He will lead USA against his friend and school-mate Jofra Archer in a town where they first dreamt of playing international cricket

Sidharth Monga23-Jun-2024Aaron Jones has had a lot to take in over the last three days. On Thursday he came home, but as the captain of USA. On Friday he officially stood to a beautiful rendition of Rally ‘Round The West Indies only for the second time in his life. The first had been in an ODI when West Indies were forced to go into the World Cup Qualifier last year. But this was different: at his home ground, the Kensington Oval, in front of his own people, with David Rudder himself performing the regional cricket anthem.Later, Jones walked out to a huge cheer from his people, hit a huge six onto the roof of the Kensington Oval, then tried to take on fellow Barbadian, two years his senior, offspinner Roston Chase and lost his leg stump. The shot was on, the match-up was on, but it went a little like the whole night did for USA. By the time Jones was getting done with the media, he got a call from another fellow Bajan.Jofra Archer, his friend – school-mate at both primary and secondary school – soon to be his opponent on Sunday, called him and told him he had reached with the England team and checked in at Hilton, the same hotel where USA are staying. Jones couldn’t finish his formalities in time, and spent the Saturday linking up with his family and people.Related

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On Sunday, perhaps at the breakfast, or on the field, Archer and Jones will meet each other. Two kids who had spent their childhood and adolescence dreaming about playing cricket together for West Indies now under two non-West Indies flags playing at their own theatre of dreams in the T20 World Cup 2024. The two spent practically every single day of school playing cricket together. When they were not playing formally, when they were not talking about cricket, they were playing with a tape ball or on hard courts or playing road tennis.Aaron Jones announced himself early at the T20 World Cup 2024 with a magnificent 94* for USA against Canada•ICC/Getty ImagesRoad tennis is a Bajan sport that originated as a response to its time. During the exclusionary racist times of the 1930s in Barbados, when the locals, originally brought to the Caribbean as slaves, were not allowed to play tennis in private clubs, they invented this sport. The kids collected stray tennis balls that flew out of clubs, shaved off the skin, took the inner core and played tennis with it on the streets. The net would be a wooden plank not higher than a foot generally, and the rackets were carved out of wood, giant table tennis rackets if you will. It actually is a bit of a table tennis played with a tennis ball and an underarm serve but on the road.A quick sport, it requires a low centre of gravity and comes with a good working over of the back, glutes and knees. Importantly it has gone from a silent rebellion to being a symbol of inclusiveness. What started as a poor man’s sport is now a low-key national passion. It is now a formalised professional sport that found big resurgence during the Covid-19 pandemic. Prime Minister Mia Mottley has even pitched it as a potential Olympic sport.Around the time road tennis was making a resurgence, Jones was making a tough life decision, following in the footsteps of his friend Archer to move to the USA and play international cricket for them. He had started playing for USA just before the pandemic, but now decided to move to North Carolina – hot summers, winters cold but no snow, beaches far and nearly not as good as Barbados – to avoid travelling so much.The reason for Jones and Archer to move away were more or less similar. Don’t go by West Indies’ declining fortunes in international cricket, both Archer and Jones swear by the abundance of talent and the stiff competition into the Barbados side. It is similar in other traditional cricketing islands, you would imagine. The problem is, there is no level before it keeping a second team ready. Perhaps it has got to do with finances.When Archer moved to England, he did so when he got injured, having started bowling fast only at 17. He knew he would have to spend seven years qualifying to play for England, but he knew he had no future in Barbados once he failed to make the Under-19s because of injury.Jones stuck around for longer, but didn’t see a clear pathway even if he kept fighting it out. “I think that if I had stayed in Barbados and worked hard enough that I probably would’ve played for West Indies eventually,” Jones tells ESPNcricinfo. “But I was in and out of the Barbados first-class team. A lot of West Indies guys come from Barbados. So me being a guy that didn’t represent West Indies, it was hard for me to find a place in the starting XI every game. My career was really and truly stagnant at that time. So I just took the opportunity to go to US and see if I could get another opportunity to play at the world stage there and the rest is history.”

“Oh, if he hits my helmet or anything, he will talk about it for the next three years for sure. If I can hit it for a six, I will definitely hit it for a six. If it’s a good one, I will just let it go.”Aaron Jones has his plans set against good friend and school-mate Jofra Archer

Never underestimate the significance of being able to make a living as a cricketer either. He actually had an opportunity to make the move before he actually did but he kept giving it a shot for as long as he could. Phil Salt, Chris Jordan and Nicholas Kirton are three other Bajans playing this World Cup from other countries. Life can come in the way of dreams.Both Jones and Archer love their adopted countries, but feel so at peace when they come back to the island of their birth, where they dreamt those dreams. Jones saw all the signs that make Archer so good back in school even though at that time he was the better cricketer. And he should know: they both went to Hilda Skeene Primary and Christ Church Foundation together.’We went primary school and secondary school together,” Jones says. “It was always a competition. He’s very competitive regardless the situation. Even outside cricket, when we played soccer, when we played road tennis, anything to be honest. He’s a very competitive person.”It’s actually really an amazing journey, growing up as kids and then obviously branching off the plane. At that time we couldn’t imagine playing for other countries. We always thought that we would play for Barbados and then West Indies. We got opportunities elsewhere and here we are now.”Being such good athletes, they were both popular boys in school but “good boys”, staying out of trouble. Archer hadn’t yet become a fast bowler. He used to do everything else: bat, bowl legspin, keep wicket. They met as recently as when both the teams happened to be in Antigua at the same time. They keep abreast with each other’s lives.Just before the 2019 ODI World Cup, which it is fair to say Archer won for England, Jones had just made his international debut for USA. Before the big final, Archer actually called up Jones, congratulated him, told him he was looking forward to playing against him, and asked him to stay ready for a bouncer first ball. Now the moment has arrived. England will be facing USA for the first time ever.”Oh if he hits my helmet or anything, he will talk about it for the next three years for sure,” Jones says. “If I can hit it for a six, I will definitely hit it for a six. If it’s a good one, I will just let it go.”To somebody on the outside, this comes across as a highly unfortunate scenario. It helps that Jones is not an overtly emotional person. Or perhaps you need to learn to get better of your emotions when you have to leave home for work. However, there are times when he does wonder what might have been.”I thought about it a few times,” Jones says. “I mean that was the plan when we were younger. I don’t know.. we can’t really know how we’ll feel now because we are not playing for West Indies. But definitely it would have been good because we’ve been close since we were young. And then we know we could bring a lot to West Indies cricket as players so it would’ve been good for sure to play for West Indies together.”

