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Justin Langer, the former Australia assistant coach, has urged the national selectors to retain Phillip Hughes for the third Test against India in Mohali

Brydon Coverdale11-Mar-2013Justin Langer, the former Australia assistant coach, has urged the national selectors to retain Phillip Hughes for the third Test against India in Mohali, despite his awful results against spin in the first two Tests. David Warner also called for patience, saying he had not seen Hughes face much spin bowling before and that it would be only a matter of time before he worked out the best way to handle quality slow bowling.Hughes is in danger of being dropped when the third Test begins on Thursday after having failed in the tour match in Chennai and then in the first two Tests. His work against spin has been especially disappointing and he has barely looked like being able to score unless the fast men are on; the 51 balls of spin Hughes faced in the two first two Tests brought him six runs and cost him his wicket four times.But Hughes is far from the only Australian batsman to have struggled in India. Ricky Ponting did not score a century in India until his ninth Test there across five tours and finished with a record of 662 Test runs in India at 26.48. Hughes has not played Test cricket in India until the past three weeks and already he is in a precarious position, having only just regained his Test place for the home series against Sri Lanka following Ponting’s retirement.Already his batting coach Neil d’Costa has attacked Cricket Australia for refusing to allow him to give Hughes a crash course in how to handle Indian conditions before the tour, when Hughes was piling up runs in the ODI side. And Langer, who until late last year was the Australia assistant coach, said patience was required when young batsmen were exposed to new conditions.”I would be so disappointed if he didn’t play the next Test. He has been brilliant again all summer,” Langer said in Adelaide. “He is our most exciting and best performed young player and I hope they stick with him. Phil is a young kid who is playing Test cricket in India for the first time and you can’t just keep chopping and changing all the time. He has missed out but has shown over time he has the capacity to know how to score runs and work out strategies to score runs.”There is no question that Hughes has been in form this summer. Until the last round of matches he was on top of the Sheffield Shield run tally with 673 runs at 56.08. At the age of 24, Hughes has already compiled 21 first-class hundreds. But he is generally at his best when the ball is coming on to the bat, which is not the case in India. Warner, until last season a New South Wales team-mate of Hughes, said he should be given time to adjust.”I haven’t really seen a lot of spin bowling against Hughesy, so I just think it’s more of a time thing and being patient,” Warner said. “We all have to score runs and have a job to do. Phil is in a patch at the moment where he isn’t scoring as many runs as he would like, but I’m sure if the selectors stick by him he will come good. He is the type of player who always puts runs on the board, especially when he scores a hundred he scores a big hundred.”One of the problems that has afflicted Hughes and the rest of the batsmen on this trip has been a lack of quality spin bowling at Sheffield Shield level, meaning a majority of their experience is against fast men. The Shield pitches in recent years have often been green seamers and matches can be over quickly, with spinners either hardly required or asked to bowl in conditions that are more suitable for the fast bowlers.This summer in the Sheffield Shield, the top 15 wicket takers are all fast bowlers and the pitches are at their most favourable for the seamers early in the season, when the Test batsmen are more likely to be playing for their states. Warner said to help young batsmen become more accustomed to spin bowling the state teams should consider setting up centre-wicket training sessions when matches finish early, as the Test squad has done over the past two matches in India.”If you’re playing a four day game and the game finishes on day three, why not go out and practice on day four?” Warner said. “You’re a professional athlete, you’ve got the whole thing there for you on day four to practice as much as you want. It’s like us having a net out in the middle of the wicket [in India]. You very rarely get that opportunity in Australia. They will be watering the wicket straight away preparing for the next Shield game. It’s fantastic to get that opportunity.”

Pune Warriors have suffered a setback to their IPL preparations with a knee injury ruling out the Australian allrounder James Hopes

Nagraj Gollapudi24-Mar-2012Pune Warriors have suffered a setback to their IPL preparations with a knee injury ruling out the Australian allrounder James Hopes. That means Warriors now have two foreign players’ slots left to fill after the IPL governing council allowed the franchise an extra foreigner this season (in addition to the mandatory ten slots) to make up for the absence of the injured Yuvraj Singh.Hopes was bought by Warriors only last month from Delhi Daredevils. He was the second overseas player the franchise had signed this season, West Indies’ Marlon Samuels being the first.An experienced allrounder, Hopes recently led Queensland to the Sheffield Shield title with a half-century in the first innings and a five-wicket haul in the second.”It is definitely a setback to lose out on a senior player like Hopes. Having played the IPL in the previous years he would have been a handy player,” a Warriors official said.The official said the franchise was in no hurry to fill the two vacant slots. “It also does not necessarily mean we need to find an allrounder as a replacement for Hopes,” he said.According to the official there had been no fresh development on the Michael Clarke front. Warriors were reportedly talking to Clarke about him coming in as a replacement for Yuvraj, but nothing has been finalised yet.Edited by Dustin Silgardo

