They are producing formidable young cricketers at an impressive rate

Ian Chappell28-Mar-2021All right-thinking cricket opponents must have been dreading the day India got it right.That’s the day India unearthed all the talent that was available and then fully capitalised by selecting their best team. That time is well and truly upon the rest of the cricket world as India have showcased their amazing depth in the last few months.The emergence of such talents as Shubman Gill, Mohammed Siraj, Navdeep Saini, Washington Sundar, T Natarajan and Axar Patel would have been monumental if it had happened in the space of three years, let alone just three months as it did. And when you consider that Shardul Thakur excelled in just his second game and the ebullient Rishabh Pant was an international match-winner before his 20th appearance, it really is a rosy picture.A rosy picture, that is, if you’re an Indian fan; for the rest of the cricket world, it strikes a note of fear.Related

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It’s even more imposing when you consider that of those debutants, only Gill and possibly Siraj would play when every player is available for selection.The picture attains a veritable glow when you consider that Ishan Kishan, Suryakumar Yadav, Prasidh Krishna and Krunal Pandya have all made successful white-ball debuts against England.An abundance of talent like this is reminiscent of West Indies and Australia during dominant periods when they overflowed with good players, many of whom struggled to make the first XI.In West Indies’ case it was mainly a surplus of fast bowlers during a dominant span that kept serious pacemen like Wayne Daniel, Sylvester Clarke, Winston Davis, Patrick Patterson and Ezra Moseley from having substantial Test careers. When Australia were dominating at the turn of the century, capable batsmen like Matthew Elliott, Darren Lehmann, Stuart Law, Martin Love, and in the early part of the period, even Matthew Hayden and Justin Langer, struggled to find a permanent place.Surpluses like that provide selectors with a belly ache from gorging, but it’s a whole lot better than the pain caused by searching a bare larder for morsels.1:46

Manjrekar: “Excited about India’s talent pool”

Not only are India now in the enviable position of having a surplus of young talent but the candidates are also highly competitive cricketers.Long gone are the days when some Indian players would quietly go up to an opponent and confess, “You are my idol.” As one former Indian cricketer told me, “There used to be players who just wanted to own the sweater and cap.” There’s also no chance you’d hear in the current Indian dressing room the utterance, “Why me?” as happened when a Test team was announced during the 1977-78 Australian tour.It was MS Dhoni, born in Ranchi, whose success provided the inspiration for young cricketers from outlying areas to suddenly believe they could play for India. The belligerent Sourav Ganguly’s captaincy style encouraged all players in the Indian team to believe they were the equal of their opponents. This belief grew under the guidance of Dhoni, followed by the highly emotive leadership of Virat Kohli.India’s recent successes in Australia – particularly the latest one – have only reinforced the players’ belief in their ability to win under any circumstances. In an era where teams struggle overseas, India now have the depth of talent to alter that pattern. No longer can opponents afford to say, when India are on their doorstep, “Just pick a string of fast bowlers with long run-ups and the series will be ours.”Can India replicate the dominant periods of West Indies and Australia? It’s a much more difficult proposition these days, with an extra form of the game, a frightful schedule, and the riches of the IPL, not to mention a pandemic to circumnavigate.However, India have finally got the equation right and as long as they avoid the pitfalls often associated with continuing success, they are better equipped than any team to produce an era of dominance. The rest of the cricketing world beware.

There’s a fair bit to be learned by looking at these bowlers in terms of the support (or lack of it) at the other end

Kartikeya Date30-Mar-2021Batting partnerships are recorded as a matter of course in cricket scorecards. What about the bowling equivalent?Using ball-by-ball records, which are now available for 887 Test matches, from 1999 to 2021, I have constructed spells records for each bowler, along the lines of batting partnership records. For example, if a bowler bowls a five-over spell starting in over 49 of a Test innings and ending in over 57 (overs 49, 51, 53, 55 and 57), then the overs at the other end during this spell are 50, 52, 54 and 56. The record for each spell includes the runs conceded and wickets taken by the bowler during the spell, and the runs conceded and wickets taken at the other end during the spell.The overall picture presented by the spells record is as one might expect in Test cricket. When wickets fall at one end, they are also likely to fall at the other. The table below shows the overall record of spells organised by the number of wickets that fell at the other end during the spells. All told, three out of four spells are bowled without a single wicket falling at the other end. Only a little over 6% of spells involve at least two wickets falling at the other end. When wickets are falling at the other end, bowlers do better than when they aren’t.Kartikeya DateThe record is sufficiently large now to include the full careers of players like James Anderson, Dale Steyn and R Ashwin (but not those of players like Glenn McGrath, Shane Warne and Harbhajan Singh). In the rest of this article, the possibilities of the spells data set are illustrated using the example of Anderson. Ishant Sharma’s record is used as a short second example.Related

