It’s 2024. Do you know where your T20 World Cup is?

Alan Gardner and Andrew Fidel Fernando27-May-2024Where do you go after an IPL in which the run-scoring feats were enough to induce a heart attack (especially if you’re a bowler)? To the land where excess consumption is the norm, of course! As part of cricket’s insatiable desire for more, more, more, the ICC has followed the trail of dollar bills and is now preparing to stage the 2024 T20 World Cup in the USA! USA! USA! (and the Caribbean). Time to grab yourself a large tub of extra buttery popcorn and get stuck into our supersized explainer…Cricket in America? What with the who now?
Yessiree Bob! Grab your cowboy hat and put on those Bart Simpson underpants, because cricket is coming stateside, baby. Having taken note of how football used the springboard of USA ’94 to become one of the most widely played sports in that country, cricket’s powerbrokers have opted to do the same a whole 30 years later, which is pretty on-brand.So they’re hosting an entire World Cup in a country with next to no interest in cricket?
Well, not the entire tournament. We might have got a bit overexcited when referring to it as the 2024 T20 World Cup in the USA! USA! USA! (and the Caribbean). In reality, it’s more like the 2024 T20 World Cup in the Caribbean (and a little itty bit of the USA). But they are genuinely playing games on American soil.Hmm. Are there even any turf pitches in the US?
As a matter of fact, there are several. Three grounds, in New York, Texas and Florida, will stage 16 games over the course of the tournament – although the semi-finals and final will be held in the West Indies.Does anyone genuinely think cricket can appeal to an American audience?
Let’s be optimistic. The game’s biggest superstar, Virat Kohli, has spent a career picking fights with people in many corners of the world, which the US as a nation should find familiar. England are big fans of freedom, as long as it’s for their batters (and no one else more generally). And the Namibia team are known as “the Eagles”, which is the only kind of wildlife Americans will refrain from immediately shooting and mounting on a wall. Don’t tell us there’s no potential.Wait, they’re going to be playing cricket in the Big Apple – home of Jay-Z, Martin Scorsese and the famous MI New York?
Let me preface this answer by reminding you that New York is both the name of the city and the state. So yes, Nassau County on Long Island in the state of New York is hosting eight games. Eisenhower Park, location of a 34,000-seater pop-up stadium, will be the venue for three India matches – including their group game against Pakistan on June 9.Sounds like they’ve hastily constructed an international sports facility in a suburban park…
Pretty much. Call it the approach (without the ghosts playing baseball).Okay, so it’s not quite the Narendra Modi Stadium, and who knows how the pitch – a drop-in surface transported up from Florida – will play, but like a batting allrounder coming on to bowl the 13th over, it should do a job.They’ve built it, but will the people come?
They certainly will for the India vs Pakistan game, which is approaching a sellout – even with some tickets costing up to US$300 a pop. Whether Canada vs Ireland is quite such a draw remains to be seen.Sorry, Canada…?
Oh yes, this T20 World Cup is all about being bigger, better and more calorific than ever before. There will be 20 teams involved in the 2024 edition, including nine Associate nations – and T20 World Cup debuts for Canada, Uganda and the co-hosts, USA.Here’s a picture of Usain Bolt looking all moody (and a bit Lance Gibbsian even – cricket connection, see?) against a moody sky at Eisenhower Park, the New York venue for the T20 World Cup•J Conrad Williams Jr/Getty ImagesSounds like more woke nonsense. Next you’ll be telling me we can’t call them “minnows”, hahaha!
That’s exactly what we’re saying. Also, call them left-arm wristspinners, not that other word we used to use to describe those bowlers.Hmmm, okay. But all these smaller teams, like Ireland, Oman and Sri Lanka – they’re still made to go through a first round that is essentially another qualifier, so only the worthiest get to play the big boys, right?
That used to be the system, true. But this expanded format will see all the teams thrown in together like some big, bare-bottomed hippy commune that subsists on peace, love and sweet, sweet broadcasting cashola. From four groups of five, the top two in each group will progress to the Super 8s (which actually consists of two groups of four). From there, the top two qualify for the semi-finals. Capisce?But last time they did something similar for a World Cup in the Caribbean, India were knocked out in the first group stage…
If that happens again, the Wall Street bull will shed real tears, and future tournaments will likely be rejigged to align with that most fundamental value of modern cricket: maximum amount of India airtime.Look, I just want to see the best playing the best. Is that such a bad thing?
We hear you. The World Cup is the pinnacle (outside of the IPL) and where cricket makes all its TV rights money (outside of the IPL). But oh look, India have once again been drawn in the same group as Pakistan – crazy how it keeps happening! – who they always beat at ICC events, alongside Ireland, Canada and USA. What could possibly go wrong?I’m glad we’re on the same wavelength. Now tell me about this impact substitute rule that’s made boring old T20s exciting again.
Ah, see. You’re back to thinking about the IPL. No such frivolities in international T20 – at least until the BCCI politely asks all the other boards to implement the rule, if they wouldn’t mind, thank you ever so much. this T20 World Cup will, for the first time, feature a stop clock to help keep games moving.Oh wow. You mean like the thing that they have on Countdown?
Yeah, sort of. Actually, it would be fun if they played that tune in the stadium as fielding teams got close to the cut-off.Presumably this is to ensure they can fit in an extra strategic timeout or two?
You’ve been watching too much franchise T20.Is there anything else to watch?
Fair point.Okay, can I go now?
One more thing: look out for the mad start times. Some games begin as early as 10.30am local, and others as late as 8.30pm local. Why? So that South Asian viewers can tune in before they go to work, or after they return. Don’t ever act like the game’s stewards don’t care about you. Unless you live in another time zone, in which case, hahaha, have fun.(By the way, there’s always ESPNcricinfo’s ball-by-ball coverage, live reports, and massively helpful explainers like this one. We need eyeballs too, you communists.)

