And how often have openers got to hundreds off consecutive balls?

Steven Lynch31-Oct-2023Is Mitchell Marsh the first Australian to have taken a five-for and also scored a century in the World Cup? asked Dechlan Brennan from Australia

Mitchell Marsh took 5 for 33 against England in Melbourne on his World Cup debut in 2015, and during the current tournament hit 121 against Pakistan in Bengaluru.He is indeed the first Australian to do this double in the World Cup – and actually only three others have managed it overall. Shakib Al Hasan of Bangladesh has two centuries plus a five-for (all of them in 2019), while the Indian pair of Kapil Dev and Yuvraj Singh have one of each.There are a few near misses, none of them by Australians: eight further players have scored a century and taken four wickets in an innings in World Cup matches, and there are also two – Jimmy Neesham of New Zealand and Kenya’s Curtis Obuya – with a five-for and a highest score in the nineties.Marco Jansen conceded 92 runs against Sri Lanka, but still finished on the winning side. Was this a record? asked Mirza Chowdhury from India

The lanky South African left-arm seamer Marco Jansen went for 92 in his ten overs against Sri Lanka in Delhi recently; his side still won by 102 runs. This is a record for the World Cup, beating Kevin O’Brien’s 2 for 90 in Ireland’s victory over Zimbabwe in Hobart in 2015. Mitchell Starc came close a few days after Jansen, with 0 for 89 as Australia narrowly beat New Zealand in Dharamsala.In all ODIs, three bowlers have conceded more runs than Jansen but still finished on the winning side. Top of the list is the Indian medium-pacer Vinay Kumar, who went for 102 in just nine overs against Australia in Bengaluru in 2013-14. India still won by 57 runs, helped by Rohit Sharma scoring 209.Dale Steyn took 2 for 96 as South Africa defeated Australia in Durban in 2016-17, while England’s Jake Ball went for 94 in what turned out to be a comfortable victory over West Indies in Southampton in September 2017. Bhuvneshwar Kumar of India also conceded 92 in an ODI innings, against New Zealand in Kanpur in 2017-18.In England’s World Cup game against Afghanistan, all 22 players got off the mark. How rare is this? asked Dennis Clarke from England

Everyone in the match between Afghanistan and England in Delhi in this World Cup opened their account with the bat (in fact all 22 players scored at least 2). This was the 27th such instance in all one-day internationals, but the first time it has happened in the World Cup.There’s been just one instance of this in T20Is, in a low-scoring match between Ireland (127) and Nepal (111 for 9) in Al Amerat (Oman) in February 2022.Mitch Marsh and David Warner are the third pair of openers to score centuries of consecutive balls in an ODI, and the second in World Cups•Getty ImagesThe Australian openers reached their hundreds off consecutive balls against Pakistan. Has this happened before? asked Ronald Kamphuis from Australia, and several others

David Warner and Mitchell Marsh reached their centuries against Pakistan in Bengaluru off successive balls from Mohammad Nawaz in the 31st over.There are three known previous instances of this, one of them in the World Cup: in 2015 in Hobart, Kumar Sangakkara and Tillakaratne Dilshan of Sri Lanka reached three figures off successive balls from Scotland’s Kyle Coetzer. It had earlier happened at the Docklands Stadium in Melbourne in August 2000 (Steve Waugh and Michael Bevan for Australia vs South Africa) and in Kolkata in December 2009 (Gautam Gambhir and Virat Kohli – his first international century – for India vs Sri Lanka).This answer comes with the usual health warning that our database does not contain ball-by-ball details of most matches before 2002, so there may be some other instances before that.Has any country made a World Cup defence worse than England’s in this tournament? asked Nick Johnson from England

Well, the qualifying stage hasn’t finished, so England might yet surprise us, although the maths is against them after the defeat by India. I’m sure there will be thousands of words written on the reasons the holders failed to perform this time.As for previous poor defences of the World Cup, the limpest were mostly in the 1990s. Australia were the holders in 1992, and played all their matches bar one at home – yet finished fifth in the qualifying table and failed to reach the semi-finals. Pakistan won that one, but in 1996 went out in the quarter-final. They had also played most of their games at home, although the quarter-final loss to India was in Bengaluru. Sri Lanka were the victors that year, but in England in 1999 they won only two group games, and failed to qualify for the Super Six stage.In 2011, defending champions Australia went out in the quarter-finals, beaten by India in Ahmedabad.Apart from this, the champions have always reached the semi-final at least; West Indies (in 1979) and Australia (2003 and 2007) have successfully defended the title. If you want to do your own research, then this table is probably the best place to start.Shiva Jayaraman of ESPNcricinfo’s stats team helped with some of the above answers.Use our feedback form, or the Ask Steven Facebook page to ask your stats and trivia questions

The new captain was at the heart of a hard-fought victory over rivals Mumbai Indians

Alagappan Muthu15-Apr-20242:54

Was Hardik Pandya’s decision to bowl the final over sound?

