The spitting image of the former South Africa wristspinner in how she bowls, Sonawane comes from humble roots in small-town Maharashtra

Annesha Ghosh26-May-2022″I know what they’ll say. ‘Her action is so unusual, just like Paul Adams.'”Uncapped Indian bowler Maya Sonawane was speculating about what the cricketing world at large would think about her when they saw her play in the Women’s T20 Challenge. Sure enough, when she came on to bowl for Velocity in the 11th over on her debut in the three-team tournament on Tuesday, the reactions that emerged on social media were almost exactly as she predicted.The impossible-looking contortions of her body when she delivers are invariably the first thing that catches the eye about the 23-year-old. Like it did former Australia player and commentator Lisa Sthalekar’s during Sonawane’s debut game. “My body is in so much pain watching her bowl,” Sthalekar tweeted during the match, in which Sonawane went for 19 runs in two wicketless overs. “Whilst it is unique and unique can sometimes be gold, can it be sustained at a top level for years?””Many people have told me there isn’t anyone with a similar action in women’s cricket, but I don’t see it as something extraordinary or detrimental,” says Sonawane, who considers Rashid Khan and Shane Warne her idols.”I didn’t know who Paul Adams was, what he looked like, whom he played for, until I made it to the Maharashtra senior team,” she says. It was then, at 15, fresh off a chart-topping wicket haul at the national Under-19 competition, that she first heard she was different from most wristspinners, but that there was a precedent in international cricket for the way she bowled.”One of our senior bowlers, Snehal Pradhan, walked up to me and said, ‘Maya, do you know who you bowl like?’ I said, ‘No, .’ She then showed me a picture or video of Paul Adams, and I said. ‘ same ‘ [We are identical. How can this be?] she remembers saying.Shivil Kaushik, a male left-arm wristpinner who bowls with an action like Adams’, evoked a similar social-media reception, including from Adams himself, when he first arrived on the scene, at the IPL in 2016. Unlike both those men, Sonawane is a right-armer, which makes her something of a first of her kind.”[The action] has always felt natural to me. That’s how I have bowled ever since I first decided to try bowling from the popping crease and not run in from a distance to deliver the ball,” she says. Back then, barely ten, Sonawane didn’t know what a spinner was, or a pace bowler. “I didn’t know what legspin or offspin was,” she says. “All I knew was, some people bowl from a distance, some from closer to the crease. One day, I felt like bowling from closer and my action turned out to be what it is now.”

“If I continue working hard and doing well, who knows, I might get to play for India. And then if some other bowler comes along with a similar action, people might start saying, ‘She bowls like Maya'”

The captain of the senior Maharashtra side Sonawane made it to was India opener Smriti Mandhana, who also led them in the recently concluded Senior Women’s T20 League, where Sonawane made a mark with two four-fors in eight innings and placed fourth on the wicket-takers’ table in Maharashtra’s run to a runners-up finish.Ahead of the Women’s T20 Challenge, in which Mandhana is leading defending champions Trailblazers, she spoke about the strides Sonawane has made. “She has a good wrong’un and a legbreak. And the best thing is now she knows which will go which way. I think two years back that [knowledge] was missing.”Deepti Sharma, Velocity’s captain, believes a bowler like Sonawane can add an edge to an attack. “She has a lot of variations. Her control over her lines and lengths are very good, which makes her somebody who’s ready to take on challenges and bowl the kind of deliveries a captain may require her to in a situation.”Sonawane rubbed shoulders with both Mandhana and Deepti at a preparatory camp in Bengaluru in August last year, where she made it to the ranks of the probables for the multi-format tour of Australia after winning the 2021 One-Day Challenger Trophy with India A. She counts being selected for that camp as one of the highlights of her career.”Jhulan [Goswami] and Mitthu [Mithali Raj] , and Ramesh [Powar] sir spoke affectionately in that camp and motivated me to do well,” says Sonawane. “I couldn’t make it to the squad for the Australia series but gained a lot of confidence by interacting with the India players and all the support staff. And Mitthu even gave me a pair of gloves and said, ‘Do well.'”A similar gesture from Mandhana a few years earlier also left a strong imprint. “We were playing a domestic tournament in Baroda and Smriti di was our captain for Maharashtra. She said if I took three or more wickets, she’d give me shoes. I ended up taking four or five in that game and she gifted me a pair and encouraged me to do even better.”Sonawane comes from a family of humble means in the town of Sinnar, some 30km from Nashik in Maharashtra, where she currently trains. “My father and older brother do low-paying jobs that require a lot of hard work,” she says. “So it’s not like it has been easy for me to carry on with my cricket, but I am grateful to be continuing.”Like her Velocity and former Maharashtra team-mate Kiran Navgire, Sonawane says she has benefited from the goodwill of several well-meaning people. One of them was the local corporator in Sinnar, whose backyard was the first place where she played cricket.Sonawane with the Senior Women’s One-Day Challenger trophy in December last year, after her side, India A, won the title•Maya Sonawane”I was eight or nine when I came upon a house when I was out playing in the evening after school,” Sonawane remembers. “There, he [the corporator] was playing cricket with his daughter on a pitch he had built for her. I was so enchanted by the sight of the girl playing cricket that I stayed there for two hours straight, collecting any balls that came my way and throwing them back.”As Sonawane became a familiar face, the corporator asked her to join them properly. “That was where it all started for me,” she says. “My older brother found out that I used to go there and had started playing. He told my parents about all that I had been doing and asked them to encourage me to play cricket.”Sonawane first trialled for the Nashik District Cricket Association (NDCA) team at 11. She started training under Shivaji Jadhav, her first coach, who was part of the NDCA set-up. Her brother regularly helped with her training too. In the inter-district competition in 2013-14, she turned in an impressive performance, which paved the way for a call-up to the Under-19 Maharashtra side. She didn’t get a game that season but was the leading wicket-taker in the tournament the following year, with 23 dismissals in nine matches, which helped her break into the senior squad.”Everything I have been able to do in cricket, becoming the highest wicket-taker in the U-23 domestics or being on a hat-trick in three consecutive overs for West Zone U-19s in 2018-19 – they have all happened because of the way I bowl, how I bowl,” she says.”I am grateful to my coaches, Pradeep Ingle and the late Avinash Agarkar sir, for their guidance. Pradeep sir is one of those who has always backed me against changing my action.”Velocity coach Devika Palshikar too is among those who think the action, tortuous though it may look, is not something Sonawane needs to alter. “I saw her eight years back, when I took my first West Zone ZCA (Zonal Cricket Academy) camp. That time, when she was 14, she was just the same,” said Palshikar. “Many coaches tried to change her action, but that’s her natural thing. She’s still doing that and there is no injury, so we don’t need to change that.”She’s very much comfortable with that and doing well for her state. There will be stress on her back and shoulder, but I would say she’s lucky that till today she hasn’t got any injuries as such.”Asked how she would like to be best described as an unorthodox wristspinner, Sonawane smiles and says, “Maybe for now you can say, ‘Maya bowls like Maya.’ If I continue working hard and doing well, who knows, I might get to play for India with this action. And then if some other bowler comes along with a similar action, people might start saying, ‘She bowls like Maya.'”

