The innovation we see in T20 batting today started with him

As told to Nagraj Gollapudi23-Nov-2021If you ask me to capture the beauty of AB de Villiers’ batting, this image stands out: he is standing outside leg stump, and as the bowler jumps into his delivery stride, AB gets into this semi-lunge position, going down on one knee, with his head and eyes still, watching the ball before he executes the stroke.The toughest part of that shot is to get into position and still watch the ball. A lot of times, other batters, like me, get into position and we are just playing the shot, but with AB, his head is still, his eyes are still, and he is tracking the ball.AB could control his head, one of the heaviest parts of the body, and keep it still while moving the rest of the body into position; that was one of his biggest strengths as a batter.Around the 2016 IPL, I sat down with him in Bangalore for a free-flowing chat on batting. I had been through my own transformation as a batter, including with my stance, set-up and technique. I asked him: what’s the most important thing while facing the bowler?Related

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One thing that he said stood out: “The minute he is in the last four or five strides of his run-up, what I’m essentially thinking about is watching that ball and keeping my head as still as possible.” He said that in passing, but for me, it resonated the most.AB made me understand that the most important thing with batting is to have your head and your eyes still at the point of delivery, no matter what your initial movement, set-up or technique is. By doing that, you are giving yourself the best chance to be successful at playing the ball well.It was in 2011, when he moved to Royal Challengers Bangalore from Delhi Daredevils, that AB’s transformation sort of started. That is when he began experimenting with angles on the ground. It was AB who made us all believe: man, this is possible. He just opened up the V to a complete 360, where you could use the whole ground.Since then, we have seen how batters have been able to work the ability to use the ground into their game to create their own variations. Like KL Rahul utilising the gap between fine leg and deep square leg and playing a pick-up towards long leg. He has refined it to the extent where we now recognise it as a trademark KL shot.I was surprised to see Virat Kohli, who is otherwise orthodox, play the ramp in Australia last year, but it’s testimony to how much batters today are thinking of what’s possible. We wouldn’t have seen the kind of angles Rishabh Pant has been able to create and utilise in international cricket if not for the likes of AB.Some of AB’s strokes were definitely premeditated, but at the same time, they were also driven by his gut. If he instinctively felt that a shot was available, he could quickly get into position and execute.He was obviously courageous and did get hit on a few occasions, but he was also extremely athletic: he knew how to fall down, how to roll. The reason he did so well, I think, is because he played different sports growing up: field hockey, rugby, tennis. That was a massive advantage as he was naturally athletic. My wife, Sheetal [Goutham], a former professional tennis player, once told me that AB gets into tennis-like positions, as if he’s about to play a forehand or receive a serve.Keep your head still, track the ball and send it along its way – it’s simple•Arjun Singh/BCCIOne of my three favourite AB innings is him denying Pune Warriors victory in 2012 when RCB needed 21 off the final over at the Chinnaswamy. Saurabh Tiwary hit the winning six, but it was AB who turned the match in a matter of three deliveries in an over – with two sixes and a four.Another favourite was his hundred against Gujarat Lions in a 200-plus partnership with Virat in 2016.But my best AB innings has to be his world-record hundred, against West Indies in Johannesburg in 2015. He came in in the 39th over. By then Hashim Amla and Rilee Rossouw had scored a hundred each, but they had taken nearly 40 overs to do it, and here comes AB, picking up a century in 31 balls. I have studied the footage of that hundred for hours together and it is a masterclass. One of the shots he played then sticks in my mind – it was a reverse sweep that ran behind point. It was like a reverse drag-flick from hockey. It’s not like others cannot do it; they can, but not with the consistency that AB could.During that innings he played my favourite AB shot several times: going down on one knee and utilising the whole area from the keeper to deep midwicket. That arc was once a safe haven for bowlers, who knew they could bowl hard yorkers into leg stump, especially at the death, and that not many batters would be able to hit them there. But after AB came into his own since 2011, that cushion was taken away gradually.That’s why I feel AB has played a pivotal role in the evolution of T20. He was among those who forced bowlers to find different ways to challenger batters. Now you see the knuckleball, the back-of-the-hand slower ball, a dipping slower ball, the wide yorker on off stump. Those have come about as a reaction to the kinds of innovations people like AB have produced.I see the passion AB has for the team when he’s batting. In his mind, at no point is he losing a game. No matter how impossible a situation might feel, he believes he’s still going to do it. That’s what made him so dangerous.And by doing all this, AB shattered the ceiling of batting technique. He proved that you don’t need to be bound by technique to be successful in cricket. The only element of his batting that was conventional was his stance, which was side-on. But the minute he got into position, he had all angles open to him.AB is the foundation on which T20 cricket has evolved. We can only thank him for that.