Three years after an ambitious shot had cost her the chance to score her maiden Test hundred, Shafali showed she can bat all day in a ruthless display in Chennai

Sruthi Ravindranath28-Jun-2024″She’s an aggressive batter, we all know that. I think today she just put it down and said she’s going to bat.”This was Delmi Tucker, the South Africa offspinner, speaking at the end of a hard day’s toil dominated by a double-hundred from Shafali Verma.Everyone knows Shafali can take bowling attacks apart with brute force. She can go all out from ball one, irrespective of the format. She’s capable of showing patience too, as she did during the 2021 Bristol Test against England, but she’s not always found the perfect balance.Related

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During WPL 2024, she had spoken about looking to temper her hitting and bat long.In that Bristol Test, she ended up skying one on 96 while trying to get to her hundred with a big hit. In the second ODI against South Africa last week, she had looked settled until she went for a heave across the line and was out for 20.But that wasn’t going to happen on Friday in Chennai.

****

South Africa probably wouldn’t have expected India to break numerous batting records on the day, after how their first few overs went. Even if there wasn’t a lot of help from the conditions, their fast bowlers found some early swing, and kept India to 15 for no loss in their first eight overs. Smriti Mandhana and Shafali began circumspectly, despite South Africa’s new-ball bowlers often bowling full and outside off, inviting them to drive.If the pitch used during the first men’s Test between India and England here in 2021 – the last Test played on red soil at Chepauk, as this one was – was anything to go by, batting on the first day wasn’t going to be difficult. The last six men’s Tests at this venue had produced 300-plus first-innings totals, with 450 being passed three times.Shafali’s usual aggression was in full display in Chennai, but only after she had seen out the new ball•BCCIYou wondered how difficult it must have been for Shafali to curb her instincts, and ignore the temptation to drive. She resieted the temptation for her first half an hour at the crease.Then, in the seventh over, Masabata Klaas had just got her to play and miss at one that had shaped away outside off stump, luring her to drive. But the next ball was pitched right up and Shafali got on the front foot, timing her drive perfectly through extra-cover. It was her first boundary of the day.South Africa made their first bowling change in the ninth over, bringing on Nadine de Klerk. She began with a pitched-up delivery angling across Mandhana, and this one was too tempting to leave. Out came the classic cover drive, which she plays with absolute finesse. A punch off the backfoot brought her another boundary in the same over.All those off-side boundaries seemed to rattle de Klerk and Tumi Sekhukhune, who began bowling a lot straighter and sending down full-tosses: five in the six overs they bowled in tandem until the 14th over, all while bowling with a packed off-side field.The runs began to flow, particularly for Mandhana, who began peppering the boundary off both front and back foot, punching, pulling and cutting.It took until the 15th over for Shafali to fully break free. Left-arm spinner Nonkululeko Mlaba repeatedly tossed the ball up at her, and Shafali looked like she was in the mood to keep resisting. Off the fifth ball, she finally went for it, hitting against the turn, launching the ball over mid-on for her first big hit of the day.”Today, the ball was coming on well and my scores in the last three ODIs pushed me to just think one thing, that I shouldn’t get out and I should play through the day,” Shafali said after the day’s play. “So the idea was to back my strengths, take some time, and find a way to stay at the wicket.”The partnership began to flourish, and Shafali joined in on the fun, if in a calculated way, waiting for loose balls, being a little more selective than even Mandhana was. When Mlaba landed one short in the 17th over, Shafali rocked back and pulled it to the midwicket boundary. Then she clipped a full one from de Klerk in the air, through square-leg.Shafali put on 292 for the first wicket with Smriti Mandhana•BCCIAs her innings progressed she unveiled the nonchalant lofts, the ferocious pulls and even the slog-sweeps. In the 37th over, Shafali overtook Mandhana, going to 89 with her 15th boundary of her innings. Mandhana, at that point, had hit 17 in her 88.A clean hit over long-on, off Tucker, took Shafali to 96, a score with a bit of history to it.”Who forgets getting out for 96?” she asked at her press conference. “When I was on 96 today, it took me back to Bristol 2021. All I thought was to somehow score those four runs and get past 100.”And she did, in the next over, in style, finding the fine-leg boundary off Mlaba with a flick, her most productive shot of the day. A sigh of relief and a big smile followed as she hugged Mandhana to celebrate the hard-earned century, Shafali’s first in Test cricket.From this point on, Shafali batted with even greater freedom, hitting Sekhukhune, Tucker and de Klerk for the third, fourth and fifth sixes of her innings. There was no slowing down even after Mandhana was out for 146, with the openers having put on 292 in 52 overs.In the two-hour session between lunch and tea, India scored 204 in just 32 overs. Shafali took just 36 balls to go from 150 to 200, smacking three fours and three sixes in that period. Two of the sixes came off consecutive balls from Tucker, both hammered over her favourite long-on region.Those shots took her from 187 to 199.”Around my double century, thank god, the offie [Tucker] came on,” Shafali said. “, [Even more fun] as I thought I could get my 200 in a few balls.”Classic Shafali.A single through the covers off the next ball brought out all her emotions. She had more than made up for missing out in Bristol, and she pumped her fist in the air before acknowledging the Chennai crowd who rose to their feet. They had been thoroughly entertained.

They built on learnings from a less clinical performance than expected against Sri Lanka and are looking unstoppable

