Shivam Dube had to adapt on tough USA pitches but India will need his power at some stage

Sidharth Monga18-Jun-20244:17

Do India have every box ticked going into the Super Eight?

If you include the warm-up game, Shivam Dube spent 60 legal deliveries in the USA to hit his first six on the tour. This is a batter who has been hitting a six every eight balls or so in the IPL over the last year. In his T20 career overall, which includes times when he was not the six-hitter he is now, he has still hit a six every 16 balls. The six-hitting ability has brought him to the World Cup, and he has had to wait so long to put one in the stands. He jokes he has only ever waited for this long in first-class cricket.Dube is also somebody who loves to hit sixes at practice. He does train other parts of his game, but he absolutely loves range-hitting. Sometimes his training sessions with CSK are just about hitting sixes as soon as he feels ready. It was not possible in New York where India – and other teams – practised in a small facility that can house only the nets. In Florida it just kept raining.You’d expect Dube to be the happiest person to get out of New York, and the USA, and onto more reliable pitches and better training facilities. He isn’t. When asked how easy or difficult, and how important, it is to delete the memories of New York before going to better batting tracks, Dube said he wasn’t going to do any such thing. “I won’t delete this from my memory because this is my first World Cup. Why should I?”Related

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Relish such conditions is not what six-hitters do. They are in here because of their six-hitting. They know the six-hitting can’t happen on surfaces where the bounce, pace and direction of the ball after the pitching are all unpredictable. So survive them, yes, co-exist with them, but enjoy them?”What I have done in the past is never doubt myself,” Dube said. “What I see is these conditions don’t demand what I have done at CSK. These conditions demand a different game. So I was batting in a different way.”That Dube enjoyed the challenge, trying to find a way to win matches for India, tells you he wants to be more than just a six-hitter. Watching him in the nets, the wind-up always suggests he is going to hit a six. And then he acts according to the ball. It’s as though his batting is all about doing something else only when the option of hitting the six is eliminated. And so far he has found himself in conditions where you have to hit your best possible shot for it to clear the field. You can’t afford even a slight mishit. It is to Dube’s credit that he has done his job without hitting these sixes.Shivam Dube has had to bide his time at this World Cup•ICC/Getty ImagesDube’s arrival in the West Indies hasn’t necessarily been the opening of the floodgates either. The pitches in the nets at Kensington Oval in Bridgetown, Barbados have had both seam and swing – then the further garnish of a passing shower, which spiced them up further. Dube didn’t opt for range-hitting either, instead spending more time bowling than batting.Some day or the other during this World Cup all this denial will make way for a pitch that calls for 200. It could well be on the main pitch at Kensington Oval, which has already hosted one score of 200. It could be in St Lucia, the highest-scoring ground this tournament. Or the final. It could be against the spinners of Afghanistan or against the varied quicks of Bangladesh.It is on these high-scoring grounds that India really need Dube. While what he did during the chase against USA must have reassured the team of his quality, India have batters who can anchor a middling chase. With the rest of his team-mates, Dube has had two training sessions at Kensington Oval to probably undo the muscle memory, if any, of the USA.Now that switch will have to flick quickly because there is hardly any time in T20s. The skill, though, is not just batting that way but identifying when to do so. Suryakumar Yadav says the captain and the management trust the batters in the middle to know which pace to aim for. Dube will have the feedback from two of the most experienced batters in international cricket to fall back on, but, especially when batting first, India will rely a lot on his instinct to inform what they are aiming for.Whatever the conditions might be in the Super Eight, it is unlikely Dube will have to wait 60 balls for his next six. India might yet need a few from him.

The KKR fast bowler has been up and down in this IPL but when it really counted, he made the biggest impact

Alagappan Muthu22-May-20241:33

‘That’s why you pay big money for big game players’ – Moody on Starc bowling Head

The white ball wants to fly and, lately, it looks to the batters to satisfy this craving. Travis Head, in particular, has been very kind to it. They’ve seemed quite taken with each other recently; had a very successful date right here in Ahmedabad a few months ago. Then he showed up. The old flame.Oh they ran so hot when they were together. Early 2015 was filled with some totally NSFW scenes. Ninety-three thousand people saw them frolicking in broad daylight out on the MCG. Brendon McCullum had to avert his eyes.Related

