In front of a packed house, West Indies qualified for Super Eight and put New Zealand on the brink of elimination

Matt Roller13-Jun-2024This was T20 at its very best: played under the floodlights with high stakes, high skill, and high drama. When New Zealand and West Indies were drawn in the group of death, this fixture was earmarked as one of the biggest of this stage. When New Zealand were thrashed by Afghanistan in Guyana, this became close to a knockout match.The Uriah Butler Highway – the route out of Port-of-Spain – was gridlocked. The Brian Lara Cricket Academy is 50km away from Trinidad and Tobago’s capital city, and the afternoon rush hour combined with thousands of cricket fans driving south towards San Fernando brought the country’s main road to a standstill. Rightly so: T20 cricket was coming home.Yes, the format was first played professionally in England and has been turned into a commercial behemoth by India, but Trinidad is T20’s spiritual home. This country, with a population of 1.5 million, has produced more of the format’s superstars than anywhere else in the world and their success is the source of immense national pride.Related

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Incredibly, this was West Indies’ first men’s World Cup match in Trinidad, in either format. The 8.30pm start time meant that the venue was nearly full before the toss, filled with West Indies maroon and Trinidad red. Those two colours of shirts formed snaking queues for fried fish and cold beer; they blew their air horns and banged their drums; and they vied for space on the sprawling grass banks on the eastern side of the ground.They stood with their team as David Rudder, the Calypso icon, held his microphone like a preacher and implored them to Rally, Rally ‘Round the West Indies. Rudder is 71 now and revealed last year that he had been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. This was a rare public performance and the crowd hung on his words in a stripped-back rendition of his anthem.Sherfane Rutherford turned the game around in the last two overs of the West Indies innings•ICC/Getty ImagesAnd then, barely half an hour later, West Indies were 30 for 5. This was a two-paced pitch with variable bounce but New Zealand’s seamers only had to bash away at a good length: the first three wickets were the result of huge swipes, before Rovman Powell and Brandon King both steered catches to Devon Conway with no conviction.West Indies’ recent success under Daren Sammy’s coaching has led expectations to swell ahead of a World Cup on home soil. “I just wonder if West Indies’ batters have not quite got the emotions under control,” Carlos Brathwaite, who snatched the 2016 title for them, said on commentary. “Yes, we love the intent, but then you have to marry that with sufficient smarts as well.”Kane Williamson, New Zealand’s captain, recognised the chance to bowl West Indies out and went for the kill: he stuck with his four main seamers and when Andre Russell walked in at No. 8, he pushed a fifth fielder up into the inner circle and brought both mid-on and mid-off up, daring him to hit Lockie Ferguson down the ground.Russell obliged, crunching his first ball over Ferguson’s head for four, and when Williamson pushed mid-on back to the boundary, Russell hit the very next ball over his head for six. But Williamson didn’t budge: he threw the ball to Trent Boult, his best bowler, and Russell miscued his speared-in offcutter to short third.Williamson will be roundly criticised for his decision to bowl his frontline bowlers out by the end of the 18th over but at 112 for 9, it looked to have paid off. Williamson bet big on his flush: he could hardly have expected Sherfane Rutherford – at that stage 31 off 27 balls – to reveal he was sitting on a full house.

Rutherford’s knock was rightly the difference between the two teams tonight. But it was also as well as I’ve seen West Indies bowl for some time. Alzarri Joseph was as good as I’ve seen him bowl in this format.

— Ian Raphael Bishop (@irbishi) June 13, 2024

Decades before India dominated world cricket, Gavaskar gave them an identity in the game

Sambit Bal10-Jul-2024I was not 20 when I was forced to confront a future of sporting darkness. Sunil Gavaskar had just retired, out of nowhere, without a warning, without saying goodbye. Just like that, he would be gone. Never in a skull cap again.Cricket is the only sport I really knew, and cricket to me – apologies to Kapil Dev and the 1983 heroes – began with, and I feared then would end with, Gavaskar. No exaggeration, contemplating watching cricket without him was impossible. His leaving felt like a betrayal.Only a few months before, he had played one of greatest Test innings I had ever seen. On a turning, spitting, and viciously treacherous pitch in Bangalore, on which the second-highest score was 50 from Dilip Vengsarkar, and on which Pakistan had been bowled out for 116 on the first day, Gavaskar summoned his greatest virtues for a fourth-innings masterpiece after India were set a target of 221.A few years before that, Gavaskar had helped India nearly overhaul 438 with a double-hundred full of dazzling strokes. But on a snake pit of a surface here, his surviving each ball felt like a feat.Related

