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This week: The ODI exploits of Michael Bevan, Lance Klusener and MS Dhoni

Himanshu Agrawal22-Jun-2020What We’re WatchingThe ice-cool pioneer
The idea of a finisher probably first took root during the 1995-96 Benson & Hedges World Series, during which Bevan scored 389 runs at an average of 194.50, bolstered by eight not-outs in ten innings. The highlight came on New Year’s Day at the SCG, against West Indies. Australia needed 173 in 43 overs, and were struggling at 74 for 7 when Bevan orchestrated the kind of escape that would soon become his trademark, scoring an unbeaten 78 and hitting the winning boundary off the last ball, with the No. 11, Glenn McGrath, at the other end.Bevan’s greatest innings, arguably, came in an unofficial ODI in April 2000. Chasing 321 against an Asia XI in Dhaka, the Rest of the World XI slipped to 196 for 7 in the 37th over Game over? Not while Bevan was still at the crease. With Andy Caddick providing support, Bevan somehow kept the RoW in the hunt, and brought the target down to 20 off the last over. What happened next? Well, watch the highlights of Bevan’s unbeaten 132-ball 185 here.Bevan made six ODI hundreds, and his last one, against New Zealand in January 2002, was perhaps his best. All the familiar ingredients were there. Chasing 246 at the MCG, Australia slipped to 82 for 6, and then 143 for 7, and Bevan yet again had only the tail for company. But as always, he knew exactly which bowlers, and which areas of the field, to target. Watch his unbeaten 95-ball 102, and marvel at those meaty leg-side swats, and that lightning running between the wickets.In the 2003 World Cup, England were on the verge of handing a seemingly invincible Australia side a rare defeat, reducing them to 135 for 8 in a chase of 205 in Port Elizabeth. But Bevan was still there, and so was Andy Bichel. invincible? Scratch that.The red-hot marauder
They both batted left-handed, and were both at their best in the late middle order, but their methods were chalk and cheese. Or fire and ice. Lance Klusener bludgeoned bowlers where Bevan manipulated them, but he was no less effective when you put a lost cause in front of him. Need 27 off 14 balls with just three wickets in hand, as South Africa did in Napier in March 1999? And then four off the last ball? No problem.A few months later, Klusener produced one of the greatest individual displays at a World Cup. In a tournament characterised by low totals and seaming pitches, he scored 281 runs at an average of 140.50 (six not-outs in eight innings) and a strike rate of – wait for it – . Oh, and he took more wickets – 17 – than any other South African bowler.
Against Sri Lanka in Northampton, he smashed 52 not out off 45 balls, including smacking 22 off Chaminda Vaas’ final over. In the Super Sixes against Pakistan, South Africa chased 221 with an over to spare despite middle-overs wobbles, thanks largely to Klusener’s 46 not out off 41 balls. Some of his leg-side hitting, as you can see here, was awe-inspiring, particularly a baseball-style six off Shoaib Akhtar. And you’ll remember the heartbreaking finish in the semi-final at Edgbaston, but don’t forget Klusener’s hitting in the lead-up. Just sensational.In 2000-01, New Zealand toured South Africa and ended up on the wrong side of a 5-0 ODI whitewash. It might not have been so one-sided, though, had Klusener not been around to pull off a pair of ruthlessly explosive finishes in Durban and Cape Town.“Finishes off in style!”
Has there been a better finisher than MS Dhoni at his peak? Could anyone better the audacity of his display in Lahore in 2006, when he arrived with India needing 99 off 92 balls, and proceeded to clatter an unbeaten 72 off just 46 balls? The second boundary in the video, off Abdul Razzaq, is particularly impressive: a controlled, one-handed lofted hit off a low full toss, placed calmly beyond the bowler’s reach. Later in the same series, in Karachi, India sent Dhoni in at No. 4 when they were miles behind the required rate and needed 146 to win off 118 balls. Tough ask? Yuvraj Singh and Dhoni only needed 99 balls to finish the job.Dhoni’s most iconic finish, of course, came in the final of the 2011 World Cup, in Mumbai. You know how it ends, you know what Ravi Shastri says next, but you’ll definitely want to watch it again.By this time, Dhoni was a far more calculating sort of finisher, a master of managing required rates while taking the fewest possible risks, and backing himself to produce the big hits at the climactic moments. A sample of this came in Adelaide in 2012, when he hit just one boundary in an unbeaten 44 off 58 balls – a monstrous, match-winning 112m six off Clint McKay, in the final over.A year later, he sat out the league stage of a tri-series in the West Indies, returned for the final in Port-of-Spain, and finished the game in breathtaking fashion. With India needing 15 off the last five balls of a low-scoring thriller, Dhoni sent Shaminda Eranga crashing for 6, 4, 6.What We’re Watching

