He doesn’t have great numbers in domestic cricket, but the selectors saw his bravery he repaid their faith

Umar Farooq29-Sep-2022Before his international debut on Wednesday, Aamer Jamal had played just 12 domestic T20s, taking 14 wickets with an economy rate of 9.17. With the bat, he had scored 237 runs (strike rate: 176.86) in two seasons. He had played no games in the PSL. This was essentially the weight of domestic performances that secured his national selection. On the surface, those numbers don’t scream out Pakistan selection but picking him is a reminder of how Pakistan often pick their players. This decision is driven by an instinctive understanding – often on intangible qualities like a player being (brave, big-hearted) rather than just taking player performance into account.So though his numbers may not have added up to a selection, the two overs he bowled against England on Wednesday night at Lahore’s Gaddafi Stadium hinted at his potential. Those moderate domestic stats took a back seat with him rising to the occasion on the international stage.The game was crucially poised until the 14th over. Moeen Ali was intent on taking England deep into their faltering chase of 146. Pakistan had used five bowlers. Mohammad Nawaz, Haris Rauf and Mohammad Wasim had six overs remaining between them, and Jamal was yet to bowl – which meant either he wouldn’t bowl, or was destined to bowl the difficult overs.This was the moment Pakistan captain Babar Azam pulled him in to bowl the 15th. He made an impression immediately, picking up his first international wicket (Sam Curran) off his second ball in international cricket. He ended up conceding only five runs in that over, and never let the momentum slip away. He wasn’t given another over until the final one, left to defend 14 against Moeen.Hands on their heads, standing on their toes, the home fans at the stadium weren’t sure if the new boy could pull this off. He would never have been in such a pressure situation on the field before. Nobody really knew what he was capable of.”Bobby bhai [Babar] asked me ‘what will you do’ and I said ‘I will bowl wide yorkers,'” he recalled in a video for the PCB website. “He asked ‘can you do it?’ I said ‘yes definitely I can.’ He then gave me the field and insisted to stick with the plan regardless of the wide ball.”Jamal managed to find the wide line as planned, and executed as he meant to, thus keep England just out of reach. He bowled four dots, conceding just eight runs. It wasn’t a typical Pakistan pace flurry. No staring, no trash talk, no bullying, just some smart and accurate medium-pace bowling, sticking to a plan. The nearly full Gaddafi stadium, with oscillating emotions, erupted eventually as Pakistan took a series lead of 3-2 with two matches remaining.

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Who is Aamer Jamal? Pakistan selected two uncapped players for this series – the other was Abrar Ahmed, the mystery spinner who has played in the PSL and who we might see later on. Neither are in the T20 World Cup squad, but Pakistan have taken the home series as an opportunity to unearth a fast-bowling allrounder with Faheem Ashraf, someone they seemed to have invested in, suddenly out of favor.The selection of Jamal in the playing XI however was never guaranteed as it was always subject to circumstances around how the ongoing series panned out. Naseem Shah got pneumonia and was hospitalised – and is now Covid-19 positive – making room for Jamal to make his debut. It wasn’t until the eve of the fifth T20I that he was told about his upcoming debut. “I have so many happy words inside me which I can’t articulate right now, this is the kind of excitement about my debut,” he said. “When I was told by Saqi [Saqlain Mushtaq, head coach] I was like almost crying. I was asked about my plans and I said that I will only do what I have in my command and I won’t go out and do what I can’t. I will stay within my strengths and whatever is natural to me I will stick to it.”

‘It wasn’t a typical Pakistan pace flurry. No staring, no trash talk, no bullying, just some smart and accurate medium-pace bowling, sticking to a plan.’

Born in Mianwali but raised in Rawalpindi, Jamal played most of his cricket in and around Islamabad. He broke into the domestic circuit in 2013 playing in the inter-region Under-19 and departmental Under-19 tournaments. He first shot to prominence with the Pakistan Under-19 team, taking 30 wickets at 16.96 in five matches in the 2014 inter-regional tournament. He also played a three-match series against the touring Afghanistan Under-19s – a side that included Rashid Khan – but Jamal didn’t make much impact and faded away.He remained in the lower reaches of domestic cricket before resurfacing to make his first-class debut in 2018 for Pakistan Television, picking up 17 wickets at 28.82 and in the last two seasons – 2020 and 2021 – he played 10 games to take 11 wickets at 47.18 and scored 341 runs, with one half-century. Most of his runs were scored at No. 8. The Pakistan call-up has been unexpected, but he’s begun as if he means to make the most of it.

England are one win away from the start of yet another exciting period in their white-ball cricket

Andrew McGlashan12-Nov-20223:41

Buttler: ‘The consistent message to the team is to take the game on’

Shortly after England’s 10-wicket mauling of India in Adelaide, Jos Buttler walked towards Sky Sports’ Ian Ward for the latest in his line of post-match interviews. As he came into frame, he was embraced by Eoin Morgan, the sort of hug team-mates give each other after a resounding performance. It also felt a little like the baton being passed from master to apprentice.It has been a fascinating dynamic having Morgan as part of the commentary team in Australia given he was so recently involved with England. Not being part of the side by the time of this tournament was not wholly unexpected, but his retirement did come suddenly during the English season after a series in the Netherlands and thrust Buttler into the job little more than four months before a World Cup.Related

