All posts by n8rngtd.top

ESPNcricinfo presents the plays of the day from the opening day of the Ashes series

George Dobell and Jarrod Kimber at Trent Bridge10-Jul-2013Telling moment of the dayThe checked swipe that Jonathan Trott aimed at his stumps the moment after his dismissal spoke volumes: he knew he had squandered a golden opportunity to contribute a match defining innings and he was furious with himself. Trott had looked in superb form: there had been nine fours in his 48, several of them caressed to the boundary with beautifully sweet timing. But, drawn into driving at one well outside off stump by the deserving Peter Siddle, Trott inside-edged the ball on to his stumps. The bowler, varying his angle of delivery on the crease intelligently, undoubtedly deserved some credit, but Trott knew he had been the chief architect of his own downfall.Ball of the dayOn a day when most wickets owed more to batsman error than bowling skill, it was Michael Clarke’s misfortune to receive a peach of a delivery from James Anderson. Angled in but moving away off the pitch to beat Clarke’s perfectly respectable forward defensive stroke and clipping the top of off stump, it was a delivery of which Fred Trueman, the man whose Test wicket tally of 307 Anderson surpassed with this wicket, would have been proud. Now only Sir Ian Botham, with 383, and Bob Willis, with 325, have more Test wickets than Anderson among England bowlers.First impressions of the day
Steve Harmison and Michael Slater have ensured that the first ball of the Ashes is a big deal. James Pattinson obviously agreed, and despite his hairstyle suggesting the opposite, he is an aggressive man who wants to leave his mark. Clearly he decided that one way to do it was by knocking Cook’s head off first ball. Instead his masculine opening ended up sailing comfortably over the Cook’s head and ended up being a wide. It wasn’t a ‘Harmy’. But the next few balls were almost as bad as the Harmy second slip effort.Review of the daySteven Finn once batted for what felt like 28 days. It only felt like that if you were watching it, but at times grass stopped growing. With Swann at the crease an innings of turgid determination from Finn was what England would want. Instead Finn wafted at his first ball like he was trying to fit in with England’s top order batsmen. Then he reviewed his waft. It looked no better using the hot spot camera. Finn may have believed that he had hit the ground and indeed he had, but he had also nicked the ball. In the end, he spent far more time reviewing the ball than he did actually batting.Bowling change of the daySiddle had made a decidedly underwhelming start to his day when Clarke swung him around to the Radcliffe Road End. With figures of 4-0-27-0 to his name, Siddle charged in at Joe Root and produced a ball that was fast, full and bending treacherously late. It was much too good for Root, who tried to jam down it but played inside the swinging line, his off stump tilting back as Siddle charged down the wicket towards his captain. Another four wickets proved Siddle’s value to Australia, but they may not have happened at all without the change of ends.Flight of the dayUnderlining the significance of this series in England in both cultural and marketing terms, the Red Arrows – the Royal Air Force’s aerobatic team – staged a nine-plane ‘flypast’ just as Alastair Cook and Joe Root emerged from the pavilion to start the first innings of the series. Meanwhile the band of the Coldstream Guards entertained the full house crowd – a somewhat ironic choice bearing in mind Nottinghamshire’s decision to stop Billy Cooper, the Barmy Army’s trumpeter, from playing his instrument – while opera singer Lesley Garrett sang the national anthems.

Injuries and several underwhelming performances stood in Rubel’s way in the past. Against New Zealand, the ‘introvert’ showed a different side to himself

Mohammad Isam in Mirpur29-Oct-2013Rubel Hossain’s international career of nearly five years has been one of constant ups and downs, the likes of which not many of his team-mates can relate to so early in their careers. The six-wicket haul and hat-trick which triggered the 43-run win over New Zealand in Mirpur was a performance that should give him a lot more confidence on and off the field.He became the first Bangladeshi bowler to take four wickets or more on ODI debut, his 4 for 33 setting up a win against Sri Lanka in early 2009. In the next match however, he was the villain, getting hit for four fours and two sixes by, of all people, Muttiah Muralitharan. Bangladesh lost a nailbiting tri-series final, and Rubel drew the ire of the nation. He started off his Test career with a three-wicket haul, but has been expensive in this format. His first and only five-for cost him 166 runs in 29 overs, in early 2010. He was hardly picking up wickets until the four-wicket haul against New Zealand in October that year, a performance that sealed one of the most famous wins in the country’s history.He fell into another lull thereafter, only picking up a four-wicket haul against Zimbabwe in a dead rubber in mid-2011. He continued to be expensive and bereft of wickets before being injured in the BPL’s inaugural edition. It put him out for nearly a year, but even after returning against West Indies, his fortunes didn’t change, giving away 63 in four overs of a T20 game.He had another shoulder niggle, then fared poorly against Sri Lanka and was ordinary compared to Man of the Series Robiul Islam in the Test series in Zimbabwe. He was again out of the team, this time due to a bout of chicken pox which prevented him from playing the ODI series against Zimbabwe in May. He regained his fitness, took 19 wickets in six Dhaka Premier Division matches, after which the coach Shane Jurgensen saw a “different Rubel”.An introvert, even listening to him from close quarters can be a task at times. But on Tuesday evening, his confidence imposed itself on New Zealand. His was the loudest whoop at the Shere Bangla National Stadium.

