Twenty years ago, a South African captain made a confession that would change cricket forever

Luke Alfred07-Apr-2020The days of January 22 and 23, 1988, were not auspicious ones for the Cronje brothers, Hansie and Frans. Just out of Grey College in Bloemfontein, Hansie made his debut for Orange Free State (OFS) in a Currie Cup fixture against Transvaal, with his brother playing only his fourth first-class game for the province. At the Wanderers they faced a Transvaal attack led by the Barbadian Rod Estwick with Clive Rice tucking into his slipstream. The match was over in two days.Both Transvaal pacemen had a touch of the thug about them and were none too sentimental about a group of upstart Afrikaners who had strayed onto the wrong side of the curtain. Frans made 1 and 4, while Hansie’s first-innings 2 was improved upon in his second dig, when he scraped 16 in two hours. “The Cronjes didn’t do that badly,” says the fast bowler Gordon Parsons of a side that had recently been promoted to A Section cricket. “Free State managed 160-odd in the first innings and got bowled out for 51 in their second. Hansie top-scored, if I remember correctly. The next best was Corrie van Zyl.”Parsons, an Englishman who wintered regularly in South Africa, met Hansie for the first time the previous season at the Ramblers nets in Bloem. He was impressed by the youngster’s willingness to learn, remembering that Hansie immediately asked him how he’d get him out. Parsons replied that because Hansie was a little rigid at the crease, he’d bowl on fourth stump, moving it away, and his guess was that the youngster would go at it with hard hands. It was the beginning of a long friendship, cemented over many a meal at 246 Paul Kruger Avenue, the Cronjes’ home. Hansie’s mom, San-Marie, was famous for her cooking, and there was extra attraction: Parsons rather fancied Hansie’s sister, Hester.Cronje’s disastrous first trip to the Wanderers was soon forgotten. Although he struggled – sometimes badly – in first-class cricket, he took to the limited-overs game like a ball of pap to a fishing hook. Parsons remembers a Benson and Hedges match against Kepler Wessels’ Eastern Province in which he and the Cronje brothers played later that year. Wessels had said some mildly disparaging things about OFS in the press and it riled the visitors to St George’s, who were sensitive about being dismissed as a soft touch.ALSO WATCH: Graeme Smith and Daryll Cullinan recall the horror of the match-fixing scandalThere was more. Wessels was 12 years Cronje’s senior at Grey College and had then recently returned home after playing 24 Tests for Australia. Wessels had beaten a path to the summit of the game and had done so on his own terms. Cronje idolised him – taking honours against Kepler’s EP would be just the thing.”We were bowled out for 180-odd in our 45 overs,” recalls Parsons with a chuckle. “We then ran out Mark Rushmere and Phillip Amm went early. Kepler stuck around for 70 and moaned because we peppered him with bouncers. We won by 13 runs.”

Towards the end of the team’s first fully-fledged tour to India since readmission, Cronje entertained thoughts of throwing the third Test in Kanpur

Orange Free State’s new-found first-class status was, in a sense, a family affair. While the young Cronje brothers were struggling to tame Estwick on a spicy Wanderers deck, their dad, Ewie, and others had campaigned tirelessly for OFS to take what they believed was her rightful place among the traditional domestic powerhouses of the South African game; he also represented OFS at board meetings and was close to the United Cricket Board’s Ali Bacher. Through Ewie, the Cronjes had a representative in the heart of South African cricket’s decision-making process.Ewie grew up in the small town of Bethulie, south of Bloemfontein, and had learned cricket from David Marks, the owner of the local Royal Hotel. For young middle-class Afrikaners, advantaged through the 1950s as apartheid began its comprehensive lockdown of South African life, cricket provided opportunities for self-improvement. All you had to do was wear white, rub your bat with linseed oil during long winter nights on the and remember to fold your wrists over the ball when cutting.ALSO READ: The Cronje chronicles – a timelineEwie was the only Afrikaans-speaking member of the OFS Nuffield side in 1957. Hansie, by contrast, was part of a dominant Afrikaans-speaking side in his final year at school 30 years later. After the 1987 Nuffield Week, the national schools tournament, he went on to captain SA Schools with Jonty Rhodes as a team-mate, and by the 1989-90 season, he was scoring his first first-class century – for SA Universities against Mike Gatting’s rebel England tourists.Parsons says that Cronje was not only self-evidently ambitious, he was also a good planner. “His view was, ‘If we do get back into international cricket I’m going to be ready.'” It was a view encouraged when, shortly after Cronje had scored his maiden ton, Nelson Mandela was released from Paarl’s Victor Verster prison on February 11, 1990. It wasn’t the first time that the path of Cronje – who had been feted early on as a possible South Africa captain – intersected with the crosswinds of politics.Eighteen months after Mandela’s release, Cronje, along with Faiek Davids and Derek Crookes, was taken to India as part of South Africa’s quickly arranged first post-readmission tour. Pakistan had withdrawn from their trip to India at the last minute and it was felt that the youngsters – who supplemented the main side – would gain from the exposure. Ewie and San-Marie were invited along as part of a slightly swollen official delegation. India had been a vocal critic of apartheid. Now 100,000 people lined the streets from Calcutta airport to wave at the South African cavalcade as they inched towards their hotel.The beginning of the end: Cronje’s much-lauded decision to forfeit the second innings of the Centurion Test in 2000 turned out to be motivated by less than noble reasons•Getty ImagesAt the beginning of the following year Cronje’s fine domestic form was rewarded with a place in South Africa’s first ever World Cup squad. Weeks later he found himself in Barbados, as understudy to skipper Wessels, for three one-day internationals and an Easter Test. South Africa was not yet democratic but the world rushed to welcome her back into the fold. Both within and without, some thought it happened with unseemly haste.”Nobody ever doubted for one second that he was the right choice for captain,” Cronje’s former headmaster, Andre Volsteedt, told a BBC documentary in 2008, and so it came to pass. With Wessels suffering from a hand injury, Cronje took over the captaincy when the team was in Australia in 1993-94, with the South Africans memorably winning the Sydney Test. The full-time captaincy wasn’t his but it was only a matter of time.Wessels remained captain for the tour of England in 1994, the first to that country since readmission. Matters began on a grace note of flag-draping emotion, with a thumping win at Lord’s. Old “Soft Hands”, Peter Kirsten, scored a century in the drawn second Test, at Headingley, but matters headed south at The Oval when Fanie de Villiers struck Devon Malcolm flush on the helmet, an affront to which he didn’t take kindly. “Don’t ask me that – you guys are dead,” was Malcolm’s response to Allan Donald’s question about whether he was all right, as he felled the South African batsmen like skittles. Malcolm took 9 for 57 in the South African second innings, England winning the Test and so squaring the series.ALSO READ: Devon Malcolm: ‘I saw some of the so-called tough guys of world cricket tremble’Cronje had a miserable time in England. His dismissal to Malcolm in the second innings at The Oval was a case in point: he was too late on the shot, being bowled by a delivery that beat him for sheer, breathtaking pace. The selectors were suddenly worried: Out of his comfort zone in England, Cronje looked troubled. Was he the right man to take over from Wessels?They dealt with their unease about Cronje and others – like Andrew Hudson – both adroitly and with a touch of expedience: by sacking Mike Procter, the coach. By the time the team toured again, playing in the Wills Triangular in Pakistan with the hosts and Australia, a new gaffer was driving the team bus. His name was Bob Woolmer and he was a man for whom the word could have been invented. Having grown up in Kent, he had relocated to Cape Town in the 1980s after playing 19 Tests for England. An assiduous thinker about the game, Woolmer interviewed better than his rivals and brought best practice and creativity to the job, qualities Procter conspicuously lacked.Against his better judgement, Wessels remained. He had turned 37 the month before the tour to Pakistan in October 1994, but such were the concerns about Cronje, the captain elect, that he soldiered on. Although the South Africans lost all six matches, Cronje was in sublime form, rounding off South Africa’s penultimate game with a not-out hundred against Australia. Despite South Africa failing to reach the final, he was the competition’s leading scorer, making Wessels’ retirement all the easier. He walked into the sunset with the characteristically grim dignity that had made him such a reliable performer in the early readmission years.

