A maiden whitewash at home and astounding batting averages make up some of the statistical highlights from the fifth ODI in Colombo

Bharath Seervi03-Sep-2017 6 – Number of whitewashes by India in a series of five or more matches, and the second against Sri Lanka. Virat Kohli has led the side in three of those whitewashes, MS Dhoni in two and Gautam Gambhir in one. 1 – This was the first time Sri Lanka suffered a whitewash in a bilateral series at home. Overall, this was their third whitewash in five or more games and second this year.100 – Stumpings for Dhoni in ODIs – the first wicketkeeper to achieve this feat. He went past Kumar Sangakkara’s record of 99 stumpings to top the chart. He has 161 stumpings across all formats, which is also the highest.30 – Centuries for Kohli in ODIs – the joint second most with Ricky Ponting. Only Sachin Tendulkar’s 49 tons are more than Kohli’s current tally, which have come in only 186 innings as compared to Tendulkar’s 267 innings. Ponting took 349 innings for the same.53 – Runs for which Sri Lanka lost their last seven wickets, in 11 overs. They were 185 for 3 in the 39th over and were all out for 238 in the final over. Sri Lanka averaged just 16.96 after the fifth wicket in this series with just two fifty-plus stands in 29 partnerships, whereas India had three century stands from eight partnerships for those wickets and averaged 96.25. 92.45 – Kohli’s average in ODIs this year – the highest by a batsman scoring 1000-plus runs in a year. He completed 1000 runs in this innings and it is the fifth time he has surpassed that landmark in a year. Only Tendulkar (seven times) and Sourav Ganguly, Sangakkara and Ponting (six times) each have done it more times than Kohli.281 – Kohli’s average in successful chases in the past year. In 10 successful chases, he has amassed 843 runs and got out only thrice. He hit four centuries and four fifties in those 10 chases.15 – Wickets for Jasprit Bumrah in this series – the most by any fast bowler in a bilateral series of five or fewer matches. Only Amit Mishra (18) and Rashid Khan (16) have picked more wickets in such a series, both of them being spinners.2 – Instances of India fast bowlers picking two five-fors in any series or tournament. In this series, Bumrah and Bhuvneshwar Kumar took five-wicket hauls. The only previous instance was in the 1999 World Cup – Robin Singh and Venkatesh Prasad. For both Bumrah and Bhuvneshwar, this was their maiden ODI five-fors. Including spinners, this is only the fifth such series/tournament for India with two five-fors.

Without reading ESPNcricinfo’s ball-by-ball commentary or watching the video again, can you get all six right?

ESPNcricinfo staff19-Sep-2017

India have a range of selection headaches ahead of the Centurion Test

ESPNcricinfo staff11-Jan-2018

In his first international match in Pakistan, Mohammad Amir ensured the fans had plenty of reasons to cheer

Danyal Rasool in Lahore30-Oct-2017Something always came up. As far as Mohammad Amir was concerned, there was always some reason that prevented him from playing an international game in Pakistan. He made his debut in June 2009, three months after the attack on Sri Lanka’s team bus that began Pakistan’s international isolation. Six years later, when Zimbabwe became the first team to visit for two T20s and three ODIs, he was still serving the last three months of his five-year ban. And when an ICC-sanctioned World XI turned up in Lahore last month, Amir found himself in England with his wife, who was expecting their first child.On Sunday, too, no one expected Amir to take the field in the third T20I. A shin injury, that had hampered him since the first day of the second Test against Sri Lanka, had kept him out of Pakistan’s limited-overs games in the UAE. For Amir, though, it seemed a chance was finally here.Usman Khan was injured, and as both teams began their training sessions ahead of the game, a familiar figure appeared to be running with the Pakistan side. It’s a little difficult from the Gaddafi Stadium’s media centre to clearly identify players’ faces on the ground, but Amir’s bowling action is his ID. He sprinted in, charging towards one of the practice pitches, before that neat little hop and skip just as he entered his delivery stride. The right arm came across in that aggressively front-on action, before the ball flew towards the batting crease. It hit the base of the only stump at the other end, knocking it out of the ground. Yep, definitely Amir.Even then, he had to wait until the second innings for the chance to bowl in front of a home crowd that had been raving about him for eight years without ever really getting to see him in the flesh. It was an occasion for the fans. They had delighted in his success since he burst onto the international scene as a boy with a tousled mop of hair that fell around his eyes. The bowler in front of them was different – a young man with a thin beard and short hair. He had a wife and a child now, and the demeanour of a typical professional athlete had replaced the amateur rawness that had caught the country’s initial adoring attention. The action, however, was the same.When Amir stood at the top of his run-up, surveying the batsman as if he were prey and plotting how to make him so, he seemed to return, for one last time, to that boy in 2009. He has seen more than perhaps he would have wanted in the last eight years, but this was still a fresh experience for him.It took him all of two balls to get the Lahore crowd on its feet. He did what he had done countless times before, angling the ball across from over the wicket to the right-hander, before it swung back in at pace, threatening everything: the stumps, the inside and outside edges, the pads. Openers better than Dilshan Munaweera have found Amir impossible to handle, and this was a particularly special delivery. Munaweera was hopelessly late in an unconvincing attempt at a cut shot; the stump had already been rocked back, and the bails lay on the turf behind him.Amir returned in the final overs to clean up the lower middle order and tail, one of the wickets, of Chaturanga de Silva, a magnificent yorker that cannoned into the leg stump. In the final over he had an opportunity at a five-for, getting three balls at the number 11 batsman. He didn’t quite manage that, but 4-13 was still a career-best haul. He had saved his best T20 performance for Lahore.The crowd dispersed after the game, nodding their heads in approval and admiration, having assured themselves that the boy they had been seeing on TV all these years was indeed the real deal.

