Being an integral part of England’s bowling attack, she has five wickets this World Cup so far

S Sudarshanan23-Mar-2022Consistency often hides more than it shows. It is overshadowed by more heroic performances in sports and comes into the spotlight only when the bigger picture is looked at.Kate Cross has 27 wickets in ODIs since July 2020. It is the fifth-most in the period, most for England. But Cross isn’t one of the first names oppositions will specifically plan for with the more illustrious Katherine Brunt, Anya Shrubsole and Sophie Ecclestone grabbing the limelight.And “Mrs Consistent” – a moniker given by England captain Heather Knight – has only benefitted by flying under the radar.In England’s last game, Sophie Devine and Suzie Bates had helped New Zealand race to 44 for 0 in the first seven overs, with Brunt and Shrubsole both struggling to find their lines and lengths in windy Auckland. Cross was summoned as first-change and she struck in her third over to break the 61-run opening stand by removing Bates.”I have quite a simple game plan in any situation, really. And today I knew that if I could just keep it simple and try and dot them up then it might force an error, which it did with Suzie Bates,” Cross said after England all but ended New Zealand’s World Cup campaign.”It was absolutely putrid out there. If I’m being completely honest, it was a really difficult spell to bowl from that end. So sometimes when it is like that, and it’s that windy, it almost makes me just think about one thing and keep it strong in my action. And if I’m doing that, then you know the result will come because sometimes you can get a bit caught up with what’s going on at the other end, especially when Suzie bats. It can feel quite chaotic.”After a six-over spell at the start, Cross returned towards the closing stages to dismiss Katey Martin and Devine, who had returned to bat after retiring earlier due to a sore back, in successive overs to finish with an impressive 3 for 35 in her ten overs.”England get their breakthrough via Kate Cross,” is a phrase that was often used in the past year. Against the touring New Zealand side in the second ODI in Worcester, she picked up the first wicket immediately – of Bates again – after being brought on as first-change, and dismissed Lauren Down and Amy Satterthwaite as well to help England defend a low 197.Earlier in the summer, Smriti Mandhana and Shafali Verma had help India gallop in the second ODI in Taunton, when Cross had Mandhana playing on to trigger a collapse. The seamer was the fourth bowler Knight had turned to on that occasion, and she went on to finish with 5 for 34.”I’ve always said that sometimes I get the boring, rubbish jobs where you’re bowling into the wind or up the hill and kind of have a holding role that creates pressure at the other end,” Cross had said after picking up her second five-wicket haul that jolted India. “So it was nice to pick some up myself today.”Cross’ five-for was also adjudged the best bowling performance of the year in the ESPNcricinfo Awards; it could have well been for turning up and bowling tough spells and churning up wickets every single time.Since the start of 2021, there have been 24 partnerships of 50 or more against England in ODIs, two of which were unconquered ones. Cross broke five such stands out of the remaining 22, the most for England in the period. Charlie Dean with four such breakthroughs is the next best.Cross was not part of England’s victorious World Cup campaign in 2017 due to a mental-health hiatus. When she suffered torn ligaments in her right ankle after landing awkwardly on the boundary ropes while attempting a catch during the warm-up ahead of the match against West Indies in the 2020 T20 World Cup, she feared that she would miss the bus for the 2022 ODI World Cup as well, originally scheduled in February 2021.Having made the cut and being an integral part of England’s bowling attack, Cross has five wickets to show so far this World Cup, the most for an English seamer, and has made more impact than Brunt and Shrubsole so far. Although “it’s quite exciting but tiring” in her words, she would perhaps not have it any other way.And with consistency as her ally, Cross could be the shining armour for Knight.

This leg of the tournament features two rounds; the next three will be played in May

Matt Roller09-Feb-2022Nearly 700 days after the curtain of Covid-19 brought a premature end to the 2019-20 season, the West Indies four-day Championship returns on February 9, marking the resumption of regional first-class cricket in the Caribbean.Cricket West Indies (CWI) suspended the 2019-20 edition after the eighth of ten rounds of fixtures, crowning Barbados champions when it became clear that it would not be possible to complete the season. The 2020-21 edition was deemed logistically impossible, so its return on Wednesday after a hiatus of nearly two years is a significant moment.Johnny Grave, CWI’s chief executive, said that six months of “detailed planning” had made the competition possible. “We know the teams have been putting in hours of hard work in the nets, patiently waiting for the matches to be confirmed and are looking forward to being back on the field and entertaining their fans,” he said.The first two rounds of the tournament are set to be played exclusively in Barbados and Trinidad. The final three rounds will follow in May as the teams play each other once.First-round fixtures, February 9-12:

Barbados vs Leeward Islands (Kensington Oval)

Windward Islands vs Guyana (Queen’s Park Oval)

Trinidad and Tobago vs Jamaica (Brian Lara Cricket Academy)

