Explains why looking to bat through was important given the middle order hadn’t fired until then in IPL 2020

Shashank Kishore09-Oct-20202:46

KL Rahul on his slow starts: ‘Strike rate is over-rated’

KL Rahul began IPL 2020 in sparkling form, allaying his own fears of not being able to play a cover drive even. But six games in, after his slightly tempered-down approach – as compared to his blitzkrieg that the Kings XI Punjab have been mostly used to at the top – raised questions over his changing role as an anchor, Rahul countered them by stating that “strike rates are very, very overrated.”On Thursday, Kings XI were chasing 202, and Rahul was stuck on 11 off 14 balls after first being involved in a run-out with Mayank Agarwal and then seeing Prabhsimran Singh falling to a catch early in the chase. As per ESPNcricinfo’s data, Rahul didn’t look to attack any of the 14 deliveries he faced before top-edging a sweep off left-arm spinner Abhishek Sharma to Kane Williamson at square leg. By then, the pressure was already on Kings XI.He linked his sedate approach with the bat to captaincy, and explained why batting through was important because the middle order hadn’t really fired until then in the tournament. Rahul’s change in approach has become increasingly visible since he struck 132, the highest by an Indian in the IPL, against the Royal Challengers Bangalore in his second game.”Look, I think strike rate is very, very overrated. For me, it’s only about how I can win games for my team,” Rahul said at the post-match press conference. “On a certain day if I think 120 can win the game for my team, I will do that. This is how I bat. I like to take responsibility as a leader.”Yes, we make mistakes. I’m not saying I haven’t made a few mistakes, but you learn each day as a leader and batter. It’s a partnership when you’re in the middle as a batting group, every player has different roles in the team and those roles change with each game. So I try to do the best I can, try and assess and play according to that. At the end of the day, I need to walk out of the ground knowing I’ve got my team as close to winning or try to win the game. That is the most important thing.”An animated KL Rahul addresses his team ahead of play•BCCIRahul then fielded a question on whether his team was too reliant on himself and Agarwal. On Thursday, Kings XI had hedged their bets on a five-bowler strategy, which left them a batter light. They left out Sarfaraz Khan, who had only faced 29 deliveries in the tournament until then, and had a very long lower order that had Mujeeb Ur Rahman, who nearly has the same number of T20 runs as his appearances, come in at No. 7.”When you see a team at the bottom of the table, you start thinking a lot of things are not going right,” Rahul said. “We can accept a lot of things haven’t gone right, but no team has their top six firing. Couple of them will be in good form, couple of them may not, so it’s important for the in-form players to get as many runs for the team. Openers are always – I won’t say under pressure – expected to give good starts. I’m not very worried but if the set batsmen or those in good form can get as many runs for the team, that will help, make the team look good.”Amid the disappointments, Kings XI have had a number of young Indian bowlers step up. Ravi Bishnoi, the teen legspinner from Rajasthan, has shown the tenacity to pick wickets regularly. Against the Sunrisers Hyderabad, Bishnoi orchestrated a turnaround of sorts by dismissing David Warner and Jonny Bairstow in the space of three deliveries. Warner mistimed a slog off a googly to long-on and Bairstow, after making 97, was foxed by a flipper.At the other end, left-arm seamer Arshdeep Singh, impressed immediately, bowling excellent yorkers and denying batsmen any room in the death overs. He finished with figures of 2 for 33 off four overs. Arshdeep isn’t express quick and is more the mid-130s bowler, but he made up for his lack of pace with his accuracy.”IPL is the biggest platform, the youngsters have been working really, really hard in the three weeks that we’ve been here,” Rahul said. “Arshdeep and Bishnoi – so good to see them me among the wickets. They bowled high-pressure overs, and it’s great to see how they held their nerve to bowl those big overs for the team at this platform. That will give them and the group a lot of confidence. Small things like these are infectious. It can spread to the rest of the group quickly. So really happy to see how they bowled.”

And did the defending champions miss a trick by not bowling Bumrah when Pant came in?

