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Being excluded from the ODI squad seemed not to bother the Sri Lanka opener, as he scored his seventh Test hundred to give his team control of the innings

Osman Samiuddin in Dubai07-Oct-2017There are two ways to look at the fact that Dimuth Karunaratne was fielding questions about his absence from Sri Lanka’s ODI squad on an evening when his seventh Test hundred put his side in control of a Test match.One is to see it as a bit of a disservice to a near-flawless innings. The other is to acknowledge, happily, that a Karunaratne performance has become such a routine occurrence that we may as well talk about other things now.For the record, Karunaratne did not seem especially bothered by not being part of the white-ball squad. He will, of course, play, he said, if the selectors asked him; he will take things one game at a time, but right now was the time to focus on his Test career. He wanted to get better as a batsman in the longest format, to be more complete. And, if his recent performances are anything to go by, he seems to be enjoying Test cricket more than ever.Why wouldn’t he? Any time you can tell people you’ve scored more Test runs in the year than Steven Smith, Joe Root, Virat Kohli, Kane Williamson and David Warner has got to be an enjoyable feeling. Only Dean Elgar and Hashim Amla stand above him.For long parts of it, the century could have been an extension of his first-innings 93 in Abu Dhabi, the innings that did so much to ease Sri Lanka into that Test. He broke through this time, though, and remained unbeaten but the knock, in essence, was a reprise. There was perhaps a sniff of a chance to short leg in the second over of the day but, that apart, this was Karunaratne as conceived: functional, operating inside some kind of undisturbed, airless chamber.That is, however, not to say it was dull, or colourless – not at all. Only that it was so composed and matter-of-fact. Some of his play off Yasir Shah, for example, was imperious, none less than the up-and-over clip over midwicket that brought up his fifty. And he was particularly severe on Mohammad Amir, off whom he hit 10 of his 15 boundaries. Yasir and Amir are Pakistan’s premier bowlers, so the message was clear.And it came in what was, effectively, his first serious game with the pink ball and under lights. “I played a first-class game in Sri Lanka and got a hundred there,” he said. “So I had some confidence going into this game although what I played in Colombo was a day game.”Mostly we played in the day time today and only the last session under lights. The first four hours it was nice and smooth but the last two hours were tough. Under lights it is very, very tough. Amir bowled really well. [Mohammad] Abbas didn’t get much side movement earlier on, but he was tough to face with the second new ball under lights.”It wasn’t easy. We have done the hard work and now we need to cash in in the morning. We were not looking for runs after they took the second new ball. We were just trying to see off the day.”Dimuth Karunaratne and Sadeera Samarawickrama added 68 runs for the second wicket•AFPThough it was his 118-run unbroken partnership with Dinesh Chandimal that really secured the evening for Sri Lanka, the swift 68-run stand with Sadeera Samarawickrama had set the day racing. Samarawickrama, on debut no less, played in some respects the innings of the day – the point at which Sri Lanka looked most ascendant. Over 35 balls, it was played without a care in the world, or an obstacle in the way of him displaying his skills. In a couple of his inside-out drives, there was even a glimpse of – go on, admit it – Mahela Jayawardene.”He was the highest run-getter in first-class cricket last season,” Karunaratne said. “He played well today. I tried to give him confidence and he was very positive. I told him just to play his game. He had no fear and was very comfortable. Once he gets more experienced in this level he will convert them into big ones I am pretty sure.”A little of Karunaratne’s focus and know-how, the ability to navigate a path through a day, one session at a time, will not go amiss. That ability has left the destiny of this series, for now, in Sri Lanka’s hands.”We had a bad series against India,” Karunaratne said. “We want to desperately win this series. We are hungry. We just want to play our best and give our best and win the series. We are taking it one day at a time. On day one, we have done well and hopefully we will do well on day two as well.”

