Format falling between Test and T20 priorities as defence of title looms in 2023

Vithushan Ehantharajah13-Jul-2022″Sometimes you learn more from losing games,” Moeen Ali said. After a ten-wicket defeat with 188 balls to spare in the first ODI against India, that’s a lot of homework for England to get started on.Tuesday’s evisceration at The Kia Oval was as chastening a defeat as this team has had over the last seven years. The lead actors from the 2019 World Cup win were all on deck, all but skipper Jos Buttler coming and going in an opening capitulation of 26 for five inside eight overs. With that came a reminder that the machine does not move itself.It’s worth saying England could have still ended up in that heap were Eoin Morgan still at the helm. The presence of a new leadership pair in situ, with Buttler flanked by new white-ball coach Matthew Mott, will always get fingers twitching over laptop keys when such a shellacking comes around so early in their collective tenure. But the changes to date have largely been minimal, bordering on aesthetic.Moeen, who was touted as a potential replacement for Morgan, likened Mott to Trevor Bayliss, who oversaw the seismic shift back in 2015. “He [Mott] is very relaxed and he’s good. It doesn’t look like it has affected him in any way.” Beyond the scribbles in his notepad, Mott looked as Bayliss often did during the odd collapse under his tenure: unflustered, literally and figuratively unmoved.It’s also worth noting this was England’s first defeat in nine. The problem, however, is carried in those eight victories.The run began with two easy wins over Sri Lanka at the start of last summer, then three against Pakistan before three more against the Netherlands just last month. Those last two series wins were pulled off with what were ultimately “select” XIs: the former through a Covid outbreak, the latter due to a packed schedule.”It will take a few defeats, which is fine,” Moeen said, of getting England back up to the usual standards, amid the reintroduction of the heavy-hitters who have largely been preoccupied with Test and T20 commitments.”In the past we have won a lot of games, got to a World Cup and lost those crucial games. We have lost a few games at the moment but that is good for us going forward, and closer to a World Cup we will start winning. We want to win now but you don’t want to win all games. Sometimes you learn more from losing games.”Of course, that penultimate statement is a flat-out lie, albeit the kind that makes defeat a little easier to swallow. And yet there is a sound logic that coasting would be counter-productive for an England side who need to remember, along with some fundamentals, what made them such a force in this format.Making heads or tails of English 50-over cricket is one of the more futile endeavours at the moment. The national team have only played 22 ODIs since the end of the 2019 World Cup and even the domestic iteration has broadly been rendered meaningless, which might explain why there is an underlying apathy-based confusion over where this team are at. Therefore, any conclusions drawn from this Jasprit Bumrah-inspired shellacking are loose and will probably be rendered meaningless after Thursday.Related

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But there was a quiet sense at The Oval that the muscle memory of England’s four-year body of work from 2015 might not be as reliable as first hoped. Given how many different ways England’s ideal starting XI are pulled across formats, perhaps that’s no surprise. However, it was interesting that Moeen was thinking out loud when asked to give his assessment on how Tuesday felt like an anomaly. A hallmark of the 50-over World Champions was a knack of making passable scores even after false starts. They only managed 110 this time around.”It is difficult,” he reflected. “We have played a lot more shots and sometimes it was a case of ‘do we keep going?’ But here we were 20 [26] for five and that has not happened a lot. Normally when we haven’t played well, we have been 70 for five and you can counter. But the ball was newer, they were bowling well. We knew we had to counter but it was difficult.”Moeen went on to explain adjustment to different formats isn’t specifically the issue, rather the relentless flow of matches. ” Even if they were all T20s it would have been difficult and the travelling in between. It would be difficult for most teams.”It does put the onus strongly on the next month to re-attune to the longer white-ball code. There are five games over the next 11 days, then nothing until three ODIs in March 2023 against Bangladesh. Naturally, T20 steals the focus ahead of the World Cup in Australia this October.The insistence from Moeen that things will be “fine” by the time England defend their title in 15 months time was characteristically chill of the man. And though it is too early to panic, it’s not too early to worry.

