The quick bowler went more than 600 days between first-class appearances after his return to New South Wales, but made up for lost time last season

Andrew McGlashan26-Sep-2022Chris Tremain, the New South Wales pace bowler, was one of the few professional cricketers in Australia who wouldn’t have minded last season not coming to an end in late March.”I was probably the only one,” he says with a laugh.Tremain is in his second spell with New South Wales having started his career there before moving to Victoria. The return, six years later, came ahead of the 2020-21 season but he ended up not featuring in the first XI the entire summer.Last November, when he finally found a place in the Sheffield Shield team, against his former team Victoria, it had been 634 days between first-class matches. In that time, during which the world had been taken over by the pandemic, his professional outings had amounted to three BBL games for Sydney Thunder.He quickly made up for lost time, ending the Shield season with 24 wickets at 15.95 in five outings and was named New South Wales’ men’s player of the season. However, as the new campaign begins, with Tremain certain of his place in the team, he admits his immediate feeling was not one of savouring his much-awaited success.”I didn’t actually let myself enjoy it that much. I wasn’t very modest about it, either,” he tells ESPNcricinfo. “People would come up and say ‘gee, you bowled well today’ and I would say ‘f****** surprised, are you’, especially when it was blokes from New South Wales saying ‘you bowled really well’. I was like ‘yeah, I’ve been doing it against you guys for the last five years’.”Then to balance that out, I never really stood back and said I’m proud of how I’ve bounced back. Even with the awards, I spent a lot of the time saying it’s great to win an individual award, but I really want to win Shields, win trophies, because with a career getting into the 30s you are closer to the end than you are the start. You really just want be in a successful team.”Kurtis Patterson, the New South Wales captain, conceded their previous selection was proved wrong. “He was fantastic when he came in last year,” he told ESPNcricinfo. “Certainly as an organisation we can put our hand up and say we got that one wrong, leaving him out of the side for as long as we did, because he really led from game one and was rightfully our player of the year.”**Chris Tremain walks off the SCG after taking five wickets against Tasmania•Getty ImagesLooking back on his season – and more – on the sidelines, a situation exacerbated by the need for Covid bubbles and hubs that made it very difficult to find playing opportunities at short notice, Tremain reflects honestly on how it played out.”Maybe not second thoughts [about the move], think I did the right thing, but I was sort of left in limbo,” he says. “Sitting on the sidelines for those 18 months was horrid. I hated it.”I contemplated retirement quite frequently, my wife talked me out of it so many times. It was just a really challenging period. If I was injured or not bowling well then it would have been okay because I’d have had a little carrot dangling in front of my nose. But I was just fishing in the dark a little bit for that 18 months, waiting and waiting. But I knew when I got an opportunity, when I picked up the tools and went back to work, that everything would be okay.”However, to get that opportunity he needed misfortune for a team-mate. There was some 2nd XI cricket to keep him ticking over, and he captained the side, but even that created some mixed messages about whether he actually had to prove he should be recalled. A conversation with Shawn Bradstreet, the NSW assistant bowling coach, provided some clarity.

I went, this is the most dysfunctional relationship I’ve ever been in because they show you a little bit of interest, you come crawling back, then they throw you away and go with someone else. Then you get better, come crawling back again, and they discard you againChris Tremain on putting aside the Australia dream

“When you are sitting on the sidelines kicking cans because you aren’t playing, the guys who are playing, your team-mates and your mates, they know for me to get a go they had to get injured or bowl poorly,” Tremain says. “No one wants that to happen. It was a really hard balancing act. I actually spoke to a handful of boys about it. I would say, ‘it’s not that I think I’m better than you, or you can’t do this job, I just want to get to a point where I’m able to do it with you’.”There was a lot less cricket. You just had to try and get the load in at training but it was never the same. That was a little challenging, mentally I was a shot duck for a lot of the time. I was sort of getting information that you don’t need to prove anything, then from other people I was getting you need to prove you are better than these guys to get a spot, but I had no way of doing that.”[Shawn] sat me down and said, ‘mate, they’re both right. You do need to prove it, but you don’t need to do anything differently to prove it…it will prove itself’. Had we not had the conversation, I would probably have come into the first Shield game trying to prove I still had it.”In the end, it was the injury scenario that played out to open the way for Tremain when Trent Copeland and Liam Hatcher were both sidelined. After the match at the SCG had been delayed by a day when Will Sutherland tested positive for Covid, New South Wales batted first and made 233 thanks to the efforts of debutant Hayden Kerr.Then, having waited more than 600 days, Tremain had ball in hand. With his first delivery, he found the inside edge of James Seymour. Two balls later, Peter Handscomb was lbw. In his next over, Matthew Short was caught a second slip. After two overs, Tremain had 3 for 2.”When I got that opportunity I just said I’d go and do my job again, it’s worked for the last seven or eight years so it will work again. And it did. I just knew I needed a crack at it.”