The key details in Mohammed Siraj’s journey from tennis-ball cricket to Boxing Day debut

Hemant Brar25-Dec-2020″Stay strong for your dad’s dream.” Those were the words of captain Virat Kohli as Mohammed Siraj chose to continue his stay in Australia after his father died in Hyderabad.Siraj was offered the option to fly back home by the BCCI, but given the quarantine rules in place, he would have had to spend 14 days in isolation if he had travelled home and then flown back to rejoin the team in Australia. At that time, India were looking at a pace attack that had Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Shami, Umesh Yadav and Navdeep Saini – with Ishant Sharma also a possibility to join the team – apart from Siraj.With Sharma not joining the squad and Shami ruled out with an injury, Siraj is now set to debut in the Boxing Day Test. Here’s a look at his journey so far.Related

• Unhappy encore for Australia's top-order batsmen

• Gill and Siraj to debut in Boxing Day Test against Australia

• Overseas debuts: Saini, Siraj better placed than their predecessors

The humble beginning
The son of an autorickshaw driver in Hyderabad, Siraj got hooked to the game while in class seven, after he was part of the team that won an inter-school tournament. From then on, he would frequently skip classes to play tennis-ball cricket. His pace and an ability to take wickets in clumps meant he acquired a cult status in the Banjara Hills locality.
It wasn’t until 2015 that Siraj took to playing with the cricket ball, upon a friend’s insistence. He took took a slew of five-fors in his first few club matches and soon found himself in Hyderabad’s Under-23 side, and then in the senior team.The rise
In 2016-17, his first full season for Hyderabad, Siraj picked up 41 wickets at an average of 18.92 as Hyderabad made the Ranji Trophy knockouts for the first time since 2011-12. His nine-wicket haul in the quarter-finals then nearly caused an upset against Mumbai. Subsequently, he was picked in the Irani Trophy to play for the Rest of India.Going under the IPL hammer
In 2017, Siraj was picked by the Sunrisers Hyderabad for INR 2.6 crore from a base price of INR 20 lakh. While he picked up ten wickets in six games with a best of 4 for 32, his leaked runs at 9.21 per over. He moved to the Royal Challengers Bangalore in the next season, but didn’t have the same success: 11 wickets in 11 games at an economy of 8.95. Those numbers only worsened in the 2019 season as he managed only seven wickets in nine outings at an economy 9.55.The red-ball success
Despite the hammering in the IPL, Siraj kept plugging away in domestic cricket. In the 2018 Vijay Hazare Trophy, he picked up three five-fors in seven matches to finish as the leading wicket-taker.Still, his best performances came in red-ball cricket where he reaped rewards with his seam movement and a surprise bouncer. In 2018, he picked up 55 wickets from ten first-class games, at an average of 19.80 and a strike rate of 37.9. That included two five-wicket hauls in a match against South Africa A and an 8 for 59 to dismantle an Australia A team that had Usman Khawaja, Travis Head, and Marnus Labuschagne.Recent form
In the 2020 IPL, Siraj became the first bowler to deliver two maidens in an IPL match on his way to 3 for 8 against the Kolkata Knight Riders in Abu Dhabi. But there was nothing of that sort during the two practice games in Australia, even though he did pick up five wickets.

Also, will someone spare a thought for poor Geoffrey Boycott?