And can NASA fix Virat Kohli? We seek answers in our recap of everything that went down in the world of cricket in May

Andrew Fidel Fernando02-Jun-2018Cricket, we all now know, has a credibility problem. Across the world, alleged fixers have been seen in contact with alleged curators, incidents of alleged session-fixing have occurred, and alleged criminals have been filmed in the company of alleged investigative journalists. Because our lawyers are buzzkills, we can’t discuss any of this here. But never fear. The cricket boards have it under control. And one thing we know from past experiences on unrelated matters is that when faced with a crisis, these exemplary folks in administration will not rest until at first they deny, before later backtracking, and eventually taking the least amount of action possible, after widespread condemnation.Change we can believe in?
Among those dealing with a separate credibility problem were Cricket Australia, who after facing public criticism over the sandpaper-in-underjocks incident, had to say goodbye to coach Darren Lehmann (after initially delaying suspending him). They had suggested during the scandal that the Australian team was in for a complete culture change – the likes of which will wash all memory of the cheating away. No stone, it was implied, would be left unturned to right the team’s course.And so, it transpired a month later, that with great courage, integrity, and willingness to see total transformation, they appointed Justin Langer, the literal next-in-line, avid follower of Steve Waugh’s mental-disintegration philosophy, and the man Lehmann had himself groomed to be his successor.The pushover neighbours
In all this desire to be better behaved, could Australia lose their identity? Say it ain’t so, said recent wicketkeeper Matthew Wade. “I hope now we don’t go too far the other way, lose all our drive,” he said, “and try to play like New Zealand.” The sentiment was echoed by Shane Warne: “I don’t think we want to play like the Kiwis… C’mon. The Kiwis, no thank you.” Fair enough, I guess. I mean, who could possibly want to perform creditably on their most recent tours of the UAE and Sri Lanka, draw a series in England, generally gain a reputation as the best Test side their nation has ever produced, all while taking cues on respect and humility from the most successful elite sports team of the last 50 years: the All Blacks. Ha ha. Get lost, you wimps.Superman Kohli’s kryptonite
Few in human history have ever believed in anything as much as Ravi Shastri believes in Virat Kohli. In February, he said the world’s cricket writers did not know enough superlatives to describe the man, and encouraged them to go out and buy dictionaries. At other times, Shastri has also compared Kohli with the greatest. He said he saw a bit of Viv Richards in Kohli. He said he saw a bit of Imran Khan in Kohli. And – here is the greatest possible praise – he even saw a bit of himself in Kohli.But wait. What’s this? Late in May, when it emerged that Kohli had pulled out of his playing commitment with Surrey due to excessive workload, Shastri spotted a weakness. “It is not a case of putting rocket fuel up [Kohli’s] backside and getting him on the park,” Shastri told Mumbai Mirror. “Even a top dog can’t be given rocket fuel up his backside.”If the quote is difficult to believe, it is because Shastri never sounds this defeatist about Kohli. In everything else, he has been a do-everything-possible, knock-on-every-door, we’ll-make-it-happen kind of coach. You can imagine him, even on this matter, emailing experts at NASA about whether rocket fuel can, in fact, be delivered to top dogs in this fashion. And then staring despondently at the screen, a tear rolling down his cheek, as he reads the reply that no, it cannot.The spurned
Spare a thought for Bangladesh. While Australia are moaning that the BCCI merely declined to play a day-night Test, Bangladesh’s entire tour of Australia this year has been cancelled. It is a strange trend. In 2015, Australia declined to tour Bangladesh based on security concerns. In 2017, they almost missed the tour because of a player-contracts dispute. Now, a board that signed an A$1.2 billion broadcast deal only weeks before claims Bangladesh’s tour is commercially untenable. What next?Cricket Australia’s excuses for avoiding Bangladesh Tests get worse year on year•Ishita Mazumder/ESPNcricinfo LtdYou could have done more
In the ongoing public bonfire that is the rollout of The Hundred – the ECB’s proposed 100-ball competition – the board has announced that although the likes of Ben Stokes will be assigned a Hundred team, he won’t be playing, which won’t matter because the new audiences they are hoping to bring in won’t know who Stokes is anyway. What? Poor guy. Imagine going on an infamous night out in Bristol, getting into major trouble, having your face splashed across the front pages of tabloids, getting arrested, getting suspended from cricket, getting charged with affray by the police, and being told that even so, after all that, you are still not famous enough.The response
Alleged fixer Robin Morris has supposedly provided a colourful reason as to why he says the things he does in Al Jazeera’s documentary. According to the programme, Morris said he behaved as he did because he had been asked to audition for a commercial movie “for public entertainment”.We’ve got nothing on this, because what could possibly be added to this wonderful explanation?Next month on The Briefing:
– Indian “actor” so convincing in role of shady gambling agent that he is asked to appear in follow-up role as “man who must face charges over stated links to illegal gambling industry”.- Innovator Elon Musk’s SpaceX spots gap in market, vows to develop new technology to deliver rocket fuel into top dogs’ backsides.