Cronje became the go-to man for young and old Afrikaners alike; he also became a figurehead for all that was perceived as good in the fragile post-apartheid consensus – a new man for a new age.

Cronje’s first Test in charge was against Ken Rutherford’s New Zealanders, at the Wanderers, which South Africa lost in an atmosphere of finger-pointing and recrimination. A win at Kingsmead in Test two levelled the series, but such was the quality of Barry Lambson’s umpiring in the third Test, at Newlands, that Rutherford became apoplectic. He was incandescent that Lambson hadn’t given Cronje out when he feathered an edge to the keeper on his way to a match-and-series-winning 112.At the end of Cronje and Woolmer’s first full season together, Cronje married his childhood sweetheart, Bertha Pretorius. Shortly afterward, he started as Leicestershire’s overseas professional, a position finessed by Parsons. During a busy county season, there were opportunities for fun. The young couple went to Wimbledon, where Hansie was mistaken for Pete Sampras. There was a trip to Paris, where, according to Hester, “they lived on bread and water – he was such a cheapskate, he was always giving away his freebies as Christmas and birthday presents”.As the seasons rolled on, fun seemed in increasingly short supply. Towards the end of the team’s first fully fledged tour to India since readmission, Cronje entertained thoughts of throwing the third Test in Kanpur; the team also considered a match-fixing proposition after having had their arms twisted into playing in Mohinder Amarnath’s benefit match, which wasn’t on the original itinerary.ALSO READ: The Grinch who stole cricketThe following season, a shepherd boy from the Eastern Cape called Makhaya Ntini was forced on Cronje in a home series against Sri Lanka. Ntini had warmed his shoeless feet in cow pats as a child, and he so impressed cricket scouts that he was given a bursary to Dale College in King Williamstown, where he blossomed.He survived a rape trial to become the UCB’s poster boy, and Bacher thought it politically appropriate to shoehorn him into the national side. Cronje was having none of it; Ntini hadn’t served a domestic apprenticeship, he argued. But his protestations were in vain. Ntini made his debut against the Sri Lankans in the Newlands Test of March 1998, taking the first of what turned out to be 390 Test wickets.The young skipper took on an increasingly beleaguered air. He turned out briefly alongside the abattoir workers and painters of amateur Ireland as an overseas professional, a decision that unambiguously said to Bacher and his cohorts: “Be careful, you might lose me.” The following season, when South Africa were visited by West Indies for the first time, South Africa fielded an all-white side against the visitors’ all-black one in the first Test. The controversy was immediate. Herschelle Gibbs, a Cape coloured, was drafted into the side in the place of Adam Bacher, Ali’s nephew, for the second, but such tinkering did little to placate the politicians. A rancorous season, amped up by an insensitive speech by then UCB president Ray White at Newlands, ended in Cronje resigning, a decision later rescinded.Cronje’s betrayal was keenly felt across the world•Yoav Lemmer/AFPThe problem was clear: Cronje was never quite as liberal as the times demanded. He, whose political attitudes had been formed in the old South Africa, was expected to usher in the new with the blithe sweep of the politician’s practised hand. He couldn’t always do it.As the decade funnelled to an end, Cronje and politicians like Bacher circled each other increasingly warily. What had started so warmly with Woolmer also began to sour. Consecutive World Cup eliminations in 1996 and 1999 didn’t help, the second in excruciating circumstances in the tie at Edgbaston, a muddle memorably captured by the ‘s Scyld Berry as “… the day when time and Allan Donald stood still and Lance Klusener kept on running”.Having toured India in 1991 as the happening youngster, Cronje was in the public eye throughout the decade, South African sport’s first celebrity skipper. Lucas Radebe graced the throne all too briefly, hobbled by injuries. Francois Pienaar might have occupied the position too, but his reign as Springbok player and captain was dazzlingly brief, over in 29 Tests and three years, 1993-1996. Cronje was in the public gaze for triple that time, 1991-2000, longer if one takes his post-cricketing life into account.It was a time during which Afrikaner politicians retired almost completely from the public realm. Into the vacuum flowed sportsmen and public intellectuals like Max du Preez and Antjie Krog. Cronje became the go-to man for young and old Afrikaners alike; he also became a figurehead for all that was perceived as good in the fragile post-apartheid consensus – a new man for a new age. Here was uncharted territory, but his was also a career conducted almost exclusively in the glare of public opinion. It was a difficult burden to bear.ALSO READ: I love Hansie Cronje and I don’t know whyCronje’s dislike of political compromise was one thing, the tragic flaw in his personality quite another. He loved money so much that he was motivated to do wrong for it, a fact known by White – and one therefore almost inevitably known by Bacher. Not enough was made of the flirtation with easy money during the Kanpur Test in 1996, ahead of the Amarnath benefit match, hastily tacked on to the end of a punishing tour without the players’ consent. Woolmer didn’t see fit to include anything in his post-tour report, and by the time a new coach, Graham Ford, took South Africa to India next, in 2000, institutional memory had been lost. Cronje accepted the gift of a cell phone while on that second tour, and unbeknownst to him, his conversations with illegal Indian bookies were taped. Cronje’s web of deceit, his undelivered-upon promises and his manipulation, had begun to unravel.Cronje’s initial denials that he had been involved in match-fixing were met with chest-thumping agreement by the vox populi. Then, a handwritten confession and a teary press conference in Durban in April 2000, ahead of an ODI series against Australia. The bookie, Marlon Aronstam, who had waltzed into Cronje’s hotel room during the last Test of the home summer against England before the India tour, thought Cronje had been pressured into blinking first. The Indian police had no transcripts. “It was his word against theirs – he needed to ride it out,” said Aronstam.

Cricket, a sport of boundaries both actual and moral, had, under Cronje’s perverting touch, revealed itself to be effectively boundary-less

Instead, Cronje unravelled. It became apparent that the idea for each side to forfeit an innings in Centurion against England was not his but Aronstam’s, an act of audacity for which Cronje received R50,000 and a leather jacket for Bertha. While in India weeks later he was receiving upwards of 50 to 60 cell phone calls and text messages a day, as he jokingly floated the idea of underperforming in a Test with Lance Klusener, Mark Boucher and Jacques Kallis.Later in India, with the five-match ODI series already lost, he conspired to involve Gibbs and Henry Williams in underperforming in the fifth ODI in Nagpur. Ever the charming , Gibbs forgot the instructions; Williams injured himself and couldn’t complete the second of his ten overs. Ironically, South Africa won the match, losing the ODI series 3-2.ALSO READ: How the match-fixing drama unfoldedCronje’s confession prompted the King Commission, a soap opera replete with pantomime villains (Aronstam), feisty public prosecutors (Shamila Batohi) and comically unreliable witnesses (Pat Symcox and Daryll Cullinan). Judge Edwin King had begun proceedings by striking the appropriate high note, telling Cronje “the truth shall set you free”, but with hindsight we see that the commission’s intention was palliative. Woolmer wasn’t called as a witness, and neither was Wessels. White, who had a sometimes tetchy relationship with Bacher and was less likely to coat his answers, would have proven invaluable in answering questions. It would have been illuminating, for instance, to hear his answers about the “lost” 1996 tour report to India.All this was conducted in the deforming glare of the television cameras, a place Cronje had occupied, on and off, since his first tour to India in 1991. Essentially an outlier (apartheid-educated, Afrikaans-speaking, from South Africa’s most maligned province), Cronje was not only ill equipped with the diplomacy demanded by the times, he was country’s most scrutinised celebrity sportsman. The pressures he faced were unique, the erosion slow and cumulative. By the end he was lost in a moral wilderness, having breakfast with Aronstam and his son on the morning of a Test, entertaining thoughts of corrupting the match. Cricket, a sport of boundaries both actual and moral, had, under Cronje’s perverting touch, revealed itself to be effectively boundary-less. It had reached a moral degree zero, with Cronje holding the compass. “When I told my friends about having breakfast with Hansie, they couldn’t believe it,” said Aronstam.Neither could we.Excerpted with permission from by Luke Alfred and Ian Hawkey (Pan Macmillan SA, 2019)