Valkerie Baynes09-Oct-20243:16

Clinical Australia complicate NRR matters for others

Good teams learn quickly.So when Australia’s top order all found themselves set on a now notoriously difficult pitch in Sharjah, they set the blueprint for what was already shaping as a crucial match on Sunday for them and, even more so, India.Australia’s 60-run thumping of New Zealand was their second match at the ground while India will play their first and only group game in Sharjah against them. But it wasn’t all bad for India, who stand to gain from New Zealand’s net run rate sliding into negative territory as they prepare to play Sri Lanka in Dubai on Wednesday.India’s upset at the hands of New Zealand followed by their cautious approach in the chase against Pakistan, whom they beat by six wickets with seven balls to spare, leaves them fourth in Group A with a net run rate of -1.217.ESPNcricinfo LtdIf India bat first and score 130 on Wednesday, they need to restrict Sri Lanka to 84 to go ahead of New Zealand’s NRR and to 81 to convert their NRR into the positive. If Sri Lanka score 100 batting first, India need to chase it down in 12.4 overs or less to go ahead of New Zealand’s NRR and in 12.1 overs or less to turn their NRR positive.Australia’s latest victory was built on learnings from a less clinical performance than expected from them when they defeated a struggling Sri Lanka by six wickets with 34 balls to spare at the same venue on Saturday. Beth Mooney’s unbeaten 43 from 38 balls was then the standout performance of an innings where no other batter passed 17.On this occasion, against New Zealand, Alyssa Healy, Ellyse Perry and Mooney – again the top-scorer with 40 off 32 balls – all got themselves in and found the boundary with greater authority to take Australia to 148 for 8, comfortably eclipsing the previous best total in Sharjah during this tournament: England’s 125 for 3 the previous evening.This too was a night game and the Australians looked more comfortable than they had in the searing afternoon heat of the Sri Lanka game. With New Zealand’s spinners offering more pace than the Sri Lankans, Australia’s top-order batters capitalised.Healy signalled her intent, repeatedly clearing extra cover to make the vast outfield look manageable for arguably the first time in six games at the ground en route to 26 in 20 balls and helping her side to 43 for 1 in the powerplay.More was to come, with Perry skipping down the pitch to despatch Eden Carson into the fence at long-on and muscling the next ball through square leg for four.Mooney managed just two fours but her knock was crucial in an innings where Phoebe Litchfield’s run-a-ball 18 was the only other score in double figures after the top three.”We spoke this morning and yesterday that it looked a little bit better than the wicket we were on the other day, still very different to conditions to back home and a bit of a hard slog at times with the slow outfield and the big boundaries and the slow wicket itself,” Mooney said.”We know throughout this tournament we’re going to have to dig pretty deep with the bat and try and find a way to score runs and sometimes that’s going to look pretty ugly and sometimes it’s going to be okay. If we just find a way to make it work, that will hold us in good stead, which is what we did tonight.”Being able to get out there in that first game and get an understanding of the conditions was always good and to bank that sort of data is always helpful moving throughout the tournament. But I think the natural dialogue is that it’s going to be pretty tough and you’ve got to really be composed at the crease and make good decisions and be really clear on what options you have and where to hit what holes.”She also said the performance was “not far off” Australia’s best in recent times. In the lead-up to the tournament they hosted New Zealand and won their T20I series 3-0 but twice suffered batting collapses and were bowled out once, for only the second time since early 2020.”If we’re being really critical, we’ve probably missed out on a few with the bat towards the middle and the back-end there with a few wickets in a row, but certainly really pleasing with that we’ve got ourselves into at this tournament,” she said.That was in no small part down to the legspin of Amelia Kerr, who snared 4 for 26. Having removed Mooney and Perry, she took two more wickets, bowling the big-hitting Grace Harris for a first-ball duck and ending Georgia Wareham’s knock, caught by Lea Tahuhu.But Australia had also learned with the ball.Megan Schutt, Player of the Match with 3 for 12 against Sri Lanka, opened the bowling again and, with Healy standing up to the stumps, offered no width for New Zealand to work with and bowled Georgia Plimmer with a beauty dipping in, beating the attempted pull and rattling the woodwork.That made Schutt the leading wicket-taker in Women’s T20 World Cups with 46 but she wasn’t done. Returning in the 12th over, she had Kerr caught by Annabel Sutherland, running in from long-on, and then bowled Carson to complete the rout, and a miserly return of 3 for 3 from 3.2 overs as New Zealand were bowled out for 88 in the final over.For New Zealand, Kerr maintained that their destiny was still in their own hands: “First, you want to win the game, that’s the key. You don’t want to go out there thinking you’ve got to beat them by X amount of runs… if we win both [remaining games], we give ourselves the best chance to qualify.”Australia next play Pakistan on Friday in Dubai and New Zealand play Sri Lanka on Saturday, followed by Pakistan.

Thorpe’s untimely death has unleashed a wave of tributes from those who discovered a love for the game through his defiant batting

Andrew Miller05-Aug-2024Graham Thorpe’s England career was the promise of better times, melded with the reality that they sometimes seemed unobtainable. His emotions lived and breathed through the combativeness of his strokeplay. When he was up, he was a force to rival any of the mighty protagonists in perhaps the last truly global era of Test batsmanship. When he was down, his returns were so subterranean they almost reeked of despair. Above and beyond his 100 Tests, 16 centuries and a batting average of 44.66 that was higher than, inter alia, Gower, Gooch, Cowdrey and Vaughan, his raw humanity was his defining trait, and a generation loved him for the honesty with which he projected it.Thorpe’s tragic death at the age of 55 has, quite rightly, unleashed a wave of heartfelt tributes from across the sport, spanning his former team-mates and rivals, as well as a host of the modern-day stars whose careers were moulded during his long second innings as a coach with Surrey and England. However, it’s the unseen echelons of appreciation that perhaps speak most eloquently of the adoration his career engendered. All morning long, WhatsApp groups have been bursting with reminiscence at the hope he instilled in so many lost England causes of the 1990s, and by extension the central role he played in causing so many people to fall in love with the game in the first place. But then, underpinning it all, is this shuddering jolt at the sheer fragility of existence. More than one acquaintance of mine has stated that they have never felt more affected by a non-family death. It doesn’t feel overblown to concur.What, then, was the reason for this peculiar and deep-rooted affection? The events of Thorpe’s debut at Trent Bridge in 1993 played a part, of course – after being bounced out by Merv Hughes for single figures in his maiden innings, he seemed to knuckle down and toughen up almost overnight. With inevitable defeat looming at the fall of England’s fifth second-innings wicket, he responded with a combative, indomitable 114 – making him England’s first debut centurion since Frank Hayes against West Indies a full 20 years earlier – that slowly but inexorably ground out a position from which to push for victory. Auspiciously for his narrative purposes, this was done, first, in partnership with the mighty Graham Gooch – Thorpe’s most-legitimate predecessor as England’s truly world-class batter – and then with Nasser Hussain, then another young prospect whose defiance and tenacity would come to prove so crucial to England’s steady rise in standards across the span of their careers.Related