Last month in cricket had all the usual fun: players and staff dissing everyone else, boards doing things (or not), and one man’s weight problem

Andrew Fidel Fernando04-Oct-2018Have you ever been in trouble at work? Maybe you didn’t quite make that sales target one month. Maybe you drank too much at the company outing and vomited on your manager’s children. Or perhaps you write a monthly satire column for a major cricket website and you miss your submission deadline pretty much every month despite frequent reminders from your editors. Well, as it turns out, cricket’s international players and coaches are just as likely as any of us to be on rough terms with their superiors, except with much higher salaries and way more fragile egos. The Briefing takes a look.Sending a message
Sri Lanka took their self-destruction world tour to the UAE this month, where they were thrashed by Bangladesh and then Afghanistan, and exited the Asia Cup in the first round. The aftermath of that early departure has perhaps been even more controversial than the losses themselves. Soon after the team returned to the island, the selectors and coach Chandika Hathurusingha called captain Angelo Mathews into a meeting, asked him to resign from his post, stripped him of the captaincy when he refused to do so, dropped him from the ODI squad entirely 48 hours later, and then publicly called into question his fitness and announced that his frequent run-outs were a “world record”, which is the most roundabout and elaborate fashion in which to tell somebody they are fat.The disgruntled
Someone else whose relationship with employers recently broke down was coach Steve Rixon, who has been credited with improving Pakistan’s fielding over the past year, but who has now called the Pakistan Cricket Board “stupid” – among other things – after having left his position at the end of June. Maybe you will recall the Pakistan board is not the only one to earn Rixon’s ire. Over the years he has also shellacked Cricket Australia and Sri Lanka Cricket. Take the quiz below to see if you can work out which Rixon verbal spanking goes with which cricket board.The paragon
If you want an example of a perfect employee, look no further than India head coach Ravi Shastri, who is never short of nice words about top dog Virat Kohli, or the current India team. Shastri did, however, gain the displeasure of former captain Sourav Ganguly this month, after Shastri had claimed the present team was India’s best side over the last 15 years. Ganguly labelled that comment “immature” but should he really have been surprised? At this stage, Shastri is in an escalating competition with himself to deliver the most glowing praise possible about Kohli and the India team. You imagine you could ask him anything and he would gush. Is this the best pace attack India has ever had? “By a mile. No team even comes close.” How great a fighter is Kohli? “Would have thrashed Muhammad Ali in his prime.” How well does Kohli reverse pressure on the opposition? “Puh. If the guy in had been a fraction as proactive as this India captain, he would have scored in the first ten minutes of the movie itself.”Yeah, so maybe let this one go, Sourav.A “misheard” word
Someone who escaped an employer’s censure this month was the unnamed Australia player who Moeen Ali alleged had once called him “Osama” in a Test in Cardiff, with the accused claiming the word he had actually used was “part-timer”. No action was taken by Cricket Australia, despite investigation by their integrity unit, which we must not imagine as two guys in suits repeatedly asking, “Didja say it, mate? Well, didja?”ESPNcricinfo LtdThe non-shocking repeat offender
In January, Bangladesh batsman Sabbir Rahman was found to have taken a child behind a sightscreen in a domestic match, and physically assaulted the said child, for supposedly “making a noise” that the batsman didn’t like. Sabbir was suspended from domestic cricket for six months and stripped of his central contract, but strangely, was allowed to continue playing international cricket. If you thought that punishment was insufficient, Sabbir has more recently taken it upon himself to be suspended from internationals as well. Having abused another fan, presumably an adult, and this time only on Facebook, he now faces a separate international ban of six months.Next month on The Briefing:- “It’s beyond amateurish. No one knows what they are doing, and it’s just a shocking lack of competence.” – Steve Rixon watches toddlers play with a football at local park.- Justin Langer’s application for senior-citizen discounts rejected. Has to be told he can’t add his playing years to his overall age, because the former is included in the latter.- Coach Chandika Hathurusingha points to the worn suspension on the team bus as further explanation for why Mathews was dropped.

