Stats highlights from an eventful third day at Melbourne, where Alastair Cook recorded his second double-century in Australia

Gaurav Sundararaman28-Dec-2017 Cook marches on and on Alastair Cook has become just the third visiting batsman to score two or more double centuries in Australia. Wally Hammond and Brian Lara are the other two to achieve this rare feat.Cook also now holds the highest score by a visiting batsmen at the MCG, going past the 208 by Viv Richards in 1984. He now holds the record for the highest scores by a visiting batsman in two of the five major venues in Australia. His 235 not out at Brisbane in 2010-11 is the highest score by a visiting batsmen at the Gabba. Cook’s unbeaten 244 is now the fifth highest score for England in an Ashes Test. He still has a chance tomorrow to move further up that elite list.This was Cook’s second double century in 2017 and the highest score by any batsmen in 2017, going past the scores of 243 made by Cook and Virat Kohli. Cook and Kohli are the only players to have scored more than one double century for the year.

Alastair Cook also made his eleventh score of 150 or more – This is the most for any player from England. Cook is also the third cricketer from England, after Jack Hobbs and Wally Hammond, to score three or more scores of 150-plus in Australia. In the course of his innings, Cook also went past Mahela Jayawardene, Shivnarine Chanderpaul and Brian Lara to become the sixth highest run-getter in Tests.All the highlights and talking points from Day 3 at MCG•ESPNcricinfo Ltd The ninth-wicket stand Stuart Broad has had a good Test so far. He picked up four wickets in the first innings, and has now scored his second fifty of the year, having not made more than 47 in any of the previous three years. More importantly, he added 100 runs for the ninth wicket alongside Cook. This is the first century stand for England’s ninth wicket against Australia since George Geary and George Macaulay added 108 in 1926. Australia have conceded eight century stands for the ninth wicket. The last time they did it was in 2013 when MS Dhoni and Bhuvneshwar Kumar added 140. In that match , Dhoni made an unbeaten 224.England’s familiar foes Moeen Ali was dismissed by Nathan Lyon for the sixth time in seven innings in this series. In the 2015 Ashes in England, Moeen scored 89 runs from 120 balls and was never dismissed by Lyon, compared to 80 runs from 176 balls this time around. Jonny Bairstow has been dismissed by Mitchell Starc on four occasions this series, but his record against Lyon is not great either. Bairstow now has been dismissed by Lyon on six occasions – the joint-second most times he has been dismissed by any bowler behind Starc. Josh Hazlewood and James Vince also crossed swords for the fourth time this series.ESPNcricinfo Ltd Root fails to convert again England’s captain Joe Root failed to convert a good start to a century once again. This was his third fifty of the series and his eighth of the year. Root now has 35 fifties and 13 centuries, meaning that his conversation rate of 27% is the worst among the 37 cricketers to have scored 2000 Test runs and averaged in excess of 50.

Cheteshwar Pujara had been rock solid, but India were in trouble. And then he showcased a rarely-seen side of his game and batted outstandingly with the tail

Nagraj Gollapudi at the Aegas Bowl31-Aug-2018This is the innings Cheteshwar Pujara believed he could play. An innings of courage, calm, and calculated assault.There are many yardsticks to measure how important Pujara’s unbeaten 132 is in the context of the series. First, without Pujara’s runs, India’s resolve would have been flattened. Their series would have been over, and all the motivation after the Trent Bridge victory might have evaporated. Secondly, and more importantly, he is the only top-order batsman in both teams to hit a half-century in this Test so far.When Pujara walked out to bat on the second morning, his first thought might have been about his previous visit to this venue. In a county championship match in June, he made 0 and 32, with Dale Steyn having sent his off-stump flying in the first innings. Today though, there was no vulnerability in Pujara’s mind and defence.India were in danger of losing the initiative after KL Rahul and Shikhar Dhawan fell, having started confidently. Pujara scored his first run off his 12th delivery – quick by his standards. He is generally happy not to be rushed. His first boundary, a crisp off drive against Sam Curran, came after 36 deliveries.In contrast, Virat Kohli punched his second ball – from Stuart Broad – for four. In the hour before lunch there urgency in India’s batting, an intent to score. Even Pujara was looking for runs. He upper cut Broad for four, and Kohli applauded. When Anderson bowled a loose ball, Pujara did not let it go – he rocked back to unleash a fierce square cut. The pair ran hard, urging each other. India went to lunch on 100 for 2. The partnership was already worth 50 runs, with Pujara matching Kohli’s 25 runs.While an aggressive Kohli is to be expected, England faced a new entity in Pujara. He forced England’s bowlers to think hard. Initially, Curran felt he could bend one from over the wicket into Pujara. But Pujara was waiting, eyes wide open, bat steady, soft hands. He dead-batted Curran many a time.Failing to find movement into Pujara, Curran opted to bowl from around the stumps. This was a minor victory for Pujara, making the bowler change his plan. He also knew Curran would aim to angle the ball in from wide of the crease. That meant he would also bowl fuller. If Curran erred, Pujara could take advantage. A slow over-pitched delivery arrived soon, and Pujara lunged to hit a fluent cover drive that took him two short of his second 50-plus score of the series.1:15

Great mix of caution and aggression in Pujara’s innings – Bangar

There was a minor lapse in focus as soon as he reached his half-century. Facing Ben Stokes’ first ball of the day – fuller length and moving away from off-stump – Pujara got lucky as the outside edge was not taken by the wicketkeeper Jos Buttler.Pujara also faced the challenge of playing Moeen Ali from the rough. This was the first time in the series that batsmen were threatened by spin. It needed a different mindset.Pujara had faced a probing over, a maiden, from Moeen before lunch. The first few deliveries were played from the crease, with short leg coming into play. Pujara understood that the best way to negate the rough was to use his feet. For the rest of the day, he hopped out of the crease on several occasions to dab the ball or loft it over the infield.Pujara’s biggest challenge arrived immediately after lunch. Kohli departed with the deficit just over 100. There were about 50 overs left in the day. England found a second wind, and India’s middle and lower-order batsmen lost their heads. From 161 for 3, India collapsed to 195 for 8.Joe Root spread the field and asked his bowlers to aim for Pujara’s head. Fine leg, long leg, deep square leg were in place. Pujara lined up to play the hook a couple of times, but resisted the urge – consciously one time, beaten by pace and bounce another. The one time he actually attempted the hook, against Stokes who was bowling from around the stumps, the ball smashed into his helmet. There was minor bump on his right temple. Pujara was on 57. Anderson hit the back of his helmet as well, on 78, but Pujara’s focus was not dented.Pujara got up, thanks in no small measure to his two crutches, Ishant Sharma and Jasprit Bumrah. Pujara had valuable partnerships of 32 and 46 with them, and helped India take a lead that had looked impossible at tea.It is easy to be desperate in a scenario when you have only the tail for support. But Pujara wasn’t. He helped India regain their footing, then draw level with England, and eventually take a lead. England bowled 143 balls at the last two wickets, and Pujara faced 92 of those, scoring 54 runs. Not only did he shepherd the tail safely, he also helped India surge.When Pujara jumped out for the umpteenth time to loft Moeen back over his head to get to his century, he ran hard, thinking three runs were on offer. Bumrah sent him back, but two runs were enough to get to the hundred. Pujara removed his helmet and raised both hands to celebrate his 15 Test century, his first outside Asia since the 153 in Johannesburg in 2013.By the time India’s innings ended, Pujara had turned a dire situation into one of hope in the dressing room. Levelling this series was still a realistic possibility. Pujara performed the role Kohli had at Edgbaston in the India’s first innings of this series. Both were heroic knocks, but Pujara went one step ahead of Kohli – he helped India take a small, but vital, lead.Gratitude also was not forgotten. On his way up to the dressing room, as the crowd gave him a standing ovation, Pujara stopped to thank one man in particular. A man who would be proud of Pujara’s focus, courage and presence of mind. The man was Sanjay Bangar, India’s batting coach who has spent hours working in the nets with Pujara.The most striking aspect of Pujara’s innings was that – after a typically watchful start – he looked to score at all times. It did not matter whether it was the early spells from Anderson, Broad and Curran, or the cunning of Moeen. Discipline and bloody-mindedness have always been Pujara’s friends. Today he combined those with guts and the intent to score, and the result was glorious.After 355 minutes of toil and satisfaction, Pujara returned undefeated, having played a great innings.