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Perhaps fittingly, Australia’s refusal to yield (this time through Steve Waugh and Brendon Julian) would deny Thorpe and England the fairytale finish to this most uplifting of beginnings. Because, even if it only became truly apparent in hindsight, there would be something exquisitely noble about England’s struggles through the rest of the 1990s – an era blessed, lest we forget, with perhaps the most relentless churn of world-class attacking bowlers ever assembled. If it wasn’t McGrath and Warne lined up against England, it was Ambrose and Walsh. Or Wasim and Waqar. Or Donald and Pollock. Or Murali and Vaas. Tennis fans who have spent the last week coming to terms with the retirement of Andy Murray will recognise the magnificence required simply to compete in such a rarified era, let alone to deliver a clutch of the greatest victories ever compiled against the odds.For a time after his debut, Thorpe’s brilliance was visible only in snatched opportunities. The epithet “selfless” soon attached itself to his methods, most particularly on England’s subsequent tour of the Caribbean, where his twin scores of 86 and 84 were instrumental in setting up two further victory shots, in Trinidad and Barbados. And yet, the defining image of Thorpe’s personal campaign would come right in between those two efforts: his hauntingly bleak stare into the middle distance at Port-of-Spain, with his stumps shattered and the scoreboard reading 40 for 8 after Ambrose’s thrilling fourth-evening rampage. It was a look that questioned his very life choices, that telegraphed – albeit fleetingly – the futility of resistance. Magnificently he was unbowed by the time of his next second innings, a fortnight later in Bridgetown, with a pitch-perfect declaration push that ensured his team would leave a brutal tour with at least one all-timer of an upset to look back on.And yet, with England about to entrust their management to the hard-bitten “supremo”, Ray Illingworth, Thorpe’s integral importance to the team that Mike Atherton was trying to create would be under-valued for a while yet. Where his colleagues saw a man gunning only for what was best for the collective, Illingworth’s binary attitude to run-scoring saw instead a talented rookie who was too flighty to knuckle down and make the most of his promise. As an aside, if Mark Ramprakash and Graeme Hick are commonly cited as the two players of the 1990s who would have benefited most from the introduction of ECB central contracts, Thorpe would surely have been the foremost apostle of Bazball.Thorpe pulls during his 124 against South Africa in 2003•PA PhotosIt’s ironic, therefore, that having been dropped for the first four Tests of the 1994 summer, Thorpe marked his return to the team with a trio of 70s that turned the tide in another thrilling series against South Africa. In keeping with the methods that were already his calling card, each of his innings came at a strike rate significantly higher than a run every two balls, and while it may seem glib to make a big deal of such relatively dour scoring, Thorpe’s genius was not unlike that of Joe Root in the current England line-up. His tracer-like cover-driving and his all-enveloping pull shots would catch the eye when his blood was up, but the bread-and-butter of his matchcraft were the dinks and nudges – often deep in the crease, square-on to the bowler- that kept the strike rotating and the scoreboard ticking. In an age of grim survival, best exemplified by Atherton’s broad blade presented straight back down the line, Thorpe’s proactivity epitomised a willingness to keep striving for something more. His was a defiant optimism that chimed with the times, and kept his fans rapt throughout these years of adversity.Clearly, any professional sportsman needs to offer substance to back up the style, but the occasion of Thorpe’s second Test century was pitch-perfect in England’s straitened circumstances. On a typical Perth flyer, at the tail-end of a desperate tour, he arrived at the crease with Atherton and Mike Gatting dispatched in McGrath’s opening over, but surged onto the offensive in a 158-run stand with Ramprakash that felt like nothing less than the dawning of a brand-new era. In the shimmering white heat of the WACA, a vista that always seemed to be projected more viscerally into the cold of an English winter living room, out came Thorpe’s idiosyncratic wallop of his bat as he sprinted through for the landmark single, arms outstretched, before the removal of his helmet and a glimpse of his lesser-spotted white headband – a treat that always signified the attainment of a rare peak. Not even a predictable reversion to England’s mean in the second innings could taint the sense of a page turned. On the contrary, as McGrath ripped through the top-order to deliver an inglorious end to both Gooch and Gatting’s Test careers, amid a wrecked scoreline of 27 for 6, it became ever more apparent around whom England were obliged to rebuild their fortunes.And so it would come to pass. Notwithstanding the summer of 1999, when the accumulation of a decade of beatings would result in England’s slumping to the foot of the unofficial world rankings, it was possible to detect an incremental uptick in Test standards across the back end of the decade; from England’s hard-fought series win in New Zealand in 1996-97 (featuring two Thorpe hundreds) to their staggering Ashes victory at Edgbaston the following summer (featuring Thorpe’s 138 alongside Hussain’s career-best 207). When a back injury restricted his involvement in the home series win over South Africa in 1998 (England’s first in a five-Test series since 1986-87) it was partly as a consequence of him having become the first England player to feature in ten consecutive winter tours (Test and A-team) – in an age, remember, before central contracts offered any such assurances of continuity.

“Rarely in England’s history has there been an ovation to match that which greeted Thorpe’s comeback century against South Africa at The Oval in 2003, while his final winters as an England cricketer were similarly triumphant, with central roles in series wins in the Caribbean and South Africa”

Fittingly, therefore, Thorpe’s zenith would arrive at the very moment when his value to England was finally and officially recognised. The introduction of ECB central contracts in 2000 came after he had unilaterally opted out of the tour of South Africa the previous winter, amid the first stirrings of the marital problems that would gnaw away at his equilibrium in the final years of his career. But, given the chance to be fully valued by the team to whom he had given so much, he repaid the faith with the single greatest winter of his career, and one of the greatest in England’s touring history.Other wins carry more resonance: England in Australia in 2010-11, or India in 2012-13. But given where England had come from, and the distance they still had to travel, their twin victories in Pakistan and Sri Lanka in 2000-01 remain extraordinary monuments to the resilience of an underappreciated generation. Thorpe himself bookended the triumphs; first in Lahore where he epitomised his captain’s call to fight with every sinew of his being in producing a stalemate-sealing century that featured just a solitary boundary. Then, after picking off the winning runs in England’s miraculous victory in the dark in Karachi, he capped his endeavours in Kandy and Colombo in the new year, willing himself to endure through Sri Lanka’s sticky, sapping heat to overcome an innings loss in Galle and land a sensational 2-1 win.The enduring image of that campaign was of a deathly pale Thorpe, eyes so hollow they might as well have been caked in mascara, willing himself back out to the middle having already won the match once with his stamina-draining 113 not out in the first innings at the SSC. When Sri Lanka collapsed to 81 all out in reply his work should have been done. Instead, England themselves tumbled to 71 for 6, chasing 74. But for his follow-up 32 not out, the day would have been lost. He was so shattered afterwards, he was unable to take any part in the team’s raucous celebrations.Thorpe with Joe Root, one of the many England batters to benefit from his wisdom as coach•Getty ImagesThorpe had another faraway look in his eyes two summers later, against India at Lord’s in 2002, when the torment of his personal life was etched into every one of his all-too-public actions. He made 4 and 1 in that contest, which was five more runs than his spirit seemed willing to offer to the occasion, and when it was announced soon after the contest that he would be taking an indefinite break from cricket, it was merely the rubber-stamping of a fact that his misery had already made clear.Not that it mattered remotely in his personal circumstances, but Thorpe’s decision meant that he would miss the 2002-03 tour of Australia, thereby leaving an incredible dent in his Ashes record; just two Tests out of a possible 15 since the end of 1997, with injury having ruled him out of both the 1998-99 and 2001 campaigns.It was not the end of his story by any stretch of the imagination. Rarely in England’s history has there been an ovation to match that which greeted Thorpe’s comeback century, inevitably in a winning cause, against South Africa at The Oval in 2003, while his final winters as an England cricketer were similarly triumphant, with central roles in series wins in the Caribbean (still unreplicated to this day) and South Africa, for the first time in the post-Apartheid era.By the time of the 2005 Ashes, however, the emergence of Kevin Pietersen – coupled with England’s determination, not unlike that which led to Thorpe’s own breakthrough ten years previously, to proceed with a new generation unencumbered by the scars of the past – meant that he dipped quietly out of international cricket with the occasion of his 100th Test, against Bangladesh in Chester-le-StreetIt was an oddly fitting ending for a man who had been destined to carry his side through adversity, and earn along the way the undying love and gratitude of those true aficionados who recognised the exquisite glory of the struggle.

