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The home bowlers work hard to get the better of a slow pitch and a resolute opposition

Sidharth Monga27-Nov-20212:00

Vettori: Axar’s pace, consistency and accuracy were brilliant

Far too often, India win far too easily at home these days. Since the last time they lost a series at home, India have lost two of 38 Tests, and drawn five (three of them weather-affected). Of the 31 wins, only one has been by a margin of under 100 runs or six wickets. The two losses have been when they have lost a crucial toss.However, once in a while, along comes a pitch so slow and low, and along comes a No. 1 team in the world who doesn’t make unforced errors. Edges keep falling short, ones that beat them keep missing the stumps, turn keeps getting slower and slower, and we have a proper challenge.

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When the third day started, India knew they were in for a hard day’s work. They had bowled 57 overs on this pitch for no wicket even though they had produced 56 false responses from the batters. As a comparison, India were bowled out in 96 mistakes. It points to some good fortune for the New Zealand openers, but also to how slow and low the pitch had become. You could beat them with sideways turn, which kept increasing, but taking wickets was going to be hard work.In other words, this was not a pitch or an opposition that you could run through with two good bowlers. In three days, there has hardly been a single opportunity at bat-pad. Gully has been kneeling on the floor. Each of the bowlers had to do a job here, and they did.He might have got just three wickets, but R Ashwin was masterful in his 11-over spell in the morning. Axar Patel, who ran away with a five-for, his fifth in just four Tests, was asked what advice he would give his batters on day four given the conditions. He said there wasn’t much to worry with the pitch; only if the spinners are patient can they trouble batters.Ashwin hates the word patience. At least in the traditional parlance, which is to say keep trying your stock ball, experiment less, and the results will come. He was anything but patient. He poured out a career worth of tricks in a spell. He changed the angles of the seam, he changed the angles on the crease, he changed the points of release, he changed the pace. He bowled the carrom ball, he bowled the arm ball, he bowled a legspinner’s topspinner, and he bowled a lot of offbreaks.Related

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At one point, Ashwin caused a pause in play because the umpire was so flummoxed by the angle of his run-up, which was perfectly legal but is so rarely used it is hard to remember anyone doing it. He ran in from the umpire’s right, got extremely close to him, the closest you can without whacking him, released the ball from practically in front of the umpire, and kept running along the diagonal. While doing this, he made sure he was not close to the danger area.Even while he did all this, Ashwin had the ball on a string. It dipped and drifted beautifully, giving the batters hardly any easy boundary, if at all. On a pitch that other bowlers have drawn a false shot once every seven balls, Ashwin did so once every five balls. This was one of the great spells of spin bowling just for the sheer number of times he beat batters in the air on a pitch that had not yet begun to help the spinners.Tom Latham is an expert batter, tight in defence but severe on anything loose. He batted close to seven hours for just 95 runs not because he was overly defensive, but because he was not given anything to score off. Batting often gets easier the more time you spend on the wicket, but it kept getting difficult the more Latham faced Ashwin.Despite a determined show from New Zealand, India’s bowlers kept creating mistake after mistake, bowling good ball after good ball.•BCCIAnd it wasn’t just Ashwin. It can’t be on such pitches. Ishant Sharma put in a spell of 6-2-20-0 in the morning before other spinners took over. Umesh Yadav then produced his usual brute out of nowhere to take out another big batter Kane Williamson.When so much pressure has been built, it is imperative the change-up bowlers don’t release it. Forget releasing the pressure, India’s change-up bowlers on this day are experts of exploiting it. The harder newer ball drew quicker response from the pitch, and Axar and Ravindra Jadeja started targeting the stumps.Axar had the better day of the two. Interestingly, he said the wider he went on the crease and the lower he went on the release, the more assistance he got from the pitch. So he just kept mixing up high-release straighter deliveries with roundarm turning ones. The accuracy was unerring. He was lethal once it started misbehaving.The endeavour of Test batting, especially away from home, is to see off the main threats and then cash in on either tired or lesser bowlers. There was no lesser bowler. In the pleasant temperatures of Kanpur, which ironically means the cracks didn’t quite open up sooner, there was no question these bowlers were tiring.It took India 67 mistakes to get their first wicket, the most it has taken for an opening wicket to fall in India since ESPNcricinfo started keeping control stats. It took India 133 mistakes in all to bowl New Zealand out. But they kept at it, creating mistake after mistake, bowling good ball after good ball.It will take more of the same in the second innings – although it is getting progressively difficult to bat on – but if India can manage to pull off a win here, New Zealand’s innings of 142.5 overs will be the fifth-longest first innings by a visiting team in a lost Test in India. This win will not have come easy.

