All posts by n8rngtd.top

Fast bowler also talks about the difficulty of having multiple quarantines ahead of the tournament in Dubai

Annesha Ghosh03-Nov-2020India fast bowler Jhulan Goswami is looking forward to playing alongside West Indies allrounder Deandra Dottin, Bangladesh spinner Salma Khatun and Thailand opener Nattakan Chantam – all first-time overseas participants in the Women’s T20 Challenge – when the three-team tournament begins in Sharjah on November 4.”I’ve never played with Deandra Dottin previously. This is going to be the first time I share the dressing room with her. [I’m] really excited to play with her,” Goswami, who will turn out for the Trailblazers in the four-match series, said to ESPNcricinfo. “She is a specialist in this format – very strong, very tough. She can clear the boundaries [at will], and has a record hundred in this format. She is a very good cricketer and could be a great asset to our side.”While Dottin, one of 12 overseas players in this season’s T20 Challenge, will be expected to open the batting for the Trailblazers alongside captain Smriti Mandhana, Chantam, the 24-year-old Thailand opener who impressed with her quality stroke-making during her side’s maiden T20 World Cup appearance in Australia earlier this year, is also a contender for the role.ALSO READ: Bangladesh trailblazer Salma Khatun ‘feels lucky’ to play in the 2020 Women’s T20 Challenge“A girl coming from Thailand to play in our league, having done so well in the T20 World Cup – it’s a very good addition to the Women’s T20 Challenge,” Goswami said of Chantam, who during the T20 World Cup became the first Thailand player to score a fifty in a global tournament.”Earlier we never quite thought Thailand would go on to play the World Cup, but there they were, playing courageously and playing some good competitive cricket – there’s no doubt about it – it’s been a great journey for Thailand Women. More so because before their men’s team, their women’s team qualified for a cricket World Cup. A good batter from that World Cup team playing for Trailblazers is amazing. I am looking forward to knowing about her culture, her ideas, and bowling to her in the nets.”Goswami has been part of the Trailblazers side since the first year of the tournament, 2018, when her team suffered a last-ball defeat against the Supernovas in the one-off exhibition match in Mumbai.She is also looking forward to catching up with England left-arm spinner Sophie Ecclestone, the No. 1 T20I bowler in the world, and offspinner Khatun, the Bangladesh captain.

“The lockdown and quarantine taught me that all of us need to be very patient and value the little things in life that you would otherwise ignore”

“Last year I played alongside Sophie Ecclestone in this competition, and I am glad this time too she is in our squad,” Goswami said. “It’s a very interesting mix and I am looking forward to playing with them, and most importantly, learning about their cultures, their processes, how they prepare, especially for the big matches. I’d be open to incorporating those [new learnings] in my process.”A year shy of completing two decades on the international circuit, Goswami, who turns 38 later this month, last played a competitive match on March 8, in the inter-state senior women’s one-day league. That same day women’s international cricket came to a halt following the Australia vs India T20 World Cup final at the MCG as Covid-19 spread worldwide.India’s withdrawal from the white-ball tour of England in July meant Goswami, who retired from T20Is in 2018, and the rest of the India players were left without any opportunities to regroup until the three squads for the T20 Challenge landed in Dubai on October 21 (after a nine-day quarantine in Mumbai for the Indian players).Goswami said returning to training after the long break was difficult on the body.”I had to start from zero. Absolute zero. Initially my legs were feeling tired, body was a bit stiff, the swiftness of movements was missing slightly. For most of these past eight months, there were hardly any opportunities to bowl with your full, regular run-up, so I could only bowl with short run-ups, which doesn’t quite allow for the natural rhythm of a pacer. The intensity was not there.ALSO READ: Sophie Ecclestone chose WT20C over WBBL over bubble fatigue concerns“I had been trying to manage my training to whatever small degree was possible since August, in both my hometown, Chakdaha, and Kolkata [where she currently lives]. I would go to the ground early morning, around 6:30-7am, do my running at the Jadavpur University ground [in Kolkata]. For the majority of that period, it wasn’t 100% [intensity], but for athletes, something is better than nothing.”Another challenge for the players has been the multiple quarantines before they could meet up to practise in Dubai, forcing a break in physical training and also taxing the mind.”This schedule of quarantining in one’s [home] country and then in another, like we did in Mumbai and then in Dubai for around 14 days in total, can upset players’ rhythm. You resume training, regain some of that swiftness, then go into quarantine – your body has to do a lot of switching on and off. Whatever training you did for a month and a half back home, because of those 14 days, everything comes to a pause again.”You’re cut off from everyone, cooped up in one hotel room. It is really challenging, mentally. Sure, you can do a lot of phone and video calls with your squad members and family, but to remain confined within an unfamiliar space for over a week can certainly ask a lot of questions of you. It’s not easy. One needs a lot of mental courage to get to the other side of it. For cricketers or athletes, who are mostly outdoors, it can be particularly difficult.”ALSO READ: How the next generation of Thai women’s cricket is being shaped in PuneGoswami also pointed out that while the training sessions in Dubai would help all 45 cricketers participating in the T20 Challenge to get back in the groove, players from the subcontinent, South Africa and Thailand were at a disadvantage when compared to those from West Indies and England.”If you look [at the pandemic-affected women’s cricket landscape], most of us didn’t have any matches to play. Australia, England, New Zealand and even the West Indian girls have had some proper game time. We didn’t have any camps [either] in all these months in India because of the [Covid-19] situation. Those girls have some recent [muscle] memory of competitive cricket [to fall back on]. That could be a difference. Adaptability will be key.”As cricket moves into a bio-bubble era, Goswami said players would have to prepare to adapt to unfamiliar situations.”The lockdown and quarantine taught me that all of us need to be very patient and value the little things in life that you would otherwise ignore. That’s been the biggest lesson I’ve learnt. [It’s as] important for experienced players as youngsters to realise that you have no choice but to accept the situation.”We don’t know how long this might last in sport or cricket – quarantine, bubbles, and all these protocols – but the reality is, this is how things are for us for now. If you start cribbing, it’s not going to help. I just kept telling myself that it’s better to look forward to what you love the most: to play cricket. That’s the best motivation you can give yourself.”