Both batters have worked extremely hard to get where they are, and rode their good fortune to score hundreds in Perth

Alex Malcolm03-Dec-2022Nine-time golf major champion Gary Player had a mantra he lived by: “the harder you work, the luckier you get.”Former Australian coach Justin Langer loved that quote but twisted it slightly to, “the harder you work, the less likely you are to give up.”In the case of Marnus Labuschagne and Kraigg Brathwaite on day four in Perth, both sayings apply. The pair scored centuries for their respective sides but neither without a healthy dose of good fortune. But both had earned it and deserved it. They are two players who put everything into their craft and right now are seemingly getting everything they deserve in return.Labuschagne joined an illustrious group of names by becoming the eighth man in history, and the third Australian, to score a double-century and a century in the same Test.Related

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But he had help from West Indies’ fielders and bowlers in both innings. He was missed several times in the first innings. In the second, he was caught off the top edge for 19 in the midst of a quick and hostile spell from Alzarri Joseph. The ball before he had top-edged for six over the keeper’s head; the next flew straight up to gully. But Labuschagne, after being caught, had taken 10 steps off the square towards the rooms before being recalled as the replay showed Joseph had overstepped.”I’ve certainly had the rub of the green on many occasions of late,” Labuschagne said. “I think it sort of comes in waves. There’s definitely times there when I was in Pakistan and I felt like the green was not rubbing the same way.”I’ve definitely felt like [I’ve been lucky]. It must be all the prayers from my mum, my grandma, my family, getting all set up at once.”It turns out Labuschagne has had more than the rub of the green on occasion. According to ESPNcricinfo’s ball-by-ball data, no player has had more reprieves in Test cricket since he made his Test debut in October 2018.ESPNcricinfo LtdBut it would be unfair to put all of Labuschagne’s success down to pure luck. No player, aside from Steven Smith, hits more balls in the Australian team. Alongside Smith, no player thinks more deeply about his batting or strives more assiduously to get better every day to try and become the best player he possibly can be.And no one has capitalised on his good fortune more than Labuschagne, scoring more runs after his reprieves than any other player in world cricket.It’s hard to begrudge him the rewards, given the sacrifices he is willing to make and his determination to make the most of it, even though it may have created a little jealousy in his own dressing room.”Maybe they’re a bit jealous but unfortunately I can’t control who catches me, who drops me, and who bowls no balls to me,” Labuschagne said. “Like I said, if I have to have the fortune, I’m happy to have it. The boys joked that I’ve got that little Bible verse on the bottom of my bat. They were saying maybe I got to put one on Josh’s [Hazlewood] shoes tomorrow. He clipped the bail there and it didn’t come off. But like I said, you’re never going to complain when you’ve got a bit of the rub of the green. Cricket’s a funny game. The tide turns very quickly and people forget about this.”Hazlewood did have the misfortune of clipping but not dislodging Brathwaite’s off-bail during his sensational rearguard century that has almost single-handedly kept West Indies alive as they hope to pull off a miracle on the final day.Kraigg Brathwaite has scored all 11 centuries by West Indian openers since March 2013•AFPNo one can begrudge Brathwaite that fortune either, because he is among the players with the lowest percentage of catching let-offs since Labuschagne’s debut five years ago.Brathwaite didn’t give any catching chances in this innings, playing exceptionally straight while scoring at an excellent rate against an outstanding attack. But he was grateful the bail didn’t fall when Hazlewood’s delivery nicked it.”I saw it on the big screen,” Brathwaite said. “I was just thankful for that luck. You always need a bit of luck playing cricket.”He richly deserves it as he continues to mount an outstanding Test career in an unassuming manner. His style is far less eye-catching than that of Labuschagne, but his returns are no less significant. Brathwaite’s 11 Test centuries are the only Test centuries scored by West Indies openers since March 2013. He has been a one-man bedrock in the constantly shifting world of West Indies cricket. He now has away Test hundreds in Perth, Leeds, Sharjah, and Gqeberha (formerly Port Elizabeth) against some of the greatest bowling attacks of his generation. The previous three resulted in two wins and a draw for West Indies against the odds on each occasion.The second day in Perth was Brathwaite’s 30th birthday. West Indies had been pasted for 598, but he had taken two wickets and then batted two hours to reach stumps safely in the first innings on his way to top-scoring with 64. His team bought him a cheesecake for his birthday.To save this game he will need more of the rub of the green on the final day. And he’ll deserve more than a cheesecake from his team if he doesn’t already.

