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Cricket Australia team performance manager Pat Howard would prefer a system which ensures the national coach and a selection manager are the only people involved in choosing a squad

Daniel Brettig15-Nov-20172:41

At sixes and sevens: Who will fill Australia’s two lower-order spots?

When Australia’s four selectors meet in Brisbane on Wednesday to determine once and for all the team for the first Test, they may be the final selection panel ever to do so for an Ashes side walking onto the Gabba in the baggy green. Every four years, Australian players are under a harsher microscope during the Ashes than any other time and it’s worth noting that this time the selection panel of interim chairman Trevor Hohns, national coach Darren Lehmann, Mark Waugh and interim selector Greg Chappell is facing equally close scrutiny.Should the current method of selection last until 2021, it will be in defiance of the strong opinions of the Cricket Australia (CA) team performance manager Pat Howard. Among many other battles, Howard has spent much of the past six years arguing strongly that the model of a selection panel is outdated and difficult to square with the lines of accountability set out in the Argus review of 2011 that spawned his own appointment.ESPNcricinfo understands that Howard has petitioned for the disbanding of selection panels in the form known classically to Australian cricket on a number of occasions. His preference is to replace the present model with a streamlined set-up where the national coach has the final call on any tight decision, having consulted with a national selector who is the single point of communication for the labyrinthine debates over who should be in and out.That would look like the model adopted six years ago by New Zealand Cricket (NZC), when the former Australian coach John Buchanan was acting as the Kiwi game’s impresario. “The national selection manager would operate with the head coach to form a ‘two man selection panel’, with the head coach of the team having the final say on debated decisions,” Buchanan said in 2011.In Buchanan’s vision, a large part of the role would involve working with first-class coaches to assess leading domestic players, as well as other high-performance staff and stakeholders, including the captain.Drawn from a background in rugby union high performance, Howard is less wedded to the concept of a selection panel than others in the national game. He is also known to favour the use of deep statistical analysis and computer-based modelling to judge the suitability of players. In that sense, Sabermetrics, the concept championed by the Michael Lewis book , is far more in line with his thinking than the anecdotal or visual evidence compiled by selectors watching domestic matches.James Sutherland has a word with Pat Howard at an Australia net session•Getty ImagesThis would also align – a favourite term of CA in recent years – with the now predominant domestic model whereby the old state selection panels have been pared back to simply feature a talent manager and the coach. That sort of operation was emphasised by the New South Wales chief executive Andrew Jones (also the former head of strategy at CA) in explaining the decision to drop Ed Cowan in favour of the younger Daniel Hughes for round one of this season’s Sheffield Shield.It would also offer the possibility of simplifying lines of accountability regarding selection of the national team, a problematic area that Don Argus tried to address by naming the Australia captain as a formal selector. Pre-Argus, Ricky Ponting had often complained that as captain but merely a consultant on selection he had “leadership but no ownership”. But that decision was rescinded two years into Michael Clarke’s tenure, after which he made complaints similar to Ponting’s.The greatest obstacle to such structural change appears to emanate from the CA Board. Decisions over the shape of the panel remain one of the nine directors’ two remaining responsibilities directly related to the performance of the national team.For more than a century, the Board has been responsible for selector appointments as well as holding the final approval on the choice of Australian captain. In a climate where CA’s move to an independent Board has encouraged corporate achievers to lobby for directorships, the ability to debate such questions is deemed an attractive element of the job when lined up against countless other drier discussions on other boards.Equally there are questions among directors about whether CA management, in this case Howard, should be given full responsibility for such appointments. The perceived importance and prestige of selection roles was underlined earlier this year when longtime director Mark Taylor stated publicly that he was interested in serving as one, having been a CA director for more than a decade alongside his commentary for Channel Nine, as well as universal respect as the man who captained Australia to world dominance between 1994 and 1999.The Board’s desire to remain directly involved was demonstrated aptly little more than a year ago, when directors put together a resolution for the panel that convened amidst a fifth Australian Test match loss and either side of the resignation of then selection chairman Rod Marsh. Their directive was principally to look for younger players with prospects of representing Australia over the long term.At the same time the shape of the panel was redefined to include as interim Chappell, the national talent manager with a youth focus, while the role of Waugh was more sharply defined to be primarily responsible for the selection of the Twenty20 international team. Nevertheless, Waugh remains one of four Test selectors and is in Brisbane for Wednesday’s meeting to choose the Ashes squad.Hohns, also appointed on a purely interim basis, chairs a panel sitting astride a national network of talent managers that was installed in 2010 to help supersede the idea of selection panels purely concerned with picking the best 11 players in each state, when a more strategic outlook was deemed necessary.