Aminul Islam is one of Bangladesh’s most qualified coaches at the moment and currently serves as ICC’s Cricket Development officer for China, Hong Kong, UAE, Singapore, Thailand and Myanmar

Shashank Kishore in Dubai19-Sep-2018How special is it to be remembered as Bangladesh’s first centurion?Sometimes, I’m embarrassed. Sometimes I’m proud. Sometimes, I think ‘many people have scored hundreds. So what if I’m the first?’ A colleague was at Lord’s recently to organise the MCC game against Nepal. When he was at the museum, he immediately called and said ‘Hey, we saw the bat you used to make that hundred’. It’s a signature of my life. In Australia as well, when I go on radio and TV shows, they always introduce me as Bangladesh’s first Test centurion.Recently, Javed Miandad and I were in China to promote cricket. We were trying to introduce Javed to them by saying so many things like ‘World Cup winner’, he’s made these many Test runs, ODI runs. One guy raised his hand and asked ‘Has he won gold medals?’ So there, they equate sporting success to gold medals. So in every country, there’s a stamp. This hundred stamp will always be with me. That hundred keeps me alive.Bangladesh are now a serious limited-overs force. That should please you immensely.Absolutely, it pleases me to see them win, pleasing to see opponents not consider them pushovers. But I’m also a little worried about our domestic cricket. We’re not the same force in Test cricket because of that. There are no proper pathways or information system because there are no regional cricket centres. So cricket has to be decentralised. Despite this, talent is coming through and I feel proud because this has been sustainable. The BCB’s investment is starting to pay off no doubt, but they need to think forward. The success they’ve had since 2015 is amazing, the experience of the senior players is now starting to trickle down. Just look at Mushfiqur Rahim’s innings against Sri Lanka. Five years ago, he would’ve played a rash shot and got out, but here he knew he had to stay right till the end. He hasn’t bought this experience from Dubai Mall.What can they do to get better at Tests?Cricket is the only sport where you don’t practice where you play. In hockey and football, they play where they train. The Bangladesh team has skills, but for Tests, skill acquisition says, you have to tweak your game to specifics. Players need to understand their weaknesses. If short ball is a problem area, are you playing 200 short balls every day at the nets? How many deliveries were you in control, even while leaving or moving out of the way. If swinging ball is a concern, are you working on that? Are they able to inculcate format-specific training? I’m not entirely sure, so I think they should look to work towards that.When did you decide to get involved in full-time coaching?After I finished with first-class cricket in 2004, I knew I wanted to get into coaching, but I thought it can’t be a right just because I’ve played the game. So I did my Levels-1, -2, and- 3 in Australia up until 2006, and returned to coach Abahani [a premier club in Dhaka]. In 2007, I joined the Asian Cricket Council, and short-term assignments with Cricket Victoria really helped me. I thought coaching can’t be a right. There are many finer aspects involved, like understanding biomechanics and vision, management areas like short-term and long-term planning, man-management, and player-psychology. When you play, you don’t learn all these things. Yes, it no doubt helps you share experiences, but management opens up a completely new world. I could’ve done the coaching certifications in Bangladesh too, but back there, how you interact with people from different culture and home-grown people isn’t the same. Whereas, elsewhere, you can learn something new everyday by interacting with different cultures.How much did you miss having such intricate details of coaching during your playing days?Let’s take a simple example. When we see a batsman who isn’t an on-side player, we assume it’s because of lack of skills, but it could be that his left eye isn’t the dominant eye. It’s possible his saccadic vision could be hampered. As players, we didn’t have access to such finer details. We had two great coaches initially in Bangladesh – Gordon Greenige and Eddie Barlow. Their work on skills, techniques and tactics were always sorted, but issues within the mind, understanding a player psychology and mindset – that wasn’t solved all the time and that is what we needed then.

