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He proved smart batting and hard running can be equally effective

Deivarayan Muthu11-Oct-20205:25

Manjrekar: Kohli wills himself to do things that are beyond him

The Dubai pitch was slow and two-paced. Virat Kohli had started slowly against one of the best death-bowling teams in IPL 2020. But, he rose above everything.He entered in the third over after Deepak Chahar had stormed through the defences of Aaron Finch with an inswinger. Devdutt Padikkal, the other opener, too was tentative against Chahar’s swing. Kohli, though, stood outside the crease and resolutely defended him. He bedded in to calmly push the Royal Challengers to 65 for 1 in the tenth over.In the next over, Padikkal and AB de Villiers looked to force the pace off Shardul Thakur, but both were foxed by Thakur’s cross-seamers. Then in the 15th, Kohli tried to force the pace against Sam Curran by shimmying out, but got too close to a bouncer and spliced it over the keeper for six. He had a sheepish smile and gesticulated that he had skied it off the back of the bat. This wasn’t a track where you could simply throw your bat around and get away. That six was the only real risk that Kohli took until then and he managed to get away with it.Otherwise, he manipulated the field smartly by dinking the balls into the gaps. He ran like the wind and ramped up the pressure on the Super Kings’ slow-moving legs. Even a gun outfielder like Faf du Plessis fumbled once as Kohli hustled for the second. Fifty of Kohli’s 90 runs came via singles and doubles, and in all he faced a mere five dots in his 52 balls. He had reached his half-century off 39 balls when he got on top of the bounce and swivel-pulled Thakur to the boundary.The plan from Curran was to take the ball away from Kohli’s reach, but Kohli planted his front leg, latched onto the width and shovelled him with the wrists over long-on. Just like that, he dismantled the best-laid plans of Curran. The left-arm seamer then straightened his line, but this time Kohli jumped down the track, manufactured his own length and shovelled him flat over square leg for six.Thakur turned to the slower offcutter in the 19th over, but Kohli, having stepped out, delayed his loft and used his bottom hand to swat it straight of wide long-on. Kohli often unleashes his bottom-hand swat over midwicket, but on Saturday, he was wisely taking on the short straight boundaries rather than the longer leg-side boundaries.Then, in the final over, off Dwayne Bravo, Kohli did something out of the ordinary. He anticipated an on-pace wide yorker, jumped across off, and scooped him to the vacant fine-leg boundary despite falling on the floor. He didn’t quite nail it like his good friend and team-mate de Villiers does, but he reaped reward for his “intent” to accelerate, something that was missing in the Super Kings’ chase, according to their coach Stephen Fleming.ESPNcricinfo LtdKohli didn’t find the boundary off the next five balls off Bravo, but his intent and urgency meant that he still scored nine runs – 2,2,2, 2, 1. He isn’t a big power-hitter like Kieron Pollard, Andre Russell, or Hardik Pandya, but instead he tries to make up for that with hard-run twos. Six-hitting is probably the best approach at the Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru, but on the bigger grounds in the UAE, Kohli’s style has worked for the Royal Challengers. In that Super Over against Jasprit Bumrah at the same ground, Kohli had rocked up along with de Villiers, despite struggling to 3 off 11 balls in regulation time, because he felt that he could do the job with singles and doubles alone.In the 2016 T20 World Cup match against Australia in Mohali, Kohli did the job with his frenetic running, even stretching MS Dhoni at the other end. “He needs to pay me for running all his runs,” Dhoni had quipped then, when asked about completing runs that wouldn’t have been possible most times. More than four years later, on a similar bigger ground in Dubai, Kohli changed the game with his running, but this time Dhoni was behind the stumps for the Super Kings.After being on 34 off his first 30 balls, Kohli, in his own way, amassed 56 off his next 22. “It is [about experience] and understanding conditions and playing respect to the game,” Kohli told host broadcaster Star Sports at the post-match presentation. “When you don’t get too far ahead in the game, then the game rewards you in the end with something extra and then push you forward.”I think it’s every important to be respectful of the conditions you’re playing in rather than arriving onto the field and thinking I’m going to hit everyone onto the second tier of the stadium. That’s what experience is. Having played so much cricket and T20 cricket, I understand – and the batting group understands – that if you’re in at the death overs and you have a score behind you and if you’re hitting well, you can capitalise big time.”Later in the Super Kings’ chase, both Faf du Plessis and Shane Watson fell inside the powerplay, trying to knock the leather off the ball. It was Kohli’s perfect assessment of the conditions and his acceleration that proved the difference between the Royal Challengers and the Super Kings.

Taking the nasty short ball out of the game might seem unthinkable, but we might soon be at the point where we’re seriously considering it

Sidharth Monga06-Jan-2021The current India tour of Australia has already had a bowling allrounder, a lower-order batsman, miss the T20I series because of a concussion. A key bowler is missing three Tests of the series with a broken arm. An opening batsman has missed out on a potential Test debut because of a hit to his head, which gave him his ninth concussion before the age of 22. All three players were hit by accurate, high-pace short-pitched bowling, which takes extreme skill, and some luck, to keep out.The concussed bowling allrounder is now back. He has scored a fifty at the MCG that has frustrated the home side, who have been accustomed to rolling India over once they lose five wickets. India’s additions from five-down in their last six innings in Test cricket: 64, 43, 48, 40, 48, 21. In Melbourne, the sixth wicket alone has added 121 because this bowling allrounder hung around with his captain, one of only five specialist batsmen, a bold selection by the visiting side after 36 all out.Related

• Phil Hughes' death is a stark reminder of the danger players face on the cricket field

• Will Pucovski and the other Australia batsmen need clarity to succeed at SCG

• Chappell: Don't ban the bouncer, fix batting technique instead

• Why the bouncer is not essential to cricket

• The contradictory fear of the fast bowler

The fast bowler whose bouncer in the T20I ended up concussing this allrounder goes back to the bouncer plan in the Test. Experts on TV feel he has been too late getting there, that he has not been nasty enough. The allrounder shows he can handle himself, dropping his wrists and head out of the way of a couple of snorters, but he eventually plays a hook and is caught in the deep.The next few batsmen are much less adept at handling this kind of bowling – the kind of players who have yielded low returns for India batting lower in the order. Bouncer after bouncer follows. One batsman has to call for help after getting hit in the chest. The other is hit twice on the forearm. All told, the bowler bowls 23 consecutive short balls at Nos. 7-9. Welcome to the land of “broken f****** elbows”.

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This is Australia. This is the land of tough, “hard but fair” cricket. This is also the place where there was an exemplary inquest into safety standards in cricket after the tragic death of young Phillip Hughes on a cricket field. Hughes was a specialist batsman, it was not a high-pressure Test match, and he was not facing an express bowler. He was hit in the side of the neck by a bouncer, just where the helmet ends.It was a moment of awakening in cricket; of realisation that we have been extremely lucky, given the number of blows batsmen take, that we have not had too many such grave injuries. That it needn’t be an inept tailender, that it needn’t be 150kph, that it needn’t be particularly nasty at first look, that any of the large number of bouncers we see and enjoy could be fatal for any of the practitioners of this highly skilled sport.No. 9: the blow in the Sydney tour game was the ninth time Will Pucovski had been concussed playing cricket•Getty ImagesImagine the number of concussions we have missed, now that we know how likely a blow to the head from a fast-paced bouncer is likely to cause one. In 2019, in the aftermath of the Steven Smith concussion, Mark Butcher told ESPNcricinfo’s podcast Switch Hit how he faced a barrage from Tino Best and Fidel Edwards in 2004, wore one on the head, went off for bad light, didn’t tell anyone how he felt, came back and batted with the same compromised helmet on. He is pretty certain he has batted through concussions. “You just batted on as long as you saw straight.”A concussion is a head injury that causes the head and the brain to shake back and forth quickly, not too unlike a pinball. It can make you dizzy, it can disorient you, it can slow your instincts down, its symptoms can show up at the time of impact or five minutes after, or an hour later, or at any time over the next couple of days. Just imagine the number of players who have continued risking what is potentially often a much graver “second impact”, which can be caused in part by slowed instincts because of the first impact.Australia is the land trying hard to normalise going off when you’ve had a head injury. It led cricket into instituting concussion substitutes. Six years on from Hughes’ death, we are in the middle of a series between two highly skilled pace attacks capable of aiming high-speed, accurate short-pitched bowling at the bodies of batsmen.ESPNcricinfo LtdWhile there is conversation around making cricket safer, the threat for lesser-skilled batsmen is going up: 13% of deliveries from fast bowlers to those batting from Nos. 1 to 7 has been short in this series; for the lesser batsmen, batting from 8 to 11, this number has gone up to a whopping 29%, or roughly two short balls an over. The corresponding numbers in the recently concluded series between New Zealand and West Indies were 9% and 13%, which is still higher than the norm in Test cricket: 6% for batsmen 1 to 7 and 9% for the tail since concussions substitutes were introduced in July 2019.