Plays of the day from the second ODI between Zimbabwe and India in Harare

Alagappan Muthu13-Jun-2016The wrong exit
Hamilton Masakadza is an imposing presence. He drove Dhawal Kulkarni through the covers without even batting an eyelid, but had to be rather watchful against Barinder Sran, for the left-arm quick was swinging the ball into him as adeptly as he was angling it towards the slips. Unsure of what he was facing, Masakadza was looking for an escape when a full and wide delivery arrived in the fifth over. He went after it with a fierce front-foot slap, could only manage a thick outside edge, and third man took the catch. Masakadza had taken the wrong exit.The usher
Vusi Sibanda was playing a sparkling innings. For nearly all of the hour and a half he spent at the crease, he knew which ball to hit and hit them sweetly, and which to defend and defended solidly. So it was no surprise that when he was two short of fifty and left-arm spinner Axar Patel pitched it short, the batsman leapt back and pulled over midwicket for a four. Interim coach Makhaya Ntini, sitting by the boundary, was up on his feet waving a towel like it was the chequered flag ushering the winning driver to the finish line in Formula One. Perhaps Sibanda mistook it as a signal to return to the dressing room. Little else could explain the poor swipe to long-on that led to his wicket two overs later.The variation
It took Yuzvendra Chahal only two years to become a household name in the IPL. But he has played only 20 first-class matches in over six years. This is because he plays for the same state as Amit Mishra, who may well be the best of India’s currently active legspinners. The plus side of that situation is young Chahal had a good role model and he borrowed a variation from Mishra’s arsenal on Monday. In his second over, after he had overstepped the previous ball, he made sure the free-hit amounted to only one run by bowling a seam-up delivery at 109 kph.The reprieve
Karun Nair, on debut as opener, had fallen to a short ball that held on the pitch and messed with his timing on Saturday. He was given another chance by the team management and it seemed he had wasted this one too when in the fifth over of another small chase, he wafted at a short and wide delivery and was caught behind this time. Nair was slowly trudging towards the pavilion, practicing a drive with a straighter bat, when the umpires asked him to hang around while they checked for the no-ball. And sure enough, Tendai Chatara’s front foot had strayed an inch too far. A relieved Nair belted the free-hit delivery down the ground.

South African batsman Colin Ingram on his international career, fishing as a sport, and why he’s called Mop and Bozie

Interview by Jack Wilson08-May-2015What is the best innings you have ever played?
I hit 136 in my first senior school game. We were chasing 200-odd and we got them in about 25 overs. I’d told the coach I was going to do it too. It’s always nice when you do that and it comes off. I don’t think I’ve ever played better than that since.How do you look at your South Africa career?
I started off really well and scored a few hundreds but I lacked consistency. I needed to score more heavily but I really enjoyed it. International cricket was absolutely awesome.You have bowled six balls in your ODI career and went for 17 runs. What happened?
We were playing Pakistan. Misbah-ul-Haq was on strike and I tossed one of my leggies up and he clubbed it for six. I turned round and said, “Let’s see if you can do it again” – and he did.Might have been best not to say that, then?
I don’t regret it! As a leggie you know sometimes it comes off and sometimes it doesn’t.Which cricketer would you like to be from the past?
I’d love to have been Brian Lara. He spent so much time at the crease and scored so many runs.What is the one thing in your cricket career that you regret?
Not getting a double-hundred – yet.What was the best thing about playing in the IPL?
It was great to mix with a totally different culture. You are out there for a couple of months and get to see people from backgrounds so different to yours. It was an incredible experience.If you could be a professional at any other sport, what would it be?
That’s easy, fishing. It’s a great sport.What has been the worst sledge directed at you?
Dillon du Preez once commented on my hair and said it looked like a mop because it hadn’t been cut for a while. He still calls me Mop now.Tell us something we don’t know about you.
I have a Black Angus cattle stud called Ingram Angus.What do you do in a rain break?
Look for conversation with someone who is light-hearted and up for banter.Ingram looks quite suited for the long hours of stillness required during fishing•Associated PressYour nickname is Bozie – why?
It’s from when I was a kid. I had a walking ring and I used to ram into everything. Bozie comes from bulldozer. My nan said I used to bulldoze around. She worked at my school and kindly passed it on to all my friends.What’s the funniest prank you’ve seen in a dressing room?
A team-mate once put a hamburger patty into someone’s pad. It ended up staying there for three weeks before he told him. The smell was horrific.Which of your team-mates – past or present – has the worst dress sense?
Justin Kreusch is the worst. A lot of us Warriors lads were in our twenties, he was in his thirties, and he dressed like he was in his fifties.Who has the worst taste in music?
Basheer Walters at the Warriors. He listens to one-tone music which goes on for about eight minutes. Awful.And who has the most natural talent?
Graham Wagg seems to be able to do anything. AB de Villiers is a freak too. He can do any sport he wants well – even darts.