Ireland’s victory over England has thrown Group B wide open, but the match between Bangladesh and West Indies in Mirpur is still a crucial one, and both captains think they can win

Sidharth Monga in Mirpur03-Mar-2011Months before the World Cup started, when the groups were drawn up, instinctively one match was looked upon as the potential knockout before the knockouts. That match is upon us. Bangladesh, ranked higher than West Indies in the ICC one-day rankings, and not undeservingly so looking at the results over the last year or two, meet West Indies at home. However, Ireland and England have jumbled up the equations a bit, and this match is not as simple as a winners-go-to-quarters affair.That doesn’t make the game any less importance though. The team that loses this one will have to travel a long road back into contention. The captains of the sides sought to not talk the game up.”To me nothing has changed,” Darren Sammy said of the upset that Ireland pulled off on Wednesday night to become one of the outside contenders themselves. “Every team in this tournament came out to give a good account of themselves. For me every match is a very important match. We have played two games, we focused on each team on the day we played. Now we focus on Bangladesh, and are looking to go out there and execute whatever plans we have in stock.”Shakib Al Hasan, the Bangladesh captain, said this was not their last chance. “Obviously we want to go to the next round,” Shakib said. “It is not as if we to win tomorrow because we will have three more matches, but a win will surely take us a step forward.”Ireland’s win over England has thrown the group wide open, but Bangladesh do not want to think too far ahead at the moment. “I don’t know how the Ireland game will benefit us,” Shakib said. “It will do so only if we beat England too.”Shakib Al Hasan said Bangladesh’s win in the West Indies in 2009 would give them confidence•Associated Press

Coming back to Friday’s game, both the captains said they could win, the rider being if their sides played as well as they are capable of. “If we play well West Indies are definitely beatable,” Shakib said. Bangladesh swept a two-match Test series and a three-match one-day series in the West Indies in July 2009, but Shakib said he realised that was not a full-strength squad (several West Indies players had skipped the series due to a feud with the board over contracts). “That team did not have some senior players,” he said. “They have all gained in experience, and with the return of Chris Gayle, Ramnaresh Sarwan and Shivnarine Chanderpaul, they are a better side now.”But in the back of our minds we will always know that we have beaten them at their home. We will not go onto the back foot even before the start. It is our home and we have so much support. If we consider that, I think the advantage they think they have because of the return of their seniors will be neutralised.”Sammy was expectedly asked about his side being ranked lower than Bangladesh. “Cricket is played on the day,” he said. “You saw what happened on Wednesday night. England scored 327, Ireland chased it down. You can say Bangladesh are ranked higher than us, but we have to go out and play to the best of our ability. We won’t be taking them lightly, but at the end of the day, they are beatable; we have done it before.”Playing to the best of their ability seemed to both captains’ refrain of the day, and if their sides heed their call, it will be some game.

The Delhi Daredevils assistant coach has said his main aim would be to ensure a finals spot in the third season of the IPL

