With the ball turning square, the RCB openers brought their experience into play to provide a platform for others to launch

Ashish Pant19-May-20243:12

Why did the ball turn and grip so much after the rain break?

Faf du Plessis’ reaction to the fourth ball he faced after the 40-minute rain break on Saturday evening told a story. On seeing the Royal Challengers Bengaluru captain make room for himself, Maheesh Theekshana pulled his length back keeping the line outside off. Du Plessis, who was a few steps outside leg stump, went for an across-the-line mow, only to see the ball spitting and bouncing sharply and crashing into his midriff.He looked towards his batting partner Virat Kohli in shock, his lips pushed up and out, signalling with his right hand how much the ball bounced. Even Theekshana was surprised. It was a sign of things to come.After Chennai Super Kings opted to bowl on what looked like a dry surface bereft of much grass, the RCB openers smashed two fours and three sixes in the first three overs. A typical Chinnaswamy surface is what most assumed. Then came a sudden downpour, which meant some water seeped into the pitch before the covers were brought on. And the moisture on the surface seemed to help the spinners get the ball to grip and turn and bounce. As if someone had transported the Chepauk surface to Bengaluru in that 40-minute break.Related

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In the next over, the fifth of the game, Mitchell Santner conceded two singles getting the ball to turn square before Theekshana ended the powerplay with a five-run over. Having scored 31 runs in the first three overs, Kohli and du Plessis managed just 11 in the next three as RCB finished on 42 for 0 after six overs, their joint-lowest powerplay score of the season.”I thought batting first, that was the hardest pitch I’ve ever played on in T20 cricket,” du Plessis said after the game. “After that rain, it just made it wet. Myself and Virat were talking about a score of 140-150, it felt that hard in the beginning.”At that stage, the communication to the umpires was that there was a lot of rain falling on the pitch and you don’t want that moisture. So from their [CSK’s] side, they probably wanted to push the game as well, which makes sense, but when we came back, my goodness, it was tough. It felt like a day-five Test match in Ranchi. I’ve never played on something like that.”The frustration was apparent. With RCB needing to win the match by 18 runs to make it to the playoffs, having to face Santner, Theekshana and Ravindra Jadeja on a turning track was the last thing Kohli and du Plessis would have expected. But this is where the two brought their experience into play.Faf du Plessis and Virat Kohli gave RCB a strong start•AFP/Getty ImagesEven as run-scoring became tough, neither batter lost patience and threw away his wicket. A new batter coming in with the surface spinning like a top could have led to a collapse. They looked to rotate the strike and attacked only when the ball was in their arc like the two slog sweeps Kohli nailed against Jadeja and Santner in consecutive overs. By the time Kohli fell in the tenth over to Santner, not only had they seen off the tricky phase, but also faced close to seven overs of spin.At 78 for 1 after ten overs, and with the pitch easing out a touch, du Plessis knew it was go-time. On 30 off 29 at this point, he targeted Jadeja taking him for a four and two back-to-back sixes. The run rate jumped from 7.80 to 8.90 in the span of an over, and RCB were back on track.Du Plessis reached his fifty off 35 balls and while he fell soon, the platform was set for Cameron Green and Rajat Patidar to launch. “It was pretty crazy out there [the turn after the rain],” Green said during the innings break. “I think Faf and Virat batted beautifully. They assessed the conditions really well, gave us a platform to explode from.”And explode the duo did. Simarjeet Singh, CSK’s best bowler from their previous game against Rajasthan Royals, was smashed for a four and six by Patidar, an over which went for 19 runs. Patidar then walloped Tushar Deshpande for two sixes while Green went back-to-back against Shardul Thakur. The two got together at the end of the 13th over and by the time they split, they had put on 71 runs off just 28 balls.At the end of the 16th over, ESPNcricinfo’s forecaster predicted RCB finishing on 202, but the Green-Patidar assault meant RCB managed 16 runs more, a score which looked improbable when Kohli and du Plessis were battling against spin early on. RCB hammered 80 runs in the last five overs to finish on 218 which was enough not just to beat CSK by 27 runs but also to ensure that RCB’s resurgent run of six wins on the bounce ended with a place in the top four, something which felt next to impossible just a few weeks back.

All you need to know ahead of the IPL player retention deadline of October 31

ESPNcricinfo staff30-Oct-20243:53

IPL 2025 player retention rules: All the big questions answered

First up, how many players can an IPL franchise retain?
Six players from their 2024 squad, of which a maximum of five can be capped internationals – Indian or overseas – and two can be uncapped Indian players. Six players is the highest number of retentions permitted by the IPL ahead of a mega auction, to allow franchises to keep their core intact ahead.What does it cost a team to retain players?
Each team has a purse of INR 120 crore – a 20% increase from last year – with which to build their squad for IPL 2025. For the first player retained, a team will lose INR 18 crore from their purse, INR 14 crore for the second player, INR 11 crore for the third, INR 18 crore again for the fourth, and INR 14 crore again for the fifth player retained. For every uncapped Indian player retained, a team will lose INR 4 crore from the purse.So if a team retains five capped internationals, they will lose at least INR 75 crore from their purse of INR 120 crore.Related