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Cricket is a weird sport. If you are a tail-end batsman, you often have to go out and let millions watch you do something you are inept at – sometimes hilariously so. And do it against opponents who are almost lethally good at doing what they are doing. The less you like it, the more you get it.Opposing fast bowlers have stopped looking after each other now, what with protective equipment improving and lower-order batsmen increasingly placing higher prices on their wickets. When you are hit by a bouncer, you know there are former cricketers, some of whom you grew up idolising, waiting to label you soft should you show pain, let alone walk off.”You just batted on as long as you saw straight:” Mark Butcher gets hit by one from Tino Best•Getty ImagesWhen Ravindra Jadeja, the previously mentioned bowling allrounder, took a concussion substitute in the T20I, the predominant conversation was about the need to watch out against the misuse of the concussion substitute. Perhaps because Jadeja batted on for three more balls after he was hit – which was also a sign that not all teams take concussions seriously enough. Not every batsman has a stem guard at the back of his helmet, an appendage that might have saved Hughes’ life.Mark Taylor’s response is a good summation of what the pundits thought: “The concussion rules are there to protect players. If they are abused, there’s a chance it will go like the runner’s rule. The reason runners were outlawed was because it started to be abused. It’s up to the players to make sure they use the concussion sub fairly and responsibly. I’m not suggesting that didn’t happen last night.”Taylor is a former Test captain, a former ICC cricket committee member, and a current administrator. He is better informed than many. During India’s home season in 2019, when Bangladesh’s batsmen were hit again and again in less-than-ideal viewing conditions in a hurriedly organised first day-night Test in India, commentators questioned their courage and called the repeated concussion tests ridiculous.

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Mitchell Starc is the bowler whose bouncer resulted in the concussion to Jadeja. He is the one who bowled 23 short balls in a row at India’s lower-order batsmen. He has had to deal with criticism from former players for being too soft at various points in his career. He saw his batsmen score just 195 after winning the toss in Melbourne, and was part of the bowling group that was asked once again to bail the team out. India batted extremely well, five catches went down, the pitch was easing out a little, and the deficit was growing. There was a microscope over Starc now.Umesh Yadav gets out of the way of a Starc bouncer. “You don’t hit me, I won’t hit you” doesn’t apply among fast bowlers anymore•Getty ImagesTest-match cricket is no ordinary workplace. You have to do whatever is within the laws to get your wickets. Almost everyone is so good at what they do that errors have to be prised out, sometimes forced. Every weakness is preyed upon for whatever small advantage it might yield. It is not far-fetched to imagine Will Pucovski, the previously mentioned repeatedly concussed opening batsman, will be peppered if and when he makes his Test debut. This Indian team has fast bowlers who can give as good as they get, and they have got some from the Australian bowlers.For over after over, fast bowlers do what their bodies are not biomechanically meant to be doing. You have to find a way to get a wicket. The bouncer is a legitimate ploy to get wickets, to mess with the batsman’s footwork, to let them know they can’t plonk the front foot down and keep driving or defending them, and even to send a message out to the remaining batsmen. That line between bowling bouncers to get wickets and doing it to hurt can get blurred. If you have an awesome power and no one has a way to tell with certainty that if you are always using it with good intent, there are chances you will end up misusing it once in a while.It might sound extremely cynical, but if a blow to the head is highly likely to get a concussion substitute in, thus putting a front-line bowler out for at least a week and denying the opposition their ideal XI for the next Test, is it that difficult to imagine a fast bowler trying that extra bouncer before going for the full ball? Test match cricket is no ordinary workplace.

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“I didn’t want just that bloke to be scared,” Len Pascoe said to me in 2015. “I wanted the guys in the dressing room to be scared too. If you got him scared, that’s it. Often when I took wickets, I would get them in batches. One, two, bang. You just hit hard, hit hard.”Pascoe is a man after whom a hospital ward was named in the New South Wales town where he lived. Back then in the 1970s, every Saturday, Bankstown hospital would receive cricket victims in the Thomson-Pascoe ward. (And that despite being told years later by the groundsman at Bankstown that because of Thomson and Pascoe he used to make incredibly flat pitches.)Sandeep Patil is felled by Len Pascoe in Sydney in 1981•Getty ImagesPascoe was a young fast bowler, son of an immigrant brick carter, who grew up with racial abuse. To him, the man standing in the way of everything he wanted was the one across the 22 yards. He would do anything to get him out, and his captains and batsmen loved using him to do that. He bowled in an era when it was commonplace to hear chants of “Lillee Lillee, kill kill” at cricket rounds. In those days, any discussion around player safety was arguably mostly a ploy to neutralise West Indies, who had by then developed a pace battery that could match if not outdo any pace attack blow for blow.The injuries Pascoe caused concerned him. Once, a batsman, George Griffith of South Australia, told him in a hospital after a day’s play that had he been hit half an inch either side of where he had been, he wouldn’t probably have been around to accept the apology. When Pascoe next hit a batsman badly – Sutherland’s Glenn Bailey in a grade game, who then vomited blood – his mate Thomson had only recently lost his former flat-mate, 22-year-old Martin Bedkober, felled by a blow to the chest while batting in a Queensland grade match.The young Pascoe kept doing it despite his discomfort, kept rationalising it to himself, comparing it to the risk a policeman or an army man takes, but when, at 32, he hit Sandeep Patil, a blow that knocked the batsman off his feet, he had had enough. He saw Patil stagger off the field, barely conscious, swaying this way and that despite support from the medical staff. Pascoe told Ian Chappell he was walking away. Pascoe said Chappell asked him, “What if he hits you for six? Do you think he feels sorry for you?” That kept Pascoe going for another season but his heart was not in it.Pascoe never injured another batsman. As a coach now, he teaches young bowlers to use the bouncer responsibly: bowl the first one well over the leg stump, only as a fact-finding mission to see where the feet are going. Bowl to get wickets, not to injure batsmen. It is important to instil fear, but it is equally important to not get addicted to instilling that fear.

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Test cricket in New Zealand is played upside down. As matches progress, the pitches get slower and better to bat on. The best time to bat is the fourth innings. Everywhere else in the world, no matter how green the pitch, you win the toss and bat if no time has been lost to rain before the toss. New Zealand is the only place in the world where you win the toss and bowl first, because dismissals have to be manufactured in the second innings.Life is nasty, brutish and short when you’re facing Neil Wagner•Getty ImagesThese conditions have given rise to a phenom called Neil Wagner. But for Wagner’s style of bowling – persistent short balls between the chest and the head of the batsmen – there would be a high rate of draws in New Zealand. Since his debut, Wagner has bowled more short balls and taken more wickets with them than anyone else. He trains like a madman so that he can keep doing it over extremely long spells.Two days after Starc possibly flirted with the line between bowling bouncers for wickets and bowling them for the hurt, Wagner goes to work on a dead pitch in the face of a stubborn Pakistan resistance to try to draw the Test. Running in on two broken toes, over an 11-over spell, Wagner bowls bouncer after bouncer from varied angles at varied heights and paces, and finally manages to get the wicket of century-maker Fawad Alam with a short ball from round the wicket.The tail dig in their heels, and we go into the last hour with two wickets still in hand. Wagner figures the batsmen can block if he keeps pitching it up. So he digs it in short, and gets Shaheen Shah Afridi in the head in the 11th over of his spell. Over the next few overs, Afridi is tested repeatedly for a possible concussion.This Wagner spell is compelling to watch. One man against the conditions, against his own hurting foot, against stubborn batsmen, trying to win his side a Test match in the dying minutes of the final day. The tail, emboldened by the improved protective equipment batsmen get to wear, braving blows to the body, trying to save a Test match. The fast bowler, fitter and stronger than he has ever been, able to sustain hostility and accuracy over longer spells than ever before.ESPNcricinfo Ltd

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“The bowling of short-pitched deliveries is dangerous if the bowler’s end umpire considers that, taking into consideration the skill of the striker, by their speed, length, height and direction they are likely to inflict physical injury on him/her. The fact that the striker is wearing protective equipment shall be disregarded.”