Surfaces have not been bad there historically. Ironically, they have been since he became chairman

Osman Samiuddin08-Dec-2022Good. Very good. Good. Below average.In order, oldest to latest, those are the ICC ratings for Rawalpindi pitches in the four Tests Pakistan have played there since Test cricket returned to the country in December 2019, excluding the last, against England.That first Test was ruined by rain but the two subsequent ones, against Bangladesh and South Africa, were played on pitches designed to reap results, which they did. They weren’t rank turners or green mambas, though there was enough grass on the surface against Bangladesh for Pakistan to talk publicly about moving on from the UAE spin era. In both games there was movement for the new ball off the surface, there was a period when batters could feel settled, there was bounce, there was purchase for spin, there were runs to be made, and there was reverse swing. In short, the contest between bat and ball was fair and compelling.Related

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The last rating was for the Test against Australia.Between that match and this England Test, Rawalpindi hosted seven Quaid-e-Azam trophy games in which wickets came at a cost of 32.4 and a strike rate of 60.38. Fast bowlers took 142 wickets at 32.6, spinners 66 wickets at 30. In the last of those games, a month ago, Mohammad Abbas took seven wickets for Southern Punjab and the mystery spin of Abrar Ahmed eight wickets for Sindh. In short, the contest between bat and ball in those games was fair and compelling. Then came this England Test, which, like that Australia Test, provided a grossly unfair and off-putting imbalance between bat and ball.That England secured a win on the final day should not mask what an abomination the surface was. It took one of their greatest performances ever to eke out a result, otherwise the pitch was made purely to secure a draw for Pakistan. The two Test surfaces, in other words, have been nothing like those from a couple of years ago or even, more recently, those of this domestic season. Nasser Hussain said the pitch didn’t deserve to have the players it had on it.Ramiz Raja, the PCB chairman, also condemned the surface, calling it “embarrassing”. In various media interactions, Ramiz also said that it would take anywhere from a season to several years to fix pitches; that Pakistan were in the dark ages as far as pitch preparation was concerned.Ordinarily such comments might get a pass. He is the chairman. Foreign media are in town. He is an easy content provider. He is bilingually perfect, because he speaks English but also the language of the media, made up of buzzwords and clichés. The pitch is so awful it needs accountability. This is the ceremonial dance of chairmanship.Except, in Ramiz’s case, those comments cannot pass so easily. As well as being alarmist, the idea that Pakistan cannot produce good pitches is more than a little disingenuous, because as those ICC ratings suggest, Test pitches have been this bad only since Ramiz became chairman. It’s surprising he doesn’t remember Rawalpindi producing good surfaces because he was commentating on those games before he became chairman. In the daily analysis he did for his YouTube channel, he praised the surface for the Test against South Africa, not least on day four when he said the curator had prepared a , or brilliant, surface with something in it for everyone.If such a surface could be produced as recently as February 2021, why should it take years to produce another surface like that – or at least a surface less like the one this England Test was played on? Why should it take so long and be seen as so difficult to produce better surfaces when the evidence of this first-class season in Rawalpindi says that there is not much work to be done?It shouldn’t, is the short answer. The only reason the last two Test surfaces in Rawalpindi have been so poor, so lifeless, is because Pakistan have wanted them that way, not because there is something inherently wrong with them. The problem is not the pitches but the conservative mindset among the leadership of Pakistan cricket.Earlier this year Ramiz all but admitted that the Rawalpindi pitch had been flattened to neutralise Australia’s attack. After the England loss Babar Azam said this was not the pitch Pakistan wanted, even though they had “a lot of input” into what they wanted. They wanted a turner, though the deed of picking just one spinner from a squad of three – and not a spinning allrounder who was Pakistan’s leading wicket-taker in their last Test series – rather belies those words.England get an eyeful of the Rawalpindi pitch ahead of the Test•Getty ImagesOrdinarily, most board chairmen would not be as fixated on pitches as Ramiz appears to be. He brought in a curator from Australia for a ten-day stint ahead of the third Test of that series. Nobody is sure what purpose that served. He brought in another Australian curator in July, this time for local curators to pick his brains about pitch preparations. (He has little faith in local curators clearly: in a previous stint as board CEO, he brought in Andy Atkinson to help prepare pitches for a series against India.) He’s been keen on bringing drop-in pitches to Pakistan, though that plan has had to be put on hold because of the expense involved in shipping them in. Now he wants to develop them in Pakistan.The solution is questionable because drop-in pitches are useful usually in multipurpose venues, where cricket shares space with other sports. All of Pakistan’s main cricket stadiums are under the control of the PCB and so will only be used for cricket. It is more questionable because, on the evidence of all Tests played in Pakistan since their return in 2019-20, it could be argued there wasn’t a problem in the first place – until Ramiz took over.Ramiz has already warned that similar surfaces will be seen for the rest of season, another two Tests against England and two when New Zealand visit. At which point, it is worth revisiting the three home series against Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and South Africa and asking: why?Sure, Multan, where Pakistan and England now play, is a bit of an unknown in that this Test will be the first there since November 2006. Five of the seven first-class games there over the last two seasons have been drawn, though not in homogenous fashion. But Karachi, the venue for the last Test of the England series, has played out two Tests (before the one against Australia, under Ramiz’s tenure) of compelling cricket: it spun more than some could ever remember on the first day of one and had seam movement and invariable enough bounce to keep batters honest on the first day of the other.In one sense, it is understandable that Ramiz is so hung up on pitches. His USP when he became chairman after all was that he was a cricketer and what cricket needed more of was cricketers running it. Indeed, who else run it better? And so, going by that platform, of course he will get in the weeds with pitches.Except, if the state of Pakistan’s Test pitches is anything to go by, the evidence is growing that it’s not being run particularly well.