Some young players in the Caribbean have been involved in ‘best vs best’ games before Test series or part of enlarged Test squads but have had limited opportunities to improve in a competitive environment. “This competition plays a critical role in our player-development pathway,” Jimmy Adams, CWI’s director of cricket, said. “After almost two years, we are delighted to have our regional players back playing competitively in this format.”Much of the intrigue around the first two rounds surrounds selection for March’s Test series against England. Desmond Haynes, the new lead selector, showed when recalling Kemar Roach for the ongoing ODI series in India that he is willing to make bold calls and impose his mark on the national team, and he will keep a close eye on early-season performances.Kraigg Brathwaite, the Test captain, will lead Barbados in their title defence, though they have several players missing due to the white-ball tour of India. Shane Dowrich, who has been succeeded by Joshua Da Silva as West Indies’ wicketkeeper, returns to professional cricket after a 14-month absence while Chemar Holder and Jomel Warrican will be in the conversation for selection ahead of the England series.Blackwood’s runs in the 2019-20 season won him a Test recall•Getty ImagesTheir first fixture is against the Leeward Islands at Kensington Oval, who are captained by Anguilla’s Jahmar Hamilton. Rahkeem Cornwall is their key bowler, looking to press his case for the England series, while Kieran Powell could be in the frame after winning a recall for the home Tests against South Africa and Pakistan last year.Guyana – rebranded as the Harpy Eagles after several years as the Jaguars – were champions for five seasons in a row between 2014-15 and 2018-19, and look like a strong side on paper. In Gudakesh Motie and Veerasammy Permaul, they have two reliable left-arm spinners, while seamers Nial Smith and Keemo Paul have shown promise.With the bat, there is always intrigue around the progress of Tagenarine Chanderpaul – Shivnarine’s son – but the involvement of Shimron Hetmyer is particularly notable. Hetmyer’s fitness has been a major talking point this year after he missed out on limited-overs selection, but Haynes clarified recently: “Hetmyer is in our plans – there is no question about it.”Related

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He has been named in the squad after recovering from illness, and opted to play for Guyana rather than joining Quetta Gladiators in the PSL; fitness-depending, he could come into contention for the England series.Guyana’s season starts at Queen’s Park Oval in Port-of-Spain, where they play a Windward Islands side like by Kavem Hodge and featuring West Indies Under-19 batters Ackeem Auguste and Teddy Bishop.Trinidad and Tobago will host Jamaica at the Brian Lara Academy ground in Tarouba, with Jayden Seales – the 20-year-old fast bowler who has already played four Tests – set to play his first red-ball game for them. Jeremy Solozano, who played against Sri Lanka in November, has recovered from the concussion he suffered on debut, while Da Silva and Shannon Gabriel are also involved.Jamaica will expect Jermaine Blackwood, who won his Test recall after finishing the 2019-20 season as the leading run-scorer in the competition, to score heavily, while their captain John Campbell may retain hopes of a call-up after a year out of the national team.

What happens if South Africa fail to qualify for the World Cup? And what are the implications for the ODI format?

Firdose Moonda13-Jul-202210:30

Newsroom: Are South Africa taking a calculated risk?