Cricinfo staff10-Mar-2010Eric Simons, the Delhi Daredevils assistant coach, has said his main aim would be to ensure a finals spot for his side in the third season of the IPL. Having made the semi-finals in the two previous editions, Delhi choked against eventual winners Rajasthan Royals and Deccan Chargers respectively.Simons, who is also India’s bowling coach, strongly suggested that a rotation policy was a key strategy to ensure his players’ freshness for the big games. “The key is to peak at the right time and we need to find ways for that,” Simons told the . “Rotating the players will play a key role.”He also gave his full backing to new captain Gautam Gambhir, who took over from Virender Sehwag, and said he should have no problems with the rotation policy. “He’s [Gambhir’s] a mature and clear-thinking individual,” Simons said. “He has got no ego and is the perfect man to lead. Captaincy is all about taking information from others and making the right decisions and he will be able to do that.”Simons, 48, served as South Africa’s head coach from 2002-2004 and later held various capacities at the High Performance Centre in Pretoria. He also has some coaching experience in the IPL, having worked as a consultant with Ray Jennings last year for Royal Challengers Bangalore when the tournament moved to South Africa.He will be assisting Greg Shipperd, having filled the position left vacant by Australia’s David Saker on March 3 this year, and focus on working with the large bunch of young bowlers in the Delhi squad. However, Simons said he has not had much time with the local players for the tournament beginning March 12. “I haven’t seen the local players yet. I think, after three or four nets, I should get an idea.”For a team boasting many international stars – Dirk Nannes, Paul Collingwood, Tillakaratne Dilshan, Daniel Vettori, Farveez Maharoof, David Warner, AB de Villiers, Moises Henriques, Andrew McDonald and new purchase Wayne Parnell – the choice of playing four players from the contingent could be tough.”That is where the balancing act needs to be done,” Simons told . “It is important to manage international players. We have to make sure our top players are not jaded and, hopefully, this time we can manage that. At the moment, everyone is fit and raring to go. It is going to be an arduous six weeks of the tournament and we are hoping to keep everyone on the field. This is where the role of the backroom staff will be very important.”The pitch at the Feroz Shah Kotla Stadium, Delhi’s home ground, has come under criticism in the recent past. The abandonment of the fifth ODI between India and Sri Lanka in December last year, resulted in a one-year international ban from the ICC. However, the venue will host IPL matches as the tournament, being a domestic one, is out of the global governing body’s purview.”We had a practice match last night where one team scored 200 and the other got really close,” Simons said. “There were a few occasions when batsmen were hitting length balls over the bowlers’ heads, which I always believe to be a fair indicator of how good a pitch is.”The surface seems kind of cold, so I think they have left some moisture on the surface which is helping it stay together. We had played on another wicket a few days ago and that had seemed slower, so it is getting better for sure.”

Teenage spinner now has 15 wickets in five One-Day Cup appearances as Lancashire stumble

ECB Reporters Network supported by Rothesay22-Aug-2025Warwickshire 253 for 5 (Shaikh 75, Malik 72, Blatherwick 4-48) beat Lancashire 249 for 9 (Tazeem 3-39) by five wicketsHamza Shaikh made 75 and legspinner Tazeem Ali took 3 for 39 to help Warwickshire beat Lancashire by five wickets at Aigburth and thereby consolidate their bid to reach the knock-out stages of the Metro Bank One Day Cup.Having restricted the home side to 249 for 9 on a pitch that aided spin, Ed Barnard’s side reached their target with 61 balls to spare, Kai Smith finishing on 45 not out having put on 77 with Shaikh.The one consolation for a severely under-strength Lancashire was that Jack Blatherwick took a career-best 4 for 48 but Marcus Harris’s side have now won just one of their seven matches in this competition and their own slim chances of making further progress had vanished with Wednesday’s defeat to Durham.Michael Jones was caught behind without scoring off Ethan Bamber’s second ball of the game but George Bell and Kesh Fonseka then batted positively against the Bears’ seamers to give their side a respectable platform of 69 for 1 after 15 overs.However, 33 of the next 35 overs were bowled by the Warwickshire spinners and scoring runs never looked as straightforward as it had done in the first hour of the game. Lancashire’s second-wicket pair put on 87 before Fonseka was caught at cover by Shaikh for 43 when driving Tazeem and the legspinner took his second wicket in his next over when Bell was leg-before for 46 when attempted to sweep.Harris and Harry Singh then tried to rebuild the innings with a stand of 68 in 13 overs only for Singh to depart for 29 when he pulled Rob Yates straight to Alex Davies at deep midwicket and the left-handed Harris to be bowled for 41 by a lovely offbreak from Yates.File photo: Shaikh led the way in Warwickshire’s run chase•ECB via Getty Images

