Plays of the day from the fourth ODI between New Zealand and India in Hamilton

Abhishek Purohit in Hamilton28-Jan-2014The partnership breaker
Kane Williamson and Ross Taylor had put on their second century stand of the series and would have wanted to cash in on the batting Powerplay. But just an over before it started, Ravindra Jadeja played spoilsport. He dashed to the leg side after Williamson nudged him there, picked up the ball, turned around and hit the stumps at the non-striker’s end to catch Williamson well short.The instant success
Virat Kohli was opening today, meaning he had more overs to cause damage than usual. But New Zealand got him cheaply for the second time running. Kohli was kept quiet with a tight line and fuller length. The tenth delivery Kohli faced was a Tim Southee bouncer, the first one that had been bowled to him in his innings. Kohli tried to pull, top-edged it and turned back in disappointment even before the ball came down in the hands of midwicket.The authoritative charge
Rohit Sharma edged and survived for quite a while before finally starting to middle the ball. The shot he played to get to his half-century was as emphatic a connection as many. Rohit charged James Neesham, got under the length delivery and slammed it way over the long-off boundary into the crowd on the grassbank.The authoritative charge II
Brendon McCullum had defended his way to an uncharacteristic 8 off 17 when he decided it was time to revert to type. He charged out at Bhuvneshwar Kumar and swung so hard at a length delivery that it flew flat and fast for six over the deep extra-cover boundary.The soft fall
You would not fall to Kane Williamson’s part-time offspin. And you would definitely not want to fall to him caught by the wicketkeeper down the leg side. But that is what Rohit managed to do; in fact, he neatly guided the ball almost off the face of the bat to the keeper, who could not take it on the first attempt, but did not fail the second time.The shocking miss
The pressure of the slog seemed to get to Neesham in the last over of India’s innings. Even as one dribbled off Jadeja’s pads to the keeper, MS Dhoni dashed up the pitch for the run. Jadeja responded too late, and had no chance of making it safely across. The keeper under-armed the ball to Neesham, who was close to the stumps. All the bowler had to do was to stretch and he would have been able to take the bails off. But Neesham decided to try another under-arm himself, and missed.

An age-related incident may have kept Ankit Bawne out of the 2012 Under-19 World Cup, but he has not let that controversy affect his batting. Instead, he is making his presence felt by the weight of his Ranji Trophy runs for Maharashtra