Australia’s captain has been asked the same questions in countless press conferences since taking over as captain. At last, he’s about to play some cricket

Melinda Farrell at The Oval12-Jun-20181:02

Every game I play for Australia is a bonus – Paine

What sense of relief will Tim Paine feel when he leads the Australian players out at The Oval for their first match since that series and, once the goodwill handshakes are out of the way, actually starts playing some cricket?It would be over-stating it to describe the coveted role of Australia captain as a poisoned chalice but, in his brief tenure to date, Paine has been forced to shoulder the burden of rebuilding the shattered reputation and integrity of the national side in a way none of his predecessors has had to do.The press conference on the eve of Australia’s first outing since the calamitous series in South Africa was predictable in echoing every other media opportunity in the wake of ‘sandpapergate’: a barrage questions on sledging, banter, abuse and behaviour. Please, no more talk about “The Line”. While he answered them all with a weary politeness, there are only so many ways Paine can rephrase the same answer.”I can’t talk about it anymore to be honest,” Paine said. “We’ve talked about what’s acceptable from our team and what people are saying from outside our team doesn’t really matter.”Internally we know what’s right and what’s wrong, and that’s what counts.”Paine’s situation is remarkable. After making his Test debut alongside Steve Smith, a thumb injury sustained in an exhibition match left him watching Smith’s ascendancy from afar while he battled to keep his career afloat through periods of further injury and, at times, indifferent form. He was mentioned in sympathetic tones, a subject of regretful “what-ifs”.Last year, unable to sustain his place in the Tasmanian side, Paine had accepted his playing days were over and he was planning the next phase of his life. His unexpected recall to the Australian team for the Ashes was the feel-good story of the summer; the shocking circumstances of his rise to the captaincy were as unforeseen as they were unfortunate.But the fact this has all landed in his lap at a time after he had expected it to be over gives him a valuable perspective.”I’m in a really good space with my cricket,” said Paine. “I’m captaining Australia where twelve months ago I was nearly working for Kookaburra sports.”Every game I play for Australia is an absolute bonus for me. I spoke to JL [Justin Langer] this morning about trying to play every game for Australia as if it’s my last, and it’s easy for me to do that.”While Paine’s situation is unusual, it’s not entirely unique in modern cricket and, if he is looking for an example of what is possible in such circumstances, a glance in the direction of Misbah-ul-Haq’s history would not go amiss.Unwanted by his team for the 2010 tour of England, Misbah later revealed he felt like burning his kit and throwing it away, such was his disillusionment. Luckily, he didn’t. He and his kit were called upon in the aftermath of Pakistan’s most notorious cricket scandal, the outcomes of which dwarf Australia’s recent transgressions in scale: players jailed, the standing of the team seemingly irrevocably destroyed.Misbah was an unlikely hero – remember the tuk-tuk jibes? – and yet, in the space of four years, he achieved what many thought would be impossible at the start of his captaincy. With the help of trusted lieutenants and allies and, on the strength of his own determined conviction, he led the resurgence of Pakistan, the restoration of its reputation in international cricket and – despite never having the advantage of playing at home – took his side to the top of the world Test rankings. The setting for the drawn match which secured Pakistan’s No.1 ranking is the same venue where Paine’s side will take its first steps back from its own pit of ignominy.This is not to suggest Paine will emulate Misbah’s achievements in a playing or leadership sense. Whether or not Paine is the long-term solution to Australia’s captaincy, or even wicketkeeping, remains to be seen. But Misbah showed, at the very least, that Australia’s – and Paine’s – obstacles are not insurmountable.Before anything of the sort is possible, of course, there is some cricket to be played. And redemption to be sought.”Words are words,” said Paine. “Come Wednesday, it’s time for us to act on those words and show it by actions.”

The left-hander enjoys a life of relative anonymity in Adelaide, but earmarked as a star of the future, he may have to get used to that changing