Afghanistan come into the 2024 T20 World Cup on the back of their strongest showing in the ODI World Cup last year. Captain Rashid talks about their prep, key players, and confidence in their methods

Interview by Nagraj Gollapudi02-Jun-2024Rashid Khan will lead Afghanistan for the first time in a T20 World Cup, beginning June 1. This will be the fourth World Cup in the format for Rashid and the seventh for Afghanistan, who have never made the knockouts. This time they are paired in a tough group, comprising hosts West Indies, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea and Uganda.Afghanistan’s players haven’t had quite the same impact in ICC tournaments as in T20 franchise leagues around the world. Still, at the 2023 ODI World Cup they beat England, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Netherlands. In an interview during the IPL earlier this year, Rashid spoke about wanting his players to show the belief they put on display at the tournament last year, using the IPL as prep, and playing the Afghanistan way.Afghanistan are paired with hosts West Indies, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea and Uganda in the group phase of the T20 World Cup. What gives you the confidence this time Afghanistan can make the Super Eight stage?
The confidence is there because we have already beaten West Indies a few times in T20s. We beat them in ODIs as well. And, more importantly, there are seven to eight guys playing in the IPL, which is the best preparation ahead of the World Cup. And the conditions in the World Cup may be good for the spinners – at least, that is my expectation. Even if it is flat wickets, the kind of bowling unit we have, we don’t rely much on the wicket. We have a fair few mystery spinners who make it harder for the batter to score freely.Related