Nagraj Gollapudi10-Nov-2020
Rahul Chahar out, Jayant Yadav in – why?
Rohit Sharma called it a tactical move, replacing Rahul Chahar, their only legspinner, with offspinner Jayant Yadav, who had played just one game this season prior to the final. That game was against the Capitals too, and Yadav did well, returning 3-0-18-0.What was the tactical bit there, though? With three of the specialist batsmen in the opposition being left-handers – Shikhar Dhawan, Rishabh Pant and Shimron Hetmyer – the Mumbai Indians felt Yadav could be a better option than Chahar, who had a hard time in Qualifier 1, also against the Capitals, leaking 35 runs in two wicketless overs.This is the second time Yadav has been used by the Mumbai Indians as a tactical pick in the IPL. In Qualifier 1 of IPL 2019, against the Chennai Super Kings, he was brought in with the sole purpose of keeping Suresh Raina quiet, which he did successfully, getting Raina out caught and bowled for just 5.In many ways, it wasn’t a surprise that Yadav played the final. On Monday, Sharma had hinted that Yadav would be a “great option” keeping in mind the Capitals’ batting line-up. And the decision was an instant winner as Yadav bowled Dhawan off his third ball. That aside, according to Gautam Gambhir, who is on ESPNcricinfo’s expert panel, Yadav made the biggest impact when he bowled two consecutive dot balls to Hetmyer and denied Shreyas Iyer a chance to dominate him. Yadav finished with 4-0-25-1.Should Jasprit Bumrah have bowled as soon as Rishabh Pant came in?
Jasprit Bumrah had dismissed Rishabh Pant five times in nine innings before today in the IPL. When Pant reached the middle, the Capitals were in a shambles at 22 for 3 in the fourth over, and ESPNcricinfo Forecaster was predicting a final total of 137. Everything pointed to Sharma unleashing Bumrah, who had bowled just one over at that stage, but it didn’t happen.In the end, Pant hit a 38-ball 56, and the Capitals reached 156 for 7. So, did Sharma miss a play there?During the chat with the official broadcaster in over 14, the Mumbai Indians head coach Mahela Jayawardene conceded that his team was “probably not attacking enough” and had missed out on “challenging” Pant and Shreyas Iyer, who finished on an unbeaten 65 in 50 balls.By the time Bumrah was brought back for his second over, the Capitals were safer with Pant and Iyer settled – the Capitals were 75 for 3 after ten overs, with Forecaster pegged at 166. Pant, who got his first half-century this IPL, fell (to Nathan Coulter-Nile) with five overs remaining, leaving the Capitals at 118 for 4. Forecaster still said 166. Eventually they stopped ten short of that. Bumrah went wicketless and the Mumbai Indians had perhaps dodged a bullet.ESPNcricinfo LtdDid Shreyas Iyer slow down at the death?
Social media was abuzz after the Capitals finished at a below-par 156: why did Iyer show such little intent after Pant’s dismissal?Did he actually did slow down, though? And if yes, why? Let’s see.Iyer started well, getting 14 off the first ten balls he had faced. In the first 28 balls he faced, Iyer hit four fours and a six, and scored at a strike rate of 132. However, in the last 22 balls he faced, Iyer just had two fours and a six, with his strike rate coming down to 127. He took nine deliveries to move from 40 to 50.When Pant got out, the Capitals were 118 for 4 with five overs remaining. Iyer played just 16 of those 30 deliveries, and faced five dot balls. His strike rate in this phase was 144, which in the death overs is average when compared with the likes of, say, Hardik Pandya and Kieron Pollard, who score at nearly 200 in that phase.What did not help was that Yadav seemed to have the measure of Iyer, giving away just five runs from six deliveries against the Capitals’ captain.In the final two overs, Iyer looked like he was out of gas. Unfortunately for him, Hetmyer and Axar Patel made a combined 14 runs from 14 deliveries. In a similar scenario, the Pandya brothers along with Pollard would likely have scored double that to give the innings a powerful finish.Iyer could have done better for sure, but it was not entirely his fault.Should Anrich Nortje have bowled more?
Anrich Nortje has been one of better bowlers in powerplays this IPL, with an economy of 8. Yet, the South African quick was given just the one over in the first six in the final as the Mumbai Indians got to 61 for 1. By the time Nortje returned for his second over, with four overs remaining, only 20 runs were needed for the win.Nortje did eventually send back Sharma, but it was too late by then. As it turned out, Norjte couldn’t even finish his third over as the Mumbai Indians had wrapped up the win by then. It might not have changed the result, but a frontline bowler with a good recent record not bowling out his quota was not the best move on the Capitals’ part.