The MCC leaves it to the umpires to decide what is dangerous. In most cases the umpires are professional enough to prevent things from getting bad enough to be visible to those watching from the outside. Often a quiet word when the bowler is walking back to their mark is enough. Yet the times that it does get out of hand, the umpire can call a dangerous delivery a no-ball, followed by a “first and final warning” and suspension from bowling should the bowler repeat the offence. It is near impossible to remember when such a no-ball was called, let alone a suspension.The one time in recent memory when it did look like it got out of hand was when Brett Lee bowled four straight bouncers at Makhaya Ntini and Nantie Hayward in Adelaide back in 2002. Ntini was hit on the head twice before staggering through for a leg-bye, with Ian Chappell on air observing he was “perhaps a little dazed”. After the fourth short ball, which chased Hayward’s head as he backed away towards square leg, umpire Simon Taufel had a quiet word, resulting in two full deliveries.Often under fire from commentators – former players themselves – and fans, umpires can be reluctant to draw any attention to themselves. The common refrain they have to deal with: “They have come to watch us play, not you umpire.” Umpires don’t want to be seen as overly officious – when it comes to policing player behaviour or in ball management or pitch management or ensuring player safety.If the umpire steps in in the case of Starc, it will certainly be controversial in this high-profile contest. If he steps in to prevent Wagner from bouncing Afridi, he knows his one quiet word could end up being the difference between a win and a draw for New Zealand. The umpire has to ensure player safety but without compromising the integrity of the contest or attracting vitriol from former players and media. It is an extremely tight rope.

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Those running the sport stand at a crucial crossroads. A lot of sports – especially those played by teams – have their roots in military training or colonisation. They were originally played to keep troops fit and ready for war, to hone a killer instinct for real war by indulging in a phony war; for voyeuristic entertainment; or to discipline the people of a new country so as to control and spread the right messages among the colonised. The war analogies endure but we have come a long way from sport’s original purpose. Player safety standards might need to catch up.Brett Lee to Makhaya Ntini, 2001: welcome to Adelaide•Getty ImagesOne of the reasons bouncers are such a thrilling spectacle is the real danger they carry. At that pace and that height, you can’t always control what is happening. To watch an expert batsman try to tame this force through technique, skill, courage and luck is a rush. There has to be a rush involved in bowling or facing them too. But only till someone gets hurt again, especially knowing as we do now what even a moderate-looking impact can do to a player’s health. The rush gives way to unease pretty quickly these days.Any new regulation that aims to limit this damage will be tricky to enforce. The existing regulations, which limit the number of short balls that are head-high (and not, for instance, chest-high) might need to be looked at too. In the last decade there were two recorded instances of club cricketers not surviving blows to the chest.At first glance, the idea of regulating the use of bouncers seems ridiculous, given how integral the bouncer is to the game of cricket. There must have been a time, too, when the idea of a concussion substitute must have seemed ridiculous. When it must have been okay for players to compromise their safety by carrying on playing with potential brain injuries.There will have to be a time when it might not be considered ridiculous for player safety to take precedence over the desire to preserve the bouncer. It seems more a matter of when than if. Any decision will involve carefully examining what the sport will end up losing. A length-ball outswinger might not be as effective if the batsman knows he can keep planting his front foot down to cover the movement. We might end up losing out on a whole genre of bowling: Wagnering, if you will. It will make the umpires’ job even more difficult, bringing more subjectivity into it as they rule one bouncer dangerous and another passable.Then again, do we, and the sport, have it in us to wait for another grave injury – or lawsuits in some countries – before we make that move?

Nobody in the past 20 years has gotten an autograph from Malcolm Marshall, and nobody ever again will

Samarth Shah04-Feb-2021Among my treasured cricketing memorabilia is a tie embroidered with the Lord’s logo, a USA cricket jersey, a photo with AB de Villiers at Kingsmead and a pavilion pass to the fifth day of the 2008 Chennai Test. However, my most prized cricketing possession is a simple piece of paper with a name written on it with a blue ball-point pen. And that name is Malcolm Marshall.Marshall was the most fearsome cricketer of my youth – a nightmare for opponents and an absolute terror to behold. I never saw Dennis Lillee or Jeff Thomson live. The great West Indies pace quartet of Andy Roberts, Michael Holding, Joel Garner and Colin Croft was before my time. I’ve also heard that the Indian spin quartet gave visiting batsmen sleepless nights. But I never saw any of those famous spinners in action, either. Viv Richards was the most intimidating batsman of my youth. He could pummel the ball and shatter a bowler’s ego, but he wasn’t out to cause you bodily harm. Imran Khan, Richard Hadlee and Ian Botham were all tremendously skilled, but not scary. No, to me, the most intimidating cricketer of the 1980s was Marshall.It’s hard to describe to a modern cricket-viewer what a terror Marshall was. In this T20 age, with sculpted batsmen, gigantic bats and all kinds of protective gear, there really doesn’t seem to be that intimidating a bowler. Sure, they may be quicker. They are most definitely taller and stronger. But they all go at eight-an-over in the IPL. Somehow, it’s hard for a viewer to feel the palms getting clammy when batsmen are dancing down the track to fast bowlers and when the scorecard reports how many sixes a bowler has conceded. It’s a different era: there are impressive bowlers, but none that send shivers down a lay viewer’s spine.Marshall wasn’t physically intimidating. He was about the shortest West Indies fast bowler there ever was. He was athletic, but not the fittest bloke in the West Indies team, let alone in world cricket. He was quick, but there were quicker bowlers before him and there have been quicker bowlers since. He wasn’t verbally menacing. Indeed, he rarely said a word to an opponent on the field. Marshall’s intimidation was through sheer skill and attitude. It is hard to put that fear into words, but I’ll try. The fear was that if he had a ball in his hand and you had all the batting gear available on earth, he could still ping you between your eyes if he wanted to. And he often seemed like he wanted to. Mike Gatting knows what I’m talking about. If your nose was such an easy target, your wicket was simply no match for him.”There are no cricketers like those seen through 12-year-old eyes,” wrote cricketer and author Ian Peebles. I met Marshall when I was 12 years old. He was hardly seven or eight inches taller than me. I stood straight, out of sheer respect. He leaned casually against a desk, a black bag slung over his shoulder. Since we were almost level, I could look him straight in the eye. He had joyful, dancing eyes and a wide, lop-sided smile on his face. He didn’t have a ball in his hand, and I wasn’t holding a bat. There was no intimidation, even though he was the greatest fast bowler in the world and I was a gawky Indian kid.Malcolm Marshall’s autograph•ESPNcricinfo LtdHe carefully put down his bag, gently took the autograph book and pen from me with each hand, and proceeded to slowly write his name in the book. He didn’t carelessly scrawl his name. He didn’t look elsewhere as his hands moved. He looked squarely at the target. He pressed the pen firmly down on the book. No half measures: the right hand that smashed a one-handed boundary at Headingley in 1984 – one-handed because the left hand was broken and in a cast – and then took 7 for 53 with the ball didn’t do half measures.Marshall’s autograph wasn’t a scribble: his handwriting was proud and neat. The autograph was so firmly signed, I couldn’t use the next page of the book because his writing got etched on that one as well. This, too, was reminiscent of his bowling. When he blew one batsman away, the next one entered the field shell-shocked, the previous ball etched in his mind. Ravi Shastri, who once walked in to face the ball after Yashpal Sharma retired hurt, knows what I’m talking about.Marshall returned the autograph book and pen, saying, “You’re welcome,” in response to my thanks. Still smiling widely, and lop-sidedly. If his autograph was reminiscent of his bowling, his manner was its exact opposite: slow and gentle. That evening, I showed my father the autograph book, with Marshall’s name slanting across the page, much like his bowling run-up. My father ran his fingers over the two heavily stressed capital s and remarked, “He puts more effort into his autograph than you put into your cricket practices!”Years later, my sister got an autograph from the great Carnatic classical singer MS Subbulakshmi, who was over 80 years old at the time. Her autograph reminded me of Marshall’s: it was meticulously inscribed, gouging a deep rut in the paper and in a handwriting so neat that it could have been print. My sister was, to borrow a phrase, bowled over by how polite and gentle the great singer had been to a teenaged girl.A decade after he signed my autograph book, Marshall was no more. He died of colon cancer at just 41 years of age. It was so sad that the most fearsome cricketer of his era was reduced to 25 kilos in the days preceding his death. I tried to imagine what a fully-grown man weighing 25 kilos looks like. Let alone wield a cricket bat or a 5.5oz ball, I imagined he might not have been able to write his full name with a pen. Never mind immaculate control over line and length, seam and swing.Nobody in the past 20 years has gotten an autograph from the late, great Malcolm Marshall, and nobody ever will again. My drawer of memorabilia might get another t-shirt or a tie with some logo or the other. Maybe someday a picture with Sachin Tendulkar or Shane Warne might be added to it. But its most precious contents will always remain that old piece of paper with the two blue Ms pressed deep into it.

