Even if you believed Kohli-cam to be the most egregious example of a team game being turned into a personality cult, you might just find yourself missing it

Karthik Krishnaswamy16-Jan-20222:06

Is Rishabh Pant a dark horse to be India’s next Test captain?

They were thirty-sixed in Adelaide, and there was no Virat Kohli for the rest of the series. How did India cope? Rather well, as it turned out.Back spasms ruled Kohli out in Johannesburg, and a younger, quieter stand-in oversaw an unexpected defeat during which, in some eyes, India’s efforts on the field lacked the full-time captain’s energy and aggression. Kohli returned in Cape Town and poured his energy and aggression onto every blade of grass and into the stump mic. India lost in more or less the same way.Captains get far more credit for victory and far more blame for defeat than they ever deserve. They are as good as their teams happen to be, and Kohli’s results across formats are the best of any full-time India captain because he led India’s best-ever team. It’s as simple as that.Well, almost as simple.Related

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Go back to Kohli’s first-ever Test as captain. Not yet full-time captain, he made – or was involved in making – two decisions that immediately spelled out what his captaincy would be like, and how it would be different from anything that came before.He dropped R Ashwin and played the debutant Karn Sharma, in the belief that wristspin would bring quicker wickets than fingerspin on Australian pitches. Then, on the final afternoon, Kohli kept playing his shots and going after an outlandish fourth-innings target even after India had lost every other recognised batter, this when he had already scored hundreds in both innings and had the chance to pull down shutters and try to bat out a draw.Australia scored at five-and-a-half runs an over against Karn’s legspin over their two innings, and he never played Test cricket again. And Kohli’s willingness to risk defeat in the pursuit of victory ended up in defeat.Seemingly impulsive selections and the preference for the outright aggressive option remained a marked tendency during Kohli’s early years as captain. St Lucia 2016 was a case in point, when India left out Cheteshwar Pujara and M Vijay and brought in Rohit Sharma for his freer-scoring style, which they perhaps desired with the forecast suggesting that significant time would be lost to rain. India won despite an entire day getting washed out, as it transpired, even if Rohit didn’t make a hugely significant contribution to the result.It wasn’t the first or last time Pujara found himself out of the XI following a short stretch of poor form. Ajinkya Rahane would experience this too, during the South Africa tour of 2017-18. It would seem an irony, then, that the last year of Kohli’s captaincy would feature an unwavering belief in Pujara and Rahane despite both experiencing far longer streaks of even leaner form.This reflected, possibly, a tempering of Kohli’s early impulsiveness. Or it perhaps just reflected a greater belief in his two middle-order comrades after they had both proven their ability multiple times in difficult situations, and a recognition that their low averages over a prolonged period may have had as much to do with the bowlers and conditions India were facing, Test match after Test match, as any drop in their ability. Kohli’s returns over the same period were hardly any better.Kohli’s early trigger-happiness, then, may have simply been a consequence of having a younger and less experienced core group of players. As they grew older and more settled in the side, they may simply have become harder to displace. It’s a natural cycle that all teams go through.Shami, Bumrah, Ishant – the pace bowling riches that flourished under Kohli get a doff of his hat•Getty ImagesThe other quality Kohli showed in his Adelaide captaincy debut, however, never changed, and he always remained willing to risk defeat in the pursuit of Test wins. That quality would come to define his captaincy.Nowhere was this more evident than in his consistent use of five-bowler combinations. His predecessor MS Dhoni had also been keen on it, but the fifth bowler was usually someone in the mould of Stuart Binny or Ravindra Jadeja, who in the early stage of his Test career was viewed as a batting allrounder, even if that aspect of his game took longer to live up to its potential than his bowling.In contrast, Kohli played five genuine bowlers in his first two Tests after that 2014-15 Australia tour, when the post-Dhoni era began in full earnest. In Fatullah, he picked three fast bowlers – Ishant Sharma, Varun Aaron and Umesh Yadav – and two spinners – Ashwin and Harbhajan Singh – and if a one-off Test against Bangladesh seems like the easiest assignment for a brave selection, he went in with two fast bowlers – Ishant and Aaron – and three spinners – Ashwin, Harbhajan and Amit Mishra – in India’s next Test in Galle. All five were bowlers first, and for all his ability with the bat, Ashwin had never batted above No. 8 before those two Tests. And with Dhoni no longer in the side, the five bowlers were batting below Wriddhiman Saha, whose