The 16 teams will be split into two separate eight-team tournaments in Al Amerat

Peter Della Penna17-Feb-2022Shorter tournament lengthAt one time, the ICC was contemplating scrapping the global qualifier altogether partly for cost-cutting reasons. After getting some pushback from some leading Associates, the global qualifier has remained. But whereas in the past it ran for anywhere from two and a half to three weeks, the new edition of the event will run for one week. Despite having expanded this stage of the qualifier from 14 to 16 teams, splitting it into two sites with just eight teams at each site and rejigging the format to reduce the event length to seven days means saving at least USD 250,000 just on hotel room nights alone, not to mention a host of other daily operational expenses.From a competitive standpoint, the shorter format has a two-fold effect. Some teams in the past struggled to field their best 14-man squad because certain teams ran into situations where their players could not take three weeks off of work for an entire year, let alone in one chunk for an ICC tournament. This was especially true for some of the busier Associates who may not have enough games to justify full-time contracts, but still too many during a calendar year to breach the threshold of exhausting annual leave from the day jobs of their amateur playing squad.The other issue was that teams featuring players who are not full-time professionals (and even some of the teams who were full professional) often racked up plenty of injuries when their bodies were pushed to the max by a format that tried to squeeze as many games as possible into a relatively tight window. One edition of the qualifier, in 2012, saw teams play seven group matches in eight days. Eventual champions Ireland played 11 matches in 12 days, including a double-header on the day of the tournament final.All of that is a thing of the past. Teams will play a maximum of five matches in seven days, with two off days scheduled. Whereas the tournament lasted anywhere from 51 to 72 matches in the past, each eight-team split qualifier will contain 20 total matches. It means the players won’t have to wipe out their annual leave from work, and they also won’t be leaving the event with their bodies wiped out from exhaustion.Fewer games means less margin for errorNamibia was a team that benefitted from the lengthy group stage in the 2019 global qualifier. After getting thrashed by Netherlands and Papua New Guinea to open up a group stage that included six matches, they then went on a roll winning four straight and taking that into the knockouts where they defeated Oman to clinch a spot in the T20 World Cup.Oman similarly benefitted from the knockout stage format that was in place in 2019 which offered a second chance to teams who finished second or third in their group by having a repechage elimination playoff against a fourth-place group finisher, which in 2019 was Hong Kong. That second-chance match became a winner take all contest to claim the last remaining berth for the T20 World Cup. Meanwhile, the winners of each seven-team group – Ireland and Papua New Guinea – clinched automatic berths in the T20 World Cup.Netherland won the 2019-20 global qualifiers•Peter Della PennaAll of those incentives for finishing high in the round-robin stage are now completely gone. Each of the two eight-team global qualifiers – one will also take place in Zimbabwe in July – are now divided into two groups of four. Each team will play three group games, compared to six group matches from 2019, and the top two teams in each group advance to the semi-finals.There is no longer an automatic berth in the T20 World Cup for finishing first in your group. Instead, the two group leaders will play the second-place team in the opposite group in a straight shootout, which means no repechage second-chance playoff match. The winner of each semi-final clinches a spot in the T20 World Cup. It means there could be a scenario where a team goes 3-0 in group play but loses their semi-final and misses out on the T20 World Cup. All teams will still play a final playoff match which will be for seeding and ranking purposes only as the two semi-final winners will face off in the tournament final and the two losing semi-finalists will play a consolation third-place playoff.How they got here? In the case of Ireland and Oman, they have arrived at the global qualifier by virtue of having been at the opening round of the 2021 men’s T20 World Cup but fall back into the qualifier after failing to progress to the Super 12s.Nepal, who missed out on the global qualifier in 2019 after failing to make it out of Asia Regional qualifying, have been granted a spot this time around based on the ICC’s T20I rankings, as have UAE, who were part of the global qualifier in 2019.Canada advanced as the runner-up in the Americas regional qualifier (behind USA) which took place last November in Antigua. Bahrain advanced as the winner of the Asia regional qualifier held last October in Qatar. Germany advanced as the runner-up at the Europe regional qualifier (behind Jersey) which was also held in October. Ironically all three of those regional qualifiers were held at the same time that the 2021 men’s T20 World Cup was being played in the UAE.Philippines’ presence in Oman, hailing from the East Asia-Pacific region, came about in slightly unusual circumstances. The EAP regional events have traditionally been dominated throughout the last two decades by Papua New Guinea, but PNG’s maiden appearance at the T20 World Cup last year meant that they would not have to return to take part in the first steps of regional qualifying for the 2022 T20 World Cup. That opened the door for a second team from the EAP region to advance to one of the two eight-team global qualifiers (PNG will be competing at the eight-team Zimbabwe qualifier in July).An eight-team EAP Regional Qualifier was scheduled to take place last October but wound up being canceled due to Covid-19 logistical problems. As a result, Philippines advanced as the highest-ranked team from the region, a ranking which was primarily based on their performance from the 2019 EAP qualifier in which they finished second behind PNG thanks to a 10-run win over Vanuatu in a rain-reduced five-over shootout, as well as securing a point from a match against PNG which was washed out that crucially put them one point above Vanuatu instead of level on points. Philippines enter the tournament as the lowest-ranked side (46th) to have ever reached this stage of the T20 World Cup qualifying process.