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Buttler was the heir apparent, and it would have been a huge shock if anyone else had got the job, but it’s hard to overstate the position he was coming into. Morgan had been central to revolutionising England’s white-ball cricket, and arguably world cricket. Could Buttler make it team?Perhaps unsurprisingly, given there had also been the arrival of a new coach in Matthew Mott, it was not an easy start during the English season: three out of the four limited-overs series against India and South Africa lost. When Buttler opted to hand over the wicketkeeping gloves during the Hundred there were even the odd murmurings as to whether he had too much on his plate.To compound things, Buttler then suffered a calf injury which ended his tournament early and would go on to rule him out of the England’s seven-match series against Pakistan. However, significantly, he went on that tour as a non-playing member as Moeen Ali captained them to a 4-3 win. There was an ambassadorial role about it, given the significance of the tour, but he also recognised the importance of continuing to build towards the T20 World Cup.Now he stands on the eve of the final having had his two best games as England captain, victories against New Zealand and India, sandwiched either side of a tense affair against Sri Lanka, where he has both delivered with the bat and marshaled the team outstandingly in the field.On top of the world: Jos Buttler celebrates a famous win over India•Getty Images”I think it’s part of my own journey as a player and as a person to now be at this stage of my career where I’m a captain, learning at something very new that I haven’t done before, and that’s exciting to get the chance to do that,” Buttler said. “As frustrating as the summer was in terms of results, I think I actually learned a lot through that period, with the benefit of having a few months to reflect on things I probably would have done differently or what certain situations arose and how they made me feel and how I reacted to them. I feel like I’m growing into the role day by day.”There had been promising signs in the warm-up series against Australia when in his first innings for nearly two months he hit 68 off 32 balls in Perth with England coming out on top in a high-scoring game (the type that has not been seen at this World Cup). There were more runs in the last match after the series was secured with a tactically smart display in the second fixture, not least the work with Sam Curran to get Tim David bowled behind his legs.But the pressures at a World Cup are very different. The consequences of decisions or bad days so much higher. England had a very bad day against Ireland at the MCG, not just in losing the game but seemingly being tactically off the pace when the rain was looming. It is probably over-stating the situation to say things were on the brink for Buttler, but an early exit from the tournament would have left a lot of questions.Against New Zealand at the Gabba, he accelerated at the key moment to push England towards a match-winning total then used a couple of tactical match-ups to good effect: Moeen opened the bowling and conceded just four runs, while Curran removed the dangerous Finn Allen. Glenn Phillips nearly took the game away, but England held their nerve.Buttler was even better in the semi-final against India, and the aforementioned interview with Ward and Morgan highlighted some of his tactical moves in the field. Buttler said that fielding first had been based as much on knowing how India like to chase as anything else, and his use of Adil Rashid earlier in the innings was because he was aware of Rishabh Pant’s presence on the middle order. Rashid had an outstanding evening, taking 1 for 20, removing the pivotal figure of Suryakumar Yadav.He took a gamble in leaving Chris Jordan with three overs to bowl in the final five during his first outing of the competition, but the earlier decisions had kept India quiet enough that even Hardik Pandya’s late damage did not prove to be a game-changer.”Hopefully I’ve got more time ahead myself as a captain and with Matthew Mott we can hopefully shape the next era of English white-ball cricket,” Buttler said. “Of course, we’re still reaping the rewards of Eoin Morgan’s tenure and the changes that have happened in the white-ball game in England, and that’s clear to see in the strength and depth of the talent we now have.”When Buttler lofted Mohammad Shami straight down the ground for six it put the most emphatic statement on the most emphatic of personal and team performances. One more win and the transition of the Morgan legacy into the Buttler era will be complete.

Hyderabad witnessed a player with immense self-belief and the special ability to hit good balls to the boundary

Deivarayan Muthu19-Jan-2023The ball has disappeared beyond long-off. About 31,000 fans at the Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium in Hyderabad are losing it. But there is one man who is just super cool.It feels like the climax of a blockbuster movie with the hero already knowing that everything was going to be alright. Shubman Gill walks down the pitch to the non-striker’s end. Slowly. Confidently. Nonchalantly. Twenty-three-year-olds aren’t supposed to do this when they are 194 not out in an ODI. They’re not supposed to do this against one of the fastest bowlers in the world. But here he is. The future of India’s batting.Gill had already been branded as the next Virat Kohli. Yet, his place in the ODI side was being questioned because Ishan Kishan, who had shellacked a double-century of his own against Bangladesh in Chattogram, had to sit out to make room for Gill.

Watch full replay in the UK and USA

You can watch the replay of the first ODI between India and New Zealand on ESPN Player in the UK and on ESPN+ in the USA. If you’re in the UK, you can also watch the replay on YouTube.

This is the state of India’s batting right now. Shikhar Dhawan, one of India’s finest ODI openers, can’t even find a place in the squad. There are so many people queuing up to take strike. So even though you might be a generational talent, when you hear people zeroing in on your strike rate, especially in T20 cricket, and saying that it isn’t good enough, it starts to weigh on you. Or at least it should.Gill, though, seemed to openly laugh at all of this when he went 6, 6, 6 against Lockie Ferguson to become the youngest double-centurion in ODI cricket. This was a statement and so was the roar that followed. It contained anger. It contained vindication. It contained joy. We were all watching a player with immense self-belief, showing everyone how good he can be. And Hyderabad absolutely loved it. After reaching his hundred, Gill bowed to the crowd. After he reached the double-hundred, it was the crowd’s turn to bow to Gill.Not since Kohli has a young India batter dictated terms like this to the opposition. The Hyderabad pitch was a challenging one with some balls holding up and others skidding onto the bat. Rohit Sharma had been dismissed by a Blair Tickner ball that had stuck in the surface. Kohli was dismissed by skid and quick turn from Mitchell Santner. Suryakumar Yadav then spooned Daryl Mitchell to extra-cover. Wickets kept falling around Gill. The second-highest score in India’s innings was Rohit’s 34. Gill himself was dropped twice, but nothing could stop him from powering India’s innings in the middle and end overs with his attacking enterprise.2:01