batting ability was at that stage largely unproven.It didn’t quite come off in Galle – even though it took a freak innings from Dinesh Chandimal to turn what looked like an inevitable Sri Lanka defeat into an unexpected win – and India tempered their approach as they came back to win the series, with Binny recalled as a hedge-your-bets allrounder. But Kohli had shown his willingness to sacrifice batting depth to heighten India’s chances of picking up 20 wickets, and it would remain a feature of his captaincy.It was fitting then, with Jadeja – now a genuine batting allrounder overseas – out injured, that Kohli’s last Test as captain featured five out-and-out bowlers, with Ashwin and Shardul Thakur making up a hit-or-miss combination of lower-order batters at Nos. 7 and 8.But how much was this down to Kohli, and how much down to Ravi Shastri, in both his stints as head coach? Five bowlers was also a feature of Anil Kumble’s brief and highly successful tenure, during which Ashwin often batted at No. 6. With Kohli out injured for the decider of a tense home series against Australia in Dharamsala, Kumble and the stand-in captain Ajinkya Rahane chose to give the wristspinner Kuldeep Yadav a debut rather than pick a like-for-like middle-order batter.And when Rahane stood in after 36 all out, India brought in Jadeja as a second spinner at the MCG rather than replace Kohli with a specialist batter.Kohli, Shastri, Kumble, Rahane and even Rahul Dravid, then, all seemed to share the same vision as far as picking five bowlers was concerned. And you can see why. It was a sound idea, and India had the players to make it work.In a sense, Kohli was lucky to take over the captaincy when the bulk of those players, particularly a promising group of bowlers, were all just beginning to mature at the Test level. Ashwin, Jadeja, Ishant, Umesh and Mohammed Shami had experienced most of their growing pains under Dhoni.You could argue, however, that Kohli and Shastri laid down the fitness standards that drove those bowlers to become the best versions of themselves. Over the course of their tenures, the fast bowlers went from being able to deliver one spell of high intensity during a day’s play and then losing steam, to being able to come back with the same intensity over multiple spells. Bharat Arun must take some of the credit for their upskilling as well.Ishant exemplified the extent of growth that was possible in this regime. He had averaged 37.30 in 61 Tests until the end of 2014. Since the start of 2015 – which is when Kohli became full-time captain – he has averaged 25.01 over 44 Tests, pitching the ball significantly fuller and closer to off stump than he used to, and rediscovering his inswinger.And as the incumbents became more threatening bowlers, newcomers came in looking like they had already played 20 Tests. One of them, Jasprit Bumrah, was both a once-in-a-generation genius and a product of the BCCI’s system, having been recognised as a prospect as far back as his stint at the National Cricket Academy in 2013, when he began building up the fitness he needed to ensure his body could withstand the demands of his unorthodox action. The other, Mohammed Siraj, was an even clearer product of a smoothly-paved talent pathway, having performed brilliantly on multiple India A tours before making his Test debut.As with everything else, Kohli may have only had a limited role to play in the rise of those two bowlers. But it’s not a knock on his captaincy. It’s just a reminder that a team’s success is the culmination of a number of processes overseen by a number of skilled decision-makers, of which the captain is only one. It’s probably healthier anyway when less power is concentrated in one pair of hands, even if – at the peak of his powers as batter and captain – it seemed as if Kohli was Indian cricket’s biggest power centre.Virat Kohli arrives at India’s training session•BCCIThe aura around Kohli’s captaincy, in truth, was much larger than the actual scope of his role, and this was simply a reflection of how aggressively personality-driven cricket’s marketing and packaging has become. Even Sachin Tendulkar didn’t have a dedicated camera following his every movement to ensure that the producer could bring you every pump of his fist and every raise of his eyebrow. And as the camera sought Kohli out, Kohli played up to it, a symbiotic relationship that filled our screens with frenzied send-offs, fingers on lips to quieten the opposition’s fans, and hands cupped around ears to raise the volume of India’s fans.This, of course, is who Kohli is, even if it’s a hyperreal version of him. Even if that on-field personality’s contribution to India’s results was negligible, it’s the part of his captaincy that will be remembered most fondly – or, if you fall on that side of the divide, with the most distaste. It’s possible that he’ll remain just as expressive when he is no longer captain, but it’s likely that Kohli-cam will play a smaller role in our lives, leaving you with curiously mixed emotions. Even if you believed Kohli-cam to be the most egregious example of a team game being turned into a personality cult, you might just find yourself missing it.