Cricket South Africa’s withdrawal of its men’s team from three ODIs in Australia has spotlighted the schism that’s stalked world cricket for the best part of the last decade. That schism may become more evident at the ICC’s AGM at the end of this month, where a new Future Tours Programme is expected to be unveiled.The argument most commonly associated with football and, more recently, rugby will now dominate cricket as more T20 leagues squeeze international fixtures into smaller and smaller windows. As more and more Full Members look to T20 leagues as their revenue-generators, bilateral international cricket risks being eclipsed. And history may remember South Africa’s decision to pull out of these ODIs to concentrate on launching their T20 league as the first domino. So why has CSA made this decision and what could be the broader ramifications?What has Cricket South Africa done, and why?
On the face of it, all CSA has done is opt out of a three-match ODI series, ostensibly a much smaller reneging of a bilateral agreement than Australia pulling out of three Tests last March. But these are not just any ODIs. They are ODIs that form part of the World Cup Super League, where South Africa lie in 11th place, outside the automatic qualification zone. By forfeiting their points, which will go to eighth-placed Australia, South Africa will be left with only eight matches to play to try and finish in the top eight. Those matches are against India (three, away), England (three, at home) and Netherlands (two, home). Even eight wins could leave South Africa short of the points total they need to go straight to the 2023 World Cup. Next year’s qualifying event is a real possibility for South Africa, which could give the ICC a potentially blockbluster pre-World Cup tournament, but that is another story.While there is no guarantee that playing the matches in Australia would have improved South Africa’s chances, it would have least given them greater opportunity, so you’d assume CSA has a very good reason for potentially making the team take the scenic route to the World Cup. Financially, it does.CSA is aiming to launch a new T20 franchise league in January, at the same time the ODIs were scheduled to be played, with the goal of making it the second-biggest in the world after the IPL. Tenders for the six teams close today and IPL owners and big business people are believed to be among those interested. Sundar Raman, the former IPL chief operating officer, and the South African broadcasters SuperSport own stakes in the league and CSA’s projections show it making the kind of money that will leave the board less reliant on India for bilateral-series profits and more self-sustaining. But for the league to work, it needs high-profile players, and that includes those who would have been in an ODI squad in Australia. So instead of being there, the big names will be at home to play in the league and give it the seed-capital it needs to succeed.While the word is that South Africa’s players would prefer to play the ODIs in Australia, they are aware of the inevitability of world cricket changing•ICC via GettyOk, how much money are we talking about?
In a working document from April, CSA planned for the league to break even after four years and make a profit from the fifth year onwards. Over ten years, it has estimated costs at USD 56 million and revenue at USD 119 million, which will leave the board with a profit of USD 63 million, which is a lot more money than it makes from bilateral cricket. And that’s only the benefit to CSA. From its first year, the league will pay players bumper salaries in US dollars, which dwarf the Rand amounts they earn from domestic franchises and even international cricket at home. And that’s despite the tournament competing with leagues such as the UAE T20 and the BBL, which are expected to run at the same time.In short, the league is the only way for CSA to keep cricket financially viable given the unsustainability of international cricket, where it only makes money when hosting India. Even in the 2019-20 summer, when England and Australia toured South Africa, CSA reported a loss.But what’s at stake if you miss a World Cup?
Financially, not much. CSA could earn around USD 2 million in participation fees and endorsements, but there are longer-term consequences around sponsorship, for example, that could cost more. You’d imagine there’ll be few kit manufacturers who are falling over themselves to put their names on the shirt of a team that did not qualify for a World Cup.Of course, the World Cup is about more than the money. For the players, it’s a chance to win a major trophy and reach what administrators including CSA’s board chair Lawson Naidoo, call the “pinnacle” of their careers.Many players plot their career trajectories with World Cups in mind and may eye the event as a swansong, or a reason to keep going. For South African players, there’s even more importance attached to a World Cup, because they have never won one, and even more now, because they are due to host the following edition of the tournament, in 2027. Asked what impression it would create if the hosts of the 2027 World Cup miss out on the 2023 one, CSA CEO Pholetsi Moseki told ESPNcricinfo it would be a “disaster”, which only means the pressure is on South Africa’s players to qualify.What do the players think of all this?
Word from both CSA and insider sources is that while the players would have preferred to compete in the ODIs in Australia, they understand the situation their organisation is in and have accepted their fate, and the inevitability of world cricket changing. Their association, the South African Cricketers’ Association (SACA), and its mother body, FICA (Federation of International Cricketers’ Associations), have long called on the ICC to take greater control of the situation and regulate windows for league cricket while also leaving space for bilateral cricket.Given a choice, would a big-name player like Faf du Plessis prefer playing in the BBL or in CSA’s league?•BCCIThe trouble, as Moseki pointed out, is that there are several members who want dedicated time slots for their respective T20 leagues, which not only leaves little space for international cricket, but also diminishes the quality of the leagues. South Africa’s, for example, will take place at the same time as the UAE T20 and the BBL, and will compete with both for players and eyeballs. CSA is hopeful the strong contingent of domestic players in South Africa, compared to the UAE, will ensure the quality of cricket in the South African league is attractive enough to draw eyeballs and money to them while the favourable time zone, compared to Australia’s, could do the same. But whether they will attract bigger global stars than those leagues remains to be seen. And there’s also the tricky question of which league their own free agents will choose. Will Faf du Plessis opt for the Big Bash or the CSA league? We’ll know in a few days, which could also provide some insight into how players view the South African league compared to others.So where does all this leave world cricket?
With a problem. A big one.A quick glance at a calendar will tell you that if the South African and UAE leagues and the BBL take place in January, followed by the PSL in February and March, the IPL from mid-March to May, The Hundred in June-July, and the CPL in August, it leaves only September to December for international cricket, and there won’t be room to fit it all. Something will have to give. ESPNcricinfo’s Osman Samiuddin has already argued it will be bilateral ODIs, and it’s difficult to disagree.The World Cup Super League gave the format relevance – though, as South Africa have shown, even that was not enough to ensure all teams honoured all their commitments – and scrapping it from the next cycle is a step that could end ODIs beyond World Cups, the Champions Trophy, and preparatory matches for those tournaments.Naturally, there will be concerns around the other formats too, and there’s a chance of fewer bilateral T20Is and more T20 leagues. Tests, which are the most expensive to host and the least lucrative, could be limited to the Big Three, and occasionally Pakistan and South Africa, even though all the members have emphasised a commitment to the format. Monetarily, many may simply not be able to afford to put on Test cricket.We could also see international cricket played at different times. South Africa are already talking about starting their international season in August (technically still winter) if need be, and ending it after the New Year’s Test in the first week of January to accommodate the league. Australia will do something similar from next year.At the end of this, world cricket could be fundamentally different. The signs have been there for a while, from central-contract disputes in places like the West Indies to countries fielding different teams in different formats at the same time, as England and India have done recently, but here we’ve seen a national board that is not the BCCI make the decision to put its own domestic interests above an international commitment, which has an impact on a major tournament. That’s sending a strong message. Things will not be the same.