Mike Hussey’s autobiography traces Australia’s 2006-07 peak and the decline that followed with candour and insight

Daniel Brettig13-Oct-2013No matter what he achieved, how brilliantly he batted, or how much respect he gathered among team-mates, opponents and spectators, Michael Hussey always thought of himself as an underdeveloped nicker and nudger, to whom power and puberty arrived embarrassingly late. Like William Miller in , Hussey was the kid who looked as though he’d been skipped a grade or two, shorter, skinnier and less hairy than it was socially acceptable to be in his teenage years. Batting was an unrelenting struggle against inner voices telling him he wasn’t good enough.But also like Miller, and his real-life inspiration, Cameron Crowe, on the rock ‘n roll road of the early 1970s, Hussey learned valuable lessons from those awkward days. He was always respectful, thoughtful and keen to do the right things by those around him, while the self-doubt born of being smaller and less capable of muscling the ball ensured that as a batsman he never took anything for granted. Hussey was intense but personable, earnest and enthusiastic, and far, far more talented a batsman than he ever gave himself credit for.At times, the lack of assurance made his life less enjoyable than it might have been, and it probably scuppered his leadership ambitions after a belated but spectacular entry into international cricket. Nevertheless, he developed into arguably the most complete batsman the game has yet seen, as much at home in the hustle and bustle of a T20 contest as in the cut and thrust of a Test, and anything in between. Seldom has a cricketer known better how to operate in a partnership than Hussey. He enjoyed the thrill of victory as much as any Australian cricketer ever has, becoming much more gregarious and entertaining company in those moments, and rightly being granted the privilege of leading the team song when Justin Langer retired.The title of the song, “Underneath the Southern Cross”, has become the title of Hussey’s autobiography, a valuable account of a late-blooming career but also an admirably frank survey of Australian cricket over that time. Like the team around him, Hussey’s account peaks during the 2006-07 Ashes series before slipping down into more regretful, even mournful, territory, as success gave way to defeats, introspection, unrelenting media speculation about his place, and finally the emergence of an insular team culture Hussey does not pretend to say he enjoyed.Starting with a bruising duel against Dale Steyn in Durban in 2009, an encounter he viewed dimly as a failure while team-mates marvelled, Hussey retraces his life. With the help of an accomplished ghostwriter in Malcolm Knox – also the penner of Adam Gilchrist’s – what emerges is a detailed picture of life as a cricket-crazed child, a battling first-class cricketer, then finally an international batsman of rare versatility. Key moments are discussed candidly and at times revealingly, from the SCG dressing-room confrontation between Simon Katich and Michael Clarke over Hussey’s singing of the team song, to the confused circumstances of his final night in that same dressing room earlier this year and the hurtful email rumour that resulted from it.

