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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.

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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.”

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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.”

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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.”

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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.

Amrit Mathur’s book offers rare behind-the-scenes glimpses at the highs and lows of three decades of the game through his time as journalist, administrator and team manager

Debayan Sen01-Sep-2023If you’ve ever wondered what pre-match routines Sachin Tendulkar or Sourav Ganguly typically went through, or how chaotic the initial years of the IPL were, or how cannily the best cricket administrators work out the arithmetic during BCCI elections, you will get a lot of insights in Amrit Mathur’s Pitchside: My Life in Indian Cricket. Mathur is the ultimate Indian cricket insider, having spent time in the system as administrator, journalist, manager on several historic tours, as a member of organising committees in World Cups, and advisor to IPL teams. He has also held several posts in the BCCI.By his own admission, he was fortunate to be handpicked – “I think of myself as a concussion sub, someone not supposed to play but unexpectedly pushed into the middle” – first by erstwhile BCCI president Madhavrao Scindia, and then several others, as a young bureaucrat with Indian Railways.The good thing about Pitchside is that Mathur stays true to the title and presents us with an objective view of what he saw and heard. There are great anecdotes from some historic India campaigns that fans will lap up – the tour of South Africa in 1992, the 2003 World Cup, the 2004 tour to Pakistan (including the political ambivalence right up until Sourav Ganguly’s team set off, with then board president Jagmohan Dalmiya standing up to an unnamed senior minister and refusing to pull the plug on the tour on the government’s behalf), and also from his time with Delhi Daredevils (now Capitals) in the IPL.In Mathur’s telling of his early days in the game, of his all-star St Stephen’s College team-mates (Arun Lal, Piyush Pandey, Rajinder Amarnath, Ramchandra Guha) and Delhi University colleagues (Kirti Azad, Sunil Valson, Randhir Singh), I found parallels in my own life. When I went to the same college two decades later, any inter-departmental cricket game pitted you against Ranji Trophy players from Delhi, Himachal Pradesh, Haryana, Punjab. Hindu College, rivals from across the road, acquired the services of Gautam Gambhir during my final year there.This star cast also makes routine appearances in his stories. The writing style is informal, with the private thoughts of titans of the sport, gleaned in conversation, appearing as bullet points at the end of several sections. The descriptions of the 2002 tour of England, capped by the NatWest Trophy win, and a stirring fightback in the Test series, give a fine picture of how the meticulous John Wright and the erratic Ganguly forged a coach-captain combination that had its share of highs and lows.Westland BooksI did, however, have two minor quibbles with the book. First, Mathur had a ringside view of two of Indian cricket’s greatest match-fixing scandals. He steers clear of the whole subject, which feels a bit like shortchanging the reader. Given his deep roots within Indian cricket, he may not have felt comfortable revealing ugly secrets about players and officials he has admired. There is also the possibility that he may not have known enough to talk with any authority.He also provides detailed pen sketches of various characters in Indian cricket right at the end. Interestingly, second mentions of characters are first names for various players and functionaries – see Sachin, Sourav/Dada, Gavaskar, Lalit, Jaggu-da – but for others, he uses Mr Scindia and Mr Jaitley. This might be out of reverence for the deceased, but it confirms that in Indian cricket the politician has an unjustified pride of place that the best players cannot quite aspire to yet, even in the words of one of the most honest and upright servants of the sport.

It isn’t just a question of the next century, the man is now sparring with administrators, unthinkable two years ago

Osman Samiuddin25-Dec-2021Welcome back to the planet, Virat. It’s been a while. It’s not in the best shape it’s ever been right now, but it’ll have to do, because it is where we all eventually end up.Although, for a while, it did genuinely look like earth might never be big enough for Virat Kohli, that Kohli had become so big he wasn’t supranational, it was possible to think of him eclipsing multiverses and not traversing them: think Sachin Tendulkar, add MS Dhoni, times the sum by Bollywood, all to the power West Delhi.Kohli was the barometer through which the health of a game – even the health of a nation – could be measured. If Kohli said he loved Test cricket, then Test cricket was still breathing. If Kohli shook hands with Shahid Afridi, it was possible to imagine harmony between the two countries. If Kohli didn’t play in a series, that country’s cricket economy was doomed. With Kohli, broadcasters happily ripped off the façade that cricket is a team game, training their cameras on him. A Kohli net session became a must-watch event.Related

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For a while, on the field, Kohli was infallible, indefatigable, unquenchable, and above all, inevitable. All the biggest and the greatest go through this one period, and perhaps the only difference ends up being of degrees. We wonder, not only when this greatness will ever stop, but how it can possibly ever stop? With each one of them, we think this one – – will surely be the greatest of them all.And then, without paying it any more attention than what you would to a temporary run of un-great scores, a lean run turns into lean days turns into lean months turns into a lean year turns into the start of the regression back to great, rather than greatest turns into the start of the end. Because – and this is a lesson we happily forget every time – gravity gets us all (the Don excepted) in the end.Massive caveat: this is Kohli, who is 33, and has been the gold standard when it comes to fitness. In a time when more athletes are being great deeper into their 30s, it’s entirely plausible to see a whole new coda to Kohli’s career over the next five, six years. He is Kohli after all, who will never be done with proving somebody, anybody, wrong.But when you burn as intensely as Kohli has done, there’s always the risk that burnout happens quicker. In which light, this phase of Kohli, ticking over two years now, is beginning to feel a little bit more loaded than just a phase. A phase is what a teenager passes through; for adults, it may need a more serious diagnosis.