Cartwright has big boots to fill but Madsen remains key influence for trip to Taunton

David Hopps08-Jul-2022″What do you know about Derbyshire?” Hilton Cartwright was asked. He is only there for a month, so he was not about to reel off the county’s lesser-known delights, but he can already feel the yearning for the county to reach only the second T20 Finals Day in their history.”The only thing I know is don’t go to that restaurant,” he offered, before recalling the name of a well-known fast-food chain that had laid him low with food poisoning for two-and-a-half days soon after his arrival.But, in truth, he really knows two things. Much more easily digestible is the knowledge that, in filling in for Shan Masood, who has been called up for the Pakistan Test squad in Sri Lanka, in Derbyshire’s Blast quarter-final against Somerset at Taunton on Saturday, he is facing one of the most daunting tasks of the season.Cartwright joined a media link-up in Derby this week in good-natured fashion as, first, Derbyshire’s ebullient coach, Mickey Arthur, and then their finest batter of the past decade, Wayne Madsen, blithely extolled the virtues of Masood both as a captain and an opening batter, conceding that his absence will not be easily disguised. There was no sense that it was an attempt to spur Cartwright on, just an honest acceptance that Masood has been such a central figure in their reaching their third last-eight tie in the last six years.Overseas players come and go, but Masood has been more indispensable than most. The question as to whether they can cope without him cannot be overlooked.”Shan has been a big contributing factor,” said Madsen, 38 now, but revitalised by Masood’s involvement after missing much of last season with a serious hamstring injury. “It has certainly helped our batting group to know that you’re batting with someone who’s playing with such competence. He scores quickly, but you feel he’s going to bat through. I would say Shan’s had a huge influence not only in the way I’ve played, but the way that the group have played from a batting perspective this year.”Arthur is having his first stint as a county coach after a wealth of experience at international level, and Derbyshire have flourished under his ebullient brand of positive thinking. He will also tell you the same, except adding that Derbyshire have been preparing for Masood’s absence all along.”Shan’s been a colossus for us. He’s been outstanding: with his weight of runs, and his presence in the dressing-room has been exceptional. But we lose Shan and the next man comes in because he’s been primed for that position. You know, we weren’t taken by surprise by it. We knew Shan was going to be gone around this time. And it presents an opportunity for somebody else to come in and make a real mark for himself.”Hilton Cartwright has stepped up for Derbyshire since Masood left for international duty•Getty ImagesThat could be Cartwright, whose returns in the Sheffield Shield earlier this year suggests that, at 30, he is at the peak of his powers. He is not a like-for-like replacement and in his two games to date, decent enough contributions against India and Durham, he has appeared at No.5, his usual role for Western Australia. He also asserted that fitting into a successful side where everybody is confident in their role is much easier – even if expectations are higher – than trying to bale out a struggling squad. But cold, hard statistics suggest that Madsen, who finished the North Group stage with his maiden T20 hundred, against Durham at Chester-le-Street, needs others to respond to the demands of a big occasion.The runs made by Masood and Madsen are instrumental in the fact that Derbyshire are contesting a quarter-final tie against Somerset at Taunton on Saturday: 45 percent of their total in the Blast to date, with Leus du Plooy the only other batter to make much of an impact.Derbyshire are not heavy scorers – although they pulled off a record chase of 194 in that last match against Durham, and if Somerset’s talented young bucks hit form on Taunton’s fast-scoring ground, they will be stretched to the limit. In the field, though, their whole is better than their parts: they have become a well-disciplined side, mentally strong and each aware of their own responsibilities to the common good.Mark Watt and Mattie McKiernan have developed into two of the Blast’s craftier spin bowlers with 30 wickets in the group stage at around eight runs an over. And the belief in Derbyshire that George Scrimshaw can rev it up to 90 mph (a reputation that has won him an England Lions call-up) will come under scrutiny on a Taunton ground where this season Jamie Overton has already bowled with fearsome pace. Taunton is the sort of small ground where the game can get away from you in a trice, but Arthur referenced Derbyshire’s vital victory against Yorkshire at Chesterfield as one occasion this season where they handled a small ground better than their opponents and that memory will sustain them.Arthur underlined: “We are only as good as the sum of our parts. Everybody plays their role. You always talk about it being a jigsaw puzzle, and you’ve got to give everybody a role. We’re not there yet but we are getting close. Our mission as a coaching staff has always been to make the players the best they can be. And once you get that belief and you find that little hidden three or four percent and collectively you start getting a couple of wins, the whole process becomes quite powerful.Related