I never really gave myself the time to sit back and give myself a pat on the back and say, well done

When the Shield resumed after the BBL – where Tremain did not get on the park for Thunder; he has now moved to Hobart Hurricanes – he took five wickets in a victory against Queensland at the Gabba (also making vital runs in a low-scoring encounter) and seven in a win over Tasmania at the SCG, the two games New South Wales won in their truncated season.”Even when we were playing in Shield finals [for Victoria], the best thing about it was we knew the season was coming to an end,” he says. “Win, lose or draw, you just knew the season was done. Not that we don’t enjoy doing what we do, it’s just there is always a relief when you can put your feet up and say that was an okay season, a good one or there’s stuff to work on. [But] for me, [last season] was five games, a couple of one-dayers and no Big Bash so I would happily have kept going.”**Tremain tried to find some overseas opportunities this winter but has not played enough games for Australia to qualify for the County Championship. He had planned to go to Darwin with the Melbourne Renegades’ squad for some T20, but injury put paid to that. In fact, having been largely injury-free for six years, he’s been hit by a couple of problems in the lead-up to this campaign.The first was a small stress fracture in a rib – “a strange place to get it for a fast bowler,” he says – then he damaged the cartilage in his ribs when he was leaning over a gate at home. “So the last month or so my ribs have been taking a beating, but everything is shaping up well.”Tremain is a believer in the best way to stay fit to play cricket is by playing cricket. He admits the medical staff sometimes see it differently, but everyone has reached the start of the season with him able to get into the Marsh Cup side ahead of the Sheffield Shield beginning against Western Australia on October 3.Which leads to what another successful summer could mean. Tremain is still only 31 and averages 23.58 in first-class cricket. Since his debut, only four bowlers have taken more Shield wickets. His recent Victoria team-mate Scott Boland burst onto the Test scene at the age of 32 last summer with the magical spell of 6 for 7 at the MCG. Does Tremain, who played four ODIs in 2016 as part of a second-string bowling attack that also included Boland, still harbor those dreams?A pumped up Chris Tremain celebrates•Getty Images”I haven’t allowed myself to feel that way for a long time because I feel it’s a little bit counterproductive,” he says. “I spent a lot of my 20s with that a driving force, that I really want to get that Baggy Green. I got to 26 or 27, probably when I came back from India on an A tour [in 2018] and didn’t get picked in a Test squad to the UAE when I was probably at the peak of my powers.”I went, this is the most dysfunctional relationship I’ve ever been in because they show you a little bit of interest, you come crawling back, then they throw you away and go with someone else. Then you get better, come crawling back again, and they discard you again. So I just wiped it and thought, well, look, you have my number, if you want me to do a job give me a call, if not, the only thing I care about is putting my name on trophies.”Sadly we have fallen short of that in the last couple of years but having only played first-class cricket, the feeling of winning Sheffield Shields is the best I’ve achieved so to recreate that is now goal number one. Playing for Australia, or advancing a personal career, is a byproduct of doing that.”Tremain has featured for Australia A again since 2018, against England Lions in 2019, and he does add that, as Boland shows, “there is always time.” But however that plays out, it is not at the forefront of his mind. With a career back on track, he hopes to be less hard on himself this summer.”I never really gave myself the time to sit back and give myself a pat on the back and say, well done. Fingers crossed if there’s moments this season when things go well, I can sit back, have a beer, and go that was a good shift today.”

Duo’s perfect combination of fire and ice puts team on the verge of another final

Shashank Kishore10-Feb-2023Sheldon Jackson is 36. But don’t remind him of it. There’s no reason to either, because he is showing no signs of slowing down.A century in the final following a run-drought helped deliver Saurashtra the Vijay Hazare Trophy title in December. Now, a classic 160, his 20th first-class century, has Saurashtra knocking on the doors of the Ranji Trophy final, three years after they clinched a historic first, with Jackson playing a pivotal part.Then there’s Arpit Vasavada, the stone waller, a Shitanshu Kotak clone, someone who can bore bowlers into submission. For the longest time, Vasavada has been known as Saurashtra’s crisis man, and he hasn’t let that tag weigh him down.If crease occupation is of essence, they look up to Vasavada. This isn’t to say he can’t score runs. He can, and do so quite effectively, like on Friday when he made 112 not out, his third hundred of the season and eleventh overall in first-class cricket. That Saurashtra can dare to dream is because of his 232-run fourth-wicket stand with Jackson to bring them within touching distance of a first-innings lead with two days remaining.Related