Luke Ronchi was always an attacking batsman, but the freedom of T20 franchise cricket has made him one of the most effective scorers in the format

Tim Wigmore25-Aug-2018Luke Ronchi was once best known as the answer to a trivia quiz question. He is the first cricketer to represent both New Zealand and Australia: “It’s a cool thing to say.” But after giving up international cricket, he has turned himself into one of the world’s best T20 batsmen.Since the start of 2017, he is the fastest starter in T20s*, hits boundaries most frequently, and has the fastest overall strike rate. And, as a wicketkeeper who opens at elite level, he gives his franchises bountiful options in how they assemble their teams.Ronchi was always capable of pyrotechnics. In a Sheffield Shield game for Western Australia against Queensland in 2007, he scored a century in 51 balls. His second fifty came up in an absurd 11 deliveries. He brought such explosiveness to his two stints in international cricket – there was a 28-ball 64 against West Indies during his brief international career with Australia, and 170 not out off 99 balls for New Zealand against Sri Lanka, the highest ODI score for a No. 7 – but rarely. Ronchi’s averages in his two main formats – 23.67 in ODIs and 17.95 in T20Is – indicate a player who struggled for consistency.”The mental side of cricket is where I made most of my mistakes,” he reflects. “I’ve always been an aggressive batter, but I think picking and choosing the right times to do it, and not getting too nervous before I’m batting, is where I struggled with things.”ESPNcricinfo LtdEarly last year Ronchi chose to retire from international cricket after the Champions Trophy. The decision was a catalyst for his transformation. From the day he told Mike Hesson, then New Zealand’s coach, of his plan, he was “just more relaxed going out to play,” he says. Even as a naturally aggressive player, Ronchi was affected by the strain of playing in high-octane matches, which cluttered his mind and therefore inhibited his performances.”When I was playing internationally I was trying too hard to do too much. I’m just going into games a lot more relaxed now, and a lot more carefree. From that I think I’ve performed a heck of a lot better.”Since the chat with Hesson, Ronchi has regarded his cricket as akin to a postscript to his main career. And so he has reconnected with the boy who used to belt balls without any thought of the consequences.”Franchise cricket is a lot more laid-back,” Ronchi says. “Because I guess international cricket takes such a toll on people that they get to this and want to be able to have a bit more fun and just be a bit more relaxed. For someone – like at my age – who has finished playing internationally, the franchise stuff is almost like a finishing off of a career where you can go out, you can have some fun, play some good cricket, meet some really good people, and still learn and try to improve your game. I see it as a completely different way of playing cricket compared to international cricket.”My mind is in a lot more calm state than it was for the majority of my career. So it’s been quite a nice feeling going to places, wherever they may be, and being nice and relaxed, and not worrying too much about what’s going to happen. Just going out and seeing the ball and trying to hit it, pretty much.”ESPNcricinfo LtdRonchi’s metamorphosis has not only been driven by his freed-up mindset. Teams are now routinely using him in what he considers the best place to bat in T20: as an opener. “There’s only two fielders out. You have a bit of fun.” In T20Is he opened once for Australia, in 2008, and once for New Zealand, in 2017, when he got a first-ball duck.Through his extraordinary run, he has stuck to a simple method. Preparing to walk out to bat, he tries to be “relaxed and calm, and just be nice and chilled in the changing room.”Ronchi has no preference on whether his side are batting first or chasing. “Either way, it’s whatever happens on the day, whatever the pitch is dictating – I’ll just go and do whatever.” If his team are batting first, he thinks about what might be a good score and relays that back to his team, though it changes little in his role.”Just react” is his mantra. “If I can’t hit a boundary, then you drop it down – a three, two, one. I look for a boundary first and then after that just get as many as I can.”Ronchi endeavours to pare T20 batsmanship back to its essence, freeing his mind from overly thinking about the situation in the match, what has come before or where a ball fits into a particular over. He laughs about the concept of hitting a boundary and then accepting a single next ball; effectively he treats every delivery the same. In keeping with his approach of simplifying the game, he eschews premeditated shots. “I play better when not thinking about what may come down and just reacting to whatever happens.”Ronchi hit a title-clinching 26-ball 52 for Islamabad United in the PSL final in March this year•AFP/Getty ImagesEarlier in his career Ronchi sometimes struggled with trying too hard to impose himself on the opposition, something that he has learned does not suit his game.”I’m not looking to slog. I’m trying to play my shots, or just react to what’s bowled,” he says. “If