All posts by h716a5.icu

He often bats within himself nowadays, but he plays that role for a specific reason and does it brilliantly

Mohammad Isam25-Jan-2021Tamim Iqbal’s strike rate is the sacrifice he makes for his team’s needs, and he’s been doing it for over a decade now.Tamim spent 28 overs at the crease during the third ODI against West Indies. He made 64, and was one of four half-centurions in Bangladesh’s innings. His strike rate, over 80 balls, was 80.00. He hit three fours and a six.Those numbers aren’t those of a dasher, someone who goes after the bowling whenever he pleases, someone whose dismissal won’t have a major impact on his team’s position or the mood of his dressing room.Those numbers, instead, are those of a senior opening batsman performing a specific role in the side, a batsman who can set a platform to allow the middle-order batsmen to play their shots. It’s the role Tamim has played for a number of years now, but it hasn’t always received the appreciation of the wider public. There’s an expectation that he should bat in a more carefree manner, especially with all the strokeplayers around him who have scored at attractive strike rates especially over the last couple of years.Last year, after Tamim made 24 off 43 balls in the first ODI against Zimbabwe, Bangladesh’s then batting coach Neil McKenzie explained why his role was so important to the team. In the following two games, Tamim made 158 and an unbeaten 128, finishing with 100-plus strike rates in both innings. But his starts are usually watchful, and he usually denies himself the license the likes of Liton Das and Soumya Sarkar have to express themselves freely.That role, of going hard at the bowling right from the start, used to be Tamim’s early in his career. It’s likely he himself has forgotten when he stopped being that sort of batsman and became the responsible senior.Tamim Iqbal drives against the spin•AFP via Getty ImagesIt was important Tamim played himself in even in a game of little consequence like the third ODI against West Indies, because Bangladesh lost Das and Najmul Hossain Shanto by the ninth over. Using all their experience, Tamim and Shakib Al Hasan added 93 runs for the third wicket, which ensured that those coming next, Mushfiqur Rahim and Mahmudullah, had the security of a solid start, and enough tiredness in the bowlers’ and fielders’ legs, to go for quick runs.In the 22 overs following Tamim’s dismissal, Bangladesh smashed 166 runs, to finish on a formidable 297 for 6. They eventually won by a whopping 120 runs, and while the rapid half-centuries of Mushfiqur and Mahmudullah deserve a large share of the credit for that margin of victory, it’s important to acknowledge the foundation laid by Tamim as well. That platform needed to be built from scratch. It is not a pretty job, but it’s a vital one, particularly in a team like Bangladesh whose top order, Tamim apart, isn’t always the most durable.This plan came into being under Mashrafe Mortaza back in 2015, and it has worked more often than not. It wasn’t the duty of any one of the top three to play this anchor role. It was always Tamim who was marked out to bat through as many overs as he could, and ensure he passed the baton to one of the three senior middle-order batsmen.Among the 36 ODIs in which Tamim has scored at least 50 and Bangladesh have gone on to win, 22 have come in the last six years.It wasn’t always like this for Tamim. In 2007, he was marked out as the big-hitting opener who could take advantage of the first powerplay. His breakout innings against India during the 2007 World Cup, involved a lot of hoicking and stand-and-deliver shots, but he has come a long way from that version of himself.A quick look at the revolving door of his opening partners and the unstable No. 3 position over the years will also tell you why Tamim has had to cut down on his free-flowing strokeplay, and bat more responsibly. If Tamim hadn’t done so, it may not have hurt him too much at an individual level, but Bangladesh may have remained a more mercurial side.Successive coaches since Jamie Siddons, under whom Tamim evolved considerably as an opener, have always relied on him to provide early solidity. Under Chandika Hathurusingha, a mature Tamim guided the ODI, Test and T20I line-ups with a mix of caution and aggression.This method has gained even more importance in the last three years as a string of batsmen have failed to hold on to their positions in the top order. It forced Steve Rhodes, who was Bangladesh’s coach from 2018 to 2019, to agree with Shakib and promote him to No. 3 during the 2019 World Cup. The decision was a raging success, but the fact that Russell Domingo, the current coach, wanted Shakib to bat at No 4 suggests Bangladesh still feel the need for a sturdier middle order.Tamim finishes his first ODI series as the designated, non-temporary captain with scores of 44, 50 and 64, and though they came against a feeble West Indies side, all his contributions have been significant. It is unlikely that the current or any future team management would let him go back to his old style, and while that may cause some of his fans to heave a nostalgic sigh, they’ll come to understand why he’s put away some of the flashy shots of his youth.