The former Pakistan fast bowler, now Quetta Gladiators coach in the PSL, talks about coaching in T20 and the importance of long-format cricket for all players

Interview by Umar Farooq15-Feb-2022After his retirement from playing cricket late in 2020, former Pakistan fast bowler Umar Gul changed hats seamlessly, taking up the bowling coach’s role with Quetta Gladiators in the PSL almost immediately after. Here, he talks about his coaching philosophy, particularly when it comes to fast bowlers and their nurture.How difficult was the transition from a cricketer to a coach?
It’s never easy when you have given your everything playing cricket since your childhood. There was passion involved and when you have done it for 20 straight years, it’s not easy to walk away just like that. There were brief [career] gaps due to my injuries and those were frustrating times but I always made a comeback and never let it go. Because it was about passion, it took time for me to absorb that I won’t be bowling anymore and it will not be the same when I retire. I wanted to continue playing in a few leagues but there were no takers and it came down to making a quick decision about my future before it was too late.I wanted to stay close to the game, be in the field, so I told myself: why not coaching? I gave myself a long, hard look, thought about my temperament and I realised I have always been generous about helping my colleagues when working in the nets – giving them tips, listening to others, chipping in with my knowledge. I wasn’t just bowling but learning a lot around the art of bowling.Related

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I was lucky enough to get a call from Quetta Gladiators to work as a coach only two months after I retired from cricket. Then I had a stint in the Kashmir Premier League and in the Lanka Premier League for Galle Gladiators. This season in PSL, Moin Khan [head coach] had his son’s wedding and I have been leading [Quetta] as head coach. That has been a productive experience, working broadly with everyone rather than just bowlers.You are a rarity as a Pakistani former player who has decided to go global with his coaching career, rather than just doing it as a one-off.
I think it is a role that requires a different kind of expertise [to playing]. It’s a different ball game and we ex-cricketers overestimate ourselves on the basis of the cricket we played and think that we can easily take up coaching as a career straightaway.

“Coaching is basically working with the psyche of a player. You have to go into his mind to figure out the problem”

It requires grooming, experience, and ideally if you come through working with a younger lot [of players] it’s easy for you to grow. It’s a difficult process but [worth it] if you want to go global and are not just looking for small gigs.My career panned out in an era where the gears shifted from the mid-2000s [type of cricket] to modern-day cricket in the last five-six years. So I didn’t have to take a break or learn to catch up with the times. I played my cricket with HBL at domestic level and played under so many big names. With such an extensive playing career you definitely learn a lot, especially when you come up under big coaches throughout. There were different philosophies from coaches and captains. I led HBL, so there was also leadership involved and there was a consistent learning curve from playing the highest level of international cricket.There is debate about whether or not it is necessary for a good coach to also have been a good cricketer. What’s your take?
You can learn the game theoretically and still become a good coach. Basically there is no right or wrong answer to this. It’s a combination of many things and not always about cricket but management of players.Cricket is evolving rapidly and it depends on how quickly you learn new things, and how you work with players. I am gaining tons of experience with Gladiators and I love to work with players in the field, so it isn’t really a problem for me to adapt.Gul on Naseem Shah: “In Test cricket in Pakistan you need a bowler who can consistently bowl 140-145kph because of the slow pitches”•Getty ImagesI’m not limiting myself to Quetta Gladiators only but looking for other opportunities to grow myself. I have made my mind up that this is my bread and butter. I have done my Level 2 coaching course and am waiting for PCB to open up the Level 3 course. If you want to do it right, you need to learn it right. With all the practical knowledge, you’ve got to have theoretical knowledge as well.How would you describe your coaching philosophy?
Your actual job starts when a player is down and going through a rough patch. Form, good or bad, is inevitable. You can easily lose your way with one patch of bad form and fade away like you never existed. That is cricket.Obviously a player playing at the highest level must have the skill sets and the hard work behind him, otherwise he wouldn’t have made it that far. A good coach is the one who basically picks up a player in bad form and encourages him and works with him to overcome the lean patch. It’s basically working with the psyche of the player. You have to go into his mind to figure out the problem. I have been through so many phases in my career and I know what a player expects from a coach and what a coach should be doing to lift up a player.With batters scoring more runs than ever in the shorter formats, there is always pressure on bowlers to keep evolving. How tough is that on bowlers?
In the past, longer formats were more focused and the conditions were more bowler-friendly, but with the passage of time, T20 cricket has taken over a lot of attention. There is public demand [for this kind of cricket] and over time, the changes are largely batting-friendly, and that’s understandable because ICC is basically looking to attract fans.

“I speak with bowlers not just about their bowling but how to analyse the batsman. You must look at his weakness, where he is making mistakes”

