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Sound Sedbergh schooling underpins Harry Brook's Hundred rise

by h716a5.icu Uncategorized

A number of players in the first-class game honed their techniques while at school in Cumbria

Paul Edwards03-Aug-2021It is fair to suppose that most of those in the crowd at Headingley on Saturday night were not greatly bothered where Harry Brook was educated. Their knowledge probably extended little further than that he is one of seven Yorkshire players in the Leeds-based Northern Superchargers squad. Such a confection of local links is quite enough to command the allegiance of home supporters, many of whom would also have packed the Western Terrace for the Vitality Blast Roses match had not Covid-19 restrictions been in place.Yet Brook will be one of the first to tell you that his education, in its broadest sense, mattered. He will tell you proper coaching matters. He might even disclose that having just a couple of trusted coaches from whom he will take feedback has been vital to his development. And before long you will be back at a school in the Howgill Fells and the man who, one suspects, will always know Harry Brook’s game better than anyone else.Related

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It is a world far removed from the sweaty ferment of a late July evening at Headingley yet it has been integral to the development of a cricketer whose thunderous drives have put him among the leading scorers in the ECB’s darling new competition.Martin Speight played for Sussex and Durham during a 16-year career in the first-class game and he is now in charge of cricket at Sedbergh School. He reckons he works an 80-hour week, although he tells you that in passing; if Speight possesses a trumpet it is a long time since he blew it. His day begins at 6.20am when the first cricket coaching takes place in one of the school’s two sports halls. The timing of such sessions is not dictated by Sedbergh’s staff; it is a response to the demands of the pupils, many of whom are intent on making the very most of their cricket and some of whom are on sports scholarships.And Harry Brook is not an outlier in all this; rather he is only the most well-known Old Sedberghian playing first-class cricket. The group of which he is a member includes Jordan Clark (Surrey), Jamie Harrison (Durham), George Hill and Matthew Revis (both Yorkshire). The allrounder Tom Aspinwall has just finished his lower-sixth year at Sedbergh but has already played for Lancashire’s second team, and was named in the County Select squad to face India last month. You will hear more of him.”On the first day of the autumn term, immediately after the first assembly, most of them will be asking for sessions,” said Speight. “I use the older of the two halls and we have four nets in there. We do two hours before school, six days a week. The fifth and sixth form come in early. They can come in as often as they want, it’s purely down to their motivation, but the culture is already present in the school. The elite players can also have one-to-one sessions with me and so Tom Aspinwall’s sessions get put down as part of his personal timetable. Most of the boys’ boarding houses have gyms and the school also has two gyms, so they will also book out sessions with the strength and conditioning coach.”It is important to see that this degree of commitment on the part of coach and players is not symptomatic of obsession. Even though some pupils at Sedbergh will be playing county age-group cricket and plainly have an eye on professional careers, they will also be expected to do their work, contribute to the life of their house and may well play other sports as well in the autumn and winter terms. The cultivation of such a balance should serve them well, particularly, perhaps, if they land contracts like those of Brook and Hill at Yorkshire.

I spent the whole of one lockdown with Harry rebooting his technique. It’s a check that everything is in place. They know me better than anyone else because of the hours we’ve spent togetherMartin Speight

The coaching of elite male cricketers is only a part of Speight’s remit. He talks warmly of the ability of girls such as Harriet Robson, who is in the Northern Diamonds Academy and for whom a training session at the Riverside involves a long round trip from her home beyond Alnwick. Speight is also in charge of arranging a fixture list for the school’s seven teams and for making sure weekday matches do not clash with public examinations or overload young people who already have plenty in their lives.In a recent 50-over match against Manchester Grammar School, Aspinwall played as a specialist batter. The game was lost by 20 or so runs, partly because two or three of the top order got to fifty without going on to play the match-winning innings. But losing such games is part of any young cricketer’s education. The coach hopes the team learned something and, in any case, when it comes to national competitions, Sedbergh is rarely far from the trophies.But the best coaches can only show their charges how to make the best of their ability and even the most gifted cricketer will struggle and acquire bad habits if asked to play on poor pitches. It is in this respect that Speight reckons Sedbergh’s pupils are especially lucky. “Our groundsman, Martin South, has been here a long time and he knows what’s needed,” he said. “The pitches the first-class cricketers get to play on when we host county matches are the same as we get to play on in school. The pupils are immensely fortunate because they grow up playing on surfaces where they don’t have to generate pace on the ball, they just have to time it. They have the facilities that allow them to flourish.”Sedbergh is also concerned to ensure that such extraordinary advantages are not available only to rich kids. The school takes its charitable status seriously by offering scholarships and means-tested bursaries to as many children as possible, something which makes Speight’s job in helping to select the recipients of such awards particularly vital. And the school’s record in producing first-class cricketers makes it all the more important to know what he requires from, say, batters who come for an exploratory net.”I’m looking for technical skill, coachability and an openness to the sort of development we offer,” he said. “I’m less concerned with physical strength. Harry [Brook] was quite a short, stocky lad. Once they’re here and playing sport every day they will get stronger. If they’re serious about their cricket they will get dragged along by the people who are already here. If you’re little you have to be able to play the short ball well and that’s the same if you’re going to be a professional cricketer. At 12 and 13, young cricketers can all play on the off side but if they can play off their pads on the front foot or hips on the on side that will be a big thing for me. I’ll tell them it’s a coaching session in which we have to get to know each other because over the next five years we’re going to be spending thousands of hours together. They have to buy into the way I think about the game and I’ve got to get a feeling as to whether they would benefit from coming here.”Sedbergh School has been a cradle for a succession of first-class cricketers•Getty ImagesAnd when those sessions begin Sedbergh’s cricketers will find that Speight is old-school in the best sense. As long as players are not practising bad habits he believes that improved performance frequently reflects the amount of practice a player has put in. Such an approach is consonant with one theme of Matthew Syed’s influential book .”The more balls you face the more balls you hit, the quicker you’ll pick up cues as to line and length,” he said. “The best players pick up length quicker than anyone else. My aim is to take them through a programme so that when they leave here at 18 they are technically very sound and they can then develop their power hitting. If something goes wrong – and it almost always does – they can always fall back on their technique. They will get worked out and they’ll have to learn to deal with failure but at least they’ll have their technique as a base upon which they rebuild their batting. And both George and Harry have come back to me in those difficult times. People who don’t have the technical foundation will struggle.”Those last comments are maybe the most revealing about Sedbergh’s cricket. Many old boys recall their school coaches with affection but have moved on into the tougher environment of the professional game where county coaches dominate their professional lives. Both Hill and Brook talk warmly about Speight’s influence on their lives – he spent time with them in their early weeks at Sedbergh when both were homesick – but they then point out that they still send him videos of their batting and return to him when something needs fixing. Paul Grayson, Yorkshire’s batting coach, is kept fully informed and welcomes the help.”County coaches don’t have the time that I might have had to work with them and technically the players slip, which is why they come back to me,” said Speight. “I spent the whole of one lockdown with Harry rebooting his technique. It’s a check that everything is in place. They know me better than anyone else because of the hours we’ve spent together.”When George and Harry went into the first-class game, they never at any stage stopped contacting me and I have to say that’s nice. I’m good friends with both of them now. All I want is for them to enjoy their cricket as much as I enjoyed my cricket… and they earn a lot more than we used to.”