For one thing, they’re both cool

Alan Gardner16-Apr-2021It’s that time of year again, when cricket’s alpha and omega go head to head to win hearts and minds. On the one hand, a 130-year-old first-class period piece, steeped in history and tradition (actual market value: negligible); on the other, a plucky T20 tamasha entering its teenage years and desperately seeking any gulp of publicity it can get. If you see Lalit Modi, please tell him to get in touch.Currently, both the County Championship and the IPL are being played out in echoing stadiums to an audience of two security men and a sniffer dog – a situation, it’s fair to say, they are more used to at Wantage Road than the Wankhede. But while we might tend to focus on the obvious differences between the competitions, and the types of fan they each attract, there are actually plenty of endearing similarities in the familiar rituals and rhythms that accompany the start of each new season.Related

• Wickets could be called 'outs' in Hundred to attract audience

• Alastair Cook: 'While the sun's shining, I want to continue'

• Which was the best IPL season so far?

• Where will Australian cricketers be playing this winter? IPL, County cricket, the Hundred

The IPL may have all the street cred, but county cricket is so cool, it actively disdains popularity. So cool it’s ice-cold, in fact – the Championship in April is almost comically inhospitable to players, never mind fans (when they are allowed in). Two games in last week’s opening round were snowed off, which is a concept so farcical it needs no further embellishment for inclusion in a semi-humorous monthly column. But for many of us, there’s nothing so warming as the sight of professional sportsmen standing shivering in a field, bobble hats on heads, hands thrust into pockets, hoping the ball doesn’t come their way.Franchise T20 is more needy but no less predictable. Nothing tells you that another IPL is in the offing more surely than videos of gormless, grinning white blokes doing the lightbulb dance, the shoulder wiggle, and sundry other Bollywood-inspired acts of cultural misappropriation. The blizzard in this case is one of #content (don’t forget the hashtag), be it lavish kit unboxings, inspirational Insta montages, candid nets footage, even promos for branded face masks.But just when you’re considering a spot of social-media distancing, up pops Ricky Ponting giving a team talk like he’s rehearsing for Al Pacino’s role in the remake of , or Rahul Dravid coming over all Michael Douglas in to promote some app or other, and suddenly the chills are back – and not just because you left a window open while watching the county livestream earlier.Society would tell you that you have to pick a side, join the jocks or the nerds (you can decide among yourselves which is which). But like peanut butter and jelly, or Richie and Greigy, the Light Roller thinks they can and should be enjoyed at the same time. And if high school movies have taught us anything, it’s that tribal loyalties are only worthwhile if they can be transcended for the greater good. (Besides, cricket fans are clearly mathletes at heart, so we should therefore all stick together.)

****

Continuing with the theme, there’s a new kid in class and once again the rumours are flying. “Every generation is afraid of the music that comes from the next,” says Lindsay in , and it turns out the same, pretty much, holds true of cricket formats. No, genuinely, we’re all terrified of the Hundred. The latest flash of Loads-o-Balls inspiration is that “wickets” could be replaced by “outs” in order to broaden the game’s appeal. But why stop there? With just a subtle tweak of the size and configuration of the stumps, you could just as easily call them “goals”. Shorten the game a bit more, say, to around 90 minutes. Maybe increase the size of the ball, so that it’s easier to see from the stands, do away with bats (an expensive “barrier” to entry) and encourage more kicking. Before long, the ECB will be running the most popular sport in the country.

****

Fakhar Zaman said, “The fault was mine as I was too busy looking out for Haris Rauf.” Temba Bavuma said, “It was very clever from Quinny.” The MCC said, “It’s up to the umpires to decide.” Various others weighed in on “the obvious deception” that was “completely against the spirit of the game”. Having observed Quinton de Kock’s supervillain smirk at the run-out of Zaman during the second Johannesburg ODI, it’s easy to see why people started asking questions. But was it fake fielding or fake news? The Light Roller can’t help feeling the obvious answer is being overlooked. Let’s put it this way: de Kock might be viewed as a genius in certain regards, but he’s not exactly Niccolo Machiavelli, is he? No further questions, your honour.

Stats highlights from West Indies’ thrilling one-wicket win against Pakistan in Jamaica

ESPNcricinfo stats team16-Aug-202115 One-wicket wins in Test history. This is the second such instance in West Indies-Pakistan Tests, following West Indies’ one-wicket win in Antigua in 2000. West Indies have featured in five of these 15 instances, defeating Australia in 1999, but losing to Australia in 1951, and to New Zealand in 1980. Pakistan have a 2-2 record in these matches, with wins against Australia and Bangladesh, apart from the two losses against West Indies. England have four one-wicket wins, the most by any team, while Australia have the most losses (6).12 Wins for the home team, out of the 15 matches that went down to the last pair standing. The three instances of overseas wins were by England against Australia in 1908, by England against South Africa in 1923, and more recently, by Sri Lanka against South Africa in 2019, when Kusal Perera made that stunning unbeaten 153.ESPNcricinfo Ltd7 Instances of the last wicket adding more than the 17 that Jayden Seales and Kemar Roach put together in this thriller. The two highest partnerships in last-wicket wins both happened in 2019, when Perera and Vishwa Fernando added 78, and Ben Stokes and Jack Leach added 76 against Australia at Headingley. The only other 50-plus final-wicket stand in a win was by Inzamam-ul-Haq and Mushtaq Ahmed, who added 57 against Australia in Karachi in 1994.0 Instances of West Indies losing a Test when chasing of target of 200 or less. In 62 such chases, they have won 56 and drawn six. Of those 56 wins, 20 were achieved when the target between 100 and 150, and 10 when the target was more than 150. Their lowest target in a defeat is 204, against Bangladesh in 2018.18 Wickets for Pakistan’s fast bowlers in this match, at an average of 18.66. This was the 19th instance of their pacers picking up 18 or more wickets in a Test, but only the second time in a loss. The previous such instance was in Dunedin 1985. Their average of 18.66 is their best in a defeat when they have taken at least 15 wickets.19y 336d Seales’ age at the start of the match in which he took his maiden five-for, which made him the youngest West Indian to take a five-for in Test cricket. The record was previously held by Alf Valentine, who was 20 years and 41 days old at the start of the Test when he took his first five-for in England in 1950.8 Catches for Joshua Da Silva in the match, only the fifth instance of a West Indies wicketkeeper effecting eight or more dismissals in a Test. He was just one short of the record of nine, by David Murray, Courtney Browne and Ridley Jacobs.