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Imran Khan, who had been persuaded by the wily Javed Miandad to choose two fingerspinners over Abdul Qadir, the leggie, on the premise that all that mattered on such a pitch was accuracy, didn’t even bother to bowl an over himself in the second innings. Iqbal Qasim, the left-arm spinner, opened with Wasim Akram, who was soon replaced by Tauseef Ahmed, the offspinner, and Qasim and Tauseef would go on to bowl 83 of the 94-odd overs bowled in the innings.Only three of Gavaskar’s team-mates reached double figures and only Mohammad Azharuddin managed to go past 20. But Gavaskar remained in his own bubble of excellence, combining technical virtuosity – immaculate judgement of length, precise footwork, playing late, close to the body and with the softest of hands – and fierce focus. Balls exploded off a length, some went past the bat, some hit the glove, and team-mates departed routinely. But it was like he was in a trance, dealing in moments, and keeping his team alive in a contest in which doom loomed a ball away.It was on 96 that he finally fell, to a ball that rose sharply from a length that it was impossible to get forward to, and spun enough to brush the rising hand, ballooning up for a catch off the glove. Gavaskar removed his gloves and walked off briskly the moment the umpire began to raise his finger. Who would have known then that he would never be seen in a Test match again?In fact, we did not know for a while. He would soon go on to accomplish a couple of things that had eluded him all his life: a century at Lord’s, turning out for the Rest of the World against an MCC XI; and an ODI hundred, with blazing hits over cow corner against New Zealand in the home World Cup. It wasn’t until later, when my heart had gone past the ache and desolation, that I was able to grasp the significance of his going on a high, when the world wondered why now, and not why not.Years later, when cricket journalism imposed on me a rational and more enquiring relationship with sport, it became natural to question Indian fans’ devotion to individuals rather than the team – a devotion that sometimes had a shackling impact on Indian cricket. But then, in those times what did we have? Gandhi and Nehru were long gone, adorning currency notes, postage stamps and walls as framed photos. Politics was shabby and chaotic, the economy was in the doldrums. Shortwave radio was our window to the world, and as television screens began to turn colour, cinema fuelled our fantasies and cricket our hopes and aspirations. Hell, we needed our heroes.On Gavaskar rested the aspirations of Indians who had little to aspire to elsewhere•PA Photos/Getty ImagesOn celluloid, there was the brooding, simmering rage of Amitabh Bachchan, whose towering presence and baritone voice filled the screen, and on the field, there was Sunil Gavaskar, a small man in flesh and blood, taking on the most fearsome bowlers of the world without a helmet. The victories of 1971 I only read about, and India didn’t win much away from home during my initial years as a cricket fan, but there was always Gavaskar, with a defence so immaculate that it was a thing of beauty, a cover drive of geometric precision that left no half-volley unpunished, and a minimalistic, no-fuss straight drive that told the bowler he had been had.For a nation unsure then of its place in the world, Gavaskar was the picture-perfect embodiment of valour and accomplishment, and a constant source of hope and pride. The year 1977 was when cricket captured my imagination. With a transistor radio stuck to my ear under a blanket, I spent winter mornings following India’s tour of Australia, which see-sawed thrillingly to end 3-2 in Australia’s favour. And there was Gavaskar, who my aunt had told me so much about, with three hundreds.India’s next tour, to Pakistan in 1978, would end the golden age of Indian spin bowling (and herald a rising star in Kapil Dev), but it had Gavaskar standing amidst the wreckage, scoring 447 runs with a couple of hundreds. However inappropriate it may seem now, that’s how we counted India’s gains in cricket in those days, in terms of hundreds.It was perhaps ordained that Bombay would become my home. But long before I moved there, I adopted Bombay as my Ranji Trophy team, and Shivaji Park would be my first pilgrimage when I arrived. My fandom gradually dimmed as professional training took hold, but it was a high to have Gavaskar as a guest for the launch of the first cricket magazine I edited, and because my daughter shares his birthday, I rarely forget to wish him on email. He unfailingly replies.And because we inhabit the same professional landscape now, there has been the odd disagreement over the years, but the first hero remains forever. Behind my work desk is a collage of sportspeople as I would like to remember them. At the centre of this arrangement is the photograph of Gavaskar at the top of this article: bareheaded, down the pitch, weight on the front foot. The bat has completed its arc and finished above the head, the gaze is fixed straight ahead, presumably following the path of the ball that has raced down the ground. It’s a picture of symmetry and batting perfection, and a reminder of an age when irrespective of clouds or storms, it was always sunny days as long he remained at the crease.Happy 75th. Let the memories never fade.