At times Hussey’s lack of assurance made his life less enjoyable than it might have been, and it probably scuppered his leadership ambitions. Nevertheless, he developed into arguably the most complete batsman the game has yet seen

As valuable, however, are insights into other cricketers great and small. At the DLF Cup in Malaysia in 2006 for instance, a sequence of 6, 4, 4, 4, 4 by Brian Lara against the South Australian spinner Dan Cullen had its catalyst in the young bowler calling his opponent a “cocky p***k”. Then there is a curious interaction between Michael Clarke and Sachin Tendulkar during the fractious 2007-08 summer. After an ODI win in Sydney, Michael Clarke called out Tendulkar on his habit of not shaking hands after a match, trekking into the visitors’ rooms and startling India’s maestro, who said that he’d forgotten. “You don’t forget to shake hands after an international match,” Hussey notes. “Perhaps Sachin wasn’t a god, just another human like the rest of us.”Hussey’s portraits of Clarke and his predecessor, Ponting, are two of the more fascinating passages of his tale. He struggles to find strong enough words to convey his admiration for Ponting as a batsman, a leader and a man, while speaking warmly of Clarke as a batting partner and a nimble captain stepping into enormous shoes. The contrast is summed up by observations of how his slow medium pace was used. Under Ponting, a tidy over against a rampant Tendulkar in Hyderabad has Hussey earning another, more expensive over. Hussey is convinced the experiment is complete, but Ponting chances a third, which promptly goes for 14 runs. Clarke, by contrast, uses Hussey as a surprise weapon, striking it lucky by grabbing wickets in Sri Lanka and the West Indies then immediately taking him off.Hussey’s own brief flirtation with the Australian captaincy is also unpacked. A demoralising visit to New Zealand with an under-strength team before the 2007 World Cup ended his chances of pursuing the role any further. He admits to not having the conviction to impose his ideas on the rest of the team, particularly the bowlers, as New Zealand twice ran down scores of well over 300. “I tried to be very consultative, supporting the bowlers individually, but I went too far,” he writes. “If the bowler thought differently from me, I let him have his way.”Aware that many have assumed they did not get along, Hussey goes out of his way to depict a strong relationship with Clarke, demonstrated by a string of partnerships that humbugged Sri Lanka, India and South Africa in 2011 and 2012. Over that time, Hussey’s own enthusiasm for the task was waning as the Argus review took the team in different directions to those he preferred, removing a coach he admired in Tim Nielsen and replacing him with one he was unsure about in Mickey Arthur. There was success for a time, but Hussey saw signs of decay in the West Indies. His concerns were relayed to Arthur but went no further.At the same time the wages of constant travel were draining both Hussey and his wife Amy, a steadfast presence in his life since they met and courted endearingly as teaching students at Curtin University in the early 1990s. Eventually he decided that, as with Miller on the Stillwater tour bus, he had to leave the circus. It had changed into something he felt less warmth about than previously, and there is something elegiac about the comparisons made between the Australian team he walked into and the one he was to leave.By keeping his retirement plans a secret, Hussey found himself following the insular lines he had seen set around him. He was self-effacing to the last, only allowing himself the indulgence of walking first on to the field of his final Test after Clarke refused to take the field until he did. Now Hussey’s career account is on the shelves, and he is preparing to take on a role in the Nine commentary box. It is a worthwhile reminder of how great players can be made as well as born, and how the influence of formative years can shape a cricketer for the term of his career.Underneath the Southern Cross
By Michael Hussey
Hardie Grant
400 pages, A$49.95

The upward curve of the Australian team over the period of Michael Clarke’s captaincy has been by no means an accidental occurrence