It is fun bowling against New ZealandRubel Hossain

He was actually Mushfiqur Rahim’s last resort after three spinners were smashed for 38 runs in three overs after the rain break after 20 overs. The Bangladesh captain had one over of Mashrafe Mortaza after the New Zealand innings was reduced to 33 overs, so when he turned to Rubel, and given the bowler’s recent performances in the slog overs, he was taking a major risk.The visitors too had started to get the run-rate within their grasp quickly with that early impetus after the rain break. When they got back at 9:00pm, they needed to score at 9.53 runs per over, but by the time Rubel was handed the ball, they required 86 to win from 60 balls.His first two balls yielded one run before Corey Anderson, Bangladesh’s biggest threat with a rapid 46, swung high and hard but only at air. It was a fuller length delivery on the stumps, something that Jurgensen had asked him to bowl repeatedly for the last two years. Anderson’s wicket was key to Bangladesh staying in the game but what happened next swung the game further Bangladesh’s way. Rubel didn’t give Brendon McCullum much room to move, and a ball that took off on the batsman took a leading edge and was caught at point.The pitch was perhaps spiced up a little with the 35-minute spell of rain, and it was evident in the McCullum dismissal. James Neesham became the hat-trick victim, caught down the leg side by a diving Mushfiqur.Rubel had earlier dismissed Ross Taylor with a delivery that cut back in after pitching and took the edge as he tried to play it through backward point. He added two more after the hat-trick, those of Nathan McCullum and Grant Elliott, equaling the best figures for a Bangladesh bowler in ODI cricket – Mortaza too had taken 6 for 26 seven years ago against Kenya.And it was appropriate that Mortaza took both catches to give him his fifth and sixth wickets, because it was Mortaza who inspired Rubel in his childhood in Bagerhat. It was Mortaza whose image he carried when he came to Dhaka after being one of the top-finishers in a nationwide pace-bowling hunt.Rubel, in his own soft-spoken manner, said that Mortaza had been an inspiration in the field today as well.”Mashrafe kept running towards me, telling me that I was bowling the right way,” Rubel said. “He told me that the cutters and slower balls I was using were perfect.”Every bowler wants to bowl such a spell. It was in my fate, it happened. I was out due to a shoulder injury for a long time. I worked hard, went through rehab. I wasn’t in the ODI squad for a bit. I bowled well in the Dhaka Premier League recently. I feel confident these days.”He added, “It is fun bowling against New Zealand.”To those who know Rubel or have followed him over the last few years, this was an off-the-cuff comment and not one in jest. A few wickets under his belt has given him much-needed confidence.On Tuesday evening, he soared, and there is hope among those who are going to persist with him, he keeps soaring on and off the field.

Stats highlights from the first day’s play of the fifth Ashes Test at the SCG

Shiva Jayaraman03-Jan-2014

• This was Brad Haddin’s sixth 50-plus score of this Ashes. This is the most a No. 7 batsman has ever hit in a series. Greg Matthews’ five fifty-plus scores, which he hit in a series against Sri Lanka in 1992, were the previous highest by a No. 7 batsman in a series.
• Haddin has also equalled Gerry Alexander’s record for the most 50-plus scores in a series by a wicketkeeper. Denis Lindsay’s three hundreds and two fifties against Australia in 1966 is the only other instance of a wicketkeeper scoring five or more 50-plus scores in a series.
• Haddin has scored 465 runs in this Ashes, the second-highest by any No. 7 in a Test series. He is just nine runs short of going past Adam Gilchrist, who hit 473 runs at 157.66 against South Africa in 2001-02.
• Steven Smith hit his second century of this Ashes and the third of his Test career in this innings. His century is the first by a No. 5 in the Ashes at the SCG after Steve Waugh’s hundred in 2002-03. There have been 11 hundreds by No. 5 batsmen in the Ashes at this venue. Smith also completed 1000 Test runs during his innings: he has scored 1085 runs at 37.41 from 32 innings.
• Australia’s sixth wicket put together a century stand for the third time in this Ashes. This is only the second series in which their sixth wicket has had three century partnerships. The last such instance came in the Ashes in 1920-21.
• Australia’s sixth wicket has added 514 runs in this series at 73.42, the most any wicket has added for them. This is also currently the eighth-highest aggregate by Australia’s sixth wicket in any Ashes. The highest that Australia’s sixth wicket has added ever in the Ashes are 609 runs at 121.80 in the 2006-07 series.
• Michael Carberry was Mitchell Johnson’s 32nd wicket of this Ashes. He’s now equalled Frank Foster’s record for the most wickets by a left-arm fast bowler in an Ashes series. Foster took 32 wickets from ten innings in the 1911-12 Ashes. Johnson’s haul is also the joint-third highest by a left-arm fast bowler in any series.
• Ben Stokes took his maiden five-wicket haul in Australia’s first innings, but was scored off rapidly too. His economy of 4.99 was England’s second-worst for a five-wicket haul in Tests. Craig White’s 5 for 127 against Australia at Perth in 2002 came at an economy of 5.48, which is the worst for an England bowler in an innings with a five-wicket haul.
• Three England players – Boyd Rankin, Gary Ballance and Scott Borthwick – made their debut in this Test. This was the first time three or more England players made their debut in a Test since Nagpur 2006, when Ian Blackwell, Alastair Cook and Monty Panesar made their debut. The last time this happened in the Ashes was in 1993 at Trent Bridge, when Mark Ilott, Martin McCague, Mark Lathwell and Graham Thorpe all debuted.