No surprise Joe Root was happy to lose the toss, knowing the nature of the Headingley pitch of late

Sidharth Monga25-Aug-20211:57

Rishabh Pant: ‘We could have applied ourselves better’

As far as famous last words go, Virat Kohli’s surprise at being able to see the surface as opposed to just grass a day before a Test in England is right up there, the underlying suggestion being that the hosts have chosen less spice having burnt themselves previously. Then you win the toss, put your money where your mouth is, bat first, and end the day in deficit without even taking a wicket, the first time it has happened in Test cricket since the last Test of 2010.It won’t be an overstatement that India misread the conditions at a ground each one of them was playing for the first time. While England extracted more seam and more swing early in the innings than they have done so far in the series, by the time India got to bowl, the conditions had settled down so much that India didn’t even manage to draw one false response per over as against 1.75 per over in India’s innings, the highest rate for the series. Forget the wickets, if an evenly matched opposition is drawing one more mistake per over than you, you have got the wrong end of the conditions. In this case, you chose it.It is no surprise Joe Root was happy to lose the toss. Root knew the nature of the pitch at Headingley of late has been to be extremely difficult on day one before getting better and better to bat on, but he probably didn’t have the conviction to put India in after losing at Lord’s having done the same. He called the surface “tacky”, and the early seam movement was consistent with that description. So he said he was unsure what he would have done. He probably would have bowled anyway.Joe Root found a reason to smile despite losing the toss to Virat Kohli•Associated PressHaving said that, this is hardly the first time a side has been caught on the wrong side of such conditions in England. Even England themselves chose to bat in the 2009 Ashes at Headingley, and were bowled out in 33.5 overs only to watch Australia score 445. Batting first is seen as the noble thing, the brave thing, to do in Test cricket. Nasser Hussain is lampooned for bowling first at the Gabba, but not Andrew Strauss for that call at Headingley.Some of India’s big wins – be it as old as Headingley 2002 or as recent as Wanderers 2017-18 – have come after choosing to bat first on a tricky surface. You have to weigh putting your batters through that tough period against the incentive you get bowling last: Headingley of late has not made it worth the trouble.Quite rightly, India have strived to become so good that they become immune to selection mistakes and such calls at the toss because there is no fool-proof way to be accurate with decisions that have to last five days. So having made the decision they did, India needed to either last that early help or hope that the help lasted well into England’s innings.Neither happened, something you can’t predict, which puts onus on the way India batted much more than the fact that they batted. The latter is anyway keeping in with uncontested cricketing wisdom that you bat first barring exceptional conditions, the kind you see in New Zealand where pitches just keep getting better to bat on with time.India came up against a new-ball spell of a master, who was now operating with an inverted form of attack but with characteristic high accuracy. James Anderson usually bowls outswingers looking for the outside edge and changes up with balls that come in, be it the traditional inswinger or the wobble-seam ball. India’s openers have frustrated him this series by leaving alone a lot of those outswingers.Here Anderson kept bringing the ball in, taking away that leave, getting India into a habit of playing more at the ball. Also England showed better grasp of the conditions. Sony, the broadcasters in India, showed how the average wicket-taking length at Headingley has been significantly fuller than at other English grounds since 2010. That usually points to assistance. England were not shy to get it right up there.A mix of inswingers and that full length got KL Rahul driving in the first over. The ball seamed away after swinging in in the air, which is a really difficult ball to play, but the question Rahul and India will ask is if he needed to play at that ball even before finding out if there was seam movement available. Rahul has been a revelation on this tour, and has been a major part of the reason India are 1-0 up in the series, but he has done so by leaving a lot of balls before committing to drives. Was this early drive an extension of their assessment of the pitch?Related

• James Anderson: 'Emotion got the better of me' after Bumrah barrage

• Stats: Terrible day at work for India, Jos Buttler equals Brad Haddin

• James Anderson puts things right after learning lessons of Lord's

• India 78; Hameed 60*, Burns 52*, England 120/0

Another batter who will be disappointed with himself is Cheteshwar Pujara. There are limitations to his batting, but there is a big strength too: he plays under his eye. There might be 99 flaws with his game, but pushing away from the body is not one of them. Over this summer, though, he has done that to get out in the World Test Championship final, in the Lord’s Test, and now here. This outswinger seamed away a touch after pitching, but Pujara will know his hands shouldn’t have followed the movement. More than the lack of runs, this manner of dismissal repeating itself will irk Pujara.Kohli fell to the same set-up as at Trent Bridge. Anderson bowls the wobble-seam ball that swings in – this time later than it did in Nottingham – and then leaves him after pitching. In Kohli’s case, the shot selection is not the problem. He played drives at this same ball in 2018, and got away with it. He has scored all the thousands of runs he has done playing this shot. This is not the first time this shot – or the defensive push to wide balls – has got him in trouble, but his attitude has been: I will not shelve the shots, but will play them better. That is an internal tussle we have not seen the last of this summer.Rishabh Pant played the way he has been playing for a while now, a way that is not too unusual for a wicketkeeper-batter. Just that he is not enjoying as much luck these days as he did in, say, Sydney. Dismissals outside these four were normal responses to long spells of tight bowling in helpful conditions.Pant probably summed the day up the best: “They took the heavy roller, the wicket was much more settled down, and they batted nicely also. But when we batted, the wicket was slightly soft, and they bowled in good areas, but we could have applied [ourselves] much better…”As is the case often with such collapses, it is the perfect storm of excellent bowling, tough conditions, most mistakes getting punished – India were bowled out in 71 mistakes, England didn’t lose a single wicket in 34 – and some lack of application. What should worry India more is how some of India’s bowling was insipid and made the pitch look easier to bat on. It is easier to come back in a series from batting collapses than from successive ordinary bowling days.

