Dean Elgar and Temba Bavuma are leading sides with modest talent but strong collective willpower

Mark Nicholas03-Mar-2022Mike Procter was lying in his hospital bed in Durban when Dean Elgar, pitch-side at the Hagley Oval in Christchurch, said “We’ll bat.” The Procter heart that had just been fixed up with a new valve and a double bypass, skipped a beat. “We will whaaat?” the mighty Proc squealed from 7000 miles away, having just watched the commentators’ pitch report.”Did you see that?” he asked me on the phone later in the day, “Honestly, Marcus, the pitch had plenty of grass on it, a must-bowl, if you ask me, especially one down in a two-match series but, geez, they fought hard with the bat and look now, 230-odd, only three down… you’ve got to hand to Elgar, hey. He’s got a lot of guts that guy, he really has. If they win from here, well, what a decision to bat.”And win they did.In short, the South African team has had a remarkable season. Long outsiders in their home series against India over Christmas and New Year, and longer still away to the Black Caps in February, Elgar’s resilient men have beaten the odds, proving themselves a match for the two teams that contested the World Championship Test match final last June.Beset by political infighting and financial uncertainty, the players rose above the boardroom chaos to remind the world of the essential South African characteristics: spirit and optimism foremost among them.Related

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The soul of that great land had been in their performance, for with it comes the need to dig deep and sit in. It is hard to think of any more impressive South African victories. The wonder of these were the relatively modest level of available talent and the willpower of the collective that overcame it. As Procter added, “It just shows what you can do if you want to do it badly enough. Fantastic!”After a chop and change or two, the choice of Elgar as captain of the Test team and Temba Bavuma of the short-form teams has proved rather brilliant. Bavuma’s calm appraisal of one or two alarming off-field situations has led to an increased sense of authority on the field. His team deserved to qualify for the T20 World Cup semi-finals in the UAE last November, but having lost only one game in the round-robin stage, they fell foul of their marginally inferior run rate.In January, Bavuma’s 50-over fellows thumped India 3-0. The responsibility has moved his batting on the dial too. Increasingly, and on many levels, Bavuma is becoming a formidable cricketer.Elgar’s batting is forged in steel, but we knew that. What we couldn’t have imagined is that his captaincy would have such a clear sense of values and direction. Most of these down-to-earth, grind-’em-in men of the willow achieve their results in a bubble of self-discipline, which does not necessarily make for the broader requirements of captaincy.Not unlike Graeme Smith before him, Elgar says it as he sees it, sticks close to pragmatism and likes to spend his day wondering what the opposition would least like him to do next. Having lost the first match of both series, Elgar told his players that they had it in them to bounce straight back with a win of their own, if only they would believe it. The point being that when he says as much, they look into his eyes and immediately know that, far from loose rhetoric, this is both a show of serious business and absolute confidence in them.Temba Bavuma’s side beat India 3-0 in the ODIs in January•AFP/Getty ImagesIn the second innings of the Christchurch Test, only Devon Conway, a South African now playing for New Zealand, stood between them and the levelling of the series. One wondered what he made of it all. Five years ago, Conway left the land of his birth in pursuit of opportunity – he is not the first and won’t be the last. Sure, he is another gifted South African forced to look elsewhere but he readily admits that his inconsistent form in first-class cricket was more of an obstacle than the selection quotas that had denied others. He grew up spending hours at the wicket with his mate Quinton de Kock and the irony that neither was playing for South Africa in the most recent match in New Zealand will not have been lost on them.When de Kock announced that he was standing back from Test cricket after South Africa’s defeat in Centurion, Elgar admitted to surprise. “I sit next to him in the dressing room,” he said in a recent documentary about the India series, “and didn’t have a clue!” He was pretty disappointed, of course, but quickly turned the conversation to another man’s crack at the summit.Kyle Verreynne’s magnificent unbeaten 136 – along with an eye-catchingly assured hundred by the new boy, Sarel Erwee – set up the bowlers to strike hard and fast for South Africa’s win in Christchurch and remind everyone that opportunity does come to those who wait patiently. At the start of 2021, Veryenne cannot possibly have thought he would play Test cricket for his country anytime soon. Now, two months on, he has prominently featured in three memorable successes.His story is a lesson to those who wait less patiently: just be there, in form and ready for the moment, because if you are good enough, invariably it will come. To represent someone else’s country is a fine achievement; to represent your own is the fulfilment of a dream. David Bedingham, the 27-year-old batter from Western Province who plays for Durham in English first-class cricket, is that man right now. The