Dawid Malan could be set for a longer run while Eoin Morgan needs to catalyse his team into action

Andrew Miller03-May-2021Moeen Ali More unobtrusive excellence from a liberated player. Moeen picked off 15 free-flowing runs from eight balls against the Sunrisers Hyderabad to ensure there would be no loss of momentum after a 129-run opening stand between Ruturaj Gaikwad and Faf du Plessis, then he lumped five sixes in a 36-ball 58 against the Mumbai Indians, which ought to have been ample until Kieron Pollard got busy in an extraordinary 219-run chase.In between whiles, his offspin has been a quietly vital weapon in MS Dhoni’s armoury – three more overs this week, including an exceptional piece of matching-up against Mumbai: one over, one run, one wicket as the dangerous Quinton de Kock chipped a return catch into his midriff. Any more of this, and England will have no option but to take note for the T20 World Cup.Sam CurranTo borrow a phrase from Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp, Sam Curran is a f***ing mentality giant. Nothing else can explain his insatiable lust for the sharp end of IPL combat – never better exemplified than his heroics against Mumbai, which could have won the game twice over had the support been there from his team-mates, with the ball and in the field alike. With Pollard running riot in his extraordinary 87 not out from 34 balls, Curran nailed his yorkers with extraordinary poise, prising out Krunal Pandya to a plumb lbw while conceding just two runs in his third over, the 17th of the innings.Then, in arguably an even more pronounced display of cojones, he battled back from being bashed for back-to-back sixes in the 19th over to claim two for three in his next four balls. Had Pollard not been on strike with 16 left to get, it would have been the game’s decisive contribution. As if that wasn’t enough fun for one week, he secured intra-squad bragging rights in the England camp by bouncing out the Sunrisers’ Jonny Bairstow.Jos ButtlerIt’s a debate that has been in slight abeyance since the injury to Ben Stokes, but if there were any lingering doubts about Jos Buttler’s value as a T20 opener, they were emphatically scotched against the Sunrisers this week. It has taken him the small matter of 282 matches to reach his maiden 20-over century, but he made it worth the wait in a brutal 124 from 64 balls.It’s true, there are few players in the world with Buttler’s finishing powers – his last 74 runs came from an eye-popping (and wrist-cocking 25 balls) as he slammed sixes at will with that inimitable crack of the bottom hand – but in toughing it out at the top to reach a 39-ball fifty, he also laid himself a platform that lesser players might not have managed. He showed the early glimpses of a return to his best form in making 41 from 32 balls against Mumbai, before being done in flight by Rahul Chahar. But in setting up a vital win that has vaulted the Royals from the bottom of the table to fifth, Buttler may have hit top gear at the perfect moment for his injury-plagued side.Jonny BairstowIt’s been a pretty terrible week for the Sunrisers. You suspect that the fall-out from the axing of David Warner as captain has only just begun, particularly after Sunday’s crushing loss to the Royals. But Bairstow’s form at the top of the order has been one of their few saving graces this season, even if he struggled to produce his best this week. Sam Curran had his number against Chennai. It was always asking a lot for Bairstow to match Buttler’s impact in the clash with the Royals, even if his 30 from 21 balls seemed to have got his side on the right track until he holed out to long-on. If the Sunrisers are to haul themselves off the base of the table, Bairstow and his new captain Kane Williamson may need to strike up a bromance to rival what he once enjoyed with his deposed leader.Eoin MorganHarsh words were spoken after the Kolkata Knight Riders slumped to their fifth defeat in seven against the Delhi Capitals on Thursday, with coach Brendon McCullum particularly critical of a becalmed top order that had creaked along at barely a run-a-ball in the first 10 overs of their innings – a platform that didn’t exactly allow Morgan to die wondering as he gave himself room off his second ball and slapped a flat slog to long-off for a duck. Nevertheless, it was another non-contribution from a skipper who’s struggling to get his no-fear message across to his players.Eoin Morgan returned to form against the Punjab Kings but his team hasn’t found momentum yet•BCCI/IPLAt least he can take personal credit for KKR’s second win of the campaign earlier in the week, after coming in at 17 for 3 in the third over against the Punjab Kings, and anchoring a chase of 124 with 47 not out from 40 balls. Therein lies a truth about Morgan’s preferred approach to T20 cricket. If you’re going to malfunction at the top, at least do so quickly enough for your team-mates to bail you out.Dawid Malan… which brings us to Malan’s long-awaited T20 bow, a run-a-ball 26 for the Kings against the Capitals that inadvertently encapsulated all of the concerns for England’s incumbent No.3. His low-octane approach often comes off in the closing overs, but when it doesn’t, it adds up to a whole lot of not a lot – on this occasion, a Kings’ scoreline of 87 for 3 in the 14th over that never looked like being enough, even after Mayank Agarwal had turned on the afterburners in a brilliant 99 from 58 balls. Malan got his chance due to KL Rahul’s untimely bout of appendicitis, which suggests it may not be a one-off. His next few outings could be very instructive, especially given Moeen’s polar opposite approach in a similar role.Chris JordanJordan has had to bide his time for the Kings, but his introduction to the line-up for three matches this week has been a qualified success. He played a low-key but vital role in the Kings’ victory over the Royal Challengers Bangalore, serving up his four overs for 31 including a purposeful post-powerplay over that built on an aggressive opening gambit from the seamers, while against KKR, he was the only batter in the entire line-up to strike at above 100, as he thumped 30 from 18 balls from No. 8 in an otherwise flat-lining innings.The four remaining England players at this year’s IPL – Chris Woakes, Sam Billings, Tom Curran and Jason Roy – have spent another week bench-warming, although the one who might be closest to a call-up is Roy, given that Warner is out in the cold for the Sunrisers, and that the temptation to reunite his mighty white-ball partnership with Bairstow must be compelling. Not just yet… Manish Pandey got the gig against the Royals, but watch this space.