His current rough patch has lasted a lot longer than anyone might have imagined

Aakash Chopra23-Aug-2022″Form is temporary, class is permanent. And Kohli is class.””He isn’t out of form. Just short of runs.””It’s not that he isn’t scoring runs, it’s just that the century hasn’t come. Anyway, it is just round the corner. This series. This tournament. This match.”The chatter started as the wait became longer for the elusive 71st international hundred, but now it has reached a point where the conversation is no longer just about the next century anymore.Related

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There’s no doubt in anyone’s mind about Virat Kohli’s class and his skills, and even if he doesn’t score another run in international cricket from here on, he will still be regarded as one of the greatest to have played the game. A man who did superhuman things and mastered all three formats like almost no others.Still, there’s also no hiding from the fact that the bat that worked like a magic wand isn’t obeying his commands anymore. There are more misses than hits. The aura of invincibility has faded and his presence doesn’t instil the same fear in bowlers’ minds as it used to earlier.But let’s be honest: this has happened to everyone who has played the game before him. That is why you are always remembered for how you lived and not for how you died.Okay, I shall now leave the metaphors behind and focus on the issue at hand.Kohli hasn’t scored enough runs lately. It has been a rough patch that has lasted a lot longer than any of us thought it might – Kohli included, perhaps. There are dozens of theories floating around about what might have gone wrong and how and when this dreadful spell might end. I am guilty of indulging in a couple of them, which I shall elaborate on later in this article.When a player goes through a rough patch, the conversation has only two places to go – is it a technical problem or a mental one? In my limited experience, both are intertwined; often one leads to the other and nobody can determine what came first, chicken or egg.Here’s a cycle of events: a slight technical glitch creeps into your game unknowingly but you ignore its presence because you’re able to handle it for a while with a superior (read, positive) mindset. Until it becomes too much to handle and you lose your rhythm, which results in the mindset not being the same anymore. You then start introspecting and doubt becomes a constant companion. Such a chain might start with a cocky mindset that allows a mistake to creep in in the first place too. Anyway, you get the drift.

Coach Flower cites power-packed partnership for revival of team’s fortunes

Matt Roller19-Aug-2022In the first season of the Hundred, Trent Rockets got stuck on the launchpad. They made it through to the knockout stages thanks to an impressive bowling line-up, but they were the slowest-scoring team in the powerplay across the men’s competition; in the eliminator, they folded for just 96 against Southern Brave.This year, their approach with the bat has been completely transformed: their powerplay run-rate has jumped from a cautious 1.36 runs per ball to a tournament-high 1.77, and they have posted two of the four 180-plus totals, including a successful chase of 190 against Manchester Originals.There have been two key, interlinking factors in their turnaround: a conscious effort to go harder with the bat, and the form of Dawid Malan and Alex Hales, who have become the Hundred’s most destructive opening partnership and are two of the tournament’s four highest run-scorers this season.”We’re not only talking about intent here,” Andy Flower, Rockets’ head coach, tells ESPNcricinfo. “We’re talking about form. They both feel very confident at the moment, and they’re well-balanced when they’re hitting the ball.”Flower feels that Hales has reverted to playing “good, strong cricket shots” rather than “only hitting the ball in a certain way, opening up his front leg” and looking to hit over the leg side. “It’s a much better way to go about building an innings – even if you’re building it at a strike rate of 200. It serves him much better because he can play conventional cricket shots.”Malan batted at No. 3 last season, with D’Arcy Short opening alongside Hales, but has returned to his preferred position at the top of the order this year. The decision to shuffle him up has paid off in style. “It’s definitely helped him,” Flower says. “That’s Dawid’s preferred spot, and it’s allowed him to go in and set the standard straightaway.”He has made a significant change in his approach, batting with more intent at the start of his innings: his strike rate in his first 10 balls has jumped from 97.52 in 2021 to 140.85 in 2022 across all T20 cricket, and from 107.04 to 163.16 in the Hundred. “It’s transformed his game,” Flower says.Related

