors are likely to make a call after this Test over whether to release Marnus Labuschagne•Getty ImagesOne of the pre-tour expectations was that spinners could be key in this series, but they had a limited role in Barbados and West Indies were even considering not playing left-arm spinner Jomel Warrican in Grenada. Australia had come prepared to partner Nathan Lyon with Matt Kuhnemann after their success in Sri Lanka, but the latter has remained on the bench. However, Cummins did not rule him out as an option in Jamaica for the last game even though it will be day-night Test.”It seems like Jamaica can spin a lot,” Cummins said. “I think even if it’s a pink ball, kind of wait and see and stay pretty open-minded. Beau’s a third quick as well. Until you kind of get eyes on the wicket, it’s pretty hard to know. I think just every venue is a little bit different. I thought maybe two out of the three might spin a bit, but so far it looks like the first two won’t.”Meanwhile, Australia’s selectors are likely to make a call after this Test over whether to release Marnus Labuschagne from the squad now that Smith is back in action. There are options for him to potentially get a couple of games for Glamorgan or be added to the Australia A squad for the four-day games against Sri Lanka A in Darwin. Australia would need to ensure they have sufficient batting cover for the final Test at Sabina Park should he leave.”It’s probably a conversation between George [Bailey], [Andrew McDonald] and Marnus over how he wants to best map out the next couple of months,” Cummins said.

And that was not all. West Indies picked up three injuries and had to manufacture an entirely new opening pair

Andrew McGlashan13-Jul-2025

Justin Greaves celebrates dismissing Alex Carey•Associated Press

A lot happened on the opening day at Sabina Park, and not just with the ball – although that certainly did .One of the greatest spinners of all time was left out. Australia lost 7 for 68 under lights. Batters went into T20 mode in the third session of a Test. Jayden Seales bowled a worldie of a delivery. A substitute fielder took a worldie of a catch. West Indies picked up three injuries and had to manufacture an entirely new opening pair.Day-night Tests can have a strange tempo to them in that, for periods, things can move at a sedate pace, as if setting up for that final session under lights before moving at a breakneck speed. Early in the last session, around the time Beau Webster was dismissed shortly after Steven Smith, Australia shelved the idea of batting normally. At one point, it was worth pondering if Pat Cummins may declare, but the lower order kept swinging until West Indies had 45 minutes to face.

****

On its own, leaving out a spinner on a well-grassed pitch for a pink-ball Test shouldn’t really scream selection shock. But this spinner has 562 Test wickets. The day before, Cummins had sown the seeds for a selection call that, while having plenty of logic behind it, still came with a lot of significance.About half an hour before the toss, Nathan Lyon was kicking a football on his own. A couple of backroom staff wandered up to him. There was a tap on the shoulder from one. Then Scott Boland took the tape measure and marked out his run-up. For the first time in 12 years, Lyon wasn’t included in the XI when he’s been fit.Related

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He had bowled one over against India last season in the pink-ball Test in Adelaide and wasn’t needed under lights against England in Hobart during the 2021-22 Ashes. But overall, he has been prolific with the pink ball. Australia have got creative with selection on the subcontinent in recent years, but this was still a surprise.”It’s odd not having him out there,” Smith said. “I think most of us have played pretty much every game with him, but conditions are conditions. I think we saw today how much seam was on offer and Scott Boland’s not too bad at that, as we’ve seen on numerous occasions. Obviously, Nathan’s an exceptional bowler, it’s certainly nothing to do with his skill that’s for sure.”

****

When debutant Kevlon Anderson spilled Sam Konstas at third slip, you feared if West Indies were going to have another fielding nightmare. By tea – the first interval, not the second, in the world of day-night Tests, although can anyone actually agree on what to call them? – they only had one wicket to show for their efforts but had beaten the bat regularly amid sometimes extravagant seam movement.”I think some of the numbers early on, the seam amounts were through the roof,” Smith said. “They might have bowled just a fraction short. It looks pretty sometimes when the ball misses the bat, but when it’s a little bit shorter, it’s actually going too far to catch the edge on a lot of occasions.”Steven Smith and Co went into T20 mode in the third session of a Test•Associated PressBut early in the middle session, Shai Hope pulled off a spectacular catch to remove Usman Khawaja, flying one-handed towards first slip. It was another around-the-wicket dismissal for Khawaja but it had been a gutsy stay. Hope, meanwhile, had taken a terrific catch in Grenada to remove Travis Head and his return to Test cricket as a wicketkeeper has been very solid.Still, shortly before the dinner interval, Australia were sitting nicely on 129 for 2. Then Seales produced one of the deliveries of the series to remove a well-set Cameron Green: angled into middle from wide of the crease, nipping off the seam, zipping past the edge and trimming the bails. Sometimes you really do get a good one.”The ball did a lot more today than it did throughout the entire series,” Seales said. “There were a lot of plays and misses, and not enticing the edges as we did in the previous matches. But as the movement calmed down and the pitch calmed down a bit, it was easier to get wickets.”

****

After dinner, with the lights in full effect, Smith wasn’t going to hang around. He edged one wide of second slip, slashed one over the cordon then nicked a big drive to first. “Throw the kitchen sink at it,” he said when asked about his thinking. “Any width, I was just trying to climb into it. It felt pretty tricky out there and it felt like when the ball was up there and you get a good look at it, have a go at it.”Webster soon fell and it was clear Australia weren’t going to try and see out the day. “We knew that Australia wanted to bowl under the lights, so they would push and see how much they could get,” Seales said.Substitute Anderson Phillip pulled off a stunning catch to dismiss Travis Head•Associated PressWith Head and Alex Carey at the crease, Australia had a pair who could cause damage in a short period of time. Carey, especially, continued to strike the ball crisply. Then Head tried to drive Justin Greaves over extra cover. Off the bat, he appeared to have placed it well enough. But Anderson Phillip, on as one of three substitute fielders, sprinted to his right at mid-off, dived full length, held the catch horizontal to the ground and managed to cling on as he hit the turf. “Great effort, great effort, great catch,” Ian Bishop said on commentary. “It had to be a fast bowler to do it, great athleticism.”