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Mitchell Starc and the white ball. This romance is not for the faint of heart. And it was rekindled on Tuesday night. Right from practice, it looked like they were back together. The left-arm quick in his training gear was going full tilt and the guy with the baseball glove, standing behind a set of target stumps – those fluorescent ones made of pliant material – had trouble trying to keep up. So much pace. So much bounce. Something was brewing.Soon it was game time and destiny itself weighed in favour of uniting Starc with his one true love straightaway (sorry Alyssa Healy). Sunrisers Hyderabad won the toss and chose to bat. Head took strike. Starc ran in. The ball beat the bat and crashed into his stumps. He’d just been dumped in front of over 75,000 people.Mitchell Starc took three wickets inside the powerplay to derail the SRH top order•BCCIWe should’ve known this was coming. It was a big game. He’s Australian. And this is a World Cup year, which is partly why he’s even playing this IPL, after skipping the last nine. Starc couldn’t have known about the INR 24.75 crore (USD 2.99 million/ AU$ 4.4 million approx) that would come his way at the auction when he put his name back in the hat. Back then, all he cared about was the match practice, against the best of the best, leading into an ICC event.At first, it didn’t really go according to plan. He gave up 100 runs in eight overs. Then just 82 in 10 while picking up five wickets. Then it went bad again. 148 in 10 overs. Through it all Starc kept working. He trained as hard as he always does. He switched off when he needed to. He trusted in his skill.Sometimes in T20 cricket, no matter how good you are, you will get hit. And the place where Starc kept getting hit (economy rate 11.61) was the place where all fast bowlers were getting hit (10.51). Eden Gardens. That will have helped him keep perspective, which is why he didn’t see the need to change anything in the playoffs. He bowled a good length. He looked for swing. He found it. And he never let up. KKR spent 3/4th of their purse on him at the auction. It must feel so worth it right now.

Mitch Starc, tomaye menegelam!pic.twitter.com/Etq4is5Cgw

— KolkataKnightRiders (@KKRiders) May 21, 2024

Starc’s two great strengths are his air speed and his accuracy. One makes him a threat even if there’s no help available. The other makes him deadly if there’s even the slightest bit of help. Ahmedabad fell into the second category, with one very important caveat. As the ball got older, it lost its shine and became easier to hit. That was on show with Sunrisers scoring 53 runs in the back half of the first 10 overs even though by then they’d lost four wickets. So the trick was to make the most of the early exchange and there are few better than Starc at this.According to ESPNcricinfo’s ball-by-ball data, 67.5% of the deliveries in his first over across his T20 career either threaten the stumps or the outside edge. There’s a good chance of false shots under this kind of examination. Thirty-three percent as it turns out. In other words, two of the six balls he’ll be starting the game with have significant wicket-taking potential.Starc has 498 wickets in both formats of white-ball cricket. Three of those are Head’s. One from now. Two from the Australian domestic one-day tournament in 2015. All of them were bowled, in the first over, for scores of 0, 1 and 0, with the exact same delivery. Angled in. Swinging away. At speeds that cause nosebleeds.Seeing those stumps in disarray, Starc thrust his right hand up and peeled away to one side, creating another snapshot that was first seen nine years ago when he won a whole World Cup in the space of six balls. That was his best night, and this one, based on what happens in Chennai in a few days time, could still make the top 10. Imagine waking up an ODI World Cup, T20 World Cup, Test Championship, Ashes and IPL winner.

The 23-year old, who grew up without a tv in her house, is now dreaming of winning a World Cup for South Africa

Firdose Moonda16-Oct-2024Annerie Dercksen watched South Africa win a World Cup semi-final for the first time from the “best seat in the house,” at Newlands: the team dugout. Just over 18 months later, she will get to play in one herself.”I’m just really excited for all of it. Whether I have to carry drinks or give foot massages or whatever the teams wants from me. I’m willing to do anything,” she tells ESPNcricinfo in Dubai. “I’m just excited to contribute in whichever way I can.”That was also her attitude at last year’s tournament. Dercksen was part of the squad but, having only made her international debut two-and-a-half weeks before the event, didn’t get a game and didn’t mind at all. “That was probably the best role to be in. There was no pressure on me, and I could just enjoy the moment,” she says. “At that stage, I was still very starstruck. I was like, ‘Oh my word, I get to give Wolfie (Laura Wolvaardt) a water. I get to give (Marizanne) Kapp a banana.’ That was really cool and I enjoyed it thoroughly.”That was also the tournament that changed the way Dercksen thought about her future. “It was the defining moment. I realised that this is what I want to do for a living and that’s when I started to think of cricket as a serious career option. Now, I think it’s the best job in the world.”Dercksen is a qualified teacher, who completed her studies at the University of the Free State in Bloemfontein, where she met current interim coach Dillon du Preez, who was impressed with her potential. At school, she played a lot of sport for fun and had dabbled in netball, athletics, hockey and cricket. Towards the end of her degree programme, she was picked for South Africa’s Emerging squad and soon the door to the national team was open.

