They score a lot of runs together, but not necessarily quickly, and may be too similar to make sense as a combination in top-level T20

Sidharth Monga29-Oct-20223:01

Flower: The rest have to come to the party if Babar and Rizwan miss out

A question first. There is an opening pair that has scored 2019 runs together at an average of 50.47 since the start of 2021. Is it good for the team?Of course anybody who knows T20 cricket will tell you this is insufficient data to form any kind of sound judgement about a partnership. However, even if you don’t have the strike-rate handy, if a wicket falls every 50 runs over a period of two years, which at this average is about 40 matches, it might not be unfair to assume that the pair doesn’t take many risks.Now if a batter alone averages 50, and if we assume the same conservatism about him, others can still complement such a batter by taking more risks around him in the knowledge that if they happen to get out, there will be a set batter in the middle. If a partnership averages 50 over such a long period, it needs at least one of the batters to be in the form of his life or be a T20 freak. Neither of Babar Azam and Mohammad Rizwan, the pair in question, is.Related

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One of the underappreciated parts of T20 cricket is partnerships. If your spinner has bowled a tight over, you don’t give the batters a release bowler. Similarly you need to know when to sneak in a quiet over from a part-timer. With the bat, you want complementary batters batting together. A right-hand batter and a left-hand batter, for example. A spin-hitter and a pace-hitter.The idea is to make sure the opposition doesn’t stack similar kind of bowlers in one spell of play because both batters struggle against that variety. It happened with India in the last T20 World Cup when Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli, both of whom tend to go slow against spinners, got stuck against Mitchell Santner and Ish Sodhi in the game that sealed their fate.Babar and Rizwan are too much like each other. They have similar scoring trends against same styles of bowling and in same innings phases. Both are at their slowest in the powerplay, both are slow against spinners and not dashing against pace early on, both are right-hand batters. Both of their sets of numbers suggest they like to get themselves in before playing the big shots, which is why opening the innings gets the best out of them, but is it really the best for the team when both open?Will Babar Azam and Mohammad Rizwan change their approach?•Getty ImagesThis is not hindsight, nor does this blame the opening pair for Pakistan’s last two results, but this is one structural issue Pakistan needed to address even if both last-ball finishes had gone their way. This has nothing to do with the quality of the batters that follow in the middle order either. If they get a chance to bat, they mostly do so when the openers have failed to kick on after a slow start. They come in with a much smaller margin for error. And there are also times when a partnership averaging 50 will be broken early, which leaves the middle order with a role they are not used to playing. If that happens all of a sudden in a World Cup, especially in a group that is not likely to have upsets, you find yourselves in the situation Pakistan are in.There must have been some internal reason for Pakistan opening with Babar and Rizwan, because international teams can’t be unmindful of the risks that such a decision presents, but it was strange that Fakhar Zaman used to bat at No. 3 when he was fit. It is not possible Pakistan haven’t thought about it. It is too simplistic to call Babar and Rizwan selfish, which some are suggesting now. There have been all kinds of insinuations from pundits in the year gone, by with one of the coaches in the PSL even saying his team tries to not get Babar out when they play Karachi Kings, but Pakistan’s team management deserves a chance to explain their thinking.The most plausible explanation is, as chief selector Mohammad Wasim told this year, that they don’t trust the middle order enough. Or that Fakhar, recovering from his knee injury, has not been in the best of form. However, a better way to deal with the situation might actually be for Pakistan to spread their two “reliable” batters and let others hit around them. Even Shan Masood at least brings the right-left dynamic.Now that Pakistan are in the strange position of hoping for an India win against South Africa, they perhaps need to look no farther than India. Even they had a great win-loss record – in both the limited-overs formats – but they have consciously become more flexible and dynamic with their batting. They are aware of the need for complementary batters at the wicket. When Rohit bats with KL Rahul and Kohli, he makes sure he is the aggressor. It is a small modification in approach, but a big leap of faith in the price you put on your wicket.Hopefully Pakistan will take that leap soon because that bowling attack deserves trophies.