In nine completed Ashes tours since 1986-87, England have won one series and lost eight by thumping margins. But which have had saving graces, and which have been unmitigated shockers?

Andrew Miller18-Jan-2022Getty ImagesArguably the least-worst defeat of an enduringly sorry era, Alec Stewart’s Ashes tourists not only pulled off a truly stunning Test win in a finish for the ages at Melbourne, they might even have achieved the unthinkable and squared the series at 2-2 in the fifth Test at Sydney, had it not been for one of the most contentious umpiring decisions of the decade – when Michael Slater, whose 123 was more than two-thirds of his team’s runs in their second innings of 184, was reprieved on 36 by the third umpire, Simon Taufel – early proof, as if it was needed, that the introduction of technology would not signal an end to controversy.English griping about that let-off cannot deflect from the fact that, once again, Australia were by a distance the better side. But for a final-day thunderstorm they would have won, as usual, the series opener at the Gabba, and England were 2-0 down by Christmas after heavy defeats at Adelaide and Perth.Their batting, as so often, was flaky at crucial moments – with the honourable exceptions of Nasser Hussain and Mark Ramprakash, whose middle-order alliances would invariably be followed by dispiriting tail-end slumps. Mike Atherton, struggling with a back injury, was a shadow of his usual obdurate self, which encouraged Stewart, the captain, to dump the gloves and promote himself to open midway through the tour – a gamble that paid off with a maiden Ashes hundred at the MCG.The bowling was at times heroic, not least the tireless Darren Gough, who charged in all tour long, and Dean Headley, whose six-wicket spell at Melbourne would be the greatest moment of an all-too-brief career. But the non-selection of Andrew Caddick, and to a lesser extent, Phil Tufnell, robbed England of two vital attacking options in conditions that should have been tailor-made for them. They were deemed too high-maintenance by the dogmatic Stewart, who at least could be said to have run an unusually tight ship, even as Australia’s waves of excellence overwhelmed his selections.ESPNcricinfo LtdNasser Hussain is rightfully considered to have been one of England’s finest Test captains – hard-bitten, personally driven and tactically shrewd. But it was his misfortune – or perhaps his destiny, given the depths from which he helped haul his England side – to run into an Australian team that has perhaps never been bettered in Test history.All such considerations flowed into one on the first morning of the 2002-03 Ashes, when Hussain made a call for which he has, perhaps unfairly, become synonymous. After winning the toss at the infamous Gabbatoir, Hussain shocked the stadium by choosing to bowl first – and then watched helplessly as Simon Jones, his thrusting young quick, suffered a horrible knee injury after sliding awkwardly on the sand-based turf.And in Jones’ absence, England’s remaining bowlers were exposed to ridicule by the merciless Matthew Hayden, whose front-foot tub-thumping racked up 300 runs in the match, including 197 in the first innings as he and Ricky Ponting carried Australia to 364 for 2 by the close of an omen-laden first day.The subtext of Hussain’s toss call had been that he had no faith in his batsmen to withstand an Australian attack comprised of Glenn McGrath, Jason Gillespie, Shane Warne and Andy Bichel – with Brett Lee waiting in the wings to mug them later in the series. And sure enough, Hussain’s lack of faith would be amply justified by the end of that first Test – 79 all out in the second innings to seal a 384-run defeat.However, one man refused to be cowed. Michael Vaughan, England’s elegant young opener, added grit to his natural flamboyance to compile three sublime hundreds at Adelaide, Melbourne and Sydney – each of them lit up by the quality of his pulling and cover-driving, so as to leave Australia’s bowlers with no safe length to attack.Unwittingly, Vaughan’s aggression and style laid the foundations of the strategy that would win back the Ashes, under his leadership, two years later. And, with McGrath and Warne absent for the fifth and final Test, England did head home with a consolation victory at Sydney. But that was as good as it got against, arguably, the best there’s ever been.ESPNcricinfo LtdIn many people’s eyes, Mike Atherton’s Ashes tourists epitomise the nadir of the “Tetley Bitter” era of English cricket – that gloriously inappropriate