MS Dhoni knows sixes. So, when his eyes widened, and he pushed his lips up and out, as he watched the ball sail over the boundary with an appreciative nod, it’s proof that something special has happened.Akash Madhwal was bowling. He had seen the batter charge at him. Making room outside leg stump. So he corrected his course. And dragged his line wide. Ruturaj Gaikwad was mid-move when he realised he was out of position.Mumbai Indians vs Chennai Super Kings is the biggest rivalry in the IPL. And that’s not just for the fans. The teams soak in it too. It showed in their tactics on Sunday night; in how much work had gone into outdoing each other. Of course, there are times when even the best laid-plans are busted by individual brilliance.Like Gaikwad – out of shape – managing to reach a ball he wasn’t meant to and striking it for six over point.Related

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Mumbai made similar moves and their opener was at the centre of it all too. Rohit Sharma vs left-arm pace is love story made in hell. CSK would have hoped to exploit that with Mustafizur Rahman, who has been in form this tournament. Except as soon as he came on, he was hit for four. Rohit kept doing this. Attacking the first ball of the over. It got to the point where he was toying with CSK.Once, he hurtled out of his crease, making room for himself to lift Mustafizur over cover. Next, he shuffled across his stumps, because he knew the bowler would pull his length back and bring his line tighter, and as reward for all of that quick thinking, he found himself in the perfect place to do a little redecoration of the Wankhede. His six crashed into the roof.This was cricket on the cutting edge of the cutting edge. And it was so much fun.Ravindra Jadeja had the biggest smile on his face as he finished his spell. He had been hit for a reverse-swept boundary but still gave away only six runs in the over. Mumbai had tried to smash him almost every ball. Rohit even tried to reverse sweep him, twice. And he doesn’t do reverse sweeps. He’d played only seven of those in his entire IPL career coming into this game. Once again, those were attempts to get a boundary off the first ball of the over.Ruturaj Gaikwad scored 69 off 40 balls even after dropping himself down the order•BCCIAccording to ESPNcricinfo’s ball-by-ball data, Mumbai brought out a big shot to 14 of Jadeja’s deliveries and he turned seven of them into dots or singles. CSK’s left-arm bowling machine had to do something he hates in order to succeed like that. He gave up the stumps. He bowled wide. Returns of 4-0-37-0 doesn’t do justice to his effort. The corresponding figures for Matheesha Pathirana (12 and 8) Tushar Deshpande (11 and 7) and Shardul Thakur (13 and 7) showcase just how good the whole team had to be to defend a total at the Wankhede.CSK’s win in the end owed as much to the fact that there wasn’t a lot of dew on the ground as there has been previously in Mumbai. Their slower balls into the pitch were sticking, so much so that they were able to drag a rampaging Rohit back. He had raced to 66 in 39. Then, he took 12 deliveries to score 12 runs. That kind of deceleration, especially in the back ten, is usually telling. He did go on to bring up a century. He did not celebrate it.”In the middle, when Rohit was going strong, we felt game is sliding a little,” Thakur told the host broadcaster. “And when I came on to bowl, I felt let’s be brave here and make him play to the bigger side [they weren’t playing on the centre wicket], challenge him to hit me on the bigger side, if he can clear the boundary, well give him full marks but if he can’t, then [that] might be turning point of the game.”2:45

‘Dhoni may be surprising even himself’

The night ended with Gaikwad raising his fist in the air, his head ever so slightly bowed. He was taking a moment for himself. This was the game that he finally became CSK’s captain. took the decision to give up his spot as opener – which is crucial to the way he bats because he is a touch player – to Ajinkya Rahane in order to give him the best chance of success because he was playing with a niggle. This little shift also enabled CSK to have their best pace-hitter out in the middle at all the times Jasprit Bumrah came on to bowl. That head-to-head only lasted four balls and yielded three runs but check out what Gaikwad did against the other two specialist quicks: 47 runs in 21 balls with four fours and four sixes, one of which, a picture perfect, straight bat, simple extension of defence against Gerald Coetzee, who is in the running for the fastest bowler of IPL 2024, had him literally licking his lips.Cricket on the cutting edge. So much fun.CSK might have been slow to start. They even allowed a powerplay over to sneak by without a single boundary, and were 48 for 1 at the end of six, but this is all by design. They conserve wickets and leverage their batting depth unlike any other side in the IPL. The numbers bear it out. Since 2021, CSK are the quickest-scoring team in the last ten overs (9.79 rpo), with the most fours (316) and the most sixes (254).On Sunday night, they made sure eight of the back ten went for double-digits, peaking with Dhoni smashing three sixes in three balls off the opposition captain. Then, they prevented it from happening to them by taking the pace off – CSK bowled 27 slower balls that cost them just eight runs an over as opposed to MI’s 13 slower balls that were smashed for nearly 12 an over. The difference might well have been in how Gaikwad’s men kept exhorting the Mumbai line-up to see if they can clear the longer side of the ground. They did that by digging it into the surface instead of floating it up on a length.1:35