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I have also bowled a lot in the CPL. [Mohammad] Nabi, Mujeeb [Ur Rahman] and Noor [Ahmad], too, have bowled on the wickets in the Caribbean and we have all found enough spin and are well-versed with the conditions. So we have that advantage.But the most important thing is: how we are going there mentally. Do we have that kind of belief where we can beat New Zealand? Do we have that kind of belief where we can beat West Indies? As soon as that belief comes, you can beat any side. That’s the kind of belief we had in the ODI World Cup last year in India. Since we beat England, we said we can beat any side.Rashid says Sachin Tendulkar’s long chat with the team last year went a long way in boosting their confidence and self-belief•ICC via Getty ImagesDuring the ODI World Cup last year, Sachin Tendulkar visited the Afghan squad in Mumbai ahead of the Australia match. What impact did he have and is there a takeaway from there for the belief you want to build ahead of this T20 World Cup?
That was kind of a dream for every player that he [Tendulkar] came in and gave us that time. He didn’t only come for about five or ten minutes. He was there for the whole session and that was the beauty. And we have learned a lot from that experience.The advice he gave and the ideas he shared about the wicket helped not just the youngsters, but everyone. The knowledge he gave about Wankhede really helped: as a bowling unit, he said, go harder in the first five to six overs because you can take advantage of the conditions that are favourable for bowlers. For the batters, he said, take it easy in the initial five to six overs. He said it was fine to take time because once the top order was settled, we can accelerate score big runs.But what was more important for me was that he told us he admired the skills of everyone and what we had achieved, that you guys are capable of beating any side – like we did, beating England, Pakistan and Sri Lanka in the World Cup. The encouragement every one of us got from him was a huge booster, that someone like Sachin sir is coming, he’s praising us.What was also special was he had one-on-one chats with some of our players, including Ibrahim Zadran, who scored a hundred against Australia, the next day. I asked Ibrahim after that game what he spoke to Sachin sir about. He said, “When he [Tendulkar] spoke to me, that just totally changed my mind – the way he was speaking about me, about my game, how I’m playing. And he told me his old stories. That gave me so much energy and made my mind positive about the game tomorrow.”So it has a big impact on us players when someone like him [Tendulkar] comes out [and talks to us]. Even for me, whenever I perform a little bit and a tweet comes from him, that gives me so much energy. It makes a huge difference, as it did against Australia for us as a batting unit scoring 291 against them.Ibrahim Zadran made a hundred against Australia in the ODI World Cup last year, the first century by an Afghanistan player in the tournament•ICC/Getty ImagesIbrahim is part of the T20 squad and plays as an opener. Unlike the rest of the specialist batters, he bats at a more conservative strike rate. Do you feel Afghanistan could use him better at the end to provide stability in the batting?
Yeah, that’s the role we have given him. He knows how to change [accelerate] the strike rate, but at the same time, if he stays there for longer it’s better, because we have more allrounders in the team who can finish games. We don’t have someone like him who just carries on batting till the 14th, 15th over. He’s the best at that role.We don’t mind his strike rate. We have a good bowling unit, good finishers, good power-hitters – the combination of all that will allow us to offset that. But it’s very important that we have someone at that position who can carry the innings and just take the responsibility of batting deep.What is the weak link that you want Afghanistan to plug this World Cup?
If we can exercise a bit of calmness, that’s something that can have a massive impact on the game. If we [over]think that we are playing against New Zealand, West Indies… that’s going to affect us. But if you instead think that you are just playing a normal game against anybody, that’s where we can deliver the best individually and for the team.It is about ensuring we enjoy, we express our talent and the skills we have. We need to make sure we stick to our strong points, that’s how we can be most successful. And to not think about the opposition much, whoever they are. As long as we think about ourselves, what we can do best for the team, that’s going to be the challenge for us.We have to beat the teams with our own skills. We can’t beat teams the way India do, how Australia do. We have our own way, our own style of playing the game. As long as we play our own style of the game, I think we can beat any side.

The Railways left-arm spinner survived the inaugural WPL season, came back improved and knocked over some of the biggest international names in this year’s tournament