Andrew Fidel Fernando31-Oct-2020The Briefing Look, it’s fine if it’s crap
While the IPL has been showing off with its obnoxious dramatic finishes, Super Duper overs, and redemption stories, Sri Lanka Cricket has been trying to get their own T20 tournament – creatively titled the Lanka Premier League (LPL) – together. They got as far as putting on a wonderfully shambolic draft in which barely anyone seemed to know the rules, but despite which some squads were put together, before five foreign players pulled out. This seems like a setback for the league, but does it have to be so bad? Keep your head up, SLC. You can still do it. We’ve all lowered our standards in 2020. A captain runs out of bowlers mid-game because too many players have withdrawn? Just bring on a bowling machine. The league is short of big-name batsmen? Just have cardboard cutouts of famous foreign players take guard at the crease. We just want to see some cricket. Any cricket. And no one – and I cannot stress this enough – is expecting competence.The death of quality
For decades, the fearless, outspoken, and unblinkingly honest, not to mention fearless Geoffrey Boycott walked the cricketing earth being able to say almost anything he wanted. But upon his exit from the BBC’s team due to health reasons, he lamented this was no longer the case. “[the BBC] have sacrificed quality for equality,” he said to the in September. “It is now all about political correctness, about gender and race. When you work for them you are wary and frightened of saying anything.” Appalling. Which reasonable person would take umbrage at a man who in June said that women cricketers were unfit to give expert opinions on the men’s game, and three years ago suggested he should “black up” to stand a better chance of becoming a knight of the empire, which as we all know is an honour famously monopolised by black people? (Thankfully, in 2019, sense prevailed and the UK government stopped viewing Boycott’s skin colour as an impediment.) Banish the thought, but what if Boycott is right and things persist on their current trajectory? What kind of world would it be if future generations of white men are not even able to make abrasive comments under the guise of forthright opinion on a multitude of media platforms until the age of 80?Turmoil superstars
Everybody knows the South Africa men’s team as one of the most dramatic around. Dropping a bat mid-pitch when all that was required was to run, going into crisis mode after every World Cup, a superstar retiring because he is “tired” then asking to be let back into the team… we’ve come to expect this. Now their board is joining the fray. Why? Like a high catch at an Eden Park semi-final, it’s hard to track exactly (belated trigger warning, SA fans). Cricket South Africa’s CEO was sacked months ago over alleged financial impropriety, the government has stepped in to take control of the board, and the board has now resigned en masse. In a year in which cricket is in phenomenal upheaval, South Africa are on track to being champions of the trash heap. There is a choking jab to be made here but I will stop.Shastri corner
Ravi Shastri, patron saint of the Briefing, has blessed us again. Such is his benevolence that this bounty is unlike any previously bestowed. Last month the Moustachioed One launched a men’s grooming line named 23 Yards. Why 23 yards? Is it the minimum distance his voice is allowed to carry? The maximum distance Virat Kohli should be from him at all times? (If you’re thinking of a leash here, whose neck the collar is on is up to your own imagination.) No. It is because a cricket pitch is 22 yards, and Shastri “truly believe[s] that you can be a champion too. Question is, are you willing to go ?” Okay, but somebody please tell actual World Cup champion and infamous mankading candidate Jos Buttler.The return
Shakib Al Hasan is poised to return to the Bangladesh team after serving a one-year ban over a corrupt approach. Given the seriousness of the offence, and the fact that Shakib can be said to have got off lightly given cricket had largely ceased for a substantial chunk of his suspension, surely the team will go about his reintegration soberly and perhaps a little bit of sheepishness? Nope. Signs are he’s getting a hero’s welcome.Next month in the Briefing– To make up for further player withdrawals, SLC has freshly out-of-work South African administrators play in the LPL.- Shady bookies around the world admit they would have approached players way more brazenly if they’d known there was going to be barely any cricket in 2020 anyway.

How do bowlers deal with dew? Dale Steyn and Ajit Agarkar tell us

Interview by Nagraj Gollapudi and Raunak Kapoor23-Apr-20213:33

Dale Steyn – ‘I’ve seen many a bowler run in and bowl waist-high full tosses’

No IPL in India goes by without dew becoming a talking point. It has an impact on the toss and overall game plans. The 2021 tournament has been no different, with MS Dhoni, the Chennai Super Kings captain, saying the early start times (7.30pm as opposed to 8pm) give an unfair advantage to the team batting first because the dew is yet to set in. KL Rahul, the Punjab Kings captain, suggested teams bowling second be allowed to change a wet ball.What exactly is the problem that dew poses, particularly to fast bowlers in the death overs? We asked former international fast bowlers Dale Steyn and Ajit Agarkar to break down the challenges.