Gavaskar on Hardik: ‘Ordinary bowling, ordinary captaincy’

“This was a repeated [used] pitch today,” Thakur added, “On the 11th, MI played on the same pitch and I think in Wankhede whenever the pitch is repeated, slower ones work better the next game and we felt apart from Pathirana I think we felt we should keep bowling slower ones into the pitch and at some point we’ll be able to get them out.”When Tim David was at the crease, Mustafizur wanted to target him from around the wicket. But realising that it was vital to keep away from the Australian’s hitting arc, the CSK captain overruled his strike bowler and made him come over the wicket. At the cost of a wide and a six, they dismissed MI’s final hope of victory.In their last game, after failing spectacularly in the effort to make sure Dhoni hit the winning runs, Gaikwad thought he might make up by letting take the lead as the players came together to shake hands. Dhoni would have none of it. He hung back. He knows new history is being written at CSK. And now after beating Mumbai in Mumbai, everybody does as well.

The first team to opt to bat in WPL 2024, Giants put on an exhilarating display having previously struggled for runs in the season

Ashish Pant07-Mar-20243:06

Takeaways: Mooney and Wolvaardt drive Giants’ first win of the season

“We are going a bit rogue. We are trying to be nice and brave, nice and positive, do something a little bit different and see if we can shake things up.”At the toss of the 13th game of WPL 2024, Gujarat Giants captain Beth Mooney did what no captain has done this season. She chose to bat, and asked her team to be brave and positive and see if they could shake things up.Easier said than done, especially when the Giants were the only team without points after four defeats. So, Mooney decided to walk the talk along with Laura Wolvaardt, their giant opening stand setting the stage for a 19-run win against Royal Challengers Bangalore.While Mooney’s decision to bat might have been a surprise, it wasn’t entirely a left-field choice. In the first 11 games in Bengaluru, there was assistance for the fast bowlers early on. And with dew making run-scoring earlier in the second half of the game, bowling first was a no-brainer. Delhi proved to be different. On Monday, the Delhi Capitals had smashed 192 for 4 after getting sent into bat by Mumbai Indians, who fell short in the chase.Related

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Giants seal first win after Mooney-Wolvaardt opening act