Daniel Brettig02-Nov-2018Travis Head still bears the scars of eight stitches in his head and six across his back, lifelong reminders of a night outside the Lion Hotel in North Adelaide five years ago when he was extremely fortunate not to have his young career cut extremely short.Hit by a car and sent flying across Melbourne Street at 1.45am, he was severely concussed and a bloody mess when he returned to his senses after spending some time unconscious. Surrounded by team-mates, including Callum Ferguson, Chadd Sayers and the late Phillip Hughes, after South Australia’s win over Victoria that day, Head quickly realised how lucky he had been.”He’d come round the corner and I did my best to try to get out the way,” Head recalls of the driver he first glimpsed in his peripheral vision. “He freaked out and swerved the same way as I was going. I was fortunate enough to have my wits about me and jump, so I didn’t break any legs or anything.”I remember waking up with the ambulance being there. The boys were really good, so that initial shock went away fairly quickly. I was in pretty good hands with the medical staff and the ambos, and I knew quite quickly that it wasn’t anything structurally done. I just had a big slice in my back and a cut in my head. They were stitched up, a couple of cool photos, a couple of bad scars now. I was sore for a few weeks.”Two days later I got mum to drive me in to see the boys, because I was more worried about how they were going. I remember seeing Chaddy across the road and he would’ve just been watching me get cleaned up. I was sore for a while. The concussion thing hadn’t come in yet.”Travis Head led Adelaide Strikers to their maiden Big Bash title earlier this year•Cricket Australia/Getty ImagesAt the age of 18, Head was already into his second season with South Australia’s Sheffield Shield side, the archetypal young man in a hurry. Ferguson remembers the banged up teenager bantering from his hospital bed within an hour of the collision; Head made a point of trying to recover as quickly as possible so he could make his List A debut, for the Redbacks’ next match, a 50-over fixture also against Victoria.”I was probably in line to get picked in that team. I remember training on the Friday, it was 40°C, stinking hot in January. I was struggling a fair bit, getting very big headaches and whatnot. I was so keen to play that I swept it under the carpet. My stitches were still in. I didn’t get picked. Chuck [the coach Darren Berry] said it wasn’t because of [the accident], but I think it was.”So I didn’t get to debut in that game, but played and got a hundred in grade cricket, then went back into hospital that night and got all the stitches out. It was probably best that I didn’t play. I was definitely still pretty rattled by it, had some big gravel rashes and scabs and I was definitely sore, probably still heavily concussed, but back then we didn’t do the concussion tests or anything like that, so there was no real knowledge of that kind of stuff, even five years ago when it happened. A scary time, but got through it.”Not only did Head make a physical escape, but also one from the stigma of a drinking-related incident. For while he had been at the Lion for some time, a breath-test in the ambulance found him to be under the legal driving limit of 0.05 – a figure that doubtless also aided his recovery from the cuts, the bruises and the concussion.The driver of the car did not fare quite so well. A 22-year-old South Australian National Football League player, Jackson O’Brien returned a blood-alcohol reading of 0.122, and in addition to being reported for aggravated driving, he would be sacked by his club after what his side’s chief executive described as “a series of events in regard to alcohol”. For Head, the line between fun and responsibility has been a prominent one ever since.In Abu Dhabi, Travis Head was caught twice off Mohammad Abbas bowling round the wicket•Francois Nel/Getty Images”Extremely lucky, extremely fortunate I made the right decisions that night and after it,” he said. “It is something that quite easily could have gone horribly wrong and you find yourself in a bit of strife.”The good fortune Head enjoyed was to be thrown into even sharper relief some 18 months later when his housemate Hughes was to lose his life in circumstances still more random and tragic, struck on the neck by a short-pitched ball in a Shield match at the SCG. That trauma, for all in the game but particularly the competing teams from SA and New South Wales, is part of a patchwork of incidents that has given Head, at the age of 24, plenty of life experience.”I definitely have gone through some hard stuff,” he said. “I think I’ve been pretty fortunate I’ve had a lot more ups than downs. One thing is you’ve got to always have fun and enjoy it. Accidents happen, you make mistakes sometimes, but just make sure you’re looking after each other and trying to make the right decisions as much as you can.As South Australia captain, Head wants a similar attitude from his players. “We have a young group in SA and I want them to have as much fun as they possibly can doing it. As long as guys make the right decisions, keep being good guys and keep putting their best foot forward and being who they are is important to me.”The world in which Head has developed as a cricketer has been characterised by two things. First, the BBL has pushed the state season to the fringes of the summer. Secondly, Cricket Australia’s search for talent has seen numerous players graduate rapidly on the basis of potential, a policy underlined by how Head became SA captain at 21, before he had scored a Shield century or pushed his first-class average above 30. His red-ball record since – 3431 runs at 40.84 with seven hundreds – bears little argument against a place in Australia’s Test match plans without Steven Smith and David Warner.”I worked really hard on hitting the ball straight. I was just concentrating so hard, I just couldn’t bat, it wasn’t enjoyable, so I thought, ‘stuff it, I’m going to go back’, with the new mentality, still fairly cradled”•Getty ImagesWithin that record is also a story of technical back and forth, as he has evolved from a short-arm puller and cutter to a batsman with a wider array of shots, most particularly a better developed drive down the ground, inspired in part by the cradle-like set-up of the former Test opener and fellow left-hander Chris Rogers.”I remember I was almost like the cradle [with the bat], like him. I was young, I didn’t really have a straight drive. I was pretty much through midwicket and through point and that was all I had. I’d just throw my hands at everything, and after probably half a dozen Shield games, I wasn’t as consistent with it. So with Jeff Vaughan [former SA batting coach], I worked really hard on hitting the ball straight. We’d count how many straight drives I could hit in a Shield game.”[Then] I went through a stage where I’d just drop my bat on the ball and be very robotic. I probably didn’t hit as many cut shots in that period. I had a sequence of three 90s in a row. JL [Australia’s coach Justin Langer] has spoken about being so mentally strong you cook yourself – you try so hard that you fry your brain. I was just concentrating so hard, I just couldn’t bat, it wasn’t enjoyable. I found myself with tight arms, getting sore and fatigued, so I thought, ‘stuff it, I’m going to go back’, with the new mentality, still fairly cradled. I’m still concentrating really hard on hitting the ball straight back down the wicket, and I’ve gone through the stage where I’ve matured, and in Australia when the ball is on the stumps I feel like you can hit it past the bowler.”Recently, while also working on his batting against spin, Head linked up with Rogers to work on another area of concern – combating the ball angled from around the wicket or from a left-handed bowler. Mitchell Starc has been one of several pacemen to trouble Head in this way, and in the UAE, Mohammad Abbas was another. In the looming limited-overs series against South Africa, Kagiso Rabada and Dale Steyn can be expected to test it also.”We had one session in Brisbane just before we left for the Australia A tour [of India],” Head said. “Bucky [Rogers] talked about the alignment stuff. He said from over the wicket I looked really good but from around the wicket, my feet and body still lined up as though it was over the wicket. I hadn’t thought about it.”I’ve had a bit of trouble with Starcy getting me out quite a bit with the ball swinging late and swinging [across] the bat a bit from slip to mid-on. But after that session, through India and the UAE, it was something I was conscious of.”Head’s batting method, his quiet Adelaide upbringing – he still enjoys relative anonymity in the city even after Adelaide Strikers won the BBL earlier this year – and the scars from his accident all form part of the story of him making it into the Australian side at a time when cool heads are required. He is out to make the most of a fortunate moment in North Adelaide, and a carefully planned emergence ever since.

Praise for 18-year-old Prithvi Shaw after he became India’s youngest debut Test centurion

ESPNcricinfo staff04-Oct-2018

Shaw what a show @PrithviShaw

— Rohit Sharma (@ImRo45) October 4, 2018

Lovely to see such an attacking knock in your first innings, @prithvishaw! Continue batting fearlessly. #INDvWI pic.twitter.com/IIM2IifRAd

— Sachin Tendulkar (@sachin_rt) October 4, 2018

Well played young man @PrithviShaw for a free and fearless performance on debut. A bit of Viru and the Master there #INDvsWI pic.twitter.com/JQ2VtysqaU

— Ravi Shastri (@RaviShastriOfc) October 4, 2018

Wow .. 18 yrs old @PrithviShaw .. Test on debut .. Looks like #India have another superstar that has arrived on the scene !!! #INDvWI

— Michael Vaughan (@MichaelVaughan) October 4, 2018

What a moment! 18 years of age, debuting for India's test cricket squad and scores a century! Well done Prithvi Shaw! #INDvWI @PrithviShaw

— Harbhajan Turbanator (@harbhajan_singh) October 4, 2018

Congratulations to Prithvi Shaw for a hundred on debut. Love the fact that he can score at a strike rate of 100 just batting instinctively without looking to over attack or by taking risks. #PrithviShaw

— Sanjay Manjrekar (@sanjaymanjrekar) October 4, 2018

Wonderful century on debut for Prithvi Shaw. Great to see a 18 year old go out and play his natural game. Got a bright future. #IndvWI pic.twitter.com/e86XPsg6ho

— VVS Laxman (@VVSLaxman281) October 4, 2018

WOW, how impressive is @PrithviShaw. on debut #IndvWI

— Lisa Sthalekar (@sthalekar93) October 4, 2018

What is better than making a debut? Smashing a century on debut! Congratulations and well played, @PrithviShaw! #INDvWI pic.twitter.com/TaBG856kAt

— Kidambi Srikanth (@srikidambi) October 4, 2018

What a thrilling test debut! Rocking inning @PrithviShaw! Heartiest congratulations!!! #PrithviShaw pic.twitter.com/psXoBcZ4f4

— Suresh Raina (@ImRaina) October 4, 2018

What a way to begin your Test career. Congratulations @PrithviShaw on your debut ton. Many more to come! #INDvWI pic.twitter.com/375QZgFx8F

— MANOJ TIWARY (@tiwarymanoj) October 4, 2018

Such a beautiful moment for young @PrithviShaw. Almost a child. Bats like he knows no fear. No inhibitions. This is a different generation!

