Pakistan pair will lead Hundred strugglers’ pace attack, but their availability is unclear

Matt Roller27-Mar-2023Mike Hussey, Welsh Fire’s new men’s coach, has admitted that signing Shaheen Shah Afridi and Haris Rauf in last week’s Hundred draft was a “gamble” due to uncertainty over their availability, but one he believes could have “a huge pay-off”.The limited availability of overseas players has been a constant issue across the Hundred’s first two seasons, owing to clashes with bilateral series and the Caribbean Premier League. Most teams responded by prioritising availability over star power in Thursday’s draft, with Babar Azam, Kieron Pollard and Andre Russell all going unselected as a result.But Fire, who brought in Hussey as a replacement for Gary Kirsten after a winless 2022 season, broke the mould in signing two of the world’s leading white-ball bowlers for a combined £160,000, despite a lack of clarity over Pakistan’s fixture list in August, when the Hundred will be played.Hussey has replaced Gary Kirsten as Fire coach•Getty ImagesFire will play their opening match on August 2, away at Manchester Originals, and Hussey anticipates Shaheen and Rauf will be available for seven of their eight group games. Pakistan are due to finish a two-Test series in Sri Lanka in late July, and have a three-match ODI series against Afghanistan pencilled in for late August, leading into the Asia Cup and then the World Cup.”We’ve been told that they’re available up to about the 20th,” Hussey told ESPNcricinfo and the Press Association. “I think that’s about seven games, and there’s a chance that the series they’ve got against Afghanistan may be called off as well. It’s a bit of a gamble, but if that is the case, it’d be a huge win for us to have them for the whole season, which would be amazing for us.”They are big stars, and they’re match-winners as well. The first seven games is a fair chunk of the tournament. If they can come in and have a huge impact and win us a few games, and get us right up there, then that will help build some confidence and belief. And then there’s still some quality performers out there that we can attract as suitable replacements.Related

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“The gamble is, we know we’ve got them for seven games at this stage, but it could also be the whole tournament which would be a huge pay-off for us. Obviously they are both world-class performers and have performed on the biggest stage in the past, so hopefully they can have a big impact for us.”The pair have played together extensively for Pakistan, and have also been integral parts of Lahore Qalandars’ back-to-back PSL titles over the last two seasons, revitalising a struggling franchise in a way that Hussey hopes they can repeat in Cardiff.”It’s great that we’ve got them as a pair,” he added, “so they’ve got a bit of camaraderie off the field and both have a buddy there as well. I think that’s going to hopefully help them settle in nicely.”

Tom Abell lined up as captain

Welsh Fire’s first move in the draft was to try and sign Tim David, but as Hussey had anticipated, Southern Brave used their Right-To-Match (RTM) to bring him back for a third stint with them. Instead, they used their first pick to bring in Somerset’s Tom Abell on a £125,000 contract, which will be further topped up by a captaincy bonus.”I obviously did a lot of background [work] and got a lot of information from a lot of different sources,” Hussey said of Abell, “and the information I got was that he sounds like an outstanding character and a really good leader, which is something that we identified that we really wanted this season.”It took several conversations with Hussey to prise Abell away from Birmingham Phoenix, who offered him a retention despite injuries limiting him to a single game across the Hundred’s first two seasons. “Tom’s such a loyal guy, so the initial conversations were a bit nervous,” Hussey said.Welsh Fire’s squad for the 2023 Men’s Hundred•ECB/The Hundred”He really respected Birmingham so much and they’d stood by him when he was injured in a previous season, and so he was very reluctant to leave them, to be honest. We had to work extremely hard to help him see the vision of what we had in place, and what we would hopefully create over the next few years, and that we saw him as a huge part of that, particularly being the leader of the team.”Thankfully, he made the choice to go back into the draft and obviously to secure his services we were going to take him as early as we could. We’ve got a really good player that can hopefully play well in the conditions in Cardiff in particular – but all around the country as well. And then obviously throwing in those leadership capabilities as well was something that we were really attracted to.”Their other picks were David Willey (£125k), Glenn Phillips (£75k), Roelof van der Merwe (£50k), Stevie Eskinazi and Dan Douthwaite (both £40k), and while the draft system meant Hussey inevitably missed out on some targets, he said he was “very happy” with his squad overall.Fire had previously retained only five players (Joe Clarke, Ollie Pope, David Payne, Jake Ball and George Scrimshaw) from their 2022 squad, with some players turning down pay rises in order to move elsewhere – most notably Ben Duckett, who openly asked Hussey not to RTM him and allow him to move to Birmingham Phoenix.

Bairstow featuring would be ‘a bonus’

Jonny Bairstow is allocated to Fire as their England player on an all-format central contract, though Hussey is not expecting him to play much part in the Hundred, which is sandwiched between the Ashes and the World Cup. “Whatever we can get is an absolute bonus,” he said.But he added that Pope is keen to use it as a chance to improve and showcase his white-ball skills, after scant opportunities over the last four years. “We’ll be very respectful: the Ashes is a huge campaign, and very demanding both mentally and physically. [But] he sounds keen to play as much as he possibly can.”As a Glamorgan player, Douthwaite’s selection was particularly notable. Fire’s squad did not contain a single player from their host county last season, leading Nasser Hussain to deliver a damning verdict on them: “there’s neither been many Welsh, nor much Fire”.Hussey was keen to change that, and suggested Fire will strongly consider adding at least one more Glamorgan player as a ‘wildcard’ pick after the group stages of the T20 Blast. “I do think we have a responsibility to really engage with the local community – to really make them feel like we’re playing for them and that we’re really invested in this team,” he said.The easiest way to do that is simple: “We need to perform on the field to attract crowds.” After eight defeats out of eight last summer, the only way is up.

And was Mahika Gaur the youngest player to debut in a T20I at age 12?

