Warner and Bairstow’s hot-streak has thwarted designs of the teams they’ve faced so far

Srinath Sripath31-Mar-20191:48

Five reasons why Sunrisers beat Royal Challengers

Warner-Bairstow’s hot streak
David Warner made roughly 30 percent of Sunrisers Hyderad’s runs in four seasons until 2017. So when they lost his services last year, their average opening partnership for the season dropped to a lowly 27.7, the third-worst among all teams in IPL 2018.They decided to offload Shikhar Dhawan and signed Jonny Bairstow to partner Warner this season, and the association has worked wonders, with the pair becoming the first-ever in IPL history to string together a hat-trick of century stands. Their first two century stands were defined by Warner setting the pace. On Sunday, Bairstow took the lead, bringing up his maiden IPL ton in the process.Warner and Bairstow’s 185-run partnership, now the highest opening stand in IPL history, was near-chanceless, characterised as much by consistent boundary-hitting as by their running between the wickets. As per ESPNcricinfo’s logs, 207 out of Sunrisers’ 231 runs came with the batsmen in control: few edges and chances, mostly just clean hitting.With Kane Williamson missing from two of their three games so far, and an underexposed middle-order to follow, their runs – and the pace at which they’ve got them will be missed by Sunrisers, when the duo head
for their pre-World Cup camps towards the business end of the tournament.ESPNcricinfo Ltd

That is a very special innings from Warner. It's 42° in Hyderabad right now. He's batted for the entire 20 overs. His dot ball percentage of 13% is the second lowest ever in an IPL hundred & his 13 twos are the second most ever in any IPL innings. #IPL #SRHvRCB

— Freddie Wilde (@fwildecricket) March 31, 2019

Offspinners to the left-handers? Not if it’s Warner
Virat Kohli opened the bowling with Moeen Ali. Sunrisers switched too, with Bairstow taking strike. Teams regularly unleash their fingerspinners on left-handed batsmen, for reasons well-known: historical success enabled by their angles, with the possibility of an odd straight skirter pinning them in front.Warner’s been an outlier to this trend: no fingerspinner (except Sunil Narine, who isn’t your traditional offie) has dismissed him in the Powerplay since IPL 2011. He averages 287 against all spin in the Powerplay since IPL 2016, at a strike rate of 154. Moeen was duly taken apart for consecutive fours, en route to a 14-run opening over.ESPNcricinfo LtdNabi: key overseas player elsewhere, utility fringe player at SRHDavid Warner. Rashid Khan. Kane Williamson. Jonny Bairstow/Billy Stanlake/Shakib Al Hasan.At various points over the past four seasons, Sunrisers’ overseas roster has picked itself, and you wouldn’t blame them for not thinking about someone like Mohammad Nabi. He is a key overseas player for T20 sides around the world, most notably at Melbourne Renegades in the Big Bash League and Leicestershire in England’s T20 Blast.Here, he is a utility fringe player they turn to when there’s an injury to one of their regular starters. Nabi hasn’t played more than three games in a season, and started for the first time on Sunday thanks to an injury to captain Williamson.Most often used as a new-ball bowler and a containing option in the middle overs, Nabi has done his job almost every time, including a few low-scoring games in the past two seasons. On Sunday, with the threat of Virat Kohli and AB de Villiers going on one of their assaults at a big target, Nabi knocked the wind out of their sails in the Powerplay, bagging his best IPL figures of 4 for 11. His wickets? Parthiv Patel, and three of RCB’s biggest six-hitters: de Villiers, Shimron Hetmyer and Shivam Dube, four wickets that were worth 4.7 on the Smart Stats scale.

It was only his second over of the innings. He had ten runs to defend. Vijay Shankar pulled off victory for India