Tazeem took his third wicket when George Balderson pulled him straight to Zen Malik and the remainder of Lancashire’s innings was dominated by Arav Shetty, who consolidated the good impression he has made during this competition by making 40 off 30 balls.Shetty, though, was one of two wickets to fall to Jake Lintott in the 49th over of the innings and the experienced Warwickshire wristspinner finished with 2 for 62 from his ten overs. Yates finished with 2 for 44 but it was Tazeem’s bowling that had taken the eye – and not for the first time this month.Warwickshire’s reply got off to a thunderous start, eight boundaries being struck and 44 runs scored in the opening four overs. But the visitors’ progress was slowed, first when Ed Barnard was caught by Bell when trying to scoop Blatherwick for 21 and then when Yates tried to slap Blatherwick through mid-on but only found Balderson’s safe hands and departed for 23.Former Lancashire batter Alex Davies was then surprised by the lift Blatherwick extracted from the Aigburth pitch and was caught behind for eight to leave his side on 71 for three in the eleventh over. That, though, was as near the home side got to upsetting the form book.Sheikh put on 97 with Malik, who reached his maiden List A fifty off 39 balls and seemed set for a century when his attempt to hit Blatherwick for six over mid-off only found the safe hands of Jones on the cover boundary and he departed for 72. Seemingly untroubled by this setback, Shaikh reached his own fifty off 74 balls and Warwickshire’s victory was all but certain long before Shaikh was bowled by Luke Hands when his side needed five runs.

Put in to bat, they raced to fifty in 3.3 overs and never looked back against Dubai Capitals

Hemant Brar17-Feb-20242:18

Pooran: ‘From day one, the agenda was to win and everyone was on board’

Nicholas Pooran’s MI Emirates lifted the trophy in the second edition of the ILT20 as they beat Sam Billings’ Dubai Capitals by 45 runs in the final.After Capitals opted to bowl, Muhammad Waseem and Kusal Perera gave Emirates a blazing start, smashing 72 in the first six overs. While the next six overs produced only 31 runs, Pooran’s unbeaten 57 off 27 balls towards the end steered Emirates to 208 for 3, the highest total of the season.In response, Capitals kept losing wickets at regular intervals. Their highest partnership was 38, between Billings and Sikandar Raza for the fourth wicket. Both sides were found wanting in the field, with Emirates dropping six catches in all. But they had enough run cushion to not let those reprieves hurt them.Earlier, Billings went against the conventional wisdom of putting up runs on the board in a big game, and Waseem and Perera soon made him rethink his decision. The two muscled Emirates past 50 in just 3.3 overs. By the end of the powerplay, Waseem had scored 43 on his own.Left-arm wristspinner Zahir Khan broke the 77-run stand when Waseem, attempting his fourth six, miscued a wrong’un to wide mid-off. In his next over, Zahir could have had Andre Fletcher as well, but Billings fluffed the stumping chance.However, Capitals managed to put the brakes on the scoring rate. When Perera tried to break free, he ended up losing his wicket to Raza.Fletcher had looked clueless against Zahir and Raza, and was on 28 off 27 at one point. He finally picked up the pace in the 16th over, hitting Scott Kuggeleijn for two sixes and a four and bringing up his fifty off 35 balls.Fletcher departed in the next over, but then Pooran stepped up and took the Emirates past 200. Along the way, he belted two fours and six sixes.Akeal Hosein put Emirates further ahead when he removed Leus du Plooy for a two-ball duck. Tom Banton, who came in as a Super Sub, struck some lusty blows but legspinner Vijayakanth Viyaskanth had him stumped for a 20-ball 35.A few overs later, Viyaskanth dismissed Raza as well to dent Capitals further. By the end of the 13th over, the asking rate had crossed 15. In an attempt to catch up, Billings gave charge to Waqar Salamkheil but failed to connect a googly and was stumped.Jason Holder got three lives in five balls, but the boundaries did not come as frequently as Capitals needed. After Trent Boult gave away only five in the 17th over, and also got rid of Rovman Powell, the equation for Capitals was 75 required from 18 balls with four wickets in hand. The Capitals innings lasted full 20 overs, but the contest was over much earlier.

After chasing leather around the ground, the visitors’ openers repelled Australia’s new-ball surge

