Australia hope Starc and Green’s return to the XI will “bridge the difference” between them and India

Alex Malcolm21-Feb-2023Australia face an uphill battle trying to find lower-order runs in the third Test in Indore and it may shape their selection.Australia are still picking up the pieces from their second-innings collapse on Sunday in Delhi where they lost 8 for 28 in 74 balls to concede a 2-0 series lead to India. India’s lower-order batting, meanwhile, has been one of the major differences between the two sides in the series so far.But the visitors did have India 139 for 7 on the second day before Axar Patel and R Ashwin added 114 for the eighth wicket to ensure India did not concede a first-innings deficit.Related

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Similarly in the first Test in Nagpur India were 240 for 7, leading by just 63 before Ravindra Jadeja, Axar and Mohammed Shami added 160 for the last three wickets to hand the home side an insurmountable lead of 223.By contrast, Australia were 162 for 6 in the first innings in Nagpur to be all out for 177. They were 227 for 6 in the first innings in Delhi only to be bowled out for 263. Peter Handscomb was set at the other end on both occasions but was unable to garner any support from Australia’s bowlers.Australia batting coach Michael Di Venuto admitted it is difficult to help inexperienced spinners Todd Murphy and Matthew Kuhnemann find a way to contribute with the bat in Indian conditions when even Steven Smith is having trouble handling Ashwin and Jadeja.”That’s a hard one especially when two guys are brand new to Test cricket and coming in there,” Di Venuto said. “Nathan [Lyon] has shown some good resolve. It’s encouraging. Potentially changes. Potentially Starcy [Mitchell Starc] comes in who’s done well with the bat here in the past. That adds a little bit more depth to the batting. Patty [Cummins] showed in the first innings a good method of defence and attack, so it is there. The younger ones, that’s a work in progress. That’s a big learning curve for them with the bat and the ball.”There is a clear gap in talent with the bat between Australia’s and India’s bowlers. Axar Patel averages nearly 34 in first-class cricket and 31.80 in Test cricket, while Ashwin is batting at No. 9 in this current India team with five Test centuries to his name. Coach Andrew McDonald noted India’s depth of batting.”They bat right through to nine, and that’s the reality,” McDonald said on Monday. “On the flip side to that, we’ve got to make sure we bridge that difference with our lower order as well. That’s been a clear distinct difference in the two Test matches so far, where you get a team five down and suddenly they creep out. They got 400 in that first game in Nagpur, it wasn’t a 400 wicket.”By contrast, Australia have had Cummins batting at No. 8 with a Test average of just 15.93. Intriguingly, after 17 Tests of their respective careers, Cummins had a higher Test average (20.95) than Jadeja (20.62). Jadeja has become a world-class allrounder, fulfilling his Test batting potential having scored 12 first-class centuries overall, including three triples, while Cummins has regressed.

“Plans certainly weren’t wrong. Our plans were good. Guys under pressure moved away from their plans of what worked and you pay the consequence in this country.”Michael Di Venuto

That gap in talent was part of the reason Ashton Agar was so heavily considered as Australia’s second or third spinner, given he has three first-class hundreds, a Test 98, and averages 28.32 with the bat in first-class cricket. But it is understood he was struggling so much with the ball in training, having taken just 20 wickets in his last 12 first-class games at a cost of 63.45 and a strike rate of 131, that he and the selectors mutually decided he was not in the right place to play in Australia’s four-man attack. The selectors are currently considering whether to fly him home to play some domestic cricket in Australia.Starc’s return from injury would bolster Australia’s batting at No. 8 but it may come at the expense of the third spinner unless Cummins is unable to play given his personal situation.”We need to find runs,” McDonald admitted. “We knew that before we came away, that runs is always the biggest challenge in India. We felt like we’d be able to take 20 wickets but how we find runs is really important. So do we bat a little deeper? Mitchell Starc coming in, he’s had some good success with the bat, albeit he’s a lower-order player. He got 99 in Mohali and 62 in Pune on a spinning wicket as well, so does he come into calculations? Do we play two quicks? All those conversations are happening but the bottom line is we do need to find runs, and that’s our big question.”Cameron Green will return in Indore which will balance the side even more. That could also open the door for Australia to do something radical and play eight batters if they had confidence in taking 20 wickets with playing just three specialist bowlers, Green and Travis Head as support. But that option would probably only be considered if an extreme spinning pitch is presented in Indore.Ultimately Australia’s top order needs to do the heavy lifting with the bat. Former Australia opener Matthew Hayden, who is working as commentator on this series, has offered his support and expertise to the Australian team but it remains to be seen whether any players will reach out.Di Venuto believes Australia’s batters aren’t trusting the methods and plans that they have been working on.”Plans certainly weren’t wrong. Our plans were good,” Di Venuto said. “But if people go away from their plans they get in trouble as we saw. I think if we look back at the position we were in at 2 for 85, executing our plans very well in that second innings and ahead of the game and the wheels fell off after that.”Guys under pressure moved away from their plans of what worked and you pay the consequence in this country.”Batting, it’s a pretty simple analogy I think, you’ve got to swim between the flags in this country. If you go outside the flags and your game plan you are going to get in trouble.”Each individual has got their own method which we think can work. But if you’re coming over here and you’re not a sweeper and you’re trying to sweep, that’s not going to work. I think we have some good examples of that and saw that.”