Karthik Krishnaswamy27-Jan-2014In September 2011, Ankit Bawne was removed from the India Under-19 squad ahead of a quadrangular tournament in Visakhapatnam. He had earlier been named captain of the side. The date of birth in his passport, it was discovered, didn’t match the one in his birth certificate and the BCCI’s records. It didn’t fulfill the cut-off date for the 2012 U-19 World Cup.Bawne protested that the agent who arranged for his passport had messed up the date. The selectors, not wanting to take a risk, left him out. Unmukt Chand took over the captaincy. A year later, Chand led India to the World Cup title with a century in the final.Chand earned lavish praise from Ian Chappell, won an IPL contract and wrote a book. In a TV commercial, he sneaked into the senior India team’s dressing room for a bottle of Pepsi. Confronted by MS Dhoni, Virat Kohli and Suresh Raina, and asked if he thought there was no difference between him, an U-19 player, and them, the seniors, he told them: ” (I can get into your team right now, but you people can never get into mine).”Bawne couldn’t get in either. You wonder if Bawne, watching that ad, thinks to himself, “That could have been me”.”Obviously if he [Chand] is doing all this, then… he made a hundred in the final, the Indian team won the final, so the credit has to go to him,” Bawne says. “Whether I had a chance [to do that] or not, I can’t keep thinking about that.”What was it like, though, when he was left out?”It was obviously a shocking time for me, individually speaking, but it’s okay,” Bawne says. “Basically, my aim is to play for the senior Indian team. U-19 is obviously a good thing. It’s a shortcut, but my dream is to play for the senior Indian team.”At that time, family, coaches, players, everyone supported me a lot. But this is a big stage, if you play well in the Ranji Trophy, you will get the chance. India A opportunities will open up. And it isn’t like if you are the U-19 captain you will automatically move up from there. You have to perform there. That was what was in my mind. The Ranji Trophy is there, and I have to do well there. After that, I’ve been averaging 60-65 in every season.”In his last three first-class seasons, Bawne has averaged 75.85, 60.30, and 77.33. Since his debut in 2007, he has scored 2616 runs in 40 first-class matches at 54.50, with eight hundreds. Chand, as an aside, has 1688 runs in 31 games at 36.69, with four hundreds.Bawne began 2013-14 with an unbeaten 115 against South Zone on his Duleep Trophy debut and has carried that form into the Ranji Trophy, where he’s scored 581 runs for Maharashtra at 64.55. His numbers, though, get a little lost amid those of his team-mates. Kedar Jadhav has scored more than a thousand runs, and Harshad Khadiwale needs 20 more to reach that mark. Even Sangram Atitkar, after his 168 in the semi-final against Bengal, has scored more runs than Bawne.But it was interesting that Surendra Bhave, Maharashtra’s coach, singled out Bawne’s 89 against Bengal as the innings that set the semi-final up for the team, and raved about his defensive technique. “Look at his front-foot stride,” Bhave said after the match. “I can’t see anyone else who has a front-foot stride as big as that against fast bowlers. Middles everything, bat sounds very sweet, and he gives us solidity, real solidity.”From the press box, Bawne’s innings was remarkable for how unremarkable it looked. If you hadn’t seen anyone else bat in that match, you might have thought Bawne batted comfortably against an average attack in pretty good batting conditions, and missed out on a century. That, though, wasn’t the case.On a green pitch at the Holkar stadium, Maharashtra had rolled Bengal over for 114. In reply, their batsmen had looked much more comfortable than Bengal’s, but not uniformly so. Khadiwale and Chirag Khurana survived their share of plays and misses in a 78-run opening stand. Vijay Zol and Rohit Motwani, the left-hand batsmen, got trapped on the shuffle early in their respective innings. Jadhav shuffled down the pitch to the fast bowlers and struck eight fours in scoring 40. He looked good, and could have made a lot more. With that approach, he could have also made a lot less. Even Atitkar, early on, looked uncertain outside the off stump and saw a few edges scream away to the third-man boundary.’I can’t see anyone else who has a front-foot stride as big as that against fast bowlers’ – Surendra Bhave on Ankit Bawne•ESPNcricinfo LtdNone of them, in the early parts of their innings, gave you the feeling you could open a book, read two pages, and confidently look up to see them still at the crease. You could have done that with Bawne.It might have appeared straight out of a manual, but Bawne’s technique doesn’t owe all that much to formal coaching. Growing up, he says, he didn’t have a coach. When he played for Maharashtra’s U-15s, after playing for Aurangabad in the MCA Invitational U-15 league where he made “11 hundreds in 12 innings” and helped them reach the final, he came under Bhave for the first time. Apart from that, he says he watched TV (Rahul Dravid is his favourite batsman) and taught himself how to bat.”I haven’t had any personal coach,” Bawne says. “Whatever I’ve learned is from TV, from watching matches, and from state camps. You get the chance to play with experienced players, I’ve attended a lot of camps at the NCA, matches are coming on TV continuously, so I’ve learned small-small things.”It’s apparent that Bawne learned a lot more than just technique, as he talks you through his innings of 89 against Bengal. When Atitkar walked in to join him, Maharashtra were five down and only 50 ahead. Bawne, by then, had sized up the conditions, and communicated to his partner exactly how he needed to play.”On that wicket, you weren’t going to get out to the bouncer, because the bouncer wasn’t coming through quickly,” Bawne says. “Secondly, if the ball seams in off the wicket, you have to cover the pads so that you don’t get lbw or bowled. Against the [second] new ball, if it swung, you could get caught in the slips, which was how I got out. It was just a question of playing out four-five overs against the new ball, and against the rest just cover your stumps and play the line. Then there was no chance you’ll get out. you are that strong, mentally.”I told Sangram that, and I was telling him continuously, ‘Look, our lead is only 100, and from here, rather than get out and bat again, it was better if we batted just once, and put the opposition under pressure’. We kept playing, the lead went from 100 to 200, then I got out, and after that the wicket eased out so much that batting with a lead of 50 and batting with a lead of 200 were entirely different. If he had come in with a lead of 50, Anupam [Sanklecha, who made 52] couldn’t have played so freely. Those guys wouldn’t have given the ball to the legspinner. After the lead was 200, they would have thought, ‘okay, the lead is now 200’, and gave him the ball, and Anupam batted freely, and the game opened up. They gave us a target of 8. If we had taken a lead of 150, we might have got a target of 200 and anything could have happened.”As it turned out, Bawne fell 11 short of a hundred. It took more than just reading the scorecard to know how big a role he had played in Maharashtra’s win. Something similar happened in the quarter-final against Mumbai as well.That win will most likely go down as one created by the fast bowlers, who bundled Mumbai out for 129 in the second innings, and finished off by Zol and Jadhav, who remained not out on 91 and 120 respectively as Maharashtra raced to their target of 252 with eight wickets in hand.Bawne’s first-innings 84, however, was just as important. He came in with Maharashtra 24 for 3 replying to 402, survived a couple of early chances, and counterattacked alongside Jadhav in a 115-run fourth-wicket partnership.”At that stage, when I went in, there were four slips and a gully, a leg slip,” Bawne says. “So I decided, these guys are attacking us. In this situation, rather than just survive, why not attack them? I don’t play like that normally. But at that time, I did what was necessary for my team. I started a counterattack, and from there, the game opened up. Suddenly 20 for 3 had become 145 for 3.”In that way, what I did in that innings was, I showed how Maharashtra had to play through the rest of that game to win that game. We weren’t going to play like underdogs. We were going to play with aggression.”Still, Bawne “only” made 84. In this Ranji season, he has one century and five half-centuries. Last season, when Maharashtra were in the top rung of the tournament, he scored six fifties before getting that elusive century in his team’s final match of the season. Five of those fifties came in successive innings, some at venues as challenging to batsmen as Lahli and the Roshanara Club in Delhi, but they were still fifties. Batting at No.5, Bawne says, has restricted his chance of getting big hundreds. But he isn’t complaining about it.”If you see that match in Roshanara also, even when I had made fifty I was batting with the last few batsmen,” he says. “The opportunity wasn’t there for me to go make double-hundreds and hundreds. I try to see, in the role I’m given, how best I can help my team succeed.”I don’t mind any number. In Duleep Trophy, I got to bat at three and I scored a century. Last year, last innings, I got to bat at three and got a century then too. Whatever the team’s requirement is, you have to bat according to that.”

ESPNcricinfo presents the plays of the day from the fifth one-day international between New Zealand and West Indies

ESPNcricinfo staff08-Jan-2014Catch of the dayMichael Morton probably owes Kieran Powell a drink. He can certainly afford it. He was the supporter who clung onto Powell’s six off Mitchell McClenaghan and earned himself NZ$100,000 courtesy of the sponsors, Tui. It is a contest running throughout all the limited-overs matches in New Zealand this season and Morton is the first to be successful, although the fans at Queenstown had plenty of chances and almost ended up trampling each other trying to get to one of Corey Anderson or Jesse Ryder’s sixes. This time, Morton jostled a little for position but then stuck out his hand and held on coolly. Does he play cricket? “Not anymore,” he said, “but maybe I should.”Missed review of the dayPowell was racing along during the opening Powerplay, laying an ideal foundation for West Indies, and was closing in on an eye-catching hundred when he went to sweep Nathan McCullum. He was taken on the boot and the umpire quickly raised the finger. Powell did not hesitate to leave the crease, but when he returned to the dressing room will have wished he’d used the DRS as the ball was missing leg stump.Inside edge of the dayIt wasn’t the most authoritative of the strokes Kirk Edwards played, but it meant the world to him. Facing Anderson, he aimed to whip a full delivery through the leg side and it came off an inside edge to whistle past leg stump to take him to a hundred – the first time he had even passed fifty in his ODI career. During the celebrations he dropped his bat and was left holding both arms aloft; a rare moment of joy for a West Indies top-order batsman on the tour.Ball of the dayIn the absence of Ravi Rampaul and with Tino Best having been dropped, Dwayne Bravo gave himself the new ball and managed something many of the West Indies bowlers have struggled on this tour: good line and length. It brought an early reward, too, when he nipped a delivery back between Martin Guptill’s bat and pad to take off stump. You can pick apart a batsman’s technique all day, but it was an excellent delivery on a flat pitch.

