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He’s bounced out Rohit Sharma, he’s yorked Hardik Pandya, and his numbers suggest he’s an utterly transformed bowler

Alagappan Muthu02-Oct-20212:54

Manjrekar: Avesh Khan is confident, and he has the range as a bowler

It’s a lot of fun being Avesh Khan. Now.He is barely into his first over and he has Rohit Sharma hopping about. He’s making one of India’s very best look out of place, but there’s nothing out-of-the-box about how he’s doing it. Avesh has always been a hit-the-deck fast bowler. It’s just that now he’s learned to put the ball exactly where he wants to.Watch the IPL on ESPN+

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Kids who become superstars at Under-19 level produce a lot of excitement in India. Call it the Virat Kohli syndrome.Avesh once belonged in this bracket. At the 2016 Youth World Cup, when India went all the way to the final, he was their highest wicket-taker. But while his peers from that tournament have gone on to bigger things – Rashid Khan is probably the world’s greatest T20 bowler now, Shadab Khan is Pakistan’s No. 1 limited-overs spinner, Shimron Hetmyer and Alzarri Joseph are West Indies regulars, and even Sandeep Lamichhane travels the world playing franchise cricket – Avesh has been stuck.He couldn’t even break into an IPL team. Avesh made his debut back in 2017. But until 2021 he had played only nine games in four years.Imagine that. This is a new-ball/death bowler. A resource every team needs. And he clocks 140 kph and more. An asset in any form of the game. Plus, he’s Indian, which means not only does he cover a specialist position for you, he also frees you up in your search for overseas picks. While most other franchises scour the globe for a quality quick, you could go and get a six-hitter or an allrounder. There’s a lot of one and not a lot of the other.But Avesh – the old Avesh – wasn’t all that good. He gave away a boundary every four balls and he took 36 (roughly) to pick up a wicket.Avesh Khan has become a completely different bowler this season•ESPNcricinfo LtdCut to 2021 though, and Avesh is a bowler transformed. Now, it takes about seven balls for him to concede a boundary and only 13 to pick up a wicket.”I don’t know if he can go any better than this,” Anrich Nortje said midway through the Delhi Capitals’ game against the Mumbai Indians on Saturday. And here’s why.Avesh is in his last over, the 19th of the innings, and he completely nails Hardik Pandya.This is a yorker. Not just any yorker. It’s an inswinging yorker. And it’s a corker. At 141kph. Hardik is, at first, set up to helicopter the ball away. But it starts moving in the air. Moving scarily. Hardik is not in the right position. He’s falling over and the ball keeps surging in. It slips through the gap between his feet – his feet! – and knocks back leg stump.The old Avesh could produce such moments. But he wouldn’t have finished a T20 game with an economy rate of 3.75. Top-class fast bowlers make it seem like they can do everything. Strike first, strike late, keep the runs down, make batters wet their pants. Avesh is finally starting to look like he can tick all those boxes.

One is inspirational, well respected, and will grow into a strong leader; the other is an ordinary, and unlucky, captain

Ian Chappell19-Dec-2021Despite the chaos caused by the Australia captain’s Covid close-contact disqualification from playing in the Adelaide Test, good captaincy will eventually be defined as “the job Pat Cummins does”.Imran Khan, a fine leader of the Pakistan side before he became prime minister, says in his book, “A good cricket captain must understand bowling.” Who better than Cummins – a top-class paceman – to understand bowling?He is also by far the most inspirational player in the Australia side, and even when he was replaced as captain this week, the team still played hard with thoughts of his reputation in mind.Related

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Cummins acquired the appropriate nickname Postman Pat before he was appointed captain. He is accorded this handle because he regularly delivers, often providing Australia with a wicket when it’s needed.There is a lot to like about Cummins’ appointment, and he certainly delivered in his first captaincy Test with a five-wicket innings haul at the Gabba.Will Cummins have days where it doesn’t all go exactly to plan? Too right – that is the life of a captain, and of any leader anywhere in the world. However, Cummins will improve as a captain because that is what good leaders do: they learn from their mistakes and try to avoid making them in the future.The one question Cummins can’t answer is how many Tests he’ll miss through injury or Covid regulations. His second-Test hiccup is one he will prefer to have avoided, but having to miss games is something you have to deal with.

Root is not an inspirational captain and this is indicated by the number of times his team work their way into a decent position but can’t finish the job

Cummins will become a really strong leader and elicit excellent assistance because he’s well respected. Eventually he will be ranked as a good leader for all occasions. A lot of that will be based on his calmness and common-sense thinking.What is the opposite definition of excellent leadership? There’s a good chance it can be summed up by Joe Root’s captaincy.Root is an excellent batter but a poor captain. It would not be unfair to describe him as an ordinary and unlucky captain. Rarely do you find a long-term captain who is lacking in imagination but is also lucky. A fortunate captain is usually lucky because the players believe he is some kind of miracle-worker and things tend to work out because of the team’s belief.It showed again at Adelaide Oval that misfortune follows Root’s team around. The England bowlers beat the bat regularly but had little to show for their honest toil. However, the England selectors’ tolerance of mediocrity was also on view when Jos Buttler, who is far from their best keeper, was again chosen and made yet more inexcusable blunders.No amount of blustering bluff at press conferences can cover up for the selection mistakes that have been made by England.It’s not that Root’s team dislike him – on the contrary – it’s just that he has taken so many poor decisions, they must be thinking, “Oh no, not again.”He is not an inspirational captain and this is indicated by the number of times his team work their way into a decent position but can’t finish the job. This happened again when, where after conceding 425 in Brisbane, England repeated their mistakes in Adelaide to leak 473 for the loss of nine. Another sign of Root’s inadequacy was the number of times he put an English fielder in a catching position following an uppish shot going to that area. A good captain – as Richie Benaud regularly said – is two overs ahead of the game, otherwise he’s behind in the match. A responsible leader has a team of competitors who want to play for their skipper.Root had to find a way to be ahead in the Adelaide Test if England were to surge back into the series. Unfortunately, they again let the opportunity slip with some questionable bowling and even more negative tactics. The dreaded conclusion; “Oh no not again,” is likely to be a regular comment while Root remains in charge.

The Ireland series was a historic event in the calendar but Covid-19 still ended up having the final say