Bangladesh batter urges younger players to raise the bar after he became the first from the country to hit 5000 Test runs

Mohammad Isam18-May-2022When the moment finally arrived for Mushfiqur Rahim, he actually withdrew from the shot. It had been an absorbing first hour of play in steaming Chattogram, where the heat was over 40 degrees. The wait was for Mushfiqur to score 15 runs to become Bangladesh’s first cricketer to reach 5000 Test runs. There was the odd quip about how Tamim Iqbal could overtake him. Tamim had retired hurt on 133 after cramping up on the second afternoon, and he was padded up to bat next.But after facing 47 balls, an Asitha Fernando delivery shaved Mushfiqur’s gloves to go past the wicketkeeper. While he was completing the two runs, the big screen on the western side announced what had just happened. Mushfiqur’s celebration was mostly muted, raising his bat just once.A milestone of 5000 runs stopped mattering a long time ago, but Bangladesh’s Test cricket is only 20 years old. So in this Test nation’s context, this goes down in history as one of Bangladesh’s seminal achievements. Mushfiqur, the 81-Test veteran, is very much aware of the significance of the moment. At the end of the day, he passed on the figurative baton to young Mahmudul Hasan Joy, a promising opener playing in his fifth game.Related

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“We were cutting the celebratory cake in the dressing room just now and I fed a piece to Joy,” Mushfiqur said. “I told him, you are the youngest batsman now. I hope you will score 10000 runs, and feed the next guy in line. Hopefully the younger players can double up on what we will leave behind. It is a great feeling to become the first Bangladeshi to reach 5000 Test runs. I am sure I won’t be the last one. There’ll be a lot of capable players among us who can reach 8000 or 10000 runs.”At a more immediate level, Mushfiqur beat Tamim to the 5000-run mark despite being behind him on the second day. But Tamim cramping up on 133 sent him to the dressing room on the second afternoon. Reaching 4981, Tamim was poised to be the first to the milestone. Instead, he clapped from the dressing room on the third morning, padded up. Mushfiqur was magnanimous in his praise for Tamim, reminding everyone of how they kept beating each other in getting Bangladesh’s highest Test score.

