The Miami Marlins were able to beat the Toronto Blue Jays, 5-3, on Sunday to avoid being swept at home. After the game the pitcher who closed it out, Tyler Phillips, gave one of the most intense interviews you'll ever see that left the team's sideline reporter a bit scared.

Phillips pitched a perfect ninth inning for the Marlins while not allowing a ball to leave the infield. A groundout to first, a grounder back to the pitcher and a popup to second sealed the deal and gave the Marlins their 61st win of the season.

Stephen Strom, who works for the Marlins radio broadcast, was the reporter who got to talk to Phillips right after his outing and this was easily one of the best interviews you'll ever see.

Some highlights:

Strom: "Tyler you threw 32 pitches yesterday. When did you know you were going in tonight?"

Phillips: "When they called down."

Strom: "And you were ready to go?"

Phillips: "They call down, I’m pissed off. I’m ready to go."

Strom: "Why do you get so pissed off?"

Phillips: "I don’t like hitters."

Strom: "How did you get through that ninth?"

Phillips: "Throw the ball over the plate."

Strom: "How long does it take you to cool down after a win?"

Phillips: "I never cool down."

Strom, on Phillips slapping himself while making his entrance: "And the slapping. What was the level of slapping when you came on?"

Phillips: "Pretty hard. My face is hot."

Strom: "Great win, you’re scaring me. Go to the clubhouse. Thank you very much."

Here's that interview:

Here's Phillips slapping himself while entering the game:

You gotta love baseball. And, if you're Phillips, hate hitters.

The Dodgers' superstars showed up when it counted most.

Los Angeles entered this weekend's series against the Padres on a four-game losing streak and just 10-14 since the All-Star break. San Diego had risen to the top of the division, with a chance to extend its lead during the series.

Instead, the Dodgers stepped up and swept the Padres to reclaim the division lead. On Sunday, former MVPs Freddie Freeman and Mookie Betts, who have both dealt with slumps this season, rebounded from their woes to lead the Dodgers to their third victory of the series.

Freeman hit a three-run home run in the first inning to give the Dodgers an early lead. The Padres tied up the game by the top of the eighth inning, but Betts responded with a home run of his own to give the Dodgers the final 5–4 lead, and ultimately, the win.

Betts had not logged a hit during the series until that home run, and has been hitting a career-low .242 this season, but came through during the clutch against Padres All-Star closer Robert Suarez.

"It's about time I did something," Betts told Kirsten Watson of SportsNet LA after the game. "It's been all year, I'm just glad I was able to help the team win. … It felt great. I really haven't been driving the ball, last couple of games have been a lot better, hopefully we can turn the corner."

"I think Mookie's been very good for a couple weeks now," Freeman said following the win. "Anything he can take with confidence-wise, that was huge. 2-0 fastball, and he was able to stay through it, backspin the ball and hit it over the fence in a big situation. … Mookie Betts is gonna be Mookie Betts, and no one here is worried about him. Good to see him get some results, he's been working hard."

Sunday's performance should provide an added boost of confidence for the veteran stars, but the Dodgers' division lead is far from secure. They will need the momentum to carry through to next weekend, when they play their final series of the regular season against San Diego. That series will take place on the road at Petco Park, and winning it could go a long way for the Dodgers to try to claim the National League West.

And why he scored more impact points than Jasprit Bumrah despite the latter’s seemingly superior figures

ESPNcricinfo stats team01-Oct-2020Rahul Chahar’s 2 for 26 and not Kieron Pollard’s 47 off 20 was the most impactful performance of the match between the Mumbai Indians and the Kings XI Punjab, according to ESPNcricinfo’s Smart Stats.The Mumbai Indians won the match rather comfortably, by 48 runs, after putting up 191 for 4. Hardik Pandya also went after the Kings XI’s less-than-demanding death bowling and, with Krunal yet to come, Smart Stats reckons that Mumbai would’ve put up a big enough total to make it difficult for Kings XI even if Pollard hadn’t contributed as many as he did. So, Pollard’s innings earns him 104.7 impact points, marginally lower than Chahar’s 110.1.Chahar, the young legspinner, took the all-important wickets of the Kings XI captain KL Rahul and the dangerous Glenn Maxwell while the game was still alive, snuffing out any chances of the Kings XI making a match out of it. In addition, Chahar’s four overs went for just 26 runs, earning him impact points for his economy rate as well.ESPNcricinfo LtdThe Mumbai Indians captain Rohit Sharma got the third-highest impact score in the match for his 45-ball 70 and Jasprit Bumrah was at No. 4 for with 93.6 impact points. But why did Bumrah, who also took two wickets and was more economical than Chahar with an economy of 4.5 runs an over, get less value for his performance?That is because in a one-to-one comparison, Chahar’s wickets of Rahul and Maxwell were of much more value that Bumrah’s two wickets of Mayank Agarwal and James Neesham. Moreover, Neesham was dismissed when the match was almost out of the Kings XI’s hands with the asking rate climbing to almost 20 runs an over and an inexperienced lower-middle order to follow. The improbability of the chase being successful at that point was part of the reason for Bumrah’s economical bowling towards the end not fetching him that many impact points.Click here to know more about Smart Stats.ESPNcricinfo Ltd

A look at seven performers who not many predicted would make such a big impact

Sreshth Shah13-Oct-2020
ESPNcricinfo LtdWashington Sundar

Among those to bowl at least eight overs in the powerplay this season, Washington is the only one not to be hit for a single six. Washington also has the best economy rate (4.54) in that period, and overall, he has conceded 108 runs in 132 balls. According to ESPNcricinfo’s Smart Stats, though, those 108 runs drop to 43.33 Smart Runs in all. His Smart Economy is a ridiculous 1.97, much lower than Rashid Khan (2.91).As a fingerspinner, Washington earned his stripes at the Rising Pune Supergiant, where he bowled with the new ball. The Royal Challengers have finally recognised that strength and handed him that role again, making him one of the pillars of their success so far.Marcus Stoinis