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On Friday, it was this perfect combination of fire and ice that propelled Saurashtra. Jackson started in blazing fashion, nonchalantly flicking length balls from middle to the midwicket fence, cutting and pulling ferociously and sweeping the spinners off their lengths. Vasavada was the craftsman, carefully molding his sandcastle with precision, accumulating runs slowly, nudging and tapping deliveries, blunting the bowlers like that was his life mission.Batting of that kind is second nature to him. Growing up at Railways Colony in Rajkot, Arvind, Pujara senior, who was also his first coach, would ingrain virtues of playing ‘correct cricket’ to his wards. Young Vasavada and Cheteshwar would religiously stick to those principles, and proudly accept the treats that were on offer should they achieve set milestones. Over time, Vasavada hasn’t let the vagaries of T20 cricket come in the way of his batting style.This season, Vasavada and Jackson have had different roles.With Jaydev Unadkat away on national duty, Vasavada has also had to shoulder the captaincy responsibilities lately. He’s had to rally the team together after back-to-back losses heading into the quarter-final threatened to derail all the momentum they had built up.In the quarter-final, Vasavada was among a group of players that led a stirring fightback, after Saurashtra were on the mat against Punjab. Having conceded a 128-run lead, Vasavada made a grinding 77 in the second innings to help close in on the deficit, before the lower order helped them surge ahead. On the final day, his bowling chances and field placements were spot on. His calm marshalling of his bowlers even as Mandeep Singh, the Punjab captain, threatened to snatch a draw, was commendable.It’s this calmness and assuredness that Vasavada brought to the fore in the semi-final too, against Karnataka at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium. He walked in to bat early on the third day with Saurashtra on 92 for 3. Karnataka’s seamers were accurate and meant business. Vasavada took 24 balls to get off the mark, but showed no signs of being edgy.In this period, he also copped a blow on his helmet when he was late on a pull off Vidwath Kaverappa. Shaken, but not stirred, Vasavada took his time to ease himself back in and focused on strike rotation. It helped that Jackson was alert to the possibilities of pinching singles at the other end, much to Karnataka’s annoyance. Over three overs, they picked up eleven singles to ensure the bowlers had to keep altering their lengths to the right-left pair.As his innings progressed, Vasavada showed excellent smarts in ensuring he was getting well outside the line of the stumps to defend K Gowtham’s offspin, while also quickly pulling back to dispatch Shreyas Gopal’s half-tracks. It’s perhaps why Gopal wasn’t introduced until the 21st over the morning; while his legbreaks can be deceptive, he’s often struggled for consistency, and both batters took full toll.Arpit Vasavada is known as Saurashtra’s crisis man, a stone waller who can bore bowlers into submission•PTI Vasavada’s refreshing clarity against spin and sound judgment of his off stump all contributed to his innings, one of immense concentration and fight on the face of some serious heat from Karnataka. When he brought up his hundred, off a thick edge that flew between the wicketkeeper and slip, Vasavada finally let out his pent-up emotions. But that he fought through to stumps told you a story of grit and not wanting to leave it to the others to get the job done.At the other end, Jackson was doing what he’s done for most of his career: being in a constant dogfight. Against himself, because he comes from small-town Bhavnagar, and not a traditional cricket centre. It meant if someone made 100, he needed a double, perhaps a triple ton, to get noticed.He’s had to ward off stifling competition despite coming from a relatively small state, geographically speaking, like Saurashtra, because he was in a queue for the senior team for four straight seasons before breaking through in 2011-12.When he finally got his chance, he had to make up for lost time. Over the next decade, Jackson has been a towering presence in a Saurashtra line-up that has evolved from being the outliers to Ranji Trophy champions three years ago. Yet, he’s had to contend with the disappointment of not making the next step up despite being a prolific performer. He’s on a mission to prove why those on the wrong side of 30 must not be viewed, in his own words, as “fossil”.When his team needed him to dig deep, Sheldon Jackson stood tall with one of the biggest knocks of his career•PTI In the Ranji season Saurashtra won in 2019-20, he had finished that season with 809 runs in 18 innings at an average of 50.56 and was the third-highest run-getter among batters in the non-Plate category. A season earlier, he amassed Ranji Trophy with 854 runs at an average of 47.44. But no Saurashtra player made the India A cut even though they finished runners-up. A furious Jackson let his feelings know.Compared to those seasons, this one threatened to run dry. He hadn’t made a single hundred. Like at the Vijay Hazare Trophy, where he went into the knockout with a prolonged lean patch, Jackson had felt the jitters here too. However, come the big match, with his team needing him to dig deep, Jackson stood tall.He imperiously cover drove Kaverappa for a boundary off the third ball of the morning to lay down a marker. Two balls later, he picked length in a jiffy to wallop a pull behind square. Jackson wasn’t going to just defend. He was going to thrill, especially if the ball was there to be hit.When Gopal was introduced belatedly, he didn’t take time to step out and loft him inside-but over extra cover. In trying to score quickly, the counterpunch seemed to frustrate Karnataka to such an extent that Manish Pandey even began to sledge Jackson. What ensured was some banter for a better part of the next hour. At one point things got so heated that Pandey even claimed a bump catch and celebrated wildly, much to Jackson’s annoyance as he stood his ground.But it was clear he wasn’t going to let such distraction come in the way of his concentration. Jackson’s marathon knock was also another example of how Saurashtra have often given their seniors clarity. X-factor players who bring something to the table have been given a long rope in the hope of there being a big performance along the way. For Jackson, this was as big an effort as he’s come up with in his career so far.He literally had to be dragged off the field after being given out lbw to a grubber on 160, but by then Saurashtra were within touching distance of a lead. Vasavada stood there applauding, as did the very players who were sledging him not long ago.In defying Karnataka’s bowlers the way they did, Vasavada and Jackson had sowed seeds of another dream in the making for Saurashtra.