The pitches these days are much flatter, making it tough for fast bowlers. But at the same time it just takes one good ball to get rid of a batter. The balance is important and ICC should be finding a balance between the bat and the ball, and that basically comes with pitches. More runs are a public demand but as a professional, either as a batsman or bowler, you have to keep evolving, regardless of the conditions. If you want to be a great player you have to adapt to tough conditions.As a coach, how do you prepare a bowler to deal with power-hitting batters?
There is nothing better than a yorker. It is still the best ball a bowler can bowl in all three formats. It’s really tough for a batsman to hit from that length. Although batsmen have innovated so many shots, like paddle sweep, reverse sweep, scoop, for bowlers the yorker is still the best ball. If you have a strength, you must work hard on it so you have even better command of it.Other than that, you have to keep working on other varieties, like slower ones, knuckleballs, releasing from the back of the hand, slow bouncers – so there are varieties that can counter the batsmen but you have to have control to do that.Length balls in T20, bowled on the stumps, are very useful, but then you have to trust yourself and back yourself. The best bowlers in the world, like Rashid Khan, Imran Tahir, [Tabraiz] Shamsi these days, or in my time [Lasith] Malinga or me, what we used to bowl was stump to stump. Line and length needs to be accurate and you need to have self-confidence.Yorkers aren’t bowled consistently, though. Why is that?
I see bowlers hitting the yorker length in training quite often but then it depends how well a bowler manages to execute on the field. The Pakistani fast bowlers definitely have the skill but they are lacking the self-confidence to bowl three to four back-to-back yorkers. They have the fear in their mind that a batsman could go for a paddle sweep or a number of other shots. If you are going in thinking about how to survive, it won’t help. This sense of fear needs to be eradicated first if you want to be able to hit the right length.Gul with fellow Pakistan fast bowler Sohail Tanvir at a training session. “I have always been generous about helping my colleagues when working in the nets – giving them tips, listening to others, chipping in with my knowledge,” Gul says•Prakash Singh/AFP/Getty ImagesWhat’s your take on Quetta Gladiators bowler Mohammad Hasnain’s bowling action, which was recently declared illegal? Was it always flawed or do you think he just tried too hard to generate extra pace on Australian pitches in the BBL?
In franchise cricket we don’t have enough time to look at the technical side of a bowler’s action or to mend their action. It’s mostly about sharing cricket knowledge and preparing from game to game, working on the strategic side. I don’t think Hasnain exceeded his elbow flex trying to hit the hard length on Australian pitches but I am not really sure what went wrong. I haven’t seen his biomechanics report and videos yet and I don’t know which of his deliveries was the problem but I have spoken with him and backed him to remodel his action. I have encouraged him and asked him to accept it rather than be sceptical about it. He needs to be clear that he needs to remodel his action. I hope he will come out of this soon, as he is an asset.Another young Quetta fast bowler is Naseem Shah. What are your thoughts on his progress in his career so far?
I am surprised that he wasn’t picked in the 15-man Test squad [for the Australia series] and was selected among the reserves instead. In Test cricket in Pakistan you need a bowler who can consistently bowl 140-145kph because of the slow pitches. When the ball gets old, you need pace to reverse the ball to deceive the batsman. It was shocking that he isn’t there in the squad.He has improved dramatically in the last one year. He has pace, he is young, and his fitness is better as well. And he is maturing in his bowling.When I joined Quetta last year I spoke with him in detail. He used to bowl short a lot and I persuaded him to switch to good length instead. It will only come when he plays the longer format. He has everything in him but he needs to get more cricket under his belt.

“There is nothing better than a yorker. It is still the best ball a bowler can bowl in all three formats”

As a coach, I speak with bowlers not just about their bowling but how to analyse the batsman you are bowling at. You must look at the batsman’s weakness, where he is making mistakes, and that’s an ability every bowler should have, because that breaks down the mechanics of bowling easily.With Naseem I speak with him from time to time about how to read a batsman’s mind and his bat flow, and how to adjust line and length accordingly. He is responding well. He hasn’t played much white-ball cricket lately, but this PSL season he is playing consistently. One thing is for sure: the more you play, the more you get polished.How do you compare the scope of work for a coach in the shorter and longer formats? Does T20 give a coach enough time to make a difference?
If you want to develop a player, you need plenty of time with him to change his mindset and his game. You need time pre-series, when you are not playing games and there is enough time for development.It varies from player to player. Some are quick learners and some take time to absorb intel. It is a lengthy and gradual process where both coach and player need to understand each other, but in franchise cricket you hardly get two to three days of practice, and there are back-to-back matches. You cannot afford to tweak someone’s bowling techniques [during a tournament] because it can affect his performance mid-season, and there are chances of picking up injury. You can’t make a bowler learn the technical side of bowling mechanics.It will be a mistake by a coach if he tries to work on bowlers’ techniques [during T20 tournaments]. Franchise cricket is more about sharing intelligence with the help of data about players’ weaknesses and strengths. You get tangible analytics, so as a coach you have to sit with the bowler and talk it out and make a bowling plan.Gul gets a guard of honour in his last game, in the National T20 Cup in October 2020•AFP via Getty ImagesWhat if a player is out of form and you as a coach have to try to pull him out of it?
If someone is out of form, as a coach you help him regain his rhythm. You make him bat a little longer in nets to get his touch, or for a bowler you make him bowl longer spells to find confidence. Sometimes a player is overworked and all you have to do is to reduce his load and relax him for some time to regain his form and rhythm. Sometimes very small things make a difference and you just need to understand the problem. Players obviously need an answer and as the coach you have the eye and it needs to be good enough to provide the answer they are looking for.What is your assessment of Pakistan’s current fast-bowling crop?
We have a great line of fast bowlers in the country but the lack of first-class cricket is a problem. It is really important to have enough matches under your belt. It’s very rare that a bowler without real experience of first-class cricket comes and immediately starts excelling at the international level.To play the longer format helps you grow as a cricketer. It makes you learn the art of bowling. It helps your body endure and acquire greater command of your line and length. Your temperament comes with playing the longer format and it improves your skill set and also gives you a reality check about yourself as a bowler. If you can sustain playing in the longer format as a bowler, you can easily adapt to white-ball cricket with success.Unfortunately in the last five or six years, the selection of national players has arguably been driven by their performance in T20 – either in the PSL or the National T20 Cup. There is skill in white-ball cricket but your body needs to sharpen up. In first-class cricket you have to bowl 15-20 overs a day and stay in the field for six to seven hours, so that way your body gets used to coping with the pressure and load. Also when you bowl spells in different phases of the day, that enhances your bowling skills. Shaheen [Afridi] is exceptional, but it depends how quickly you learn.