I get to give Wolfie (Laura Wolvaardt) a water. I get to give (Marizanne) Kapp a banana.’ That was really cool.Dercksen ran the drinks out during the 2023 T20 World Cup at home

According to ESPNcricinfo’s database, she made her international debut before she played an officially recognised professional provincial T20 match (although she would have played in semi-professional or age-group weeks). Her current records contain four times the number of international matches as they do domestic ones, which speaks to the speed of her progression. Her numbers in domestic cricket tell the story of her potential. Last October, she hit an unbeaten 74 off 42 balls and shared in a 91-run second-wicket stand with Tazmin Brits as the Garden Route Badgers racked up 182 in 20 overs and beat the Titans by 64 runs. This February, she scored her first century in the format, a 66-ball 108, and single-handedly kept her side alive in a game against eventual champions Western Province. No-one else on the team sheet got into double figures.With that kind of ability, it was no surprise that when Cricket South Africa launched their professional women’s domestic league last season, Dercksen was among those contracted. She signed with her home team, the Garden Route Badgers, based in Oudtshoorn.Best known as the home town of SA20 sensation Ottneil Baartman, it is around 180 kilometres away from where Dercksen grew up in Beaufort-West. The town is a part of the semi-desert known as the Great Karoo and Dercksen’s family lived a rugged farm life, which included no access to the country’s state-owned electricity supply.Marizanne Kapp wears 7 on her shirt. Annerie Dercksen wears 77 in tribute to her idol•BCCI”My brother and I didn’t even realise that. We really enjoyed being outside and just playing so, I don’t even think it bothered us,” she says. “We had like a Lister (diesel-powered) engine. My parents had to go in the evening and turn the thing and then the engine started and the lights came on, but that only happened in evenings when we needed lights. Later on, my dad installed solar panels for us but if the sun didn’t shine or it was a low sunshine day, then the power would also be gone. And you couldn’t run the kettle and the TV simultaneously, so, if you wanted to boil some water, you had to turn off the TV.”For the first 10 years of her life, Dercksen did not even have access to a television at home and had to go to her grandparents for any screen time. She found out about cricket through newspapers (yes, even in the 2000s) and the first tournament she watched was as a 16-year old in 2017, when South Africa lost the ODI World Cup semi-final to England. At that event, also discovered her hero: Kapp.Dercksen, too, is a seam-bowling top-order allrounder, even though she has been carded at No.6 or lower at this event, and initially wanted to wear the number 7, just like Kapp. She has since settled on 77 and taken on a slightly different job in the national team. “In provincial cricket, I bat higher up but here. we’ve got great players up in our top order so my role sort is to be a finisher or bat at the end.”

You couldn’t run the kettle and the TV simultaneously, so, if you wanted to boil some water, you had to turn off the TVDercksen grew up in a farm in Beaufort-West, where access to electricity was tricky