Mahela Jayawardene will forever be a free spirit no matter how much he seeks to eradicate the riskier elements of his game

Andrew Fidel Fernando at Lord's14-Jun-2014Early on in Mahela Jayawardene’s innings at Lord’s, England attacked with vigour outside the off stump. His last tour in 2011, had produced a blooper-reel of familiar dismissals: Jayawardene stepping forward to drive outside the line of the stumps – the ball seeking out the edge, then a pair of hands in the slip cordon.He tried to be more careful on Saturday. Tighter with his defence, and more inclined to leave. But soon enough, he could not help himself. In the second over he faced, Jayawardene opened the face and sent James Anderson between third slip and gully. When England shortened their length to get Jayawardene fending, he slid back to England’s quickest bowler and uppercut him over the slips for four.Jayawardene punched his way past that gauntlet, but soon England reformed with a new plan. Three men catching close on the legside. Two out on the fence, and Plunkett and Chris Jordan bowling short and sharp. Again Jayawardene sought to rein himself, in. Sri Lanka were 400 runs behind, and their tail less capable with the bat than England’s lower order. His resolve did not last long. He was soon pulling off his ribs, threading the ball through the packed field on the leg side. More than once, an England fielder put hands to his head. The ball had eluded him by inches.Fans the world over love to watch Jayawardene for the turn of his wrists, the grace of his movement, and that liquid cover drive. But far beyond his artistry, there is a free-spirited inclination that makes Jayawardene magnetic for the spectator.

Jayawardene bemoans short series

Mahela Jayawardene expressed disappointment at Sri Lanka’s shortened Test schedule in England, after the visitors batted through the day to avoid the follow-on at Lord’s. The Future Tours Programme had prescribed three Tests for this tour, but one Test was removed from Sri Lanka’s visit, and one added to India’s schedule, later in the summer.

The culling of one Test is in part because SLC had cut one Test out of England’s visit to Sri Lanka in 2012, ostensibly because the dates for a possible third Test clashed with the IPL that year. The current tour is the reciprocal visit for that 2012 series. India had been blanked on their last tour of England in 2011, while Sri Lanka lost 1-0.

“We would love to play a three-Test series,” Jayawardene said. “The last time England came to Sri Lanka as well, we played two Tests, and that was a bit disappointing as well. Those are things we need to sit down and discuss going forward. At least a three-Test series is a must – especially in the top playing nations.

“I can’t talk about other teams coming here and performing. What I can talk about is Sri Lanka. We’ve done really well overseas. We’ve ground things out and done the country proud, so we’ll keep doing that. That’s all we can do as cricketers. It’s up to people higher up to decide what needs to be done.”

Sri Lanka still face the possibility of losing at Lord’s for the first time since 1991. At stumps on day three, Sri Lanka were 160 runs adrift of England’s first-innings score, with only three wickets in hand. Sri Lanka’s last recognised batsman, Angelo Mathews, was batting on 79.

“Angelo is batting really well. If the rest of the boys can bat around him for a little longer, that would be great,” Jayawardene said. “In the past Angie has put on big partnerships with the tail-enders, so we’re hoping that can happen tomorrow. We need to approach it positively.”