The class of Craig Kieswetter and Ravi Bopara lead ESPNcricinfo’s countdown of the things that mattered in the latest round of NatWest T20 Blast matches

Tim Wigmore16-Jun-20145. A tale of two England wicketkeepers
If this were the IPL, Craig Kieswetter would be a run shy of wearing the orange cap given to the top scorer in the tournament. The T20 Blast eschews such wheezes, but there is no doubting Kieswetter’s T20 pedigree. He is currently second in the scoring list and, since his last international appearance, he has scored 801 runs in English T20 at 57 apiece.It was raw power that earned Kieswetter his first international caps, in Bangladesh in 2010, but his game now possesses more refinement. He has spoken about his improved ability to assess conditions and gauge a match-winning total; a 48-ball 55 in Somerset’s opening game at Bristol may have appeared sedate but it was the prelude to a comfortable win.Kieswetter is closer than many think to an England recall: he was an injury replacement in the World T20 squad in Bangladesh and will hardly have been harmed by missing the defeat to the Netherlands.Thanks to Jos Buttler’s emergence, his route into England’s limited-overs sides would be as a specialist batsman opening the innings. If his Powerplay impact smiting the ball down the ground is not in doubt, there are legitimate questions over what comes next: even his 70 at Arundel on Sunday contained a 22-ball lull without a boundary. Yet to focus on this feels churlish given Kieswetter’s fourth half-century of the season set-up a 34-run win. If England’s interest is reawakened, they would find much more than a harum-scarum hitter.And what of the other would-be England keeper? Having relinquished the gloves for his county five weeks ago, Steven Davies may no longer qualify for membership of the group. Forty-seven runs in four T20 innings as a specialist batsman led to Davies being dropped from Surrey’s side on Friday night. He turns 28 tomorrow.4. Notts need overseas aid
With Alex Hales, Michael Lumb, James Taylor and Samit Patel, a formidable quartet unwanted by England apart from Hales’ T20 involvement, Nottinghamshire have one of the most intimidating batting line-ups around. So it is a curiosity that they have still only registered two victories this season.One explanation lies in a lack of overseas aid: Peter Siddle is focusing exclusively on Championship cricket. What they would give for David Hussey. He averaged 35 with the bat in T20 cricket for Notts, but his 10-year association with the county ended last season.Director of cricket Mick Newell has conceded: “His type of cricket is exactly what’s missing.” But Caribbean Premier League commitments render a return impossible. Unless Notts change their policy, more success from Michael Lumb and James Taylor – who average 17 between them – is urgently needed to prevent a shock exit in the first round.

Player focus: James Hildreth (Somerset)

“Who should replace Marcus?” Somerset regulars have wondered in recent years. The reassuring thud emanating from Trescothick’s bat in the Championship has made the question seem less pressing, but a groin injury, forcing him out of both Somerset’s weekend matches, perhaps provided clarity about his successor. James Hildreth led Somerset to a pair of wins and, with Trescothick preoccupied by the tantalising prospect of the club’s first Championship title, may get more captaincy experience in white-ball cricket in 2014. It would be apt if Trescothick handed the baton on to another batsman sharing his undiluted commitment to the West Country.

3. We’re all Boplievers now
With England’s Test players available only fleetingly, attention has been on others to inject the Blast with some homegrown razzmatazz. For all the hype, Andrew Flintoff has not appeared and Kevin Pietersen has managed five runs. Into this void, step forward Ravi Bopara. His runs have always contained panache. Now this is being married to a most welcome quality: inevitability.In the space of three nights last week, sumptuous unbeaten innings of 81 and 66 made a pair of onerous-sounding chases seem facile, and took Essex top of the South Division. Bopara now has 207 runs – 72 of them in sixes – in this year’s competition, and has only been dismissed once. We are all Boplievers now.2. The UK’s worst T20 team
Memories of the formidable Sussex T20 side that reached five quarter-finals in six seasons from 2007, including winning the tournament in 2009, are fading. A pair of weekend defeats, including a ten-wicket thumping at The Oval, reinforced Sussex’s status as the country’s worst T20 side around. The problem is primarily with the batting: for all Ed Joyce’s elegance, Sussex are over-dependent on Luke Wright for impetus to reach imposing totals. Since scoring 56 against Surrey, Wright has failed to pass 31 in his last six T20 innings.The upshot is that no county has won fewer than Sussex’s three games since the start of 2013, and they have lost all but two – the opening games of this season – of their past 15 T20s. “Focus on the league” time beckons.1. Glamorgan’s premature revenge
“Let’s Get Revenge” declared Glamorgan’s posters in preparation for the visit of Somerset to Wales on July 4. Nothing wrong with that: a little spice never goes amiss in county cricket. But then Glamorgan had to go and ruin it all by having the chutzpah to win at Taunton, ruining the presumption of the marketing men. They should have had a little more faith. After Friday’s tie against Kent, when a superlative final over from Michael Hogan prevented the visitors scoring the three runs they required for victory, Glamorgan lie third in the South Division.

The new format for England’s T20 competition represents an invaluable chance to inspire a new generation of supporters and players