Takeaways from the ongoing Vincy T10 Premier League

Deivarayan Muthu23-May-2020Sanitising stations
The players were not allowed to use saliva to shine the ball, as recommended by the ICC, and maintained social distancing at various points. They all entered the field separately and later exited in similar fashion. Both the on-field umpires and even the wicketkeepers were seen wearing masks as a precautionary measure. During the innings break, the ground staff was also seen wearing masks while evening up the patches near the bowlers’ landing area. And as listed in the ICC’s do’s and don’ts, the players refrained from handing their caps and other personal items to the umpires.The ICC had also recommended that players use hand sanitisers to disinfect the ball. Accordingly, the The VPL has set up sanitising stations off the field and monitors the temperature of those going on it.

No spectators in the stands, masks for all players and officials, hand washing stations on and off the field, hand sanitizers, physical distancing rules, temperature checks and more are all in place here at the Vincy Premiere League pic.twitter.com/CGTvRUyN9z

— VINCY PREMIER LEAGUE (VPL T10 ) (@VPLT10) May 23, 2020

Bye-bye hi-fives, hello leg-shakesDespite cricket not being a contact sport, the ICC had recommended that celebrations going forward should not involve any physical contact. Little surprise then that the fall of a wicket in the VPL has been greeted by shaking of legs and punching of ground. It sounds quite odd, doesn’t it? After all, cricket in this region has produced some eye-catching celebrations.Speaking of strange new normals, on the second day of the league, Dark View Explorers’ Denson Hoyte hurt himself in the outfield and landed awkwardly while chasing the ball, but his team-mates made a conscious effort to still maintain social distancing. The medical staff didn’t enter the field either, with Hoyte eventually managing to hobble off the field.No spectators
In an ideal world, Sunil Ambris, a local boy who rose to become a West Indies international, would have been greeted with cheers from the stands. However, in the post Covid-19 world, he came into the attack on the first day amid pin-drop silence. The advice to play behind closed doors was given by the National Covid-19 taskforce.”The St Vincent and the Grenadines Cricket Association would have preferred an option of a limited number of spectators, maybe 300 or 500 max in the stadium; however, the experts expressed some initial concerns,” president Kishore Shallow, who is also the vice-president at CWI (Cricket West Indies) told the VPL website. “They [sic] advised that we attempt to regularise the management of players before we consider having spectators.”On the second day, however, the commentators said that the VPL organisers are exploring the possibility of having a handful of spectators next week. Reports indicate there have been 18 cases of coronavirus in St Vincent and Grenadines, with 14 having recovered.The first ODI between Australia and New Zealand in March earlier this year was the first high-profile match to be played at a closed stadium. However, in the past, Pakistan have played in front of empty stands in the UAE.Catering to the Indian audience
It was Dream11, an India-based sports technology company, that had approached Shallow to put the league together. So, the first of the triple-header kicked off as early as 8.30am local time to attract fantasy-league players from India. All the VPL games will be streamed on the Fancode app.

Kohli, Gayle and de Villiers – but is there anyone else who makes a compelling case?

Gaurav Sundararaman and Saurabh Somani21-May-2020ESPNcricinfo LtdRoyal Challengers BangaloreRoyal Challengers Bangalore are one of the most followed franchises in cricket and have a loyal fan base, despite repeated failures. RCB have made the IPL finals on three occasions, but are yet to win a title. As a team, they have been highly reliant on just two or three players over the last few seasons, and have never been able to put together a potent bowling unit. Among all the teams in this series, RCB was the toughest all-time XI to put together, because very few players were retained by the franchise for a long enough period to make a case, and the gap between the top three players and the rest was huge.The picks
By sheer performance across years, six players were automatic picks. Virat Kohli, Chris Gayle and AB de Villiers were RCB’s best batsmen by far. These three have contributed close to 56% of RCB’s runs across 12 seasons – despite both Gayle and de Villiers not being part of the franchise for all 12 seasons. Among the bowlers, the spin duo of Anil Kumble and Yuzvendra Chahal were automatic selections due to the weight of wickets and an excellent economy rate. Among the zillion domestic pacers that RCB have tried out, only Vinay Kumar stood out. He had some tough seasons but his performance for RCB in the first few editions was remarkable and he is the franchise’s second-highest wicket taker with 80 wickets at an impressive strike rate of 17.8.The debate
There were two overseas spots left. Since 2011, the dependency on Gayle and de Villiers is evident – barring Tillakaratne Dilshan, no other overseas batsman has scored more than 250 runs over nine seasons. If we go back until 2008, we have just two more options in Ross Taylor and Jacques Kallis. Taylor, with 733 runs at an impressive strike rate of 148.68 helped RCB to the finals in 2009 after a disastrous 2008 season. Dilshan and Kallis usually play in the top three, and this team requires more stability in the middle. Hence we went with Taylor. The last overseas slot was a direct shootout between Dale Steyn and Mitchell Starc. Both have very similar stats but Starc’s strike rate and average are slightly superior to that of Steyn while Steyn’s economy rate (6.98) is a tad better than Starc’s (7.16). Starc’s death-overs bowling in more batting friendly seasons of the IPL and his wicket-taking ability put him ahead of Steyn for the last overseas slot.With four bowling options sealed, the choice for the last bowling slot was between Zaheer Khan, Praveen Kumar and S Aravind. Zaheer and Aravind had very similar stats. Both played 44 games and took 49 and 51 wickets respectively. Although Zaheer was more economical, Aravind was chosen ahead of him since he had a much better strike rate and played a crucial role in the two seasons that RCB made the final – in 2011 and 2016.The debate for the other slots was never-ending, with very limited options to choose from. With very few impactful performance from most players, we had to settle for average performers. The all-rounders and middle-order domestic batsmen who did well for RCB over the years were Rahul Dravid, Mandeep Singh, Robin Uthappa and Saurabh Tiwary. All these players had the odd match-winning knock but no one really had a dominant season. Among these players, Uthappa had the best numbers (five fifties with a strike rate of 140) and he can bat anywhere in the top six. We picked him for the finishing kick he can provide. Finally, with five specialist bowlers and five specialist batsmen picked, the last slot could have been either a specialist wicketkeeper or a middle order batsman/all-rounder. Due to the lack of options in the latter, we chose the former. Only two wicketkeepers were eligible – Parthiv Patel and KB Arun Karthik. Parthiv had superior performances and was slotted in as the opener to partner Gayle.RCB have always given the impression of being a collection of superstars more than a team, and the selection of their all-time XI reflects that. The trio of Gayle, de Villiers and Kohli have played together for a long time, but you would struggle to think of them as a team. This team looks a tad lopsided with the absence of a genuine allrounder. So there are six batsmen, including the keeper, and five bowlers. Just like all RCB teams, the all-time XI is also unfortunately highly reliant on Gayle, Kohli and De Villiers to bail them out.Playing XI stats for RCB1. Chris Gayle
91 matches (2011-2017)
Runs 3420, Ave 43.29, SR 154.402. Parthiv Patel
32 matches (2014-2019)
Runs 731, Ave 25.20, SR 130.073. Virat Kohli
192 matches (2008-2019)
Runs 5836, Ave 37.89, SR 132.814. AB de Villiers
127 matches (2011-19)
Runs 3755, Ave 41.72, SR 159.175. Ross Taylor
31 matches (2008-10)
Runs 733, Ave 31.86, SR 148.686. Robin Uthappa
40 matches (2009-10)
Runs 706, Ave 22.77, SR 139.527. Vinay Kumar
70 matches (2008-2013)
Wickets 80, Ave 24.77, ER 8.318. Mitchell Starc
27 matches (2014-15)
Wickets 34, Ave 20.38, ER 7.169. Anil Kumble
51 matches (2008-2010)
Wickets 53, Ave 24.58, ER 6.6510. S Aravind
44 matches (2011-2017)
Wickets 51, Ave 25.25, ER 8.6011. Yuzvendra Chahal
83 matches (2014-2019)
Wickets 100, Ave 22.84, ER 7.77Want to pick your own Royal Challengers all-time XI? Head over to our readers’ voting page here

The latest round-up of how the Australia players are going in the UAE as the IPL starts to take shape

Andrew McGlashan12-Oct-20203:57

What’s behind the success of Anrich Nortje and James Pattinson?