Matt Roller intrepidly returns to the stands to sample the unlocked atmosphere

Matt Roller12-Jun-2021Countless column inches have been filled in the last 15 months about the prospect of a ‘new normal’ but at Edgbaston this week it has felt as though the old one has returned.7,000 fans per day returned to Lord’s last week, making the first Test England’s first home fixture played in front of supporters since the 2019 Ashes, but with three-quarters of seats still empty and the others filled primarily by becalmed MCC members, there was something missing in the spectacle.Not so in Birmingham. Around 18,000 people have been allowed into every day of the second Test, meaning the ground is roughly 70% full, and they have made themselves known through beer snakes, giant inflatables, fancy dress and football chants. Matt Henry, the New Zealand seamer, described the notorious Eric Hollies Stand as “electric” at the close on Thursday: “It was some impressive energy,” he added.There are times when the press pack take the benefits of the job for granted but the pandemic has been a welcome reminder of them, not least during England’s bio-secure summer when only a dozen or so reporters were granted access to grounds which were otherwise sealed off. The atmosphere at behind-closed-doors fixtures has been eerie but it is a privileged position to experience it in the first place.And yet… there is nothing quite like leaving your laptop in the hotel and being at live sport as a fan. Saturday was my first time in the stands – rather than the press box – since a midweek trip to Fratton Park for Arsenal’s fifth-round FA Cup tie against Portsmouth last March. A group of nine of us from university had booked our tickets on a whim back in February with no expectation of them being valid four months later, but here we were, filtering in to take our seats in the West Lower alongside a pack of human crayons, a cabal of Egyptian pharaohs and a quartet of Cool Britannia-clad Geri Halliwells.Fans in fancy dress take their seats in the stands•PA Images via Getty ImagesOther than a tremendous thirst, there is only one key requirement for spectators at Edgbaston this week: proof of a negative lateral flow test, taken within 24 hours of their arrival at the ground, which must be shown along with a ticket. With the match serving as a pilot in the government’s Events Research Programme, they were also sent two PCR tests and encouraged to take one on the morning of their attendance, and another five days after.Masks are encouraged when fans leave their seats, though the stewarding has been refreshingly even-handed, and social distancing is not required inside the ground. A consent form, agreeing to participate in the programme, was also required, though Under-16s were deemed unable to provide it and therefore not permitted to attend.Warwickshire have taken welcome steps to improve the fan experience, too: the Edgbaston app has replaced physical ticket stubs and also enables click-and-collect food and drink. With the ground now fully cashless, the only item required throughout the day is a smartphone.Graeme Swann once said that the Edgbaston crowd was “louder than any Premier League game” I’ve been to and they have done their best to maintain a football feel this week, ahead of England’s first Euro 2020 fixture on Sunday. A Gareth Southgate lookalike ran round the Hollies waving a St George’s cross on Friday afternoon, and Baddiel and Skinner’s has echoed throughout. Harry Maguire, the Manchester United centre-back, played cricket as a teenager but could never have guessed a chant about the size of his head (f***ing massive, since you’re asking) would prove so popular at a Test match.Related