whisper is that he hopes to qualify for England three years from now. One hopes the South African selectors have their eye on his every move.Kyle Verreynne’s second-innings century allowed South Africa to set New Zealand a target of over 400 in Christchurch•Getty ImagesFrankly, with the surrounding noise and the lingering undertone, it is quite something that South African sport continues to compete with the enthusiasm, vigour and glory of yesteryear. It can be reasonably argued that the achievements of today’s players outrank those of any other era, so great are the obstacles in their way. The rugby players hold the World Cup, the cricketers have just beaten the best, around ten golfers are in the world top 100. Add in sprinter Wayde van Niekerk and swimmer Chad Le Clos, along with numerous others within lower-profile sports, and you get the picture.There is an inherent competitiveness in South Africans that seems to come without arrogance or entitlement. You see it in business and even in the arts, every bit as much as you do in sport. It makes for great deeds, life-affirming stories and confirmation that the land, and the life it offers, has been hard-earned.After defeat in the first match of the India series – a game in which Kagiso Rabada looked as if the joy had gone from his cricket – Elgar took him aside. His message was simple: you are respected by us all, and we are so often inspired by your performances but we need more from you here and we need it now. We need your full engagement, your leadership, your power, your precision. In short, we cannot win this series without you at your talismanic best.In the next match, at the Wanderers in Johannesburg, where India had never been beaten, Rabada moved through the gears. By the third morning, the fast-moving game was on a knife edge – India 155 for 2 in their second innings, 128 in front with Cheteshwar Pujara and Ajinkya Rahane seemingly in control. Rabada rammed the pedal to the floor. He found a beaut of a bouncing legcutter for Rahane, a break back for Pujara, and a couple of snorting bouncers for Rishabh Pant, whose response was to shimmy down the pitch and swish at the next ball, which he nicked to Verreynne behind the stumps. This was pulsating Test match cricket, moments stolen by a modern master, moments that ripped the match from India’s grasp. Of course, much was still to be done by the others but KG had opened the door for his mates to walk in and take control.It was then that Elgar played one of the innings of his life, the unbeaten 96 that took his team across the line. Like a boxer, he was spent by the time the stumps were pulled, but rarely, if ever, had he felt more satisfied. His was both a feat of endurance and an innings of excellence at exactly the moment it was needed. A kaleidoscope of bruises were the physical evidence; the chance to take the series to Cape Town its mental power point.In five Tests this season, Kagiso Rabada has taken 30 wickets at an average of 20•AFP via Getty ImagesAt Newlands two rookies added to their fast growing reputation: one slight of build, strong of mind and technically sound; the other 6ft 8in of skin and bone and a huge heart.Keegan Petersen made runs in both innings of this decider, riding Jasprit Bumrah’s high bounce and working with the sideways movement of the ball like it was an old friend. Hard on himself after mistakes cost him both his wickets in Centurion, he played relatively risk-free cricket on awkward pitches at the Wanderers and Newlands without ever allowing himself to be governed by India’s fine attack. It has been a long, slow burn for 28-year-old from Paarl but South Africa now has its own KP.Marco Jansen took 7 for 91 in 37.3 overs of high-quality pace bowling in this same decider, admitting freely that the stifling nerves on Boxing Day morning were already a thing of his cricketing past. He was the perfect foil for Rabada, hammering away mainly back of length and giving nothing to some of the most gifted strokeplayers in the game. There was something of the young Glenn McGrath in him, albeit with a different arm, and, as he fills out, one can only see a similar path to the one taken by the great Australian bowler. Like McGrath, he too was happy to mix it and one memorable exchange with Bumrah at the Wanderers proved him a worthy successor to the fine and feisty South African fast bowlers of the past – men who won’t take no for an answer.We are almost done here but a word for Mark Boucher is required to complete the story. In the documentary mentioned above, Elgar, Bavuma and others in the team speak highly of their coach, with Elgar pointing out that Boucher is starting his best work and that to lose him now would be a waste. Boucher, of course, has a racism charge to fight against the governing body – Cricket South Africa – that employs him. This comes from the findings made before Christmas by the Social Justice and Nation Building ombudsman. Imagine going to work under such pressure and delivering in the way he has! For the sake of South African cricket, the hope is that his name is cleared and the game at large can move on.The streetfighter in Boucher is exactly the sort of quality the team needs right now and the recoveries from defeat in the first matches of both the series referenced here have his fingerprints all over them. In fact, this triumvirate – Elgar, Bavuma, Boucher – is the way forward. The terrific cricket played by South Africa in the past two months is the best evidence of that.