History says England have the series in the bag, but Pakistan’s exceptions remain their rule

Danyal Rasool11-Dec-2022The morning session oscillated delicately between overwhelming English control and the gentlest whiff of a Pakistani opportunity; the dance redolent of a first date where one side is keen to pull away out of sight, even as the other desperately clings on. England were so sure they were steering clear, though, they didn’t quite clock Pakistan’s power to hang on and drag the dalliance out by at least one more day.Pakistan’s first-innings implosion on Saturday might have seemed tactically baffling. But the pay-off came today as England, lulled into what might still turn out to be a true sense of security, gave away their last five wickets with the profligacy of a billionaire frittering away their fortune on a social media company. It still left Pakistan needing their second-highest fourth-innings chase to level the series, a feat that, even for a city as steeped in the folklore of yesteryear as Multan, would be historic.But Pakistan draw their belief not from the blind faith they place in their collective process, à la England, but from the occasional jarring exceptions to the general trend of their Test batting decline. There might be collapses aplenty straddling more than just this generation of Pakistan’s Test cricket, but like the occasional brilliant flashes of light from a flame that’s invariably going out, Pakistan’s batting can occasionally sparkle with a luminescence that is no longer characteristic of it.Since the start of 2014, no other side in the world has chased down totals in excess of 300 as frequently as Pakistan. Just this year, one vintage one for spectacular batting implosions, Pakistan ran down 342 in Galle, and amassed 443 for 7 in Karachi against an Australian attack that had rolled them for 148 48 hours earlier.Mohammad Rizwan opened the batting alongside Abdullah Shafique after Imam-ul-Haq had been sent for an MRI scan on a dodgy hamstring, and injected the sort of gentle intent that has seen him earn both praise and criticism in the shortest format. Joe Root was dispatched for ten in his first over, Shafique looked particularly comfortable, and as lunch arrived, Pakistan were well placed having scored 64 undefeated runs.Lunch at the Multan Cricket Stadium strikes a steady balance between bland mediocrity and mediocre blandness, but even a Michelin Star chef would have struggled to leave English fans salivating quite as much as the visitors’ newish-ball spell after the interval. With James Anderson, Ollie Robinson and Mark Wood each producing their best deliveries of the series, Saud Shakeel and Imam found themselves in a scrap to take the game beyond the weekend.Both men have plenty to prove in this format, but Shakeel appreciates that point more than Imam. He had travelled with this Test side from time to time before making his debut in Pindi, but Zahid Mahmood’s experience would tell him that earning a reward for patience is no guarantee of success.Related

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He saw off a barrage from England’s fire-breathing quicks post-lunch, never once worrying about a strike-rate that was likelier to dip into single figures than rise into three. That temperament demonstrated why Shakeel has the highest control percentage against seam bowling among all Pakistan batters; of the 222 seam deliveries he has faced, he has been in control of 93.24%, edging out his captain Babar Azam at 93.04%.In the era of Brendon McCullum’s England, who sometimes feel as if they’ve reinvented Test cricket since the summer, it’s easy to get carried away, and believe you can fly even if you do not have a magic carpet. The mood even caught PCB chairman Ramiz Raja on Saturday, as he told Sky Sports’ Michael Atherton he wanted Pakistan to select T20 players in the Test side to replicate what England were doing.Saud is not a T20 player. He certainly does not have a magic carpet. But he possesses the maturity to recognise the futility of chasing after toys he cannot afford, and has learned not to lust after them either. In his first 33 balls, he had scored five runs. In his four innings for Pakistan so far, he hasn’t once managed a strike-rate in excess of 60. Juxtaposed against England’s modern, flashy shotmaking, he feels like a typewriter in the age of the smartphone, and just as exciting.But he averages in excess of 66 in the fourth innings across his first-class career, and with two days left in this match, it matters little how quickly those runs come. Across this series, no Pakistan player has negotiated pace better. He’s unbeaten on 54 off 123 overnight, but that’s exactly what he is: unbeaten. Imam might have contributed more runs, and scored them at a greater clip, but a flash at dusk outside off means he won’t be worrying England anymore.Shakeel was called up to make his ODI debut against South Africa in 2021, shortly before being ruled out of the tour with a quad injury, so he’ll be well aware of the limited value of a good day in an otherwise rough week. And even when the Sunday Multan crowd – the biggest of the Test by far – witnessed Pakistan enjoy their best day of the series, they would walk away fully aware the bulk of Pakistan’s work still lay ahead of them.Even so, England have been dragged back for another date, the prospect of nothing to separate the two sides as they fly together onto Karachi very much real. The visitors may yet feel they’re well placed to escape Pakistan’s clutches, but Shakeel’s grit, and the contradictory weirdness innate in Pakistan’s batting record this year, ensures there’ll be plenty of butterflies in English stomachs overnight.