Ashwin's new record, a rare draw with nine wickets down, and New Zealand's longest unbeaten streak

by h716a5.icu Uncategorized

All the stats and numbers from the engrossing draw between New Zealand and India in Kanpur

Sampath Bandarupalli29-Nov-20213:16

Jaffer: New Zealand played like the No. 1 team, competed right through

2 – Previous instances when India were left with one wicket away from a Test win – both against West Indies – in Kolkata in 1978-79 and Antigua in 2006. The Kanpur Test is also the second instance of New Zealand finishing with a draw after losing nine wickets in the fourth innings. The other occasion was against Australia in Hobart in 1997, where they made 223 for 9 while chasing 288.10 – Consecutive Tests without a defeat for New Zealand, a streak that includes eight victories, their longest without a loss in this format. New Zealand had three unbeaten sprees of nine matches, the first of which came between 1964 and 1965, when they played out nine consecutive draws. They also had a nine-match unbeaten streak between 1989 and 1990, and in between 2002 and 2003.14 – Consecutive Tests in India being won (or lost) before the Kanpur Test, the longest sequence of such Tests in the country. The previous longest sequence was 13 Tests between 1988 and 1994, when India had a 12-1 win-loss record.1.91 – New Zealand’s run rate in the Kanpur Test, the second-lowest by any team in the last 20 years while batting out 200 or more overs. The lowest is 1.79 by South Africa against Sri Lanka in 2014, when South Africa held on to a draw with two wickets in hand.Player-of-the-Match awards on men’s Test debut for India•ESPNcricinfo Ltd7 – Players, including Shreyas Iyer, to win the Player-of-the-Match award on men’s Test debut for India. The last player was Prithvi Shaw against West Indies in Rajkot in 2018.3 – New Zealand batters, including Tom Latham, with 50-plus scores in both innings of a Test in India. Nathan Astle and Craig McMillan recorded this feat during the Ahmedabad Test in 2003. Latham faced 428 balls and lasted 619 minutes at the crease – both being record numbers for New Zealand in a Test in India.ESPNcricinfo Ltd419 – Test wickets for R Ashwin. He is the third-highest wicket-taker for India in this format. Ashwin went past Harbhajan Singh’s tally of 417 when he dismissed Latham on the fifth day.58 – Test wickets for Ashwin against New Zealand, the most for India, surpassing Bishen Bedi’s 57. Ashwin is also the second-highest wicket-taker in the Tests between India and New Zealand, behind Sir Richard Hadlee (65).6 – Batters dismissed lbw in New Zealand’s second innings, the joint-most such dismissals taken by India’s bowlers in a Test innings. The last two instances were against West Indies in Mohali in 1994 and against New Zealand in Kanpur in 2016.

Stats – Maharaj lords over Bangladesh

by h716a5.icu Uncategorized

All the key stats from the second Test between South Africa and Bangladesh in Gqeberha

Sampath Bandarupalli11-Apr-20222 Keshav Maharaj and Simon Harmer became only the second pair to take all ten wickets while bowling unchanged on two occasions as South Africa beat Bangladesh in Gqeberha. They had achieved this feat for the first time during the first Test in Durban. Australia’s Charlie Turner and JJ Ferris are the only other pair to do so on two different instances.3 Seven-plus wicket hauls for Maharaj in Test cricket, the second-most by a South Africa bowler, behind Hugh Tayfield (4). Maharaj is also the second bowler to pick up a seven-for in successive Tests for South Africa after Tayfield (vs England in 1957).150 Number of Test wickets for Maharaj, the second South Africa spinner to achieve the milestone. Tayfield was the first, finishing with 170 wickets in 37 Tests.ESPNcricinfo Ltd27 Number of wickets between the South Africa and Bangladesh spinners in the second Test. These are the most wickets picked up by spinners in a Test in South Africa. The previous highest was 23 during the 1936 Durban Test between South Africa and Australia.141 Balls needed for the South Africa spinners to pick up all ten wickets in Bangladesh’s second innings. Only once did the spinners bowl fewer balls in a Test innings for all ten wickets – 114 balls by Maharaj and Harmer against Bangladesh in the previous Test in Durban.15 Wickets between Maharaj and Harmer in Gqeberha, the joint-most by South Africa spinners in a home Test. Their spinners had shared 15 wickets on two occasions previously – against England in Gqeberha in 1949 and against Australia in Durban in 1950. Overall, the most their spinners took in any Test was 16 against Australia in Melbourne in 1952.2 Instances of a half-century and a five-for in the same Test for Maharaj; both came at the St George’s Park in Gqeberha. Shaun Pollock (3) and Jacques Kallis (2) are the only other South Africa players to achieve this double more than once.

Saqib Mahmood offers England desired point of difference with hard yards on debut

by h716a5.icu Uncategorized

Old-ball graft and final-day burst highlight slingy seamer’s invaluable qualities

Cameron Ponsonby20-Mar-2022It’s good. It’s promising. All that learning stuff that Andrew Strauss spoke about before the tour? This is it, here. Saqib Mahmood has passed his GCSECBs.Four wickets on debut, with a fifth ruled out for overstepping: this was an excellent start for the Lancastrian quick who finished the second Test in Barbados with the best match figures of any fast bowler on a pitch that offered them next to no assistance.Mahmood looks like he could be the round peg for the round hole in England’s bowling attack. For years, the accusation against this team has been that their ten-deep bucket of identikit right-arm seamers created a bowling attack too one-size-fits-all to pose any sort of challenge away from home. They needed something different.Related