At home, there is some certainty to his batting, but on tracks with pace and bounce, his struggles are well laid out in statistics. There are strokes he could omit. Risks he might avoid. But Jayawardene is a man on a tightrope, exposed to the elements, in perilous danger at every moment. Every brief flutter and false move heightens the tension. Then he takes a step, scores a few runs, and the adrenalin surges through. Ruled foremost by instinct, Jayawardene is addicted to taking the opposition on.”I was quite comfortable when they bowled short at me,” he said at the end of the day. “Sometimes you have to take the option on. That’s how I’ve gone about things.”There is no reason he should play this way. He could stop opening the face to waist-high balls outside off stump, knowing as he does, that he has been out countless times deflecting those to second slip. He could stop shuffling outside off stump to send spinners fine down the legside, or slinking forward to loft the quicks over the ring. They are high-risk ploys laced with excitement, but offer somewhat modest rewards.Others in his own team have run microscopes over their techniques, continually refining themselves to make every movement a thruster for more efficient run-making. Jayawardene has also learned new strokes over the years, but his approach, and so much of his technique, remains the same. He lives on a precipice not because he has no other choice, but because he is at the cricket for the same reason as the spectator. Jayawardene is there for the adventure.It is what made him so watchable, not just at the crease, but as a captain. He lived for moments of innovation, when he tore up the textbook and set plans no one else had dared. Under his guidance, the men around the bat for Murali were not just vultures hovering above a prospective meal, they were co-instigators of the action; a living, breathing, sharpened phalanx, almost as central to Sri Lanka’s threat as the man whirring the ball in. When a batsman was duped, Jayawardene lit up like he had pulled off prank, racing to greet the bowler and rub his fingers through his hair. At Lord’s he could not contain his joy, when his friend crossed triple figures.Saturday was Sangakkara’s day. In the sport’s ancient home, he made a focused raid for a coveted plaudit, and could not be shaken until his team were in a position of relative safety. Cricket will remember Sangakkara and his staggering numbers for a long time. If he is not already considered a modern great, it is past time that he was admitted to that club.Jayawardene, meanwhile, pales in comparison. He may not be enshrined as a modern master. His numbers will not survive the cold, hard, multi-pronged analysis of the online age. But those who saw him play, will not forget how he made them feel. They will not forget the dizzying elation, or the sinking despair. Or the way Jayawardene lived and died, on the edge, for the thrill.

There are very few batsmen in international cricket who play each ball so differently from the next like Upul Tharanga, who continues to polarise fans with such an approach

Andrew Fidel Fernando at the SSC14-Aug-2014

300 a good total – Tharanga

Upul Tharanga, Sri Lanka’s top-scorer on day one, expects the SSC pitch to take substantial turn as the match wears on.
Pakistan’s bowlers extracted both movement and turn to leave Sri Lanka at 261 for 8 at stumps, though the spinners only accounted for one of those wickets.
The last Test to be played at the venue in July, featured considerable turn on days four and five.
“Normally the SSC pitch is not turning for the first few days, but it did something today – big turn,” Tharanga said. “I think it will turn as much as the last match. Even for the seam bowlers, sometimes the pitch was a bit two-paced. Some balls went through quickly, others got stuck in the pitch and came slowly.”
Tharanga said Sri Lanka would aim to get 300 in their first innings, and believed that constituted a good total.
“It’s not easy to play shots on this pitch, because when the pitch is two-paced, we can’t time the ball perfectly. First innings runs are crucial and if we can get as much as we can from here, I think our bowlers can put them under pressure. You can’t score runs freely, like on SSC tracks of the past.”

The first moments of a Test are almost always absorbing, even if that match eventually becomes dull. There is so much information go be gained about the protagonists. Are the openers in touch? Does the bowler have rhythm?Mostly, though, the first few exchanges reveal something about the living, breathing 22-yard unknown on which all of the action pivots.This information is at a premium at the SSC, which is notorious for its featherbeds. However, it does occasionally produce good pitches. The bone-dry surface which it turned out for the Test against last month conjured a close finish, despite South Africa’s ultra-defensive approach from day two.But if spectators hoped to come to a swift judgment on the pitch by watching Upul Tharanga’s opening exchanges with the Pakistan bowlers, they might have wound up at more of a loss than when the match began. Tharanga is gifted beyond a doubt, but he also has talent for high drama.On Thursday, this was clear from the outset. The first ball of the morning – a full and juicy delivery from Junaid Khan – was pushed firmly through the covers, hands and feet moving fluently to the ball. Deliveries two and three were defended nicely, but then came a drastic falling away.Ball four, pitched on a length and moving slightly away, was edged towards the slips but it fell short. The next delivery was a similar one, but this time Tharanga’s shoes were sucked ino a black hole on the crease, and he barely neared the ball with his waft.Junaid went fuller for the final delivery, swinging it a little and searching for that faint edge, only to find the batsman had suddenly moved into place and sent the ball screaming through cover.Plays, misses and driven fours are common in the early moments of a Test, especially when a team seeks to take the match by the scruff, but only few like Tharanga play each ball so differently from the next. The result is disorienting.Is this pitch good for batting, or is it a bowler’s strip? Is the ball moving, or is the batsman just making it seem like it is? Has Tharanga been weighed down by a string of mediocre scores, or is he fighting his way back?Through most of his 92, Tharanga played sublime shots, particularly through his favoured cover region. But he was also having his outside edge beaten by away-seamers, being cut in half by indippers, wafting at air when spinners turned the ball away from him, or chipping it just wide of the close fielders when it spun towards him. He has played like this before.So many Tharanga innings are like switching between a Hitchcock horror and a Clint Eastwood western. One moment he is the blonde being brutally stabbed in the shower. The next, he is ice-cold, shooting up the whole saloon by himself.It is normal for batsmen to go through dry months, then for fortunes to turn, and torrents of runs to follow. But Tharanga’s form changes with the direction of the wind. Average deliveries are made to seem unplayable. Really good balls are smoked to the fence.Not everyone can withstand such sudden peaks and troughs, but aside from natural ability, Tharanga also has zen in spades. Saeed Ajmal got the second ball of his 47th over to kick up from the rough, inducing a false shot that almost had Tharanga caught by short leg.