The Singapore-born batter opens up on his stratospheric rise in stardom, playing in different leagues, setting the PSL alight, and more

Danyal Rasool26-Feb-2022There’s a long, circumspect pause down the other end of the Zoom call. It is so extended that a quick check is needed to ensure the connection hasn’t been cut. It hasn’t. Tim David is merely considering his next words.It’s a frequent occurrence during the conversation with Multan Sultans’ platinum pick this year. Time and again, the soft-spoken David stops mid-sentence, almost editing himself in real time as he snips out a word here, adds in a phrase there. There’s a crispness to his diction many would struggle to match in print. It’s precise, surgical, almost delicate. For a man who boasts a strike rate of 199.20 in the PSL this year, and over 150 since the start of last year, those aren’t words too keenly associated with him.Related

• Tim David, Singapore's most famous cricketer, might be the IPL's (and Australia's) next star

• Rashid Khan says 'national duty the first priority' after Lahore Qalandars bid to fly him in for final

• Wiese's all-round heroics put Lahore Qalandars in PSL final

• Sultans storm into PSL final

He might be dressed in his Sultans shirt for the interview, but there’s more to David the man than the fearsome power-hitting that’s fast becoming his trademark. The hunger to improve is, as with nearly all elite sportspeople, insatiable, but so is a shrewd understanding of how to give himself the best chance of making it in the cutthroat world of T20 franchise competition.”Sure I’d love opening the batting in T20 cricket,” he tells ESPNcricinfo at one point. “That’s awesome; you get to face as many balls as you can. But in such a competitive market, there’s not spots for that. And so for me to get myself into a Big Bash team [last year], I needed to work on those skills and the biggest opening I saw where my skill set would fit in was to be able to play in the middle order and play with power.”When David was plucked by the Lahore Qalandars last year for the second leg of the PSL, he was almost an unknown quantity outside Australia. A Singapore international who only had one solid season in the Big Bash League didn’t quite glitter like some of the other big names the PSL has seen, but David knew the work that had gone behind his BBL success, and felt it was both sustainable and replicable.”I think it was a case of finding what I was best at. My skills were better equipped to being able to hit and play aggressively through the middle. For me to be effective, I have to be able to clear the boundary when I want. The experience you get through batting in the middle order, you learn how to chase, finish off an innings or maximise the scoring when the game’s pretty much dictated to you.”Opening batters go out and they can essentially play however they want to, whereas a lot of times the middle order players have to play to what the game demands. So, I’ve got to walk out, I might have to get going in my first three balls. Sometimes that’s not easy, but that’s what you have to practice for, because that’s what’s required of me.”That revaluation of his career and skillset has produced astonishing results. The 2020-21 BBL season saw him score at a strike rate of 153.29 – among players who scored more runs, only Chris Lynn and Ben Cutting boasted a superior strike rate. The second leg of the PSL, played in relatively low-scoring UAE, saw David become emerge as a breakout star even as the Qalandars crashed and burned, his 180 runs coming at 166.66. He would go on to enjoy success in the CPL, land an IPL gig and have a stellar follow-up season at the BBL. Just last week, Mumbai Indians paid over USD 1 million to snap up his services for this year’s IPL, a competition he said he was “definitely” excited for.David doesn’t want to be measured by just runs: ” It’s nice if those things look favourably upon me, but I think it’s about match impact”•Lahore Qalandars”Each league has a different identity,” he says. “Perhaps you go to the CPL where sometimes the wickets aren’t as good and you get a high dot ball percentage. Guys might play, say, three, four dots and over then hit a six when they get the opportunity. The Big Bash can be tough because you can play on bigger grounds, so obviously your margin for error is larger. If you have a mishit, you can get caught in the deep. I’d probably say the biggest factor [that determines the ease of power hitting] is potentially ground sizes in Australia. Some grounds aren’t so big or there’s certain areas of the ground you have to target.”For now, though, it is the Sultans who’re enjoying the fruits of his services. At the PSL draft, last year’s defending champions snapped him up in the Platinum category, a meteoric rise for a player who was little more than a wildcard just six months earlier. Slotting into an Andy Flower-led franchise that prides itself on using extensive analytical data to wring every last drop of performance out of their team, the Sultans-David relationship feels much more natural. Does he feel the same way?True to form, David is more measured in his assessment. “I guess I haven’t played enough for both teams to really [compare]”, he eventually says. “We’ve obviously been in some really good form here at Multan, whereas last year with Lahore we had a strong side but we didn’t play our best, we weren’t winning games. That was disappointing, [but] I don’t think I was at Lahore long enough to be able to pass comment on it.”I’ve got to be comfortable with accepting that fact that playing in the middle order in T20 cricket is so dynamic. My output can’t be measured by runs or necessarily strike rate. It’s nice if those things look favourably upon me, but I think it’s about match impact and that’s what I just try to be. The more I play each time I reflect back on how I have as much of a positive impact to the team as I can.”On that count, he ticks all boxes handsomely for the Sultans this season. A 29-ball 71 and an unbeaten 51 off 19 in consecutive games – two innings that saw him smash 12 sixes in 48 balls – stand out as obvious highlights; he’s also joint top six-hitter (20) this PSL with leading runscorer Fakhar Zaman, who has taken 379 balls to hit the same number as David has in 126. The Sultans have been in imperious form all season, winning 10 of their 11 games to cruise into the final.

“I think it’s important to be realistic. I’ve definitely performed well at times, but after every tournament I’ve left thinking I could have done better”

While David has been a key reason for that success, there’s perhaps an argument he’s still being wasted a little batting as low as he does. In Mohammad Rizwan and Shan Masood, the Sultans have a formidable opening partnership, but it is one that tends to bat through large chunks of the innings without quite achieving the same level of destructiveness that David or Khushdil Shah provide. In a game against Karachi Kings earlier this month, the pair batted for 14.2 overs for 100 runs, with the asking rate rising above 15 by the time the partnership was broken; David faced just 7 balls for 13 runs. In the qualifier against the Qalandars on Wednesday, Rizwan scored an unbeaten 53 in 51 balls, carrying his bat. Multan lost just two wickets, and David never got to bat at all.”I would be very hesitant to be critical of Shan and Rizwan,” he says, as ever, weighing every word before uttering it, “because they’ve been such big strengths for us this season. I still think they are in every game. They set such a strong platform. It really sets it up for our team the way we’re structured with a strong middle order. We like to think that all of the guys in the middle order could bat up top if we needed to. If we need to bat in the first 10 overs, we all can. We all want to face as many balls as we can, but we understand the role of the team and I think everyone in this side is going out to try and do their best for the side.”One of the highlights of the season came in an early game, with Quetta Gladiators seven runs from victory down to their number 11 against the Sultans. Skipper Rizwan moved the six-foot-four David to the deep midwicket boundary all the way from the other side of the ground. Next ball, Naseem Shah smashed it to exactly that place, with David needing every inch of his frame to grasp the ball, spoon it back up as he overbalanced past the rope, and take the catch on the return to seal a sensational win. It was emblematic of Rizwan, who cannot seem to put a foot wrong at the moment, as batter, wicketkeeper or indeed captain.”I’ve really enjoyed playing with Rizwan as my captain,” David grins. “He just encourages our team to have fun, play with a smile. That’s easy to say when you’ve won seven out of your eight games.David insists on leaving “everything I do on the field”•Getty Images”He’s probably a little bit more relaxed off the field, I think it’d be fair to say. But he’s been great for us to perform our best. We keep it simple. We’re trying to play bravely so we can just put in our best performance in the match. And you know, part of being a professional cricketer is accepting that you can’t have a perfect performance every day.”The heights David has hit have been so stratospheric at times it’s impossible not to wonder if it’s sustainable. Australia are likely to look at him very closely for this year’s home T20 World Cup; the days of playing for Singapore are done and dusted. David accepts that he’ll invariably run into a rough patch sooner or later, but rejects the idea he is simply a cricketer going through a purple patch.”I think it’s important to be realistic. I’ve definitely performed well at times, but after every tournament I’ve left thinking I could have done better. I’d be wary of calling it a purple patch. I know I’ve had good form and I’ve played well, but I’d like to think that it’s very sustainable. It’s encouraging to me that I’ve been able to do it in different leagues, across different competitions. I’m aware that form can change, and I’m sure that will come at some point. And that’s another skill of learning how to manage yourself through those periods. I’ve just been learning so much through each tournament. I feel already so much more confident in my own game I’m having a really good time.”But the idea of the T20 World Cup gets short shrift.”I don’t think it weighs heavily on me at all. If my performances are providing me the opportunity to be a part of those things, then that’s great. But honestly it sounds cliched, but I’m just literally focused on our game tomorrow.”That “game tomorrow”, the PSL final against the Qalandars, really is a rather big deal, and for once, there’s little hesitation in David’s answer. For a man who has seen his fortune turn – and indeed built – in a little over 12 months, talking about a competition eight months away makes little sense.”I hope I’ve given you enough,” he smiles, a little sheepishly. “I want to leave everything I do out on the field.”