sponsorship deal that invited a perpetually bedraggled squad to endure predictable jokes about piss-ups and breweries with every new low. And so it was that the 1994-95 tourists came home with their tails between their legs – thrashed 3-1 in a series that exposed the gulf in expectations that had grown since Australia’s own dog days in the 1980s.In fact, some of the most humiliating moments of the tour fell outside of the Tests themselves. A pair of warm-up defeats against the kids of Australia’s Academy were particularly galling, as was the one-day squad’s failure to qualify for the final of the B&H World Series – Australia and their own second-string team competed for the spoils instead.But buried somewhere beneath a glut of damning headlines lay a competitive spirit that bubbled to the fore at unexpected moments. After a Shane Warne hat-trick had put Australia 2-0 up at Melbourne, no-one anticipated that England would boss a thrilling drawn third Test at Sydney, let alone win the fourth at Adelaide, with an unrecognisably patched-up team after a glut of injuries had done for several of their first-choice XI – not least the ebullient Gough, who announced himself as a star in the first three Tests before limping out of the series with a broken foot.Natural order was restored in the fifth Test at Perth, where a certain Glenn McGrath made his first telling Ashes blow by reducing England to 27 for 6 in their final innings. That scoreline was notable for the sad farewells of both Graham Gooch and Mike Gatting – their hefty reputations no match for the reality that this had been a tour too far for both.ESPNcricinfo LtdAn underwhelming walloping, if such a thing can exist. England were outclassed in every relevant department – embarrassed by a lack of pace compared to Australia’s rampant spearheads, incapable of matching the skill and accuracy of Nathan Lyon’s ever-probing spin, and shown up in the batting stakes by Steven Smith’s remarkable Bradman impersonation. His haul of 687 runs in seven innings included three extraordinary hundreds, the best of the bunch coming in rare adversity at Brisbane, when the series was fresh and England’s flaws had not been fully exposed.But Australia’s eventual ten-wicket victory at the Gabba unleashed a different narrative – one in which England claimed 58 series wickets to 89, and scored three centuries to nine. The visitors had their moments – bowling Australia out for 138 at Adelaide, and setting the early pace through Dawid Malan and Jonny Bairstow at Perth – but they were unable to exert anything resembling sustained dominance. Key personnel failed to produce anything approaching their best – most notably Moeen Ali, Stuart Broad and Alastair Cook, whose immense 244 not out on a dead deck in Melbourne could not atone for his technical evisceration at the sharp end of the series.What might the absent Ben Stokes have brought to England’s tour? He’d have stood his ground against Australia’s quicks, that’s for sure, and maybe even provided the hapless Joe Root with the foil he seemed to lack in reaching fifty on five occasions without once going on to a hundred. But it’s hard to argue that Stokes alone was the difference, even if, as the spectre at the feast, he created collateral issues for the squad when the ECB’s paranoia about player behaviour turned two innocuous nightclub incidents in Perth into headline news.In the grander scheme of things, however, England suffered from few friction burns as the size of their defeat became apparent. Arguably that was a tribute to some affable leadership from Root, who retained an impressive team unity in adversity. More worryingly, it was a suggestion that England had given their all, and had no-one to blame for their shortcomings.ESPNcricinfo LtdThe 2005 Ashes may have been a once-in-a-lifetime party for England’s players and fans, but for a once-in-a-lifetime team, it was an affront beyond compare. Australia’s determination to set the record straight after two decades of near-unrivalled dominance turned a hugely hyped Ashes rematch into a savagely one-sided revenge mission.It all started at Brisbane, where Steve Harmison’s jittery first-ball wide telegraphed the anxieties of an England team that was already missing three fundamental components of their 2005 champions. Michael Vaughan, the captain, and Simon Jones had both succumbed to knee injuries, while Marcus Trescothick’s breakdown during England’s warm-up match in Sydney cast another bleak shadow over the tour.But it was the second Test at Adelaide where