Vishal Dikshit22-Apr-2024Tanuja Kanwar was alone at home in Himachal Pradesh one afternoon in February 2023, at the time of the inaugural WPL auction. As soon as she flipped her phone on to watch it live, Kanwar was flooded with calls from well-wishers.”I couldn’t watch my own bidding,” Kanwar says with a laugh. “I kept cutting those calls, but people kept calling me back and I couldn’t watch the auction properly. I thought call . [Let me answer one of these calls because these people are not going to let me watch it otherwise].” I came to know I had been bought by Gujarat Giants. I asked how much for, and I was told Rs 50 lakh [US$ 60,500 approximately].”To put it in perspective, that figure was a lot more than what international stars like Heather Knight, Hayley Matthews and Dane van Niekerk fetched, and it matched the sum Jess Jonassen went for.The WPL deal was the latest in Kanwar’s surge in Indian cricket, which has coincided with her move from her home team Himachal Pradesh to Railways in 2020. Railways are a powerhouse in women’s cricket in India – they have produced players like Mithali Raj, Neetu David, Nooshin Al Khadeer, who have won them the Senior Women’s One Day Trophy 15 times in 17 editions, and the Senior Women’s T20 trophy several times too, last in 2022-23.Kanwar’s reward at the auction was an endorsement of her consistent domestic performances. Barely a week before the 2023 auction she had starred with 3 for 26 for Railways in the One Day Trophy final to finish the tournament with 18 wickets while averaging 11.16 and conceding just 2.43 runs an over. Earlier in the season she had taken 3 for 18 in the domestic T20 final in November 2022.”It’s a very big thing to play for Railways because most of the players there have played for India,” Kanwar says. “Playing and competing with them teaches you a lot, like how to handle pressure situations and how to play at the highest level. I’ve learnt a lot in these three years there.”What might have also worked in Kanwar’s favour was that the Railways coach, Al Khadeer, who was brought on board by Gujarat Giants as their bowling coach, sat at the auction table along with Raj. A former offspinner, Al Khadeer had coached Kanwar at Railways and would play a pivotal role for the left-arm spinner at Giants as well.”Whenever I feel I need some advice for my bowling, I consult her,” Kanwar says of Al Khadeer. “Or if it’s about how to bowl to which batter, she’s the one I go to.”Having played with Kanwar for Railways, stand-in Gujarat Giants captain Sneh Rana (left) knew how best to use the spinner in her inaugural WPL season•BCCIBeing the main left-arm spinner in the Giants squad, Kanwar featured in all eight of their games in 2023, and she was often given the ball by then captain Sneh Rana – also a senior team-mate at Railways – whenever there were two right-hand batters at the crease, including in the powerplay.Kanwar picked up five wickets in all, but what stood out was her temperament on the big stage and her economy rate of 8.85, the third best in a team that had leaked plenty of runs.Kanwar idolised Yuvraj Singh in her childhood, and her dream is to eventually play for India, but coming home from the WPL she realised her limited skills were not enough to get her closer to that dream.”Last year in the WPL I used to panic a little bit if I would leak runs, but since then I have learnt that even if I go for runs, I have to make a comeback in the next over – if I get it – and try to get that player out,” she says. “I try to boost myself and prepare myself mentally that I must do better in the next over.”Last year I learnt a lot at the WPL about varying your pace, what to bowl in what kind of situation. When I went back home, I worked a lot on myself on these things.”A variation she came up with to fox batters was to bowl a lot slower and from well behind the crease. That meant the trajectory would not be all that different but it would give the batters the impression that it was going to land in their arc.”Nooshin was someone who told me that I needed to work on my slower variation,” Kanwar says. “Earlier I used to bowl a normal slower delivery but that used to come nicely onto the bat. But when I bowl it from behind the crease, it lands before the good-length area. The batter doesn’t get the ball in the slot because the length is pulled back. I worked on this a lot in the last year, which is why I was able to execute it nicely this [WPL] and pick wickets with it.”This variation landed her some big fish in 2024, including Sophie Devine, Matthews, Shafali Verma and Annabel Sutherland.Devine was someone Kanwar was particularly targeting this season because the hard-hitting batter had whacked her for a 25-run over last season. Kanwar was ready with her riposte a year later. Devine was on the charge when Royal Challengers Bangalore were chasing 200 and at one point when she stepped out for a big swing, Kanwar bowled a slower one at 68.9kph from well behind the crease. Devine was deceived by the length, missed her heave and lost her off stump.”Last year she had really smashed me,” Kanwar says with a laugh. “So when we returned for this WPL, I was talking to [Lea] Tahuhu, her friend and New Zealand team-mate [who played for Giants in 2024]. I was telling her how Devine had whacked me last time and she said, ‘Yeah, I know!’ I told Tahuhu that this time I’m going to get her [Devine]. And then I actually dismissed her and I was really happy because of what had happened last year.”

Dangerous Devine departs

Tanuja Kanwer with the timber strike

Richa Ghosh joins Ellyse Perry in the middle as #RCB need 104 off 42!

