Stats highlights from a dominant day of Australian batting on the third day against England at the WACA

Gaurav Sundararaman16-Dec-2017Double-centurion SmithSteven Smith continued his rich vein of form by passing his previous highest Test score of 215 to reach the close on 229 not out. He became the fifth Australia captain to score an Ashes double-hundred, joining Don Bradman, Allan Border, Bob Simpson and Billy Murdoch. Smith also became the fourth batsman to score more than one double-hundred in Ashes cricket, matching Simpson’s tally of two, with Wally Hammond (4) and Bradman (8) still ahead of him. This was also the first double-hundred in a home Ashes Test for Australia since Justin Langer made 250 in 2002-03 at Melbourne. Smith now has 416 runs from four innings in this series so far. David Malan is the next highest scorer with 248 runs.ESPNcricinfo Ltd The Smith and Marsh showMitchell Marsh and Steven Smith added an unbeaten 301 runs for the fifth wicket – the first 300-plus partnership for Australia in Ashes cricket since Michael Hussey and Brad Haddin added 307 at Brisbane in 2010-11. This was also Australia’s sixth fifth-wicket partnership of over 300 in Tests. Incidentally it was only the third instance in Test history in which both teams have had a double-century stand for the fifth wicket. The previous two instances were between Sri Lanka and Bangladesh at Galle in 2013 and West Indies and England in 2009. The aggregate runs added for the fifth wicket in the first two innings is also the highest ever in Tests. Australia lost just one wicket in the whole day’s play – the last time they achieved that feat was against England at Lord’s in 2015. Smith made a double century in that game as well. Centurion Marsh Mitchell Marsh made his first century in his 22nd Test. He remained unbeaten at the close on 181, which is his second-highest score in first-class cricket, behind his 211 against India A in 2014. The last Australian batsmen to make a Test hundred at No.6 at the WACA were Doug Walters and Ricky Ponting, and the previous batsman from Australia to get their maiden Test hundred in a WACA Ashes Test was Greg Chappell. Before today, the highest score Marsh had made was 87 against Pakistan at Abu Dhabi.Quickest to 22 hundreds Smith scored his second century of the series and his 22nd of his career. In getting there in 108 innings, Smith became the third quickest to this feat behind Bradman (58) and Sunil Gavaskar (101). Smith has scored five centuries in 2017 – the joint-most alongside Dean Elgar and Virat Kohli. Smith now has scored a minimum of four centuries in each of the last four calendar years. Since January 2014, only Kohli has more scores in excess of 150 than Smith. Joe Root and Kane Williamson have made five each. Smith also ended up scoring the highest score in an Ashes Test at the WACA.

Batsmen Country InningsDon Bradman Aus 58Sunil Gavaskar Ind 101Steven Smith Aus 108Sachin Tendulkar Ind 114Mohammad Yousuf Pak 121

A community club hosted a community sport, as Ireland rose above the emotion of their overdue arrival at cricket’s highest level