The allrounder has come off a breakout domestic summer to land himself a New Zealand central contract. Now he’s got his eye on the big prize – the T20 World Cup

Deivarayan Muthu25-Oct-2021Daryl Mitchell has his first Black Caps jumper framed on his wall at home. It shares space with his dad John Mitchell’s All Black jersey – John is a former New Zealand rugby team player and coach. Now Daryl can soon add his first World Cup jersey to the wall.With his imposing frame, Mitchell Jr wouldn’t have been out of place in the All Blacks side – he played rugby in school during winters. “I’m naturally probably a little gifted in terms of size. I should’ve probably been a rugby player [rather] than a cricketer,” he says. But those traits have served him well in cricket too, where he has built a reputation as a power-hitter.”I use my strong base and size to my advantage,” he says. “Obviously, the power side of it is one of my strengths and I try to utilise it when the opportunity arises. We’re lucky in New Zealand that we play on some pretty good wickets and can hit through the line.”In June 2020, after a decade with Northern Districts, Mitchell moved to Canterbury, and enjoyed a breakout domestic summer, winning the Plunket Shield as well as the 50-over Ford Trophy with his new team. He was also the first player to the double of 300-plus runs and ten-plus wickets in the 2020-21 Super Smash.Related

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“Anytime you move to a new environment, you have a whole new group of players you get to learn from and become best mates with,” Mitchell says. “I was honoured to play for Northern Districts for ten years and grow up alongside Mitchell Santner, Ish Sodhi, Tim Southee and Kane Williamson, and learn off them. But for me to be able to go to Canterbury and to be the main allrounder there, to try to win games and play with the likes of Tom Latham and Matt Henry, it was a really refreshing stage of my career. We were lucky to win two trophies out of three in domestic cricket last year and hopefully we can keep doing that in the future.”It also spurred him to international success across formats. He scored his maiden Test hundred, against Pakistan in Christchurch in January this year, and followed it up with his maiden ODI century against Bangladesh in March. It culminated in his first New Zealand central contract and a spot in the T20 World Cup squad.ESPNcricinfo Ltd”I haven’t focused on anything specifically,” Mitchell says. “I guess just having that dominant allrounder role with Canterbury at the start of the summer, in the Super Smash, Plunket Shield, and then to be able to take it to New Zealand, whether it’s Test cricket or the white-ball stuff. Just being able to have a more dominant role with bat and ball. For me, it’s the most important thing, trying to win games for the team, and that sort of allows my personal ambitions to take care of itself.”Mitchell has built on his reputation of being a power-hitter in the New Zealand team, and more recently in the Vitality T20 Blast he struck at nearly 145 for Middlesex. The slow and low conditions in the UAE at the T20 World Cup, however, could seriously challenge his big-hitting skills. Mitchell says it’s not something he’s worried about, no matter where he slots in the line-up.”I pride my ability to be able to adapt to whatever position that I have to bat at – No. 3-4 or in the middle or late overs,” he says. “Especially in international cricket, you need to be able to adjust to different situations and different scenarios at any batting position from No. 1 to 7. It’s never the same every innings.”He has often fronted up to bowl at the death for both Northern Districts and Canterbury in domestic cricket. His yorkers have been difficult to get away in the Super Smash, and now he is working on adding to his variations.”I didn’t do a hell of a lot [of death bowling] at the start of my career,” Mitchell says. “It’s something I pushed for a few years. It doesn’t come off every day. It’s high-risk, high-reward stuff, but when it comes off, you win games of cricket for your team. It brings out the passionate side of me, which I enjoy.Mitchell picked up ten wickets in the 2020-21 Super Smash, and racked up 374 runs•Getty Images”We have to constantly keep adjusting to different surfaces and conditions. You can’t be a one-trick pony these days in international cricket. All of the boys in New Zealand pride themselves on adjusting to whatever situation we need to, and we make sure we try and practise those to have all the bases covered as much as we can. It doesn’t always come off, but if you prepare well, you give yourself the best chance.”During the England tour earlier this year, Mitchell caught up with his father who was the England rugby team’s defence coach until the Autumn Series. John has now moved to a new role with the Wasps Rugby backroom. Before Mitchell Jr began playing regularly for New Zealand, he also had a stint with Waikato Rugby Union as their assistant strength and conditioning coach, a role that made him understand that there’s life beyond cricket.”I think it’s very important to have interests outside of the game, otherwise you sort of get consumed by cricket the whole time,” he says. “So for me to be able to go to Waikato Rugby for a couple of years as an assistant trainer… It’s potentially a role I sort of want to get into post cricket, so to be able to see how they go about their day-to-day as professional athletes is pretty interesting.”You just can’t take rugby out of the Mitchells, and the son has played much of his cricket in his father’s shadow, but this World Cup is his chance to carve out his own identity. The job at hand won’t be easy, though. New Zealand, and Mitchell, will have to contend with India and Pakistan in Group Two.”Obviously, it will be a challenging pool,” he says, “to get through that and win those games, you give yourself a chance to win the big prize, which is what we are looking forward to. So, anytime you play for New Zealand you want to win games for sure.”

Also, could Hazlewood be the new leader of the T20I attack?

Alex Malcolm20-Feb-2022Finch’s form remains a worry

Aaron Finch’s captaincy is a key asset to Australia’s side but his batting form is concerning. He has reached 50 just once in his last 18 innings and has nine single-figure scores and is striking at just 111.57. In this series, he scored just 78 runs in five innings at a strike rate of 91.76. The batting surfaces were more challenging than expected and scores overall were low. But he was pinned down by both spin and pace.However, Australia are not concerned as they feel like they have been here before with their skipper. He suffered a big slump in the lead-up to the 2019 50-over World Cup and had another similar run during the 2020-21 BBL but fought his way back both times. Each time he has required some remedial work with his head positioning and balance to get things back on track. He is perhaps fortunate that Ben McDermott failed to nail his opportunity and stake a claim for a permanent place in the side when Warner returns. But as the BBL proves year in year out, big scores at high strike rates from openers in Australia win T20 tournaments more often than not. Australia will need an opening combination firing on all cylinders if they are to defend their title later this year.Related

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Inglis makes a case to replace Smith

Josh Inglis took to international cricket like a duck to water in this series. He looked magnificent at both No. 3 and No. 5, capable of both capitalising on good starts or bailing the team out of trouble, as he did in the fourth T20I at the MCG. He reached 20 in every innings and made 155 runs in five hits striking at 143.51. His versatility and his ability to score at a quick rate against both pace and spin, without taking reckless risks, begs the question if he’s a better option than Smith as Australia’s Mr. Fix It in the middle order.Smith only played two games in this series because of the concussion he suffered in the field in Sydney. Smith’s team-mates have defended his place in the side vociferously citing his rare ability to problem solve as one of Australia’s modern greats. The team is convinced that if he wasn’t spreading his talents across the three formats, with a particular focus on his Test game, then he could be a great T20 batter with a decent run of preparation and games into a World Cup. But Australia is building some batting depth in the middle order and suddenly there are quality options available.Josh Hazlewood took eight wickets at 8.12 in the series•Getty ImagesHazlewood could be the new leader of the T20I attack

Hazlewood could easily have been the Player of the Series despite only playing three games. He took eight wickets at 8.12 with an extraordinary economy rate of 5.41. He also bowled a superb Super Over to help Australia claim victory in the second T20I in Sydney. Following on from his 3 for 16 in the T20 World Cup final, he may have taken the mantle from Starc as Australia’s premier T20I fast bowler. Starc’s own form in T20Is has been far from his best in recent times. In his last three T20Is, including the T20 World Cup final and two matches in this series, he has bowled 12 overs without taking a wicket while conceding 131 runs. Australia do have some bench strength in the fast-bowling department with Jhye Richardson and Kane Richardson bowling well at times in this series but the absence of their World Cup-winning trio in Hazlewood, Starc and Cummins in the final T20I loss to Sri Lanka was noteworthy, particularly in the powerplay.Agar’s bowling an asset but he can only be used in a four-man attack

Ashton Agar bowled superbly in this series after playing just one game in the T20 World Cup, having lost his place due to the balance of the team requiring seven batters. He took 3 for 47 in 12 overs and did not concede a boundary in the three games he played after missing out on selection in the first two matches. He strangled Sri Lanka’s batting line-up in the middle overs. Australia have settled on the fact that they must play seven batters and this series, like the T20 World Cup, proved the value of having Matthew Wade at No. 7 instead of Agar. The spinner was oddly trialled as an opener in two games but again it was clear that it can’t work as a long-term strategy. If Agar is going to be utilised in a home World Cup, where he can be a huge asset given his control, bounce, changes of pace, and ability to defend on big grounds, then he will have to play in a four-man attack. That will mean Australia will need to leave out one of their big three quicks and play two spinners, or he plays in front of Adam Zampa, which seems unlikely.