The England fast bowler picked up 12 for 106 across two innings at Lord’s and wrote his name into the record books

Sampath Bandarupalli12-Jul-202412 for 106 Gus Atkinson’s bowling figures at Lord’s are the fourth-best by a player on debut in men’s Tests. Narendra Hirwani and Bob Massie bagged 16 wickets apiece on their first outings, while England’s Fred Martin took 12 for 102 against Australia in 1890.12 Men with five-wicket hauls in both innings of their Test debut, including Atkinson. Four of the previous 11 are England players, the last being Ken Farnes back in 1934.2 Players before Atkinson with a match haul of 10 or more wickets on men’s Test debut at Lord’s. Massie’s 16-wicket effort against England in 1972 came at this venue as well, while Alec Bedser took 11 for 145 against India in 1946.2 Atkinson’s 12 for 106 are the second-best match figures in a men’s Test for England against West Indies. Tony Greig’s 13 for 156 at Port of Spain in 1974 remains the best for England against West Indies.8 Men to win the Player-of-the-Match award on Test debut for England, including Atkinson. Ben Foakes was the last of the previous seven, for his century on debut against Sri Lanka in 2018.Related

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Four of the eight Player-of-the-Match performances on Test debut for England have come at Lord’s.1974 Last instance of an England bowler taking 12 or more wickets in a men’s Test at home, before Atkinson. Derek Underwood took 13 for 71 against Pakistan also at Lord’s.Atkinson’s bowling figures are also the best for England in a men’s Test since Ian Botham’s 13 for 106 in 1980 against India in Mumbai.31* Gudakesh Motie’s score in the second innings was the highest for West Indies in the Lord’s Test. It is the lowest highest individual score for West Indies in a men’s Test match, where they’ve lost all 20 wickets. Their previous lowest highest score was 33 against Australia in 1931 in Melbourne.40037 Balls bowled by James Anderson in his 21-year Test match career. He became the first seamer to bowl 40000 legitimate deliveries in Tests and only the fourth to do so, after Muthiah Muralidaran (44039), Anil Kumble (40850) and Shane Warne (40705).91 Wickets for Anderson in Test cricket against West Indies, the second-most for any bowler in the format, after Glenn McGrath’s 110. Anderson went past Kapil Dev’s 89 with the four wickets he took at Lord’s.

Most key members of the current team are nearly 35 years old, but there’s an exciting, young crop emerging

Andrew McGlashan26-Jun-2024Well, that escalated quickly.

Barely 48 hours after beginning their Super Eight game against Afghanistan with five wins from five at the T20 World Cup 2024, Australia’s campaign was over. The drama went down to the wire as the hectic scenes between Afghanistan and Bangladesh played out, but by then it was out of their hands.It is the nature of tournament cricket, especially where stages are as condensed as this. Similar fates could have happened to other teams: South Africa were a whisker away from being eliminated based on one defeat; India were not mathematically safe heading into the Australia match.But it means that for all the good cricket Australia played earlier in the tournament – and they hadn’t fluked themselves into a strong position – it all came to nothing. For the second T20 World Cup running, they have underachieved. In 2022 it was a group stage exit on home soil; in contrast to this edition, where a strong start faded at the worst time, on that occasion, they paid the price for a heavy first-up defeat against New Zealand.So what does it all mean for Australia’s T20 cricket heading into the future?

Horror catching show

If you want to pinpoint one area where it went wrong, it was the fielding. The poor outing against Scotland may not have mattered on the day (and they still won the game) but it wasn’t a blip. Against Afghanistan, they had one of the worst days in recent memory with five dropped catches, albeit none were sitters, a missed stumping and sloppy groundwork. Take 20-25 runs off the target and it is likely a very different outcome – the pressure chasing 125 instead of 150 would have been significantly less.Related

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They were better against India, but there was still a crucial miss. Australia had fought back in the latter half of the innings after Rohit Sharma’s onslaught. Hardik Pandya had 4 from 6 when he skied one into the off side against Adam Zampa. Mitchell Marsh was underneath it at backward point but somehow couldn’t hold on. Pandya would finish on 27 of 17 balls, twice clearing the rope off Marcus Stoinis in the penultimate over. Had the catch been taken, those runs may well have been scored by the next batter, but it could also have trimmed a few off the total. The difference between 205 and 190?

A tournament too far?

During the tournament, Matthew Wade admitted his career would have been finished if Australia hadn’t won in the UAE in 2021 when he emerged as a key finisher. Around the 2022 edition, he indicated it would be his last. Yet here he was, back again for another go in 2024. It’s easy to make these calls in hindsight, but was it one too many?Wade was untidy at times behind the stumps and missed a stumping chance against Afghanistan. With the bat, he had two opportunities to play decisive hands – against Afghanistan and India – but couldn’t reprise that 2021 success. The role Wade had of finisher is one of the hardest in the game, getting precious little time in the middle if everything goes well, then expected to win games from the toughest of positions. But that’s why the best are so highly regarded.Josh Inglis is a favourite to take over from Matthew Wade in the format•Getty ImagesWade had been excellent in India last year during the five-match T20I series play in the hangover of the ODI World Cup. He was Australia’s leading run-scorer with 128 at a strike-rate of 166.23, and it went a long way to shoring up his spot for this tournament. The selectors have liked having a left-handed option in the middle order.But the future was there on the bench. Josh Inglis replaced Alex Carey one game into the ODI World Cup and while his stock in trade in T20 is not as a finisher – only 13 of his 113 T20 innings have come below No. 4 – he had previously shown his adaptability, and he is an excellent player of spin. Inglis could bat a little higher in a reshaped order.