Jarrod Kimber at Malahide15-May-20182:52

From Joyce to Jedward

“I used to play cricket, you know, when I was a boy, we’d go out, and we’d put the pegs down, then lay on the whatsitcalled on top, we’d get a tennis ball, or some kinda rubber one, and we’d go whack, ball’d go for miles, you know. I never understood cricket, I have tried, it’s very complicated, you know.” Joe, Malahide resident. “This is big for us, you think you know, but you can’t know, you can only know if you are one of us, because this for us, we did this on our own, we never thought this would happen, and now, you know, those are my friends out there, right, I never thought… you know, how could you.” Unknown Malahide Cricket Club drinker. “My heart was beating a little bit faster than what it normally does when I was taking guard.” Will Porterfield, Ireland Test captain. ***Ed Joyce walks like a man trying to get somewhere; there’s no strut, not an extravagant stride, he’s on his way to a clear destination, a hurried pragmatic gait. This time it is off the ground, having just tried to steal a run after hitting the ball towards the right hand of midwicket. In the first innings, after a lifetime of cricket, he got to the middle and received a questionable lbw. That’s cricket, that’s Test cricket when you don’t have DRS.Now he’s walking while the decision is still being made, because he is a realist, and he thinks he’s out, so he doesn’t want to waste his time. It is only within the last few steps of the rope that he stops, wondering why he’s not yet been given. He asks the fourth umpire and Andrew Balbirnie, both on the other wide of the rope, what is going on. The delay keeps going. Mostly he just stands there, waiting.If any man knows how to wait, it’s an Irish cricketer.Outside the ground there are flashing traffic signs that say, “IRL V PAK TEST MATCH, 11-15 MAY, EXPECT DELAYS”. Joyce receives the bad news; he leaves the ground. For most of his life Joyce has been waiting, Irish cricket has been waiting even longer. Joyce himself may be out, but the wait is over.***A scoreline of 159 for 6. It’s not definitive, but it’s something. And it’s led by Stuart Thompson. There were raised eyebrows when Thompson was picked – even he was surprised at his selection. He hasn’t played for Ireland for a long time. And had there not been grey skies forecast, Andy McBrine – the offspinner – might have played instead.Recently Thompson made a big hundred in the inter-provincial championship, and he made another for his club side Eglinton last week. But he’s been picked in this side to bat at No.8 so his main job is bowling. There’s no speedo at this ground, but he’s solidly medium-pace, often coming on second change for his team North West Warriors. In his first game for Ireland, he didn’t bowl in the first innings, and came on fifth change in the second. In 12 first-class games he had taken 19 wickets at 39.Kevin O’Brien and Stuart Thompson built a big stand for the seventh wicket•Sportsfile/Getty ImagesThompson runs in like a club bowler, the player you see play and think, ‘maybe I could face that’. The wicketkeeper is not that far back; he wobbles the ball around in the way you can when you don’t have a lot of pace. One of his balls nipped, and Babar Azam played a weak shot, and he was out. And a little while later there was another similar edge from another ball with sideways movement, and captain Sarfraz Ahmed was out. 159 for 6.In a nation’s first Test, there is a time when you believe in miracles. That somehow this sport will allow the plucky upstart a special day, despite knowing full well that countries such as South Africa and New Zealand took decades to master the game. The non-believers will always claim you should only play Tests once you have mastered them.And that’s before you factor in the economy, kids’ attention spans, the ever-increasing demands of modern life, plus – in Ireland’s case – the fact that large parts of the country (or countries) just don’t care about cricket at all.As an Irish government official once told Cricket Ireland: “Why would we help you when the governing body of your sport doesn’t even seem to want you?”This was Ireland’s chance to prove that they belonged, that the ICC’s pathetic ten-team World Cup was a joke, that they deserved everything that was due to them.But after getting on top, Ireland lost their edge. What had worked for them early in the match let them down when Pakistan played more sensibly. The Pakistan lower-order took away Ireland’s opportunity, and by the time Ireland batted, all hope had gone. Their only chance at some redemption was to avoid losing by an innings. From 159 to 6 to nothing.***“Are you going to the cricket tomorrow. No. I’m going Friday because it starts that day.””What time. 11am.””7am?””You, you deaf idiot, 11.””Have you been to the dentist?””No, that’s next week.”Two patrons of Gibney’s Pub. ***Mohammad Amir sent Niall O’Brien’s stumps flying•Sportsfile/Getty Images”They’ve got that quick fella no, the one that got in trouble, he’s back, no, he’ll give our boys some trouble, no?”Malahide is not a hotbed of cricket fans, most know little to nothing of the Pakistan players. The only player they mentioned at all was Mohammad Amir, if not always by name, then by reputation.Within Irish cricket, people knew Amir’s name, they knew his reputation, and it was him that they feared. Not that they thought the other bowlers were mediocre, it’s just that Amir was the one who featured in their nightmares, running through their team.Amir never quite did that, mostly