Daniel Brettig at Windsor Park27-Apr-2012Played 14, won nine, lost two, drawn three. By these bare numbers Michael Clarke has established himself as a successful Test captain of Australia, ending a long sequence of cricket a little more than a year after he took the job from Ricky Ponting. It was a tired touring team that allowed West Indies to swing their way to within 75 runs of a distant target on the final morning, but the Australians’ unstinting earlier efforts ensured that the Caribbean tour and the elongated “summer” of eight months’ duration ended on a note of victory.In the finish it was the captain himself who did much of the heavy lifting, claiming the second five-wicket haul of his Test career with left-arm spin of the kind that Allan Border once employed with similar success against West Indies. Clarke’s other major tally was a freakish 6 for 9 on a Mumbai pitch that existed in name only, and here he had to work for his wickets on a surface that offered generous turn but not the spiteful bounce or grubbers that fill batsmen with fourth-innings fear. It was fitting that Clarke played such a role in bringing the team home to a 2-0 series success, for the upward curve of the Australian team over the period of his captaincy has been by no means an accidental occurrence.As a batsman, a tactician and occasionally a bowler, Clarke is always keeping the game moving, always looking for opportunities for runs or wickets, always pushing his team towards greater efforts. Clarke’s players have taken on his appetite for meticulous preparation and hard training, preserving their bodies as he must do in order to stay ahead of a troublesome back that has humbugged him numerous times over his career. They are also a more ebullient and enthusiastic group under his leadership, as much because they know their leader is a shrewd one as because he is a cheerful one. Winning helps too.Since he walked out to toss the coin with Sri Lanka’s then captain Tillakaratne Dilshan in September last year, Clarke has taken the team through plenty of peaks and also a few notable troughs. It was those that he pointed to as critical to the building of the team’s character, particularly the way the team found a way to regather itself after the trauma of being razed for 47 by South Africa in Cape Town, squaring the series in Johannesburg within a week. There was also a galling defeat to New Zealand in Hobart as the team settled under a new captain, coach and selection panel.”Cape Town showed us how quickly things can change for the worse and then to be able to pull off a win in Jo’burg – and we’re talking about a very strong Test cricket team in their own backyard – so to be able to level that series was a great learning curve for us,” Clarke said. “And we probably saw a little of that again against New Zealand. There are highs and lows in this game and you’re going to experience both, whether you like it or not individually as a player. And that gave us the opportunity as a team to see that it doesn’t matter what opposition you play against, if you’re not at your best, you’re going to get beaten. And we continue to learn, especially, from those two games, from Cape Town and Hobart.”I’ve been very lucky to have some other great leaders around me, wonderful support staff who have played a part in me having success. And the captain is only as good as his stock. The players have played so well that they’ve made my job so much easier and they’ve put me in a position where it allows me to take a risk, or to declare, or to bowl a certain bowler because I have the confidence of the boys in that change-room. So I’ve enjoyed every minute of it. I’ll look forward to having a bit of a break now.”There are still plenty of flaws evident in the team Clarke is leading. The batting is the cause of most doubt, as the opening combination of David Warner and Ed Cowan has not yet reached the level required, Ricky Ponting’s future in the game is a series-by-series proposition and Shane Watson has yet to prove he is capable of scoring centuries at No.3, an essential requirement for any top-class performer in that position. Beneath them, the next group of young batsmen is struggling to attain the heights they had initially promised – Phillip Hughes, Usman Khawaja and Shaun Marsh among them. This point of weakness will require plenty of considered discussion between Clarke and the selection panel but also Rod Marsh as the designated director of coaching among the states, for South Africa and England in particular are unlikely to be as accommodating in future series as India were during the home summer.However the major strength Clarke has been able to call on across his first year in charge is a battery of pace bowlers that is burgeoning with speed, swing and promise. Older practitioners like Ryan Harris, Peter Siddle and Ben Hilfenhaus have learned new ways to succeed, and younger striplings including Mitchell Starc, James Pattinson and Pat Cummins have all shown how formidable they can become. Further back are the likes of Josh Hazlewood and Nathan Coulter-Nile. Bowlers, it is so often said, win Test matches, and for now Clarke is well stocked with options.He also now has a spin bowler he can rely on in most situations, as Nathan Lyon builds his stamina and savvy on foreign pitches. While Lyon has not dominated every innings, and struggled notably in some, he is establishing the sort of record that very few Australian offspin bowlers have been able to boast of. None have surpassed Ashley Mallett’s 132 from 38 Tests at 29.84, yet with 42 at 27.83 in 13 matches, Lyon is on his way. Most heartening in his growth is how much Clarke and the coach Mickey Arthur have worked to let him develop without being unfairly exposed by batsmen or critics. The lessons of a misspent first four years after Shane Warne’s retirement, with slow bowlers tossed about like boats in Dominica’s impending hurricane season, appear to have been learned.The most significant transition that lies ahead for Clarke and his team is the choice of wicketkeeper for next summer and the Ashes series beyond it. Matthew Wade’s contribution in the Caribbean was meritorious, for how he gleaned lessons from early struggles to capitalise in supreme fashion in Dominica. While his batting at Windsor Park will be the most memorable element of his work, Wade’s keeping has also progressed greatly. Brad Haddin, meanwhile, sits at home with his family, older and wiser and a valued member of the team even though he was forced to leave it behind by difficult personal circumstances. Clarke does not want to lose Haddin, but he does want his team to move forward. His first 12 months in charge provide the strongest possible evidence of that fact.