Mehidy Hasan Miraz was the hero of the chase, but it was Shakib Al Hasan who set up Bangladesh’s win with an outstanding spell

Mohammad Isam05-Dec-20222:11

Jaffer suggests Shakib deserves more recognition

Shakib Al Hasan should have stolen the headlines for his five-wicket haul in the first ODI against India, but it was Mehidy Hasan Miraz who got most of the attention in the end. Either way, the home side’s dramatic one-wicket win has replaced the FIFA World Cup for prominence in the local media.Brazil and Argentina flags had adorned hundreds of buildings around the Shere Bangla National Stadium. Many spectators came wearing football jerseys. There was the odd Argentina flag in the stands too, with a full house for most of the first ODI – up until when the win looked comfortable for Bangladesh. Then their team slipped and several fans didn’t stay till the end. Those who did, witnessed a miracle. By the end of the evening, Shakib and Co. had made sure they had firmly turned the fans’ attention back to cricket.Related

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It was Shakib who did the star turn in the first half of the game. It was his blockbuster first over, an economical spell and a fine finish that combined to give him his first five-for against India. His 5 for 36 is his third-best figures in ODIs, and also the best by a left-arm spinner against India. The visitors couldn’t recover from his regular blows, and coupled with Ebadot Hossain’s maiden four-wicket haul, India were kept to 186, the second-lowest total for which they have been bowled out by Bangladesh in ODIs.Shakib swung the game with his first four deliveries. Second ball, he bowled an arm ball that zipped past Rohit Sharma, who was waiting for it to spin. Then he had Virat Kohli caught at cover by a sprawling Litton Das.When Washington Sundar and KL Rahul began to put up a bit of resistance, it was time to reintroduce Shakib again. Third ball into his third spell, he had Sundar caught by Ebadot at point. He then produced another wicket-taking delivery to remove Shardul Thakur with a ball that turned to beat his outside edge before hitting the off stump. Two balls later, Shakib completed his five-for with a regulation lbw against Deepak Chahar.Coming into the series, Bangladesh – and Shakib – did not have much to celebrate. Shakib had underperformed in the recent T20 World Cup where Bangladesh were knocked out in the group stage, scoring just 44 runs across five matches and taking six wickets. In the tri-series against New Zealand and Pakistan before the World Cup, in which Bangladesh remained winless and Shakib experimented with a curved run-up, he shone with the bat but he went wicketless in the three matches. And just last week he was hit for five sixes in an over by Nicholas Pooran in the Abu Dhabi T10. Since the end of May this year, he has only 10 wickets in 15 international matches across formats, with an average of 44.70 and a strike rate of 50.40.Shakib Al Hasan had many reasons to celebrate against India•WaltonShakib has had his share of lows over the past few years – from disciplinary issues to concerns around his form – but, at the same time, he’s always played a role in Bangladesh’s big moments. Think back to his 114* against New Zealand in the 2017 Champions Trophy (which came amid murmurs that there were some who wanted him dropped from the XI), or his ten-for in Bangladesh’s maiden Test win against Australia.In T20 franchise teams, Shakib is often picked as a bowling allrounder, and is sometimes called upon in powerplay. In the Bangladesh side, though, the emergence of several fast bowlers in the last few years has given him a breather from always bowling at crucial stages; he often comes on in the middle overs and finishes his spell before the death.His ODI role, though, has remained the same for several years dating back to 2006-07. Shakib almost always bowls in the same periods in this format – late in the powerplay and through most of the middle overs. And since Abdur Razzak’s wane in the mid-2010s, Shakib has assumed a more wicket-taking role. Now he is closing in on 300 ODI wickets, underlining the importance of his bowling for Bangladesh.Shakib’s importance to Bangladesh cannot be overstated: he’s an experienced bowler, one of their leading batters, and a gun fielder. He rarely goes without making an impact with bat or ball for a long period. His confidence never seems to dip. And he also makes sure to turn up against big teams – just like he did against India on Sunday. Mehidy deserved the credit for the heroic finish but Shakib’s five-for confirmed that he remains the primary match-winner in this Bangladesh side.