Steven Lynch22-Aug-2023Has any wicketkeeper done the “match double” of 100 runs and ten dismissals in a Test? asked Andrew Taylor from Australia

This is a very rare feat: for a start, as this list shows, only seven wicketkeepers have so far taken ten or more dismissals in a single Test. And only one of them allied that to 100 runs: AB de Villiers scored 31 and 103 not out, and also took a record-equalling 11 catches, for South Africa against Pakistan in Johannesburg in 2012-13.There are only 12 further instances of this wicketkeeping double in all first-class cricket, two of them by Rod Marsh. Perhaps the most eye-popping performance by a keeper in any first-class match came from the Zimbabwean Test player Wayne James in 1995-96: captaining Matabeleland in the Logan Cup final against Mashonaland Country Districts in Bulawayo, he hoovered up 13 dismissals to add to scores of 99 and 99 not out.A wicket fell to the first ball of both innings in the UAE’s recent T20I against New Zealand. Had this happened before, in T20s or ODIs? asked Elamaran Perumal from the United States

In last week’s match in Dubai, Chad Bowes was out to the first ball of New Zealand’s innings, then the UAE’s captain Muhammad Waseem was dismissed by the first ball of the reply.It seems this is the first such instance in men’s T20Is, but there is one additional case in an ODI: in Cape Town in February 1993, Pakistan’s Ramiz Raja was dismissed by the first ball of the match, and Desmond Haynes fell to the opening delivery of West Indies’ chase.During the women’s T20 World Cup in the West Indies in November 2018, Yasoda Mendis (Sri Lanka) and Sanjida Islam (Bangladesh) fell to the respective opening deliveries of their matchin St Lucia. Less than a year later came the only such instance in women’s ODIs: Australia’s Rachael Haynes was out to the opening delivery of the match, and West Indies’ Natasha McLean went first ball in the chase, in Coolidge (Antigua) in September 2019.Has anyone who only has one Test wicket taken a better single scalp based on the batsman’s career average than David Gower, who dismissed Kapil Dev (average 31.05)? asked Matt Barrett from England

It’s true that David Gower’s only wicket, in 117 Tests, was that of Kapil Dev, caught for 116 in the closing stages of a draw in Kanpur in 1981-82 – but 31.05 currently only makes it to 116th place on this particular list.The man whose solitary wicket accounted for the man with the highest Test batting average was the old Essex player Jack O’Connor, whose one and only victim in Tests was the great West Indian George Headley, who finished with an average of 60.83: he was bowled by O’Connor in Bridgetown in 1929-30. According to Wisden, O’Connor “bowled slow legbreaks and offbreaks mixed, and had the advantage of looking a good deal simpler than he was”.Just behind O’Connor comes the New Zealander Doug Freeman, whose only Test wicket was that of England’s Herbert Sutcliffe, who ended up with a Test average of 60.73. Freeman was 18, and still at school, when he played two Tests against England in 1932-33; in the second, in Auckland, he had Sutcliffe caught by Lindsay Weir for 33, but had no further success as Wally Hammond purred to 336 not out. A tall legspinner, Freeman did not play again: his Test career was over before his 19th birthday.There are currently 20 other bowlers whose only victim in Tests was someone with an average of more than 50. The list includes Andy McKay (New Zealand) and Ujesh Ranchod (Zimbabwe), who both dismissed Sachin Tendulkar (53.79), and – for the time being at least – England’s Harry Brook, whose only wicket to date is Kane Williamson (54.89).Playing her first T20I at age 12 for UAE, Mahika Gaur is currently the 16th youngest T20I debutant in women’s cricket•Asian Cricket CouncilI noticed that Mahika Gaur, who has just been called up by England, played for the UAE in 2019 when she was only 12. Was she the youngest person to appear in a T20I? asked Mohit Karve from the United States

You’re right that left-arm seamer Mahika Gaur, who was added to England’s T20i squad after some impressive displays for Manchester Originals in the Hundred, had previously played for United Arab Emirates. She was born in Reading in March 2006, but her family was living in the Gulf when she played the first of her 19 T20Is for the UAE, against Indonesia in Bangkok in January 2019, when she was still two months short of her 13th birthday.The proliferation of T20Is since all matches between ICC members were declared official means that no fewer than 15 women younger than Gaur have now appeared in such matches. Six of them come from Jersey, including the youngest of all – Nia Greig, who was just 11 years 40 days old when she played against France in Nantes in July 2019.The youngest in a women’s ODI remains Sajjida Shah, of Pakistan, who was 12 years 171 days old when she made her debut against Ireland in Dublin in July 2000.The youngest to feature in a men’s T20I is Marian Gherasim, who was 16 days past his 14th birthday when he played for Romania against Bulgaria in a Balkan Cup match in Ilfov County in October 2020.The youngest in a men’s ODI is Hasan Raza, 14 years 233 days when he played for Pakistan against Zimbabwe in Quetta in 1996-97. The previous week, Hasan had become the youngest male Test player, in Faisalabad, although it should be noted that there are those who dispute the accuracy of his date of birth.Saud Shakeel has now played seven Tests, and scored at least a fifty in all of them. Has anyone had a more successful start in this regard? asked Zahid Ahmed from Pakistan

The Pakistan left-hand batter Saud Shakeel is unique in kicking off his Test career with a score of 50 or more in all of his first seven matches. Four men started with half-centuries (or better) in each of their first six Tests: Bert Sutcliffe (New Zealand), Saeed Ahmed (Pakistan), Basil Butcher (West Indies) and Sunil Gavaskar (India). Three men managed five: David Steele (England), Roy Dias (Sri Lanka) and Devon Conway (New Zealand).Saud Shakeel has 875 runs after his first seven Tests, a number surpassed at that stage of a career only by Everton Weekes (878), Gavaskar (918) and, almost inevitably, Don Bradman (1196)Shiva Jayaraman of ESPNcricinfo’s stats team helped with some of the above answers.Use our feedback form, or the Ask Steven Facebook page to ask your stats and trivia questions

The rapidly changing global T20 landscape leaves England’s domestic offering on an uncertain footing