Peter Della Penna29-Dec-2021The opening encounter for USA vs Ireland may not have been the biggest crowd to ever grace the Broward County Stadium. The venue has played host to 10,000 people for the CPL, West Indies, New Zealand and India over the years. The official tally was 328 fans for the first T20I between the host country and their Full Member counterpart. But considering just 19 people turned up to see USA play their first ever home ODI a little over two years ago, it was progress.One of those people is Phil Mielke, a man originally from Wisconsin but now residing in Ohio. He discovered cricket while on a work trip to France in 2008 when it was being shown on one of the only English language channels available in his hotel room. He’s since turned into USA’s unofficial super fan, having travelled to see them play live across the country and around the world: from Morrisville, North Carolina, to Los Angeles; from Toronto to Kampala, Uganda to Dubai, where he was the lone USA fan to see them play ODIs against Scotland and UAE in December 2019 and was rewarded with a jersey straight off the back of Elmore Hutchinson. But on most of those occasions, Mielke was not just a super fan. He was literally the only fan. Not so in Florida.”To hear people cheering for USA Cricket and to chant, ‘U-S-A! U-S-A!’, it’s something I’m not even sure I thought I would be able to hear in my lifetime,” Mielke said from the stadium ahead of the second T20I on December 23. “I felt like crying. Just being a fan for as long as I have been, you go some places and you’re the only person there. So, a big change.””I wanted to see two matches and this was the only time to do two days in a row. It just so happened that it was the first ones, which is even better. It’s historic for sure and to get the win yesterday was amazing.”When the USA players walked off the field upon completing the historic 26-run victory over Ireland, they made clear that they were not taking it for granted. The entire squad walked across to the east stand where all the fans who had been chanting “U-S-A! U-S-A!” were assembled, and showered them with applause. Some of the players even shouted back, “Thank you! Thank you! Please come back tomorrow night!”USA captain Monank Patel leads the team to thank the fans for their support•Peter Della PennaWhich they did. More than twice as many people came for the second T20I as attendance for the two games eclipsed 1,000. On paper, yes, this is still not much in a venue that has had more than 10 times that number crammed in like sardines to watch India play.But it was a sign that momentum was building, in spite of the obstacles that included a series announced with less than six weeks notice, many fans who could not come due to previously arranged holiday plans over the Christmas period, not to mention a spike in Covid cases that made the remaining available fans hesitant to travel. The publicity from USA’s first win over Ireland was so good that local celebrities from other sports, former England international and current Inter Miami manager Phil Neville as well as South African golfing legend Ernie Els, were rumored to be joining the VIP hospitality suite for the final ODI on December 30.Yet just as quickly as it was snowballing for the remaining fixtures in the tour, the momentum melted in the Florida heat. Initially it was an umpire that tested positive, causing the first ODI to be canceled out of logistical complications – they couldn’t get replacements in at short notice. Then the rest of the series was scrapped after the visiting support staff and family members tested positive, though, no Irish player caught the virus and all but one USA player had been deemed fit to go.It may make people wonder, why were these final matches canceled when a similar situation unfolding in Melbourne resulted in a Test match continuing uninterrupted? Why were the T20Is also allowed to go ahead despite five USA players being ruled out with Covid yet an entire ODI series was canceled just days later when all but one out of 30-plus players returned a negative test? The short answer is that the Irish side did not want to risk running into any quarantine complications entering Jamaica for the second leg of their international tour. If the USA had been their only destination, it is highly probable that the matches would have gone on as scheduled.Mick Kirby-West (left) and Dave Kirby drove 137 miles to discover the ODI they had tickets for was canceled•Peter Della PennaBut the decision to cancel the matches over the “risk of further players testing positive if the series continued” looks even more incongruous when the USA team was immediately booked on flights home later that same day. So it’s unsafe to be playing a cricket match with everyone spaced out on a massive outdoor field, but heading straight to the airport to get on jam-packed, sold-out, five-hour domestic flights is perfectly fine?The extreme caution with which the decision was made left a sour taste in the mouths of some fans. Dave Kirby and Mick Kirby-West, a 74 and 53-year-old father and son originally from Portsmouth, England, had driven two hours on the morning of the second ODI from Mick’s current home on the west coast of Florida in Cape Coral. Only after completing their 137-mile trek were they informed at the stadium office that the match was called off.Kirby-West had not seen a match since he left England in 2015, and his father had never seen one live. They had bought tickets off the USA Cricket website at 6:43 pm on December 27 and got a standard confirmation email almost immediately. But when news of the postponement came out less than two hours later at 8:21 pm on USA Cricket’s website and social media, neither saw it. Both men wondered why there was no follow-up email sent directly to ticket holders to inform them of the initial scheduling change.”If they are seriously thinking about hosting a Cricket World Cup [sic: The ICC hosts World Cups, not the local board], I think they need to get their s**t together,” Kirby-West said. “You can’t organise a Cricket World Cup if you can’t get a little bit more organised than what they have for these games.”USA super fan Phil Mielke (right) was all smiles after the win over Ireland•Peter Della PennaThough the face value of the tickets was USD 15, the reality is that lots of people travelled from long distances to attend. The true price of admission is closer to USD 1000 when flights, hotels, local transportation and meals are included. The fans are eating that cost, and not USA Cricket.Diane Palmquist, a Minnesota native currently living in New York City, would go to see Test matches in England almost every summer prior to the pandemic. She was at the 2019 World Cup and had also attended numerous events on US soil, including the 2015 Tendulkar vs Warne Cricket All-Stars tour. She was so desperate to see live cricket again that she booked a detour from her family Christmas trip in Minnesota to fly to Florida for the second ODI before returning to New York. Instead, she wound up going to Key Largo for the day when the match was scrapped.”There’s a lot of issues with USA Cricket,” Palmquist said, “But I think we were all hopeful that they would be able to play and I’m just very sad that Covid is getting in the way of everything. I don’t know if they could handle it better. I like that they tried hard to handle it and let the game go on until they couldn’t. I’m pretty tired of everything getting canceled way ahead of time. So I would actually rather come down here and have them try to play and not be able to than just cancel it weeks in advance. Because everything else I have tickets for is getting canceled two months early and I’d rather try to make it happen.”I certainly hope that there are more USA matches like this. I was very excited to have the opportunity to see USA Cricket play here. I would love to come to other matches here and see other international matches here.”

We take a look at the teams vying for promotion in our Division Two preview

ESPNcricinfo staff06-Apr-2022DerbyshireLast season: 5th in Division Three
Head of cricket: Mickey Arthur
Captain: Billy Godleman
Overseas: Suranga Lakmal, Shan Masood, Dustin Melton
Ins: Alex Thomson (Warwickshire)
Outs: Matt Critchley (Essex), Fynn Hudson-Prentice (Sussex), Harvey Hosein (retired), Nils Priestley (released)Perennially in the doldrums, Derbyshire confront the new season with fresh impetus after the arrival of Mickey Arthur, whose unmatched pedigree as an international coach – he has overseen operations with South Africa, Australia, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, to varying degrees of success – should raise the bar in the east midlands. Arthur’s contacts book has already come in handy, with Pakistan opener Shan Masood signing for the summer and Suranga Lakmal, the veteran Sri Lanka seamer, opting to retire from international competition in exchange for two-year contract as Derbyshire’s attack leader.Derbyshire only won one Championship fixture in 2021, and had to wait until the final round of the season to achieve that – although a nine-wicket victory at Hove did lift them above their opponents and away from bottom of the pile. The departures of Matt Critchley (Derbyshire’s leading run-scorer) and Fynn Hudson-Prentice, as well as Harvey Hosein’s enforced retirement, means a significant hit to the playing squad but there is a strong core to the batting, led by Billy Godleman and Wayne Madsen, and a clutch of young seamers who could provide strong support for Lakmal.Arthur, by his own admission, wants “to win every game we play” and suggested that Championship success would mean being in the hunt for promotion – a feat Derbyshire last achieved on Madsen’s watch a decade ago.One to watch: Ben Aitchison, a 22-year-old seamer, played all but one of Derbyshire’s Championship games in 2021, finishing as their leading wicket-taker with 34 at 23.29. Tall and able to hold a disciplined line and length, his immaculate figures of 6 for 28 from 16 overs against Durham might have helped set up a rare win had the game not been ruined by rain. Regrettably, he will miss the start of the season with a “spinal bone injury”.Diversity action: Almost 40% of the non-executive directors on Derbyshire’s board are now either female or from BAME backgrounds. There has been an increase in support for women’s cricket. The club also provides coaching in primary schools, as well as helping to distribute meals in deprived areas. Players and off-field staff have all attended tailored EDI training sessions by the club’s HR & safeguarding director. Alan GardnerBet365: 14/1Chris Rushworth continues to lead the line for Durham•Getty ImagesDurhamLast season: 3rd in Division Two
Director of cricket: Marcus North
Head coach: James Franklin
Captain: Scott Borthwick
Overseas: Keegan Petersen, David Bedingham
Ins: George Drissell
Outs: Cameron Steel (Surrey), Paul van Meekeren (Gloucestershire), Stuart Poynter (released)Related