Deivarayan Muthu in Nagpur06-Mar-20195:01

Learned a lot from the Nidahas Trophy – Shankar

On the eve of the second ODI against Australia in Nagpur, Vijay Shankar was eyeing Virat Kohli’s bat like a kid would do a box of candies. After getting the MRF thing in his hands during training, he shaped to punch the ball over the leg side.He rolled out two such jaw-dropping straight-bat punches over midwicket during his 46-ball 41, including one that elicited applause and approval from his captain in a breezy 81-run stand for the fourth wicket.Vijay was unfortunately run-out when Adam Zampa deflected a drilled drive from Kohli onto the stumps at the non-striker’s end in the 29th over. He slapped his bat against his thigh, threw his head back, and walked off like a kid whose box of candies had been stolen.It was a sense of deja vu for Vijay: he had been run out for 45 in the Wellington ODI in February after having bed in for a big score on a seaming track. He slapped his bat against his thigh then as well and departed.Welcome back to Nagpur. Marcus Stoinis, whose towering frame and sixes have drawn comparisons with ‘The Incredible Hulk’, is doing more of a Bruce Banner here. No violence. No monster power. Just good old limited-overs smarts. A dink here, a dab there, and he is keeping Australia alive.ALSO READ: ‘I was waiting for it’ – Vijay Shankar on bowling the last overHe has just seen off India’s gun bowler Jasprit Bumrah and hauled the game to the last over – not too dissimilar from how MS Dhoni deals with chases. Kedar Jadhav has conceded just 33 runs in eight overs with his low-arm slingers. More importantly, Jadhav has bowled eight dots out of 13 balls to Stoinis. But, Kohli trusts Vijay with the last over of the game. This is only his second over of the match; he had leaked 13 in his first over.The master at the death, Bumrah, has a word with Vijay. The allrounder cracked under pressure against Mustafizur Rahman in Nidahas Trophy final. His good friend and Tamil Nadu team-mate Dinesh Karthik, however, conjured a last-ball six and pulled off a famous win. However, that Mustafizur over was still playing in Vijay’s mind on repeat mode.Karthik then calls him to join the post-match revelry, but Vijay is utterly shattered. Karthik drags him into the celebrations, but that doesn’t quite lift his spirits.He is getting trolled on social media. He reads nearly every troll post there, and ultimately switches off from social media. He was so scarred by trolls that when he revisited his school as a chief guest during a golden jubilee function on Valentine’s Day, after returning from New Zealand, he advised the students to “stay away from social media a little bit” and use it carefully.

Vijay Shankar's 46 (41) today was seriously promising for India, playing an extremely low 4.1% false shots.

The last time an Indian who wasn't Rohit, Dhawan or Kohli made that many runs, with that much control, was Hardik Pandya in the Champions Trophy Final. #INDvAUS

— The Cricket Prof. (@CricProf) March 5, 2019

Ever since the night of the Nidahas final, Vijay has been “literally waiting” to look pressure in the eye and say: you’re next like WWE’s Bill Goldberg does. On Monday night, with 10 to defend off the last over against, he speared Stoinis and Adam Zampa in three balls to deliver India a tense victory.Bruce Banner couldn’t quite transform into the Hulk, but the nervy Vijay transformed into a nerveless player.He hit a hard length with the first ball of the last over – neither short enough to pull or full enough to hoist it over mid-on – and had Stoinis swishing and missing. Boom. Stoinis pinned lbw. The next ball was on a length on off, and Zampa made some room to jab it to point and hurry back for the second. Vijay, on the other contrary, is in no rush. He reckons Zampa might back away, again, and hurls the ball into the blockhole to floor his middle stump.Vijay punches the air, lets out a roar, and his pent-up emotions: the frustration of multiple injuries, including a knee problem that forced him out of the India A side that was set to tour Australia in 2016. Hardik Pandya then replaced him and then went onto establish himself as the senior team’s No. 1 allrounder across formats.Vijay was initially confused whether to take injections and go to Australia or go under the knife to repair a meniscus tear and a grade-four patella injury. He finally decided to get the operation done, and had to spend two months at the National Cricket Academy [NCA] in Bengaluru.It was the most difficult phase of Vijay’s cricketing career. He couldn’t travel with the A team to Australia, he couldn’t play the Chennai first-division league or the 20-over Tamil Nadu Premier League (TNPL) for his franchise Lyca Kovai Kings. And every time he switched on the TV, there was some cricket that was unfolding, reminding Vijay what he was missing.He was depressed with everything around him. Rajinikant (nope, not the actor, get acquainted with the trainer) was instrumental in pulling Vijay out of depression and inspiring him to train harder and get fitter quicker.Having a strong family support system has also helped him. His father H Shankar and elder brother Ajay, both of whom have played lower-division cricket in Tamil Nadu, knew that injuries are part and parcel of the game. His father, brother, and personal coach S Balaji, a former Railways player, all made Vijay believe in himself again.Vijay returned to domestic cricket and enhanced his reputation as Tamil Nadu’s crisis man. His struggle in the Nidahas Trophy final at the Khettarama then shook up his confidence, again.But Vijay has always found a way past the hurdles. At the start of his domestic career, he was an offspin-bowling allrounder, who couldn’t break into a spin-heavy Tamil Nadu team. So, he switched to medium-pace. After he broke into the national side thanks to his ability to pitch in with medium-pace, he worked harder at it – the result of which was on show in the second ODI against Australia. Vijay’s plays and misses in the Nidahas Trophy are now history.Sure, he has his limitations as a bowler – he can’t get his speeds past the lower 130kph range – but his form with the bat has contributed to a spike in his bowling. And his confidence was on bright display in Nagpur under pressure. Pressure? What pressure? Say hello to the nerveless Vijay Shankar who has staked his claim for a place in India’s World Cup squad.