I try to whack the ball then I don’t hit the ball as well, so my best way of playing is just trying to time it, and then the better I time the ball, the better things work out. So I’m more of a timer of a cricket ball than a whacker.”Paradoxically, at the heart of his success is embracing failure. Ronchi understands that for batsmen failure is wired into T20. We speak the day after he has been dismissed for a duck in Guyana Amazon Warriors’ opening game of the Caribbean Premier League season, but he remains unperturbed.”My role – especially batting up at the top in T20 – is to try to get the team off to a bit of a flying start. Go out there and have a clear mind and just react to whatever is bowled to me. I’m either going to get out early on – like I did last night – or I’m going to get us off to a decent enough start.”Ronchi’s fundamental approach is not new, but his wholehearted embrace of what this requires is.”I’ve always had that sort of a mindset. But I think in the past I was more worried about mucking up, so I was trying to do too much in a short period of time. Once you think that way then then you’re actually going to fail more anyway, because you’re too tense and not relaxed. You’re not watching the ball, and all the basics of cricket that make you perform the way you want to perform. So now I’m a lot more relaxed going into my innings.”ESPNcricinfo LtdSuch late-blooming brilliance – Ronchi is 37 – has brought frustration to go with the fulfilment. “It’s probably more annoying that I didn’t have this mindset for the majority of my career. Because then you would have performed better, it wouldn’t have played on your mind as much.”Fear of failure can be debilitating for a T20 batsman, encouraging them to value their wicket too highly and so not score quickly enough. Ronchi has no such fear. And so he has the fastest strike rate over the first five balls, the first ten and in the Powerplay since the start of last year; he also has comfortably the fastest smart strike rate, ESPNcricinfo’s metric that compares individual strike rates with those of others at a specific point in a game.”When I’m performing well, I’m not really thinking anything. The clearer I am in my mind, the better things work out.”Attacking with such lack of inhibition from the opening ball means that Ronchi needs to face fewer deliveries to make a crucial impact. This is especially true when he plays in low-scoring leagues, like the Pakistan Super League and Bangladesh Premier League. In the CPL, Ronchi plays his home games at Providence Stadium, where the slow, turning tracks have resulted in the lowest ground average score – barely 140 – of anywhere in the world in the past two years. That means that, compared to batting on other grounds, here a player like Ronchi needs to face fewer balls and make fewer runs to shape the match.Still, he often bats for a lot more than a few balls. He has made a fifty once in every four innings since the start of 2017. In this year’s PSL, he made 435 runs – the most in the entire tournament – and hit five half-centuries in 11 innings, culminating with a 26-ball 52 to help Islamabad United win the final.”Once I get on a roll, I just keep it as simple as I possibly can, so that I know that in my own mind things are going quite well.”Role clarity and support from franchises has been at the heart of Ronchi’s success. He began this year’s PSL with scores of 3 and 0. But, according to Hassan Cheema, the manager of Islamabad, “We knew that no matter how poor a run of form he is in, he will play. We knew that the day he comes off, that’s a third of the game sorted for you. If you bowl and finish competently with a Ronchi onslaught, you’ll most probably win.”ESPNcricinfo LtdNot quite everyone agrees. Even as he has soared, the suspicion remains that Ronchi remains undervalued on the T20 circuit. He has not played in the IPL since five games for Mumbai Indians in 2008 and 2009, which now seem like a past life; Kolkata Knight Riders showed interest in Ronchi in this year’s auction, but he went unsold.”You just have to cop it on the chin,” he says. “I mean, everyone wants to go, and enjoys going, but if it doesn’t happen it doesn’t happen.”He was also released by Leicestershire despite having enjoyed a fine season in 2017. They preferred Cameron Delport, who has nothing like Ronchi’s recent T20 pedigree, instead, and failed to match their quarter-final performance of 2017. This ranks as a bewildering decision even if Ronchi is too modest to say as much.When he will finish up, he is not quite sure. His less arduous schedule, free of international cricket, allows far more time at home with his young family; outside of tournaments, he maintains a training regime but almost never picks up a bat. While batting with such insouciance and effect, there is no reason to contemplate retirement at all.”I’m just taking it as it comes. I don’t really want to put a time frame on it – ’cause then you’ve sort of extra goals.”Ronchi plays best when free of all the outside noise and he can just bat. His wonderful late-career transformation – from pub quiz trivia to among the leading T20 players in the world – is not done just yet.*All stats are up to date till the start of this season’s Caribbean Premier League