While the Australian domestic season comes to life in Adelaide a group of players continue to ply their trade at the IPL in the UAE. It’s been a mixed week as the points table starts to take a bit of a divide between those pushing for the playoffs and those struggling for momentum. Here’s a round-up of some of the highlightsMaxwell’s frustrationsSo far it has been an IPL to forget for Glenn Maxwell – he has 58 runs from seven innings (and just 61 balls faced) for bottom-of-the-table Kings XI Punjab. Against the Sunrisers Hyderabad he again walked in with his team in bother at 58 for 3 chasing 202 and could only manage 7 off 12 balls before being run out. Against Kolkata Knight Riders he came in during the penultimate over with the Kings XI having made a mess of another chase and faced his first ball at the start of the last over needing 14 to win. When he was on strike for the final ball a six would have forced a Super Over and he came within inches of doing it, but he couldn’t quite get the distance against Sunil Narine. “Shattered,” was his succinct response on Twitter.

Shattered… #gameofinches

— Glenn Maxwell (@Gmaxi_32) October 10, 2020

Stoinis’ new role?Marcus Stoinis began the IPL by plundering 53 off 21 balls and he has had another productive week for the Delhi Capitals. His second fifty – coming off 24 balls – helped provide a critical late surge against the Royal Challengers Bangalore to propel an innings that had been losing its way although he was given three lives. Against the Rajasthan Royals he produced a telling all-round display hitting 39 off 30 balls before taking 2 for 17. Most of Stoinis’ T20 success has come at the top order – Australia coach Justin Langer said that was his best spot – but if he returns from the IPL with another string to his bow it will be very interesting to see where he finds a space in the T20I side to face India having moved around the order against England last month. Before the IPL, his strike-rate at Nos. 5 and 6 was 131.22 but in the this tournament it’s up at 175.00.Marcus Stoinis sent Hardik Pandya back for a duck•BCCIFinch’s Ashwin warningAaron Finch almost became the latest run-out backing up victim for R Ashwin when the Royal Challengers faced the Capitals. Australia’s limited-overs captain strayed a long way out of his crease as Ashwin prepared to bowl the fourth delivery of his opening over, but was spared when Ashwin offered a smile – and later a stern ‘warning’ to any other batsmen. There was much made before the IPL began of Ricky Ponting’s comments that he did not agree with the mode of dismissal and he, too, wore a smile from the dug out when Ashwin resisted. For Finch himself, he has yet to find his best form with just one significant score – his 52 against Mumbai Indians – in six innings.

Let’s make it clear !! First and final warning for 2020. I am making it official and don’t blame me later on. @RickyPonting #runout #nonstriker @AaronFinch5 and I are good buddies btw. #IPL2020

— Ashwin (@ashwinravi99) October 5, 2020

Smith fadesSteven Smith started the tournament in strong form after his return from the concussion that curtailed his series in England, but in the last couple of weeks the runs have been hard to come by. In his last five innings he has a top score of 24 amid a misfiring Royals top order and there have been some ugly hoicks among his dismissals. On Sunday he was run out for 5 against David Warner’s Sunrisers Hyderabad following a mix-up with Jos Buttler. As captain, though, he is now able to call on Ben Stokes who made his first appearance of the competition after returning from compassionate leave.Archer gets Warner, againIt is turning into another very consistent campaign for Warner – only one score below 28 in seven innings – although he has not hit the destructive heights he has shown in the past. His innings against the Royals was particularly hard work to begin with as he ended the Powerplay with 8 off 13 balls as part of a very sluggish 26 for 1. He started to move through the gears after that, but just as he was threatening something substantial his 2020 nemesis struck again: bowled by Jofra Archer for 48.

Looks like @JofraArcher will be getting a new console @xboxuk #SRHvRR | #IPL2020 pic.twitter.com/tcVvDbnlk6

— ESPNcricinfo (@ESPNcricinfo) October 11, 2020

Ins and outsAlex Carey made his first appearance for the Capitals after Rishabh Pant picked up a hamstring injury and will likely get a few more games with Pant expected to be out for a week. AJ Tye was brought by the Royals but went 1 for 50 against the Capitals (and batted No. 7) before being left out again due to Stokes’ return. After two matches in the RCB XI, Adam Zampa is back on the bench. Nathan Coulter-Nile, Daniel Sams, Chris Lynn, Chris Green and Billy Stanlake are still yet to play.

England captain on the need to support the women’s game and promoting equality of opportunity