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Which is where Mahmood comes in. His abilities complement the needs of a set-up awash with opening bowlers adept on the green seamers of Edgbaston and Lord’s. Where others want the new ball, he’ll have the old. Where others swing the ball conventionally, he reverses it. Where others bowl quickish, he bowls fast. He is the family member whose favourite Celebration chocolate is a Bounty, hoovering up with joy what others avoid.”You want to be the guy the captain throws the ball to,” Mahmood said at the close on day four. “To break partnerships and take wickets. That’s the stuff I get satisfaction from. On green seamers, every seamer feels in the game but on ones like this, I really want to be a guy who can stand up and break a partnership.”Mahmood’s peak in this game arguably came in the moment that was taken away. His yorker – which clean-bowled Jermaine Blackwood – tailed in and beat the set batter for pace, only for it to be ruled out as Mahmood had overstepped.His average speed in this Test was only around 82mph/133kph, though he occasionally touched 88mph/141kph: not lightning fast, but his catapult-style action gives him the impression of a bowler who feels quicker than the numbers suggest. It was a delivery more reminiscent of Jasprit Bumrah than Jake Ball and should give England hope that they have a bowler who, rather than being dependent on conditions, is able to operate independently of them entirely.”I felt like criminal number one, the biggest criminal out here,” Mahmood reflected. “I was pretty gutted but tried not to let it affect me. Rooty spoke to me and said ‘you bowled great; don’t let it affect you’. Stokesy said he did the same for his first wicket. I was just concentrating on the task ahead more than anything. I’m glad we got him out because every run he scored made me feel horrible.”His burst on the final day – where he dismissed both Shamarh Brooks as well as half-wall, half-human Nkrumah Bonner – gave England hope in a situation that otherwise seemed desperate. The ball to Brooks may not have moved masses, but the one to Bonner did, with movement off the seam in conditions where all others had failed to break from the straight and narrow. The ability for a seamer to break through in unhelpful conditions is something that England have been screaming out for; on debut, Mahmood took the first step to answering the call.Mahmood struck in his first over on the final day•Getty ImagesThere might be an element of redemption in this debut for Mahmood as well. First called into a squad in 2019, he has been around the set up for much of the two years since. England know Mahmood well. For that reason, it would be fair to wonder whether the odd doubt ever entered his mind that perhaps England had seen what he had to offer and not liked it. This tour really did represent an ‘if not now, then when?’ moment for Mahmood.But if England didn’t see it before, they do now. “It was really impressive,” Root said, “[…] on a wicket like that, to seem so effective and to offer so much. He burst the game open for us [with] a brilliant spell. He created a lot of pressure and made things happen on a wicket where no seamer looked like they could. It’s a great sign for him and for us.”In the fourth innings, Mahmood bowled the most of any seamer, and more than Chris Woakes and Fisher combined. After the tea break, with seven wickets in a session needed for victory, Mahmood was the man Root turned to.Mahmood remains close with his former academy director at Lancashire, John Stanworth. Recalling watching him bowl for the first time at the tender age of 14, Stanworth said: “It was just, ‘wow, who’s this?’ You knew just straight away there was something to engage with.” Many of the England supporters watching Mahmood bowl with a red ball for the first time this week will have thought much the same thing.

How to bat and bowl in each of Australia's T20 World Cup venues

by h716a5.icu Uncategorized

We look at the data and tactics to explore at this World Cup – with help from David Hussey

Andrew McGlashan and S Rajesh12-Oct-2022Australia has never staged a men’s T20 World Cup, and due to the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, over the last couple of seasons, T20Is have only been played in Sydney, Melbourne and Canberra. So how will the tournament, which will be staged across seven venues, possibly play out?With a combination of data – from all T20s from October 1, 2020 to October 1, 2022 – and expert insight from David Hussey, who has coached Melbourne Stars in the BBL for five seasons, we try to paint a picture of the characteristics of each venue and how that could impact tactics.Global trendsFirst, a glance at how T20 in Australia compares to the rest of the world. Across a number of metrics, the figures for the format in Australia sit mid-table, suggesting games played in the country are not at either extreme in global terms. But there are a few factors that stand out.Related

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How much have the teams changed since they last played a T20 World Cup?

Much is often made about the size of the grounds in Australia (although these days it depends on how far in the rope is), but the fact that the country has the second-lowest boundary percentage in T20 suggests there is some truth to the belief. At 54.1% of runs in fours and sixes, only South Africa (51.7%) has a lower figure. For sixes alone, Australia is again second lowest, with maximums accounting for 20.6% of runs, behind South Africa (19.6%).That more threes are scored is linked to this. In Australia, batters score a three on average every 127.7 deliveries, which is by far the lowest figure. The next lowest is England at 235.4 deliveries. For twos as well, Australia has the lowest per-balls rate of 11.4, ahead of New Zealand at 13.1. So it would appear that batters should get their running shoes on.