Alan Gardner16-Jul-2023How do you like them apples? Somerset’s cider boys finally ended their Finals Day hoodoo to cap one of the most-dominant seasons in the history of T20 (no team anywhere in the world has won as many as 15 games in a single campaign), providing a feelgood story in the middle of another English summer in which discontent about the schedule is impossible to ignore – even after 12 hours of getting bladdered in the Hollies Stand.The T20 showpiece remains one of the domestic game’s great days out. Where else can you see three thrillingly contested 20-over fixtures and a conga in the crowd led by a fancy-dress giraffe? Saturday at a packed Edgbaston felt like a triumph of elemental proportions, too, as the groundstaff – who began their day at 3.30am following hours of heavy rainfall in Birmingham – kept the show on the road even as stormy weather repeatedly threatened to trigger the use of a reserve day for only the second time in the competition’s 20-year history.T20 is a fickle game, as more than one participant from the four teams involved reflected – except Somerset’s unstoppable form suggested quite the opposite. They were the first team ever to win 12 games (out of 14) in the Blast group stage, and then in all three of their knockout encounters successfully fought back from losing positions.Related

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Key to their success was a cutting edge with the ball. Somerset had the competition’s two leading wicket-takers – Matt Henry overtaking Ben Green with his four-for in the final to finish on 31 for the season – and claimed an almost unbelievable 151 out of 170 wickets going. Only one team in the South Group avoided being bowled out by Somerset this summer and that was Sussex, who played them once (and made 183 for 8 in a five-wicket defeat). Essex were on the receiving end three times.With the bat, the big guns at the top of the order are all England candidates of varying merit – Tom Banton, Will Smeed and Tom Kohler-Cadmore scored almost 1500 runs between them at strike rates of 150-175 – and yet their hero on Saturday was journeyman pro Sean Dickson, whose 53 in the final was the joint top-score of his nine-year T20 career.Somerset’s head coach, Jason Kerr, has been involved with the club since 2006, a time that encompassed seven fruitless trips to Finals Day. He said afterwards that his overriding emotion had been one of relief.”I genuinely believe you get what you deserve, and I genuinely believe we’ve been the best team in the competition this year,” he said. “But we had to go out there and demonstrate that, and that’s what we managed to go out there and do.ESPNcricinfo Ltd”We’ve been building as a side. We’ve been to Finals Day for the last three years, and last year we didn’t turn up at all. We didn’t do ourselves justice, so I was adamant that we were going to do that this year. I think Lewis [Gregory] has led the group immensely well, but it really has been a team performance throughout the campaign, and that has shown with glory today.”Gregory, Somerset’s captain, called the experience “pretty damned good”. This was not, however, the first time he had held a T20 trophy aloft, despite having spent his entire county career at Taunton. That is because Gregory is also the captain of Trent Rockets, the reigning champions in the men’s Hundred, whose campaign to defend their trophy gets underway in just over a fortnight’s time. Another T20 showpiece, anyone?When the counties voted to create a second, city-based short-format competition back in 2017, the inevitable result was the Blast having to live in the shadow of a shinier, better-resourced competitor. But the global T20 landscape has shifted a huge amount in the intervening period and both English tournaments now find themselves hemmed in on all sides – by the behemoth that is the IPL at the start of the season and an increasing number of competitors in the middle of the year: the CPL, Major League Cricket and the Global T20 Canada.Surrey, defeated by Somerset in the second semi-final, felt the knock-on effects directly in the farrago of Sunil Narine’s non-appearance – despite the club believing they had an agreement for the West Indian spinner to fly back for Finals Day between his commitments to LA Knight Riders in the MLC. And speaking on BBC radio at Edgbaston, Glenn Maxwell, the Australia allrounder who joined Birmingham Bears straight from the IPL but recently opted to pull out of a planned stint at the Hundred for workload reasons, underlined the difficulties facing the ECB and the county game.The umbrellas were in regular action on Finals Day but only 10 overs were lost•Getty Images”I think now the Major League Cricket tournament’s come in, that’s going to affect the Blast really badly,” he said. “When you’ve got an opportunity to go over to America for two weeks, compared to 14 games here with a stressful schedule where you’re travelling all over the place. There was one week where we played on a Tuesday in Durham, Thursday in Leeds and then Friday here in Birmingham – that’s three games in four days with a day’s travel in between.”It can really drain you, your body and mentally. I found that very tough this year and I think with the Major League being a lot more attractive, bigger crowds, I think there’s eight [six] overseas players per team, the excitement of a new tournament, it’s only two weeks long. Less of a burden on your schedule. I think it’s going a lot more attractive to some overseas players.”Maxwell also pointed out the absurdity of England running its entire 50-over competition in parallel with the Hundred, with the result that the some of the country’s best white-ball players have barely played any List A cricket (a format which, unlike the Hundred, is played internationally and features a World Cup every four years). “I would say it does the same thing as T20 cricket but it’s not relevant to the international schedule,” he concluded.That is almost a whole other conversation, none of which really helps the Blast. There are signs that the competition has bounced back a little post-Covid, with the ECB reporting a 15% increase in advanced tickets sales and overall attendance expected to be in the region of 800,000 – similar to 2022 but down on the pre-pandemic high of 920,000. Edgbaston can still throw a party like no other in T20 but the logistics are more challenging than ever.Rumours about the Hundred being wound up have persisted, despite public denials from the ECB management and a broadcasting deal that runs until 2028. And even then, as Maxwell alluded to, an 18-team system is hardly the optimum starting point for a competition to achieve cut-through in an ever-more crowded market.Somerset’s success this weekend, after an 18-year gap since winning the third edition of the Twenty20 Cup in 2005, was a story that will resonate with many beyond the heartlands of county cricket. But whether the Blast will look the same in 18 months – let alone 18 years – is at the crux of the challenge for those running the game.

They’ve gone on a dream run while being underfunded and neglected by their board. How good would they be if they weren’t always fighting the odds?