Her best performance in that role came recently, with an unbeaten 44 in the second T20I against Pakistan in Multan which helped South Africa level the series. She also struck 20 not out against England at this World Cup, albeit not enough to help South Africa post a winning score. Her opportunities with the ball have been more limited as she works on her craft. “I was actually a spinner until four years ago and then I changed,” she said. “I’m trying to work on that and play bigger role with the ball as well. For the moment, I’m grateful to bowl whatever over they might give me.”So far, she has been tasked with three overs – one each in games against West Indies, Bangladesh and Scotland and taken two wickets. Dercksen’s medium-pace, or half-spin, as Megan Schutt calls what she does, could prove effective on slow, low UAE pitches and she might get more opportunity, especially as she understands the effect of pace-off at the tournament. “We joked with Nadine de Klerk in one of the games that she is literally a legspinner on a long run up because it was all just cutters and slower balls and that is really the way to go on these surfaces.”Dercksen hopes to do something special, like Siya Kolisi, South Africa’s rugby World Cup-winning captain, did•ICC via GettySouth Africa are also understood to be happier playing their knockout in Dubai, where they have won all their group games, rather than the more sluggish second venue, Sharjah. They believe they have what it takes to take out the defending champions. “We’ve got nothing to lose. We are sort of the underdogs, but I believe we have the firepower and the experience to give them a go,” Dercksen says. “We beat them in Australia earlier this year so I think we’ve got a good chance.”South Africa won their first T20I against Australia in January, by six wickets in Canberra. Dercksen was not on that tour but “woke up at 2 in the morning to watch, now that we have a TV,” she joked.She also saw how that galvanised the team after a tough year following the fuss and fanfare of reaching last year’s World Cup final. South Africa failed to win any of the six T20I series since playing that final, and only a 2-1 win in Pakistan pre-tournament suggested they were back on track. While they publicly stated – and it was widely expected – that the semi-finals were a minimum requirement for them at this World Cup, watching favourites such as India and England bow out brought home how cut-throat tournament cricket is and how much winning matters. South Africans don’t need to be told that twice.After decades of being serial semi-finalists, both the women’s and the men’s team reached their last T20 World Cup finals and there is a country collectively holding its breath and waiting for one of them to take the step further. Derksen, whose younger brother Seppie is currently playing at a rugby tournament in the USA, did not hesitate to mention which other national side has provided inspiration. “We had the Springboks who won the World Cup, and to see how united a nation was really special,” she says. “I’m not sure if we quite have the same reach as the Springboks or the same impact, but if we can just impact a small amount of people, and give them a bit of hope, then I think our job is done. That’s our goal.”The Springboks substitutes bench is called the bomb squad, for their ability to take apart opposition in the second half, and the women’s cricket team have named their pace pack after that. They’ve promised South Africa they will try to live up to that name in the semi-final and they seek to rewrite history in a place that is destined for that. The UAE, with its tall buildings and 12-lane motorways, fascinates a farm girl like Dercksen. “We don’t get a lot of this in South Africa – all the lights and new cars,” she says. “It feels like we’re living in the future, basically.”And for South African cricket, she is part of that future.

After a decade defined by his absence, Pakistan’s future star batter may finally be here

Danyal Rasool15-Oct-2024Kamran Ghulam’s career doesn’t make sense. Not because, until today, he averaged 50 over a decade of first-class cricket without ever having played a Test at a time Pakistan have been looking for Test batters. No, there was something else, especially if you looked at his ESPNcricinfo profile.Ghulam was a ghost international cricketer. He had played one match for Pakistan, an ODI against New Zealand, without having batted or bowled. Hit the scorecard link, and it gets weirder. He doesn’t feature in Pakistan’s line-up at all.Earlier that day, Haris Sohail was hit on the head by a 150kph Lockie Ferguson bouncer, battling on until he was dismissed. He wouldn’t take the field in the second innings, and though Pakistan could just as easily have called for a replacement fielder, they made a concussion substitute. Ghulam was given his first international cap; perhaps Pakistan felt he’d bowl. He didn’t.Related

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In some perverse way, that serving as the entirety of one of Pakistan’s most prolific young batters was an apt metaphor for the state of Pakistan’s domestic structure. A reminder you didn’t need to be standing on thin ice to slip through the cracks. This was a player fully integrated into Pakistan’s cricketing network, patchy as it was, but only hovered around the outskirts of the national team. He is by no means an exception. Of the dozen players who have scored more Quaid-e-Azam trophy runs than him since he made his debut, five of them have never played a Test match; another has only played one. It feels jarring to note he celebrated his 29th birthday earlier this week, so long has he been viewed as a future batting star.Like the Lochness Monster or Big Foot, Ghulam was ubiquitous, and yet nowhere to been seen. His name showed up in media releases, and he was topping Quaid-e-Azam trophy charts. He’d been selected for this or that A tour, and was in a Pakistan squad here or there. This summer, he was playing in the Huddersfield league – as you do when you’re a rising batting star. That the club he played for was called Hoylandswaine didn’t exactly help any claims of Ghulam’s verisimilitude. That phantom appearance against New Zealand was the holy grail of Ghulam sightings, but could we really be sure?Kamran Ghulam struck an early six in his innings•Getty ImagesHaving spent so long lurking in the shadowy underworld of cricketers Pakistan has disused to the point of atrophy, Ghulam suddenly has been pinned into place and had a flashlight burn into his retinas over the weekend. Pakistan dropped Babar Azam, prematurely according to some, contentiously according to all; it was a move even the Pakistan head coach did not call for. It sent Babar’s fandom into meltdown, and even those who had criticised his recent form felt the decision to leave him out after one Test was borne of panic rather than logic. Some of the stray ire was directed Ghulam’s way, as if his entire career had built up to nicking a spot off Babar at number four. A snow leopard dragged into a desert circus wouldn’t have felt more out of place.Pakistan had prepared the same pitch used for the first Test for this one, playing just one fast bowler on what they hoped would be a batting minefield, and ten overs in, that wish was being fulfilled. Jack Leach and Shoaib Bashir were already into the attack, Abdullah Shafique and Shan Masood already back in the hut. The ball stayed low, and spun unpredictably. If ever a debutant batter, one stepping into Babar’s shoes, was being set up to fail, it was here.Ben Stokes, who had moved a fielder into the short leg position Masood had obligingly chipped one to, spent his time setting the field. A second slip was brought in, and a performance was made out of bringing a silly mid-off to accompany short leg. But Ghulam had waited more than a decade for this moment, and patience came naturally to him. A snatched single got him off the mark, but he what followed was all steel.He was batting alongside Saim Ayub, another player under pressure. The duo understood the precarity of their position, and that wanton attack would only be a speciously positive approach: one that potentially brought some quick runs, but certainly offered England quick wickets. And so, on a strip that barely matched the quality of those he buttered his bread on in domestic cricket, Ghulam dug on.

