All posts by h716a5.icu

ESPNcricinfo staff03-May-2016Shahbaz Nadeem’s double-strike in the fourth over sent Smith and Aaron Finch packing, leaving Lions on 24 for 3•BCCISuresh Raina chipped in with 24 and added 51 for the fourth wicket with Dinesh Karthik as the pair tried to rebuild•BCCIKarthik then added 52 for the fifth wicket with Ravindra Jadeja and reached his half-century off 42 balls•AFPJadeja had a reprieve as Nadeem put down a difficult chance at midwicket when the batsman was on 22•BCCIKarthik fell soon after, for 53, castled by Mohammed Shami. Lions were on 127 for 5 with 15 balls to go•BCCIJadeja applied the finishing touches, and his unbeaten 36 off 26 balls lifted Lions to 149 for 7•BCCIDaredevils’ bowlers hunted in a pack. Zaheer Khan led from the front, picking up 1 for 27 in four overs•BCCIDaredevils’ openers, Quinton de Kock and Rishabh Pant, got the team off to a flyer, blazing away to 115 in 13.3 overs•BCCIPant, picked in place of Shreyas Iyer, made his chance count and biffed 69 off 40 balls, his maiden fifty in limited-overs cricket•AFPJadeja broke the stand by dismissing Pant and de Kock fell to a slog off Shivil Kaushik with Daredevils 29 away from a win•BCCIEven with Daredevils just eight away from a win, McCullum was as committed and acrobatic as ever•BCCIBut JP Duminy and Sanju Samson avoided further hiccups, sealing the eight-wicket win in 17.2 overs•BCCI

In their patient approach to victory at Edgbaston, England unfurled a template that could enable them to repeat their triumph in India this winter

George Dobell at Edgbaston07-Aug-2016This is how England can compete – perhaps even win – in India.England aren’t going to win if they attempt to go the traditional route. They aren’t going to win if they rely on their spinners to take 20 wickets or if they expect suddenly to develop another match-winning slow bowler at the last minute. The days when England could call on the likes of Monty Panesar and Graeme Swann are gone. Hoping to recreate the success of 2012 without changing the formula will surely end in failure.But they might, just might, win if they can field a balanced attack of four seamers and two or three spinners. And they might, just might, win if their seamers can gain reverse swing and operate in the sort of sharp spells that allow them to remain fresh and potent as they did against Pakistan at Edgbaston. And their spinners could well prove more successful if the captain has the scope to use them in shorter spells and withdrew them as necessary.An India supporter glancing at the scorecard from Edgbaston might note that seamers claimed eight of the wickets in the fourth innings and presume this was a typical English pitch. Green, bouncy and seaming.But it was far from it. It was sluggish and low; flat and slow. It was, after the first day, a heartbreaker for a bowler. It wouldn’t quite be accurate to describe it as Asian in style, but there were as many characteristics of archetypal Asian surfaces as those usually found in England.The key, on the last day, was England’s ability to gain reverse swing. It wasn’t lavish and it wasn’t for long, but it was enough to unlock this decent Pakistan batting line-up on a flat surface. The ball only swung for an hour or so but, in that time, England’s seamers broke through the Pakistan resistance. The ease with which the tenth-wicket pair then added 50 demonstrates how comfortable batting became once the ball stopped swinging, but while it did, England’s seamers were deadly. We have come a long way since England reacted with such suspicion to Pakistan’s bowlers cutting through them with the same skills.England’s greatest strength, though, is the presence of so many international class allrounders within their squad. Here, with Chris Woakes and Moeen Ali in the side, England were able to operate a four-man seam attack which ensured the bowlers could deliver much shorter spells than in the past. This helps maintain pressure on the batsman and means that there is nearly always someone to turn to for a fresh, fast spell. The days when James Anderson was regularly forced into seven- or eight-over spells are gone. The burden is more evenly spread and England – and Anderson – are better for it.Despite rumours about his future as Test captain, Cook is showing the credentials to build more success•PA PhotosIn India (and Bangladesh, if that tour goes ahead) England must field all three of their proven allrounders – Woakes, Ben Stokes and Moeen – and allow themselves the chance to play up to four seamers searching for reverse swing, and either two or three spinners.We know that the second spinner will be Adil Rashid. But the third? While England could go for a specialist – the likes of Simon Kerrigan or Gareth Batty (Panesar, with a bowling average of 85 in Division Two of this season’s Championship, is not a realistic option) – recent history suggests they may opt for another allrounder and probably one who spins the ball away from the right-hander. There will be consideration given to the improving Liam Dawson, but he has just four Championship wickets at a cost in excess of 100 apiece this season, and Samit Patel (who has 19 wickets at 34.15). But it looks as though Zafar Ansari (with 21 Championship wickets at 28.38) is most likely to be considered as he could probably also compete for a place in the top five of the batting line-up.Either way, we saw a glimpse of the formula England will have to use in India at Edgbaston. And it is one that sees England play to their strengths, rely on the skill of their seamers and their depth, with bat and ball, provided by their allrounders.There is a major caveat to all this. Even if England can create 20 chances against India in India and even if their close fielders can accept every chance that comes their way, England will still have to bat well on surfaces that could turn sharply.This is clearly a concern. But they have shown, albeit on surfaces offering little assistance to spin, that they are learning. Since the end of the Lord’s Test, Moeen has taken seven wickets at a cost of 259 runs, while Yasir Shah has four for 502. It will be harder on Indian wickets, but that’s a statistic that bodes well.There were many heroes for England in Birmingham. There was Jonny Bairstow, who selflessly sacrificed his own chances of a century for the good of the team and took perhaps his finest catch yet. There was Moeen Ali, who in the second innings equalled Dennis Amiss’s record for the top score at an Edgbaston Test by an England player who had played (present or past) for Warwickshire, and gained beautiful drift when he bowled.There was Steven Finn, who bowled with hostility on a pitch offering him nothing. There was Alex Hales, who helped his captain knock off the deficit on the third evening, and Stuart Broad, who bowled a super, unrewarded spell on the final day. It was probably no coincidence that Moeen, who was named Man of the Match in his first Test on his home-city ground, produced what he termed his “best bowling performance in a long time” after an improved display with the bat.And, most of all, there was Alastair Cook, who continues to grow as a leader. It was Cook who decided that Anderson might like to apologise to the umpires and face the media after his tantrums on day two – a decision that probably saved Anderson a fine or a suspension – and Cook who juggled his bowlers so well that it might have gone overlooked that three of them (Broad, Moeen and Finn) came into this game low on form and confidence. It was Cook who timed his declaration nicely and it was Cook who led the second-innings fightback with the bat when England made light of a significant first-innings deficit with an assured opening stand of 126 with Hales.Rumours have circulated for some time that Cook might, at some stage, like to take a step back from the captaincy and enjoy a couple of years back in the ranks as a batsman. At one time, it was presumed that decision would be made in 2016. For that reason it is possible, just possible, that the Oval Test could be Cook’s last as captain in England.But this England team is just getting started. And Cook is just finding his feet as a leader. Whether they reach No. 1 or not in the coming weeks – and it will be partially a reflection of the inadequacy of the ranking system and the fact there is no stand-out side in world cricket at present – for that ranking to have real credibility, they have to win in India. With Cook at the helm and a team stacked with allrounders they have an outside chance of doing that. It would be madness to move on now.It was interesting to note after the game that the England dressing room sent not for beer or champagne, but for lemonade. They know the time has not yet come for celebrating. They know they have work ahead of them. But they can approach it with confidence.