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“Taunton is going to be exciting. It’s a wonderful little venue. I would say it’s a great place to go and play cricket. A Saturday night is going to be even more daunting for our boys but it’s going to be a wonderful experience for everybody and one that I hope and know they will embrace.”Arthur knows that strong performances until the end of the season might also help with a bit of player recruitment, Derbyshire not always being the first name on the list for a player seeking a change. “We want people knocking the door down to come here because of the of the opportunities that we can offer,” he said.He will also take pleasure from the fact that his recruitment of Masood also appears to have reinvigorated Madsen, who competes with Somerset’s James Hildreth as the best county batter of the past 15 years never to win England recognition. At Derbyshire, though, the consolation of domestic success has also been denied him (albeit he did guide the county to Championship promotion back in 2012). When the severity of his hamstring injury became clear, some imagined the end was in sight.”Yes, you have the self-doubt whether the body can recover from severe injury but mentally I was always going to come back,” Madsen said. “Retirement never really crossed my mind. I really want to win trophies, but that has been my goal and objective for so many years. There was even more of a determination to get myself back fit and prove not just to myself but to other people that I can still perform well to help the club and the team achieve that.”

In three months’ time begins the road to the ODI World Cup in India and Gill might already be on it

Sidharth Monga23-Aug-20223:01

Takeaways: Gill and Axar’s steady progress in ODIs

The last three runs felt like they would take forever to get. A heart-stopping lbw appeal where a faint inside edge saved him but his partner Ishan Kishan ran himself out. Then an inside edge that missed the stumps and brought him a single. Then Deepak Hooda got out to a beauty from Brad Evans. The hundred finally came up serenely with a single through the covers, in the third ODI.Sweet relief for Shubman Gill, but not as though he was getting desperate for it. In fact, he sent back his good bat when he reached 50 in order to ration it. The remaining 80 runs came with a bat that was a little less special although in the 90s Gill did get conscious that he had been there twice before in international cricket without actually getting to a hundred.Related

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Hard as it is to believe but at the age of 22, a maiden international hundred for Gill has been a long time coming. It is a testament to Gill’s skill and potential that it has seemed to observers that it has been too long to get to three figures even though it has been just 11 Tests (where he is yet to get the role he is best suited for: middle order) and nine ODIs. He is after all a batter who left Virat Kohli in awe: “I was not even 10% as good as he is at this age.”Almost every time he has played an ODI, though, Gill has looked like he can get one. This one has brought him his second-consecutive Player-of-the-Series award. The quality of bowling he has faced is what it is but there are early unmistakable trends in how Gill has batted.Just like with Kohli, 50 overs is the format that comes the most naturally to Gill. So it is fitting that his first international century has come in an ODI. He is a traditionalist in that he seeks to eliminate risk from his batting. As he told the host broadcaster, “I was just trying to minimise the dot-ball percentage. If you look at my innings, I didn’t try to hit the ball. I just tried to time and tried to pick the gaps as much as possible.”This risk aversion sometimes keeps him from realising his potential in T20 cricket, but Gill is not your typical top-order batter who will score hundreds at an even pace in ODIs. Even in T20s, his least strong format, Gill doesn’t let spinners bowl. In ODIs, his strike rate in the middle overs is 112.22 as opposed to just 85.95 in the powerplay.Shubman Gill thoroughly enjoyed himself out in the middle•AFP/Getty ImagesIf Gill keeps this up against better attacks – there’s every indication he will albeit at a lesser frequency – he will just be the natural evolution of the India ODI run machine: similar efficiency with added dynamism. As Axar Patel said at the post-match press conference, Gill sweeps, reverse-sweeps and doesn’t mind the odd big hit in the middle overs.”The way he plays, ones and twos keep coming,” Axar said of Gill. “He doesn’t play many dot balls. That is his biggest positive. He keeps taking ones and twos and then converts the bad balls into boundaries. He plays spin very well. When there are five fielders in the circle in the middle overs, he uses sweep and reverse-sweep well to keep getting boundaries.”Zimbabwe’s attack might not be the toughest India will face but the conditions were not the easiest. Early-morning starts in this series have given the chasing teams a huge advantage. India won all three tosses and decided to challenge themselves by batting first in the dead rubber.Just take a look at what happened at the other end. Shikhar Dhawan, KL Rahul, and Ishan Kishan all struggled to time the ball because of the moisture-induced tackiness in the pitch. While Gill scored 130 off 97 balls, the other batters managed just 149 in 204 balls.In three months’ time begins the road to the ODI World Cup in India. Gill might already be on it.