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Can the INR 75 crore be split among the five retained players as the franchise wishes?
Yes, the IPL has told franchises they can slice the INR 75-crore retention pot as they want if they are retaining five capped players. If the franchise spends more than INR 75 crore to keep five capped players then the higher amount will be deducted from the purse.If a team retains only one capped player, they will lose a minimum of INR 18 crore from their purse. For two capped players they will lose at least INR 32 crore (18+14) or the higher amount actually paid; for three capped players it is at least INR 43 crore (18+14+11); and for four capped players it is at least INR 61 crore (18+14+11+18).However, if a team retains five capped players, the INR 75 crore (18+14+11+18+14) that will be deducted from their purse can be divided among the players in any proportion. So while their first player may be retained at INR 23 crore, they could keep their fifth player at an amount lower than the stipulated deduction of INR 14 crore to stay within the INR 75 crore deduction, as long as the franchise can reach an agreement with the player.So what’s the buzz ahead of the IPL retention deadline?
Well, Sunrisers Hyderabad seem to have stirred the pot with their intention of retaining Heinrich Klaasen for a whopping INR 23 crore. That raises the issue of how a team like Mumbai Indians will slice the pie of INR 75 crore if they want to retain players like Hardik Pandya, Rohit Sharma, Jasprit Bumrah and Suryakumar Yadav. There are questions over whether captains like Rishabh Pant, KL Rahul and Shreyas Iyer will be retained by their teams or want to enter the auction themselves. And whether some teams would prefer to retain just two or three players and use the right-to-match (RTM) option to buy back others at the mega auction.Right-to-match (RTM) … what’s that?
It’s another way for a team to get back their players during the mega auction, instead of retaining them beforehand. A team that retains fewer than six players on October 31 will have some RTM options available to them to buy back players at the mega auction. So if a team retains only three players on Thursday, they will have three RTM options to use at the mega auction. A franchise that retains no players will enter the mega auction with six RTM options. A team that retains six players will have no RTM options at the auction.Also, if a team has retained five capped players, they can use their remaining RTM option to buy back only an uncapped player. And if a team has already retained two uncapped players, they can’t use RTM options on another of their uncapped players at the auction.How does the RTM option work at the auction?
If a player has been bought by another franchise at the mega auction, the franchise that he was part of in IPL 2024 can step in at the end of the bidding process and buy back their player by matching the highest bid.But there’s a twist this time compared to when the RTM rule was last used at a mega auction in 2018. At the 2025 mega auction, if a team wants to buy back a player using the RTM option, the franchise that made the winning bid will be given another opportunity to raise their bid to whatever amount they wish. In that case, the player’s previous team will have to match the increased bid to buy back their player.Let’s take KKR captain Shreyas as a hypothetical example should he enter the auction. If two other teams bid for Shreyas and one of them wins the bid, then KKR can step in and use their RTM option to match the highest bid. But as per the modified RTM rule, franchise that placed the highest bid has the opportunity to raise their bid to any amount, which KKR will then have to match again if they want to buy back Shreyas using the RTM option.What’s this about MS Dhoni being in the uncapped player category this year?
Yes, the IPL has revived a rule it had scrapped in 2021, which allowed capped Indian players who retired or have not played international cricket in the last five years to be categorised as uncapped players. This means Chennai Super Kings can retain Dhoni as an uncapped player at a deduction of INR 4 crore from their purse, unless they pay him more of course.This rule also applies to players like Sandeep Sharma, Mohit Sharma, Piyush Chawla, Amit Mishra, Vijay Shankar, Mayank Markande, Karn Sharma and Rishi Dhawan among others, should their franchises wish to retain them as uncapped players.Can players refuse to be retained by their IPL team?
Yes, if a player doesn’t want to remain with a franchise, they can refuse a retention offer and enter the mega auction. Also, there are no player trades allowed between the retention deadline of October 31 and the start of 2025 season.When is the IPL 2025 mega auction?<br?There is no confirmed date yet but it likely to be in last week of November. Mega auctions usually take place over two days.

They have secured three comfortable wins in the group stage but couldn’t get their net run-rate above West Indies

Firdose Moonda13-Oct-2024″Stay in the game,” is the title of a poem written by South Africa’s spin bowling coach Paul Adams, who read it out to the team before they took on Bangladesh in their final group stage match at the T20 World Cup. Now, they have to hope they will stay in the tournament.Despite a seven-wicket win on Saturday night, to add to their 10-wicket triumph over West Indies in the opener and an 80-run victory over Scotland, South Africa, who also lost to England, are not guaranteed a place in the semi-finals. Their fate depends on the outcome of the last group game when West Indies play England, who will first play Scotland.Related

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That means there could be a situation where three teams in the pool end up on six points each with net run-rate the deciding factor for the knockouts. South Africa did theirs a disservice by taking 17.2 overs to chase 107 against Bangladesh which took them down from a net run-rate of 1.5 to 1.38 and these small margins may matter.Going in, South Africa already knew that and adapted their game to what they thought would best allow them to restrict Bangladesh to a small total on a fairly lively pitch. They became the first team at the event to bowl eight successive overs of pace before introducing a spinner. Marizanne Kapp and Ayabonga Khaka found swing for three overs each upfront, before Nadine de Klerk and Annerie Dercksen took over and Bangladesh were reduced to 36 for 2 in the first eight overs.Then, in the absence of another seam option, South Africa turned to spin and things became a little messy. All told, South Africa gave away 11 runs in wides, and lost their bite as Bangladesh settled. Still, on any other day, restricting the opposition to 106 would have been a cause of celebration, not criticism, so it’s difficult to be too harsh on South Africa.The same can be said for winning the match with 16 balls to spare. No-one can accuse South Africa of not showing intent as each of their top three offered a chance as they tried to get their skates on.Laura Wolvaardt was put down on 1 by a diving Sobhana Mostary at backward point, Anneke Bosch could have been run out at the non-striker’s end on 7 and Tazmin Brits was dropped on 21 after skying a ball to deep midwicket. In pursuit of the score, all three were dismissed by over 13.2 – three balls before South Africa needed to complete the chase to push their net run-rate above West Indies. It was then up to Kapp and Chloe Tryon to finish off, and they did. All that’s left to do, for South Africa, is wait. For three days.In the bigger scheme of things, it’s not that long at all but in a tournament that only lasts 17 days, it’s enough time for a lot to happen. South Africa will try their best not to overthink things, knowing they have done all they can.”The most important thing is to stay close to each other and stay together as a unit,” Brits said. “The golden oldies – and I am probably one of them – will probably relax. We’ll just make sure we rest and get ready as if we are going to go to that semi final. There’s no point having negative thoughts about it. And I think we might also have a team activity and then we’ll probably watch that game as well, hopefully in the team room. I won’t say who we’ll be supporting.”South Africa’s pace bowlers took early control against Bangladesh•Getty ImagesThey don’t have to. Realistically, South Africa will probably hope England win both their matches and top the group, with West Indies falling into third. There are other, unlikely scenarios, that could see England knocked out but South Africa will probably not spend too much time dwelling on that. Adams has encouraged them to stay in the moment and has been doing different things in every pre-match huddle to make as much of an impact as he can.”He’s a very passionate man. In the previous game, he actually took off his shoes and put his feet on the ground and said, ‘We are grounded’,” Brits said. “I wish I could repeat the poem to you, but it was very, very motivational. I actually said “hashtag google.com” to him because I don’t know where he got it from but he’s very passionate and powerful when he says things and he tries to get us ramped up and ready for the game.”Adams, who played two matches in the 1996 ODI World Cup, composed 12 rhyming couplets without any assistance from the internet as he continues to look for ways to inspire and the attitude is rubbing off on the team. Brits, in particular, has learned to be a little less hard on herself especially as she now tops the tournament’s run-charts.”I might look like I’m in form, and I’m still not to put myself down,” she said. “I’m trying to talk better to myself because I’m very strict with myself and I’ve been told a few times I need to be a bit more loving and gentle with myself – but I want to do good for the team, especially being an opening batter.”Especially in the powerplays, I don’t want my strike rate to be 100 or less. I want to get it to the 140s because when we make 45 or 60 in a powerplay that sets up the whole entire game. I’m happy I’m making runs and I’m happy I’m contributing towards the team, but I don’t think I’ll ever be happy until I get…that strike rate up.”Her overall tournament strike rate sits at 105.44, slightly lower than her opening partner Laura Wolvaardt (111.27) but more or less in line with other openers. As surfaces get slower in the tournament’s final week, the scoring could become even less fluid and margins may tighten further. South Africa have already been here before.It was at the T20 World Cup in the UAE in 2021 that the men’s team did not chase 85 quickly enough against Bangladesh and missed out a semi-final sport as a result. Given how closely the team’s fortunes have mirrored each other in the recent past – both the women and men reached the final of the last T20 World Cup – the women’s team will hope their scoring rate against Bangladesh does not come back to haunt them.Or in Adams’ words, that they were able to, “Let doubt and fear just fade away, and own this moment, play by play.”