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Kunal Manek, Rockets’ analyst, has found that Malan’s record across his T20 career is significantly better when he scores an early boundary. “He’s definitely been doing that this season,” Flower adds. “He seems very comfortable at the moment, as a man and as a batsman, and very confident in his game. It’s wonderful to see him be so aggressive, so early.”Rockets’ coaching staff discussed average totals – and average winning totals – from the Hundred’s first season with players before the start of the season, but Flower says they do not have specific targets in mind when batting first. “Looking at a pitch and trying to be a clairvoyant, saying ‘a par score on this pitch is X’ – I think that’s total bullshit, to be honest. You could lose two wickets in the first over, or hit it for 20. I want our guys to remain very flexible.”Rockets have also been well-served by a plethora of allrounders, a trademark of Flower’s short-form teams which has offered them both batting depth and flexibility with the ball. Against Birmingham Phoenix, Lewis Gregory and Daniel Sams added 92 in 46 in an unbroken seventh-wicket partnership, the highest for any wicket across the season, having come together at 53 for 6, and they have always had at least six bowling options available.”I have read that occasionally, about me going for a bank of allrounders,” he says. “It’s not as black and white as that because each recruitment situation is different. But there’s no doubt that, as a batter, when you look down the order and see that you bat to No. 9 or 10, you feel a greater sense of freedom to attack. In our recruitment, that was something that was important to us.”It’s likely that someone will be hit or have a bad day, so you want that extra bowling option to go to. That gives the captain maximum flexibility with his tactical game, which he’s trying to manage in the moment out there on the field. And if that sixth bowling option turns the ball in a different way – or angles the ball in a different way, as a seamer – to the rest of your bowling attack, that’s really useful.”Flower has brought a familiar face into Rockets’ backroom staff this year, working with Graeme Swann – their new spin-bowling coach – again after coaching him for the majority of his England career. “His spin bowling and cricket knowledge is one thing,” he says, “but he’s got a brilliant energy about him. He’s a very positive thinker and has a really positive effect on the group.”Rockets play London Spirit, unbeaten in their first four games, on Saturday night, and will bring Rashid Khan back into their squad for his second and final appearance of the season. It is a vital game: the winner of the Hundred’s group stage qualifies directly to the final at Lord’s, only 24 hours after the eliminator between the teams who finish second and third in Southampton.”Each team is desperate to be in that No. 1 slot,” Flower says. “Given the travel situation and the schedule, that team will have a much better chance of being fresh and ready for the final. Having Trevor [Bayliss] and [Eoin] Morgan coming together has done something for them: they haven’t lost a game yet. Our job is to change that.”

The Nagpur Test against Australia was the most recent example of India’s lower-order scoring invaluable runs to win the game

Karthik Krishnaswamy13-Feb-20232:58

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For two-thirds of the second day of the Nagpur Test, Australia seemed to channel the spirit of India’s bowlers from the Bengaluru Test of 2017.In Bengaluru, India had been bowled out for 189 on day one and by stumps had slipped further, by allowing Australia to get away to a strong start. Then they had regrouped and turned in a bowling display of remarkable discipline to begin the process that culminated in one of India’s greatest-ever comeback wins.In Nagpur, Australia were bowled out for 177 on day one, and by stumps had bowled loosely and let India’s top order get away to a quick start. Then they regrouped at the start of day two, tightened their lines and lengths, and chipped away at the wickets.Related