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Unlike limited-overs cricket, which is a contest of efficiency, Test cricket is a game of control. The absence of a predetermined limit on the length of an innings over which the ten available wickets are to be taken means that batsmen seek to accumulate runs as safely as possible. Bowlers are the masters of the contest. If a bowler does not bowl a bad ball, and bowls according to the set field, the batsman is unlikely to score freely. Test cricket is a contest of control because it is the bowler’s accuracy that shapes possibilities.Consider the spells record for Anderson. This is presented as a rolling record of 150 chronologically consecutive spells. The first graph below gives a comparison of Anderson’s bowling average over each 150-spell period compared to the bowling average achieved at the other end during these 150 spells. The labels on the horizontal axis give the end dates of each of the 150-spell periods.Kartikeya DateThe record suggests that Anderson’s career can be organised into four periods. In his early years, he was not the best bowler in the England side. His wickets were initially more expensive than those taken at the other end, and this meant that he did not hold a regular spot in England’s XI.He returned in 2006 and won his spot in the strong English attack that would win the Ashes in Australia in 2010-11, and win in India in 2012-13, reaching the top of the world rankings.A third phase of his career – perhaps the finest – began after Graeme Swann retired and that world No. 1 team broke up. Anderson carried the English attack, along with the mercurial Stuart Broad. His wickets came cheap and when he was bowling, England were at their attacking best. The support at the other end was sporadic, though, and this meant that other than in England, the team’s results were poor. They were hammered in Australia in 2013-14 and 2017-18 and in India in 2016-17.A fourth phase appears to have commenced in about the second half of 2018. The English attack has greater depth now, especially on the fast-bowling side of things, and support for Anderson has improved.A similar comparison of economy rates is given below. The economy rate in a Test match is an important aspect of control. This record adds texture to the four phases above, especially after the first phase, when Anderson was evidently either not sufficiently accurate or bowled the attacking length too often and went for runs.Kartikeya DateIn the second phase of his career, bowling in a strong all-round bowling attack that had both significant seam-bowling depth and quality spinners in Swann and Monty Panesar, Anderson could afford to be extremely attacking. He conceded about three runs per over. When that team broke up, the record suggests that Anderson changed his approach and decided to become more defensive and restrictive. In the fourth (and currently ongoing) phase of his great career, Anderson has mastered this restrictive style. He concedes less than 2.5 runs per over, while England concede runs at three an over at the other end.Anderson’s career trajectory is illustrated well by his record on his four Ashes tours so far. On his first, in 2006-07, he conceded 4.4 runs per over and took only five wickets at 82.6 apiece. On his second tour, in 2010-11, he conceded 2.9 runs per over and took 24 wickets at 26 apiece without taking a single five-wicket haul. This last suggests (much as it does with Pat Cummins’ 29 wickets in the 2019 Ashes in England without a single five-wicket haul), that Anderson bowled in a strong all-round attack. In 2013-14, he conceded 3.2 runs per over and took 14 wickets at 43.9 apiece. This was the tour on which England’s world No. 1 team broke apart. In 2017-18, Anderson conceded 2.1 runs per over, and took 17 wickets at 28.This restrictiveness alongside slightly lesser wicket-taking potency has become a feature of his bowling, especially away from home in this latest phase of his career. In Australia, India, West Indies and Sri Lanka – where the conditions are not traditionally conducive to Anderson’s brand of medium-fast seam and swing bowling – his last 14 Tests have brought him 42 wickets at 23.7 apiece. That’s only three wickets per Test, so while the wickets have been cheap, he has not been a significant wicket-taking threat. But he has been extremely difficult to score off – 2.16 runs per over. That kind of control is a captain’s dream.The spells record provides further insight into these four phases of Anderson’s career. The table below shows these four roughly defined phases as more or less equal numbers of matches, deliveries and wickets. The spells in each phase are classified into two groups. The first includes all spells by Anderson where no wickets fell from the other end. The second includes all spells by Anderson where at least one wicket fell from the other end.Kartikeya DateAs one would expect, Anderson has typically had better returns when wickets have been falling at the other end (the 2016-21 period is marginally an exception). This is, as the first table in this article shows, generally true for the average bowler in Test cricket. One can imagine why this is – the fact that wickets are falling from the other end suggests that the conditions are probably more bowler-friendly, or that the lower order is in, or both.Apart from that second phase, Anderson has bowled about two-thirds of his spells when no wickets have fallen at the other end. His returns from these spells show just how far he has come as a Test match bowler. He began as a highly gifted seam and swing bowler with a natural outswinger and a superb, simple, repeatable cartwheel action. When there was little help from the wicket (as evident from the fact that no wickets were falling at the other end), he was unable to exert control in that first phase. In the second phase of his career, Anderson benefited greatly from bowling in a strong attack. It is the only phase in which the majority of his wickets came in spells where at least one wicket also fell at the other end.Today, Anderson is a true maestro. He is able to control the scoring regardless of the conditions, and regardless of what’s happening at the other end. In part, this could be because opponents have decided to see him off. But it is far more likely that opponents would concede wickets to Anderson if they tried to take liberties against him. In other words, it is far more likely that batsmen are compelled to see him off.Reviewing Ishant Sharma’s career in this way offers revealing insights. If we organise his 101 Tests into three roughly equal phases, then his slump in the middle phase is one of more intriguing such troughs in modern Test history. If he had that type of slump after 30-odd Tests today, he would almost certainly lose his spot in the Test team, given the fast-bowling options available to India today. The third phase shows the colossal extent to which his returns have improved.Kartikeya DateWhy might this be? In part, this is probably because the Indian attack Sharma bowls in today is better than it used to be. In part, this is probably also because there are probably fewer featherbeds today than there used to be.The BCCI publishes scorecards on its website, and wherever available, they publish ball-tracking data under the Hawk-Eye tab. A review of this data (which is not available for Sharma’s full career, but is available for about 7800 deliveries of it, since 2011) shows that in the period until 2016, his average length was 7.4m from the batsman’s stumps. Since 2016, his average length is 7m. The same record, which is also not exhaustive for Anderson, shows Anderson’s average length (over roughly 13,800 deliveries for which the record is available) during this period to be 7.1m. Bowling a fuller length on average seems to mean that Sharma can attack the stumps more often than he used to, and is consequently more lethal.Like Anderson, Sharma is able to make his own weather in the Test match arena. His record is not a barometer for how helpful the conditions might be. He commands the batsman’s attention, and as is the case with Anderson, even that is often not enough for the batsman to survive.The spells data set produces a picture of the Test match game from the bowler’s point of view. This view is much neglected in the game, and the spells dataset should become a regular feature of the scorecard, in the same way that batting partnerships are. It provides a texture in the landscape of the Test match game that is otherwise difficult to observe.

The Australian quick was bought by Punjab Kings for INR 8 crore (US$ 1.096 million approx.)

Matt Roller18-Feb-2021Early days
Meredith made his professional debut playing for a Cricket Australia XI against Pakistan in early 2017, and played a handful of games for Tasmania in the 2017-18 season. An injury to Tymal Mills gave him an opportunity to play in the semi-final and final of the BBL that year – the first two T20s of his career – in an attack also containing Jofra Archer.Breakthrough season
The 2018-19 period proved to be a breakthrough home summer for Meredith across formats. He took 27 wickets for Tasmania in eight Sheffield Shield appearances, and snared 16 in the BBL as the Hobart Hurricanes reached the semi-finals. By that stage, he was already being tipped for international selection by Warne, who has proved to be a vocal advocate of Meredith’s talents over the last three years.Australia call
A side strain limited Meredith to just six BBL appearances in 2019-20, though he bowled at high pace when he did make it on to the park, taking ten wickets with an economy rate of just 6.68 across the season, and he dismissed both David Warner and Steven Smith in a Marsh Cup game against New South Wales. By that stage, his performances had caught the eyes of Australia’s selectors, and he won a call-up to the expanded limited-overs squad to tour England in 2020, though was not afforded an opportunity to play.Recent form
Meredith again impressed with his pace and bounce in the 2020-21 BBL, taking 16 wickets and maintaining an economy rate of 7.82 despite bowling a significant chunk of his overs in the initial four-over powerplay and often returning at the death. He has been named in Australia’s squad for their T20I series in New Zealand later this month.IPL hopes
Meredith expressed his ambitions of playing in the IPL last year. “It’s the premier domestic T20 comp in the world,” he said on a BBC podcast. “The best players are playing in it and if you get an opportunity to play in it, you’re definitely grabbing it with both hands. If I got an opportunity at some stage it would be awesome to get over there and play.”Off the field
Meredith is instantly recognisably after growing a Fred Spofforth-style moustache during the lockdown. He owns a greyhound named Elton.The expert view
“There’s been a bit of chat around him for a couple of domestic seasons now. He bowls fast. I think that’s a great thing about him, he can just run in and express himself with the ball now. If he gets his chance in Australian colours I think he’ll take it with both hands.”