They seem to have become a team driven by big names as much as by success, and results have inevitably suffered

Matt Roller09-Apr-20233:30

Moody: Huge gulf between superstars and the other players at Mumbai

From 100 yards away, the golden letters and numbers on the back of Mumbai Indians’ royal-blue shirts are almost impossible to read. Perhaps that is the point: at this franchise, most players’ identities are obvious from the stands of the Wankhede Stadium. If they are not, then they are not worth knowing.No squad in the IPL is as skewed towards star power as Mumbai’s. Their seven highest earners are on a combined INR 85 crore (USD 10.4 million approx), nearly 90 percent of the salary cap. Their eleven lowest earners are on INR 20 lakh (USD 24,000) each, the league’s minimum wage. They have superstars and squad players, with almost nothing in between.On Saturday night, two of those superstars were missing. It had been apparent for some time that the IPL’s most successful franchise would have to make do without Jasprit Bumrah, the leader of their bowling attack, in 2023; news that Jofra Archer, their other big-name bowler, had picked up a niggle meant that their fixture against Chennai Super Kings was always likely to be a challenge.Related

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Mumbai started brilliantly, racing to 61 for 1 after the powerplay. Rohit Sharma threw his hands at the ball when Super Kings’ seamers offered him width, the capacity crowd roaring in celebration at each of his four boundaries. Akash Ambani watched on from his plush leather sofa in the stands; Sachin Tendulkar smiled in the dugout.After Rohit was cleaned up by Tushar Deshpande, Ishan Kishan took over. He had struck three boundaries off Sisanda Magala’s first four balls and then slapped down the ground for consecutive fours, his sweat-drenched forearms glistening under the floodlights. And then, as the field spread… nothing.In the space of 16 balls, Mumbai lost four wickets for 12 runs, collapsing spectacularly against Super Kings’ left-arm spinners. Mitchell Santner and Ravindra Jadeja bowled with skill and guile, varying their pace and extracting just a hint of turn. There was an unfortunate element to two of those wickets: the ball Suryakumar Yadav gloved behind was sliding some way past leg stump, while Jadeja’s catch off his own bowling to remove Cameron Green was a freak dismissal.ESPNcricinfo LtdYet from that moment on, there was an unmistakable sense of inevitability around Mumbai’s defeat. For the second game in a row, they were a long way short with the bat, scraping up to a total of 157. Shorn of their two star bowlers, their attack never stood a chance of defending it, even against a Super Kings batting line-up missing Ben Stokes and Moeen Ali through injury and illness respectively.It is worth dwelling on the make-up of that attack. Mumbai opened the bowling with two left-arm seamers: one of them made his professional T20 debut last weekend, aged 25; the other was traded from Royal Challengers Bangalore during the off-season. Their change seamer has taken six wickets in his T20 career. Their two fingerspinners are base-price rookies. Their frontline legspinner is a 34-year-old, who went unsold last season even as two new teams were added to the league.Mumbai were taken to pieces in the powerplay, not by Ruturaj Gaikwad or Devon Conway but by Ajinkya Rahane. Rahane is a stylish batter with international pedigree, but went into this game having made nine appearances across the past two IPL seasons, only once passing 30. As he took Arshad to pieces, plundering 23 runs from his second over, Rahane exposed Mumbai’s attack for what it was.Two games into the season, Mumbai are in a mess. They have overcome bad starts before, and the nature of this format is that if a couple of their big names find form simultaneously, they could go on a winning streak that takes them into the play-offs and beyond. But it is harder than it has been previously to see that happening.If this fixture really is Indian cricket’s answer to El Clásico, the meeting of its biggest and best clubs, then Mumbai are in their galácticos era, signing the biggest names in the sport simply to prove that they can, just as Real Madrid did soon after the turn of the century.Rohit Sharma has his head down•BCCIIt is a phase unwittingly personified by Green, who was signed for INR 17.5 crore at December’s auction and has now been thrown into the IPL with huge expectations on him. The only previous time he has played a full season was as a 20-year-old, when he averaged 15 and didn’t bowl a ball for Perth Scorchers.Green is a phenomenal talent, who will doubtless dominate at international level for years to come – but was he really the player Mumbai needed? His two innings of note in this format were as an opener, where Mumbai already have an established pair; with the ball, he is being asked to learn on the job.Ahead of the auction, Mumbai needed domestic bowlers to complement Archer and Bumrah; in their absence, they need them even more now. Ignoring that obvious hole in their squad to throw their money at Green was like adding another layer of gold paint to a Bentley without an engine.More pertinently, it was a signing that would not have been countenanced by the Mumbai of old; a franchise that almost never overpaid for a player, who stuck to a clear set of principles in constructing a balanced squad with depth in every area. Somewhere along the way, they seem to have become a team driven by celebrity as much by success. Results, inevitably, have suffered.Three seasons ago, Mumbai strolled effortlessly to a second consecutive title and their third in four years with a side so strong that it was hard to see how they would ever fade. On Saturday night, they lost for the 12th time in their last 16 games. There is still time for them to climb back to those old heights this season, but it has been a precipitous fall.