The other thing that stands out is the use of wristspin, which is a vital part of T20 cricket. Although Nathan Lyon has been outstanding as a fingerspinner in Tests in Australia, he seems to be an outlier. In terms of spin overs in T20 in Australia, wristspin accounts for 57.6%. Of overall overs bowled, it is 20.9%, only marginally behind the percentage in Sri Lanka, which leads the way with 21% of overs by wristspin.The final thing worth pulling out is that the numbers favour sides batting first in Australia. Since October 2020, the country ranks second-lowest for sides chasing, behind West Indies, with a win percentage of 42.6%.Ground by groundMelbourne Cricket GroundWorld Cup fixtures: India vs Pakistan | England vs Group B runner-up | Afghanistan vs New Zealand | Afghanistan vs Group B runner-up | Australia vs England | India vs Group B winner | FinalESPNcricinfo LtdThe venue for a host of marquee games this year, including the final, the MCG has the highest run rate, 8.30 – no doubt helped by Melbourne Stars, whose line-up features Glenn Maxwell and Marcus Stoinis – but the lowest percentage of runs in boundaries, 49.3%. It also has the highest percentage of overs bowled by spin.Hussey’s take: “Generally the pitch at the MCG is a very, very favourable, batter friendly, easy-paced batting pitch. The boundary sizes are your friend dead straight [as a batter], whereas square either side of the field is, of course, quite big. Bowlers use a lot of change-ups and a lot of slower balls into the pitch, so the teams are hitting to the big square boundaries to eliminate the boundary options. However, when you’re playing as a batter, you’ve just got to pretty much hit the gaps and run very, very hard. And when you get that full ball, take it on and hit the ball dead straight and use the shorter boundaries to your advantage.”Spin is a huge part. Legspinners can generally drag the ball down to force a batter to hit to the bigger sides. Teams can go into the death overs by taking as many wickets as possible [through spin], so that nullifies the death overs.”Sydney Cricket GroundWorld Cup fixtures: Australia vs New Zealand | Bangladesh vs South Africa | India vs Group A runner-up | New Zealand vs Group A winner | Pakistan vs South Africa | England vs Group A winner | 1st semi-finalESPNcricinfo LtdThe second-fastest scoring ground, behind the MCG. The numbers for both wristspin (7.42 runs per over) and fingerspin (7.05) are also marginally lower than those for the Gabba.Hussey’s take: “It’s a bit of a new-ball pitch. Batters have to be a little bit more circumspect up front and respect the new ball by playing good cricket shots, try to conserve wickets and cash in in the middle overs and towards the end of the innings. But it’s always a good cricket pitch. The boundary sizes are a bit bigger than you might think. They’re definitely bigger straight, and if you’re going to take a risk hitting straight, you’ve got to really get it. Teams try and target one or two bowlers and try and get them out of the attack to force the opposition to bowl a part-timer, who they also target as well.”Generally over extra cover or over midwicket, it is probably the shortest part of the boundaries. Depending on which pitch you’re playing on, playing bang in the middle, the boundaries are quite large. People don’t realise that when they’re out there or watching on TV. You’ve just got to try and hit to your areas of strength and play a lot of good cricket shots along the ground to maximise runs that way.”Adelaide OvalWorld Cup fixtures: Group B winner vs Group A runner-up | Bangladesh vs India | New Zealand vs Group B runner-up | Australia vs Afghanistan | South Africa vs Group A runner-up | Bangladesh vs Pakistan | 2nd semi-finalESPNcricinfo LtdThis ground sits mid-table in most of the numbers considered here except for the economy rate of fingerspin (7.53), which is the highest, although overall it is a marginal difference to most of the other venues.Hussey’s take: “It’s a good cricket pitch. Generally, more of a batter-friendly pitch, but at the end of the innings, when you’re bowling at the death, because the straight boundaries are so long, you generally bowl very, very full and target the stumps or target wide balls. As a batting group, you try and go pretty hard the whole way through and target a couple of bowlers. With spin, generally, it turns there too. And if the spinner gets on top of you, it makes the death bowling so much harder to face for the batting teams. Generally, a high-scoring game of cricket there. It’s always a good outfield.”Spinners always try and get batters lbw and bowled because if you go too wide, the square boundaries are so short, they generally get cut or pulled for four or six at will. You’ve pretty much got to bowl dead straight.”Perth StadiumWorld Cup fixtures: Afghanistan vs England | Australia vs Group A winner | Pakistan vs Group B winner | Pakistan vs Group A runner-up | India vs South AfricaESPNcricinfo LtdDue to Western Australia’s highly restrictive border during the pandemic, Perth has only hosted six T20s in the span for this data. It has the lowest overall run rate of the six traditional venues (Geelong’s from three games is lower), but has the highest percentage of runs in boundaries at 57.5. In this small sample, the chasing team has struggled – five defeats in six matches.Hussey’s take: “Same dimensions as the MCG. It’s an unusual pitch because sometimes it goes through very, very quickly and it takes probably an over or two to get used to the pace and the bounce. Sometimes in the first six overs, you can get panned everywhere and then drag it back in the middle through spin and through the use of the quicks, bowling a lot of short stuff [then] the players are hitting to the longer boundaries [square]. So use the conditions and the boundaries to your advantage as the bowling team.”If you’re batting, generally use the pace to your advantage. Lots of late cuts, lots of deflections down past the wicketkeeper or fine leg for four, and if you’re going to play the pull shot, try and get your hands above the ball and try to keep it on the ground and hit the gaps, because the outfield is so fast that you get a lot of value for runs for good cricket shots. It’s not too dissimilar to the old WACA style of play.”Brisbane Cricket GroundWorld Cup fixtures: Bangladesh vs Group B winner | Australia vs Group B runner-up | Afghanistan vs Group A winner | England vs New ZealandESPNcricinfo LtdThe Gabba, with the second-lowest boundary percentage behind the MCG, can be a tough place for pace in T20 – the difference between pace economy (8.65) and spin (6.85) is the largest. The data also supports Hussey’s point below about the value of wristspin at the ground: it has the lowest economy across the venues. Excluding Geelong, it is the only ground for the World Cup without an individual century in the last two years.Hussey’s take: “The Gabba is probably the best batting pitch in Australia for white-ball cricket. Easy-paced. It’s just a beautiful batting pitch. So if you’re bowling, it’s wide yorkers, lots of slower balls into the pitch, and not too dissimilar to the MCG, get the batters hitting to the biggest sides of the ground, using the boundaries as your friend. As a batter, you might miss a ball or have one or two dot balls but you can always cash in later in the over. The boundaries are pretty small straight or to one side they are pretty small, so you can really target them, but also because the pitch is so true, you can generally take a big risk with the bat and get away with it.”Wristspin is probably the best spin to bowl up there. A bit more overspin, a bit more bounce, and the ball can actually turn up there too, which is a bit of a bonus. But there’s a lot of batters, who have had lots of success up there playing spin, playing a lot of reverse sweeps and chipping the ball in the gaps, and because the pitches are true, you can actually take that risk. A spinner might bowl exceptionally well and still go for 40 off their four overs, so it’s an incredibly hard place to bowl, but it’s a beautiful place to bat.”Bellerive Oval, HobartWorld Cup fixtures: Scotland vs West Indies | Ireland vs Zimbabwe | Ireland vs Scotland | West Indies vs Zimbabwe | Ireland vs West Indies | Scotland vs Zimbabwe | Group A winner vs Group B runner-up | Bangladesh vs Group A runner-up | South Africa vs Group B winnerESPNcricinfo LtdYou may not want to be wristspinner in Hobart, and not just because staging matches there in October risks some rather chilly days and evenings. It has far and away the highest economy rate for wristspinners, at 8.76, more than a run higher per over than the next highest, which is the MCG at 7.59. It’s interesting to note that Hobart Hurricanes signed legspinner Shadab Khan in the BBL draft. Fingerspin, though, fares somewhat better, with an economy rate of 7.30.Hussey’s take: “Batter-friendly. Just go hard from ball one. Rarely going to get bowled out. Very small boundaries on both sides of the ground, and generally one end is pretty small too. And if that end is with the breeze, you are on a hiding to nothing. It feels like a 30-metre boundary. If you’re batting, go hard from ball one and you end up getting about 200-plus. But with the ball, whatever your plan is to that batter, you’ve got to execute and use the breeze to your advantage because it’s such a blowy outdoor stadium. It’s exceptionally hard to defend.”If the batter can move around the crease at the end of the innings, you generally get the odd full toss and then they change their plan. So as a batter, you have to move around your crease a bit to sort of stuff up the bowler’s area of expertise of execution.”Simonds Stadium, GeelongWorld Cup fixtures: Namibia vs Sri Lanka | Netherlands vs UAE | Namibia vs Netherlands | Sri Lanka vs UAE | Netherlands vs Sri Lanka | Namibia vs UAEThis ground has only hosted three matches in the last two years, so it does not feature in the overall numbers for this piece, but in those games, runs have come at just 7.52 an over.Hussey’s take: “It’s pretty much like Hobart actually. Very small, straight. Very small one side. The pitch is unusual because it’s a drop-in pitch and sometimes they are batter-friendly and sometimes they’re not. Generally it’s on the slower side. It’s an odd-shaped ground and a lot of wide yorkers are bowled there to make the batter hit to the longer side of the ground. One side of the ground is really big, so you’ve got to try and force the batters to hit that side. But as a batter, you’ve got to move around the crease and target the shorter sides as much as you possibly can. And when you get that full toss or that half-tracker, you’ve got to hit it into the stands because you can probably get four sixes an over off any bowler if you target them correctly.”