Despite a match-winning fifty, both Sanjay Manjrekar and Ian Bishop feel the batter could have been more aggressive

Shashank Kishore11-May-2022Ian Bishop wants him to add “another gear” to his batting. Sanjay Manjrekar felt he could have been a “bit more aggressive” when set, especially as he neared a half-century. Shubman Gill, however, felt he paced his innings exactly the way he had to on a challenging Pune surface on Wednesday against Lucknow Super Giants.There was grip and turn for the spinners, and there was something for the fast bowlers to work with, especially because it tended to get two-paced when they hit hard lengths. Hardik Pandya, the Gujarat Titans captain, may have been influenced by this as he elected to bat, and Gill “quickly realised” the need to bat through and bat long.Related

• The pros and cons of Gill's innings, and two contrasting debuts

• Gill 63*, Rashid four-for lead Gujarat Titans to playoffs

Having been dropped off the very first ball he faced in the opening over, Gill batted through to make a 49-ball 63. He raised his half-century off 40 balls, and ended up with a strike rate of 128.58, the highest in the innings among batters who faced at least 20 balls. Rahul Tewatia’s cameo, a 16-ball 22 not out, gave them some impetus as Titans posted 144.ESPNcricinfo’s Smart Stats metrics pegged Gill’s impact runs as 74, meaning it was worth 11 more than what he finished with. His impact score overall stood at 80.36. The next best was Super Giants’ Avesh Khan, who had 67.57, courtesy his spell that accounted for the Matthew Wade and Hardik that left Titans reeling at 51 for 3 in the 10th over.”I’d like to see one more gear,” Bishop noted on ESPNcricinfo’s T20 Time:Out. “The traditional anchor doesn’t sit well with me. It’s just a personal thing, and I could be totally wrong. The guys I think anchor an innings well are Jos Buttler, below that a KL Rahul…guys who can go at maybe 120-125 and then tee off towards the back end and end with something over 140, maybe even 150. I don’t like a traditional guy batting through the innings, run-a-ball or just over a run-a-ball. I’m defining that for me. I’d like to see Shubman Gill have another gear to go to.”Vikram Solanki, the Titans’ Director of Cricket, looked at it slightly differently. “He was simply outstanding, wasn’t he?”, he said. “He’s a quality batsman, quality technician. He’s got a wonderful temperament. It’s no wonder that he’s so highly regarded in Indian cricket. I thought he was exemplary with his innings today. I thought he assessed the pitch very well, I thought he batted accordingly.

“The traditional anchor doesn’t sit well with me. It’s just a personal thing, and I could be totally wrong.”Ian Bishop

“I know he would’ve helped every other batter who went out to bat. It was quite difficult, and it was very evident with the scores. Our assessment of the pitch was exactly that, it was a tough pitch, and our batting would center around somebody taking responsibility around those situations, Shubman did exactly that today and showed what a high-quality player he is.”I think halfway, we knew that was a very competitive score. It was apparent that it wasn’t the easiest wicket to score on, it was difficult. Only due to Shubman’s knock, and later Rahul Tewatia who played a brilliant knock, we got to a competitive total. We took confidence from the fact that it was difficult for Lucknow to score. Our attack has been able to take wickets, so we know if we bowl like we have in the past, we’d make it difficult for them. We just felt we could put them under pressure [with the total they had].”On 40 off 32 at the 12-over mark with Titans on 76 for 3, Gill took another 10 balls to reach his half-century in the 17th over, having got through the stretch without looking for a single boundary-scoring option. Gill later explained his rationale behind the approach.”I didn’t expect the ball to seam as much as it did at the start,” he said. “It was nipping around. After that, I didn’t expect the spinners to have a bit of turn. One thing I felt was they didn’t bowl up as much. If they would’ve bowled a bit up, it would’ve been difficult. Krunal [Pandya] was keeping it a little short and being conservative. It was easy for us to maneuver the ball around, we kept on taking singles which was easy on this wicket.”It’s quite pleasing when you’re there till the end and finish off matches for the team. That’s exactly the chat I had with Gary [before the game].I told him I want to finish at least three-four matches for the team.”