Andrew Fidel Fernando08-Sep-2023Sri Lanka have had a history-making 12 months. It is difficult to overstate just how impressive they’ve been, compared to what had come before.Between January 2015 and September 2022 (just before the beginning of last year’s Women’s Asia Cup), Sri Lanka had played 123 completed internationals and lost 100 of them. This is a win rate of 18.7%, and included in this are victories over sides such as Malaysia. Sri Lanka had also lost to Thailand during this period.Since then, as if on a dime, their results have turned. Since October last year, they’ve completed 25 matches and won 15 – a win rate of 60%.Related

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As with the 2-1 series win over England away from home this week, many of these have been hard-won games. In last year’s Asia Cup, they beat Bangladesh and Pakistan to enter the final (which they lost to India).Since then, there’s been something of a dream run. Sri Lanka beat South Africa and Bangladesh in their opening games of the Women’s T20 World Cup, but huge losses to Australia and New Zealand prevented them from being serious semi-final contenders. They’d been on the same number of points as South Africa, who made the semis, but were way behind on net run-rate.Sri Lanka beat hosts South Africa in the Women’s T20 World Cup earlier this year•ICC via Getty ImagesA 2-1 T20I series victory against Bangladesh at home followed soon after, along with a win in the only completed ODI of that tour, to cap off their dominance.In the last two months, Sri Lanka have made perhaps their greatest leaps ever. They’d never beaten New Zealand in a single match and were powered by two Chamari Athapaththu centuries – the second of which is a contender for one of the greatest ever (140 not out off 80 balls, while chasing 196 off 31 overs) – to win the ODIs 2-1. They lost the first two T20Is of that tour but claimed a consolation victory in the third game.England were not at full strength against Sri Lanka in the recent T20Is, but there is such a vast chasm between the resources afforded to each team that Sri Lanka’s triumph was extraordinary nevertheless. Just as one example, Sri Lanka Cricket crowed that they had increased international women’s match fees to $750 this year. England players, meanwhile, get close to $3750 per T20I played – roughly five times more.Beyond this, England players have access to much better training facilities, a broader selection of backroom staff, better opportunities to hone skills in high-profile leagues such as The Hundred, and of course central contracts that allow them to focus more intensively on their sport. According to the Federation of International Cricketers’ Associations assessment in 2022 (before the match fees went up by threefold), “no female players in Sri Lanka would be considered full-time professionals”.Whether this run of outstanding results can be a new dawn for Sri Lanka remains to be seen. Athapaththu is clearly, by a distance, the most valuable player in this team. She is the only batter among the top five run scorers in both ODIs and T20Is this year, on top of which she frequently contributes with the ball. Although she continues, bizarrely, to be snubbed by the big-money leagues – the WPL and the WBBL – she is, on merit, a superstar of the game.But where Athapaththu has always been spectacular, Sri Lanka’s bowling attack has played just as important a role in turning things around. Inoka Ranaweera, whose left-arm-orthodox bowling has propped up the attack for years, has been especially outstanding since the start of 2022, taking 44 T20I wickets in 32 matches during that period. Left-arm seamer Udeshika Prabodhani has ten T20I wickets and an average of 15.9 this year. Offspinner Inoshi Priyadharshani’s figures are almost as impressive in 2023.Where before the last 12 months Sri Lanka’s attack often leaked so many runs that even their talisman batter could not run the opposition down, lately the bowlers have not allowed their opponents to Athapaththu-proof their own totals. If there is a blueprint for now, it is this: take a couple of early wickets, have the spinners choke the middle overs, and then let Athapaththu loose on their bowlers.Chamari Athapaththu has been at the forefront of Sri Lanka’s turnaround•PA Photos/Getty ImagesAthapaththu, at 33, has perhaps a few years still left in her. In younger batters such as Kavisha Dilhari, Harshitha Samarawickrama and 18-year-old Vishmi Gunaratne, there is hope that while Sri Lanka may not find as spectacular a talent as Athapaththu, they may gradually develop into a productive batting order against top oppositions.For now, this epic run is enough. This is a team whose board cared so little for that they did not play for almost two years during the Covid pandemic. (Imagine how tough this must have been on Athapaththu in particular, who lost nearly two of her prime batting years.)There have been token increases in expenditure on women’s cricket in Sri Lanka, but it remains desperately underfunded, with no serious domestic league, and no vision to expand the game among girls and younger women especially. In the past year, according to SLC’s own releases, the board’s annual revenue has increased to $45 million, and officials are promising to push that up towards $75 million.Right now, there are few teams with a greater performance-to-investment ratio than Sri Lanka’s women, who deserve far more than the board is currently giving them.

From press conferences set against statues of bald eagles to construction workers burning the midnight oil, it’s all happening in Texas as cricket looks to light a spark

Peter Della Penna13-Jul-2023It’s 2am in Grand Prairie, Texas, a city of 200,000 people. While most of its residents are happily asleep, there’s a lot of noise coming from just off Exit 34 of US Interstate Highway 30. With the first ball of the inaugural season of Major League Cricket (MLC) less than 18 hours away, a few dozen construction workers, not to mention MLC tournament director Justin Geale and a small number of his staff, are burning the midnight oil to get everything at the venue finished.Until 2020, the stadium was the home of a minor league baseball team called the Texas Airhogs. But minor league baseball’s Covid-enforced cancellation of the 2020 season started a domino effect that resulted in the Airhogs folding, MLC taking over the lease of the stadium, and spending more than $20 million to renovate and repurpose the facility for cricket. That included stripping apart the original seating structures to allow the outfield to be redesigned for cricket before relaying the grass and installing new seats everywhere.The stadium might not look new to residents as they drive by, but on the inside, the smell of fresh paint is still pungent in the air. Cement is still drying from the newly installed section-pole markers. The sound of power-drills continues to whirr as cup-holders are attached to chairback seats being installed in high-end sections of the stadium.A few hundred feet away, numbered stickers are going on seats. The only thing breaking the monotony of working through each seat of the empty stadium is the sound of Zac Brown Band’s classic country anthem “Chicken Fried” blasting away on one of the construction crew’s speakerphones. According to the construction foreman, they’ll be on the job for another six hours, till well after the sun rises, to see the job to its completion.Burning the midnight oil: not much time and still quite a few finishing touches needed at the Grand Prairie stadium•Peter Della PennaIn temperatures well past 100F (38C) all week, local workers who have never seen a cricket match have been pouring thousands of hours of sweat – mostly in 15-hour shifts, ending purely for a union-mandated nine-hour break before coming back to repeat the 15-hour cycle all over again – to get everything ready to give the newly formed Americanfranchise cricket league its grand debut in Grand Prairie.”Growing cricket in America is not a piece of cake,” Sameer Mehta, co-founder of MLC, tells ESPNcricinfo in Dallas after the conclusion of the tournament’s trophy unveiling and captains’ press conference. “We’ve got a unique set of challenges out here. We’ve got cities that are lukewarm interested. We’ve got audiences that are not used to cricket happening locally so they focus on cricket that happens elsewhere, even though they love the sport. We’ve got a wonderful sport that people are confused about. Is it five days, is it one day, is it T20? And then we have no facilities.”So it’s taken us four years, and we’ve got somewhere. We’ve got one, I would say, pretty well-done facility in Grand Prairie. We’ve got a facility in Morrisville that the city was kind enough to build and that we are enhancing. We have four more in the pipeline. I feel very good with where we are right now. We are at the start of something. Four years back, it wasn’t the start. Four years back, we were building something. Now we are going to start executing.”Part of the reason that the Grand Prairie venue was targeted for securing the lease towards the end of 2020 is because Mehta believes the Dallas Metroplex local community will embrace local cricket. Communities like Plano and Irving have a heavy South Asian influence, seen not just in the number of South Asian shops, but also by the fact there more than 250,000 subscribers of Willow TV (MLC’s American TV broadcast partner) between the Dallas and Houston metro areas. It stands Grand Prairie in sharp contrast to the transient experience of Lauderhill, Florida, as a neutral site where 15,000 fans flooded in during the summer of 2019 to watch India play matches against West Indies while USA played in front of 19 people just weeks later on their home ODI debut against the likes of Papua New Guinea and Namibia.