‘Five years ago, Mushfiqur would’ve played a rash shot and got out, but here he knew he had to stay right till the end. He hasn’t bought this experience from Dubai Mall.’

You now live in Australia. Was it a culture shock when you first toured there in 1988?The first night I landed in Melbourne, I wanted to comeback. Eventually I settled in. Australians love sport – cricket, rugby, football. That time I also played football, but I had to leave it. I got an offer from Ringwood Cricket Club in 1989, but it clashed with the domestic season in Bangladesh. In the 1990s, my wife went there to study and we moved as a family in 2003. Since then, Australia has become my second home.Is it fair to say the prospect of a Bangladeshi coaching in Australia would’ve been improbable 10-15 years ago?I didn’t look at it that way at all, honestly. When I came here, my mindset was to learn. But yes, it feels good to now know they value your inputs. When Cricket Victoria come to me and ask me, ‘can you please work with our batsmen on tackling spin on turning tracks’ or when they ask me ‘can you help us develop a bunch of community coaches’, it feels good. Recently, Cricket Australia had invited me for a coaching seminar to talk on batting, along with Michael Bevan and Thilan Samaraweera and Damien Fleming. It felt very good.What was your first impression of playing Australia?I played them first here in Sharjah at the Austral-Asia Cup in 1990. Greg Campbell and Merv Hughes, their fast bowlers, started swearing at me because I kept leaving the ball. I couldn’t take it, so I went to Steve Waugh and complained to him. I told him ‘Steve, they’re mouthing foul words.’ He also gave me the same words. Then Simon O’Donnell took pity, he came and told me ‘just keep quiet and don’t utter anything. They will stop soon.’ Playing against the superstars was a great feeling.

‘Cricket was alive even when Bangladesh wasn’t the force they were. That hasn’t changed one bit. Science says, you learn 70% by seeing, 23% by feeling and 7% by hearing. When you see Sunil Gavaskar talk technique, you learn. It’s things like these we try and inculcate.’

How does it feel to be giving back to the game in this role? At the back of my mind, whatever I’ve done, I’ve kept thinking ‘how will this fit into the Bangladesh scheme of things?’ Development plan, high performance plan, training and fitness – I would love to share this with Bangladesh, but currently I don’t have the access. Even if it is honorary, I want to share the experiences with the younger players. There is a perception in Bangladesh that I’m always busy and outside. The relationship exists, but somehow things haven’t worked out, but I want to still try.What’s your schedule like?I wake up early, go to the ICC office, work from 8am to 3pm as an ICC development manager. Once I’m finished, I rush back home and catch up on meetings because 3pm in Melbourne is 9am in Dubai. Then I take my son for one-on-one training and then teach voluntarily at clubs, just to stay in touch. Sometimes I do my meetings at midnight Melbourne time. It is busy, but I’m enjoying it.Which are the countries you work with?As a development manager, I look after China, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand and Myanmar. I give them desktop support, tailor High Performance plans and follow-up with the coaches. During the afternoons, I’m in sync with the ICC and discuss how we can implement different programmes for these smaller teams.What’s it that these countries can learn from Bangladesh’s rise?I try to exchange our experience, how Bangladesh moved from Associates to Full Members. We were an average team but always had cricket culture. The fan support was mad. Club tournament finals between Mohammeden and Abahani used to have 50,000 people. The ICC Knockouts Trophy for example had full houses in 1998 even though Bangladesh didn’t play. Television played a massive role. When a lot of these kids turned on TV when they were young and saw a Tendulkar batting or Wasim Akram bowling, they were inspired. Cricket was alive even when Bangladesh wasn’t the force they were. That hasn’t changed one bit. Science says, you learn 70% by seeing, 23% by feeling and 7% by hearing. When you see Sunil Gavaskar talk technique, you learn. It’s things like these we try and inculcate.