Former England spinner was synonymous with delivery that helped win the 2004 and 2006 Twenty20 Cups

Cameron Ponsonby25-May-2022As the old saying goes, bowl a thousand offbreaks, and just one moon ball, you’re not remembered as an offbreak bowler, you’re remembered as Jeremy Snape.Snape would be well within his rights to feel some irritation at his level of association with the loopy 40mph (64kph) delivery. After all, his playing CV lists over a dozen England appearances and seven domestic white-ball trophies across a 14-year career – and the moon ball was merely a small part of the armoury that took Leicestershire to T20 glory in 2004 and, under his captaincy, in 2006.On the other hand, it is of little surprise, if not entirely fitting, that the player who completed a Masters in Sports Psychology during his career and who is now the host of the successful Inside the Mind of Champions podcast as well as founder of Sporting Edge, a high-performance consultancy that aims to give their clients a psychological advantage against their opponents, would be the one who managed to invent a delivery that was in isolation bad but, through sheer force of will, was in its entirety, good.”I guess it’s easy to say ‘he bowled those really slow deliveries’,” Snape tells ESPNcricinfo. “But it was part of a system really that was designed to be deceptive. It’s not that I just ran up every ball like a bad club cricketer and lobbed balls up, it was meant to be unpredictable and to be unpredictable you need a range of differences.”For Snape, who has the ninth-best economy rate in Blast history (minimum 100 overs) with 6.83 an over, contrast was the key. Priming a batter so all their muscle memory told them one thing, only for the result to be entirely different.”The closest equivalent I guess is the slower-ball bouncer, because what that does is it sets you up with all the triggers. The ball hits the deck short and every ball you’ve faced that looks like that in the past comes up at your head, quickly.”So you get ready to duck or hook it, but then everything that happens after is the opposite. It’s slower and further away from you than you think. So as soon as you lose your hitting rhythm, you can hit it, but you can’t hit it as powerfully as you wanted.”And Snape was playing that same game. His run-up for the moon ball was faster, so too his action and his follow-through. And in the lead-up to the ball he’d even try accidentally on purpose to be spotted by the batter adjusting his field for a quicker delivery. And then, after all the sleights of hand, a white ball would be released high into the sky with no real intention of ever coming down.”If you can get into their mind and change the way they’re thinking and change that premeditation period that they’ve got, you reduce the commitment they’ve got to their shot – and we all know that someone is more likely to execute something if they’re 100% committed – and I was trying to chip away at that by creating doubt.”It was an invention of both new- and old-school thinking. New, in its outside-the-box, untraditional methods. But old, in being rooted in testing the ticker of the bloke at the other end.Jeremy Snape captained Leicestershire to the Twenty20 Cup in 2006•Getty Images”Everyone looks at the highlights,” Snape says, explaining another of the tricks he had up his sleeve, ensuring he always walked backwards to his mark so that he could watch the batter on strike, “but I’m fascinated by the lowlights: the time between balls because the batter is usually out of breath, panicking, under pressure, which means they don’t play with a poker face.”So if I saw someone look out to deep midwicket, I’d go ‘Stevo [Darren Stevens], he’s coming to you, just go to your left a little bit.’ Which makes the batter think, ‘Ah, I can’t do that now’, so then I start to run into bowl and he’s confused about the thing that he was going to do. It was all about building up my clarity and commitment and reducing theirs.”Snape revelled in gaining tangible advantages out of the intangibles of the sport. Call it sophisticated mental disintegration. Where Steve Waugh would look to get in your head by calling you a ****, or for the sake of variety, a ******* ****, Snape would do so with subtlety, quietly noting that he’s seen you’re one notch looser on your belt this year. Everything alright at home?”I think sometimes,” Snape says, in defence of his dark arts, “they were so annoyed at me getting in their heads they often succumbed to a delivery that wasn’t that special in terms of what it did off the pitch. And that was the mindgames part of it that I loved, and had to rely on actually, to stop myself from getting hit so often.”But despite Snape’s success, the moon ball remains associated solely with him and hasn’t gone on to become a regular tool within T20. Snape isn’t too surprised by this and it’s a fact he puts down to the “incredible skills” of a lot of spinners, meaning they simply don’t need it. Furthermore, he has long described the moon ball delivery as playing cricketing Russian Roulette, except that now, with shorter boundaries and increased levels of power hitting in the modern game, there are three bullets in the chamber rather than one.Related

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“I don’t know if it’s a good or a bad thing,” Snape concludes on whether he’s pleased to be synonymous with the delivery. “But it had a time and a place. It wasn’t this mystical delivery that everyone fell for and it did end up down the street a fair few times, but it played on their ego as much as their technical skill.”We teach people how to bowl a particular delivery or how to play a particular shot. But we don’t necessarily give them the wisdom of when to play that shot or when to bowl that delivery.”Snape’s mantra as a T20 bowler was that of “let me give you one, so you don’t take six”. Traditional coaching, he explains, isn’t in the business of teaching bowlers how to give up easy runs. But in a format where one-a-ball is a win for the bowler, it becomes an art form in itself.If an opponent was strong down the ground, Snape would indulge that strength by bowling fast half-volleys that could easily be punched to fielders at long-on or long-off. On other occasions, he’d move midwicket to short mid-on to leave an enormous gap in the leg-side before deliberately bowling a ball on leg stump that could be easily hit into the gap for a single. Here, have one. No, no, really, I insist.”We talk about what a good ball is, sometimes a low full toss on leg stump could be the best ball you bowl, but you’re never taught that in the coaching manuals. That ability to read the game and think, ‘okay I’ve just bowled two dots at this guy, how do I get him down to the other end so I’ve bowled one off three balls’, and then I can bowl a moon ball at the other guy and try and close the over out again. It was that whole situation of working out who’s on strike, who are the most destructive hitters, when to do it and how to do it.”[And] it’s that cat and mouse between the batter and bowler that I find so fascinating about cricket.”

de Kock’s 140* is the third-highest individual score in IPL history

Sampath Bandarupalli18-May-20221 Quinton de Kock and KL Rahul became the first pair to bat through 20 overs in an IPL innings. They are only the fourth pair to bat through 20 overs in a men’s T20 innings.ESPNcricinfo Ltd210* Partnership between de Kock and Rahul, the highest opening stand in the IPL. The previous highest was 185 between David Warner and Jonny Bairstow for Sunrisers Hyderabad against Royal Challengers Bangalore in 2019.2 Number of partnerships in the IPL higher than the 210* between de Kock and Rahul. Both were by the Royal Challengers pair of Virat Kohli and AB de Villiers for the second wicket – 229 against Gujarat Lions in 2016 and 215* against Mumbai Indians in 2015.ESPNcricinfo Ltd10 Individual hundreds conceded by Kolkata Knight Riders in the IPL, including de Kock’s 140*, the most centuries conceded by a team in the IPL, surpassing Mumbai Indians’ 9.140* de Kock’s 140* is now the third-highest individual score in the IPL, behind only Chris Gayle’s 175* for Royal Challengers against Pune Warriors in 2013 and Brendon McCullum’s 158* for Knight Riders against Royal Challengers in 2008.ESPNcricinfo Ltd1 de Kock’s unbeaten 140 is also the joint-highest individual score by a South African in men’s T20s. He equalled Pieter Malan’s 140* for Western Province against Easterns in 2014.71 Runs by de Kock in the last five overs of Lucknow Super Giants’ innings (16-20), the most by a batter in an IPL innings in this phase. de Kock hit six fours and six sixes in the last five overs of the Super Giants innings while striking at 322.72. The previous-most runs scored in the last five overs was 68 by Knight Riders’ Andre Russell against Chennai Super Kings in 2018.10 Sixes hit by de Kock, the most by any batter in an innings this season. He is also the first batter to hit ten or more sixes in an IPL innings since Kieron Pollard for Mumbai against Kings XI Punjab in 2019.