The best individual Border-Gavaskar Trophy performance by an Indian in Australia since 2000

Rohit Brijnath18-Nov-202425:34

Exclusive: Rahul Dravid relives his Adelaide epic

An artist’s son produced two innings in Adelaide that should hang on the wall forever. Modern cricket has seen few painters like him. He has a broader brush than most people believe, and his innings are never bursts of colour but of subtle hues. On first look he does not often seem extraordinary, but a closer examination, like during both innings in Adelaide, suggests he is a batter of some beauty.Rahul Dravid’s innings in that Test were both familiar and surprising. On both occasions he was thrust into crisis – in the first, reviving India’s charge after they were 85 for 4 chasing 556; in the second, standing steadfast like Horatius on the bridge as others fell beside him. In runs the first was worth 233, the second 72 not out, but in value it is hard to separate them. Let us just say India would have probably lost without either.Dravid and crisis seem to go together, though he is not merely a batter adept at rescues but a distinguished performer in many situations. Still, in Adelaide, in a Test pivotal to a New India’s reputation, it was a situation he naturally responded to. Among his virtues are courage and commitment, discipline and dedication; India needed those. Replying to Australia’s mammoth total, he produced an innings mostly devoid of blemish and awash with cultured strokeplay. It was a knock of great faith.His patience has always seemed monkish, his concentration pure, but it is harder than it looks. His mind, like everyone else’s, did wander, but he is more gifted at collecting himself, at focusing his thoughts on the task at hand. He is the sort of fellow parents admire, for he is a responsible man.His first innings was all balance and poise, his feet moving in harmony with his mind, messages from the brain not impeded by pressure and trepidation. Balls were carefully scrutinised for line and length, and mostly his judgement was impressive, for errors were punished and good balls stylishly let go. Through 594 minutes he barely hit a wrong note, and it was like watching a classical pianist at the height of his powers.Fittingly, Ajit Agarkar, who took 6 for 41 in Australia’s second innings, was at the other end when Dravid hit the winning runs•William West/AFPDravid owns more shots than people think; he is merely judicious about what to play and when. He cut, pulled, drove, flicked, glanced, and there was scarcely an area of the ground his strokes did not kiss.He said later he had been working on his cover drives; evidently it has been worth it.In a way, they were also innings of some surprise. The hook for six to reach 100, his heart pounding as the ball arced over the fielder at the fence, was incongruous, as in a way was the four he hit off the first ball he faced on the fourth day, from Stuart McGill, to reach his double-century. The previous night he had to deal with hours of the unfortunate reality that although he was on 199, he had only, in cricketing terms, scored a century. It was a predicament swiftly erased the next morning.He also looked up around tea on the third day to find he had outpaced VVS Laxman on the scoreboard, and his delight later was something to see. This player has made a living breaking all manner of stereotypes.His second innings, as India chased 230 for an improbable victory, was less fluent – his rhythm not as pure, the symmetry of his feet and bat not entirely pleasing. It is said in most sports that the mark of a great player is the ability to find a way through, to win even when not everything is going well, and Dravid defined that.He admitted that he had struggled through certain periods, even offering Adam Gilchrist a chance not taken. This was a triumph of mind over body, for Dravid had convinced himself that this time India would not fail, that opportunity would not be squandered. That he hit the winning boundary, and Steve Waugh retrieved the ball from the gutter and handed it to him was fitting.It was a performance that for now at least seems unforgettable. And who knows, years from now, when we are grey and arthritic one morning we might rummage through boxes in the garage and stumble across yellowed clippings of a few days from December 2003. Memory may have died a little, and the details of his innings may have gone fuzzy, but the image of Dravid standing upright in the sunlight like some golden warrior, graceful and unyielding, one hopes, will still be there.