Kohli is now sparring with administrators. Two years ago, this was unthinkable. He was untouchable. Nobody could have picked a fight with him. They all let him be so that the idea that he would one day have to take to a press conference to fight back against a BCCI press release seemed comically beneath him

Two years without a hundred of any kind, two years in which his Test average has fallen five runs. If he bats every innings this series, is dismissed each time and scores less than 198 runs, his Test average will fall under 50. Meaning that by his 100th Test, Kohli’s Test average could be under 50. Little says batting mortality like an average under 50, in any era.Kind of like age, though, the average can sometimes also just be a number; it’s not always indicative of how one feels, especially when it is flitting around high-end landmark numbers. Still, it is strange to think of Kohli as a sub-50 Test batter; the last time he was that was August 2017, when he’d spent nearly a year hovering around that 50 mark. Two of India’s greatest batters before him, Tendulkar and Rahul Dravid, were, by their 100th Tests, both averaging 57.As with everything, though, Covid-19 has warped the texture of this Kohli run. It feels both like it has gone on for a while but also that it hasn’t; two years is plenty of time, but he’s played 13 Tests in that time, whereas he played nearly twice as many – 24 Tests – in the two-year period before that.If it was only a question of his batting, though, it would be simpler because it’s not as if he has looked like some struggling, out-of-sorts batter. His last 11 Test innings include scores of 44, 42, 20, 55, 50, 44 and 36. This is not out of form.But Kohli is now sparring with administrators. Two years ago, this was unthinkable. He was untouchable. Nobody could have picked a fight with him. The Committee of Administrators let him be. The coach let him be. The players let him be. They all let him be so that the idea that he would one day have to take to a press conference to fight back against a BCCI press release seemed comically beneath him.4:52

Kohli: ‘Nothing can derail me from being motivated to play for India’

He’s no longer captain of all formats. And because he’s been pushed out in one, it allows the germ of another previously unthinkable thought to slip in – that there may even come a time soon when he is no longer a part of at least one white-ball side. Hell, if the BCCI wants to get vindictive, he may no longer be part of the other. Far-fetched still, but then this is now a regular, worldly situation, a scrap between a board and star player. This has happened before. To other stars. Kohli was going to be the one who transcended all this and now he’s just another star.It says something about his impact that he’s still likely to achieve something no Asian captain has if India win in South Africa and he then avoids defeat next summer in the re-scheduled Test against England – if he’s still captain, no longer perishing that thought. He’ll become the first Asian captain to have won Test series in England, Australia, and South Africa.But the sharpness, the bristle, can’t help but be somewhat blunted now. In a happier way, from the other end of the spectrum of life experiences to a workplace scrap, parenthood cannot help but have done the same. Few things can cause a razor-sharp, myopic focus to be diffused as a child can.This is Kohli’s new world, one in which it’s possible to see him no longer as the essential figure or as clearly defined against the background. For more or less three decades, Indian cricket, and by extension world cricket, has had one global star. Through Tendulkar, then Dhoni and then Kohli, the game has tried to explain itself to the outside world. Through each it has sought to measure itself against the outside world, to sell itself to the outside world, to find its place in the outside world. Each one has been more burdened than the last. Maybe, the time is coming to start thinking about the next in that line.All of which, of course, is exactly what Kohli needs, to think that he’s being written off, to think that he has enemies to slay. No better time than now, in this new world, to find that old motivation.

Glasgow Rangers head coach Danny Rohl should be relatively pleased with his start to life in the dugout at Ibrox, with four wins out of four in the Scottish Premiership so far.

The Light Blues beat Livingston 2-1 at Ibrox in a controversial clash in their first game back after the international break, as no penalty was awarded for handball against Emmanuel Fernandez, who also scored the opening goal in the match.

Rangers got the job done, though, and claimed all three points thanks to a second-half strike from Mohamed Diomande, who tapped into an empty net at the back post.

The Ivorian central midfielder had an open goal in front of him because Bojan Miovski made a brilliant run over the top and poked the ball to Diomande as the goalkeeper came out to meet him.

It was a moment of real quality from the Macedonia international to help clinch all three points for the Scottish giants on Saturday, after what has been a difficult start to the campaign.

The Light Blues bolstered their attacking ranks with the £8m signing of Youssef Chermiti and the £4.2m signing of Miovski in the summer, and supporters may need to be patient with both of them.

Why Rangers fans need to be patient with Miovski and Chermiti

Rangers splashed the cash to bring those two centre-forwards to Ibrox, particularly Chermiti, and you can understand why some supporters may not be happy with what they have produced so far this season.

Both strikers have only scored one goal so far in the Scottish Premiership under Russell Martin, Stevie Smith, and Danny Rohl combined, which shows that they have rarely provided much in the way of quality in the final third.