A century in a session and an epic Cape Town double also feature in the list

Alex Malcolm24-Dec-2022 • Updated on 30-Dec-2023123* vs New Zealand, Hobart 2011
Any scepticism around Warner as a Test player disappeared during his second outing when he almost singlehandedly prevented Australia from suffering a shock loss to New Zealand in Hobart. He couldn’t prevent it, but New Zealand would have done it so far more easily without Warner’s stunning, unbeaten 123 on a green top in a fourth-innings chase.Across the first three innings of the match, Dean Brownlie and Ross Taylor were the only batters to pass 50. Australia were chasing 241 for victory and Warner had them on track at 159 for 2 before Doug Bracewell tore through the Australia’s line up to leave them 199 for 9 as he watched from the other end, having already reached his first Test century. He and Nathan Lyon were left to try and find the final 42 runs. The pair added 34 before Lyon was bowled through the gate by Bracewell, leaving Warner unbeaten on 123 just eight runs shy of victory.180 vs India, Perth 2012
Virender Sehwag had famously told Warner he would be a better Test player than a T20 player, and this was the innings where Sehwag was proved right, much to his and India’s chagrin.India were bowled out for 161 in 60.2 overs on a sporting day one WACA pitch before Warner proceeded to smash a hundred in a session, off just 69 balls. He clubbed 13 fours and three towering sixes, including one over long-on to bring up his century. It was the equal-fourth-fastest Test century at the time, and there have been only two quicker since. Like Sehwag, he also gave a glimpse of his ability to go on after posting a three-figure score. Warner finished with 180 from 159 balls with 20 fours and five sixes. The next highest score in the match was 75 and only two other players passed 50 as Australia won by an innings and 37 runs.135 and 145 vs South Africa, Cape Town 2014
Warner was in sparkling form having made a hundred in a victory in Centurion and then twin fifties in the second Test loss in Gqeberha, which opening partner Chris Rogers described as “some of the best batting I had ever seen”.In the decider in Cape Town, Warner ripped the game away from South Africa on the opening morning, racing to 75 in the first session on his way to posting a stunning 135 from 152 balls against an attack of Dale Steyn, Vernon Philander, Morne Morkel and Kyle Abbott. Australia’s bowlers ripped through South Africa to hand them a 207-run lead before Warner wreaked havoc again, smashing 145 in the second innings to score twin centuries in a Test for the first time. Australia bowled South Africa out in the final innings to claim a 2-1 series win and climb to No. 1 in the Test rankings.Before 2018, there were happier memories for David Warner in Cape Town•AFP133 vs Pakistan, Dubai 2014
While Warner had flayed bowlers on the fast and bouncy pitches in Australia and South Africa, his first foray to India in 2013 had been a struggle. His next Test in subcontinental-type conditions came in the UAE in 2014 and he produced one of his finest away centuries in Dubai.One of the most under-rated difficulties of opening the batting in Test cricket is batting second after the opposition has piled up a massive first-innings score. Six of Warner’s 24 Test centuries have come in the second innings of a match, but this was the only time he made a century when the opposition had batted more than five sessions. Pakistan piled up 454 in 145 overs. Warner, unperturbed by the long stint in the field, raced to a run-a-ball 50 and was 75 at stumps on the second day. He went on to make 133 when the next highest score in Australia’s innings was 38 from Rogers in an opening stand of 128. Australia were bowled out for 303 and would go on to lose by 221 runs.145 and 102 vs India, Adelaide 2014
This might have been one of his finest performances in terms of mental fortitude given what had unfolded only weeks earlier. Warner was on the field when his close friend and sometimes Test opening partner Phillip Hughes suffered his fatal blow. Warner rode with Hughes on the medical cart as he was driven from the middle of the SCG to a waiting ambulance.Just weeks later, Australia lined up for their first Test since the tragedy. Every batter felt different facing up after what had taken place, and every Australian player played with a heavy emotional burden. Warner shook all that off to make a pulsating 145 on the opening day. He paused poignantly on 63 not out, just as Hughes had, before racing to his century in 106 balls. Warner then added a century in the second innings to post twin Test hundreds for the second time in the calendar year and set up an extraordinary win.David Warner’s quickfire century on the Sydney scoreboard in 2017•Getty Images253 vs New Zealand Perth 2015