The new rule is one of IPL 2023’s major innovations and the teams are waiting to see how it plays out

Nagraj Gollapudi30-Mar-20234:54

Boucher: ‘You pick your best XI; Impact Player is just a bonus’

Kolkata Knight Riders need 21 runs off the final over in their last league game of IPL 2022. Their opponents Lucknow Super Giants have been favourites throughout the contest, having ransacked 210 runs without losing a wicket. KKR have an outside chance of making the playoffs, and Rinku Singh threatens to pull off a heist. He hits the first three balls of the final over, bowled by Marcus Stoinis, for 4, 6, 6. Two balls later, however, Evin Lewis takes one of the best catches in IPL history to end Rinku’s fairy-tale innings. With three needed off the final ball, Stoinis uproots Umesh Yadav’s off stump.”We were almost there,” KKR’s CEO Venky Mysore says as he recounts the final moments of the contest. “Then Rinku got out due to a freak catch by Evin Lewis. Still, we had one ball and we needed two [three] runs. Umesh Yadav went in to bat. Had the Impact Player rule existed, perhaps KKR coaches could have replaced Umesh Yadav, immediately after he finished bowling [his four overs], with a specialist batter. And that could have changed the entire equation.”Related

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‘It’s going to be 12 playing 12’

With the aim of innovation, the IPL has introduced the Impact Player rule in the playing conditions for the 2023 season. The rule allows a team to bring in an Impact Player at any point in an innings to replace a player from the XI the toss.The caveat is that only four overseas players can play for a team in the match; so if there are four overseas players in the starting XI, the Impact Player can only be an Indian player. The motive of the new rule was to provide more opportunities to Indian players, especially the talented, uncapped ones who don’t find a place in the starting XI.The BCCI implemented the Impact Player rule in the 2022 Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy initially, but the conditions were different. There, a team had to nominate an Impact Player the toss and he also needed to be brought in before the end of the 14th over in an innings.The IPL playing conditions state the Impact Player “will add a new tactical or strategic dimension to the game”. But several franchise coaches and talent scouts, who watched the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy in person, said the Impact Player was utilised for “damage control” rather than as a tactical tool.

“I think it [naming the XI after the toss] has pretty much negated the impact rule. It’s pretty much now a substitute rule. If you bat first, you swap out a batter and bring on an extra bowler [in the second innings] and vice versa”RCB team director Mike Hesson

In fact, the tactical potential was further reduced when franchises were told, less than a month before the start of IPL 2023, that they could finalise their XIs after the toss. So for this season, the captains can take two separate team sheets to the toss – one for if they are batting first, and another for if they are bowling first.How does that affect the utilisation of the Impact Player? “It’s going to be 12 playing 12 because most teams will want their specialists to occupy their batting slots or their bowling slots,” Sanjay Bangar, the head coach at Royal Challengers Bangalore, said on the franchise’s website.Their team director Mike Hesson said he and his coaching staff were excited when they first heard about the Impact Player rule. “We heard about the Impact Player rule before the auction, so obviously we looked at it and thought how we can maximise it, the potential for an allrounder to play a big part,” Hesson said. “There was actually some strategy involved. It brought some intrigue. You could introduce the player at any time, whether a batsman is dismissed or not. So yeah I thought it was a nice development.”I think it [naming the XI after the toss] has pretty much negated the Impact rule. It’s pretty much now a substitute rule. If you bat first, you swap out a batter and bring on an extra bowler [in the second innings] and vice versa. So after the toss, you just give your batting XI or bowling XI, so there’s no Impact rule, it’s pretty much a straight-up substitute.”

“Is there any further rocket science …?”