ESPNcricinfo staff21-Oct-2016Devendra Bishoo, another star from the first Test, produced a ripping legbreak in the 14th over that went through the gate and broke Sami Aslam’s stumps•AFPAsad Shafiq struck a composed half-century to offset the early losses•AFPAccompanying him was Younis Khan, who came into the side after recovering from illness, to take Pakistan to 95 for 2 at lunch•AFPGabriel got his second wicket when Shafiq chopped a cut onto his stumps for 68•AFPYounis accumulated at the other end, although he was given a reprieve in the last over before tea when Kraigg Brathwaite dropped a return catch•AFPMisbah-ul-Haq took the attack to the West Indies spinners•Getty ImagesYounis recorded his 33rd Test hundred…•Getty Images… but was dismissed by Kraigg Brathwaite off what became the last ball of the day with bad light intervening•AFPWith 3156 runs, Misbah and Younis became Pakistan’s most prolific partnership in Test cricket•Getty Images

KL Rahul’s 199 was the highlight on the third day in Chennai

S Rajesh18-Dec-20169 Batsmen who have been dismissed for 199 in Tests – KL Rahul became the second Indian in this list, after Mohammad Azharuddin, who fell for 199 against Sri Lanka in Kanpur 30 years ago. In all there have been 11 instances of batsmen scoring 199 in Tests, including two occasions when batsmen were not out at that score.1 Indian opener who has scored more runs in a Test innings against England than Rahul’s 199: Sunil Gavaskar made 221 at The Oval in 1979, which remains the only double-hundred by an Indian opener versus England. One more run would have made Rahul the eighth Indian to score a double-century against England, and the ninth to get one in Chennai. He would have been the first opener to score a double against England since Graeme Smith in 2003.161 The partnership between Rahul and Karun Nair; there have only been four higher stands for India’s fourth wicket against England, and only one of those was in India: in 1985, Mohammad Azharuddin and Mohinder Amarnath added 190, also at the MA Chidambaram Stadium.