India. England. High-scoring venues. Dew. No batting record will be safe over the next fortnight

Sidharth Monga20-Jan-20253:12

Axar: Shami’s return a ‘big positive’

Cricket’s economy is weird. It is run on white-ball cricket. Most of this – outside the one ICC event every year and the non-international T20 leagues – is bilateral cricket. Considering the rights for ICC events and leagues are different entities, a vast majority of the money that cricket boards make comes from bilateral white-ball cricket. And yet, what was the last white-ball bilateral series that you remember building up to?We are always anticipating the next big Test series. So much so that bilateral white-ball series are the time big players are rested so they can be at their best for the Tests, ICC events and the major T20 leagues. And yet, white-ball bilaterals practically finance Test cricket. A three-match tour from India can bring enough money from the broadcasters to keep a small board afloat.White-ball bilaterals are watched. A lot. Much more than Test cricket is. But they are also taken for granted. No anticipation, no build-up, not often the best talent. Especially in this era of split tours. Sometimes, if played at the end of a full tour, momentum is carried into the shorter formats. Right now, they just exist. Quietly dropping in like a Netflix title, but doing better than the appointment viewing in the cinema that you built up to for months.Related

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Axar hints at flexible middle order as India gear up for England T20Is

Every once in a while, though, comes a series you can genuinely look forward to. These five upcoming T20Is between India and England are one such event. The new devil-may-care India who have thrown all caution to the wind after the T20 World Cup triumph. Against England, who are now being coached by Brendon McCullum in white-ball cricket too. No batting record will be safe over the next fortnight in high-scoring venues such as Kolkata, Mumbai and Rajkot.Those who believed conservative batting was keeping India from exploring their true hitting potential will feel vindicated at what has happened since the old guard retired with the T20 World Cup last June. India have batted first in 11 T20Is since then, and have gone past 200 seven times. They have made scores of 297 and 283. They also have registered successful chases of 132 in 11.5 overs and 156 in 15.2.Highest total in a match involving full members, most runs in the middle overs in any T20 game, most runs in boundaries. These are a few of the more impressive records India have broken in this small period.England’s ultra-aggressive top order features the likes of Phil Salt and Jacob Bethell•Getty ImagesSince the World Cup, India have hit a boundary every 4.27 balls in T20I cricket. More impressively they have tried to hit one every 2.18 balls. In the year and a half before that, they were attempting one every 2.63 balls. That’s a difference of nearly 10 boundary attempts across a completed innings. And thanks to Rohit Sharma’s renewed impetus at the top of the order, they weren’t exactly playing conservative cricket earlier.And if England have ever needed a reason to attempt boundaries, their new coach and this opposition are only going to push them to play more aggressive T20 cricket. Their boundary attempts have gone up from one every 2.51 balls in the 18 months leading up to the World Cup to one every 2.32 balls. They have batted first only once since the World Cup, scoring 218, and have overhauled three targets while scoring at better than 10 an over.Take these two batting sides. Add small Indian grounds. Throw in fresh, early-season pitches, provided India don’t go for slow turners for competitive advantage. They did, after all, beat England on one such pitch in the World Cup semi-final in Guyana. Then sprinkle some dew. This series could be a T20 purist’s dream.Slow turners, such as the one in last year’s World Cup semi-final in Guyana, are the one ingredient that could prevent a hitathon•ICC/Getty ImagesJos Buttler, Phil Salt, Liam Livingstone, Jacob Bethell, Harry Brook. Sanju Samson, Suryakumar Yadav, Abhishek Sharma, Tilak Varma, Rinku Singh. Then there are allrounders. Oh, and Jasprit Bumrah and Kuldeep Yadav are absent. If the tracks are fresh and not made slow, this series could test the limits of T20 cricket. The tactics will have to be spot-on because that one over that goes for below 10 could win or lose the match.In March 2023, West Indies and South Africa played an incredible three-T20I series over four days. South Africa lost after scoring 131 in an 11-over game. Then they chased down a record target of 259. In the finale, West Indies managed to only just defend 220. The two teams achieved a scoring rate of 12.08, the highest for any bilateral series of three matches or more. No other series comes close. The next-best to involve Full Members is 10.69, suggesting how much of an outlier that South Africa-West Indies hitathon was.This India-England series could conceivably hope to beat that record. Or, at the very least, to go past the 11-an-over mark. If a few things go right, who knows what other records will be broken and what new shackles will be broken in the way teams approach T20s.

The Champions Trophy may be too soon but a succession plan is needed for India’s biggest stars

Nagraj Gollapudi11-Jan-20252:51

What next for Rohit and Kohli in Test cricket?

Demoralising Test series defeats at home against New Zealand and in Australia have shaken Indian cricket to the extent that the selectors, the team’s think tank led by head coach Gautam Gambhir, and the BCCI are confronted with questions they would have ideally discussed only after the 2025 Champions Trophy ended in early March.ESPNcricinfo has learned that the selectors and Gambhir will meet on January 11 to review the Australia tour, but inevitably, the question of the future will hang prominently, and that would include the immediate future: when does the reset button for India’s ODI team get activated?
Which would bring them to a conversation about the two biggest players in Indian cricket: Virat Kohli and the Test and ODI captain Rohit Sharma.

