India suffered their worst collapse in the first-ten overs since the 2019 World Cup semi-final

Nagraj Gollapudi15-Jul-20223:54

Rohit: Want batters to take the game on and see if they can find something different about their own game

The chatter around Lord’s on Thursday morning – at the ground and on social media – was about pleasant memories of two historic matches played at the venue. For Indian fans, it was the 2002 NatWest Trophy triumph. For the locals, it was the iconic 2019 World Cup final, when Eoin Morgan’s England pipped Kane Williamson’s New Zealand by the barest of margins three years to the day.A lot of Indian fans would remember that time for a different reason. Three days earlier, in the first semi-final at Old Trafford, India’s top order had collapsed against New Zealand. They were reduced to 24 for 4 in the first ten overs.Related

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Several batters from that match were at Lord’s on Thursday and they suffered a strangely similar fate. After the first powerplay, India were 28 for 3, their lowest score in that phase since the World Cup semi-final. At 31 for 4, when Virat Kohli was dismissed, it was earliest India had lost their first four wickets since that match three years ago.A topic that has generated some debate recently is the relevance of ODI cricket. While there are some areas, including the playing conditions, that need a relook to bring more balance to the 50-over game, one straightforward fix is to make pitches that give the bowlers more of a chance in a batter-dominated format. And that’s what we’ve witnessed in the first two matches of this series.At The Oval on Tuesday, a green pitch combined with humid and cloudy conditions helped Jasprit Bumrah and Mohammed Shami skittle a powerful England batting line-up. In contrast, India’s openers Rohit Sharma and Shikhar Dhawan chased down the target of 111 effortlessly.Yet two days later, Rohit and Dhawan were unable to replicate that success, both showing vulnerability in demanding conditions. Rohit was late to cover the line of a delivery from Reece Topley that moved in slightly to hit his front knee, while Dhawan was uncomfortable against the tight line of the deliveries England’s bowlers fired at his ribs. For a while Dhawan tried to counter by jumping out of his crease to negate any movement, but that plan proved unsuccessful as he gloved a catch to the wicketkeeper down the leg side.Rishabh Pant was dismissed spooning a full toss straight to mid-on, and the batter who had hit an audacious century in the Edgbaston Test, walked off shaking his head. The absence of two crucial elements in Pant’s limited-overs game – the freedom with which he bats in Test cricket and the instinct for that unthinkable shot – is a problem neither he nor the team management have managed to crack.As for Kohli, he started with a flourish but once again made a mistake that is becoming far too common for his liking: pushing at a delivery he could have safely left. He now has one more innings to try and find his form before taking a break from the tour of the West Indies.

“I want these guys to take the game on and see if they can find something different about their own game rather than looking at the team’s role. If they get the team out of that situation imagine the confidence they are going to get from that.”Rohit Sharma wants India’s batters to change their mindset and be positive

The two-paced pitch presented a challenge for the batters and England’s well-executed plans made India’s task tougher. Suffocating lines, unwavering lengths and attacking fields set by England captain Jos Buttler confronted the Indians to think differently.And that – to think differently – is something Rohit said India needed to do when faced with high-pressure situations, going as far back as the 2017 Champions Trophy final against Pakistan, when they were reduced to 72 for 6 in a huge chase at The Oval.”It has happened for us on a few occasions now,” Rohit said after the defeat at Lord’s. “We’ve spoken about that a lot, it has happened not just in the 2019 World Cup, but also in the Champions Trophy and few other games as well where we were put under pressure, we lost wickets and we were 20 for 3 or 40 for 4.”That is where I want guys to change their mindset a little bit and try to be a little positive, extra positive and try and take the game on. Because I know the target is small, you are chasing 230, 240, but is there another way that you can take when you are chasing a target like that? Is there something different you can do as a batting unit? And I think so, yes, you can.”Does that mean Rohit wants his batters to play with the attacking intent they showed during the T20I series victory against England? “That is where I want these guys to take the game on and see if they can find something different about their own game … If they get the team out of that situation, imagine the confidence they are going to get from that. It is something that has been spoken about, but it depends on the individual at that moment as well. That is where the role of the management comes into play – to ask them to play freely and show them that what they are trying in the middle is absolutely right.”With the series level at 1-1 and the decider looming on Sunday, India have one more opportunity to put their captain’s words into practice, as they head to Manchester for the first time since that World Cup semi-final three years ago.