One moment Tharanga is the blonde being brutally stabbed in the shower. The next, he is ice-cold, shooting up the whole saloon by himself

Ajmal shot an “almost had you” smirk at the batsman as the fielders around the bat began to chirp louder. The bowler turned to his mark with a spring in his step. Yet, just when Tharanga could have been intimidated, he was slinking forward next ball, finding the pitch of the delivery, then caressing it past mid off.”A lot of times, when you get tracks like this, you give a few chances,” Tharanga said of the several close calls in his innings. “Saeed Ajmal was turning it today. What I did was just put it out of my mind, because that ball is already gone. Then I focused on the next ball.”Tharanga needed a score in this match. It was no surprise when the selectors brought Dimuth Karunaratne into the squad after the Galle Test. There had been a good chance Tharanga’s return to the Test side after seven years would last only three games.It is also no surprise that Tharanga polarises fans. Supporters point to his 13 ODI tons. “Not even Marvan scored that many, and he played many more innings,” they say. Detractors draw attention to the many low scores, or that uncannily common form of dismissal: the nick to the keeper or slips. If a decent score follows in the second innings, he may soon get his chance again in ODIs.Tharanga frustrated at the SSC, but he flourished as well. Sri Lanka would be staring at defeat without him. He is an easy batsman to like, for the prettiness of his strokes and the calm he exudes at the crease.But he is also a man whose career perpetually seems at a crossroads. Given his experience and approach, he seems an ideal man to become Sri Lanka’s long-term opener, but it is becoming increasingly difficult to predict which fork Tharanga will take from here.

Zulfiqar Babar missed five seasons between his first two first-class matches, and was 34 when he finally made his Test debut, but he is quickly making up for all the lost time with his artful left-arm spin

Umar Farooq28-Oct-20141:30

‘Australia need more breakthroughs from spinners’ – Mark Taylor

Just over a year ago, Zulfiqar Babar became Pakistan’s second-oldest* Test debutant, receiving his first cap when he was 34 years and 308 days old. He had waited a long time for the opportunity, but it hasn’t taken him too long since then to make an unforgettable impression. Last week in Dubai, in only his third Test match, Babar sent Australia spiraling to a 221-run defeat with his maiden five-for and figures of 7-155 in the match.Australia were completely undone by Babar’s clever use of the straighter one, and he picks out a ball that went on with the arm and bowled Brad Haddin through the gap between bat and pad as his most memorable wicket. “That was my weapon and I worked very hard on it, since the plan was to mix up balls that turned away with the straighter one that drifts in.”Zulfiqar Babar’s second-innings five-for decimated Australia in the first Test in Dubai•Getty ImagesFor Babar, playing a match-winning role in the Test gave him an especially sweet feeling since he had been part of Pakistan’s team in all three of their losses to Australia in the ODI series, and had been at the other end when Sohail Tanvir and Mohammad Irfan failed to score the two runs required from the last over to win the third ODI.”I am happy that I have contributed for my team,” Babar says. “But I would like to say that we were fed up after the defeat in the ODIs. The way we bounced back was good, and all of us looked focused and we got the fruit at the end. We were playing with two debutants [Yasir Shah and Imran Khan] but it both looked mature and it didn’t seem like it was their first game.”Babar himself didn’t look like he was playing only his third Test, but for an entirely different reason – few others can match his experience, not just in cricket but also in dealing with life’s caprices.Babar made his first-class debut back in 2001-02, for Rest of Punjab against Islamabad. He made a reasonable impact, dismissing two top-order batsmen in the fourth innings as Islamabad sneaked a one-wicket win, but had to wait till the 2007-08 season before he played another first-class game.Babar’s situation – he was playing plenty of Grade 2 cricket within his district, but no first-class cricket at all – may not have been as bad had he hailed from one of Pakistan’s established cricketing regions. Instead, he came from the town of Okara, 85 miles southwest of Lahore and classified under the Multan region, which has been administered by one of the most fractured cricket associations in Pakistan over the last decade or so, which has over the last few years been run on an ad-hoc basis, under an interim set-up.When Babar finally returned to first-class cricket, he slowly gained notice with his left-arm spin. In 2009-10, his third season since his comeback, he took 96 wickets at an average of 16.80, finishing second on the overall wicket-takers’ list. He was already past 30, but his bowling couldn’t be ignored, and he made it into the Pakistan A squad for their tours of Sri Lanka and the West Indies and also featured among the probables for Pakistan’s tour to England. He didn’t make the squad then, and had to wait three more years – during which he took 158 wickets at an average of 20.05 in domestic first-class cricket – before he finally got his chance against South Africa. Now, in the absence of Saeed Ajmal, he is finally set to have an extended run in the side.A man with Babar’s first-class record – a bowling average of under 21, and 23 five-wicket hauls, at the rate of one every three matches – might have reason to feel aggrieved that it took him so long to get an international call-up, but he says he never felt frustrated by the wait.”Although I made a late entry [into international cricket], I am fine with it, and have no regrets,” Babar says. “I had a desire to play for Pakistan which always remained intact. There was some opposition at the domestic level, but when I got a chance I made it count. Now there is no opposition, instead everyone is supporting me.”I never felt that despite playing a lot of first-class cricket I got the opportunity relatively late. I am a professional cricketer and was playing cricket and performing. It’s all about luck and timing which is set by Allah who knows exactly when and what to give. So whatever I have I am happy with it.”*Amir Elahi, who was 39 when he made his Test debut, played his first Test for India