Jaffer: India lucky to possess talent like Gill

Gill has the special ability to hit good balls to the boundary. When Santner darted one into the pitch, with two men in the deep on the leg-side boundary, Gill took them on and swatted a six over deep midwicket. It wasn’t a long hop, but Gill made it seem like one because of his strong back-foot game, which he honed on cement wickets, and delightful wristwork. After Kohli got out and he got a life on 45, Gill even charged at offspinner Michael Bracewell and slog-swept him over the bigger boundary for six. Gill kept batting with similar high intent to shut out New Zealand’s attack and propel India to a dew-proof total of 349 for 8.”Not a conscious effort [to keep batting aggressively], I would say, but with an extra fielder inside the circle, we see other teams pushing in the middle overs,” Gill said at the post-match press conference. “And even today when wickets were falling, my main focus was to show some intent to the bowler because it becomes very easy for the bowler to bowl dot balls if the batsman is not going to show any intent that he’s going to hit any boundaries – even if we have lost a wicket. So that was my intent – even when wickets were falling to show the bowler that I will hit you if you’re going to bowl bad balls.”Related

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Gill’s no-holds-barred assault towards the end of the innings – smashing six sixes in a space of 11 balls – cemented his coming of age as a white-ball opener. He had threatened to go big in Harare last year and more recently against Sri Lanka this year, but couldn’t. On Wednesday, though, he didn’t miss out.”It [the double-century] means a lot to me obviously,” Gill said. “I think in the first ODI against Sri Lanka and in the third ODI, I was set, and I was looking to get a big score, but unfortunately that didn’t happen for me. Once I was set, the main focus for me was to obviously be there for the team and score as many runs as possible. And it feels good when it pays off.”It also meant a lot to the Hyderabad fans who turned up in droves despite the venue being cut off from the city, and despite the traffic diversions imposed for the game as well as for the funeral of the last titular Nizam of Hyderabad making it even more difficult for them to reach the ground. They came anticipating a Kohli special or a Suryakumar special – they had reserved their biggest cheers for them. They eventually left with something that was perhaps better.

In Nagpur, no one has radiated a sense of normalcy more than Rohit Sharma, playing a Test after 11 months and all but batting Australia out of the match

Karthik Krishnaswamy10-Feb-20236:02

Chopra: Rohit is India’s best batter against spin

The Nagpur Test has been all about horses for courses. Australia dropped a batter who had averaged 87.50 over five Tests this season, fearing he might not have the game against spin to score runs in India. India left out a generational talent in the form of his life and picked a 32-year-old debutant on the hunch that he could translate, from T20s to Tests, his ability to take spin apart.Some of the horses who would have featured anyway, meanwhile, have come out with unusual plans tailored, it would seem, to the course.On day one, Alex Carey faced 22 balls from India’s spinners and attempted to sweep, reverse-sweep or paddle sweep 19 of them. On day two, Cheteshwar Pujara, of all people, was out top-edging a sweep off the 14th ball he faced.Related

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There’s still time in this Test match for the horses-for-courses approach to be vindicated, of course, particularly with the pitch expected to break up in the second innings. But, for now, the best innings have come from batters who have batted, well, normally.And no one has radiated more of a sense of normalcy than Rohit Sharma, who returned to Test cricket after 11 months and put India on the path towards batting Australia out of the Test match with a serene and self-assured 120, his ninth Test hundred and first as captain.Eight of Rohit’s nine Test hundreds have come in India, where he has now scored 1880 runs at the lordly average of 75.20. To India fans conditioned into disregarding – or at least under-rating – performances at home, it may seem like faint praise to call Rohit a master of Indian conditions. But it isn’t. Calling him that, for one, doesn’t preclude mastery elsewhere – he was arguably India’s best top-order batter over their tours of Australia and England two years ago. And while it can be a useful catch-all term, “Indian conditions”, like “Indian food”, erases a whole lot of diversity.Rohit’s runs in India have come in all sorts of situations and on all sorts of pitches. His 149-ball 127 in Visakhapatnam was a blistering display of six-hitting when India needed quick runs to turn a reasonable first-innings lead into a match-winning declaration score with limited time remaining in the match. His 212 in Ranchi was built on a skilful defensive display against Kagiso Rabada either side of India slumping to 39 for 3 on the first morning. His 161 in Chennai was a triumph of seizing the advantage of a toss won on a square turner, by means of calculated risk-taking against both pace and spin.Most pre-match estimations pegged Nagpur as a square turner, but Rohit didn’t bat here like he had batted in Chennai. He didn’t drive the seamers on the up, and he used the sweep – a defining feature of the Chepauk innings – sparingly. He stepped out often, but seldom to hit over the top – there was perhaps not enough bounce, and too much natural variation, for this to be a viable option.Rohit Sharma’s centuries as captain in all three formats•ESPNcricinfo LtdInstead, Rohit trusted the slowness of the pitch to blunt the natural variation it offered Australia’s spinners, and allowed himself, it seemed, to play an old-fashioned, merit-of-the-ball sort of innings.He raced off the blocks, as he had done in Chennai, but in this case it was largely because Pat Cummins bowled what may have been the most erratic new-ball spell of his Test career. Cummins kept overpitching and straying on to Rohit’s pads on the first evening, and Rohit, beautifully balanced, head right on top of the ball, flicked and glanced him for four fours in his first two overs.With Australia’s spinners often bowling a touch too full as well, Rohit raced to his half-century, and went to stumps batting on 56 off 69.Day two was different. Australia’s bowlers amped up their discipline as a collective, with Cummins setting the tone from one end, hitting the pitch hard and extracting the odd bit of sideways movement or indifferent bounce. From the other, Nathan Lyon and Todd Murphy probed diligently from around the wicket, drifting the ball across the right-handers and causing moments of uncertainty when natural variation caused the ball to slide on with that angle. Scott Boland then replaced Cummins, and proceeded to dry the runs up with a hypnotic spell of machine-like medium-fast, stacking his leg-side field and pounding away on a bail-bothering line and length.This rigorous test allowed the elegant minimalism of Rohit’s defensive technique to shine through. The offspinners’ natural variation troubled him every now and then, but it was the lesser danger on this pitch, from around the wicket. From that angle, it was hugely unlikely that either Lyon or Murphy would be able to beat his outside edge and threaten the stumps. If they did find the edge, there was seldom enough pace or bounce off the pitch for the ball to carry to slip, so long as Rohit didn’t follow the ball with hard hands. This almost never happened.1:56