Mooney and Wolvaardt had an example to follow but they had to beat their powerplay demons first. Coming into this game, the Giants had made 43 for 3, 29 for 1, 41 for 1, and 41 for 3 in the first six overs this season. Their highest opening stand in the WPL was 41 and they were the only team without a century stand in the tournament. For the next 13 overs, Mooney and Wolvaardt set that record straight.Wolvaardt set the pace. When in full flow, there are few better timers of the cricket ball than the South African batter. She had a look of steely determination from the get-go as she pushed Sophie Devine through backward point for a couple of runs. Then came a whip between mid-on and midwicket that sped across the turf followed by a clip to the fine leg fence. Wolvaardt was in the zone.At the other end, Mooney, whose four innings in the tournament had yielded just 60 runs, began with a crisp cover-drive off Renuka Singh. When these two teams had met earlier in Bengaluru, Renuka had taken 2 for 14. In Delhi, she had already conceded 12 in her first. With the seamers going for plenty, Smriti Mandhana turned to spin in the third over, but the openers were in no mood to stop. By the time the first six overs were done, Giants had raced to 59 for 0 – their highest powerplay score of the season and second-highest ever in the WPL.The leather hunt continued for RCB even after the powerplay ended. Georgia Wareham was creamed through covers by Wolvaardt, Mooney smashed Ekta Bisht for back-to-back fours, Asha Sobhana was taken for 11 in her opening over, while Wolvaardt crunched Ellyse Perry for three successive fours and raced to her fifty off 32 balls. Giants raieed their hundred in 9.3 overs, and Mooney brought up her half-century off 32 balls as well.Laura Wolvaardt and Beth Mooney put on their highest opening stand in Delhi•BCCIThere were two stand-out features in the Mooney-Wolvaardt partnership: how they worked the left-right combination to their advantage – RCB bowled 11 wides during their stand – and how they relied on timing rather than power and played risk-free cricket. The duo hit 21 fours and no sixes while scoring 140 in 13 overs for the first wicket. It was a tactic, Wolvaardt said, she had planned going into the game.”The outfield was really quick and obviously having the one short side, I just tried to place it, hit gaps. I knew that if I timed it well it would hopefully go into the boundary,” she said. “I didn’t want to get too ahead of myself and get sucked into the short side of it too early.”By the time Wolvaardt was run out for a 45-ball 76, she and Mooney had already crafted the second-highest partnership in the WPL. While Giants did lose a bit of steam in the end, Mooney finished unbeaten on 85 off 51 balls, taking her team to the highest total of the tournament so far – 199 for 5. It was a monumental achievement for a side that had failed to pass 150 even once.”I am just happy to contribute,” Mooney said after the game. “I have obviously been pretty disappointed with my output so far with the bat. It’s been a tough tournament for Gujarat. My job as a leader is to try and lead from the front and contribute as much as possible.”She’s one of the nicest people on the planet. She is really easy to talk to,” Mooney said of Wolvaardt. “I have always been a big fan of how she goes about her cricket from afar obviously. I haven’t played a lot of cricket with her before. Hopefully, I have helped her as much she has helped me, but I thought she was outstanding tonight and certainly set the tone for us.”Mooney and Wolvaardt’s positive approach rubbed off on the other Giants players as well. They looked more switched on than they did in the Bengaluru leg. Giants still have a long way to go, and they will hope their win against RCB is the first step of a late comeback in the WPL.

Their onslaught left CSK resorting to Plan B and Plan C pretty quickly and even start thinking about Plan D, head coach Fleming said

Hemant Brar11-May-20242:37

Review: Who was better – Gill or Sudharsan? Did CSK get overseas combination wrong?

Shubman Gill generally celebrates his hundreds by bowing down with a smile on his face. There is some wholesomeness to it. But Friday was different. After reaching the three-figure mark against Chennai Super Kings in Ahmedabad, he jumped, threw an air punch and let out an expletive.It was an outburst of pent-up anger after his lean form and Gujarat Titans’ three successive losses that had left them on the verge of elimination from IPL 2024.In a season where every other batting unit has been pushing the envelope, GT, the 2022 champions and 2023 runners-up, seemed to be stuck in the past. Before this game, their scoring rate in the powerplay was 7.23 and in the middle overs 7.70 – both the worst in this IPL.It reflected in the results too: four wins in 11 games. A loss against CSK would have knocked them out in front of their home crowd. But Gill and Sai Sudharsan changed the script and smashed a hundred each to keep their faint hopes alive.Related

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Until then, it had been a mixed season for Gill. He had started well, scoring 255 runs in the first six games at an average of 51.00 and a strike rate of 151.78. In the next five, though, he could manage only 67 runs at a strike rate of 101.51. Three times he was dismissed in the single digits.Gill’s opening partner, Wriddhiman Saha, was struggling even more. In nine games, he had an average of 15.11 and a strike rate of 118.26. The lack of runs and momentum at the top of the order regularly exposed GT’s brittle middle order.Sudharsan, their No. 3, was scoring runs but at a strike rate of 131.67. In IPL 2024, that was on the lower side even for an anchor, especially when your openers were not firing.On Friday, though, everything fell into place for GT. Saha was out with a niggle, so Sudharsan got an opportunity to open the innings with Gill. The left-right combination benefitted GT in two ways. First, it meant one batter always had the shorter boundary to his leg side. Second, it did not allow CSK to use their spinners the way they would have liked.Gill and Sudharsan took advantage and plundered 210 in just 104 balls, the joint-highest opening stand in the IPL. At one stage, it was more of a contest between Gill and Sudharsan than between GT and CSK. After 16 overs, both batters were on 96 off 48, and the race to score the 100th IPL hundred was on.2:11