Stats preview to the Pool A game between Australia and Bangladesh in Brisbane

Bishen Jeswant20-Feb-201513.3 Percentage of ODIs in Brisbane that have been washed out since 2001, the highest percentage for any Australian venue. Four out of 30 ODIs have been washed out here. The only other Australian venues that have seen washouts in this period are Melbourne (2.7%) and Sydney (9.5%), where there have been one and four no-result matches respectively.6-0 Bangladesh’s win-loss record against Australia, in Australia. Bangladesh’s overall win-loss record against Australia is 1-18, having beaten them once, at Cardiff during the 2005 NatWest Series.0 Number of times that Bangladesh have made a 300-plus score against Australia. Bangladesh’s highest score against Australia in Australia is 147, at Cairns in 2003. Overall, their highest score is 295, at Dhaka in 2011.3.6 Australia’s win-loss ratio since 2014, the best for any team. Australia have won 18 ODIs and lost five during this period. The only team that hasn’t lost an ODI in this period is Papua New Guinea, who have two wins in two ODIs.6 Number of consecutive ODIs that Bangladesh have won. Bangladesh beat Zimbabwe 5-0 in a bilateral ODI series and then won the opening game at this World Cup against Afghanistan. Bangladesh’s longest winning streak is nine ODIs, in 2006-07, with wins against Zimbabwe (7) and Scotland (2).19-19 Win-loss record for teams batting/bowling first in Brisbane in the last 38 completed games at this venue. Even more recent records provide no indication of whether teams prefer to bat or bowl first at this venue – the record is 5-5 in the last ten ODIs and 10-10 since 2003.775 Runs scored by Mushfiqur Rahim since 2014, the most by any Bangladesh batsman. Rahim has scored these runs at an average of 45.58, also the highest. His eight 50-plus scores in this period is also the highest for any Bangladesh batsman.

After a stop-start performance in the early stages of the domestic season, Dinesh Karthik has pitched in with important innings for Tamil Nadu, and despite all the talk of his return to international cricket, his focus for now is the Ranji Trophy

Arun Venugopal07-Mar-2015’Pause’ isn’t a word one would normally associate with Dinesh Karthik. Either behind the stumps or in front of them, his fidgety quirks are in keeping with the ‘hyperactive wicketkeeper’ stereotype.It seems a touch odd, therefore, when his responses arrive not in rapid bursts, but with measured elaboration after lengthy pauses. Karthik is at ease speaking his mind, like when he admits to not setting definite targets because it doesn’t help him perform better, or “help you as a human being.””I figured it a year ago. I go into a shell after one failure. I expect too much from myself,” he told ESPNcricinfo. “It works for some people, eggs them on, but doesn’t work for me.”What works for him is the goal of constant improvement and it was with the aim of playing swing-bowling better that he sought the advice of Pravin Amre prior to the domestic season. Karthik joined the list of cricketers like Suresh Raina, Robin Uthappa and Naman Ojha who have benefited from Amre’s advice, although the wicketkeeper-batsman did struggle with a few teething issues.”I went to Amre and worked on playing swing-bowling better basically,” he said. “I can confidently say I have been batting better against swing bowling. I changed my grip a little bit. I now have a more pronounced top hand, and my bat-swing is more in sync with the line of the ball.”I had a pretty bad wrist injury when I changed my grip, couldn’t touch my bat for two months in the off season. It’s hard to make changes when you have been accustomed to a technique from childhood. I learnt that the hard way. I bagged a pair in the Duleep Trophy, and my World Cup prospects were affected, too. But that’s a price I had to pay.”I am happy with how I am playing at the moment, although I am not exactly where I want to be. I could do better.”With 753 runs, Karthik is the eighth-highest scorer in this Ranji Trophy season, and he will have the opportunity to add to the tally in the final against Karnataka. One of his three centuries this season was a match-saving 129 after Tamil Nadu were asked to follow on by Madhya Pradesh.