Ellis’ time

One of the themes that ran through the tournament was Australia’s big three: Mitchell Starc, Pat Cummins and Josh Hazlewood.They were managed in the group stage, but there were compelling reasons why they should play. Starc had hit his stride dramatically late in the IPL, Cummins bowled very consistently amid a torrent of runs in that tournament and Hazlewood’s development as a T20 bowler has put him among the best in the world. His figures against India were remarkable and his tournament economy was a miserly 6.04. Cummins claimed back-to-back hat-tricks.Starc ended the tournament with an economy of 8.55 after a one-over mauling by Rohit in St Lucia (2 for 45 was a good return in that context, but it was a key over to go badly) and, given his stated desire to prioritise Test cricket, there’s a chance he may not return for a sixth T20 World Cup in two years’ time when he will be 36.He is, without doubt, a white-ball great. During the tournament he became the leading wicket-taker across both World Cup formats. But since taking 10 wickets at 16.40 (economy 6.83) at the 2012 T20 World Cup in Sri Lanka, the next four editions have brought 22 wickets at 29.54 with an economy of 8.90. Drilling down further, in three of the four games Australia have lost in the last three T20 World Cups – against England (2021), New Zealand (2022) and India (2024), Starc’s powerplay figures read 5-0-71-0.Nathan Ellis impressed in his limited outing•Associated PressThe understudy, Nathan Ellis, has made a compelling case. He played three matches, although only ever as a replacement for those rested or Starc’s tweaked calf against Namibia. In those three games he took four wickets and conceded 6.72 an over. While facing Oman and Namibia perhaps needs to be viewed with a slightly difference lens, his death overs against Scotland were outstanding and a key reason Australia weren’t chasing closer to 200. Now is the time for him to entrusted to grow as a leader of the T20 attack, whoever it’s in place of.

What next for Australia’s T20 side?

So, on that note, what of the future? Unlike ODI World Cup cycles which take four years, in T20 it’s now just two (and, in fact, less so heading to 2026 with that tournament in India and Sri Lanka scheduled for February).Hazlewood said after the India loss that he did not see a massive turnover. But he will be 35 by the next tournament. David Warner has retired and Wade will surely now be moved on. Glenn Maxwell will be 37, Marcus Stoinis 36. Cummins will be the youngest of the big three at 32. Captain Marsh will be 34.Marsh will provide an interesting debate. His preparation for this tournament was hindered by a hamstring injury that took longer to heal than expected. He never quite hit his straps with the bat and didn’t bowl, although was able to by the Super Eight. Was the batting a question of form or the burden of captaincy? Only he’ll know that, although he was well placed against India when Axar Patel plucked out his wonder catch.The nucleus of the next generation is already taking shape. That’s led by Jake Fraser-McGurk along with Inglis and Ellis (who are already both 29) alongside Cameron Green and Matthew Short of those who were in the Caribbean. The selectors will hope legspinner Tanveer Sangha can shake off his injury issues, the same for quick Jhye Richardson. Spencer Johnson could be a Starc like-for-like. Xavier Bartlett is also among the next in line.There is no crisis in Australia’s T20 cricket, even if the manner of their exit in the Caribbean will raise some questions, but the make-up of their next squad – to tour Scotland and England in September – will be fascinating and should give an indication of early plans for 2026.

The fast bowler talks about how he dealt with discouragement, the loss of a parent, and how his game has grown since he joined Chennai Super Kings