For the India allrounder, it’s mainly a matter of backing your strengths but “making sure to use it very wisely”

Shashank Kishore29-Aug-20224:15

‘Hardik Pandya in the side means India almost have 12 players’ – Mickey Arthur

Mohammad Rizwan had struggled to force the pace in front of square. So, when Hardik Pandya bowled a short ball into him, trying to arch back and ramp the ball fine was a legitimate call. Except, he may have underestimated Hardik’s pace.This wasn’t the old Hardik. This was Hardik the fast bowler, who can crank up the intensity when required, bounding in and bending his back. The same back that had nearly given up four years ago at the same venue against the same opponents, and in the same tournament.On that September afternoon of 2018, Hardik had to be stretchered out, after clutching on to his back, in severe pain. So many questions. Would Hardik ever be able to bowl full tilt again? If he can’t, can he hold his place in the team as a batter alone? What does that do to team balance?Related

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Until February this year, it was all shrouded in mystery, especially the bowling part. Obviously, he hadn’t spoken about it publicly. At a Gujarat Titans press event, where he was named the captain, Hardik stoked the fire even more when he said the answer to it “will be a secret”.After last year’s T20 World Cup, where Hardik played as a specialist batter, he decided to take time off. He went off the grid, even social media. He worked out a robot-like schedule with a focus on sleeping and training. Every ball he bowled, every ball he batted, every lap he ran around the ground, every squat he did was mapped.Then came a time when Hardik feared getting hit by the short ball.He wasn’t used to wearing a chest guard, which he realised was an “ego issue”. Once he was made to understand by former India wicketkeeper Kiran More, his mentor, that it was perfectly acceptable for batters to wear a chest guard, and that even great batters of the past had done it, Hardik relented.What happened at the IPL then is fresh in the memory. He batted at the top, in the middle, as a finisher, put himself under the cosh in tough situations and came out on top. Hardik’s work behind the scenes as a bowler, too, bore fruit. The zip was back, he was bowling full tilt and without the worry of someone who is always afraid of breaking down. It was Hardik 2.0 unleashed.It’s this version we saw on Sunday night in Dubai, when he had Rizwan completely off balance with the short ball. As Rizwan arched back, he had gotten into a position where it was impossible to bail out. The ball kept coming at him and flew off the bat face as Avesh Khan came around and put in a dive to hold on at deep third. This was a classic fast bowler’s wicket.

“The calmer I can stay, it’s going to help me execute all the plans. Those executions, the 50-50 chances that I take, if I am calmer, it helps me to pull it off. Obviously, it was just seven runs [needed in the final over], even if it was 15, I would have fancied my chances”Hardik Pandya

You didn’t need to see the speed gun to tell you that it was a fast one. Only an over earlier, he had rushed Iftikhar Ahmed into a hook that was caught by the wicketkeeper. Two balls after Rizwan fell, he had Khushdil Shah’s attempted slash to a heavy ball finding Ravindra Jadeja at deep cover. All his three wickets had come off effort balls.As per ESPNcricinfo’s logs, all of Hardik’s deliveries were in the short-of-a-length zone. Nothing full. Each of his three wickets came with the short ball. Each of his deliveries also touched, and crossed, 140kph.”In bowling, my plans were pretty simple,” Hardik told Star Sports after the match. “I always tell the same thing. It’s just how I use it. I tell that it’s important to kind of assess the situation and conditions, and use your weapon which I feel, you know, hard lengths and hitting the length is my strength. But I make sure I use it very wisely, put some doubt in the batter and ask them to play the wrong shot.”Yet, for all the work with the ball, the game was on a knife’s edge when India needed Hardik the batter to stand up. It had been a difficult chase on a tacky surface. And it wasn’t until Hardik’s three fours in the penultimate over, bowled by Haris Rauf, where he played to the field and took advantage of Pakistan having only three fielders outside the ring – because of their slow over rate – that the game was in India’s control.This was a chase right down MS Dhoni’s alley. One where he knew the bowlers were under as much pressure, or maybe more, as he was. And one mistake was enough. Then, with six needed off three, Hardik swatted a flat six over long-on to finish it off. There were no fist bumps or angry growls – just a sense of calm all around and the acknowledgement of having done a job he always knew he could.Hardik Pandya finished the match for India with a six•AFP/Getty Images”In batting, over the years, I have understood [that] the calmer I can stay, it’s going to help me execute all the plans,” Hardik said. “Those executions, the 50-50 chances that I take, if I am calmer, it helps me to pull it off. Chases like this, you always plan overs. For me, it started from the 15th over. I knew we’re running short, but there’s one guy who is making his debut [Naseem] and there’s one left-arm spinner [Mohammad Nawaz]. Obviously, it was just seven runs [needed in the final over], even if it was 15, I would have fancied my chances.”I try to keep [my mindset] as clean as possible. I don’t try to put a lot of thoughts because I feel the bowler is much more under pressure than me. I don’t have anything to lose. I know it’s just one six. It’s not an ego thing. Against spinners, I fancy my chances more than fast bowlers.”Rohit Sharma was happy with the new and improved Hardik, and spoke of the work behind the scenes.”He’s a lot calmer, yes, but is very confident of what he wants to execute on the field, whether with the bat or ball,” Rohit said. “He’s quite confident, he understands what sort of field placements he needs to have. And he can bowl quick. We saw that today with those short balls. Obviously, a lot of hard work goes into it.”It was more about understanding his own game. With the bat as well, he was quite calm in the middle, trying to guide the team through it and when we were in a situation like that, high-pressure game, to get 10 runs in an over, there are times where you can panic too. But he didn’t show that at all, he was quite calm and took us through.”