Australia confirmed that England’s campaign was a lost cause. Resuming on 59 for 1 on the final morning, with a draw preordained and a foothold in the series established, England contrived to lose an unloseable contest, as Shane Warne inveigled his way into their collective psyche to instigate a shocking meltdown of resolve. Nine wickets tumbled for 70 as the office-workers of Adelaide downed tools to troop across the river and join in the gloating, before Mike Hussey led Australia’s final-session rampage to victory.And thereafter it was a procession, as Australia’s greats took it in turns to set the seal on their final Ashes as a team. Adam Gilchrist belted a 57-ball hundred to secure the series at Perth, before Warne said farewell to his Melbourne home crowd with a first-day five-for to make it 4-0. A week later, Warne and Glenn McGrath departed the SCG arm-in-arm, with Justin Langer also bowing out in that match, with glory secured and England crushed.ESPNcricinfo LtdExpectations had been heightened as Graham Gooch’s men headed Down Under after a remarkable nine months in which they’d achieved the unthinkable in beating the mighty West Indies in Jamaica, before wrapping up home series wins against New Zealand and India – the latter crowned by Gooch’s personal zenith, 333 and 123 at Lord’s.But in the final analysis of an unthinkably desperate tour, Gooch would memorably describe his team’s efforts as “a fart competing with thunder”, after being crushed 3-0 by an Allan Border-led team that was still light-years shy of the standards that Australia would attain in the coming decade, but whose professional standards and will to win were unimpeachable.Gooch, to be fair, wished for his England team to attain similar discipline, but his rather hair-shirted attitude to team culture was both ahead of its time, and anathema in particular to England’s star batsman of the tour, and generational Golden Child, David Gower.Their personal fall-out was epitomised by the Tiger Moth episode, a childish prank during an upstate Queensland tour game, but one that surely didn’t warrant a total sense-of-humour failure. Thereafter, Gower was a shadow of the flowing strokemaker who had charmed his way to two hundreds in the first three Tests. His crass dismissal on the stroke of lunch at Adelaide, caught in a transparent leg-trap off Craig McDermott with a thunderous Gooch looking on from the other end, became one of the defining moments of the series.Accidents and injuries undermined England’s challenge, not least Gooch’s absence from the first Test at Brisbane, when he was hospitalised with a septic hand. But ineptitude was England’s most devastating failing. Three devastating batting collapses contributed to each of their three defeats, none more abject than the cascade of wickets at the hands of Bruce Reid at Melbourne, when 103 for 1, and a lead of 149, became 150 all out and an eight-wicket defeat.ESPNcricinfo LtdAfter a protracted will-they-won’t-they in the lead-up to the tour, the first five-Test series to be completed under the shadow of Covid was a desperate and troubling anti-climax. England spent longer on the Gold Coast, in their rain-wrecked quarantine period, than they did in live Ashes action, as the urn was surrendered inside 12 days – not their fastest turnover in recent history, but quite possibly their floppiest challenge yet.The tone – as so often – was set by the very first ball of the series. Rory Burns walked across his stumps to be bowled round his legs by Mitchell Starc, and thereafter, England’s batting was poleaxed. The team failed to pass 300 in ten attempts, and was skittled for less than 200 on six pitiful occasions – including 68 all out in the series decider at Melbourne, where Scott Boland marked his debut with the preposterous figures of 6 for 7, and a final-day collapse of 10 for 56 at Hobart.Silver linings were as scarce as England’s fleeting hours of dominance. Jonny Bairstow made England’s solitary century – a brilliant mind-over-matter 113 at Sydney – while the indefatigable Mark Wood earned overdue rewards with a career-best 6 for 37 in the final innings of the series. Root, however, is still waiting for that elusive maiden hundred in Australia as he faded after a stellar 2021, while Stokes – a shadow of his 2019 self after hurrying back from a mental-health break – was thoroughly outmatched in the allrounder stakes by Australia’s rising star, Cameron Green.Four years on from an identical scoreline in 2017-18, England had clearly taken on board none of the lessons of that