“You walk into baseball, and facilities are unbelievable. You walk into a stadium and you go ‘wow’ and you go, ‘This could be cricket in America.’ I don’t know how many years it would take to get there, but you see cricket working like it. It’s got a different feel to it than anywhere else in the world.”Faf du Plessis, who will captain Texas Super Kings, on sport in the USA

There may be some credence to Mehta’s $20 million investment bet on Grand Prairie. Opening night at Grand Prairie Stadium has already been confirmed as a sellout at the 7,200 seat venue, albeit with between 1,000 to 2,000 seats given away for free to local MLC academy players and their families. Ticket sales have not been quite as robust in Texas for the remaining seven fixtures over the first week before the tournament shifts to Morrisville, North Carolina. But the amount of revenue-generating ticket sales has been healthy enough to be in the mid-four-figures, a volume of daily ticket sales that is unprecedented for a cricket event in America.”Five of those days are going to be sold out,” says Mehta, believing that there will be more buyers on gameday. “Three of those days are going to be at least half full, possibly sold out. Now that doesn’t mean that we won’t get some academy kids to come fill up some seats. But my view is, as far as the economics of the event go, we have crossed $2 million in ticket sales. We are fine and the product will fine.”There will be three days where we may have less than full attendance, but otherwise people have shown enough enthusiasm to come. Again, this is Texas in the middle of summer [with temperatures forecast to be 103F at game time], but we couldn’t get any other window to play because of the world calendar and 11 games in a small time frame and that too without a hugemarketing blitz. It’s been very organic and the majority of the games in Texas will be sold out, and Morrisville will be all sold out.”Even for a player who has seen it all in international cricket and the franchise scene, Texas Super Kings captain Faf du Plessis said he has been impressed since arriving in Dallas to lead the home-town franchise. Du Plessis was one of several players were hosted on field at a baseball game by the reigning World Series champion Houston Astros last week – most MLC teams used the Prairie View Cricket Complex in Houston as a training base while Grand Prairie Stadium was going through its finishing touches – and it gave him a glimpse of where cricket in America might one day reach if MLC goes according to plan.A very-American wing of Perot Investments HQ was the scene of the pre-tournament captains’ press conference (In pic: Anurag Jain, co-owner of Texas Super Kings, and Aaron Finch, captain of San Francisco Unicorns)•Peter Della Penna”You come to a sport in America, it’s very big,” du Plessis said at the captains’ press conference, held at the Perot Investments HQ in Dallas, in a wing adorned with Texas-sized American flags and massive statues of American bald eagles (H Ross Perot Jr is a co-owner of the Texas Super Kings, and grandson of the late influential Texan billionaire best remembered for his attempted US presidential run against George Bush and Bill Clinton in 1992). “You walk into baseball, and facilities are unbelievable. You walk into a stadium and you go ‘wow’ and you look at it and you go, ‘This could be cricket in America.’ I don’t know how many years it would take to get there, but you look at and see cricket working like it. It’s got a different feel to it than anywhere else in the world.”Something I would like moving forward is to just rub shoulders with these people, whether that’s American football or baseball, just high level elite sportsmen coming together and sharing a dressing room… I think that to grow cricket, you need these other sportspeople to talk about cricket as well because we’re going to need all of the American people to jump on this and actually make this a success.”That means American players too. One of the things absent from the launch press conference was American flavour on the podium. Whereas PSL teams are mostly captained by Pakistan players, IPL teams by Indian players, CPL teams by West Indian players, American players have been mostly relegated to the background in year one.But one of the leading lights for USA on the franchise scene over the last five years has been fast bowler Ali Khan. After making his big splash in the summer of 2018 with Trinbago Knight Riders to propel them to a CPL title, he has turned into a fixture in various other Knight Riders-affiliated squads, including becoming the first American in an IPL squad with Kolkata Knight Riders in 2020. Being part of the Knight Riders lineup on opening night when they take on Texas Super Kings holds extra significance for Khan because he now lives in the state, having moved from Ohio in 2020, and married a Texan girl with Pakistani heritage this past May.

“Playing for Knight Riders, the franchise I’ve been with over the years, and playing in my hometown in Texas where I live now, that’s really exciting. Having your own family members and friends coming to watch, it’s really exciting. Having a facility like this in America, it’s a game-changer.”USA and Knight Riders fast bowler Ali Khan

“It’s a very special moment for cricket in America,” said Khan. “I think it’s going to be a really huge success. A lot of people have been waiting for this to happen over the years. So finally, we have something coming into our own country. I’ve been playing franchise cricket around the world, but having a league in our own backyard, it’s really good and I’m really excited to see it. Ican’t wait to get it started.”Playing for Knight Riders, the franchise I’ve been with over the years, and playing in my hometown in Texas where I live now, that’s really exciting. Having your own family members and friends coming to watch, it’s really exciting. Having a facility like this in America, it’s a game-changer. It can only get better from here.”