They haven’t made the semi-finals of the World T20 since 2010, but a bunch of young players promise a change in fortunes

Shashank Kishore08-Nov-20182:32

‘Powar has picked the traits of the players very quickly’ – Veda Krishnamurthy

Squad list

Harmanpreet Kaur (capt), Smriti Mandhana (vice-capt), Mithali Raj, Jemimah Rodrigues, Veda Krishnamurthy, Deepti Sharma, Tanya Bhatia (wk), Poonam Yadav, Radha Yadav, Anuja Patil, Ekta Bisht, D Hemalatha, Mansi Joshi, Pooja Vastrakar, Arundhati Reddy

World T20 pedigree

Books documenting the country’s rich women’s cricket history, biopics of two legends, Mithali Raj and Jhulan Goswami, who have been tagged as ‘MilJhul’ in the same breath as #MisYou (Misbah-ul-Haq and Younis Khan), increased air time and TV ads – it’s all happening for the India women’s team. They are finally a brand thanks to their magnificent showing at the World Cup last year. Can they now sustain their surge in the World T20?India made the semi-finals of the first two editions in 2009 and 2010, but have little to show since. In 2012, they finished winless in the group stage. In 2014, they managed two wins in four games but didn’t qualify because of an inferior net run-rate. In 2016, they managed a solitary win against Bangladesh at home.Until January 2016, India were at best a middling T20I side. It needed their first-ever series win in Australia to inject self-belief. Since then, they have had sporadic individual brilliance, but have not been able to beat the top sides regularly in T20Is. Infusion of youth could give their dreams shape this time.

Recent T20I form

India thumped Sri Lanka 4-0 in an away series, but that shouldn’t mask their disappointing run at the Asia Cup in Kuala Lumpur, where they lost twice to Bangladesh, including in the final. However, they’ve had a new coach in Ramesh Powar, the former India offspinner, who brings with him no baggage and plenty of experience.India were scheduled to play defending champions West Indies in a three-match series, but was eventually called off because of logistical reasons. India have had to make do with a week-long camp followed by a full series in Mumbai against Australia A. They whitewashed the young Australian side 3-0 before heading to the Caribbean, where they tuned up with a win over West Indies in a warm-up fixture, and followed that by beating England by 11 runs in their second warm-up game.Rehab mates: Harmanpreet and Mandhana, captain and vice-captain of India’s T20I team, spent quality time with each other while recovering from injuries at NCA•Annesha Ghosh/Annesha Ghosh/ESPNcricinfo Ltd

The captain and coach

Harmanpreet Kaur enjoys a sense of control when her spinners are in operation, much like Virat Kohli does when Kuldeep Yadav and Yuzvendra Chahal are bowling in tandem. During the T20Is earlier this year against Australia, her go-to spinner Poonam Yadav lacked a Plan B after coming under sustained attack. At the time, Harmanpreet had Jhulan Goswami’s experience to fall back on. Now with Jhulan having retired from T20Is, the combined experience of her three fast bowlers – Arundhati Reddy, Pooja Vastrakar and Mansi Joshi – is just 18 T20Is. How will Harmanpreet juggle her bowling resources?With the batting, though, there has been a clear plan: empower young players and give them ample opportunities. Taniya Bhatia and Rodrigues have been the biggest beneficiaries. Harmanpreet will want that to continue, to allow Mithali Raj, herself and Smriti Mandhana some cushion.This will be the biggest test of Ramesh Powar‘s interim stint yet. He is the first male Test cricketer since Lala Amarnath in the 1970s to be the head coach of the India women’s team. He’s coached Mumbai Under-23s, had stints as a spin bowling coach in Australia – an assignment facilitated by Greg Chappell – following completion of Level-3 coaching certification in the country. He took over in July, after Tushar Arothe’s resignation following a fallout with the senior players, and has quickly fostered the camaraderie many senior players felt was missing earlier.

Best players

Smriti Mandhana is a far superior ball-striker than she was two years ago. Her batting has developed a Hayden-esque brutality without compromising on her shot selection or shape. This hasn’t come about overnight. Failures at the Big Bash League and a lean run following her World Cup campaign elicited a lot of soul searching, and she’s come away rejuvenated. The improvements are a a result of a slightly open stance, changed grip, and old-fashioned practice against the heavy TAP conditioning balls from Australia that has helped raise her power game. There’s an air of intimidation about her batting that has lent a new dimension to the team.

Where will they finish

Like it was at the World Cup, their clash against New Zealand could determine which way their campaign is headed. On paper, India are more superior than Pakistan and Ireland. Should they beat them, wins in one of the remaining games will carry them into the semi-finals. They have enough spin arsenal to surprise one of the two powerhouses and make the final four.