Over a 19-year international career, Wasim Akram took wickets all over the world, in Tests and ODIs, with a consistency that was mind-boggling

S Rajesh25-Apr-2010There are several outstanding aspects to Wasim Akram’s international career, right from its sheer longevity – almost 19 years – to the amount of success he had in Tests and ODIs, with new ball and with old, with the red variety and the white. He was pretty handy with the bat – you’d have to be if your highest Test score is 257 not out – but it’s as a bowler of splendid and varied skills that Akram will be remembered.Making his Test debut against New Zealand in the beginning of 1985, Akram needed just one match to make his mark: in his second Test, in Dunedin, he returned match figures of 10 for 128 and was named Man of the Match even though New Zealand won the thriller by two wickets.That set a glorious Test career on its way, but the early years were, as you’d expect for an 18-year-old, somewhat erratic. Even so, there were enough promising performances to prove that Akram was the real deal. In Barbados three years later, Akram took seven wickets in heartbreaker that Pakistan lost, yet again, by two wickets. In his first five years, though, Akram only managed 94 wickets in 29 Tests – a modest average of 3.24 per match.Akram’s best years were about to come. In his first Test of 1990, against Australia in Melbourne, Akram took 11 for 160, and that haul triggered a sensational run that lasted through most of the next eight years. In 48 Tests from 1990 to the end of 1997, Akram averaged five wickets per match, and his average dropped to an outstanding 20.05, before his form finally tapered off in his last four years.

During that eight-year period from 1990 to 1997, Akram had the best figures in Test cricket, barring none. There were several legendary bowlers who were at the height of their craft during an era which we now look back on as a golden one for bowlers, especially the fast ones – Curtly Ambrose, Allan Donald, Waqar Younis and Glenn McGrath were all around, but Akram’s stats stood out even among them. His average of 20.05 was better than anyone else’s during this period (with a cut-off of 150 wickets); in terms of strike rate, only Waqar was ahead.During these eight years, Akram was Man of the Match in 12 of the 48 Tests he played, an incredible average of one every four games. Eight of these were in overseas Tests, including the game in Melbourne and the next one in Adelaide, when he turned in an outstanding all-round performance, taking six wickets and scoring 52 and 123. At the time it was only the 12th instance of a player scoring 150 or more and taking six or more wickets in a Test.

Overall, he won 17 Man-of-the-Match and seven Man-of-the-Series awards, both of which are among the highest. Even better, his rate of winning these awards, one every six Tests, is the best among those who’ve won at least ten such prizes.

Not surprisingly, Akram remains one of the most potent matchwinners in Tests for Pakistan. In the 41 wins that he was a part of, he took 211 wickets at an average which compares well with the best in the business.

Like most fast bowlers from Pakistan, Akram too mastered the art of bowling grassless pitches, where reverse swing becomes a most potent weapon. He is one of only four bowlers to take more than 150 wickets in Pakistan, while in the three major subcontinent countries, India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, his average was marginally better than his overall career average.