The IPL’s decision to let teams announce their XIs after the toss is aimed at reducing the toss advantage, especially on grounds in India where dew sets in during the latter half of the game and hinders the team bowling second.Gujarat Titans could consider using an overseas batter like Matthew Wade as their Impact Player when chasing•BCCIThe SA20 was the first franchise league in which teams finalised their XIs after the toss. It was to help visiting teams minimise their opponent’s home advantage in their conditions, and help the team defending a target to cope better with dew. As it turned out, there wasn’t much dew at the SA20 venues.That’s unlikely to be the case during the IPL, where dew is likely to play a significant role at most of the 12 venues. The conditions, both players and coaches agree, will influence not just the starting XI but also the choice of the Impact Player. In case of an early collapse, a specialist batter could be brought in as the Impact Player to repair the innings. In case of a strong start, a power-hitter could walk in reinforce the advantage. In case the pitch turns out to be spin-friendly, even if three fast bowlers were named in the starting XI, a spinner could replace one of the quicks.”If you are playing at Chepauk [Chennai Super Kings’ home ground], a team can think of fielding three spinners,” an analyst with one of the franchises says. “Start with three overseas players. Based on whether you are batting or fielding first, you can trigger either option. If you are bowling first, you start with three spinners. When you bat, you replace one of the spinners with an overseas batter.”A head coach at another team agrees, saying his job will be easier when it comes to deciding the starting XI. “They have made our lives easier. You don’t have to even give the XI before the toss, you have to give 11 + 5 after the toss. If you are batting first, you use an extra batter. If you bowl first, then 100% one of your No. 9, 10 or 11 will be replaced by a batter. Is there any further rocket science in that?”This coach points out that while one team will have an extra bowler when defending a target, the chasing team is likely to have an extra batter. “Every team will field a minimum of five bowlers in XI. But now you can bring in a death-overs specialist or someone who is successful in the powerplay to bolster your bowling.”

Will more first XIs contain only three overseas players?

Historically, most IPL teams have always started with four overseas players in their XIs, but since 2019 a new trend has emerged. Since 2008, there have been only 52 instances of XIs containing three of fewer overseas players, and 37 of those have come in the last four seasons.

“Start with three overseas players. If you are bowling first, you start with three spinners. When you bat, you replace one of the spinners with an overseas batter”An analyst on a strategy that teams could use in Chennai

We could see more of that this year thanks to the Impact Player rule. A team with a strong overseas bench could start with three overseas players and use the fourth as per requirement. For example, when Mumbai Indians are bowling first, they can start with three overseas bowling options: Jofra Archer, Jason Behrendorff and Cameron Green. For the chase, they could replace Behrendorff with Tim David or another overseas batter as Impact Player.Gujarat Titans, who have few middle-order overseas batters, could also start with three overseas players and include more Indian allrounders, like Vijay Shankar and Rahul Tewatia, to provide batting and bowling depth. Then, in the second innings, they could bring in Matthew Wade (if chasing) or Josh Little (if defending) as their Impact Player.

Is Impact Player like the old Supersub rule?

Some are of the opinion that the IPL’s Impact Player rule is similar to the Supersub that the ICC had trialled in 2005, which also allowed teams to use a 12th player during the game. But the key difference is that teams had to name their XIs and their designated Supersub before the toss.The Supersub rule, which was recommended by the Sunil Gavaskar-led ICC Cricket Committee, was to encourage the use of allrounders but in practice teams were naming specialists as their Supersub. It made winning the toss even more advantageous , because the team that won the toss could choose to bat or bowl to maximise use of their Supersub, and often negate the impact of the opponent’s Supersub.The ICC ended up shelving the Supersub rule. “In practice, teams have elected to nominate a specialist player as the substitute and this is placing undue importance on winning the toss,” Dave Richardson, ICC’s general manager (cricket) at the time, said. “There is no desire to create a situation where 12 players are used to do the job of 11. So we did not support the alternate view of allowing substitutes to be nominated after the toss.”While an allrounder was best suited as a Supersub, experts are of the opinion that the Impact Player and XIs being decided after the toss will reduce the need for two-dimensional players. “Perhaps, in some ways, it takes the sheen away from allrounders and allows teams to manage their resources very differently,” Mysore says. “What used to be the traditional definition of an allrounder, i.e., be able to get into the side as a pure batsman or a pure bowler, may be viewed differently.”Will Mumbai Indians consider starting with just three overseas players in their XI?•Ron Gaunt/BCCIESPNcricinfo expert Tom Moody was the first to point out after the IPL auction that he feared the role of part-time allrounders would be diminished by the Impact Player rule. Delhi Capitals head coach Ricky Ponting also said recently that the Impact Player rule would push out the “bits-and-pieces” players and almost “negate” the role of the allrounder, unless he was “world-class” and could hold his spot as a specialist batter or bowler.According to Bangar, the IPL need not have allowed teams to name XIs after the toss. “It’s going to be slightly tougher for players who want to contribute in both departments, or who are capable of playing in both departments, especially lower down the order at No. 7. They may not be utilised that much, but their place may go to the specialist batter or specialist bowler. For me, it would have been more interesting had the toss thing not been introduced. Because it sort of takes away all the fun from how teams are going to use the impact substitute.”Several experts from different teams agree that the potential to use the Impact Player rule as a tactical ploy has been reduced. A member of a team’s coaching staff said that when the IPL announced the Impact Player rule, he had thought of different ways to use it. “If you are 90 for 1 after nine overs, you have a free license to use the Impact Player where he is asked to play a very, very positive role and provide the momentum. Get 18-20 runs in six balls and he gets us to 130 in the next three overs, and we still have good batters following him with eight overs.”Now, you can do that without bringing in an Impact Player as you already have seven batters if you are batting first, and then bring in the Impact Player [to bowl in the second innings].”For now, though, there is a lot of curiosity about how the Impact Player will be used. The straightforward prediction is that the teams will be able to have both deeper batting and bowling line-ups. But soon, as one franchise head says, there is not going to be any unpredictability about the Impact Player.It is possible the IPL will review the Impact Player rule after this season and perhaps even seek feedback from the teams. Mysore already has an idea: “One could consider extending this rule to overseas players as well and not restrict it only to Indian players.”