because he’s been too good for the Irish team. According to CricViz, 14% of his first spell beat the bat. He went for less than a run an over in the first innings, and his spell on the morning of day four was breath-taking, and all done with a limp.It was his spell against Porterfield that revealed the main difference between the teams. Porterfield is a decent white-ball player, but he has a first-class average of 30, and he was trying to dig in for a big knock.Other than Joyce, no player was more likely to stay around for as long. But not against Amir. In the first innings, Porterfield was just trying to hang on to lunch. Amir went wide of the crease, straightened the ball, uprooted his stump. In the second innings, Amir started by moving the ball away, and Porterfield struggled to lay bat on it. Amir then moved the ball in, which resulted in a few lbw shouts. And then – after a brief delay when Niall O’Brien lost two of his stumps – Amir nipped the ball away from Porterfield and found his edge. It was never a case of if, just when, and how.And perhaps the most significant difference between the two teams wasn’t even Amir, nor even Mohammad Abbas who took nine wickets, or the constant threat of Shadab Khan. It was that Hasan Ali wasn’t even playing, and had he been allowed to play as a ringer for the opposition, he would have been Ireland’s best bowler by a distance. This Pakistan team might not be the No.1 side of a few years ago, but they have real quality. And Ireland are still relying on their ageing skipper and his average of 30.***Two men, foreigners, stood on the outfield watching Ireland train on the Tuesday before the match. Trent Johnston, the former captain of Ireland, and Warren Deutrom, the current CEO. An Australian and an Englishman had been so crucial in delivering the country to their first Test.In the innings break of their seminal World Cup win over Pakistan in 2007, Johnston had screamed at the Irish players about how they could play out of their skins in pursuit of 133, or just go back to their day jobs. He himself then hit the winning six to cap one of cricket’s greatest displays of captaincy. This grumpy – his words – Aussie simply dragged Ireland through thick and thin, until there was almost nothing left in his legs.When Deutrom took over the job as CEO of Cricket Ireland, there were only two other employees: coach Adrian Birrell (a South African whose role was transformative) and Marie, a part-time office administrator. That was eleven years ago, and look at what he created. He took the passion of the Irish for cricket, and he made an amateur team into a Test team in the space of 11 years.Mick Jagger enjoys the Test at Malahide•Sportsfile/Getty ImagesBut if you give these imports credit, what of Irish cricket itself? What an incredible thing it is – a family, literally. When past players look out on the current teams, they see their sons and daughters, or those of their team-mates. It is that family, from the weather-beaten villages of the North West, to the posh hearts of Dublin and Belfast, who have kept this game going. And that wasn’t easy. Nationalism, the lack of any real administration, and the GAA have all done their best to end cricket in Ireland. But those who loved it kept it going. Even in the lean years between 1969 and 2007, cricket never tired.Last week there was a story in The Sunday Times by former Irish player Peter O’Reilly, recalling the last days of fellow player Robin Waters. At one point Waters turned to O’Reilly and said: “We’re all Test cricketers now”.But it’s not just about the players. Every time you talk to a player from Ireland they mention the thousands of scorers, officials, coaches and volunteers who kept Irish cricket going. This is a family – some adopted, most local. From the under-13 scorers to the great Alec O’Riordan, they kept cricket alive against all the odds. It’s because of everyone in Irish cricket that they are now a Test nation. In some ways, all the family are Test cricketers now.***There are two grounds at Malahide, the main ground, and an oval out the back with a synthetic pitch for the thirds and fourths to play on. On that ground, on Saturday and Sunday, there were kids playing their own games. And inside the ground, at the back of the Malahide stands, there were just as many kids playing. As Porterfield said, “there’s going to be hundreds of little kids aspiring to be Kevin O’Brien in backstreet cricket”.If you lined up the entire Irish team in full kit, and then stood Kevin O’Brien beside them in jeans and a Bob Marley T-shirt, he’d still look more Irish than the rest of them combined.No one gets more out of himself for Ireland; he’s Captain Ireland, the superhero of all their biggest days. A player of talent, but not immense talents, it’s his performances that are immense. Because of when they come, and how they come. When Ireland needed one player to stand up, they had arguably six better batsmen to do it, but of course it was O’Brien who did so. Some of those kids playing in and around the ground were doing so because of 2007, some because of 2011, and the next crop will be because of this Test. Kevin O’Brien was instrumental to them all. He puts Irish cricket on his back, and because of that, they’re on the map.And what he has done is important, because while cricket in Ireland was always improving, large parts of Ireland don’t care about cricket at all. O’Brien grabs attention with his shot and his shock of hair. By day five, Ireland’s newspapers had him on the back page; on day one, some hadn’t