insipid campaign. Their selection was baffling – right from the omission of both Broad and Anderson on a Gabba greentop – while off-field reports of excessive boozing and substandard fitness levels harked back to the chaos of the 1990s.Australia were good – some of their spells of fast-bowling, particularly from the new skipper, Pat Cummins, were genuinely great – but England were powerless to make them sweat at any stage. Warner and Smith endured rare fallow series, but Marnus Labuschagne claimed Root’s No.1 batting ranking after surviving three dropped catches in his Adelaide century, while Travis Head and Usman Khawaja – with twin hundreds in a remarkable comeback at Sydney – were the unlikely stars in Australia’s middle order. More than a decade on from England’s last win Down Under, it was all becoming a bit easy.ESPNcricinfo LtdThe shocker to end all shockers. Barely three months after easing to a 3-0 home Ashes win, England were obliterated in body, spirit and scoreline by a vengeful and under-rated Australia team who were fed up of being branded losers. Mitchell Johnson epitomised this revolution of the disparaged, putting aside his miserable past Ashes record to put the fear of God into his stunned and ill-prepared opponents. England had started the tour with realistic expectations of completing their fourth Ashes victory in a row. By the end of two brutal routs at Brisbane and Adelaide, their second whitewash in three tours of Australia was all but assured.It wasn’t simply that England were outplayed – with the ball, Ryan Harris was barely any less immense than Johnson, while David Warner’s succession of second-innings ram-raids trampled their remaining resistance underfoot. It was the collateral damage that they endured which truly marked out this defeat as England’s most crushing for a generation.It started at Brisbane, where Johnson’s searing pace tipped Jonathan Trott, hitherto England’s bedrock at No.3, over the brink. It continued through to Perth, where Graeme Swann, their outstanding spinner, retired mid-tour citing an injured elbow. And it culminated at Melbourne, where Matt Prior, their heart-and-soul wicketkeeper, was dropped due to his collapsing form, before an infamous team meeting vaporised what little squad unity still remained.A prostrate three-day surrender at Sydney completed a sorry tour. But England’s annus horribilis was only just beginning. When Kevin Pietersen, their series top-scorer, was sacked by the ECB for reasons that they chose never to make entirely clear, a toxic post-mortem was set in motion that would destabilise the England dressing-room right the way through to an equally desperate World Cup in 2015.ESPNcricinfo LtdEngland’s struggles to compete in Australia over the years only go to show what a masterful achievement it was for Andrew Strauss’s men to win in Australia for the first time since 1986-87. Alastair Cook took the plaudits with a gargantuan haul of 766 runs at 127.66, as Australia were given an insight into what it must have been to be an Englishman throughout the preceding two decades.But even on that tour, punctuated as it was by three thumping innings wins, England had to battle for the ascendancy throughout the first three Tests. At Brisbane, they were gripped by stage fright on the opening day of the series, and conceded a first-innings deficit of 221 (before Cook turned the tables to stunning effect); at Adelaide, they won the Test handsomely despite the loss of Stuart Broad, who went lame mid-match with a side strain. And at Perth, they were routed by an inspired Mitchell Johnson (in a hint of traumas to come), to leave the series in the balance at 1-1 with two to play.But it was England’s refusal to panic, and their planning for every eventuality, that ultimately seized the day. They had insisted on three fully competitive warm-ups in the build-up to the Tests, which allowed them to parachute in battle-hardened replacements at critical moments of the tour – in particular Chris Tremlett at Perth and Tim Bresnan at Melbourne, who meshed seamlessly with James Anderson, the attack leader, whose 24 wickets included match-shaping spells in the first innings of all three wins.It was as complete an England performance as has ever been compiled on a tour of Australia. But it could so easily have unravelled from the outset. Proof that anything less than the best Down Under will invariably lead to disaster.This article was updated on January 10, 2018 and again on January 18, 2021-22 to reflect England’s two most recent Ashes defeats