George Dobell15-May-201412:54

The County Show: Prepare for Blast-off

“It’s the economy, stupid.” Bill Clinton was almost certainly not thinking about the re-launch of the English domestic T20 tournament when he adopted that slogan for the 1992 US presidential elections but it remains pertinent, nevertheless.The launch of the NatWest T20 Blast on Friday provides counties with an opportunity not just to boost their finances in the short-term, but reassert their relevance to communities in the long. Which county wins is largely irrelevant. It is about the county game winning as a whole.For many years the counties have been accused – unfairly, given the development role they fulfil – of surviving on hand-outs earned by the England side. While the launch of the original one-day competition, the Gillette Cup, in 1963 and the T20 Cup in 2003 provided welcome revenue, the value of such events has been diluted over the years. There have been times in the last few seasons when some of the T20 cricket seen in England – attritional, percentage cricket featuring flat spinners and begrudging medium-pacers on damp Tuesday afternoons in largely deserted stadiums – has been almost everything it was set-up to avoid.Packed out crowds and inspiration for the next generation: these are key ingredients for the NatWest T20 Blast•Getty ImagesNow, with a regular, predictable place in the schedule, the casual cricket watcher – and that is exactly the sort this competition is designed to attract – can attend games without needing to check and double-check fixture lists. They can budget their finances and their time so they can attend a game every couple of weeks across the summer, rather than face a glut of three games in six days as has, at times, been the case in recent years.It is essential the counties buy into the re-launch. It is essential that they understand the primary aim of the competition is to attract a new generation of supporters. So it is essential that tickets prices remain accessible to a mass-market audience that is just finding its feet after recession and that the visitor experience is, in every way, welcoming.Players must sign autographs until their arms ache, the grim-faced stewards who have presided in some grounds for far too long must be banished. Members, too, must appreciate the requirement for some of the more populist marketing ploys – the cheerleaders, the music, the talk of Andrew Flintoff’s return – that they might find trying. Cricket in England has to realise that it cannot afford to be exclusive.And, crucially, it is vital the counties provide the appropriate pitches. Seasoned cricket lovers may celebrate the absorbing battle of low-scoring games; the uninitiated will not. This tournament requires good-paced pitches that encourage free hitting and fast bowling. Those counties that prepare slow, low surfaces they think will benefit their slow bowlers have to understand the long-term damage they will inflict on the game. This has been spelt out to them by the ECB.Warwickshire’s decision to rebrand themselves ‘Birmingham Bears’ has proved one of the more controversial marketing initiatives of the re-launch. But there is nothing to be feared by such an experiment. The club reasoned that its somewhat austere image – again, a largely outdated image – had failed to engage the inner-city spectators that live within easy reach of Edgbaston. Specifically, the club has failed to attract the Asian spectators that attend in such numbers when their favoured international teams play at the ground. Warwickshire’s attempt to reach out to this audience is laudable and should not be mistaken for a move towards a city-based mentality.A city-based franchise league in England would be a mistake. While such leagues may work in Australia or India, the landscape in the UK is vastly different. Cricket, in England, is a niche sport. It cannot rely on the passionate support that exists in India to draw people from the shires to the cities. It will always live in the shadow of football. If cricket does not go to the people, the people in market towns around the nation, it will be in danger of becoming irrelevant to vast swathes of the country.The counties, especially in an era when cricket is so rarely seen on free-to-air television, do not exist simply to entertain their members or produce England cricketers – worthy aims though they are. They also exist to keep the game alive by inspiring, identifying and developing players. They offer, for many people, the only realistic chance to witness professional cricket and have a role to play in inspiring young people and then going into clubs and schools in their local community to develop their skills. The Blast is their shop window and their opportunity to earn the resources required to afford the development schemes and the wages demanded of the best players.

A city-based franchise league in England would be a mistake. While such leagues may work in Australia or India, the landscape in the UK is vastly different

And that must be the longer-term aim of this re-launch. It must engage and inspire a new generation of players. For as the identity of the next generation of England’s Test team has taken shape over recent weeks, it has become apparent that, once again, a disproportionate number of the new members – the likes of Sam Robson, Chris Jordan and Gary Ballance – will have been, to a greater or lesser extent, products of foreign systems.To a large extent, that is to be celebrated. Not only does it reaffirm the attraction of county cricket to aspiring young players across the world, but it helps England field a team that reflects the mobile, multicultural society that it represents; a team that reflects a nation with a unique history of commonwealth and empire.But it does beg the question: how good could England be if they utilised the hugely untapped pool of talent that must exist in their own backyard? With competitive cricket now hardly played in state schools, England is obliged to draw its side largely from those who attended private school and those who were given their first exposure to the sport abroad. Those breeding grounds will always be valuable, but it makes sense to also try to utilise the vast, underdeveloped resources of the state system. T20 offers a chance to reach that resource.In the long-term, the ECB may well decide that the benefit of returning some cricket to free-to-air TV outweighs any relatively short-term financial gain. Just as the Sunday League proved the ‘gateway drug’ to several generations of cricket lovers, so could a knockout T20 event incorporating, perhaps, the minor counties. With a little imagination, this free-to-air coverage could be provided by Sky. No amount of coaching clinics, Chance to Shine visits, inner city facilities or autograph sessions – excellent though all those things may be – can replace the simple thrill of stumbling upon the sport on TV and falling in love with it.There will always be challenges. Not least, there is the suspicion that the competition’s success hinges to a large extent on a factor beyond the control of governing bodies or marketing companies: the weather. Several counties are concerned that the tournament begins a week or two early and that a later start might provide a better chance of good weather and increase the chances of the event building early momentum.The Caribbean Premier League offers further competition for players and attention from the cricket-watching public. While the county game has long since grown resigned to losing players to the IPL, the likes of Shahid Afridi (who declined an approach from Warwickshire in the hope of securing a deal in the Caribbean) and Kevin Pietersen plans to commute between Blast and CPL commitments. Various football tournaments and the Olympics will compete for attention, too.So it is into a crowded marketplace that the NatWest Blast must venture. But with a sensible schedule, a few more appearances from the England players and some good weather, it has at least given itself a chance to prosper. County cricket is always involved in a fight for its survival; the T20 Blast represents a significant battleground.