The Rohit-Kohli question

Before the Border-Gavaskar Trophy it would have been sacrilegious to even countenance not having Kohli and Rohit in the ODI squad. They were the top run-scorers in the 2023 ODI World Cup and instrumental in India’s unbeaten run to the final. They were also crucial to the title win at the 2024 T20 World Cup in June last year, with Kohli even buying into the attacking batting ideology championed by Rohit and the head coach Rahul Dravid.Since then, though, both batters have struggled. Rohit also admitted to captaincy errors that contributed to India’s 3-0 defeat against New Zealand. However, it is the manner of their prolonged batting failures in the Border-Gavaskar Trophy combined with their age (Rohit is 37, Kohli 36) that has put them under the scanner now.The questions confronting the decision makers in Indian cricket would be these: should they finish the cycle with the template that took them to final of the 2023 ODI World Cup, or should they take into account recent events and make a fresh start at the Champions Trophy itself?The answers are not straightforward.When Gambhir took charge as head coach last August, he was asked before his first assignment (the ODI series in Sri Lanka) about how much quality cricket was left, according to him, in Rohit and in Kohli. He said he expected both players to be “motivated enough” for the Australia tour as well as the Champions Trophy. He even hoped they could play the 2027 ODI World Cup if they remained fit and emphasised that both of them merited a place because they could still contribute to wins. However, after the 3-1 loss in Australia where Kohli averaged 23.75 and Rohit 6.2, Gambhir said it was “up to them” to decide their future.Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli bring vast experience to the team in big tournaments•ICC via Getty ImagesWhile fresh conversations will be had about their future in Test cricket, in the roadmap drawn up last year by the Ajit Agarkar-led selection panel, Rohit and Kohli were part of the plan for the 2025 Champions Trophy. Both are part of India’s top three, which also includes Shubman Gill who formed a successful opening partnership with Rohit in the 2023 ODI World Cup. However, the resounding success of Yashasvi Jaiswal in Test and T20 cricket makes him a viable top-order batter in ODIs too, according to some in the Indian think tank. They believe Jaiswal, who is uncapped in ODIs, provides the left-hand option and can develop into an all-format player like Gill.But while Jaiswal could be included in the ODI squad as a third opener, who could he replace in the team? The Rohit-Gill opening partnership has been extremely successful – their average of 72.16 is the best among opening pairs with a minimum cut off of 25 innings. Rohit has struggled in Test cricket since September but he was India’s highest run-scorer in their previous ODI series in Sri Lanka in August, when he made 58, 64 and 35 on challenging pitches. Kohli’s scores in Sri Lanka were lean – 24, 14 and 20 – but ODI is his best format. Without them, India’s batting line-up looks bereft of experience.Instead of taking a hasty decision, the selectors and Gambhir could follow the route taken ahead of the 2024 T20 World Cup, when there was intrigue over whether Kohli would fit into the XI. The decision makers including Rohit, Dravid and selectors agreed his experience was vital in big tournaments. It is understood they had a chat with Kohli to ensure he bought into the way India wanted to bat in T20 cricket.The BCCI could use a similar process of dialogue to determine the futures of Kohli and Rohit in ODI and Test cricket. Also, it is important that Gambhir and Agarkar have a clear vision and are on the same page before they sit down with the two players. Unless they believe Kohli and Rohit’s motivation levels have been wavering, it would be a brave call to drop either of them before the Champions Trophy.Is Shubman Gill the right ODI captain for India after Rohit Sharma?•Getty Images

Who is the next ODI captain?

It is a question India might have to find an answer for after the Champions Trophy, and not before. Rohit has shaped the brand of cricket India have played since he replaced Kohli as the all-format captain. He’s also actively worked with the selectors to identify and develop players he believed could deliver results.The selectors had shortlisted Gill as a leader in the making and appointed him vice-captain of the ODI and T20I squads that toured Sri Lanka last August. Based on feedback received from the Indian dressing room, Agarkar said Gill had shown “decent leadership qualities” and had the potential to grow.However, Gill also had a poor tour of Australia where he was dropped for the fourth Test in Melbourne amid growing concerns about his runs in overseas Test matches. The time may not be right for a promotion right away.

Multi-skilled players vs specialists

India’s selectors and Gambhir have been keen to pick players who have more than just one skill – but may not qualify as genuine allrounders – in the ODI and T20I squads. In Sri Lanka last august, India played Axar Patel, Washington Sundar, Riyan Parag and Shivam Dube. Tilak Varma, who bowls part-time offspin, was also drafted into the ODI squad after the 2023 World Cup.Tilak and Parag, in their early 20s, have the selectors’ backing because of their aggressive attitude, ability to float in the middle order, their agile fielding, and ability to bowl spin. They will compete for a spot with specialist batters like Shreyas Iyer, who played an important role in the middle order during the 2023 ODI World Cup along with KL Rahul. There is bound to be debate on who could play in the middle order while also providing bowling options to balance the XI.Indian cricket is at a fork in the road. One school of thought is to stick to the tried and tested route for the short-term. Another is to chart a new path right away, arguing that the 2023 ODI World Cup was 14 months ago and there is a need to plan ahead and develop players for the next 2027 ODI World Cup. The question is to what extent the process begins – if at all – before the 2025 Champions Trophy.

Stats highlights from DC’s first win against CSK at Chepauk since 2010

Sampath Bandarupalli05-Apr-20252:46

Jaffer: ‘If top order doesn’t fire, CSK shut shop early’

2010 – Delhi Capitals (DC) defeated Chennai Super Kings (CSK) at Chepauk for the first time since their six-wicket win in 2010. The Delhi franchise won the first two matches against CSK at this venue in 2008 and 2010 but had lost seven in a row before Saturday.The seven-match winning streak for CSK against this opponent in Chennai is the joint-second-longest for any team against an opponent at a particular venue in the IPL. CSK’s eight-match winning streak against Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) at Chepauk is the longest, which also came to a halt earlier this season.10 – CSK have failed to chase a target of 180-plus in their last ten attempts, dating back to 2020. Three teams have had a longer streak of failing to chase 180-plus targets in the IPL – 15 by Punjab Kings (2015 to 2021), 12 by RCB (2019 to 2023) and 11 by Sunrisers Hyderabad (2020 to 2023).Related

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25 – The run margin of CSK’s defeat on Saturday. Only four teams have suffered a heavier loss despite losing only five or fewer wickets in 20 overs while chasing a target of 200 or less in the IPL.2018 – Previous instance of CSK chasing down a target of 180 or more runs in the IPL – against Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) in Pune, where they hunted down 180 with eight wickets in hand. CSK had a win-loss record of 9-9 while chasing 180-plus targets until that point.ESPNcricinfo Ltd9.2 – Overs batted by Vijay Shankar and MS Dhoni during their sixth-wicket stand. It is the second-longest unbeaten partnership to end up on the losing side in an IPL chase, behind the 9.4 overs of partnership by Kedar Jadhav and Saurabh Tiwary in 2015. The duo added 91 runs for Delhi Daredevils’ fifth wicket against SRH but fell seven runs short of the 164-run chase.84* – The 84-run unbroken stand between Vijay and Dhoni is the highest for CSK in the IPL for the sixth wicket or lower.120.74 – Strike rate of the CSK’s top three batters in 180-plus chases since 2020. It is by far the lowest among all ten teams, with the next worst being 139.09 by SRH. CSK’s top order averages 17.86 in the 180-plus chases since 2020, also the lowest.20.23 – Percentage of Dhoni’s runs in CSK’s wins since the start of IPL 2023. In this period, Dhoni has batted 13 times in the wins and scored 69 runs at an average of 13.80, but in defeats, he has 272 runs in 14 innings, at an average of 90.66.