“Like the Lochness Monster or Big Foot, Ghulam was ubiquitous, and yet nowhere to been seen. His name showed up in media releases, and he was topping Quaid-e-Azam trophy charts”

The conditions were old-school subcontinental, and so Ghulam played old-school subcontinental cricket. According to ESPNcricinfo’s ball-tracking records, he defended or left along 138 of his 224 deliveries. But this was no blockathon; Ghulam’s concentration levels never wavered, picking length early to sweep or reverse, each of which he did four times. When Bashir tossed one up late in the day, he hit him into the sightscreen. When Brydon Carse overpitched, it didn’t matter it was the first delivery with the second new ball, Ghulam leaned into the straight drive and picked up another four.Observers who have watched him play on the domestic setup will tell you this is simply how Ghulam plays, the runs a mere byproduct of solid technique and judicious shot selection. Ghulam might bat how the game demands it to, but appears oddly disconnected from the stage his individual innings is placed at. It was illustrated in the way he got to his century, smearing Joe Root into the onside for four; they were the only runs he scored off a slog sweep all innings, and one of just two times in 224 balls he attempted that shot. The opportunity was simply there.And, at long last, it feels that opportunity is finally here for him. After a decade defined by his absence, Ghulam is present in every sense of the word. Pakistan’s future star batter may finally be here, and Kamran Ghulam’s career may at last begin to make sense.

A two-week training camp with the Super Kings academy saw the batters play a variety of spin bowlers, practice on red and black-soil pitches, and also play few games against top locals

Deivarayan Muthu12-Dec-2024While West Indies’ senior players were engaging in a home series against Bangladesh, their next-in-line batters were undergoing a two-week training program thousands of miles away in Chennai. Jewel Andrew, the breakout star of CPL 2024, Kirk McKenzie, who made his Test debut against India last year, Ackeem Auguste, Jordan Johnson, Matthew Nandu, Kevin Wickham and Teddy Bishop all trained at the Super Kings academy, with West Indies academy head coach Ramesh Subasinghe and West Indies Under-19 coach Rohan Nurse and Super Kings academy coach Sriram Krishnamurthy overseeing their progress.After receiving positive feedback from Rachin Ravindra and Ben Sears, who had trained in Chennai in the lead-up to New Zealand’s Test series in India which the Black Caps won 3-0, West Indies decided to send their emerging talent for a camp, where they were exposed to red-and-black-soil pitches and every variety of spin, including wristspin and mystery spin.This was the first time the West Indies Academy players were exposed to overseas training, and it seems to have served them well. On Monday, Andrew, McKenzie, Wickham, Auguste all rolled out a variety of sweeps at training, including the slog-sweep and reverse. On Tuesday they implemented some of it during a 50-over one-day game on a slow pitch. As part of the camp, West Indies’ batters play one two-day game and three one-day matches in Chennai and CSK have made these matches more competitive by calling up some Tamil Nadu players, including Hong Kong-born ambidextrous wristspinner Jhathavedh Subramanyan, who was part of Sunrisers Hyderabad in IPL 2024.For 21-year-old Auguste, this camp was the next step in his development after having won the CPL earlier this year with St Lucia Kings under Faf du Plessis and Daren Sammy.”It’s been good so far in Chennai, trying to adapt to new surfaces and incorporate into my game,” Auguste says. “I think for both black and red clay, you need to come up with a game plan and try to stick to it as much as possible. Naturally, I sweep, so it comes naturally to me here too. So, just deciding on which sweep I’d want to play – a paddle sweep, reverse sweep or just a hard conventional sweep.”Auguste was the standout batter in the two-day match, scoring a pair of eighties amid inhospitable humidity, but he was disappointed not to score a big hundred.Kevin Wickham brings out the sweep•Super Kings Academy”I would have liked to at least convert one or if not both, but I think just taking in whatever we did in practice and just trying to incorporate it into the game and just sticking to a game plan for as long as possible, I felt like that worked out pretty well for me on the day,” Auguste says. “But I think I should have probably tried to convert one, but if I was told I would have gotten these scores, then I would take it.”McKenzie, 24, isn’t a natural sweeper like Auguste, but has been honing the shot to disrupt spin. “I’ve been sweeping a bit more and trying to use the depth of the crease a bit more,” McKenzie says. “I’m here for the first time in India, so I’m trying to broaden my game and get used to the different surfaces here. The ball turns more in the subcontinent and there’s also uneven bounce. So, probably in the future, if I have a Test tour here, this will be beneficial coming here.”