Once the anchoriest of all anchors, he’s maximised his strengths and upped his T20 game to never-before-seen levels

Alagappan Muthu23-Apr-20233:11

Moody: That was one of Rahane’s best IPL knocks

Ajinkya Rahane in the IPL is a four-hitter.He’s No. 8 on the all-time list with 449. He racked up 73 of them in 2012. Again that puts him in an elite group. Only six men have had a better haul in a single season.But fours in T20 cricket are like the girlfriend in that meme. Everybody’s eyes are drawn to the other lady in the red dress. Sixes.And Rahane, in a totally NSFW innings for Chennai Super Kings against Kolkata Knight Riders, hit one that left jaws on the floor.Related

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One of India’s most orthodox batters, a run machine bred in the fabled maidans of Mumbai where they don’t make you read the textbook as much as shove it straight into your veins, casually walked across his stumps and scooped Umesh Yadav out of Eden Gardens.This has been the biggest difference between the Rahane of the past and this totally baller version. He is launching a six, on average, once every 9.54 balls this IPL. By just this count, he’s three times the player he used to be. His previous best was 31.67 balls per six in 2019. Now he’s palling it up with the very best big hitters the tournament has to offer. Scratch that. He’s leading them.ESPNcricinfo LtdThis is an athlete who has levelled up. He hasn’t broken his game down to find new gears. He’s just maximised strengths that had been there all along. Kinda like Kane Williamson did five years ago.Rahane has always been excellent against pace, but this year, he has a strike rate of 254.16. That’s the best of everybody who’s faced at least 18 deliveries from that style of bowler in this tournament. Better than his captain who mauled Mark Wood.MS Dhoni once spoke about Rahane’s limitations as a one-day batter. About how he slows down once the field spreads out and the ball loses its hardness. On Sunday night, all of Rahane’s 71 runs in 29 balls came after the powerplay. With five men on the fence, he found ways to hit six fours and five sixes. He copped to having a little help there. “Small outfield,” he told the broadcasters while picking up his first Player-of-the-Match award in the IPL since 2016. “One side was really small [because they weren’t playing on the centre wicket].”KKR had strung three good overs together. The 10th, 11th and 12th cost only 5, 7 and 8 runs respectively. This is the time they take all the pace off the ball and smother opposition batters with their mystery spinners. Suyash Sharma was the one who effected this slowdown and his good work resulted in the wicket of Devon Conway at the start of the 13th.Ajinkya Rahane brought up his fifty off 24 balls•BCCIBut CSK probably benefited from it, because it brought Shivam Dube to the crease and he gobbles up spin bowlers. He was a threat so KKR went to their frontline quick. Umesh came on for the 14th over and Rahane, who was 19 off 14 at the time, walloped him for 6, 6, 4.The scoop was part of this sequence and it was fun to watch, but really, Rahane’s good work in this IPL has come as a result of his perfecting his best shots. The cover drive. The pull and hook. The flick. In the three years between 2020 and 2022, he had a strike rate of 127.08 playing these shots. This year it’s ballooned up to 240.00.Rahane has upped his T20 game to never-before-seen levels. And all he’s really had to do is let himself go a bit. Let himself have fun. Check out his strike rates in every IPL. See where 2023 is.

Iyer and Rahul would have been odds-on to start the World Cup at Nos. 4 and 5, but with Suryakumar’s form, that could change

Karthik Krishnaswamy24-Sep-20230:53

Chawla: Suryakumar gives India a good headache

The last time India went into an ODI World Cup, they had problems in their middle order. They had a fading great at No. 5, a batting allrounder whose bowling they seemed to have lost trust in at No. 6, and a revolving door of No. 4 options, none of whom got a proper run in the side in the lead-up to the tournament.They have a problem this time too, but it’s a problem of plenty. A problem so acute that one of their middle-order options may possibly have slipped out of India’s first-choice World Cup XI on a day he scored a century of breathtaking skill, in the second ODI against Australia in Indore.Only four India batters have scored over 1000 ODI runs at a 40-plus average and a 90-plus strike rate while occupying Nos. 4 to 6. That small group includes both Shreyas Iyer and KL Rahul.Related