Among those who bat at No. 5 or lower, Stoinis, who moved from the Royal Challengers to the Capitals this season, is behind only Rahul Tewatia (189) for in the runs tally with 175, but when seen from the lens of Smart Stats, his runs have come at a Smart Strike Rate of 213.9, behind only Kieron Pollard (224.7) and AB de Villiers (221.52) among those who have scored 50 or more runs.Stoinis’ good run has coincided with wins for the Capitals: a 21-ball 53 and two wickets in the 20th over dragged them to a Super Over against the Kings XI Punjab, which ended in their favour; another 26-ball 53* against the Royal Challengers set up a comfortable win; and his 30-ball 39 and two wickets against the Rajasthan Royals has kept them among the top two teams of IPL 2020 at the halfway stage.Anrich Nortje

Every hero needs a sidekick, and Kagiso Rabada has Nortje as his Robin. The South African quick missed out on IPL 2019 for the Kolkata Knight Riders because of an injury, but this season he has shown his worth, owning both his roles in the powerplay and at the death. His pace clocks up more than Rabada’s very often, and with his partner often saved for the death, Nortje’s spell in the first six has set the tone for the Capitals.Nortje’s powerplay economy of 6.46 is fantastic, and his short balls force most batsmen to duck instead of offering a shot. He has a mean yorker too, with an economy of just 2.40 when he fires those in. In short, Nortje has, in some metrics, been better than Rabada. His Smart Economy (6.8 compared to 7.02) and Smart Runs conceded (189.32 compared to 194.11) is better than his fellow South African too.ESPNcricinfo LtdT Natarajan

You might never have predicted that Natarajan, the left-arm quick from Salem in Tamil Nadu, would be the yorker specialist he has turned out to be. At the halfway mark, Natarajan has delivered 27 yorkers, ten more than Jasprit Bumrah. Using the left-armer’s angle, he has executed the wide yorker as well as the toe-crusher well. Remarkably, his economy of 6.22 when using the yorker is much better than Bumrah’s 8.22.Natarajan has not let the Sunrisers feel the absence of Bhuvneshwar Kumar, especially in the death overs. In his 47 deliveries between overs 17 and 20, Natarajan has an economy of 11.10, which is better than the celebrated trio of Bumrah, Jofra Archer and Pat Cummins.Rahul Tewatia

The biggest surprise of them all, Tewatia has the most runs from No. 5 or lower this season, and that means he’s been forced to bat more than the Royals would have liked – a result of top-order collapses. He’s got them out of improbable situations at least twice, for two wins in which he played starring roles, and both with the skill that he was less renowned for.His 31-ball 53 – after being at 8 in 19 balls – against the Kings XI broke the internet, making him a household name overnight. Tewatia proved it was no fluke in his unbeaten 45 against the Sunrisers, which rescued the Royals from a precarious 78 for 5 to chase down 159. That included three consecutive fours off Rashid Khan, showing that Tewatia did not really care about reputations. Tewatia, primarily known for his legspin, was traded by the Capitals to the Royals in exchange for Ajinkya Rahane. With the ball, too, Tewatia has chipped in, with five wickets.James Pattinson

Filling in for Lasith Malinga is no mean feat. But Pattinson has done exactly that, grabbing the opportunity that cropped up after Nathan Coulter-Nile’s injury with both hands.Part of a trio of fast bowlers that have pushed the Mumbai Indians to the top of the points table after seven games, Pattinson has bowled hard lengths to earn his rewards in the form of nine wickets. In isolation, an economy of 8.25 would not impress, but when you see that he has gone for only 9.12 per over at the death – numbers much better than Trent Boult and Bumrah – Pattinson’s worth only rises.Axar Patel

For a man who was dropped from the Capitals side after two matches, the comeback for Patel – in the aftermath of Amit Mishra’s tournament-ending injury – has been exceptional. He hasn’t had a single match economy of over six, and has also owned the powerplay overs in such a manner that the team has been able to hold Rabada back for the death with ease.His left-arm spin, together with a high release, has not allowed batsmen to get on top of him, and he has conceded just six fours in his 112 deliveries. According to Smart Stats, the 93 runs he has conceded have effectively come at a Smart Economy of 3.37, which is only behind Washington Sundar (1.97) and Rashid Khan (2.91) among spinners.

One by Wasim Akram in his pomp? Mitchell Johnson in 2013-14? Holding to Boycott? Our panelists pick the spells that keep batsmen awake at night