Even as a reckoning awaits CA and the Australian team on the culture front, public opinion of the banned players have already softened

Daniel Brettig22-May-2018Paul Kelly’s plaintive wish for redemption, , could almost have been written for Steven Smith, David Warner and Cameron Bancroft.Whether in Cape Town, Perth or Sydney, all carried the heavy weight of the Newlands ball-tampering scandal, with a governing body in Cricket Australia all too eager to turn the screw on the trio in order to contain any wider damage to the game in the weeks before signing a new broadcast rights deal. “They haven’t been charged by Cricket Australia for ball tampering,” the board’s chief executive James Sutherland said. “It relates to contrary to the spirit of the game, it relates to denigrating the game or having an impact on the reputation and image of the game, causing damage to the game, all of those things have quite clearly happened in a short space of time as a result of those actions.”

Smith, Warner in Fame top 10

Famous or infamous? The question hangs in the air above Steven Smith and David Warner as they both make ESPN Australia’s fame top 10 in the wake of a year that featured the Newlands ball-tampering scandal but also the regaining of the Ashes at home. Both will be eligible by the time the national team begins preparing for the 2019 Ashes and World Cup double; the question is whether Australian cricket will still be as needy for their talents as would appear the case right now.

Smith’s two airport tableaux, manhandled through O.R. Tambo International Airport in South Africa, then crying his eyes out at Kingsford Smith in Sydney, could not cease to stir the emotions of even the most cynical observer. If Warner’s visage attracted less sympathy, his words were more definitively bleak. “In the back of my mind I suppose there is a tiny ray of hope,” Warner said, “that I may one day be given the privilege of playing for my country again, but I am resigned to the fact that that may never happen.”Their actions at Newlands, as defined by CA’s comprehensive code of conduct charge sheet, were indefensible. Bancroft received some measure of leniency on account of his inexperience, but there was no such consideration for Smith and Warner. In a trice, Australia’s two best and most prominent cricketers were cast out of the game, with many more ramifications to follow CA’s judgment. First, a matter of hours after being handed their CA bans, they were culled from this year’s IPL. Sponsors deserted them, and fans both at home and abroad expressed their outrage in terms that grew increasingly shrill.Amid the public maelstrom and their private senses of turmoil, all pondered whether or not to take their CA charges and penalties to code of conduct hearings. Each player had grounds for doing so, and it may be a long time before further details of exactly what took place at Newlands, before and after Bancroft was seen roughing up the ball before trying to hide sandpaper down his trousers, emerge. But one by one, all chose to waive their right to this process, accepting the “umpire’s” verdict, however harsh it seemed, to allow the healing of their reputations to begin.Right now, a little less than two months later, much has already changed for Smith and Warner. They have returned, carefully, to the public eye – Smith announcing his arrival back home in Australia after a trip to the United States, Warner turning up doing community work in the Northern Territory. They are being offered all manner of opportunities to make their returns to the game, beyond the bounds of the ban on international and first-class cricket imposed on them by CA. And the public rhetoric around them has softened noticeably, a process that began when the national team coach Darren Lehmann resigned upon witnessing Smith’s tearful return home.In recent weeks, Lehmann’s successor Justin Langer has increased the level of verbal compassion, speaking of the Cape Town trio in terms of mistakes and learning. “They’ve made mistakes. We have all made mistakes and we can all get better,” he said. “David Warner made a mistake. Has he got areas to get better at? Yes. Has Steve Smith? Has Cameron Bancroft? Has every single person in Australian cricket? Yes. They have all got areas in we keep helping and mentoring them and if they meet the standards of the Australian cricket team, of course, they will be welcomed back.”Similar noises have emanated from Tim Paine, the man thrust into the captaincy. In a recent interview with , he even stated that the Australian team he now leads is still Smith and Warner’s – he is merely keeping the seat warm. “Once they’ve served their sanctions they’ll be welcomed back into our team with no issues whatsoever,” Paine said. “Everyone wants to move past South Africa. In a way, I see it as their team, and I want to do the right thing by them, but I also want to move our culture and behaviour forward and I want them to be part of it.”Sport, of course, is replete with stories of redemption. Google “sporting redemption” and click through any one of 459,000 results to see it. The comeback narrative is so deeply entrenched in sporting lore that it would feel oddly incomplete without such tales, whether they are played out to a glorious conclusion in the manner of the Boston Red Sox and Chicago Cubs breaking their long droughts without ultimate baseball success, or left hanging on the many what-ifs of, say, Greg Norman at the Masters. This sense of desire for a happy ending is key to understanding how Smith and Warner may yet find themselves back on the dais of cricketing success, surrounded by teammates who, in the horrid days immediately after the Newlands Test, found themselves very much at odds with Warner in particular.But there is also a pragmatic element to much of the warming rhetoric and sense of change. CA, having pushed the issue from bad publicity to investigation, charge and acceptance of sanctions in little more than two weeks – compare that to the Essendon AFL drugs scandal which dragged on for years – wants a rejuvenated image for the game and the national team. The sport’s new Australian broadcasters, and , want viewers in their many hundreds of thousands, and the strong returns of Warner and Smith can only add to those figures. Fox’s part owners at News Corporation want to sell newspapers and digital subscriptions, something far more likely to happen as followers are drawn into the long road back for the former captain and his deputy. And supporters of the game wish to feel good about it again, after all the opprobrium of March and April.A reckoning still awaits CA and the national team, in terms of the way the organisation has been run in recent times, and the way in which the men clad in the baggy green had built up plenty of ill will among opponents over numerous years of caustic behaviour on the field. Both elements are the subject of separate reviews, expected to report back to CA before the start of next summer. With questions having already been asked about the links between CA and both organisations carrying out these reviews, the release of any kind of “whitewash” style findings would likely send the board back into the realms of disrepute, even as Warner and Smith slowly return to the game after serving their punishments.What’s likely, however, is that Smith and Warner find themselves welcomed back into the fold, if for no other reason than the fact that Australia’s cricket team will struggle to secure the desired results – overseas in particular – without the runs they can provide. When their playing bans expire in March 2019, it will be a matter of weeks before the start of the 50-over World Cup, and a matter of months before the Ashes tour that follows it. These assignments loom as the moments when, unlike the forlorn figure in Kelly’s song, Smith and Warner will get their chance to start today again.

The absence of Kohli has thrown up some room for experimentation with an eye on the World Cup