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Fielders on the midwicket or cover boundary in front of the Hollies have to contend with relentless ribbing from the crowd. Neil Wagner played along on Thursday, waving on request and grinning back at them, while Will Young – who shares his name with the winner of the inaugural series of – was greeted with a chant of “there’s only one Gareth Gates” (Young’s namesake edged Gates into second place).Not everything has been as good-natured. While it was heartening – not least in light of football fans’ boos when England take a knee before kick-off – to hear warm applause in the ‘moment of unity’ on the first morning, some took pride in singing Ollie Robinson’s name as the investigation into his racist and sexist tweets continued, and the reported that at least two stewards were injured by drunk fans on Friday. The lowlight was a pitch invader during a drinks break – stupid at the best of times, but with the players still living in a ‘secure team environment’, potentially fatal for the series.But the vast majority has been harmless fun, and has felt like a fitting celebration of the reengagement between players and supporters. Newspaper headlines this morning suggested that the Great Unlock, initially pencilled in for June 21, could be pushed back by a full month – which would have a profound effect on the finances of counties, who have sold tickets to England’s white-ball fixtures and the second half of the T20 Blast group stages at full capacity. Further reason, then, to cherish the Birmingham buzz.

With the influence of Shoaib and Lee plain to see, young fast bowler confirms his star status

Osman Samiuddin10-Jul-2021With an action as beautiful to watch as Saqib Mahmood’s, it is a slight disservice to think who it reminds you of. Every action is very much its own living, breathing vehicle, built initially through an internal process of trial and error while growing up and inhaling every bit of cricket watched; and then, once in a system, a touch-up here, a tweak there by a battery of coaches and we’re there: an action, built to repeat but, because every single human body is different, unable to be replicated in detail, and unlike anyone else that has come before.But still there are those influences. Because they’ve been inhaled and then exhaled through countless kid’s games, it’s impossible they don’t leave tiny imprints behind. With Mahmood, those imprints are unmistakable. When Mahmood was growing up, the two fast bowlers he always watched were Brett Lee and Shoaib Akhtar, a pair who, at the time, were duelling it out in cricket’s last great pace race.Now it starts to make sense, see? The sense that he’s taken the best of both of those and turned it into something entirely his own which, if all things go right, you can see young kids wanting to inhale one day, just as he once did.Mahmood’s run-up is better behaved than Shoaib’s – that was both a result of his body’s limitations and also a mood. Some days it did whatever it wanted and some days it did what he had practised it to do. But it is more Lee in its orderliness and polish, though not quite as much of the panther’s grace that Lee had.The action itself has a business load-up of the right wrist, not unlike Lee’s, before bringing the wild party of the round-arm release – but a fairly upright round-arm if that makes sense. That round-arm is Shoaib-ish though, in actual fact, is probably even more Waqar Younis. Shoaib’s hyper-extension, after all, made him look raggedy but also, in a literal sense, inimitable. Maybe Kabir Ali? IYKYK, as they say.This picture of him below from the 2020 season is another feeling altogether. Sideways on, he’s not wound up for nearly as catapulting a release as Thommo – the right arm would be loading up behind the right hip there – but it’s slingy still.Saqib Mahmood prepares to uncoil during the 2020 season•Getty ImagesAll put together, that round arm, the sling, the pace, and it’s easy to imagine those early scouts and coaches watching on and ticking off a couple of magic boxes: pace yes, reverse definitely. We have a prospect. And this is what the earliest dispatches seemed to say.Which is why this series, at Cardiff and Lord’s today, has been – if not an eye-opener as such (he has new-ball success in List A and county cricket) but an affirmation that Mahmood is ticking more boxes. Quite a few more.For instance, with the pace, there has been a meanness in Mahmood’s control and the significant movement that he has extracted in those first new-ball overs – effectively winning England a series that, a day before it began, looked a daunting prospect but ended up being dispatched with ease. That is how singularly incisive Mahmood’s new-ball spells have been – no greater illustration than in the two dismissals of Babar Azam, on the outside and inside of his bat.On a number of occasions when Mahmood has followed through after beating a batter, he’s thrown his arms up and cupped his mouth in disbelief, as if the laws of physics are his oppressors. The action may come from elsewhere, but there’s some serious Stuart Broad energy there. See also: the celebrappeal for the Babar leg-before.All of it is a mix that, rightly, should have many people very excited. Shoaib was excited enough to ring Mahmood during the first leg of the PSL this year where he was the leading wicket-taker and told him there was a lot more to come, and that he’d be happy to pass on pointers if their paths crossed. (In Shoaib’s recent retelling of that, of course, Mahmood sought him out, but all that’s beside the point.)Related