With Joe Root seemingly unable to trust Moeen and Craig Overton, he repeatedly asked more of his senior seamers

George Dobell05-Sep-2021There was a telling moment, about 140 overs into the India innings, when Jasprit Bumrah launched a delivery from Chris Woakes down the ground.It wasn’t just the sight of England’s best bowler, in this match at least, being thrashed to the boundary by a man who came into this Test with a batting average of 4.81 that was revealing. It was also the fact James Anderson had to trot from his position at mid-on to fetch the ball.Related

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Joe Root, at mid-off, had attempted to intercept it. But he appeared to slip and, for a moment, clenched his leg in pain. So it was left to Anderson, as it so often is, to make amends.At that point, Anderson – the 39-year-old Anderson – had bowled 33 overs. Despite his age, despite the fact he has played in every Test in the series and despite the fact that England would like to include him in the final game, which starts in Manchester on Friday, he had bowled more overs in the innings than any of his colleagues.Anderson had, by his own admission, tried everything to gain some lateral movement. He had tried to swing the ball and seam the ball. He had tried to bowl cutters and tried to find reverse. He had bowled from both ends. In the end he settled for simply attempting to bowl dry and build pressure that way. Woakes and Ollie Robinson had, more or less, come to the same conclusion.The problem was, such a plan requires more than three bowlers to execute. And, at that stage of the innings, Craig Overton, the fourth seamer, had only bowled only 16 overs while Moeen Ali, the spinner, was conceding four-and-a-half an over. So Anderson, Woakes and Robinson were forced into spell after spell. Even when it became obvious, from their pained expressions and, in Robinson’s case, diminishing pace, they had to bowl as, to put it bluntly, their captain appeared to lack confidence in his other options.It was a passage of play which may well have consequences for the rest of the series. With the final Test starting on Friday, England will be loathe to press Anderson and Robinson, in particular, into service once again. They have already lost Jofra Archer for the T20 World Cup and Ashes. They have already lost Stuart Broad for the rest of this season. They really don’t want to be in a position where they are taking risks with Anderson or Robinson. It was, perhaps, telling that neither emerged after tea on day four. The exact reasons for this are, at the time of writing, unclear. But it is far from impossible the team management simply said “enough”.

“England have already lost Archer due to an injury which may have been caused by an excessive workload. They have to find a way to spread the load more evenly”

“We’re all feeling it,” Woakes said afterwards. “I think we have all bowled 45 overs plus in the game. Naturally, you’re going to be a little bit sore. There are occasions in England where you can maybe bowl at about 90 percent but here you had to slam every ball into the pitch to get anything out of it. Naturally that takes it out of you, so there’s a few sore bodies in the dressing room.”None of this reflects especially flatteringly on either Overton or Moeen. Overton had a really encouraging match in Leeds where the surface provided assistance for his brand of fast-medium seamers. But if he is going to be a viable option in Test cricket, it is on days like this he must earn his living. It is on days like this he must ease the burden on his celebrated colleague and fulfil the task of stock bowler with hours of grunt work. It was his job to bowl 35 overs for around 60 runs and ensure Anderson and co could be used in shorter, sharper bursts. But such was Overton’s profligacy on day two – when he conceded four an over – Root seemed to have little faith in him.Much the same could be said about Moeen. He passed Jim Laker’s record for Test wickets during India’s innings (only Graeme Swann, among English offspinners, has more) but it was not a day which enhanced his reputation. England desperately required control but Moeen, in conceding 4.53 an over, was unable to provide it. He claimed a couple of big wickets – he has now dismissed Virat Kohli six times in Test cricket – but also made a fearful hash of an important run-out opportunity, was involved in the decision to use (and squander) all three reviews and, by his own admission, brought India back into the game with his dismissal in England’s first innings.”When I was batting in the first innings, I felt we had them down a bit and I tried to hit a six and got out and that brought them back in a bit,” he told Sky. “It was a crucial time.”Joe Root wears a dejected look•PA Images via Getty ImagesJack Leach may not offer Moeen’s ceiling with the bat or ball. But he is reliable, worthy and, in his Test career to date, has never let England down. You wonder if Root might not have wished he was around a few times during the day.In mitigation, it must be noted that India’s bowlers found the pitch no less heartbreaking than England’s. While there is just a little rough for the spinners to work with outside the left-handers’ off stump, there is almost no other encouragement for bowlers. As Moeen put it, “if Bumrah comes in and hits Woakesy straight down the ground, it’s a great wicket.” Moeen also pointed out that he has hardly played red-ball cricket in recent months and that his action is “a little bit off”. As he admitted: “I could have bowled better.”England have some lessons to learn here. They have already lost Archer due to an injury which may well have been caused by an excessive workload. They have to find a way to spread the load more evenly if others are not to follow.It was said long ago that Anderson was a sports car being used to deliver scaffolding. These days he is a classic sports car being used to commute to work, ferry the kids to school, hired out for weddings and to deliver scaffolding. And remember, that second-innings bowling average in his 15 most recent Tests is now 60.57. In the same period, his first-innings bowling average is 17.87. Over such an extended sample size, those are statistics that cannot be ignored. The warning signs are there.Still, all results are possible going into the last day. And there will be a sellout crowd at the Kia Oval on Monday for the fifth day in succession. It reflects well on this venue and this series. Test cricket faces many issues, many challenges. But the reason for sustained optimism is that we have a great game. Monday might just offer us something of a classic final day. Anderson will be hoping that, for once, England can get by without him being required a make a contribution.