McClenaghan praises Sai Sudharsan’s maturity

It was Gill who had that honour. Facing his 50th ball, he got a full toss from Simarjeet Singh that he duly flicked to the square-leg boundary. On the last ball of the same over, Sudharsan also brought up his hundred, and he too got there in 50 balls.While the two finished similarly, they had started their innings in contrasting manners, with Gill doing the bulk of the scoring in the powerplay.CSK had opted to bowl hoping the red-soil pitch would help spinners early. Gill disrupted that plan in the opening over itself. Facing his first ball, he hit Mitchell Santner for four. Two balls later, he sashayed down the track and launched the spinner for a straight six. By the end of the third over, he had raced to 20 off eight balls.Gill’s intent took GT to 58 for no loss at the end of the powerplay. It may not sound a lot – Sunrisers Hyderabad have breached 100 twice in the first six this season – but it was the second-best start for GT.Meanwhile, Sudharsan was on 39 off 29 after eight overs. It was looking like yet another anchor-ish innings from him but then he pressed on. In the next three balls, he slogged Ravindra Jadeja for a four and a six to bring up his fifty.He followed it up with successive sixes off Simarjeet and successive fours off Daryl Mitchell. With a slog-swept six off Santner, he moved to 92 off 44 balls, leaving Gill far behind, on 66 off 34.Gill narrowed the gap, and then overtook Sudharsan, by hitting three sixes in four balls off Mitchell. The second of those sixes came via a drop from Deshpande who parried the ball over the long-off boundary.The CSK bowlers had no reply to Shubman Gill and B Sai Sudharsan’s onslaught•Associated Press”I think we were through Plan B and Plan C pretty quickly and maybe started getting into Plan D,” CSK head coach Stephen Fleming said after the match. “It was the batting of high calibre. Sometimes you have to doff the cap and say well played, and on this occasion, I thought those two were great.”We were pretty shell-shocked and even our fielding, which has been good over the years, was put on the back foot. There were catches dropped and that was a little bit unusual for us.”CSK did make a comeback towards the end, conceding only 22 in the last three overs. But Gill and Sudharsan had caused irreparable damage by then.

The assistant coach during Scotland’s run to their maiden World Cup is New Zealand’s frontline offspinner at the tournament

Shashank Kishore02-Oct-2024In June 2022, Leigh Kasperek, at 30, found herself at a crossroads. She had just lost her New Zealand central contract and wasn’t sure of her immediate international future. But a trip to Scotland to see family that winter opened new doors.A casual stop at the Scotland camp to catch-up with old friends led to her stumbling upon an opportunity to coach. In April this year, Kasperek was Scotland’s assistant coach at the T20 World Cup Qualifier in the UAE. Now, Kasperek has returned to Dubai to be a part of the World Cup, not as a coach though, but as New Zealand’s frontline offspinner.On Thursday, when Scotland play their first-ever women’s T20 World Cup game against Bangladesh, Kasperek “will have a small piece of my heart” with the team that she was a part of not long ago.Related

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“When one door shuts, you have no option but to try and see how another one opens,” Kasperek says philosophically. “Watching the Scotland girls go about their work [during her stint with the team] and enjoying themselves was a good reminder of why you play the game.”Now, as a player, I am just trying to embrace that a little bit in my own cricket moving forward. It [coaching] probably gave me a little bit of an outside perspective. It’s pretty funny because when I was coaching on the sidelines, I felt very relaxed. I just enjoyed watching the girls go out there, and I have been able to take that little bit more of that into my playing career again.”At Scotland, Kasperek was coach to many whom she grew up playing with. Like Abbi Aitken-Drummond, the former Scotland captain. They played pathways cricket together until Kasperek decided to embark on an adventure of a lifetime.In Dubai, Kasperek and Aitken-Drummond may not cross paths on the field as New Zealand and Scotland are in different groups – the top two from each group make the semi-finals. “I’m looking forward to seeing her in the semi-finals,” Kasperek laughs.”Abbi has gone through some injuries, had a kid and now has fought her way back in. For someone like her who has gone through the tough times, it means a lot to make it to a World Cup.

“Watching the Scotland girls go about their work and enjoying themselves was a good reminder of why you play the game. Now, as a player, I am just trying to embrace that a little bit in my own cricket moving forward”Leigh Kasperek