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The PSL was a key moment because Peshawar Zalmi gave Mahmood a freewheeling, more expansive brief, beyond bowling the grunt overs in the middle of a white-ball innings. It became, he told ESPNcricinfo, an opportunity to really learn.The England management will be right at the front of the queue of those getting excited about what they’ve seen. It’s not, as Mahmood has noted, an easy time to be battling for places in their white-ball sides. Mark Wood has more pace. Chris Woakes is England’s leading wicket-taker since the 2015 World Cup. There’s the generational genius of Jofra Archer. But Mahmood’s work across these two games will now be impossible to ignore.Last, and very much not least, is the fact that he is a British Asian player, which, at this pointedly divisive moment in our lives, is significant. He’s frequently been asked about his development and understandably, as an individual who has made it through an unsympathetic system, identifying the structural clogs that prevents a collective from emulating his progress is not easy.He did, however, highlight the lack of Asian role models in the English game, a hole that Moeen Ali and Adil Rashid are now filling. But you know who else can fill that hole? Fast bowlers whose every mannerism and action you want to inhale. Here’s to the beginnings of a journey.

Thanks to their being a lot taller than India’s attack, they were able to extract more out of a pitch with extra bounce

Karthik Krishnaswamy07-Jan-20224:51

Manjrekar: ‘India’s bowlers attacked the stumps too much’