It was not quite Mitchell Starc vs Brendon McCullum at the MCG, but another big early wicket set the tone for Pakistan’s domination at the SCG

Andrew McGlashan09-Nov-20221:47

Moody: Williamson still valuable for New Zealand

Two first-over moments summed up a semi-final that never got off the ground for New Zealand: Finn Allen pinned lbw third ball, and Babar Azam given a life first ball by Devon Conway behind the stumps.This time it wasn’t Mitchell Starc at the MCG – they had dealt with him in emphatic style during the opening game of the Super 12s – but instead another left-armer with a habit of taking opening-over wickets. Allen started like he had against Starc at the beginning of the Super 12s, drilling Shaheen Afridi’s first ball down the ground for four, but that was as good as it got. Second ball he was given lbw and reprieved thanks to a massive inside edge; next delivery there was no second chance. To say it got the crowd going would be an understatement.Related

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It was not quite the hammer blow that Brendon McCullum’s dismissal was in 2015, but it immediately removed the top-order player who provides something different for New Zealand. Allen is given license to play with freedom, some days it will work spectacularly, as it did against Australia with 42 off 16 balls, others it will not. There is no crime in that. However, it meant the powerplay immediately reverted to something less threatening.Conway threatened to take up the mantle with two boundaries in Naseem Shah’s first over, but the next three did not produce one. Conway dispatched Haris Rauf’s first ball of the sixth over only to be run out by Shadab Khan’s direct hit – a highlight of a very sharp fielding display from Pakistan – and while 38 for 2 was not a calamity it meant there was ground to make up.Daryl Mitchell, the hero of last year’s semi-final against England, stitched together a commendable innings but it never really happened, even if in typical New Zealand style they scrapped their way to something that might have been defenable.In a key moment in the game, a direct hit from Shadab Khan caught Devon Conway short•ICC via GettyFor a while it felt like the group match against Sri Lanka on this ground: on that day, New Zealand were 76 for 3 after 13 overs with Mitchell and Glenn Phillips having done the rebuilding. Today after 13 overs they were 89 for 3. But this time Phillips was back in the dugout – you could tell by Babar’s celebrations that he could sense the moment when Mohammad Nawaz took the return catch to ensure that – and there were only two boundaries in the last five overs. For that, Pakistan’s bowlers also deserve significant credit.With 152 on the board everything needed to go New Zealand’s way, and you wouldn’t have put it past them to find a way. But in the first over from Trent Boult their moment slipped away.Babar, who has struggled throughout the tournament and had played an innings so far from his usual fluent self against Bangladesh, pushed at a delivery from Boult which started to shape in then nibbled away off the surface, drawing an outside edge. However, Conway had been wrong-footed behind the stumps, perhaps by the early movement, and the nick flew low to his right. He got there with one glove but couldn’t grab hold in the webbing. You could see the anguish in Boult’s eyes as he watched the replay.Babar Azam watches the ball get away from Devon Conway to give him a second chance, which he would go on to make good use of•ICC via GettyBoult’s next over went for 15 and by the end of the powerplay Pakistan were 55 without loss. They had hit nine boundaries in six overs; New Zealand managed 12 in their whole innings. It would have taken an horrendous mess up from them (yes, this is Pakistan) to lose their grip on the match from there and while New Zealand got it to 19 off 15 balls, and took it to the final over, there was no miracle for them.”At the halfway stage we knew we had something to defend and guys were pretty pumped to go out and take on the challenge,” Williamson said. “We knew we had to operate well and weren’t quite on top of our game. Pakistan were outstanding with the bat. Throughout this tournament there’s been a lot of good, it’s just frustrating not to put out a better performance.”With 31 needed off 30, which with nine wickets in hand should have been comfortable anyway, Mitchell Santner spilled Mohammad Haris at point. With 21 needed off 18, Conway fumbled a take behind the stumps and allowed a scampered bye. Two balls later, Haris took Lockie Ferguson for a four and a six and even the smallest element of doubt was gone. echoed around the SCG. Meanwhile, for New Zealand it was a familiar tune of their own. The wait for major limited-overs silverware goes on.