“Priyanaz Chatterji and I played Under-17s [together]. So yeah, it was an obvious decision to be able to work with them in a different capacity [when the opportunity came]. It was really rewarding and enjoyable. I’ll be rooting for them when they play that first game.”Kasperek’s own career received a massive fillip earlier this year. Having been recalled during the T20I leg of a tough England tour in June-July, she will now feature in her fourth T20 World Cup, having played previously in 2016, 2018 and 2020.”I actually first got a call-up last July as a replacement for the Sri Lanka tour, but it was totally out of the blue,” Kasperek says. “I was meant to be away in the Netherlands with the Scotland team but had to pull out of the tour when I got the call.”I came back from Sri Lanka and kept working with Scotland and went to the pre-qualifiers in Spain, where we came up against sides like Italy and France. Then they [Scotland] had a great series in Ireland. Then I came back to play for Wellington in the [New Zealand] domestic summer. So yeah, it’s been quite an interesting journey.”Scotland were keen on having her as part of the backroom for the World Cup, but she wasn’t going to let a chance of playing for New Zealand pass.Scotland are playing their first women’s cricket World Cup, across formats•ICC/Getty Images”It would’ve been lovely to play in Bangladesh [the original hosts for this World Cup], with all those spinning wickets,” she chuckles. “But I guess the UAE isn’t all that bad in terms of pitches either. As a spinner, it’s just trying to add more tricks to your bowling in terms of change of pace and angles, to stay one step ahead.”Another change in the women’s game [compared to the men’s] is only having four fielders out [after the powerplay]. So, I guess, in a sense you’re slightly limited in what lines you can go with. Sometimes you feel like you can bowl really well and get hit around the park and it can be the other way round too, so yeah, I’m always on my toes.”Kasperek’s perspective on her own cricket may have changed in recent times, but not the drive to keep getting better. Her decision to leave Otago and move to Wellington in early 2021, once cricket resumed post-pandemic, is a prime example.”I made the move because at the time it had the best training structure in New Zealand,” she says. “I just thought if I wanted to try and kick on a little bit with my cricket then, they had like full-time coaches and great facilities. I just thought that I wanted to try and give myself the best chance to improve. And I really enjoyed the city, the vibe around the team we’ve got there.”Kasperek still divides her time between New Zealand and Scotland, but there’s more clarity and purpose to her pursuits. “It’s been hectic, but also very rewarding,” she says. “I guess I really had to invest in other parts of my life outside of [playing] cricket. It was forced upon me [because of not having a contract].”Having got into coaching, I feel a lot less daunted about the future planning. Even if I won’t get many more opportunities [to play], the place I’m in today, I’ll be okay. I’ve enjoyed coaching and would love to go down that path.”For now, winning as many games as possible for New Zealand will do.

After retiring at 32, she went for the road less taken, and is now at the forefront among former India internationals who are in the coaching space

Shashank Kishore26-Aug-2024Men have predominantly dominated coaching structures in India. But the advent of the Women’s Premier League (WPL) has slowly brought about a breeze of change. VR Vanitha, the former India batter, is one of the changemakers. For the past two seasons, Vanitha has been in charge of the men’s set-up at Shivamogga Lions in the Maharaja Trophy T20, the league run by the Karnataka State Cricket Association.Before her involvement with the Lions, she was also part of Royal Challengers Bengaluru as a scout of the men’s team. That association extended to the women’s setup too when the WPL began, as she became their scout and fielding coach.At a time when recently retired internationals have gone down the media route, especially with avenues opening up due to the demand for commentary in regional Indian languages, apart from Hindi and English, Vanitha’s post-retirement route stands out.”My very first thought upon taking up this assignment was if people will accept me,” Vanitha tells ESPNcricinfo. “But I always knew, my experiences will help me in this journey. My goal in the coaching journey is to complete what I couldn’t as a player.”Vanitha retired relatively young, at 32, after a spate of injuries kept pushing her lower and lower in the pecking order. She finished her career with an underwhelming six ODIs and 16 T20Is. There was a highlight, though: being part of an Indian team that recorded their first-ever series win in Australia in January 2016.Vanitha admits to being challenged by stereotypes early on. “If anything went wrong, by muscle memory, whether people meant it or not, the first reaction would be, ‘oh, why have you got a female coach? That’s why. Maybe it’s time to look elsewhere,'” she said. “The process of change [in perception] has been gradual.”Vanitha realised early that the only way to fight the perception battle was to be confident of her craft. International players are exempt from taking the Level-1 course at the BCCI’s National Cricket Academy. While former players see this as a head start, Vanitha didn’t.”In a way, retiring early was my biggest advantage, but coaching is not a right,” Vanitha says, “Physically, I could bring in a lot of freshness and energy. Previously, what our coaches were lacking is the knowledge of being part of T20 setups.”Having played the format and having understood what was lacking gave me perspective on what I needed to work on. Being a former international can only take you so far, you still have to work for it.”Vanitha was part of the India team that recorded their first-ever series win in Australia in January 2016•Getty ImagesIn addition to her Level-1 and Level-2, Vanitha has pursued an international coaching certification from Cricket Victoria in Melbourne.”Doing Level-1 gave me the base,” Vanitha explains. “Like the basics of batting, the grip-stance-back lift and the downswing. If I understand these concepts, it becomes a lot easier. You understand why batters get out to a certain mode of dismissals more than others. You understand the biomechanics element. You get a clear picture that with a certain back-lift with a certain setup, what the pros and cons are [for that player]. That is when I realised it is so important for coaches to do Level-1 because you start seeing these aspects.”When you’re playing, you understand only your point of view. You understand only what worked for you and what didn’t. But going through the rigours of a coaching course helps you understand systems, structures, the fundamentals we can so easily brush aside, sometimes because as internationals your ego takes over and you think ‘oh but I know this, why do I need a coaching session or someone else to tell me?'””Truth be said, not many accept this for the fact that women are doing a lot of things, a lot of multiple things like scouting,” she says. “But over time, I’ve realised if you put in the hard work and build a bank of practical knowledge, people won’t have a choice but to accept you eventually.”But I’ve never looked for validation from anybody. I felt that if I continue to do my job in the sense of putting out my knowledge and understanding of the game, I don’t think people should have any problem in terms of accepting. But again, it’s a battle. I won’t deny that.”She also credits other coaches for her reading of the game today. “Growing up, Irfan Sait was a massive influence,” she says. “As I got into cricket, I learnt from T Dilip [India fielding coach] at the NCA. His technical knowledge was impeccable. The number of questions I would ask him back and forth…I later realised that while asking questions, I learnt a lot of techniques and tactics.”RX Murali in Bengaluru was extremely good. I learned a lot about the power grain and T20-specific training. And with strength and conditioning, there was Varun Shetty. I picked up a lot about movement patterns, body alignment, and biomechanics. These four people have made a huge impact. Interactions with them while I was playing was like my under-graduation and then the last two years have been like getting a PG degree.”