“As many times as I have been asked, I really don’t have an answer. It’s a good question, but I think I will be able to answer it the day I get into the team and settle down.”Dinesh Karthik on his stints in the Indian team

Alongside the five fifty-plus scores, he was dismissed in the 30s and 40s on four occasions but is not too affected by that: “I have not had a good few decisions going my way when I have been batting well on 30s and 40s. But that’s part and parcel of the game.”A struggle to convert starts into something more substantial is also perhaps a microcosm of how his international career has panned out. Karthik, who has played 71 ODIs and 23 Tests since his debut in 2004, played his last international match in March 2014. Karthik concedes he is unable to put a finger on why he has been in and out of the team.”As many times as I have been asked, I really don’t have an answer,” he said. “It’s a good question, but I think I will be able to answer it the day I get into the team and settle down.”Criticised, on occasions, for not taking wicket-keeping as seriously as batting, Karthik says he has stopped giving importance to what people say about it: “Keeping is something you go on reputation. I have made a conscious attempt to work on it. I have worked a lot with [former India wicketkeeper] Sameer Dighe and [Tamil Nadu assistant coach] M Sanjay.”Karthik is aware that a slot is up for grabs following MS Dhoni’s retirement from Test cricket, but knows there are “two or three guys vying for the same thing”. “There is a thought if I do well a chance is probably there. Once you have been on the circuit for too long, it is better you just play the game and not think too much about it.”He has, however, been a big draw at the Indian Premier League. For the second successive year, he was the second-highest earner after Royal Challengers Bangalore snapped him up for Rs 10.5 crore [approx $1.75 million] in this year’s auction. He finds it hard to explain the phenomenon.”Franchises need a keeper-batsman, and I have been lucky enough to be picked at a good price. The beauty about the whole thing is it’s something I am not in control of,” he said. “It’s a tough question for me to answer.”My best year was with Mumbai Indians [in 2013] because we won the IPL then. I also miss working with Ricky Ponting, who is one of my favourites. My year with Kings XI Punjab was great because I enjoyed playing under Adam Gilchrist.”For Karthik, though, the focus right now is on winning the Ranji Trophy, something Tamil Nadu haven’t managed since 1987-88. “Abhi [Abhinav Mukund] has captained brilliantly. A lot of credit should also go to the selectors and the team management. After the Bengal game, we were really dejected, but there was no panic. Things went uphill after that. [M] Vijay came back and it was a big plus. Lot of credit to the coach for giving Abhinav whatever we wanted.”

A World Cup win could be the prefect farewell gift for Daniel Vettori, much like how it was for Glenn McGrath in 2007 and Sachin Tendulkar in 2011

Suhas Cadambi14-Mar-2015″It started with a text from Brendon [McCullum]”, said Daniel Vettori after he was called up for the third and final Test against Pakistan in Sharjah last November. 0-1 down in the series, the New Zealand think-tank had a look at the pitch and went against the beaten route, going for a third spinner in Daniel Vettori. After two and a half years in the wilderness, Vettori happened to be in the UAE with the New Zealand A team.What followed was a fairytale. After leading the team out onto the field in the first morning of the match, the veteran not only lead his team onto the field in the first morning of the match, he sparkled with the ball teasing Pakistan with his guile. Mark Craig was the wrecker-in-chief, and New Zealand went onto win the game by an innings and 80 runs, handing Vettori a happy farewell. The team had, ironically, grown so much in his absence; this was the belated reward of shared success.Vettori had taken up a coaching position with Royal Challengers Bangalore in the IPL, and had made sporadic appearances in the Big Bash League. There was continued silence on the possibility of an international return.It was difficult to reconcile this image of him: bearded and ambling around as opposed to youthful teenager, who burst onto international cricket. Back in 1996-97, when New Zealand were in a rebuilding phase, he was drafted in as an 18-year-old with only two first-class caps to his name. In the years of recovery that followed, Stephen Fleming and Daniel Vettori went onto become key cogs in the team.Vettori was consistent with the ball and often provided useful support lower down the order.. But the stress fractures he suffered in the 2001 season would have long-term effects; his bowling action was altered, and his ability to turn the ball waned. He earned the respect of the opposition but could not run through the batting even on helpful pitches. Many a New Zealand win would slip through the fingers as a result.He had also taken up captaincy, a four-year period of frustration for the New Zealand supporters. Vettori was a defensive captain, who waited for things to happen. He was never really adventurous and aggressive like Fleming or Brendon McCullum. Vettori’s captaincy was defensive, so much so that New Zealand suffered a whitewash at the hands of Bangladesh .If taking over a side in transition, following the departures of Fleming, Nathan Astle and Craig McMillan was hard enough; dealing with the loss Shane Bond, and the repeated injuries to Jacob Oram, was a bridge too far. Add to this the inconsistency of Ross Taylor, and it’s perhaps no surprise that Vettori’s captaincy stint turned out the way it did. However, his contribution in pulling New Zealand out of a hole deserves credit.
.
Interestingly, the shortcomings of his team-mates lifted Vettori individual game to a higher plane, as he became New Zealand’s most reliable player. Then he took everything upon himself with some senior players claiming he took over coaching when Andy Moles quit in 2009.Such a heavy burden, eventually forced him to slow down. The burnout was inevitable, and after the 2011 World Cup Vettori retired from Twenty T20s in 2011 and slowly drifted out of Tests. In the meantime, New Zealand made good progress and unearthed match-winners in Tim Southee, Trent Boult and Kane Williamson.His comeback in Sharjah provided us with a brief glimpse of what might have been, had he stuck around. The Test helped Vettori return to the New Zealand ODI team and he was picked for the World Cup. In Auckland Australia had got off to a fast start, taking advantage of short boundaries, but Vettori picked up the wickets of Shane Watson and Steven Smith and built up pressure, from which Trent Boult prospered. This was the good old Daniel Vettori.A World Cup win could be the prefect farewell gift for Daniel Vettori, much like how it was for Glenn McGrath in 2007 and Sachin Tendulkar in 2011.If you have a submission for Inbox, send it to us here, with “Inbox” in the subject line.