The 18-year old New Zealander is all set to make her debut at the Commonwealth Games T20s

S Sudarshanan28-Jul-20224:40

Rebecca Rolls on Isabella Gaze – ‘She doesn’t flinch and for a wicketkeeper, that’s important’

A 13-year-old girl had approached Rebecca Rolls for help with her wicketkeeping and batting five years ago. Former wicketkeeper-batter Rolls, who won the Women’s World Cup with New Zealand in 2000, was impressed by what she saw.”It became obvious to me that she could catch,” Rolls tells ESPNcricinfo. “Her coordination was good and she didn’t flinch. For a wicketkeeper that’s quite important.”The teenager was Isabella Gaze, who had climbed up the ranks from school cricket and made the Auckland Under-15 side.”She was keen and really wanted to be a wicketkeeper. A lot of people don’t necessarily know at that age as cricketers what they want to do and how they want to specialise. She was quite determined that wicketkeeping was for her and that impressed me.”And then what I saw with the bat was exciting as well – she was positive and really wanted to hit the ball and get runs. I had had people throughout my sporting career that gave me time to help me out at that age, so I was keen to work with her.”

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Gaze was called up for the New Zealand camp in Nelson in January this year ahead of the women’s white-ball series against India and the Women’s World Cup. It was the first time she was around the national set-up. Among the players in the camp were fellow wicketkeepers Katey Martin and Jess McFadyen. Gaze would have to wait, clearly, to break into the New Zealand squad with Natalie Dodd, who played the last of her 18 ODIs against England last year, also around.After the World Cup, Martin hung up her boots and a month later, Gaze was among the six new players to be given central contracts by NZC. That was followed by her maiden call-up for the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham starting from July 29.”When I got to the White Ferns camp in Nelson, I started realising that maybe I can work hard and break into the side in future years,” Gaze, 18, says. “I wasn’t expecting it to come this soon. When Katey Martin retired, I knew that an opportunity opened and am grateful to be given one this young and this early.”

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Isabella Gaze with NZC chief David White after being named in the squad for the Commonwealth Games T20s•Getty ImagesBorn in the Netherlands, Gaze lived there for 18 months before moving to Hong Kong for four years and then spent a couple of years in Singapore. She played rugby in Hong Kong and Singapore and dabbled in tennis before taking up hockey. She also tried ballet, following in the footsteps of her older sister, Madison, before deciding sport was for her.”I have always really enjoyed sport and my family is always very supportive,” Gaze says. “My parents played multiple sports growing up and being raised in such a family where you are very active, sport came very naturally. It was never like a chore; it was always a choice.”At Campbells Bay Primary School in Auckland, Gaze had her first official brush with cricket. Her principal, John McGowen, used to encourage everyone to play cricket during lunch time. She would join in and eventually signed up to play for the school team.”I think I have always enjoyed wicketkeeping because you are involved in every ball and you don’t get bored on the field,” she says. “As a bowler it can be a pretty hard area where you get hit hard but with keeping it’s [largely] in your control.”In a bid to better her skills, Gaze was looking for a wicketkeeping and batting coach to help her. New Zealand’s Kirsty Flavell, the first to hit a double-century in women’s Tests and friends with Gaze’s mother, put her in touch with Rolls.”When we started, we split our sessions into half keeping and half batting,” Rolls recalls. “I am not a trained coach, I train on my instincts and how I played the game. So the way we went about it was to try and have fun and try and be positive.”I was really keen to encourage her to hit the ball hard and swing hard and have a really good bat speed. We really worked on her batting for a couple of years and as she started to make representative sides here in New Zealand, the batting coaches picked her up.”I always impressed on her that if you were the best keeper in the world but in the modern game if you can’t bat, it’s not good.”Isabella Gaze in action for the Auckland Hearts in the Women’s Super Smash 2021-22•Getty ImagesGaze made rapid strides and at 15, made her Super Smash debut for Auckland Hearts in December 2019. A couple of months later, she made her first appearance in the Hallyburton Johnstone Shield match against Central Districts. She made a total of seven appearances across formats in her first season before a collarbone fracture in November 2020 ruled her out of the 2020-21 season.The following season, she kept wicket for Auckland in the T20s and for some games of the 50-over competition while playing all games across both white-ball formats. And it culminated with her becoming a centrally contracted player.In the latest phase of her career, Gaze has to juggle training and playing with studying sport and recreation part-time at the Auckland University of Technology. She is in her first year and is inclined towards majoring in sport and exercise science. “Through school I enjoyed physical education and the assignments and enjoyed the deeper side of sports,” Gaze says having carried her textbooks and laptop to Birmingham.