— Harsha Bhogle (@bhogleharsha) October 4, 2018

After years of depending on Shakib Al Hasan, Bangladesh finally have the skill and depth to say they have the spin department covered

Mohammad Isam in Dhaka02-Dec-2018By taking all 40 wickets in the 2-0 series win over West Indies, Bangladesh’s spinners have now established their ascendancy in favourable conditions. It is the latest proof that they can now push for big wins even when the batsmen don’t entirely contribute. And when they do, as it happened in the Dhaka Test, the spinners can be unstoppable.Mehidy Hasan Miraz took career-best figures of 12 for 117, and found great support at the other end from Shakib Al Hasan, Taijul Islam and Nayeem Hasan. For the first time, Bangladesh didn’t bother picking a frontline seamer in their XI, after the four spinners had combined similarly well in the first Test in Chittagong. There, Nayeem and Taijul starred with five-fors.Shakib said that he enjoyed watching the West Indies batsmen struggle constantly against the spinners, which he felt also motivated the fielders into making extra efforts.”I feel good when I see batsmen finding it tough facing every ball bowled by our spinners,” Shakib said. “It energises the fielders too, as everyone then thinks a chance is on the way. I think everyone was on their toes when our spinners were bowling. Enough quality bowlers and pitches that help spinners have combined to give us a formidable spin bowling attack at home.”Shakib was particularly impressed with Taijul, who finished the year as Bangladesh’s leading wicket-taker in Tests.”I hope we continue to bowl well against all sides, particularly when we are in form. When you have four spinners in the line-up, at least two are certain to do well. Taijul has had a stellar year with 40-45 [43] wickets. He has bowled consistently well, and he is rewarded for his hard work. I hope he bowls this way next season too. Our team can do well if we get contributions from all the departments.”Mehidy achieves career-best Test ranking

Mehidy Hasan has leaped 14 places to 16th in the ICC Test rankings for bowlers after his 12-wicket haul in the Dhaka Test. Mehidy had begun the series ranked 28th, and had fallen to 30th after the Chattogram Test. With this significant jump, he becomes the highest-ranked bowler for Bangladesh, going past Shakib Al Hasan (21) and Taijul Islam (22). It is the first time Mehidy has broken into the top 20.

Shakib said that Mehidy, who picked his second 12-wicket haul in Tests, must continue making simple plans in order to do better in the future, adding that it was the offspinner’s first innings 7-for that paved the way for the big win.”He has been bowling well since the second day. I think he can bowl even better if he can think more simply,” Shakib said. “Our plan was to try to hit the stumps all day, and give as little away as possible. It is important to simplify our bowling plan. I think we become too attacking at times. We expect a wicket almost every ball. I think if we can control that thinking, and bowl in partnership, we can do better.”His first innings bowling was really important and he was outstanding. We never expected to bowl them out so cheaply but that belief returned through Miraz’s bowling. His 7-58 in the first innings really set the course of the match,” said Shakib.One of the ways in which Mehidy contributed was by removing Shimron Hetmyer in all four innings of the series. These were crucial blows as the young left-hander’s attacking style became the only barrier for Bangladesh. Mehidy said that his experience of playing against Hetmyer since their U-19 days helped him plot his dismissals.”I have played against him for a long time. We have played in two U-19 World Cups, and now at the international level. I know a lot about his batting, which made planning against him easier and brought me good results,” said Mehidy.He said that while his 12-wicket haul against England in his maiden Test series in 2016 was a “turning point” in his life, this one is also important as he is now a more well-rounded spinner.”The first 12-wicket haul was a turning point in my life, so that one will be kept ahead. Now I have played for two years, learned a few things from the seniors and feel I am more experienced. I wouldn’t say that this was any lesser as I now know better about bowling against each batsman,” he said.In the last two years, Bangladesh’s spinners have been instrumental in beating England, Sri Lanka, Australia, Zimbabwe and now West Indies. In these six Test wins, they have bowled well for long periods, triggered quick collapses and delivered knockout punches at crucial moments.The additions of Taijul and Mehidy have given Shakib a supportive boost after eight years, between 2008 and 2016, when he was the talisman. With a perpetually unsettled pace attack, he had to do the bulk of the work in the bowling department for a long time.The emergence of Sohag Gazi, Robiul Islam, Jubair Hossain and Elias Sunny had briefly raised hopes of a shared bowling workload but neither could stick around for too long. A similar feeling must have followed when Taijul began with a five-for on Test debut in West Indies and took 8-39 against Zimbabwe in his first two months as an international bowler in 2014, or when Mehidy took 19 wickets in his debut Test series against England in 2016.But both have now proved that they are good enough for Test cricket, and can complement each other in helpful conditions. Nayeem’s emergence, too, must be heartening as it ensures depth in the spin department. The quartet came together to take all the wickets in this Test series and whether they play together in another Test or not, it is an assuring feeling for Bangladesh that they are potent with at least one part of their bowling attack.

The sights and sounds at Galle were familiar, but the team spinning a web around stumbling opponents was not the hosts

Andrew Fidel Fernando in Galle07-Nov-2018You know you are at a Sri Lanka match when you see the flags. You need not know whose flags they are. You could be colour blind. Your eyes could even be failing you in general. But if can see there is a flag for almost every person in at a cricket ground, it is likely to be Sri Lankans waving them. When the team plays overseas, for example, Sri Lanka fans are often vastly outnumbered, but on the brandishing of flags front, they have home supporters covered.There is something amiss about this picture, of course. That is still a Buddhist up on the hill, beyond the bay to the east. The gentle azaan from a nearby mosque still echoes through the grounds in the afternoons. The less-than-gentle honking of public buses as well.At Galle on day one, though, English, British and Welsh flags outnumbered Sri Lankan ones. The ratio was 10 to one, conservatively. On day two, it was even more stark. In the ground, and on the fort ramparts, where the hordes, some of them shirtless, many turning the resplendent pink of the sunset sky, built beer snakes, flags that read “Newcastle” or “Hull” or “Stoke”. There were more unusual names: “Scunthorpe”, “Hungerford”, “Dorking”. In the innings break late in the day, one England fan disrobed and streaked clear across the ground, in a country that takes its public nudity laws seriously.They may not have applied sufficient sunscreen. They may come from places that sound made up. One could be spending the next few days in a local jail. But for this week at least, they have hung out in numbers on the ramparts, and they have taken over the ground. As they watch on at Sri Lanka’s favourite venue of all, their team has taken over the Test.****Sometimes, when teams are a month into an away series and defeats have piled up, morale subsides, ill-feeling rears its head, and personal grouses – magnified by the distance from home – begin to take hold.Officially this is a home Test for Sri Lanka, but it is not without this kind of resentment. When Angelo Mathews reaches fifty, he looks toward the dressing room, points to his bat, and makes a yapping motion with his gloved hand. The message is obvious. “I am letting my bat do the talking.” He has just made a chanceless half-century, helped raise his team from 40 for 4, and batted out 49 more deliveries than any of his team-mates. One look at the scoreboard, though, and anyone would deduce that his job remained half done. Maybe less than half.Fans gather by the old fort to watch the 1st Test•Getty ImagesIt is true that Mathews was recently axed as limited-overs captain by his coach, and shunted out from those teams altogether. True that some resentment seems to linger. But Sri Lanka needed a further 207 to draw level with the opposition at the time, and with five wickets already down, Mathews was batting in the company of Niroshan Dickwella, whose highest Test score is 83. The men to come below can sometimes be handy with the bat, but almost certainly cannot be relied on to make substantial dents in that deficit.It would have to be Mathews who stuck around. Mathews who told Dickwella to curb his aggression, Mathews who hand-held the tail, wringing each lower-order partnership for as many runs as it could possibly produce, as he had done during his best series, in 2014 and 2015.Instead, the first ball after tea – the first ball he faced after gesturing to the dressing room – Moeen Ali pitches a regulation offbreak outside off stump. Mathews lunges, edges into his pad, and is caught at short leg. He’s made 52. Six wickets down, Sri Lanka have still not got out of follow-on territory. This is the kind of plight that often befalls them away, but rarely at home, especially when facing non-Asian teams.Against South Africa in July, they virtually had both Tests in the bag by the end of the second day.****That Dickwella even has to be told to tone down his adventurous strokeplay in Test cricket is telling enough. In limited-overs cricket he is a charging, sweeping, reverse-slapping dynamo – a man who attempts to ‘Dickscoop’ his way into a nation’s hearts. In Tests, though, he his 23 matches into his career, and still hasn’t mustered a hundred. In this Test, that failing seems especially relevant, given what his opposite number, Ben Foakes, has achieved.Dickwella got a start in this innings. Mostly the ball found the middle of his bat. He rarely seemed in discomfort, nailing a sweep, ramping Ben Stokes over the wicketkeeper’s head, and flicking a Jack Leach delivery deliciously over the leg side. Then, just as he seems to be settling in for a good innings, Moeen tosses up a slightly slower ball, and Dickwella drives at it early, chipping it at catching height to short cover.Dhananjaya de Silva’s ill-advised paddle brought his downfall•Getty ImagesIt is the kind of dismissal frequently seen at Galle. A batsman has got through his first 20 balls. His feet are moving well, and he has begun to score freely. The bowler has tried keeping it tight, but is being milked for singles. So he changes his mode of attack and lets one hang in the air a little while, to lure the now-confident batsman into a soft dismissal. The only difference is that often, it is a Sri Lanka spinner who lays the bait and a visitor who takes it. Local batsmen, who have been playing spin since the womb, are usually not so easily duped.****In their worst Tests outside Asia, when the ball is swinging, and the wind is cold, Sri Lanka batsmen often get out attacking. Sometimes, they don’t know what they are doing, are miserable in both a cricketing and physical sense, and the inclination is to try something – anything – which usually involves hitting out. Through the course of the day in Galle, various batsmen appeared uncomfortable on their own home track. Dhananjaya de Silva mishit several balls, and was bowled attempting a lap sweep in the half hour before lunch. Dilruwan Perera smacked a ball to cover having also made a start. Missing from the whole performance was the nous you expect from batsmen in their home conditions. Unseen was the desire to turn a half-century into a hundred, to turn a start into an innings of substance, to make the opposition sweat for their wicket.England, who have done their homework, watched replays of that South Africa series, have two men who coached Sri Lanka leading their think tank, have three frontline spinners in the XI, acclimatised in the ODIs, played two practice matches, and have fans who have bought even the cheap tickets before the locals had a chance, are 177 runs ahead in the Test, with 10 wickets still in hand.As Sri Lanka batted on day two, the flags on the rampart and the beer snakes around the ground almost looked at home.