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In Bengaluru, India reduced Australia to 269 for 7. In Nagpur, Australia did even better, reducing India to 240 for 7.At this point, the trajectories of the two Test matches, so tightly entwined this far, decided to go their separate ways. In Bengaluru, India bowled Australia out for 276. In Nagpur, Australia ran into Ravindra Jadeja and Axar Patel.If this were a videogame, India had keyed in their cheat code.Jadeja and Axar put on 88. In home Tests since the start of 2021, it was India’s 11th partnership of 50 or more for the seventh wicket or below. Axar and Mohammed Shami would then go on to make it 12, adding 52 for the ninth wicket.In this time, no other team has had nearly as many 50-plus lower-order stands at home as India, with England and Pakistan a distant second with eight each. Four of India’s 12 50-plus lower-order stands, meanwhile, have gone on to breach the century mark. Only one other team, Sri Lanka, has had as many as two.Axar Patel and Ravindra Jadeja added 88 for the eighth wicket in Nagpur•BCCIThe most remarkable thing about India’s lower-order interventions in home Tests is how frequent they’ve been. The 50-plus stands have come at the rate of nearly one every four partnerships; New Zealand are next best, with one in 7.33 partnerships adding 50 or more.It’s always been a facet of home advantage in Test cricket that the lower orders of home teams tend to perform better than those of the visiting team. Lower-order batters tend not to have all-weather techniques, and they are likelier as a result to contribute with runs and stickability in familiar conditions. At home, moreover, they face bowling attacks who are less suited to the conditions than the home attack.Over their decade of dominance at home, India have almost always had strong lower orders. Jadeja, R Ashwin and Wriddhiman Saha, for instance, were heavy contributors to their four series wins in the 13-Test 2016-17 season. Australia will remember Saha’s century in Ranchi, where he and Cheteshwar Pujara turned a situation of parity into one of overwhelming Indian dominance, and the Saha-Jadeja partnership in Dharamsala that put India’s noses ahead in a tense struggle for the first-innings spoils.Since the start of the home Test series against England in early 2021, however, India’s lower order has gone to another level in home Tests. Jadeja sat out that series with an injury, but Axar made his debut, and Washington Sundar, who had made two key lower-order contributions in his debut Test just before this series, at the Gabba, also featured.India profited from five 50-plus lower-order stands in that series, and four of them stretched to 80 or beyond. Washington and Ashwin were involved in three each, and Axar in one, an eighth-wicket century stand in Ahmedabad.Axar’s lethal bowling in that series turned him into a near-certain pick in home Tests. With Axar joining Jadeja and Ashwin, India now had three frontline spinners who were also genuine allrounders in home conditions, with one of them, Jadeja, a genuine allrounder anywhere in the world.This meant India could pick all three in nearly every home Test without worrying about their batting, and still play two fast bowlers.R Ashwin has five Test hundreds•BCCISince the start of 2021, India’s spin-bowling allrounders have terrific records at home. Washington and Jadeja average over 60 – they’ve played only three and four home Tests in this period, respectively – Axar 31.22, and Ashwin 28.38.This has made winning in India, already the hardest task for away teams in Test cricket, even harder.As Nagpur showed, lower-order contributions have knock-on effects that go beyond just runs added. From seven down, India added 160 runs to their total, and extended their innings by 56.2 overs.All those extra overs of wear and tear meant Australia batted on a more challenging pitch than they would have if they’d run through India’s lower order quickly. All those extra overs in the field meant Australia’s batters played on a more challenging pitch with tired legs and tired minds.Over the course of a four-Test series, all those extra overs bowled are extra workloads for bowlers to recover from. Australia played a four-man attack in Nagpur, and they may have to do so again in Delhi if Cameron Green isn’t fully fit to perform his all-round duties.All the lower-order contributions have had another effect too – they’ve moved the spotlight away from India’s top-order issues. Since the start of 2021, both Cheteshwar Pujara and Virat Kohli have home averages in the 20s, and have looked far less assured against spin than they did in their pomp. KL Rahul’s only played one Test in this period, but he’s facing scrutiny over his form too. Their two most consistent middle-order contributors in home conditions in recent months, Rishabh Pant and Shreyas Iyer, both missed the Nagpur Test with injury. Pant is out for the entire series, and possibly the rest of the year too, and it isn’t yet certain if Iyer will return to play in Delhi.This piece could have been talking about all that. But it isn’t, because India have a cheat code in home Tests.

As a child of T20, why wouldn’t he favour the format that inspired him?