The LPL doesn’t need to be an overwhelming success as long as it provides a foundation to return year-on-year

Andrew Fidel Fernando25-Nov-2020It seems almost ludicrous now, but between 2009 and 2014 no T20 team was more dynamic than Sri Lanka. Their win/loss record during those five years (34 wins, 19 losses) was comfortably the best in the world. In World T20 tournaments, they were the most dominant, making three finals in four campaigns, before winning in 2014.And there was an innovative magic here. A sense that as even Tillakaratne Dilshan reverse-slapped his way through the powerplay, or Ajantha Mendis bewitched an opposition top order, yet more adventure lay in wait. Often it did. Rangana Herath, though almost rigidly orthodox on the surface, would make abrupt appearances in must-win games to wrestle oppositions to the ground. Test-match fields (short leg, slip, leg slip) and would be transposed so exactly on to a T20 field, it felt like the whole stadium had entered a fever dream. Sri Lanka were not unbeatable, but damn were they good. And man were they good to watch.ALSO READ: LPL 2020 ready for take-off – powered by stars, riding the crest of chaosHow much they have slipped in six years. Sri Lanka would have had to qualify for this year’s T20 World Cup, had it been played in October as originally scheduled. Since the start of 2017, they have lost twice as many T20 matches as they have won, and a good portion of even these victories were built upon the bowling of Lasith Malinga, who has increasingly seemed a weathered monument to the golden age. In too many matches, Sri Lanka are not only outgunned on paper, they are also out-scrapped, and – here is the clearest sign of decline for a Sri Lanka side – out-thought.That Sri Lanka’s domestic cricket is poor preparation for international cricket is known, but of the three formats, none has been so wantonly neglected as T20. In some years – as in 2018 – Sri Lanka Cricket has organised club-based T20 tournament contested by as many as 23 teams, meaning no fewer than 243 players featured in each round. The result was a competition of embarrassingly diluted quality.In years in which more of an effort has been made, the pinnacle T20 competition has been a hastily dashed together “provincial tournament” in which 60 players are more-or-less haphazardly funnelled into four teams. When these tournaments happen, they last less than two weeks. While almost every other major league in the world, from the Caribbean Premier League to New Zealand’s Super Smash has grown in either length, quality or both, Sri Lanka has persisted with what are essentially glorified intra-squad practice matches of vanishingly modest benefit to both board and players. Overseas, the likes of Jasprit Bumrah, Shadab Khan, Adam Zampa, Evin Lewis, Hardik Pandya and Tom Banton have built careers on the back of T20 league performances. In Sri Lanka, national selectors have largely ignored the results of whatever competition had been cobbled together that year.The Sri Lankan team lifts the World T20 trophy•ICCThat Sri Lanka will finally get a T20 franchise tournament off the ground in 2020 of all years, epitomises the nation’s cricket. Baffling as it is that it has taken this long for a franchise tournament to be attempted, there is also appreciation of the slap-dash brilliance in having organised one in the year a pandemic rips across the planet.There must also be managed expectations, however. The Lanka Premier League will not suddenly undo years of active harm on the domestic cricket front. This league is only 21 days long, has a hectic schedule with double-headers on most days, and will all take place on a single ground. Teams have had practically no time to prepare and plan, and the best on-paper side – Colombo Kings – only got their coach in the week before their first match. Many foreign players may be walking straight out of quarantine into their first match. And the tournament is almost certain to lose money.But then, so what? The first rains after a drought don’t have to bring a downpour. That such a tournament is even starting is enough, for now. Sri Lanka stood on the brink of T20 oblivion, driving bullock carts while other teams rode bullet trains, the format’s data revolution having almost totally passed them by. Now, finally, the island’s cricket is being invested in – franchise owners hailing from as far afield as Canada and the United States, in addition to UAE, Pakistan and India.Whatever its cricketing quality, there are two areas in which the tournament cannot compromise. It cannot be tainted with corruption, for starters. Not only has Sri Lankan cricket been subject to a substantial anti-corruption investigation over the last five years, SLC’s previous T20 franchise tournament – 2012’s Sri Lanka Premier League – had been riddled with credible corruption allegations, which led to the downfall of that league after a single iteration. Second, it is vital that cricketers are paid the fees they expect, for without buy-in from foreign players, future versions of the LPL will not draw the funds from sponsors and broadcasters that will sustain the league.And this year, putting down that bedrock of trust this is really what the LPL is about. It does not necessarily have to be a stellar tournament. It only has to ensure it returns next year, and then the year after that, to stand a chance of reversing Sri Lanka’s T20 descent.