Two teams, who have struggled in the last two cycles, are now pushing for a final spot in this cycle

Firdose Moonda26-Nov-2024It could not be more deliciously set up. South Africa and Sri Lanka will play in what is effectively a quarter-final of the World Test Championship (WTC) over the next two weeks. Both believe they have built outfits that could challenge for the title next June.If that sounds like an obviously optimistic thing to say, consider who we are talking about. Over the last two WTC cycles, South Africa lost more than half the series they played in, while Sri Lanka finished in the middle and in the bottom half of the points table. These are teams that have spent a significant amount of time, especially recently, talking about transition phases and building blocks. Now, it sounds like they are ready to move off the ground floor and potentially catch the elevator to the roof if they make it to Lord’s next June.Both captains spoke about their current teams as “the best we have after a long while,” as Dhananjaya de Silva put it, though for vastly different reasons. For Sri Lanka, who have won six out of their last eight Tests and crossed 400 four times in that period, they have the makings of a batting line-up they can trust to perform in various conditions and the numbers to prove it.Related

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Kamindu Mendis is Sri Lanka’s leading run-scorer of this WTC cycle, and seventh overall, while Dhananjaya is 11th, with three hundreds and six fifties. For context, South Africa only have one batter in the top 40, and he is in 39th place: David Bedingham. Mendis also leads the averages in this edition of the WTC (with a cut-off of 10 innings), with Dhananjaya in fifth place. Between them, they have scored eight of Sri Lanka’s 11 hundreds; the other three have come from three different players. Mendis’ hundreds have come in Sylhet, Manchester and Galle, which speaks to the ability to transfer talent across what Dhananjaya called increasingly tough conditions for run-scoring everywhere.”It’s hard to get runs anywhere in the world,” he said. “If you go to Sri Lanka, it’s spinning. And if we go to England, it’s going to seam. When we come here [to South Africa], it’s going to bounce. It’s hard work always for the batsman. But we’ve got some experience, people who played a lot of cricket here and a lot of cricket in England, a lot of cricket in Sri Lanka. In this team, there’s experience and youngsters; we’re a mixed side. So I think this is the best team after a long while and we have to make the most of it.”South Africa have something similar, not in numbers necessarily but in sources of their achievements, which come from a wide spread of players. The seven hundreds they have scored in this cycle have each come from a different batter and five of those are from batters scoring hundreds for the first time. For a line-up without any standout superstars (and you may argue one that overly relied on Dean Elgar most recently but AB de Villiers and Hashim Amla before that), that shows progression in both domestic depth and their ability to make the step up.Kagiso Rabada has been in terrific form in Test cricket•AFP/Getty Images”We’ve had different players putting in performances,” Temba Bavuma said. “Younger guys have come into this space and they’ve started putting in performances. With me being a senior player, I take a lot of joy from seeing the young guys coming into the team and I try to contribute to them becoming as good as they can be.”It will probably come as no surprise to hear that what South Africa lack in batting, they make up for in their bowling. Kagiso Rabada is top of the bowling averages among bowlers who have bowled more than 100 balls in this cycle, with Keshav Maharaj not too far behind. Overall, South Africa have the second-lowest bowling average, of 24.13, of this WTC. Yes, Rabada steals the headlines here but with good reason. His career wickets of 313 are only 16 fewer than Sri Lanka’s entire six-man pace attack, and we can’t forget that he has always had strong support. It’s not Lungi Ngidi and Anrich Nortje this time but Marco Jansen and Gerald Coetzee, who are two of the quickest going around.All this makes the battle lines clear: this series will be decided by how Sri Lanka’s batters take on South Africa’s attack, even on surfaces which are not expected to be overly seamer-friendly. Given the way they played in England, where they won at The Oval, Sri Lanka have every reason to believe they will be able to challenge South Africa at two venues where they have had success before. “We didn’t have a bad series in England, but results didn’t come our way. We played good cricket, and we pushed the England team,” Dhananjaya said. “We’re going to push the South African team to the very end.”And South Africa, after winning their first series in the subcontinent in 10 years last month, also have cause to be bullish as they keep faith in a group of players who will form the core of the future of the Test team. “In this series, there’s no new faces, so we’re definitely settling in as a team and guys are very comfortable with each other,” Bavuma said. “It was all about putting together this team of personalities, guys who effectively can do something special for the team. For me, there is a sense of something special that can come about this team. And I guess we have four or five games to kind of do that.”Four? Definitely because that’s the number of matches both South Africa and Sri Lanka have left in this cycle.Five? Whoever wins at least one of the next two can start to realistically dream of that finale next year.Let the Test summer begin.

Stats highlights from the match between SRH and RR in Hyderabad

Sampath Bandarupalli23-Mar-20252:06

‘Kishan hammered everyone to every corner’

286 for 6 Sunrisers Hyderabad’s total against Rajasthan Royals is the second highest in the IPL. They missed equalling their own record by one run.242 for 6 RR’s total against SRH is their highest in the IPL, going past the 226 for 6 against KXIP in 2020.528 Total runs scored by SRH and RR – the second-highest aggregate for a T20 match. The highest is 549 runs by RCB and SRH in last year’s IPL match in Bengaluru.4 Number of 250-plus totals by SRH in the IPL; all have come since the start of 2024. They have four of the top five IPL totals. SRH are the only team with four 250-plus totals in men’s T20s.34 Fours hit by the SRH batters against RR – the most in a men’s T20 innings .208 Runs scored by SRH in boundaries vs RR. Only RCB have scored more in an IPL innings – 210 boundary runs in their 263 for 5 against Pune Warriors in 2013. SRH also scored 208 runs through boundaries during their record 287 against RCB last year.81 Boundaries hit by the SRH and RR batters – 51 fours (SRH 34, RR 17) and 30 sixes (SRH 12, RR 18) – equalling the most in a T20 match. South Africa and West Indies also hit 81 boundaries in the 2023 Centurion T20I, while RCB and SRH hit 81 in 2024.76 Runs Jofra Archer conceded in his four overs – the most expensive spell in the IPL, going past the 73 runs Mohit Sharma conceded against Delhi Capitals last year.14.1 Overs in which SRH passed 200 against RR – the joint fastest in the IPL, equalling RCB against Kings XI Punjab in 2016.94 for 1 SRH’s powerplay score on Sunday is the fifth highest in the IPL. Three of the top five powerplay totals in the IPL have been by SRH, including the top two.