Rathour: Rohit adapts really well and can change his game

The ball turning in was the bigger threat, but Rohit quelled it with superb judgement of line and length, and often the use of his feet to get close to the pitch of the ball. He skipped out nimbly, and almost never let his front pad get in the way of his bat coming down straight. Soft hands and the slowness of the pitch ensured that inside-edges seldom threatened to carry to short leg, and on the one occasion that Lyon drew a hard-hands flick from him, the inside-edge flew wide of short leg.Against Boland and especially Cummins, Rohit’s game was even more minimalistic. His trigger movement – back and across followed by forward and across, with his head over his front foot – left him in the perfect position to defend by transferring his weight on to either foot, allowing the ball to come into what AB de Villiers refers to as “the box” and meet the ball under his eyes.A half-step forward was usually enough to drive balls pitched up, and to pull he only really needed to press his weight on to his front foot, unweight his back foot, and power through the hips.Of late, a number of teams have tried to get him out playing that shot, in a contest that’s high-risk and high-reward for both bowler and batter. In his first spell of the morning, Cummins stationed two catchers on the leg-side boundary and dug one in when Rohit was on 61 – Rohit pulled and just cleared deep square-leg leaping to his left. This pitch was too slow, and the bounce not yet uneven enough, for Australia to try that tactic too many times through the rest of the day.That pull apart, Rohit’s boundaries involved little risk. Some of them, for all that, were still breathtaking.On day one, there was a push-drive off Lyon, the kind of shot that might go for four if a batter has timed it perfectly off a fast bowler, but this was off an offspinner and it absolutely flew to the boundary straight of mid-off. He brought up his fifty with the stealthiest of lap-sweeps, with barely any twist of the wrists at impact; he merely stretched out and let the ball hit his bat face, angled just so, and directed it into the gap fine of backward square-leg.The boundaries came when opportunities presented themselves; Rohit seldom went looking for them•BCCIPerhaps the shot of Rohit’s innings came after he had got past his century, when Murphy bowled to him with a short midwicket, a 30-yard straight midwicket stationed in line with the bowler’s-end stumps, and a long-on. Rohit stepped out and twirled his wrists to bisect the two midwickets and beat long-on haring to his right.The boundaries came when opportunities presented themselves; Rohit seldom went looking for them. A little less than halfway into the day’s play, he had added to his overnight score just 38 off 95 balls, while four wickets had fallen at the other end, with the other batters and extras adding 43 between them.India were 168 for 5 at this stage, and trailed by nine runs. They weren’t exactly in strife, but they needed a significant lead to feel secure given they would have to bat last.Rohit kept batting just as before, though, aware that two of India’s three spin-bowling allrounders still had to bat. India needed one solid partnership to feel in control, and Rohit found the ally he needed in Ravindra Jadeja, who did the bulk of the scoring in a sixth-wicket stand of 61.When Australia took the second new ball, India led by 52, and Rohit looked immovable. Then Cummins began to bowl like the Cummins we all know and love or fear depending on allegiance. He found Rohit’s outside edge with his third ball, only for Steven Smith to shell the chance at second slip. The next ball was unforgettable, Cummins’ state of mind adding a yard of furious pace to his outswinger while taking nothing away from his control. The ball pitched on the fullest edge of a good length – the one length that Rohit’s minimalist defensive movements can leave him vulnerable against – and did just enough to beat the outside edge and send off stump spinning, a visual metaphor for the release of Cummins’ pent-up emotions.The dropped catch almost felt appropriate. An innings like that deserved to end like that.

South African coach relishing preparations for second stage of his “four-year project”

Vithushan Ehantharajah31-Mar-2023Mickey Arthur accepts this is the time of year every coach will tell you they have never had a better lead-in to an upcoming county season. Even so, he cannot help himself: “But we have!”If you can’t be optimistic in March, why bother going into April for the six months of grind? The difference for Arthur is what he has witnessed at Derbyshire over the last year, the first of what he regards as a “four-year project” – one he is so evidently committed to he even managed to convince PCB chair Najam Sethi as much. Sethi recently ceded ground by allowing Arthur to take up a remote position as a consultant for the Pakistan men’s side. Rarely do counties end up on the right side of such negotiations.What charm Arthur wields on administrators is just as strong when it comes to his players, which is why the original intention of the PCB was to get him back as head coach. He is one of modern cricket’s more sincere enthusiasts.Related