“My dream is obviously to work for the Indian team”VR Vanitha

Now after seeing the bird’s eye view of coaching and player management over the past two years, she feels there are some aspects where women’s cricket in India can be better.”At the age-group level at least, we don’t believe in quantity, but they believe in quantity,” Vanitha says of how Australia differs from India. “A majority of work goes in during the pre-season there. Here, we tend to only work season-to-season. We don’t tend to monitor players as much as they do there.”Partly that is because players aren’t contracted here, so they’re by themselves during the off-season. So there is no continuity. You want a system where once the season ends, you want to see players you work with be accountable towards their recovery, off-season drills, work on their skillsets so that when they’re back for the next season, you’re able to take off from where you left off, and not start from scratch.”Vanitha, now 34, is proud of the strides she has been able to take over the past two years. But she aims even higher.”I want to give myself two more years of coaching, and then to Level-3,” she says. “My dream is obviously to work for the Indian team. That has always been my desire. If there’s a choice to make between a franchise and BCCI, I would just walk out of a franchise cricket because my desire and passion lie in representing the country. And I really want to get closer to that.”

It was an unfortunate toss to win, but India will look back at how they faced up to the challenge and question their methods

Sidharth Monga17-Oct-20241:53

Should India be worried about Australia after 46 all out?

If you were to fantasise a scenario in which New Zealand, coming off a 2-0 loss in Sri Lanka, were to challenge India in India – unbeaten for 18 straight series at home – the fantasy would have looked quite close to, if not exactly like, what happened in Bengaluru. It had been raining in the lead-up to the Test, the first day was washed out, overcast skies were expected, and as the final piece in the fantasy, you would expect New Zealand to insert India and run through them.The last bit of it, in fact, changed a little. New Zealand wanted to bat first, but were denied the death wish by India. That’s because of the dry pitch. If anything, India were clearer in what they wanted to do: bat first and play three spinners. New Zealand’s second spinner was Glenn Phillips, and they still wanted to bat first.With that stroke of luck, New Zealand put India through the wringer of good length and consistent seam movement. In the first session, Matt Henry drew an average seam movement of 1.3 degrees, Tim Southee 1 degree and Will O’Rourke 0.8. Himanish Ganjoo, analyst and cricket writer, tweeted it was not just the seam – 0.87 degrees median seam in 30 overs compared to 0.5 degrees in the last three years in India – but also 20% extra bounce compared to the last three years.Related

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• India 46 all out as Henry and Conway create New Zealand's dream day