Crushing three-day victory belies under-stated credentials of hugely impressive team

Firdose Moonda19-Aug-2022What does it feel like to win at Lord’s? For Kagiso Rabada, already hailed among the game’s greats at just over 27 years old, to get his name on the honours’ board? For a self-labelled “proper Dutchman”, Anrich Nortje, to rip out the core of the English batting line-up? For Dean Elgar, whose first trip to the venue was as stand-in captain in 2017, when he looked anything but a permanent leader?It feels like solid confirmation that this team is finally getting somewhere. Or at least it should.It was just over a year ago that South Africa were ranked seventh on the ICC’s Test table and heading to West Indies with genuine concern that they may be beaten there for the first time since their one-off return to Test cricket in 1992. Fast-forward 15 months and not only are South Africa top of the WTC points’ table, but they’ve got there with a series win over the world No.1s, India, a drawn rubber against the current holders of the WTC, New Zealand and now by ending one of the most audaciously successful streaks England have enjoyed in a home summer.And they’ve done it with a group of players that some may label a motley crew, lacking significant experience, strong reputations and even the kind of super-egos that makes professional sport the stuff of celebrity. Only three of South Africa’s current squad have previous Test experience in England. Many of the rest had never even been to Lord’s before and spent time earlier in the week just soaking up the feeling of arriving, as cricketers, to their spiritual and sentimental home.But even with the full house and the media hype and the pressure, South Africa were doing more than just being. They were bossing it. At the end of only three days of this series in England, the birthplace of the empire, they were able to nail their colours in triumph to some seriously prime property on the visiting change-room balcony. That’s the kind of decolonisation we can all get behind.South Africa players walk off after registering a win inside three days•AFP/Getty ImagesSince their first post-readmission tour here in 1994, South Africa have raised their flag five times at Lord’s. Only Australia have won the same number of Tests in the same period of time. Australia have also won the most number of series in England since 1992 – three. South Africa can equal that on this trip but that might be thinking too far ahead. For now, it’s about – as Elgar has started to say – “staying in the moment,” and realising how (to use another Elgarism) “bloody good” South Africa have been.This performance stands out because it came from a team who did things their predecessors were conditioned not to do, like bringing on a spinner in the eighth over with three short catchers, and then seeing him take the two wickets that started the victory march. And they were able to do it because they have resources previous teams have not had.There are four genuine quicks in this South African XI, all of whom can bowl 140kph-plus and when they’re not doing that, they’re asking other questions. Two of those, Marco Jansen and Nortje (and we could even push that to three if we include Rabada) have some ability with the bat as well, which gives South Africa a deceptively long line-up. Jansen can come in as early as No.6 and, with Maharaj’s batting also nothing to scoff at, the only real bunny is Lungi Ngidi. The cracks in the line-up can, to a degree, be covered by the lower-order. Because there are cracks, that we cannot ignore.South Africa have won five Tests at Lord’s since their first match at the ground post-readmission in 1994•Getty ImagesSince Elgar took over, excluding Zimbabwe who have played one Test, South Africa have scored the least number of centuries among Test-playing nations – just three. One of the players who notched up a hundred, Quinton de Kock, has retired from the format. Two others in the top six, Keegan Petersen and Rassie van der Dussen, haven’t yet scored Test hundreds at all. When Elgar talks about the negatives he always has to try to find, this has to be one of them, but he should not reflect on it too harshly.While it’s a no-brainer that big scores are the building blocks of big wins, South Africa have shown that those don’t have to be individual big scores or even big partnerships. Since June last year, South Africa have only had two century stands (Zimbabwe have had fewer) but 33 half-century partnerships, the second-most of any team after England. Smaller, more consistent contributions have allowed their batting line-up to do just enough. And, of course, they have the attack to compensate for the runs they leave unscored.In the same period that the batters have struggled, South Africa have had the joint-most numbers of five-fors, and have produced series-changing spells that are made for highlights packages.The attack allows Elgar’s “margin for error to be a lot bigger”, and he doesn’t seem to be erring too much as he has learnt how to use his arsenal strategically. The quickest of his bowlers doesn’t get the new ball, so an opposition line-up cannot relax when the change bowlers come on. Imagine seeing off Rabada only to face Nortje.Related