The legspinner has claimed the prized scalp of Virat Kohli four times in nine international innings but he knows he needs to do well against others also

Deivarayan Muthu in Nagpur04-Mar-20195:38

‘Bounce and overspin are my strengths’ – Zampa

In 2016, when India were touring Australia, George Bailey reckoned the canary yellow floppy hat would become as popular as the baggy green. Three years later, on the eve of the second ODI in Nagpur, the floppy hat was a striking feature during Australia’s training session. Glenn Maxwell, Ashton Turner, Andrew Tye, Peter Handscomb, Usman Khawaja all donned it on a blazing hot Monday afternoon at the VCA Stadium. Heck, even Matthew Hayden, who was overseeing the training along with his old friend Justin Langer, couldn’t resist showing it off.But nobody carried the floppy with the kind of strut Adam Zampa did when he walked in and then out of the pre-match press conference. Zampa’s social media posts – ranging from memes to exchanging Hindi cuss words with his girlfriend – are laced with similar swagger too. But it wasn’t really on display the last time he toured India, in 2017.”I knew that I could hit a six off him anytime I wanted to.” That was Hardik Pandya’s big statement about the legspinner after smashing him for three successive sixes in Chennai.Two years later, Zampa has established himself as a first-choice pick in Australia’s ODI XI, having developed excellent control over his lines, lengths and variations. He is now adept at performing the dual responsibility of taking wickets as well as throttling the batsmen. Just ask Virat Kohli, whom Zampa has dismissed four times in nine innings at the international level. Zampa hasn’t dismissed any other batsman more than twice.Though it’s yet to reach the proportions of James Anderson v Kohli or Pat Cummins v Kohli, this duel has added some extra spice to the series. In the Brisbane T20I in November last year, he shackled Kohli by attacking the stumps. Kohli then aimed to manufacture something: a weak slog-sweep resulted in an inside edge to midwicket before he swatted at a topspinner to only splice a catch at short third man.Then, in the Visakhapatnam T20I last month, Zampa tied down Kohli by targeting the stumps and then reeled him in with the drift.In the first ODI in Hyderabad, Kohli latched on to width outside off and creamed Zampa for a brace of boundaries. But the bowler bounced back with a skidder that threatened the stumps and pinned Kohli lbw. All told, in the ODI series opener in Hyderabad, off the six balls he bowled on the stumps to Kohli, he gave away just six runs while also claiming the prize scalp.Adam Zampa v Virat Kohli in all internationals•ESPNcricinfo Ltd”From the IPL experience and seeing these guys play – nothing like in my variety of wrong’uns – it’s about the best way to bowl to these batsmen,” Zampa said. “Particularly in ODI cricket, most legspinners are attacking the stumps and that’s my strength too. I feel like when I get away from the stumps, guys like Virat and the other night [Kedar] Jadhav [hit me]. I got frustrated and bowled wide of the stumps and that is when the damage happens. It’s about staying away from their strengths.”If you thought Zampa was bragging about executing his plans and nabbing Kohli four times, not quite. He rather downplayed it, insisting he needed to sustain the pressure against the other middle-order batsmen as well.”It’s nice to get players like that [Kohli] out, I thought the best one was the T20 here [Visakhapatnam] and the first match in Brisbane,” Zampa said. “I thought they were big wickets given the situation of the match and we ended up winning the game. Getting Virat is one thing, he was in at that time and it was big wicket, but then you also have to think about getting [MS] Dhoni out and Rohit [Sharma] out. Virat is a big wicket, but there are six or seven big wickets in the Indian team.”In Hyderabad, whenever Zampa dangled a wide legbreak, Jadhav manufactured additional swinging room and drove him inside-out over extra cover. He doesn’t give the ball a big rip as Kuldeep Yadav does, but having started his career as a seamer, Zampa has the ability to get the ball to skid off the surface. And it makes sense to attack the stumps as opposed to pushing the ball wider when you can generate that extra pace off the pitch.Zampa has other tricks up his sleeve as well, thanks to his stints in the BBL, the CPL, the T20 Blast and the IPL. In this season’s Big Bash final, he knocked over Mackenzie Harvey with a delightful wrong’un that dipped on the Melbourne Renegades batsman. He can also bowl a flipper. After the second T20I in Bengaluru, Glenn Maxwell, Zampa’s captain at Melbourne Stars, pointed out that bowling on the easy-paced hit-through-the-line pitch in Essex had transformed him into a more versatile bowler.