What happens to the ball when it is wet?

Ajit Agarkar, former India fast bowler: It’s leather, so the water keeps seeping in, the seam becomes greasy, and it is very difficult to hold the ball on the seam.Personally, because my foot landed at an angle and then there was a pivot, I used to struggle a lot if the bottom of the shoe was a little wet or greasy, or if there was a lot of mud on it. When the foot landed, it didn’t stick in the [damp] pitch for the pivot to happen; and when the foot slipped, I had no control of what happened at the other end.When the ball is slipping through your fingers, you don’t really have control over the length. You set the field for a particular ball but the execution doesn’t happen like you want it to.Plus, it skids off the pitch, which becomes a little bit easier for the batsman. To consistently bowl the balls you want becomes a lot harder.Dale Steyn, former South Africa fast bowler: I back everything he said. Your run-up becomes difficult when you land. You feel like you are a little bit unstable because you can slip. The ball becomes extremely greasy in your fingers. The seam and the leather just become extremely slippery.And once the ball hits the deck, it also loses that bounce, because it is now a little wet. So if you were to going to bowl a back-of-a-length ball, it often doesn’t get as much bounce, which means that if you like to hit the stickers of the bat, now you are hitting more of the centre of the bat, where you don’t exactly want to hit.The ball actually completely loses its swing. So if you are thinking at the back end of an innings to target a little bit of reverse swing or get the ball to dip, because it’s dry on one side and a little wet on the other, that goes completely out the window too.A slippery, greasy, wet ball is probably one of the most difficult things to control when it comes to bowling.

Can you practise by getting the ball wet during training?

Steyn: You can. It is less practice with the ball and more mental practice – training your brain that this is the situation. You can’t exactly create the same amount of dew in practice as you would have in a game. No two [wet] balls will be the same. You can’t be certain the ball is going to be wet as opposed to a dry ball, where you know, okay, I can run in and if I let it go like this, it’s gonna land exactly there. It is really just training your brain to understand that this is going to be extremely

“Jasprit Bumrah he looks like he just nails his yorker regardless. Lasith Malinga was another one that just seemed to, regardless of the dew, nail his lengths”Dale Steyn

When you are doing it in practice, and you get maybe seven out of ten, you do feel a little bit better as opposed to going out in the game and it being completely foreign to you. You are just thinking to yourself, “That’s it, this game is over”, when, effectively, you could get the ball in the right place having known you have done it in training.

So you can’t exactly simulate the situation while preparing?

Agarkar: Obviously not. Plus, the ground is not wet either [during training]. I mean, try bowling with a wet bar of soap. It can be practically impossible when there’s a lot of dew. It makes life easier for the batsman, but as a bowler it just becomes so much harder to land the ball on a spot. Then it becomes difficult to control the runs as well.

Does the dew hurt more when you are bowling second?

Agarkar: It gets progressively worse as the game goes on. That’s why one-day [day-night] games now start a bit earlier in India – at 1.30pm as opposed to 2.30pm. The team fielding second are at more of a disadvantage because it just keeps getting worse. It does not matter how much chemical is sprayed or how much the rope [to mop up the dew] goes around or [whether] the Super Soppers are used.

How does dew tend to mess up bowling plans at the death?

Steyn: Sometimes you are thinking of a particular way you want to bowl. You go “Okay, cool, tonight you know the plan is that to this batsman we are going to bowl yorkers.” And then you come across the dew factor. I’ve seen many a bowler running in and bowl two waist-high full tosses, almost shoulder high. And that’s it. You are out of the attack. It can really go pear-shaped.That’s when you have to start to think on your feet a little and drag your length back.Commentators or people watching the game might start to go: “Why did that guy bowl a back-of-a-length slower ball as opposed to running in and bowling a yorker when we know that, as an example, [Kieron] Pollard’s not good at [facing] a yorker?”That really is because you are scared that the outcome is not going to be what you want it to be. You have bowled one yorker and it’s a full toss. You have been given the warning. Now your captain comes to you and says, “Another one like that, my friend, and you are out of the attack.” So you start to change your thinking.Dew diligence: when dealing with a wet ball and a wet surface, bowlers often lose control of not only the ball but also the way their feet land•Arjun Singh/BCCI

So what is the best length to bowl in such situations?