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Durham’s head of cricket, Marcus North, has overseen an impressive stabilising of the county’s fortunes, which many observers feel can be hammered home with promotion this season in what would end a six-year exile since they were relegated by edict of the ECB as part of a financial bail-out. Whether North would be around to see it is not certain because he regularly appears on shortlists as the next ECB managing director.If Notts are understandably short-priced favorites to win Division Two, Durham appear to be the next best bet. Their ambition is illustrated by the addition of a second overseas batter in in Keegan Petersen, whose stature increased when he led the run-making charts in South Africa’s three-Test series against India earlier this year. They might even have the rare pleasure of Ben Stokes playing Championship cricket, though he will not be available for the early weeks as he awaits the results of a knee scan. Stokes has shunned the IPL this year, following his release by Rajasthan Royals, to concentrate on getting his game right for England’s summer Test schedule and it will be intriguing if this signals a slight shift in the priorities of some England players as they are pulled in more directions that body and mind can survive. Stokes has not played a Championship innings since 2018 so Durham supporters have good reason to consider his impending return with a sense of wonder.Spin bowling rarely figures at Durham, so the onus is on a traditionally strong seam attack to do its stuff. But the Chris Rushworth production line is 36 years old this summer and Brydon Carsen’s cartilage injury while training with England Lions means he won’t return until May. Those remaining should be able to pick up the slack, although a reassertion of Paul Coughlin’s talents would also would be nicely timed.One to watch: David Bedingham has British grandparents on both sides of his family, a UK passport, and has completed three of his five years to qualify for permanent residence and, with it, England qualification. Nobody looked more assured than Bedingham in the first half of last season and a first-class average of 49.18 suggests that around the time of his 30th birthday he could join the production line of South African-born middle-order batters to bolster homegrown talent.Diversity action: Durham, along with Somerset, are one of two counties with no homegrown minority-ethnic player or coach. They are currently advertising for two independent new Board members (unpaid) to “broaden cricket’s loyal base and make the game more representative and accessible”. David HoppsBet365: 5/1Glamorgan’s Kiran Carlson pulls on his way to a century•Getty ImagesGlamorganLast season: 6th, Division Two
Director of Cricket: Mark Wallace
Coach: Matthew Maynard
Captain:David Lloyd
Overseas players: Colin Ingram, Marnus Labuschagne, Michael Neser
Ins: Eddie Byrom (Somerset), James Harris (Middlesex), Sam Northeast (Hampshire)
Outs: Roman Walker (Leicestershire), Nick Selman (released)By his own voracious standards, Marnus Labuschagne let things slip in Pakistan last month, on some of the friendliest batting surfaces in the world. Perhaps a return to the green, green grass of Cardiff will help to concentrate his mind? Certainly it’s debatable whether any of his No.1-ranked achievements could have happened but for stint at Glamorgan in 2019, in which he racked up 1,114 runs in ten matches ahead of his concussion-substitute recall in that summer’s Ashes.Glamorgan’s batting had its moments in 2021, particularly in the early-season conference phase of the Championship, although their eventual sixth-place finish in Division Two didn’t entirely reflect the team’s progress – that was better expressed by their Royal London Cup victory. But the signing of Sam Northeast is quite a coup, and provides another wise old head to balance a middle-order in which Kiran Carlson, with three centuries and a lively 88 in front of Sky’s cameras, produced a breakthrough season.One to watch: It seems an eternity since James Harris burst to prominence as a bustling 16-year-old seamer at Glamorgan, with the world apparently at his feet. After an up-and-down decade at Middlesex, culminating in a loan stint last summer, he’s now permanently back at the county where he cut his teeth, and at the age of 31 he’s got plenty life in his game yet – and professional wisdom in abundance, as shown by his chairmanship of the PCA.Diversity action: With Kiran Carlson and Prem Sisodiya installed as the first Welsh-born cricketers of Asian heritage to play first-team matches for Glamorgan, the club finally has visible representation for the established two-thirds British-Asians who make up the Cardiff Midweek Cricket League. After Mohsin Arif, a former player, last year accused the club of preferential treatment for white players, two British Asian directors have been appointed to the club’s board. A working group has also been set up to improve the club’s connections with minority ethnic communities. Andrew MillerBet365: 5/1Callum Parkinson has enjoyed under-the-radar success at Leicestershire•Getty ImagesLeicestershireLast season: 4th in Div 3
Head coach: Paul Nixon
Captain: Colin Ackermann
Overseas: Beuran Hendricks, Wiaan Mulder
Ins: Roman Walker (Glamorgan), Tom Scriven (Hampshire)
Outs: Dieter Klein (released)There were clear signs of progress for Leicestershire in the early stages of last season, as they fought hard in a tough initial conference to finish 12 points behind Surrey, a club of incomparable wealth and resources. But despite the positivity coming from the Grace Road hierarchy for much of the summer, the bottom line was another disappointing finish, third-from-bottom in Division Three.Several batters made strides last summer. Lewis Hill led the way, returning a career-best 944 runs, while Harry Swindells and Sam Evans kicked on and Hassan Azad showed glimpses of his best after a quiet couple of years. Marcus Harris, who hit three Championship hundreds in eight appearances last summer, turned down a contract extension to move to Gloucestershire but they have brought in two South Africans with excellent first-class records for 2022 in Beuran Hendricks and Wiaan Mulder. Both will reduce the seam-bowling attack’s dependence on Chris Wright, who turns 37 this summer but was a key performer last term.One to watch: Simon Harmer was the only spinner to take more Championship wickets than Callum Parkinson last summer, and Leicestershire’s vice-captain maintained a slightly better strike rate in doing so, admittedly playing the final month of the season in a lower division. Parkinson flies under the radar compared to his twin brother Matt, bowling quick, flat left-arm darts, but is a steady performer who can hold up an end on a flat pitch and attack on a helpful one.Diversity action: Mehmooda Duke quit as chair over the winter, alleging that she had been “rolled out as a poster girl” by the ECB as one of two non-white county chairs. The club are hiring a new community and EDI director but have been criticised for inaction in recent weeks after a club cricketer told the that he was “silenced” for crticising team-mates who blacked up for a fancy-dress party. The squad has started to reflect the diversity of the city in recent seasons. Matt RollerBet365: 20/1MiddlesexLast season: 2nd, Division Three
Head of Men’s Cricket: Alan Coleman
Coach: Richard Johnson
Captain: Peter Handscomb
Overseas players: Peter Handscomb, Shaheen Shah Afridi
Ins:
Mark Stoneman (Surrey)