That's a beauty from Adam Zampa pic.twitter.com/Gcehh08Ktk

— cricket.com.au (@cricketcomau) February 17, 2019

“He had a county stint at Essex. And to bowl there [Chelmsford], it’s smaller than this [M Chinnaswamy Stadium],” Maxwell had said. “He’s consistently bowling at smaller and flatter wickets and to try and be successful he has obviously had to come out with these different defensive mechanisms to get [batsmen] out and still be successful.”He’s an amazing bowler, always trying to get better, [finding] ways to improve his game. He hasn’t got the big-turning leggie nor is a mystery spinner like a Rashid Khan or a Sandeep [Lamichhane] but he is a successful bowler and he does his craft so well. It’s so hard to get on top of him as a batter. It doesn’t matter if [the batsman has] been batting for 18-20 balls; he still manages to get him off strike and keep him down. And credit to him, he keeps growing as a player. I’ve had a pleasure of playing with him at the Stars all season, and just see him go from different conditions in every game and continue to get better and better.”Zampa conceded that he was “low on confidence” the last time he was in India two years ago, and that even now they would have studied his modus operandi and prepared for him, but with the swag back in his bowling, he’s not going to lose any sleep over a bad performance and that kind of freedom only ever helps a player move in one direction: up.

Down under, the weather is harsh and the fines harsher, but there are also many postcard-perfect scenes to savour