Aakash Chopra17-Sep-2018In the last few years, India’s 50-over success has been scripted by their top three. Rohit Sharma, Shikhar Dhawan and Virat Kohli are among the finest top-order batsmen in 50-overs cricket. All of them have the ability to negate the new-ball threat (in all conditions) and bat deep into the innings, once set. Since 2016, in 51 matches they have made nearly 65% of the total runs scored by India in ODI cricket. Pakistan’s top three are second best on this metric, with 54%. India’s top three also average 64 runs per match between them, while England’s top three, the second best in this regard, average 50 runs.ESPNcricinfo LtdWhen one or two of the top three scores 50-plus each for India, the team’s win percentage shoots up to over 70%. And when none of them do, India lose 57% of their matches (four out of seven). This underlines these batsmen’s influence on the outcome of India’s ODI matches. It amounts to an over-reliance on them that must be addressed before the World Cup starts next year.ESPNcricinfo LtdVery often India’s top three take the team total to 170 runs in the first 30 overs but still India seldom end with 325-plus after 50 overs. India’s batting moves at almost the same pace right through the course of 50 overs, and while they still manage to make enough runs to beat most opponents, it feels like they are underachieving, since the stage seemed set for them to score 20-30 runs more.While Kohli’s absence considerably weakens the team, it also provides one final opportunity to identify the players who can be persisted with to solve the middle-order question ahead of the World Cup. In order to fulfil this objective, the selectors must not try to fill Kohli’s spot with an opener, because that’s not the area of concern; ideally, they should pick someone who is in the running for the No. 4 spot in the XI.ESPNcricinfo LtdHere’s a possible playing XI that can look to address some long-term problems.Rohit and Dhawan at the top
There’s no argument about these two opening. Not only do both complement each other, they are also runaway match-winners in their own right. Just that in Kohli’s absence, they won’t have the luxury to be too adventurous at the start of the innings, for one of them must bat till the 30th over. Also, it’ll be interesting to see if their approach changes significantly when there isn’t the cushion of Kohli walking out at 3.Ambati Rayudu at three, Dinesh Karthik at four
Rayudu averages 50 in ODI cricket, and that in isolation must make you wonder why he was dropped in the first place. But a closer look at the stats will tell you that the average is inflated because of the number of times he has remained unbeaten. The fact that his strike rate is 76 and not in the high 90s isn’t ideal for someone batting lower down the order. His impressive IPL returns brought him back into contention, but it shouldn’t be lost on the team that the majority of those runs came as an opener. He has improved his attacking play against pace in addition to his competence against spin. But since he isn’t your ideal finisher, it would be wise to let him audition for a place in the middle order by batting him in Kohli’s place.Karthik has been around forever but the consensus is that he hasn’t batted as well as he is batting now, and though he has managed to finish some games in T20 cricket, it might be ideal to keep him as an option for No. 4. Like Rayudu, he is also a touch player, and that’s never ideal for someone who bats regularly in the last ten overs.MS Dhoni at five

In Kohli’s absence, there’s more focus on Dhoni’s role and responsibility of not just holding the middle order together but also finishing some games. While his IPL returns suggested that he has turned back the clock, the limited-overs leg of the England tour hinted otherwise. I’d like him to bat at five and use the Asia Cup to find a role that’s best suited for him at this stage of his career. Dhoni has been vocal about his preference for batting at four, but having your most experienced players in the top four positions is a disaster waiting to happen. Also, batting in the lower order, against the old ball and with fewer field restrictions, is the tougher pursuit in ODI batting, and it would be grossly unfair to have only the younger lot lift that load.Kedar Jadhav at six, Hardik Pandya at seven
These are the two allrounders who need to bowl a few overs and play the role of finishers. For the longest time, India went in with only five bowling options – Pandya being the fifth. But while his bowling has improved, he’s not your ideal fifth bowler in any white-ball cricket. Even Mumbai Indians have him as one of six options. Also, not having a sixth bowling option doesn’t allow you a cushion if one of the lead five has a bad day, which happens every now and then.Jadhav’s style of bowling ought not to work in international cricket (it doesn’t in List-A and IPL either), but somehow it does in ODIs. He has taken 19 wickets in 130 List-A matches and 16 of those have come at the highest level. His batting isn’t all about power, which is considered a must to succeed in the last ten overs, but somehow he has made that work too.The rest
Playing four bowlers, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Jasprit Bumrah, Kuldeep Yadav and Yuzvendra Chahal, is a straightforward choice, but Bumrah’s workload will need to be monitored right through the tournament. He bowled a lot of overs in the three Tests he played in England, and the heat of the UAE will be unrelenting. It would be wise to play Khaleel Ahmed in both league games. Also, playing Axar Patel in place of Kuldeep or Chahal in the opening game against Hong Kong wouldn’t be a bad option, for he’s unlikely to get too many games leading up to the World Cup.

India women’s 3-0 whitewash at the hands of New Zealand women in the T20Is exposed the chronic infirmity of their batting line-up