India's awesome powerplay, and one of New Zealand's worst

by h716a5.icu Uncategorized

India’s pace attack reduced New Zealand to 15 for 5 in the second ODI in Raipur

Sampath Bandarupalli21-Jan-2023108 New Zealand’s total in the second ODI in Raipur is their third lowest against India. New Zealand were bowled out for 79 in 2016 in Visakhapatnam and 103 in 2010 in Chennai.ESPNcricinfo Ltd15 for 5 New Zealand’s lowest score at the fall of the fifth wicket in ODIs. Their previous lowest was 18 against Sri Lanka during the 2001 Coca-Cola Cup in Colombo. It is also the lowest score at which India have picked up the fifth wicket in a men’s ODI. England’s 26 for 5 at The Oval in 2022 was the previous lowest.ESPNcricinfo Ltd11 Total runs scored by New Zealand’s top five – their joint lowest in a men’s ODI. It was also the fewest runs aggregated by a team’s top five in a men’s ODI against India.80 Percentage of balls pitched on a good length by India’s pacers in the first ten overs. They bowled 48 good-length balls in the first powerplay, and all four wickets fell to such deliveries.

15 for 4 New Zealand’s total at the end of the tenth over – their second lowest in the first ten overs of an ODI since 2001. Their lowest was 14 against Australia in Cairns last year. Fifteen is also the second-fewest runs that India have conceded in the first ten overs of an ODI since 2001. They had conceded 14 in the first ten overs against Sri Lanka in Dambulla in 2008.

How women are joining the power-hitting game in T20s

by h716a5.icu Uncategorized

Players and coaches talk about how increasing numbers of female batters are learning to confidently clear the ropes

Firdose Moonda22-Mar-2023In their opening game of the 2020 T20 World Cup, South Africa restricted England, a team they had beaten only twice in their last 18 T20Is, to a modest 123 for 8, and were well set on 90 in the 16th over. But when they lost two batters in five deliveries without scoring, the required run rate climbed and at the start of the final over, they needed nine to win. Two singles later, Mignon du Preez met a length delivery from Katherine Sciver-Brunt with the full force of her bat and sent it over backward square for six. South Africa won with two balls to spare and went on to top their group.”If you would have asked anybody who would have been the person to hit Katherine Sciver-Brunt for a six that day, I can promise you 99% of people would not have said it would be me,” du Preez says. “To be that person, at the back end and to be able to say, ‘Listen, I have worked on this part of my game and I have added power to my game,’ that was a highlight.”That was du Preez’s 41st T20 six, and came two years before the end of her decade-and-a-half long international career. In 115 matches before that day, du Preez had struck sixes at an average of one every three matches. Since that match, she has hit 31 sixes in 73 matches, around one every two games.She says that clearing the boundary became a focus later in her career, thanks in part to a conversation she had with Trent Woodhill, then the Melbourne Stars coach at the WBBL. “He used to say: power over placement. That doesn’t mean being reckless, but it helped me take indecision away. For someone like me, who is not a big hitter, it gave me a way to clear the boundary and the confidence to go for it.”Between 2004 and 2014, in 160 T20Is played by England, Australia, South Africa, West Indies, New Zealand and India, the average strike rate of women batters was 94.61 and they hit a total of 291 sixes – almost two per match. Since 2015, the collective strike rate for those teams has improved to 107.55, and in 195 T20Is there have been 626 sixes or more than a three a match.Related

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'More and more girls are hitting the ball hard from ball one' (2017)

The confidence to clear the ropes is one aspect of power-hitting but there are other ingredients that make a big hitter, like anatomy and positioning.”A few years ago we got a lot of our players marked up and told them they had to hit the ball as far as they can, against seam and spin from a bowling machine,” says Lisa Keightley, the former England women’s coach, who spoke to this writer during her time as tactical performance coach with Paarl Royals in the men’s SA20. “We didn’t tell them what to do. We just said, ‘Hit it as far as you can.'”One of the things that came out was how players hit sixes in different ways. Nat Sciver-Brunt does it with strength. Heather Knight generates momentum when she gets into the ball, so she will take a couple of steps to go big. Sophia Dunkley is hand speed and bat speed. Tammy Beaumont really whips her bat to get bat speed.”But the general thing is the launch angle. If you want to hit a six, the launch angle of your bat helps you get it over the rope. If you have a good launch angle, you’ve got a really good chance of hitting it over the rope.”Launch angle refers to the angle of the bat face relative to the ground when it makes contact with the ball. It determines how much power a batter can get into their stroke. The optimal launch angle is dependent on the positioning of the batter’s whole body.”Boundary-hitting is all about an open blade, getting the bat flow going to the optimal height at the right time and then hitting with your back hip,” says Neil McKenzie, the South Africa men’s batting coach. “You see it in golfers and tennis players – when that back hip comes through, that’s power-hitting.ESPNcricinfo Ltd”It’s all about loading that back hip up. You’ve got players that drag the front leg back to the back leg and guys that get the back leg to the front leg and then keep that position. The key in power-hitting is an open bat face, which keeps the blade going through the ball for longer, and it’s about hitting with your whole body.”If you get too wide, you only hit with your arms. In the past, a lot of players used a closed bat face, which limits the swing. At the point of contact, the back hip and the blade come through the ball and that’s called keeping your shape.”Working on power-hitting has been a part of men’s cricket for some time now. In 2021, West Indies allrounder Fabian Allen talked about learning to “keep my shape and keep my base” as part of his training routine, but it was not a part of the conversation in women’s cricket when Keightley was playing for Australia between 1995 and 2005. Cricket back then was not set up to accommodate a female power game.”We definitely had longer boundaries,” Keightley says. “The ICC have [now] made the boundaries certain sizes. You’ve got a minimum of 55 metres and a maximum of 65, so boundary sizes are fairly standard across the board and that’s made a big impact. The other thing is international venues where the outfields are quick and you have pitches where the ball is coming on pretty well. And then the bats – the distance they can hit has really evolved over time.”Female athletes are now getting to be full-time professionals, so they can get stronger. I wouldn’t say fitter – the Australia team I played on were pretty fit – but I think the strength factor has increased significantly in the top teams. And there is also the explosion of the T20 format. In T20 if you’ve got some power-hitters, they can really change the game. Most females can generally hit fours, but in T20s it’s about players that can clear the rope.”Mignon du Preez was not a natural six-hitter but built the ability into her game after a conversation with batting coach Trent Woodhill that helped her “take indecision away”•Getty ImagesKeightley played only one T20I – the last international of her career – in September 2005. There was only one six in that match. That number has increased steadily over time. Forty-three sixes were hit in the 2016 women’s T20 World Cup in India, and 75 in the next edition, in the Caribbean. In between, a record was set for the most sixes hit in a single women’s T20 – 19, in a WBBL game in Sydney in December 2017.Increasingly there is an understanding that a team that hits more sixes has an obvious advantage. “If someone can come in and hit three or four sixes in their innings, they are changing the game,” England allrounder Nat Sciver-Brunt says. “I’ve typically tried to be someone to play through the innings and not really think too big too soon, but if I can change the game in my first ten balls or my first 20 balls or whatever it is, then that will almost put the team in a better position. In the best T20 innings, people are facing 40, 50 balls and scoring a hundred.”To date, there have been 40 centuries scored in women’s T20Is, all of them after 2010, and 37 after 2017. The turning point was, as Keightley suggested, the result of professionalisation.In 2013 the Australia women’s team, who had part-time deals since 1997, were given a major raise, and tour payments and marketing bonuses were included in their packages. In 2014, England, New Zealand and South Africa announced their first women’s contracts. It’s no surprise that the increased focus on power-hitting has come from these countries, followed closely by India (who have quickly kept pace) and West Indies.