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Maharaj is not in the mould of the classical South African spinner who bowls an over before lunch, another before tea, and then tries to hold an end in the third session. He is “world-class”, as Elgar put it, and Elgar trusts his gut feel for when to bring him on. Together they set creative fields and get results. As a collective, the attack pushes each other and Elgar still wants more. “I need to achieve; them to want to achieve more,” Elgar said. “Once they all buy in to that, which I am sure they are doing with great victories like this, we’re going to be a pretty special bowling attack.”Because of the chaos of the last three years, you’d be hard-pressed to find someone in South African cricket who doesn’t think of cautious as optimism’s first name. Despite everything the Test team has achieved since Elgar took over the captaincy, the words “great” and “best” still don’t quite seem to be the right ones to describe them. But there are others that Elgar used.”What we’ve laid down over the last year has been pretty solid,” he said. “It hasn’t been fake, it’s been unique. It’s been real. It hasn’t been far-fetched. These are our team goals that I have with the coaches. It’s not unrealistic. It’s pretty achievable. As a player group, we are a special bunch and we play bloody good cricket when we are doing well.”That’s what it feels like to win at Lord’s.

Under-19 Women’s T20 World Cup appearance marks nation’s proudest cricket moment

Firdose Moonda12-Jan-2023None of the players in Rwanda’s Under-19 Women’s T20 World Cup squad were born when cricket was introduced to the country. That’s because the game only got there in the year 2000, 116 years after the territory first became part of a European empire, 38 years after its independence from Belgium and six years after the genocide that fundamentally changed everything for the people who lived there, and those who have come since.Before the horrible 100 days between April and July 1994, when more than a million people from the minority Tutsi tribe were killed, Rwanda was part of Francophone Africa. After those awful events, Rwanda chose to shed itself of much of its past, including its colonial affiliations. The French and their language were seen as part of the package that needed to be discarded as Rwanda accused French politicians of supporting the genocidal regime.Their eastern neighbours, Uganda and Tanzania, who had housed refugees during the genocide including some of the post-1994 leaders, both used English as the medium of instruction at schools and in business and Rwanda, in a bid to start afresh and attract more foreign investment, decided to do the same. With the English language, came some culture and part of that was cricket.”After 1994, we had an influx of people from English-speaking countries like Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania. Many of them were students and they were students who went to cricket-playing schools,” Julius Mbaraga, the secretary general of the Rwandan Cricket Association told ESPNcricinfo.One such institution was the Ntare School, where Ugandan president Yoweri Museveni played cricket and Rwanda’s current president Paul Kagame was schooled. Another was Busuga College, which holds a record 18 schools’ cricket titles and has educated the bulk of Uganda’s national cricket side. “There was also a big population of Rwandans in these schools, who were exposed to cricket,” Mbaraga said. “And then we had a relatively big Asian population in Rwanda, particularly Indians and Pakistanis, who were playing mini cricket in their backyards.”All these groups of people were brought together by Charles Haba, a law student at the University of Rwanda, who went on to become the founding president of the Rwandan Cricket Association in 2000. “He mobilised the students in the university and also rallied the Asian community in Kigali and that is how some sort of mini league was born,” Mbaraga said.Related