Partners Runs Ground YearSC Ganguly, SR Tendulkar 249 Headingley 2002VS Hazare, VL Manjrekar 222 Headingley 1952M Amarnath, M Azharuddin 190 Chennai 1985M Azharuddin, SV Manjrekar 189 Old Trafford 1990KK Nair, KL Rahul 161 Chennai 201631 Innings between century stands for India’s opening pairs in Tests. The last hundred partnership – before the 152-run stand today between Rahul and Parthiv Patel – came in Fatullah in June 2015, when M Vijay and Shikhar Dhawan added 283. Between that Test and this one, India’s opening pairs had scored only 717 partnership runs in 31 innings at an average of 24.72.4 Test hundreds for Rahul, the most by an Indian opener since the start of 2015. He has four hundreds in 17 innings, compared to Vijay’s three in 26 and Dhawan’s two in 16 during this period.12 Instances of both Indian openers passing 50 in a Test innings against England. The last such instance was also in Chennai, in 2008, when Sehwag and Gautam Gambhir both went past 50 in India’s fourth-innings chase of 387.6 Indian opening pairs who have put together century stands in their first partnership. The latest to join this group was Rahul-Parthiv, who had 152 in their opening stand together. The others to achieve this are Dhawan-Vijay, Dinesh Karthik-Wasim Jaffer, Virender Sehwag-Rahul Dravid, Arun Lal-Sunil Gavaskar, and Farokh Engineer-Ashok Mankad.71 Parthiv’s score, the highest of his six 50-plus knocks in Tests; his other such scores are 69, 67*, 62*, 62 and 54.

The gaffes in the field could have left India in an uncomfortable position on the first day in Mohali were it not for their bowlers, who never let England run away with the game

Alagappan Muthu26-Nov-20162:41

Ganguly: Jayant’s ball to get Bairstow was brilliant

Mohali offered box-office material on Saturday and here’s hoping enough fans of Charlie Chaplin were watching.It began with Ravindra Jadeja, his body the shape of a slanted A and his mouth a pronounced O as an edge off Alastair Cook whooshed past. What a gag. One of India’s best fielders had missed an honest-to-goodness catch.Then R Ashwin got punked everywhere he went. At short midwicket, he made a silly by dropping a dolly. At mid-on, he misfielded so badly Virat Kohli almost facepalmed. At square leg, in the final hour of the day and just as he thought he had the ball covered, it bounced awkwardly and nearly broke a tooth.The most comedic incident, though, at least as far as the press box was concerned, was the toss. Heads craned as the coin went up, then they were thrown back in laughter as Cook promptly chose to bat. Before the first hour was done, he had been given two lives. None of this sounds like a day that ends with India taking eight wickets, does it?Clearly the bowlers deserve a lot of credit for this turn – only the metaphorical kind was on offer despite fears otherwise – of events. They never let England run away with the game.Mohammed Shami had two chances put down in his first spell. He was asked to create a third by his captain 10 minutes before lunch. He bounced Moeen Ali out.From swapping out the spinner for a quick to the setting of a leg-side trap, that wicket was the culmination of a plan coming together. India had a short leg in place. They had also kept a man about 10 yards inside the boundary at fine leg specifically for the top-edge. Normally on such pitches – slow with not much bounce – that man would be positioned squarer to control the runs. Kohli was gambling. Shami was his ace in the hole.The ball was fast, it rose up towards Moeen’s head, triggered the instinct to hook and subdued the good sense that would have told the batsman he was trying to drag it from outside the off stump and, as such, his timing would be off. Having gone through a horrible first hour – and that doesn’t take into account India losing their first-choice opener KL Rahul to injury again – that was a moment of pure joy. Kohli actually skipped over to the catcher M Vijay to share high-fives.Having had two catches dropped off his bowling early in the day, Mohammed Shami still responded to his captain’s call with the wicket of Moeen Ali•AFPWith seven balls to stumps, Umesh Yadav finally convinced an outswinger to overcome its shyness and go hug Chris Woakes’ off stump. Umesh had been warned for following through on the danger area in his fourth over. Going wider of the stumps eventually helped him trouble the England batsmen more because the right-handers felt they had to play most of his deliveries with the angle into them. After that, it was only a matter of being accurate because he was finding sideways movement – both conventional and reverse.”I am improving day by day with the matches that I am playing,” Umesh said. “I talk to my coaches Anil bhai [Kumble] and Sanjay bhai [Bangar]. Pace comes with a disadvantage. If you don’t pitch it right, you will go for runs. They advise me to bowl in one particular area. My impact area is outside the off stump from where I can bowl my outswingers and make the batsmen play a lot more.”It’s a bit cold and there’s some moisture in the wicket. The ball is moving. It’s not that if the wicket is flat the new ball wont swing. New ball will swing if you have faith. Me and Shami know that we can swing it till the ball is new. We are trying to bowl outside off stump channel from where we were getting our outswingers. There is good carry in the pitch also at good pace.”India’s spinners weren’t lagging behind either. Jadeja’s two wickets were the combination of a tried and tested method – strangling the batsman for runs – enhanced by a new skill: drawing them out of their crease. To accomplish that, a man who has thrived by firing darts at the stumps, bringing bowled and lbw into play, had to deceive his opponents with flight.Jadeja bowled 31 deliveries to Ben Stokes. Twenty-eight of them were dots. Sensing the batsman would be looking for a big shot, he held one back and since he had also tossed it up and put in a lot of work with his action, it drifted away too. Stokes had premeditated his charge, was tricked into driving inside the line and then stumped. This sequence – apart from being a delight to watch – tested the theory that batsmen find it easier to score against the ball turning into them.Ashwin redeemed himself, taking a wicket off his first ball and could well have had England’s top-scorer Jonny Bairstow caught behind for 54. India’s premier spinner may not have been ripping it from one corner to another, but his variations of pace and trajectory were beautiful. When Buttler was new at the crease, playing only his second first-class match since being dropped from the Test side in October 2015, Ashwin fed him a few flatter deliveries to push him back before an offbreak with a considerable amount of overspin came along. The batsman, to his credit, managed to adjust to the extra bounce and pat it down with soft hands. Buttler should have done the same against Jadeja in the 69th over. He couldn’t and England’s biggest partnership of the innings – 69 runs for the sixth wicket – was rather tamely broken.Jayant Yadav was the least accurate among India’s bowlers, but it was he who showcased how difficult this pitch could become. Drier at the full and good-length areas, where some crumbling has already happened, it encouraged one ball to go on with the arm to take Bairstow’s outside edge as he defended inside the line. The next one gripped the deck more and turned sharply to beat the inside edge and pin the right-hander lbw.With India being good, bad and ugly all in one day, the Kohli cam had plenty of work to do. He glared. He fumed. He screamed. He wrung his hands in disgust one minute, high-fived with glee the next. However, after stumps, he was simply a man content. At least until 9.30am on Sunday, when the show would start all over again.