Appearances

9

7

Goals

1

1

Minutes per goal

551

231

Big chances created

1

0

Assists

1

1

Duel success rate

33%

39%

As you can see in the table above, Chermiti and Miovski have both failed to offer value for money in the league since their respective big-money moves from Everton and Girona in the summer.

Rangers and their supporters should still have some patience, though, because Miovski is a proven Premiership goalscorer who can offer quality if he hits his stride.

The left-footed attacker, as shown in the graphic below, was a prolific scorer during his time with Aberdeen, before his move to Spain last year, and this suggests that there is still hope that he can turn his Ibrox career around.

Chermiti does not have the same history of goalscoring, having failed to score a single first-team goal in two seasons with Everton, that Miovski behind him has to suggest that he will come good, but the Portuguese striker is only 21.

The former Toffees flop has plenty of time left ahead of him to develop and signed a long-term contract at Ibrox, which is why there may need to be patience with him to allow him to flourish as a player. It is not his fault that former sporting director Kevin Thelwell spent £8m on him, and he should be given a chance to prove his worth in the years to come.

Whilst patience is needed with Miovski and Chermiti, who were both permanent additions signed to long contracts, there are some other summer signings who should not be awarded the same patience.

Chalkboard

Football FanCast’s Chalkboard series presents a tactical discussion from around the global game.

Nasser Djiga was brought in on loan from Wolverhampton Wanderers during the summer transfer window in an attempt to bolster Russell Martin’s defence, but he has been an even bigger waste of time than the two strikers.

Why Djiga has been a worse Rangers signing than Miovski and Chermiti

The Burkina Faso international is only on loan from the Premier League side until the end of the season and the club do not have an option to make the deal permanent next summer.

That means, as it stands, the central defender should only be judged on his performances in the short-term because he is not a player who the Light Blues will benefit from if he develops and improves by the end of the campaign, as he will be off down south to England again.

Therefore, on current performance levels, Djiga looks to be an even bigger waste of time than Miovski and Chermiti, because he is not delivering quality on the pitch for Rangers in the present.

Livingston

90

Dundee

8

Roma

90

Celtic

102

Hibernian

90

Kilmarnock

0

Brann

76

Dundee United

0

Falkirk

90

Sturm Graz

0

The Wolves loanee, as shown by the table above, has been in and out of the side in recent weeks and months, which has been because of his inconsistent performances.

Injuries to John Souttar and Derek Cornelius provided him with a chance to impress against Livingston, but his error for Tete Yengi’s equaliser was described as “appalling” defending by reporter Tom English, as the centre-back allowed the forward to run off the back of him to score from a long pass.

That mistake against Livingston on Saturday is far from the first one that he has made in a Rangers shirt. Four Lads Had A Dream claimed that he

“genuinely looks lost” during the 3-1 defeat to Celtic in the semi-final of the League Cup earlier this month.

Djiga also got off to a poor start to life at Ibrox in August. He was sent off in a 1-1 draw with Dundee at Ibrox before making a ‘disastrous’ error at the start of the club’s Champions League play-off qualifier against Club Brugge.

These examples show that the central defender has been an unreliable performer for the Light Blues throughout the season, for both Martin and Rohl, which is why he has been a dismal signing on current evidence.

That is also why he has been an even bigger waste of time than Miovski and Chermiti, because the two strikers were permanent signings on multi-year deals and have time to turn things around, whilst Djiga was a season-long loan signing who should be making an instant impact.

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Unless the Wolves loanee can drastically turn his form around and prove himself to be a reliable figure at the back for Rohl, he may go down as one of the worst signings of the Thelwell era, which lasted one summer.

Forty players listed at the maximum base price of INR 2 crore; Venkatesh Iyer and Ravi Bishnoi the only Indians among them

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A total of 359 players are set to feature in the IPL 2026 mini-auction on December 16 in Abu Dhabi. Of these, 40 players have listed themselves for the maximum base price of INR 2 crore, with Venkatesh Iyer and Ravi Bishnoi the only Indians among them.Cameron Green, who is tipped to become the most expensive buy, has listed himself as a batter and will appear in the first set. Devon Conway, Jake Fraser-McGurk, Sarfaraz Khan, David Miller and Prithvi Shaw are the others in that set.Quinton de Kock, Dunith Wellalage, and George Linde, who were not part of the longlist, have been included in the final list.Related

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Of the 359 players shortlisted, 244 are Indian and 115 from overseas. The auction will commence with a full round of capped players. The order will be batters, allrounders, wicketkeepers, fast bowlers and spinners, followed by a full round of uncapped players. The accelerated process will begin after player No. 70 and will cover the rest of the players. The franchises will then be asked to submit the names of the unsold players from the overall list for further accelerated rounds.A total of 77 slots are available to be filled at the auction, including 31 for overseas players. Kolkata Knight Riders have the biggest purse of INR 64.30 crore and also have 13 slots left to fill, including six overseas slots. Chennai Super Kings are the next with INR 43.4 crores. They have nine slots vacant.