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At the beginning, that league was played by only men and boys but as Rwandan Cricket formalised itself, it quickly put in place structures that would be more inclusive. “From the early days, we knew that if we wanted to take the game to the next level, we had to have a very strong school’s cricket structure. When we started schools’ cricket, it was not only for boys. We made sure we had schools’ cricket for girls as well,” Mbaraga said.The parallel developments worked. In 2004, Rwanda sent its first men’s team to the ICC Development Program in Africa’s first Affiliate tournament, hosted in Benoni. That’s the same city as one of the venues of the upcoming inaugural Under-19 Women’s T20 World Cup, where Rwanda are part of the field. “We’ve never looked back,” Mbaraga said.But they have, and it’s why they’ve got to where they are today.Every year, Rwandans commemorate the genocide with a lengthy mourning period that runs from April to July. The events are at their most poignant in the week between April 7-14, when the worst of the massacres took place. “In that period, we cannot play music or entertainment on TV or radio. It is really dedicated to mourning, remembering what happened, learning and making sure it never happens again,” Mbaraga said.Nine years ago, the Rwandan Cricket Association launched a tournament to run after the period of reflection and promote sport for peace as part of their efforts to join the country’s social-justice movement. “If we are saying we need to learn from what happened in the past, it is very important that the generation that is coming through understand the history to make sure nothing like that ever happens again. At a tender age, we want our young people to be aware of what happened so they can be involved in trying to build the country as well,” Mbaraga said.The Kwibuka T20 tournament is a women’s competition which has grown from a two-team event between Rwanda and Uganda in 2014 to an eight-team competition in 2022, including Brazil and Germany. Mostly, the participating countries are from east Africa but Nigeria and Namibia have also made appearances. “We started this tournament in the hope of growing the sport locally,” Mbaraga said. “Our goal is to make sure it becomes the premier women’s cricket tournament on the continent and maybe in a number of years one of the leading women’s tournaments in the world.”The competition is held at the Gahanga International Cricket Stadium, which was founded by a charity in partnership with the MCC. It has one of the two grass wickets in the country, with a third in the works, as Rwanda continues to try and move towards professionalism. For that, they need funding outside of the ICC grant they currently rely on.Gahanga International Cricket Stadium in Rwanda•Rwanda Cricket”That continues to be one of our biggest challenges,” Mbaraga said. “Until recently we did not have a lot of government support because we were not a priority sport. But under the current leadership at the ministry, led by the minister Aurore Mimosa Munyangaju, who is female and a former athlete herself, we’ve seen a lot of change.”On a corporate side, though, the numbers don’t really encourage many companies to come on board. It is something we are trying to solve and one of the ways is to make sure we have more Rwandans playing the game.”The good news is that their visibility will increase over the next few weeks. The participation of their women’s team at the Under-19 T20 World Cup, marks the first time Rwanda will appear in a tournament of this stature and is the country’s proudest cricket moment. It came “ahead of schedule,” according to the self-marked timelines Rwanda had and against expectation when they defended 79 against Nigeria, 97 against Uganda and then successfully chased 85 in their qualifying competition.

“When we see what has come out of the hard work we’ve done and how far we’ve come, it only encourages us to do more.”Julius Mbaraga