Once the wall and now the architect, Gautam Gambhir oversaw the team’s grittiest draw since 2009

Karthik Krishnaswamy29-Jul-20252:09

Manjrekar: ‘Warriors’ keep sprouting for India when needed

Within the span of eight months in 2009, Gautam Gambhir scored match-saving centuries in Napier and Ahmedabad, where India began the third innings facing deficits of 314 and 334 respectively.On Sunday, Gambhir was India’s head coach when they drew the Old Trafford Test after starting the third innings trailing by 311 runs.These three, incidentally, are the highest-ever first-innings deficits that India have defied to save Test matches while batting third. They batted out an astonishing 180 overs in Napier, 129 in Ahmedabad, and 143 in Manchester.For a generation that rarely witnesses the fighting draw, Old Trafford was a reminder of the spectacle it can be, of the technical skill and physical and mental endurance required to pull one off, and of the subplots that go into one’s making.Related

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Take the passage of play just before England took the second new ball, when Shubman Gill farmed the strike while facing Liam Dawson even though he had a recognised batter at the other end. It took millions of years of evolution, and the quirks of cricket’s geometry, for this moment to come about.Because humanity is predominantly right-handed, and because bowling happens at both ends but bowlers are allowed to choose the side of the wicket they operate from, the most scuffed-up areas on a Test-match pitch are invariably outside the left-hand batter’s off stump. Through the entirety of the 188-run partnership between the right-right pair of Gill and KL Rahul, Dawson had induced just seven false shots in 26 overs. When the left-handed Washington Sundar batted alongside Gill, Dawson, now able to make use of those scuffed-up patches, induced seven false shots in just five overs. Gill shielding Washington from the left-arm spinner was one of many smart moves India made as they battled their way to safety.Test cricket is vast enough to have space for such a passage of play even when a team is chasing a win; it’s just a lot likelier to happen during a struggle for survival, when runs are incidental.KL Rahul managed low bounce well at Old Trafford•Getty ImagesAnd when runs become incidental, viewers can immerse themselves in the mechanics and rhythms of skillful defensive batting. At times during his 90 in that third innings, Rahul seemed to be batting in a trancelike state that allowed him to watch the ball in slow motion – so inevitable did it look when he kept out the shin-high shooter that always seemed to be around the corner.It almost took until Rahul failed to keep one out, on 90, for the treachery of this low bounce to become clear. There had been something of Mark Waugh’s slip catching in Rahul’s defiance of Old Trafford’s uneven bounce, a way of making the extraordinary look effortless, bat coming down straight and unhurried, with none of the imprecise jabbing you might expect against balls behaving entirely contrary to muscle memory.For all that, this was an exceedingly flat pitch, its slowness taking away much of the sting of its occasional misbehaviour. Through the course of the third innings, India’s batters managed a control percentage of 87.8. In comparison, India had gone at 87.0 when they saved the 2009 Ahmedabad Test.The draw at Old Trafford was the fifth across 83 Tests in the last two years•Getty ImagesReturning to the aftermath of that match is an instructive exercise. dismissed most of the contest as “nothing short of a snooze-fest”. Harbhajan Singh, who bowled 48.4 overs before Sri Lanka declared at 760 for 7, suggested that pitches like Ahmedabad’s would “finish all the bowlers” and were “not fit for any kind of cricket”.If Old Trafford, a contest not dissimilar to that 2009 snoozefest, has left most of us with a warm and fuzzy feeling, it’s because of two things. There is, first of all, the tendency of the human brain to process events by turning them into stories. India lost the same number of wickets in both match-saving innings, but where they lost them after partnerships of 81, 88, 40 and 66 in Ahmedabad, they were 0 for 2 at Old Trafford and lost 2 for 34 after a 188-run third-wicket stand.Given the near-identical control percentages achieved over both innings, the vagaries of probability may have played a significant role in bringing about dissimilar fall-of-wicket patterns. There’s nothing better than an unpredictable twist, and nothing worse than a repetitive tale. And the story of Old Trafford also included the fact that the team that overcame adversity was a young visiting team striving to stay alive in the series, and the fact that one of their batters was nursing an injury that would have severely compromised his movements had he needed to bat.Ravindra Jadeja refused Ben Stokes’ offer for a draw after the 138th over•Ben Radford/AllSport UK LtdThe second thing Old Trafford had that Ahmedabad – and so many other “dull” draws that litter the history of Test cricket – lacked was rarity value. Ahmedabad was the 27th draw in 87 Tests over that two-year period. Old Trafford was only the fifth draw in 83 Tests in the last two years.Viewers, then, were perfectly placed to appreciate the best things about the draw, and downplay aspects of it that may have worried them at other times. The fact, for instance, that this was the fifth draw in as many first-class matches at Old Trafford this year. Or the idea that England’s bowlers may have looked as knackered as they did because they were playing their fourth Test of a series played on unforgivingly flat pitches – that both Headingley and Edgbaston produced decisive results may have been because they were played earlier in the series, by fresher players, with one team batting in a high-risk, high-reward way that shortened their innings. Or that India’s lacklustre display with the ball may have had something to do with selection that prioritised runs over wickets.All those things may have come into greater focus had Old Trafford been another draw in an era of drawn Tests. We aren’t in 2009, though, and we’re the better for it. The rarer draws are, the more captivating they become.But one thing hasn’t changed between 2009 and now, as ESPNcricinfo’s final-day report from Ahmedabad makes clear: “By the time the final session of the match arrived, the only question left unanswered was whether (Sachin) Tendulkar would get to his 88th international century. Kumar Sangakkara didn’t seem pleased with being kept on the field in the mandatory overs while Tendulkar moved towards the ton.”

It has been a series of ups and downs for Jaiswal, but with the bat, he managed to end on a high

Sidharth Monga02-Aug-20253:22

Bangar: ‘Jaiswal’s Sehwag-esque impact makes it easier for batters to follow’

A five-Test tour can feel like a lifetime within a life. It can be a selfish existence, even for those working on it on the outside, but more so for cricketers. There is no other responsibility or commitment other than to look after every aspect of your game. Everything else is taken care of for you, which is a privilege, but it takes a huge emotional toll to deal with this constant examination of your game, the variety of conditions and situations, and the vagaries of sport.For Yashasvi Jaiswal more than others, this tour of England has been a lifetime of ups and downs. He started with a dominating century at Headingley, but dropped catches and saw them play a huge role in losing the unloseable Test, was taken out of the cordon, has had the odd spray from the captain for not being on the field, and has also seen the team’s fortunes go up and down.Jaiswal might have got starts but a second big score eluded him till the end. He has tried to do all the right things, he has tried to keep his emotions on an even keel, but he is also an intense person, whose reaction to anything is to go into the nets and face more balls. He does that any break he gets: before the start of play, lunch, tea, between innings or whenever anyone is available to throw balls at him. It must have taken some effort to keep him away from training two days before this match. Or perhaps his family’s presence in London might have helped.Related

