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.

Batter enjoyed chance to have a go at India ‘in the right manner’ during feisty third Test at Lord’s

Vithushan Ehantharajah21-Jul-20251:14

Brook: ‘Dawson is always willing to fight for the team’

Former All Blacks mental skills coach Gilbert Enoka has been moulding the minds of the England men’s Test squad this summer. And the man famous for the New Zealand rugby team’s “no d*ckheads” policy has been reinforcing the mental fortitude of the group, at a time when Harry Brook says they must ditch their “nice guy” persona.Enoka, who has recently worked with Chelsea Football Club, spoke to the team at Emirates Old Trafford at the start of their first training session ahead of the fourth Test against India. A friend of head coach Brendon McCullum, having previously worked with the Blackcaps, Enoka has been with England on a freelance basis. He first addressed the squad in May, when they met up in London ahead of their first Test of the summer against Zimbabwe, and he will remain with them in Manchester until the end of the week.At this stage, Enoka has been working primarily with McCullum and Ben Stokes. However, his methods proved integral to a cultural shift in New Zealand rugby that brought about back-to-back Rugby World Cups in 2011 and 2015, and the hope is that his expertise will ignite a similar period of dominance for England’s cricketers. Beyond the current series against India lies the Ashes in the winter, both of which are seminal moments in this team’s lifecycle.On the field, England showed a notable degree of togetherness during the third Test at Lord’s, particularly when they rounded on India on the final day. Victory in the final session gave England a 2-1 lead in the series, after plenty of effort and just as much chat, with close-in fielders – notably Brook – not shy of a word towards India’s batters.The touch paper was lit on the third evening, when Zak Crawley and Ben Duckett faced the full wrath of the India team after the former successfully employed delaying tactics to keep an awkward mini-session to a single over. Shubman Gill led the protestations, pointing the finger at Crawley for time-wasting, who immediately pointed right back at the India skipper, after his own time-wasting efforts earlier in the match.Related

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Injured Akash Deep ruled out of Manchester Test

Sledging, swearing, send-offs – Lord's needling promises explosive series ahead

As it happens, McCullum had mentioned before the Test that his team were a little too nice. Brook believes England’s opportunity to have a go at India, in the same way that India had gone at them, was one they had relished in pursuit of a new edge.”It was good fun,” Brook said. “We watched the Indians go hard at Creeps (Crawley) and Ducky. We had a conversation, we thought it was the perfect opportunity to not be the nice guys that we have been in the past three years, to go out there and put them under more pressure than what they have probably had before.”He (McCullum) actually said a few days before that we are too nice sometimes, and I brought it up the night before the last day: ‘Baz said the other day we’re too nice, I think tomorrow is a perfect opportunity to really get stuck into them’.”I don’t know if it had an effect on how we got the wickets, but it certainly had an effect on the atmosphere, the crowd. We bowled really well and got the wickets in the end.”Both teams shook hands at the end of the Lord’s Test, with Stokes and Gill accepting the on-field chat had inspired a fierce contest. England expect India to come back at them hard in Manchester this week, not least given the must-win nature of this match from the tourists’ perspective. And though Brook is relishing the prospect of more feistiness, particularly given how much more engaged the spectators became as a consequence, he feels it has not – and will not – cross a line.”I’ve had a lot of compliments,” he said. “Everybody said it was awesome to watch and it looked like there was 11 versus two when we were fielding. It was good fun, I have to admit, it was tiring but it made fielding a lot more enjoyable.”I don’t think it’s against the spirit of cricket. We weren’t being personal, we weren’t being nasty, we were just putting them under more pressure.”We were doing it within the spirit of the game. We weren’t going out there effing and jeffing at them, and being nasty people. We were just going about it in the right manner.”

With the England looking to keep their Ashes hopes alive, Alan Gardner is joined by Andrews Miller and McGlashan to preview the second Test in Brisbane

ESPNcricinfo staff02-Dec-2025The dust has settled after the first Ashes Test but there’s still plenty of noises off as England and Australia prepare to meet again after a 12-day gap. On this week’s Switch, Alan Gardner is joined by Andrew Miller in the studio and Andrew McGlashan down the line from Brisbane, with plenty of questions to answer. How will England go against the pink ball? Why Will Jacks as the spinner and not Shoaib Bashir? And is it the end of the road for Usman Khawaja? Enjoy.