Given the results, Mbaraga believes “our strongest suit is bowling and fielding,” but he does not want to talk up the team too much, although there is plenty to talk about.Captain Gisele Ishimwe, who is just 18 years old, has already played 43 T20Is for the senior Rwandan side and has a century in the format. She struck an unbeaten 114 in Rwanda’s match against Eswatini (formerly known as Swaziland) in a World Cup qualifier in September 2021. She also bowls medium pace and is expected to perform a strong allround role for Rwanda at the tournament.Also keep an eye on allrounder Henriette Ishimwe, who also has senior international experience and appeared at the Fairbreak International T20 event earlier in the year. She took 2 for 19 and effected a run-out off the last ball in the Rwandan Under-19s’ one-run warm-up match win over Ireland, a result that suggests Rwanda will offer stiff competition in the tournament, although Mbaraga does not want them to get ahead of themselves.”As a board, we don’t want to put any pressure on them,” he said. “If we compare with the opposition that are taking part, it’s countries who have been playing cricket for much much longer. We will keep our expectations in check. What we want is for the team to perform to the best of their ability and to use the World Cup as a learning curve. We know it will give many of them the exposure and insight of what it takes to perform at a higher level.”And then to take Rwandan Cricket forward. Their next goal is ODI status and then hopefully a decent schedule of international fixtures. For now, though, cricket is about nation-building in a country where so many lost so much.”The girls in this squad were not born at the time of the genocide but without a doubt they lost family. Like all of us,” Mbaraga said. “But what is amazing is that we were also not born when cricket was introduced in the country. These things have all happened now and it’s something that we cherish. When we see what has come out of the hard work we’ve done and how far we’ve come, it only encourages us to do more.”

Opener channels free-scoring younger self in bid to win recall to Ben Stokes’ Test team

Vithushan Ehantharajah16-Jan-2023England’s warm-up match against the Lions in Abu Dhabi last November was an understandably selfish affair. The Test side needed some intense preparation ahead of a three-match tour of Pakistan, and two days into the three-day game, they decided to call it off altogether. They had got what they needed.Beyond a much-anticipated return for Jofra Archer, who bowled nine overs on the opening day, there was not too much attention paid to those on the opposition. The Test side racked up 501 for 7, and by the end of day two, the Lion’s score of 415 for 9 was secondary to the 77 overs of work from the senior attack.However, it was on “day three” that Ben Stokes, an observer for this encounter, singled out one Lions member who had caught his eye. Someone whose game the England captain is familiar with, though perhaps not like this.”He’s someone you wouldn’t necessarily have down for that type of innings,” Stokes said of Haseeb Hameed, who peeled off 145 from 172 deliveries against an attack featuring James Anderson, Ollie Robinson and Jack Leach. “It’s amazing to see a player like Has, who has done what he’s done over five or six years, realising the potential that he can play that way, against our frontline attack.”Related

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It was as engaging as the scorecard suggests: the strike rate of 84.30 through 20 fours and a couple of sixes. There was a bit of fortune, with a questionable “not out” when pinned on the pad early doors. But otherwise, Hameed was an authoritative presence in the middle.A new dawn for a player previous feted – and latterly derided – for his high elbow and low strike rates? Not quite. Even Stokes made a note of how this knock was a continuation of Hameed’s work over the summer: 1235 runs at an average of 58.80 to propel Nottinghamshire back into Division One. All at a strike rate of 62.40 – almost double what it had been across his 10 Tests caps (32.02) and considerably higher than a career rate of 41.59 in all first class cricket.Speaking ahead of the Lions’ tour of Sri Lanka, in which he will act as captain for the red-ball leg of a warm-up and two four-dayers against Sri Lanka A, Hameed will take cues for the man skippering above: ‘I’ll have my own style (of captaincy) of course but the brand that Stokesy and co have implemented is now the England brand, whether you’re with the Lions or the Test side. This whole idea of playing to win and being prepared to lose the game in order to win. One hundred per cent, I’ll try to replicate that.’He also appreciated Stokes’s words from November and was open about shifting up a few gears. Not least after a dispiriting 2021-22 Ashes in which he averaged just 10 from four appearances.”For him [Stokes] to come out and say that meant a lot to me,” Hameed said. “It’s nice because I guess the changes he’s implemented with the England team coincides with the changes I’ve made on a personal level in terms of my game.”I came back from that Australia tour and I was clear in how I was going to go about my game and start to look to score runs at every opportunity and accepting the fact that everyone gets out. Especially against some of the best bowlers in the world. You’re going to face good balls that will get you out so the other balls you may as well try to cash in and, with your style, score runs and put the opposition under pressure, which is what I’ve tried to do.”