The spinner’s personal coach AC Prathiban and KKR spin-bowling coach Carl Crowe reveal the secrets behind Varun’s renaissance

Deivarayan Muthu18-Feb-20251:33

Manjrekar: Varun Chakravarthy should stick to what he does in T20 cricket

When it emerged that Varun Chakravarthy, till then uncapped in ODIs, was persuading India to include him in their Champions Trophy squad, Rohit Sharma explained that he had made his case because he had “certainly shown something different”.What is the difference that’s turned Varun, in the matter of months, from international reject to Champions Trophy wildcard? What kind of spinner is he anyway?Related

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Varun burst onto the T20 scene in 2018 as a mystery spinner with the carrom ball and googly among his seven variations. Four years later, when he was benched by Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR), it felt like his mystery was fading away. His carrom ball wasn’t turning as sharply as it used to, and when he experimented with slowing his pace down, batters were getting more time to adjust to his variations and put him away.So, after IPL 2022, Varun reinvented himself with some help from his personal coach AC Prathiban, the former Tamil Nadu offspinner. With pitches in the IPL becoming flatter and less abrasive, especially at Eden Gardens, his home ground, Varun realised that the carrom ball wasn’t working. While his googly was still hard to pick – he bowls it from the side of the hand unlike conventional wristspinners who bowl it from the back of the hand – he understood that he needed a potent away-going delivery to weaponise it.Varun’s repertoire included the legbreak, but he usually bowled this with a scrambled seam and wasn’t getting it to turn as much as he wanted. He remedied this, and began bowling his legbreaks with a more traditional seam position, and made a well-documented switch from a largely sidespin release to one with more overspin.This change began to make a massive difference to Varun’s output. In his first four IPL seasons, he had managed only six wickets off 270 legbreaks, according to ESPNcricinfo’s logs. In the 2024 season alone, he picked up seven wickets off 129 legbreaks, and took another 11 wickets with a near-identical count of googlies (134).”When Varun came on, he bowled quite a few carrom balls, but after a point it didn’t deviate away [from the right-hand batter] much,” Prathiban tells ESPNcricinfo. “So we worked on the legspin, and to make the googly – which is his best ball – lethal, we wanted to perfect the away-going legbreak.”Varun found the ideal speed of his run-up and we wanted to generate more force from the body and convert it into revs on the ball. If you bowl anything from the shoulders, you will add speed to it, but revs would be lesser. So we were looking to generate the force from the [lower] body [too] and with that he was able to get the revs and the dip. Creating that dip at his [high] speed is his biggest strength now.”Varun Chakravarthy’s bowling evolution has contributed to his becoming India’s second-oldest ODI debutant•BCCISince making these tweaks to his bowling, Varun has been the top wicket-taker across the last two IPL seasons and the top wicket-taker among spinners across the last two seasons of the 50-over Vijay Hazare Trophy.Like his senior R Ashwin, Varun spends hours watching old footage to analyse batters and find ways to stay a step ahead of them. Liam Livingstone’s first-ball duck in the Kolkata T20I last month – he backed away and missed a wrong’un – might have had something to do with this sort of preparation, and Varun’s memory of the previous time he had gone head-to-head with Livingstone at the same venue during IPL 2023.”In 2023, Livingstone was out lbw to a legbreak, playing for the googly,” Prathiban recalls. “He was opened up and was out lbw in that game. I think he was playing for the legbreak and aiming to hit over extra-cover this time, but Varun bowled the googly. That’s where Varun has become tactically aware, and the control over both his legbreak and googly has come with a hell a lot of volume and target bowling.”Varun watches videos of a lot of spinners on YouTube, and he’s even trained at grounds at 2am to figure out his own way of bowling the googly from the side of his hand. He gets into the details of things: arm path, arm speed, release point and everything. That’s what he means when he says: ‘I stick to my process’.”A few months ago, Varun had messaged KKR spin-bowling coach Carl Crowe, asking for footage of his own bowling from 2018, when he was a net bowler with KKR, to assess how far he’s come. Crowe also alludes to Varun out-thinking batters during IPL 2024, but refuses to reveal his plans.”That [asking for footage from 2018], for me, is Varun all over: constantly looking to improve and further add to his skillset,” Crowe tells ESPNcricinfo. “I’m not going to tell you who, but there were two-three batters during the IPL last year that we sat and talked about a lot and some plans that we worked up, and he ended up taking the wickets. At the moment, he might use those plans against those batters [in the Champions Trophy], so I’m not going to share that, but one of the great things about Varun is that he never sits with his skill level and he’s constantly looking to push himself.”Skills like the ball deviating are things you see in front of the TV, but his tactical ability behind the scenes keeps getting better and better. Sunil [Narine] is also pretty good at that and he’s close with Varun as well.”‘The definition of mystery for me is deception, and batters still can’t pick which way his ball turns’ – Carl Crowe on Varun•BCCIHaving recently watched Varun dominate England’s Bazballers in conditions that weren’t especially conducive to spin, Crowe puts Varun in the same league as Narine and Rashid Khan in T20 cricket.”I believe he [Varun] is now up there with the likes of Sunil and Rashid,” Crowe says. “Against England, I think he was taking wickets at nine apiece. England have got some unbelievable players at the moment, but you can see nervousness when they’re playing Varun and they’re not picking him so well. If one of the top white-ball teams is struggling against Varun, he comes into the category of one of the best.”While Varun has moved away from the carrom ball and moved to far more orthodox wristspinner methods, Crowe still considers him a mystery spinner because he still turns the ball both ways without an easily discernible change in action.”The definition of mystery for me is deception, and batters still can’t pick which way his ball turns,” Crowe says. “Back when I was growing up, you would read about how to grip the ball and how to release the ball and stuff, but for Varun, it’s individual to him. I still think he’s mystery.”Gautam Gambhir, the current India head coach and former team mentor at KKR, believes Varun’s mystery could be an X-factor in the Champions Trophy in Dubai. Varun carried similar expectations into his previous ICC tournament, the 2021 T20 World Cup, which was also played in the UAE, and didn’t quite manage to fullfil them. Prathiban backs his charge to right the wrongs this time.”When we had a conversation about ODI cricket and Dubai, I told him that he now has a chance to rewrite what he’s done in the past,” Prathiban says. “You will get that chance only if you’re honest to yourself and your (quest). Nowadays, ODI cricket seems like an extended version of T20 cricket, where Varun has to bowl an extra six overs as an individual with batters coming at him. His approach may be altered but his intent [of being a wicket-taker] will be similar to T20s.”Having faced multiple rejections as a fast bowler and keeper-batter when he was young, Varun went to great lengths to reinvent himself as an unconventional spinner at 27. At 31, he had the courage to transform himself once again. That courage, perhaps, stems from his wide range of life experiences. Besides making a cameo appearance in a cricket-based Tamil movie, he has had stints as an architect, interior designer, scriptwriter and coach in academies in Tamil Nadu.Prathiban believes these experiences will continue to hold him in good stead.”Varun has gone through a lot in his journey, so I feel he can adapt to any situation not just in cricket but also life. You put him on an island alone, and he will find a way to survive. If you put him in a desert, he will manage to survive. If you put him in a high-tech city, he knows what to do.”