Having gone largely unused during the Test series, Bangladesh’s fast bowlers made the most of the opportunity in the Dhaka ODI to hand their side a win

Mohammad Isam in Dhaka09-Dec-2018Having adopted a spin-heavy bowling attack for the two-Test series, Bangladesh bowling coach Courtney Walsh had said the fast bowlers could look to make a mark in the limited-overs leg. During the first ODI, the seamers did exactly that, and their efforts handed Bangladesh a win in Dhaka.It started with Mustafizur Rahman bowling an accurate set of six balls to Shai Hope and Darren Bravo in the 10th over, giving away only one run. Mustafizur, who bowled the only four overs of pace in the two Tests against West Indies, was also effective in his remaining nine overs, finishing with figures of 3 for 35. Rubel Hossain and Mashrafe Mortaza also finished with three wickets each, as Mashrafe bagged his first Player-of-the-Match award in two years.Mashrafe had spinners Shakib Al Hasan and Mehidy Hasan Miraz opening the bowling. The move had little to do with the conditions – it was more about exploiting Kieran Powell and Shai Hope’s weakness against spin.Following Shakib’s early dismissal of Powell, Mashrafe removed Bravo and Hope in a short burst to stymie West Indies’ recovery. Rubel then dismissed Marlon Samuels in the 40th over, and Mustafizur snuffed out the late chargers – Roston Chase and Keemo Paul – and gave away just eight runs in his last three overs.While Mashrafe used the two spinners up front, he used the tried-and-tested tactics of using himself and Rubel through the middle overs, saving Rubel and Mustafizur for the last five overs. This strategy has worked well for the side in the last four years.Among sides who have played at least ten ODIs this year, Bangladesh’s fast bowlers are the third-most economical in the last 10 overs behind South Africa and India. In the last four years, their average of 19.66 in ODIs puts them above New Zealand, Pakistan, England, Sri Lanka and West Indies.There’s been growing confidence among Bangladesh’s ODI quicks, and after the win on Sunday, Mashrafe was delighted with how they had changed the game on the day.”Our pacers have always bowled well in this format,” Mashrafe said. “It might be a different issue in Tests, particularly in those wickets. Mustafizur, myself we are all pretty much similar type of bowlers. We bowl cutters on a length. Rubel has pace and other variations. He tries the bouncer when batsmen go after him. There’s no doubting his ability and we shouldn’t judge him after one performance. We can’t forget he took us to the Asia Cup final.”Mashrafe, who recently decided to set foot in politics, said his focus hadn’t shifted from cricket.”Of course there would be talk if I did badly, which is quite normal,” he said. “I don’t think focus moved in my 18-year long career, so why would it change now?”I know myself quite well. I have been trying hard in the last few days, trying to bowl in the right areas in training.”West Indies allrounder Roston Chase, who made 32 off 38 balls, said the pace bowlers had been harder to score off than the spinners.”When I went out to bat I thought that the pace was harder to get away than the spin,” Chase said. “Based on the wicket, I thought the pacers really used their options well – they varied their pace on the wicket and it was helping them a lot.”They bowled really straight and they didn’t give us any width for us to cash in on. Spin played a big part in the Tests, but I thought the pacers really showed their worth today.”

Also: are there any current players whose batting average has never gone below 40?