Outs: Steven Finn (Sussex), Nick Gubbins (Hampshire), James Harris (Glamorgan)Something had to change at Middlesex after a dire season in 2021 … and within the club’s management structures, pretty much everything has. Angus Fraser departed in mid-season as the club’s longstanding director of cricket, Stuart Law followed suit in October after three underwhelming years as head coach, and with Alan Coleman installed as the newly designated head of men’s cricket, it’s over to Richard Johnson to usher in the new regime, after a three-year sojourn south of the river.Middlesex’s most fundamental aim is promotion. The speed and trajectory of their decline after winning the County Championship in 2016 was startling, but the listlessness of their subsequent attempts to regroup have been revealing. On paper, they have long boasted a stable of fast bowlers that most squads would covet – but Steven Finn and James Harris have now moved on, and with Toby Roland-Jones forever vying with injury since his title-sealing hat-trick, it’s Tim Murtagh – ever-green into his 41st year – who remains the senior statesman. However, the arrival of Shaheen Shah Afridi could be the spark to take the new generation – Ethan Bamber and Blake Cullen in particular – to the next level.But where will Middlesex’s runs come from? That has been the common refrain in recent seasons. Peter Handscomb, the captain, owes his club plenty after a fraught 2021 in which he never recovered from a horrific opening run, while Sam Robson and Mark Stoneman – now eight and four years removed from their respective Test dalliances – will be among the many England-qualified openers who believe it’s all up for grabs ahead of the New Zealand series in June.One to watch: Shaheen is pure box-office, and his availability – international commitments excepting – across formats for the 2022 season is potentially one of the most exciting county signings in recent history. He went toe-to-toe with Australia on some merciless decks in Pakistan last month, and provides a star quality that arguably will not be matched even at the Hundred this summer.Diversity action: Mike O’Farrell, Middlesex’s chairman, dropped a clanger at the DCMS hearings in January with his statement that Black people prefer football and Asians focus on education – precisely the sort of outdated tropes that proper EDI initiatives are designed to eliminate. However, the club’s EDI committee, co-chaired by Ankit Shah, has been busy in the winter, including with a role in the interviewing process for the new head coach. Middlesex will also have a big part to play in embedding the newly nationwide ACE programme into its London Boroughs. AMBet365: 9/2Stuart Broad will be vying for an England comeback during the early months of the season•Getty ImagesNottinghamshireLast season: 3rd in Division One
Director of cricket: Mick Newell
Head coach: Peter Moores
Captain: Steven Mullaney
Overseas: James Pattinson, Dane Paterson
Ins:
Outs: Ben Compton (Kent), Peter Trego (retired), Tom Barber (released)Nottinghamshire feel justifiably aggrieved that they are starting the season in Division Two after they showed clear signs of progress last summer and will start as strong favourites to win the title. Their batting line-up includes three players who will be mentioned as contenders for Test selection – Haseeb Hameed, Ben Duckett and Joe Clarke – while Ben Slater is among the country’s more consistent openers and was their leading run-scorer last summer.Stuart Broad will miss the start of their campaign but should play at least three or four early-season games while Dane Paterson and James Pattinson will be supported by Luke Fletcher, Joey Evison, Zak Chappell and Brett Hutton, with Liam Patterson-White acting as their main spinner. They are expecting teams to prepare slow, low pitches to negate the strength of their seam attack away from home but will be tough to beat on lively surfaces at Trent Bridge.One to watch: Lyndon James, the 23-year-old allrounder, was labelled “one of the best prospects in the country” in Broad’s newspaper column last week. A tall, seam-bowling allrounder and a product of the Notts academy, he is yet to deliver the numbers to back that description up but five Championship fifties last summer hinted at his promise and he appears primed for a breakthrough season.Diversity action: The club launched an investigation into Alex Hales’ historic conduct after Azeem Rafiq alleged that he had named his dog “Kevin” because it was a derogatory term used in the England dressing room to describe non-white people. Hales denied the allegation and apologised after a photo emerged of his blackface costume at a fancy dress party. Kunwar Bansil, who was one of the members of Yorkshire’s coaching staff sacked by Lord Kamlesh Patel, has joined the club as a physio. MRBet365: 13/10SussexLast season: 6th in Division Three
Championship coach: Ian Salisbury
Captain: Tom Haines
Overseas: Cheteshwar Pujara, Mohammad Rizwan (April-June)
Ins: Steven Finn (Middlesex), Fynn Hudson-Prentice (Derbyshire), Tom Alsop (loan), George Burrows (Lancashire)
Outs: Phil Salt (Lancashire), Chris Jordan (Surrey), Ben Brown (Hampshire), Mitch Claydon, Stuart Meaker (both retired), Stiaan van Zyl, Aaron Thomason (both released)One win in 14 matches pretty much summed up Sussex’s Championship season, albeit there were mitigating factors in their first wooden spoon since 1997. Ollie Robinson, whose 13-wicket match haul sealed victory over Glamorgan during the conference stage, only played six times as England came calling, while Jofra Archer was barely seen due to ongoing elbow problems. Travis Head made 183 runs in 11 innings during a miserable overseas stint that was curtailed by Australia’s quarantine rules, and the club ended up fielding 26 players – including nine first-class debutants and as many teenagers – during a summer of hard knocks down at Hove.Amidst it all, Ben Brown was stood down as captain, and subsequently asked to be released from a contract that had two years left to run. As well as being Sussex’s first-choice wicketkeeper Brown also topped the club averages in 2021, with 976 runs at 51.36. The rebuilding work had already begun, though, with allrounder Fynn Hudson-Prentice brought back from Derbyshire, and Steven Finn switching Lord’s for the south coast. Cheteshwar Pujara (when his visa comes through) and Mohammad Rizwan will bring further international class to a young dressing room, while the loan signing of Tom Alsop should increase competition for top-order spots. Tom Haines, meanwhile, takes on the captaincy at 23, looking to back up a breakthrough summer in which he finished as the most-prolific run-scorer in the country.One to watch: Two 16-year-olds caught the eye last summer, as part of Sussex’s influx of academy products. Archie Lenham’s legspin will likely come to the fore once again in the Blast, so it’s over to his St Bede’s schoolmate Dan Ibrahim in the longer format. On debut at Headingley in June, Ibrahim became the youngest player to score a half-century in the history of the Championship, and he fell six runs short of setting the three-figure record later in the season. Also bowls handy seam-up.Diversity action: More than 100 staff, players and coaches have so far taken part in EDI educational workshops delivered by Sussex this year. An equality subcommittee has been established on the board, and the club has also arranged for external speakers to come in and address the players on “racial bias and issues in sport”.AGDanial Ibrahim is the youngest cricketer to make a half-century in the 131-year history of the County Championship•Getty ImagesBet365: 20/1WorcestershireLast season: 3rd in Division Three
Head coach: Alex Gidman
Captain: Brett D’Oliveira
Overseas: Azhar Ali
Ins: Ed Pollock (Warwickshire), Ben Gibbon, Taylor Cornall (Lancashire)
Outs: Ross Whiteley (Hampshire), Daryl Mitchell (retired), Alex Milton (released)Brett D’Oliveira becomes the first member of the D’Oliveira dynasty to be officially appointed as county captain after Joe Leach stepped down from the role at the end of last season following five years in charge. His father, Damian, and grandfather, Basil, amassed more than 30 seasons between them at New Road, and Brett first ran around the outfield as a child, but his coach, Alex Gidman, has been quick to point out that it was his tactical acumen that stood out when he deputised for Leach for part of last season.If Leach epitomised perseverance, D’Oliveira might need to add a spot of magic to protect Worcestershire from a difficult season. So often a yo-yo side, their 2021 performance (only Leicestershire, Derbyshire and Sussex below them) suggests another difficult season, especially since Daryl Mitchell, a batting mainstay, has retired. Leach, now 31, needs to focus on his own game. So much rests again with Jake Libby, maker of 1000 runs last season. Azhar Ali, the overseas pro, is 37 and did not shine at Somerset. Ed Pollock, formerly a top-order gambler at Warwickshire, briefly the fastest global batter in T20, has apparently been brought in to play in all three formats, which should challenge the mettle of the coaches and perhaps his own mindset. Will Josh Tongue or Pat Brown be fit enough to bolster the seam attack? Will Moeen Ali ever play red ball? Unless an excellent academy is about to deliver another gem or two, the yo-yo could need some restringing before another promotion challenge is feasible.One to watch: Which brings us to Jack Haynes. At 21, he possesses a first-class average of 32 and has hit two hundreds in pre-season as an opening batter, including one against a decent Warwickshire attack, a match in which he skippered. He could be about to be presented with the biggest challenge of his career.Diversity action: Four of Worcestershire’s 10 board members are women, but in a predominantly white catchment area, minority-ethnic progress is harder to find. The chair, Fanos Hira, asserted earlier this year that the days of “cognac-swigging, cigar-smoking Hufty-Dufties are long gone” and has called for a coordinated response from ECB and the counties. DHBet365: 8/1