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A month ago, before the start of the Asia Cup, they would have been odds-on to start the World Cup at Nos. 4 and 5.Now? Rahul almost certainly makes the starting XI. He’s probably India’s first-choice keeper even though Ishan Kishan took the big gloves on Sunday, and his ODI average this year is only a few decimal points short of Shubman Gill’s, which is quite a feat in 2023. His last five innings include a century, two fifties, and a knock that may well have been even better than those three, a 44-ball 39 on a raging Colombo turner against a rampant Dunith Wellalage.Iyer? Not so straightforward. He has struggled with back injuries over recent months, and in the time he’s spent in and out of the side, other batters have come in and shown what they can do. Even so, Iyer was probably still ahead of Kishan in the middle-order queue when he went in to bat on Sunday. And over the course of a breezy, 90-ball 105, he probably built himself a significant cushion.Until Suryakumar Yadav happened.Suryakumar was always going to be a compelling option because he has a one-of-a-kind skillset. He probably has no equal in T20s in picking an area of the field and hitting the ball there, no matter its line and length, against pace and spin.In T20 cricket, Suryakumar mostly bats after the powerplay, when the bowling team is allowed five fielders outside the 30-yard circle. In ODIs, Suryakumar would expect to do a lot of his batting in overs 11-40, when teams are only allowed four fielders outside the ring. In theory, this would mean more vacant areas to target while having more time to get his eye in and more room to be selective with his shot choices.To go from theory to practice isn’t always straightforward, though, as Suryakumar discovered while scoring only two fifties and averaging 24.40 over his first 25 ODI innings.0:51

Chawla: Iyer was totally in control

But India had no doubts over his ability. On the eve of the first ODI against Australia, their coach Rahul Dravid gave him as big a vote of confidence as any you’ll hear in a press conference. “We’ve picked our team for the World Cup,” he said, “and Surya is in it.”At that stage Dravid was answering a question about Suryakumar’s place in India’s 15. Since then, in the space of two ODIs played over three days, Suryakumar may have moved the needle considerably.The 49-ball 50 in Mohali, an innings of pared-down stroke production in a chase of 278, was Suryakumar’s reminder – to himself as much as anyone else – that he can bat like an ODI No. 6. The unbeaten 37-ball 72 in Indore was a revelation of what only Suryakumar, among India’s batters, can do as an ODI No. 6.There are others in India’s squad capable of hitting four successive sixes off a tall, fast-medium bowler like Cameron Green. But can they hit them as Suryakumar did, in chronological order, over backward square leg, fine leg, extra-cover and forward square leg? Can they stretch across to the off side and flick-sweep a seventh-stump ball over square leg, as Suryakumar did off Sean Abbott, and two balls later slice open their bat face to direct an off-stump yorker between keeper and short third?There aren’t too many others anywhere in the world who can do these things, or by any other means hit the same ball to multiple parts of the field. Jos Buttler and Glenn Maxwell are two names that come to mind.On potential, Suryakumar could raise India’s ceiling in much the same way Buttler and Maxwell do with England and Australia. And while you have a point if you argue that two innings aren’t enough fuel to merit the comparison, go back to the early ODI careers of Buttler and Maxwell. Buttler didn’t lift his ODI average above 30, once and for all, until his 26th innings. Maxwell didn’t manage it until his 39th innings. Suryakumar is going through a similar journey.These early struggles only show how difficult it is to bat in the manner of these mavericks. They take more risks than most batters, and they’re intimately acquainted with failure. When they get it right, though, they broaden their teams’ range of possibilities. The SKY, if you will, is the limit.These, then, may be the two options India will weigh as the World Cup draws ever closer.A top six of Rohit Sharma, Gill, Virat Kohli, Iyer, Rahul and Hardik Pandya has a formidable look to it, but there’s a certain sameness to what Nos. 3, 4 and 5 bring to the table. Even Hardik is at a stage where he’s perhaps at his best when he has time to build an innings.Compare that to Option B: Rohit, Gill, Kohli, Rahul, Hardik, Suryakumar; a top six that potentially covers every base other than left-handedness.Rohit, Kohli and Hardik will be back in India’s squad for the third ODI against Australia, India’s last proper match before the World Cup. How they line up in that match, in Rajkot, may well point to how they line up in Chennai on October 8.

The second week of the TNPL witnessed Sai Sudharsan pile on the runs and Shahrukh Khan flex his bowling muscle

Deivarayan Muthu26-Jun-20234:52

Watch – Sai Sudharsan blasts 41-ball 83

Natarajan’s emotional homecoming

After becoming Sunrisers Hyderabad’s yorker specialist in the IPL, and after having played for India in all three formats, T Natarajan played his first TNPL game in his hometown of Salem, with around 15 members of his family in attendance. It was also the first time that his parents watched him live in a competitive fixture.Related

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Natarajan, who was representing Ba11sy Trichy, swung the new ball sharply in the powerplay before nailing his yorkers and bouncers at the death to come away with figures of 1 for 34 in his four overs.The lead-up to the game was emotional for Natarajan, who finally realised his dream of opening a cricket ground with training facilities at his village, which is about 30 km away from Salem city. Two days out of the game, Natarajan formally opened his ground in the presence of his Tamil Nadu team-mates. On the day of the match, the locals thronged the Salem cricket foundation ground, welcoming Natarajan with the kind of cheers that are usually reserved for Ashwin, the biggest star in Tamil Nadu cricket.T Natarajan’s Tamil Nadu team-mates at the opening of the Natarajan Cricket Ground•ESPNcricinfo LtdThough Natarajan and the Trichy franchise lost to Tiruppur Tamizhans on Sunday, he must’ve been proud of his protégé G Periyaswamy, who closed out the match for the opposition. Periyaswamy also hails from Salem and was recently part of Rajasthan Royals as a net bowler in IPL 2023.