Live https://t.co/W8mqrR94WB#TATAWPL | #GGvRCB pic.twitter.com/CI7JFC6ntt

— Women's Premier League (WPL) (@wplt20) March 6, 2024

India’s oldest T20I debutant reflected on her journey as a cricketer and expressed her delight at playing alongside ‘elite athletes’ like Mandhana and Harmanpreet

Srinidhi Ramanujam07-May-20242:37

Asha on India debut at 33: ‘Never stop dreaming’

Monday was an emotional day for S Asha. At 33 years and 51 days, and after waiting out a heavy downpour and storm in Sylhet, the legspinner made her maiden India appearance, becoming the country’s oldest debutant in women’s T20Is. Asha is a living example in this sport that your wildest dreams can and do come true when you don’t limit yourself.”I have no words to describe the feeling I’m going through,” Asha said in an almost empty press-conference room after the game. “I was pretty emotional, of course. 2012 was the year when I came into probables for the first time in India. From there, if you see, it’s like touching 13-14 years. So, I am feeling so happy.”Related

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Asha’s journey, in fact, has been longer than 13-14 years. She made her debut for Kerala in 2006, at the age of 15. In 2011, she made the step up to Railways, the most formidable domestic side in Indian women’s cricket, and played there for a decade, before leaving in 2022. At one time, she even took up a commentary gig during a men’s T20 tournament in Puducherry. Eventually, she agreed to lead a young Puducherry women’s team in the 2022-2023 season. It was during her time in Puducherry that Royal Challengers Bangalore’s (now Bengaluru) scouts were impressed with her bowling and decided to rope her in for the inaugural WPL season in 2023.She stole the limelight in WPL 2024. She ended the competition – during which she also became the first Indian to take a five-wicket haul – as the second-highest wicket-taker with 12 scalps at 15.41, with an economy rate of 7.11. These displays for RCB, who eventually won the title, helped her earn her maiden India call-up for this tour of Bangladesh.On Monday she starred with two wickets as India went 4-0 up with a match to spare with a 56-run win in the fourth T20I against Bangladesh. She had finally arrived, after all those years of anticipation, patience, downturns, hardships, passion and dreams.Despite Asha bringing a bucketload of experience from domestic cricket, India waited until they had taken an unassailable 3-0 lead to unleash her at this level. For Asha, it was worth the wait.Asha was the second-highest wicket-taker of WPL 2024•BCCI”I have been through so many struggles and [put in a lot of] hard work. It was worth this moment. Really happy,” Asha, who was handed her India cap by Mandhana, said. “It was not easy for me to make [my] debut at the age of 33. But the credit goes to BCCI, selectors, captain, vice-captain, all the team members, coaches and management for having faith in me and giving me the opportunity to play at 33. The kind of faith they showed [in] me, that’s amazing.”[WPL] was an amazing journey, playing under Smriti in WPL. Coming along with Smriti and Harry [Harmanpreet Kaur] , the most experienced player at the moment, it’s an amazing feeling. At one point in time, I thought I could never make it to the national side. But WPL gave us that opportunity and showed us that everybody can dream, and dream is not that far, and we can always achieve it. So WPL changed my life.”It was also a special day for her captain Harmanpreet, who at 35 became the second Indian woman after Mithali Raj to play 300 international games. Having watched Harmanpreet play from a young age, Asha said it was a “nice feeling” to play alongside her in Indian colours.”I am feeling so blessed to share some time with some elite athletes of our country,” she said. “They know [when to] switch on and switch off really well. They are very free [with] us, they come to us and talk. At the same time, they know when to switch on. Next moment, they are that serious team player. I am watching Harry from my 18 years. I never thought I would be playing with her.”Asha’s debut also made her the third player from Kerala, after Minnu Manni and S Sajana, to make her way to the India Women side. A year ago, none of the three had represented India. And before Asha, only two over-30s had debuted for India in T20Is. Acknowledging what she has achieved at her age, she only had one message to those putting in the hard yards behind the scenes: Never stop dreaming.”If it’s a long journey, don’t give up. That’s what I want to say,” Asha said. “Sometimes what happens is in the journey ahead, we will think, ‘oh, it’s a long journey. I might want to take a break. Maybe I will quit.’ But don’t do that. You never know what’s going to happen next. So, the way WPL changed my life, anything can happen to anyone. And never stop dreaming. Dreams are not so far to achieve.”Maybe, Asha’s dream of “playing a World Cup for my country” isn’t far away either.