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Even after Gaze made the Auckland teams, she continued playing hockey until March this year, when she stopped to stay free from injuries. Hockey and tennis helped with her hand speed and bat swing in cricket. Good hand-eye coordination, as a result, also meant that it was easier for her to play inventive strokes, where it was important to get close to the line of the ball.”When you play sports that can feel the ball on an implement – like the bat or the racquet or the hockey stick – that’s quite natural to you,” Rolls explains. “She’s quite inventive already even at a young age and that comes from being close to the ball.”She’s confident and doesn’t flinch when she’s keeping. She’s confident with the face close to the ball, which is not natural for most of the players.”One of the youngest players in the New Zealand squad, Gaze strives for perfection and has a hunger and drive to succeed.”Oh she gets so frustrated when she gets something wrong! Probably reminds me of me at that age but that’s good feedback for me that we are doing the right things,” Rolls says.”She just wants it so much. She is so driven to succeed. Her drive, her tenacity… she always wants to get better. The satisfaction she gets when she gets it right – I can share that. Keepers know what I mean! She tries to make sure she makes changes to her game that give her a point of difference.”

Australia’s batters have acquired some serious competence on subcontinent pitches

Andrew Fidel Fernando30-Jun-2022The last time Usman Khawaja played a Test in Galle, he opened his second innings by shouldering arms to offspinner Dilruwan Perera. The ball skipped gleefully into that unguarded off stump, like an inmate who couldn’t quite believe the jailors had left the prison gates wide open.Earlier that same day, Khawaja had been out for 11, bowled, by Perera of course, and by a straight one of course – the premiere punchline in a series that drew its comedy from Australia failing to contend with balls that did not actually turn.But this Khawaja ain’t that Khawaja. And this series ain’t that series. Khawaja is a batter of the world now. This year, he’s made 97 in the of Rawalpindi, 160 and 44* in the hotbed that is Karachi, and 91 and 104* in Lahore, those stately stone buildings in the distance. He’s done it elsewhere in Asia, where the ball turns a bit, and the pitches wear quicker than they might at home. But can he do it on a pitch that’s a dust festival from day one in Galle?Turns out he can.Khawaja’s was not a flawless innings. Unless you possess preternatural skill, there are no such innings on pitches like this. He was beaten, repeatedly. Late on day one, when he was in the thirties, he came down the track and missed a ball that leapt into the keeper’s helmet – a tough missed stumping, but a missed stumping nevertheless.And yet the sweeps kept coming, two big slogs reaping boundaries, the delicate paddles earning runs behind square. The reverse sweeps were on display too, at least one of his fours coming from that shot. Waltzing down the track and driving past mid-on. Hanging back, reading it early, cutting past point. On defence, he committed to covering the balls that might hit the stumps. And when the balls that gripped whizzed past his edge, he shook it off. Balls that hit nothing can’t get you out. He found a way to survive. And he found ways to score.Alex Carey made excellent use of a variety of sweeps•Getty ImagesHe wasn’t the only one. In fact, he wasn’t even the most effective batter in Australia’s first innings. Cameron Green, upon first sight, does not appear the most suited of Australia’s line-up to fast-turning surfaces. He’s so tall, he almost needs air traffic control clearance to descend far enough to play a sweep. It is a shot he played occasionally, but judiciously, but where he thrived instead, was by running at Sri Lanka’s spinners, frequently clipping offspinner Ramesh Mendis with the turn to the legside.When he stayed in the crease, he ensured he parked his big front pad, giant stride and all, down the track, so that balls that were headed to the stumps hit him outside the line, and balls that hit him in line, were probably going to turn too far to threaten the stumps. This was not a strategy available to a batter of Khawaja’s height. This was Green finding his own ways to survive; his own ways to score.There was also Alex Carey, whose innings seemed to consist almost entirely of sweeps and reverse sweeps, with zero runs coming down the ground. He made 45 off 47. Green top-scored with 77 off 109. Their sixth-wicket partnership of 83 was the backbone of Australia’s advance on day two, which they finished 101 runs ahead, with two wickets in hand.”The way we play the game and how we talk about the game has changed a lot since I started playing for the Australian cricket team,” Khawaja said at the end of day two. “We’ve learned from our mistakes, and guys are all trusting their plans and are able to adapt to different situations, and that’s different from the way we do it in Australia.”Guys like Carey come in and sweep. Even me, growing up in Australia, every second coach would tell me not to sweep. But it’s a very natural shot, and Carey exploits it as much as anyone.”All this has been helped by an inexperienced Sri Lanka spin attack, who have been too easy to hit off their lengths, who have been unable to deliver a single maiden between them (seamer Asitha Fernando has bowled the only maiden of the innings), largely because they frequently get the line wrong.But having looked like they were more likely to vomit on this Galle pitch than play a good innings on it the last time they were here, Australia have acquired some serious competence on these surfaces. Commit to a batting plan. Don’t worry about the balls that get the better of you. Find your own way to score. On Thursday, all that saw them take control of a tough Test.