ESPNcricinfo staff17-Nov-2020Rabbit HolesAndrew “Gnasher” McGlashan, deputy editor: Who takes the new ball?Karthik Krishnaswamy, senior sub-editor: Where’s Osman?McGlashan: Picking the new cherry from the box and making sure his hair looks like Wasim Akram’s.Osman Samiuddin, senior editor: Right, I’m going to start with two pics. Sorry, Brighton library but I “borrowed” this book back in the day, and it was actually the first book I read on fast bowling.Gollancz/WitherbyMcGlashan: What are the fines usually, 50p per day?Samiuddin: Give or take. Simon Wilde at his peak here, in actually broadening the definition of scary fast bowling. Until then, scary fast bowling was short, fast, bouncers. By the time he wrote this, reverse swing at high pace had come in.Krishnaswamy: I’ve got this quote, from Frank Tyson: “To bowl quick is to revel in the glad animal action; to thrill in physical prowess and to enjoy a certain sneaking feeling of superiority over the other mortals who play the game.” But I also wanted to ask: are we talking about batsmen being scared, or the viewer, cowering behind the sofa?Samiuddin: Probably both… I was going to say that on certain days, the prospect of Jimmy Anderson bowling to you is scarier than a faster bowler.McGlashan: Does a big ‘tache help?Samiuddin: Interesting point about the ‘tache. Merv Hughes had it, and played fully to the stereotype of scary fast bowler, but he wasn’t really, was he? Sarfraz Nawaz too had the hair and the moustache, but actually not the pace at all. Even though he fully tried to get into the bouncer wars in the ’70s. I mean him running in, he looked like a penguin on fire and then he bowls a bouncer at, I don’t know, 126kph probably.Krishnaswamy: Sarfraz Nawaz had the ‘tache, Imran Khan never did, and Waqar Younis ditched his very early.McGlashan: I think if you asked the average cricket follower what scary was, it would be the physical danger side of it.Samiuddin: Yeah, so I think the point Wilde makes in his book is that the batsmen were scared (at the time he wrote it) of their toes being crushed. Though I don’t think that would compare to a proper mortal threat of getting hit on the head.McGlashan: Mitchell Johnson. That [Ashes] series in 2013-14 was among the most consistently hostile performances I’ve seen.Krishnaswamy: Yeah, I was watching that video an hour or so back, and it’s amazing how many batsmen are so clearly worried about the threat of the bouncer – they’re so often getting out to other balls, but they’re all the way across their stumps sometimes, or not getting forward at all. And then he carried it forward into the South Africa tour that followed. In that 2013-14 season, he took 59 wickets at 15.23. Rest of his career, he averaged 31.46.McGlashan: As a small aside – think we might have a few! – Akram bowled one of the spells of short stuff that Alec Stewart said was the fastest he ever faced: Oval 1996.Samiuddin: Akram actually did this quite often. For all the skills that he had, when he wanted to crank it up, he could get properly nasty.Krishnaswamy: Isn’t there a photograph of the ball passing Stewart’s head when he’s utterly contorted by Akram? Or was that Michael Atherton?McGlashan: YepDo fear the ripper: just the anticipation of a bouncer from Mitchell Johnson saw batsmen fall to other balls in the 2013-14 Ashes•Getty ImagesSamiuddin: There’s a famous, famous spell that he bowled to Steve Waugh in Rawalpindi I think, in the 1994-95 series. Waugh says it was the nastiest spell he’d faced – everything up into his armpit. I think he said it was the fastest spell he’d faced.McGlashan: Plenty of Atherton doing the same, mind… usually to Curtly Ambrose or Courtney Walsh. Or famously to Allan Donald, Trent Bridge, 1998.Krishnaswamy: The most visibly terrified person on the field that day seemed to be Mark Boucher. Who was 20 or something but looked 15.Samiuddin: I’m going to drop this video in here just because the title of it is what should be the title of this rabbit hole: Akram just wants to kill: “He [Waugh] didn’t middle a ball in my spell – I was beating him and he was leaving a lot of balls. But he stood there and got 98 and that was very, very impressive. I just wanted to kill him, as a bowler. That was probably the quickest I’ve ever bowled.”McGlashan: While we are on Pakistan fast bowlers (and when aren’t we?) how soon does Shoaib Akhtar feature?I don’t think Brian Lara has ever said as much but could he have faced a scarier bouncer than the one Akhtar felled him with? Or the one Akhtar hit Gary Kirsten with?And if we are talking about the feet being in danger, Ashley Giles was never playing that one in 2005.Samiuddin: The thing about Akhtar was his action as much as the pace. He used to bring his arm through from weird angles and there was that whole whippage, not unlike Jasprit Bumrah actually, which made it difficult to pick up. Like Brett Lee’s classical, beautiful action made his bouncer at least easier to pick, if not play. But with Akhtar, it was on you before you knew it because you saw it so late.McGlashan: There was also this spell vs Justin Langer and Ricky Ponting at the WACA that they talk about being as quick as they faced.Krishnaswamy: That tour, he often threatened to concede four byes without the ball bouncing a second time.Samiuddin: I’ve just gone down a Akhtar rabbit hole here, but I remember hearing about this spell, to Matthew Hayden, in a tour game. Check the bouncer at 1:19. He doesn’t have time to move. But Hayden being Hayden, doesn’t even flinch after getting hit. But then Akhtar gets him out with a slower ball (lolz) later.McGlashan: I’ve always quite enjoyed the fact that when he broke 100mph at the 2003 World Cup, Nick Knight just tapped the ball to the leg side.Samiuddin: Haha, it was like the least scary ball Knight had ever played.On unusual actions, though, the daddy of all the scariest I guess was Jeff Thomson. One of the pics I love the most is of Thommo.The quick and the dread: Tony Greig at the receiving end of a Jeff Thomson missile in the 1974-75 Ashes•Patrick Eagar/Getty ImagesHere’s Mark Nicholas writing about that delivery to Tony