A decade from now, Dean Elgar’s unbeaten fourth-innings 96 will probably come to dominate recollections of the Wanderers Test of January 2022. Understandably. Apart from being a high-quality knock on a challenging surface, it was also the standout performance on the winning side, the number that leaps most readily out of the scorecard.But, as is true of all Test matches, the key difference between the teams probably lay in the bowling. South Africa took 20 wickets in 123.2 overs, and India only 13 in 147.2 overs.Having been neck-and-neck with South Africa over the first three innings of the match, India fell away in the fourth, as their bowlers struggled to create chances on days three and four. Across both innings, their experienced strike bowlers, Jasprit Bumrah and Mohammed Shami, picked up just one and three wickets respectively, and South Africa may have won by an even bigger margin had Shardul Thakur not turned in the performance of his life and picked up seven first-innings wickets.It wasn’t that India bowled poorly, as such; for all their lack of wickets, Bumrah and Shami beat the bat plenty of times, particularly during a riveting second morning. But there was an argument to be made that South Africa’s quicks were simply more potent on this Wanderers surface.Height matters
When India toured South Africa four years ago and lost the Test series 2-1, commentator Mike Haysman highlighted a key difference between the two teams’ pace attacks: the height of their release points.Haysman observed that during the second Test in Centurion, the average release point of South Africa’s seamers had been roughly 20cm higher than that of their India counterparts, and that this gave them a 15cm advantage in bounce by the time the ball reached the other end. Inconsistent bounce had been a feature of that Centurion pitch, and South Africa’s victory owed a lot to their bowlers’ greater ability to exploit it.Four years later, the composition of both pace attacks has changed, but South Africa’s height advantage hasn’t. Marco Jansen, Lungi Ngidi, Kagiso Rabada and Duanne Olivier are all over six feet tall, the first three significantly so. All of India’s quicks are under six feet tall.ESPNcricinfo LtdAnd this was reflected in the wicket-taking strategies employed by the two teams. Short leg was routinely in place when South Africa bowled, and their quicks looked to hit the pitch hard and find extra bounce from just short of a length to test both shoulders of the bat. Cheteshwar Pujara, Ajinkya Rahane and Hanuma Vihari, India’s Nos. 3, 4 and 5, were all consumed by extra bounce in their first innings, at a time when the bounce was both steep and spongy.Thakur’s first-innings success was aided by a crack that he routinely aimed at, but while he got a few balls to rear at the batters, he predominantly looked to use the crack to extract sideways movement rather than bounce. This was the main mode of operation for Shami, Bumrah and Mohammed Siraj as well. They also looked to swing the ball, with Shami often canting the seam towards the slips rather than deliver it bolt upright as he traditionally does.You can’t fault India’s quicks for bowling like this, of course; they were simply backing their strengths. But on this Wanderers pitch, you were probably better off being a hit-the-deck bowler rather an exponent of swing and seam.Rahul Dravid, India’s coach, agreed that South Africa’s height advantage had proved useful to them.”It just felt like the ball seemed to misbehave a little bit more for them, and that could be [because of the] fact of the height,” he said during his post-match press conference. “On up-and-down wickets sometimes just having that extra height might tend to make a little bit of a difference, so it just felt for us [that] the balls didn’t misbehave as much.”Some did, of course there were some balls that did misbehave even for us, but probably not as many as it did for them. I guess they have that natural height advantage. We are bowlers who tend to pitch the ball up a little bit more, we look for swing, we kiss the surface a little bit more.”South Africa’s bowlers, who are much taller than India’s, were able to exploit the variation in bounce at the Wanderers•AFP via Getty ImagesDampened spirits
Dravid’s quote didn’t end there.”So yeah, for us, obviously having to bowl with a slightly wetter ball today meant that area of being able to swing the ball probably was slightly negated a bit, but yeah, it just felt like maybe that is a bit of an advantage in these kind of conditions, when the ball does go up and down, having that little bit of height advantage does make a difference.”India began day four needing eight wickets. South Africa began needing 122 runs. The home team were probably already in the advantage, but the weather would cement this advantage further. After the first two sessions were washed out, play began with the outfield safe to run around on, but still slightly damp.The ball picked up moisture whenever it rolled into the outfield, and this, as Dravid observed, reduced the amount of swing India could generate.It also negated their spinner. R Ashwin had bowled a probing spell on the third evening, dismissing Keegan Petersen and causing Rassie van der Dussen enough discomfort to get Rishabh Pant cackling excitedly behind the stumps. When the fourth day finally began, India started with Ashwin from one end, knowing that the ball wouldn’t remain dry for long.”We saw the ball spinning yesterday for Ashwin,” Dravid said. “We wanted to get him in [when] the ball was dry, to see in the first couple of overs if he was able to get some spin, especially when the wicket had been under covers. For a while, sometimes if it’s a little damp, and with a dry ball, maybe we felt that he could get a wicket in the first two or three overs.”We tried that because we knew as the ball got wet and damp, it would become very difficult for the spinner to come into the game, and we saw that, so that was a little disappointing as well. Ashwin bowled beautifully yesterday, bowled a really good spell yesterday, and we thought he was troubling van der Dussen, so the gamble was to try and give him the dry ball, first thing, and see if he could get a wicket in the first few overs, and then see if that could do things, but once that didn’t happen we obviously went back to the traditional seam-up option.”South Africa got to use the heavy roller twice in the fourth innings, which made the pitch slightly easier to bat•AFP/Getty ImagesWas winning the toss inconsequential?
While uneven bounce was evident right through the Test, batting didn’t seem to get significantly more difficult as it progressed. The control figures for the match told a tale – from roughly 82% during both teams’ first innings, it fell to 75.6% in India’s second innings, before rising to 84.7% during South Africa’s chase.It would seem, then, that the pitch did not deteriorate to any great extent, negating whatever advantage India gained from winning the toss and batting first. But, as we’ve explored earlier, India may have simply been less skilled at exploiting the uneven bounce on offer, and the effects of rain may have also negated their strengths on the final day.South Africa also got to use the heavy roller twice during their chase: once before their innings began, and once again at the start of day four, at a time when they had already seen off 40 overs and got nearly halfway to their target.At the end of day three, Cheteshwar Pujara had observed that the heavy roller had been giving the batting team a window of time during which inconsistent bounce was relatively more manageable.”I feel when you take a heavy roller, the pitch settles a bit, it takes a little bit of time for the cracks to open up,” he had said. “There are some dents as well, so when there’s a heavy roller, [the pitch] settles down a bit, but after an hour or so we start getting variable bounce.”For all this, though, luck may also have played a part. In their first innings, India played 69 false shots and lost 10 wickets. During South Africa’s chase, India induced 62 false shots and only picked up three wickets. Yes, South Africa’s quicks probably exploited the conditions better than India’s did, but the difference may not have been quite so stark.India’s bowlers certainly made South Africa feel uncomfortable, but that didn’t translate into wickets•AFP/Getty ImagesA twinge, a body blow
While India have won Test matches all over the world of late, a common thread has run through quite a few of their defeats: a relative lack of fast-bowling depth compared to their opposition. Christchurch 2020 and Southampton 2021 were notable examples of this.India shouldn’t have had that issue at the Wanderers, since their attack and South Africa’s had the same composition, with four quicks and a spinner. But India’s bowling depth was compromised late on day two, when Siraj pulled up with a hamstring strain while bowling his fourth over of the match.Siraj soldiered on gamely, earning Dravid’s praise for his willingness to bowl through pain, but only sent down 15.5 overs across the two innings. This led to increased workloads for Bumrah and Shami, in particular. They bowled 38 overs each during the match, broken up into longer spells than initially planned, probably, with smaller gaps in between. That effort is bound to show as the series progresses.And while he bowled well, India also had to use Ashwin for a greater proportion of their overs than they may have ideally wanted to on this pitch, particularly in the first innings. Ashwin sent down 10 first-innings overs and 21.4 overall. South Africa’s spinner, Keshav Maharaj, bowled just one over in the entire match.