Agarkar: It depends on the day. There might be days where it is wet but you are still getting the ball full enough or landing it well. I found it a little bit easier to bowl length. My [bowling] arm was anyway a little bit lower, so the ball did skid through and if I did bowl that in-between length, I had a chance of getting away with it if there was no real room or it wasn’t too short. Maybe the batsman can’t time it properly [against the skidding ball] if you are straight enough.The yorker is the toughest ball to get right when the ball is wet, because from landing on the crease to keeping your action depends on trying to bowl full and quickly. Cross-seamers are something that a lot of bowlers try because it becomes difficult to grip the seam [upright], but the control or execution of every ball then becomes a challenge.Steyn: I preferred to bowl a hard back-of-a-length. Bowling a yorker is hard at the best of times with a normal ball. And now you are trying to do that with this wet bar of soap. It becomes impossible.In T20 cricket, at least, you are using one ball. When you are playing one-day cricket, you can be bowling from the one end and the ball might not be as wet, and you are absolutely nailing your yorkers. But then your captain switches you to the other side. You run in, bowl a full toss and you just know you’ve got to completely change your game plan. I have to go cross-seam and bowl hard lengths. You really have to play it on how you are feeling out in the middle, explain it to your captain, get the right field setting, and you just have to back it and hopefully it comes off.

Are there some bowlers, in particular, who have done well in these conditions?

Steyn: I have never really played with somebody like Jasprit Bumrah, but he looks like he just nails his yorker regardless. Lasith Malinga was another one that just seemed to, regardless of the dew, nail his lengths. But I guess that was his go-to ball. He just felt confident he can do it. And maybe the guys who run in slightly slower. When they land on the crease, they are more in control of themselves. They are probably going to bowl at the same speed, but everything is a little bit more in control.And like Ajit said, when running in as a fast bowler and trying to bowl as quickly as you can, a little bit of a slip here, a little bit of a movement here – this game is by inches. You miss your yorker, it’s a waist-high full toss, and the ball goes out of the ground.So probably for Bumrah and Malinga, the dew never seems to bother them, but I can guarantee you, for the rest of the world, it’s always in the back of your mind.

Some IPL captains have suggested the ball be replaced during the second innings to compensate for the dew. What do you think?

Steyn: Yeah, it can be. But then, you know, teams are also going to be holding out against it because the team that batted first may not have had the ball swapped over as many times.

What about a pre-decided change for both innings?

Steyn: I guess so. Also, for the safety of the sport. You are going to be running in and looking to bowl yorkers. There’s a chance that the ball can slip out of your hand. When I played a game for the Royal Challengers last year, I actually asked the umpire: “Please, can we change this ball? This is a crucial time of the game and I feel like I’m going to bowl a waist-high full toss.” He opted not to. I had to bowl the back-of-a-length ball.It was the last batter. He got under it and got caught on the long-on boundary. Had they changed the ball and had it been a newer ball, it probably would have gone for six. So I was both lucky and unlucky at the time. Maybe if you are looking to come into the back end to bowl and there is extreme dew, changing the ball is the best way. But you’d be almost doing it once every two or three balls.Agarkar: That seems to be the best solution. How you get it done is a challenge. Certainly it is a completely different ball game when it is a drier ball in your hand.

Will Young, Matt Henry ponder return to drinks duty despite starring roles in Edgbaston win

Matt Roller13-Jun-2021If you want to know what sort of shape New Zealand’s Test side is in right now, just ask Will Young.Young, a top-order batter from Central Districts who has had to bide his time for an opportunity in international cricket, came into this series on the back of two hundreds in three innings for Durham in the County Championship, having signed an early-season deal to help him acclimatise to English conditions. After missing out on selection at Lord’s despite those runs, he came into the side this week with Kane Williamson resting his sore left elbow.Young was the top-scorer in this Test, with scores of 82 and 8, and was unfortunate not to be named player of the match. He was given an early reprieve in the first innings, dropped by Joe Root at first slip on 7, and was visibly furious after chopping on with five runs required in the second, but his willingness to dig in during tough periods – notably probing spells from Stuart Broad and James Anderson on the second afternoon – marked him out as a player well-equipped to succeed at this level.Related