Also: have India ever won a Test without a single wicket taken by a spinner?

Steven Lynch15-Jan-2019I noticed that Kumar Sangakkara scored eight centuries in the space of 11 first-class innings during 2017. Was this a record? asked Michael Crump from England
That purple patch by Kumar Sangakkara came during his remarkable farewell season with Surrey in 2017. In successive first-class innings he scored 136 against Lancashire, 105 against Warwickshire, 114 and 120 against Middlesex, 200 and 84 against Essex then 4 and 26 in the return game, and 180 not out and 164 in separate matches against Yorkshire. Sangakkara signed off from his final season with 1491 runs at an average of 106.50.There have actually been four previous sequences of eight hundreds in 11 innings in first-class cricket. The first to do it was the prolific Australian opener Bill Ponsford, spread over the 1926-27 and 1927-28 seasons Down Under. His sequence, mostly for Victoria, went: 151 (v Queensland), 352 (v New South Wales), 108 and 84 (v South Australia), 12 and 116 (v Queensland), 131 and 7 (Australian XI v The Rest), 133 (v South Australia in 1927-28), 437 (v Queensland) and 202 (v NSW). Ponsford scored 214 (and 54) against South Australia in the match before this run started, and in the one after it ended hit 336 (also against South Australia), making ten centuries in 15 innings in all.The last to do it before Sangakkara was another sublime left-hander, Brian Lara, in 1994. The sequence began with his Test-record 375 for West Indies against England in Antigua, and continued when he joined Warwickshire: 147 (v Glamorgan), 106 and 120 not out (v Leicestershire), 136 (v Somerset), 26 and 140 (v Middlesex), the first-class record 501 not out (v Durham), 19 and 31 (v Kent), and 197 (v Northamptonshire).Regular readers of this column will hardly be surprised to learn that the other man to manage eight hundreds in 11 innings was Don Bradman – and indeed he did it twice! Towards the end of the 1938 England tour he scored 144 against Nottinghamshire, 103 and 16 in the fourth Test against England, 202 v Somerset, 17 against Glamorgan, and 67 v Kent. Once at home in Australia he started the 1938-39 season with 118 for his own side against KE Rigg’s XI, 143 for South Australia v New South Wales, 225 v Queensland, 107 v Victoria, 186 v Queensland, and 135 not out v NSW. That made it eight centuries in 11 innings, including six in the last six to equal CB Fry’s record (later also matched by the South African Mike Procter). This period was the most productive of even the Don’s spectacular career: he had one sequence in which he scored 20 hundreds in the space of 33 first-class innings, which included the eight in 11 mentioned here.And Bradman did it again, at the age of 39: in 1947-48 he made 185 (in Brisbane), 13 (Sydney), 132 and 127 not out (Melbourne), 201 (Adelaide) and 57 retired hurt (Melbourne) in Australia’s Tests against India, and added 115 for the Australian XI en route for England against Western Australia in Perth. Once in England, he started the 1948 “nvincibles tour with 107 against Worcestershire, 81 v Leicestershire, 146 v Surrey, and 187 against Essex in the famous match at Southend in which the Aussies piled up 721 runs on the first day.Stuart Broad has two Test hat-tricks to his name: one against India in 2011, and another against Sri Lanka in 2014•Getty ImagesTagenarine Chanderpaul recently scored a century for Guyana which took him 424 balls – is this the slowest first-class hundred? asked Davo Kissoondari from Guyana
Tagenarine Chanderpaul certainly proved himself a chip off the old Shivnarine block with his century for Guyana against the Windward Islands in Providence last week. According to the Guyana Times, “His century came off 424 balls, batting for 429 minutes, hitting seven fours, nine twos and 46 singles.”Chanderpaul junior’s effort equalled the slowest hundred by balls shown on the Association of Cricket Statisticians’ website, by Sanjay Bangar for Railways against Uttar Pradesh in Delhi in 1995-96. The number of balls faced – especially for part of an innings – are generally not known for most earlier matches. But the Melbourne cricket historian Charles Davis, who has devoted himself to studying old Test scorebooks, has discovered several hundreds that needed more than 424 balls. The longest, at 535, is Colin Cowdrey’s for England against West Indies at Edgbaston in 1957. Nazar Mohammad’s hundred for Pakistan against India in Lucknow in 1952-53 took around 520 deliveries.The longest by time was by Nazar Mohammad’s son Mudassar Nazar, for Pakistan against England in Lahore in 1977-78. Mudassar took 557 minutes (419 balls) to reach three figures, while S Ramesh’s 556-minute century for Tamil Nadu against Kerala in Chennai in 2001-02 came up from a sprightly 339 deliveries.How many people have taken two hat-tricks in Tests? asked Geoffrey Keen from England
Four bowlers have taken two Test hat-tricks. One of them, the Australian legspinner Jimmy Matthews, actually did it in the same game – against South Africa at Old Trafford in 1912. Oddly, Matthews didn’t take any other wickets in the game. Wasim Akram almost matched Matthews’s feat, taking hat-tricks in successive Tests against Sri Lanka in 1998-99, in Lahore and in Dhaka.Stuart Broad has also taken two, against India at Trent Bridge in 2011 and against Sri Lanka at Headingley in 2014, while the tall Australian offspinner Hugh Trumble took two hat-tricks against England at the MCG, one in 1901-02 and another in 1903-04.Which Test player called his autobiography Panther’s Paces? asked Prakash Joshi from India
This is the title of a long-awaited tome from Chandu Borde, the fine Indian batsman of the 1950s and ’60s. He was only the third Indian – after Polly Umrigar and Vijay Manjrekar – to win 50 caps, and finished with 3061 runs in 55 Tests, with five centuries. He captained, in the absence of the injured Nawab of Pataudi, against Australia in Adelaide in 1967-68. His book, co-written with Mohan Sinha, is a neatly produced hardback, published last year by Anubandh Prakashan in Pune. I imagine you should be able to obtain one from them if you would like a copy.India won the series in Australia without much input from the spinners. But have they ever won a Test without a spinner taking a single wicket? asked Jamie Henderson from Australia
India have only ever won one Test without a spinner taking a wicket at all – and it was quite a recent one. In Johannesburg last January, they beat South Africa by 63 runs, with the wickets being shared between Jasprit Bumrah (seven), Mohammed Shami (six), Bhuvneshwar Kumar (four) and Ishant Sharma (three).There have been two Indian victories which included a solitary wicket for a spinner: over Sri Lanka in Galle in August 2001, when Harbhajan Singh made a solitary strike, and at Trent Bridge last summer, when R Ashwin took one England wicket and the seamers (Bumrah, Shami, Ishant and Hardik Pandya) shared the other 19.Use our feedback form or the Ask Steven Facebook page to ask your stats and trivia questions