Steven Lynch19-Feb-2019Roston Chase took eight wickets in the second innings of the first Test against England, but did not take another in the series. Is this some sort of record? asked Jerry Powell from Barbados
West Indian offspinner Roston Chase took 8 for 60 in the second innings of the first Test against England in Bridgetown last month, but no other wickets in the rest of the series, in which his combined figures were 0 for 163. This performance is indeed unique.Five men have taken seven wickets in a Test innings and no other wickets in the series, but four of them played in only one match: Tom Emmett (7 for 69 for England in a one-off Test against Australia in Melbourne in 1878-79; he took only two wickets in six other Tests); William “Gobo” Ashley (7 for 95 for South Africa v England in Port Elizabeth in 1888-89, his only Test); Bill Lockwood (7 for 71 for England v Australia at The Oval in 1899); and Franklyn Rose (7 for 84 for West Indies v South Africa in Durban in 1998-99). The man who played in two matches was James Langridge, a left-arm spinner, who collected 7 for 56 for England in the second innings against West Indies at Old Trafford on his Test debut in 1933, but failed to strike in the first innings, or his other match in that series.Australia’s Albert Trott took nine wickets in the 1894-95 Ashes series, eight of them (for 43) coming on his debut in Adelaide, while Bernard Bosanquet, the man credited with the invention of the googly, took nine in the 1905 Ashes, including 8 for 107 at Trent Bridge.I know Javed Miandad’s Test batting average never dipped below 50. Are there any current players who have never gone below 40? asked Zafar Hasan Ali from Pakistan
You’re right that Javed Miandad’s Test batting average never went below 50 during his distinguished 124-Test career – the lowest it reached was 51.75 (he finished on 52.57). The only man who can better this is the England opener Herbert Sutcliffe, whose average went down to 60.73 in his 54th Test, in 1935, at which point – presumably disgusted – he retired.Given a qualification of 30 innings, there are only 18 other players whose Test batting average never fell below 40 throughout their career. The list includes two current players: Mominul Haque of Bangladesh has never seen his average drop below 41.60, while the lowest for South Africa’s captain Faf du Plessis is 40.60.The list includes four other Englishmen – Denis Compton (a lowest of 42.94), David Gower (40.53), Geoff Pullar (41.62) and the recently retired Alastair Cook (40.88). There are four Australians – Herbie Collins (45.07), Adam Gilchrist (43.50), Bill Lawry (40.29) and Doug Walters (47.03) – and four West Indians: Conrad Hunte (40.92), Alvin Kallicharran (44.31), Lawrence Rowe (43.00) and Frank Worrell (49.49). Three Indians made the list – Mohammad Azharuddin (43.96), Sourav Ganguly (40.42) and Sunil Gavaskar (47.70) – plus one Sri Lankan, in Thilan Samaraweera (40.04).In Javed Miandad’s 124 Tests, the lowest his batting average fell to was 51.75•PA PhotosSome 80 players have represented South Africa in T20Is since the format was introduced. Which country has used the most players? asked Savo Ceprnich from South Africa
South Africa’s 80 different men in T20Is, since the first one was played in Auckland in February 2005, puts them joint-fifth on the list, alongside Pakistan, who have also capped 80 players. Well in front are Australia, who have so far used 93 different players; England and New Zealand come next with 82. India, Sri Lanka and West Indies have all used 78 players, Zimbabwe 51, Ireland 44 and Afghanistan 36.Shoaib Malik remains the only man on this list to have played more than 100 T20Is; he reached three figures in Harare last July, and now has 111 caps. Shahid Afridi retired after 99 T20Is, but two Indians are poised to join the 100 club: MS Dhoni has so far played 96, and Rohit Sharma 93.There were 38 wides during the third Test between West Indies and England. What’s the record? asked Victor Dubuisson from Jamaica
That total of 38 runs from wides during the recent match in St Lucia was actually the highest number in any Test. The previous record was 34, in the match between West Indies and Australia in Bridgetown in 2008. Successive matches in Johannesburg between South Africa and India, in 2013-14 and in 2017-18, produced 31 and 33 runs from wides . It should be noted that these figures show the total number of runs accrued from wides, not necessarily the amount of wide deliveries called (if a wide reaches the boundary it goes down as five extras). In the match in St Lucia there were only 18 actual deliveries that were deemed to be wides.I noticed that George Ulyett played in both Australia and South Africa’s inaugural Tests. Has anyone else achieved such a double? asked Rajiv Radhakrishnan from England
Yorkshire’s George Ulyett played for England in Australia’s first Test, in Melbourne in 1876-77, and South Africa’s first, in Port Elizabeth in 1888-89. That Melbourne game was also England’s first Test, so you could argue that Ulyett appeared in three countries’ inaugural matches!Using that logic, the other 21 players at the MCG in March 1877 also played in the inaugural Test for two countries. The most likely other candidates for this particular distinction were Englishmen in the period between the two World Wars, which featured maiden Test matches for West Indies (in 1928), New Zealand (1929-30), and India (1932), all of which came against England. As it turns out, no one appeared in all three, but Wally Hammond, Douglas Jardine and Herbert Sutcliffe all played against West Indies at Lord’s in 1928, and against India, also at Lord’s, in 1932 – while Frank Woolley appeared against New Zealand in Christchurch in 1929-30 and against India at Lord’s in 1932.There was an addition to the list, though: Many years later, Zimbabwe played their inaugural Test against India in Harare in 1992-93, while Bangladesh also started against India, in Dhaka in 2000-01. Sachin Tendulkar and Javagal Srinath played in both those matches.Use our feedback form or the Ask Steven Facebook page to ask your stats and trivia questions