Greig: “I watched in awe as Thomson made the ball fly from the hard pitch and Rodney Marsh took off to catch it. Marsh and the slip fielders appeared to be miles back, near 30 paces at a guess. There were no helmets or chest guards, just flimsy thigh pads, basic gloves and pink, plastic abdominal protectors. Men were battered, bruised, bloodied and broken.”Man, Greig must have been at the receiving end of some scary-ass spells.Krishnaswamy: Look at the slip cordon (plus short leg) at the start of this video.Samiuddin: Looks at the start like he’s just bowling some nice, gentle floaters. Mark Ealham-esque.McGlashan: I suspect David Lloyd found that spell from Thommo that still gets played nowadays quite scary.Krishnaswamy: There’s a real physical danger to fast bowling that we were reminded of when Phillip Hughes died, but the game seems to have gone back to a pre-2014 state in terms of bouncers being bowled frequently, even to lower-order batsmen. I thought that might change, but it really hasn’t. During the pink-ball Test in Kolkata last year, I thought India’s fast bowlers went overboard with the bouncer, and thanks to concussion subs, the game ended with Bangladesh’s second-innings scorecard featuring 12 batsmen and two DNBs: I think umpires do need to step in more when fast bowlers constantly bounce tailenders. One of the least edifying things in cricket is spectators cheering when fast bowlers go overboard against the tail. Video titles with the word “kill” in them are part of the same problem.Samiuddin: Does it happen to the degree it was happening in the ’70s, though? In fact, Wilde’s book is especially good at documenting the kind of moral crisis that gripped cricket around that time. Cricket just couldn’t figure out what to do with bouncers, and especially a sustained barrage vs tailenders. Bob Willis rearranged Iqbal Qasim’s jaw once, famously, and that was at the centre of the whole debate at the time.Krishnaswamy: I don’t think it happens as often as it used to, but I’m not sure that’s been figured out even after Phillip Hughes.Samiuddin: Part of the discussion around bouncers, though, filtered into this attitude of painting the great West Indies pace attack as thugs, which was completely unfair and a little racist.Krishnaswamy: Oh yeah. As if crowds never chanted “Lillee, Lillee, Lillee, kill, kill, kill.”Neil Wagner: you say bouncer, he asks how high•Getty ImagesMcGlashan: I do think some umpires these days have quite a liberal interpretation of the two bouncers per over. Neil Wagner, for example, is outstanding at what he does and gets so many just on the spot, but it’s a fine line to judge at pace.Samiuddin: I feel Wagner is actually just a freak, right, in his control over that length?Krishnaswamy: Yup. It’s amazing how much control he has over the height it gets up to.Samiuddin: I can’t remember a bowler like him, who so specialises in that particular length. And I think, though umpires know better, he doesn’t cross the line.McGlashan: Yes, you are probably right.Krishnaswamy: Even the rest of the New Zealand attack now bowls like him when the ball is old and nothing’s happening. Though they do it to control runs rather than scare batsmen, which is one of the weirdest tangents in the history of the bouncer.Samiuddin: So true. “Hi, I’m the slower-ball bouncer and I hate myself.” On bouncers at tailenders, though, Aaqib Javed did it to Devon Malcolm also in 1992 at Old Trafford. Gnasher do you have memories of that? When Roy Palmer intervened and there was the whole bust-up with the umpire as well?McGlashan: That might be the one I’m thinking of, actually.Samiuddin: But we’re speaking here of Malcolm as batsman, without recalling his great scary spell…McGlashan: Yes, I was going to bring him in. Obviously 9 for 57, but two others as well: 1993 at The Oval vs Australia, only a handful of overs but very rapid to Slater and Taylor, and then Perth 1995. England dropped ten catches, but Malcolm broke Slater’s thumb and it was flying everything.Samiuddin: I loved Malcolm’s action. In a very different way to Michael Holding and Jofra Archer, he also cranked up serious pace without looking like he was putting that much into it.McGlashan: The dismissal of Cronje at The Oval in 1994 remains one of my favourite – Cronje playing the perfect forward defence with the stumps splattered.Samiuddin: I wonder, with all the advances in the game and the training, if batsmen still get scared by a really quick bowler? I guess after Phil Hughes there’s been a little bit of a rejig in how they think.Krishnaswamy: The helmet’s changed techniques, though, so they get hit more often.McGlashan: The reverse is, we have no evidence of how scary some spells from earlier decades were. Graham Gooch said the only time he ever feared for his life was facing Patrick Patterson in the 1986 series. There’s no footage anywhere. But there is this amazing piece by Rob Smyth.How many lethal deliveries from the ’70s and ’80s remain unseen?•Getty ImagesSamiuddin: Apparently, from the mid-’70s until England’s tour in 1990 – broadcast on Sky – Tests in the Caribbean were never broadcast in full. Local broadcasters would only use clips for their news that evening. Even that famous Michael Holding over to Geoff Boycott is probably shot from the members’ area at the old Kensington Oval, and it doesn’t really tell us what it was like. The only way we know how special that over is is because the people who were there tell us.Krishnaswamy: Speaking of camera angles, the BBC’s behind-the-batsman angle made Malcolm Marshall appear even more skiddy than he was. The ball to Gooch genuinely seems to speed up off the pitch.Samiuddin: I love the line from Allan Donald further down the rail on the right there – from one of our interviews, actually: “Marshall was outthinking you all the time.” How do you beat that?McGlashan: Before they turned the square at Old Trafford, the dressing rooms were side-on. Imagine watching a quick spell like that.Samiuddin: The worst.McGlashan: Actually, who was the West Indian cricketer they said was faster than anyone but never/barely played? John “The Dentist” Maynard:

“Maynard, to this distant long-wave listener of , typified an era when a tour of the West Indies was the ultimate examination of body and soul. The arrival of a Test team in the Caribbean, particularly if it had come from England, was a call to arms for every aspiring cricketer in the region. Long before Duncan Fletcher turned tour games into a 12-man-a-side glorified net session, Maynard and his cronies were cranking up the pace and injecting the venom, eager to advance their claims to Test selection, but equally determined to crush the tourists’ morale before they embarked on the main event.”

Krishnaswamy: But our topic is scary fast bowling in Test cricket, no?Samiuddin: I think we can be loose and fluid. To the point where I’m going to foray briefly into “scariest batsman”. There’s a famous Akram story from his first tour of the West Indies in 1987-88, when he started roughing up Viv Richards with some short balls at one stage, on the insistence of Imran Khan, and then sledged him a bit too. And Richards walked up to him and just said, “I’ll see you outside at the end of play.” Back in the dressing room, post-play, Akram was, ahem, a little scared and had to enlist Imran’s help in dousing the situation when Richards came knocking.McGlashan: Bit like his line when he said to the England captain – can’t remember off the top of my head which one – that the team sheet didn’t matter.Krishnaswamy: I’m willing to bet 90% of the Viv stories are apocryphal.Samiuddin: Cautiously 90%. While we’re on West Indies batsmen, the quickest bowler Lara faced was one of the biggest what-ifs: Mohammad Zahid.McGlashan: Mohammad Zahid, there’s a good one to pluck out.Is Brett Schultz worth a mention?Wasim Akram learnt that you bounce Viv Richards at your own peril•Getty ImagesKrishnaswamy: Definitely.McGlashan: Him and Donald together, albeit very briefly, was quite a pairing.Samiuddin: Look at us, talking about Donald’s partners and opponents and not Donald himself.McGlashan: Indeed 1994-99 (ish) was there anyone quicker? Good era for quicks, mind you.Krishnaswamy: Younis wasn’t so quick anymore in that phase.Samiuddin: Donald’s length was a killerMcGlashan: But if we keep it on spells, there was one he bowled to the Waughs (Sydney, I think)Samiuddin: Uff, he’s so on it right from the start. Love the Benaud line in that link, after Lawry says: “Donald has given him the tickle up.” Benaud deadpans: “Wasn’t a tickle.”McGlashan: Great fast bowling needs great commentators.Krishnaswamy: Okay, so let’s each nominate the scariest spells we’ve seen, then wrap up.McGlashan: A single spell, or can we stretch it to a “performance”?Krishnaswamy: Either.Samiuddin: Shoaib Akhtar to MS Dhoni, Faisalabad 2006. Also because he threw in a beamer and was just losing it. Dead pitch on which both sides made 6000 or something in their first innings. Akhtar, probably in his fittest stretch (in terms of lack of injuries), playing his fifth Test in a row, just ruffled up Dhoni so bad, hitting 95mph.McGlashan: And ruffled Dhoni’s hair.Samiuddin: Dhoni won it, though, and ended one of the spells with a magnificent hooked six that sounded properly like a gunshot off his bat in the open-air press box.Krishnaswamy: It remains one of the most spoken-about sixes of his career!McGlashan: I’m going to stick with my earlier mention (and maybe still a hint of recency bias, which I know KK loves) but Johnson 2013-14 Ashes. Five Tests, never slowed down. Albeit England never batted that long.Krishnaswamy: Ha! I’m going even more recent. Jasprit Bumrah got 5 for 7 in the second innings in Antigua last year, bowling mostly outswing (inswing to the left-handers). Then he got 6 for 27 in the first innings in Jamaica, including a hat-trick, bowling mostly inswing. It was a very average West Indies line-up, but it was the kind of scary where you don’t expect any batsman to survive too long.McGlashan: Anyway, we’ve done well to end this talking about MS Dhoni [].Rabbit Holes

Phehlukwayo’s fitness will be crucial, as will the management of Sipamla’s talent

Firdose Moonda03-Dec-2020Being without Faf du Plessis and Kagiso Rabada will give South Africa the opportunity for younger players to gain international experience even as it leaves questions over how they will balance their XI against England.Du Plessis is being rested for the upcoming ODI series after a period in which he played at the IPL, PSL and in the three T20Is while Rabada has been ruled out with a groin strain. South Africa have also released Pite van Biljon, Bjorn Fortuin and Reeza Hendricks from their 23-man group, leaving them with a squad of 18 and similar questions about their combinations as they had in the T20Is.At the top of South Africa’s priority list is getting a pace-bowling allrounder into the XI and for that, they need Andile Phehlukwayo to pass a fitness test. With Dwaine Pretorius ruled out of the entire tour with a hamstring concern, Phehlukwayo is the only option for this position but was unavailable for the T20s. He returned to training on Sunday and should slot straight into the one-day side if he gets the green light to play, chiefly because he provides South Africa with an additional bowler.”If you’ve got six bowlers in the team it gives you another option and in 50-over cricket he has been great for us. His one-day record is special,” Charl Langeveldt, South Africa’s bowling coach said. “He gives you that option bowling at the back end as well. If he is fit, we are going to have a look today, and then we will make a judgement on if he will be able to play on Friday.”Phehlukwayo’s inclusion will also help South Africa address their other selection conundrum – transformation targets. As of this season, the national team is required to field, on average, a team that is made up of 25% black African players, which equates to between two and three black African players in an XI, and three more often than two. In the three T20Is, South Africa met that target in each match (although they missed the overall player-of-colour target, which requires six non-white players) by fielding Rabada, Lungi Ngidi and Temba Bavuma. With Rabada out of the series and Bavuma competing with Janneman Malan for the openers’ spot, Phehlukwayo will be a welcome addition.However, the bigger question might be what South Africa will do if Phehlukwayo still needs some time to get match fit. They will likely have to lean on one of their left-arm-spinner allrounders – George Linde and Jon-Jon Smuts – and carry a longer tail which could start as high as No.7. Lungi Ngidi, Anrich Nortje, Junior Dala and/or Lutho Sipamla and Tabraiz Shamsi are the likely frontline bowlers. Of those Dala and Sipamla are the least experienced international cricketers, on opposite sides of the domestic spectrum.Dala is 30 years old and is into his 10th season of cricket. He has 158 domestic and international white-ball appearances to his name, was the leading wicket-taker in the 2018-19 one-day cup and the fifth-highest wicket-taker in last season’s MSL. South Africa see him as a new-ball bowler, perhaps to partner Nortje. “Junior bowls hard lengths, he is aggressive and when you’ve got two bouncers (per over) and two white balls, I see him very much as part of our 50-over plan,” Langeveldt said. “We worked on trying to up-skill him as well, get him to play slower balls and work on his yorkers.”Lutho Sipamla’s talent is undisputed, but the way he is managed needs to be more closely considered•Gallo Images/Getty ImagesSipamla is 22, a former national Under-19 player and by all accounts a prospect to be nurtured for the future. He finished third on the wicket charts in the inaugural edition of the MSL, which earned him an international call up in the 2018-19 season. His most recent appearance was in the final T20I against England, where he went for 45 runs in 2.4 overs.That Sipamla is talented is undisputed, but the way he is managed needs to be more closely considered. Sipamla had not played any cricket, in any format, between an ODI in March and the T20I against England, having sat out the first two rounds of domestic cricket. At Newlands on Tuesday night, he looked a lonely young man, as none of his team-mates offered advice or empathy while Jos Buttler and Dawid Malan tucked in. Langeveldt conceded that South Africa needed to offer Sipamla more support but not that Sipamla should be held back until a less aggressive opposition comes to town.”It’s been hard on Lutho. You know with a top team like that they are always going to target him. You need to speak to him, analyse his own game, try and calm him down in the situation. We tried to prepare him as much as we could, but we all saw in the game it’s hard when you are put under pressure, especially against a top-quality team,” Langveldt said. “We try to get the team to rally around him, to support him. That’s the big thing, to get one of your senior bowlers, even one of your senior players just to back him and say, ‘forget about that ball, it’s all about the next execution and just be clear in your game plans.’ That’s a thing we speak about a lot.”But no one came to Sipamla’s side at the end of what was a demoralising defeat for South Africa. And this is where they need to be careful. Throw Sipamla into the deep end too many times and he could easily become a casualty of a transformation policy intended to do exactly the opposite. And if they are going to use the sink-or-swim policy for Sipamla, the least that needs to happen is that he has a few lifesavers around. Quinton de Kock wasn’t one on Tuesday and usually that’s where Faf du Plessis, or Rabada, would come in. Neither of them will be able to in the ODIs, which seems set up to be another test of South Africa’s ability to juggle their combinations before they even begin to work out how to take on the team they are playing against.Langeveldt tried to see the positives in the situation. “For a young bowler, it’s a great opportunity to test the mental aspect of the game. England are going to come hard at you. That’s the nature of the way they play T20 cricket and fifty-over cricket. So mentally you need to be strong,” he said. “When you are under pressure, you need to be able to execute and they will learn from this. We’ve got work to do with our bowlers.”Ultimately, South Africa have work to do all round because “we have a lack of international experience,” as Langeveldt put it. Maybe then it’s not such a bad thing to be without du Plessis and Rabada, for if nothing else, it gives younger players the chance to wrestle with the challenges they come up against, at the highest level.