A stats preview of the Champions League Twenty20 2014

Bishen Jeswant16-Sep-20144 Chennai Super Kings, Mumbai Indians and Trinidad & Tobago are the only teams to have been part of four seasons of the Champions League. No team has played all five tournaments. Highveld Lions and Royal Challengers Bangalore have been part of three, while no other team has been part of more than two.4 Dirk Nannes has represented four different teams in the Champions League, and is the only player to have been part of more than three teams in the tournament. Nine other players have played for three different teams. Nannes has played for Delhi Daredevils, Highveld Lions, Victoria and Royal Challengers Bangalore. Apart from Nannes, there are two players who have competed in the Champions League for teams from three different countries – Glenn Maxwell (Hampshire, Mumbai Indians and Victoria) and Andrew McDonald (Leicestershire, Uva Next and Victoria). McDonald, however, is the only one to have played for three non-Indian teams.3 The top three scores by an Indian in the Champions League are by Suresh Raina – his unbeaten 94 against Royal Challengers Bangalore (2010), 87 against Wayamba (2010) and 84 against Sunrisers Hyderabad (2013). Virat Kohli ties with Raina for the third highest score, having made 84 not out against New South Wales in 2011.9.40 Sunil Narine’s bowling average in the Champions League, the best for any bowler who has bowled in more than five innings. Narine’s strike rate of 12.50 is the second best, after Muttiah Muralitharan, for a spinner who has bowled in more than five innings. Narine is also the second highest wicket-taker in the tournament with 27 scalps, behind Dwayne Bravo (28).4.3 Misbah-ul-Haq’s sixes per innings ratio is the best for any player who has hit at least 10 sixes in the Champions League. Misbah has 13 sixes in three innings. Chris Gayle has a ratio of four – 24 sixes in six innings. Kieron Pollard has hit 45 sixes in the tournament, the most by any player, followed by David Warner with 27 sixes in 13 matches.20 Thisara Perera has the poorest economy rate in an innings for a player who has bowled at least three overs in a Champions League game. Perera conceded 60 in three overs, while playing for Sunrisers Hyderabad against Chennai Super Kings, in 2013. The most runs conceded by a bowler in a single match is 69, by S Aravind, in four overs, against South Australia in 2011.5 Henry Davids is the only batsman with five 50-plus scores in the Champions League. Davids made four of those scores for Titans, and one for Cape Cobras. Davids’ five 50-plus scores were against different teams – Victoria, Sunrisers, Sydney Sixers, Perth Scorchers and Super Kings. Callum Ferguson, Ajinkya Rahane, Michael Hussey and Raina have made four 50-plus scores each.70 The lowest score for which a team has been bowled out in the Champions League – Central Districts against Wayamba in 2010. Central Districts are also the only team to have been dismissed for less than 100 twice in the tournament.0 Batsmen who have been dismissed after scoring a hundred in the tournament. There have been six hundreds in the Champions League, and the batsman has been unbeaten every time. There has been only one instance of a batsman being dismissed after reaching the score of 90 – Chris Gayle, after making 92 against New South Wales, in 2011. There have been four instances of batsmen remaining unbeaten in the 90s.1 Bangladesh is the only Test nation to not have had an umpire in the Champions League. Sri Lanka’s Kumar Dharmasena has officiated in 30 matches, more than anybody else. The country that has had the most umpires in the tournament is India, with eight. Australia and South Africa are next in the list, with five and four umpires respectively.

The cricket book of the season brings many regrets about the rancour surrounding an incredible talent

David Hopps10-Oct-2014There have been outspoken autobiographies in English cricket before. A generation ago, Geoffrey Boycott outlined the wrongs he felt he had suffered at the hands of Yorkshire and England. Even further back, in 1960, a few tart paragraphs from Jim Laker – scandalous for their time – caused his MCC honorary membership to be rescinded and instead brought him Life Membership of the Awkward Squad. takes the grievances and the settling of scores to a new level. Like it or loath it, it is a book of considerable significance, the aggrieved story of the most maverick, bloody-minded, exciting and ultimately tragic England player of his generation.Even as publication day arrived, such had been the publicity generated that battle lines were already deeply entrenched, countless words written. is not destined to change minds. It will be dismissed as self-obsessed bleating by his critics, presented as a courageous attack on cricketing conservatism by those who cherish the entertainment he has given them. This will be before most people have read it.Is it the truth? As somebody remarked perspicaciously, “It is the truth as Kevin sees it.” Nobody should question that. But it is a truth seen through a distorted lens.Pietersen v the World (because that is how it reads, with suitable apologies to wife, child and Piers Morgan) is variously Man v Machine, Rebel v Conformist, Agitator v Compromiser, Freedom v Responsibility, Individual v Team, Instinct v Planning, Attack v Defence, Difference v Normality, New v Old , Sensitivity v Machismo (and what sensitivity!), Emotion v Logic, Perception v Judgement. Sometimes it is also about Right v Wrong, but mostly it is about English cricket’s failure to control – and, yes, often to understand – the most individualistic, egotistical, inspirational, crowd-pleasing cricketer of his generation.Whether Pietersen realises it or not, it is also about a failed relationship. Virtually every breakdown in Pietersen’s career can be traced back to a disastrous and debilitating character clash with Andy Flower, known to most as the former England coach, now routinely referred to by Pietersen as the Mood Hoover. Flower, in Pietersen’s terms is “contagiously sour, infectiously dour”. Flower has rarely allowed himself to comment upon Pietersen, but if he felt inclined to retaliate there is reason to think that “supremely talented, self-obsessed brat” would not be far from the mark.In his drive for marginal gains, Flower once encouraged psychometric testing of England’s players and one of the discoveries was that Pietersen was an introvert; Flower did not need a psychometric test to know that about himself. But that is where their similarities surely ended. Flower is conventional, diligent, precise and rigid; Flower likes to plan and gives praise sparingly; Flower is a private man of great integrity who keeps his relationships on an even keel. Pietersen is the opposite. Pietersen is intensely emotional, lives for the moment, craves praise and dislikes criticism. By his own admission, he has no time for planning – he stares out of the window at team meetings and views coaches as largely redundant.This aversion to critical thinking was so pronounced that he tells how he routinely avoided breakfast with Moores and Flower in case they deflated his mood. Moores’ attempt to bring him into the fold by promoting him as captain after the departure of Michael Vaughan therefore failed almost as soon as it began. Batting liberates him and to capture that perfect state of mind he seeks truth in psychology and something called The Chimp Paradox, which basically tells him how talented he is. Pietersen and England’s coaches never build a trusting relationship. Flower, it appears, quickly dislikes him.When does not push you into taking sides, it leads you into a contemplation of a flawed character. It is forthright, populist and written in such an agitated, self-justifying manner that even the brashest paragraphs cannot disguise the loneliness of the sporting maverick. There is an “I” in team he asserts, reminding us that cricket is an individual game in a team setting. And so there is. But there is a limit. He forever smacks of an individual refusing to accept the strictures of a team sport.