He’s bounced out Rohit Sharma, he’s yorked Hardik Pandya, and his numbers suggest he’s an utterly transformed bowler

Alagappan Muthu02-Oct-20212:54

Manjrekar: Avesh Khan is confident, and he has the range as a bowler

It’s a lot of fun being Avesh Khan. Now.He is barely into his first over and he has Rohit Sharma hopping about. He’s making one of India’s very best look out of place, but there’s nothing out-of-the-box about how he’s doing it. Avesh has always been a hit-the-deck fast bowler. It’s just that now he’s learned to put the ball exactly where he wants to.

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Kids who become superstars at Under-19 level produce a lot of excitement in India. Call it the Virat Kohli syndrome.Avesh once belonged in this bracket. At the 2016 Youth World Cup, when India went all the way to the final, he was their highest wicket-taker. But while his peers from that tournament have gone on to bigger things – Rashid Khan is probably the world’s greatest T20 bowler now, Shadab Khan is Pakistan’s No. 1 limited-overs spinner, Shimron Hetmyer and Alzarri Joseph are West Indies regulars, and even Sandeep Lamichhane travels the world playing franchise cricket – Avesh has been stuck.He couldn’t even break into an IPL team. Avesh made his debut back in 2017. But until 2021 he had played only nine games in four years.Imagine that. This is a new-ball/death bowler. A resource every team needs. And he clocks 140 kph and more. An asset in any form of the game. Plus, he’s Indian, which means not only does he cover a specialist position for you, he also frees you up in your search for overseas picks. While most other franchises scour the globe for a quality quick, you could go and get a six-hitter or an allrounder. There’s a lot of one and not a lot of the other.But Avesh – the old Avesh – wasn’t all that good. He gave away a boundary every four balls and he took 36 (roughly) to pick up a wicket.Avesh Khan has become a completely different bowler this season•ESPNcricinfo LtdCut to 2021 though, and Avesh is a bowler transformed. Now, it takes about seven balls for him to concede a boundary and only 13 to pick up a wicket.”I don’t know if he can go any better than this,” Anrich Nortje said midway through the Delhi Capitals’ game against the Mumbai Indians on Saturday. And here’s why.Avesh is in his last over, the 19th of the innings, and he completely nails Hardik Pandya.This is a yorker. Not just any yorker. It’s an inswinging yorker. And it’s a corker. At 141kph. Hardik is, at first, set up to helicopter the ball away. But it starts moving in the air. Moving scarily. Hardik is not in the right position. He’s falling over and the ball keeps surging in. It slips through the gap between his feet – his feet! – and knocks back leg stump.The old Avesh could produce such moments. But he wouldn’t have finished a T20 game with an economy rate of 3.75. Top-class fast bowlers make it seem like they can do everything. Strike first, strike late, keep the runs down, make batters wet their pants. Avesh is finally starting to look like he can tick all those boxes.

After two years of cancelled fixtures due to the pandemic, the England Visually Impaired cricket team is using the downtime to regroup and refocus

Andrew Miller03-Dec-20211:40

Meet England’s Visually Impaired Cricket team

“There’s so much danger in your local high street, even around your own home,” Nathan Foy says of his day-to-day existence. “Where else can I run around in any direction, and the worst that’s going to happen is, I run into an umpire?”Foy is a blind cricket legend. He has been the central personality of England’s Visually Impaired Cricket team for two decades and counting, including a period in the mid-2000s when he was indisputably the best player in the world.And now here he is conducting a fielding drill at Edgbaston, flinging himself bodily this way and that, pouncing on a stream of plastic balls filled with rattling ball bearings that offer his only sensory clue as to what is coming towards him.Foy is taking part in a two-day training camp in the indoor school, as the VI squad continues its re-emergence from a period of stasis during the pandemic. It’s clear from his commitment, there is nowhere he’d rather be, even if – at the age of 41 – he’s beginning to creak at the seams.Related

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“I used to be able to do things with my body,” he says. “Now I do them in spite of my body. I used to do the long jump and the triple jump when I was younger. From the waist down I look like an Olympic athlete, but up top I’ve just got a dad bod now.”Right up at the top, however, in the mind of a man who has attained alpha status in his extraordinary, and extraordinarily nuanced, sport, Foy enjoys a freedom that he doubts he could have replicated in any other walk of life.”Throughout my life, cricket has been a real rock to me,” he says. “I struggle to walk down the street without my guide dog, he keeps me safe. But here I can roll around on the floor, and just feel a real part of a team. Not everybody gets that opportunity.”

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For the past year and a half, however, nobody in the VI community has had that opportunity. Covid may have wreaked havoc with mainstream sporting schedules, but it was nothing compared to the blanket debasement of the disability programme. England’s VI squad suffered the postponement of the Ashes in consecutive summers in 2020 and 2021, and while there are tentative plans for another World Cup in 2023 – at which the squad hope to improve on their run to the semi-finals in India four years ago – nothing so ambitious can yet be set in stone.And so, despite some optimistic noises about next summer’s schedule, there’s not yet much expectation that normality is returning in a hurry. “We got our hopes up briefly earlier this summer,” says Justin Hollingsworth, the team’s vice-captain and opening bowler. “Everyone got back together for a couple of outdoor training [sessions], and then it was all called off again. But it is what it is.”The England Visually Impaired squad gather for a training session•ECBAnd yet, for John Cook, England VI’s head coach, the enforced downtime hasn’t been entirely without its benefits. Excellence may be the benchmark by which he and his team ultimately seek to be judged, and bridging the gap to the subcontinental titans, India and Pakistan, will be crucial if blind cricket is ever to take the sort of mainstream leap that the Paralympics managed at London 2012, and become recognised as an elite sport in its own right.But the void that Covid created in the VI schedule has provided a chance to re-evaluate the human aspect, and to broaden the base of a game that – with its oversized rattling balls and underarm bowling actions – has always seemed one step removed from the more familiar versions played by England’s Physical Disability, Learning Disability and Hearing Impaired squads.”Most people in society can be engaged just by taking some care and consideration,” Cook says. “It might be a simple case of communication – saying hello and goodbye, being polite and encouraging – but for us it’s also about the environments that cricket is played in. We’re not trying to say it’s easy to spread the game and make it more accessible, but actually it’s easy to find a way, and we’ve just got to go about finding that way.”The route that Ed Hossell, England’s captain, took to VI cricket epitomises how haphazard opportunities in the sport can be. As a teenager Hossell was diagnosed with Stargardt’s disease, a degenerative condition that affects sharp, central focus. It meant that his involvement with mainstream cricket was inevitably going to come to an end, but a chance encounter with a small advertisement in Sainsbury’s transformed his relationship with the sport.”Cricket was the last thing on my mind, really,” he says. “But then my mum found this flyer for Somerset’s visually impaired cricket team: ‘Trials here. Give us a call.’ So I turned up, and I loved it, and I’ve never looked back… excuse the pun.””It’s not heresy, it’s just different,” Cook says of the sport’s obvious alterations. “These are cricketers, looking to play cricket in cricket grounds. It really ought to be as simple as that. But what can be complicated, as we’ve found out, is that some players might live a mile away from a club but logistically it can take them three-quarters of an hour in the opposite direction on public transport before they can find their way in.”To that end, Cook has invited 40 community coaches along to Edgbaston, to observe the training session and absorb the sport’s nuances, and ultimately to indulge in a bit of myth-busting when they return to their local clubs with ideas for broadening the sport’s base.”Previously there were just two of us trying to prepare the team for a world tournament,” he says. “But with the help of 40 other people, surely that can only be a better thing – not only for the inclusion of people with disabilities, but for those who want to support them as well. It’s mind-boggling to think of the possibilities.”