“We don’t have a proper development program in the Caribbean and not a lot of facilities as well for a proud nation that has won six ICC championships, including an Under-19 World Cup. We don’t have a state-of-the-art high-performance facility, so we need to be innovative with our approach and this camp in Chennai was one way of doing it.”West Indies academy head coach Subasinghe

McKenzie grew up idolising fellow Jamaican Chris Gayle and made his Test debut, against India, in Port-of-Spain in July 2023, after having played just nine first-class games at the time. He showed promise with 32 against India and then bettered it with 50 in his next Test in Adelaide. McKenzie, however, had a harrowing experience in England, managing just 33 in six innings. How does he deal with the ups and downs of playing international cricket?”I’m just trying to stay level as possible,” McKenzie says. “Not trying to get too high or too low. I think that’s very important because you can score a hundred today and score a duck tomorrow. I’m just trying to stay level at all times.”Subasinghe, who has also worked with New Zealand’s emerging players, reckons that greater exposure such as this stint in Chennai will ensure that McKenzie is better equipped to cope with the pressure of international cricket.”Sometimes people do get picked for international teams – like especially in a country like West Indies where we don’t have a big player pool compared to somewhere like India – when they aren’t ready,” Subasinghe says. “I’m not saying Kirk wasn’t ready but then Kirk was a very young player, so he’s still learning the game and finding his feet in first-class cricket.West Indies’ emerging players train at the Super Kings Academy indoor nets•Super Kings Academy”So to handle the expectations I would always like to think about individual development; he’s learned good lessons but then it’s important for him to reflect better on what has happened and put plans in place to improve. So by the next time when he comes back to the international set-up, which I know he will, he will have more tools and a bit more experiences like these to call upon him.”With West Indies not playing too many ‘A’ team tournaments, and lacking a robust player-development structure at the level below international cricket, Subasinghe sees this Chennai camp as a “creative” way to nurture their emerging players.”Coach Sri (Sriram) has been influential on the boys who are getting different voices, which they can absorb and then find their own methods,” Subasinghe says. “For a smaller, financially constrained association, we need to be creative. We’ve also brought in the Under-19 coach (Nurse) who can go back and then share the information to the other young players in the Caribbean.”We don’t have a proper development program in the Caribbean and not a lot of facilities as well for a proud nation that has won six ICC championships, including an Under-19 World Cup. We don’t have a state-of-the-art high-performance facility, so we need to be innovative with our approach and this camp in Chennai was one way of doing it. It’s very hard to get pathway international tournaments and mainly the big boards play against the other big boards. So for us, it’s about identifying the targeted players and then exposing them to different learning environments in a creative way, which we are trying to do.”