Multiple surgeries and a loss of form and confidence pushed him into the shadows, but he has used T20 assiduously and will return for Tasmania this week

Daniel Brettig22-Feb-2017A trivia question. Of currently active Australian cricketers, who has the highest batting average in India?Steven Smith? Nope. David Warner? Nope. Matthew Wade? Nope. Glenn Maxwell? Not even close.Believe it or not, the holder of this garland is actually Tim Paine. Two Tests, 183 runs at 45.75, two fifties and a top score of 92. All made in 2010, the year he made his Test debut at Lord’s alongside a younger, pudgier Smith. The time Paine spent batting and keeping wicket in India are among his most treasured memories; his method in the middle disarmingly simple.”I blocked a lot, I waited for a cut, I pulled, and I certainly didn’t sweep,” Paine told ESPNcricinfo. “My plan against the spinners was to play off the back foot more than the front foot. I just found that it took the guys in close out of the play a little bit and made it a bit easier for me to rotate strike rather than to lunge and run at them, which is something I’m not all that good at.”I just played deep in the crease, and if I got one that I could hit off one step, I tried to hit it hard, otherwise I just tried to work the ball around off the back foot and play with soft hands. It was hard work but really enjoyable.”I found wicketkeeping, in particular, to be great fun over there. Up to the stumps when it’s turning that much, you’re always in the game, and that’s the best way to be when you’re wicketkeeping.”You hear a lot about how hard it’s going to be, and it certainly is, but I think people can get too caught up in it sometimes. Cricket’s a simple game and it’s about backing your strengths with both bat and gloves and sticking to your game plan. The guys that do that have success and the guys who can do it for the longest will do really well. It’s a place where you’ve really got to accept the challenge and enjoy the challenge.”All these words sound like wise counsel for Australia’s tourists in the first Test against India in Pune, and certainly Paine would give a lot for the chance to take part alongside them. The main reason he isn’t playing dates back to the same year he played his four Test matches, and the format, ironically enough, in which Paine is currently representing his country at home against Sri Lanka – T20.A broken right index finger in the short-lived Australian Cricketers Association All-Stars fixture that had been devised as a launch for the home summer led to no fewer than seven sets of surgery, a loss of confidence, and ultimately the loss of his spot in the Tasmanian Sheffield Shield side. It all began to unravel at a time when Paine was being talked about as a future leader of the Australian side – which he now recalls with a rueful half-chuckle.”I remember I was being touted as a future captain for about a week or two, I think, back then,” he said. “It was a lot of fun, playing Test cricket at that stage with some of the great players Australia’s had was really exciting for me at that age, and unfortunately things didn’t pan out in the next couple of years after that and I had a bit of a battle the last few years.”Paine has had seven surgeries to repair a broken finger•AFPEven after the initial break, Paine remained very much in the national selectors’ thoughts. He served as vice-captain of the T20 team under Cameron White in early 2011, and then toured England with Australia A the following year. But the horrible, repetitious cycle of injury, rehabilitation, rushed return and fresh injury left him struggling even to make a fist with his right hand, let alone use it to hold a bat or glove a flying cricket ball.As the surgeries mounted, Paine came close to quitting. “I did think about it, I was forced to think about it,” he said. “I think I had six or seven operations in the end, so it was getting to the stage where if it didn’t work out, it was something I had to look at. But luckily enough, I found a good surgeon in Sydney, and after the seventh one I haven’t had another one since. I certainly never wanted to but at one stage it wasn’t going to be out of the question that I couldn’t play.”Eventually the sequence ended, but it was to be followed by a more fundamental problem. Paine, always a well-spoken and organised character, found himself struggling to make a run. “Batting, in particular, is really a mental game, and when you lose that confidence, it can be really hard work. I lost mine for quite a while, so that was difficult,” he said. “It’s a funny feeling. I was honestly walking out to bat at times not knowing where I would score a run or how I’d score a run.”When someone’s coming back from injury, there’s always a bit of chat about it along the lines of ‘Let’s get some around his finger’ or that sort of stuff. But with my batting that was only affecting me for the first few hits when I came back, then after that I wasn’t really thinking about my finger. It was purely a loss of form and of confidence.”When it gets like that, it becomes pretty hard work, and then from that there were times when I didn’t even want to play. I certainly wasn’t enjoying playing cricket, so it just snowballed from that. It can be really hard work to try to go play cricket day in, day out when you’re thinking like that.”All the while, the game moved on around Paine. His fellow Tasmanian Matthew Wade was elevated to the Test team, Brad Haddin dropped out of the picture and then returned, and others like Peter Nevill and Sam Whiteman emerged. In Tasmania the signing of the young Jake Doran put further pressure on Paine’s place, which he lost altogether at the start of this summer.T20 helped Paine emerge from the shadows•Getty ImagesWhat remained was T20, a format Paine had worked at assiduously since the early days of being shunted as low as possible in the order due to a lack of power. “My T20 stuff started maybe a year or two before I played for Australia,” he said. “I was always a smaller player, playing for Tasmania when I was young, so I always found myself in T20 cricket down the order, batting seven or eight, and if it got to the last few overs I’d tend to slide down even further and the bowlers would come ahead of me.”One morning in North Hobart I caught up with Tim Coyle for a coffee and he said, ‘We’re going to have a look at you opening the batting.’ It was a game against NSW, where I got 50 pretty quickly and just found it suited my style of play. It wasn’t anything I had to change so much, but me being smaller, the ball coming onto the bat and the field coming in, someone who couldn’t hit too many sixes but could hit fours, it was a good fit for me and the team.”Paine’s consistency with bat and gloves for Hobart Hurricanes led to another Australian call-up, six years after his last. But he is equally excited by a return to Tasmania colours later this week, at a time when the state side is still coming to terms with the dismissal of the coach and former captain Dan Marsh from his mentoring role.”We did have quite a successful era there but we’ve had a high turnover of players and staff,” Paine said. “While we still think we’ve got a better team than what we’ve done in the last few years, we just haven’t played well enough unfortunately. Things look to be changing down there, which is unfortunate but also exciting at the same time. Now being an older guy and being back in the squad, I’ve certainly tried to help some of our younger guys and looking forward to playing with them this week.”Another twist lies ahead for Paine – Wade having indicated his desire to return home to Tasmania and thus claim the gloves whenever he is not playing for Australia. But Paine remains committed to the cause of his state and his country, even hopeful that one day he might be able to add to those runs made so doggedly in India seven years ago.”I’ve got to play well in these last three games first and foremost, otherwise where I’m playing won’t be up to me,” he said. “But the last 12 months I’ve been playing well again and if you play well enough for long enough you’ll get opportunities at all levels.”