They do the basics just as well as they do the spectacular, and there’s no telling who comes to the fore on any particular day

Danyal Rasool19-Feb-20254:20

Watch: NZ’s secret to playing spin: It’s about scoring not just surviving

Pictures are notorious for leaving out as much as they keep in, but this was a snapshot complete in every sense of the thousand words it could speak.Mohammad Rizwan’s elegant late cut flew over, above and past backward point. Almost. It wasn’t safe from the non-dominant hand of Glenn Phillips, who launched himself into the air and to his left at full stretch. It is sometimes uncharitably said that all you can do is hope they stick, but if that’s the case, the adhesive quality of Phillips’ hands must be worthy of patenting.It was perfect timing, too. This was the last ball of the first powerplay, one in which Pakistan were kept to 22 runs, their lowest powerplay score in almost six years. Fakhar Zaman, prevented from opening the batting because he had been off the field after picking up a niggle on the day’s second ball, was in next. This meant he would not face a single delivery with the fielding restrictions in play, when he can get the sort of start to propel Pakistan towards a chase of this magnitude.Related

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It distilled the difference between the two sides, Pakistan’s fielding ineptitude squared against New Zealand’s ruthless standard-setting, New Zealand’s greed to exploit every advantage, Pakistan’s tendency to squander them.And yet, it still may not have been the best bit of fielding New Zealand have displayed in Pakistan in the last few weeks. Eleven days ago, at the start of the triangular series in Pakistan, Michael Bracewell dived to his left to snare a reflex catch, left arm popping up in the air like a jack out of the box, as another bullet of a shot fizzed out in another New Zealand fielder’s hand.Tom Latham said on the eve of the game what pleased the side was the number of different matchwinners across the triangular series and how just about every player had contributed, and it made you reflexively think of Latham as well as Will Young, perhaps the only two batters in this side that didn’t quite apply to. Young took the challenge on, and perhaps brought about the earliest harbinger of the kind of day Pakistan would have when he drove Shaheen Afridi’s second ball through the covers. Afridi would end up wicketless for 68 while Fakhar pulled up injured in pursuit.It’s not difficult to imagine a world where Young didn’t play this game. Rachin Ravindra has been wrapped in cotton wool since a sickening blow to the head, but he trained yesterday, and New Zealand seriously considered playing him. Some 15 months ago, when New Zealand played a warm-up game against Pakistan ahead of the 2023 World Cup, Young was rested to give Ravindra a trial at the top of the order. It was perhaps just an abundance of caution which prevented the same happening in a game that mattered much more.Will Young came into the game on a lean patch, but did exactly what was needed of him when it mattered•ICC/Getty ImagesYoung was New Zealand’s least effective batter in the three matches prior, managing 38 runs across the triangular tournament. But in the game all of those were building towards, he possessed the clarity of thought of a man in a much richer vein of form.”Perhaps,” Young said when asked if there was extra pressure because of his recent form. “You try not to think about what’s happened. The next game’s the most important one. Your form tends to go up and down, but I was pretty keen to stick to what I know I can do well. [I knew I had to] win that straight battle, wait for them to miss the lines or the lengths and go from there. Nice to get some runs after a lean tri-series.”New Zealand, it would appear, simply do not tend to think in a way that places pressure on an individual, instead looking to communicate what needs doing at any moment. Young had begun enterprisingly with 44 off 43, but parked the aggression for a while, scoring just 32 of the next 43 as he negotiated the middle overs with Latham.Rizwan tried to go for the kill by bringing Afridi and Naseem Shah back, but New Zealand’s pair recognised that time was on their side. They played just six attacking shots across 30 deliveries in that spell, and still helped themselves to 26.2:31

Mumtaz: ‘Very disappointing to watch Babar’s lack of intent’

Desperate for wickets, Pakistan offered scoring opportunities, and Young was catching up with the rate once more. He brought his hundred up with a sweep off Abrar Ahmed – Pakistan’s most economical bowler – for his first international hundred overseas, and Latham, freed up by another Phillips onslaught, brought his up in a Haris Rauf over that brought New Zealand 18.”Tommy and I knew we were in a little bit of trouble three down,” Young said. “We didn’t want to look too far ahead thinking about par scores. We wanted to get to 30 and then 35 overs, but when I got out, I thought 280 was a good total.”It can, perhaps, be boring to talk about New Zealand in this way, but they have never thirsted after more sensationalist coverage. When their captain, Mitchell Santner, was asked last week what made him so prolific of late, he merely said the conditions had helped him. Today, Phillips was adamant that Bracewell’s catch in the tri-series was “a lot better than mine”.This is perhaps the point of this New Zealand side, though. They do the basics just as well as the spectacular, and there’s no telling who comes to the fore on any particular day.Kane Williamson shone in the first two games of that triangular series. When Ravindra was ruled out, Devon Conway chipped in. Will O’Rourke and Santner were lethal with the ball one day, Phillips destructive on a couple of other occasions. Players slotted in for injury absences with the stifling ruthlessness of a machine, in service of the team result they have produced so consistently of late.Mitchell Santner’s New Zealand have put the defending champions uncomfortably close to a group-stage exit•ICC/Getty ImagesThis was perhaps best illustrated in an otherwise unremarkable passage of play through the first half of Pakistan’s doomed chase. In Pakistan, where Rizwan specifically lamented the dependence on individual performances to obtain ODI wins, there was invariably criticism of Babar Azam’s innings, a timid 90-ball effort that produced 64 inconsequential runs. That may just be indicative of his current form, but New Zealand installed Bracewell and Phillips against him as soon as the first powerplay ended.While it would appear to fly in the face of current wisdom, where the ball turning away from a right-hand batter is almost an automatic choice, since 2022, Babar’s strike rate against the ball turning into him is just over 67, nearly 18 points lower than his overall strike rate. Santner, New Zealand’s best spinner, was content with being the fifth bowler introduced, as the team he led exploited this obscure advantage they had picked up on.At the last ICC event in 2023, New Zealand opened the tournament with a crushing win that began the process of knocking out the defending champions unceremoniously. A breakout star in Ravindra was the clear standout at the time. In Karachi, they have, once more, put the defending champions uncomfortably close to a group-stage exit. This time around, they provided an exhibition of the kind of team environment that nurtures those breakout stars, without being too fussed about who gets the individual credit.