Sidharth Monga21-Dec-2018The first thing you see when you land in Australia. A fine of over A$5000 for one wrong turn. For such a big, wonderful, free-spirited and roomy country with an unmanageable outback, there are a lot of strange rules and fines. Leave the windows of your car down more than 5cm and wander more than three metres away from it in Victoria or Queensland, and you can be fined $117. Have more than 50kg of potatoes on you in Western Australia and your bank account could be $2000 lighter. Some of these, as you would imagine, lead to urban legend. Victoria Energy had to once officially clarify that it was not illegal to change your own lightbulb.Some day-to-day activities you might not have thought would technically be crimes: riding a bike without a bell or a horn, refusing water to anyone who might knock on your door at any time of the day, eating in a designated smoking area, walking a pet while you are on a bike, not holding a dog on a leash or holding one on a leash longer than two metres in Adelaide Parklands.Siddharth Monga/ESPNcricinfo LtdOr even, for some posh restaurants, doggie-bagging food without getting an indemnity form signed.Sidharth Monga/ESPNcricinfo LtdThat’s the Gilberton Swing Bridge over the River Torrens. Cross it every day on the walk from the bed and breakfast in St Peter’s to Adelaide Oval. Was closed to the public because of disrepair in 2014. Was considered beyond repair in 2017. Reopened in January 2018. A piece of Adelaide history. Was constructed by a builder for the benefit of prospective buyers visiting his properties. He donated it to the Walkerville Council. Those who grew up in Adelaide from the 1950s to the 1970s learnt to swim not in pools but at the various swimming clubs by the Gilby. When there was talk of the bridge going down because of safety concerns, a lot of them commented below the line on newspaper articles, urging the authorities to save it.Sidharth Monga/ESPNcricinfo LtdRodriguez is now well known after the Oscar-winning documentary told the tale of his accidental fame in South Africa, even as his work was hardly known in Detroit, his home town, or the US at large. His music was an anthemic backdrop to underground rebellion against apartheid in South Africa, but the first country to accord him fame was Australia. DJ Holger Brockman played the song “Sugar Man” on his evening show, and then started getting requests to play more of Rodriguez, whose almost literary songwriting resonated with listeners. Melbourne-based promoter Zev Eizik tracked the man down, and had him tour Australia twice, in 1979 and 1981. Like many things Australia, the news didn’t go out to the rest of the world, and Rodriguez was only really “discovered” after the documentary went to the Oscars. “Australia was my first triumph,” Rodriguez said in an interview this year. This will be his fifth trip to Australia, just before which he will also play the Royal Albert Hall.***Anyone who has been hungry after hours in Adelaide knows the sound of “beauuuutiful” for every ingredient you want in your roll at Falafel House on Hindley Street. It is open till 5am and is good for a quick home-like Lebanese meal, with a pint or two, at a fair price. The man behind the voice is George, a Lebanese immigrant. He won’t give you a last name, and the moment you stop being inquisitive about his life and his migration to Australia, he will get to being the pleasant host he is. Beauuuutiful.Sidharth Monga/ESPNcricinfo LtdLoud Afghan and Arabic music plays outside bars, with chairs out and boardgames on, hookahs by the side. South Australia is prone to droughts, but Hindley Street will never run out of hummus, tabouleh, baklava and Turkish delight.Sidharth Monga/ESPNcricinfo LtdIn the greens alongside War Memorial Drive, which leads up to Adelaide Oval, is many a headstone in memory of those who lost their lives in the many wars fought on behalf of England. There is plaque in tribute to Her Majesty’s Australian Ships , all known for their conspicuous grey livery before they adopted camouflage after an air strike. The cost of the wars to Australia was huge: 60,000 men lost, a further 150,000 injured. It often doesn’t get acknowledged outside the country.Sidharth Monga/ESPNcricinfo LtdHow green are these parklands? Take in a panoramic view of Adelaide from the top of Mount Lofty, a comfortable-ish hike equivalent of climbing some 250 floors.Sidharth Monga/ESPNcricinfo Ltd”Under the Southern Cross I stand / A sprig of wattle in my hand.” So goes the Australian cricket team song, referring to the ubiquitous tree that bears the national flower of Australia. But it is the Moreton Bay fig, the Australian banyan, or , found in eastern Australia, that is the most majestic of trees.At any rate, Australia won’t be singing the song in Adelaide after India come back from a hopeless situation on day one – 127 for 6 – to post 250, a total they defend with aplomb. In the last innings, however, India have to bowl 119.5 overs to get the win, which leaves them the least possible time to travel to Perth, adjust to a new time zone and get ready for another Test in three days.Sidharth Monga/ESPNcricinfo LtdHow far away is Western Australia? Enough to make you set your watches back by two and a half hours. Perth is about as far from Singapore as from Sydney. It is the only big city between Adelaide and Africa: that is about 2800km of forbidding desert and about 8000 of sea. It is so far, you are not allowed to carry fruit from the rest of Australia into Perth.Well, it might not have that much to do with distance. Australia is home to some of the most amazing plants despite the hostile weather and soil. The ones good for a particular soil will thrive in places where they flourish but not elsewhere. Many of the plants in south-western Australia are not found elsewhere in the world. Perhaps a good job to protect them from accidental competition then – even if it comes from within the country.Sidharth Monga/ESPNcricinfo LtdThe bluest city skies, the most brilliant, harshest sunlight are to be found in Perth. It is the most isolated big city in the world, which means there is no one competing for this light. The ozone layer is thin.It can be the most difficult place to play or watch cricket in. I am not aware of whether studies have been done on how many Australian cricketers suffered from skin cancer – let alone those watching topless – but it must have been Perth that led to the first use of zinc cream in cricket. The WACA Ground has refused to modernise, and Test cricket has now moved on to Perth stadium, across the Matagarup Bridge over the lovely Swan River.Sidharth Monga/ESPNcricinfo LtdThe land both stadiums were built on belonged to the indigenous Nyoongar people. The new Perth Stadium is a homogenous stadium that could well be anywhere in the world. It feels like an airport. The seats in the press box have about the same legroom as an airplane economy cabin. However, the concrete exterior bears a nice touch: an inscription of the poem “Kaya”, which means “Yes”. It weaves together 11 verses of Nyoongar prose and six of English text. I feel that if I read them walking into a big contest, as part of 60,000 celebrating a match together, these words might give me goose bumps.

The river snaking slow beside;
The arching sky, ourselves beneath.
Though we reach for light and stars
Our fleshy souls they touch the earth
Again and again and again; a never-dying-fall.
Travelling, we are many peoples;
But our footprints make us one.
Voices grow like tongues of flame,
And in tongues of flame the fires come…
Applause it falls like heavy rain.

Sidharth Monga/ESPNcricinfo LtdBack to an Adelaide sunset after Australia level the series in Perth. Feel sorry for the players, who have gone on to Melbourne and are not free to travel anywhere they want. I wonder if they get to explore countries they play in – and Australia is waiting to be explored. Does one stadium merge into another, one dietician-advised meal into another, a hotel room into another, a silly sledge into another?Feel sorry for myself too, because cricket tours these days hardly give you time to get off the beaten path. Know more about Australia from previous trips, and am reading about it rather than seeing it this time. Mostly Bill Bryson’s excellent . Wish to one day travel the length and breadth of this wonderfully hostile and pleasant country. Right now the tour is more than half over. It’s like coming towards the end of a book you never want to end. Slow down, Sugar Man.