He has been Bangladesh’s leading wicket-taker in 2023, but has just two wickets at an average of 63 so far this World Cup

Mohammad Isam17-Oct-2023As Bangladesh gear up to face India in Pune in their fourth match of the 2023 World Cup, there are two things that they will be keenly looking at: what speeds Taskin Ahmed clocks, and what lengths he hits.With just two wickets in three games at an average of 63 and an economy rate of 6.30, Taskin has been completely off-colour so far in the World Cup. His pace has been down and his lengths short, an issue that has been recognised both by the team management and his bowling coaches.Arguably one of Bangladesh’s most improved bowlers in the last few years, Taskin has delivered with such consistency that the rest of the bowling attack – fast bowlers and spinners – has operated with a certain degree of comfort. But having started off the World Cup sedately, his fellow fast-bowling colleagues Mustafizur Rahman and Shoriful Islam have had to pick up the pace so to speak, while captain Shakib Al Hasan has provided most of the breakthroughs.Related

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Just the fact that Taskin hasn’t bowled his full quota of ten overs in any of the three matches comes as a surprise given his recent stature in the attack. He came into the World Cup as Bangladesh’s leading wicket-taker in ODIs in 2023, with 21 strikes in ten innings at 16.85 following up on a strong 2022 and 2021, where he was among the wickets consistently.Taskin’s importance to the national team can be underlined by the fact that the BCB, fearing any risk of injuries, denied him the NOC to participate in the IPL last year and two more T20 franchise tournaments this year.But things haven’t come together for the 28-year-old in the World Cup thus far. The key to that could be in his lengths. Before the start of the tournament, 60.47% of Taskin’s deliveries in the first powerplay in 2023 pitched outside off either on a length, short of a good length or on a full length. But in the World Cup, Taskin hasn’t bowled enough in the first powerplay, and in the little that he has, his short balls outside off stump have been dealt with easily.Khaled Mahmud, Bangladesh’s team director, said that they have had a discussion with Taskin regarding the drop in pace and the shortened lengths.Taskin Ahmed has managed just two wickets in three games so far this World Cup•Getty Images”We have spoken about it, and Taskin is already working on it,” Mahmud said. “It will be fixed. We have been telling him this. I have a video on the phone. I spoke to him, but Allan [Donald, the bowling coach] takes care of it. We had a plan to bowl short against some teams. But he will come back, I am sure. The pace too was down. I think there was a bit of overwork, so we have given them a break. We want them to come back refreshed.”When it comes to the game against India, Taskin should certainly avoid going short to Rohit Sharma. The India captain has already hammered five sixes against seven short balls in the World Cup, striking at over 400. And it is something Taskin knows all too well. Rohit has a strike rate of 200 against Taskin’s short deliveries in ODIs. However, the same set of data also shows that Rohit has a hard time getting Taskin away when the bowler sticks to length balls.Ultimately, it is any length that’s not too short where Taskin has usually succeeded. It is also true that Bangladesh targeted the Afghanistan batters with quick short balls in the first game, which ultimately helped Shoriful and Mustafizur. It wasn’t a tactic they used against England and New Zealand, though.Taskin’s most effective wicket-taking delivery since the start of 2021 has been the one that holds its length without any movement, bowled at times with the wobble seam. That delivery has fetched him 28 wickets at an average of 26.89, while the offcutter has given him ten wickets at 19.9 during the same period. But Taskin hasn’t been able to do much damage with either type of delivery in the World Cup.Taskin Ahmed has been Bangladesh’s most dependable bowler in 2023•Associated PressMahbub Ali Zaki, the fast-bowling coach who helped Taskin through two tough periods in the last seven years, said that he did notice the drop in pace, but expects Taskin to bounce back quickly.”I have been following Taskin, definitely,” Zaki said. “The pace seems to be slightly down. If you compare his bowling in the World Cup with the New Zealand series last year, I feel that the intent is missing. But when you have worked with a top-class player like Taskin, you will have the highest expectation. He will have his pace up. He will beat their bat. He will take wickets. That’s what we can expect from them.”Taskin’s previous experience with a drop in pace is not a happy one. Six years ago, during Bangladesh’s tour of South Africa, his speeds were consistently on the decline. It was quickly identified that he wasn’t fit enough, and then during the Nidahas Trophy a few months later, he ultimately lost his spot in the team. Lack of pace was again the problem, and it kept him out for around three years.Mahmud’s point that a bit of rest in Pune could recharge Taskin could be crucial. His coach Zaki also believes that “fatigue could be a factor” in his reduced pace. It is now up to Taskin to regather his wits and re-calibrate his bowling, for a lot of Bangladesh’s success hinges on how he goes.

He’s been a valuable asset in the ODI side but a lacklustre start to the World Cup has compounded England’s problems

Matt Roller16-Oct-20231:13

How did England’s bowling unit perform against Afghanistan?

There is not much difference between hard-earned trust and blind faith. As England travel to Mumbai on Monday and pick the bones out of their shock 69-run defeat to Afghanistan, they must work out which of the two they are placing in Chris Woakes.Woakes has led England’s ODI attack for eight years and has been among their most valuable players in that time. At his best, he takes wickets with the new ball before keeping things tight with the old one. He combines stability and power with the bat from No. 8, and he makes difficult chances look straightforward in the outfield.But Woakes has not been at his best in England’s first three matches at this World Cup – far from it. In all three, he has wasted one of the two new balls by feeding half-volleys to opposition openers in Devon Conway, Litton Das and, on Sunday afternoon, Rahmanullah Gurbaz. Across his three new-ball spells, his combined figures read 11-0-95-1.His opening burst against Afghanistan was a shocker from which England never fully recovered. Woakes started the day by spraying the very first ball down the leg side, and Jos Buttler’s fumble meant Afghanistan were 5 for 0 before they had faced a legitimate delivery. “I missed one: it set the tone for the first 10 overs,” Buttler said after the game.Related