RCB’s most important runs in a crunch clash came from a most unlikely pair

Shashank Kishore05-May-20225:04

Bishop: ‘Concerned that a number of types of bowlers are getting Kohli out’

Pune was supposed to be a neutral venue for Royal Challengers Bangalore and Chennai Super Kings, but it was no such thing. A sea of yellow had gathered around the MCA Stadium a good three hours before the match, just as they’d done in 2018, when the franchise organised special trains to charter fans from Chennai after their home games had to be moved out. Dhoni fans made a beeline, the Kohli fans joined them, and it was as if the stadium was one giant party waiting to take off, with yellow comfortably outnumbering red.As if to make the players feel just as at home as the fans, the surface prepared for this match – whether by design or accident – was right down the Super Kings’ alley. There was spin, there was grip and there was bounce. And when all these factors magically sync together, like devices within the Apple ecosystem, MS Dhoni the captain becomes a different beast.Royal Challengers have been poor starters. Their scoring rate of 6.58 in the powerplay coming into this game was the poorest among all 10 teams this season. On Wednesday, though, they were off the blocks like a bullet train. Edges flying thick and fast, cuts piercing the off-side ring, but it wasn’t until Virat Kohli’s majestic slap over cover for six that they really got into the mood. For a moment, even the yellows roared. But before the Royal Challengers could soak in the feeling of having started well, they were being choked. Dhoni’s spin-strangle had just begun to take effect, and when this happens, he’s in total control.Moeen Ali was on the board second ball upon his return after a brief injury break when Faf du Plessis mistimed a long-hop to deep midwicket in the eighth over. In the ninth, Glenn Maxwell was run out trying to steal a single after a horrible misjudgment from Kohli. In the 10th, Kohli was done in by a Moeen ripper. He tossed it up and got it to rip in sharply off the surface to beat his drive and crash into the stumps. The top three gone inside 10 overs. 62 for 0 was now 79 for 3.It was down to two unheralded players to bail Royal Challengers out: Rajat Patidar and Mahipal Lomror. Prior to the start of the season, you might not have seen both featuring in the same XI. Patidar wasn’t even an auction pick. He was contemplating playing in the Dhaka Premier League, or a season of club cricket in the UK after going unsold at the auction. But before something came his way, there was a call from Mike Hesson, Royal Challengers’ director of cricket operations, asking him to pack his bags and show up at the IPL. An injury that ruled out rookie wicketkeeper Luvneet Sisodia had given Patidar an opening.Rajat Patidar added useful runs in the middle overs•PTI Then there’s Lomror, who has seen a lot of life and cricket at 22. Six years ago, he was part of the same batch of India Under-19s as Rishabh Pant, Ishan Kishan and Avesh Khan. While the careers of those three have progressed into the fast lane, Lomror, all of 19, was given the captaincy of Rajasthan’s first-class side. It’s a state known for its administrative challenges, where selections are often arbitrary, and teams not decided until the day of departure. As captain, he managed the team, the logistics, the training, and everything else.It’s among the harshest reality checks a player of his age can get at a time when he should perhaps have been having fun hitting the red and white ball. To his credit, Lomror’s graduation as a big-match player may have come about because of the additional responsibility. It’s another matter altogether that the captaincy would soon leave his hands, but he proved to have a good head on his shoulders.In junior cricket, Lomror and Pant were both bashers in Rajasthan. Lomror was even nicknamed ‘Junior Gayle’ by Chandrakant Pandit, the former India wicketkeeper who is now a respected domestic coach, a man known to have a keen eye for talent. On Wednesday, Royal Challengers needed Lomror to channel the Gayle in him. He needed to win back lost momentum from the innings. On a surface where it wasn’t easy to come in and start swinging straightaway.This is where Patidar helped him. Picked seemingly because of a strong spin game, which Royal Challengers felt would be worth a punt at No. 3, he was quickly off the blocks, churning strike and moving the scorecard along. Off the fourth ball he faced, the first from Moeen, he got to the pitch and walloped a flighted delivery into the stands at long-on. And he went again off Moeen’s next, trying to throw him off his lengths. Then as Maheesh Theekshana came on, Patidar sent a scorching bullet over a ducking Lomror to the straight boundary. What stood out about his shot-making was his clarity. On a surface with bite, he’d quickly realised hitting with the spin was the way to go.Mahipal Lomror top-scored for Royal Challengers with a 27-ball 42•PTI Patidar’s enterprise had a positive effect on Lomror, too, as he used the long levers to great effect. And within no time, Royal Challengers were back up and running with the pair adding 44 off 32. A replacement player and a middle-order reserve, who had spent five seasons at Royals but with little game time to speak of, were expertly reviving the innings.When Patidar fell to an outstanding catch from a sprinting Mukesh Choudhary for a 15-ball 21 in the 16th over, you got the sense he had done his job. It brought out finisher supreme Dinesh Karthik, who initially struggled, especially with Theekshana bowling hard into the pitch and making him force the pace, but by then Lomror had set himself up for a final flourish.Far too often in the past, Royal Challengers have lacked that one solid Indian uncapped player capable of bridging the gap between their top order and their finishers. In two innings alone, Lomror had proved he could step up. By the time Lomror was out in the 19th, he had bailed the innings out and given their bowlers something to defend.It was still only par, but without much dew, it still was something to work with. And in making 42 off 26, Lomror reassured himself and everyone that his overall T20 strike rate of 120 coming into the season was heading north. He also gave a glimpse of his maturity and level-headedness as Royal Challengers fight to go deep in the competition.