With the death of the World Cricket League after this event, the tournament gives teams a chance to resurrect, with ODI status also up for grabs for four teams

Peter Della Penna in Windhoek19-Apr-2019Valentine’s Day 2018. It was an occasion when the hearts of some cricketers in Windhoek were made full (Nepal and UAE) or left completely broken (Canada and Namibia) on the last day of round-robin play at the previous edition of the World Cricket League Division Two. For Canada and Namibia, it’s been an agonising 14-month wait for the eight days of cricket action to come.This year’s tournament – also in Windhoek – is at once a sad and happy occasion; the World Cricket League ends after this event but those who finish in the top four of six competing teams have a shot at ODI status.For Hong Kong and Papua New Guinea, it’s a chance to resurrect the ODI status that died in Zimbabwe at last year’s World Cup Qualifier. For Canada and Namibia, it’s a chance to piece themselves back together from the heartbreak of 14 months ago, especially for Canada, who will try to regain ODI status for the first time since 2014. For USA, it’s a chance to complete their resurrection and to get back into the top tier of Associate cricket since playing their only ODIs at the 2004 Champions Trophy. For Oman, it’s an opportunity to ascend to a height they’ve never experienced in one-day cricket before.Papua New Guinea (9th place at 2018 World Cup Qualifier) After being in first place in the 2015-17 WCL Championship through the end of the first four rounds, PNG stumbled in the final three rounds to win just two of their last six matches and finish six points behind eventual champions Netherlands. At the World Cup Qualifier in Zimbabwe three months later, five straight losses ensured they relinquished ODI status.An unstable management structure didn’t help the on-field performance. Long-time coach Dipak Patel was dumped in the summer of 2017, followed by a very brief tenure for Jason Gillespie, before Joe Dawes took over on an interim basis at the end of the year leading into the World Cup Qualifier. Dawes has taken over full-time now, giving him an opportunity to find an elusive winning combination.Since the World Cup Qualifier, PNG’s only official international cricket has been in two regional rounds of 2020 T20 World Cup Qualifier. Opening batsman Tony Ura has been the leading scorer during that stretch against watered-down competition, scoring at 458 runs at 65.43 including two centuries. Far more impressive was his 151 against Ireland in Zimbabwe, but as the rest of PNG’s scorecard from that match shows, too often, Ura has lacked support. PNG’s batsmen need to be far more consistent in Namibia to reclaim ODI status.Hong Kong (10th place at 2018 World Cup Qualifier)In January 2017, Hong Kong very narrowly lost a pair of one-dayers in the WCL Championship to Netherlands by margins of five runs and 13 runs. Had either of those matches gone Hong Kong’s way, they would have finished at the top of the table, securing ODI status through 2022 and a place in the 13-team ODI Super League. Instead they went to Zimbabwe where – despite a win over eventual World Cup qualifier Afghanistan – they struggled through the rest of the group stage and loser’s bracket playoffs to finish last.Hong Kong showcased their mercurial resilience by not only qualifying ahead of UAE and Nepal for the Asia Cup six months later, but in giving India a huge scare. Yet another blow came in October when brothers Irfan and Nadeem Ahmed along with Haseeb Amjad were all suspended indefinitely after being charged by the ICC with breaching the anti-corruption code.Nizakat Khan, whose 92 opening the chase against India was one of the top five innings by an Associate player in 2018, will miss the tournament in Namibia while on compassionate leave, spending time with his ill father in Pakistan. It means captain Anshuman Rath and ex-captain Babar Hayat will be under heavy pressure to prop up a paper-thin batting order.Davy Jacobs goes through a warm-up sprint in a Canada training session•Peter Della PennaCanada (3rd place at 2018 WCL Division Two)After going 3-0 to start the tournament, Canada were in control of their destiny heading into the final two days of round-robin play. They ran out of steam chasing 268 and lost by 17 runs to Namibia, and, on the final day of the round-robin stage, still had a World Cup Qualifier berth in their grasp, needing one more wicket against Nepal. Karan KC and Sandeep Lamichhane famously denied them with a 51-run last-wicket stand to win off the final ball.Canada return with the majority of that squad, but have added reinforcements in a few key areas. Davy Jacobs, the former Warriors captain from South Africa who spent two years with Mumbai Indians, has gone from coaching Canada in 2016 [a year after he moved to Ontario] to now captaining his adopted home, after qualifying to play under the ICC’s residency criteria. In his debut tournament, he finished second on the team’s