Annesha Ghosh11-Feb-2019Harmanpreet’s parched run leaves Mandhana fighting forlornlySmriti Mandhana, currently the best batsman in the Indian side, said after the side’s loss in the series opener, that her batting through 20 overs is the “best [tactical] option” at the team’s disposal to avoid recurrent collapses. On “good [batting] tracks”, as underlined by Mandhana herself, India weren’t able to post 160 even once, despite her 58, 36, and 86, and contributions from the young Jemimah Rodrigues. The inexperience of the rest of the line-up aside, India’s dismal show with the bat was, in part, down to the underwhelming returns of their most explosive batsman and captain, Harmanpreet Kaur.India’s over-reliance on Harmanpreet in the shortest format isn’t novel. In the 14 T20Is that India have surpassed 150, Harmanpreet has made 30 or more nine times, including three 60-plus scores and a ton. Their second highest tally, 194, was largely down to Harmanpreet’s 103, the highest T20I score by an Indian woman.But having finished 2018 as the world’s second-highest run-getter, in India’s first assignment in 2019, she tallied her lowest in a three-match bilateral series, with 24 runs.Her underwhelming returns in New Zealand denied Mandhana, the top-scorer in the series, the support she needed from her fellow Indian recruit in the KSL and WBBL. More tellingly, it handed Harmanpreet a second 3-0 whitewash in the format since she took over as full-time captain.SOS Raj?With her unbeaten 20-ball 24, at No. 5, in the third T20I , Mithali Raj may not have put herself in pole position to reclaim her place as opener in T20Is. But India’s most experienced batsman did enough to bolster a case for her inclusion as a floater in a crippling middle order. In any case, by her own admission, that was how Harmanpreet envisaged using Raj in the World T20 opener, in which she was removed from the opening slot, but retained in the side.In the T20I series against New Zealand, so thin and unreliable did India’s middle-order resources appear, that opener Mandhana and No. 3 Rodrigues accounted for nearly 75% of the 421 runs India scored off the bat, making a combined 312 runs in six innings. The only semblance of resistance from the middle order came in the game Raj batted in, albeit at No. 5. In the first two T20Is, they squandered brisk starts provided by Mandhana and Rodrigues, losing nine for 34 in the first T20I upon Mandhana’s dismissal, and managing only 64 (Rodrigues made 40 of those herself) in 10.2 overs for the loss of five wickets after Mandhana fell in the second T20I.It’s something to consider for Harmanpreet: should her move to back young players leading up to the 2020 T20 World Cup come at the expense of overlooking the buoyancy Raj’s experience offers, or the security that comes with the conventionality of her strokeplay? Both may help calm the nerves in a young line-up that, more often than not, has been guilty of imploding due to cavalier shot selection.Mithali Raj glances one fine down the leg side•IDI via Getty ImagesUnder-utilised, slipping under the radarMuch like their opponents, India seem to be unsure of how best to deal with allrounder Deepti Sharma. Since January 2018, Deepti, the bowler, has consistently upset opponents’ plans, taking 21 wickets in 22 T20I innings. India, however, have struggled to draw up a plan for Deepti, the batsman. In the 12 T20I innings she’s batted (in 21 completed matches), she’s slotted in five times at Nos 6 and 7, twice at Nos. 8 and 9, five times at Nos 3, 4 and 5, but never opened for India.Deepti, however, has played anchor to great effect, as an opener, for her domestic side Bengal over the past two seasons. Her ODI and T20I career strike rates are 64 and 93 respectively, but under pressure, she’s capable of using her feet and clearing the rope, as evinced in the crucial 71-m six she hit, six balls into her innings during India’s chase in the third T20I.Rodrigues has only once been used as an opener in T20Is since her debut last year, and with Priya Punia, who earned her maiden T20I call on the back of her in domestic cricket, amassing nine runs as an opener in the three matches, India could consider opening with two left-handers in Mandhana and Deepti. The punt could, in turn, open up a spot for an extra bowler, in particular the allrounder Shikha Pandey, who, after being left out of the World T20 squad, played all three ODIs but sat out all three T20Is against New Zealand.

Our missing XI is full of men who can keep wicket, with proven hitting prowess and a strong bowling attack to boot

ESPNcricinfo staff25-Apr-2019The missing XI from the 2019 World Cup, as voted by ESPNcricinfo readers•ESPNcricinfo LtdRishabh Pant was the table-topper from across sides, polling in over 36200 votes at last count, and Chris Morris tallied the highest percentage of votes (62%) for any player. Peter Handscomb and Mohammad Amir were up there too, both unanimously the most hard done by in fans’ opinion. Jofra Archer, who is yet to play an international, was seen by 57% of fans as England’s most high-profile omission, but could yet make the final 15 if he shines in his debut series against Pakistan. And Kieron Pollard, who hasn’t played an ODI since 2016 but is still producing the goods in the ongoing IPL, was the most voted West Indies star. Sunil Narine, also a part of this XI, had been forced out of West Indies’ provisional World Cup plans due to a torn ligament in his right middle finger that has limited the amount of certain deliveries he can bowl in a spell. Narine has been advised rest and rehabilitation once his involvement in the IPL ends.The common theme that emerged across teams is the hardships of being a reserve wicketkeeper. Among our missing XI, Pant and Handscomb were deemed surplus to requirements, and they are just two of three keepers in a line-up that also featured Niroshan Dickwella.

Trent Woodhill, who coached Australia’s Ashes colossus early in his career, talks about why unconventional approaches are harder to get away with down under than elsewhere.