West Indies coach claimed he was not nervous as England pushed for final-day win

Cameron Ponsonby13-Mar-2022Phil Simmons, West Indies’ head coach, says that he wasn’t nervous as his side successfully batted out 70.1 overs to force a draw on the final day’s play in Antigua, but joked that the teams had been “playing in Trent Bridge for the last few days” after the home supporters had been outnumbered by England’s travelling support.Speaking after West Indies had negotiated a final-day wobble to close on 147 for 4, Simmons praised man of the match Nkrumah Bonner, who scored a fantastic 123 in the first innings and was instrumental in securing the draw with an unbeaten on 38 from 138 balls second-time around.”He started doing it for us against Bangladesh,” Simmons said, recalling Bonner’s scores of 86 and 90 in his debut series in February 2021. “When he came and played Sri Lanka he did the same thing [with a maiden Test century]. So we’ve seen that with him and it’s getting more and more consistent, so that’s brilliant for us.”I’m hoping for a little more in the wicket [in Barbados] as it’ll make for a better Test match,” Simmons added. “I used to be a batter but you can’t let batters have it easy all the time and it’s hard for bowlers on wickets like these. You need an even surface and let’s compete.”Despite the apparent serenity of the final scoreline, West Indies endured a dicey passage of play either side of the tea-break, when four wickets fell for eight runs in the space of 9.3 overs to leave them awkwardly placed on 67 for 4. Bonner, however, found steadfast support in Jason Holder (37 not out), whose unbroken 80-run stand for the fifth wicket guided the team to safety.”I was more nervous when the review went up for Jason’s caught at slip [on 32] so no, I was not really nervous,” Simmons said. “The wicket has been flat so once you get your head down it’s difficult to get wickets on that, so I wasn’t that nervous.”After England had added 132 more runs in 25 overs in the morning session, Root declared shortly before lunch to set West Indies a teasing target of 286 to win from 71 overs. Simmons joked that he would have preferred 250 to win in 80 overs, but said he was pleased that England made a proactive decision that kept the game alive.Related