England were at the receiving end of Haynes’ grit and text-book acceleration more than once, but one of her “most important knocks” came vs Sri Lanka

Vishal Dikshit15-Sep-2022
98 on Test debut vs England, Worcester, 2009
Barely a week after her international debut, Haynes walked out to bat at No. 7 in her first Test with the score on 28 for 5, with many experienced players back in the dressing room. With captain Jodie Fields leading Australia’s fightback, Haynes scored 98 to script a then world-record fifth-wicket partnership of 229. While Fields was a tad lucky, being dropped thrice in her century, Haynes struck 13 fours in her near five-hour stay at the crease.Related

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She was bowled by Laura Marsh at the stroke of stumps just two shy of a century. Unfortunately, she would never go on to breach the three-figure mark in her Test career.83 vs South Africa, Cuttack, 2013 ODI World Cup
Chasing 189 in a World Cup league game against South Africa, Australia slipped to 34 for 3 with two batters gone for ducks. Opening the innings, Haynes first took them close to the 100-run mark with the experienced Lisa Sthalekar and then to 150 with a fairly brisk 83 off 108, featuring 10 fours. That eventually took them over the line with three wickets in hand and into the Super Six stage.It was her fourth ODI half-century and set the tone for the rest of the World Cup as she scored two more fifties, including one in the final against West Indies, which gave Australia their sixth ODI title. She ended the tournament as their top-scorer, averaging 45.50.89* off 56 vs England, Coffs Harbour, 2017
Soon after her return to the side in 2017 after a gap of nearly four years, and in just her second Ashes game post-comeback, Haynes was named the stand-in captain in the absence of the injured Lanning. With the added responsibility and a platform already laid by Nicole Bolton, Alyssa Healy and Ellyse Perry, Haynes displayed a different side of her batting, blasting an unbeaten 89 off 56 to power Australia to 296 for 6, resulting in a 75-run win.Rachael Haynes’ 89* earned her the Player-of-the-Match award•Getty ImagesHaynes’ clean striking – nine fours and three sixes included – sent England’s fielders all over the Coffs Harbour ground. A few wickets fell at the other end in the death overs but she manipulated the strike expertly to lead them to a total that gave them a 2-0 lead.25* off 15 vs West Indies, semi-final, North Sound, 2018 T20 World Cup
Healy and Lanning’s knocks at the top took the team past 100 in the 16th over but a few late wickets hurt Australia when they were looking to accelerate. That is, until vice-captain Haynes came out and picked off three fours in an over by a hobbling Deandra Dottin, and then hit one more off Stafanie Taylor in the last over to help her team collect 26 from the last 12 balls.West Indies scored only half of Australia’s total of 142 in reply, and Australia marched towards their fourth T20 title. Days later it emerged that coach Matthew Mott and Lanning were thinking about moving the in-form Haynes up the order to make her face more balls, but the vice-captain was happy to stick to the middle-order role. “The icing on the cake was Rach coming in and doing that at the end and got a lot of momentum back at the back end of the innings, which is huge in T20, if you can go into that break with a bit of a kick along. She just played it so well,” Mott said.60* off 47 vs Sri Lanka, Perth, 2020 T20 World Cup

An innings Haynes herself tagged “the most important that I played” on reflection after retiring, this one came against Sri Lanka in the 2020 T20 World Cup. Chasing 123, Healy fell for a duck, Mooney for 6 and No. 3 Ashleigh Gardner for 2. This time, Haynes played a combination of the rescue act and the finisher’s role with her match-winning 60 off 47.Rachael Haynes partnered with captain Meg Lanning to dig Australia out of a huge hole•Getty ImagesShe got a life along the way but was more aggressive in her partnership of 95 for the fourth wicket with Lanning, smashing 40 off her 60 runs on the leg side, including an 18-run 16th over off left-arm spinner Sugandika Kumari. That over turned what looked like a dicey situation, with Australia needing 44 off the last five, into a favourable one.130 vs England, Hamilton, ODI World Cup 2022

One among the best knocks – if not the best – of her ODI career came in her last World Cup, against arch-rivals England. She saw through some tight bowling from England’s quicks, with stifling field placements in play, to lay a platform along with Lanning. Once the conditions eased out for batting, she lifted herself from 39 off 60 balls at the halfway mark to a career-best 130 in what was then Australia’s second-highest stand – 196 – for any non-opening partnership at a Women’s World Cup.Rachael Haynes brought up a fine, match-winning century by shifting gears after a slow start•Getty ImagesHaynes went on to raise a fifty stand with Mooney off just 29 balls to take Australia beyond 300, with 59 coming off the last five overs. Sciver’s epic 109* took England close but not far enough, and Haynes’ century triggered what was a memorable swansong ODI tournament for her: 497 runs, just behind chart leader Healy’s 509, at an average of 62.12 with three fifties to go with this hundred.