Not too long ago, he wasn’t considered to be T20 material. On Tuesday, he blitzed his way to deliver Pakistan’s first win on tour

Danyal Rasool22-Dec-2020It’s been a complicated few days for Mohammad Rizwan. After being named the best player of the Test series over in England in the summer, he was catapulted to levels of prominence that seemed unlikely to come his way while he served as understudy to Pakistan’s then all-format captain Sarfaraz Ahmed.He was named vice-captain of the Test side only last month, but with Babar Azam ruled out of the first Test, he is set to lead a side he has only played for nine times out in the Boxing Day Test against New Zealand. Only Javed Burki in the 1960s has played fewer Tests before being elevated to the captaincy. Rizwan’s stock has never been higher.Oddly, though entirely fittingly in the bizarre world of Pakistan cricket, the levels of criticism he endured were never fiercer either. You see, Azam’s absence in the T20Is meant someone had to do a fairly straightforward job – replacing the world’s number two T20I batsman at the top of that Pakistan order. And who did they entrust? Of course Rizwan, sent on that hiding to nothing.Having struggled to get going in the first two T20Is, he was singled out for Pakistan’s lacklustre performances, with his selection forensically scrutinised. There were calls for Sarfaraz to replace him in the side – though Sarfaraz would never have opened the innings, so that problem still remained. Either way, Rizwan walked out on Tuesday with a target on his back – and not just from the opposition.Things didn’t look much better when he struggled for fluency in the Powerplay, unable either to get his shots away or get the more belligerent Haider Ali on strike – the 20-year old faced just nine balls in the first five overs. When he did bring up his half-century off 40 balls, he had picked up the pace, but the asking rate kept mounting.Rizwan powered Pakistan’s chase with 89 off 59•AFP/Getty ImagesRizwan, however, is a patient man. He had spent two years out of the side, often not even deemed necessary to be part of the travelling contingent as the second-choice wicketkeeper, given how nailed on Sarfaraz was as captain. Some might have complained – Pakistan cricketers are not especially famous for taking prolonged exclusions in good grace. Rizwan kept his head down and trusted the process, and that, it appeared, is what he was doing for the first half of the chase.With the asking rate hovering above ten and Hafeez – the likeliest to win this match for Pakistan given his sparkling 2020 – gone, it is worth reminding oneself this is very much not Rizwan’s game. A man who wasn’t even trusted by his PSL franchise, the Karachi Kings, to so much as play for them had been was being asked to open the innings for Pakistan in New Zealand, negotiate Boult, Southee and Jamieson in the Powerplay while keeping the asking rate down, and finish off by blitzing said good bowlers at the death.Check, check, check. Half an hour later, Rizwan would walk off the Napier field having just played a T20 knock for the ages. In one of Pakistan’s finest away chases, he took just 18 balls to score his final 38 runs, all the while negotiating a steady trickle of Pakistan wickets from the other end that threatened to make things interesting again. He was unfortunate not to hit the winning runs, but it’s unlikely Iftikhar Ahmed would have had the confidence, or the opportunity, to finish things off with such aplomb had it not been for Rizwan’s unlikely, analytics-defying knock.It doesn’t take long to chip away at a player’s confidence, and head coach Misbah-ul-Haq was particularly cognizant of that in the post-match presser. “It’s always very encouraging to see Rizwan respond like that just after finding out he will be the Test captain. We know that in these conditions, that series is going to test us. But Rizwan’s own confidence will go a long way to helping the Pakistan team in the Tests.”I think it was a tough series for us in terms of preparation, the way we got only six days to prepare for such competitive cricket. It was a bit tough on the guys, but the responded well and tried their level best. We finally got a much needed win today. I’m happy with Rizwan’s performance, who was under pressure from the previous two games today. “Very pleased with this performance, and hopefully he, and all of us, can take this confidence into the Test series. It’s a great morale boost for him to be the one that gets these runs, setting an example for the team now that he’s captain.”This was a team Rizwan wasn’t a part of for several years, one that, had most had their way, he might not have been a part of even today. Perhaps there’s a case to be made this performance will end up as more an outlier than anything suggestive of a fresh trend for Rizwan’s T20I career, and time will certainly tell. But you might excuse Rizwan for not being too fussed about that one just yet. The statistics may not support him, but as Rizwan prepares to take charge of a Pakistan Test side, he may feel he has little use for likelihoods and probabilities.