The defending champions tested at home, Kings XI’s attack exposed, Maxwell against spin, Vijay’s wasted starts, and Narine’s potent carrom ball. ESPNcricinfo presents five talking points from Eden Gardens

Karthik Krishnaswamy in Kolkata09-May-2015Stretched at home, for onceUnless you’re one of their ardent fans, watching Kolkata Knight Riders at their home ground isn’t a particularly exciting experience, usually. In their last couple of matches, against Sunrisers Hyderabad and Delhi Daredevils, their batsmen got them to defendable totals without really hitting the high notes, and their spinners took over thereafter. There was no point in either of those matches where Knight Riders looked in trouble.This game was different – and this would have been the case even if Andre Russell had finished the game himself without the last pair having to get involved. A number of Kings XI Punjab’s batsmen gave glimpses of the kind of audacious strokeplay that took their team to the final last season, and even if none of them carried on to make a really substantial score, 183 was an excellent total.Kings XI’s imbalance exposedBut it didn’t prove to be a winning total. Last season, Kings XI conceded 180-plus totals five times – and more than 200 twice – during the league phase, but still topped the table. That was because their batsmen were having a storming season. This season, their batting has run into a collective horror run, and the holes in their bowling attack have been exposed.At the halfway point of Knight Riders’ chase, they required 110 from 60 balls. At the 12-over mark, they were four down and needed 98 from 48. But you still felt that Knight Riders were in it. Against an attack without Mitchell Johnson – who has had an admittedly poor season – and containing three medium-fast seamers, a left-arm spinner who doesn’t really turn the ball, and a couple of part-time offspinners, you felt a couple of big overs could sway the momentum again.And so it proved. Anureet Singh discovered the tiny margin of error you have while bowling yorkers to someone with Russell’s power and unpredictable footwork – he went deep in his crease before the bowler released, but didn’t do it every ball. Russell and Yusuf Pathan also dismantled Axar Patel.Maxwell makes the spinners thinkFor anyone who’s watched Knight Riders’ spinners strangle the life out of their recent matches, Glenn Maxwell’s innings was refreshing to watch. For perhaps the first time in their recent stretch of home matches – apart from Angelo Mathews’ late charge for Daredevils – someone was manipulating the field and upsetting the rhythm of the slower bowlers.With third man inside the circle almost out of necessity, his reverse-sweep was always going to be productive, but Maxwell also exploited the area straight down the ground, hitting cleanly over the bowlers’ heads, giving long-on and long-off no chance.Maxwell has had a terrible season, and this return to form was too late in the piece to be of any real help to Kings XI, but he – and Wriddhiman Saha too – has shown future opponents a possible approach against Knight Riders on turning tracks. You have to be extremely gifted to play that way, of course, but why not try?Vijay fails to capitaliseIn Test cricket, M Vijay has curbed his tendency to throw away starts with silly shots, and is among the best in the world when it comes to his powers of concentration and self-denial. There’s a lot more leeway to play silly shots in Twenty20, of course, but it was still frustrating to watch Vijay get off to such a domineering start – a flat-batted six over cover off Umesh Yadav was particularly breathtaking – and get out playing a shot that had kept getting him in trouble.The first time he swept Sunil Narine, Brad Hogg dropped him at square leg. The second time, Umesh put down a dolly at short fine leg. Three balls later he tried again, left his stumps exposed, and missed an offbreak that clipped his leg bail.Narine carrom ball still potentIn his two matches since being allowed to bowl again, Sunil Narine has used the offbreak sparingly, and when he does it usually lacks the bite and turn of its previous, contentious avatar. In getting used to his new action, he has also been susceptible to sending down the odd short ball. But his unique two-finger carrom ball continues to confound batsmen with its un-pickability and zip off the pitch.The ball before Vijay’s dismissal, Narine had ripped one past his outside edge. In his second spell of one over, he dismissed Manan Vohra with another one that left the right-hander, hurrying through and causing him to hit his attempted pull straight back to the bowler.Narine struck again, twice, in his last over, and while the ball that dismissed Maxwell could be termed a long-hop, it turned away and bounced more than the batsman expected, leaving him dragging the ball from too far outside off stump to be completely safe.