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England vice-captain Justin Hollingsworth bowls with a plastic ball filled with ball bearings•ECBA VI cricket team comprises players from three sight categories – ranging from the partially sighted B3s and B2s to total blindness, B1. There need to be four players of that last kind in any given XI.The quickest bowlers in the format tend to reach underarm speeds of 65-70mph, and each delivery is required to bounce at least two times, once in each half of the pitch, thereby causing the ball bearings to rattle and give off aural clues to the waiting batter.However, as assistant coach Jason Wood notes, there’s no quarter given in the cut-and-thrust of a contest – the tactics, in fact, are almost refreshingly discriminatory. When batting, for instance, there’s a clear advantage in tailoring your shots to pick out the rival B1s in the field. And for bowlers, if you can impart enough centrifugal revolutions to force the ball bearings to grip the outer casing of the ball, it effectively goes silent for crucial split seconds and increases your chance of deception mid-flight.”It’s a ruthless, sneaky game,” Wood says. “And some of the guys are very, very good at it. We’d love to develop a see-through training ball with multi-coloured ball bearings, so that we could really see what goes on inside and get properly scientific about it. But really it’s no different to mainstream cricket, where the ability to swing or spin the ball means that the batter is unable to judge where it’s going visually.”Not that any such trickery ever seemed to hold back Foy in his pomp. In this format, runs scored by B1 players count double, which means that any team that can build its strategy around its most disadvantaged players can secure itself a considerable head-start. At the Blind World Cup in 2002, Foy proved just that with two mighty centuries, including a career-best 232 against Pakistan and an unbeaten 152 against India, which sealed what remains England’s only victory over the most decorated team in the format.”I hold loads of world records for run-scoring in blind cricket, and a lot of that comes down to training myself very specifically to listen to the ball,” Foy says. “People talk about hand-eye co-ordination. Well, I believe in hand-ear. I’ve taken catches too, which is really hard for a B1, but when the ball’s in the air, it’s like I can almost see it in my mind. And you don’t just want your hands to be co-ordinated, you want to feel it in your whole body, because that’s so important for the game.”Foy’s prowess hasn’t been without controversy, however. In the 2008 Ashes, accusations started flying around in the Australian media that he “wasn’t blind enough”, despite the fact that all B1s wear blackout glasses to ensure a level playing field. But to hear his own life story is to be reminded of the extraordinary hardship that goes into creating disabled champions.”I have a congenital version of glaucoma,” Foy says. “Most people get glaucoma when they’re 60-plus, it’s a gradual build-up of pressure in the eye and it starts to damage the optic nerve. But I got that in the womb, so by the time I was a teenager, I was effectively blind. The world looked very, very bright to me, but at least I could tell the difference between shades of light and dark, so I was able to get around quite well.Nathan Foy has been England’s most prolific run scorer, with over 3500 career runs•ECB”But then, about three years ago, I detached my retina. And I went from a world that was far too bright to just dark… really, really dark, almost black. I had swapped one kind of blindness for another kind of blindness, and it affected things like my balance, and my ability to be a parent. And I found that really hard.”And yet, in spite of such apparent helplessness, Foy keeps pressing on with his place in the sport – not only because of the sense of liberation it still gives him but also because his refusal to be defined by his limitations is exactly what takes the sport beyond being a pastiche of able-bodied cricket, and lends it an identity all of its own.”Everyone in blind cricket looks to the B1s for guidance,” says Wood. “Sometimes, when you look at other impairments, it’s not always obvious what the difference for those players is. But here, you very quickly realise, wow, these guys can do stuff that we just cannot do, because of the skill base that they have developed. If we can turn that perception on its head, and make our B1s into match-winners, that gives us a massive advantage.”

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Part of the secret of Foy’s long-term success is his homespun batting technique, which involves staying low to the ground – primed for the sweep-dominant technique that the underarm trajectory demands – but then chopping at the ball, almost as if wielding an axe.”At that moment when the bowler bowls, there’s such a small amount of time to decide the line of the ball and how fast it is going,” Foy says. “I use my bat like I’m chopping down a tree, and try to hit the ball at the very end of my bat with maximum acceleration. If I mistime that and the ball’s hitting the stumps, that’s it.”To build up his resilience at the crease, Foy’s regime includes sessions in which he is pelted with plastic balls to ensure that he’s not scared of being hit, and that wholehearted approach manifests itself in his goalkeeper-style fielding too. “If you don’t get down quick, you can leave a gap under your armpit,” he says. “For me, fielding is half the fun of the game. If you use your entire body, nothing’s going to get through.”It’s a far cry from the traditional backgrounds that many of England’s B2s and B3s brought with them to the sport. But it’s inspirational too, because for several of these players their sight loss is a journey with only one destination. Therefore, to absorb these lessons now will hold them in huge stead, as and when they progress to B1 status too.Take Hollingsworth, for instance. At the age of 12, he was part of Warwickshire’s youth set-up, competing alongside the likes of current first-team squad members Henry and Ethan Brookes. “But there came a point during a night-game, the bowler kept hitting me on the thigh pad and I realised, ‘I’m not seeing this at all,'” he recalls. “So I had to walk off and that was the end of that.”England captain Ed Hossell got into blind cricket after his mother saw a flyer for Somerset’s visually impaired cricket team at a Sainsbury’s•Getty ImagesWithin three years Hollingsworth was playing for England’s VI team, initially as a B3, but he’s now categorised as a low-end B2. “That comes with its own challenges,” he says, “as people get used to the fact I’m no longer so good with the bat or in the field. I’m more of a bowler these days.”When I first started playing, I started out with front-foot drives and forward defensives, but that’s just not going to work in this format,” Hollingsworth adds. “But catching and fielding is pretty much the same with minor adjustments, so you can generally tell the guys who’ve come from a cricket background, because they have that basic knowledge.”It’s just a really interesting game,” Hossell adds. “I think it’s a great spectacle, irrespective of being a disability sport. It’s very tactile because you can really hear the noises off the bat on the ball, and the scoring rates are really high. But above all, it makes you view your sight in a very positive way, not to get too sentimental about it. All the guys will say we’re so lucky to do this.”