“Records are meant to be broken. I was so happy when Tamim broke my highest individual score. He told me then that within next two or three years, I will end up breaking his record again”Mushfiqur on how he and Tamim push each other to their best

“He congratulated me. He knew he was close. He knows these things. He joked that he couldn’t get there, I did. I feel happier when a brother, team-mate or a friend achieves something.”Records are meant to be broken. I was so happy when Tamim broke my highest individual score. He told me then that within next two or three years, I will end up breaking his record again. It is a healthy competition, and this is how we as team-mates help each other.”Tamim and Mushfiqur have exchanged the position as Bangladesh’s leading Test scorer various times over the years. Tamim had overtaken Habibul Bashar in 2015, before Mushfiqur surpassed Tamim in February 2020. However, Tamim regained his place in April last year. Mushfiqur returned to the top in November, before Tamim’s 133 got him ahead in this game.These two go back a long way, to age-group camp days in BKSP, the revered sporting institute where Mushfiqur was a student, and Tamim an outsider. They have played 330 international matches together, played under each other and generally been through a lot together in the last 15 years.They are a bit like the Sri Lankan pair of Arjuna Ranatunga and Aravinda de Silva, who played 322 matches together from their earliest days as a Test team. de Silva beat Ranatunga to the 5000-run mark by two years but both are considered the pioneers of Sri Lankan cricket. Mushfiqur and Tamim have the same recognition, as pioneers.Mushfiqur Rahim performs the sajda after completing his century•AFP/Getty ImagesBut unlike the Sri Lankan legends, Tamim and Mushfiqur’s work is not over. Even 15 years into playing together, Bangladesh needed them in the first Test after twin batting disasters in South Africa. Tamim was part of a 162-run opening stand – Bangladesh’s first in five years – but when he had to leave the middle due to cramps, Mushfiqur had to stick around. His 165-run fourth wicket stand with Litton Das took Bangladesh out of trouble. It turned out to be the first time that Bangladesh had two 150-plus partnerships in a Test innings.”It was a bit hot. Our team goal was to get as close as possible to their score. We couldn’t take a big enough lead but that’s due to their fast bowlers who bowled well on this wicket. I am happy that we batted well, after fielding for two days,” Mushfiqur said.Sri Lanka is Mushfiqur’s most viable opponent, as he is one of two Bangladeshi batters to score more than 1000 Test runs against them. But Mushfiqur said that Sri Lanka’s attitude of preying on a batter’s patience makes them a unique attack.”Generally, it is not that easy to score runs against Sri Lanka. Over the years they have had two quality bowlers in their attack. Even now. They don’t set over-attacking fields like England or Australia. They want you to make a mistake while attacking.”Sri Lanka try to play with your patience. They dry up the runs, forcing you to make a mistake. I think there’s always the extra challenge of tiring them out, by playing a long innings and putting together partnerships.”This was Mushfiqur’s first Test hundred in more than two years, and the first against Sri Lanka since 2013. He has scored just four half-centuries in his last ten Tests, averaging 32.43, and there have even been questions about his place in the T20I side since November.Mushfiqur, who was issued a show-cause notice by the BCB for criticising the selectors last year, was more restrained when asked about his future following this landmark.”(What is being said about me) is not desirable for a player. Only in Bangladesh, you will get compared to Bradman when you score a century, but then when you don’t score runs, you feel like digging a hole for yourself.”I am one of the senior players so we are not going to be around for long. But this is becoming a culture, so the younger players need the support. If I have to spend so much time tackling these things off the field, our on-field duties get affected.”Mushfiqur was asked if considers himself lucky to be the first to two important milestones. He is Bangladesh’s first to 5000 runs ahead of Tamim, who was close to the mark. He was also Bangladesh’s first to a double-hundred when Mohammad Ashraful, in the same innings in Galle in 2013, was out for 190 when Mushfiqur was on 157.Mushfiqur quoted the Quran to say that Allah looks after him, before walking off from the stage. “I don’t think it is luck. Look at my forehead. When I go to practice, most of you are sleeping in the morning. Allah looks over me. That’s all.”

The side has struggled in the powerplay this year, but Litton stepped up in Adelaide and gave India a scare

Mohammad Isam02-Nov-20221:36

Moody: Litton aside, Bangladesh went about their power-hitting the wrong way

Everyone is talking about Litton Das’ run-out. It was a defining moment in the game, as Bangladesh not only lost their best batter, but also the momentum. They ended up six runs short of their DLS-adjusted target of 151 in 16 overs. India are now best placed to make the semi-finals, while Bangladesh are on the brink of being knocked out.Litton’s 60 off 27 balls, however, had knocked the wind out of India’s sails in the first seven overs and left them nervous even when the rain came down. It was that sort of an innings – full of beautiful strokes – as Litton got out of his shell for the first time in this T20 World Cup.More than anything else, it was a knock that Bangladesh have been waiting for a long time. The confidence in the top order was so low that the team was clutching at straws. Questions about the opening pair often drew frustrated responses from the team management. Everyone knew about the struggles, but there was also a sense that someone just to play such an innings. You can’t go through two World Cups in two years without a good knock from one of the main batters.Related