Why fours and sixes are the primary grammar of the format. And will increasingly be so

Himanish Ganjoo09-Dec-2020Is it fair to view T20 through the same lens as we do cricket? Yes, the bat and ball are present in T20, but the fact that ten wickets are available to be spent in 120 balls fundamentally alters the calculus of risk and reward, arguably making it an entirely different game. In this condensed world, boundaries are the real currency, representing the maximal use of each precious delivery of the 120 you get to face. Adopting a mentality that pushes boundary-hitting to the forefront of batting strategy involves shelving a key tenet of batting as it is taught: the aversion to risk. The need to preserve one’s wicket dominates the psyche of players, almost all of whom begin learning from a red-ball point of view. Success in T20 demands unlearning this and embracing the high-risk, high-reward strategy of trying to hit as many balls as possible.If we model the chances of winning a T20 game as a result of the difference in fours, sixes, runs (ones and twos) and dots between the two teams, we can fit data from actual matches to pin numbers on the exact importance of each of these events. The way we express this is the odds factor. As an example, an odds factor of 2.0 for sixes means that each six you hit more than the opposition doubles your odds of winning the game. Using data from 1331 T20s in the IPL, PSL, BBL, CPL and the T20 Blast over the last five years, we find the odds factor corresponding to each outcome.Himanish Ganjoo/ESPNcricinfo LtdWhile each additional dot ball compared to the other team reduces your odds by a factor of 0.71, the payoff for boundaries is much greater. Each additional four hit inflates your odds of winning 1.9 times, and each six improves them by a whopping 2.9 times. Singles and doubles have a comparatively insignificant influence on the chances of winning.These numbers not only concretely illustrate the obvious truth that boundaries matter much more than dots, they also quantify their relative importance: to maintain the same odds of winning, you can afford to play 3.2 more dots as long as you hit one more six, and you can afford to play 1.9 more dots per extra four you hit. In summary, a six is worth 3.2 dot balls on average.The relative importance of boundaries and dots varies between different competitions, owing to variations in conditions and playing philosophies. A six is worth 4.28 dot balls in the IPL, 3.52 dot balls in the BBL, 3.04 dot balls in the PSL, and 2.78 dots in the CPL. However, across these analyses of individual leagues, there is consistently no statistically significant relationship between the odds of winning and the difference in the number of ones and twos run by a team. The data speaks conclusively: running between the wickets is overrated in T20, dot balls are not a crime, and boundary-hitting is the real driver of success.ALSO READ: T20 openers are more conservative than they need to beThis philosophy has been adopted by the elite white-ball sides of the world: the World Cup-winning West Indies teams, the post-2015 attacking avatar of the English white-ball side, and most recently by the Mumbai Indians in their victorious 2020 IPL campaign.The most prominent exponent of this ideology is Chris Gayle. In the IPL, Gayle has a boundary percentage of 23% from 3179 balls faced, placing him fifth out of the 99 batsmen who have faced 500 balls or more. More surprisingly, he has a dot ball percentage of 41.5%, the 13th highest out of the 99; and the fourth-lowest percentage of ones and twos taken. And yet he has maintained a strike rate of 150 over 131 innings. His approach is simple: pay little heed to running, try to make every scoring shot a boundary, and if you fail, concede a dot. Gayle trusts his skill to get the ball over the ropes, and realises that, given his ability, staying at the crease has a greater net payoff than turning the strike over.Himanish Ganjoo/ESPNcricinfo LtdGayle’s West Indies team-mates Kieron Pollard, Sunil Narine and Andre Russell employ a similar strategy of boundary or dot to great success. As the plot above shows, there is no correlation between dot and boundary percentage. Since boundaries are the major source of strike rate, we can establish that there is little relation between dot balls and a batsman’s strike rate.Players and teams who are ahead of the curve in terms of strategy place increased emphasis on attacking through the innings. In the most recent IPL season, Quinton de Kock of the Mumbai Indians had the role of a powerplay boundary hitter, lofting or hoicking the ball over the infield to maximise impact. His team-mate Ishan Kishan matched him in trying to clear the fence as often as possible, and Suryakumar Yadav attacked in the middle overs. Mumbai had the best powerplay boundary percentage, 20.83%, and the best middle-overs boundary percentage, 15.59%. Attacking consistently regardless of wickets brought them success as a batting unit.The occurrence of boundaries is a product of intent and execution. While the execution depends on the pitch, the ball and the field, the intent to attack is a controllable for the batting side. This intent, represented by the frequency with which a batsman seeks to hit a boundary, can be increased at will to try and score faster. The advantage is dependent on the payoff.ALSO READ: How batsmen began to go boom all the timeThe question of payoff was central to the NBA’s three-point revolution. Although three-pointers are less likely to be successful than two-pointers, analysts found that the average returns from an attempted three-pointer were significantly higher than those from two-pointers. This has led to a steady increase in the number of attempted three-pointers in the NBA in the last ten years. A high-risk shot was identified as one with a better payoff despite the lower odds of success, and strategy evolved accordingly.The payoff from attacking in T20 has another dimension: balancing the heightened chances of getting out against the scarcity of wickets. Attempted boundaries can bring you higher returns, but how much likelier are you to lose wickets as a result? And how many boundary attempts could be too many? To answer this, we must study the distribution of outcomes when a batsman attempts a boundary.The analytics company CricViz collects data on the type of shot hit, the trajectory of a shot, and the result. According to their database, the following eight shots have the highest boundary percentage: slog-sweep, upper cut, scoop, switch hit, pull, slog, hook, and reverse sweep. Classifying all such shots (and all aerial shots) as boundary attempts, we can approximately quantify how a boundary attempt is different from non-attempts. This definition covers 85% of boundaries actually hit, making it a decent proxy for boundary attempts.ALSO READ: T20 chases are won and lost in the first ten overs, not the last tenTaking data from all T20s since 2016 from the CricViz database, we find that batsmen attempt boundaries 25.5% of the time (including eventual wides) and are successful in hitting a four or six 36.8% of the time when they try. While the chances of a wicket are 3.2% on non-attempts, this