Interview by Alan Gardner19-Sep-2020First of all, how has your summer been – dealing with life under a pandemic, and uncertainty around the women’s game?
I think like everyone else in the world, it’s been very surreal, very strange. We’ve been a bit unlucky in terms of who we were originally due to play, with South Africa and India being two of the worst-affected countries in the world with Covid. But we’ve got some cricket to look forward to. It’s been very topsy-turvy, a lot of uncertainty but it’s great that the West Indies have come over. We’re very grateful to them, their board and the ECB for making it happen.Did life under lockdown make you focus on things outside of cricket?
The first month back was really nice, because we’d been away for seven weeks at the T20 World Cup, it was lovely to chill out, do the weekly shop and spend some time with loved ones. After that I started to get itchy feet. It definitely made me think about what I might do when cricket’s not there, because it is such a massive part of your life and you’re on the international treadmill so much of the year or you’re playing in another tournament, and you never really have the chance to stop and think. So I signed up for a Masters during lockdown, which starts in January – it’s in Leadership in Sport, at the University of Buckingham, the course that Ed Smith is involved in running, Hopefully I can find the time to fit that in. It would have been ideal to do during lockdown, but it’s actually been delayed until January, because of Covid. It’s something I’ve always wanted to do, a bit more study, and just haven’t really made the time or made the effort, and lockdown has given me a little push to think about what I want to do afterwards, and expand myself as a person a little bit as well.Even more importantly, when you came on the Switch Hit podcast in April, you revealed that you were in the process of watching the Star Wars films for the first time. Have you seen them all now?
Yes, I have, fully up to date, got through them all in lockdown. I know this won’t be very popular but I enjoyed the new ones – I’m obviously not a true Star Wars fan. The newest newest ones. I wasn’t down with Jar-Jar Binks.ALSO READ: ‘I can’t go off with a broken nail, I know comments will get made’ – CrossAs for the cricket, planned tours by India and South Africa had to be shelved. Were you beginning to think you wouldn’t play this season?
I think when South Africa pulled out, there was a little bit of a worry that we weren’t going to be playing at all. It was a bad few days to be honest, we were in Derby in a bubble, the World Cup got cancelled and then South Africa pulled out and it was kind of ‘Why are we living bubble life when we haven’t got anything to prepare for?’ But we turned it around quite quickly, the ECB were amazing in getting the West Indies sorted, [it only took] 10 days to get them over. Until South Africa got cancelled I had it in my head that we were definitely playing, so that was a bit of a shock, but these things happen in these times and great that the West Indies could fill the void and save our summer.England were knocked out of the T20 World Cup at the start of the year by rain, then came the pandemic, another event out of your control. Apart from wanting to move on from 2020 as quickly as possible, did you fear that the women’s game would be set back significantly?
Going back to the World Cup semi-final that we lost through rain – when we got back to England, the pandemic gave us a lot of perspective on that. There was no time to mull on it because there was a lot bigger things going on in the world at the time that obviously had far greater consequences. In terms of whether we would play, it was quite worrying, but we always believed that the ECB would do everything in their power to try and get us some cricket, which has obviously happened. They’ve committed to the England women’s game, to the women’s game as a whole, and backed that up with actions this summer, which I think has been brilliant to see. I honestly don’t think it would have happened three-four years ago, there wouldn’t have been that commitment to take the effort and the money needed to get cricket on.The World Cup has moved, so 2022 is looking like a very hectic year but hopefully it all happens then. It’s not ideal, you prepare yourself as a player to try to win world events, you prepare as a team in that four-year cycle to peak at that time, and there’s a lot of shifting parts at the moment we don’t know exactly what our winter looks like. We know it’s very likely we’ll be playing cricket somewhere, we don’t know exactly what that is at the moment. For us as players now it’s important we enjoy the cricket we have got here, enjoy being back out in the Three Lions and not thinking too far ahead.Rain ruined England’s chances of progression to the final of the Women’s T20 World Cup•ICC/GettyYou would have been preparing for England’s World Cup defence over the winter, and tweeted your disappointment when the tournament was postponed. Do you still fear Covid will be used as an excuse to put women’s cricket “on the back burner” for the next 12 months?
It still is a fear. I think the boards that have committed more to women’s cricket, and have more funds available, I think they’ll be fine, they’ll play a lot of cricket. It’s the boards that potentially aren’t as rich, and haven’t supported the women’s game as much previously, that need real help from the ICC to get cricket on. Because at the moment it costs a lot, it’s a lot of effort.I think women’s cricket really needs to get back, it needs everyone playing to have that healthy competition that’s made it so successful. The T20 World Cup was even bigger and better than the last one, it keeps building year on year, the interest keeps growing. Even the domestic games that have started in this country, the viewers on the live stream, the figures have been unreal. It shows there’s a real appetite for people to watch women’s cricket. It needs that support to keep going on an upwards trajectory, and like I said the ECB have backed up their words in support of the women’s game with actions this summer, which is what you want to see around the world.Do you think that it’s time the ICC set up a fund specifically to support the women’s game – like it has done previously with men’s Test cricket?
That would be great, that would make a big statement. I know they cancelled the World Cup because they felt teams wouldn’t have the required preparation to be ready, but if teams don’t play for another 12 months, say, that’s going to be exactly the same when the World Cup comes around in 2022. A year not playing international cricket for a player will stunt their growth. So a fund would be amazing, I know it’s tough at the moment, there’s only so much money and everyone is struggling and wants support. But yeah, I think that would be a really strong move by the ICC that they do back the women’s game and want to see it grow. Obviously it’s starting to become a real commercial product, as well, so the more support it gets the more it’s going to grow.Is it frustrating when you see the World Cup moved by a year, only for the IPL to be starting this month – or for South Africa’s women to be denied the chance to tour, when individual men’s players can head to the IPL?
Yeah, I think so, I guess that was my point when I tweeted. The worry is that the reason for the World Cup getting cancelled in terms of preparation… if it’s not going to happen in New Zealand, in the safest country in the world, then it’s not going to happen until there’s a vaccine. It’s tricky, I know a lot of events have been cancelled, but it was still quite a while away and what with it being in NZ you felt there was a chance for it to go on. I know it would take a lot of effort. It is a bit frustrating but I guess now the disappoint has worn off and I’m trying to shift my mindset into looking forward at the opportunities we’ve got, We’ve got another year to build into that World Cup and really be in a good place for it. Decisions above us affect everything we do as women cricketers, but they’re out of our control.

As females I think [Black Lives Matter] touches a nerve, in terms of growing up a lot of us faced barriers to entry into cricket and we want the sport to be gender neutral, race neutral