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Litton’s 21-ball fifty is the second fastest by a Bangladesh batter. His strike rate of 222.22 is the second highest among Bangladesh players with a 60-plus score in T20Is. Litton also became the second Bangladeshi to get to his fifty within the powerplay. His strike rate was also the second highest among batters who have faced a minimum of 25 balls in a T20 World Cup innings – slotting in behind AB de Villiers.Litton had cracked three fours off Arshdeep Singh’s first over, threading the gaps at point, mid-on and cover respectively. He deposited Bhuvneshwar Kumar for a six over deep square-leg, before driving him down the ground and dabbing him through slip and short third-man, in the next over. Another six off Bhuvneshwar was followed by a duel against Mohammed Shami. He slammed two pulls off him that went for a four and a six, racing to his half-century, before crashing him through extra-cover. In all, Litton hit seven fours and three sixes in the powerplay.Litton has given Bangladesh such rapid starts in T20Is in the past, most notably in 2018, when it looked like he was finally coming out of his shell in the shortest format. It has taken him a while but he has, at long last, played a significant knock at the T20 World Cup.Bangladesh captain Shakib Al Hasan said that Litton’s confidence from Tests and ODIs has finally transferred to his T20I batting and that they never doubted his ability.Litton Das raced to a 21-ball half-century•Getty Images”He has been scoring runs in Tests and ODIs for the last two-three years,” Shakib said. “He is doing well in T20Is this year. The confidence is back in his T20 batting. He knows how to score the runs. He had a big opportunity, and he played to his capability. We rate him quite highly. He didn’t play anything out of the box. We know this is how he plays.”It is expected that Litton’s knock will not only open him up further for Bangladesh’s last group-stage game against Pakistan in Adelaide next week, but also give the top order some muscle. The top order hasn’t provided the team with a good start lately.Top-order batters are expected to attack more often in T20Is, but Bangladesh have struggled so much in the powerplay that their run-rate (7.23) during this phase is among the bottom half among teams who have played at least 15 innings this year. This is partly because of the lack of stability – Bangladesh have used as many as 10 different opening pairs in 20 matches this year.Litton was slotted at No. 3 as a back-up for the openers, though he is an accomplished opener himself. Litton was tried seven times at the top with four different partners, but that didn’t work for Bangladesh. The team management then tried to protect Litton by pushing him down to No.3, but that didn’t work for him.Litton is now the top scorer for Bangladesh in all three formats this year. He was scoring runs regularly in the middle order in the Test side, and his opening stand with Tamim Iqbal in ODIs is one of that side’s strengths.Litton was also a heavy scorer last year, but found it hard to score in the T20Is at home, where the series against Australia and New Zealand were played on raging turners. Litton’s struggles seeped into the 2021 T20 World Cup as well in the UAE, resulting in the selectors dropping him for the following series against Pakistan.Now that drop looks like it happened ages go. Litton’s team-mates have never doubted him, not since his underwhelming debut season in 2015. Now, they will draw a lot of confidence from him in one of their worst years as a batting side.

Missed chances have cost Bangladesh repeatedly in recent times, and Friday was no exception

Mohammad Isam23-Dec-2022The expression of anguish. Head in hands. Sometimes the head is thrown back. A kick to the turf. Maybe a cuss word. On the second day of the Dhaka Test on Friday, Bangladesh missed four chances in the field during the 159-run fifth-wicket stand between Shreyas Iyer and Rishabh Pant, so all those reactions were on display.Iyer and Pant offered two chances each before they were properly set after coming together on 94 for 4. The what-if scenario here can be tough to get into, but it doesn’t need to be said that it’s best to take catches and complete stumpings, particularly when you are playing against India.Related