A lack of batting options on tour has cost England – but they will hope for a World Cup dividend later this year

Matt Roller12-Mar-2023Too many cooks spoil the broth – but too few batters leave a T20 team exposed. England only picked five for their three-match series in Bangladesh, and find themselves 2-0 down after posting totals of 156 and 117, both of which have been chased down with relative ease.England’s initial 15-man squad for this series featured seven batters. Then, Tom Abell strained his side while playing for England Lions in Sri Lanka, and Will Jacks hurt his thigh in the second ODI. No replacements were called up, and so England’s Nos. 8-10 from the side that won the T20 World Cup in Australia have batted at Nos. 6-8 in Bangladesh.Those three – Sam Curran, Chris Woakes and Chris Jordan – are all competent players, but have hardly contributed in this series. England’s imbalance lurked uneasily throughout their defeat in Chattogram; as they slid from 91 for 4 to 117 all out in Mirpur, then didn’t use Jordan with the ball until the 19th over, it became impossible to ignore.”If we can’t put an extra batter or two on the ground in Bangladesh as an England cricket team… I don’t think it’s good enough just to say ‘we’re one batter short’,” said Nasser Hussain, visibly disgruntled on Sky Sports’ coverage. “You saw what it meant to them [Bangladesh] winning today. We have to treat that game with the same respect.”Related

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But selection for this tour has been a delicate juggling act, with the vast majority of the squad that travelled to New Zealand for the Test series given time off ahead of either the IPL or the English summer, and a number of white-ball specialists without central contracts opting to play in the Pakistan Super League instead.Take Jason Roy, for example. England could have asked Roy to stay put for another week when Jacks flew home, but doing so would have meant sacrificing a proportion of his PSL earnings in exchange for three England match fees. Any financial loss would have been relatively small, but the ECB ceded control of Roy’s schedule when they opted not to award him a central contract for 2022-23.In practice, the decision not to hold Roy back in Bangladesh paid off. He could have spent this week opening the batting against a strong Bangladesh attack in challenging conditions; instead, he flew back to Pakistan and thrashed 145 not out off 63 balls for Quetta Gladiators, an innings he described as his “favourite-ever” of a T20 career spanning over 300 games.Naturally, a handful of fringe players may feel hard done by: Sam Hain, who captained England Lions in Abell’s absence at the end of the Sri Lanka tour, is a much-improved T20 player and would have brought some solidity to this batting line-up; Jordan Cox, who has been running the drinks for Lahore Qalandars, was an unused squad member on England’s seven-match tour to Pakistan in September and might wonder how he has not been given a chance all winter.But England’s apparent rationale was that those players are low enough down their pecking order in white-ball cricket that the prospects of them being involved in the 50-over World Cup later this year – or the T20 World Cup in the Caribbean and the US, which is only 14 months away – were minimal. As such, they took the chance to promote their allrounders and give them experience on spinning subcontinent pitches.”It’s a different balance and it’s a different feel to the team, wanting to give exposure to guys – especially in these conditions – who will also probably play a part in the 50-over World Cup,” Jos Buttler said. “It felt like it was a great chance to expose the allrounders, batting maybe one spot higher than they maybe would in our normal team.”And, look: the way cricket is at the moment, there’s a few players who have opted not to be here anyway for various reasons. It felt like instead of calling someone else up, [we would be better served] trying to use the guys who will be exposed to these conditions in the 50-over World Cup as well.”Rehan Ahmed made his debut in Dhaka, where England were short of batting options•AFP/Getty ImagesIn other words, the short-term pain of jeopardising their chances of winning a rearranged bilateral series that will soon be forgotten would be worth the long-term gain of giving Curran, for example, the chance to bat at No. 6 and face more balls than he usually does in T20 internationals.It is the same logic that has informed England’s white-ball strategy since Rob Key and Matthew Mott took over as managing director and white-ball coach last year, working back from major targets. England’s chance of winning this series would have been higher with an extra batter in their squad – but they believed their World Cup hopes would be enhanced without one.

Why didn’t Buttler open?

Speaking after the game, Buttler was pressed on his decision to demote himself to No. 4. He has a stellar record as an opener for England – averaging 49.20 with a strike rate of 152.22 – but opted to shuffle down into the middle order for the first time in five years on Sunday. Dawid Malan moved up to open from No. 3, with Moeen Ali replacing Malan in that role.”We’ve obviously got a bank of left-handers in our middle order,” Buttler said. “[It was] just an opportunity to change that up a little bit. Dawid Malan is very comfortable opening or batting at No. 3 and I just felt like it would be a good change to pose some different questions to the opposition, and try and break up our left and right-handers.”Malan and Moeen’s promotions also meant Bangladesh did not target Phil Salt’s weakness against left-arm spin until the sixth over – though he was eventually dismissed by a left-arm spinner regardless, for the fourth time in five innings on this tour.”I’m very comfortable batting anywhere in the order,” Buttler added. “I’ve spent a hell of a lot of my career as a middle-order player. I felt like we’ve got some good options and it felt like it would be an opportunity to try something different. I don’t really read too much into it either way.” As the 2024 T20 World Cup comes into view, he will undoubtedly return to the top.