aggregate and averages during the Cricket West Indies Super50 in October.On the bowling side, their pace department has gotten a boost in the form of Romesh Eranga. Despite playing only six matches in Canada’s group-stage participation in the Super50, the left-arm swing bowler topped the tournament wickets list with 17, including two five-fors. Along with Cecil Pervez, he forms a potent new-ball combo that makes Canada one of the tournament favourites.Namibia (4th place at 2018 WCL Division Two)The dramatic nature of Canada’s heartbreak against Nepal relegated Namibia’s 19-run loss to UAE – when they needed 28 off the last 15 balls with a batsman well-set on 58 – to a footnote in the tournament saga. But the repercussions were no less drastic. Captain Sarel Burger retired while Gerrie Snyman, who was not a part of the squad but was a devastating presence when available, also called time on his career.The reins have subsequently been handed to 24-year-old Gerhard Erasmus, who showed tremendous maturity in the tournament under immense pressure in a win against Oman, as well as a fifty in a win over Canada. He also struck a half-century in the loss to UAE, where his wicket effectively clinched the match for the opposition. Had Namibia gotten over the line against UAE, Erasmus likely would have presented a strong case for Player of the Tournament instead of Sandeep Lamichhane.Namibia have shown flashes of being worthy of Division One Associate status. Despite finishing last out of eight teams in the 2015-17 WCL Championship, one of their three wins came against second-placed Scotland in Edinburgh. On that day, Christi Viljoen’s presence was immense in a cameo return during the Otago offseason. With Viljoen named in their 14-man squad, Namibia have every chance to contend for the top four.Bilal Khan races away to celebrate another wicket•Peter Della PennaOman (1st place at 2018 WCL Division Three)Arguably the team with the most topsy-turvy ride at last year’s Division Two in Windhoek was Oman. Blown out on a damp wicket on the opening day by Canada, they came back the next day to hand Nepal their only loss of the round-robin stage. They had Namibia 65 for 7 chasing 166 before letting them off the hook. In a de facto semi-final against UAE on day four of the round-robin stage, they needed less than three per over with seven wickets in hand chasing 159 before the chase went pear-shaped, sparked by a needless run-out. They were relegated after ending 2-3, yet they easily could have gone 4-1 and qualified for Zimbabwe alongside Nepal.Chastened by some of the harsh lessons from that experience, they went undefeated on home soil in November to earn a trip back to Namibia. More impressive have been some of their recent results against the current top-class of Associates. After being wiped out for 24 in a record mauling by Scotland in February, they produced a stunning turnaround 24 hours later to win by 93 runs, before a spirited chase that ended with a 15-run loss in the series decider.Those results against Scotland came without arguably their two best batsmen, captain Zeeshan Maqsood and Aqib Ilyas who both sat out injured. With them, they chased 252 to beat UAE by two wickets at the start of April and were in position to win again with 36 needed off 11 overs before a late stumble in a 14-run loss. Their batting depth has increased dramatically in recent years and with a pace battery spearheaded by Bilal Khan, the joint-leading wicket-taker with Lamichhane in Windhoek last year, Oman are poised to take a top-four spot.Xavier Marshall walks off after his first century in a USA uniform•Peter Della PennaUSA (Runner-up at 2018 WCL Division Three)On their fifth attempt, USA finally got over the Division Three hump in Oman. Last month’s tour of the UAE showed that despite entering Namibia as the lowest-ranked team in the event, USA have transformed into a well-oiled machine to earn a tag as one of the tournament favorites. A comfortable six-wicket win over a Lancashire side that featured the England duo of Keaton Jennings and Haseeb Hameed was followed by wins in two of three one-dayers over the UAE senior side, that too in dominant fashion by five wickets and nine wickets.Perhaps the most salient point about the first two victories in that run were that they were achieved without Trinbago Knight Riders spearhead Ali Khan, who sat out with back spasms. A spicy 3 for 29 in the final encounter played a major role in USA only having to chase 143 in the series clincher against a country with ODI status for the last five years.USA’s batting, which was historically brittle in high-pressure situations, suddenly turned rock-solid in Oman with the middle-order addition of Aaron Jones and Hayden Walsh Jr. Factor in Xavier Marshall’s sizzling re-entry to the top of the order in the UAE, where he was the leading scorer on tour, along with Steven Taylor’s dynamic all-round assets and it’s hard to imagine USA leaving Namibia without ODI status under their belt.