even mentioned the cricket there at all.O’Brien also matters to the small parts of Ireland that care. They know they’ve had talent before, they’ve seen Dekker Curry hit a six off the first ball; they’ve heard the stories about Jimmy Boucher and know Dermott Monteith averaged 25 for Middlesex with the ball. Their passion is incredible. They care like any hardcore fan from anywhere in the world does; they are immersed in it. For them, this isn’t just a game; it’s their family. It’s their everything. Every ICC decision that causes most cricket fans to sigh, or simply ignore, is deeply personal to them; they love cricket, they play it with all their hearts, they are better than their abilities suggest. They want a shot.Irish cricket fights because Irish cricket has to fight. On day four, that is what O’Brien does, because that is what Irish cricket does.***Ireland line up for their anthem•Sportsfile/Getty Images”Malahide Cricket Club, founded 1861,” the sign says.From the outside the clubrooms look uninspiring: tacky rendered walls, uninspiring late 20th-century architecture. But once you’re in there, you realise how strong cricket is in Ireland. This is a cricket club. If you’ve ever walked into one, you’ve walked into this one. It feels like home to a cricketer, and if the surroundings themselves don’t do the trick, then the people certainly do.On day one, in the Malahide Cricket Club, a guy plays a guitar set. A local leans over to me and says: “That’s Eoin Morgan’s best man, least I think it is, I think, maybe, I don’t know for sure”, he leaves to go check.Doug Goodwin stops by to talk about his bowling at Sion Mills, and reaffirm his belief that Alec O’Riordan didn’t swing it as much as him. Graham Ford’s son, who has made back-to-back hundreds for Malahide, is greeted by teammates.You meet a new person, and they tell you how they played age-group cricket for Ireland, or their brother did, or their sister, their father too. They all know each other, stories are exaggerated, tales are told, jokes are made about shots played in front of a handful of fans.In the big countries, we often ignore the clubs. Cricket is about Tests and some first-class. In Ireland you can’t ignore it, this is their first men’s Test, and it’s in a club ground. Malahide aren’t even in the first division of the Leinster League; they’re a division two team.The thing is, other than Malahide Cricket Club itself, there is no permanent structure at the ground. Everything else here has been erected for the occasion, at the cost of roughly Euro 1 million. There is nothing else here, just love for cricket, and a community who live for the game.Right now Cricket Ireland is making a new facility, in Abbotstown. On the site of the National Sports Campus which, according to their website, “is providing state-of-the-art sports facilities to elite athletes in Ireland while offering valuable amenities and sport programmes to all of the community”. This is what Irish cricket needs, a stadium they need not erect each time a big opponent pops over to visit. A professional sports structure and a home.But Abbotstown – which is near to the historic Phoenix Park where cricket has been played since 1731 – is not like Malahide. It’s not a beautiful little village with a cricket club and Gibney’s pub down the road. Abbotstown is a purpose-built sporting complex for Irish sport, paid for by the government. Removed from club cricket, and villages, like a shopping centre erected on an empty lot in the part of town where no one used to go.Ireland cricket desperately needs a proper home, but when they get to Abbotstown, maybe they could put up a club bar, with photos of local legends, with a broken bat that won a third XI game, and on Wednesday and Thursday nights, bring old timers together to complain about the overseas pro. Because that is Irish cricket; they are the club team that takes on the world.It will be Abbotstown that turns Irish cricket from club to pro.***After yeas of hard work, Test cricket comes to Ireland•PA PhotosThe train from Belfast hasn’t stopped at Malahide for years. Twenty years, some locals say, 10 say others. It goes through Malahide station, but there has been no reason for it to stop. This week it did. For Ireland’s maiden Test match.Ireland lost, which is what everyone expected, but they did it in a manner that proved that they belong. When Ireland play, they play for their families, their community, their team, their friends, and for the other associates. They play so the train stops in Malahide.Around him, there are producers, officials, and the various people needed to put on an end-of-play interview. Many lanyards and headsets, cameras of all kinds. But William Porterfield stares blankly, looking at no one, not moving at all. There are probably 50 people around him, not one goes up to him, no one says anything. Then he reaches his hand up to his eye, he rubs at it, he rubs it for a while, and he looks away from all the producers. Maybe something flew into his eye. It’s possible, but it looked like something moved him.Sri Lanka’s first Test was talked about as if an excitable newborn baby had been delivered. Bangladesh’s first Test was acclaimed as the second coming of their nation. Ireland’s is so different; it’s more like two old best friends catching up after years, seeing something they’ve wanted to witness their whole life, and quietly having a moment across a crowded room. It’s not as dramatic, but every bit as touching.This week at Malahide, a lot of people seemed to have something in their eyes.