Overseas wins used to seem like miracles to Indian fans not too long ago. With the attack the team has now, this is no longer the case

Sidharth Monga at the MCG30-Dec-20184:54

‘Bumrah is the best bowler in the world right now’ – Kohli

There is a big generation gap among Indian fans. There is a generation that slept restlessly through the fourth nights of the Adelaide and Melbourne Tests. These fans are worn down by previous failures, and recall obsolete details every time India win an away Test, stats and incidents that are so far removed from this current team that they should not be relevant at all. This is a generation of fans brought up on defeat. These fans can relate to the TV-unfriendly anatomical reference that India’s head coach made after their 31-run win in Adelaide.Then there’s another set of fans, who have grown up with Indian dominance, who take wins like Adelaide and Melbourne as a given and question India’s tactics when they lose in Centurion, in Cape Town, in Birmingham, in venues they have never won at. That history is not what matters to them; what matters is that India have a bowling attack that has a fair dinkum claim to being the best in the world, and consequently a team that can claim to be the best in the world. These fans expect wins, anywhere.Somewhere in between is the opposition that might give you a fair assessment of where India are at. Of the 14 innings that Australia’s top seven played in Melbourne, 11 made it to double figures and yet the highest score was only 44. No one went on to play the one big innings that could have been the difference between a defeat and a draw in a slow-scoring, rain-affected match. While Australia have an inexperienced batting line-up that is missing two of its biggest contributors over the last five years, the inability of the batsmen to convert starts also speaks of the pressure the bowlers kept them under.After the defeat, Tim Paine spoke of the grind the batsmen had to put in in Perth, and when they were asked to follow that up in Melbourne with another grind, on a slow surface, they were put under immense pressure by a disciplined Indian attack that was also capable of magic balls such as those produced by Jasprit Bumrah and Mohammed Shami. You can put in that sort of grind when you have won the toss and are ahead in the game, but the kind of mistakes Australia’s batsmen made are likely to happen when you are behind the game against such a good attack.India have made their share of mistakes in 2018, a year in which they have won four away Tests but lost seven, often coming frustratingly close only to lose out, but no matter what the situation of the series or the conditions, they have won every time they have won the toss. They are winning almost everything at home, and they are giving it a fair crack when away. They are winning everything when they win the toss, and giving it a fair crack when they lose it. So it is perhaps time for the older generation of fans to not make such a big deal of wins such as Melbourne. At least not after the bowling performance in the first innings, after which is was a mere formality for an attack of this quality and discipline.Mohammed Shami and Jasprit Bumrah share a laugh•Getty ImagesVirat Kohli knows who to be grateful to. “In bowlers’ meeting, I usually just sit and listen,” Kohli said after the win. There can’t be a bigger compliment.”It is very important to understand what the bowlers are thinking,” Kohli went on to add. “And then in that process you think of Plan B, and you communicate that to the bowlers. That’s how we operate. But the fact that the bowlers are all the time dictating those meetings is how you win Test matches away from home. At the end of the day they are running in with the ball so they need to be confident with their fields are, where they are pitching, the pace of the wicket, how they can bowl dot balls, and how they can get wickets.”That fact that they have taken total ownership of their skill and taken responsibility for the team is what has set them apart this calendar year. Results are there for everyone to see. It is not just talk, you know, they have put the numbers on the board.”In Perth, where Bumrah bowled without luck, he said the plays and misses were all going in the bank. He is an incredibly wise bowler. He knew the rewards were around the corner. And when they started coming in, he barged through the door on day three. If Australia had batted for another session that day, this game would probably have ended drawn, but the incisiveness of the bowling that day was phenomenal.”That fact that he didn’t get any wickets in Perth, and the way he bowled there, he didn’t lose heart, he knew wickets are going to come at some stage,” Kohli said. “And if you see the other bowlers, they are not trying to outdo someone else. If Bumrah is taking wickets, they are containing runs. If someone is picking wickets, Bumrah comes in and does his job. So does [Ravindra] Jadeja. So does [R] Ashwin. It is a team effort at the end of the day. When it comes together nicely, when it gets you results, it feels wonderful.”So while this win and the one in Adelaide have been as special as any, they were not miracles in the way India’s overseas wins not long ago used to seem. These wins have been built on brilliance, but this brilliance is not coming out of the blue. You can sleep easy, Indian fans, if India get their noses ahead in Sydney. This bowling unit is not likely to let it go.

We count, and describe, so you don’t have to

Jarrod Kimber12-Apr-2019Cricket has always had slow balls, just not actual balls. People have bowled quick and then slowed down. Perhaps they slipped on their cravats, or enjoyed too much ale for lunch, or were beaten by their landowner for not bowling straight enough in their last spell. Bowlers have always delivered balls that come out slower; it’s just that until there were matches with people trying to hit every ball stupidly hard, they weren’t much use.And what we have now is not slower ball, but really slowerball™, a portmanteau. But for a phrase we use so much, we talk little about the different types of slower balls. They are all lumped together as one thing.And there’s a reason for that – they are spoiler balls. We want big hits and fast bowling; we don’t want some pudgy medium-pacer who grins too much making a big slogger lose his shape and wicket. Slower balls are like the people who correct you for grammar.But they are here, coming out of the back of the hand, from knuckles and fingertips, gently wobbling like plates full of jelly at unsuspecting batsmen who want to crowd-please and make Danny Morrison discover a new octave, and instead they are overbalanced on their splayed front foot, one hand off the bat, bails slowly falling off like they have been pashed by a butterfly.Watching overpriced batsmen taken down by modern cricket’s subversive force is a beautiful thing. The slower ball is canniness in cricket form. It rotates down the wicket violently and says – in a Kiwi accent, for some reason – “Can you hit slow, bro?”

When I was a teenager, I taught my girlfriend, who had never played cricket, how to bowl an offcutter, to upset my mates in backyard cricket.