Aaron Finch got the man of the match award, but his contribution to the win was lower than that of Australia’s new-ball duo

ESPNcricinfo Stats Team25-Jun-2019Australia recorded their sixth win of the 2019 World Cup, defeating England by 64 runs at Lord’s to seal a semi-final spot – the first to get there. Aaron Finch got the Man of the Match award, but ESPNcricinfo’s Smart Stats show that he was only the third most influential player for Australia, behind Jason Behrendorff and Mitchell Starc.Finch was the first to make a major impact on the game, of course, with his century. In the England chase, Behrendorff picked up five wickets and Starc’s four finished the game. According to our Smart numbers, Behrendorff contributed 19.68% to the win, followed by Starc with 18.46%, and Finch 16.23%.ESPNcricinfo LtdSmart Stats takes into account not only the runs and wickets, but also checks the context and situation of the match in which those runs were scored or wickets taken. It also takes into account the quality of the opposition batsmen and bowlers against whom runs were scored or wickets picked.Watch on Hotstar (India only): Jason Behrendorff’s five-wicket haulBehrendorff bowled six overs at a stretch in his first spell at the start of the England innings, sending back James Vince in the first over and conceding only 26 runs. The required rate had gone to 6.23 by the end of it, after being 5.72 at the start of the innings. He changed ends to bowl his seventh over immediately and got Jonny Bairstow’s wicket. Starc did the honours at the other end, getting the key wickets of Joe Root and Eoin Morgan, and England were four down within 15 overs. Starc then got the key wicket of Ben Stokes in the 37th over to tilt the game completely Australia’s way, before Behrendorff helped finish off the tail.Finch played the anchor’s role in the first innings. He went at a strike rate of 86.20, but his Smart Runs were 105 and Smart Strike Rate was 90.78.

Knights captain van Biljon scored 218 in the drawn encounter against Dolphins, while Verreynne and Malan scored tons in Cobras’ win

Firdose Moonda17-Oct-2019While South Africa prepare for the third and final Test against India in Ranchi, where they are expected to make a few changes to their playing XI, domestic cricketers are doing their best to stake a claim for the home summer.There were some big performances in the second round of the domestic first-class competition:The Test hopefuls Four candidates made their cases particularly strongly. Rassie van der Dussen announced his return to the domestic scene after being with the squad in India with a half-century, Wiaan Mulder was among the runs and the wickets for the Lions in their defeat to the Warriors, whose young quick Lutho Sipamla’s eight scalps contributed to his team’s three-wicket win at Buffalo Park.ALSO READ: South Africa’s next in line: Mulder, van der Dussen, Sipamla and moreKyle Verreynne, the Cape Cobras middle-order batsman who scored a century in each innings against the Titans in Benoni, deserves a special mention. His 155 in the first innings was part of a 268-run stand with opener Pieter Malan and rescued the Cobras from 34 for 3. They put up a total of 338 but still conceded a first-innings lead of 134 runs. Verrerynne’s second innings 115 helped the Cobras set the Titans a target of 215, and they finished on 89 for 6 in the chase to end the match in a drawFarhaan Behardien hits down the ground•AFPBack-to-back hundreds for Behardien The Titans’ best form of batting resistance came from Farhaan Behardien, who has played 59 ODIs for South Africa but has never been considered at Test level. Behardien scored a second century in the tournament, this time 140, after opening the season with 114 against the Dolphins last week. It was Behardien’s 11th first-class hundred, and his average in the format is now over 40. At 36, it is unlikely Behardien will get a national call-up but his experience will fill an important gap in the franchise set-up, which is crying out for senior players to serve as mentors in a system that is in transition.Best-figures for BoschCorbin Bosch, playing in his 12th first-class game, took a career-best 5 for 69 for the Titans in the Cobras’ first innings. Opening the bowling, Bosch struck twice within the space of three balls in his opening spell and then three times with the second new ball to keep the Cobras in check. Bosch did not bag the best figures in the match, though. That belonged Dane Paterson whose 7 for 91 ensured the Titans’ first-innings total did not balloon over 500.Other big runs A high-scoring draw between the Dolphins and the Knights had two players scoring big hundreds. Knights’ opening batsman Raynard van Tonder scored 165 and captain Pite van Biljon went even better with 218, his personal best and 18th century in the format. The two were the only Knights batsmen to score more than 50. They only batted once, declaring on 519 for 8, but were unable to push for victory after Dolphins’ Cody Chetty led the resistance with an unbeaten 90.

IPL 2020 starts with an all-star game. Who do you think should be in the XIs? Have your say

ESPNcricinfo staff28-Jan-2020The Indian Premier League now has an all-star game. It will be played before the 2020 season between a team formed from the franchises from the north and east – Delhi Capitals, Rajasthan Royals, Kings XI Punjab and Kolkata Knight Riders – and one formed from the franchises from the south and west – Chennai Super Kings, Royal Challengers Bangalore, Mumbai Indians and Sunrisers Hyderabad. Who should make the teams? Have your say.