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“It’s good, we ended up being put under pressure because they’ve given themselves a chance with 70 overs to bowl against us and that’s how you want to finish a Test match looking to win.”They’ve come here to play a hard-fought series and they’ve shown that they’re not going to lie down so it’s good to see the fight from them and the other two matches are going to be just as hard.”This Test match in Antigua has been played out in front of thousands of fans, of whom the vast majority have been English. The lack of home support in West Indian cricket has been an issue for a number of years with the Caribbean Cricket Podcast confronting the issue in a recent episode by asking what can be done to effect change and encourage more local fans to attend.There are numerous reasons for the lack of local support, including a low vaccination rate within the population of Antigua, the location of the Sir Vivian Richards Stadium, which is a fair distance outside of the capital St John’s, and also the fact that the match started on a Tuesday, meaning locals were working for all but the fifth and final day. Sure enough, Saturday’s play did lead to a slight, but noticeable increase in the number of local fans.”We’ve been playing in Trent Bridge for the last few days and we were playing in Lord’s for the T20s,” Simmons joked. “We have no support … but it’s great because we went through a period where we played with no fans in the stands, and I had to jump over and fetch the balls. So it’s great to see the fans and it’s great to see the music up on the hill. It’s great that people are coming back to cricket and things are getting back to normal.”Asked whether he’d like to see more support from home fans across the series Simmons responded that “we’ll see what happens. In Barbados? I’m not too sure.”

What makes her cutter so lethal? Good height, extra bounce and a challenging line and length

Firdose Moonda14-Feb-2022One delivery very rarely makes a career, especially a career as long as Jhulan Goswami’s, but if you haven’t been following her over all of the last two decades, you’re likely to remember her for the ball that dismissed Meg Lanning for a duck in the 2017 World Cup semi-final.It was pitched on middle and off, angling in, and then swerved away to beat Lanning’s back-foot defence and hit the top of off stump. Australia were 9 for 2, chasing 282, and that may have been the moment they knew they were outdone. Goswami later revealed that Mithali Raj helped her set Lanning up by taking away her scoring options square of the wicket.Fast-forward to March 2021, in an ODI against South Africa, where Goswami dismissed Lizelle Lee lbw in her opening over with a length ball outside off that cut in, and Shabnim Ismail in her last with a delivery that came back in to peg off stump back. Goswami finished that match with 4 for 42.And then go to September 2021, where she had “the unbeatable” Alyssa Healy for a duck in Mackay with a delivery that pitched outside off and nipped back in, sneaking between bat and pad to take off the top of off stump.These three examples are not flukes. Goswami, who was reputed to be the quickest bowler in women’s cricket in the mid-2000s, appears to have developed and mastered the cutter as a mid-career skill and now uses it at will. Like many who bowl this delivery, she has perfected the tilt of the wrist inwards and pull of fingers down the side of the ball, and is able to hide her grip well. But though this is a delivery of subtlety and nuance, what makes hers different is the power behind it.”Goswami is such a skilful and talented bowler and she has been in the game for so long, so it’s always a massive challenge facing her. She comes from a very high angle in her action, so she gets a bit more bounce than what most bowlers do and she is very consistent,” Laura Wolvaardt, South Africa’s opening batter, says. “And she bowls that super-annoying line and length that no batter likes to face. That’s why I think her offcutter is very effective.”The cutter’s success is usually determined by how hard the bowler hits the pitch and Goswami’s height allows her to do that harder than other women’s bowlers, especially on a fuller length. While there are several other deft exponents of the art, most notably Megan Schutt, whose WBBL coach in 2019, Ben Sawyer, said had the best legcutter in the world, and also Katherine Brunt and Marizanne Kapp, Goswami’s bounce and the late movement she gets put her cutter a cut above the rest.Who Does it Best?: The cutter | The pull | The googly | The cover drive | The yorker | The cut | The bouncer | The sweep