Nervy chase highlights importance of bowlers’ fightback on used pitch at Sydney

Andrew McGlashan05-Nov-20223:56

Uthappa: Curran always ‘comfortable’ to ‘take on the pressure situation’

On a used pitch at the SCG where England were going to have to chase, Sri Lanka sat at 52 for 1 after five overs. The pressure was squarely on Jos Buttler’s team and there will have been a few interested Australians taking notice.Eventually they got the win to book a semi-final in Adelaide, though they made sure those Australians watching will have kept the television on longer than looked likely. When Moeen Ali fell, 31 were needed from 33 balls with Dawid Malan carrying a groin injury; when Sam Curran hooked to long leg it was 13 off 12.”I’m not a great watcher to be honest,” Buttler said, having been spotted chewing his nails in the dugout. “So I didn’t enjoy that much but we knew we had to find a way to win the game coming here today, so thankfully we did that.”The strain to get over the line emphasised how important it had been that they weren’t chasing anything more challenging. For a while, as Buttler and Alex Hales compiled the highest powerplay score of the tournament, it looked as though the win would be capped by the white-ball batting that has become England’s trademark, but the fact it became a scramble brought into focus that it was a victory for the bowlers.”If we could have maybe nipped one more wicket there, it would have made things very interesting,” Sri Lanka head Chris Silverwood said, after a first meeting with his former team. “We thought if we could have got 20 more runs, maybe 160 would have been a very competitive score.”Whichever way it is broken down, the manner in which England squeezed after the opening five overs was outstanding: Sri Lanka made 89 off 15 overs and 61 from the final 10. From the 16th into the 19th over, there was a 20-ball period where nothing more than a single was scored.Although Chris Woakes removed Kusal Mendis in the fourth over, Sri Lanka had flown away inside the powerplay and Buttler was desperate to reassert some control. Adil Rashid started the repair work by conceding just two runs off the last over of the fielding restrictions to begin what was a superb spell. It finished as the fourth time in his T20I career that he had bowled a boundary-less four overs and they have all come against Sri Lanka. What made that more noteworthy was that he was always bowling with the shorter boundary to the off side, therefore a hit with the turn for the Sri Lankans, but they couldn’t manage it.”Having lost the toss, we knew the wicket would probably slow up as the game went on being a used wicket,” Buttler said. “I thought it was a fantastic over from Adil Rashid at the back end of the powerplay to change the momentum.”Coming into the match Rashid had figures of 1 for 168 from the five games he had played on this trip to Australia, although he had bowled better than those suggest, and the vital wicket of Pathum Nissanka took him level as England’s leading men’s bowler in the format with Chris Jordan, who took the catch as a substitute.Sam Curran is congratulated after he dismissed Dhananjaya de Silva•Getty ImagesBut when Rashid finished after the 16th over, England still needed to close out well to ensure they weren’t chasing something upwards of 160 which would have left less room for error. The previous over of seam in the innings, the 15th from Woakes, had gone for 12 even as he varied his pace and used cutters, which have been effective on this surface throughout the last three matches.For the last four overs, though, Buttler entrusted the job to two highly contrasting bowlers; the left-arm skiddiness and low angle of Curran and the high-octane pace of Mark Wood whose previous over had gone for 17 amid Sri Lanka’s early onslaught. They produced a masterclass in closing out an innings.Wood was too quick for Dasun Shanaka and the lower order, with only one delivery in his two overs going for more than one run either off the bat or as an extra. At the other end, Curran continued what is becoming one of the performances of the World Cup – his evolution as a go-to death bowler from a player who may not have been in the first-choice XI. Shanaka and Bhanuka Rajapaksa could barely connect with his combination of slower balls and yorkers, the latter with which he has shown tremendous control. The only boundary he conceded in his final 12 balls was when Wanindu Hasaranga inside-edged one of those yorkers down to fine leg.Related

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“He’s someone who keeps growing and growing,” Buttler said. “He’s that sort of fierce competitor who wants to be in the tough moments. He’s got real method to what he’s doing and he’s got a lot of different options which makes him tough to line up.”Since arriving in Australia, Curran has taken 15 wickets at 10.26 with an economy of 6.79, 10 of them coming in the World Cup. He is the joint-leading wicket-taker among those who have played only in the Super 12s. The death-over figures across those four matches mark him out even further: he has bowled 41 balls and conceded just 34 runs. For bowlers who have sent down at least 20 balls in the death phase (overs 17-20) he is the most miserly.In a tight T20 game there are many moments and small phases of play that can be picked out as critical. Hales’ impact in the powerplay gave England what became vital breathing space and Ben Stokes, not for the first time, was there when it really mattered. But for a team that has made its name on their free-wheeling white-ball batting, it has been the bowlers that have got them into the semi-finals.