So for those of you who don’t record super slow-motion replays of change-ups with your mobile phone to watch before bed, here is a complete guide to modern-day slower balls.The knuckleballRemember a few years ago before you went to cafés with exposed brick and vintage-looking eco bulbs hanging low over your avocado meal presented on a reclaimed boat paddle? Back then slower balls had become stale. Then along comes AJ Tye – maybe the 87th quickest bowler in Perth – and becomes unhittable, and the knuckleball becomes like wool sneakers or Bluetooth speakers: everyone wants them.ALSO READ: Decoding Andrew Tye’s knuckleball
So we take the knuckleball from the baseball pitch known as – you’ve already guessed – the knuckleball, where the pitcher holds the ball with his fingertips digging into it and the knuckles closest to the fingertips showing over the top.Mark Butcher once claimed to me to have invented the delivery while playing club cricket in Melbourne in the ’90s. Other bowlers have tried versions, especially around the time the split-finger ball was trendy – Zaheer Khan had his own version. But in mainstream cricket, it never landed. Quite literally: a bad knuckleball floats wildly, like a kidult drifting through their mid-20s. But unlike those, the knuckleball is actually useful.There are two basic grips. One is holding the ball with your thumb and resting your fingernails flat on it, while for the other you hold it with your fingertips. As it comes out it looks more or less like a seam-up ball, the knuckles holding the ball in a way that to most batsmen they look like fingertips.By holding it with your knuckles, you take pace off the delivery and the ball doesn’t rotate backwards, like with a standard delivery. It either doesn’t rotate at all, which makes it wobble around, or it rotates forwards, which makes it drop. It’s something about the Magnus Effect (I looked it up, it has nothing to do with Magnus Norman, the Swedish tennis player who appeared in the game ).So if it’s so damn good, why doesn’t everyone bowl it?Jarrod Kimber/ESPNcricinfo LtdWell, it’s really hard. You know those balls where the commentators laugh instead of calling the ball as it floats out near the end of the cut strip, and then rolls apologetically to the keeper? Those are failed knuckleballs. (Also, the laugh should be hence known as the knucklechuckle.) Some bowlers just can’t control it. Others say their hands are too small even to try. Donald Trump, for example, would be a rubbish knuckleball bowler.Bowled by: Andrew Tye, Zaheer Khan, Mark Butcher (allegedly), Sunil Narine, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Matt Coles and Andile Phehlukwayo.Cutters, chapter oneLook, you could totally bowl an offcutter. I don’t know how good you are at cricket; I don’t know if you own the , beach or backyard, but if you understand the shape of a ball while having the physical dexterity required to open a door, you can bowl an offcutter. When I was a teenager, I taught my girlfriend, who had never played cricket, how to bowl an offcutter, to upset my mates in backyard cricket.ALSO SEE: Vote for your favourite slower ballThe offcutter is the easiest ball to bowl. I’m talking about the slower-ball variation of the offcutter more than the traditional offcutter. The latter one was more from a subtle roll of the fingers down the back right half of the ball, which made it nip back in at a decent pace. The current offcutter involves a violent wrist wrench, like turning off a faucet in panic as the sink overflows. Basically, we’ve swapped the sophistication of Bond for the biceps of Schwarzenegger.An offcutter is turning your hand to the right. Using the same basic movement as an offspinner (let’s be honest here, almost all the rubbish offspinners you have played against in the park are just slow offcutter bowlers, and no one has had the heart to tell them). Only, the ball is not wedged into the fingers like for offspin; it’s really just a seam-up grip.

The slower ball is canniness in cricket form. It rotates down the wicket violently and says – in a Kiwi accent, for some reason – “Can you hit slow, bro?”

It is a ball that has been around forever. It’s almost certainly the first overarm delivery that moved off the straight. And when people say they are cutter bowlers, they almost always mean offcuttters (see “Cutters, chapter two” below).The offcutter as a slower ball is moderately successful. On a pitch with grip, it can be like a fast offspinner. On a slow pitch it can hold in the surface. Someone like Ben Laughlin – who has taken the offcutter, put on mag wheels, a spoiler and painted it racing red – has turned it into a weapon of drift. Mustafizur Rahman is known as the Fizz because there is a “fiz” in his name, but also because of what his offcutters do off the pitch. And Lasith Malinga’s offcutter is like an egg rolling and then dropping off a glass table, such is the dip.Sadly it is usually just a medium-paced arm ball, so on most pitches, from most hands, the offcutter doesn’t fizz, curve or drop. It just takes pace off the ball, while showing the batsman exactly what has happened through a very pickable wrist tweak.ALSO READ: Franklyn Stephenson and the art of the slower ballIt’s the most delivered but least damaging slower ball. Think of it as how you remember the mostly for the cool leather costumes Neo and team wore, but not the bits where they wore filthy rags and ate ugly goop.Bowled by: Every seam bowler, unless they have far better slower balls or they have ethical issues with slower balls.Benny Howell produces new deliveries at a rate a paediatric ward would be proud of•Getty ImagesThe Benny HowellWhile you were watching an Instastory from someone with a billion followers who draws pictures of Logan Paul as a pot plant, Benny Howell invented a slower ball. By the time you hit “skip intro” on Netflix’s Labour Day special, he’ll find two more. And while your life partner is off making you a decaf coffee with artificial sweetener and almond milk, he’s made ten more.Howell is not a man, he’s a slower-ball production line. His knuckleballs have knuckleballs. There have been many influential men in this world: Simon O’Donnell, Adam Hollioake, Malinga and Ian Harvey would all be on a Shane Warne-style mural of influential slower-ball bowlers. And Franklyn Stephenson, perhaps the first man to make his name from change-ups.They are all special but none of them are like Howell. He bowls so many slower balls that they are no longer slower balls, just regular balls. He has not got a change-up in pace – just another ball that will be roughly the same pace but will do something different.He claims to possess over 50 slower balls, which sounds made up, but with Howell, it is an understatement. Recently he has been working on a back-of-the-hand variation made in his science lab (in this lab I assume he has a lot of plasma orbs with seams on them). He is more Abdul Qadir than Jade Dernbach. He looks down on cutters like a golfer would at a wooden wood.Like fast bowlers trying to reverse it, he hides his bowling hand as he runs in. Every ball. For Howell, it’s more like a baseball pitcher covering the ball with his glove (which is fitting, as baseball is his main inspiration). You get a split second to read him as his arm comes over. It’s possible he’s inventing more slower balls on the way in.Last year Howell talked about a barrel ball: “The commentators are always saying I bowl cutters. No, I don’t. I also bowl barrel balls, which is when an offspinner bowls around the side, like a saucer, that might skid on or hold.” It sounds made up, but no one can hit him, so maybe it isn’t.

A bunny ball is when you have no fingers on the ball. The ball is just wedged with your thumb holding it in your thenar webspace (the bit between your thumb and index finger, you big silly)

The other cool thing with Howell is, almost no one has seen him bowl. Gloucestershire only play on TV at midnight once every three years, and the BPL is locked away on subscription channels you have to join by mail. Even England don’t understand what to do with him. And even if people see him, they don’t see a giant Hollywood Japanese-inspired monster, they see dibbly dobbly. This year in the BPL his economy was under six.Bowled by: Benny HowellCutters, chapter twoAre you ready for a nuclear hot take? Legcutters are bullshit. For all the talk, the legcutter is a ball that has had no real impact on cricket since black-and-white TV. Most balls classified as legcutters are just balls that seam away from the right-hander. And the reason you don’t see more actual legcutters is because they are ineffectual. They are like home-brand cola – the same colour as the better-known cola, but tasting like someone vomited up bubblegum-flavour toothpaste through brown sugar.ALSO READ: Benny Howell: Gloucestershire’s magical mystery manPartly we just want to say legcutter because, let’s be honest here, it sounds fantastic. It makes bowlers sound like axemen bringing down robot theropods, when it’s more like someone catching a fork they have knocked from the table.Legcutters are slow, like really slow, like something a Kiwi batting allrounder bowled in the ’90s. (Yes, I am talking about Chris Harris. And while we are talking about Chris Harris, why doesn’t the world talk about the fact that Virat Kohli, conqueror of cricket, super mega uber star, bowls dibbly dobbly legcutters in the style of perhaps the least cool player from the ’90s?)And then there is the deviation – or lack of it. It’s a fast bowler sliding their fingers down the left side of the ball, so it’s not exactly Stuart MacGill on the fifth day after he’s taken a shiv to the pitch. There are fewer revs on them than a grandma’s hatchback – unless the bowler is a digit genius like Dennis Lillee, Malcolm Marshall or Venkatesh Prasad, with fingers that have strength and dexterity.The offcutter might be easier to read than one of Virender Sehwag’s Twitter dad jokes but it is strong and proud. On most surfaces it does something off the wicket, goes down at a decent pace, and is easy to aim. The legcutter is none of those things. Which is why for years it was only practised by old men who said things like, “If you can’t be a cricketer, at least look like one”, sported non-ironic moustaches, and appeared at the ground with red-stained trousers.