Tristan Lavalette01-Dec-2022 by 524 runsWest Indies debutant Tagenarine Chanderpaul weathered a short ball assault late on day two on a grassy Optus Stadium pitch after double centuries from Marnus Labuschagne and Steven Smith powered Australia into a commanding position in the first Test.After spending 152.4 overs in the field, Chanderpaul impressively defied Australia’s star-studded attack alongside skipper Kraigg Brathwaite as the West Indies showed belated fight in a bid to claw back into the match.Chanderpaul, the son of legendary batter Shivnarine, copped an initiation into Test cricket as he edged a sharp delivery from quick Mitchell Starc through the slips. He then was hit on the pads by Starc only for the not out decision to be upheld in an umpire’s call.Chanderpaul was all at sea against quick Josh Hazlewood’s accuracy before a fluent drive through long on was a much-needed confidence boost. But he was back in the wars after being hit in a delicate spot, which required medical attention, before copping blows to the body from fierce short balls from Cummins and Hazlewood.Showcasing doggedness and similar technical characteristics to his father, Chanderpaul soldiered on gamely and started to look increasingly comfortable on a pitch playing few tricks. He unleashed several cavelier shots to counter the short ball but made it through his first test in this format.The gritty opening partnership has provided a much-needed spark for West Indies after a forgettable performance in the field.Australia declared 15 minutes into the final session when Travis Head was bowled for 99 just one delivery after Smith brought up his fourth Test double century.Head’s dismissal brought a close to Australia’s massive first innings, where they had three straight century-plus partnerships to vindicate Cummins’ decision to bat first on a green-tinged Optus Stadium surface which hasn’t produced fireworks so far.Australia’s massive innings was dominated by Smith and Labuschagne, who combined for a 251-run partnership and batted almost through the entire first session.Labuschagne reached his second Test double century just before lunch, celebrating by taking off his helmet followed by an enthusiastic wave of his bat. Two balls later, out of nowhere, he was dismissed just short of his highest Test score of 215 when he edged the spin of Brathwaite to wicketkeeper Josh Da Silva.Riding a dose of luck, Labuschagne continued his strong form at Optus Stadium, where he scored 143 and 50 three years ago against New Zealand in the last Test played at the ground.Marnus Labuschagne leaves to a rousing reception•Associated Press

Just before lunch, Smith equalled Sir Donald Bradman with his 29th Test century. He reached the milestone with a single to long on, who was strangely not brought in to restrict the run.In the process, Smith also passed 4000 Test runs at home. Only Bradman (98.22) and Sir Garfield Sobers (66.8) have better home averages than Smith’s 64.53.He also continued his dominance over West Indies, who he currently averages 232.33 against from six Tests.Even though the match meandered amid a smattering of fans, who started to create their own excitement by mocking West Indies’ sloppy fielding, Smith was unwavering in his concentration. He also reinforced his penchant for his new refined technique, where he has eradicated shuffling across the crease.Eyeing a declaration, Australia put the foot down in the second session with Head scoring at better than a run a ball in a 166-run partnership with Smith to flatten a lifeless West Indies attack.After aggressive captaincy early on day one, Brathwaite’s 30th birthday was soured as he sought a defensive approach and he might face further criticism for his use of the bowlers.Quicks Alzarri Joseph and Jayden Seales were surprisingly not used in the first hour despite West Indies needing early wickets to claw back into the contest.Brathwaite finally had some cheer later in the day in a rearguard along with his new opening partner Chanderpaul in belated signs of life from the tourists.

Century opening stand lays base but visitors fight back following rain interruptions

ECB Reporters' Network04-Jul-2021Devon Conway marked his first-class debut for Somerset with 88 on a rain-affected opening day of the LV= Insurance County Championship match with Leicestershire at Taunton. The New Zealander faced 146 balls and hit 15 fours, sharing an opening stand of 143 with Steven Davies before Will Davis and Gavin Griffiths led a spirited Leicestershire fightback, which saw the hosts close on 242 for 7.Davis ended the day with 2 for 40 and Griffiths 3 for 48. Play was interrupted three times by rain and it certainly worked in the visitors’ favour after Conway and Davies had dominated the opening exchanges.Leicestershire skipper Colin Ackermann took the obvious decision to field after winning the toss on a heavily overcast morning at the Cooper Associates County Ground. Davis caused Conway problems early on and looked unlucky not to dismiss the New Zealander with the closest of several lbw appeals.The seamer’s initial spell of seven overs cost him just ten runs. But there was little support as Conway and Davies assumed control. The pair had put on 44 when the first shower caused a very brief interruption and 83 by the time more rain brought an early lunch at 12.45pm. Davies looked in good touch from the outset, appearing to have plenty of time to play his shots. He was unbeaten on 32 at lunch, with Conway 43 not out.Both batsmen moved to half-centuries on the resumption, Conway first to fifty, off 82 balls, with 10 fours, while Davies followed, off 79 balls, with five boundaries. They took the score to 134 with few alarms before the rain turned heavy at just after 2.15pm. Play resumed at 4.20pm, an early tea having been taken, and the complexion of the innings was soon transformed.Davies fell to Davis, bowled playing an indeterminate defensive shot, and Lewis Goldsworthy quickly followed, edging the same bowler to Ackermann at second slip.Left-arm spinner Callum Parkinson was struck for successive boundaries by Conway, but responded immediately by beating the batsman’s defensive push and bowling him in the 45th over. James Hildreth, on 5, survived a sharp chance to Rishi Patel at short leg off Parkinson. When George Bartlett fell lbw to Ben Mike playing no shot, Somerset had lost four wickets for 39 runs.Leicestershire’s fight back continued as Tom Lammonby edged a loose drive off Griffiths to second slip where Ackermann took another catch. Griffiths, whose first five overs had cost 38 runs, had Hildreth and Craig Overton, captaining Somerset for the first time in red -all cricket, caught behind off outswingers to leave Somerset 224 for 7.Roelof van der Merwe, who lofted a six off Parkinson, and Josh Davey saw the hosts through to the close of a day restricted to 74 overs.