Earlier, India’s top-order collapse brought back memories of the 2019 World Cup semi-final

ESPNcricinfo stats team02-Mar-20251:42

Kumble lauds Iyer’s ‘proactive’ innings

6.4 – Overs that New Zealand took to dismiss India’s top-three batters on Sunday. These are the fewest overs that any team has needed to dismiss India’s top-three batters in a men’s ODI since the 2019 World Cup semi-final, where New Zealand took only 3.1 overs.2 – Instances of India’s top-three of Rohit Sharma, Shubman Gill and Virat Kohli getting out in the first 10 overs of an ODI innings. The other instance was against Sri Lanka in 2023 at the Eden Gardens. The trio of Rohit, Gill and Kohli have been India’s top-three batters in an ODI on 29 occasions.46 for 3 – India’s total at the end of the 15th over, their second-lowest in men’s ODIs since 2020, behind 45 for 2 against South Africa in 2022. India, however, recovered significantly, by scoring 139 runs in the next 25 overs despite losing three more wickets.Related

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10 – Consecutive tosses lost by Rohit Sharma in ODIs. Brian Lara (12 between 1998 and 1999) and Peter Borren (11 between 2011 and 2013) are the only other captains to lose 10 or more successive tosses in men’s ODIs.India have extended their world record streak of not winning a toss in ODIs to 13 matches, courtesy of Rohit’s luck with the coin. India went past Netherlands’ record of 11 consecutive tosses lost in their previous game against Pakistan.5 for 42 – Matt Henry’s figures against India are the second-best for New Zealand at the Champions Trophy, behind Jacob Oram’s 5 for 36 against USA in 2004.Henry also became the first bowler to take a five-wicket haul against India in the Champions Trophy.75 – Balls that Shreyas Iyer took to complete his fifty, the slowest of his ODI career. His previous slowest was off 74 balls against West Indies in Ahmedabad in 2022.563 – Runs scored by Iyer against New Zealand in ODIs are the most he has scored against any opponent. Iyer has scored two centuries and four fifties in the eight ODI innings against New Zealand.He has been dismissed by pace bowlers in all eight innings against New Zealand, although he has also scored 394 runs against them and struck at 102.60. However, against spinners, he has scored 169 runs off 175 balls without being dismissed.16 – Runs conceded by Kyle Jamieson in his first seven overs. As many as 29 balls in those seven overs were dot balls, and the Indian batters failed to hit a boundary in those overs. However, his eighth over went for 15 runs, with Hardik Pandya hitting 4, 4 and 6 off consecutive balls.9 – Wickets bagged by the Indian spinners on Sunday, the joint-most they have taken in a men’s ODI. The Indian spin bowlers have previously shared nine wickets in an ODI on four occasions.The nine wickets are also the joint-most that New Zealand lost to spinners in a men’s ODI. They lost nine wickets against the Sri Lanka spinners in an ODI in 1998 and 2001.3 – Varun Chakravarthy is only the third Indian to take a five-wicket haul in the Champions Trophy, after Ravindra Jadeja, who took 5 for 36 against West Indies in 2013 and Mohammed Shami, who took 5 for 53 against Bangladesh earlier in this edition.Varun, who was playing in the Champions Trophy for the first time on Sunday, also became only the third bowler to claim a five-wicket haul in his debut match of the competition, after Josh Hazlewood, who took 6 for 52 against New Zealand in 2017 and Shami in this tournament.It took only two matches for Varun to claim his maiden five-wicket haul in ODIs, the quickest for any Indian in this format. Stuart Binny taking a six-wicket haul in his third match was the previous earliest.7 – Indians to have featured in 300-plus ODIs, including Kohli, who joined the list on Sunday. Kohli is now part of 22 players who have appeared in 300-plus ODIs.

Losing wickets close to breaks in play has contributed significantly to India letting dominant positions slip during their tour of England

Nagraj Gollapudi18-Jul-2025It will have rankled India considerably during their tour of England that they have frequently lost wickets just before or just after breaks in play. Let’s first look at the Lord’s Test as an example.In their first innings, three balls prior to lunch on day three, Rishabh Pant ran himself out. Less than two overs post the break, his batting partner KL Rahul edged a drive to slip. On the same day, they lost Nitish Kumar Reddy 3.3 overs after tea, and Ravindra Jadeja 3.2 overs after the final drinks break, with Jamie Smith pouching both chances behind the wicket. The Jadeja wicket triggered a collapse that saw them lose their last four wickets for just 11 runs.Related