The increased investment in some countries has meant that some women’s teams are now fully professional and their cricketers can spend more time training and honing their skills. They are also likely to have better facilities to train at, and their teams can employ specialist batting coaches and full-time strength-and-conditioning coaches, who work on creating what Keightley called “strong, robust athletes”, for whom the development of a skill like power-hitting is the next logical step.The legs, hips and core are the engine of power-hitting, so players’ gym workouts need to focus on those and not just the upper body. “I like to carry weights in the gym, I like to work on my fitness because as a power-hitter, I have to be in shape,” says Ayesha Naseem, the 18-year-old Pakistan batter who slammed an 83-metre six against Australia. “On off days, I work on my base – my legs. If they are strong and stable, I can hit more sixes and they go at a distance.”Also included in these workouts are plyometric exercises – explosive movements that are aimed at developing speed and power. These include box jumps (standing on the ground and jumping with both feet onto a raised box) and knee-ups (jumping up to stand from a squat position), which aim to develop leg strength.Batters also train to create muscle memory of the sensation of hitting the ball. “To hit big, you’ve got to have some sessions where you take the shackles off and get what it feels like when I want to go for my six,” Keightley says.Du Preez calls it a “round-the-world middle-practice” where batters hit the ball all around the field from a centre pitch to see which areas they can target best. “In the nets it can feel good, but a lot of the time, it doesn’t actually clear the rope.”Even junior players are regularly training to power-hit. “Every alternate week or day, the players have hitting sessions with their coaches,” says Tanuja Lele, a BCCI strength-and-conditioning coach, who most recently worked with India’s World Cup-winning Under-19 squad.”Every single person needs to be able to hit in T20. It is expected that even if you play two balls, you can hit a six – that’s a skill that’s required,” says BCCI strength and condition coach Tanuja Lele•Getty Images”We work on the power and the rotation aspect: hip rotation, trunk rotation, along with the strength aspect of upper body and lower body, and we combine it with the skills. We try to plan it in a way where players are used to hitting it and simultaneously the strength work in the gym is being used in hitting time. We see the building of strength along with the translation of it. And we combine that with plyometrics exercises, where you end up having strength to move into the power zone.”And it’s paying off. At the time of writing, 136 sixes had been hit in 18 WPL matches so far, more than seven sixes a match. With boundaries set at a maximum of 60 metres, there have also been four totals over 200, all successfully defended. (The reasons for the high scoring have been explored -the quality of the bowling is one.)Openers Sophie Devine and Shafali Verma lead the list of six-hitters in the WPL, followed by Ellyse Perry, who bats at No. 3 for Royal Challengers Bangalore, and UP Warriorz finisher Grace Harris, proving Lele’s point that power-hitters need to be available throughout the batting line-up.”Before it used to be only one or two players who could come and hit, but now we have players like Shafali and Richa Ghosh, and you see the different skill sets. One is an opener; one is a finisher. Every single person needs to be able to hit in T20. It is expected that even if you play two balls, you can hit a six – that’s a skill that’s required.”Just ask Mignon du Preez.

Bishop: 'West Indies' decline pre-dates this group of players'

by h716a5.icu Uncategorized

Former fast bowler on West Indies’ failure to qualify for the 2023 World Cup, and its potential impact on players, fans, and the sport in the Caribbean

Raunak Kapoor02-Jul-20233:10

Ian Bishop: ‘The warning signs have been there since 2018’

As someone who grew up watching an era of West Indies cricket that you did, then going on to play for them with pride, and having since followed them in recent years, what are your emotions on the team not making it to a World Cup?
It is a difficult day, and difficult to sum up. To not have West Indies as part of the World Cup is, to me, unimaginable. I can echo the sentiments of many fans and West Indian supporters, of whom there are still many.Coming at the back of the 2021 T20 World Cup disappointment, and then not making it into the main round of the 2022 T20 World Cup, it is a stifling reality of where the [West Indies] cricket is at the moment. Not just being with the Associate nations, but that some of those nations are beating you quite convincingly. So there’s a lot of work to be done almost immediately, because the talent level, which I know there is, deserves better representation, or certainly a bigger need to express itself.Related

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The results from the recent ICC events you speak of, do they give you the feeling that something like this was on the cards? That this was always a possibility? And does that make you feel like this slide could have been arrested sooner?
Yes, it has been a gradual decline. I’ve always said this pre-dates this group of players. We haven’t played consistently good ODI cricket against the top nations for perhaps a decade now. The T20 team, after having been two-time champions, they have slid. So like big corporations who were at one time at the peak of their powers, and then through, I suppose, a lack of vision or whatever you want to call it, they disappeared off the business scene, [and that is what has happened] for West Indies cricket, two-time world champions, who popularised the field for ODI cricket.I know there has been some introspection that has been taking place in the Caribbean. But what this does is, it says that we are at a few seconds to 12, and we need all hands on board to get the representation back to where it needs to be.Dejected West Indies players leave the field after their loss against Scotland•ICC via Getty ImagesWill all hands be able to come together to face the big challenge that faces West Indies cricket at the moment? The Shimron Hetmyer situation is one that no one seems to have benefitted from. And it’s not as much about Hetmyer alone as it is about the feeling among fans. Are the West Indian players motivated enough to play for West Indies?
I think some guys are. Obviously you are going to have a few guys [who are not]. And the cricketing landscape is very difficult right now with all the franchise tournaments coming into play. So there’s always going to be that draw and pull of your resources. And so that is a challenge that is set forth, it is not an easy one. I don’t have all the answers. You need to be more specific, as I have said before, with talent identification, procurement and development. Because that is a challenge of the landscape.I still see young talents coming through, like Jayden Seales, Alick Athanaze is another, a kid named [Kevin] Wickham just to name a few. But how you expedite their development and keep hold of them is the challenge. And again I will say there have been efforts to make better pitches, better infrastructure, but it just really tells us that these things need to be hastened.When you talk to young West Indies players and cricket fans, do you sense that there is a deep understanding or appreciation of what the West Indies and their cricketing history is, which I’m sure was so deeply motivating for you? The emotions that brought this multi-national cricket team to play together, do you believe those are still there with the next set of players and young fans?
I think it is a different time. What motivated Sir Vivian Richards and Gordon Greenidge and Desmond Haynes and Clive Lloyd, globalisation has sort of dissipated that. So the motivations are now different, and I accept that. If it is more financial and economic, then we have to ride with that time and provide experiences and platforms where the players gravitate towards that.I wouldn’t say that the pull that was evident for the players of the ’60s and ’70s should be the same in the 2000s. So we have to identify what the myriad desires are and they will be different for each player and just work with those desires, because there is still, as I speak to players, a desire to play for West Indies, but there are not as many of that calibre as there may have been in times past.