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• Ajaz Patel: Culture and positivity breed our success

• Devon Conway, anatomy of another successful innings

• England were 'not good enough' – Silverwood

• New Zealand romp to series victory as Latham seals chase

And yet he is almost certain to find himself left out of the side for the World Test Championship final against India at the Ageas Bowl next week. Devon Conway has made an irrefutable case to open the batting alongside Tom Latham, while Ross Taylor and Henry Nicholls are immovable in the middle order and Williamson and BJ Watling are both set to return for the showpiece.What would England give to have a player of Young’s temperament and record running the drinks for them? His first-class average of 42.68 compares favourably with that of a generation of England batters; of the side they fielded this week, only Joe Root and Ollie Pope’s are significantly higher. New Zealand have won four and drawn three of their last seven Tests against England; for a country of five million people, their strength in depth is remarkable.Will Young got to his maiden Test fifty in the first innings•PA Images via Getty ImagesMatt Henry is in much the same boat as Young. He took the new ball following the decision to rest Tim Southee and Kyle Jamieson ahead of the main event next week, and pipped Young and Trent Boult to the match award thanks to three wickets in each innings – five of them top-order (if not top-quality) batters. He is, in many ways, an English-style seamer, with no great pace but immaculate control of line in particular.But like Young, he has very little chance of retaining his place next week barring injury, with Southee and Jamieson both due to return. Even Neil Wagner, the joint-fourth best Test bowler in the world according to the ICC’s rankings, is not guaranteed a spot, given New Zealand’s instinct towards balancing their side with an allrounder – most likely to be Colin de Grandhomme – at No. 7.Like Young, Henry has benefitted from stints in county cricket, in particular with Kent in 2018, when he took more Championship wickets than anyone in the country with 75 at 15.48. For all the fingers pointed in its direction when England lose series like this, the county game is still seen as a finishing school overseas which has shaped the careers of a number of the world’s best players.”[Henry] was fantastic,” Tom Latham, standing in for Williamson as captain, said. “We’ve got a bigger group [with us] and through a mixture of injuries and guys being rested for next week, those guys that came in certainly took their opportunity. Matt has been with the group for a long period and probably hasn’t got the game time he would have wanted. For him to come in and put a performance on the board, that was really important, especially the work that he did yesterday with that new ball.”It was amazing from a personnel change of six guys. That hasn’t happened for a long time in this group and it has been a hard team to crack into. For all those guys to get that opportunity, Young, Henry, [Ajaz] Patel, was fantastic. They performed their roles really well.Matt Henry claimed six wickets in the match•Getty Images”It was a complete team performance. Different guys stood up at different times. A lot of these guys have been around the group for a while and probably haven’t played as much as they would have liked, but I think those experiences around the group in different conditions has held them in good stead.”Since their last series win in England back in 1999, New Zealand’s away record against the top teams in the world has been abysmal: two wins in 50 matches in Australia, England, India and South Africa ahead of this tour. Making six changes – some through injury, some through rotation – did not speak of a team desperate to address that record but it was testament to their strength in depth that the quality of the side hardly dropped off.Sixteen of the 20 wickets they took were shared between Boult, Henry and Ajaz Patel, none of whom played last week. For all the success of their seam attack, Patel returned match figures of 4 for 59 in 23 overs, demonstrating the folly of England’s refusal to field a spinner in either Test on dry pitches that have offered them some assistance. With some rain in the forecast next week, New Zealand may be tempted to follow suit, but will surely reflect that Patel merits retention.Patel is the picture of economy in his action, with five short paces at walking speed, a jump into his delivery side, and a single-step follow-through, and his control of line and length made him a potent weapon. While there may be a temptation to pick Mitchell Santner against India, if the cut on his finger heals in time, and field a four-man seam attack alongside him, Patel is far and away the better bowler in this format; if he is included, it is a toss-up between de Grandhomme and Wagner as to who should be left out.Given India’s remarkable win in Australia at the start of the year and the numbers of proven performers that New Zealand will leave out, it is clear that the final will be played not only between the two best Test teams in the world, but the two best Test squads.