Fidel Fernando walks you through the woods to showcase a hundred that stood out because of tribulations

Andrew Fidel Fernando10-Jul-20221:00

McDonald: Australia well and truly in the game

Sometimes you bat pretty much all day, and people will still say you struggled.An early trigger warning here. If you’re a Dinesh Chandimal fan, you might not like the next few paragraphs. But stay with it, we will make it worth your time.Until he got past about 70, roughly 140 balls into his innings, it did not seem like Chandimal was playing well. He was scoreless for six balls, until he decided he had had enough. Running down the track to Nathan Lyon, driving against the turn past cover – a shot he nailed, but not the shot of a batter with supreme confidence in his ability.Related

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Next ball, he shuffles down again, and throws every molecule in his body into a big lofted drive, which carries all the way over the long-on boundary, and gets him six.Eight balls into his innings, he’s made 10. It looks pretty good on the scorecard. If all you watched were the boundaries, you’d think he was crushing it. But then you’d miss out on the hard bits, the struggle… (The best bits.)Next over, Chandimal is running down the track at Lyon again. But this is a world-class, top-ten-wicket-takers-of-all-time operator. The offspinner slows the ball down, drags the length back, spins it big between Chandimal’s bat and pad, and should have him stumped. Alas, wicketkeeper Alex Carey misses the ball, so Chandimal survives.Survives, not to suddenly find fluency, not to make Australia punish Australia for their mistakes like a 1950s school headmaster. The man survives just to continue struggling. Several overs later, he pads it to a close catcher, and Australia appeal, then burn a review.”Dinesh Chandimal clung to his wicket like a lifesaver in stormy seas’•Getty ImagesChandimal’s doing ok. Fine, really… A bit slow, but fine. Uhh, okay, maybe not. Mitchell Starc is really roughing him up with the short ball. On 30, Starc goes full, then bounces him. Chandimal waves his bat at it. Australia appeal voraciously. Starc is sure there was a noise. Probably because there was. But they have burned their reviews, and Chandimal scratches out a guard again.He’s not a walker, Chandimal. He’ll do anything to stick around. Anything to stay with the struggle.There are more escapes: An inside edge off Cameron Green that crashes into the pads. A potential bat-pad catch against Lyon that evades short leg by a few inches. He’s batted well over 100 balls by this stage, but doesn’t look like he’s got his eye in.At the other end, Kamindu Mendis, a debutant, is batting serenely. Just as Chandimal had done on debut at Durban, when he had made twin fifties. Beginners’ luck. It probably seems that way from Chandimal’s perspective. Unlike Mendis though, Chandimal’s already won Tests for Sri Lanka. Lest we forget, his most spectacular Test innings came at this venue.Dinesh Chandimal continues his love affair with Galle•AFP/Getty ImagesBut there he is, leaping out uncertainly, looking stiff as he goes back to the spinners, still playing and missing the quicks, seeming like he’s in the trenches against every bowler Australia throw at him, even the part-timers like Marnus Labuschagne and Travis Head.But then he got past 70, and the whole thing became less fun. Perhaps he had finally got his eye in. Some timing had entered his game. He was still throwing his hands at balls, because that is what Chandimal does, but he was connecting with them now. The balls that beat him were genuinely deliveries that were starting to burst off the surface, which almost every batter on the planet would have missed. The others, though, he was middling. The every-molecule shots are starting to look like they are just a part of the way Chandimal plays cricket, rather than wild gambles.He gets to a 13th Test hundred, leads Sri Lanka to a position of strength by stumps, lives to fight another day etc etc… but this is the boring stuff. The good bits were when he struggled. When he clung to his wicket like a lifesaver in stormy seas. When he had to kick away the sharks that took chunks out of his feet… when he put his team in the rough vicinity of a winning position, even if he didn’t look particularly good doing it.