And are the Royals erring by sticking with Stokes at the top of the order?

ESPNcricinfo stats team22-Oct-2020The Rajasthan Royals have tinkered with their opening combination all through this season. They have tried five different opening combinations, which is the most by any team so far in this IPL. While none of their openers have done exceptionally well, Jos Buttler should have been an obvious choice for one of the opening slots given his excellent record in T20s as an opener.However, they have chosen to go with Ben Stokes as Robin Uthappa’s partner at the top in their last three innings. While Uthappa has shown promise batting at his preferred position – he hit a 22-ball 41 against the Royal Challengers Bangalore – Stokes has struggled to make use of the powerplay overs. Stokes’ four innings as opener this season before today had produced 80 runs at a strike rate of 112.67.Stokes’ struggle today was exacerbated by the Sunrisers Hyderabad’s tactic of using Rashid Khan against him. Stokes managed to score just seven runs off the six deliveries that Rashid bowled to him, before getting dismissed by the same bowler. Rashid had also created a chance off a previous delivery he had bowled to Stokes, which Vijay Shankar had dropped at midwicket. Stokes was on 17 off 19 deliveries when he was dropped.ESPNcricinfo LtdESPNcricinfo’s Luck Index reckons that the drop actually cost the Royals eight runs in the end, given how Stokes was struggling to force the pace. With batsmen like Rahul Tewatia and Jofra Archer – who has shown he can get some quick runs – still to bat, Luck Index reckons that the Royals would’ve managed to score 21 from the 12 balls (remember, Stokes was on 17 off 19 when he was dropped) that Stokes faced after he was dropped before being dismissed for 30 off 32. This is calculated by distributing the 12 balls that Stokes faced among the batsmen who remained unbeaten and, if necessary, those who didn’t bat in the innings. (This calculation takes into account the expected balls that each batsman is likely to play, based on their quality.)While quantifying the value of the drop, Luck Index also brings out the fact that the Royals perhaps are erring with their strategy of opening with Stokes.

Centurion’s proactivity on tricky surface could prompt change in England’s approach with the bat

Andrew Miller13-Feb-20212:55

Bell: Players like Rohit can take the game away from you quickly

Day six in Chennai, first session, and the ball was spinning like a roast chicken on a spit. Rumours that this surface was in fact a brand-new offering, rather than a repurposing of the one on which England had rushed to victory inside two sessions on Tuesday, seemed to have been confounded within two overs of Jack Leach’s first spell, as his fingerspin started disturbing the surface with ominous regularity.Day six in Chennai, final session, and the ball was popping like an over-heated frying pan. Joe Root’s part-time tweakers were suddenly the most lethal weapon in England’s armoury, his round-arm, round-the-wicket offerings extracting top-spin galore to threaten the splice and the gloves with mounting hostility. Even Rishabh Pant’s fearlessness out of the rough seemed compromised in the circumstances, although all things are relative where his remarkable style is concerned.But then, linking those two phases of play – including throughout a middle session of the most docile progress imaginable – there was Rohit Sharma’s transcendent innings of 161 from 231 balls.This was a performance every bit as totemic as Root’s double century in the series opener last week – a lobbed gauntlet of an innings from an opener whose twin failures in that contest had set the tone for a flaccid Indian batting display, but who has surely seized this contest with a grip every bit as vice-like as R Ashwin can expect to apply when his turn comes with the ball at some stage on Sunday.For there was little more that England, realistically, could have done to boost their standing in this contest after losing a very significant toss. Sure, they might have had a bit more luck with the TV umpiring, and they might have found more control with the old ball than Moeen Ali, in particular, was able to provide in his first Test outing in 18 months.Related