The allrounder hopes to build on the confidence he derived from the IPL and the experience he gained by interacting with international players

Shashank Kishore in Vijayawada18-Aug-2018On April 1 this year, the first day of Rajasthan Royals’ pre-IPL camp, K Gowtham was tingling with nervous excitement. The prospect of meeting Shane Warne for the first time had him imagine many times how the first conversation would go. When Warne eventually arrived, Gowtham expected nothing more than a few pleasantries. Instead, he was welcomed with “KG, you’re my project for IPL 2018.” This was no April fool’s joke.”Can you imagine, a legend who has 1000 international wickets coming to me and saying that?” Gowtham asks, as he jogs back to the day. “I was glad he had seen what I’d done previously. Initially, I was like ‘okay, what does he expect from me?’ But I realised how easy it was to connect with him at a human level. It was just like two individuals having an easy-going discussion where there is communication from both sides. There couldn’t have been a better welcome than that.”It’s easy to get swayed by his bare IPL 2018 numbers – 126 runs and 11 wickets at an economy rate of 7.80 – and term Warne’s project as unsuccessful. However, Gowtham’s was clearly a case of numbers not revealing the full story. His unravelling of Jasprit Bumah in just his fifth IPL innings with the side needing 43 off 17, was among his highlights. Gowtham took him for 18 and finished with an 11-ball 33 to help the side pull off a heist. With the new ball he was the skiddy, wicket-to-wicket bowler whose role was to restrict runs.The change in role with the bat, however, was a deviation from the one he performs in Karnataka’s limited-overs set-up, where he is an accumulator of runs, but it was one he embraced. “Shane didn’t tell me to change anything with my batting or bowling,” Gowtham explains. “It was more on mental strength and how you come back from tough situations. How your mindset has to always remain as if nothing is wrong – whether you take 4 for 20 or 0 for 48.”He kept saying ‘pause, think over, what best can be done.’ Things like how you observe subtly a batsman’s feet movements to see what he’s trying to do next, and what you can do to ensure he doesn’t do that, either through your variations or by changing the field. How you can enjoy the game on the field, how intensity matters the most, these are things which gives you a lot of confidence to get into the game. Basically he’s a big influencer who carries a lot of positive energy.”ESPNcricinfo LtdIt’s this stint and the learning that he has derived from the IPL stint that he hopes to carry forward, now in the Quadrangular series, where he’s part of 30 fringe players who will feature for two India sides along with the A teams of Australia and South Africa. In the ‘A’ tri-series in England this summer, Gowtham’s numbers were unimpressive: two wickets and four runs in three matches. But that minor blip isn’t something that he’s worried about.”Royals gave me the freedom to be myself, express myself. That has helped,” he says. “As a franchise, they backed each and every player to come good in their role. I wouldn’t say just in batting, bowling or fielding. As a professional, you are anyway supposed to do all these things, but when you get the liberty and when you get the chance to explore facets of your game on your own, it makes a huge difference.”That he isn’t an introvert helped him form bonds with his team-mates, which he says helped massively. “I interacted a lot with Ish Sodhi, who had a lot of ideas. He hasn’t played much here, so he used to ask me about varying pace, getting the best out of these surfaces. With Ben Stokes and Jos Buttler, it was about preparation and match awareness.”Bowling, I always used to trust Jos, because he used to give me inputs. In fact you can see in a couple of videos where he stops me and then comes up and gives suggestion about fields, and how to bowl. All these things are just the cricketing side of it. For me, it’s the human side of them that I enjoyed the most. How simple they are as people and how they’re receptive to your thoughts.”Their work ethic, understanding their culture, their values – these are things I try and derive. Yes, cricket is important but these are also things I try and pick up. The ethics what an international cricketer carries, I wanted to get into their mindset. I’m a spinner, Jofra Archer is a fast bowler, so skillsets are different, but mindset can remain the same. Mental strengths, how do they think about the game, those things I envy and helped me to up my game.”BCCIIn this transformation period, he has also benefited from the expertise of Rahul Dravid, the India A coach. “The best thing about him is, he won’t unnecessarily say things. He says something only when it is necessary, but he used to challenge you,” Gowtham says. “One day he came into the nets and said try and get me out, I was like ‘okay’. It was an optional training. I said I’ll bowl you six balls and get you out, and I did. That was fun.”With the anecdote out of the way, Gowtham comes back to his serious self. “You can’t call him a coach-coach kind of person, he’s someone who can talk to you about any situation on the field; he’s faced so many. It may be nets, but getting ‘The Wall’ out gave me a lot of satisfaction.”Unlike many of his peers, Gowtham isn’t a cricket nerd. But he isn’t the one to miss out on picking up quirks if he sees them, like R Ashwin’s away-drifters and swingers for example. “I don’t watch much of cricket, I love playing,” he says. “Everyone has their own way. Watching, I would do only when I would do when there’s something like the Eden Test (2001), or important games. These kinds of games, I watch.”When the Edgbaston Test was happening, I had to balance out training, practice, so you don’t get opportunities to watch. I keep track though. On those surfaces, the Duke always does a bit more than a Kookaburra. He [Ashwin] was using seam, shine to aid him, these are the things red-ball cricket allows you.”These are skills, you can pick up watching videos, but you have to work on your confidence. It needs years of practice, you cannot completely copy it, but I try and execute it. In a Deodhar Trophy [match] six months back, in Himachal, I did try out something in the nets and then replicated it in a match, in the last over. It’s not about muscle memory, but about your confidence levels. At the end of the day, cricket is a confidence game.”The confidence, as he talks, defies the image of a man who was at the crossroads four years ago, not knowing if professional cricket would give him another chance. Four years in the wilderness taught him “life lessons” he’s glad for as he looks to make his late bloom count. Like many, the upcoming season could chart his course.