The Ireland batter talks about his tough run in T20Is, his cricket-mad family, and his belief in the squad’s ability to go further in the T20 World Cup this year

Matt Roller16-Oct-2022Harry Tector hardly watched a ball of the 2021 T20 World Cup after Ireland’s elimination. “I couldn’t turn it on,” he recalls. “I couldn’t think about who we could have been playing and where we could have been. It was probably as dark as I’ve been with cricket after that game.”The game in question was an eight-wicket defeat under the scorching Sharjah sun. Ireland, a full ICC member, collapsed from 62 for 0 after 7.1 overs to post 125 for 8 and were knocked out by Namibia, an Associate nation, whose successful run chase owed plenty to David Wiese’s 28 not out off 14 balls. Four days after starting the tournament by thrashing Netherlands, Ireland were out.”Almost everyone was in the same boat,” Tector says. “I remember us getting off to an awesome start but we struggled through the middle and couldn’t quite get down. Wiese hit a few bombs and put the nail in the coffin. We were just devastated.”Tector, Irish cricket’s coming man and widely believed to be a future captain of the country, was batting out of position at No. 6, making 8 off six as the innings fell away. He had been in and out of the side, struggling to nail a spot down, and was left out of Ireland’s next T20I squad for a two-match series against the United States in December.”I took it really terribly,” he says. “I was unapproachable, almost, for three days. I found it difficult to accept it: from being in the XI for the World Cup to being out of the 15 for the USA trip.” He was recalled one game into the qualifying tournament for Australia, at which stage Ireland needed three consecutive wins to reach the World Cup.Promoted to No. 4, Tector helped Ireland book their spot with cameos against Germany and Oman. “In hindsight, it was the little spark that I needed to give me an extra bit of motivation,” he reflects. “When I came back in, I batted at No. 4, which suits me the best. In a roundabout way, it was probably the best thing that could have happened.”Three games into the 2022 T20 World Cup, Ireland crashed out of the tournament. “We were just devastated,” Tector says•ICC via GettyHe has retained that spot ever since, with mixed returns. He started Ireland’s home summer with 64 not out off 33 balls in a rain-reduced game against India, then hit 39 off 28 two days later. But in his next ten innings he only passed 25 once to finish the season averaging 25.33 with a strike rate of 133.33.Simultaneously, Tector’s 50-over form has been remarkable with two hundreds and seven fifties in his last 15 ODI innings. He is a tall, orthodox batter, strong off his hip or hitting through extra cover. “One-day cricket suits me more than T20,” he explains. “It comes more naturally to me. I’d love to bring that consistency into T20 cricket, but all I want to do is win games of cricket for Ireland. That’s all I’ve ever really wanted to do.”With T20, you have to accept that you’re not going to be as consistent. It’s more about putting in match-winning performances, whether that’s 80 off 50 balls or 20 off 10. I’m still learning. I’m only 22. I’m by no means the finished article and I’ll still make mistakes more often than not. But I feel like I’m improving as a player.”Tector is a member of a generation of Ireland players who have not had access to county cricket in the way their predecessors did. A consequence of Ireland’s ascent to Full-Member status was that their players no longer qualified as locals in county cricket, instead competing for a small number of overseas spots, and opportunities have been hard to come by.As a result, they are increasingly reliant on opportunities in short-form leagues: Tector flew to Australia for the World Cup from Guyana, where he had been representing Barbados Royals in the CPL, while Josh Little, the promising left-arm seamer, has enjoyed stints in the Abu Dhabi T10, the LPL and the Hundred.”The more players that we can get playing in these leagues, the better we’re going to be as a country,” Tector says. “You can see that with someone like Stirlo [Paul Stirling]. He’s played in all these leagues and played for Middlesex for so long. He has such a vast wealth of experience that when he comes back to Ireland, he’s the man. When I first came into the team, he was the guy you went to if you needed advice about batting.”In July this year Tector scored two hundreds in three ODIs against New Zealand•Sportsfile/Getty ImagesAt the CPL, he counted David Miller among his team-mates. “There’s so many good players around and you spend so much time with them that even when you’re not talking about cricket specifically, you’re picking up little snippets. Just watching someone like him from the sidelines, you’re opened up to ways of thinking you haven’t heard before. I couldn’t get enough of it.”The lingering frustration is that the reason underpinning why county cricket is inaccessibility to Tector and his peers – Ireland becoming a Test-playing nation – has felt more like a quirk than a lived reality: they have not played a Test since July 2019, and Tector is still uncapped. That should finally change next year: Ireland have five Tests scheduled between March 2023 and January 2024, including another against England at Lord’s.”It’s the next thing on my bucket list,” Tector says. “It’s something that I really, really want to do. Growing up in Ireland, I pretty much watched every Test match England played, just because it was always on TV at home. For me, it’s still the greatest test of you as a player. If you can score big runs at that level, you’re one of the best players in the world, aren’t you?”There will be plenty of family pride when Tector’s Test debut arrives: he is one of three Tector brothers to have captained Ireland at an Under-19 World Cup along with Jack and Tim. “Dad took us to YMCA CC [in Dublin] where he played and we fell in love with the game. After that, we were living in the back garden, playing cricket on the patio.”His younger sister, Alice, played for the Under-15s this summer and if she graduates to full international level, she could play in the same team as his girlfriend, Gaby Lewis. Together, Tector and Lewis are Irish cricket’s own power couple. “There’s far too much cricket in my life,” he says, laughing.”I’ve been with Gaby for over three years now but I haven’t seen her much: the nature of our lives is that we spend a lot of time on the road. Her dad is my dad’s best friend and that’s how we know each other. Trying to switch off from cricket when the families are together is a challenge: both are filled with complete badgers.”Those families will be glued to the World Cup when Ireland’s tournament gets underway against Zimbabwe in Hobart on Monday. “A success would be getting through the group,” Tector says, “but we’re in a good enough place that if we do get through, I don’t see any reason we can’t go out and win against pretty much every team that we face in the next group.”That’s the belief in the squad and that’s changed in the last couple of months off the back of our performances. We genuinely believe we can beat these big teams: in the summer, we were a bounce of the ball from beating New Zealand and India. If we focus on the process and play some really good cricket, hopefully we’ll qualify for the tournament proper and get some big wins.”

Winning the toss has helped Australia, but for a type of side rarely seen on home soil, a fascinating four days still lie ahead

Andrew McGlashan04-Jan-20233:27

McDonald backs Agar skillset despite lack of first-class cricket

When Marnus Labuschagne was marking out his medium-pace run-up, although maybe not entirely seriously, alongside Pat Cummins and Josh Hazlewood before play on the opening day at the SCG, you knew this was not going to be a type of balance often seen for an Australia Test team at home.It had been one of the more fascinating lead-ins to a Test in this country, through a combination of conditions and the injuries Australia had suffered, most significantly the one to Cameron Green and the challenge of effectively replacing two cricketers.One of the traditions of the New Year Test is to debate the use of two spinners. This time, both teams went that way. What was something of a surprise from Australia was that Ashton Agar formed a four-man attack with Cummins and Hazlewood as the only quicks.Related

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Leaving aside their brittle batting for a moment, it actually felt like South Africa had the better balance of attack with Simon Harmer included alongside Keshav Maharaj and three specialist quicks. It was the first time since the Super Series Test in 2005 that both teams had gone with two frontline spinners.”I don’t think I’ve played on a wicket that’s turned from the middle as much as it did today,” Labuschagne said about a dry pitch already taking turn.For Australia, Hazlewood was returning from a side strain, and in two of the four Tests this season, Australia have suffered an injury to their pace attack which removed a bowler: Cummins in Perth and Green in Melbourne [Mitchell Starc battled pain to continue]. It felt like something of a risk to put all the pace bowling in the hands of two.But Australia wanted some batting security with a specialist No. 6 so Matt Renshaw got the nod – and not long after the toss tested positive for Covid-19. Whether he actually completes his Test return remains to be seen. Spare a thought for Marcus Harris, who has travelled all summer as the reserve batter, and even now is unlikely to be the one called in if a sub is needed.