Nagraj Gollapudi09-Sep-2024September 23, 2011 is a day Tushar Deshpande will never forget. He was 16 years old, playing for Mumbai Under-19s for the first time. He had not bowled well in his first match and was dropped for the second. The coach told him to join him for a walk around the ground in Gwalior.”He started by asking what you do for education. Then he asked: what’s your future in cricket? So I spontaneously told him, I’ll play for India. The coach looked at me and said: ‘Do you think you can play for India?’ I said, yes, why not? So he started comparing me with other guys, saying, see how tall Umesh Yadav is, Dhawal Kulkarni, Zaheer Khan – all around six feet. You are just about 5′ 10″.”The coach had more to say. “He then said, ‘So do you feel you can go at that [high] speed and play for India? I again said yes. He said: ‘If you ask me, I don’t think you can go above 125kph with this height. You have good batting technique, you can start batting, or this is a very good age to try out other things.'”I got so pissed [off], very depressed, [had] zero confidence, and I started comparing myself with others. And when you compare yourself with others, you also think poorly about yourself – that I don’t have the height, I don’t have the strength, I don’t have the pace.”Deshpande was sent home the next day and he told his mother, Vandana, what the coach had said. “She told me, this is your choice that you started playing cricket. Never come home crying with what is happening in cricket. This is your own battle. You have to fight it out there. If you can fight it out, continue playing cricket, otherwise you can leave your bag outside and stop playing cricket.”Related

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In July this year, Deshpande, at 29, made his international debut, in India’s fourth T20I in Zimbabwe. “The moment I was informed I was going to make the debut, I first called my dad and asked him: ‘How do you feel that your son is now going to debut for India?’ He got emotional, started to talk about my [late] mother. I tried hard to mask my emotions during the call. And then I got back to my process: that no matter it’s the India debut, I have to give my best and be there for my team, which has been my attitude since I started playing cricket – that I’m on the ground to make a difference for it.”Deshpande’s father, Uday, is his first idol. He was a left-arm fast bowler who played B Division cricket on Mumbai’s professional circuit.”He won’t show his emotion on the face because he has taught me that we should be like soldiers,” Deshpande says of his father. “Whatever we feel should be beneath [the surface] and the outside world shouldn’t know about it. That is [one of] the biggest things he has taught me.”Deshpande is a stocky fast bowler – built like his friend and Mumbai team-mate Shardul Thakur – and his strength lies in his ability to shape the ball away and hit the deck hard, consistently clocking speeds around 140kph. In the last two years he has been the best seamer at Chennai Super Kings, and is in the India D team playing the first-class Duleep Trophy, ahead of India A and India’s tours of Australia starting November.Seven years ago, during his debut first-class season, Deshpande injured his ankle and was ruled out of the Ranji Trophy after playing only eight games. Two months later his mother was diagnosed with stage three ovarian cancer.In the 2023-24 Ranji Trophy semi-final, Deshpande took 3 for 24 to bowl out Tamil Nadu for 146 in the first innings. Mumbai went on to win the match by an innings•PTI During those days, Uday, on unpaid leave from work, would sit with his wife at the hospital for treatment from 6am to 1pm. Deshpande, after travelling two hours from Kalyan to Andheri to do his rehab, would relieve his father in the afternoon and stay at the hospital for six hours before heading home to exercise some more at his makeshift gym.In June that year, Deshpande had ankle surgery after it was determined he had been wrongly diagnosed with a stress fracture originally earlier in the year. “There were two patients at home, me and my mom. I was on crutches and my mom was having chemotherapy – 2017 was a hell of a year for us,” he says.By December, Deshpande had recovered to play his only match of 2017, an Under-23 game for Mumbai. In 2018, just when the family thought Vandana was responding to chemotherapy, the cancer returned and her health deteriorated. Deshpande says it was dispiriting to see his mother lose weight swiftly, not eat and not speak.”That one and a half years or so taught me a lot. I used to go to the gym at eight in evening after staying with my mom, work out till 10 or 11 at night, run in the night and do all sorts of things. It taught me how to be humble about life.”Deshpande had a fruitful 2018-19 season in domestic cricket, although emotionally he was distraught. In March 2019, Vandana died at the age of 55.Deshpande: “My father taught me that we should be like soldiers. Whatever we feel should be beneath [the surface] and the outside world shouldn’t know about it”•Prashant Bhoot/BCCI”I cried a lot thinking about her,” Deshpande says. “Sometimes I still cry thinking about her. But at that time my dad told me the same thing: ‘We are soldiers in life. You have to prioritise your cricket, which your mom always told you to. And if you do this now, if you play for India later on, that’s how you’ll fulfil her dream also.'”Two days after his mother’s death, Deshpande, at his father’s behest, travelled to Indore to play the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy and took four wickets against Delhi. That season he also took 17 wickets at 16.6 in four Ranji games and played a key hand in Mumbai winning the 50-over Vijay Hazare Trophy after 12 years.Deshpande says he clocked average speeds of around 140kph in the Vijay Hazare Trophy. “I felt whatever happened way back in September 2011, that is still with me and I have proved myself [worthy].”In the next IPL auction, Delhi Capitals bought him for his base price of Rs 20 lakhs (about US$24,000) for the 2020 season. At the IPL, he met his idol Dale Steyn, who helped him understand the only way to become a good player is to press repeat every day on your basics and your routines and to pay attention to fitness.