India’s squad for their T20 series in England and Ireland in June-July has been announced, but which of these IPL stars do you think was unlucky to miss out?

ESPNcricinfo staff11-May-2018

It has been a frustrating season for Chris Woakes and the day before this Test he wasn’t certain of his place. He has now joined an exclusive club

Melinda Farrell at Lord's11-Aug-2018There was a standing joke in the press box during England’s one-day series against Australia in January. Any time Chris Woakes took a wicket, stroked a cover drive, saved a boundary or – eventually – pretty much just walked out onto the field or scratched his nose, the cry would go up: “And THAT’S why they call him ‘The Wizard!'”On the third afternoon at Lord’s, with Woakes on 55 and in the middle of rescuing a shaky England with Jonny Bairstow, two of the journalists from that tour met in the tea room. The phrase didn’t even need uttering: an exchange of knowing smiles could suffice.The nickname may have been bestowed during a darts competition on an Under-19s tour but it is better appreciated on a cricket field. And if Woakes is a wizard then Lord’s is most certainly his Hogwarts. He has only played three Tests at the ground but his record already is simply astonishing: he is the only player with more than ten wickets to his name to average more than 100 with the bat and less than 10 with the ball at a Test venue. Ever. Anywhere. And he now has his name on all three honours boards: five-wickets in an innings, ten in a match and a century.Amazingly, Woakes’ name wasn’t even inked onto the team sheet less than 24 hours before the start of this match, Joe Root deferring the choice between the seaming allrounder and Moeen Ali until the morning of the match, the delayed start and damp conditions eventually working in Woakes’ favour. If Ben Stokes had been available he would likely have been further back in the queue.This follows a challenging period for Woakes, a combination of a side strain and a chronic knee problem keeping him out of contention since the second Test against Pakistan and denying him the opportunity to push for selection in his home Test at Edgbaston.”It has been a frustrating summer so far, missing quite a bit of cricket,” said Woakes. “I was over the moon to get the call to be back in the squad. I could never really have dreamt of scoring a hundred in my comeback Test. With five or six weeks out injured, you’re watching the boys all summer and you want to be out there.”They may play similar roles, their names may rhyme, but their mode of impacting a game are poles apart. While an inked-up muscular Stokes can grab hold of a Test and rip it open with moments of sheer ferocity, a clean-cut mild-mannered Woakes can scythe his way through the opposition with technical precision and classical grace. Both can be beautiful, in their own way, but one tends to make a bigger splash, the highlights reel, the most dramatic still pictures on the back pages.Similarly, James Anderson claimed the most wickets and the headlines in the first innings but Woakes’ display of swing and seam was also masterful. Incredibly his two wickets were preceded by two drops: Jos Buttler put down both Virat Kohli and Hardik Pandya before redeeming himself with the next deliveries. Being made to work twice as hard for every wicket might send many fast bowlers into a paroxysm of fury expressed through death stares at the guilty slips fielder. Woakes blew air through his lips and went back to his mark, although the second time appeared to say something that may or may not rhyme with, ‘get in the sucking nits’. He probably washed his mouth out and made a donation to charity when he got back to the dressing room.Chris Woakes plays a cut•Getty ImagesAs England were stuttering in their attempt to pass India’s modest tally, Woakes stiffened the defence with Bairstow and ultimately outpaced and outlasted one of England’s most in-form batsmen. He did so with impressive discipline. According to Cricviz, of all the batsmen in this series so far he has played and missed the least in testing conditions – just 3.7 percent – and he has been in control of 86 percent of his shots.He defended stoutly and played with soft hands when the ball was swinging. As it became older and softer he increased his attack and possibly his wildest stroke was the one that brought up his hundred, launching Pandya towards the midwicket boundary, a stone’s throw from where his name will be etched on the honours board for a third time.”It’s still a bit of a blur,” said Woakes. “It seems to go so fast – 30 seconds of raising your bat feels literally like a blink of the eye. But it’s an incredible feeling. I was probably getting a little bit nervous in the 90s… all of a sudden you start thinking of three-figures, start wafting at things outside off-stump – which I hadn’t been doing.”Jonny came down and had a word, which settled me. That feeling of raising your bat to a standing ovation at Lord’s is a bit of a boyhood dream.And Woakes has done all this in the sleep-deprived fog of new parenthood. His wife, Amie, and their five-week-old daughter, Laila, are staying with him this week.”Yes, it has been a little bit different – a little bit of a shock to the system, but obviously fantastic as well. It certainly puts things in perspective, when you have a bad day at the cricket and go home.”The lads did ask me actually where was the baby celebration – but for some reason, that wasn’t really on my mind. I didn’t really have any ideas of how I was going to celebrate, and didn’t really know how to – but I’m obviously just delighted.”If being so overwhelmed with joy that he didn’t know how to celebrate is the only mark against Woakes it’s so faint it can be overlooked.Not so faint will be his name, etched in black, on a third honours board at Lord’s, a feat only five players have achieved. He was already on the lists for bowlers who have taken five wickets in an innings and ten wickets in a match here. Now he joins the roll-call of batsmen who have scored a century on a ground where he currently averages 122.All while being so, well, nice.And maybe THAT’S why they call him…Oh go on. You know the rest.

Much like his famous uncle, the 33-year-old Irfan Afridi bowls legspin and gives the ball a mighty whack