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Late in the afternoon on the fourth day, in a dramatic last hour, India lost three second-innings wickets in 31 balls, sliding from 41 from 1 to 58 for 4. Three further wickets fell in 23 balls in the first hour of the final morning. Then, with four balls to go for lunch, Reddy fell just when he seemed to be building a partnership with Jadeja.There was a similar trend during the first Test defeat at Headingley. Rahul and debutant B Sai Sudharsan fell in the span of five deliveries just before lunch on the first morning. Yashasvi Jaiswal departed in the second over after tea. India would want to forget the second day, as they lost six wickets either side of lunch, collapsing from 447 for 4 to 471 all out. On the third evening, three overs before stumps, they lost Sai Sudharsan, and Shubman Gill followed in the first full over of the next morning, bowled by Brydon Carse.Nitish Kumar Reddy fell in the last over before lunch on day five at Lord’s•Getty ImagesWhile a significant number of the above dismissals were the result of England’s bowlers executing their plans, there have also been instances where India may have felt their batteres lost focus or played a casual shot either side of a break. It is a riddle head coach Gautam Gambhir and his two batting assistants – Sitanshu Kotak and Ryan ten Doeschate – have been trying to solve throughout this Anderson-Tendulkar Trophy, which now moves Manchester with the fourth Test starting at Old Trafford on July 23.Speaking after India’s training session on Thursday in Beckenham, Kent’s second home ground, ten Doeschate agreed that losing wickets around intervals was proving to be a critical challenge. “It has,” he said. “You have got to sort of weigh up, is it more coincidence or is there a pattern of something we are doing wrong? Are we losing concentration? Are we getting too excited to get in there? Are we getting complacent in the positions we are [in]? And that’s very difficult to draw out of a player. So it is something we are mentioning.”Pant’s run-out dismissal in the first innings at Lord’s became a major talking point, with Rahul admitting that his eagerness to reach his century – he was on 97 at the start of the last over before lunch – played a role in the misjudgment. While Rahul said it was a turning point in the match, Gill, after the defeat, said it was purely an “error of judgement.”As a full house at Lord’s expressed a range of reactions to Pant’s dismissal, which was a result of England captain Ben Stokes’ awareness and supreme athletic ability, ten Doeschate was at the training nets behind the Nursery End, issuing throwdowns to India’s reserve batters. He was in disbelief.Eagerness to help KL Rahul reach his hundred before lunch contributed to Rishabh Pant’s run-out dismissal at Lord’s•Getty Images”There’s been a few times we almost feel like it can’t happen again,” ten Doeschate said. “I was throwing balls at the back at Lord’s when [Pant] got run out and was incredulous. You couldn’t believe that it happened again. But that’s also no guarantee that they are going to put on another 70, 80, 100 runs. Every ball is important, and the messaging to the players throughout has been: let’s try win every single event, which is every ball, not look too far forward, and not look too far behind us either.”The Indians were full of beans during the Beckenham session despite being 2-1 behind in the series. While Rahul was the only batter absent, the rest barring Pant, who is recovering from the finger injury he sustained at Lord’s, had a regular hit in the nets. From a distance there was nothing evident about them trying anything different.Ten Doeschate said the batters had done most things right in the three Tests and that the numbers backed this up. So there was absolutely no need for changes in plan other than minor tinkering. “The focus is to not try change too much and that might be counterintuitive when you’re 2-1 down in the series, but we feel like the guys have been excellent for large parts of the series. The repetition of losing lots of wickets in a very short space of time has obviously been the key feature of the two losses: both times in Headingley and overnight and first thing in the morning at Lord’s we feel cost us the game, losing six wickets for 40 again.”But if you look at it individually, if you look at the run tally of all the batters, they are all batting nicely. Even someone like Karun [Nair], we feel his rhythm’s good, his tempo is good, we want more runs from him at [number] three. But the message is mainly, let’s really focus on what we have done well and tidy up the little things that have cost us results, essentially.”The good thing is India know they are breaking bad, so to say, but they know what needs to be done to stop that from becoming chronic.

The first Test went England’s way as India squandered their chances at Headingley. Alan Gardner hears from Andrew Miller and Sid Monga about another fourth-innings classic

ESPNcricinfo staff26-Jun-2025England pulled off another memorable fourth-innings run chase at Headingley to take a 1-0 lead in the series against India. But how good were they? And how unlucky were the visitors? On the pod, Alan Gardner was joined by Andrew Miller and Sidharth Monga to discuss Ben Duckett’s brilliant innings, Shubman Gill’s fiery baptism as captain and whether Jofra Archer should come straight into the England XI for Edgbaston.