Through most of his career, Akram formed a destructive fast-bowling combination with Waqar: in the 61 Tests they played together, Akram averaged 21.33, with 20 five-fors and four ten-wicket hauls; in the 43 Tests he played without Waqar, his averaged fell to 28.50, and he only managed five five-fors. His wickets per Tests too dropped to 3.07 per match, from 4.62 when the bowled with Waqar. Some of that was also because the periods he bowled without Waqar were also during the first and last parts of his career, when he wasn’t at his most potent.

Akram’s ODI career was more even, and his stats stayed within a narrow band almost throughout. He announced himself in his third game, taking 5 for 21 against Australia in Melbourne – a haul that included Allan Border, Dean Jones and Kepler Wessels – during the World Championship of Cricket.His best period, though, was between 1992 and 1997, when he had an economy rate of 3.76 and took 14 of his 23 hauls of four or more wickets. At the beginning of that period was the 1992 World Cup, in which Akram was an absolute star, taking 18 wickets at 18.77. The highlight was his 3 for 49 in the final, when he derailed England’s run-chase with the wickets of Allan Lamb and Chris Lewis in successive balls. Even towards the end of his career he remained a significant threat with the ball, and became the first bowler to go past the 500-wicket mark.Akram played five World Cups over his 19-year career, and finished as the second-highest wicket-taker with 55, next only to McGrath’s haul of 71.

With 326 ODI wickets in wins, Akram is next only to Muralitharan in this regard. He’s clearly one of the greatest matchwinners in ODIs, averaging less than 19 at a run rate of 3.70. Among bowlers with at least 150 wickets in wins, only four bowlers have a better average.

Akram’s genius and his ability to burst through batting line-ups is obvious from the fact that he has taken two hat-tricks in Tests and ODIs, the only bowler to do so. He finished with 22 Man-of-the-Match awards in ODIs, which isn’t anywhere near Sachin Tendulkar’s 61, but it’s a significant number considering the fact that ODIs are usually dominated by batsmen. In fact, Akram and Shaun Pollock (who also has 22) have the highest number of awards among players whose major suit isn’t batting.And then there’s the small matter of Akram the captain. In the 25 Tests in which he led Pakistan, they won 12 and lost eight, and his reign included a series win in England, and clinching the Asian Test Championship. His ODI record was impressive too: a win-loss ratio of 1.6, which is the joint-highest for any Pakistan captain who led in more than 50 games.

The Australia captain replaces South Africa’s Aiden Markram in the role

ESPNcricinfo staff04-Mar-2024Pat Cummins has been appointed captain of Sunrisers Hyderabad for IPL 2024, replacing Aiden Markram who had led the team in the 2023 season.Cummins has not led a side in the IPL before – in fact, he has not led a team in top-flight T20 cricket before – but his appointment comes after a successful period as captain of Australia, during which he led them to victory in the World Test Championship and the 2023 ODI World Cup, with both wins in the finals coming against India.The move means that SRH will have the flexibility of playing their new signings – Australian batter Travis Head and Sri Lankan legspinner Wanindu Hasaranga – in addition to finisher Heinrich Klaasen instead of Markram if they want to do so, while Cummins slots in as the overseas fast bowler. Afghanistan’s Fazalhaq Farooqi and South Africa’s Marco Jansen are the other overseas quicks in the squad, while New Zealand’s Glenn Phillips rounds off their roster of eight overseas players.Related

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Cummins had withdrawn from IPL 2023 to focus on international cricket but entered the auction for the 2024 season, where he became the first player in IPL history to get a bid of INR 20 crore (USD 2.4 million approximately). SRH’s record bid of INR 20.50 crore (USD 2.47 million approximately) for Cummins was shortly broken by Kolkata Knight Riders, who bid INR 24.75 crores (USD 2.98 million approximately) for Mitchell Starc. Cummins, coincidentally, had been part of the KKR squad from 2020 to 2022.

#OrangeArmy! Our new skipper Pat Cummins #IPL2024 pic.twitter.com/ODNY9pdlEf

— SunRisers Hyderabad (@SunRisers) March 4, 2024