This has been marked down as a significant year for women’s cricket in England and Wales, with a new domestic structure and extra funding for player contracts. Despite the impact of Covid-19, the ECB has maintained its commitment – which must be encouraging?
I think there is massive optimism. The Rachael Heyhoe Flint trophy has been launched, it was brilliant to be part of that. Although we should have been playing international cricket, it was great to be part of history and the start of that competition. They’ve put so many resources into getting us cricket this summer, it’s been unbelievable the detail that’s had to go into it. Our medical staff are unreal and all the team behind getting the bubble set up, chartering the West Indies over, it’s amazing really. We’re so grateful as players to be able to play some cricket. The support from the ECB has been unreal, the PCA have been brilliant as well, so we’re really hopeful that the growth in this country will continue and women’s cricket is in a really good place. I think a potential positive of Covid is it gives people a chance to reassess where the game is at, how it can improve, and how things can be done differently to make it truly a gender neutral sport. It’s given people the chance to have those thoughts and think how we can do things better as a whole. Part of that is making the sport more inclusive, for gender, race, etc, so hopefully those changes will be one very small positive from the pandemic.Does the move to regional centres, rather than women’s teams being attached to counties, help with that?
Yeah, it’s created a real structure that’s going to be great for a young player in this country. They’ve got a chance to come out of school and be a professional cricketer. We had Issy Wong who had her A-level results during that first bubble at Derby and she’s going straight into her first contract – that made me feel very old. She’s on one of the domestic contracts, so it gives her the chance to improve and get some good cricket behind her before, hopefully, she comes through in an England shirt, which wasn’t the case when my generation was coming through the system. It’s going to give a lot more competitive cricket to the girls in the system, which is only going to be a good thing to keep churning out England cricketers. And if someone is unfortunate enough to drop out of the system and lose their England contract, they’ve got a safety net. They’re not just going into the abyss, they’ve got the regional system to fall back on.Presumably that will help to create more of a production line for new players?
Yeah, and I think we’re starting to see that. It was brilliant to have 24 players in those first bubbles at Derby and Loughborough, because it gave the coaches a bit longer to work with those players on the fringes and you really saw them improve as cricketers. Having that system now, helping those girls to develop, is only going to be a good thing. It will take a bit of time, in terms of the domestic structure Australia has, that started a long time before. It will take time to get that strong domestic competition [here] and that real depth, but we definitely are starting to see that already.What about the prospect of more multi-day cricket being played in future?
I’d always want to play more, I really enjoy it. But that’s something that hasn’t grown the game. The administrators have seen T20 as a way to grow the women’s game and it’s been very successful. There’s two sides to it, I’d love to play more as a player, but I understand why we don’t.England Women’s captain Heather Knight returned to individual training in June•Getty ImagesThe ECB has marketed September as Women’s Big Cricket Month, which will include the RHF Trophy final being shown on Sky and the return of England Women to BBC TV.
It’s exciting, a real chance to showcase what we can do. Hopefully there’ll be a bigger viewership with the amount of sport that people have been able to see over lockdown. All five T20Is are on Sky, who have supported the women’s game brilliantly, but I guess the BBC gives us that slightly different platform to reach people who might not have watched women’s cricket before – Saturday, prime time afternoon slot, so hopefully people will tune in and enjoy.What about equal pay, something that has happened recently in football – could the ECB break another barrier there?
I don’t think we’re there yet. Obviously the men’s game at the moment brings in a lot more commercially. Until we starts filing stadiums consistently I don’t think we’re in a place where we can do that. I think the most important thing is we’re making really good progress and it’s not just at the top of the game, it’s filtering through, with the domestic set-up being the best it’s ever been. Making sure that money is spread throughout the game is really important. If we were getting exactly the same pay as the men, it would not be feasible as a business model. I think we’re completely realistic with where we’re at and just happy to keep seeing progress. I still have to pinch myself in terms of how much the game has developed, you forget how you started and what it was like ten years ago. I’m just excited to see where it could be in another ten years’ time.Another theme of the summer has been the Black Lives Matter movement and the subject of diversity in cricket. You’ve already said the team is planning a gesture of support, has the topic been much discussed?
Yeah, we had a chat about it this afternoon, and we’re keen to show our support as a team, show that for us it’s a really important thing. As females I think it touches a nerve as well, in terms of growing up a lot of us faced barriers to entry into cricket and we want the sport to be gender neutral, race neutral and people to have as much opportunity to be involved in the game as anyone else. We decided as a squad we want to do something, I know West Indies are keen to do something as well. What exactly that looks like we’ll sort that out, but we’re keen to show our support and keep conversations happening, and hopefully that leads to actions.Michael Holding was recently critical of England and Australia not taking a knee in their series. Would you have planned to do something, regardless of the opponents being West Indies?
I think so. Having followed a lot of it closely during lockdown, I definitely wanted the team to do something no matter who we were playing against. It’s turned out that it’s West Indies but I think it’s important that we do that, it’s the first cricket we’ve played and we want to show our support.There is only one BAME player in the current England Women’s squad – allrounder Sophia Dunkley – and only a handful have been capped in the modern era. Is there specific work that can be done in that area?
There’s probably multiple reasons why that’s the case. Opportunity is a big one, I guess a lot of us as players got into the game through our families and that was one of the only ways you did it because cricket wasn’t played by females in schools very often, and generally cricket has not been particularly diverse. That needs to change, there needs to be more opportunities for all people to get involved, and actioning the conversations that have gone on is really key. Cricket historically has had a class issue and that’s meant that a large proportion of people haven’t been able to get involved in the sport. So there’s things going on, I’ve spoke to the ECB and the PCA and they’re doing lots of things to try and change that. I think it will take a bit of time, but yeah – as gender neutral, as race neutral we can get the sport, the more everyone is going to benefit.Has all this time spent in bubbles allowed you and head coach Lisa Keightley, who took over last year, to work on your blueprint for the team?
Yeah, we’ve had a lot of planning time, a lot of Zoom calls. It’s given us a real chance to sit down and work out where we want the team to go. Lisa was very new in the role leading into the T20 World Cup, so hadn’t had a chance to implement and talk about the things she wanted to do. She’s been really clear, we’ve had some good chats about how we want to push forward and I think we’re starting to see that already. I really hope it transfers into the games that we’re playing, we’ve got a bit of a long-term plan leading into 2022, particularly in T20 cricket as that’s the focus this summer. We’ve had good conversations about how far we can go because we’ve got such amazing talent in this team but haven’t won a T20 trophy for a long time, so that’s a big goal for us, to set the standard and push the game forward. Australia have done that over the last period so we want to shift that a little bit and be the ones that are setting how good we can be in T20.Heather Knight was involved in the inaugural rounds of the Rachael Heyhoe Flint Trophy•PA Images via Getty ImagesAre there particular areas you’re looking to strengthen?
I think what’s cost us a lot in the last 12 months in T20 is that we’ve been chasing the game. We haven’t got off to the starts we’ve wanted with the bat and had to do a bit of damage control and then go again. Our middle order has stuck out during that period, Nat [Sciver] has been outstanding but we want to start from ball one, get ahead of the game and keep going all the way through. That doesn’t always happen in T20 cricket but we want to throw the first punch if we can, rather than play catch-up.With the bowlers as well, they’ve not really had a full-time coach for a period of time, so we’re really starting to see the benefit of having Tim Macdonald in that role consistently. Seeing the clarity the bowlers have now in their death plans, and how they improved in that World Cup I think was really down to Tim. Probably taking wickets in the Powerplay, as well, hasn’t been our strength. But we’re starting to put together a squad that are really pushing the boundaries, and there’s real competition for those spots. You saw it in the warm-up games at Loughborough and Derby, players are starting to put in really strong performances and make it tricky to pick that final XI.Who are the players that have stood out for you in the RHF Trophy?
The new competition puts players on the stage to push their case for selection, and that wasn’t really the case with county cricket. Sophie Luff’s someone I know really well, having played with her for a long time, I know the value she adds and she’s just been a run machine down at Bristol, putting in the performances. So her doing that consistently, you start to think ‘Could she be in and around the squad?’ We’ve got some real talent – Sophia Dunkley and Katie George have been added to that World Cup squad and they’re two very exciting players. Georgia Adams is doing very well, someone that’s been consistent in county cricket for a long time. Being able to watch all those games [online], you get a feel for how they play, which is so useful when you do bring players in. You know a lot more about their games, where previously you wouldn’t have a clue, you’d just see a scorecard.You’ve mentioned before how on-field stuff is only a small proportion of captaincy. Presumably this period has been all about the off-field support you can provide players?
I’ve got a really good group of senior players around me. The hardest thing about being in the bubble, it’s hard to get away from cricket. When it’s not going well for a player it can be hard, because when you’re on tour you might go see a friend or family, get away for dinner, you wouldn’t think about cricket. But here you open your curtains and see the ground and it can get a bit claustrophobic, particularly if things aren’t going great. So just trying to get the girls to relax, there’s lots of social events going on, lots of card games. There’s a good games room and quite a few coffee machines going around. So it’s being there to support the girls and knowing where they are at. Some players might need a bit of space, don’t want you knocking on the door asking if you’re okay all the time. Because we know each other as a squad so well you start to learn what people need at certain times.We’ve discussed the uncertainty over England’s schedule this winter, but what’s next personally?
It’s about 90% confirmed that I’ll be going to the Big Bash. There’ll be a group of us going, we don’t know exactly what the quarantine period looks like yet, we’ve got a few briefings to come. We’re going to have to quarantine for 14 days in some capacity, there’s chance it could be in a hotel room which isn’t ideal, or it might look a little bit different. But it’s the new life of a cricketer, going from bubble to bubble at the moment, which is tough but the way it is. We’re just grateful that were getting cricket on, even if it involves a bit of sacrifice. I always wanted to go out and play if I could, even if it meant potentially going insane for 14 days. But I’m sure I’ll be able to get through it.

Wells was released by Sussex and did not play a game in the Bob Willis Trophy this summer

Matt Roller18-Nov-2020Luke Wells’ association with Sussex spans far longer than his 10 years on the club’s books as a professional. He played for their age-group teams since he was a boy, while his father Alan and uncle Colin scored nearly 30,000 first-class runs for the county between them.As such, it is no surprise that it is still yet to sink in that he is now a Lancashire player. “In 2019, we played them and they completely killed Sussex,” he recalls via Zoom, before tailing off and correcting himself. “I need to get used to saying ‘we’. completely killed Sussex.” It may be some time before that becomes second nature.It can only be hoped that the nature of his exit will not ruin Wells’ memories of his time at Hove. He scored 18 first-class hundreds in a Sussex shirt, all of them in first-class cricket. While the runs dried up somewhat in his final years at the club, it is only so long since he was being talked up as a potential England opener.”I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t disappointed with the manner in which it ended,” he admits. “I know the financial situation was difficult and tough decisions had to be made [but] it potentially could have been handled a bit better. But look, I’ve been associated with the club since forever. I’ll always have a connection with this place, and I’ll always remember the good times.”ALSO READ: Luke Wells signs for Lancashire on two-year deal after Sussex releaseIf the response on social media was anything to go by, then Wells’ release came as a surprise to many. “Surely someone must sign Luke Wells,” tweeted Rob Key. “Proper player,” noted Jofra Archer, “and can bowl too.”