Harmanpreet Kaur put together a magnificent century, capped off by stunning late acceleration, in a near-perfect batting display

S Sudarshanan22-Sep-2022The wide-eyed, wry smile perhaps told a tale.Harmanpreet Kaur had just managed a last-minute crouch, enough to connect a pull off a short ball from Lauren Bell that barely rose knee high. So good was the contact that it beat deep square leg to her right. The reaction was telling because she was bowled by a Sarah Glenn delivery that stayed low in the first T20I against England. But on Wednesday, the India captain was set, having already faced 46 balls until that point, and was up to the task.A flurry of cuts, pulls, slog-sweeps and scythes over the off side followed as Harmanpreet lit up Canterbury with some scintillating strokes to finish unbeaten on a monumental 143, thereby taking India to 333 for 5, which eventually proved 88 too many for England. It was India’s second score over 300 in ODIs this year, following the 317 for 8 against West Indies in the World Cup earlier this year.In fact, two of India’s four 300-plus totals in ODIs have come in 2022. And both of them have a common thread – a Harmanpreet century combined with a three-figure fourth-wicket stand.Related

• Harmanpreet 143*, Renuka four-for help India to unassailable 2-0 lead

• Harmanpreet: 'Victory sets up fitting farewell for Jhulan Goswami at Lord's'

Harmanpreet walked out to bat after Yastika Bhatia’s dismissal and soon saw a well-set Smriti Mandhana depart, leaving India at 99 for 3 at the start of the 19th over. At the time, it seemed as if yet again, India’s batting would let them down after the toss had gone against them. It had happened more recently in the T20I series decider and also in the World Cup against England.With Harmanpreet though, there’s now a sense of this being team, especially after assuming the captaincy across formats post Mithali Raj’s retirement. She commands more authority – not that she did not earlier – and the players seem to rally behind their fearless leader. And so, in company of Harleen Deol, Harmanpreet set about with the rebuilding task. India could score only 24 runs in the next seven overs as Harmanpreet guided Deol, who was playing just her sixth ODI. The run rate, that was well over five when the pair got together, dipped below 4.75.Deol likes to play the long game – get in early, get set and then accelerate, much like she had showed during the Senior Women’s One Day Challenger earlier in the year. Having crawled to 18 off 36, Deol tried breaking the shackles by stepping down to Kate Cross but only managing to chip one over mid-on, before truly doing so with a dab past backward point for four.She then showed her wares against spin – carting offspinner Charlie Dean inside-out over cover before slinking down and depositing left-arm spinner Sophie Ecclestone into the sightscreen – then notching up her maiden half-century in ODIs. In the interim, Harmanpreet used the crease well to flick Bell through midwicket before a slog sweep over the same region brought up her second successive fifty-plus score. In the 12 overs leading up to Deol’s dismissal, India had managed to score 76.Highest individual scores for India in women’s ODIs•ESPNcricinfo LtdWhile Harmanpreet’s first fifty came off 64 balls, the next fifty runs took only 36 balls coming. She picked the lengths early and almost made England bowl to her plans by using the crease well. Full and wide outside off, get across and smack it over the bowler; slower length ball outside off, move across and swipe it through square leg; full and fast on off, get down to paddle it to fine leg or nail the cover drive. Debutant Freya Kemp’s back of the hand slower balls were dealt with by making room and slicing over the infield to exploit the arc from extra cover to backward point.It was as if Harmanpreet was finding the boundaries at will. She scored her last 43 runs off just 11 balls with India managing 62 off the last three overs. Her unbeaten 24-ball 71-run stand with Deepti Sharma was the quickest in women’s ODIs where data is available. Kemp’s 11-ball penultimate over went for 26 and Harmanpreet scored 18 off her 19-run last over.”I just wanted to spend some time on the wicket because today’s wicket was not easy to bat on in the first innings,” she said after the match. “I wanted to keep watching the ball and play accordingly. I didn’t try too many shots [early on]. It is important to read the wicket and be there. Being there is more important because I know if I take more balls initially I can easily cover up in the end.”It was the 113-run fourth-wicket partnership between Harmanpreet and Deol that enabled them to score 121 in the last ten overs against England.”After the partnership with Harleen, we got the rhythm we wanted and I just backed myself after that,” she said. “We knew even if we scored 300, it could be chaseable given England’s batting line-up. That’s why we were looking for maximum runs in the last five-six overs.”Whoever was coming in to bat with me, I was giving them the message that if they could find boundaries, fine, otherwise keep rotating the strike. Scoring more than 300 was very important for us.”At the end of it all, Harmanpreet ensured that she – and the entire team – could afford more than just a wry smile as they head to Lord’s for the series finale with an aim to give veteran fast bowler Jhulan Goswami a fitting farewell.

England’s go-to man defines another World Cup with a pair of innings under immense pressure

Andrew McGlashan13-Nov-20222:44

Stokes is ‘a big presence, a big personality, a big winner’

“We all know what he’s capable of, and not just match-winning innings, but match-winning innings under serious amounts of pressure. I know well that if it comes down to the crunch that you want a man like Ben Stokes walking out.”That was assistant coach Paul Collingwood speaking before England’s game against New Zealand, where their tournament stood on a knife-edge after the defeat to Ireland and washout against Australia. It took Stokes one more game after that, but he defined another World Cup with a pair of innings under immense pressure against Sri Lanka and Pakistan. England had to win four matches in a row to take the trophy; Stokes starred in two of them.There is a wider redemption arc that fits with Stokes’ performance at the MCG after what happened in the 2016 tournament when Carlos Brathwaite took him for four sixes to win the game for West Indies. However, in the intervening years, which have also involved a major off-field controversy and a lengthy spell away to manage his mental health, he had more than delivered when England needed him most, not least that memorable 2019 summer with the ODI World Cup and Headingley Ashes Test double, but also more recently as he took on rejuvenating the Test side alongside Brendon McCullum.Related

• 'England have created a new set of rules in white-ball cricket'

• 'Hurt' Babar rues Shaheen injury, admits Pakistan '20 runs short with the bat'

• Stokes hails England's new legacy under Buttler: 'We've lived up to all challenges thrown at us'