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Hossell’s seven years as an England cricketer have encompassed two World Cups, in South Africa in 2014 “where the pitches were close enough to Table Mountain even for us to see it”, and, most memorably, in India in 2017, where the crowds were so passionate – not least for India’s victory over Pakistan in the final in Bangalore – that they had to be asked to be silent at the point of each delivery.”That tour was an unbelievable experience,” Hossell says. “It was non-stop. And that is exactly the kind of experience that we could never have dreamt of having without so much support for disability cricket. They are some of my most cherished memories, and long may they continue.”Covid spikes notwithstanding, it’s hoped that those memories could yet be added to in the summer of 2022. That delayed Ashes series is due to be reinstated, and though the ECB endured a painful round of funding cuts in the wake of the 2020 lockdown, the proportional scaling back of the disability programme has been mitigated by the sport’s sheer lack of overheads in the intervening 18 months.The stasis certainly didn’t hit the players in the pocket – all of whom are amateurs with a range of diverse occupations, from university lecturers to financial analysts to policy writers. Foy works full-time for Guide Dogs for the Blind Association – “Most of the services don’t involve the dog at all,” he says. “We’ve got more children’s services than adult’s services, so that keeps me busy.””The pandemic has given us a chance to take a really massive deep breath,” Cook adds. “We’ve recomposed the way that we want to try and win, and the style and philosophy that we want to develop. So now we just wait with bated breath to see those opportunities return to our timetable, and be ready and prepared to take them off.”

They last played an ODI in July 2021, and on top of that, will have numerous first-choice names missing

Alex Malcolm27-Mar-2022″Didn’t I?” Australia’s last ODI was so long ago that captain Aaron Finch didn’t even know he did not play in it when asked about returning to ODI cricket after a long absence prior to arriving in Pakistan. Australia last played an ODI against West Indies in July 2021, and they have only played three since December 2020.They are set to begin building towards the 2023 ODI World Cup this week with a three-match series in Pakistan. But if the Australian captain himself didn’t know who was part of Australia’s last ODI XI, then it is likely everyone needs to be brought up to speed.Who played in Australia’s last ODI team?
If you can name the XI from Bridgetown, then you truly are an Australian cricket aficionado. Or alternatively, you watch far too much cricket. Finch did not play due to a knee injury despite thinking he did.Related

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A lot of Australia’s big guns were rested after the fallout from the 2021 IPL postponement. Alex Carey captained Australia for the first time and did so with distinction, leading them to a 2-1 series win in the West Indies. Josh Philippe and Moises Henriques had opened the batting the last time Australia played – seriously? – while Matthew Wade, Ashton Turner and Dan Christian were all in that side too. However, none of the five feature on this tour to Pakistan.Cameron Green has played just one ODI so far•Getty ImagesSo who playing in the ODI series in Pakistan?
It might be easier to tell you who is not playing. David Warner, Pat Cummins, Mitchell Starc, Josh Hazlewood, Glenn Maxwell, Steven Smith and Kane Richardson are the notable members of Australia’s first-choice squad that will be missing the ODI series. All bar Starc and Hazlewood had missed the last series in the West Indies too. Warner, Cummins and Hazlewood have been rested after the Test tour ahead of playing in the IPL.Meanwhile, Maxwell will not be touring since he got married only last week. Richardson was set to play but injured his hamstring at training in Melbourne before the limited-overs players left for Pakistan. And now Smith too has been ruled out of the series due to an elbow issue.Jhye Richardson was also left out of the squad as part of a long-term management strategy, but also got injured in Western Australia’s recent Marsh Cup final win over New South Wales.Thus, there are multiple new names who have not played ODI cricket before, including Sean Abbott, Ben Dwarshuis, Nathan Ellis, Josh Inglis and Mitchell Swepson. Cameron Green has played just one game, while Travis Head has not played ODI cricket since 2018.Travis Head remains an option to open along with Aaron Finch, though he last played an ODI in 2018•Getty ImagesWhat will the batting look like?
Possibly an experiment. Finch will need an opening partner in the absence of Warner, after Ben McDermott missed out in his only two ODIs in the West Indies and didn’t take his chance while opening in the recent five-match T20I series against Sri Lanka either.Head has an ODI century opening the batting against Pakistan and actually has a good record at the top of the order, averaging 41.08 and striking at 97.04 in 12 innings as opener, including four 50-plus scores. Since he was dropped by Australia in 2018, Head’s List A performances have been incredible. In 23 matches, he averages 59.65 and strikes at 120.62 with three centuries, including his second career double; but all of those innings have been played either at No. 3 or at 4.Marnus Labuschagne opened in his last ODI innings in December 2020, but his other 11 innings – which include a century and three fifties – have come at No. 4 or lower.Mitchell Marsh would love to bat No. 3 again as he did in the T20 World Cup and in two of Australia’s last three ODIs. Inglis has made a case to bat in the middle order after a superb T20I debut series against Sri Lanka. But Marcus Stoinis and Carey look mainstays in Australia’s lower middle order in their best available team in Pakistan. Green could also be used at No. 6 or 7 depending on how Australia want to structure their bowling attack.Australia look set to rely heavily on Adam Zampa and Ashton Agar in Pakistan•Getty ImagesAnd the bowling?
It will be a big test without Cummins, Starc, Hazlewood and the two Richardsons on flat batting tracks in Lahore. Australia look set to rely heavily on the spin duo of Adam Zampa and Ashton Agar, and maybe use just two quicks and their allrounders to bowl the remainder of the overs.Swepson has also been added to the squad if they want a third specialist spinner or two legspinners in the XI. Jason Behrendorff has the most experience of the quicks, having played in the last World Cup. Along with Behrendorff, Dwarshuis provides a second left-arm option after being a late addition to the squad.Australia may play one left-armer and one right-armer, with Abbott and Ellis likely to get an opportunity at some stage.Do results matter for Australia with so many players out?
They do. Australia have won all three series they have played in the current World Cup Super League cycle, having beaten England, India and West Indies – each 2-1 – to have six wins and three losses. But they currently sit at seventh on the points table by virtue of having played only nine games.Australia have eight guaranteed ODIs scheduled in the next four months – the three against Pakistan will be followed by five against Sri Lanka – and all of them away from home. While their No.1 Test ranking is a priority and they will continue to rest their Test stars, the understudies won’t want to fall asleep at the wheel and put the team under unnecessary pressure heading towards the World Cup in India next year.Australia squad: Aaron Finch (capt), Sean Abbott, Ashton Agar, Jason Behrendorff, Alex Carey (wk), Ben Dwarshuis, Nathan Ellis, Cameron Green, Travis Head, Josh Inglis (wk), Marnus Labuschagne, Mitchell Marsh, Ben McDermott, Marcus Stoinis, Mitchell Swepson, Adam Zampa