Once both the sides misjudged the conditions and India were the unfortunate ones to win the toss, the New Zealand seam bowlers were just perfect for the conditions. No drive balls, about half the balls on good length, and the extra bounce for O’Rourke.That said, India will look back at how they faced up to the challenge and question their methods. This was not like the 36 all out, the closest such event in recent memory, where the ball actually seamed less that morning and India were bundled out in just 32 false shots. Here India batted almost out of muscle memory and hoped to just hit the bowlers off their length. It took 75 false shots for India to be bowled out, which is not a million miles away from about the 10 it usually takes for a wicket on an average in Test cricket.Yashasvi Jaiswal started off leaving the ball, but drove loosely to just the 12th ball he faced. There was no reason why he should have drove at that ball in particular: it was neither overpitched nor wide. He tried to walk at the bowlers to cut down the movement, but there were 21 false shots in his 63-ball stay, 10 of those drives and aggressive shots. He could just as easily have got out to a shot that looked ugly.Rohit Sharma was not so lucky. He was bowled the first time he tried to hit out. Rishabh Pant enjoyed Jaiswal-like luck, surviving 20 false shots and a dropped catch before nicking to second slip. Sarfaraz Khan, asked to bat higher than he does in domestic cricket, took the attacking option third ball with no luck.KL Rahul was out for a six-ball duck•Getty ImagesWhile it sounds brave and selfless of Virat Kohli and Sarfaraz to bat out of position, India will also question if KL Rahul was not the best man for No. 3 in these conditions. Rahul is one of only two Asian opening batters to have scored a century in all three of Australia, South Africa and England. Rahul’s resolute old-fashioned grinding down of England, in partnership with Rohit, was the reason why India drew 2-2 in England.If India had a week to prepare for the conditions they got in Bengaluru, chances are they would have buckled down similarly. Instead they did what came to most of them instinctively: counterattack. There is logic to that too, as you don’t want to be sitting ducks on a seaming pitch. You can’t dismiss this thought process straight off the bat, but as the control figures and the final score shows, you are leaving a lot to luck if you keep on attacking in these conditions and if the bowlers are not erring in length at all.Traditional wisdom suggests you try to ride out the period of extravagant seam movement and hope that you still have one or two specialist batters left when the seam becomes softer and the sun comes out. Here, India didn’t trust the traditional wisdom, either because things were so different to their expectations that they were too shocked to respond or because they consciously decided not to do so. The ones who did – Kohli and Rahul – were unlucky to get out before they could get in.You can still get out for 46 or 36 doing that, but you can look back and say you tried to give yourselves a chance and then move on and hope for better luck another day. India did just that in Australia after 36 all out. This day, you suspect, won’t be so easy to erase from memory.

A rare come-from-behind series win, as well as a shutout for Pakistan pace bowling

Sampath Bandarupalli26-Oct-20242 Test series won by Pakistan after losing the first match. Their previous win was the three-match series against Zimbabwe in 1995, which they won 2-1 after an innings defeat in the first Test.823 for 7 England’s first innings total in Multan, the highest by any team in a Test series they lost. The previous highest was 760 for 7 by Sri Lanka against India in 2009, in the first Test of the three-match series, which they lost 2-0.4 Consecutive Test series at home for Pakistan without a win before this one. Their previous series win at home came against South Africa at the start of 2021. They lost series against Australia, England and Bangladesh in between, while a series against New Zealand ended in a 0-0 draw.4 Number of six-plus wicket hauls for Pakistan in the series against England – two by Sajid Khan and Noman Ali apiece. These are the most six-plus wicket hauls for Pakistan bowlers in a Test series.Pakistan is also the first team to have four or more six-plus wicket hauls in a Test series since India at home against Australia in 2017.1999 The last instance of two ten-wicket match hauls for Pakistan in a Test series was against India in India. Saqlain Mushtaq took ten wickets in both matches of that series – in Chennai and Delhi.2015 The previous instance of Pakistan winning a Test series against England was by a 2-0 margin in the UAE. England won two of the previous four series against Pakistan, while the other two ended in draws.50.28 Percentage of runs scored by England in this series came in just one innings – 823 for 7 in Multan. It is the highest percentage of a team’s series aggregate scored in a single innings (Min: 5 team innings in series).The previous highest was 44.26 by Australia in the three-match series against South Africa in 1997, where almost half of their series aggregate of 1419 runs came in their first innings of the first Test – 628 for 8.0 Number of balls bowled by the pace bowlers for Pakistan in Rawalpindi. It is only the second instance in men’s Tests where all balls bowled by a team’s bowlers were by spinners. The other such instance was by Bangladesh in 2018 in Mirpur against West Indies, where all 96 overs they bowled were by the spinners.India did not field a pace bowler in their line-up against West Indies at Brabourne in 1966, where they bowled 226 overs, but the mixture bowlers – Motganhalli Jaisimha and Ajit Wadekar took the new ball before spinners stepped in.