Decision not to utilise pace of Rabada and Nortje after lunch highlights failed approach

Firdose Moonda26-Aug-2022When we remember Test matches, we reminisce about the milestones: the hundreds, the big hauls, and sometimes the one or two magic moments that swing a result one way or the other. We don’t often look back on the period of play when 27 runs were scored in 12 overs as a highlight, or even a lowlight. There’s nothing lit about it. But it was that seemingly pedestrian period of play that pointed England in the direction of the freeway from where they pulled so far ahead of South Africa that the rest of this match could well be about waiting for the inevitable.Those 12 overs came after lunch, when South Africa chose to use their two specialist spinners in tandem, a plan they would have wanted to deploy much later in the match. Keshav Maharaj and Simon Harmer were picked to take advantage of a dry Old Trafford surface with good bounce that was taking turn from the first day and is expected to become more ragged as the match goes on. Essentially, they were there for days four and five and a fourth innings. South Africa’s first innings blowout means we’re unlikely to see them operate in those conditions and it limited their attacking options on the second day.Related

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After conceding 111 runs overnight, South Africa’s early focus was wickets and there’s no question who the likeliest to take them were: Kagiso Rabada and Anrich Nortje. Rabada bowled eight overs on day one and resumed on Friday with a delivery that reversed close to Jonny Bairstow’s off stump and then drew an edge from Zak Crawley that fell short of second slip. Nortje, who bowled six on the first day, found a leading edge from Crawley, then hit him in the groin and then removed Bairstow (for the fourth time in the 29 balls he has bowled to him in Tests) and Crawley in successive overs to leave England still trailing, with half their line-up dismissed. That gave South Africa a small opportunity to contain England’s lead and Nortje recognised it as “the ideal period to get more sticks”, but he and Rabada could not continue beyond the 11 overs they bowled upfront.So, South Africa turned to Harmer, known in England as the best spinner on the county circuit, and with a good set of results at this ground, albeit from a small sample size. Lungi Ngidi was brought on at the other end, to control and allow Harmer to operate aggressively. But it was England who did the attacking. Harmer’s first ball was a full toss which Foakes drove through the covers. Three balls later, Stokes slogged Harmer over deep midwicket for six. After five overs where Harmer got some deliveries to swerve and jump but was unable to create any real pressure, Rabada replaced Ngidi at the other end but he also couldn’t break through. Then, two overs before lunch Maharaj came on and he and Harmer closed out the session.England were 61 ahead, at the midpoint between catchable and can’t-pull-them-back. The period post-lunch was crucial in determining which direction their innings would take and South Africa allowed England to choose the route. Instead of asking Rabada and Nortje to have a burst, Elgar continued with Maharaj and Harmer. Nortje cautioned not to “look too deeply into who bowled when” because it was “a good wicket to bat on”, and there is an argument to be made for keeping the quicks for the second new ball, which was 24 overs away. But with reverse-swing on offer and the knowledge of what Nortje had done, it seemed worth the gamble to use him with the older ball.Anrich Nortje celebrates dismissing Jonny Bairstow before South Africa’s day went flat•AFP/Getty ImagesThat’s not to say the spinners had no chances at all. Maharaj found turn that almost bowled Stokes when he missed a reverse-sweep, Harmer also nearly bowled him after England’s captain advanced down the track for the second time in an over to attempt to hit him over the top. Stokes missed both times but his intent was clear: pick two spinners and we’ll attack them both. Eventually he got into both of them, smacking the 102nd six of his career off Harmer and taking 26 runs off 23 balls from Maharaj.By the time Nortje was called on, 36 minutes after lunch, England’s lead had swelled to 88. That’s only 27 runs more than when they took the interval but it wasn’t about the number, it was about the way they went about it. In that period, England transferred pressure back on to South Africa and made it Elgar’s game to chase. They went on to score 96 runs between lunch and tea and not lose a wicket. Nortje only bowled nine overs in the first two sessions and South Africa were in a position from which a comeback will have to be monumental.In the end, the spinners did not go completely empty-handed, but South Africa will have to acknowledge that their gamble in picking them has not worked. Harmer got some reward, when Stuart Broad breezed down the track to play another of those shots that look like he is enjoying a late summer holiday at the crease. He might as well have been. England were more than 200 ahead, the Friday afternoon crowd were in full voice and the sun was shining. About half an hour later, Maharaj had Ollie Robinson caught at slip to muted celebrations.In between that, Stokes sat with his shades on, sipping water from a can, watching Foakes get to his second Test hundred. We won’t remember Harmer or Maharaj’s wickets but we will remember the satisfied look on Stokes’ face. It’s what magic Test match moments are made of.

The left-arm spinner was given an almost-impossible task due to his lack of first-class cricket

Alex Malcolm24-Feb-2023How does Ashton Agar go from being Australia’s second spinner in the Test team in January to being sent home from the Test tour of India halfway through?Tony Dodemaide, one of Australia’s three selectors alongside chair George Bailey and coach Andrew McDonald, explained the decision in Delhi.”From a pure selection point of view, it’s not so much why one person isn’t selected, it’s about what the alternatives are,” he said. “And in the calls we had to make, we felt that there were better alternatives. In the first Test with Todd [Murphy], we decided to go with the two and two structure of quicks and spin. And then for the three spinners between [Agar] and Matt [Kuhnemann] in the second Test, we just felt that Matt’s style would be better suited…it was a very close call though.”There is plenty of evidence to say those calls were correct. Todd Murphy took seven wickets on debut in Nagpur and has looked every bit Australia’s second-best red-ball spinner behind Nathan Lyon, while Matthew Kuhnemann did a commendable job for periods in Delhi and took the wicket of Virat Kohli.Related