Having been widely derided for the squad they assembled at the auction, they now sit near the top of the IPL table

Hemant Brar22-Apr-2022In February, all the talk about Gujarat Titans revolved around how they had messed up at the mega auction. Their batting looked thin, the overall balance awry, and some of the players they picked had underwhelming IPL records. On top of that, they had an inexperienced captain who was coming off an injury. But as we approach the halfway stage of the season, Titans are at the top of the table with five wins from six games. Here are some of the factors that have played a part in their success.Strong bowling attack
Rashid Khan, Lockie Ferguson and Mohammed Shami make Titans’ bowling unit one of the strongest in IPL 2022. With the new ball, Titans have been incisive as well as frugal. Their powerplay strike rate of 15.4 is the best in the tournament and translates to 2.33 wickets on average in the first six overs. Their economy rate in this phase is 7.33, the second-best among the ten teams.Their seamers, especially Shami, have benefited from early-season grass on the pitches. “It’s important to use the new ball well,” he told . “And when you have got multiple options for the back end, it becomes almost imperative to look for wickets up front.”Titans have dominated the back end too. In the death overs (17-20), they are by far the most economical side, conceding only 8.41 per over. To put that in context, Delhi Capitals, the second-best side on that table, have managed an economy rate of 10.15, while Mumbai Indians, currently the most expensive side in that phase, have conceded 13.05 runs an over. On average, Titans have conceded 18.56 runs fewer than Mumbai per game in just those last four overs.Shubman Gill 2.0
In IPL 2021, Shubman Gill had a strike rate of 118.90. This despite Brendon McCullum, his coach at Kolkata Knight Riders, insisting on the need for aggression. This season, though, Gill seems has found that extra gear while still maintaining his silken touch. He has scored 200 runs in six innings at a strike rate of 151.51. Among openers with at least 100 runs this season, only Prithvi Shaw, Jos Buttler and David Warner have scored at a quicker rate.Gill started the tournament with a duck but in his next match he posted his highest T20 score: 84 off 46 balls. He bettered it against Punjab Kings, scoring 96 off 59. Titans won both those games.Multiple match-winners
Five different Titans players have won the Player-of-the-Match award in their five wins: Shami against Lucknow Super Giants, Ferguson against Capitals, Gill against Punjab Kings, Pandya against Rajasthan Royals, and David Miller against Chennai Super Kings.With multiple players stepping up, Titans have been able to make up for the poor form of Matthew Wade and Vijay Shankar. Wade has managed only 68 runs in five innings at a strike rate of 107.93 and Vijay 19 in four innings at 54.28. Against Super Kings, they won even when Pandya was unavailable and Gill fell for a first-ball duck.When all else fails, send in Rahul Tewatia•BCCIFinishing on the right side of close games
In T20, a single over can change the result of a game, and Titans have been on the right side of that equation on two occasions. In their game against Kings, Titans needed 13 from the last three balls. At that stage, ESPNcricinfo’s Forecaster gave them a 6.85% chance of winning. A needless throw by Odean Smith made it 12 required from two balls, and Rahul Tewatia smashed back-to-back sixes to take Titans over the line.Similarly, against Super Kings, Titans had only a 4.20% chance of winning at the end of the 17th over in the chase. Rashid then whipped Chris Jordan for three sixes and a four in a 25-run over to make Titans favourites, before Miller wrapped up the win off the penultimate ball of the match.”We could have probably lost four out of six [matches], and we won five out of six,” Miller said after the game. “The dice has definitely rolled onto our side.”Abhinav’s contributions
Abhinav Manohar, who is playing his first IPL, might not have won games on his own, but he has played important cameos in almost every other match. Against Super Giants, when Titans needed 11 from the final over, he hit Avesh Khan for two fours off the first two balls to all but seal the game. Against Royals, he struck 43 off 28 balls, taking on Yuzvendra Chahal in the process and adding 86 for the fourth wicket with Pandya to set the platform for a big finish. In five innings so far, he has batted everywhere from No. 4 to No. 7, lending the team flexibility to adapt to various situations.

Chance to defend title comes after wrist surgery that showed level of support in women’s game