“I felt quite helpless and stuck. It was challenging, there’s no doubt about it. My fiancée and I have got a little boy who will be three in February, and there’s mortgages and all the normal stuff”Luke Wells didn’t play a game for Sussex in the Bob Willis Trophy

In fact, he had seen it coming a long way off. At the start of lockdown, Wells had raised his concerns to this website about the possibility of the whole season being lost, knowing that after two lean years, he was not guaranteed a contract extension. “Normally it’s black and white: you’re judged on performance, runs and wickets are your currency,” he said. “But if we play no red-ball cricket whatsoever, what happens?”Three months later, in the days before Sussex’s first Bob Willis Trophy game, he was asked to come into training earlier than usual. “I had a sit-down meeting on the square with Ben Brown, Jason Gillespie, Jason Swift and James Kirtley,” he recalls. “I was basically told I wasn’t playing and the numerous reasons why – technical, and all sorts of other things.”That was only for the first game, but there was no second-team cricket this year. I was coming to the last year of my contract and hadn’t gone that well previously, so I needed an opportunity to prove myself. I asked: ‘What can I do to get back into the team? Am I in your plans?’ I was told: ‘Unfortunately, with such a short season, we’re unlikely to change the team’.”I felt quite helpless and stuck. It was challenging, there’s no doubt about it. My fiancée and I have got a little boy who will be three in February, and there’s mortgages and all the normal stuff [to worry about]. The lack of control and not knowing what would happen was the most difficult thing. You’re planning for when it ends, but when your career is potentially cut in half in the midst of the economic situation we’re in now, it’s scary and stressful.”Luke Wells shovels into the leg side•MI News/NurPhoto via Getty ImagesWells is studying for a history degree at the Open University and doing his coaching badges, but had not banked on the prospect of finding himself without a club at the age of 29. Various counties were interested in signing him before Lancashire ramped up their pursuit, but there were stumbling blocks due to the obvious financial uncertainty.”I was staring down the barrel of having played my last game, given the situation with Covid, all the uncertainty, finances, budgets… A lot of counties were coming back to me saying: ‘We’d love to have you, but finances [are the problem]. After staring the reality of not playing again in the face, I’m so excited now to be able to continue doing what I love for a living.”Wells would normally be playing grade cricket in Melbourne at this time of year, but has instead been packing boxes ahead of his move up north at the end of this week. His first day in pre-season training is on Monday, and after signing a two-year deal, he has some level of security at the club.He will have something to prove when he pulls on the red rose for the first time. After piling on over 1,200 Championship runs in 2017, Wells averaged in the mid-20s in both of the following two seasons, and admits that his performances “haven’t been at the level I would expect of myself”.He recalls a “eureka moment” in the nets while out of the Sussex side this summer, when he worked out that a technical flaw had crept in, and insists he can get back to his best after becoming “potentially a bit stale, without really realising it”. Following two seasons without a white-ball appearance, Wells’ cause may be helped by the anticipated absence of several Lancashire players during the One-Day Cup next season due to their involvement in the Hundred, and his legspin could come in useful, too.But for now, he is simply looking forward to playing the game again. “I don’t usually say stuff like ‘things happen for a reason’ – I’m not that type of guy. But I suppose going through something like this will, hopefully, give me a fresh lease of life and a challenge to embrace at Lancashire.”It’s very doubtful that I could come across a more stressful year than what this one has been, so I’m just going to try and enjoy every moment: the ups and the downs.”

He doesn’t come across as a good fit in T20s, but he sure does wallop that cricket ball in the first six overs

Alagappan Muthu27-Oct-20203:37

Who made the bigger impression – Warner or Saha?

It was a block. At best a push.  Except, a split second later, Kagiso Rabada was sprawled on the ground at deep point and the ball had rolled away to nuzzle with the rope.Wriddhiman Saha hit 12 fours and two sixes on Tuesday. Nothing captured his charm as well as that almost accidental boundary.This was only his second match of IPL 2020 and it took a collapse of 10 for 58 to call him up off the bench. But he wasn’t really meant to be the solution though. He was collateral. Sunrisers Hyderabad wanted to bulk up the middle order with Kane Williamson and to do that they had to sacrifice their wicketkeeper Jonny Bairstow.Saha probably doesn’t care about things like that. He waited virtually the entire length of MS Dhoni’s career to get a chance to keep wicket for India in Test cricket. What’s a dozen matches in the IPL? The important thing was, he was in.It isn’t widely known but Saha has a strike rate of 137.50 in the first six overs of an IPL game. How good is that? Well, it’s better than Chris Gayle (134.97).ALSO READ: The Cricket Monthly – The long waits of Wriddhiman SahaMost batsmen, at the start of their innings, take their time to get set. It’s the normal thing to do, when you can play every shot in the book and leave commentators gasping. Saha is not like that. He has a limited range so he has no choice but to start fast.On Tuesday, he faced 10 balls in the powerplay and hit four of them to the fence. One was an inside edge that could easily have bowled him. Another was an uncontrolled pull shot that could have gone anywhere.David Warner bumps fists with Wriddhiman Saha after the latter’s innings ended just short of a century•BCCISome would see these incidents as warning signs. They’ll decide to wait a little while before taking another risk, but Saha kept going.This is a man whose next game is not guaranteed. Heck, he was playing this one as a makeshift measure.Saha has stood right on the edge of a gaping precipice for virtually the entire length of his IPL career – that’s 122 matches – knowing the slightest slip up could be the end of him. And yet, every time he goes out to bat, he looks for the maximum runs he can take off the ball.He’s a walking, talking supernova, doing whatever it takes to burn as bright as he can, all the while knowing his own fire could just as easily consume him.What could possibly compel anyone to play like this? Saha’s answer was quite matter-of-fact. “It’s for the team,” he said with a smile on his face and the Man-of-the-Match award in his hands.And there’s the rub. Saha knows he can score more runs batting within himself. Plus, he is a gorgeous player of spin, with every kind of sweep in his locker, not to mention the skill to dance down the pitch to someone of even Ashwin’s quality and loft him clean over his head. He very well bat like everyone else and give himself a chance to feast on the kind of bowling he likes.But that doesn’t help the team. And it doesn’t help him get another game. The only thing that does is proving over and over and over again that he can score as quickly as anyone in the game. Of the 47 players who have faced at least 400 balls in the powerplay, only four have a better strike-rate than Saha.The Capitals coach Ricky Ponting is one of the most intuitive people in cricket. He knew Saha would play this game. He had his team prepared for it. And yet, at the end of it all, at the post-match press conference, he was left marvelling at the wicketkeeper’s impact.”Saha played beautifully today,” Ponting said. “He actually surprised me a little bit. I know he can be a dangerous player. But to come back in after a few games out and play like he did was a super knock and probably the difference in the game, to be honest.”Praise doesn’t come higher than that.

And why did Andre Russell bowl only two overs?