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That quality is exactly what Derbyshire needed when they snagged Arthur at the end of 2021. The club had been drifting aimlessly, an all-too-familiar presence in Division Two. Their last venture into the top flight was in 2013. The last England player they produced was Dominic Cork, who made his Test debut back in 1995. Neither is particularly helpful at a time when English cricket is looking inwards with a scalpel wondering, “what is it that you do here exactly?”The former is easier to rectify than the latter in the short term. But right now there is hope around the club that their current trajectory under Arthur will allow them to eventually solve both.Maybe these are also the noises every county makes, particularly those of Derbyshire’s ilk, as they emerge from a winter with Andrew Strauss’ high performance review still hanging over their heads. Even if proposals have been watered down or dismissed outright by sheer will, justifying a right to exist evokes more fear than focus given where cricket is headed.From Arthur’s point of view, Derbsyhire’s requirement is as much about ridding the tag of consistent underperformers as improving the balance sheets. He believes changing how the club is regarded can be influenced on the field and in the dressing room. He has certainly used the way they are regarded as a tool to influence both.”At times I did use that as a motivation for us,” he tells ESPNcricinfo. “That we’re the county that the perception out there is ‘little old Derbyshire’. We want to change that perception. By and large, last year we changed that perception.”It was the most important part of my job,” he says of that first campaign where a change of mindset was required internally. “To make the dressing room believe we weren’t here to make the numbers up. Make the dressing room believe we were here to win games of cricket and become the best players we can be. To make the dressing room understand there were no comfort zones in there. We’re here to do a job. It’s a high-performance environment and that’s how we operate and that’s how we run. No excuses.”As you would expect from someone who has led four different Test teams, Arthur implemented “international standards” when it came to training intensity, preparation, recovery and behaviour – facets regarded as non-negotiables at the highest level. Those familiar with the workings of the Derbyshire dressing room say the culture has improved and, in turn, so has the robustness of the squad.Last season’s Division Two performances spoke of that change. Derbyshire only won three matches, eventually finishing fifth out of eight, but they only lost as many. Six draws suggested an inner steel was developing. Manufactured steel, to a degree: all six stalemates came at home at the County Ground, where Derbyshire passed 500 four times, as groundstaff were instructed to leave as little as 6mm of grass on their pitches.”For too long, this squad and a lot of those players in it have been whipping boys,” Arthur says. “So we wanted to be a team that was hard to beat, which I think we became last year.”We played very good cricket: there were a lot of games we dominated but we just didn’t finish it on day four. Our wickets here were very, very good – they didn’t deteriorate, it became hard to bowl sides out. But with the points at 16 [for a win] and eight [draw], I knew we could get two draws which were worth a win.”With only five points available for draws this season, that approach won’t fly, not that Arthur is bothered. As per his blueprint, this was always going to be the summer he pushed the group to go further.”For me, we’re good enough. Now, instead of having 6mm of grass, can we leave 10mm of grass on the wicket? Can we challenge ourselves that way? What brand of cricket do we play with that? If we leave that amount of grass, do we become a team that bowls first and chases on day four? That’s where our discussions in the dressing room have got to.”I’m trying to get 20% more out of our players and that for me is going to be the interesting thing – to see how much the players have left. How big a ceiling do they have? Those are the questions we are going to answer in the season I think.”Zak Chappell has joined Derbyshire looking to realise his full potential•Getty ImagesLosing Shan Masood to Yorkshire was a blow, not just because of the 1074 runs in 13 innings he strummed but for an infectious professionalism. Matt Lamb has joined from Warwickshire to strengthen the batting reserves, with Leus Du Plooy given greater responsibility with captaincy in all formats. At 39, Wayne Madsen – Division Two’s leading run-scorer with 1,273 – remains as vital as ever. Two 26-year-olds, however, represent Arthur’s early changes to the club and beyond.Anuj Dal, a bustling allrounder, came to recognise his potential with 957 runs and 34 wickets in 2022. Having been on the cusp of being released a few years ago, he has established himself as a lock at No. 7 and third-change seamer. Arthur describes it as “deadman donkey work”.”He comes in and bowls the donkey overs and he’s either batting when we’re flying or under pressure. His job is the unglamorous one but, you know what, he did it so well last year. He’s just the perfect guy for that role because he’s got the right temperament.”Like many England Under-19 cricketers, Dal, who began his career at Nottinghamshire before leaving in 2017, spent an uncomfortable amount of time trying to figure out his place in the game. Now things could not be clearer.”He’s just the heart and core of Derbyshire County Cricket Club,” beams Arthur, who admits to badgering him to dream big on a daily basis. “I want him to keep thinking he’s going to play for England from Derbyshire because I do believe he’s that good.”Then there is Zak Chappell, who joined on a two-year deal from a similar place Dal found himself: not just as a cricketer on the periphery at Notts but one enduring stasis. His upside as a fast bowler is known throughout the country and the ECB’s performance department, who were made aware of his gifts during his initial progression at Leicestershire. Beyond a few jaunts with England Lions and the odd flash domestically, injuries and struggles with rhythm have him arriving at a third club in five years with a modest record of 68 wickets from just 30 first-class matches.Chappell remains hungry, ambitious, and reticent to be judged on the past. As such, he arrives into a group with an ethos very much aligned with his.”For me, it was an easy sell,” says Arthur on Chappell’s signing. “I wanted a cricketer who wanted to come here to further himself and he felt this was the environment that would further it for him. It was almost the perfect marriage. I don’t want a guy that’s coming with no ambition and just wants to play two years county cricket. I want a guy who is coming here and wants to use us to play for England.”It is at this point Arthur pauses to take a breath and let that last sentence breathe. “That’s almost the criteria now to come to Derbyshire,” he reiterates. “We want to bring guys in with a lot of ambition.”There is a legitimate question to be asked here that could be considered either philosophical or cynical: how much of the good feeling at the moment is linked to having a coach of Arthur’s calibre? And the answer at this juncture is, well, it does not matter. Evidently, structures are in place, values shared and a united vision of what the future of Derbyshire County Cricket Club looks like.A clearer idea will come in September. Not that Arthur has any doubts.”We’ve got to think big – we’re not here to make numbers up. We’re here to compete, we’re here to force promotion, we’re here to win white-ball competitions. We want to be county.”