• Sam Curran, England's unassuming superstar, delivers at the death in style

• Sam Curran and Stokes the heroes of the final as England break Pakistan hearts

“It’s an amazing story,” Jos Buttler said. “It’s been an amazing journey, all his big moments… he’s never let that 2016 final push him back and the things he’s gone on to achieve since then are just amazing.”Still, leading into the tournament, and during the early matches, there was debate about Stokes’ position in England’s T20 side, even if you sensed he was the type of player who would find a way. He had never previously had a clear role, particularly with regards his batting and where he slotted into the power-packed order. His numbers were unconvincing, albeit partly reflecting the haphazard tasks he had been given.Neither of his vital innings over the last 10 days have come when faced with huge run-rate pressure – although things were getting dicey when 49 were needed off 35 balls against Pakistan – but there’s the intangible factor, which can’t be measured purely by numbers, of being able to deliver in the biggest games.Eoin Morgan, whose presence has still been felt during this tournament and a name often referenced by the current team, spoke on of how Stokes recognises and wants to be in the clutch moments.This was not a free-flowing Stokes innings – it came towards the end of a year when he often took a T20 approach to Tests during the home season – and Buttler joked afterwards that if he’d played that way in a Test match he would have dropped himself. He was given a working over from Naseem Shah, who sent down one of the best none-fors that was possible, beating Stokes with three consecutive deliveries in the 12th over.But Stokes knew what was on the line. Having battled to 24 off 34 balls, he pierced the off side with a back-foot drive against Haris Rauf who was also outstanding with the ball. Then he seized on the moment when Shaheen Shah Afridi’s brave effort to return from a knee injury was halted after one delivery, crunching Iftikhar Ahmed’s offspin through the covers then launching him over long-off for six. Briefly there were flashbacks to the Trent Boult parried six at Lord’s in 2019.All of a sudden it was 28 needed off 24 balls. Three boundaries from Moeen Ali in the next over and the job was almost done.Ben Stokes roars after hitting the winning run•Getty Images”He always stands up in the biggest moments,” Buttler said. “He’s a man who can take a lot of pressure on his shoulders and perform and absolutely with him in the middle you know you’ve got a good chance. Just so proud of him, pleased for him that he’s stood up and done it again.”He’s a true match winner, and he’s been there in those scenarios time and time again. He just has a lot of know-how. It certainly wasn’t his most fluent innings or probably didn’t time the ball as well as he can, but you knew he was never going to go down without a fight and stand up and be there at the end. We were immensely lucky to have him, and he’s one of the great players of English cricket.”There is another part of the Stokes career story where this performance could sit. He missed the squad for the 2015 ODI World Cup in Australia which became (another) nadir for England’s white-ball cricket, but the catalyst as to what was to follow under Morgan and now Buttler. Since that omission, which raised the question of whether a superb talent would be squandered, Stokes has dominated the world game, navigating personal and professional challenges along the way.Test success came first on his return, followed by the evolution of his ODI game – his retirement from 50-over cricket means as he won’t have the chance to star in India next year, although it may be unwise to completely rule out a change of heart – but in T20Is there had not been the crowning moment.It didn’t come in a blaze of fours and sixes, which in many ways fitted the way the tournament played out, but he was there when it mattered. As he let out a roar on hitting the winning runs and dropped his bat on the MCG turf, another chapter of an extraordinary career had been written.

Of those with 200 Test wickets, only Marshall, Garner and Ambrose have a better average than the Australia captain

Alex Malcolm02-Dec-2022Pat Cummins could hardly have delivered a better ball to reach 200 Test wickets. Wide of the crease, angling in with a wobbling seam towards the obdurate, indefatigable front-foot defence of West Indies captain Kraigg Brathwaite.That defence hadn’t been breached in 165 balls and Australia’s fab four of Cummins, Mitchell Starc, Josh Hazlewood and Nathan Lyon, with help from the emerging Cameron Green, had taken just one wicket in 54.1 overs.But Cummins did what Cummins has done so often. What he did to Joe Root in the 2019 Ashes. What he has done to the world’s best batters for 11 years. He landed the wobbling seam on the perfect length, and the ball nipped away a fraction, past the outside edge of Brathwaite’s bat and crashed into the top of off.”I’ll take that,” Cummins said at the end of the third day. “Top of off. I was happy.”It’s almost sorcery. An illusion from a handsome magician. You can’t see Brathwaite’s off stump behind the full face of his bat, yet the ball found a way around it. That’s why Cummins is so good. It’s why of all the Test greats with 200 wickets or more, only Malcolm Marshall, Joel Garner, and Curtly Ambrose have a better average.Related

• Concerns over Cummins as Smith takes the reins

• Pat Cummins: There are no cowards in the Australian team

• Back to the future: the remaking of Steven Smith

• Cummins' 200th wicket sets up Australia's dominance

“Incredible. It’s pretty crazy,” Cummins said. “There’s still plenty [of] guys I know who’ve taken 300, 400, 700, so comparing numbers doesn’t seem as significant as others. But I think [with] any milestone when I think of wickets, I kind of think of longevity and knowing I had a bit of time out of the game. It’s always a nice realisation.”It’s serendipitous that the West Indies greats are referenced in Cummins’ great achievement. Australia’s vaunted fab four have ascended to a level no other four-man Test attack in history has reached. They became the first specialist bowling quartet to play together in the same Test with 200-plus wickets each.And it was a case of getting the band back together and playing the same quality hits they have done over many years prior. Only the band hasn’t played together much in recent times. Cummins, Starc and Lyon have played in each of Australia’s last eight Tests together, but Hazlewood has only joined them in one. He missed the four matches of last summer’s Ashes series through a side injury, only to return for their first Test in Pakistan.Cummins laughed that his joints ached just watching England plunder 506 in a day on the same Rawalpindi pitch that tortured the Australians in March when they took two wickets in 172 overs between the four of them.Hazlewood was left out of the final two Tests of the series and the two Tests in Sri Lanka as Australia opted for two spinners.But here they slipped back in sync. Even though Hazlewood took only one wicket, his quality Test-match lines and lengths complemented the other three. He made the key breakthrough on the third morning, finding the outside edge of Tagenarine Chanderpaul after beating it repeatedly the previous night. It opened the door for Cummins to barge through on Brathwaite, while Starc – with the woes of the T20 World Cup behind him – showcased his tremendous red-ball skills, nipping a superb offcutter back through Kyle Mayers’ gate with a 57-over-old ball before swinging the second new ball sharply back into the right-handed duo of Jermaine Blackwood and Joshua da Silva to remove both men in quick succession.Cummins: The three other guys are three of my best mates. We all get along so well•Cricket Australia/Getty ImagesLyon played his part containing Jason Holder before removing him with a change of angle and clever field setting.”It’s great,” Cummins said, “The three other guys are three of my best mates. We all get along so well. It’s not just the time out in the middle. It’s the amount of dinners and nights in physio rooms kind of hanging out together. It’s a really special group we’ve got going. Just have so much confidence in each other even today just felt so relaxed the whole day. Just knowing once you’d finish your spell, someone’s going to step up.”The addition of Green is like adding a versatile guitarist to an already rounded four-piece band. He was hostile with the old ball pinning Nkrumah Bonner and Jason Holder on the helmet. Bonner had to be subbed out for concussion at which point Green turned his sights on the replacement Shamarh Brooks, getting rid of him with outswing at good pace.The pace trio, and their all-round addition, learnt from their mistakes on day two bowling a lot fuller and getting rewards by bringing the stumps into play. As a result, a score of 159 for 1 turned into 283 all out.”This wicket more so than others felt like that good length… it didn’t feel the slips were as [much] in play,” Cummins said. “So, it was something we spoke about trying to get a little bit fuller and get them driving.”Like all great bands, they stepped off stage before their encore. Cummins could have enforced the follow-on with West Indies 315 runs behind and six-and-a-half sessions remaining but admitted it was never an option.”Hopefully the pitch gets a little bit harder to bat on and it gives us bowlers a little bit of a break,” he said. “We’ll bat for a little bit into tomorrow and then we’ll kind of work back and hopefully leave us plenty of time to try and take the 10 wickets.”You always bowl better when you’re slightly fresher. Day five is normally harder than day three or four. Yeah, there’s really not too many instances where the follow-on is realistic.”