Though made on a lifeless WACA pitch, there was still a notable magnitude to this innings. Warner was barely troubled as he posted his then highest Test score and his first Test double-century. He shared a century stand with Joe Burns, and a triple-century stand with Usman Khawaja, who also made 121.Warner looked almost certain to make 300, having cruised to 244 at stumps on the opening day, and there were even whispers of Brian Lara’s world record being within sight. But, to everyone’s surprise, and his own frustration, Warner fell early on day two poking Trent Boult to second slip. Warner’s 253 was not even the highest score in the match, with Ross Taylor piling up 290 in reply.113 vs Pakistan, Sydney 2017
In 140 years of Test cricket prior to 2017, only Victor Trumper, Charles Macartney, Donald Bradman and Majid Khan had scored a century in the opening session of a Test match. Warner added his name to the list with one of his fastest against Pakistan in the New Year’s Test of 2017.On his home ground at the SCG, he plundered a century off just 78 balls to give Australia a rollicking start. He fell in just the 33rd over for 113 with the score at 151 for 1. Warner then made a 27-ball 55 in the second innings to set up a third-innings declaration and buy Australia enough time to bowl Pakistan out, which they did.David Warner’s centuries in Bangladesh were his most recent overseas•Associated Press112 vs Bangladesh, Mirpur 2017
Warner’s overseas record is often fodder for his critics. Two of his best innings came in a series that was largely ignored by the Australian public. One came in an ignominious Test loss in Dhaka.Much like his first Test century in Hobart, Warner almost singlehandedly dragged Australia over the line as they were set 265 to win in the fourth innings. Except, unlike Hobart, Warner was not the last left standing. He made 112 from 135 balls as Australia reached 158 for 2 after being 28 for 2. Warner had done all of the scoring with Steven Smith simply surviving at the other end. But when Warner fell to Shakib Al Hasan, the wheels fell off. Smith fell shortly after for 37, the next highest score in the innings, and Australia collapsed for 244, suffering their first Test loss to Bangladesh.123 vs Bangladesh, Chattogram 2017
Warner avenged that defeat in the next Test, continuing his sparkling form in Chattogram. Australia were again on the wrong end of the toss, but after Lyon’s seven-wicket haul, Warner made one of his most patient centuries. He struck just seven boundaries in 123 off 234 balls over six hours as Australia ground their way to a 72-run first-innings lead.It proved decisive, as Lyon bagged another six wickets to bowl Bangladesh out for just 157 the second time around to leave Australia to knock off 86 for a series-levelling win. As it stands, Warner’s 123 is his most recent Test century overseas as he has failed to post one in 13 Tests since then.335* vs Pakistan, Adelaide 2019
Only one man in Australia’s long Test history has made a higher score in a Test match than Warner’s 335 not out at Adelaide Oval in 2019 against Pakistan. Such was Warner’s dominance and rate of scoring in the innings, he was afforded the opportunity to pass Bradman and Mark Taylor’s 334 to move to second behind Matthew Hayden’s 380, while Australia were still able to win by an innings inside four days.Pakistan’s attack was not as weak as some would believe with Shaheen Shah Afridi, Mohammad Abbas and Yasir Shah doing the bulk of the work. But Warner marmalised them in the midst of a staggering run of form. It was his second consecutive score of over 150 and it came on the back of the worst series of his career, when he averaged 9.50 in the five-match Ashes series just months earlier.200 vs South Africa, MCG 2022Talk around Warner’s place in the side had reached fever pitch again as he played his 100th Test. There had been the messy end to his attempts at having his leadership ban overturned a few weeks earlier and in the first Test against South Africa he had been bounced out. But he dug as deep as he ever has to compile a double century – the second hundred taking 110 balls – while battling severe cramps as the milestone approached although he was still able to summon the trademark leap before retiring hurt. He was just the second player to score a double hundred in his 100th Test.