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Woakes struggled again to locate a good line and length, floundering when Gurbaz put him under pressure. With a short leg-side boundary to defend, he was swung over midwicket for an early six and responded by overcorrecting, hanging the ball outside off and being driven for consecutive fours.He was unfortunate at times: his figures would have looked better with better support in the field, with Jonny Bairstow misjudging a ball at point on top of Buttler’s early error. Yet this was the third consecutive match in which the leader of England’s attack had looked impotent with the new ball.Chris Woakes has managed just two wickets in three games so far at the World Cup•Getty ImagesIt has not been hard to diagnose the problem. Far too often, Woakes has strayed from the line and length that makes his seam movement so effective. Primarily, this has been through overpitching: according to ESPNcricinfo’s ball-by-ball data, he has bowled 13 ‘full’ balls in the first powerplay which have cost 32 runs.Perhaps the most telling moment came in the 25th over of Afghanistan’s innings. After conceding 106 for 0 in the first 14 overs, England’s spinners – Adil Rashid and Liam Livingstone – dragged things back after drinks. Across the subsequent 10 overs, Afghanistan managed 33 for 3, and Buttler sensed an opportunity to reintroduce Woakes.But, Azmatullah Omarzai, a 23-year-old allrounder batting in the top five for only the third time in his ODI career, saw things differently. The second ball of Woakes’ second spell was an attempted cutter which disappeared over the leg side for six. Two balls later, when Woakes went full and wide outside off stump, Omarzai opened the face to pick up four more through point.And that was that. Woakes was out of the attack six balls after his return and was deemed unusable for the rest of the innings. He finished with figures of 0 for 41 from his four overs. The last time he bowled so few in a full-length ODI innings was six years ago, when he strained his side in his second over.Things haven’t gone to plan for the England fast bowlers in India•Getty ImagesWoakes’ reputation as an unhappy traveller is justified by his Test record; less so in ODIs. His record overseas (96 wickets at 32.33) is not much worse than at home (69 at 27.91) and there will be surfaces in this tournament which suit him much more than Delhi did – not least the Wankhede, where England vs South Africa is the first game the stadium will host in this tournament on Saturday.Buttler was asked about Woakes in several media interactions after the game and made clear that he will continue to be backed. “He’s been a high-class leader of our attack for a long period of time,” he told the . “I always maintain huge amount of faith in him.” On , he said: “He’s been such a brilliant bowler for a very long period of time and is a class guy, so you keep backing that.”A class guy? Few would argue with the sentiment, but the comment jarred: how was it relevant to his form, or his likely retention in England’s side to play South Africa on Saturday night? Buttler called him “a class bowler” in another interview; perhaps this was a slip of the tongue, and he should be given the benefit of the doubt.Woakes was hardly the only England bowler to struggle in Delhi. Sam Curran bowled his worst ODI spell, leaking 46 runs in four wicketless overs – including 18 off the 46th, as Mujeeb Ur Rahman swung from the hip – and, like Woakes, is yet to contribute with the bat in this tournament. There is every chance David Willey will replace him against South Africa.Yet Woakes’ status as the leader of England’s attack – and Buttler’s unequivocal backing – means he is the bowler who finds himself under real pressure. He has started tournaments slowly before: just look at the 2019 ODI World Cup, when he took 6 for 57 across the semi-final and final. Unless he shows a similar improvement this time, England’s bid for back-to-back World Cups will be over before it has started.

He is going up the ranks in the Tamil Nadu side with heaps of wickets

Deivarayan Muthu11-Feb-2024No R Ashwin? No Washington Sundar? No problem for Tamil Nadu. They still have immense spin depth, with R Sai Kishore leading the line. There was no room for Manimaran Siddharth in Tamil Nadu’s Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy squad, even though he was snapped up by Lucknow Super Giants for INR 2.4 crore after a bidding war with Royal Challengers Bangalore. Then there is Ajith Ram, who is more of an old-school left-arm fingerspinner who relishes bowling long spells.Ajith isn’t as tall as Sai Kishore but can create sharp angles from wide of the crease and is particularly accurate with his lengths. On Sunday, he created such a sharp angle from left-arm around that he burst through Mayank Agarwal’s defences and knocked out his leg stump for 11 in Karnataka’s second innings at Chepauk. Ajith wheeled away for almost 20 overs, returning 5 for 61 as Karnataka folded for 139, leaving Tamil Nadu a target of 355. This, after Ajith had taken 4 for 75 in nearly 30 overs in the first innings.”So, my kind of bowling style is to bowl long spells,” Ajith had said on Saturday. “So, when I have to bowl long [spells] I have to give confidence to the captain that I can bowl tight enough and not leak runs. At the same time, I’m a bowler who can support the bowler at the other end. On a particular day, if both the bowlers bowl well, anyone can get wickets. That has been my pattern so far.Related

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“I definitely rely more on bowling the stump line. So that anything that happens off the wicket will be beneficial for me. If the batsman misses, I will get him lbw, or if it turns, there’s a good chance for me to get him at slips or the keeper.”Ajith had been on the fringes of the Tamil Nadu Ranji side for a while before he established himself as their second spinner behind Sai Kishore in the 2022-23 season, when he picked up 19 wickets in four games at an average of 20.36. He has followed it up with 27 wickets in five games at just 13.03 this season.”I’ve always dreamt of playing for the Tamil Nadu [senior team] and it’s been my goal for a long time,” Ajith said. “Right from playing Under-19s and Under-23s and everything…so I was always looking forward to getting better every day. Luckily I got the chance last season after doing well for three-four years in Under-19 and Under-23, and it has been going well for me.”Ajith could have cut short Devdutt Padikkal’s first innings at 77 on the opening day had M Mohammed not dropped a catch at long-on. Padikkal went on to finish on 151 and almost batted Tamil Nadu out of the game. But at one point, it seemed like Ajith would never be bowling to top batters like Padikkal. So, when he was not on Tamil Nadu’s radar, he enrolled himself into an MBA course just to get some game-time by playing university cricket.”That [The MBA degree] is just for playing university games and something like that,” Ajith said. “It was not from my side to study and pursue MBA; it was just to get some extra games when I’m not playing in the Ranji Trophy. During the time, we will have our inter-college matches and that will be a good opportunity for me.”Ajith believes that his stints at university cricket have been useful for Ranji Trophy. “I personally take it as good match practice because all good cricketers play for the colleges and universities,” he said. “So, definitely it’s good match practice – like seeing them play there and coming here… I’ve played against three-four Karnataka guys in university games. So, it’s a good experience to learn more.”