Highs of early summer feel distant, but England captain focussed on process not result

Vithushan Ehantharajah19-Aug-2022Well, they did tell you.Managing director Rob Key warned everyone to “buckle up and get read for the ride” before the Test summer got going. And after the highs of four wins on the bounce, here was the dip. A first defeat for the Ben Stokes-Brendon McCullum axis.The first victory of that sequence came here at Lord’s against New Zealand. A successful chase of 277 didn’t just capture the imagination of England’s dejected Test fans, but also a dressing room full of players demoralised after a bruising winter. In the days after its conclusion, Stokes spoke of making “positive more positive”, with a word of caution that a negative would be just around the corner. It took a couple of months to come but when it did, it was concentrated into just six sessions.After chasing down 378 against India with seven wickets to spare, Stokes declared his side were attempting to “rewrite how Test cricket is being played, in England especially”. In their very next outing, they have recorded their first innings defeat at Lord’s since 2003. Against South Africa once again, no less.Yet even with forewarning, even knowing this England men’s Test side are fully aware of the risks of their uncapped attacking approach, even for those who fully bought into the engagement and fun this group have instilled into the longest format, this was a chastening thud back down to earth. And as the sun shone for the rest of what was supposed to be the final session of day three – and with the prospect of no weekend cricket in a completed Lord’s Test for the first time since records began – the doubts over this new way of being were pushing through a surface that they had never been far from in the first place.It is important at this juncture to add a little perspective. Were you not entertained royally by four consecutive fourth-day chases? If so, here’s the trade-off from a team that wants to believe in the impossible, but might – just occasionally – find that impossible wins. And, really, was this any worse than the consecutive defeats last year against India at Ahmedabad ( the first in two days, the second in three or the Ashes-losing hammering at the MCG on Boxing Day? At least this time they had a plan, even if it resulted in losing 20 wickets in 82.4 overs.Jonny Bairstow has been integral to England’s success this summer, but had a quiet Test•AFP/Getty ImagesStokes’ post-match press conference was as predictable as it was necessary. He pointed out that any suggestion from him or the coaching staff that they should have gone about things differently – even if there were times during remarkable spells from Kagiso Rabada and Anrich Nortje when they perhaps should have done – was not the way to go. “We’re heading into mixed messages if I say anything different. Everyone’s so aligned in the dressing-room, from the management to the players, about how we operate.”Friday’s effort with the bat was certainly not as grim as Wednesday’s, even if we can lump them in as, broadly, one and the same. Though the conditions on day one were far more testing than the clear skies and bright sunshine on day three, the second innings carried all the associated pitfalls of playing without considering consequence. The mantra instilled is to be unafraid of expressing yourself. Perhaps even to bat like no one is watching. And if you had tickets for Saturday and Sunday, you won’t.Zak Crawley registered another failure of 13, Matthew Potts’ absurd heave down the ground (bowled by Marco Jansen) when Stokes was looking comfortable at the other end was ignorant, and Stokes’ picking out of the one fielder on the leg side moments later was an uncharacteristic in-game misjudgement. But otherwise, South Africa’s attack – notably the two ninety-plus demons – could assume more of the credit.”It’s not something I’m going to be throwing our toys out of the pram over,” said Stokes. “The message for me and Baz upstairs will be, did we commit to everything the way we committed to the first four Tests of the summer? If everyone can say, yes, 100%, we just didn’t execute, then things are good. We’ll move on to the next Test match, and go out there and try and win.”Related

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There will be no debrief, as such. Both changing rooms were a hub of socialising well after the broadcast cameras had been turned off and the public sent on their way to find train-less routes home. Both were full of conversation and beer for those partaking. The difference between them, beyond the South African flag draped across the away balcony, was one group savouring an occasion that will live long among them and the other working to leave it where it was. Just as it’s too early to celebrate, it’s too early to panic.The next few days ahead of the second Test at Emirates Old Trafford, which begins on Thursday, will be full of positive reinforcement for the hosts. Part of sticking around in the home changing room here would have been to shed what they need to shed, to head to Manchester at the start of next week with nothing left to dwell on.”I just like to ride a wave of whatever comes,” Stokes added, when asked how much he will focus on what has been this week. “I’m really trying to hit home that I don’t want this team to dive too much into the results of games. If you play good or bad cricket, that’s going to determine the result. If you fixate too much on the result, you get ahead of yourselves. Did we go out there and really believe what we know worked for us?”You’ve played the game in the past,” he said of the message he will relay to his team. “You have to live in the moment and ride the wave, whether that be of success or failure. We’ve got two games left. If we hold on to this for too long, and carry baggage into the next game, we’re already one step behind South Africa. I want us to be a team where we’re one step ahead.”We can’t be great every day. This week was just off for us. But we’re not going to hold on to it for too long and carry any baggage to Manchester.”It was befitting of the last three months that Stokes maintained a philosophical air after the last three days. Because so much of how this started out was based on players grasping a concept at odds with the proud, constricting traditions of Test cricket they were forged from. Now, after one defeat in five, is not the time to be steering away from that.How the world outside that changing room reacts will be its own point of discussion. Stokes insisted in the lead-up to this series that the public had been won over by the style of play rather than the results. “We would have got their support even if we hadn’t won,” he said on the eve of the match, “which is a very rare thing to do as a sporting team.”If they had lost those three Tests to New Zealand, and that one against India, Stokes mused he “wouldn’t be sitting here changing the way I ask the lads to play”. However, it would only be natural for those same lads to go into their shells, especially if the hypothetical sequence of results was as galling as this one has been. Even after one real loss here, second-guessing is no great crime.England have been consistent from the outset that this mindset-dominant approach is far from foolproof. They told their fans, the media, the rest of the world. Even you. Especially you. Whether you’re a believer or a hater, they told you so you could deal with it.Now it has failed for the first time, the onus is back on the team. Therein lies the biggest challenge for Stokes and McCullum so far – ensuring the individuals that matter most in this movement are still undoubting believers when they attempt to make amends by playing exactly the same way next week.