In the era of the fast, stump-to-stump legspinner, he has shown that his subtler style still has a place in T20

Karthik Krishnaswamy11-May-20231:15

Shastri: Chahal’s record is a testimony to his skill and longevity

It didn’t exactly go unnoticed, but it got a little lost amid all the late drama of Sunday night’s improbable finish at the Sawai Mansingh Stadium, where Rajasthan Royals lost a game they really shouldn’t have, to Sunrisers Hyderabad. Yuzvendra Chahal bagged a four-wicket haul that would have been match-winning on any other night, and in the process drew level with Dwayne Bravo on top of the IPL’s wicket-takers’ leaderboard.Who could have predicted it, when this slightly-built legspinner struggled for game time in his three years with Mumbai Indians, his first IPL team? He showed a spark in those limited opportunities, but it never seemed to be enough. He played every match of Mumbai’s victorious Champions League campaign in 2011 and finished with an economy rate below 7, but had to wait until 2013 to play his only IPL game for the franchise.Who would have thought, then, that Chahal would be where he is a decade later – joint top of the IPL pile – with 183 wickets from 142 games? He has played fewer matches than Piyush Chawla, Amit Mishra, R Ashwin, Sunil Narine, Harbhajan Singh and Ravindra Jadeja, and he has more wickets than all of them.Of all spinners who have taken 100 or more wickets in the IPL, Chahal has the best strike rate: 16.9. That’s a wicket every 2.5 overs, roughly. For comparison, Chahal’s Royals team-mate Ashwin takes a wicket every 24.2 balls in the IPL, or less than one per four-over allotment.

The defending champions play conservative T20 cricket because of their high-quality bowling, but sometimes it can backfire

Sidharth Monga16-Apr-20234:51

Moody: Only someone like Samson can take down Rashid the way he did

When Shimron Hetmyer hit Alzarri Joseph for a six at the end of the 16th over, Rajasthan Royals had reached only 134 of the 178 required. It was a landmark moment in the match: in scoring 75% of the runs in 80% of the overs, Rajasthan Royals had scored the same number of runs in boundaries as Gujarat Titans did in their entire innings. In the end, Royals outscored Titans by 130 to 94 in boundaries, which is a huge margin for a match of such narrow margins.In the end, Hardik Pandya said they were short by only ten or so runs, which is a fair comment despite their falling behind by 36 on boundaries. That is the nature of Titans’ blueprint, and also their rivalry with Royals. Since coming into existence, Titans have scored the second-highest number of runs in the IPL but only the fourth-highest in boundaries.In many ways, Titans are a side hard to figure out. At their genesis itself, for inexplicable reasons, one team released its best player and another its second-best only for Titans to draft them in. Then they went on to put together a squad that plays conservatively with the bat: Shubman Gill likes to drop anchor, Hardik has been going at 130s as against 170 and above when at Mumbai Indians, David Miller has become a slower starter. They score only 55.15% of their runs in boundaries. Royals, on the other hand, have scored 61.99% of their runs in boundaries over the same period.Related