****

Left with 45 minutes to bat, neither designated opener could come out for West Indies. Mikyle Louis had jarred his knee in the outfield – his prognosis did not sound promising – and John Campbell took a blow on the chest at short leg from a hard sweep by Smith.It felt like Mitchell Starc, in his 100th Test, could take a wicket nearly every ball. Then he did: Anderson dragging on in what was one of the tougher debut scenarios to imagine. Starc went to 396 Test wickets. Those four more may not be long in coming.Campbell, who had gone to the hospital for a scan, was back at the ground and set to bat No. 3. But it’s understood that he couldn’t get his kit on in time, so it was over to captain Roston Chase. It was that sort of day.

A seam-friendly pitch in Bengaluru backfired on India last year, but injuries to West Indies’ frontline quicks may contribute to a substantial covering of grass on the Ahmedabad surface

Karthik Krishnaswamy and Nagraj Gollapudi30-Sep-20252:10

Chopra: ‘I hope India don’t prepare rank turners’ against West Indies

India could play the first Test of their two-match series against West Indies on one of the greenest home pitches of recent seasons. Two days out from the first Test in Ahmedabad, the pitch had a lush, even covering of grass, and while some of it may get trimmed by the time the match begins, ESPNcricinfo understands 4-5mm could still remain.The primary reason for this grass cover is the composition of the soil. The square at the Narendra Modi Stadium has both red- and black-soil pitches. The pitch for this Test match is a red-soil strip. Red-soil pitches tend to offer excellent bounce and carry when held together by grass. Without this binding, however, they have the tendency to crumble rapidly into dustbowls – the pitch India played New Zealand on in Mumbai last year, where spinners took 34 of the 38 wickets that fell to bowlers, is the most recent example of this phenomenon.Another reason for the pitch looking as green as it did on Tuesday is the rainy weather Ahmedabad has experienced in the last few days, with the pitch under covers through most of Sunday and Monday. It was mostly clear on Tuesday, though, allowing both West Indies and India to train without interruption. There is rain forecast on day one of the Test, but the weather is expected to clear thereafter.Related

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In recent years, India have tended to play their home Tests on square turners in the pursuit of World Test Championship (WTC) points, with wins (12 points) worth three times as much as draws (four points). But these sharply turning pitches run the risk of narrowing the gap between India’s spin attack – which has been the best in the world for over a decade – and that of the visiting team. This was one of the factors that contributed to New Zealand’s unexpected and unprecedented 3-0 whitewash of India in India last year.India are looking to avoid any repeat of this, against a West Indies team that won a Test match against Pakistan on a square turner in Multan in January.No choice is without trade-offs, though, and seaming conditions weaponise both teams’ pace attacks. Last year’s series against New Zealand began in seam-friendly conditions in Bengaluru, where India were bowled out for 46 after choosing to bat first – their then captain Rohit Sharma later suggested he may have misread the conditions.If West Indies had their original squad to choose from, they could have picked the potent pace trio of Jayden Seales, Shamar Joseph and Alzarri Joseph and gone toe-to-toe with India. They have, however, lost both Josephs to injury in the lead-up to the first Test. This leaves them with substantially depleted pace resources, with Seales and the allrounder Justin Greaves joined by Anderson Phillip – who has a bowling average of 72.50 after three Tests – and the uncapped pair of Johann Layne and Jediah Blades.India were bowled out for 46 in the first innings of the first Test against New Zealand in Bengaluru last year•BCCIThe weakening of West Indies’ seam attack may well contribute to more grass being left on the surface than it otherwise may have been. India will also be looking to put the visitors’ batting under pressure: West Indies were bowled out for 27 by Australia’s four-man seam attack in their most recent Test match, a day-night game in Jamaica.Apart from Bengaluru last year, the last time India played a home Test in genuinely seaming conditions was in Kolkata in 2017, when fast bowlers took 32 of the 35 wickets that fell during a tense, rain-affected draw against Sri Lanka. That pitch was partly the outcome of weather, and partly India’s wish to have their fast bowlers play on helpful pitches in the lead-up to a tour of South Africa in early 2018.Motera has a surprisingly rich history of pace-dominated Test matches. In the very first Test at the venue, in 1983, the quicks took 34 out of 38 bowlers’ wickets (including a nine-wicket haul for Kapil Dev in the third innings) as West Indies beat India by 138 runs. Wisden’s description of the conditions makes for interesting reading: “a lot of grass had been left on the hurriedly prepared pitch in the vain hope of holding it together”. Vain hope, indeed, because it quickly disintegrated into a surface offering deadly uneven bounce.9:01

Chopra: At home against West Indies ‘should be a relatively easier series for India in this WTC’

In 1996, Javagal Srinath took a match-winning fourth-innings six-for against South Africa on another uneven pitch, though this was a dry, underprepared surface equally conducive to spin.South Africa were the visitors once more in 2008, and this time the conditions worked in their favour. As Wisden put it: “A hot summer in Ahmedabad meant that grass had to be left on the pitch to bind the surface; the curator, former Test cricketer Dhiraj Parsana, insisted he could not remove it without taking the top off. He held his ground, and India won a toss they might have been better off losing. They chose to bat.”Dale Steyn, Makhaya Ntini and Morne Morkel ran through India, who were bowled out for 76 in just 20 overs. South Africa went on to win by an innings.Another Motera Test, another green or greenish surface. What kind of storyline will it bring us this time?