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The question isn’t so much why Agar was not selected in the first two Tests. The question is why was he selected against South Africa in Sydney? The odds were heavily stacked against him and now he’s had to face leaving a tour surplus to requirements, having arrived as a Test incumbent. Agar handled the situation with class when he was interviewed on arrival back in Perth.”Obviously, it’s not an ideal situation but you just try to make the best of it,” he told . “I’m 29 now, and I’ve been through plenty of ups and downs in the game and we’re in a fortunate position, so it’s nothing that stresses me out too much.”It was clear messaging from [the selectors]. They communicated really well with me and it’s a clear path forward. With that message it’s chin up, walk tall and just try and improve. So that’s just what I’m going to do.”The messaging might have been clear to Agar, but it hasn’t been made clear publicly. Australia’s selectors are known for being a rational and pragmatic group and they have made plenty of excellent choices together as a trio over the past year. But this has not been their finest hour.

Australia’s spin cycle

Calm, composed and consistent. That has been the mantra of the Australian team and the selection panel ever since the start of the Pakistan tour last year.But consistency has not been evident when it’s come to Australia’s second spinner over the past 12 months. Mitchell Swepson had been pre-ordained as the partner and eventual successor to Lyon. He toured with Australia to India in 2017, enjoyed excellent success at Sheffield Shield level and was a regular in touring squads across a five-year period.Ashton Agar’s batting was seen as a key part of his package•Getty ImagesA legspinner complementing an offspinner was the ideal combination. Swepson was finally granted his chance to partner Lyon in the second Test in Pakistan and although he didn’t set the world on fire, there was enough evidence to suggest he had potential at Test level and the attack as a combination with both Swepson and Lyon in it were just a handful of dropped catches away from taking 20 wickets in each of the final two Tests.But in the next Test series in Sri Lanka there was a distinct shift in thinking. The flat surfaces of Pakistan, where it was thought legspin would be effective, were a world away from extreme spinning conditions of Galle.Suddenly wristspin was less desirable as Australia’s selectors wanted to get more specific in terms of picking players with skills that suited the conditions rather than just the next-best spinner available.Swepson bowled well in the first Test in Galle but Travis Head bagged 4 for 10. Fast fingerspin was the flavour of the month. Agar was on the tour and was a good chance to play but he suffered a side strain. Such was the desire for a left-armer, Jon Holland went from not being initially picked in the Test squad or the Australia A squad that toured simultaneously, to almost playing in the second Test.However, his lack of preparation caused him significant finger soreness and the selectors stuck with Swepson. Australia were beaten by an innings. Swepson took 3 for 108 while Sri Lanka left-arm spinner Prabath Jayasuriya took 12 wickets on Test debut. The dye was cast. Australia needed a left-arm orthodox for India in 2023.2:58

O’Keefe: If you want to succeed as a spinner in India, your teammates need to back you

Australia’s left-arm obsession

The reasoning was sound. Steve O’Keefe took 12 wickets in Pune in 2017. Ravindra Jadeja has been near unplayable in India over his career. Axar Patel scythed through England and New Zealand in 2021. Even New Zealand’s Ajaz Patel took 10 wickets in an innings in Mumbai.The problem is Australia’s selectors only really have three left-arm orthodox spinners to choose from in Agar, Holland and Kuhnemann. Agar had played in Bangladesh in 2017 alongside O’Keefe who has since retired. Holland played on Australia’s tour of the UAE in 2018 but Australia did not visit the subcontinent again until 2022. Kuhnemann is the only other to play any regular first-class cricket in that time, and even then he had limited opportunities for Queensland behind Swepson.When the squad for Pakistan was announced in February of 2022, Agar was chosen as the third spinner behind Lyon and Swepson. Bailey was asked why Agar was picked ahead of Holland and Kuhnemann.”What we like about Ash is the incredible all-round skill set,” Bailey said. “I think his bowling will continue to get better. What we’ve seen is that the way he bowls, he is pretty adaptable to red-ball cricket. We see Ash as ahead of [Holland].”Yet, batting and fielding aside, in the primary skill of bowling there was no evidence that placed Agar ahead of Holland or Kuhnemann in terms of their career first-class numbers and those numbers only widened when isolated to the four-year period between 2018 and 2022.
There was a theory among the selectors that first-class numbers in Australia had no connection to bowling in the subcontinent and vice versa. Such a theory completely ignores the fact that Jadeja averages 21.78 with the ball in Test cricket in Australia, striking at 54.2.Agar’s resemblance in style to Axar, and his batting and fielding capabilities, made him the most attractive prospect. Although he didn’t play in Pakistan or Sri Lanka it was clear he was being set for India.