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What must have really freed up Jaiswal’s mind, though, was the nature of the pitch. This was not the kind of pitch where you can battle it out and hope for things to get easier. Ben Duckett and Zak Crawley enjoyed success by being attacking. When Jaiswal walked out for his final innings of the series, India were trailing by 23 – only 23, thanks to a big effort from just the three fast bowlers – and needed a big third innings to give themselves hopes of levelling the series in the tour finale.There was an hour and 40 minutes on the second day to go to stumps, so it wasn’t as if India needed to bat time. Jaiswal came out and cut the first ball hard. The sound echoed in the stadium although Duckett denied him any runs. This much was clear, though: Jaiswal was going to look to score off anything remotely loose. He was not going to let the three standing England bowlers settle into any rhythm.Opening in Test cricket is a lot about taking care of many things that can go wrong, and it isn’t always possible to cover them all. Here, Jaiswal was focussing more on what can go right. It was as though he told himself he had done what he could in preparation, and now just needed to trust the universe.Throughout the whole innings, Jaiswal showed an exaggerated return to what has worked for him in the past: both in attitude and with his rituals. His walks to square leg between balls became longer, sometimes ending up in hand-shaking distance of the square-leg umpire. Even at the non-striker’s end, he would walk almost to midwicket between balls, switching off into a world of his own. It was as though his emotions were bubbling up and he wanted to keep them in check. So was his attacking intent, but that he didn’t want to check.Yashasvi Jaiswal brought out his own version of Bazball•Getty ImagesJaiswal’s first six scoring shots were boundaries, the last of those hit so hard that the worst possible result would be a half chance, which burst through the hands of Harry Brook at second slip. The universe was now beginning to look after him. A hook shot later in the evening didn’t stick in Liam Dawson’s hands. If a series is a life, it was coming a full circle. He dropped four at Headingley, and was now the beneficiary of two in a crucial period before stumps on the second day.This innings was not about head position or stance or guard or being in control. This innings was more about trusting his game built on painstaking hard work, about trusting everything will fall in place if he let instinct take over. This was more about his emotions.This innings was also about squaring certain things off, about the circle of life, about collecting receipts. Like Faizal Khan in , Jaiswal was now saying he will avenge dropped catches, low-control innings, and even time-wasting, which he did almost comically by cramping up at the non-striker’s end in what proved to be the last over before lunch. Although it wasn’t necessarily gamesmanship; he has tended to struggle with cramps in a few of his long innings.Jaiswal’s emotions were on an all-time high when he was in his 90s, going off at non-striker Karun Nair for not alerting him to a change in the field and then not running a third that could have got him his hundred. The release of emotion upon reaching the hundred said a lot.Jaiswal has ended his series as he began: a belligerent century to end up with a tally of 411 and an average of 41.10. Top-six batters overall have averaged 48.77 in the series so far; Jaiswal is used to being head and shoulders above his peers in his young career so far. That is probably why he was edgy.A century in challenging conditions should be succour if Jaiswal had been hurting. It is said you don’t become a great cricketer without having at least one bad tour of England. Jaiswal, who clearly aims to end up as a great, hasn’t had a bad tour by any measure, but has had all the extremes in one tour. A whole lifetime’s worth of ups and downs.

England have been able to score a lot of runs there, but it isn’t necessarily because of bad balls

Sidharth Monga30-Jul-20251:31

What should India’s pace attack look like for The Oval?

Tempers are fraying, bodies are tiring (and falling apart in some cases), it is getting dark well before 10pm. It is still only the end of July, but we are already at The Oval with its end-of-series, end-of-summer vibes. It has been more than a month of attritional back and forth between two imperfect sides, who by now are hard to separate. India are averaging 45.55, England 42.52, a sign of a tough-to-call series.India have still dominated more sessions and days, but when they have messed up, they have done so spectacularly and before getting themselves into impregnable positions. Spinners have mostly cancelled each other out with 14 and 13 wickets. India’s spin wickets have come less dearly, but England have had Ben Stokes as the fourth fast bowler to counter that.Surrey are used to playing without a spinner at The Oval, which should suggest it is going to come down to one last push from the fast bowlers from both sides. India’s fast bowlers will feel they have bowled better overall, creating more chances and averaging slightly less, but they need to work out why they haven’t been decisively more effective than England, whose fast bowlers barring Stokes and Jofra Archer have largely looked innocuous.Related

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India have bowled better lengths for longer than England, who haven’t had that accuracy. They have swung the ball more and extracted as much seam movement as England, but still India’s fast bowlers have conceded 51% of their runs on the leg side as against England’s 47%, who have actually looked to bowl straighter on purpose with a leg slip in place. That is something the team has taken a note of as well.Again, it’s not as though India have necessarily bowled poorer lines. India have strayed down leg less often, and have been at the stumps or in the channel roughly as frequently. India have swung the ball into the right-hand batter twice as often as England but that is not at the expense of the outswinger. That is because India have bowled much fewer balls that haven’t swung. Against left-hand batters, India have swung the ball more often than England, and swung it back in less often.The difference perhaps is that the England batters have taken more risks and turned the ball to leg more often. It is borne out slightly by the control numbers: England right-hand batters are in control of 85.6% of their shots into the leg side, India 90.61%. The numbers are similar for left-hand batters. It tells you India are working only bad balls into the leg side, but England are more enterprising. It helps that the pitches have been so flat that the batters have not been punished enough for their errors.2:08

How do India’s five regulars cope with the quick turnaround?

As the series has progressed, India have taken a more pragmatic approach to batting, which is to grind the bowling down, which shows in their dropping scoring rates. It has worked for them: Josh Tongue, Brydon Carse and Archer have failed to take a single wicket in overs 30 to 80. It might not be wise to ask their batters to become more enterprising.It remains to be seen if India look to address the leg-side runs at all. It was a source of frustration at Old Trafford, where the bowling coach Morne Morkel even said he had rarely seen a wagon wheel with equal runs on the off side and the leg side. There are two ways to exert better control: either move a little wider outside off or move straighter with an extra fielder on the leg side.However, if The Oval pitch is spicier as the teams seem to expect it to be, they will need to keep repeating good lengths and looking for top of off. It is only if England get into a partnership that India need ways to slow them down. Be it the chase at Headingley, the partnership between Jamie Smith and Harry Brook at Edgbaston, or the whole innings at Old Trafford, it is when things are not happening for them that India are looking for control.When England bat well, India just want to avoid being batted out of the game. They will hope they don’t encounter such a situation at The Oval, but perhaps they need to remember that it is more a combination of selection (one strike bowler too few every time plus rushing an undercooked Anshul Kamboj), pitches, and England batters’ enterprise than what the bowlers have actually bowled.