****

He might hide his emotions, but at times when someone has stirred them, it has only managed to bring the best out of Deshpande.Last March, on the first day of Mumbai’s Ranji semi-final , Deshpande prised out the Tamil Nadu middle order with a three-wicket haul. It’s a performance he values dearly and he reveals that the aggressive spell was triggered by the anger he felt towards his own captain, Ajinkya Rahane.Deshpande is currently part of the India D squad in the Duleep Trophy, which kicks off the domestic first-class season•PTI “Suddenly in the morning they tell me that you are bowling first-change. I got angry because I was ready to bowl with the new ball. I had warmed up with the new ball and I was bowling the new ball the whole season. They felt the other guy [another Mumbai fast bowler] had a niggle and dropped his pace and the management thought he would be better off bowling with the new ball [than bending his back with the older one – as Deshpande, with his pace, could do]. They told me later that was the reason. I told him he should have conveyed it earlier.”Rahane told Deshpande to channel his anger into his bowling. “I told him I was definitely going to do that,” Deshpande says, acknowledging that Rahane is, in fact, a very good captain and person, “always putting the team first”, just like his captain at CSK, MS Dhoni.During this time, Deshpande also closely observed how fit fast bowlers like Jasprit Bumrah, Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Mohammed Shami were, which allowed them to excel on the field. In 2021 he started working with strength and conditioning coach Vidhi Sanghvi and hired a physio and a nutritionist for his needs. Deshpande now weighs 78kg, having dropped nine kilos since 2021. Discipline and fitness have allowed him to build on his pace.The bigger transformation on the field came once Deshpande played for Super Kings in 2022, although the education began right from when he joined the franchise as a net bowler for the UAE leg of the 2021 IPL.”When I joined, my thinking was: if you have to succeed at the international level, you need a lot of variations, lots of skill sets, you need to outfox the batsman, try different angles [from the crease]. But from Eric Simons [CSK”s assistant coach] to Dwayne Bravo [who was playing until 2022 before turning bowling coach in 2023], to Mahi [Dhoni], these guys told me: it’s simple. The more often you hit that length and top of off stump, have a good and accurate yorker and a good bouncer, you’ll succeed in any format. Because these days predictable is becoming the unpredictable. Batsmen want you to falter, want you to try different things. But as a bowler what you can do is bowl that attacking length.”In 31 matches for CSK, Deshpande has taken 39 wickets at a strike rate of 17.2 and an economy of 9.3•BCCIMichael Hussey, CSK’s assistant batting coach, echoed those insights. “I asked him: which was the ball you didn’t expect after hitting a four? He said: the same ball again. He said batsmen feed on chaos in T20 cricket. They want bowlers to bowl on both sides of the wicket. But at CSK, the plan has been always about pitching on the attacking line, top of off stump.”That power of repeatability helped Deshpande during a home game against a rampaging Sunrisers Hyderabad line-up in April this year .”Both [Travis] Head and Abhishek [Sharma] had hit me for a six each [in the first over of the innings]. They might have expected me to change my bowling plan. I didn’t change anything. I bowled an offcutter on the same line – back of length on off stump. Head hit it straight to Daryl Mitchell at deep point. Against Abhishek, I bowled back of a length on off stump at normal pace. Nothing extraordinary. But the field placement was good [Mitchell took it again at deep point].”He got to play only two matches in 2022, but injuries to frontline bowlers allowed Deshpande to be picked for the entire season in 2023.During the preparatory camp in Chennai ahead of the 2023 season, Dhoni took Deshpande on a walk around Chepauk for a chat. Deshpande recalls: “[Dhoni told me]: ‘You have everything to succeed at international level. But you have to be calm during your run-up. Don’t get distracted by the crowd. Just take a deep breath, stay calm and bowl.’ If Mahi tells you that you have everything to be successful at international level, boss, that itself is an achievement.”CSK went on to win their fifth IPL title and Deshpande was their highest wicket-taker and joint fifth-highest overall.Deshpande on MS Dhoni’s advice: “Don’t play cricket in the mind… we keep trying to play ahead of the game instead of staying in the present”•BCCIBut Deshpande’s season was bookended by two blistering assaults against him, both by Gujarat Titans batters in Ahmedabad, in the season opener and the final. In the first match he took 1 for 51 in 3.2 overs.”Mahi came to me and said: ‘You haven’t made any mistakes. You bowled all good balls. It was not your day today. In the next match repeat the same.”The advice was in the same vein as what Dhoni had told him during their first conversation back in 2021: “Cricket is the same at all levels. We just try to complicate it unnecessarily.”Back then Deshpande didn’t quite understand what Dhoni was trying to tell him. They were facing each other in the nets, working on a match simulation.”I was bowling good yorkers, but suddenly I bowled a bouncer and got hit for a 100-metre six. He asked me: ‘Kyun daala bouncer?’ [Why did you bowl the bouncer?] I told him I thought he was expecting the yorker. He told me: Don’t play cricket in the mind. Yorker is a yorker and no one can hit you.”He was telling me we keep trying to play ahead of the game instead of staying in the present. The other thing he told me is to focus on my fitness, which is important for fast bowlers.”In the 2023 final Deshpande finished his four overs with 0 for 56 .”At CSK, the plan has been always about pitching on the attacking line, top of off stump”•BCCI”Mahi told me in that final I had done things that I had not done in the entire tournament. For example, when I was bowling to Sai Sudharsan, I did not place a fielder back to guard myself again the scoop. I had done that against others like Suryakumar Yadav or Jos Buttler. I had underestimated Sudharsan and had placed the fielder inside the ring. Mahi said: Never do that. In a crunch situation like a final, always back your strengths and keep doing what is giving you success.”By the 2024 season, Deshpande had become CSK’s strike bowler and was handling the challenge of bowling in the final four overs of an innings. He had another great mentor to lean on – Bravo, one of the best death bowlers in T20. The introduction of the Impact Player had allowed the use of an extra batter through the 20 overs and teams were regularly breaching the 200-run mark.Deshpande credits Bravo for helping him stay calm in the crucial death overs. “He said to always bowl to the bigger side of the field while always bowling your best ball. The message is: I am going to dictate my plan. If you have the guts, hit me on my plan.”I will cite the example of me bowling to Rashid Khan in qualifier 1 against Titans at Chepauk. Rashid had hit Matheesha Pathirana for six and four in the 16th over. Then he picked me for a six and a four in the 17th, and a four off the first ball of the 19th over.”I stayed focused on bowling the wide yorker towards the bigger boundary, which was our bowling plan. Rashid sliced [the third ball of the 19th over] straight to the deep-point fielder and the match was sealed and we got into the final. If that was the smaller side, it would have ended up being a six.”That is a Dwayne Bravo mantra: under pressure when you are defending a score, there is no need for bluffing – always stick to your plan.”Deshpande has three variations: the offcutter, the conventional yorker and the wide yorker. But with guidance from Bravo, he is learning the art of sequencing his deliveries – a key skill for successful death bowlers. Deshpande says that is why his offcutter is more effective because he uses it alongside his two other variations and attacks the batter when he is least expecting it.He has worked hard to build a career from the day the coach back in 2011 said he didn’t believe Deshpande had the skills to become a fast bowler and play for India. Deshpande says he aims for things that are “difficult but achievable”, words he once had heard a mental conditioning coach say during his U-16 years.His next goal is an obvious one. “Ultimate goal is to play Test cricket. And my aim is to pick up 100 wickets in Tests for India.”