rises to 11.8% on boundary attempts. The average runs from boundary attempts are 2.26, while the same figure is 0.97 for non-attempts. Although the chances of a wicket falling rise significantly, the payoff in terms of runs is 2.3 times higher, even with less-than-perfect efficiency of finding the boundary. Teams have acknowledged this – in keeping with the increasing focus on sustained hitting, the percentage of such attempted boundaries has steadily gone up over the past few years.Himanish Ganjoo/ESPNcricinfo LtdWe can also calculate the probabilities of various outcomes on boundary attempts and non-attempts. The bar graph below shows these. For simplicity, wides are excluded here.Himanish Ganjoo/ESPNcricinfo LtdThe first graph is for the average batsman, and the next two compare the same profiles for Virat Kohli and Andre Russell, highlighting the differences in their execution of boundaries. While the percentage of boundary attempts is vastly different because of the difference in their playing roles, these profiles tell us what happens when they decide to attack.Himanish Ganjoo/ESPNcricinfo LtdWhen Kohli looks for the boundary, he gets fours 24% of the time, and sixes 18% of the time; his dismissal rate shoots up to 10% on these attempts. Russell, on the other hand, gets mostly sixes compared to fours when looking for boundaries; he is also slightly more likely to get out. Russell is a more aggressive, primarily six-hitting batsman, while Kohli is more classical, with fours dominating his attacking output.Himanish Ganjoo/ESPNcricinfo LtdThese “profiles” can also be used to decide team strategy, dictating how much a team should attack. To mimic what a strategy think tank might do, we will run simulations of a match situation using the profile for an average player.Assume that a team has five wickets in hand and needs 60 runs from 30 balls to win. What are their chances of victory if they attack 15 balls out of 30? It turns out that the chase is completed only 12% of the time. Can these chances be bettered if they attack more? There is a trade-off between losing wickets and hitting hard, so what is the ideal number of deliveries to attempt boundaries on, to maximise their chance of winning?Running simulations of scenarios where the team attacks between ten and 30 balls, we see that there is no such thing as too much attack in this scenario: the more they attack, the higher the chances of winning. How the chances of success vary as the number of balls attacked increases is shown in the plot below.Himanish Ganjoo/ESPNcricinfo LtdWhile all-out attack is the obvious strategy for a five-over target at the end of the chase, what about when a team needs, say, 100 from the last ten overs? If they have eight wickets remaining, they can afford to attack around 50 of the 60 balls to maximise their chances of winning. With batting resources in the shed, it makes sense that attacking more is the better option. On the other hand, if only six wickets remain, the possible loss of wickets starts balancing out the extra run output from attacking more balls. At around 46 balls attacked out of 60, the winning probability flatlines; there is no advantage from attacking more often than this.Himanish Ganjoo/ESPNcricinfo LtdThe larger the match span available, the greater the effect of losing wickets in determining the ideal percentage of boundary attempts. Running the simulations for a full chase, with 20 overs and ten wickets left, it is seen that there is an optimal number of balls to attempt boundaries on, after which the chances of winning start decreasing. For a target of 160, this number is between 60 and 70 balls, while it is 80 to 90 for a 200 target. The progression of winning chances is shown in the plot below, and it follows a general pattern of rising steeply until the optimal point and falling slowly after that as more boundaries are attempted.Himanish Ganjoo/ESPNcricinfo LtdHow would a chase of 200 pan out, depending on team construction? We will have a look at simulations comparing a team of high-risk high-reward players of the Russell archetype to a team of safer, four-hitting players in the mould of Kohli. As the plot below shows, a team of Kohli-style players have a slightly higher chance of winning compared to a team of Russells if they both attack more than about 60 balls in the full innings. Both Kohli and Russell are elite in different ways when they decide to attack, and Kohli’s execution works slightly better over a full innings, even for a huge target. The actual is more effective in a tall chase because he attempts boundaries much more often than Kohli.Himanish Ganjoo/ESPNcricinfo LtdAnother question we can answer through these simulations is about the quandary of playing conservatively versus attacking while setting a total. Teams that lose a couple of wickets early on tend to retreat defensively, often misjudging when to up the scoring rate. Consider a team that is three wickets down after five overs. On how many balls out of the remaining 15 overs should they try to score boundaries to maximise their final total? Running simulations for a team comprised of the average batsman shows that the median runs scored increases steeply until about 60 boundary attempts out of 90, and then starts to fall gradually, as the team does not survive the full ten overs.ALSO READ: Big-hitting comes with big risks, but the payoffs are bigger tooIn contrast, for a team made up of Kohli-style or Russell-style players, who have a lower dismissal rate and higher run rate on account of being elite batsmen, more attack directly translates to more runs. They can afford to attack 75-80 balls in 15 overs before their returns hit a ceiling and they lose all seven wickets before the full quota of overs. In a batting order loaded with quality hitters who can execute shots well, it is most sensible to attack a majority of balls left, even with 15 overs remaining.Himanish Ganjoo/ESPNcricinfo LtdWhile these are idealised simulations that assume a team of 11 batsmen of the same calibre, they demonstrate the importance of teams increasing their attack percentage to give themselves the best chances of winning. Calculating the optimal number of balls to target, teams can decide which match-ups to leverage and which bowlers to play out while still giving themselves the best chances of winning a game or of maximising their total.As T20 becomes more specialised and players upgrade their skills to execute better, the success rate on boundary attempts will increase, and the optimum percentage of attempts will change to reflect that. A tactically evolving T20 will embrace a maximalist school of hitting, in which the primary maxim is attack, and the outlook of a batsman is to attempt boundaries on as many balls as possible. Wicket preservation will take a back seat, and line-ups will be designed to give the freedom to hit, undaunted by a wicket or two falling. Gayle’s elite binary philosophy will be represented throughout the landscape of the game: batsmen thinking in terms of boundaries, and bowlers evolving to consider the ball staying in the field as a win. The boundary will become the primary grammar of T20, a sport independent of its parent and its notions.