They might not make it to the knockouts, but this generation of Namibia cricketers can certainly leave behind a legacy to be proud of

Peter Della Penna23-Oct-2021

Big picture

If making their first appearance in a T20 World Cup wasn’t enough of an achievement, Namibia have gone not just one but two better: a first victory over a Test-playing nation, and qualification to the Super 12s. At this stage, Namibia are playing with house money.Nobody will expect them to win three games to be in with a shot at qualifying for the semi-finals, at least not with group matches against Afghanistan, New Zealand, India and Pakistan, not to mention Scotland, the fellow Associates. Not having that burden of expectation just might give them the license to throw their chips on the table and let it ride.Players such as Gerhard Erasmus and Stephan Baard, both of whom have served as captains for Namibia at the Under-19 and senior levels, have been quoted in interviews saying how they were inspired as young boys growing up in Namibia by the deeds of Namibia’s 2003 50-over World Cup squad. It didn’t matter that they lost every game. What mattered was that they took the field to stand shoulder to shoulder, toe to toe, against the likes of Andy Flower, Glenn McGrath, Brett Lee, Adam Gilchrist, Matthew Hayden, Ricky Ponting, Shoaib Akhtar, Wasim Akram, Waqar Younis, Sourav Ganguly and Sachin Tendulkar.Related

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• Wiese passes Sharjah pitch test with flying colours

But whereas the 2003 Namibia squad was made up of players who were doctors and policemen, and held various other nine-to-five jobs, these players are full-time professionals. Securing ODI status in 2019 has opened the door for Erasmus to commit himself full-time to cricket, and delay a career putting his law school degree to use. Cricket Namibia is now reaping the rewards of that extra funding that could be invested in player development.The success against Ireland to vault into the Super 12s has instilled new-found belief into the likes of Erasmus and the rest of his charges. If he was inspired simply by seeing the likes of Rudi van Vuuren and Deon Kotze stand on the field against such illustrious names of the 2000s, one can only imagine what it may do for the next generation in Namibia if Erasmus’s men not only take the field against some of the Full Member heavyweights, but actually trump a team led by Kane Williamson, Mohammad Nabi, Babar Azam or Virat Kohli.

Recent form

For anyone sleeping under a rock for the last week, Namibia are riding high after taking two wins out of three in the opening round of the tournament. But that is just a continuation of their outstanding form in 2021. Namibia have won eight of nine T20Is in the calendar year, including three matches earlier in October against UAE, PNG and Scotland, the last of which was a dominant five-wicket win chasing a target of 138 with 14 balls to spare. Even though Scotland won their qualifying group, which included a win over Bangladesh, Namibia are arguably favourites in that Super 12 encounter before they square off against their Full Member slate.Gerhard Erasmus and David Wiese have been part of many good things for Namibia of late•ICC via Getty

Batting

This is the stronger side of Namibia’s game. One of the fascinating parts of Namibia’s win over Ireland to end the opening round was the on-air television commentary discussion centered on who should be promoted in the order to give the innings a spark after a slow powerplay. The main argument was that JJ Smit should have been sent in to crack a few boundaries and get the innings in gear. He wound up not even being needed after the tremendous partnership between Erasmus and David Wiese took Namibia home. Just as remarkably, Baard – who is their third-highest scorer in T20Is and second-highest in all T20s – was left out of the XI after a string of low scores throughout October. But when in form, Baard can be devastating, as can the versatile Craig Williams, who is one of just two Namibians – along with Louis van der Westhuizen – to have multiple centuries in their T20 career. The point is, this is not just a two-man band with Erasmus and Wiese.