Peter Della Penna08-Nov-2018At the top of his mark stands a man called Afridi. The wily legspinner struts in, whirls through his action, left arm swinging through first and ending fully extended to create a beautiful straight line in sync with his left leg, pirouetting à la Mikhail Baryshnakov on the crease. The right hand with his rubbery wrist gives the ball its snappy revolutions out of the hand, with an extra bit of action imparted with a flick of the fingers.Seeing how his team-mates have failed to keep Afridi from knocking back the stumps while trying to defend him on the front foot and the back foot, the batsman tries to attack with a sweep, but the skiddy pace is too quick for the shot and the ball hits the pad. A deep-throated “Howzat!” is roared. The umpire’s finger goes up, and Afridi strikes an unmistakable starfish pose, both arms hoisted up and out at a 60-degree angle, index fingers pointed to the sky in triumph.Everything looks so familiar… except the receding hairline, and the yellow jersey. This isn’t the elder statesman with a full, Grecian-formula black mane, wearing green with the gold star over the heart for Pakistan. It’s a slightly younger – albeit balding – man dressed in bright yellow with black-and-red trim, and a crane stamped over his heart for Uganda. This Afridi is the 33-year-old Irfan, bowling his adopted homeland into a promotion slot to climb up the World Cricket League ladder so that one day he might be able to play in a World Cup just like his more heralded uncle Shahid.Since making his international debut against Qatar at Nairobi in September 2016, Afridi has quickly emerged as a devastating match-winner. Perhaps not since Kenneth Kamyuka, the star medium-pace allrounder of the 2000s, has Uganda possessed a talent that can pose a threat to higher-ranked Associate opposition. Which makes it all the more remarkable that Afridi says he never played a game of hard-ball cricket in his life until moving to Uganda in early 2013, at the age of 28.”The whole time in Karachi, I didn’t play hard ball. Just tape ball, tennis ball,” Afridi tells ESPNcricinfo. If that’s not enough of an obstacle to making an international debut, consider that Afridi barely played any cricket of any kind during his prime years of 24 to 28 because he was doing electrical wiring for a business in Seoul, South Korea. He might still be there today if his uncle Mushtaq, Shahid’s younger brother, didn’t have plans for a new venture in Kampala.”My uncle wanted to start a business in Uganda so that’s why he told me to go to Uganda,” Afridi says. “My uncle sent me here for business. We started a business for import and exporting cars. So from there I started my cricket. I never played hard ball in my life before. I started in Uganda.”Irfan Afridi does the starfish in homage to his uncle after taking a wicket•Peter Della PennaUganda’s East African neighbor Kenya may be considered by most to have a much richer cricket history, thanks to five straight World Cup appearances beginning in 1996 including a trip to the semi-finals in 2003, but Uganda has its share of achievements as well. A little-known fact is that a pair of Ugandans debuted in the World Cup long before anyone from Ireland or Afghanistan. John Nagenda and Sam Walusimbi opened the bowling and batting respectively for East Africa – a squad comprising players from Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania and Zambia – against New Zealand on the first day of the inaugural tournament at Edgbaston in 1975.Afridi knew nothing of this, let alone much else to do with Ugandan cricket culture, before arriving to work on behalf of his uncle Mushtaq, but before long he saw that cricket was plentiful in a healthy club scene. Former Ugandan pace bowler Asadu Seiga was friendly with Afridi, and invited him to come play a leather-ball match for the first time for Seiga’s club Tornado CC.”I played one game for his club. From there I started my career,” Afridi says. “When I played the first game, from there they saw me. My friend Asadu told me, ‘You can play hard ball. So why are you not trying?’ So from there I started to play. Then I tried to come into the national team.”He was the one who brought me in. Every time he was telling me, ‘Afridi do that. Push yourself, work hard. You will get a chance. I want to see you in a yellow national-team jersey for Uganda.’ So he helped me a lot.”Seiga may have helped Afridi get exposure locally, but Afridi has helped Uganda in a big way at recent tournaments. At WCL Division Four in Malaysia this past May, his mystery spin – “80% legspin, 10% offspin and 10% carom balls”, as he puts it – produced a tournament-best 15 wickets to propel Uganda to the tournament title. He followed that up at the ICC World T20 Africa T20 Region B Qualifier with another tournament-best haul of 13 wickets to help Uganda progress to the next phase of qualifying.”He’s been bowling well, and has the ball he pushes with his finger and it’s not easy to play it,” Uganda captain Roger Mukasa says about Afridi’s variations. “People have been struggling with it a lot. His performance is so big for the team and he works hard. He’s played a big role in the team especially in bowling. He’s the guy who gets wickets for us and batting, he can hit the ball far.”Though bowling is his main weapon, Afridi is also capable of producing blistering batting cameos in the middle order just like his uncle. At 2017 WCL Division Three in Uganda, he clobbered an unbeaten 108 off 71 balls featuring 10 sixes in a win over Malaysia while his 51 off 17 balls against Vanuatu at Division Four got Uganda out of a sticky situation to lift them to another win.Afridi’s success is also significant due to the turbulent history of the Asian population in Uganda, who were mostly driven out by Idi Amin in 1972, early in the dictator’s reign. Only in recent years have Asian cricketers been accepted into the national team, and Afridi says he owes a huge debt of gratitude to the support shown to him by captain Mukasa, vice-captain Brian Masaba, and senior spinner Frank Nsubuga.”Every time they push me and they help me, just saying, ‘We are with you, we are with you. Push yourself, work hard.’ Everyone in the team is with me and they help me a lot,” Afridi says.”They’re saying I’m a good bowler and I’m playing for Uganda. I’m in the national team so from there they try to push me more. They help me and push me so that the more that I can do more for my country, for Uganda, I do more. So they help me a lot.”Aside from Seiga, Mukasa, Masaba and Nsubuga, Afridi has also been motivated in a peculiar way by uncle Shahid. The Pakistan international Shahid’s career took off after a century in his first ODI innings against Sri Lanka as a 16-year-old in 1996, meaning he was hardly around while Irfan was growing up. Instead of getting hands-on tips, Irfan has taken to studying as much of his uncle’s video footage as he can in order to improve his own game.”I just watch him on TV,” Afridi says. “The way he’s bowling, the way he runs up, the batting style, just I’m following from the TV. Mostly I’m watching his videos on YouTube, so I’m picking from there.”Now he knows I’m playing for Uganda. After the 17-ball 51 runs, he heard the news so I got a text message from him saying, ‘Very well played.’ I’m feeling very happy and appreciate it from my uncle.”As the start of WCL Division Three approaches in Oman, the starfish celebration may be ready to break out once again for Uganda. The jersey color might be a striking yellow instead of green and the hair a bit thinner on top, but there’s little doubt about the match-winning impact of another Afridi in international cricket.