“If you are going in thinking about how to survive, it won’t help. This sense of fear needs to be eradicated first if you want to be able to hit the right length”

Is it really important for a white-ball specialist to play first-class cricket?
It is. Even if you only want to play white-ball cricket, you still have to engage with the longer format, especially if you are young. I spoke to Mohammad Amir when he retired from red-ball cricket. I asked him to pick and choose, even if he wanted to focus on with white-ball cricket. It’s not necessary to play the entire season but a few games to keep your fitness and rhythm intact.T20 bowling also needs rhythm, and if it’s not there, you can’t have a good T20 game either. It looks like just a matter of four overs but for it, you still have to practise for 12 overs a day to keep your game alive. Otherwise it’s tough surviving bowling just four overs in the nets. The format appears to be easy but it sucks up a lot of your energy. I am saying it because I have played it and I know it.These days an elite player from Pakistan plays about 150 days of cricket overall in a year, including franchise cricket, internationals and domestic games. Do you have any thoughts on how to make sure players have long careers despite this workload?
That wholly depends on the player and how he looks at his workload. If I say somebody is tired and should rest, that is unfair because it’s the player himself that knows exactly about his workload. It’s a coach and trainer mutually planning for a player that helps the player manage his career effectively, but the player obviously has to be honest and careful.These days there are lots of scientific tools available – like, Australia and England players are constantly being monitored in terms of their workload and pressure. You have specialised gym training to maintain fitness, and no matter what age you are, you can still manage your game.

In the absence of Rohit, Hardik and Jadeja, India’s long-standing problems were amplified in South Africa

Hemant Brar24-Jan-20224:15

What went wrong for India against South Africa?

India went into the ODI series against South Africa with the mindset of starting to build the team for the 2023 World Cup. But not only did they lose the series 3-0, they are also probably no closer to finding solutions for what ails them in the format.Over the last couple of years, India haven’t had a wicket-taking threat in their bowling, their middle order hasn’t come to the fore when needed, and they haven’t had a regular sixth bowling option. All these issues haunted them in South Africa as well.The wicket-taking threat issue is worth looking into a little deeper since it’s an aspect that helped their ODI game between 2017-2019. Since the 2019 World Cup, though, they have the worst average and the worst economy in the powerplay.One possible reason for that is Bhuvneshwar Kumar blowing hot and blowing cold in his appearances between injuries. The teams, meanwhile, have also found ways to negotiate Jasprit Bumrah without giving him wickets upfront.Related

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The knock-on effect of not striking in the powerplay is that when the spinners come into the attack, there are usually two set batters in the middle. With Kuldeep Yadav losing his form and place, and Yuzvendra Chahal losing his novelty, India have struggled to pick up wickets in the middle overs as well.R Ashwin made an ODI comeback in South Africa, after more than four years, but he didn’t present the point of difference India might have been after.India, however, did seem to show some awareness of the need to hit the wicket harder – something England and Australia tend to do for wickets in the middle overs – and went for the tallest bowler in Prasidh Krishna when it came to experimenting. They fared slightly better in the third ODI with change of personnel and strategy.Deepak Chahar came in for Bhuvneshwar and struck early with the new ball. In the middle overs, the Indian seamers bowled much shorter lengths as compared to the first two ODIs. With the ball holding into the pitch, they picked two wickets with the short ball. It will be interesting to see in the coming ODIs if India are going to implement this strategy more consistently.In the batting department, KL Rahul opened the innings in the absence of Rohit Sharma despite having achieved great success at No. 4 and 5 in the last two years. The move, though, opened up a middle-order slot and India tried Shreyas Iyer there.Shreyas Iyer made scores of 17, 11 and 26 in the three ODIs•AFP/Getty ImagesShreyas batted at No. 5 in all three ODIs and on each occasion had the time to build his innings. India would have hoped for better than the scores of 17, 11 and 26, especially in the first and the third match when they needed him to steer the chase. Dravid said after the series that if the players were being given an extended run, he expected “really big performances” from them. Shreyas failed in that aspect.As far as Rishabh Pant is concerned, his 85 off 71 balls in the second ODI was arguably the best knock by an Indian in the series. With India having lost Shikhar Dhawan and Virat Kohli in quick succession, Pant presented a rare case of rebuilding an innings at a strike rate of almost 120.Once Rohit returns, Rahul can move down the order, lending the middle order a bit more experience and stability. Once he and Pant get together there, they promise a solution.Another long-standing issue is that India’s batters don’t bowl, and their bowlers cannot be relied on for runs. During this series, Shardul Thakur and Chahar showed promise with the bat, but is Thakur a first-choice bowler or does he get in because he bats? Also, the first problem remains unsolved, and Hardik Pandya’s lack of bowling fitness has a part to play in that.In Pandya’s absence, India tried Venkatesh Iyer as their sixth bowing option but didn’t give him a single over in the first ODI. He bowled five in the second before being left out for the third.India tried Shreyas as their sixth bowling option in the final ODI. He bowled legspin to right-handers and offspin to left-handers but lacked control. Still, it’s an option that hasn’t been explored so far and if Shreyas can work on his bowling, it could provide India some relief. But India will also be hoping for Pandya and Ravindra Jadeja to regain their fitness and form by the time the World Cup arrives.So while you wouldn’t want to read too much into one series where the team went in with the intention of trying out a few things and also had a couple of key players missing, Rohit and Dravid will know there is still quite a bit of work to do.