ESPNcricinfo staff18-Sep-2019As a coach, seeing Steven Smith when he was very young, I was always just amazed at his capacity and the joy he derived from batting. Nothing surprises me about his prolific run in Test cricket. He was always talented, he was always successful.His biggest challenge, even back then, was being able to maintain his technique in the face of others not understanding how it works. Young players need protection from both themselves and others who don’t like difference. A cricket dressing room can be a brutal place for a young player, who might be forced to conform – more so in Australia than any other country I’ve been in. In Australia we struggle with things that are different. We like a sexy Shaun Marsh thirty, made with a conventional, attractive technique, rather than an unconventional Steven Smith hundred.If Steven was Indian, his technique and mechanics and the strategy around his batting would just be accepted. We see Kohli, Gavaskar, [Rohit] Sharma, Ganguly, Sehwag – all these players have unique techniques. The Indian system is all about output, about scoring runs, “We don’t care how you do it as long as you do it”, whereas in Australia we wanted you to score well and we wanted you to look good. I recently had a Facebook conversation with Greg Chappell about top-hand dominance. I’ve never had a conversation with an Indian cricketer about top-hand dominance.That’s all in-built in a conservative cricketing nation. Other nations just find a way to accommodate such players. Like a Rashid Khan, who holds the ball like an offspinner but bowls legspin, an Anil Kumble – seam-up, wristspin, predominantly wrong’un. Australian cricket likes to pass the baton on: this is how you do it, this is how it’s always been done. Steven’s come along, and to some extent, David Warner’s come along and said, ‘No, we’re gonna do it this way now’, and they’ve had a lot of success.His bowling is a good way of looking at where his batting could have gone. To me, young Steven was an Anil Kumble-style, Rashid Khan-style bowler, with unconventional technique, who used to run in, was all right-sided, all right shoulder. But he was accurate, spun the ball, had a really good wrong’un, bowled a flipper. But then the Terry Jenners of the world, the spin doctors, got involved, and had a theory that everybody had to bowl like Shane Warne. Likewise, when it came to batting, it was a cookie-cutter mentality. If you want to succeed, you had to bat like Greg Chappell, Allan Border, Steve Waugh, Ricky Ponting, Michael Clarke. This mentality has been to Australian cricket’s detriment. Unconventional techniques and uniqueness should be celebrated, and young coaches and players should work out what style suits them.Jacques Kallis and Damien Martyn were unbelievable off-side players. They could have no leg-side play and still score at an amazing strike rate because they were that good on the off side. VVS Laxman, Mohammad Azharuddin, Steven Smith and Virat Kohli are all unbelievable leg-side players. That doesn’t mean their off-side game is not good. It’s just working out where your dominance lies.With someone like Steven, I saw him and went, “Wow, I don’t really understand this. But, I know that it works, so I need to understand why it works, so that I can help if something goes wrong.”The old guard, the older Test greats, still can’t understand how it works. So they still think, especially bowlers, “Well, if I was bowling, I’d sort this guy out.” And that’s the thing with cricket, especially in England and Australia: “If I can’t understand how it looks, it can’t work.” Steven has proven them wrong. He’s the best since Bradman; this is not even an argument anymore.He was a little bit fortunate that in Peter Smith, his father, he had a really good mentor in terms of his batting. When I came along, it was all about protecting what Peter and Steven had created. Then he moved to Michael DiVenuto [Australia’s batting coach at one time] from around 2012. Diva taught him about day-to-day batting, getting up, getting better, how to graft out an innings, how to take down bowling day in, day out, to the point where, when Diva left, Steven became the best coach of himself, and he understands his game better than anyone else does, including all of us.Someone just told me that Steven has scored 17% of his runs in the V between mid-off and mid-on since 2013, which is unusual compared to most conventional batsmen. I’d like to know Viv Richards’ stats for runs in the V. As a coach, I feel playing straight is overrated. If you play with a straight bat in England consistently, and if you take [seriously] that old adage of playing in the V early on, you’ll nick off for fun. The ball moves too much.

The old guard, the older Test greats, still can’t understand how [Smith’s technique] works. So they still think, especially bowlers, ‘Well, if I was bowling, I’d sort this guy out.’

I think players that are able to target the square boundaries to balls of all lengths are the players that are going to have the most success, especially in England, and in India as well, where the ball doesn’t bounce so much. It’s so difficult to beat the bowler, mid-off and mid-on by playing straight, and not only that, the ball only has to move an inch and you’re out. Or you play and miss. That stat backs up why Steven Smith is successful – it’s because he doesn’t play in the V.In England or Australia, targeting the top of off stump is always spoken of by bowlers and teams; I’d set up batsmen to dominate balls targeting top of off. That’s where IPL and T20 cricket has come to the fore. In the early days of the IPL, you could bowl top of off stump and trouble certain batsmen. Now batsmen are set up to hit those balls, whether it’s with a front-foot pull or a back-foot slash-drive or cut over cover.I see a lot of similarities between Kane Williamson, Virat Kohli and Steven. They all have the ability to change their grip on the bat without it affecting their performance. In my experience with all the great players around, whenever there’s a slight grip change, it affects them massively. But those three guys, they are able to change their grip depending on what format they are playing. And I think that’s because their focus isn’t so much on convention but to go with what works for them.Somewhere along the line, in Australian and English cricket, the word “technique” was embedded into the commentary, the preparation, the coaching, the senior players. The beauty of something like the IPL is that it has changed that chat. Because the cricketing world has come closer together, there’s more conversation between players of unbelievable talent across nationalities, and the focus is now on performance.I don’t think England bowled well to Steven this Ashes. I agree with Nasser Hussain: to Steven, you have to bowl full, fifth stump – not fourth stump, not top of fourth stump – with an off-side field. That’s the best way, if you want to be conventional. They could have gone to more white-ball bowling to him with defensive fields as well. Players like Kohli and Smith like to set the batting tempo, they like bat on ball, as good as they are at letting the ball go. But there’s a rhythm that they like to play red-ball cricket in, so you should try and take that rhythm away from them. In the first Test, in Birmingham, they focused on Nos. 10 and 11, rather than bowling to Steven. So he got away. They kept bowling in the channel to him and he was able to score easily. That was the time they should have bowled a lot more slower balls.And later on in the series, Jofra Archer bowling change-ups, bowling three of those an over to Steven, just so he couldn’t get into rhythm, would have been worth a go. It doesn’t mean you’ll get him out right away, but you’re affecting his rhythm. I think Jasprit Bumrah would be a good match-up with Steven, when they face off in Tests next year in Australia.Listen to the podcast with Trent Woodhill here