Matt Roller15-Nov-2022In early 2019, Somerset filmed short video clips of their academy players for their YouTube channel to introduce them to the club’s supporters.They were each asked a series of quickfire questions: Childhood hero? If you could be one current cricketer, who would you be? Would you rather play in the Ashes, World Cup or IPL? Will Smeed, then 17, answered the last question with a self-aware, self-confident smirk as he gave the response that he knew would horrify many fans of English cricket: he went for the IPL.It might be a difficult answer to understand – and one that shouldn’t be taken too seriously – but Smeed is part of a generation who have grown up with the tournament. From 2010-14, the IPL was the only top-level cricket available on free-to-air TV in the UK, regularly drawing in half-a-million viewers per afternoon on ITV4 despite the contempt with which it was viewed by English administrators.Smeed was three years old when England won the 2005 Ashes on Channel 4: for most of his life, English cricket has been paywalled. The minority of young cricket fans with Sky subscriptions might have grown up on a diet of Alastair Cook, Ian Bell and Jonathan Trott, but it was Kieron Pollard, MS Dhoni and AB de Villiers who made a lasting impression on the rest.Smeed has always been “an anomaly”, as he put it in a interview after signing a white-ball-only contract with Somerset on Monday. He played 55 professional T20 games before his 21st birthday and has made appearances in the Hundred, T20 Blast, Abu Dhabi T10 and PSL, but not the County Championship nor the Royal London Cup. His talent is abundantly clear: on 50-over debut this summer (in a game without List A status) he hit 90 off 56 balls against an attack which featured Anrich Nortje and Lungi Ngidi; in August he became the Hundred’s first centurion.Smeed’s decision is groundbreaking. Other English players have quit first-class cricket in the past but the vast majority of them have done so late in their careers, not at the age of 21 and on the fringes of the England set-up. It is a move that young players across the country will have noted and discussed over the last 24 hours.Highly regarded as he progressed through Somerset’s age-group teams, Smeed’s name first came to wider attention four years ago. Playing a Second XI Championship game at the age of 16, he put on 92 for the third wicket with a 42-year-old Marcus Trescothick; both made hundreds, and their stand made headlines.It might prove to have been the highlight of his red-ball career. Smeed insists he has not retired from multi-day cricket but, barring some creative selection for England’s Test team, it is difficult to see a route back for him. Mo Bobat, England’s performance director, saw his decision coming; speaking on an episode of the podcast, recorded last month, he suggested that Smeed “could have a purely white-ball career”.And why shouldn’t he? There is an assumption built into English cricket that Tests should always come first, but the sport has not been set up that way for those of us who have grown up in the 21st century. The genie has been out of the bottle since Smeed was a toddler.In practice, Smeed’s decision may not change much: he has never played a first-class game and the depth of talent nurtured in Somerset’s academy means he finds himself a long way down the pecking order in their Championship team. His short-form dominance and long-form struggles have created the perfect storm for a unique decision.Related

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If Smeed finds a suitor in next month’s IPL auction – and his deal with MI Emirates in the ILT20 hints that he might – then he would have missed the first two months of the season regardless; if he does not, he will have two months between the end of the PSL and the start of the Blast to rest and then train, rather than playing second-team cricket in “an empty field with the wind howling”, as he put it.While money is clearly not his primary motivation – he has already earned huge sums from cricket while most of his friends are racking up debt from their student loans – his move makes financial sense, too. When English players without national contracts miss games to play in the IPL, they are obliged to pay a significant percentage of their salary back to their counties; as a white-ball specialist, Smeed will not have that issue if he gets a deal in 2023.It might have been obscured by England’s Test team under Brendon McCullum, but the game’s formats are quickly diverging. An ODI series starts in Australia this week while the Test squad are training in Abu Dhabi; in February, the white-ball team will play warm-up games in Bangladesh during the second Test in New Zealand. Smeed put it simply: “I would much rather be a master of one trade than a jack of all.”In his school days, Smeed was two years below Tom Banton – now his T20 opening partner – in the same King’s College Taunton boarding house. In 2019, it seemed as though Banton had the world at his feet: he was the Blast’s breakout star and scored five Championship fifties, juggling the formats admirably. Now, he is trying to reboot his career after three difficult seasons in which his red-ball struggles bled into his white-ball game.Instead, Smeed has gone all-in: “I want to be the best player that I can be, and to do that I believe that this needs to be my focus,” he said. In the long term, there may be some concerns over his adaptability – as Ben Stokes showed in Sunday’s World Cup final, T20 is not only about power-hitting – but the dearth of 50-over cricket available to him due to the Hundred’s clash with the Royal London Cup is a bigger factor in that than the decision to put his red-ball ambitions on ice.In due course, Smeed will become a superstar: his fearless hitting and raw power have already attracted him to franchises across the world and his decision this week marks him out as an outlier. But he is also part of a tranche of young players who have grown up with T20: do not be surprised if and when others follow his lead.