Legcutters are like home-brand cola – the same colour as the better-known cola, but tasting like someone vomited up bubblegum-flavour toothpaste through brown sugar

But this delivery is making a comeback, for the same general reason legspin has done (except, with none of legspin’s elegance or panache), because it moves away from the edge of right-hand batsmen. Most batsmen are right-handers and moving the ball away from them is still one of the most essential skills in T20.Now all these people who have heard – and misused – the term for years will get to see balls gently float away from the edge: the legcutter, in all its understated and over-named glory.Bowled by: Jofra Archer, Malcolm Marshall, Kieron Pollard, Richard Snell, Venkatesh Prasad, Kesrick Williams, Munaf Patel, Scott Boland, and Virat Kohli.The split-fingerWhipping out a split-finger slower ball these days puts you in a very specific era, like someone wearing happy pants or using a Blackberry. Back in the ’90s, this was the knuckleball. All the cool kids wanted one.Split-finger balls came from baseball as well. Hollioake used them, because let’s be honest, what was he going to do otherwise – medium-pace them to death? Glenn McGrath had one and used it in Tests to get rid of annoying tailenders. It was the first slower ball where mid-off and mid-on became wicket-taking fielders.The ball came through slow while behaving more or less like a standard delivery, and because of this it was the most spoonable delivery ever concocted. It’s not easy to bowl, in part because a cricket ball is quite big, and placing one between the ring and index fingers isn’t easy.You might think, “Wait a minute, it dropped pace and made people mishit while pretending to be a normal ball? Why isn’t this the biggest thing ever?” Well, like much of the ’90s (Furbys, Limp Bizkit, and teams still wearing white kits in ODIs after the 1992 World Cup) it wasn’t perfect.Few players could deliver it well. It was hard to deliver once, let alone consistently. Then there were the finger tells. A keen-eyed ball-watching batsman – and ball-watching is a central task of batting – would spot that instead of two fingers being near the seam, they were out towards the side.Mustafizur Rahman’s offcutters are delivered like a shaken soda can•Getty ImagesOnce picked, the split-finger slower ball is just a slow ball. It doesn’t spit, spin or fizz; there is no holding up, it’s wobble-less, and contains no magical drop. The split fingers allow a bowler to deliver the ball club cricketers bowl: slow-medium and straight, which is fine right up until the point the batsmen work it out. Then it’s like asking your local friend who opens the bowling to deliver to a top professional.ALSO READ: Mustafizur and the art of the cutterIt’s still bowled now, but very rarely, and few use it as their main go-to slower ball.Bowled by: Glenn McGrath, Adam Hollioake, Matt Coles and Dilhara Fernando.The BunnyI went and found a new slower ball, and it’s got a tremendously cute name.A bunny ball is when you have no fingers on the ball. The ball is just wedged with your thumb holding it in your thenar webspace (the bit between your thumb and index finger, you big silly). The fingers are used as a cunning ruse. They stand straight up, so they still look like it is seam-up, but they are just above the ball, like bunny ears.I have no idea how useful this ball is. It kind of feels like a ball you bowl if your hands are not big enough to deliver a knuckleball. But it does wobble around, and at times it can really swing.I’ve included it here for a few reasons. Cricketers call it the bunny ball, and I like that. It makes me think of Donnie Darko and Harvey. But with this delivery so much can go horribly wrong: like missing the cut strip, and getting short cover smashed in the arse.Bowled by: Kane Richardson and Chris Liddle.Back of the handIf the back-of-the-hand slower ball could legally marry you, it would be too good for you, and you’d end up in a dysfunctional relationship with an offcutter. Seriously, who do you think you are?The back-of-the-hand comes out of legspin. It is basically just a wrong’un with a long unnecessary run-up.

The back-of-the-hand ball is the little black dress of slower balls – every good change-up bowler needs one

O’Donnell and Steve Waugh used this ball in the 1980s, so it is older than most of the players who now face it. What is weird is that after all these years, players don’t always pick it. And it’s not that subtle: I mean, it comes out of the of the hand; a whole different part of the hand faces the batsman.The genius of it isn’t just based on whether you pick it, it’s also because of what it does. Let’s talk about the plunge first. When Dwayne Bravo bowls it, batsmen see the beamer coming straight at their head, until it falls. From the safety of your seat, that seems mildly concerning, but try facing it in the middle. You’re looking for a ball to pitch and bounce up at you; instead the ball is coming at your face, and all you can think is, “Oh my god, my face, my beautiful face!” And then it drops. That ball at your face is now dropping towards your precious stumps. That’s the worst: fear of facial trauma, and then, way worse, fear of losing your wicket.There are two ways to pick it. One is that it comes out of the back of the hand. The other is that batsmen seemed to work out a few years ago that if the ball goes above your eyes, chances are it’s out of the back of the hand. That should have meant the death of the delivery, but it’s still everywhere. And the reason for that is why it is such a good ball: even if you can pick it, you still have to hit it.The drop makes it tough to work out the length, the bounce makes it hard to hit. Off the pitch it doesn’t react like a cricket ball but a tennis ball. And hitting a tennis ball is bloody hard when you’re trying to knock one back over your mate’s head. It’s a lot harder when the bowler has dropped his speed for that ball, you have lost your shape, have to generate pace without great balance, and there are two or three deep fielders ready to end your part in the game.Here is the thing with good slower balls, they work outside of just being slow. They work because they are also deliveries that do crazy things. Beating a player for pace is good, but so is beating them for sideways movement or bounce. A good slower ball doesn’t rely on its change of pace; it’s better than that.ALSO READ: Death becomes himThe back-of-the-hand ball is the little black dress of slower balls – every good change-up bowler needs one. Honestly, if you don’t have it, you probably don’t have a heart, or are a batsman. Same, same.Slower balls are in vogue today, but like beards and distressed jeans, they have been around forever•Getty ImagesBowled by: Simon O’Donnell, Ian Harvey, Clint McKay, Steve Waugh, Dwayne Bravo, Rana Naved-ul Hasan, Rikki Clarke, Tymal Mills, Tom Curran and James Faulkner.The restLet’s be clear, the cross-seam ball isn’t a slower ball, it’s a variation. It can hold up a touch, and there are the smallest changes in pace, (depending on where the ball lands, seam side or smooth) but it’s not a slower ball. I am willing to die on this hill. It’s handy, and it works by upsetting batsmen with the bounce. If you bowl them back of a length and make players play across the line, there’s a chance of beating them with bounce or lack of it.It’s still not a slower ball, obs.The back-of-palm ball is where you pack the ball tightly into your hand, meaning it doesn’t get released with the same power. And there’s a variant on this, the fingertip slower ball, in which you hold the ball really delicately, like you’re holding a Dikembe Mutombo rookie card. Both work, though they don’t work as well as others.There’s also bowling slow. We’ve all tried and excelled at this. Just about every slower ball should be bowled with the same arm speed, because as much as possible, you’re trying to show the batsman you are bowling quick. But some bowlers slow their arms down. On some slow pitches, just slowing down can be handy, but there is a fine line between this being a slower ball and only a slow ball.I am assuming you work out that line sometime around the point where you get flat-batted over cover for six.