From a young, homesick 16-year-old, Jeet Raval has blossomed into a New Zealand cricketer with enviable credentials

Firdose Moonda26-Mar-2017One of the first things Jeet Raval from Ahmedabad did when he arrived in Auckland was try to find a job. He was only 16 years old, so it had to be a casual, holiday gig, but his father Ashok encouraged it as a way for him to interact with people in his new home and improve his limited English.”I went to Subway and they asked me if I could hand in my CV. I didn’t know what a CV was, so I called my mom and asked, ‘What’s a CV?’ In India they call it biodata, so my mom told me that and then I understood. I asked for a piece of paper and a pen and they didn’t have any paper, so they gave me a tissue paper. I wrote the word ‘biodata’ on the top and I put my name, my mom’s name, my dad’s name, my date of birth, and I said there’s my CV. And I never heard back from them,” Raval said to ESPNcricinfo during his first series as a Test cricketer in November last year.With his hopes of selling sandwiches shelved, Raval opted to focus on his cricket, which had been going fairly well before his family decided to migrate. Raval had made it to the Gujarat Under-16 team, was being schooled at the same institute where Parthiv Patel was educated, the Shree Vidyanagar School, and had progressed well since the days of playing street cricket “with a rubber ball, no shoes, the back wheel of a bicycle as the stumps, in 40 degrees and sometimes with a bleeding nose from the heat”.His father, a professional volleyball player for the State Bank of India, had always intended Raval to receive proper mentoring. When Jeet was ten, the family moved to a different area, close to a coaching academy attended by around 500 kids, run by a K Prakash Patel. “He was a very disciplined man. If you were late, you didn’t train that day; if you were late a second time, you would have to run ten times around the ground, and if you were late a third time, you were expelled.”

“I found a whole new love for the game. Being involved in cricket circles also helped me pick up the language easily and learn the culture”Raval on resuming his cricket in New Zealand