The new regime and not being captain anymore has brought him liberation and, perhaps, self-discovery

Osman Samiuddin06-Jul-2022Joe Root got England underway on the fifth morning at Edgbaston with a little nudge off his thighs to square leg for a single. It was almost exactly the shot with which he began England’s final day in the chase at Lord’s against New Zealand earlier this summer. It is a trademark Joe Root shot.He has an entire family of back-cuts, from the angled-bat dab down fine to the more vertical open-faced glides square and everything in between: these are all trademark Joe Root shots.The Joe Root off-drives are a trademarked range, housing the bog-standard drive through extra cover, leaning lithely into the shot, the square-driving on one knee or going straighter, body and bat moving into the ball with the practised ease of a dancer.Related

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• No stopping Root and Bairstow as 'new' England make it 2-2

• Entertainers, rockstars and dudes riff on Test cricket and bedlam ensues

The clips he works through midwicket – also a Joe Root trademark. The pull shot: trademarked; the back-foot punch, on his toes, as elegant as a yoga pose; the little drop to the off for a quick single; these are all shots that are identifiably Joe Root’s but if so many shots are identifiably Joe Root’s, then can any one shot be truly his? And if not, where does that leave us?With the best batter in the world at this moment.One sense that is common with great batters in their very best periods, as with Root now, is that every great innings acquires this inevitability. Of course, they scored a hundred and of course, they did it the way they did it, the way they always do it. It’s them, that’s what they do. After a time, pitches, bowlers, situations, and even results can become irrelevant.Or rather than an inevitability, is this what it must be like to see (rather than hear) an echo? Every subsequent great innings is the echo of an original great innings the batter has played, except unlike with sound, there’s no loss of vividness.With Root, most innings drive home the universal observation about his batting, that the first time you look up at the scoreboard after he has come in, he is already on 20-something and nobody is quite sure how he got there (hint: those trademarked shots).But the reality for most batters has always been that the first part of any innings is the most difficult time. They are lining up actions, making sense of the surface, getting their body aligned, making sure the feet are light, the arms loose and a central equilibrium holding it together. They are trying to tune themselves out from the outside noise but also tuning themselves to the task at hand.There’s no standout metric that illustrates the point of Root’s starts – the best one is that his dismissal rate in the first 20 balls (among batters who’ve played at least 100 innings since Root’s debut) is the sixth lowest. Even the caveat that he has played a lot in England, where top-order batting is basically about negotiating the early dismissal, doesn’t save this from being underwhelming. But that only speaks to a broader point about Root, because by the time you’ve read the last two paragraphs, he’s already on 23.

With Root, most innings drive home the universal observation about his batting, that the first time you look up at the scoreboard after he has come in, he is already on 20-something