Pakistan fast bowler on recovering from knee injury, captaining Qalandars to two PSL titles and looking ahead to the T20 Blast

Osman Samiuddin25-May-202318:37

Shaheen Shah Afridi: the rise of the falcon

Statsguru tells us Shaheen Shah Afridi has not been around much for Pakistan over the last year. In between two injuries, he has played 16 international matches, less than a third of Pakistan’s total matches since July last year, when a dive on the boundary in Galle led to a ligament injury in his right knee.And yet, it is unarguable that in that time, his stature within Pakistan has grown immeasurably, to the degree that he shares equal billing with Babar Azam as the team’s biggest star. The kerfuffle over the rehabilitation of his injury, in particular his hurried departure – at his own expense – from the UAE to the UK to begin rehab; the comeback and heartbreak of another injury to the same knee at a World Cup final; a high-profile wedding; leading Lahore Qalandars to a second successive PSL title; and constant and inevitable rumours around a leadership tilt with Pakistan.He was always a superstar, but with this very 90s-Pakistan-superstar trajectory, he’s blown up into the stratosphere. The perfect time, then, to land up in England for a stint in the T20 Blast with Nottinghamshire.The knee is “back to 100% now,” he told ESPNcricinfo, even if there were murmurings during Pakistan’s home season around a slight dip in his pace post return. He’s dismissive of that, pointing to a decent haul of wickets since: 19 in the PSL, six in five T20Is against New Zealand, eight in four ODIs against the same team.”Everyone has a view about it [the pace], but I’ve been feeling good. You look at yourself, even if you are bowling 110kmph and taking wickets, you’re feeling good. I took wickets. I gave 100% in the field, that matters more. Speed doesn’t matter as much but if there has been a dip, it will improve with time.Shaheen Shah Afridi injured his knee after he caught Harry Brook in the T20 World Cup 2022 final•PA Photos/Getty Images”[I was injured] two months out before the [T20] World Cup, two-three months after the [T20] World Cup also. So it will of course take time to get back. That match energy or fitness, you only get it from playing matches. Since the PSL I’ve been feeling better, I got better through it and then played internationals for Pakistan as well. With time I’ll improve and the more I play the more I’ll improve.”The moment of the recurrence of that knee injury – which subsequently ruled him out of a big home Test season – will remain one of the great what-ifs of his career. With Pakistan battling hard to defend 138 at the MCG in the T20 World Cup final, Afridi took an athletic catch at long-off in the 13th over to dismiss Harry Brook, but jammed his knee in the process. He went off briefly, returned to roars, ran in to bowl the 16th with England still needing a tricky 41 off 30 and pulled up after one ball. England were wobbling, the surface wasn’t easy and Afridi had grown his way into the tournament. Instead, he went off, Ben Stokes hit a four and six off Iftikhar Ahmed, on to complete the over, and it was over.The year before, Pakistan were looking strong defending in the semi-final against Australia before a Matthew Wade blitz off Afridi – with a dropped catch to boot – turned the game.”Obviously, it’s every player’s dream to win a World Cup for his country and I still remember 2021, how that ended,” he said. “And in this tournament [2022], if I didn’t get injured at such a crucial moment, maybe we could’ve won. Maybe if I had stayed fit and bowled…” he trails off. “Injuries can happen at any time.”How much does he still think about those two games?”If I think too much about them then I won’t be able to move ahead.”

“Me and Lala were practising shots, about how to hit in the final overs, working on my bat swing a little. Nobody has the kind of experience he has in T20s, and working with him was really good.”Shaheen Shah Afridi on practising six-hitting with Shahid Afridi

His memories of the last two PSLs are much happier. Lahore Qalandars could not have fallen lower by the time he took over as captain, but two titles in successive years has been a genuinely remarkable turnaround. He’s visibly grown into the role, slipping from a slightly nervous presence in need of advice to a commandeering leader, supremely confident in his own decisions. His performances have not really been impacted; if anything, captaincy has brought out something else in him, amply evident in his all-round impact in this year’s final.”Captaincy is totally different to bowling,” he said. “You have to keep the entire team on the same page with that. With bowling, you only think about what you are doing with the ball, how to bowl to the captain’s plans.”With captaincy, you’re thinking about your bowling but also about every member of the team, what mood they’re in, how they’re feeling. That is a totally different job. But I’ve enjoyed it lots.”I think the line between the two [captaincy and bowling] is quite clear. If you are the captain, you know when you need to bring a certain bowler on and at what moment, whether it is a pressure moment. As a captain there’s always the option that I can bring myself on at that tough moment. If I don’t lead from the front at that time then obviously the team can start thinking negatively that the captain is hiding himself.”What captaincy has also done is bring out his batting, at least in the shortest format where Notts might benefit. Previously seen as useful enough to not be easily dismissed, Afridi has developed into a floating, and fierce, clean hitter of sixes. As well as the wickets in the last PSL, he ended up with the ninth-highest strike rate – 168.35 – among batters with more than 100 runs. That included the 15-ball 44 in the final against Multan Sultans.Afridi: ‘You look at yourself, even if you are bowling 110kmph and taking wickets, you’re feeling good’•AFP/Getty Images”I always liked batting, right from my Under-16 days,” he said. “When I got injured, I started working on my batting a lot more because I wasn’t bowling. When I came to England for my rehab, I worked hard on my batting then.”I’ve always actually gone into bat with the same plan but because I’m hitting more sixes these days it looks like my batting has improved.”The increase in sixes has no doubt come from the work he’s done on his batting with his father-in-law, a man familiar with the sometimes brutal art of hitting maximums: Shahid Afridi.”Yeah there’s been an impact from that. Me and Lala [Shahid] were practising shots, about how to hit in the final overs, working on my bat swing a little. Nobody has the kind of experience he has in T20s, and working with him was really good. I’ve learnt a lot.”My priority is still to be the bowler. If that doesn’t click on a day then of course, I want to contribute with the bat and if not with the bat, then in the field.”He has fond memories of his only previous game at Trent Bridge, his new home, a Player-of-the-Match performance in a blockbuster win against England. With a gig in The Hundred later, he has a long summer planned in England.”History tells you runs are scored here but I think if you bowl in the right areas, you still get wickets here. It’s a new county for me, I’m enjoying it already and I hope I’ll have some good cricket to show for it.”