“I feel some people have said ‘he’s had a bad tour, he’s done’. My view is different. I’m 25 now, there’s a huge opportunity for me to learn from that tour. Why can’t I get better? It’s happened, but it’s not the complete journey”

Some of that “doing” has been away from the nets in the form of conversations with those that matter. Director of men’s cricket Rob Key, Test coach Brendon McCullum and performance director Mo Bobat, who oversees the Lions programme, were consulted over the summer over where Hameed was in the pecking order and what could be done to move up. With that came clarity of worth and, ultimately, purpose. Hameed is venturing into 2023 with a clear idea of what is required, both to progress and change perceptions.”I had a conversation with Rob Key in the summer about where I was and how things were looking for me and all that kind of stuff. He mentioned that for the England team what was important was this idea of soaking up pressure when necessary and then being able to apply pressure at different times. As soon as you sense a moment, being brave enough and strong enough to take your opportunities in the middle and the fact that you’ll be backed for it.”Maybe the challenge in some people’s eyes was being able to show that side. I feel like I was able to show that side for Nottinghamshire through the course of the summer and in the game [for the Lions] just gone as well. In that sense, it’s been nice for me for people to see that up close. I’m confident and I have trust that that game is also within me and that’s why I’m very optimistic.”This isn’t about reinvention for Hameed, but rather a regression of sorts. Much of what England have done successfully since the start of last summer is regain access to an expressive way of playing that is a hallmark of youth – one that gets understandably clouded by professionalism. And it is important to note that, before he made his Test debut in 2016, Hameed had plenty of white-ball cricket in his diet. Most notable was an Under-19 ODI series against South Africa in 2014 when, aged 17, he walked away as player of the series with 389 runs at 77.80. As he says so himself, much of what has come since was his attempts at trying to mimic how Test cricket was being played at the time.”I guess it’s an interesting one because you have your typical Test match opener which is what I was trying to play like. And there’s also a side of me – which maybe a few more people have seen now – which takes me back to my junior days. Showing a side of me that maybe a lot of people haven’t seen at that level. A side that enjoys hitting the ball, hitting these shots and letting the uniqueness in the way that I play come out.Hameed endured a tough time in Australia in 2021-22•Getty Images”You forget how much you enjoy the game and everything becomes a lot more enjoyable [again]. Obviously with that, there has to be an acceptance that you’re going to make mistakes but I feel like that starts from practice. You have to prepare in that way.”I remember as a 16-year-old, I scored two hundreds in a day in two T20s playing for my school and that was me just having fun. It’s amazing how by flipping that mindset you find yourself playing shots that you ordinarily wouldn’t do. Shots find you because you’ve got that intent and over time, you understand that those are shots within you and when you have that mindset, they find you rather than you going looking for them.”I had a lot of success in white-ball cricket growing up so I feel like a lot of those qualities are within me. It’s just constantly making sure that I’m giving myself the best opportunity to bring them out because they are there.”As for when we might get a glimpse at this new iteration of Hameed, the next month in Asia will primarily be about reinforcing long-recognised strengths against spin – and could put him on track to be the spare opener for England’s five-match series against India at the start of 2024, behind Zak Crawley and Ben Duckett.Robustness against pace remains a question mark as far as an appearance in the 2023 Ashes later this summer is concerned, even if there were marked improvements noted in the UAE. The Lions camp in Dubai that preceded England’s warm-up match gave Hameed the opportunity to showcase more assured footwork against the quicks, particularly in middle sessions against Anderson and Archer.Has he moved on from his displays in Australia? The man himself, who turns 26 on Tuesday, thinks so.”By the age of 24 I’ve had all that experience. The way I look at it, I’ve had one bad tour. At the height of the pressures and the exposure of the game, maybe that heightened it a little bit. But a lot of very, very good players have had one bad tour. I feel some people have said ‘he’s had a bad tour, he’s done’. My view is different. I’m 25 now, there’s a huge opportunity for me to learn from that tour. Why can’t I get better? It’s not the be all and end all. It’s happened, but it’s not the complete journey. I’m not 35, 36.”Let’s not hide away from the fact that it [Australia’s] is the best bowling attack in the world in the toughest of conditions. When they come this summer in the Ashes of course it will be challenging again, but for sure that experience would help me better prepare. The environment too, I feel what’s been created by Stokesy and McCullum feels like the right way to challenge them as well.”The way to challenge them is taking them on, it feels, and that’s been led by those two guys. It feels like any player in that team will be backed to that point.”