Rigorous training saw Raval, then a self-titled medium-fast bowler, selected for the Gujarat Under-14 team, when he became a batsman by chance. In a match against Mumbai, Raval was batting with the tail, and although he scored only 21 runs, he hung around for long enough for the coach to ask him to open in the next match. Then he scored a century against Baroda and promptly decided to pursue a permanent place in the top two.Raval had progressed to the Under-16 side and played against the likes of Ajinkya Rahane and Cheteshwar Pujara, and had “hoped that I would go further” when his life changed. Ashok had already been on a recce trip to New Zealand and thought the family would find a better life there, with more opportunity. So they packed up and left, even though young Jeet did not really want to.”I was definitely anxious. I didn’t know what to expect. I had never been outside of India,” he said. “Everything was new to me – the language, the roads, the food, the culture.”But one thing was the same. Sort of.There was cricket. It was just that Raval had to find it. Luckily, it found him.”I had to tighten up a bit more and nail down areas. It was different to India, where it spins a lot, doesn’t bounce, and fast bowlers are easier to play. It required a different skill set”•Getty ImagesAshok was working at a petrol station when a man walked in wearing a cricket jersey, and he decided to ask him about where his son could play. That man was a Kit Perera, a Sri Lanka-born cricket coach, who was involved at Suburbs New Lynn, a club in Auckland. Perera was keen to take on new players and invited Ashok to bring Jeet to the nets. Perera was pleasantly surprised by what he saw when the boy turned up. “This young kid got right behind the ball and struck it for four. He looked like a young Ganguly,” Perera said.Suddenly, Raval had a way of making himself understood that had nothing to do with language, and so he found a way to fit in. He was accepted at Avondale College, where Martin Guptill was also studying, and thoughts of home grew further away. “I found a whole new love for the game,” Raval said. “Being involved in cricket circles also helped me pick up the language easily and learn the culture.”In a set-up with a clearly defined ladder, Raval climbed every rung, from the Western Districts Under-17 side to the New Zealand Under-19 team, where he played a youth Test series against his former countrymen. Rahane, Virat Kohli, Ravindra Jadeja and Ishant Sharma were all part of that series, and Rahane was the standout batsman. Raval had a good third Test, with scores of 70 and 89 and finished as New Zealand’s second-highest run scorer.That was the first time Raval was confronted with the idea that if he were to make cricket a career, it would not be for India. He realised that despite how much he had wanted to return to his homeland in the early years, he had become a Kiwi. He also realised that he didn’t mind.”Slowly, I started to buy into the culture of New Zealand cricket,” he said. “I got into the system, the winter camps, and it was in my heart. Once I played for New Zealand Under-19 against India Under-19, I knew this is me and this is what I want to do.”

“He was going through a rut and I told him that if he didn’t make a hundred in the next match, I would force him to eat a goat curry”Kit Perera on his motivational methods

One of the things Raval noticed in that series at the time was how his technique had developed differently. “Here, it was green and seaming around, and in the beginning, I didn’t have much of a solid technique. I would play my shots. But as the bowling got better, I had to tighten up a bit more and nail down areas. It was different to India, where it spins a lot, doesn’t bounce, and fast bowlers are easier to play. It required a different skill set.”Learning that took many hours, and Raval’s childhood work ethic stood him in good stead for the work he had to put in. His focus was always on “playing the ball nice and straight and not falling over”, and he spent as much time as he thought he needed honing that discipline. “Preparation is a big part for me. Making sure I am in a good zone and that I train really well getting into a game. It gives me confidence training well, because that’s what I can control.”The summer after that series, Raval made his first-class debut for Auckland. He played three matches that season, seven the next, and all ten in the third, in 2010-11. Incidentally, that was the only time his average dipped below 40, and in the midst of that slump, Perera came to the rescue.The coach is also a chef and has cooked his way into the hearts of many sportsmen. (Among them is Jimmy Neesham, whose favourite dish is butter chicken pizza.) Perera used his food to motivate Raval. “He was going through a rut, when he hadn’t scored many runs for Auckland,” Perera said, “and I told him that if he didn’t make a hundred in the next match, I would force him to eat a goat curry.”Raval at his wedding in Ahmedabad, with coach Perera in attendanceRaval is a vegetarian and had no intention of changing that. Perhaps by chance, perhaps pushed by some kind of subconscious moral conviction, he responded with three figures, and Perera prepared a meal without meat instead.Despite considerable success in one of the toughest places to open the batting in the world, Raval could not make cricket his sole focus for as long as he was only on a domestic contract. In New Zealand, franchise players sign on from September to March, leaving them out of work for six months. Many take on odd jobs in that time. By now Raval had a much more impressive CV to advertise himself with.While playing, he had studied accounting at university, and Perera helped him get a job with BDO Spicers, an auditing firm. “I met someone from the firm at a charity dinner and told him that I knew a good cricketer and student who was looking for work, and he asked me to send through the person’s results,” Perera said. “Jeet had passed with flying colours and they took him on. They allowed him to work for them for six months and then to play cricket for six.”That arrangement only changed last year, when Raval spent the first part of the winter back in Ahmedabad, getting married to a New Zealander who hails from the same part of the world as he does, and the second on his first international tour. He was selected to travel to Zimbabwe and South Africa, and even though he did not play a game, he knew his time was close. “I was over the moon and I wanted to get involved in as much as I could,” he said. “It would have been nice to get a game, but it was also a nice initiation to see how the group operates and be comfortable with team dynamics.”