On a nervy night at Eden Gardens, both players made crucial contributions to wrest the advantage away from KKR

Sreshth Shah21-May-20232:21

Should Pooran bat higher?

Lucknow Super Giants have invested time and money on Ravi Bishnoi and Nicholas Pooran. It now seems a while ago, but Bishnoi was one of LSG’s out-of-auction signings before their maiden IPL season. In the most recent IPL auction, LSG kept bidding on Pooran till they acquired him for INR 16 crore. They spent 20% of their salary budget on one player.That’s because Bishnoi and Pooran are both quintessential X-Factor players in T20s. A hard-hitting batter and a wily wristspinner are two types of cricketers who can turn white-ball games around within an over. Give them a couple of more overs to settle, and before you know it, they are all over you. It was a lesson that Kolkata Knight Riders got on Saturday night.Related

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In both innings, KKR held the aces after the first ten overs, only for these two men to snatch the advantage back in LSG’s favour. It started off with Pooran walking in at No. 7 in only the 11th over and LSG’s score reading 73 for 5. He stayed till the penultimate over of the innings and by the time he was dismissed, his five sixes and four fours in a score of 58 gave LSG a defendable total of 178.Then, when KKR seemed to be running away with the chase, blitzing to 78 for 1 in 8.2 overs, the squeeze began with Bishnoi dismissing Nitish Rana and stringing together a series of tidy overs. He frustrated Andre Russell before picking up his wicket in the last over and completed his four-over spell with miserly figures of 2 for 23 that included 10 dots and only two boundary shots. In a must-win game for LSG where the margin of victory was eventually just one run – thanks to Rinku Singh’s continued heroics – without either of these two performances, LSG would’ve been nervously waiting for Sunday’s games to know their playoff fate, a position they’d hated to be in.That LSG had their nerves jangling was visible even as Bishnoi spoke after their win. “To win a game like this, the morale is down. Oh sorry – I mean the morale is high. See, I can’t even talk properly (laughs). We were feeling scared every ball,” he said.”I haven’t seen anyone bat like Rinku Singh for a long time. The way he has batted this season, it is unbelievable. We knew if we bowl a string of dot balls, then it will be tough for them to chase. The goal was wickets or dot balls, the plan was to bowl stump to stump and the challenge was to ensure we do that.”Ravi Bishnoi struck in his first over•Associated PressEven as Bishnoi beamed in the glory of LSG securing a second consecutive playoff appearance, it would never have been possible without Pooran’s innings. Bishnoi was essentially closing what Pooran had initiated.Pooran had walked in at No. 7 – wearing the Mohun Bagan maroon that is reminiscent of his national team colours – with a rescue job at hand. LSG’s top order had essentially failed, and were in real danger of posting a total that would not be competitive in Kolkata. The natural order of things was that Pooran would take a few overs to get his eyes in, having the luxury of entering in the 11th over, but he did the opposite. He smashed 23 in his first 10.This was not the Pooran we know. Even though he has built his game as an imperious hitter, Pooran is not a very quick starter. In his last three years of the IPL, his first-ten-ball strike-rate when coming in before the 14th over had been 116.4. Even when he walked in after the 14th, the corresponding strike-rate was only 135.6. But here he was, playing against the grain.It was such a jolt to the KKR bowling that they looked helpless for a brief moment. Having neutralised Varun Chakravarthy’s danger in his first three deliveries by hitting him for two fours and two sixes within his first ten balls, he pounced on Suyash Sharma and Vaibhav Arora through the late-middle overs. He also ran hard in Ayush Badoni’s company and reached his fifty in 28 balls by hitting the first of two consecutive sixes off Shardul Thakur. Even though Pooran fell, his 42-minute stay had changed the game’s complexion.”I knew I had to go as deep as possible,” Pooran said. “I knew that once the spinners were bowling, they’d give me some bad balls and I was ready to capitalise on this small ground.”I’ve been batting pretty decently through the tournament. And when you’re batting well, you need to take advantage of it, and today was a must-win game for us. Ayush and I had a partnership in Chennai that was similar to this. And I told him we have to go as deep as possible and also pick our moments.”The bottom line is that Pooran’s most recent innings is an extension of his IPL 2023 form. This is his best IPL season – in terms of runs (358), fours and sixes, and strike-rate (173.78). According to Pooran, he finds joy in “repaying the faith” to a team that has “backed him immensely” but LSG head coach Andy Flower has a different theory; Pooran 2.0 was unlocked after his brief captaincy stint with West Indies.Nicholas Pooran hit a 28-ball fifty to lift LSG to a competitive total•Associated Press”One thing that would help his development as a bloke and a team member is his captaincy experience with West Indies recently,” Flower said. “Once you experience the variety of challenges that come your way when you’re captain, it makes you a much better team member.”He made the difference today. It takes a lot of confidence in yourself to hit balls that early in your innings. It has been wonderful to have him remaining in our dugout for that last section of a 20-over innings. He is getting greater clarity on his game, each time I see him. Today was a wonderful mixture of boundary hitting, six hitting, and also alternating the strike so that he elongated his innings.”He’s a beautiful striker of the ball. He’s worked on his bat swing. And he knows that if he gets the ball in a certain area then he’ll clear the boundary. And he’s done that with trial and error with a lot of boundary-hitting practice. He’s put in the hard yards to get to where he is now. And he’s also had a lot of ups and downs in his young career. We think people will have linear developments – heading upwards – but that’s not how life works and how international sport works.”He’s had some bumps along the way, but I do think that captaincy experience has helped. He’s realised how tough it was and now I think he appreciates the game and his team-mates even more. And that’s what brings a really balanced young man to the party.”LSG needed a hat-trick of wins in their last three league-stage games to secure a playoff spot. They now need another hat-trick of wins to take the IPL title. Saturday’s Pooran-Bishnoi show will ensure the side remains in a happy space. And now they have earned the right to put their feet up and enjoy Sunday’s cricket to learn who their opponents at the eliminator will be.