It is forthright, populist and written in such an agitated, self-justifying manner that even the brashest paragraphs cannot disguise the loneliness of the sporting maverick

Many will read all this and wonder how this madness was ever allowed to happen. It is as if those in authority repeatedly sense a virus in their midst only for their clunky anti-virus programs to warn that if they quarantine him several major programs will not function so effectively. Pietersen’s very presence repeatedly lays bare the problems of a conservative, fastidious and unwieldy hierarchy in handling the assertive individualism more prevalent in the modern game. The moment England start losing, and Pietersen’s form dips, they get shot of him.Right from the outset, Pietersen identifies with Fred The Soldier, who “follows a different drummer”. He says: “I don’t set out to go against the flow… but I won’t sit down and be told to bat this way or train this way without asking why.” This assertion of self, often blind to the team ethic, does not go down well. Everybody who has raised a family can remember the “why?” phase. The first claim to individual freedom comes at two years old. Pietersen has it in abundance.Some of his explanations of his behaviour are more convincing than others. His version of his fallout with Moores, a coach he found to be a “human triple espresso – so intense” is instructional. He insists that he never gave the England and Wales Cricket Board a Him Or Me ultimatum, just told them that his philosophy was so different from Moores that they could not work together. The ECB, fearing player power, sacked them both. It is a decision that smacks of convenience.When Pietersen is not demeaning Flower, he is warring with the ECB, forever suspecting – often with good reason – a “world full of little agendas”. When Andrew Strauss, who replaces him as captain, proves to be at ease in mollifying such a world, he thinks less of him because of it, suggesting that he is “playing the long game”. His unabashed belief in the IPL is another fault line – he loves it, so English cricket does not love him. Here, more than anywhere, he is a victim of his time. As cricket changes, coming generations will see him, on the IPL at least, as unfairly brandished.But he is not the only victim. Pietersen, who likes to play cricket in a happy frame of mind, sparked a debate in the days leading up to publication by complaining of a bullying culture in the England dressing room. His criticism struck a chord. But there have been few nastier pages in cricket literature than his own destruction of Matt Prior, a sequence where his ghost writer is allowed to go for the jugular – a task he accomplishes with considerable skill – without on the face of it too much justification.As for fake Twitter accounts and Textgate, why the coaching staff did not bang heads together and sort both in 24 hours is a question that lingers. In English cricket, authority is too often invested in those away from the action. England players’ involvement in KP Genius displays a crass failure to recognise that with his ego came sensitivity. For Pietersen’s exchange of texts with friends in the South Africa side criticising his captain, Strauss, to be magnified into traitorous behaviour still seems to be an overreaction. The world has heard too much about both subjects. This book adds too many pages to the nonsense and it will be a reader with a healthy sense of perspective who skips the lot of them.But it’s batting that Pietersen is about – even if, reading this autobiography, it is easy to forget. Only when Pietersen gets a bat in his hand, is he truly liberated. “I’m a risk taker by nature,” he says in response to those such as the Sacking Judge Paul Downton, who deemed him reckless, not accepting that without the risk he is vastly diminished.Off the field, he is forever insecure; he jars with those he must live with in close proximity for 250 days a year. He can say he loves someone one day, hate them the next, and both responses feel equally true. He is a South African in England, a star player who needs his ego perpetually feeding, but who is not just excluded from the dressing-room clique but is mocked by it. When he asks for a break to see his wife and family, it is routinely refused. Others get their breaks: it is that IPL punishment thing again. Even his injuries – serious injuries – are disparaged by Flower. A fair and honest man, Flower’s disenchantment with Pietersen begins to demean him.KP: The Autobiography has briefly descended English cricket into chaos. It has no humour, only fleeting references to camaraderie, no praise for the talents of his team-mates, and precious little cricket analysis. But it is a legitimate work of propaganda (so much propaganda has been thrown in his direction, he had little choice but to reply in kind). For those of us not wedded to one side or the other, it leaves an immense sadness that so wonderful a talent has repeatedly exasperated, vexed and been disparaged and excluded.Why did it have to be this way? Why was England’s man management so unsuccessful? As those in charge of England cricket congratulate themselves on the prospect of simpler times ahead, they need to reflect on that question.England cricket is hurting because of the arguments surrounding Pietersen: arguments that are often Machiavellian in high places, often rabid on social media, ultimately unbearable in the dressing room. But the chaos in England cricket will be transient. New heroes will come and one hopes the public will eventually learn to love the game in records numbers again. Disillusionment is evident and widespread. As Pietersen remarks, you cannot promote a game for the people without communicating with and respecting the people.Saddest of all perhaps is Pietersen’s imaginings that, even after a book as uncompromising as this, he might somehow play again for England. His naïve failure to understand that his challenge to the system has been so extreme that it will never be tolerated symbolises how gauche his self-obsession can make him. It’s over and it was quite a ride.But at a time when so many cricket autobiographies are cravenly dull, when player interviews are delivered as if by rote, and the governing body forever asserts its right to rule in near-secrecy, Pietersen’s flawed and overwrought cri de coeur is a book that was better written. Somehow, in this imperfect, suspicious world, he summoned some of the finest innings in England history. We should all be grateful for that.KP: The Autobiography
By Kevin Pietersen
Sphere
324 pages, £20

Why the Indian opener would be well advised to shelve the hook and pull in Australia

Aakash Chopra25-Nov-20141:55

‘Dhawan allows the short ball to come too close to him’

It was a bit odd to have Shikhar Dhawan standing next to me the other day with a mic in hand, audio check done, looking into the camera. We shared the Delhi dressing room for more than half a decade and played quite a lot of our cricket together. Dhawan in the Delhi jersey with a bat in his hand, padded and geared up, walking down to partner me was the more familiar image. But that was a few years ago. Before he and I stood in front of the rolling cameras, Dhawan had hit some important runs against West Indies after a rather dull summer, and I was making inroads into cricket commentary.Most of our talk off air revolved around Delhi cricket, but there was one question that the observer in me was raring to ask, on air: had he had made any changes to his technique while facing Jerome Taylor, who had troubled him way too much in the game in Delhi? I have known Dhawan for a while now, so should have known what was coming: “This time I troubled him,” followed by a loud chuckle.That reaction told me more about him than any technical explanation he could provide. Besides, it made for good television.For the most part, his response, for me, encapsulates the attitude of the youth of this country: one of supreme confidence and grit. It is also an attitude that those of us who grew up during the late ’70s and early ’80s, never seemed to have possessed. While a modest Sachin Tendulkar would refrain from giving himself any credit, even the free-spoken Virender Sehwag would acknowledge the support staff’s role in ironing out the chinks in his game. Let’s say it wasn’t fashionable among those players to be candid, to wear your heart on your sleeve: an air of nonchalance was often mistaken as dangerous over-confidence.The new generation, on the other hand, thrives on just that sort of confidence. It’s their driving force. I would have been happier to play in this era.