Offspinner took 51 wickets in title-winning 2016 season but fell down Middlesex pecking order

ESPNcricinfo staff26-Mar-2020Ollie Rayner, the offspinner who won the County Championship with Middlesex in 2016, has confirmed his retirement from cricket at the age of 34 after his release at the end of last season.Rayner, a tall spinner with an orthodox action, took 51 wickets at 23.56 in Middlesex’s title-winning team in 2016, but was consigned to a holding role in the following three seasons and was twice sent out on loan after falling down the pecking order behind Ravi Patel and Nathan Sowter.Intriguingly, both those loan spells were to Division One counties (Hampshire in 2018 and Kent in 2019) while Middlesex were in the second tier, demonstrating the high regard in which he was held elsewhere but also a breakdown in his relationship with the club.Confirming his retirement in an interview with wisden.com, Rayner revealed that he only found out he had been put on the loan list last season when he was called by Kent “telling me they were looking forward to having me”.”I was like: ‘Hold on a sec, I’ve got to talk to my family.’ There were things that definitely could have been done better.”Rayner also said that playing under Dawid Malan’s captaincy from 2018 onwards was “very hard work”, suggesting that he never felt as though he had been given enough opportunity to impress. Malan left Middlesex at the end of last season, and since his departure several players have indicated that the dressing room had been a difficult place under his leadership.”I didn’t always see eye to eye with Dawid,” Rayner said. “We had a chat at the end of last season and I said that if he goes to Yorkshire he should just stay out of the politics and get on with his batting because he’s a fine player. If he can do that he’ll go far.”I haven’t necessarily got any animosity there, but that relationship didn’t really help me personally in my progression.”Rayner previously detailed his frustrations about the plight of English spinners in a 2015 article for ESPNcricinfo, in which he said “it is not easy being an English spin bowler at this moment in time”. His case was backed up in 2018, when he went unused in five of the nine Championship games he played.ALSO READ: The plight of the English spin bowler“Over the last few years I’ve been renowned as steady Ollie; I’ve offered a lot of control in what have been seamer-friendly conditions – I don’t think I thrived under that.”It just clicked in 2016. I just felt so backed. In my career when I’ve had my best years it’s when I’ve been used as an attacking option.”That year they were dependent on me for breaking partnerships. Adam Voges was brilliant in that he’d bowl me before lunch, and when you bowl well you stay on and earn the right.”Rayner ended his career with 313 first-class wickets to his name at 33.26 apiece, plus a further 53 in List A cricket and 41 in T20s.He started his career at Sussex, making a handful of first-team appearances in the side that won the Pro40 (2008, 2009), the Twenty20 Cup (2009) and Division Two of the Championship (2010) before joining Middlesex, initially on loan, in 2011.He spent the 2013-14 and 2016-17 winters on England Lions tours, and was perhaps unfortunate to miss out on the Test tours to Bangladesh and India in 2016-17 having been overlooked for Zafar Ansari and Gareth Batty. Aside from the Championship win, his finest hour came at The Oval in 2013, when his 15-wicket haul sealed a memorable win against Surrey.

India might have been disappointed with 324 after looking good for 350, but their bowlers quickly washed it off with a comfortable defence

The Report by Sidharth Monga26-Jan-2019
In a league game in Champions Trophy 2017, India couldn’t really capitalise on their score of 178 for 2 in 33 overs and failed to defend the underwhelming 321 they posted. A year and a half later, in an ODI in New Zealand, they reached 179 for 2 in the 31st over, but again failed to convert it into the 350 they looked good for. Just as a measure of how far their bowling has come from there, though, India defended the 324 in Mount Maunganui with consummate ease.