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Bangladesh’s bowlers are quite used to their fielders missing chances. There have been different explanations on offer for the last 12 months, and if there was a bit of improvement between 2021 and 2022, it has disappeared during this ODI and Test series against India. They have missed 15 chances in total, including eight in the ODIs.In Tests this year, Bangladesh have missed a total of 33 – of 67 – chances, counting both catches and stumpings. In terms of ratio of chances taken to missed, their 2.03 is the second-lowest among the Test teams, above only Sri Lanka’s 1.71. West Indies and England are at the other extreme, at above four chances converted for each one missed.Mushfiqur Rahim looked fairly out of position out at long-on when Rishabh Pant offered him a chance•Associated PressIn all formats this year, Bangladesh have missed 85 times, 21 more than in 2021, when their catching was especially poor at the 2021 T20 World Cup. They missed 22 chances in Tests then, compared to the 33 this year.These numbers possibly don’t matter hugely when the team is winning, but they hurt a lot when results are not going their way.On Friday, Litton Das missed a tough chance at slip when Pant, on 11, edged Mehidy Hasan Miraz in the last over before lunch. The ball went quickly, and Litton got a hand to it. Had Litton held on, it would have been just reward for the spinners bowling a tight line to Pant.Iyer then had two lives in the space of around 15 minutes when he was on 19 and 21. First, Mehidy leapt at gully to grab an edge off Taskin Ahmed, who had his tail up after removing Virat Kohli earlier in the session. Mehidy spilled the chance, and ended up slamming his nose into the ground.The big miss came from Nurul Hasan, who missed a stumping off Shakib Al Hasan’s bowling. It looked quite straightforward. The ball didn’t deviate much going towards the wicketkeeper, and Iyer was well out of his crease. But Nurul fumbled, allowing Iyer to get back to safety.Pant had another life on 59 when, in the middle of his big-hitting spell, Mushfiqur Rahim dropped him at long-on. It was a new position for Mushfiqur, who has kept wickets for most of his career. So the captain should have paid a bit more attention with Pant on strike, and on fire. Later in the day, Shakib himself would kick the turf in frustration when Mehidy couldn’t gather the ball properly at point when R Ashwin and Iyer got into in a mix-up.Shakib Al Hasan shows his frustration after a misfield from Mehidy Hasan Miraz•AFP/Getty ImagesIn the gap between the ODIs and the Test series, Bangladesh fielding coach Shane McDermott had explained the Bangladesh fielders’ mindset.”Talking about the fear factor, we think about potentially what are the repercussions of dropping a catch when the ball is in the air,” McDermott had said. “We see a lot of high balls dropped under lights, because fielders have time to think. Trying to train what we think when the ball is in the air, is a very hard task. But it can be learned.”When we drop catches under lights in critical moments, we create one of the greatest learning experiences. When the player walks off the ground, hopefully having won the game, we can easily say to them that ‘look, [missed] catches don’t lose matches.’ It is a fact. It happens quite regularly. It is a part of the game. Obviously we want to drop as few catches as possible.”As a team, if we drop a catch, our support staff and our team are gelling together really well, we are trying to keep everyone’s spirits high. Who knows, it could be someone else tomorrow to drop one. We could lose the match, but as I said before, we are very happy with the way the boys are training and committing on and off the field.”This year, Tamim Iqbal and Russell Domingo have addressed the issue once each.Tamim expressed his frustration after four dropped catches and poor ground fielding cost Bangladesh in the first ODI against Zimbabwe. Domingo was left bemused when Bangladesh dropped nine catches in five matches against Afghanistan in March this year.Bangladesh seem to suffer from a mental block on this count. Even fielders who come with a good reputation seem to suffer. And a good position, possibly, is frittered away. Perhaps it is time to take a closer, and harder, look at the problem.

Alan Gardner is joined by Andrew Miller, Vithushan Ehantharajah and Andrew McGlashan to discuss Jack Leach’s injury and what it means for the Ashes

ESPNcricinfo staff07-Jun-2023England won their Test against Ireland by a comfortable margin – but then saw their Ashes planning upended when scans revealed that Jack Leach had suffered a back stress fracture. Before the announcement of Moeen Ali’s recall, Alan Gardner, Andrew Miller and Vithushan Ehantharajah sat down to discuss England’s options, before Andrew McGlashan made a comeback of his own to preview the Ashes (and the WTC final).