Aggression is captain’s watchword as he takes lessons of 2022 and drills them back at England

Matt Roller07-Oct-2024It was not a mirage in Multan, but an overdue end to a four-year drought. Shan Masood has talked a good game in his first year as Pakistan captain but after five defeats out of five – in which his career average remained below 30 – he came into this series knowing that, unless he delivered with the bat, his position would be seen as untenable.This was as compelling a response as Masood could have wished for. When he hit 156 in Manchester in August 2020, he looked to have finally cracked Test cricket: it was his third successive hundred, albeit spread across an eight-month period. But in his 27 innings since then, he had not managed a single score above 60.Perhaps the most impressive aspect of Masood’s 151 was that he paid as much attention to ‘how’ as ‘how many’. Once a dour, shotless player who would crawl along at a strike rate of 40, Masood showed his team exactly how he wants them to bat by putting England’s seamers under pressure and targeting the young offspinner Shoaib Bashir.It would have been very different but for a review. Masood looked rushed by the extra pace during Brydon Carse’s first spell on Test debut, and had just edged him for four to reach 16 when he was given out lbw. But he was right to question Kumar Dharmasena’s on-field decision, with Hawk-Eye confirming the ball had pitched outside leg stump.The Pakistan captaincy is a role about more than just leading a cricket team. Its incumbents are also expected to act as spokesmen, musing at length about the state of the game – and the country. Masood’s views have been cited so many times that he should be charging royalties, and last week he gave a press conference previewing this series that lasted the best part of an hour.By his own admission, Masood had his eyes opened when England toured Pakistan two years ago and has taken inspiration from their attacking approach. He played in the third Test of that series after running the drinks in the first two, and describing England on Sunday as “pioneers” whose style “has had an effect on the world”.It has certainly had an effect on Masood, as he demonstrated with his calculated takedown of Bashir. Masood picked the ball after a convincing lbw shout as his opportunity to attack in Bashir’s second over, charging down to hack him through midwicket before using his feet again to the subsequent delivery, and launching him back over his head.A couple of skips down the pitch were enough to throw Bashir off his length, and Masood pulled his drag-down for four in the following over, then launched him over extra cover. It posed a problem for Ollie Pope, who could not rely on spin at both ends and found himself chasing the game while Masood and Abdullah Shafique piled on 253 for the second wicket.Related