Stats highlights from the end of New Zealand’s prolific summer

ESPNcricinfo stats team06-Jan-2021 New Zealand claimed the top spot in the ICC Test rankings for the first time in their history after an excellent summer which culminated with a rout of Pakistan in the second Test. Here are some stats highlights from the match which featured fast bowler Kyle Jamieson taking one of the best match-hauls for New Zealand3 Bigger wins for New Zealand in terms of runs and innings than this one in Tests. Two of them had come against Zimbabwe and one against Pakistan in Hamilton in 2000-01. This was New Zealand’s 31st innings win in Tests, four of which have come against Pakistan.6 Consecutive wins for New Zealand in Tests – the longest streak in their Test history. Their previous longest streak of five consecutive wins had come between 2005 and 2006. They had beaten Sri Lanka at home, won a two-match series in Zimbabwe and won the first-two Tests of a three-Test series against West Indies at home.17 Consecutive unbeaten Tests at home for New Zealand. This is by far their longest streak at home. The last time they lost a Test at home was to South Africa in March 2017 in Wellington. New Zealand have won 13 of these 17 matches. Their previous best was 13 unbeaten matches from March 2012 to December 2015. They had won seven of those 13 Tests.ESPNcricinfo Ltd5 Match hauls by New Zealand bowlers better than Kyle Jamieson’s 11 for 117 in this match. Three of those were by Richard Hadlee and two by Daniel Vettori. Jamieson’s figures are the best by a New Zealand bowler against Pakistan in Tests.0 New Zealand bowlers who have taken more wickets in their first-six Test matches than Jamieson. Fast bowler Jack Cowie also took 36 wickets, as many as Jamieson in his first six matches. Like Jamieson, Cowie also had four five-fors in his first six Tests.3 Bowlers who took at least 20 wickets at a better average than Jamieson after their first six Test matches. George Lohmann of England (38 wickets at 10.0), Charlie Turner of Australia (50 wickets at 10.2) and Rodney Hogg of Australia (41 wickets at 12.85) are the ones. Jamieson has taken 36 wickets at an average of 13.27 and is marginally ahead of Vernon Philander, who took 45 wickets at an average of 13.6.0 Players who scored at least 200 runs at an average of 40-plus and took at least 20 wickets at an average of under 20 in their first six Test matches before Jamieson. The New Zealand fast bowler has scored 226 runs at an average of 56.50 and taken 36 wicket at an average of 13.27. With a cut-off of 100 runs and 10 wickets, Keith Miller is the only player who has had a similarly prolific all-round start to his career. Miller scored 414 runs at an average of 69 and took 18 wickets at an average of 18.9 in his first six matches.