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Royals are more like Kolkata Knight Riders (63.15% in boundaries over the same period). They rely more on unorthodox methods: pinch-hitters, pinch-anchors, maximising match-ups, taking higher risks when batting. Incidentally, they are the two sides that have beaten Titans so far this year.Normally, you would say Titans’ is a sub-optimal way of playing T20, but they are the defending champions. They are a smoother side with experienced players who have largely fixed roles. Their strength is a bowling attack that has seam movement through Mohammed Shami, swing and bounce in Hardik, middle-overs heat and hard lengths in Joseph, and wrist-spin wizardry in Rashid Khan. Because they have that attack, they don’t need to risk getting bowled out early to put up a total that is dew-proof or miracle-proof.Sometimes then you come up against a side that plays high-risk cricket, and those risks come off as they did with Sanju Samson and Hetmyer. On such days, you look back at the period when you respected the high-quality spin attack of Royals a little too much and didn’t try to hit enough boundaries.However, it would be unfair to question their tactics based on one defeat to a side that they beat three times last year. They won the title playing similar cricket last season. In fact, in two of their three wins over Royals last year, Titans scored fewer in boundaries than the opposition, which is a rare event in T20 cricket.In Titans’ approach is the answer to the question about whether T20 cricket has room for anchors. It all depends on the quality of your bowling. Titans believe they have the bowling to afford them anchors. It involved a few games that could have gone either way last year, but they did win the title playing similar cricket. This year too, both their defeats have been nothing short of miraculous: Rinku Singh hit five consecutive sixes in the last over in one, and Royals’ win probability was down to 2.01% after 12 overs of the chase.So don’t expect a big change in their batting approach, but Hardik’s comments might suggest a bit of tweaking is in order. Whatever happens, this result sets up a fascinating clash of T20 philosophies in the return game on May 5 in Jaipur. If they do live up to their billing, that may not be the last time they face each other this year.

He can bowl left-arm fingerspin, fast googlies, and loopy legbreaks, and is now ready to make the next step up in his career

Deivarayan Muthu18-Jul-2023He was born in Hong Kong. He studied economics in the UK. He moved to Chennai in the middle of the Covid-19 pandemic because of one strong connecting thread: cricket. Meet 23-year-old Jhathavedh Subramanyan, now the breakout star of TNPL 2023.With his parents in the stands in Tirunelveli and elder brother watching from Hong Kong around midnight, Jhathavedh burst through Sonu Yadav’s defences with a big-turning wrong’un and went onto spin Lyca Kovai Kings to the TNPL title. He can also bowl left-arm fingerspin, though he didn’t dip into his ambidextrous skills during the tournament. Earlier, during a first-class game for Durham University against Northamptonshire, he did bowl some left-arm fingerspin.The right-arm version of Jhathavedh has an angular run-up like Ravi Bishnoi, but his bowling style involves liberally tossing the ball up and taking it away from the reach of right-handers, like Yuzvendra Chahal does in T20 cricket. Jhathavedh took 4 for 21 in the TNPL final last weekend and overall 11 wickets in nine games at an average of 19.72 and economy rate of 6.57. His economy rate was the third best – behind his Kovai team-mate M Siddharth (5.61) and Dindigul Dragons’ Varun Chakravarthy (6.52) – among bowlers who had bowled at least 30 overs in TNPL 2023.Related

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Jhathavedh had been Varun’s understudy at Madurai Panthers for two years, after having moved from Hong Kong, but he didn’t get a game at Madurai. Ahead of the TNPL 2023 auction, Kovai captain Shahrukh Khan was impressed with what he saw of Jhathavedh at the Vijay CC (Cricket Club) nets and then bid for him at the auction. Jhathavedh emerged as the latest find of the TNPL and could potentially be on the IPL radar now.

Congratulations to our very own Jhatavedh Subramanyan for an outstanding performance in the Tamil Nadu Premier League Final last night!Well done! @TNPremierLeague #hkcricket https://t.co/0J21OBmYEG

— Cricket Hong Kong, China (@CricketHK) July 13, 2023

Match-defining hundred at Lord’s finally shifts narrative away from World Cup head-to-head with Brook

Vithushan Ehantharajah15-Sep-2023Harry Brook was back in the pavilion, a restless 10 off 15 taking his series tally to an unconvincing 37 from three innings. Jason Roy was leaning on the pitch-side bench below the England balcony, a dicky back keeping him out of this final ODI against New Zealand.Meanwhile, Dawid Malan, very much the third party when this selectorial first presented itself a few weeks ago, raised his bat and helmet in their general direction after coming through for his fifth ODI hundred. And just like that, the narrative finally shifted in Malan’s favour.It had been coming. Laments of a Brook-less provisional World Cup squad had gone quiet, partly because the point had been made, partly because of the run of low scores. But the focus on who he might replace fixed strongest on Malan. Roy, a hero of 2019, coming into this series as the team’s leading 50-over run-scorer since that triumph, looked set. Though a loss of T20 form had seen him miss out on 2022’s T20 World Cup, a second successive snub felt unjustified on form, and unnecessarily cruel on feel.Related