The World Cup holders will look to roll out their reinvigorated game in T20, but could be weakened by a couple of key absences

Ankur Dhawan09-Nov-2018 Squad list
Heather Knight (capt), Tammy Beaumont, Sophia Dunkley, Sophie Ecclestone, Tash Farrant, Kirstie Gordon, Jenny Gunn, Danielle Hazell, Amy Jones (wk), Nat Sciver, Anya Shrubsole, Linsey Smith, Fran Wilson, Lauren Winfield, Danielle Wyatt World T20 pedigree
Despite winning the inaugural WWT20, England have flirted with the dreaded c-word by consistently stumbling at the finish line in subsequent tournaments. Australia proved to be their tormentor on three occasions, as they lost two finals – by four runs and six wickets – and then the semi-final of the 2016 edition by five runs. That last defeat in the Delhi heat hurt, largely because they weren’t outplayed but were let down by their own fitness levels, in what should have been a comfortable run chase. But it presented England a mirror and they did not shy away from it.In addition to fitness, winning crunch moments had been a nagging issue, and a tangible manifestation of their improvement in that regard was the two-wicket win over South Africa in the World Cup semi-final last year. Since then they have won eight of their 13 T20I matches. One of those victories came on the back of smashing 250, the highest T20I score in women’s cricket, against South Africa in a tri-series involving New Zealand. England went on to win the tournament, beating a strong New Zealand side comfortably in the final.On the face of it, all looks dandy for a progressively improving England but the loss of frontline allrounder Katherine Brunt due to injury could prove to be a major blow, particularly as they were already missing wicketkeeper-batsman Sarah Taylor, who was not included because long-standing anxiety issues.Mark Robinson, coach of England women, addresses the huddle•Getty Images Recent T20I form
A win rate of 60% in 2018 hides more than it reveals given that England have played just ten T20Is this year. Both were tri-nations series, the first one involving India and Australia in India and the next one at home against South Africa and New Zealand. A source of solace would be the fact that they have had a run-in with all major teams and were runners-up against Australia and India, before going a step further by beating New Zealand in the final of the subsequent tri-series. The captain and coach
Part of the sweeping changes that followed England’s WWT20 exit in 2016 was the appointment of Heather Knight as the captain in place of the long-serving Charlotte Edwards. Given that Knight has already led them to a World Cup title at home leaves little doubt about her captaincy credentials but her batting in the shortest format of the game has never been as prolific as in the longer formats. She averages 16.65, with a strike rate of 112.68, both of which require bolstering; but can also provide a bowling option with her offspin.Mark Robinson took charge of England in 2015 and designed the blueprint to iron out the flaws that thwarted their chances at the 2016 WWT20. As well as instigating a change of captain, he encouraged senior players to step up a level, while introducing several talented youngsters to the set-up. Under him, England have become fitter, more resilient and better equipped at handling pressure than earlier teams, who were competitive but would often stumble at crucial junctures.Natalie Sciver leans into a drive•Associated Press Best players
Danielle Wyatt has the best strike rate among England’s top-four (127.10) and she has shown good form in the warm-up match against India where she struck a fifty. If she can provide impetus during the Powerplay, the accumulators Tammy Beaumont, Nat Sciver and Knight, who all go at under 115 can play around her normally. Beaumont has also shown that she can shift gears and assume the role of the enforcer, as she did against South Africa in Taunton, where she struck 116 off 52 balls to set the tone for England’s record-breaking 250 for 3. Pace-bowler Anya Shrubsole’s role becomes even more important in the absence of Brunt. Where will they finish?
Despite two notable absentees, England should have enough class to sail through to the semi-finals from a group featuring hosts West Indies, South Africa, Sri Lanka and the Asia Cup holders Bangladesh. After that, it comes down to handling those crunch moments once again.

He couldn’t make it six in a row, but his unbeaten 47 off 13 balls launched New Zealand to 371 for 7 in Mount Maunganui

ESPNcricinfo staff03-Jan-201948.1 NLTC Perera to Neesham, SIX runs, in the slot and bang, a rare bad ball by Thisara, perfectly in Neesham’s arc. He picks it up from off and sends it flat over cow corner48.2 NLTC Perera to Neesham, SIX runs, similar ball, same result, he’s losing his length and line against the left-hander, been so good to the right-handers. In the slot again and Neesham sends it exactly over the same spot at cow corner for another six48.3 NLTC Perera to Neesham, SIX runs, Neesham’s on fire Thisara goes straighter, but still doesn’t get the line right. Too full, and Neesham clears his leg to swat it back over the bowler’s head and into the sight-screen48.4 NLTC Perera to Neesham, SIX runs, ho ho ho, who says Christmas is over Thisara is losing the plot. Full toss outside off that time and Neesham clobbers it over cow corner once again.48.5 NLTC Perera to Neesham, (no ball) 2 runs, full toss and no-ball for being above waist height There’s a free hit coming up, and New Zealand have 27 runs off the first four balls! That was outside off, and Neesham swung hard at it, but it went only to mid-off48.5 NLTC Perera to Neesham, SIX runs, good god, someone give Thisara some brandy or something to recover too full again and Neesham can’t put a foot wrong. That’s gone on the roof. I miss Tony Greig on air, who would have done justice to a ball going on the roof and a fifth six off five legal balls in the over. Amazing. Incredible48.6 NLTC Perera to Neesham, 1 run, no six sixes. managed to not get it quite as that full ‘in the arc, out of the park’ length. Neesham still smashed it, but didn’t get the elevation. sends it flat to midwicket, but the good news is, he’s retained the strike