The 21-year-old allrounder stroked an unbeaten ODI century after making her presence felt with the ball and in the field

S Sudarshanan15-Feb-2022New Zealand were not meant to chase down the 271-run target at the John Davies Oval in Queenstown. They should not have got closer after having lost the big three of Suzie Bates, Sophie Devine and Amy Satterthwaite inside ten overs for just over 50 runs. After all, since January 2020 New Zealand had won only two of the eight ODIs when chasing. Overall, when the target had been 250 or more, they were successful only three times out of 15.But Amelia Kerr had other plans. It was a day she made her presence felt – with the bat, with the ball and on the field.Related

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Kerr stroked her way to just a second ODI hundred – her first was a mammoth 232 not out against Ireland. Having batted mostly in the middle order in her career, the allrounder has been given a role to bat at No. 3 in the series as New Zealand try to get their combinations right ahead of the Women’s World Cup next month.After a watchful ten deliveries, the 21-year-old got moving rather quickly. Peppering the square boundary on the off side, Kerr kept the scoreboard moving in the company of Maddy Green, who took her time to get her eye in. Pooja Vastrakar’s width was never left unpunished but one of the key characteristics of her knock was against spin.Kerr made use of the depth of the crease, converting even good length balls from Poonam Yadav and Rajeshwari Gayakwad into shorter ones, enabling her to play the cut and the pull. The use of feet to come down the track also stood out.”As an allrounder, it’s my job to score runs,” Kerr said. “I knew if we could form a good partnership at some point in the innings and keep the required rate under six then it was very doable.”The next part was telling, giving an insight into the young mind of Kerr. “Some of the pockets [at the ground] were quite big out there. I knew if we could hit those pockets hard, we could run back for two and put pressure on their fielding.”That Kerr manoeuvred the field and got her way through after a tricky phase saw New Zealand lose their experienced hands tells a lot about Kerr’s ability. She ran 51 singles, 17 twos and a couple of threes, thereby not solely relying on boundaries.”She’s an athlete and a lot of people see only game days and they don’t see the work that goes in behind the scenes,” her sister Jess said later on. “We come from running background, I think that helped today. We talked about hitting the gaps and running hard. It takes great stamina to do that and is low-risk cricket.”On the field, too, Kerr was at it, running from long-on to deep midwicket between overs as the hosts tried to have one of their best fielders in crucial positions. The result? Two high catches to dismiss Richa Ghosh and Pooja Vastrakar in the death overs.Kerr’s legspin also made its presence felt as she got rid of a set S Meghana for 49. The opener tried to push one down the ground and ended up spooning up a return catch. Such was Kerr’s guile that seven of the nine balls that Meghana faced from her were dots, including a missed stumping chance and the wicket ball.This is Kerr’s first international series after she took the time off for her mental health. And on her return, she has ensured to have her day out almost every single time. Perhaps none more so than in the record chase in the second ODI.

The inside track on England’s new white-ball captain from those who have played under and worked with him

Matt Roller30-Jun-2022″Crikey, this bloke is a leader.” That was what Paul Farbrace, then England’s assistant coach, thought in October 2016 when Jos Buttler stood in for Eoin Morgan during an ODI series in Bangladesh, his first captaincy experience in senior cricket.England, missing Morgan and Alex Hales due to their shared concerns about security, won the series 2-1 under Buttler’s stewardship, overcoming a partisan home crowd and the heat and humidity to clinch the series in Chattogram after a win and a loss in Mirpur. But perhaps the most revealing moment came in defeat, when Buttler took exception to Bangladesh’s exuberant celebrations after his dismissal.”I think he showed the world that there is more to Jos Buttler than meets the eye,” Farbrace tells ESPNcricinfo. “There’s the quiet, nice image that the outside world sees but there’s also a steely, driven, passionate bloke that people don’t see. In that series, we saw that Jos Buttler has got teeth – and they’re not just for smiling.”Related