All-format curse

Agar has had plenty of T20 success in recent years. He was Australia’s T20I player of the year in 2021 and he has built an impressive T20I record having developed his short-form skills through playing a considerable amount.Prior to getting selected against South Africa in Sydney, Agar’s previous Test came in September 2017. That was his 46th first-class match since debuting in 2013. Up until that point, he had only played 36 T20 games. Since that Test match, Agar has played just 18 first-class games in five-and-a-half years. But he has played 105 T20s in the same period. He has worked assiduously on his T20 bowling, becoming incredibly adept at bowling six different balls an over, varying his lengths, lines and speeds from ball to ball and forcing batters to go at less than seven runs per over with five men on the rope.Ashton Agar’s T20 career has hindered his first-class development•Getty ImagesThe problem is none of that translates to long-form cricket, where spinners need to land their stock ball with incredible consistency to far more attacking fields. It is clear Australia’s selectors conflated Agar’s T20 and first-class form together.Despite touring Pakistan and Sri Lanka with the Test squad, Agar played just one first-class game between October 2020 and November 2022 but the selectors remained confident he could play an important role in India. He featured in the Prime Minister’s XI game against West Indies late last year alongside Murphy but did not bowl anywhere near as well as the offspinner. He then played a Shield game at the Gabba where he took 1 for 108 but did make 72.The selectors remained unperturbed. When Mitchell Starc and Cameron Green were simultaneously injured in the Boxing Day Test and the prospect of a turning pitch in Sydney awaited, Agar was called into the squad having played five T20 in the BBL since the Shield game at the Gabba.McDonald was careful to state at the time that Agar had been selected not because he was necessarily Australia’s second-best red-ball spinner, but rather because he complemented Lyon as a left-arm orthodox.He went wicketless in Sydney as the surface failed to deteriorate. But his lengths and lines lacked consistency, which was completely understandable. The selectors had confidence he would turn it around by India, despite being sent back to play five more T20 games before boarding the plane.In the meantime, it was noteworthy that while the selectors had full faith in Agar for the Border-Gavaskar series, Australia’s premier limited-overs legspinner Adam Zampa was overlooked due to his lack of red-ball cricket, much to his frustration.Ashton Agar struggled in training ahead of the India series•Getty Images

India indecision

The closer the Nagpur Test got the less convinced both Agar and the selectors were of how effective he could be. The selectors were desperate to pick a left-arm spinner as India were set to have six right-handers in their top eight. But Agar’s almost exclusive diet of T20 bowling over the previous few years had made it difficult for him to find the red-ball rhythm and consistency during the training camp in Bengaluru. Agar is one of the most honest and popular members of the Australian group, and he made his own doubts known to both the selectors and his team-mates.The selectors finally overcame their fear of picking two offspinners in the same team, having conceded that Murphy’s superior record to right-handers was overwhelming evidence he should be selected, and Agar was left to run the drinks.
When Kuhnemann debuted in Delhi, having flown in only five days earlier, Adam Gilchrist described it as a “pretty big insult” to Agar on radio.But it was clear to see in the Delhi nets that Agar wasn’t ready to play. The evening before the Test he bowled alone on the edge of the square under the guidance of bowling coach Daniel Vettori. Even there he struggled to hit a cap that had been placed on a length as consistently as the other spinners in the squad.It was notable too that he was the only one of Australia’s spinners to bowl no-balls in practice, regularly delivering from a foot-and-a-half in front of the line. It is a well-worn trope of elite cricketers that no-balls in practice do not equate to no-balls in games. They are usually right. Except when you practice from that far in front of the line, the good length you are grooving becomes a short length in a match. It is the difference between a left-arm orthodox testing a batter’s front foot defence and getting cut for four.Agar was honest when he got off the plane in Perth. Except for the occasional Sydney conditions that may call for two spinners, Agar’s next realistic prospect of Test cricket is the two-match tour of Sri Lanka in February 2025.”It’s been pretty hard for me recently, to be fair,” Agar said. “I’ve played maybe three red-ball games in three years. It’s hard to expect that part of my game to be in tiptop perfect shape.”He will play a fourth for Western Australia while he is home, one more than he would have played if he stayed in India, highlighting the pragmatism of sending him back. He could have had three in a row had he not travelled which is the sort of sustained red-ball cricket that he needs to have a fair of chance of success.It’s unlikely any of this has had an impact on the series scoreline, as Australia’s batting has been the major weak point, but it’s a situation the selectors could have done without, and one they could have avoided.

Have your say: Will it be three quicks and two spinners for India, or the other way around?

Himanshu Agrawal13-Dec-20224:16

Jaffer: Kuldeep needs to play as third spinner ahead of Saurabh

Who will open with Rahul?
Rohit Sharma has been ruled out of the first Test, and KL Rahul will stand in as captain. He is also set to be one of the openers, with Shubman Gill and Abhimanyu Easwaran likely to compete for the other slot.Gill averages 30.47 after 11 Tests, with a best of 52 in his last 14 innings. He might have an edge over Abhimanyu, though, not least because of his superior experience at the highest level.However, Abhimanyu has scores of 141 and 157 from the two four-day games for India A in Bangladesh recently. He has been around the national set-up for a while and has an experience of 78 first-class matches, where he averages 45.33.