Poor use of resources and not utilising Impact Player rule to best effect eventually cost them a playoff spot

Sidharth Monga22-May-20233:13

Moody: Rajasthan Royals were hurt by the batting form of Buttler, Samson and Hetmyer

Right from the time Shane Warne put together his motley crew in the inaugural season, Rajasthan Royals are a T20 hipster’s team. They don’t play to a formula. They experiment. They push the boundaries. They invest in lesser-known players. Like other teams from the north, they don’t have a parochial fan base, but they do appeal to a neutral observer.In this run itself, Royals have used R Ashwin in a way that helped rejuvenate his T20 career, they have used a pinch anchor, then retired him when his job was done, they have played a part in the beautiful development of Yashasvi Jaiswal by gradually expecting more from him, and they have nominated a captain who talks about T20 as a different sport to the rest of cricket.There is so much to like about Royals, but they are no longer a hipster team now. Two years ago they had Jos Buttler, Ben Stokes and Jofra Archer, among the best that money can buy. Their bowling attack now has three IPL champions. They have a whole analytics wing that helped them develop metrics for players to go after in the auction. They don’t fly under the radar anymore; more is expected from them.Related

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Hours after their hopes of making it to the playoffs had ended with Mumbai Indians’ win in the penultimate match of the league stage, the Royals leadership would have experienced the cruelty of it all. Royal Challengers Bangalore lost their match in 19.1 overs, thus tipping their net run rate just below Royals’. You wonder how much some of the questionable tactics are hurting the Royals personnel now that they have ended the season in the fifth position, just one win short of qualification for playoffs.In the decisions that are made before the start of the match, which probably include the coaching staff and the analytics team, Royals were the only team that didn’t make proper use of the Impact Player.In 13 matches that they used the Impact Player, the substituted player and the substitute put together created a total impact of 99.4 according to ESPNcricinfo Smart Stats, easily the worst among all teams. The next lowest was 128.2. It gets way worse for matches they batted first in. In seven matches, the Impact Player created a total impact of 6.9, the next worst being 61.6.It should come as no surprise. In most matches, Royals’ XI was the same for batting first and fielding first: six batters, five bowlers. It defeated the whole purpose of the Impact Player: extra depth in each innings.This was the year Royals’ long-term investment in Yashasvi Jaiswal blossomed•Associated PressThanks to the quality of their attack – which also was hampered by the non-availability of Trent Boult for a few games – they didn’t feel the pinch that much when they bowled first because they would end up with seven batters in the chase.That is probably why they chose to chase in their sixth and seventh matches – against Lucknow Super Giants and Royal Challengers, respectively – when the ideal choice, especially in a day match in Bengaluru, was to bat first. In both these matches, they failed to use Jason Holder’s batting at all, sending him behind Ashwin, who has improved a lot and has been used superbly as a disruptor by Royals but is still less of a limited-overs allrounder than Holder.In the failed chase in Bengaluru, they sent in debutant Abdul Basith, who had played 73 balls in all T20 cricket, ahead of Holder.Trying to fit into the middle-overs enforcer role that the injured Prasidh Krishna used to play, Holder didn’t quite deliver what he and his team would would have expected. Not using Holder the batter, and not getting the best out of Holder the bowler, Royals just wasted an overseas slot, which could have been used to build the trio of world-beating spinners with Adam Zampa joining Yuzvendra Chahal and Ashwin.Trent Boult picked seven first-over wickets in IPL 2023•Associated PressIt didn’t help that Kuldeep Sen, who made a superb start to his season and could have been the third fast bowler, injured himself during his first match, in Chennai.Scarred twice when chasing, Royals now began to choose batting in every game instead of asking more of the batters in the chase, even in a night match at Wankhede. That promising start to the season – four wins in their first five matches – was now whittling away, and it all came to a head against Sunrisers Hyderabad in Jaipur.This was a perfect storm of pre-game and in-game calls that kept going wrong. On a pitch that they felt they needed three spinners, Royals couldn’t play Zampa because they also wanted to reinforce the batting with Joe Root. Then they picked Obed McCoy, who hadn’t bowled at all since the T20 World Cup in Australia last year, as the Impact Player but proceeded to bowl legspin in the 14th over. M Ashwin, who had already gone for 23 in his two overs, went for 19 more.Chahal dragged the game back for Royals, but they didn’t bowl their best bowler in the 19th, instead giving Kuldip Yadav that over and keeping Sandeep Sharma for the last. In the end, it came down to a no-ball from Sandeep on the last ball, but it needn’t have.This is not to say that Samson or the team management didn’t have the team’s best interests in mind, but they made too many tactical errors to be able to maximise their potential. It will hurt all the more that this was the year in which their long-term investment in Jaiswal blossomed, they found a solution for the Riyan Parag problem in Dhruv Jurel, the two spinners bowled well while their home venue provided them pitches conducive for them, and Boult kept giving them first-over wickets.The quality of the individuals in the side still brought them to the brink of qualification, but they just made one mistake too many.

Valkerie Baynes and Firdose Moonda hear from the England allrounder ahead of the Women’s Test at Trent Bridge

ESPNcricinfo staff20-Jun-2023England and Australia have arrived at Trent Bridge to prepare for the Women’s Ashes Test which kicks off their multi-format series. Sophia Dunkley was there to share her thoughts on being a part of it, the England team’s new approach and her progress since making her Test debut two years ago. Valkerie Baynes and Firdose Moonda also discuss how the match might pan out.