After falling short of expectations several times before, he knows he needs to step up and take the opportunity with both hands

Firdose Moonda08-Mar-2023Eight years after he captained King Edwards VII, one of Johannesburg’s most prestigious schools, and seven years after he led South Africa’s Under-19 side at a World Cup they entered as defending champions and left in 11th place, Tony de Zorzi returned to the Wanderers and discovered mates he didn’t know he had.”There were a couple of my friends here – some people claimed to be my friends but I’ve never met them – and it’s always nice to have my mom watching,” de Zorzi said.Related

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Raised by Natasha, a single parent, de Zorzi has always wanted to be the best he could be for his mother. These days, she doesn’t watch him play much because he has taken the scenic route to international cricket, from the alma mater of Neil Mckenzie and Graeme Smith, through Pretoria and eventually to Cape Town, 1400 kilometres away from where he grew up. In a way, it’s been cathartic for de Zorzi to make his Test debut on the Highveld, and to score his first Test half-century with Natasha watching on.”She usually sits in the same place, so I knew where she was,” he said. “I’m in Cape Town, so she hasn’t been able to watch a lot of the games. Hopefully, next time she comes, I can get three figures.”De Zorzi has set himself high standards. In the last two years, only one of his team-mates has scored a century at home and only two others (Sarel Erwee and Kyle Verreynne – neither of whom are playing in this series) have brought up three figures. But after falling short of expectations several times before, he knows this is his chance to step up.”From playing for SA under-19, a lot has changed in my life,” de Zorzi said. “Although I was captain, I wasn’t the star boy out of that side.”That’s because Wiaan Mulder was. De Zorzi returned from the age-group World Cup and had to go back to playing club cricket and “start again.” He played for the University of Pretoria’s team, where current fielding coach Kruger van Wyk was in charge. Then he was contracted by Northerns, where he made steady progress and averaged nearly 80 for the second-tier provincial side in the 2016-17 summer. He moved to Western Province in the summer of 2020, where Ashwell Prince was the head coach, and has since been elevated to captain.

“It’s been a long process, and I’m happy that it has eventually led to this. It’s also a reminder of where I come from and not to get ahead of myself because I’ve had to do a lot of dirty work to get there.”Tony de Zorzi

This summer, he averages over 100, thanks largely to his unbeaten 304 against the Knights, with an attack that included Gerald Coetzee (though admittedly not many other big names).”It’s been a long process, and I’m happy that it has eventually led to this,” de Zorzi said. “It’s also a reminder of where I come from and not to get ahead of myself because I’ve had to do a lot of dirty work to get there. For some guys, it happens a bit earlier. Mine’s starting to happen now.”After averaging above 48 in three of the last four seasons, de Zorzi was impossible to ignore in this Test squad but it took a changing of the guard for that to happen. He was picked by new red-ball coach Shukri Conrad, who also acts as a selector in the absence of a panel, to get his chance. “With the changes in coaching, we knew it would be a fresh start,” de Zorzi said. “If everyone gave themselves an opportunity and did well, you knew it would be a fresh set of eyes and maybe, more opportunities. That was exciting. There was always a message from senior guys – Dean (Elgar) said it while he was captain, that the weight of runs would get you in the side. Guys knew that if they wanted to make the step up they had to have a good season. There was no other way.”De Zorzi is particularly adept at the cut shot and scored almost a third of his runs with that stroke in this innings•Gallo ImagesBut now that that has happened, players like de Zorzi need to own their space. In the first Test, he showed West Indies’ attack what he was made of, and Kyle Mayers saw it. “This guy looks very organised,” he said. “He is strong, square of the wicket.”De Zorzi is particularly adept at the cut shot and scored almost a third of his runs with that stroke in this innings but knew West Indies worked him out from the first Test. They tried to offer him less width at the SuperSport Park. “They stick to the basics a little bit longer,” de Zorzi said. “You might get a few less bad balls but international cricketers that are going to do their homework. I could see from the way they bowled to me today compared to at SuperSport Park, they had different plans and they can limit your scoring options. And obviously, the intensity is a little bit higher, like I was really tired once I was out. It’s challenging.”But so was de Zorzi. He played with authority during South Africa’s free-flowing afternoon session. All the while, Natasha sat in the Memorial Stand, unmoved. De Zorzi gestured to her first when he drove off Alzarri Joseph through gully off the 82nd ball he faced. Undoubtedly, she would have been unbelievably proud. De Zorzi went on to face 73 more balls, and score 35 more runs, as the pitch quickened up and West Indies staged a comeback.They took five for 64 after tea and now see the game as being in the balance. Restrict South Africa to under 350, and West Indies are in with a chance of fighting back. Concede over that, on a pitch that is already showing signs of turn, and it may be that the game is gone. Either way, it’s set up to attract friends cricket didn’t know it had, especially in a mid-week Test match where the crowd only fills a fraction of the stadium. But it matters. And no one knows that more than de Zorzi.