For all that England’s batting has been this summer – and aside from being astonishingly successful, it’s still not clear precisely what it is – it has been underpinned by the presence of Root. He is the one who was there when none of this was there, and he’ll be the one still there when all this isn’t. That he has bookended the wild last few weeks with fourth-innings hundreds in a big chase is perfect.And the Edgbaston hundred was every bit as significant as Lord’s hundred. England had lost three wickets in two runs in a matter of minutes, Virat Kohli was all over them and India were threatening to recreate The Oval. Lose Lord’s and who knows whether this happens. Lose this and face the questions, or at least the smirking reminders that against the best attacks, this isn’t going to work.Root’s response was to lead England as he was always meant to: with bat. In the first 15 overs of the stand with Jonny Bairstow, a period in which the game was at its tightest, Root took 60% of the strike. That might not appear a very lopsided proportion but imagine the strong temptation to let Bairstow take over and really barrel his way into that target?Instead, Root gamed it out. Enough singles to not let the score stagnate (but not so many that anyone noticed he was already on 20-something), keep out what you can, put away what you can. Jasprit Bumrah got too straight, away to the midwicket fence; Mohammad Shami gave him a fraction on length, dabbed through backward point. Root survived a tight lbw shout, next ball he shuffled out – another trademark – and clipped Shami through midwicket.From the other end, Ravindra Jadeja was gaining control. Post tea, he had figures of 6-2-9-0 into his spell, drying up England’s runs from over the wicket. Root had reverse-swept twice to try to break the stranglehold, without success. In the seventh over of Jadeja’s spell, he finally paddle-swept him twice, each for four; in his next, he swept him conventionally for another. Boom, Bumrah and Shami seen off, now Jadeja; by the next over, Mohammed Siraj and Shardul Thakur were bowling.He can be a rock star too•PA Photos/Getty ImagesThis wasn’t what England had done previously; this was Root doing what he does. He referred to conversations in the dressing room about recognising moments when the pressure had to be absorbed, before ruthlessly turning it around – a bit of nuance not often talked about over these Tests.Once that period broke open, the inevitability crept back in: of a Root ton and more improbably of another big England chase. On the final morning, Root got through the 90s with, in order, a glide off the face through third man, a clip off his pads and a late, late dab so fine it bounced in front of and then over second slip – all for four. If Root were to sleepwalk his way through the 90s, this is the route he would take as he knows it so well.Eventually, England chased down the total in a much more calculated and less bludgeoning way than at Trent Bridge and Headingley. They were more inevitable about it and at the centre was Root.All that said, it has been a fascinating summer in the career of Joe Root. He feels like a kid again and because he has never knowingly not looked like a kid, the youthfulness is assumed to be in his batting. The new regime yes, no captaincy also yes. Together it has brought liberation. His strike rate has always been healthy but this summer, he has been striking at 19 runs more per 100 balls.Also, perhaps, self-discovery. At Trent Bridge, he played shots that are unusual for him in Tests and urged a rewriting of the coaching manual. After Edgbaston, he half-joked he was caught between the grounding of the old Yorkshire way of orthodox batting and the entreaties of his captain to be a rock star. But he has clearly been re-thinking, or rather re-assessing, more seriously the contours of Test batting.”It’s scripted out how you need to play in Test cricket,” he said when asked about dealing with the stifling orthodoxy around the format. “Sometimes being unpredictable is very difficult to bowl at. Sometimes the gaps are bigger, and you know where the ball is going to be because of generally how sides bowl for long periods of time. There have been occasions this summer I might have played some unusual shots. But they’ve felt like pretty low-risk options in the moment.”It’s not as if no one has ever come upon this truth before. Virender Sehwag, as just one, understood this from the moment he started playing. In Root’s case, it could even be argued he has returned to it, given his once burgeoning white-ball game. Remember that, unlike his great contemporaries, he rarely gets to exhibit his (still considerable) white-ball skills anymore.He has played seven ODI innings since becoming a world champion three years ago; he hasn’t played a T20 outside the Blast in over three years. The absence has steadily dimmed the cachet and robbed him of a global, all-format sheen (while, by contrast, Steven Smith and Kane Williamson faced off in the last T20 World Cup final). If nothing else, this summer has been a righting of that.

The final four: Yuvraj Singh wowing us in 2007, Shahid Afridi the all-round superstar in 2009, Rangana Herath’s wizardry in 2014 and Carlos Brathwaite’s 2016 heroics

ESPNcricinfo staff20-Oct-2022Voting for these match-ups has ended. Yuvraj Singh’s 70 and Carlos Brathwaite’s 3-23 & 34* move to the final.Yuvraj Singh’s 70 vs Shahid Afridi’s 51 & 2-1670 (30) vs AUS | Yuvraj Singh | Durban, 2007
India’s young side had made a slow start in the T20 World Cup semi-final and were 41 for 2 at the end of the eighth over. Yuvraj Singh began with a swivel-pull against Stuart Clark – one of the best bowlers of the tournament – for six off the second ball he faced, and smashed a 119-metre pick-up shot off Brett Lee in the next over. His entire innings was like a highlights reel: the 70 off 30 balls included five sixes and as many fours, and he almost single-handedly took India to a match-winning 188.51 (34) & 2-16 vs SA | Shahid Afridi | Nottingham, 2009
Pakistan’s sole T20 world title had their starman at its heart, with Afridi delivering back-to-back memorable all-round performances in the semi-final and the final, but the first of those two acts was more impressive. Against an in-form South Africa, Afridi’s innings was a blend of aggression and maturity, keeping a hostile attack at bay, and gave Pakistan 149 to defend. He followed it up with a frugal spell, which included the wickets of Herschelle Gibbs and AB de Villiers, as Pakistan snuck home by seven runs.ESPNcricinfo LtdRangana Herath’s 5-3 vs Carlos Brathwaite’s 3-23 & 34*5-3 vs NZ | Rangana Herath | Chattogram, 2014
Sri Lanka’s rousing T20 World Cup triumph may have never occurred but for a spell of wizardry in the final Group 1 match. Chasing 120 under lights – with evening dew around – New Zealand were mugged by one of the great T20 spells. Herath wove a web of deception with his subtle skills. He didn’t concede a run until his 14th ball, delivered 18 dots in 3.3 overs, removed four of the top six, ran out Martin Guptill, and returned to the attack to complete his five-for and secure a semi-final spot for Sri Lanka.3-23 & 34*(10) vs ENG | Carlos Brathwaite | Kolkata, 2016
Nineteen to win in the final over. Four balls, four sixes. “Carlos Brathwaite, remember the name”! Those hits at Eden Gardens will forever remain part of cricketing folklore. What gets forgotten is that Brathwaite was effective with the ball too: he picked up the key wickets of Jos Buttler and Joe Root to finish with figures of 4-0-23-3. He then came in at No. 8 with West Indies 107 for 6 in 15.3 chasing 156, and took them to their second title in the company of Marlon Samuels.ESPNcricinfo Ltd

And is Rilee Rossouw the only batter to score consecutive T20I hundreds?