Nottinghamshire offspinner made history on debut and, at age of 17, has further ambitions to fulfil

Vithushan Ehantharajah03-Apr-2025It comes as no surprise to hear that Farhan Ahmed’s favourite bowler is Nathan Lyon. The offspinner grew up watching videos of Lyon on YouTube, and spent this winter consuming as much as he could live, particularly during the five Tests of the Border Gavaskar Trophy. Ahmed, like the Australian, is a twirler who is tall in his action, coming over the top of the ball to impart more overspin than your traditional “doorknob” offie.Modelling yourself on a bowler who has 553 Test wickets can only be a good thing. But Farhan aimed to go one better last season by trying to meet the man himself. With Lyon playing in Lancashire’s County Championship campaign through to July, the 17-year old spotted that his club Nottinghamshire would come up against him twice.Through restrictions imposed by Cricket Australia, Lyon sat out the first meeting at Trent Bridge, but that meant he would definitely play in the return fixture. Farhan circled that as the chance to finally meet his idol. Alas, life got in the way in the form of a Mathematics exam.”I was going to, and then I had a GCSE exam that week,” Ahmed recalls, still a little disappointed. “Notts played Lancashire in Southport and that was his last game. He didn’t play at Trent Bridge. I didn’t get to catch up with him.”I’ve watched Nathan Lyon bowl so much and he’s the offspinner that I always look up to. I see how threatening he is from around the wicket on a first day of a Champo game when it’s not spinning. You’re always looking at how to get the guy out and I worked on it quite a bit last year: changing the angle up and it’s helped me so much already.”Farhan continued his development on an impressive Under-19s tour of South Africa•Gallo ImagesHe ended up getting a 6 in Maths – a B in old money – and further studies will get in the way of his 2025 plans on a cricket field. But as you can tell by how he talks about the game, and the 25 wickets he took at 23.92 in his opening five first-class appearances last year, time in the classroom won’t stymie the progress of one of the most exciting youngsters in English cricket.Farhan’s name has been doing the rounds for a while, around the same time the precociousness of his brother, Rehan (three years older) was talked up ahead of a surprise Test debut at the end of 2022. That Farhan is an orthodox fingerspinner and Rehan a legspinner is no accident, by the way.”Dad said: ‘Rehan’s going to be a leggie so you’re going to be the offie, that’s how you’re going to play in the same team in the future – you can’t be two leggies and one misses out. I want you all to play together in the same team’.Farhan beams when talking about Rehan, who now has 11 England caps across all formats. “I’ve always said that he’s a role model. We live together and we eat together and everything. He’s already a role model that I’ll always look up to.”Two years after Rehan became the youngest man to play Test cricket for England against Pakistan (where their father, Naheem, was born), and then the youngest to take a five-wicket haul on debut, in the second innings at Karachi, Farhan emulated big bro with his own pair of red-ball records.In his maiden County Championship appearance last August against eventual champions Surrey, Farhan’s 7 for 140 in the first innings put him in the books as the youngest to take five or more in a first-class match in Britain. With three more wickets in the second, he dislodged WG Grace after 159 years as the youngest to take 10 or more in a first-class match on these shores.Farhan’s dream is to play alongside his elder brother Rehan for England•Getty Images”Last summer was a very important summer for me, I felt,” he says. “I thought it was very good and I was very grateful to break into the team. Especially in the Champo, I didn’t expect that.”I thought I was going to be involved in the Metro stuff (One-Day Cup) and trying to get involved in that was basically the main aim for last year.”I don’t like to look too far ahead, I try to live in the moment. [This season] For me, it’s trying to play as many Champo games as I can, hopefully perform well and see where that takes me.”The winter was spent honing his craft with the England U19s in South Africa. Further success included 11 dismissals across the two Youth Tests and four more in the 50-over leg in which he was the team’s most misery bowler, with an economy rate of 3.59. As well as working on his batting – he has the capacity to be a handy lower-order batter – he had the opportunity to work with another hero, Graeme Swann. Mentality formed a key part of their discussions.”Swanny’s been very good. He’s always helped me in whichever way. The main thing with Swanny is he’s in the wicket-taking mindset.”It’s not like if he gets hit for a six, he’d go defensive. It’s always coming back. I’ve worked with Swanny more tactically, the different fields and stuff like that.”What sets Farhan apart from his peers – and spinners a few generations above – is his unerring accuracy. Developmentally, he is ahead of the curve. But he has stock deliveries to fine-tune and, taking inspiration from Saqlain Mushtaq – perhaps the first exponent of the “doosra”, which turns away from off stump – tricks to hone.”I’d say at the moment I’m consistent with bowling different balls,” he says. “I think, over time, it’s just about working out what sort of pitch I need to bowl what kind of spin. I reckon that will come over time and with experience, hopefully.Related