Batter to be the only Zimbabwean player to take part in the Fairbreak T20 starting next week

Firdose Moonda28-Apr-2022Mary-Anne Musonda is in elite company. She is one of only six women’s batters, and only two since the year 2000, to have scored a century on ODI debut. Of the players on that list, Musonda is the only one to have also been the captain of the team she was playing for but at the time, she had no idea of the significance of her knock.”In my head, I was cognizant of the fact that we were playing our first ever ODI and we had to try to get close to the score and try and win. That’s the kind of mindset I went in with. I didn’t think that I want to try and score a century. It did not even cross my mind,” she told ESPNcricinfo from Windhoek, where Zimbabwe were taking part in a T20I triangular with Namibia and Uganda. “When I got to the 80s and 90s, it was not registering as much as it would register to other people and when I hit that hundred, I was very underwhelmed rather than overwhelmed. I didn’t think it was a big deal.”It was October 2021, six months after Zimbabwe’s women’s team had been granted ODI status by the ICC, and they were hosting Ireland, who had set them a decent target of 254. Zimbabwe were 25 for 2 when Musonda’s turn to bat came and 82 for 3 inside 14 overs. Given how desperate Zimbabwe were to gain official status in the two preceding years because, “we wanted to play against top sides,” Musonda knew that it was important they gave a good account themselves to justify their place among the established teams. She single-handedly ensured that’s what happened.”I didn’t think that I want to try and score a century. It did not even cross my mind. When I got to the 80s and 90s, it was not registering as much as it would register to other people; and when I hit that hundred, I was very underwhelmed rather than overwhelmed. I didn’t think it was a big deal.”Given how desperate Zimbabwe were to gain official status in the two preceding years because “we wanted to play against top sides”, Musonda knew that it was important they gave a good account of themselves to justify their place among the established teams. And she single-handedly ensured that that is what happened.Musonda shared in three half-century stands, and guided Zimbabwe to victory with 37 balls to spare. Only then, she realised what she had achieved. Sort of.”People were clapping me off the field, and social media was buzzing like crazy, and I was thinking ‘Okay, this must be a big deal’. I think it was actually the day after that I realised it was actually a big deal.”Mary-Anne Musonda played basketball, volleyball, netball and hockey at KweKwe High in the Zimbabwean midlands•Mary-Anne MusondaA month later, Zimbabwe were hosting the World Cup qualifiers, and had the chance to go from being unknowns on the international stage to a global tournament in less than a year. A 114-run defeat to Pakistan didn’t make for a good start, and their challenge ended when the event was cancelled after the discovery of the Omicron variant in southern Africa, but Musonda was proud of her team, who she had seen take big steps in a short space of time.”I’ve seen where we’ve come from. There’s a lot of progress thus far,” she said. “We are not where we were two or three years ago. We’re headed in the right direction.”Three years ago, Musonda had just finished her Masters in Development Finance at the University of Cape Town, and returned home to Zimbabwe to give herself a chance at a career in cricket. It was something she had flirted with a few times after discovering the sport in high-school and turning her back on the many other ball games that she participated in.Musonda played basketball, volleyball, netball and hockey at KweKwe High in the Zimbabwean midlands, and took up cricket when she was scouted out by the school coach.”Hockey was my main sport, though I was an allrounder. Once, when I was playing hockey, the cricket coach scouted me out and that’s how I started,” she said.Coincidentally, at the same time, ZC was introducing girls’ cricket at schools but at first there weren’t any girls’ teams for Musonda to join. “I started playing with the boys,” Musonda remembers. “I played with the boys for a term or two, and really fell in love with cricket. I never went back to hockey.”Within a year, the school had a girls’ team, and some of them competed in provincial trials. From there, Musonda was included in a probable 13 for the national squad, but without official status, there wasn’t much hope of playing regularly. Still, she had hope of that changing; and she wasn’t the only one.”My mum said I should keep pursuing my studies but she also promised to keep supporting me with cricket. I thought that was a workable deal, so I continued with both.”Musonda finished her A-levels and then moved to South Africa where she first attended the University of Kwa-Zulu Natal and did a degree in business finance. She kept playing, and made it into the Kwa-Zulu Natal Inland team.”In-between or in study breaks, I would go back home, and if there was cricket training, I would join. Sometimes it would clash with maybe a week or two of my semester but I had to make those little sacrifices. I decided not to give up on either and see what would happen.”

“It’s such a great initiative. There’s a world of difference between other leagues and this one. This one is very inclusive”Musonda on the Fairbreak T20, a competition where teams have players from Full Member and Associate countries combined

After her Honours’ year, Musonda went back to Zimbabwe to try and find a job, but couldn’t, so she decided to keep learning. “I needed to make sure I have a lot of options,” she said. “My mum always used to talk about having a lot of options and not being restricted by one thing.”When she went back to Zimbabwe for the second time, she decided not to look for work immediately. “I gave myself to cricket for about six months, and started performing well. A year later, I was given the honour to captain the side.”She led Zimbabwe on T20I debut against Namibia, and realised she may not have to enter the corporate world immediately and could give cricket a go.At first, it seemed like an excellent decision. Later that year, Musonda was due to play in the Kia Super League in England but her chance was scuppered when ZC and its players were temporarily suspended by the ICC for government interference in the cricket board.”When that opportunity came, I was so excited,” Musonda recalls. “Like everyone, you always want to get to the next level, and when you don’t go there, you’re disappointed. But it doesn’t stop you from being ambitious or from trying to get the same opportunities and to improve yourself and your skills, and hope that in the future, you will get more opportunities.”Two years later, those opportunities started coming. In April 2021, the ICC gave Zimbabwe Women ODI status, and later that year, Musonda was selected to be part of the ICC’s 100% Cricket Future Leaders Programme, a mentorship scheme for women in the game. She has since been paired with New Zealand double international Rebecca Rolls, who has played cricket as well as football for her country. The pair is halfway through their six-month engagement, and Musonda is already benefiting from the work they have done.”We have good conversations about cricket. Not just about cricket but [also] about the kind of person I am and the kind of person I want to be,” Musonda said. “She guides me and gives me good advice. Mentorship is so important.”Most people want to go somewhere but they don’t know how to get there. Mentorship is one way of helping – especially leaders – to understand themselves and the environment they are operating in, and to prepare ourselves as women who have never been in the places where men have been.”

“I could see from the inter-franchise [tournament]. There’s a decent pool that’s coming up, especially at Under-19 level”Musonda is heartened by the increased interest in women’s cricket in Zimbabwe

And next week, she will have another opportunity to rub shoulders with some of the best by being the only Zimbabwean player to take part in the Fairbreak T20, a one-of-a-kind franchise competition in which teams are made up of players from Full Member and Associate countries combined.”It’s such a great initiative. There’s a world of difference between other leagues and this one. This one is very inclusive,” Musonda said. “Imagine having players from more than 30 countries with different backgrounds and the kind of environment that will be there. I’m sure we will learn a lot.”Musonda will play for Tornadoes, which will be captained by Stafanie Taylor, and includes other international captains Sophie Devine and Sune Luus; and she can’t wait to get to know them.”When we hosted the qualifiers last year, I had a conversation with Stefanie and we really got along. It’s so cool that she is going to be my captain,” Musonda said. “I know we’ll have good conversations. I’m going to have a good time with my team-mates. And my opposition – every single person I’ve watched on TV is going to be a meter away from me. I am pretty excited about that.”Plus, there are other benefits to be gained from participating in the event. Musonda described it as “financially very lucrative”, and an opportunity to observe how other people play the game.”That’s where you learn. You learn how they go through their processes, how bowlers respond to situations and the strategies they are implementing,” she said. “The more you play, the more you understand yourself in different situations. It’s a case of continuously playing games.”That is also what Musonda hopes will happen with the Zimbabwean team as a whole. “We need more games against strong sides.”That will happen later this year, in the T20 World Cup qualifiers for next year’s tournament. For the first time, Zimbabwe will play T20I cricket against teams outside the African continent. They will be up against the likes of Bangladesh, Thailand, Ireland and Scotland, but with only two places available for the main draw, they are not favourites by any means. However, Musonda has patience with the process.”It’s a journey. It’s not something that will happen overnight.”For now, she is heartened by the increased interest in women’s cricket in Zimbabwe – from both player and media perspectives.”I could see from the inter-franchise [tournament] we had a couple of weeks ago. There’s a decent pool that’s coming up, especially at Under-19 level,” Musonda said. “ZC is also doing a lot of work promoting the game. That’s the only way of making the world know there is women’s cricket.”And then, it also comes from us – the national team performing well and spreading the game. So far, people seem to know about us. They know who we are playing against, and the results. “It is likely that the person they know best is Musonda, but she would never say. Perhaps she wouldn’t even know.