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But with Roy unable to take the field once again against New Zealand, an uncomfortable sense of waiting for Malan to fail has dissipated. Malan himself was all too aware of that sentiment. Asked if it had fuelled this absurd run, capped off with 127 off 114 deliveries to give him 277 runs at an average of 92.33 in the last seven days, he offered a telling, “Maybe.”Malan continued: “It’s satisfying from my point of view to be able to silence some people who have always got some negative things to say. But that’s the game – my job is to score runs and as long as I can keep doing that, hopefully I can keep the support from inside the changing room, because I always felt backed from the guys that matter inside there.”I need to be careful – I’m probably going to give another good headline here. It is what it is. I guess when you try and break into a team as good as this white-ball team has been with the Roots, the Stokes, the Bairstows, Roys, Buttlers – it’s incredibly tough and you have to score runs. I guess whenever there is a spot under scrutiny it’s always going to be the guys pushing for those spots, and that’s just the territory because those guys have been so good for so many years. All I can do is score runs and hope that that matters.”Scores of 54 and 96 restated his worth, missing the second ODI in between for the birth of his son. Such was the appetite to not let a moment slip, he made himself available for The Oval after Dawid Johannes Malan V arrived earlier than the September 12 due date. Both Buttler and head coach Matthew Mott offered Malan time at home, but both he and his partner decided against it.”Speaking to my wife as well, we thought it was the right thing to come back and try and push for this, score some runs and secure your spot for that World Cup,” Malan said, having just been handed both the player of the match and the series award, and a Hamley’s bag with a cuddly panda for his son – a gift from a cousin who was in attendance at Lord’s. “Thankfully, it’s come off and I think I’m on babysitting duties when I turn up.”Malan leads the team off after his Player of the Match display•Getty ImagesFriday’s knock ticked plenty of boxes: carrying England to an insurmountable total, taking him past a thousand runs in the format, and getting his name on the honour’s board at Lord’s, which he feels he did not do enough in 13 years here as a Middlesex player. Only three other ODI batters have reached four figures in fewer than his 21 innings, and just Quinton De Kock and Imam-ul-Haq registered five centuries across that same span.”You either have to be an absolute freak or you have to be so consistent you keep your name in the hat,” Malan said of his England status. “I’ve had to be that consistent one, and thankfully I’ve been able to do that at times in my career.”It’s worth noting Malan outshone the freaks this time. Much like the innings at The Oval, he pushed the envelope, this time without Ben Stokes hogging the limelight at the other end – the allrounder safely packed away after emphatically marking his unretirement on Wednesday.The scorecard tells a pretty comprehensive story: the next highest scorers were Glenn Phillips (41) and Rachin Ravindra, while Jos Buttler was the only other English batter to make it past 30. Brook’s laboured final audition did not look as bad set against Joe Root’s peculiar 29 off 40 deliveries. Never has England’s generational great looked so out of touch, dropped twice, on 7 and 8. But it at least served to highlight just how in command Malan was.He was better than a run-a-ball for most of his knock, providing 36 of England’s 56 in the Power Play. The half-century came off 50, the full one off 96, albeit with a fortuitous edge just beyond a diving Tom Latham behind the stumps which took him from 95 to 99. That was one of the few missteps in a dominant knock, until he reached for a wide delivery from Ravindra and edged behind. Even then, it was a minor victory for the left-arm spinner, who had been carted for one of Malan’s three sixes, all swatted into the stands at midwicket.From Buttler and Mott’s point of view, what awkwardness there has been in the build-up to this World Cup has at least given them one dead cert 20 days out from their opener in Ahmedabad against New Zealand. For all the legacy of Roy and limitless potential of Brook, Malan has funnelled the pressure productively to highlight the value of being a man of the present among ones of the past and future.It now seems likely Roy will be added to the Ireland squad to get a hit in the first of three matches, with the first ODI taking place in Leeds on Wednesday. Brook is already part of the squad, setting us up for one last bunfight before the World Cup 15 is ratified next week.”When I got the call I was told ‘you’re going to the World Cup’, you know,” Malan said. “Then obviously there’s a little bit of noise leading up to it, but that’s part and parcel of World Cups and how we’re going to the World Cup. That’s being a professional cricketer. Until you’re on the plane, you never really know if you’re on it or not.”Well, Malan has silenced that noise as far as he is concerned, and can go ahead and print his boarding pass for that flight to India on September 27.

Another title for Australia, but what next for India?

ESPNcricinfo staff15-Jun-2023Is a one-off final enough to decide the winner of a World Test Championship cycle? Did India really blunder it at The Oval? What’s up with the India-A programme, and how should the BCCI look at structuring Indian cricket going forward?Sidharth Monga joins Kaustubh Kumar and Vishal Dikshit to discuss all the burning questions.