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“I remember the press asking me about it,” Buttler recalled on the High Performance Podcast this week. “I said, ‘maybe you don’t know me as well as you think you do.’ That side to me doesn’t get talked about as much [but] it’s incredibly important. I really like that I have it.”It’s that determined, competitive side. The best thing you could do is come and watch me play warm-up football: I run around like Roy Keane, shouting at people and trying to hack people’s legs. I do have a different side to me.”The Bangladesh tour represented the first three times Buttler captained his country, out of 14 in total: nine in ODIs, five in T20Is. Aside from that, he has only led two times at domestic level – both for Manchester Originals in the Hundred last summer – and has not been a regular captain since his days in Somerset’s age-group teams.But despite that inexperience, he has been groomed as Morgan’s successor for more than seven years. Morgan personally picked him out as his vice-captain for the 2015 World Cup; he has briefly served in the same role under Joe Root in the Test set-up and is the incumbent at Rajasthan Royals.For a number of years, younger players coming into the team have held Buttler in high esteem, seeing him as an example of what is expected at the highest level of the sport. “He leads by example in everything he does,” Matt Parkinson says. “He’s the best player in the world, isn’t he? He’s a freak in the gym, he’s an unbelievable runner, he always trains so hard and hits loads of balls.

“Jos spoke up [after defeat in Dunedin] and said ‘no, this is the way we need to keep playing’, and Trevor [Bayliss] was very comfortable with that. Next game, we went to Christchurch for the decider and wonPaul Farbrace

“He just keeps it really simple. The main thing is that he makes you feel good about yourself and your game, even if you’re not feeling it or you’ve not had a good over. If you’re one of his main bowlers, you’ll always feel backed by him, even if you’ve had a bad day. He’s very calm and doesn’t let anything faze him.”During England’s journey from no-hopers to world champions, Buttler made two telling off-field interventions which underlined his leadership role. The first came in a training session at Trent Bridge in 2016, the day before an ODI against Pakistan: boundary-riders were steadying themselves to throw the ball while balanced, but Buttler interrupted the session encouraging them to be more aggressive, picking up and throwing in one movement if they felt comfortable doing so.The second came in Dunedin in 2018, the fourth ODI in England’s five-match series against New Zealand. England had been 267 for 1 after 37.3 overs but collapsed to 335 for 9 and were beaten with three balls to spare thanks to Ross Taylor’s 181 not out. Trevor Bayliss, England’s coach, led the debrief, questioning whether the middle order had been reckless in their shot selection.”Jos spoke up and said ‘no, this is the way we need to keep playing’,” Farbrace recalls, “and Trevor was very comfortable with that. The next game, we went to Christchurch for the decider, won the game, and it was immediately clear that the conversation in Dunedin had been a really important one.”In the Hundred, Buttler’s challenge as captain was markedly different to the one he will face with England: bringing a squad of players together for the first time and helping them adjust to a new format with new regulations. He only played two games before linking up with England on Test duty, but he made a lasting impact.Buttler has led England on a handful of previous occasions•Getty Images”I’d come into the Hundred as a wildcard player and was really nervous,” Fred Klaassen, a team-mate at Manchester Originals, recalls, “but he made me feel completely relaxed and backed me all the way. In the first game, he had a suggestion at the back end of the innings and rather than saying ‘do this’, it was more like ‘what do you think of this?'”That made it so much easier than having someone telling you exactly what to do. He empowered me and backed me 100%: he gave me that responsibility so that if I did fail, I failed on my own terms. Even in that short time, he demonstrated how calm he was as a captain.”After the third Netherlands-England ODI in Amstelveen last week, Klaassen felt comfortable approaching Buttler for some advice on a personal issue, despite having spent barely a week with him in the Hundred. “To me, Jos is an absolute gun and has that aura,” Klaassen says, “but he also brings humility as well which was really refreshing.”Perhaps Buttler’s greatest challenge will be managing his workload: he keeps wicket in both white-ball formats and looks set for a more regular role at No. 4 in ODI cricket in addition to opening the batting in England’s T20I team. There is nothing in his career to date that suggests his form will drop off due to the additional burden: his ODI record is marginally better as captain, his T20I record marginally worse.Buttler said after deputising for Morgan in the third ODI in the Netherlands – in which he made 86 not out off 64 balls – that it was important for him to “try and be myself” as captain. “I’m not Eoin,” he said. “I can’t try to be him, so I’ll just have to – when I get to do it – try to be myself and be open to learning about it.”Matthew Mott, England’s new white-ball coach, said that Buttler had “seamlessly transitioned” in that game after Morgan was ruled out by a groin injury; he will hope that the same is true about the full-time job.