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Masood explained that he saw Bashir’s introduction as an opportunity after Pakistan had seen off Chris Woakes’ threat with the new ball, on a pitch which offered very little for bowlers after some early movement. “If you can get the spinners away, you change the way they bowl,” he said. “On a first-day wicket, when you’ve had a good start, that’s when you have to cash in.”He expressly targeted a “mammoth partnership” early in his stand with Shafique. “The way we played, the way we put some scoreboard pressure on them, the way we kept running hard and made sure that we scored at 4.5-5 [per over] – that’s an important thing. If we would have just set up shop and tried to defend our way through the day, I don’t think we would have had 328 on the board.”Masood survived occasional sketchy moments off Gus Atkinson, including a top-edged pull that went just over the long-leg fielder and a gloved short ball that dropped short of Jamie Smith. But he was otherwise assured on his way to three figures, cruising along at a rapid rate: his hundred, reached off 102 balls, was Pakistan’s fastest in a decade.”From 30, still to 100, I was trying not to give anything away,” Masood said. “I’ve been very guilty of getting to those 30s, 40s and 50s and not carrying on. Today, I had that responsibility. When I played that pull shot off Atkinson, I had my heart in my mouth: I said, ‘Nothing [else] before 100.'”He flagged in the sapping heat of the afternoon, offering a half-chance to Pope at point on 133 and seizing up with cramp on 146 after reverse-sweeping Jack Leach for four. His dismissal – chipping a low chance back to Leach – was a tame end to a fine innings which spanned four-and-a-half hours, and was the second-highest of Masood’s Test career.It is not difficult to imagine the world in which Masood played no part in this Test. Five consecutive defeats at the start of his tenure could easily have led to him losing his job, or an overhaul in selection. But with a short turnaround from Bangladesh’s recent tour, the PCB defied their reputation for instability with a policy of continuity.The first day of a Test tour is unlike any other, in that it presents the opportunity to set the tone for what follows. Masood reflected as much with his positivity, which took the pressure off himself and put it on England’s bowlers. It couldn’t quite match England’s 506 for 4 in Rawalpindi two years ago, but Pakistan’s 328 for 4 laid the foundation for the series.

All eyes will be on the pitches prepared in Galle and they will have a significant bearing on how the visitors balance their side

Alex Malcolm24-Jan-20251:00

Ferguson: Connolly has stood up with every opportunity

Will Travis Head open and how will the top-order shape up?Australia’s selectors have been very clear on how they wish to deploy Travis Head’s talent in specific conditions. At home, and in SENA conditions, they see him as the perfect counterattacking No. 5. On the subcontinent, they see him as a dashing opener who can set the game up before the ball softens and starts turning square, much like he does in short-from cricket.Related

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Head was being discussed as an option to open in this series from a long way out, given he made 23 runs in three innings batting at Nos. 5 and 6 in Sri Lanka in 2022, and averages 18.90 in 11 innings on the subcontinent in the middle-order. He was dropped at the start of the India series in 2023, such were the selectors fears about his ability to start against spin. He was recalled as an opener when David Warner was injured in the second Test and made 223 runs at 55.75 in five innings.Sam Konstas, however, has added a new layer to the selectors’ plans. He was not on the radar for Sri Lanka until his exploits at the MCG. He now is the anointed one at the top of the order and needs to play as much as possible given Usman Khawaja, 38, will not be in India in 2027. Konstas will be tested by spin in Sri Lanka. Ravindra Jadeja becalmed him at the MCG after his onslaught against Jasprit Bumrah. Todd Murphy also outsmarted him a Sheffield Shield game at the same venue in October.Travis Head had success opening in India on the 2023 tour•BCCIKhawaja was Australia’s best player on the three subcontinent tours in 2022 and 2023 opening the batting. Three doesn’t go into two. Khawaja is easily the best equipped of the three to slide to No. 5 and start against spin. There is, however, another alternative. One of Konstas, Head or Khawaja could move to No. 3 and Marnus Labuschagne moves to No. 5.Labuschagne and Smith made centuries in Australia’s most recent Test in Galle. Having Australia’s best three players of spin – Khawaja, Smith and Labuschagne – reinforce the middle-order, in some kind of combination, after a potentially fast start could be an appealing option. But rejigging the top five in such a fashion would be unusual without changing any personal from the last Test in Sydney.