“I got into the system, the winter camps, and it was in my heart. Once I played for New Zealand Under-19 against India Under-19, I knew this is me and this is what I want to do”

The continued struggles of Guptill eventually gave Raval his chance, and two half-centuries in his first two Tests confirmed his potential. But much tougher challenges lay ahead. After a lean series against Bangladesh, there was South Africa, whose attack gave him his sternest challenge so far. “I don’t think it gets any harder than this,” he said during the ongoing series. “They challenge you on a lot of different areas: seam, pace, bounce, spin as well.”But he gave a solid account of himself with 50 in the first match and 80 in the second. A century still eludes him but he is not too concerned about when it may come. “I would have loved to get not just a hundred, but a big hundred because that would have helped us get into a winning position. That’s what this Black Cap team is about.”Although he considers himself a New Zealander, he remains deeply connected to his culture and is interested in meeting more players like him, with roots in other places. In the current South Africa series, he has played against the likes of Hashim Amla and Keshav Maharaj, and been dismissed by the latter three times. Both Amla and Maharaj are of Indian heritage, from the same state as Raval, for whom that’s just another way cricket makes the world smaller.”It’s great to see people of Indian origin coming through and getting an opportunity. Its also an inspiration to the next crop of Indian players that it’s not the end of the world, we can do something. I really enjoy hearing their stories – how Keshav Maharaj came to play for South Africa. It’s great sharing those stories.”Jeet Raval. International opener. Accountant. Ambassador for the Indian diaspora. How’s that for a CV?With inputs from Andrew Fidel Fernando

From India’s team selection to Marcus Stoinis’ sweeps, Aakash Chopra takes us through the Nagpur ODI

Aakash Chopra01-Oct-2017Lack of consistency in bowling rotation
India spoke of trying out different combinations after securing the series in Indore. In line with that policy, they rested lead pacers Jasprit Bumrah and Bhuvneshwar Kumar for Umesh Yadav and Mohammed Shami in Bengaluru. Their rustiness, a direct consequence of not being ODI regulars in recent times, showed. Aaron Finch and David Warner took advantage of this and recorded the best opening stand of the series. India conceded 334 and eventually lost the match.A solitary loss later, it was surprising to see both of them being left out for Bumrah and Bhuvneshwar in Nagpur. Perhaps returning to their best XI was also an indication of the team wanting to secure a win to retain their No. 1 ODI ranking, but it pointed to a lack of decision-making. If the objective is to build for the future and give opportunities to the untested, one loss shouldn’t force shelving of the process.Few boundaries behind square
Forty out of the 60 runs in the first Powerplay of Australia’s innings came via boundaries, but not one was scored behind square on either side. This was a direct reflection of the slowness of the surface. From as early as the third over, India realised this and removed catching fielders from the slip cordon. As the game progressed, the slowness became increasingly evident. In their innings, Australia managed just three boundaries behind square on the off side and one on the leg side.Jadhav, Pandya and flexibility
In an ideal ODI set up, the top six generally bowl a bit and the No. 7 contributes with the bat. Kedar Jadhav and Hardik Pandya currently allow Kohli effective options. If the pitch is slightly flat or bowler-friendly, Pandya becomes the fifth bowler. On surfaces such as the one in Nagpur, where ball stops on the batsmen, Jadhav can be useful as he showed during the course of his 10 overs. This handling of bowlers across conditions reflects Kohli’s “horses for courses” approach.Stoinis’ sweep approach
On surfaces such as the one in Nagpur, the toughest time for batting is when you’re just in and facing spin immediately. Marcus Stoinus rode his luck and even nicked a couple of deliveries to the slips. Yet, he did something right. He read the length well and always planted a long front foot stride to full-length deliveries. He has also adopted a new method to play the sweep. His height allows him to collapse his back knee every time while playing the stroke, a move that has proved effective.India’s cautious beginning
Given how Australia struggled, the first 10 overs in India’s innings were going to be crucial. While teams generally look to cash in with the new ball, India started a lot slower than Australia, managing just 10 singles in the first 10 overs. The stage was set for Australia’s spinners to sustain the early pressure, but they failed, partly because India’s batsmen manipulated them by using their feet and wrists superbly.Rohit’s extra time
Rohit has often spoken of how training on concrete surfaces has improved his game against pace. On such surfaces, balls generally tend to skid on, forcing batsmen to react quickly. That means also getting the body in line to play strokes. His ability to hit the short ball off the front foot separates him from the rest. He also made a change from the Chennai game, where he dragged the ball square from outside off. Here, he targeted the midwicket region instead.

Almost 30,000 fans turned up at the Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium to watch India take on Australia. They didn’t see any rain, but also didn’t see a single ball being bowled