Shakib’s bite is the latest addition to off-beat solutions players have come up with for technical adjustments. Here are some more

Varun Shetty27-Sep-2024A pain in the neck
The neck strap was not Shakib’s first attempt at fixing his head position; in fact, it might be an extension of a method he has tried in training before. At the T20 World Cup earlier this year, he was seen warming up with a neck brace on. Shakib’s head-positioning issues have stemmed from an eye condition called Central Serous Chorioretinopathy (CSC), where a fluid accumulates beneath the retina and affects the person’s vision. As a result, he has had to adjust his head positioning to ensure he could track the ball clearly, while avoiding excessive head tilt that could interfere with his technique.Gilchrist squashes Sri Lanka
Adam Gilchrist had been working on improving his grip and decided – on the day of the 2007 ODI World Cup final – that he would employ a little hack deviced back home in the big game against Sri Lanka. That hack was lodging a squash ball inside the batting glove of his bottom hand. The result was perhaps the best batting performance in a World Cup final – 149 off 104.The objective was to avoid gripping the bat too tightly with the last two or three fingers of his bottom hand. To help with this, his batting coach, Bob Meuleman, had suggested placing a squash ball in his glove, which created resistance against those outer fingers. The adjustment forced Gilchrist to rely more on his thumb and forefinger, allowing his top hand to dominate his shots.Banish the racket, squash your opponents in a World Cup final•Getty ImagesMalinga’s feet simulator
Lasith Malinga’s approach to bowling in limited-overs cricket was simple. As a boy, he watched Wasim Akram and Waqar Younis bowl yorkers and thought it was a “great ball to bowl”. Then he met bowling coach Champaka Ramanayake early in his leather-ball-cricket days, who told him to simply focus on bowling straight and fast.With those clear-minded philosophies in place, Malinga’s mastery of the yorker began with another simple but extremely effective drill in the nets. The pair placed two boots at the batting crease, aligned as if a batter was taking guard. Even in the absence of actual batters at the nets, Malinga now had a way of slinging the ball into their feet.George Bailey turns his back on everyone
In December 2016, when George Bailey first adopted his unconventional stance with his back turned towards the bowler, he admitted to Cricket Australia, “I’ll be the first to say it’s crazy. That’s why I don’t like watching it.” What drove him to such an extreme adjustment?Related

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Bailey realised that his traditional stance was causing him to get squared up, especially in swinging conditions, where his hands would drift away from his body in compensation. As a “ruthless” fix, he adopted a closed-off stance, positioning his left leg ahead of his right, with both feet pointing towards deep third.Pietersen goes no-pads
Kevin Pietersen’s Test dismissals break-up shows that he was dismissed by left-arm spinners on 29 occasions out of 181 innings. In hindsight, those aren’t alarming numbers by any stretch – he did still average 52.86 against that type of bowling. But his perceived problems against left-arm spin became a sticky narrative wherever he went, exacerbated by occasional dismissals against part-timers and rookies.A remedy emerged in a letter written to him by Rahul Dravid – to face Graeme Swann and Monty Panesar in the nets without his pads on. The idea was that his big front-foot push down the wicket would be slightly delayed, allowing him to not push hard at a turning ball, which was inevitable once the foot was planted early.Ranjitsinhji flicks open a new scoring area
Ranjitsinhji was the first well-known Indian cricketer. He has been described as “the first Indian of any kind to become universally known and popular” by John Lord in the book , and is still a part of Indian cricket through the Ranji Trophy, which is named after him. He is also widely believed to have invented the leg glance.According to legend, one of the Surrey professionals who tutored cricketers at Cambridge – where Ranjitsinhji was an undergraduate – fixed and “nailed” his back boot to the crease to stop him from retreating from the ball. Whether true or not, his newfound ability to deflect deliveries to the leg side revolutionised batting, unlocking previously untapped scoring areas on the field. This 1897 footage of him gives us a glimpse of a rather static back foot.

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

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

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Shakeel: Pakistan planning to use England's aggressive game plan against them

Dysfunctional build-up masks the challenge as England return to Pakistan

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