Their spinners bowled fewer poor deliveries and drew more forward-defensives from the England batsmen

Sidharth Monga14-Feb-20211:22

Manjrekar: Ashwin’s wicket-taking ability is taken for granted

It is a peculiar thing that has been happening during Tests in India for at least 20 years. It was on full display when the crowds returned to Chennai for the second Test. It is not exactly that but it sounds like a wild celebration at the fall of India’s second wicket. First it used to be for Sachin Tendulkar, now Virat Kohli.Steve Waugh described this period when the intensity picked up but also when the crowd would disorient you as fielders. Waugh wrote by the time you got used to the noise, Tendulkar already had 40 on the board. Not too different with Kohli. If you did manage to get Tendulkar out early, the pin-drop deathly silence in the stands was a joy for the fielding sides. England had managed it here in five balls. Kohli and the crowd were stunned by the full Moeen Ali offbreak that bowled him.India were now 86 for 3 in the first session. Sixty-five of those had been scored by one man. The man coming in was coming off scores of 1 and 0, someone who prefers facing pace to spin. India were playing five bowlers. Never mind all the profligacy before, England still had a chance to get right back into the game. They had done so twice after losing the toss against Sri Lanka in Galle not long ago. An attacking field was set. In came Ali, and what Ajinkya Rahane got was a full toss first ball, which he dispatched for four through extra cover.Related

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R Ashwin: 'I have got better at varying the seam position'

Stats – Ashwin's unique double-century, and Foakes' strong record in Asia

It summed up England’s bowling effort. Because of the excessive assistance from the pitch, there were unplayable balls every now and then but equally there were full tosses, half-volleys and long hops to take the pitch out of the equation. Kohli just happened to get the best ball out of the Ali lengths bingo. The spinner Ali replaced, Dom Bess, bowled seven full tosses in the fourth innings in the first Test, conditions out of a spin bowler’s dream. Ali bowled 10 in the first innings of this Test, a match tailormade for spinners, where puffs of dust and mini explosions were seen as early as in the first half hour of the match.When the ball reached the hands of R Ashwin and Axar Patel, though, the full tosses and the long hops disappeared. In all, England spinners bowled 14 full tosses. On 20 occasions they were cut or pull. India’s spinners were cut or pulled 10 times, and bowled no full tosses. And full tosses and being cut or pulled is the extremes; there are many other bad balls spinners can bowl within the spectrum.Basically, as a spinner on such a pitch you know you are in the game if you keep drawing a forward defensive or from on the crease. In a much shorter innings, India’s spinners drew the forward-defensive 112 times to England’s 115. If you are accurate enough to keep the batsmen tied down, your eventual misbehaving ball is likelier to be more lethal because you will have fielders in place to take the catches. Add to the accuracy the guile of Ashwin’s changes of pace, the drift, and then the variations in seam angles from both the spinners to make sure the ball spins less.India’s spinners bowled no full tosses in England’s first innings•BCCIOverall India’s batsmen were in control 82.4% of the times as against England’s 74.6%. If your bowlers are good enough to draw a false response once every four balls as against the opposition doing it once an over, you will end up on the winning side.Especially when you have batsmen who are playing a role in doing so. Bowlers should always get the extra credit because they initiate every bit of action in cricket, but sometimes bowlers react to what has been happening too. India batted way better than England did against spin. This pitch looked like a selectively watered one, where drier areas provided excessive turn and smoother ones went straight on. And they were next to each other on a good length for spinners and slightly fuller.Rohit Sharma, Ajinkya Rahane and Rishabh Pant didn’t let it matter. In all India’s batsmen stepped out 81 times, reaching the pitch of the ball and doing their thing before it could do its. They swept from the rough and were to the pitch of the ball when the spinners went straighter. England often got caught up on the crease, stepped out – or were allowed to do so – only 20 times, and swept from straight lines.This is something India perhaps saw in the third innings in the last Test. It was a much better pitch for the batsmen, only really got difficult on days four and five. The control percentages in the four respective innings there were 88, 89.4, 79.5 and 88.3. That dip in the third innings didn’t go unnoticed. Knowing the quality of spin England brought, India knew it was the scoreboard pressure that made them potent. That is why they were happy to take the risk of what can sometimes turn out to be a lottery pitch. They didn’t just gamble; they backed themselves to negate the toss advantage on such a surface.Whatever you think of the pitch – and there will be talk around it because it started exploding in the first session of the Test – the side winning this Test played much better cricket, and it wasn’t even close. And they did so through a method, skill and discipline, and not through lottery.