As the 20th season of English domestic T20 gets underway, we assess the runners and riders in the South Group

ESPNcricinfo staff24-May-2022

Essex

Last season: 7th in South Group
Coach: Anthony McGrath
Captain: Simon Harmer
Overseas players: Harmer (South Africa), Daniel Sams (Australia)Daniel Sams recovered from a chastening start to the IPL•BCCIKey man: Daniel Sams recovered from an iffy start to his IPL to end up as Mumbai Indians second-highest wicket-taker. But with his Test ambitions seemingly on hold for now, Dan Lawrence could be the player to sprinkle a bit of stardust on Essex’s season (assuming he makes a swift recovery from his hamstring strain).One to watch: There are a clutch of young batters vying for opportunities at Chelmsford, with Michael Pepper due a decent shake in T20. He quietly led Essex’s run-scoring last year, with 260 at a strike rate of 131.31, and warmed up for the Blast by hammering 117 off 41 balls, with 14 fours and eight sixes, against Hampshire 2nd XI last week. Keep an eye out for Will Buttleman, too.Verdict: Having not strengthened significantly, it’s hard to see Essex as much more than an outside bet to reach the quarter-finals. But then many would have said the same in 2019, when the team clicked at the right time under Harmer to lift their first T20 title. bet365: 14/1

Glamorgan

Last season: 9th in South Group
Director of cricket: Mark Wallace
Coach: Matthew Maynard
Captain: David Lloyd
Overseas players: Marnus Labuschagne, Michael Neser (both Australia), Colin Ingram (South Africa)Dan Douthwaite’s form was a rare positive for Glamorgan in 2021•Getty ImagesKey man: Dan Douthwaite became Glamorgan’s talisman in 2021, finishing the season as their leading wicket-taker – including several scalps in a new role as a death bowler – and their only frontline batter with a strike rate above 150. He will need the middle order to do a better job of shielding his weakness against spin but is a destructive hitter against seamers and will push for a Hundred wildcard gig after he was surprisingly overlooked in the draft last month.One to watch: Kiran Carlson has shown himself to be a hugely talented attacking player in other formats but has an inexplicably poor T20 record, with a single half-century in 30 career innings and an average of just 16.55. Last year, he was initially used in the middle order then as an opener; neither worked. At 24, the time is right for a breakout season if Glamorgan can find him a clear role.Related

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Verdict: Glamorgan have won eight T20 games in the last three seasons, the fewest of any county by far, and there are few signs that their fortunes will turn in 2022. With Marnus Labuschagne on Australia duty in Sri Lanka for much of the Blast, the onus will be on Colin Ingram and Michael Neser to step up in his absence. bet365: 25/1

Gloucestershire

Last season: 6th in South Group
Coach: Dale Benkenstein
Captain: Jack Taylor
Overseas players: Naseem Shah (Pakistan), Glenn Phillips (New Zealand), Marcus Harris (Australia)Glenn Phillips returns for a second season•PA Images/GettyKey man: Glenn Phillips starred last year, scoring exactly 500 runs in his 12 innings while striking at 163.39, but did not find enough support and Gloucestershire’s final-round defeat to Somerset saw them miss out on the quarter-finals. He returns for the full season after warming the Sunrisers Hyderabad bench at the IPL and, alongside Ian Cockbain, will be the key to their middle order’s success.One to watch: Naseem Shah has proved his fitness playing for the second XI and should be available to start the season. He is still a raw talent but was Quetta Gladiators’ leading wicket-taker at the PSL earlier this year; with Tom Smith and Benny Howell operating through the middle overs he will bowl at both ends of the innings. Pakistan have resisted the temptation to pick him for their ODI series against West Indies and can instead watch him develop across a full Blast season.Verdict: Gloucestershire ended a three-year streak of knockout qualification when they slipped up in their final group game last year and will be in the quarter-final hunt again. Their attack is set up to thrive on slower pitches but their batting line-up cannot rely so heavily on Phillips if they are to finish in the top four. bet365: 18/1

Hampshire

Last season: 4th in South Group, semi-finals
Director of cricket: Giles White
Coach: Adi Birrell
Captain: James Vince
Overseas players: Ben McDermott (Australia), Nathan Ellis (Australia)Tom Prest is eyeing a breakout season•ICC via Getty ImagesKey man: A veteran of eight Finals Days, James Vince will likely have a big role to play if Hampshire are going back to Edgbaston once again. Only three players have scored more runs in the history of England’s domestic T20 than Vince – who is still only 31 – and last year he was again a lynchpin atop the order.One to watch: Tom Prest was already making waves down Solent way before he led England to the final of the Under-19 World Cup over the winter. An unbeaten 59 in only his third T20 innings set up victory over Gloucestershire last year and the 19-year-old looks ready to bring out his full repertoire.Verdict: Ben McDermott, who led the 2021-22 Big Bash’s run-scoring with 577 at a strike rate of 153.86, could be one of the more impressive overseas signings while Aneurin Donald’s return from injury and the arrival of Ross Whiteley from Worcestershire adds further power. Throw in a varied bowling attack and they will be hoping for more knockout success on the south coast. bet365: 12/1

Kent

Last season: Winners
Director of cricket: Paul Downton
Coach: Matt Walker
Captain: Sam Billings
Overseas players: Qais Ahmad (Afghanistan), George Linde (South Africa)Qais Ahmad celebrates•PA Images via Getty ImagesKey man: Captain, talent scout, England man, T20 globetrotter: Sam Billings is many things to Kent cricket, but nothing less than a driving force in the shortest format. Straight back into the thick of it from the IPL, he will relish setting the tempo for Kent’s title defence – as well as sticking it to his occasional critics.One to watch: Normally this section is reserved for young talent – but how can you take your eyes off Darren Stevens? He forced his way back into Kent’s T20 plans after three years on the fringes, and promptly helped them to the title, playing all but one game. Don’t rule out the ever-youthful 46-year-old repeating the trick.Verdict: Stevens and Joe Denly aside, Kent largely bucked the “old blokes win stuff” mantra – meaning a squad powered by the dynamism of Billings, Daniel Bell-Drummond, Jordan Cox and Matt Milnes should produce another energetic campaign. But the fact no county has ever won back-to-back T20 titles could be a worry. bet365: 10/1

Middlesex

Last season: 8th in South Group
Head of men’s performance: Alan Coleman
Coach: Richard Johnson
Captain: Stephen Eskinazi
Overseas players: Jason Behrendorff (Australia), Mujeeb Ur Rahman (Afghanistan), Chris Green (Australia)Key man: Stephen Eskinazi has been Middlesex’s best T20 batter over the last couple of seasons, scoring more than 800 runs at a strike rate in the 140s. He has added power to an otherwise classical technique and should be a banker for consistent returns at the top of the order. He also takes over as captain.One to watch: The emergence of Blake Cullen was one of the reasons that Middlesex were happy to let Steven Finn leave for Sussex at the end of last season. A tall, rangy seamer, he took 20 wickets (one more than Finn) in his maiden Blast season as a 19-year-old, earning himself a wildcard pick for the Hundred.Verdict: The club’s marquee signing, Shaheen Shah Afridi, pulled out days before the start of the competition and fear is that with him will go the wind in their sails. Jason Behrendorff is a solid replacement but Eoin Morgan has long struggled to get a tune out of Middlesex in the way he has done with England; he has given up the captaincy and will not play every game. Their unequalled run of 13 seasons without a trip to Finals Day seems unlikely to end this year. bet365: 16/1