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India’s quicks and spinners both drew more out of the pitch than New Zealand’s did, which meant they didn’t need to resort to the funky fields and plans that New Zealand needed to restrict India after a 154-run opening stand at more than a run a ball between Rohit Sharma and Shikhar Dhawan. By the time New Zealand reached that score in their response, they had lost six wickets. The first five of those fell one each to the new-ball skills of Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Mohammed Shami, one each to the wristspin of Yuzvendra Chahal and Kuldeep Yadav, and one to the deadly combination of Kedar Jadhav’s unfathomable low-arm spin and MS Dhoni’s super-quick hands.The two first halves couldn’t have been more different. Any hope New Zealand had of taking a wicket fell prey to innovative field placing. Rohit edged the first ball of the match, but the lone slip was well wide of the orthodox position. By the time New Zealand went to the orthodox two slips, the ball had stopped swinging. Rohit and Dhawan kept India around six an over almost on auto-pilot mode. So good is their game and form that the bowlers needed to err only slightly for them to pick the gaps either side of the wicket. Nine of the first 10 overs, and 17 of the 25 that the two batted together, went for at least one boundary.As is often the case, Rohit faced more balls, ate more dots, but scored more runs and hit more boundaries than Dhawan in the partnership. Dhawan, who showed glimpses of regained form in his half-century in the first ODI, looked flawless. At the halfway mark, both had brought up their half-centuries, and looked ominous. You can never count out a Rohit double if he is still batting at this stage; not least if he is in his 80s. However, once Dhawan edged a short and wide ball from Trent Boult, New Zealand began to claw back in.Kuldeep Yadav picked up four wickets•Getty Images

With nothing happening for the bowlers and with India’s top three looking incapable of making a mistake, New Zealand refused to just turn up and accept their punishment. They tried different things. Lockie Ferguson went round the wicket to Rohit, who was approaching his hundred, and they attacked Virat Kohli and Ambati Rayudu with six and seven men inside the circle. They were okay with three dots and a four instead of four easy singles.This was a high-risk plan, but it worked. Ferguson’s angle and changes of pace brought two wickets, Kohli fell to a bouncer from Boult, and the pressure was on Dhoni and the rest of the middle order again. Ferguson kept finding success with his bowling round the wicket. Twenty-five balls went without a boundary. At the start of the 48th over, though, Colin de Grandhomme dropped Dhoni. Dhoni and Jadhav – 48 off 33 and 22 off 10 respectively – gave India a little finishing kick with 35 off the last two overs.If the memories of that Sri Lanka chase were still fresh, they were exorcised quickly by a good start to the defence by Shami and Bhuvneshwar. Martin Guptill survived thrice – a run out, a dropped catch, an edge falling short – before finally offering third man a catch. The pressure was obvious. The new ball was doing more for India’s bowlers than it did for New Zealand’s. India were bowling with a higher skill. Shami eventually got the wicket of Kane Williamson with a short ball outside off, but he had bowled enough good balls until then to deserve this.Colin Munro, seen as a bit of a dasher, is one of the batsmen not yet assured of a place in the World Cup squad. Here he tried to settle in for a longer innings, playing more efficient and percentage cricket, but he could keep that up for only so long. In the 15th over, with the run rate still at six an over, Munro tried to switch-hit Chahal and missed.The final nail was probably driven through when Ross Taylor played Jadhav for the turn, but as he does so often Jadhav only got the ball to drift past the outside edge.Taylor overbalanced, his back foot left the ground for a split second, and it was time enough for Dhoni to stump him. New Zealand were 100 for 4, and India hadn’t yet introduced their big weapon: the left-arm wristspin of Kuldeep.And then on came Kuldeep, running delightfully through the rest of the New Zealand innings who were trigger happy with their shots. Tom Latham and Henry Nicholls were beaten in the air, de Grandhomme paid the price for trying to hit every delivery for a six, and Ish Sodhi was beaten by the sharp turn. This, Kuldeep’s second in two matches in the country, was only the fifth four-for by a spinner visiting New Zealand this decade.Doug Bracewell then chanced his arm, secured his maiden half-century and also denied Kuldeep a five-for. In the larger scheme of the match, his 58-run stand for ninth wicket with Ferguson only served to bring India’s victory margin down to two digits.