The lack of a back-and-across movement of the back leg almost ensures that Dhawan is never in the right position to pull or hook fast bowlers

However, there’s something the older generation had that this one doesn’t seem possess: the ability to get rid of inadequacies. When one plays the game at the highest level, weaknesses are bound to emerge, as the opposition gets better with each passing game. It’s imperative that you iron these faults out as your career progresses. Rahul Dravid was predominantly an on-side player when he started out but ended up as a batsman who was just as fluent through the off side, if not more. Tendulkar used to lean on his bat a bit too much in the beginning but ended with the best batting stance ever.There are flaws that resurface from time to time, like the habit of fishing outside off. While that particular one has more to do with form and the position of the head and feet, there are some defects that resurface because of a lack of application, like getting out hooking or pulling against a short ball. If you aren’t a good puller and hooker, you consciously stay away from attempting these shots while going through a bad patch, for you’re acutely aware of the repercussions. But the moment you find form, you shift into autopilot and soon succumb to temptation.Dhawan’s off-side play is his strength. But at times it becomes his weakness too. He stays inside the line of the ball, which allows him to free his arms, and that’s why the majority of his runs come through the off side. While this works in his favour on the subcontinent, and in the shorter formats worldwide (the pitches are reasonably flat in both instances), it becomes an issue when the ball starts moving around.There’s a way out, especially in Australia, and Dhawan knows it. He left a lot of balls alone in the two Test matches in New Zealand earlier this year, and if he’s able to do the same in Australia, he’ll manage.The best part about playing in Australia is that you can always trust the bounce. So even if you misread the line, you can let the ball go on length. Once Dhawan has got his bearings right, I expect him to do this.The hook is a reasonably instinctive shot and if you haven’t told yourself to refrain from it completely, it’s only a matter of time before you go after a short ball•AFPThere’s another small chink that has the potential to bother him, and if the last Ashes series is anything to go by, Mitchell Johnson will do his bit to get the better of Dhawan in this area. I’m talking about bouncers and Dhawan’s fallibility when he decides to take them on. That’s how got dismissed in Dharamsala. He played a pull and a hook for a four and six before attempting another such shot and perished in the process. This time the ball was too high and slightly outside off . He was already on a run-a-ball 35 and looked good to get a big one, but not having the right technique to hook caused his dismissal. The hook is a reasonably instinctive shot, and if you haven’t told yourself to refrain from it completely, it’s only a matter of time before you go after a short ball.Dhawan is predominantly a front-foot player, so much so that his back leg is rarely behind the popping crease, even when he’s playing shots like the cut or punch off the back foot. The lack of a back-and-across movement of the back leg almost ensures that he’s never in the right position to pull or hook fast bowlers. To add to it, his leading arm doesn’t open up at all while playing the hook or pull, which means that the ball is far too close to his body at the point of impact.In the commentary box, this point – that Dhawan cramps himself for space – comes up off and on.David Warner, Ricky Ponting and other good pullers and hookers extend their top arm completely to ensure that the bat is always on top of the bounce, and that they have reasonable control over the shot. It’s not that they won’t get out to short balls but it’s a given that the bowler will think twice before bowling a bouncer to these men. That’s not the case with Dhawan. For a brief period during the Test series in New Zealand it looked like he had shelved the shot completely, which would have been the smart thing to do. Clearly he hasn’t, which means plenty of bouncers will come his way in Australia.Dhawan’s success as an opener is critical to India’s chances, and while his confidence will make up for lack of playing experience in Australia, he may want to start developing the habit of ducking under while down under.

Ben Rohrer’s story tells us a lot about how we used to view head protection and bouncers, and how the death of Phillip Hughes means we never will again