Karthik Krishnaswamy13-Apr-20211:44

Dasgupta: Krunal and Chahar brought MI back into the game

Why did KKR bowl five straight overs of spin at the start?
Only once in the past had a team bowled five straight overs of spin to start an IPL innings. That was the Kolkata Knight Riders as well, back in 2014 against the Chennai Super Kings in Ranchi.Seven years later, it was once again the Knight Riders who went all-spin through the first five overs of an IPL innings. What might their thinking have been?A rare choice: spinners bowling first five overs of an IPL innings•ESPNcricinfoPart of the reason for this could have been Mumbai’s opening combination. In IPL matches since the start of 2019, Rohit Sharma had averaged 13.16 and struck at 98.75 against spin in the powerplay as against 41.33 and 131.44 against pace, before this game. In the same period, Quinton de Kock had managed a strike rate of only 101.65 against spin in the powerplay as compared to 149.85 against pace.Given this, the Knight Riders may have preferred having their spinners bowl as much as possible when one or both of the openers were in the middle, rather than later on, against Ishan Kishan, Hardik Pandya, Kieron Pollard and Krunal Pandya, who are all fearsome six-hitters against spin.One other reason behind the Knight Riders front-loading with spin could have been the possibility of dew setting in as the evening progressed. The team may have decided to allow the spinners to bowl the bulk of their overs with a relatively dry ball, rather than come up against those middle-order six-hitters with their grip on the ball compromised.Why did Andre Russell only bowl two overs?
Andre Russell finished the innings with a five-wicket haul in only 12 balls, which may have left viewers wondering why the Knight Riders didn’t use him earlier.The answer lies in Russell’s creaking knees, which force the Knight Riders to use his bowling only sparingly and only seldom get four overs out of him. Even across two overs, though, he remains a valuable bowler at the death, as he showed today with his smart use of angles – around the wicket to right-hand batsmen and over the wicket to left-handers – to keep the ball away from the batsmen’s natural hitting arc and make it extremely difficult for them to access the leg side.Why did Rohit Sharma bowl the 14th over of KKR’s innings?
Rohit Sharma was once a fairly regular white-ball bowler, and even took an IPL hat-trick in 2009, but those days are long gone, thanks to injuries that have curtailed his bowling. So why did he bring himself on today, and bowl for the first time since IPL 2014?Given the turn on offer at Chepauk, and also the two-paced nature of the surface, Rohit may well have been mentally prepared to bowl even before the match began, to fulfill the role of Mumbai’s third spinner in case two left-handers were at the crease, given that both their frontline spinners turn the ball into the left-hander.When the 14th over began, the Knight Riders had two left-handers in the middle: a set Nitish Rana and a new-to-the-crease Shakib Al Hasan. Rohit came close to twisting his ankle before he’d even bowled his first ball, but he eventually managed to send down six reasonable deliveries, one of which nearly had Shakib inside-edging onto his stumps.The other reason Rohit bowled himself may have been to allow Krunal Pandya to come on when Dinesh Karthik and then Andre Russell came to the middle. On this slow turner, Russell in particular struggled to get to grips with Krunal’s changes of pace, and could have been out twice.Did Krunal deceive Shakib with his use of the crease?
The very best spinners defeat batsmen in the air with drift and dip, but sometimes you can beat a batsman for length by other means too. When Shakib swept Krunal straight into the hands of deep square leg in the 16th over of the Knight Riders innings, it appeared like a routine T20 dismissal – an aggressive shot not quite managing to evade a deep fielder.But replays suggested Krunal may have earned the wicket – at least partially – with a bit of trickery. Rather than releasing the ball as he normally would, Krunal delivered this one from well behind the crease, when he was roughly adjacent to the stumps. This may have caused Shakib to misjudge the length of the ball, and miscue his attempted sweep.Experts often talk about the use of the crease while bowling, but that’s usually restricted to the width of the crease. Krunal may well cause them to start talking about the use of its depth as well.

The superhero we deserve

Nagraj Gollapudi27-Apr-2021″How does he do it?”The question everyone asks every time AB de Villiers plays a magical T20 innings. Several of those memorable knocks have come in the IPL, where de Villiers is 22 short of compiling 5000 tournament runs. To mark the milestone, we look at some of his best IPL blitzes. (And before you complain about an omission – this is not a definitive list, and it is not ranked in any particular order.)133 not out vs Mumbai Indians, Mumbai, 2015
The onslaught was so severe that Irfan Pathan wanted a petition signed by bowlers against de Villiers, who made his highest score in T20 cricket – and probably the best of his three centuries in the IPL. At the receiving end were Rohit Sharma’s Mumbai Indians, whose various plans were flayed to different parts of the Wankhede Stadium. de Villiers joined Virat Kohli at the crease when RCB were 20 for 1 in the fourth over – which turned out to be a maiden, with Lasith Malinga bowling five dot balls to the new batter. From there, de Villiers and Kohli raised a 215-run partnership – a record for the second wicket until they broke it a year later. It was de Villiers’ balance, Brendon McCullum said later, that stood out. He spared no bowler, including Jasprit Bumrah, who bowled five full tosses in the innings. Amazingly, though he hit only four sixes, his strike rate ended up being 225105 not out vs Chennai Super Kings, Durban, 2009

This was his first century in the IPL. de Villiers walked in to bat second ball of the match and remained undefeated in an innings that delighted even the purists. It was an innings of two halves. He was happy to rotate strike for the first 50 runs. But once he got a reprieve when Albie Morkel dropped a sitter at long-on, it triggered a rampage, during which he went from 79 to 100 in the space of five balls from Andrew Flintoff, hitting two slog-sweeps, a cover drive and a front-pull to the boundary.In Durban in 2009, de Villiers took 35 balls to get his first fifty and only 17 more to get to his hundred• Anesh Debiky/Getty Images89 not out vs Sunrisers Hyderabad, Bengaluru, 2014
RCB needed 28 runs from the final two overs, with de Villiers the last recognised batter. Dale Steyn, whose first three overs had gone for 16 runs, came on to bowl the 19th over. If Steyn thought he had done well to erase the memory of the 23 runs de Villiers had taken off him in a single over at the same ground two years ago, he was in for a setback. de Villiers started with a pulled six to square leg, hit another into the sightscreen, and finished by jumping outside off to scoop the final ball over fine leg, bringing the target down to four from the final over. That 24-run over earned him raucous applause from the crowd, and later, a hug from Steyn. Among his eight sixes was a straight one to long-on, deposited into a steel container next to the Sunrisers’ dugout – fitting, on a day when he literally binned the opposition.79 not out vs Gujarat Lions, Qualifier, Bengaluru, 2016
Chasing 159 to reach the final, RCB were 29 for 5 inside the first six overs and 70 for 6 at the halfway stage, with de Villiers left to shepherd the tail through the rest of innings. He was cautious to begin with, but once he had hit the first boundary, the dam broke, and he ended up scoring 50 of his 79 runs in boundaries. The best stroke came when RCB needed 26 from 20 balls and de Villiers had just slogged Praveen Kumar for a six. He now nonchalantly reverse-swept the bowler from leg stump, beating short third man for an easy four. He finished the job with ten balls to spare and said at the press conference: “I honestly don’t give a rat’s… damn about any stat. I don’t care about hundreds, fifties, averages. Tonight was special for me.”Final warning: de Villiers’ unbeaten 79 took RCB to the 2016 IPL final•BCCI90 not out vs Delhi Daredevils, Bengaluru, 2018
When de Villiers walked in to bat in the fifth over, against left-arm spinner Shahbaz Nadeem, the Daredevils captain, Gautam Gambhir, placed himself as one of the two slips. The aggressive move was justified because Nadeem had conceded only 22 runs off 23 deliveries to de Villiers, with one four, in the IPL previously. Now, though, in the first seven deliveries he faced, de Villiers picked five boundaries off Nadeem. It was conscious decision to counterattack, de Villiers said after the match, because he was “feeling threatened” by Nadeem. His 24-ball half-century, then the third fastest in the IPL, helped RCB seal the win with 12 balls to spare. According to ESPNcricinfo’s Smart Stats index, the innings was worth as much as a 39-ball 130.73 not out vs Kolkata Knight Riders, Sharjah, 2020
That de Villiers bats on a different plane is not a myth – this innings was evidence of it. On a pitch that was slow and gripping, where even Kohli struggled for fluency, de Villiers muscled sub-120kph offcutters out of the small ground with ridiculous ease. He recognised early on that he needed the ball to come into his “box”, an area he has mentally mapped around him on the pitch where he can play the ball under his eyes. If the ball lands there, regardless of pace or length, he is poised to attack. It was not just the inexperienced pair of Prasidh Krishna and Kamlesh Nagarkoti who were given the stick, Pat Cummins and Andre Russell came in for punishment too. de Villiers said he had felt a special “energy” and “a bit of light out of my eye” when he stepped off the bus that day. Kohli described the innings as “superhuman”.