The England allrounder picks her food MVPs, featuring pizzas, chocolate, and Weet Bix

Interview by S Sudarshanan13-Jul-2023If you could just eat one thing for the rest of your life, what would it be?
That would be Prue Pizza. It became a bit of a habit. That was my night-before-the-game dinner. But I have been embracing Indian culture [during the WPL] and going for some curries. But pizza would probably be my go-to.What’s the least healthy thing we’d find in your fridge right now?
An energy bar. I don’t have much food in my room. Keep the chocolate out of my room and I am all right!Related

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What’s one food you had to give up to get fit for cricket? And what has been the hardest food to give up?
I had to give up on biscuits. I am not a big biscuit-izza, so it was easy to give up. But I am a sucker for ice cream. So that was hardest.Which cricketer you know is the best cook?
My England team-mate Freya Davies is a pretty good cook. I’d probably go to her first.What is your favourite thing to cook, and what is the one thing you make best?
I like to cook a carbonara. It’s up there with my favourite meals. I have learnt how to cook that one.What would your go-to food item on a tour be?
I would go for something pasta-based. It is a safe bet.One food you miss when you’re on tour.
I miss home-cooked food, where you can cook it yourself. Something like a roast or with loads of veg. At home, my mum cooks it for me. She cooks a very good roast.Which cricketing venue serves the best food?
I can’t go too far away from Lord’s.

prefer the ice cream tbh @Sophecc19 https://t.co/JY8YuaihH1

— Alice Capsey (@AliceCapsey) March 7, 2023

Australia’s No. 3 finds form at crucial juncture to move side a step closer to retaining the urn

Matt Roller22-Jul-20232:13

Labuschagne: For Australia it’s all about retaining the Ashes

Two balls into the 58th over of Australia’s third innings, Marnus Labuschagne made an unusual request. He was standing at the non-striker’s end and Stuart Broad had finally convinced umpire Nitin Menon that the old ball had gone out of shape. It no longer fit through the metal gauge, so Menon and Joel Wilson called for a box of alternatives and picked out a replacement.Before Menon threw the ball to Anderson, he granted Labuschagne’s request to study the ball himself in order to pick up clues as to how it would behave. “You could feel it straightaway… it was a harder ball, and the seam was a little bit bigger,” he later said. England’s fielders were bemused by what they saw as a characteristically eccentric demand, and Ben Stokes let him know as much.”They weren’t happy! They weren’t happy that I wanted to have a look at the ball,” Labuschagne said. “In this country, it’s pretty clear: if you look at the ball once you can tell straightaway what it’s going to do. I looked at the ball and was like, ‘Well, this is going to swing’ and I threw it back. They were obviously not very happy with that.Related

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“I said it to Ben out there. ‘Why do you want to look at the ball?’ he asked me. I said, ‘To see if it’s going to swing.’ Jimmy Anderson, first ball he bowled to me, big inswinger. It just helps you prepare. The ball before was reversing slightly. It’s just being meticulous. For me, it was pretty common sense: why would I not want to have a look at the ball?”It was a moment that highlighted Labuschagne’s painstaking attention to detail. He is notorious for his work ethic, and is the hardest trainer in an Australia side that also features Steven Smith; he has spent hours upon hours in the nets on this tour, using Andy Flower – who is working with the squad as a consultant – as a personal batting coach.This has not been a straightforward tour for Labuschagne. He made starts in both innings of the World Test Championship final, with 26 and 41, but then managed only 144 in his first six hits of this series. He reflected that his batting was “a bit of a rabble” at Edgbaston, but he has finally found his rhythm and form to deliver a fifty and a hundred when Australia needed him to step up.”In the first innings, I felt really confident in my decision-making, leaving the ball outside off, being able to make really good decisions when it comes straight,” he said. “I felt confident when they did go short that I could make really good decisions there. I felt it was all coming together and it was nice to get a bigger score today.”ESPNcricinfo LtdLabuschagne has been the only Australia batter to successfully negate Mark Wood across the last two Tests, a stark contrast to 18 months ago when he was dismissed by him three times in 61 balls. He was wrapped on the gloves on this abbreviated fourth day but has largely stayed in control despite Wood’s extra pace.”A lot of my stuff I [put down] to technique,” he said. “I feel like my game is in a really good space to be facing him, the technical changes I’ve made. It allows me to make really good decisions and get into positions to be able to either pull, duck, leave, sway. I think the key to batting is having as many options as you can for a delivery.”Shortly after the ball change, the umpires decided that it was too dark for England’s seamers to bowl, instead forcing them to bowl spin. Labuschagne seized on the opportunity, running down the pitch to launch Joe Root for back-to-back sixes over long-on.It was a calculated gamble, recognising the opportunity that Australia had to make a dent in the deficit and thereby force England to bat again if the rain holds off on Sunday. “Having two spinners coming on, it was an opportunity for us to put a little bit of pressure back on them,” he said.Marnus Labuschagne goes on the attack during his century•Getty ImagesLabuschagne eventually fell to Root, mistiming a cut shot having earlier outside-edged an arm ball past slip, but not before bringing up his second overseas century and his first in England. He was convinced he had not hit the ball and had to drag himself off after UltraEdge said otherwise, but his two innings have kept Australia in this game.”If we end up saving the match then it’ll be a pretty good moment but until then it’s sort of sitting on the edge,” he said. “It’s always a privilege to score a Test hundred and you have to recognise that, it is special. But currently, sitting here, it’s still a bit bittersweet with the circumstances of the game.”Labuschagne has not had the tour he wanted in England: he has been getting himself out to balls he should have put away, and shown little of his usual ruthlessness. But this week, he has made Australia’s highest and joint-second-highest scores of the match; if they escape with a draw, they will have him to thank for it.