Bowling

There isn’t anybody who would be characterized as express on the bowling side, but T20 has brought out their clever bag of tricks. The left-arm trio of Smit, Ruben Trumpelmann and Jan Frylinck can hit their cutters and yorkers when called upon and Wiese’s arrival has added a level of experience to take the pressure off some of the younger men in that group when sticky situational match-ups arise. Though Frylinck’s 3 for 21 was lost in the shuffle of the heroics produced by Wiese and Erasmus in the chase, it was no less pivotal in the win over Ireland. On the spin-bowling side, Bernard Scholtz was the leading spin bowler at the global qualifier two years ago in the UAE and resumed his quietly tidy and efficient spells in the opening round. Against sides packed with left-handers, the option to select Pikky Ya France as an offspinner is also open for Namibia to maintain balance in the side.

Player to watch

Most people might call on Wiese as Namibia’s trump card, but he himself said upon accepting the Player of the Match award in the win over Ireland that it should have gone to captain Erasmus. Groomed as a future captain from the time he made his senior team debut as a lanky 16-year-old against Ireland in Belfast in the 2011 Intercontinental Cup, Erasmus is the heartbeat of the squad. He bats with intelligence – no better evidence than his constant pursuit of pinching low-risk twos rather than slogging for boundaries on a tricky Sharjah surface against Ireland – but can ramp up the intensity when required as demonstrated by a memorable sequence of four sixes in a row against Singapore during the 2019 global qualifier. He’s their best player of spin, their best all-round fielder, and though he only bowled one over in the opening round, his handy part-time offspin could become an increasingly key factor in the Super 12s.

Key question

How to get the best out of Craig Williams?The 37-year-old stalwart was in red-hot form entering the tournament with four consecutive T20I fifties, and also top-scored with 29 against Sri Lanka. Prior to 2021, he spent his entire T20I career batting in the middle-order, but post-pandemic has shifted between opening and coming in at No. 3. He started off the tournament at No. 3, but due to Baard’s struggles was promoted to open against Ireland and made 15 off 16. If he does end up staying at the top, his success or failure will also depend on the ability of his partner to get Williams on strike. The few times Williams struck boundaries against Ireland, he struggled to stay in rhythm because Zane Green was blocking, leaving and chewing up dot balls at the opposite end. Whoever is batting with Williams needs to focus on singles and get off strike to let the old pro work his magic.Likely XI: 1 Stephan Baard, 2 Zane Green (wk), 3 Craig Williams, 4 Gerhard Erasmus (capt), 5 David Wiese, 6 JJ Smit, 7 Jan Frylinck, 8 Jan Nicol Loftie-Eaton, 9 Pikky Ya France, 10 Ruben Trumpelmann, 11 Bernard Scholtz

Virat Kohli’s recent record of converting starts has suffered in comparison to his own lofty standards

Shiva Jayaraman11-Mar-2022Virat Kohli has gone 71 innings in international cricket without scoring a hundred since hitting 136 in Kolkata against Bangladesh in November 2019. While he has often got starts, he hasn’t been able to convert them into big scores. Kohli has passed fifty 22 times since that innings in Kolkata but hasn’t managed to hit his 71st international century yet.One can hardly complain about Kohli’s T20I numbers – he has scored 846 runs at a strike rate of 145.11 and an average of 56.40. It can be argued that he has been denied a hundred in that format only owing to its brevity (he was unbeaten of 73, 77 and 80 in the series against England in Ahmedabad early last year). His ODI form has also been excellent: he has ten fifties in his last 19 innings, four of them in successive matches. No other batter going through such a productive run would be subject to so much scrutiny.Related

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However, Kohli has been dismissed in each of his 49 innings in Tests and ODIs since his last hundred, so he probably hasn’t run out of time in those innings unlike in T20Is. It’s been a rather long drought for Kohli considering he bats in the top four in these formats. For someone who had set a lofty standard of converting every alternate fifty to a century in Tests and ODIs (he hasn’t made a T20I hundred yet), this lean patch sticks out like a sore thumb.The longest streak of successive innings for any batter in men’s Tests and ODIs when he was dismissed before scoring a hundred is Kieran Powell’s 94 innings. Including Powell, there have been 22 other instances when batters have been dismissed before scoring a hundred in 49 or more consecutive innings in Tests and ODIs like Kohli. However, in none of these instances have these batters matched Kohli’s average of 32.57. The closest anyone has come to Kohli’s average among these 22 other batters is Alec Stewart, who was dismissed in 49 successive innings without getting a hundred and averaged 27.49 in these innings.