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But most of all, they found a batsman in the mood to reap his runs before the inevitable crumbling. “Proactivity” was Rohit’s watchword in that dicey early phase, when the hard new ball was tearing regular chunks out of the deck, and a dog-eat-dog mentality seized hold of his innings. “You can’t be reactive,” he said at the close. “Getting on top of the bowler, making sure you are ahead of him, was very, very crucial.”Aside from a few hairy moments in the 90s, his innings proved as chanceless as it was audacious. Whether or not he took a cue from Root’s mastery of the first Test, Rohit’s use of the sweep was the stand-out feature of his game, but his dominance of the scoreline evoked a more home-grown icon of Indian batting – particularly when he strode in at lunch on 80 not out in a lunchtime scoreline of 106 for 3. By that stage of the day, he had already produced an innings as agenda-seizing as Virender Sehwag himself, on this ground in 2008, when his 83 out of an opening stand of 117 broke the back of a famous India run chase.What’s more, not only did Rohit go on to double that impact before his late extraction in the evening session, but his departure – in the 73rd over – lifted with it the veil of normality that he had managed to drape over the contest. England may have been grateful for the late breakthroughs that their day’s endeavours had earned, but as the ball began to rag once more past the more vertical-batted play of India’s middle order, they won’t have been thankful for the circumstances.Rohit Sharma offers the full face of the bat•BCCI”Control the rate, control the game” is the mantra with which England’s bowlers have rebooted their Test competitiveness in recent months. It’s an old-fashioned edict for a new-fangled age of Test cricket, as simple in its message as David Saker’s instructions to James Anderson on England’s triumphant Ashes tour in 2010-11 – “don’t get cut” – but rather trickier to adhere to against an opponent with Rohit’s power and poise.They did plenty right in the invidious circumstances, not least when Olly Stone demonstrated that “fresh” really is the new “match-fit” in England’s lockdown lifestyle, after bursting off the bench to confound Shubman Gill within three balls of his overseas debut, before posting a top speed, 93mph/150.4kph, that only the absent Mark Wood has matched in England’s contests this winter.However, Stuart Broad – taking over from Anderson as England’s wise old head – was neutered with the new ball then failed to unlock any significant reverse swing with the old, and though Ben Stokes had been expected to play a bigger role with the ball in Jofra Archer’s injury-enforced absence, his two overs lacked venom and hinted at an underlying niggle despite the England camp’s insistence he was fully fit.And therefore, as had too often been the case in England’s toothless tour four years ago, the spinners had to be called upon rather more permanently than the team’s gameplan might have hoped for – 52 overs out of 88 all told, including the bulk of that drifty afternoon session.It started well enough for both men. Leach has now scalped Cheteshwar Pujara twice in two innings, quite the achievement after Pujara had not once got out to a left-arm spinner in the previous four years, while Moeen – like the man he replaced for this contest, Dom Bess – bagged the biggest scalp of all with his best ball of the match, a ripping offbreak through a wafty drive that left Virat Kohli as dumbfounded as he had been when Adil Rashid bowled him at Headingley in 2018.England celebrate after Moeen Ali bowls Virat Kohli•BCCIHowever, also like Bess, Moeen leaked his runs at more than four an over, and served up a range of all-sorts – most heinously a first-ball full-toss to the under-pressure Ajinkya Rahane – that denied England any right to control the game once the ball had gone soft. Like Bess, Moeen’s predilection for attack can lure errors that tighter bowlers might not unlock, but to paraphrase Shane Warne’s famous barb about Monty Panesar, this was the sort of surface on which playing the same game 33 times in a row might well have hit the pay-dirt.What is more, the tempo of India’s opening gambit has presented a daunting challenge for England when their own turn comes to bat. Though they were happy to bat into day three in amassing 578 last week, the advancement of this pitch means there is no earthly chance of dodging ten bullets across a similar time-frame this time around, so their fundamental goal of first-innings parity is already fraught with jeopardy.As Ben Stokes showed in his duel with Shabhaz Nadeem last week, sometimes it’s preferable to “take some runs with you” before the inevitable happens. But for all their merits as obdurate opening batsmen, new-ball counter-attacks are not their forte of Dom Sibley and Rory Burns (Burns’ reverse-sweep last week is a reminder of what can happen when he attempts to force the pace) while the absence of the rested Jos Buttler already feels grievous given how imperious his batting can be when given full licence to heed the advice on his bat handle.Root knows a thing or two about sweeping the spinners, of course. But to judge by what was happening when he was not on strike, Rohit may already have reaped more runs from this wearing wicket than it will be willing to relinquish from this point on.

All the statistical highlights from the 2020-21 Vijay Hazare Trophy

Sampath Bandarupalli15-Mar-2021827 Runs scored by Prithvi Shaw, the first player to breach the 800-run mark in a Vijay Hazare Trophy season. Devdutt Padikkal, with 737 runs, finished second, as both youngsters broke the record held by Mayank Agarwal with 723 runs in the 2017-18 season. Shaw’s tally of 827 runs is also the highest in a List A tournament played outside England.3 150-plus scores by Shaw in the tournament. He became the first player in the history of List A cricket to make three 150-plus scores in a single series or tournament. Shaw scored 227*, 185* and 165, and did so in his first three matches as a captain in List A cricket. The Mumbai skipper now shares the record for most 150-plus List A scores as a captain alongside James Vince and Aaron Finch.ESPNcricinfo Ltd2 Players with four consecutive centuries in List A cricket before Padikkal. The Karnataka opener smashed 152, 126*, 145* and 101 in successive innings to join the elite list, featuring Kumar Sangakkara (for Sri Lanka during the 2015 World Cup) and Alviro Petersen (for the Lions in the 2015-16 Momentum One-Day Cup).Padikkal is also one of only three players to score four centuries in a Vijay Hazare Trophy season. Virat Kohli made four tons during the 2008-09 season, while Shaw also struck four hundreds in Mumbai’s victorious campaign.227* Shaw’s score in the group-stage game against Puducherry was the highest individual score in the Vijay Hazare Trophy, going past Sanju Samson’s 212* against Goa in 2019-20. Shaw also broke the record for highest List A score as a captain, previously held by Graeme Pollock, who made 222* for Eastern Province against Border in 1974-75.ESPNcricinfo LtdThe record double century from Shaw helped Mumbai finish on 457 for 4, the fourth-highest team total in List A cricket and the first-ever 450-plus total on Indian soil in this format.945 Partnership runs between Padikkal and R Samarth in the tournament, easily the most by any pair in an edition of the Vijay Hazare Trophy. They are also the only duo with over 900 partnership runs in a List A tournament in the last 15 years.The Karnataka pair added 534 consecutive runs between two dismissals thanks to a 249-run partnership against Kerala in the quarter-finals after the unbroken 285 they added against Railways, the second-biggest stand in a 10-wicket List A victory. However, they fell a run short of becoming just the second opening pair in List A cricket with two 250-plus partnerships after Sachin Tendulkar and Sourav Ganguly.ESPNcricinfo Ltd0 150-plus scores in Vijay Hazare Trophy finals before Madhav Kaushik’s unbeaten 158 against Mumbai. Kaushik’s 158* is also the highest score by an Indian in a List A final, surpassing M Vijay’s 155 for India B in the 2012 NKP Salve Challenger Trophy against India A. Earlier in the quarters, Samarth made 192 against Kerala, now the highest score by an Indian in a List A knockout game.7 Number of catches by Ishan Kishan behind the stumps in Jharkhand’s game against Madhya Pradesh, the joint-most catches by an Indian in a List A match. Mahesh Rawat also claimed seven catches for Railways in 2012 against Madhya Pradesh. Earlier in the same game, Ishan smashed 173 with the bat. The keeper-captain is currently the only player with 150-plus runs and seven or more dismissals/wickets in the same List A match.4 Vijay Hazare Trophy titles for Mumbai including the two (2003-04 and 2006-07) when the competition referred to as the Ranji One-Day Trophy. Only Tamil Nadu (5) have more such titles than Mumbai, while Karnataka have also won the competition four times. No team had successfully chased a 250-plus target in a Vijay Hazare Trophy final before Mumbai’s 313-run chase against Uttar Pradesh.