Arun Venugopal in Hyderabad13-Oct-2017The loudest cheers of the night came when Virat Kohli took shots at the goal with MS Dhoni guarding it. At the other end of the ground, there was Nathan Coulter-Nile mock-wrestling one of his team-mates. That these were the only glimpses of sporting action on a night when India and Australia were supposed to be playing the deciding match of a T20I series was as disappointing as it was shambolic.Even as it rained in other parts of Hyderabad on Friday, there wasn’t a single drop in the vicinity of the stadium all day. The heaviest of the showers came on Thursday night, which ultimately put paid to any chances of a game taking place. Despite that, ESPNcricinfo understands that the pitch and the square were in good condition. The outfield, however, remained damp and patchy and was ultimately unfit to play on. No amount of sawdust could have masked those ungainly-looking craters.This is 2017. It isn’t as if cricket enjoys a monopoly as a source of entertainment, given the sheer number of alternatives. And, with a series that doesn’t really have a contextual peg, the battle to grab eyeballs is harder to win. To then have a washout, when there was no rain on match day, is to spite the game’s value as a commercial product.Now, if the square was dry and the outfield unplayable, then the ground either didn’t have the covers or didn’t cover the whole ground – a common practice now across stadiums in India. An official of the Hyderabad Cricket Association (HCA), however, maintained that the ground was covered in entirety in the lead up to the game. Instead, he pointed out how the ground slopes down, and away from the pitch, suggesting the moisture would naturally slide off the square and settle on the outfield.The groundstaff felt that they were hard done by the unprecedented rainfall the city had received over the last three weeks. While the mornings and afternoons have been hot and humid, there has invariably been heavy downpour after sundown. More than two hours before the scheduled start of play, the HCA groundstaff had begun to labour hard. Heaps of sawdust were sprinkled on some of the soggier patches in the outfield. On the eve of the match, it is understood that they had even used pedestal fans to dry the outfield. Ultimately, all of it was an exercise in futility.”We are all very upset,” a member of the groundstaff said. “There is no way we can fight nature. What can we possibly do if it has rained on each of the last 21 days? We worked hard to prepare a good pitch and were confident that the game would start, but we couldn’t overcome nature.” If the BCCI decides to investigate this game, the officials and groundstaff might be forced to offer less cagey and more concrete response.The other controversy of the evening came when the nearly 30,000-strong crowd was kept in the dark about the game being called off. The announcement eventually came only after the players had left for their hotels. There was neither a prize distribution ceremony nor press conferences. Eventually, a photograph showed up on the India team’s social media pages, with Kohli and David Warner posing together with the trophy.While India and Australia finished the series as joint winners, the fans in Hyderabad must have felt shortchanged. First, they endured a long commute to reach the stadium and were pleasantly surprised that there was no rain. But, then their hopes of watching India win a decider and keep alive their hopes of being No. 1 in all three formats were dashed right from the start, even if they didn’t know it. They roared and cheered every time Kohli hit a football into the stands, in the hope that they would ultimately see at least a truncated game, but their enthusiasm flatlined soon enough. If there is any consolation from a match that was abandoned without a ball being bowled, it is that they will receive a reasonable chunk of their ticket money as a refund.

The hosts might have to do a quick fact-check about the defending Ashes champions before sparking yet another threat with a “Mitchell Johnson of 2013-14” reference

Brydon Coverdale22-Nov-2017Here’s something you wouldn’t know from all the recent Ashes build-up: MITCHELL JOHNSON IS RETIRED. Has been for two years. Australia have invoked his name so many times, it’s like they are trying to summon the , but Johnson is a lot less terrifying off 280 characters on Twitter than he was off 18 or 20 paces at the WACA or the Gabba. There is no reason England should expect a repeat of their 2013-14 horror show.But Australia hang on to that series like a talisman, desperate to replicate the whitewash. And why wouldn’t they? It’s the only one of the past five Ashes campaigns they have won. Nathan Lyon says he wants to end careers and head-butt the line, whatever that means. David Warner thinks Australia need to find “hatred” of their England opponents. There’s a reason it’s called trash-talk. It is talk, and it’s also trash.Three days before the opening Test of an Ashes series, Lyon was speaking to the English media about Matt Prior being scared and wanting to go home back in 2013. What was the point of that? Prior is now retired and thus as relevant to this campaign as Johnson. You might as well try to reopen the scars of the 1948 Invincibles tour. Will the spectre of Bradman haunt England this time?On the day before the first Test, the captains’ press conferences were revealing. “It’s all part of the Ashes banter,” Steven Smith said. “It’s not how I’d want my players to go about things,” Joe Root said. Root was a picture of understated composure, and said he had even surprised himself with how calm he felt on the eve of his Ashes captaincy debut. If Australia think England are ruffled by all the “banter”, they’re deluded.In fact, Australia need to be careful that harking back to 2013-14 doesn’t backfire. Mitchell Starc, Pat Cummins and Josh Hazlewood make up an outstanding pace attack, but they must remain true to themselves and not feel under pressure to replicate Johnson’s approach. Johnson was so mercurial that he probably couldn’t even replicate it himself.”The people who can keep their emotions consistent and in check, they’re generally the ones who do the best,” former Australia opener Chris Rogers said on the eve of the Ashes. Nobody who saw Root, Alastair Cook and Moeen Ali speaking to the media over the past couple of days could have accused them of being emotionally volatile.Australia would do well to remember a few important facts.One of Test cricket’s all-time top 10 run-scorers will feature in this series. He’s playing for England.Two of Test cricket’s all-time top 20 wicket-takers are also taking part. They’re both playing for England.And which team holds the Ashes, and thus needs only a drawn series to retain the urn? England.Australia are short-priced favourites to win the series, and given their usual strength at home, that is fair. But they can’t afford to distract themselves from the task at hand.To paraphrase one of the great philosophical thinkers of our era, Lawrence Tureaud, it’s time for Australia to quit the jibber-jabber. From Thursday, they will need to put up or shut up. They might even consider doing both.