New head coach wants young squad to make big strides after tough transition at Hove

Alan Gardner30-Mar-2023Rarely does an audience with Paul Farbrace, set to embark on his first season as Sussex’s new head coach, not throw up several talking points. He was in typically garrulous mood for the club’s media day at Hove on Wednesday, holding court on his time spent coaching at the International League T20 over the winter, Sussex’s “unacceptable” recent record in the Championship, their signing of Australia’s Steven Smith ahead of the Ashes, and the state of county cricket in general (“in a good place”).At one point, having sidestepped a question about the potential involvement of English players in Major League Cricket – a tournament that threatens a regular clash with the ECB’s prime summer white-ball slots – to allow Ravi Bopara, Sussex’s T20 captain, to give his view, Farbrace followed up with a twinkle: “That sounds like a bloke who has done his homework on dates.”It is Farbrace’s evident enthusiasm and busy can-do approach that Sussex hope can harness a talented group of young players after several years of underperformance down on the south coast. Amid a raft of departures, and no shortage of supporter discontent, the club have managed just three wins in first-class cricket – and 19 defeats – over the last three seasons. But Farbrace has already scotched any talk of incremental progress and set out two lofty goals: promotion from Division Two of the Championship, and an appearance at T20 Finals Day.”We don’t want to start talking about winning two or three games this year, rather than one last year, [and then] let’s try and do a little bit better next year. We’ve been very open with the players [that] promotion in Championship cricket is our absolute goal, and getting to Finals Day and challenging to win the T20. It is achievable with the players that we’ve got, there is no reason why we shouldn’t be pushing to get promoted and get into Finals Day.”I know that sounds punchy, and I know that sounds as though perhaps I’m a little bit deluded there. But if we come in and we start talking at the start of the season about ‘let’s see how far we can go, let’s hope to win a few games’ – well, let’s not bother turning up.”Sussex have leaned heavily on their academy in recent seasons – in part due to the financial necessity that also sees a newly completed ziggurat of flats watching over the south entrance to the ground – and take obvious pride in developing a number of promising players in their teens and early 20s. The club provided nine players to England at various representative levels over the winter, from Ollie Robinson in the Test team to Tom Haines and Jack Carson with the Lions and as many as five members of the Under-19s squad that toured Australia.Haines captained the red-ball side last year, stepping up after Travis Head did not return for the second year of his contract with Sussex, but Farbrace has opted to lighten his load. India’s Cheteshwar Pujara will instead lead the team in the Championship, with Tom Alsop lined up to fill in when Pujara is away on Test duty; Haines will captain the one-day side, while being allowed more time to focus on his batting.Cheteshwar Pujara will captain Sussex in the Championship this year•Getty ImagesAs well as Pujara and Smith, who will join for three Championship games in May, Sussex have recruited the Australian allrounder Nathan McAndrew to bolster a squad that has not been used to winning. Pujara and McAndrew are due to arrive in time for the start of the season while Robinson is also expected to play in next week’s opener against Durham, as he works towards his Ashes head-to-head with Smith later in the summer.”Players learn from players, and the more high-quality people we have around our players, the quicker they’ll learn and the quicker they’ll learn how to win those tough periods of games, which will allow them then to start winning games of cricket. You win the tough sessions, and then you win another tough session, and then you win the day – before you know where you are, you’re winning games and it becomes an expectation rather than hope. And I think that’s the narrative that we have to change – not hope, let’s expect.”We’ve got to be stronger, [saying] that this is the session that we need to make sure we stay in the game, and then we can start getting ourselves back into winning the game again. And that’s why you need to break it down hour-by-hour, session-by-session, basically.”On the notion that the counties ought to play with more of a “Bazball” mentality this year, following on from the success of the England Test team under Ben Stokes and Brendon McCullum, Farbrace said “positive, attacking cricket” would be encouraged at Sussex. In particular, a bowling attack that has struggled in the absence of senior heads like Robinson, Jofra Archer and Steven Finn, will be told to focus on wicket-taking rather than economy.Related

• Farbrace positive about Sussex rebuild: 'I've come here to win'

• Smith signs for three Championship games with Sussex

• Sussex add McAndrew to overseas player ranks for 2023

• Aussies overseas: IPL and county cricket amid Ashes build-up

• Robinson keen to 'put right' Ashes record

“Our batting I’ve got no issues with, I think we’ve got a lot of batters who will naturally take the game on,” Farbrace said. “But it’s our bowlers, if we can get that shift into their mindset, then I think that that could really work well for us.”And Farbrace, who was assistant to Trevor Bayliss when England last won the Ashes in 2015, is in no doubt that first-class cricket – and the Championship in particular – is something that must continue to be nurtured. While England were crowned T20 World Champions in November, and the ever-expanding franchise circuit offers increased opportunity for English players during the off-season, Farbrace warned that the ECB could only continue to have the best of both worlds if it looked after the domestic structure at home.”There is a danger for any young cricketer that can strike a cricket ball, you could end up playing nine months of the year white-ball cricket, three months’ red-ball cricket. That’s why I was really strong last year [during the Strauss review] when we started talking about reducing Championship cricket from 14 to 10 games. I was very much of the view we need to maintain 14 games and we need to protect county cricket, because county cricket is where we produce players to play for England.”County cricket is alive and well, producing a lot of very talented players – we all know that when England struggle away from home, we look at county cricket but actually county cricket is in a good place. And I think we’ve got to protect Championship cricket and make it the best version we can.”