The Mumbai spinner talks about how he improved dramatically starting in 2022, and why he’s not anxious about breaking into the India side

Himanshu Agrawal22-Feb-2024Since the start of 2022, Mumbai slow left-armer Shams Mulani has 140 wickets across all domestic first-class matches in India. That is the most among bowlers to have bowled at least 500 overs during this period, and it has come at the third-best strike rate.A third of those wickets came from only six games in the truncated Ranji Trophy season of 2021-22, which started in February 2022 and had a second phase in June. Mulani received the Madhavrao Scindia Award for being the leading wicket-taker that season.Before that bumper tournament, where he averaged 16.75, Mulani’s ten first-class games since his debut in 2018-19 had brought him 28 wickets at 34.46. But since then, he has averaged a little over half that in all first-class cricket.Related

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What brought about that turnaround?Fitness has been key, Mulani says ahead of Mumbai’s final group-stage Ranji fixture this year, against Assam. “For three years, I have been working very closely with Vishal Chitrakar, the strength and conditioning [S&C] coach for Mumbai. And I got a lot of help from the S&C coaches during IPL too.”He realised he needed to work to get his body accustomed to the demands of big seasons with plenty of matches. “Especially since I try my best not to miss even a single game,” he says. “And because it’s a long season, it’s pretty difficult to maintain your performance for the entire season.”But Vishal knows my body well – like how long I take to recover, and the programmes that work for me. We had decided that if I wanted to climb up the ladder, then I had to change something. Vishal has been really helpful in bringing those changes.”Other coaches, like Deepak Parteki [who also works at the National Cricket Academy], have been helpful too. They have been with me for a couple of years now.”Mulani received the Madhavrao Scindia Award for leading Ranji wicket-taker for 2021-22 from R Ashwin, one of his role models, earlier this year•Saikat Das/BCCIBefore his breakout 2022, Mulani had bowled 30 or more overs only twice in 15 innings. But during that Ranji season of 2021-22, he delivered more than 30 overs three times in 11 innings. That included a marathon 63.2 overs in the first innings of the Ranji final that season. Twenty-six of those overs were bowled in a spell that ran over the second evening and the third day.”I used to feel fatigued by the second innings until the season after my debut,” Mulani says. “I realised I had to stress on the recovery of my body because that is very crucial in a four-day game. If you have bowled a lot in the first innings and want to repeat that effort in the second, by which time the body has become sore, then you need to give yourself adequate time for training and strength sessions in between games.”That is something I have worked a lot on with the help of our physio, trainer and masseur. I do some rehab whenever I get some time. That helps me bowl long spells and recover to bowl more. Earlier I didn’t have a lot of idea about these things.”Mulani takes pride in how he has ground his way through first-class cricket, and likes bowling long spells. He says he wants to be prepared for any opportunity that comes his way, and to rise in his career with exposure.”Playing and experiencing domestic cricket is really important for me. I believe that the competition that exists in the Indian domestic circuit cannot be found anywhere else,” he says. “There is also the assumption people have that pitches here always have turn for the spinners, and so they bag a lot of wickets. But there are some pitches which aren’t helpful, and where you have to just keep bowling to extract something from them. So bowling those long spells – sometimes even 30 or 40 overs in an innings – is really crucial for me.”

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Former Mumbai batter Amol Muzumdar took over as the team’s coach in June 2021. The two years for which he served in that role were key for Mulani – mainly for how he instilled a sense of confidence that Mulani had lacked till then.In the nets for his IPL team, Mumbai Indians. Mulani hasn’t played an IPL game yet, but has taken 52 wickets in his 43 T20s so far•Mumbai Indians”My first season with Amol sir, when he noticed a few things about my bowling, was very helpful,” he says. “There were some technical suggestions too [from Muzumdar], but it was the changes he made to my mindset that made the most difference. For instance, he told me that if I was to become a better bowler, I simply had to try to be on top of the batters by being more attacking.”I used to get a lot of confidence just by talking to him. He always wanted me to get the batters out through my skill – like bowling well even on flat tracks, rather than just through help from the pitch. Amol sir was the only one who said I just do better. He said I had to be dominant in first-class cricket.”Muzumdar’s advice and exhortation resulted in Mulani delivering what he says is his most memorable performance in the last two years, against Goa in Ahmedabad in a group-stage game in February 2022. Mumbai were bowled out for 163 after batting first, and Goa doubled that score. Mulani took 6 for 107 in the second innings, but he rates his fourth-innings performance higher, when Mumbai were defending 231 and had to bowl Goa out in “hardly about 60 overs on the final day” to win. He took 5 for 60, to complete a career-best match haul.”It stands out,” Mulani says of that five-for. “It will always remain special. Looking at the situation, we did really well as a bowling unit to hit back, and I was able to contribute.”Another significant influence on his career has been that of former India and Mumbai batter Pravin Amre, who was a mentor to him. Mulani says Amre worked on his batting during his early days, and those inputs have paid off: in 37 first-class innings since 2021-22, he has hit eight half-centuries and been part of some crucial partnerships to rescue his sides.Before bowling in the last innings in that game against Goa, Mulani added 116 for the eighth wicket with Tanush Kotian. Mumbai were only 44 ahead when they came together, but when Mulani was out for 50, they led by 160. That apart, Mulani has been part of five century stands. In fact, he is one of only two players to have scored at least 800 runs and taken at least 80 wickets in all domestic first-class games in India since 2021-22.”I had a pretty long association with Amre sir,” Mulani says. “I had been practising under him at Shivaji Park Gymkhana ever since I was nine. He has informed me a lot of things about the game, including how to be mentally ready.”With the cricket season getting longer, I don’t get as much time [to spend with Amre].”