In Pant’s absence, the prospect of playing Kishan might have been tempting, but it was Bharat they turned to

Karthik Krishnaswamy23-Feb-2023Sometimes, one ball can contain nearly every ingredient that defines a Test match. Pat Cummins’ dismissal off Ravindra Jadeja on the third morning in Delhi was one such ball. It had the pinpoint, stump-seeking accuracy of India’s spinners; the deadly low skid that made this pitch so hard to bat on; and the sweep – the high-risk, high-reward and highly polarising shot that became the subject of a thousand post-mortems.There was one other ingredient too. After the ball snuck under Cummins’ bat, it hit the inner edge of off stump, cannoned into the side of middle stump, and disappeared into the gloves of KS Bharat.The ball hadn’t turned sharply, but it hadn’t gone entirely with the arm either, straightening just a hint after pitching. It had kept low, too, before taking that double-deflection at the stumps. Bharat had tracked the entire journey, some of it coinciding with Cummins taking a wild swipe at the ball, and come away with a clean collection.Related

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It was inconsequential, the ball dead by the time it reached him, but it was a superb bit of glovework.Later in the day, with India four down and 27 away from their target, Bharat would get a promotion up the order, and score a bright, unbeaten 23 off 22 balls, including three sweetly timed cover-driven fours and a solid thunk of a slog-swept six.Bharat had scored 8 and 6 in his two previous innings in this series, his first two innings in Test cricket. Sunday’s cameo must have brought him quite a bit of confidence after that start. To some watching from outside, the cameo may even have seemed like a career-lengthening lifeline.But it is unlikely India would have given serious thought to leaving Bharat out after Delhi even if he had made a duck in the second innings. They probably recognise that anyone can go through a string of low scores on challenging pitches, and they probably saw flashes of Bharat’s counterattacking potential even in his brief visits to the crease in Nagpur and on day two in Delhi.And they would have recognised how good his keeping has been, particularly while standing up to spin, on pitches with a fair degree of natural variation and inconsistent bounce. He hasn’t missed a chance yet, and he has only let seven balls go past him for byes – three of them were balls he’d had to dive for, wayward deliveries from the fast bowlers that veered down the leg side.Most of the time, he has gone about his business almost unnoticed, apart from the times he has effected a dismissal. The stumping of Marnus Labuschagne in Nagpur, off a Jadeja delivery that both turned and bounced, was a delight, and so too was the understated ease of the catch he took off Steven Smith’s outside edge in the first innings in Delhi. R Ashwin had dismissed Labuschagne lbw earlier in the over, with a ball that turned from more or less the same spot on the pitch. The ball to Smith kept going with the angle from around the wicket; Smith was flummoxed, Bharat was not.In Nagpur, Bharat pulled off a sharp stumping to remove Marnus Labuschagne•Getty ImagesThese moments were a long time coming.Back in May 2018, the selectors picked Bharat as designated keeper for the four-day leg of an India A tour of England, and Rishabh Pant as the keeper for the 50-overs leg. That A tour was to be a shadow tour – the senior India side was also touring England that summer. At the time, the selectors viewed Bharat as the best pure keeper among India’s young prospects, and Pant as an exciting maverick with the bat whose glovework still needed polishing.When an injured Wriddhiman Saha was ruled out of that England tour, it was Pant whom India called up to their Test squad, and not Bharat. Genius finds its own pathways.But Bharat remained a key member of India’s second rung of players. Since the start of 2018, he has played 19 first-class games for India A, more than anyone apart from opening batter Abhimanyu Easwaran. He has scored 971 runs at 48.55 in these India A games, including three hundreds.When India phased Saha out of their Test squad last year, Bharat became Pant’s understudy. It was natural, then, that Bharat made his debut when Pant was out injured. The competing claims of Ishan Kishan might have tempted India’s team management too, but it was to Bharat they turned at the start of this Border-Gavaskar series.At the start of the 2019-20 home season, India left Pant out of their Test XI and recalled Saha for a series against South Africa. They backed Saha’s superior glovework – Virat Kohli called him the best keeper in the world – which they felt was essential on turning tracks in India, and reckoned that Pant’s keeping still needed work. Pant put in that work and turned himself into a world-class keeper by the time India hosted England in early 2021, but until then, Saha had remained the first choice in home Tests.The same logic has been at play at the start of this India-Australia series. India value Bharat’s ability with the bat, but they recognise above all that he is the best keeper they have in Pant’s absence.