“I know he said that he feels he didn’t play that much of a role [earlier in the summer], but as soon as you get rid of him you are like, geez, two and two bowlers, that’s a bit different, we aren’t used to that”Marnus Labuschagne

However, it was the make-up of the attack that was most interesting. While 2016-17 was the last time Australia had played two frontline spinners in a home Test – when Nathan Lyon was partnered by Steve O’Keefe against Pakistan at the SCG – it is very unusual for there not to be what classes as a third seam option, with all due to respect to Labuschagne’s bustling medium-pace.If you look back over recent generations of the Australian team, there has been someone capable of a third-seamer role, even if their primary job was batting.For example, when Shane Warne was partnered by Tim May against England in 1994-95, Mark Waugh was there to provide support to Craig McDermott and Damien Fleming.Jumping forward a few years, the 1998-99 Test against England included Colin Miller, who opened bowling seam-up before switching to offspin. The ultimate funky selection. Glenn McGrath was the frontline quick that day, but if needed, Steve Waugh was available; by then, Mark Waugh’s back had forced him to turn to offspin.After Steve Waugh had left the scene, Warne and Stuart MacGill were paired at the SCG but by then Shane Watson and Andrew Symonds were part of the team – the latter, like Miller, able to slip between seam-up and offspin. In the years that followed, when O’Keefe and Lyon played together, Hilton Cartwright and Mitchell Marsh were in the side.”I don’t think I’ve played on a wicket that’s turned from the middle as much as it did today”•Getty ImagesGreen, however, has given them something there has rarely been in Australian Test cricket: a No. 6 who can also hold his own as a fast bowler.”We hope we aren’t going to play without Cameron Green very often,” Labuschagne said. “Think it shows clearly the hole that he leaves in a side. I know he said that he feels he didn’t play that much of a role [earlier in the summer], but as soon as you get rid of him you are like, geez, two and two bowlers, that’s a bit different, we aren’t used to that.”Australia are hopeful that Green will be available from the start of the series in India, but that is still not certain. And even if he is, the preparation may not have been ideal. Before the SCG game, Cummins said there was a strong connection between this game and India; the two-and-two combination could well be the likely route should Green not be ready for Nagpur.”It’s a luxury we have [ahead of India],” Cummins said of the twin spin option. “This [pitch] is probably as close as we’re going to get to India here in Australia. It’ll be good to see Ash [Agar] have a go after a little while and Matt [Renshaw] as well.”Labuschagne did unfurl his medium-pacers earlier in the season when Cummins was absent from the second innings against West Indies in Perth, but as much as he clearly enjoys it, he is unlikely to be seriously adding to Australia’s seam options even though all the part-timers in Australia’s order are spinners.”It’s something that happens by accident, it’s not something we are actively pursuing,” he said. “It’s a bit more of a helping aid if we lose a bowler, I can make sure I can do a job to make sure I can rest the quicks.”So far, by winning the toss and laying a solid platform, Australia’s selection decisions have fallen their way, but for a type of side rarely seen on home soil a fascinating four days still lie ahead.

The top stats from the second day in Perth where Australia put on a massive total

Sampath Bandarupalli01-Dec-20225 Instances of two batters scoring double-hundreds for Australia in the same Test innings, including Marnus Labuschagne and Steven Smith against West Indies. The previous instance was by Ricky Ponting and Michael Clarke in 2012 against India at the Adelaide Oval. It was also the last instance of two double-centurions in the same Test innings for any team.155 Innings Smith needed for his 29th hundred in Test cricket. Only two batters had 29 Test centuries in fewer innings – Don Bradman in 79 and while Sachin Tendulkar in 148.ESPNcricinfo Ltd4 Double-centuries for Smith in Tests, the joint third-most by a batter in this format for Australia. Bradman (12) and Ponting (6) are ahead of Smith, while Greg Chappell and Clarke also have four double-hundreds each for Australia.598 Runs aggregated by Australia before the dismissal of Travis Head. It is the second-highest they have ever scored in a Test innings before the fall of the fourth wicket. Australia lost their fourth wicket at the score of 604 in the 1965 Bridgetown Test against West Indies.598 for 4 Australia’s total in the Perth Test is their second-highest total against West Indies at home, after 619 in Sydney in 1969. The 598 total is Australia’s highest Test score since the 649 for 7 against England in 2018 in Sydney.189 Bowling average of West Indies’ fast bowlers in the first innings in Perth, their worst in a Test innings where they bowled 600-plus balls. Their strike rate of 327 in this innings is also their worst ever. The West Indies quicks bowled 109 overs for two wickets at the cost of 378 runs.4101 Test runs scored by Smith at home. His batting average of 66.14 in Australia is the third-highest among players to have scored 4000-plus runs in a country. Bradman averaged 98.22 in Australia, while Gary Sobers averaged 66.80 in the West Indies.

That Tamim is unlikely to play in England again is indicative of his side’s treatment by the big teams

Andrew Miller15-May-2023The cry went up from the stands. “Tamim! [Thump, thump, thump] Tamim!”It was the sound of an adoring, optimistic, expectant public – the type that Tamim Iqbal has taken in his stride throughout his 16 years as a Bangladesh cricketer. Despite being made up of an overwhelmingly England-based crowd, the passion was as fervent as you might have expected for a day-night fixture at Mirpur, and afterwards, Tamim’s delight at his side’s thrilling five-run victory over Ireland reflected the true sense of occasion they had lived through.But then, as he addressed the impact that the crowd had had in an entertaining 2-0 series win, Tamim let slip a moment of candour that rather stopped the attending media in its tracks.Related

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“The support here is always special,” he said. “I am not sure if I will be playing in England again. We don’t have any matches scheduled here for the next three or four years. Probably this was my last game here, so I really enjoyed it.”There was not a word of hyperbole in Tamim’s statement, but it was a jarring admission of career mortality nonetheless – and one that deserves, to judge by the euphoric scenes that accompanied his team’s performance, to be accompanied by a huge dollop of administrative regret.For if ever there was a player who embodied the youth, optimism and potential of Bangladesh, it is Tamim. Self-evidently, he has evolved as a cricketer and a character since he burst onto the international scene at the 2007 World Cup: as much than anything, it has been his duty – alongside his fellow veterans, Shakib Al Hasan and Mushfiqur Rahim – to develop the worldly wisdom that simply did not exist until they (and others alongside them) had grown into the job. And to that end, it was a somewhat downbeat 69 from 82 balls in this latest ODI, Tamim’s first half-century in 10 innings, that underpinned his side’s series-sealing win at Chelmsford.But in the mind’s eye, Tamim could still be that fearless 17-year-old, skittering down the track to Zaheer Khan at Trinidad, and slapping him for one of the most preposterous sixes of a century that has since been over-run with them. Or he could be that ebullient 21-year-old, leaping in joy and triumph at Lord’s in 2010, while signalling for the dressing-room to etch his name onto the Lord’s Honours Boards, after carting Tim Bresnan into the MCC members for a stunning 94-ball hundred.Or he could be the kid who, a week later at Old Trafford, repeated the dose with arguably an even more extraordinary performance – a run-a-ball hundred in the second Test, where his fellow opener Imrul Kayes made 36 and no other batter managed more than 11.