Pant added 222 runs with Ravindra Jadeja for the sixth wicket to lift India from 98 for 5

Sampath Bandarupalli01-Jul-2022222 Partnership runs between Rishabh Pant and Ravindra Jadeja. It is India’s joint-highest partnership for the sixth or a lower wicket in Tests from a team total of less than 100 runs. Mohammad Azharuddin and Sachin Tendulkar added 222 runs for the sixth wicket against South Africa in 1996 from a team score of 58 for 5.1 The 222-run partnership by Pant and Jadeja is India’s joint-highest stand for the sixth or a lower wicket in an away Test. Azharuddin and Tendulkar’s partnership of 222 runs against South Africa also came away from home – in Cape Town.ESPNcricinfo Ltd4 Number of pairs in Test cricket with two double century stands for the sixth and lower wickets, including Pant and Jadeja. They added 204 for the seventh wicket against Australia in the 2019 Sydney Test.4 out of five centuries by Pant in Test cricket have come outside Asia. Only two India batters had more Test 100s outside Asia before turning 25 – seven by Sachin Tendulkar and five by Sunil Gavaskar.89 Balls taken by Pant for his hundred. It is the second-fastest century for India in Test cricket in England. The fastest is by Azharuddin, who needed 87 balls for his hundred at the Lord’s in 1990.131.53 Pant’s strike rate during his 111-ball 146. It is the second-fastest century for India in terms of strike rate in Test cricket. Azharuddin had a strike rate of 141.55 during his 77-ball 109 against South Africa in the 1996 Kolkata Test.ESPNcricinfo Ltd93 Balls needed for MS Dhoni to bring up his century against Pakistan in 2006 in Faisalabad, the fastest century by an Indian wicketkeeper in Tests, before Pant’s effort in Birmingham. It was the first of the six Test hundreds for Dhoni, the only player with more Test hundreds as an India wicketkeeper than Pant (5).87.5 Pant’s average while batting at No .5 in Test cricket. Across the seven innings Pant has batted at this position, he’s scored 525 runs with a century and four fifties, all at a strike rate of 98.68.161.53 Pant’s batting strike rate in Tests against Jack Leach. He has scored 147 runs off 91 balls against the left-arm spinner, all while being dismissed once. Since the start of 2002, only one batter has had 100-plus runs against a bowler in Tests, at a higher strike rate than Pant – 175.00 by Shahid Afridi against Irfan Pathan (147 off 84 balls).

Also, how crucial a role could the toss in Galle play? We take a look at all the key numbers ahead of the series

Gaurav Sundararaman27-Jun-2022Sri Lanka are a Test team in transition. Since the retirement of their batting and bowling superstars, they have not enjoyed the kind of success at home that they had in the first half of this millennium. Since the last time Australia went to Sri Lanka in 2016, they have won eight, lost ten and drawn one Test at home. They were beaten five times by England and three times by India. They also lost once each to Bangladesh and New Zealand. Their successes during this period have come against Zimbabwe, West Indies, Bangladesh and South Africa. Can Australia avenge their 3-0 series defeat in 2016? Here are some of the key aspects to look out for, ahead of the series which starts on June 29.The toss and spin factors in GalleOnly once has a team won the toss and chosen to field in Galle. That was way back in 2001 when Sri Lanka beat India. On 20 other occasions, teams have chosen to bat first here. Teams that have chosen to bat first after winning the toss have lost only three times. Two of those losses came last year when England beat Sri Lanka twice in the same series. When Australia and Sri Lanka meet, the toss becomes even more crucial. Australia have won the toss on eight occasions and have lost just one of those matches, in 1999. They have won five and drawn two.Related

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When Australia lose the toss, they have won just once and lost on three occasions. Among the 14 venues in the world that have hosted at least five games since 2018, Galle is the most favorable for spinners as they strike once every 55 balls and have taken 13 five-wicket hauls. In fact, 78% of the wickets are taken by spinners and 77% of the overs have been bowled by spinners. Batters also average just 26.98 against spin. The average first-innings score in this period is 273. Both teams may be tempted to have as many spin options as possible with toss likely to play a big role especially for Australia.