“He might flunk. He might thrive. It could be galling. It could be glorious.”

Vithushan Ehantharajah07-Jun-2023Whatever your views on plucking Moeen Ali out of Test retirement for the Ashes, we can all agree on one thing. It is one hell of a call.A cricketer who polarised opinion throughout his initial seven years in the format is back for one last job. Arguably the biggest of the lot.As soon as Jack Leach’s back stress fracture was discovered, the pull of a mercurial off-spinning allrounder was too great for Ben Stokes, Brendon McCullum and Rob Key. Contact was made with Moeen on Sunday before news of Leach’s injury was made public that evening, just over 24 hours after the conclusion of the Ireland Test at Lord’s.On a roster of precocious, recently-capped and reliable spin replacements, it was no surprise the free-wheeling vibe merchants opted for someone of their ilk. What you can say about selection during the Stokes-McCullum era is they have got every marginal call right, most recently with opting for Josh Tongue over Chris Woakes against Ireland. This, however, is top-tier bombastic, even by their standards.The best of a 64-cap career – and, now, counting – featured glorious shot-making and magic deliveries among 2,914 runs and 195 wickets. Ahead of these five Tests against Australia, Moeen’s experience, both time around the traps and pull on the soul, sets him above the rest.Related

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It is no secret Stokes and others involved with this Test group are Moeen stans. He will fit into the dressing room culture seamlessly, still very much wired into the grander system of English cricket as Jos Buttler’s vice-captain in the limited overs set-up. And there’s something to be said for Stokes’ powers of persuasion. It is less than a year ago that Moeen spurned advances to get him on the tour of Pakistan. He made a note of saying Test cricket is “hard work”.It is by no means an opinion unique to Moeen, which formed part of the remit for Stokes and McCullum when they first came into their positions. Their success in stripping away the rougher edges of the format – on and off the field – means the culture Moeen walks into is one far better suited to his mercurial ways.This is no slight on previous regimes per se, but an important consideration in all this. For a player who has batted every position from opener to No.9, operated as the primary, secondary and tertiary spinner and was once “rested and rotated” out during the Covid-19 series against India at the beginning of 2021 after playing just one Test, role clarity would have been a key selling point in coaxing him back.Stokes will likely do with Moeen as he has done with Leach: sorting his fields on his behalf, which included either constant tweaking or refusing requests for a sweeper. That made Leach a braver bowler, casting worry from his mind, which is unheard of from an English Test spinner since Graeme Swann. That Leach wore his unusually high average in Stokes’s 13 Tests – 38.22 – as a badge of pride, alongside 45 wickets, speaks of a shift in mindset.There is no question a peak Moeen would thrive in this environment, geared towards doing what they can to bring an individual’s best to the fore. Whether with bat or ball, Moeen has always played the game like it was his duty to entertain, and when on song, there weren’t many more enjoyable to watch. The question is, what does the best of this Moeen look like?Well, who knows? The player himself certainly doesn’t. In an interview with ESPNcricinfo a couple of months ago, Moeen admitted his bowling had dropped off in red-ball retirement. The bank of work was not what it once was, partly because he hadn’t played a first-class match since his last Test cap against India in September 2021.While the intervening period has been packed with white-ball glory, with two IPL titles for Chennai Super Kings sandwiching a T20 World Cup, his bowling has been sporadic at best, making any extrapolation broadly meaningless. He bowled twice in six matches at the World Cup, sending down a single over each time. In the recent IPL, he operated as one of CSK’s supplementary slow bowling options, with most of his 26 overs coming in helpful conditions.Adil Rashid, Chris Jordan and Moeen Ali pose with their T20 World Cup medals•Associated PressThere are reasonable doubts about his durability, as much over the course of a Test as a series with five matches in seven weeks. Leach’s endurance was a vital tool in an attack constantly pressing for wickets. His 515.1 overs under Stokes reflects the scale of his workload, and even if the role Moeen undertakes will not necessarily be with a focus on controlling the scoring, you do wonder about his multi-day stamina.There is also Moeen’s spinning finger, which has caused him trouble in the past. He tore it open on the 2017-18 tour of Australia leading to a grim return of five dismissals at an average of 115 across five Tests. It is also part of the reason he was dropped after the first Ashes Test in 2019.Step back a bit and further quandaries emerge. Unless the next couple of months go spectacularly well, one imagines Moeen won’t tour India for that Test series at the start of 2024. Part of his motivation for turning down a Test recall last year was due to a packed winter schedule. This one coming up is almost identical, with a 50-over World Cup followed by those now regular franchise commitments with the ILT20 and IPL. Will Jacks and Rehan Ahmed might also have an eye on that circuit too, given it has been made clear they are not as close as they think. All the more reason why the ECB have to ace their imminent revamp of central contracts and match fees.Moeen has always been a choose-your-own adventure cricketer, and perhaps it is fitting he returns in such a choose-your-own argument fashion.He averages 64.65 with the ball against Australia, but 33.28 against allcomers at home. He has been out of the game for too long, but long enough to feel refreshed. He could have been better under previous captains, but who knows how good he could be under this one?He is not Mr Right, but he is Mr Right Now. He might flunk. He might thrive. It could be galling. It could be glorious.What we know for certain is, should he get the nod at Edgbaston for the first Test, he won’t be Jack Leach – he will be Moeen Ali. And we’ll only know what that means when the Ashes are done.