“We don’t have any cricket here in the next three or four years. I did something special in my first tour here. This being my last tour, I wanted to do something special. I couldn’t do it, but it was nice to get some runs to make it a memorable occasion”

Tamim would only have been human had he over-reached in attempting to live up to such standards on his next visit to England for the Champions Trophy in 2017, but not a bit of it. Consecutive innings of 128 and 95 against England and Australia set the agenda for his team’s unlikely qualification for the semi-finals, and though Bangladesh were never really in the running for the World Cup knockouts two years later, three wins in eight completed fixtures – including the scalps of South Africa and West Indies – was no disgrace.But then, without warning, the tale of the tape ends. Four more years have since elapsed, and now suddenly, with a century there for the taking at Essex’s County Ground, a skied slap falls into the hands of Ireland’s Craig Young at short third man, the fans cease their chanting as one in that familiar inhalation of the ground’s atmospherics, and Bangladesh’s most evocative batter takes leave of perhaps his favourite overseas stage for what he understandably expects will be the very last time.”I was a bit disappointed,” Tamim admitted afterwards. “I should have continued from that position. I would have been really happy if I could have made it big today. When you have a long career, you will see lots of ups and downs. I wasn’t at my best in the last two or three series. But I always had the belief that I was one game away [from coming back to form].”It is quite sad, definitely,” he added. “We don’t have any cricket here in the next three or four years. I did something special in my first tour here. This being my last tour, I wanted to do something special. I couldn’t do it, but it was nice to get some runs today to make it a memorable occasion.”Irrespective of the efforts that Essex made to ramp up the occasion this past week, should we not feel a bit robbed that such a box-office competitor has been limited to such a meagre handful of stage-seizing moments in England?Tamim celebrates getting to fifty•Andrew Miller/ESPNcricinfo LtdTo draw a parallel with another teenage Asian prodigy who lived up to his youthful billing, Sachin Tendulkar played 43 matches in England compared to Tamim’s 23, but of those, 33 came in the course of five separate bilateral tours between 1990 and 2011, during which the English public were able to track his evolution from woolly-haired wunderkind to grizzled behemoth. Tamim, by contrast, owes his record in England almost entirely to their hosting of three ICC tournaments in 2009, 2017 and 2019, and now this Ireland stop-over. Bilaterally speaking, Bangladesh have not been invited since Tamim’s Cricketer of the Year-winning exploits, 13 long years ago.Incidentally, at Bristol on the ODI leg of that tour, Bangladesh pulled off their first-ever win over England after 20 consecutive losses, since when the head-to-head has been level-pegging at P18 W9 L9. At the precise moment, therefore, that the team shed the callowness that had undermined its early relevance as an international team, England more or less gave up on Bangladesh as opponents – notwithstanding a pair of memorable losses at consecutive World Cups in 2011 and 2015, the second of which effectively kick-started the revolution that won the subsequent event.And so it could be that a mighty campaigner has just slipped out of England’s side door, accompanied by an enthusiastic knot of Bangladeshi journalists and serenaded by a packed and sun-baked houseful of fans, but virtually unheralded by the UK media – as if providing cricket’s own answer to that philosophical question about oaks falling in deserted forests.And if that is the case, then perhaps there’s a fitting irony to the identity of his farewell opponents. Ireland versus Bangladesh is, after all, a match-up with an infamous place in cricket’s modern history – had it not been for that innings at the 2007 World Cup, and Ireland’s near-concurrent exploits in Jamaica, India and Pakistan would have met as anticipated in their Super Eights clash in Barbados, and the cards of their conquerors might never have been marked to the same extent.Notwithstanding Ireland’s subsequent attainment of Test status, the reluctance of the game’s established nations to share the limelight has been palpable ever since. And the career of Tamim Iqbal, though formidable in its own right, has been denied a return to the stage on which he briefly shone like few batters before him.

Essex have lost more wickets than anyone else in the Blast but their batters just keep coming

Alan Gardner14-Jul-2023There are three things that it is worth knowing about Essex’s 2023 Vitality Blast campaign. The first is that they squeezed through to the quarter-finals with their last hit of the group stage, as Feroze Khushi’s cow-corner slog was carried over the rope by Chris Jordan to secure a three-wicket win against Surrey. Even then, progress wasn’t confirmed until Kent lost at Somerset later that night.The second and third are linked, and tell you a bit about that dramatic finish at The Oval. No team has gone harder from the start of their batting innings than Essex, a powerplay run rate of 10.30 more than half a run per over above the next team on the list. And similarly, no team has lost more wickets in this year’s Blast. You can land your punches but Essex just keep coming.It may not the perfect strategy, but it clearly suits a group of cavalier young players balanced out by a few senior heads. In that Surrey game, for instance, Essex lost a wicket from the second ball of their chase of 196, then freewheeled along at more than 12 an over until the departure of Dan Lawrence in the 12th; from which point they lost 6 for 48 to put the result back into the balance right up until Khushi’s finisher.Leading the way in a line-up that clearly likes to buckle its swash is Michael Pepper, who powered the Oval chase alongside Lawrence with 75 off 39 balls. A 25-year-old who styles himself on AB de Villiers and speaks with a similar, though less-pronounced, twang – Pepper was born in the UK to an English father and South African mother – he has been Essex’s leading run-scorer in each of the last three editions of the Blast. Over the last two summers, he has 830 T20 runs at a strike rate of 168.35. Only one player has scored as heavily at a quicker rate – Somerset’s Will Smeed (900 at 169.17).Related

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“It’s definitely fearless cricket, just trying to take the game on as much as you can,” Pepper tells ESPNcricinfo. “Always looking to be positive and trust your instincts when you are out there, and it’s definitely helped by our batting line-up batting so deep. Literally anyone in almost the top nine or 10 can win you the game from a lot of different positions. So the fact that we have just that depth the whole way down [means] we can continue being aggressive and that’s definitely our mantra, of trying to take the game on as much as we can.”In fact, according to Daniel Sams, the Australia allrounder who is one of those match-winners down the order – and currently the most valuable player in the competition according to ESPNcricinfo’s Smart Stats – Essex have tried to dismantle one of T20’s most-established axioms: if you lose three wickets in the powerplay, you are likely to lose the game.”We have lost three wickets in six overs probably more than once this tournament but I’m pretty sure at least one of those games, after six overs we were still going at tens and we still won the game,” Sams says. “So I think that mentality of old – lost a few wickets and we need to hold back – doesn’t really work anyway. The buy in is, ‘Let’s just be bold, let’s be brave and just keep doing what we would do, regardless of the situation.’ Because all the situations or scenarios, that’s just a distraction from how you can best play your game.”Michael Pepper brings out his trademark reverse•Getty ImagesAs befits a team that prizes strike rate above average, Essex have been three down in the powerplay six times this season, and won three of them – including a rocky start of 31 for 4 in 4.2 overs chasing 151 at Canterbury (victory achieved with four wickets and 10 balls to spare).It is four years since Essex won their maiden T20 title with a team, again led by Simon Harmer, featuring club greats Ryan ten Doeschate and Ravi Bopara. Pepper was an unused squad member for Finals Day in 2019 but is now foremost among a clutch of players aged 22-25 – including Khushi, Robin Das and Will Buttleman – who are looking to repeat the feat. Lawrence, 26, who starred in the quarter-final win over Birmingham and is in his last season for the club having agreed a move to Surrey, will also be key, although Khushi has been ruled out of involvement due to a fractured hand.Pepper has already had a taste of the franchise world that is opening up for short-format cricketers, playing in the Hundred and Abu Dhabi T10. But he has not contemplated taking the route Smeed opted for in signing a white-ball-only contract with Somerset and hopes to attract the interest of England – and perhaps one day the IPL – through the established pathways.”I don’t like tipping myself as just a T20 player,” Pepper says. “I’m still trying to get in all the Essex teams. I’ve still got quite a heavy focus on four-day cricket, but it [T20] just seemed to be the one that’s come the most natural to me – [where I’ve] just excelled, being able to go out and express myself, playing on natural feel.”

A treat for your eyes: Six outrageous Michael Pepper sixes #Blast23 #FinalsDay pic.twitter.com/Aki5Epazbm

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