Daniel Brettig05-Mar-2015Ben Rohrer is over the worst of it. So much so that he blazed 276 for the New South Wales Futures League team last week and has taken his place in the Blues’ Sheffield Shield XI playing Tasmania this one. But there will still be moments when he remembers November 3 at the MCG, where he was struck a horrid blow behind the right ear.Chief among these was the day in early February when Rohrer came face to face – and bat to ball – with Chris Tremain, the man who had struck him that very blow with a short ball whirring in at him from around the wicket.As former NSW team-mates, Rohrer and Tremain are on good terms, and there was even a gentlemen’s agreement before the second XI game began. “We spoke before the game and he said ‘I’ll promise not to bounce you if you don’t bounce me’,” Rohrer told ESPNcricinfo, “and I took him up on that pretty quickly!”But it was still an odd experience for Rohrer, facing the man who had felled him all over again. “It was just weird watching him run in and bowl to me,” he said. “Just seeing him running in might have brought something back.”The something was less to do with the blow itself than its prelude and aftermath, which reflect the way cricket’s attitude to head injuries once was and now can never be again. In the winter, Rohrer had glimpsed the new helmet devised by the NSW supplier Masuri, and asked for his own edition of the improved headgear, which provided more extensive protection for the sides and rear.Around this time, Cricket NSW had entered into an agreement with Masuri to order enough of the new helmets to fit out those members of the state squad who wanted them, but the lag time between order in August and delivery in November was considerable. Rohrer asked for the helmet both before and after the state limited-overs tournament, but was told they were yet to arrive.After he was struck by Tremain, driven from the field via motorised stretcher and taken to hospital for assessment of what turned out to be a heavy and long-lasting concussion, Rohrer returned to the MCG. Some of the Victorian players had already been able to get their hands on the new helmets, and upon donning one worn by Marcus Stoinis, Rohrer discovered his injury could have been avoided. It still rankles.”I was obviously very frustrated and still at the moment I’ve got some symptoms, but very frustrated with the whole process,” Rohrer said. “Especially with a new model coming out, I thought it’d be quite easy to get a hold of, but whatever it was, we just didn’t have the access to the safest helmets. It was frustrating more than anything.”In the weeks after he was struck, Rohrer was not only physically unwell but mentally unsteady. Sitting alongside Trent Copeland at the SCG cafe later in November he looked awfully pale, and he was battling equally to get his buffeted head around normally simple tasks such as choosing his words. Mercifully, most of this gradually passed.”I was a different person there for quite a while,” Rohrer said. “Especially the first few weeks I even knew my personality wasn’t the same. I felt like I had to really think about what I was saying and my words and how to pronounce words, which is a very funny feeling. But that’s all gone now, which is great, it’s just the little bit of dizziness but that hopefully will go in the next month or two.”Ben Rohrer wearing the new Masuri helmet, showing where he was struck•Cricket NSWA first attempt to get back and play the week after he had been struck was aborted after one difficult net session, and Rohrer was working his way through a longer rehabilitation process when Phillip Hughes was hit on November 25, collapsing to the ground in a scene no one present at the ground would ever wish to revisit. Through the shock, pain and grieving that followed, Rohrer was placed in the difficult position of being repeatedly told how lucky he had been. He did not want to hear it.”The worst part of that time was people telling me how I should feel about it and telling me I should feel lucky and all that sort of stuff,” he said. “But I didn’t really feel any of that, I was more just feeling grief at losing a good mate and thinking how terribly unlucky he was. To think how many people do get hit, I’ve seen at least one guy get hit in the helmet every game since I’ve been back. It’s just incredibly unlucky that he was injured like that, whereas the rest of us get away with it.”As the rest of Australia’s cricket community tried to get on with playing the game, Rohrer fashioned his own rehabilitation. He returned in a Melbourne Renegades trial fixture in early December, then delivered performances of increasing assurance during the BBL. After facing Tremain, he clattered the ACT’s bowlers for the double century and has actually found himself feeling less apprehensive about being hit than before.”More than anything spending those few second XI and club games in the middle has allowed me to push past a few things and get a clear mind, which is a pretty key thing to batting,” Rohrer said. “The last thing you want is a little man on your shoulder talking to you, so that was a nice thing.”I think I’m less cautious early, I’ll really be pushing forward, making sure I’m making the right movements and I don’t know why that is. Whether it is because I’ve been hit badly now and got through that, my mindset’s changed where I’m not fearing it as much as I did before. That’s the odd thing – you’d think you’d go the other way.”What has certainly gone the other way is cricket’s attitude to head injuries. Where once Rohrer could remember the fielding team’s principle concern with a helmet hit being to exhort their fast bowler to go in even harder next time, now the looks of concern and rushes towards the batsmen in a spirit of care are palpable.”There’s noticeable changes, the first thing now is for people to check if they’re alright rather than, they used to want to be seen to be encouraging their bowlers to keep bowling that way,” he said. “That’s the one thing I’ve noticed, every time someone gets hit there’s nine or 10 players checking straight away whether they’re ok, and then off the field Masuri presented us with a new design for a bit more protection around the neck area. People have been woken up by this and it’s only going to be a good thing for protection.”The new urgency about protection was summed up by the fact that in the days after Rohrer was hit, NSW staff searched Sydney sports goods stores to find any early deliveries of the new helmets, while when the Australian Test team resumed for the delayed Adelaide Test, they were ever present. Further developments have come in the shape of proposed new neck guards from Masuri, while at the World Cup Ireland’s John Mooney has modelled his own version of a rear grille.As for Rohrer, he is back playing Shield cricket as he should be, and looking forward to resuming battle with Tremain. He does not expect the gentlemen’s agreement to last long, mind. “He’s too competitive to let that one stand – I’m sure it’ll be on for young and old next time I face him.”

Stats highlights from the fourth day of the fourth Test between Indian and Australia, in Sydney

Bishen Jeswant09-Jan-2015769 Runs scored by Steven Smith in this series, the most ever in a series of four or fewer matches. There have been two instances of batsmen scoring more runs when they have played only four matches in a five-match series – Sunil Gavaskar (774, versus West Indies, 1971) and Viv Richards (829, versus England, 1976).8 Number of times that the teams have posted a 400-plus score during this series, the most ever in a Test series. There have been seven previous instances of teams making seven 400-plus scores in a series.0 Number of previous instances where both teams have gone past 400 in the first innings of each Test in a series of three or more Tests. Both Australia and India have each posted 400-plus scores in the first innings of every Test this series, with Australia going past 500 on each occasion.9 Number of Indian players who have completed the all-round double of 1000 runs and 100 wickets. R Ashwin is the latest. His batting average of 37.3 is the highest of the nine.24 Number of Tests in which Ashwin completed the double of 1000 runs and 100 wickets, the third fastest in Tests. The only players to have reached this landmark in fewer Tests are Ian Botham (21 Tests) and Vinoo Mankad (23).6 Number of times that Ashwin has dismissed David Warner in Tests. Warner has only scored 115 runs in 10 innings against Ashwin, at an average of 19.16. The only batsman whom Ashwin has accounted for more often in Tests is Ed Cowan, with seven dismissals.4 Wickets taken by Ashwin during the second innings, making him only the second Indian spinner to take a four-wicket haul in Australia in 23 years. The last seven four-wicket hauls by an Indian spinner in Australia have all been by Anil Kumble, during the 2003-04 and 2007-08 tours.250 Number of catches taken by Brad Haddin in Tests, making him the eighth wicketkeeper and the fourth Australian keeper to take 250 catches in Tests. Haddin reached this mark when he took the catch to dismiss Umesh Yadav off the bowling of Ryan Harris.50 Runs scored by Ashwin during India’s first innings. The last overseas No. 8 batsman to score a fifty in Australia was also Ashwin, in 2012, again in Sydney.6 Number of consecutive 50-plus scores for Chris Rogers, the most by an Australian. Eight other Australian batsmen have made six 50-plus scores as well – Jack Ryder, Doug Walters, Greg Chappell, Allan Border, Mark Taylor, Michael Hussey, Phil Jaques and David Warner. The overall record for consecutive 50-plus scores in seven.4.6 Umesh Yadav’s economy rate this series, the fourth highest for any player bowling 100-plus overs in a series; he also features at third place on this list, which is headed by Fidel Edwards and Brett Lee.15 Umesh Yadav’s economy rate during Australia’s second innings, the worst in Tests for a player who has bowled three or more overs in an innings. He returned figures of 0 for 45 from three overs.6.3 Australia’s run rate during their second innings, the second highest in a Test innings of 40-plus overs. Australia were 251 for 6 from 40 overs in their second innings. The highest run rate in such an innings is 6.8, by South Africa against Zimbabwe in Cape Town in 2005.24 Number of instances this series of a bowler conceding 100-plus runs in innings, the most ever in a Test series. Nathan Lyon has five such innings, the most, while Ashwin has four.169 Joe Burns’ strike rate during his innings of 66 from 39 balls, the second highest in Tests for an Australian batsman making a 50-plus score. The record is held by Adam Gilchrist who scored 102 runs off 59 balls, at a strike rate of 173, against England in Perth in 2006.