The World Cup’s underdogs came in as fan favourites, but what they really wanted to do was win games. That didn’t happen

Jarrod Kimber06-Jul-2019Someone shot at Shapoor Zadran.Hazratullah Zazai was a Chris Gayle fan who worked nights as a cellphone-tower security guard, watching YouTube.Mohammad Nabi’s father was kidnapped.Taj Malik walked across the Durand line to spread cricket at home.Hillary Clinton said, “I might suggest that if we are searching for a model of how to meet tough international challenges with skill, dedication and teamwork, we need only look to the Afghan national cricket team.”Afghanistan are the good-news story of sport. Everyone wants to see them do well. They bring joy.Gulbadin Naib brings happiness to everyone who watches him. He is probably one of the least naturally gifted players at this World Cup, but he wills himself to be better. In a nation of barely fit players, he’s an Adonis; in a team of supremely skilled players, he’s a worker. His team comprises many unicorns, and he’s the pack horse. He has been in and out of the team, struggling for every chance, since he represented his country as a teenager in the World Cricket League Division Five in Jersey over a decade ago. Every day Gulbadin gives everything he has. It may not be enough, but it is all he has. After the team’s last game of this World Cup, against West Indies, he said, “I am here for Afghanistan, for my team. I give 100% for my team and country.”But they are not here to make cricket fans feel good, they are here to win. They are also cricketers, and while it is tempting to say they have won just by being here, that is not how they feel. They wear their patriotism heavier than most; every run, wicket and catch is a chance to honour their magnificent nation.And their story of this World Cup is that they have not won a game.That hurts them as professional cricketers, but more as Afghans. They did not come here to be your new favourite team, they came to win.

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Khushal Khan Khattak was an Afghan legend. He was a poet and a chief who fought for the Khattak tribe. To this day he is the ideal of man and leader for many Pashtuns of Afghanistan. They like their men strong, smart and fearless. They wouldn’t follow anyone who wasn’t.The leader of this team is not like that, and that is because in April they axed Asghar Afghan as captain. Asghar was in charge when they won their first Test and when they qualified for this tournament. But they let him go, and in his place was Gulbadin.The reason given by the board at the time included this baffling quote: “The World Cup provides us with the opportunity to play against nine Full Members. So we thought it is a good time to introduce change in leadership.” It seemed they mistook the World Cup for an internship.Afghanistan have big-hitters and allrounders, but they need players who can get stuck in for the long innings and make hundreds•Getty ImagesThe leadership question also became a public conflict between head coach Phil Simmons and former selector Dawlat Ahmadzai. During the tournament the board demoted Ahmadzai to a junior selector. Simmons has said he’ll soon air the truth about Asghar’s sacking.Two players have been sent home from this tournament. Mohammad Shahzad returned because of injury, after Afghanistan proved to the ICC that he wasn’t fit. Now, you could make the claim Shahzad has never been fit – his knees are not great, and he has never been in peak professional shape. But despite that he is also their all-time leading run scorer and their wicketkeeper. He found out when the ICC announced his replacement in a press release.The board suggest he had a mild anterior cruciate ligament strain. Shahzad says he would have been fine in two or three days according to the doctor. And since then has said, “If they don’t want me to play, I will quit cricket.”ALSO READ: The curious case of Phil SimmonsThen they lost another player, Aftab Alam, under circumstances that remain unclear but are understood to constitute a clear breach of disciplinary codes.As a team, they also had a run-in in a restaurant in Manchester where the team was allegedly upset at being filmed by other patrons. Nothing came of it, but the Manchester police released a statement and made enquiries.Their fans have also been in trouble. At the Pakistan game, several jumped over the fence to get into the ground, and there were also some clashes in the stands and a crowd invasion after the match finished.That’s quite a few weeks.***Rashid Khan is staring out at deep midwicket the way superstars stare at averagely talented players who make mistakes. There is genuine disdain in his eyes. As he travels around the world dominating T20 leagues, he usually sees fielding of a far higher standard than this.Dawlat Zadran has just dropped Eoin Morgan. It is an easy catch on the boundary from a top edge, and Zadran also lets it run away for four. Until then, Morgan had scored 28 from 25, with eight from six off Rashid. After that he scores 120 from 52 balls, and 50 from 14 just off Rashid. This tournament Afghanistan have taken 2.8 catches for every drop (only Pakistan have been worse). And that doesn’t count the huge array of skied balls their fielders haven’t got near.