Showing great maturity, the debutant shelved his attacking instincts to construct a century that could set up victory

Andrew Fidel Fernando25-Mar-2021Okay stop. Inhale. Pinch yourself. There are stories of a megaship stuck sideways in the Suez Canal. Niroshan Dickwella has batted responsibly. And a Sri Lankan debutant has hit a Test hundred. It’s been a weird day. Is any of this real? Are we in a fever dream?Sri Lanka batsmen fresh out of the domestic system just don’t do things like hit hundreds away from home in their second Test innings. They are not equipped to. The island’s first-class structure is a monument to incompetence and self-serving administration – obese with 24 teams, beset by pitches on which finger spinners pile up wickets like gardeners raking leaves after an afternoon thunderstorm, strung up occasionally by fixing allegations, and weakened by an annual exodus of senior pros preferring to try their luck in clubs overseas.For years, young Sri Lanka batsmen have been complaining that the gap between domestic cricket and internationals was an ever-widening chasm. That they felt, essentially, like they’d had swimming lessons in a paddling pool with a drunk instructor, before being thrown into a shark-infested eddy. It had been 20 years since Sri Lanka had a debutant centurion (Thilan Samaraweera having been the last, in 2001). The world’s least surprising stat.Related

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And yet, there Pathum Nissanka was, through the end of day three and much of day four, quelling the kind of pace-heavy attack he would almost never have faced at home, defusing the Dukes ball’s seam movement on a quicker, bouncier track than he is accustomed to, trusting his defence, riding out spells, picking his scoring opportunities.It had to have helped that of all the batsmen who have graduated from domestic cricket, Nissanka has had the best recent track record – his first-class average of 67.54 not just the best among Sri Lanka batsmen, but the best in the world among current Test cricketers. Still, this is not a Shield average, or a Ranji average or even a county average. Decent batsmen score heavily in Sri Lanka’s Premier League Tournaments. This is not new. Then they arrive at the top level and well… it’s usually not pretty.Early in this Antigua innings, Nissanka was fixated on survival. He didn’t score until he faced his 21st ball, and he proceeded with extreme, self-denying caution after that, making just 18 from his first 70 deliveries. Only when West Indies’ bowlers erred seriously in line, did he venture boundaries – all square of the wicket – and only six in total, in a 252-ball stay.Even this was a departure; a mature acknowledgement that he wasn’t flaying spin at the Nondescripts Cricket Club grounds anymore, because although his defense is highly rated, he is far from dour in domestic cricket – his strike rate up at 69 in the last first-class season; 76 the season before that. In both those seasons he had averaged around 90.Even when he became more comfortable at the crease, Nissanka was aiming for immovable, rather than dominant. There were occasional close calls: one under-edge against Shannon Gabrial bounced centimetres short of the wicketkeeper’s gloves, plus at least two edges wide of slip. But although West Indies rifled through several plans of attack, Nissanka was never shaken out of his single-mindedness. Through the course of his 179-run sixth wicket stand with Dickwella, Nissanka frequently seemed like the senior partner.It is tempting to crown him Sri Lanka’s next great batting hope, the way Dinesh Chandimal, or Kusal Mendis once had been. But now that he is known in Test cricket, tougher examinations of his technique are about to begin. His weaknesses, of which there are bound to be some given the system from which he hails, will be exposed. It’s too soon to get hype, even if there was a promise of more to come in his no-big-deal century celebration.For now, it’s enough that Nissanka has had a taste of success at the highest level, And that in Antigua he has set his team up to push for a win.

Shami 56*, Bumrah 34*, a ninth-wicket stand of 89 runs, and an opposition out of ideas – here’s how Twitter reacted

ESPNcricinfo staff16-Aug-2021

A rousing reception for Mohammed Shami and Jasprit Bumrah from India's dressing room at Lord's

(via @BCCI) pic.twitter.com/gvJduOK9oX

— ESPNcricinfo (@ESPNcricinfo) August 16, 2021