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“I’ve got one coming,” he says of a doosra-like variation. “It’s been on display in the 19s, it’s just about bringing it over to the Champo. I reckon it will take three or four months and hopefully it will come out. It’s just the pace and the consistency of it.”Farhan carries a refreshingly practical outlook for what lies ahead this summer. At 17, he would be forgiven for wanting it all right now. But he appreciates Liam Patterson-White and Calvin Harrison have their own claims to the No.1 spinner spot at Nottinghamshire. Nevertheless, he has formulated early-season plans, even at his home ground, which is hardly spin-friendly.”Let’s talk about the start of April: I reckon you get more natural variation and once you have the shape on it and the overspin. I don’t know if it’s going to spin, so the batter will have no clue himself how much it’s going to turn,” he says. “If it goes straight then he’s already in two minds. In the early season, there’s not much going for you with the weather conditions. Any advantage you get, like bounce, can help quite a bit.”It’s always something as a professional cricketer you have to adapt to. You shouldn’t just think spinners can’t play at Trent Bridge because they always can, and they can always perform here as well. Especially on a green wicket, where they say the seamers get the wickets… but the spinner comes on. If it’s going to turn or not, the batsman’s already in two minds.”Having started his first-class and List A careers in 2024, Farhan is angling for a chance to make his T20 bow with Notts Outlaws. Wherever they come, he just wants more first-team cricket on merit.His long-term aims are just as clear. And it is not just playing for England but realising his dad’s dream of representing his country alongside Rehan. Such is his ambition, he throws eldest brother, Raheem, into the mix – a 21-year-old batter currently unattached, who will trial for Notts and other counties this summer in search of a professional contract.”It’s definitely the pinnacle and the end-goal,” Farhan says of a potential family affair at international level. “Hopefully that comes and we keep doing it for a while. Plus, there’s my older brother Raheem to come and do that as well. All three of us – we dream!”

The top four had another bad time of it in the second innings in Barbados, and Sam Konstas is under increasing pressure after falling to an incoming ball for a second time in the game

Andrew McGlashan28-Jun-20252:05

Travis Head made back-to-back fifties

Australia’s top order is spluttering, but the middle-order engine room purred nicely on the third and, in the nick of time, final day in Barbados – as it has on numerous occasions in recent times to help the team out of trouble.It does fuel the notion that such performances, along with the strength of the bowling attack, are papering over cracks, and a team with less brittle batting and better catching than West Indies could have made them pay – like South Africa in the World Test Championship final – but that should not diminish what Australia were able to achieve at Kensington Oval.While the result was comfortable for Australia, their position at the start of the day was anything but with a lead of 82. The performances of Travis Head, Beau Webster and Alex Carey provided a big enough cushion of runs that they could attack with the ball without too many concerns and the trio, while playing largely against an older ball, belied how tricky the surface remained.Related

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“I thought those three were brilliant,” Pat Cummins said. “They kept the scoreboard ticking over. I thought they took really good options. They were always looking to score. Really, that was the difference. [You are] turning up today thinking that if we didn’t get a big lead it was 50-50, really. Those guys took the game away from West Indies.”There was some luck, such as Head profiting from the seventh dropped catch of the match by West Indies, but they made it count. Head was named Player of the Match for his twin half-centuries and Carey produced some of the most free-flowing batting of the game, highlighted by stunning straight sixes off Jayden Seales and Justin Greaves. Yet, in many ways, given his inexperience at international level, it was Webster’s innings that stood out most.It was the second time in five Tests that he has made a half-century on a very tricky pitch after the debut effort against India at the SCG. He also nipped in with a brace of important first-innings wickets. Barbados was perhaps not quite as spiteful as that Sydney surface, but a batter always knew there could be one that misbehaves, as Head found out against Shamar Joseph and a few of the West Indians did later in the day.2:25

Webster’s 63 steadies Australia

At a time when so much attention is on Sam Konstas and how he is attempting to learn as he goes at international level, it is worth noting that Webster has a decade of domestic experience under his belt and earned his chance by churning out runs and wickets in the Sheffield Shield. That isn’t to say the route Konstas is taking – a youngster plucked out after a handful of games – won’t eventually work, but Webster has seen and done plenty before moving up a level.”I think it’s pretty much the same as what he does for Tasmania,” Cummins said. “He seems to always contribute in some way. He’s kind of knocked down the door with his performances over the years in Shield cricket. It’s great when you’ve got someone like that coming to the team. They know their craft so well and you saw that today, even on a tricky wicket, he knew where his areas to score were. He’s been a fantastic asset to the team over the last six months.”Konstas, meanwhile, is being thrust into a new situation almost every time he bats. In this match, he was twice dismissed by deliveries angling back – once lbw and once bowled – to highlight a technical flaw that has been visible before. In the second innings, he became increasingly flustered trying to break the shackles, albeit Shamar Joseph bowled superbly to him.”One of the hard things about playing Test cricket is you get thrown into different conditions all the time,” Cummins said. “And you might not have the flying hours under your belt as a youngster coming in, so you’ve got to work out your craft on the bigger stage.2:15

Alex Carey’s swashbuckling 65 sets up Australia’s lead

“What we’ll keep working [on] with the young guys over the next little bit is: where are your options? Because that’s probably the hardest thing when the pitch is doing a lot, is getting out of your little bubble, still trying to score and taking good options. You saw it today, how hard it can be to try and fire a few shots.”Sammy, he tried a few different options yesterday. Not too many of them worked out, but full confidence [in him].”When Webster fell, glancing down the leg side, the lead was nudging 200 and Carey, who had a superb 2024-25 season across formats, flicked a switch and took 14 off an over from Seales. There is a fine balance of risk and reward in Carey’s batting; he was criticised for his missed reverse sweep against Keshav Maharaj in the World Test Championship final, but here he found the perfect balance.”I went in before tea and try to get a bit of a feel for the wicket,” Carey told ESPN. “I think when you see Travis Head not scoring at 90 strike rate you know it’s probably a pretty tricky wicket. I was trying to get into my innings, and then just try to continue to put the bowlers under pressure. We lost Beau Webster and I thought my role was just to stay positive and try to keep the scoreboard ticking – the messaging today was, runs are going to be crucial, however you can get them.”Scoring runs however you can: it’s something a few of Australia’s top order will hope to be able to do in Grenada.