The paddle was raised 28 times for Mandhana, while five players had four teams bidding for them

Sampath Bandarupalli14-Feb-2023Nearly INR 60 crore spent
There was a total of INR 60 crore (US$ 7.3 million approx.) available for the five franchises to buy a maximum of 90 players at the auction. The limit was nearly achieved as 87 players were bought, and INR 59.5 crore was spent. Seven players earned bids as high as INR 2 crore, and three breached the INR 3-crore mark – Smriti Mandhana (INR 3.4 crore), Ashleigh Gardner (INR 3.2 crore) and Nat Sciver-Brunt (INR 3.2 crore).

The Punjab batter had not played a single T20 game before this season, but has quickly become a mainstay for his IPL franchise

Daya Sagar10-May-20233:28

Moody: Wadhera ensuring the chase wasn’t entirely on Suryakumar was critical

Nehal Wadhera had not played a single T20 game before IPL 2023. A largely unknown entity coming into the tournament, Mumbai Indians made sure to back him, giving him a consistent run in the side, and he repaid the franchise’s faith with a 21-ball 40 against Gujarat Titans, followed by a 51-ball 64 against Chennai Super Kings.On Tuesday, with Mumbai chasing 200, Wadhera went a step further, scoring an unbeaten 34-ball 52 as he forged a 140-run stand off 66 balls with Suryakumar Yadav to take his side home. Coming in at the end of the fifth over, with Mumbai having lost both openers in the space of three balls, at no point did Wadhera seem out of his depth. Even with Suryakumar going berserk at one end, the 22-year-old kept his cool to stay till the end. But, who is Wadhera and how did he end up with Mumbai despite not having any prior T20 experience?Wadhera was called up for trials last year by Rajasthan Royals, but he could not make the cut. He went back to his home state of Punjab, where he took part in an U-23 tournament. Playing for Ludhiana, in one of the innings, he smashed 578 off just 414 balls, which included 42 fours and 37 sixes. The innings elevated him into the limelight and he was spotted by the Mumbai scouts who called him for trials.Related

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“When Nehal came to me, he was a very small and chubby kid,” says his childhood coach Charanjit Bhangu. “He was a very quick learner and used to apply whatever I used to say to his game. Whenever a player does that, he immediately draws attention. After finishing practice, he used to come to my room and ask me for inputs on how to improve his game. He used to carry his bat everywhere so that he could shadow practice.”Wadhera slowly moved up the ranks in Punjab age-group cricket. In 2018, he was selected in the India U-19 team and was also named captain of an India A U-19 side that played a Quadrangular series in 2019 which had India B, South Africa and Afghanistan taking part. He then found a place in the squad for the U-19 Asia Cup in September 2019 but was overlooked for the U-19 World Cup that took place in early 2020. That came as a blow to Wadhera.Nehal Wadhera scored back-to-back fifties, the second coming in a winning cause for Mumbai•BCCI”It was a very challenging time for Nehal, but he never doubted himself,” Wadhera’s father Kamal Wadhera says. “He is a very positive boy. Whenever there are any problems, he always tries to search for ways to get out of them and not overthink about it.”To be honest, we are a middle-class family and we don’t have any stories of struggles. Whatever he (Nehal) asked for, we provided him with that. But the good thing is that he never misused his time or money.”During Covid-19, he worked on his fitness, both mental and physical. He started to read a lot as well. He now has even more self-belief than before.”Despite putting in consistent performances in age-group cricket, Wadhera had to bide his time before the senior call-up came, and he made sure to capitalise as soon as he got one. He scored a century on his first-class debut against Gujarat in January this year, and soon after compiled a match-winning 214 against defending Ranji Trophy champions Madhya Pradesh to further his credentials.Wadhera is yet to play a T20 game outside of the IPL, but the way his 2023 is going, he could soon become an all-format middle-order asset for Punjab.