“I still see young talents coming through, like Jayden Seales, Alick Athanaze is another, a kid named [Kevin] Wickham just to name a few. But how you expedite their development and keep hold of them is the challenge”Ian Bishop

It’s not an easy job, administration in West Indies cricket. Are there any specific suggestions you would want to give to the people managing the game in the Caribbean to now try and build a path forward?
There are many things and again I am not going to pretend to sit here and say that I have all the answers. It is always going to be a challenge with so many disparate nations and constituents trying to evolve their own base. But what we have witnessed and have been witnessing over the last decade, or two decades, is that the fractionising of these goals is not working. Other teams have got better. The Associates have got so much better, and they don’t fear, certainly, teams like West Indies anymore.So how do we come together and create better coaching, coaching tutors? How do we create an even more professional franchise system in the Caribbean, whether T20 or red-ball cricket, and have everyone pulling in the same direction? That is something I cannot answer. But we need to, because I do not see going it alone, as some people say in the Caribbean for Trinidad or Jamaica to go alone, [will work]. To me, that is not a relevant idea.We have changed captains and coaches. We now have to give support and time to the incumbents and make sure we give them the support staff. Zimbabwe, in this tournament for example, have done it with minimal playing resources, so why can’t West Indies if they concentrate on their pool?So in Shai Hope and Daren Sammy, both relatively new in their roles, do you believe backing them is the right thing to do, because there would be reactions to this result?
Well, you have to because it is systemic. It’s not just about the incumbents right now. We have changed it from Phil Simmons, Ottis Gibson, coach X, captain X, and while the results have not been this desperate, we saw a gradual decline. So once you have identified those guys and put them in place, give them as much support but you are holding them accountable. And just to be fair again, this slide has not just begun. This has taken decades and a couple of generations to get to this point. So all of us, who have had past associations with West Indies cricket, have to introspect and ask ourselves, “What could we have done better and what can we do now?”Can Daren Sammy revive West Indies cricket?•Getty ImagesIs there a feeling that perhaps it had to get worse before it got better, and maybe this is a rude wake-up call for players, or everyone else in West Indies cricket, to miss out on a World Cup? Could that trigger the right reactions?
Being away from the tournament now, you would hope that is the case, but I do not believe it had to get to this point for it to rectify. West Indies barely qualified out of the 2018 qualifiers. So that was a warning sign then, and there were four years in between to try to rectify that and it hasn’t happened. So more synergy in the infrastructure and the structure is required.I think once you have identified who the right people are, you have to give them at least a medium term, a length of time to allow them to make an impact. Short-term changes don’t help in any shape or form, but there is still hope there for me. I still keep hoping. I see some of the talent on the ground. I know their desire to do well. It is all now about how we procure that. I don’t think it is rocket science.Is there anything you would like to say to the past players of West Indies, the greats who I am sure will all have plenty to say at this point? Do they have a role in helping this team that is hurting right now?
We all have a role to help in whatever sphere or activity, including myself. In whatever impact we can have talking to current players, developing young players. I won’t pretend to be able to articulate how past players who have helped to build this house feel right now. I know fans are angry, they are coming at me as if I run the show. But I accept their feelings.And I just hope that we can build from here. They say it’s only cricket. But cricket has a significant impact on Caribbean identity around the world. So it is as serious as that. It is not education, it is not healthcare, but it has a role, and we really need to have an impact to get it right.Finally the fans, is there something you would like to say to put into perspective the emotions of the fans, given at this point they would be hurting from this result and at the same time, the concern that the absence from a World Cup might affect the popularity of the ODI format, if not T20I and Test cricket, in the West Indies?
The Test team in the Caribbean has sort of been holding its own, particularly at home, so that should give hope. But I understand from a fans’ point of view, whether they are West Indian fans in the Caribbean or beyond the borders in India, Pakistan, England, Australia. I understand the sentiments. They are hurt. All I can do is promise that in my little sphere of impact I will do my best and I am sure there are some good people working on the inside who are trying to find the right way to rectify this, so if I may be able to speak on behalf of them, we try to give the players all they need to succeed.Not everyone will get to the promised land, but those who want to get there, hopefully they can resurrect and continue bringing West Indies cricket back to a place of excellence and relevance.You remain optimistic that that day could come in the near future?
Yes. We’ll never dominate like we did in the ’80s and the first half of the ’90s. I think other teams around the world are too good. We have serious economic challenges in the Caribbean, which the authorities around the world have to look at. But I still think when I look at, for example, where Zimbabwe were, and the troubles they have gone through, and how well they have played in this tournament, I think we have enough there to do even better next time around, if there is synergy.

Travis Head, Shaheen Afridi, Mohammed Shami and Chamari Athapaththu make it to our teams of the year

by h716a5.icu Uncategorized

Our staff pick their men’s and women’s teams from among those who excelled through the year