Sai & Sai sparkle

B Sai Sudharsan notched up his fifth half-century in six T20 innings, stretching back to the IPL final against Chennai Super Kings in Ahmedabad. His latest fifty was especially vital to Kovai displacing Dindigul from the top of the standings.Varun Chakravarthy has been unhittable across seasons in the TNPL, but on Sunday, Sudharsan tonked the mystery spinner for three sixes and two fours. Sudharsan was more circumspect against Ashwin and finished with 83 off 41 balls against one of the best bowling attacks in the TNPL. Another day, another Sudharsan half-century, and another victory for Kovai.Later in the evening, Tiruppur’s R Sai Kishore struck a 23-ball half-century – the fastest in this TNPL – as a pinch-hitting No.3. He had a favourable match-up against left-arm spinners R Alexander, who was with Chennai Super Kings as a net bowler in IPL 2023, and K Monish, who has previously played the Ranji Trophy for Kerala, and aced it. Then, in a more familiar role as a defensive spinner with the ball, Sai Kishore returned 0 for 21 in his four overs.ESPNcricinfo Ltd

Ashwin’s funky fields

The red-soil pitch in Dindigul offered extra bounce and zip to the seamers. Ashwin sussed out the conditions and precisely placed a fine deep third for a top-edged slog in a tense finish against defending champions Chepauk Super Gillies.With Chepauk needing three off the last ball, P Saravana Kumar dug the ball into the Dindigul deck and drew a top-edged slog that was intercepted at that fine deep third. Had Sarath Kumar been placed squarer in the deep, the ball might have travelled to the boundary. Job well done from Ashwin, B Indrajith, the keeper, and Dindigul.Then in Dindigul’s next match against Kovai, they came up against Shahrukh, who is particularly powerful down the ground. So, Ashwin posted a straight long-on, a field that MS Dhoni often deployed for Kieron Pollard in the IPL.Lyca Kovai Kings’ M Siddharth was a net bowler with CSK in IPL 2023•TNPL/TNCA

Emerging player: M Siddharth

M Siddharth, the left-arm fingerspinner, has been a consistent performer in the TNPL for a while, but he often played in the shadows of Sai Kishore, Tamil Nadu’s premier left-arm spinner, at Chepauk in the past. In this season, Siddharth has led Kovai’s attack, fronting up to bowl the tough overs in the powerplay. His fizzing arm ball has posed a threat to both right-handers and left-handers. Siddharth has managed only six wickets in five matches so far, but his economy rate of 5.25 is the best among bowlers who have bowled at least 15 overs this season.Siddharth was born in Chennai and then he grew up in Indonesia, where his father worked and also played a bit of cricket. Siddharth then returned to Chennai to play cricket professionally. More recently in IPL 2023, he was a net bowler for CSK and prior to that, he had a stint as a net bowler with Mumbai Indians.If Siddharth could keep up his form in the TNPL and carry it to the domestic season, he could potentially pique the interest of IPL scouts.

Shahrukh out to prove himself as a bowler

The most prolific spinner, in terms of wickets, in this TNPL is not Varun or the Ashwins. Shahrukh, whose primary role in T20 cricket is that of a finisher, has sprung a surprise with the ball, picking up nine wickets in 12 overs at an average of 8.00 and economy rate of 6.00. Overall, only Tiruppur’s rookie seamer P Bhuveswaran has more wickets than Shahrukh this season.Shahrukh isn’t a big turner of the ball but gets just enough and works with the dimensions of the field to draw mis-hits. With Shahrukh pitching in with his offspin to complement the wristspin of Jhatavedh Subramanyan and left-arm orthodox of Siddharth, Kovai cover almost all bases on the spin front.At a post-match interview, Shahrukh said that the ball was coming out nicely from his hand and that more overs at this level could help him be ready to bowl in the IPL as well.