Patterns in his celebrappeals show he is actually a fine judge of when a leg-before shout is out

Charles Reynolds15-Jun-2023It is testament to how good Stuart Broad has been with the ball throughout his career that he is still thought of primarily as a bowler. In reality he should be considered one of the greatest allrounders the game has ever seen.No, not in the gaudy sense of combining both bowling and batting skill – any Jacques, Dick or Garry can do that. Broad is at the apex of his sport in the twin disciplines of bowling and comedy.That last owes much to his reputation for being overzealous with DRS – an aspect this article wishes to address: the widely held belief that Broad is a liability when it comes to third-umpire referrals, his insatiable lust for wickets leading him to have absolutely no sense of judgement when involved in any sort of DRS situation.Yes, there may well be countless examples of his over-eagerness leading to highly questionable referrals – at this point there’s probably even a YouTube montage dedicated to them somewhere – but I have long maintained that, in fact, subconsciously, Broad is one of the finest instant judges of lbw in the game.The key to Broad’s DRS judgement is in his celebrappeal

My theory is that far from being the hapless, trigger-happy, review-eater of public perception, Broad, in fact, has a highly sophisticated, subliminal, inbuilt Hawk-Eye. Nighthawkeye, if you will.Fittingly, the key to unlocking this revolves around another key pillar of the church of Stuart Broad, the “celebrappeal”. For the uninitiated, this is a term coined by Dave Tickner for the manner in which Broad usually appeals lbw or caught-behind decisions to the umpires: celebrating the wicket first and then only very belatedly turning round to appeal, if even bothering to do so at all.It has long been my theory that Broad’s subconscious DRS wizardry can be unleashed simply by analysing at which point during his celebrappeal he instinctively turns around to the umpire. The earlier he turns, the less out it is, the later he turns, the more out it is.How does this theory hold up in the face of data?The method: analysing every Broad lbw appeal since 2019
Thankfully in the modern age of cricket analysis, practically every ball bowled is filmed, tagged and logged in a database somewhere. So using video generously provided to me by an organisation that wishes to remain anonymous – the cricket establishment is clearly not quite ready yet to be seen supporting such controversial research – I looked at every Broad international lbw appeal from the start of 2019 up to, but not including, the recent Test against Ireland.The starting year of 2019 was chosen simply because it was the furthest point in the past from which deliveries were tagged in the database with “lbw appeal”, but it nevertheless gave me a healthy sample of 83 deliveries to analyse.I took an imaginary top-down view of a cricket pitch and from popping crease to popping crease, divided it into ten equal horizontal segments, starting with No. 1 at the bottom, the non-striker’s end, going up to No. 10 at the top, the striker’s end, noting down at roughly what point in each appeal Broad turned around to the umpire, and correlating it with the result of the appeal.From this I was able to calculate the out percentage for each of the ten sections of the pitch – that is, the percentage of times a batter was actually out (from dismissals given on the field that were not overturned by DRS, and those given out after successful reviews). This would allow me to see whether there was, in fact, any correlation between the point at which Broad turned to appeal and whether the delivery was actually out.A disclaimer here: while cricket has made great strides in analytics in recent years, one area where it still lags behind other sports is player positional tracking – i.e. recording player movements for exact positioning data, much like Hawk-Eye does for the movement of the ball. (It is largely because of this lack that effective metrics for judging players’ fielding ability still don’t exist and too much subjective human input is required.)Sadly, that does mean that an element of subjectivity – in this case, the point I judged Broad to have turned around for each of these 83 deliveries – had to be inserted into this otherwise highly rigorous scientific study. However, I strove to maintain the highest levels of consistency throughout the result-recording process.Stuart Broad: lbw expert
A thorough analysis of the data revealed fairly overwhelmingly that Broad is, in fact, a highly sophisticated lbw-judging machine.Firstly if we look at the heat map of the points in his celebrappeals at which he turned round to appeal, we can see that, rather surprisingly, 43.4% of the time, he appeals before he gets to the halfway mark on the pitch – a little earlier than you might expect from the game’s premier celebrappealist – although there a still a solid amount of those late turnarounds that have established his standing in the field.Compare this however with the out-percentage heat map above and we can instantly see the huge correlation between the point at which Broad instinctively turns round to appeal and whether the batter is out or not. Quite definitively, as you can also see from the graph of the compiled data below, there is a clear link between the point at which Broad subconsciously decides to turn and appeal to the umpire and how unequivocally out the delivery actually is.