Andrew Miller10-Jun-2022Beyond the upbeat headlines and some well-deserved job security for the game’s elite players, the practical implications of professionalism within English women’s cricket haven’t yet been fully realised. But for Aylish Cranstone, the driving force behind South East Stars’ run to the Charlotte Edwards Cup Finals Day, there are all manner of reasons to be grateful for the regional contract that she received back in December 2020.Cranstone goes into Stars’ semi-final against Central Sparks on Saturday with 235 runs in six group-stage games, including three half-centuries and a towering average of 78.33 that is close to double that of any other batter with 100 runs in the tournament. But she might not have gone into the season at all had it not been for a bout of wrist surgery during the winter – a process that was made possible by her new standing within the game, and seems at this early stage of the summer to have helped her realise her potential.”I was having a lot of trouble with my wrist last year, and in November it was decided that surgery was the best option,” Cranstone told ESPNcricinfo. “It was a pretty difficult winter and, if I look back a couple of months, I wasn’t sure if I was going to be starting the season.”But the level of support I’ve had, from the surgeons and doctors, to having physio pretty much every single day, to the strength-and-conditioning coaches… it’s all been the next step above, and the support to get you back on the field is tremendous.”And it’s really nice for the team that has worked really hard, to see that I’ve come through the other side. And, fingers crossed, if I can keep going with this form, I can put my team in a position where we’ve got a really good chance of retaining our title.”If Cranstone can make a start on Finals Day, this season’s precedents suggest that Stars will be well placed in their quest. She’s yet to be dismissed in any of her three half-centuries in the tournament, and each has been in a winning cause, including a score of 59 not out from 53 balls to see off Sparks in their last encounter at Edgbaston two weeks ago.”I grew up very much as a 50-over player,” she says. “Opening the batting, leaving the ball, defending the ball, and then working your way into an innings. It’s only in the last couple of years that I’ve been moved forward into this opening role for the Stars, so I’ve really had to learn how to adapt and change my style.”It has been a little bit alien at times, but it’s also nice to play with that freedom,” she adds. “Our head coach Johann Myburgh is always promoting that positive play and to play with freedom. And that’s been really nice. I just want to keep going, and thriving, and see how far I can go with it.”At the age of 27, Cranstone is very much a senior pro within the women’s game – a player who clearly retains international aspirations but whose truest value right now is as one of the building blocks of the nascent domestic game. Earlier this year she took over from Hannah Jones as the new captain at Surrey, and as a former head of women’s cricket at Epsom College, she is already well used to being a role model for the coming generation of players.”When I’m working with the county age-group girls, it’s really great for them to see that pathway and to be able to have attainable goals,” she says. “There’s only so many people that are going to go and play for England, and it’s fantastic to have that goal, but 10 years ago, that was the only option and it was really difficult.Cranstone turned professional in December 2020•Alex Broadway/Getty Images”So the fact that that now there is this pathway, there is a structure in place, I think it keeps girls hungry. It keeps girls in the game. They want to work hard and train hard because they can see that there’s a career to be had out of cricket. So it’s nice for them to see me as an example of their way forward. It can only be a positive thing.”There certainly wasn’t that same structure in place when Cranstone graduated from Exeter University, and started out on her journey within cricket. “When I came out of uni, I did a lot of accountancy jobs, and I was temping in lots of different places. I guess I enjoyed it, but I wanted to do something a bit closer to my ideal goal.”So I had two years at Epsom College which I really enjoyed. It really helped enhance my coaching and I still look to put something back into the game with the age-group girls, the emerging player programme, and the South East Stars Academy. Being professional does take up a lot of your time physically, but also mentally, so it’s nice to have something that you can focus on for a day, and give your brain that bit of a rest.”Cranstone travels to Northampton with fond memories of last year’s Charlotte Edwards Cup triumph, in which she helped to cap Stars’ dominant campaign with 35 from 27 in the final. Chasing 139, she and Bryony Smith added 71 for the first wicket to break Northern Diamonds’s resistance as the title was sealed with 12 balls to spare. This time, however, it’s clear that Southern Vipers – whom the Stars haven’t met in the group stages – will start as favourites after receiving a bye into the final with six wins out of six.”Obviously we’re really excited to get to Finals Day, but the two teams that we’re up against, they are so strong,” Cranstone says. “We’re not naive to the fact that we’re going to need to put our best performances forward. Vipers in particular have had some really good, really strong performances.”Win or lose, however, it’s just the start of a thrilling season for the women’s game. The second season of the Hundred is looming in August, and this time it will be less of a journey into the unknown given the proven success of the women’s competition in 2021. Cranstone, who was part of the London Spirit set-up last year, has now moved south to join the defending champions Oval Invincibles, and says she can already feel the uplift that the whole game got from its exposure last year.Related

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“You can see from the levels over social media, and on the streams, the amount of views we’re getting that the whole sport is growing at the moment,” she says. “Obviously we were fortunate to play on Sky Sports the other day, when we were playing against Western Storm down in Bristol. So yeah, I think it’s really good to see that increase of support across the women’s game.”As for her wider ambitions, Cranstone is conscious that her performances this season are beginning to attract wider attention, and with the England women’s team at a crossroads following the recent World Cup, it’s not out of the question that she could yet propel herself into the international frame.”It’s not something I’ve massively thought about, to be honest,” she says. “I’m concentrating on putting performances in for the Stars and being really happy playing my cricket here. And if those performances keep coming in, then those things will naturally happen.”I don’t want to get too caught up on looking too far ahead, and maybe putting some extra pressure on myself in that respect. I just want to keep enjoying my cricket here, and fingers crossed, keep playing well. But we’ll see what happens. If I can do well for the Stars and do well for the Oval Invincibles, then you never know what’s going to happen.”

It was the first time a bowler has claimed five wickets with short and short-of-a-good-length deliveries in an IPL innings

Sampath Bandarupalli09-May-20225 for 10 – Bumrah’s figures were the best by any bowler against Knight Riders in the IPL and also the best figures overall this season. Also, his returns were the second-best for Mumbai behind Alzarri Joseph’s 6 for 12 against Sunrisers Hyderabad in 2019.2 – Bumrah’s returns were the second-best in the IPL for a losing team. Only Adam Zampa, of Rising Pune Supergiants, had better figures in a defeat – 6 for 19 against Sunrisers Hyderabad in 2016.1 – Number of cheaper five-wicket hauls in the IPL than Bumrah’s 5 for 10. Anil Kumble conceded only five runs in his five-for against Rajasthan Royals in the 2009 edition.5 – Bumrah’s effort was the fifth five-wicket haul recorded by a Mumbai player in the IPL. It’s also the most number of five-plus wicket hauls for any team in the competition.5 – All Bumrah’s five wickets came off short and short-of-a-good-length deliveries. As per ESPNcricinfo’s ball-by-ball data, it was the first time a bowler had claimed five wickets with those lengths in an IPL innings.ESPNcricinfo Ltd1 – Run conceded by Bumrah in the death overs in this game, the joint-fewest by a player while bowling two overs at the death in a T20 innings [where ball-by-ball data is available]. Tom Curran, of England Lions, also gave away only one run against Pakistan A in 2015.16 – Balls Bumrah needed to complete his five-wicket haul. Only two bowlers have recorded a five-for in the IPL in fewer balls, in 12 balls – Ishant Sharma of Deccan Chargers against Kochi Tuskers Kerala in 2011 and Andre Russell of Knight Riders against Mumbai in 2021.18 – Dot balls bowled by Bumrah in his four overs, the joint-highest by a bowler for Mumbai in an IPL game. He equalled his own effort from the previous season, where he bowled 18 dots against Rajasthan Royals.