As India’s greatest sportsman since Tendulkar goes where no cricketer has gone before, he’s done it in a way that’s uniquely, inimitably his own

Anirudh Menon15-Nov-2023Fifty now. The big five-oh. Virat Kohli has just cemented himself in sporting history by going past one of the great no-way-this-can-be-touched records of cricket at breakneck speed, zooming past Sachin Tendulkar’s 49 ODI centuries in just over half the time it took the great man. For a generation that grew up on Tendulkar carrying India on his shoulders and leading them to the forefront of the world game, this seems such a ludicrous, unfathomable feat.Ask Kohli, who is of that generation, and he’ll tell you that he’s nothing without his predecessor, that Tendulkar’s feat remains unmatched whatever the numbers tell you, that Tendulkar laid the road upon which Kohli has driven his F1 car of a career on. But he has done it in a style that’s his own.Where Tendulkar was the quintessential ’90s hero: soft-spoken, unassuming, someone your parents would look at and go “Why can’t you be more like him?”, Kohli DGAF.Related

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He wants the spotlight, revels in it, and doesn’t care what you or your parents think about that. Where “Saaachin! Saaaachin!” would have been met with a gentle wave of the hand and that melt-your-heart, why-is-he-so-cute smile, Kohli will break into the bhangra. He’ll play master conductor to the orchestra that is the Indian cricket crowd. He’ll imitate Shah Rukh Khan’s signature moves. He’ll joke with the opposition, he’ll swear at them (Ben Stokes, anyone?), he’ll hug them. He’s effusive in his praise – telling anyone who’ll listen that AB de Villiers is the GOAT, bowing to Chris Gayle’s T20 magnificence – but doesn’t blush when he is praised in turn.”Yeah, obviously, I’m great.” In every sense of the phrase, it reflects modern India’s take on itself. Everyone here wants to be Kohli.In a time of hyper-nationalism, Kohli understands the import of public displays of friendship•AFP/Getty ImagesHe is the third most followed sportsperson on Instagram (something that always seems to take the average American podcaster by surprise). He commands the highest price for endorsements in Indian sport: BharatPe founder Ashneer Grover claimed earlier this year that he had signed 11 national team cricketers for half the price of Kohli. Any promotional material from any broadcaster in any country that does cricket will feature Kohli. Australia calls him “King”. Popularity, cojones, respect from outside the country, and material wealth – Virat Kohli has it all in spades. This is an über alpha male in a country that worships alpha males.And yet, he’s different.The angry young brat who wanted to pick a fight with anything and everything has been replaced with a wholly different kind of energy… and it’s kinda cool.Kohli now is an alpha male who’s unafraid to tell the world that at one point he had been suffering, that he had felt alone. One who admitted that his game needed working on, then worked on it, and broke out laughing when he scored a drought-ending century. The laughter was self-deprecating, aimed at himself: “Is this why I was whining for two years?” Alpha males, Indian ones in particular, do not laugh at themselves. Kohli does.He celebrates his team-mates’ triumphs much more than he does his own, and defends them loudly, louder than he does himself. He may love the spotlight, but he loves sharing it even more.His obsession is the stuff of legend, sacrificing favourite foods and applying every waking hour to honing his body and his craft in his chase for greatness, but he lets this unending quest for glory go (and what’s more glorious than a Test series victory against Australia down under?) so he can be there for his wife and the birth of their child. He is as much Mr Anushka Sharma as she is Mrs Virat Kohli: and he loves normalising that in a society that doesn’t.Online and offline abuse has followed Kohli for much of his career, but he is inured to it now•Associated PressHe gets this generation but doesn’t necessarily pander to them, and that somehow makes him even more popular. He is the pinnacle of masculinity single-handedly trying to redefine what that term means in this country.Well, almost single-handedly. Neeraj Chopra is arguably the only other sportsman in the country who is on the same alpha-male plane as Kohli is. And much like Kohli, Chopra is different. The javelin thrower is an apex predator on the field, but the moment he steps off it, he has all the energy of a lovable puppy. He thanks people for staying up and watching him, when he could just as easily have used the screen time to shout about his own success. He embraces his competitors and does not stand for any nationalistic toxicity.He is, like Kohli, a serial winner: they are the best at what they do, and they do it under some of the most intense pressure in world sport. Chopra comes out to throw with a country expecting him to win every time, and he wins every time. Kohli comes out to bat with a billion eyes on him, and bats like he’s in his backyard, having a throwdown with his kid. Pressure is to them what it is to carbon: the heavier it is, the more they turn into things that sparkle.Where Kohli is suave and urbane, Chopra is delightfully desi, a country boy at heart regardless of where he is, but they are both relatable. Neither is Tendulkar, but Tendulkar was never them either.Tendulkar and Kohli inspire the same kind of awe for what they did on the 22 yards. Kohli’s takedown of Lasith Malinga and Sri Lanka in Hobart was as audacious as Tendulkar’s disassembling of Shane Warne and Australia in Sharjah, Kohli’s physics-defying six off Haris Rauf was treated with the same open-mouthed shock as Tendulkar upper-cutting Shoaib Akhtar, Kohli chasing GOAT-ness is as undisputed as Tendulkar’s target-setting was. But off those 22 yards, they carry two distinct auras.

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