Steven Lynch08-Nov-2022I heard on the commentary that Suryakumar Yadav has scored more than a thousand runs in T20Is this year. Is this the record? asked Vinod Ganesh from India

It’s true that Suryakumar Yadav, one of the standout performers of this year’s World Cup, went past 1000 runs in 2022 during his unbeaten 61 in the last group game, against Zimbabwe in Melbourne.After that, Suryakumar’s tally for the year stood at 1026. The only man to have scored more in a calendar year in T20Is is Pakistan’s Mohammad Rizwan, who amassed 1326 in 2021. Rizwan is close behind this year as well: by the end of the World Cup group stage, he had scored 924 runs in 2022.I know about the highest scores on Test debut. But who has made the highest score in his second Test match? asked Bill Atkins from Australia

Seven men have made double-centuries on Test debut, but – rather surprisingly perhaps – only two men have reached 200 in their second match. Pride of place goes to Zaheer Abbas, who made a sublime 274 in his second Test for Pakistan, against England at Edgbaston in 1971. Three years later, David “Bumble” Lloyd of England made 214 not out in his second Test, against India, also at Edgbaston. It was the first of Zaheer’s 12 Test centuries, but Lloyd’s only one.Wajahatullah Wasti of Pakistan (against Sri Lanka in Lahore in 1998-99) and Australia’s Phillip Hughes (against South Africa in Durban in 2008-09) both scored two centuries in their second Test match.Australia’s elimination meant the host nation has still never won the T20 World Cup. Has anyone even reached the final at home? asked Bryce Cunningham from Australia

The current tournament is the eighth edition of the men’s T20 World Cup, and you’re right in saying that no host nation has ever won it. The best performance by the hosts came in 2012, when Sri Lanka got to the final at the Premadasa Stadium in Colombo, but lost to West Indies. India reached the semi-finals in 2016, but also lost to eventual champions West Indies, in Mumbai.It’s a different story for the women: England won at home in 2009, beating New Zealand in the final at Lord’s, and Australia followed suit in 2020, overpowering India in the final in Melbourne.Rilee Roussouw’s two consecutive T20I hundreds has been matched by one batter, France’s Gus McKeon, earlier this year•BCCIIs Rilee Rossouw the only batter to score two consecutive hundreds in T20Is? asked Muhammad Riaz via Facebook

The South African Rilee Rossouw scored 100 not out against India in Indore in October, and in his next visit to the crease hit 109 against Bangladesh in Sydney during the T20 World Cup. He did play one match in between, against Zimbabwe in Hobart, but didn’t bat in that game.Only one other man has scored successive T20 hundreds. He did so earlier this year, but you might have missed it at the time: teenager Gus McKeon made his debut for France in a World Cup qualifier in Finland in July, and scored 109 against Switzerland in Vantaa in his second match, and 101 against Norway in Kerava in the third. Gus, who turned 19 last month, lives in Western Australia and has played club cricket in Perth.No one has yet done this in women’s T20Is. New Zealand’s Sophie Devine hit six successive scores of 50 or more in 2019 and 2020, including a century against South Africa in Wellington. McKeon shares the men’s record of four with five other playersWho holds the record for bowling the most overs in a single Test series? asked James Emerson from England

The leader here is the much-missed Australian legspinner Shane Warne, who sent down no fewer than 439.5 overs (2639 balls) during the 1993 Ashes series in England. That was a six-Test series: the records for a five- and four-Test series are both held by the same man, the West Indian slow left-armer Alf Valentine. He sent down 430 overs (2580 balls) during the five-match home rubber against India in 1952-53, and 422.3 (2535 balls) during the four Tests of his debut series in England in 1950.The record for a three-Test rubber is 236 overs (1416 balls), by Muthiah Muralidaran in Sri Lanka’s home series against England in 2000-01. The West Indian offspinner Lance Gibbs sent down 1538 balls in 192.2 eight-ball overs – the equivalent of 256.2 of six balls – in Australia in 1960-61, but he played in only three of the five Tests.Use our feedback form, or the Ask Steven Facebook page to ask your stats and trivia questions

All the key numbers from Azhar Ali’s 12-year Test career for Pakistan

Sampath Bandarupalli16-Dec-202234.4 Percentage of Test innings where Azhar Ali batted 100-plus balls, the highest by any batter since his debut (min: 100 innings). Azhar faced 100-plus balls in 63 innings, the joint-second most by any batter since his debut. Joe Root had done it 75 times in 232 innings, while Alastair Cook also faced 100-plus balls in 63 innings during this period.7079 Runs by Azhar in Test cricket. He is one of the five players with 7000-plus runs for Pakistan in the format. His 19 hundreds are the fifth highest for Pakistan in Test cricket.