Somerset

Last season: 2nd in South Group, runners-up
Director of cricket: Andy Hurry
Coach: Jason Kerr
Captain: Tom Abell
Overseas players: Rilee Rossouw, Marchant de Lange (both South Africa), Peter Siddle (Australia)Tom Abell is the lynchpin of Somerset’s batting line-up•Getty ImagesKey man: Tom Abell has been club captain since 2017 but is only now taking the T20 reins after replacing Lewis Gregory in the role over the winter. Abell is among the best player of spin in the competition – only Ben Duckett has scored more runs against spin at a faster strike rate than Abell’s 149.59 over the past three seasons – and his background as a youth hockey player is evident in his scoops and deflections against the quicks. With four half-centuries in six innings last season (he missed most of the Blast through injury) he will be the lynchpin of Somerset’s destructive batting line-up.One to watch: A single wicket would take Max Waller clear of Alfonso Thomas as Somerset’s all-time leading T20 wicket-taker this season but he comes into the Blast uncertain of his future. An uncharacteristically poor 2021 saw him left out of the final four games, including the knockout stages and he has not been included in their squad for the opening night against Kent and is in the final year of his white-ball contract at 34; if selected, he has a point to prove.Verdict: Somerset’s talented homegrown batting core will put them in contention for the knockout stages but with Craig Overton – who has made significant improvements as a T20 bowler – missing on England duty their attack looks light. Expect high-scoring games – especially at Taunton, billed by the club as the world’s highest-scoring T20 venue. bet365: 8/1

Surrey

Last season: 5th in South Group
Director of cricket: Alec Stewart
Coach: Gareth Batty
Captain: Chris Jordan
Overseas players: Sunil Narine, Kieron Pollard (both West Indies)Will Jacks and Jason Roy form a destructive opening pair•Getty Images for Surrey CCCKey man: Having pulled out of the IPL and opted to take an “indefinite break” from cricket, Jason Roy looks likely to return in time for the start of Surrey’s Blast campaign. If he is refreshed and ready to contribute in as many as ten group games, his presence will be a significant boost.One to watch: He was compared to Moeen Ali earlier in the season, and it is in the shortest format where Will Jacks comes closest to such premium allrounder status. Surrey’s leading run-scorer last season, with 393 at a strike rate of 170.12, Jacks also plays a vital role balancing the side with his offbreaks and a strong season would propel him towards England contention.Verdict: Surrey were beaten finalists in 2020, under the captaincy of Batty; now in charge as interim head coach, he has an enviable squad with which to try and go one better. As ever, they might suffer from England call-ups, but two top-tier overseas signings in Kieron Pollard and Sunil Narine will enhance their status as contenders. bet365: 8/1

Sussex

Last season: Semi-finalists
Coach: James Kirtley
Captain: Ravi Bopara
Overseas players: Mohammad Rizwan (Pakistan), Josh Philippe (Australia), Tim Seifert (NZ), Rashid Khan (Afghanistan)Archie Lenham made a name for himself last year•Getty ImagesKey man: Any one of Sussex’s four overseas signings for the competition could turn out to be pivotal, though complications around availability make that hard to predict. Mohammad Rizwan is the ICC’s No. 3-ranked T20 batter, Rashid Khan the No. 5-ranked bowler, although they will only play a maximum of five games together.One to watch: Few outside of Sussex knew anything about Archie Lenham this time last year. But the then 16-year-old – the first player to debut in England’s T20 competition having been born since it started – produced any number of memorable moments to go with raw figures of 11 wickets at 17.63, making him the club’s joint-second most-successful bowler.Verdict: Among the favourites, but there are a number of question marks. Phil Salt and Chris Jordan have gone from the squad that reached Finals Day last year, and several bowlers – Tymal Mills, Finn, George Garton, Ollie Robinson – have either been ill or injured recently. Much may depend on Ravi Bopara juggling the captaincy with his all-round commitments. bet365: 7/1

Raza jubilant as gripping one-run win makes the case for cricket’s marginalised teams

Tristan Lavalette27-Oct-20223:56

Flower heaps praise on Ervine’s captaincy and Evans’ composure

On the eve of his first match at Perth’s Optus Stadium, known as a paradise for quicks, Zimbabwe allrounder Sikandar Raza was pensive.He struggled to get to sleep, as his thoughts wandered towards curbing Pakistan’s menacing pace attack led by speedster Haris Rauf who was seemingly tailormade for the bounce and pace conjured from the ground’s green-tinged pitch.”I made a few notes and I was reading them and I was going over it again and again and again,” Raza said about his restlessness. “This is my first game at Perth, so a lot of my learning and a lot of Zimbabwe’s learning is actually on the day of the game.”We don’t get to play top nations a lot,” he noted. The last of Zimbabwe’s five previous visits to Perth, an ODI against India in 2003-04, had come just months after Matthew Hayden whacked them for a world-record 380 at the WACA.Raza’s apprehension was seemingly justified when he was roughed up during an initiation at the crease by Rauf before being bounced out by a slower ball from Mohammad Wasim, whose inclusion at that stage appeared a masterstroke from a pace-heavy Pakistan.Zimbabwe scrambled to 130 for 8, which they knew was under par but there was quiet confidence within a team which had impressively emerged from the first round in Hobart.”I personally thought…we were 15 or 20 runs short,” Raza said. “But I really truly believe in this group. We knew if we could field well, take all our chances and cut those important twos, we could really win this game.”His confidence was justified when Zimbabwe’s quicks tore through Pakistan’s top order to leave them at 36 for 3 in the eighth over. But Shan Masood and Shadab Khan steadied the ship with a half-century partnership as Pakistan appeared to be cruising to a bounce-back victory after their MCG heartbreak against India.Perth’s 60,000-seat stadium hosted a small crowd of 8,000, but even some of those had started to scurry home as the clock ticked towards 10pm on a working night. But Zimbabwe knew that a single wicket could expose Pakistan’s susceptible middle-lower order after they had left out Asif Ali for Wasim, and perhaps prod at scars still raw from four days ago.Zimbabwe’s players take a victory lap around the ground•ICC via Getty ImagesSo in the 14th over, with Pakistan needing just 51 runs, they turned back to their talisman, albeit that Raza’s previous two overs – 0 for 11 – had been negotiated without incident to help cement the ground’s tough reputation for spinners.Sure enough, his third legal delivery, an overpitched carrom ball, was launched down the ground for six by Shadab, and with 43 now needed from 39 balls with seven wickets in hand, the end of the ball game appeared in sightBut an overconfident Shadab tried to repeat the dose only to hole out one ball later, and Zimbabwe knew they were back with a fighting chance.A pumped-up Raza then immediately trapped Haider Ali plumb lbw, briefly delayed by the batter reviewing in a Hail Mary, and he added another in his next over with the key wicket of Masood, who was brilliantly stumped by keeper Regis Chakabva.”I try to work hard on batting and bowling,” Raza said. “If one department doesn’t fire, it doesn’t really bring me down. It kind of gives me that extra push that I have to make sure my other department fires.”But with his match-turning spell over, the wickets dried up and Pakistan inched closer with Mohammad Nawaz attempting to go from villain to hero. Two overs suddenly remained and Pakistan needed 22 runs off 12 balls with four wickets in hand.Zimbabwe captain Craig Ervine wasn’t sure who to turn for the crucial penultimate over – Richard Ngarava, the spearhead who had overcome an ankle injury sustained against South Africa in Hobart’s wet conditions, or Brad Evans, who had been included in the team for just his fifth T20I.

What a day for Zimbabwe!

Fans at Harare Sports Club celebrate their famous win against Pakistan #PAKvZIM #T20WorldCup pic.twitter.com/Otg8NDFDFf

— ESPNcricinfo (@ESPNcricinfo) October 27, 2022