ESPNcricinfo staff30-Dec-2023There’s a strong Ashes flavour to ESPNcricinfo’s men’s Test team of 2023: four Australians and three Englishmen – with two Indians and two New Zealanders to keep them company.Usman Khawaja, the leading run-scorer in the format this year, was an automatic pick at the top of the order, where he is joined by Travis Head – a stand-in opener, just like in the Border-Gavaskar series in March.Head is forced up to open since voting for Khawaja’s partner was split between Rohit Sharma and Zak Crawley; Kane Williamson, Joe Root and Harry Brook all had stellar years in the middle order, with Williamson managing an unrivalled four centuries despite spending most of 2023 recovering from an ACL rupture.ESPNcricinfo LtdTom Blundell, Williamson’s team-mate, takes the gloves, and should have plenty of chances behind the stumps thanks to this attack: Mitchell Starc and Stuart Broad with the new ball, before captain Pat Cummins brings himself on. It might be game over before R Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja are even required.ESPNcricinfo LtdIndia were dominant in men’s ODIs in 2023, winning 26 out of 33 completed games, including ten out of 11 at the World Cup – though we’re sure you remember which one they lost. The core of their side forms the core of ours, with Rohit captaining a familiar top three, and with Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Shami and Kuldeep Yadav at his disposal.Head, a revelation for Australia when he returned to fitness midway through the World Cup, slots into the middle order to break up the run of right-handers, while two late-bloomers, Daryl Mitchell and Heinrich Klaasen, form the rest of the batting line-up. In the absence of a specialist keeper, Klaasen takes the gloves.He is one of two South Africans included; Marco Jansen, who swung the new ball and showed off his talent with the bat at the World Cup, is the other. Shami and Bumrah are the other two seamers in our XI, while Kuldeep shares spin-bowling duties with the prolific Adam Zampa, Australia’s highest wicket-taker during their triumph in India.ESPNcricinfo LtdTwo young superstars – Yashasvi Jaiswal and Shubman Gill – open the batting in our T20 side after stellar IPL campaigns that cemented their status as the coming men of India’s T20 set-up. Faf du Plessis turned 39 in July but is ageing like a fine wine, and his improvement against spin means he is just the man to slot in at No. 3.Glenn Maxwell and Suryakumar Yadav bring some creativity and flair to the middle order, while Klaasen was perhaps the cleanest ball-striker on the circuit, hitting hundreds in the SA20, IPL, and Major League Cricket. Sikandar Raza and Daniel Sams balance the side at Nos. 7 and 8 after impressing with both bat and ball through the year.Shaheen Afridi, who captained Lahore Qalandars to a second straight PSL title, takes the new ball with Sams, while Nathan Ellis will close things out at the death as he does in leagues around the world. There’s no real debate over the premier spinner in the line-up: T20’s GOAT, Rashid Khan.ESPNcricinfo LtdTwo left-handers open the batting in our women’s ODI XI in Chamari Athapaththu and Beth Mooney, with Sophie Devine shuffling down to No. 3 to accommodate them. Amelia Kerr was the format’s leading ODI run-scorer this year with 541, while Nat Sciver-Brunt, at No. 5 in the XI, hit three hundreds, including back-to-back centuries against Australia in July.South Africa’s Marizanne Kapp showed her adaptability with a century against Pakistan in Karachi in September, while Australia’s engine room of Ashleigh Gardner and Annabel Sutherland were both popular selections in the lower middle order – Gardner was a unanimous inclusion.Nadine de Klerk, Kapp’s South Africa team-mate, has proved to be a regular wicket-taker in the middle overs, while Lea Tahuhu, one of three New Zealanders in the side, provides the pace. The frontline spinner is Bangladesh’s Nahida Akter, who has been a reliable performer through the year.ESPNcricinfo LtdThere are three T20 World Cup winners and three WPL winners in our women’s T20 XI, reflecting a year where the launch of a new franchise competition in India changed the landscape of a global game for good.Mooney and Megan Schutt both played their part in Australia’s success in South Africa but it was Gardner who was named Player of the Tournament – and raked in the big bucks at the WPL auction as a consequence. Mooney opens the batting alongside Athapaththu, whose consistent success for Sri Lanka was finally recognised at the WBBL this year – if not the WPL and the Hundred.In March, Hayley Matthews, Sciver-Brunt and Kerr were the all-round core that underpinned Mumbai Indians’ success under coach Charlotte Edwards; they are joined by Devine and Kapp in the middle order of our side. Sophie Ecclestone and Shabnim Ismail round off the bowling attack.More in our look back at 2023

All-timer Anderson on his own in seam-bowler fantasy land

by h716a5.icu Uncategorized

England record-breaker has been so brilliant for so long that he has outlasted the debate about his greatness

Andrew Fidel Fernando22-Feb-2024When Fred Trueman became the first man to claim 300 Test wickets, back in 1964, he was asked if his record would ever be beaten. “Aye,” Trueman is believed to have replied. “But whoever does will be bloody tired.”Trueman was from the north Yorkshire town of Stainton, which sounds like a northern English town from a Monty Python sketch about open-pit mining. A little over two hours southwest is Burnley, where in the universe of this sketch whatever was mined in Stainton is taken to be fed into furnaces that billow grey smoke into the skies.In reality, what Burnley produced is a seam bowler whose wickets have come like coils of steel out of a production line – in industrial quantities. Quantities that, as he nears a Test wicket tally of 700, seemed beyond the furthest bounds of imagination for a seam bowler, even as few as five years ago.Related

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Because this is about James Anderson, there will of course be debate. He’s great, sure, but is he really great? What can be agreed upon, however, is that that the debate has raged for an exceptionally long period, now stretching decades. More accurately, Anderson himself has done what he does for so long, that he has made that debate stretch. Many who threw shade years ago are likely the same crowd that throws it now, because it is difficult to imagine he has picked up new detractors. Instead he has picked up about 400 wickets since the debate’s inception.It is now possible to mark up the lives of his newest team-mates entirely in Anderson career milestones. Shoaib Bashir was in utero when James Anderson took 5 for 73 at Lord’s on debut, possibly still peeing himself when Anderson dismissed Jacques Kallis to take his 100th wicket, seven-years old when Anderson took 24 wickets at 26.04 in England’s 3-1 Ashes victory in Australia, likely polishing up his 12 times table when Anderson became England’s highest Test wicket-taker in 2015, and not even close to driving age when Anderson surpassed Glenn McGrath to become the most successful fast bowler in Test history in 2018.It is a career truly staggering in scale for a seam bowler, who requires virtually the entire body to be in working order to function at near its peak. Anderson has bowled over 5000 deliveries more than any other quick, watched England cricket go through several cycles of giddy highs, haunting lows, and even more rebrandings. No fewer than 100 Test cricketers have debuted for England after him. He has also outlasted six UK Prime Ministers, although perhaps this is not such an achievement.But shouldn’t cricket, using history’s long lens, also reward durability? Anderson has bowled more than double the number of Test deliveries compared to Steyn. That’s 21,000 more times in which roughly seven times his body weight has gone through Anderson’s left leg at the point of delivery. Anderson has also taken roughly 60% more wickets, in this format at least.When, in 2020, Anderson was rethinking his run-up to the crease following a significant calf injury, he made the decision to extend, rather than shorten his run up. He was accelerating too quickly for this version of his body to handle, he decided. At this point, nearly four full years ago remember, he’d already played more Tests than any seamer ever had. He was solving problems in terrain only he has ever trod. At what stage of the slow burn do we value it as much as the blinding flame? Every wicket Anderson takes now is a fresh step in seam-bowling fantasy land.His is the “craft” school of seam-bowling. And no one has honed it at Test level for as long as he has. Zoom in to the physics of it all – the push with the middle finger at point of release that sends the outswinger surging out of his hand, the middle finger taking over when the inswinger comes out. Plus his still-growing mastery of reverse-swing (see ever-sharper average in Asia).If Anderson is remembered only as the greatest England bowler, and not as an all-country destroyer of batting orders, perhaps this is merely a reflection of the selective memory of those who watch sports. You are also allowed to change your mind. Or more accurately, allowed to have Anderson change it for you. He has done what he has done at a ludicrously high level, for such a spectacularly long duration. This too is rare, all-time, genius.

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