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The Blue Jays are signing starting pitcher Dylan Cease to a seven-year, $210 million contract, according to a report from ESPN's Jeff Passan.

The soon-to-be 30-year-old Cease was one of the most sought-after arms on the market this winter. Just two years after striking out on a frontline starter in Shohei Ohtani, the Blue Jays have struck big time with Cease.

Last season, Cease went just 8–12 with a 4.55 ERA in 168.0 innings pitched. However, Toronto is banking on the former Cy Young runner-up returning to form to help solidify the starting rotation.

The Blue Jays went 94–68 last season and lost to the Dodgers in Game 7 of the World Series. Toronto is expected to be in the mix in the American League pennant race once again in 2026 with Cease figuring to be a major part of the rotation.

Shohei Ohtani took the mound at Angel Stadium for the first time in nearly two years, pitching into the fifth inning for the first time this season in the Dodgers' 6-5 loss to the Angels on Wednesday night. And a return to the pitching rubber at his old stomping grounds meant Ohtani faced off against some old friends, such as three-time American league MVP Mike Trout, whom he struck out twice.

It also meant that Ohtani took the time to reflect on being back in the ballpark he called home for the better part of his first six big league seasons.

And while it wasn't surprising to see Ohtani looks back fondly on Angel Stadium, it was perhaps a bit surprising to see just how highly he spoke of the park.

"I had a lot of good memories being in this stadium," Ohtani told MLB.com. "It’s one of my favorite stadiums to play in. So it was a really important mark for me to be able to pitch on this mound again."

At face value, Ohtani saying that Angel Stadium was one of his favorite stadiums to play in isn't too surprising. But when you consider the general perception of the park, his high praise becomes a bit more surprising.

While Angel Stadium has good weather and sunshine on its side, its close proximity to highways, apartment complexes and parking lots dampens the vibe just a bit—and earned it a ranking of 23rd out of 30 ballparks in stadium rankings for the 2025 season.

Stadium nostalgia aside, Ohtani's Dodgers were swept by the Angels in the season series, which spanned six games. So admittedly, his club has bigger fish to fry, namely its upcoming series with the now-first place San Diego Padres.

But it's always fun to restart a conversation about which MLB ballparks are—and maybe aren't—the best.

The first family of Chicago sports has grown by one.

Cubs shortstop Dansby Swanson and Chicago Stars forward Mallory Swanson have welcomed their first daughter, they announced in a Friday evening Instagram post.

"Josie James Swanson," the Swansons wrote in a joint Instagram post, accompanied by a black-and-white photo of the family holding hands. "We love you more than you’ll ever know babygirl."

The couple has been together since 2017, when her brother-in-law—then-Braves utilityman Jace Peterson—introduced them. They married in 2022, and have both since made their way to Chicago—Dansby signed with the Cubs in Dec. 2022, while the then-Red Stars acquired Mallory a year prior.

Mallory, who owns 23 goals in four seasons with the Stars, missed the 2025 NWSL season due to her pregnancy. Dansby, meanwhile, slashed .244/.300/.417 with 24 home runs and 77 RBIs for a palyoff Cubs team.

That's to say: Josie will have no shortage of name recognition should she pursue a career in the Chicago sports world.

At the Christchurch ground ravaged by the 2011 earthquake, only memories remain of what was once the city’s sporting hub

Karthik Krishnaswamy07-Mar-2020The ghosts of long-gone landmarks hover around certain neighbourhoods. To get to where I grew up in Chennai, for example, you would get off at a bus stop named Liberty, and walk past a handful of businesses named Liberty, but the movie theatre that gave the neighbourhood its name no longer exists. Similarly, on a larger scale, Majestic in Bengaluru.It’s my last day in New Zealand and I’m in Waltham, an inner suburb of Christchurch, standing next to a used-car dealership named Stadium Cars. Not far away is a sports bar called the Final Whistle.Both are a cricket or rugby ball’s throw away from what used to be Lancaster Park, which was the home of both sports in Christchurch, more or less, from 1881 until its demolition in the wake of extensive damage suffered during the February 2011 earthquake.This was where New Zealand played their first Test match, back in 1930. Sir Richard Hadlee, New Zealand’s greatest cricketer and Christchurch through and through, took more wickets here than anywhere else – 76 in 14 Tests, at 21.51, including six five-wicket hauls. One of them, a match-winning, series-levelling 6 for 50 in March 1987, ensured West Indies never won a series in New Zealand in the 1980s, a decade in which they won everywhere else.Richard Hadlee appeals, fruitlessly, in the only Christchurch Test in which he went wicketless•Karthik Krishnaswamy/ESPNcricinfo LtdA photograph of Hadlee, appealing desperately for a wicket against England in 1988 – his only wicketless Test in Christchurch, ironically – is part of a line-up of pictures on the fence around the levelled ground that was once Lancaster Park. There’s also one of the All Blacks legend Richie McCaw playing for the Crusaders, one of Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip visiting the ground in 1963, and one from a Bon Jovi concert.There’s a gate around the corner, and all you see when you peer through the bars is acres of flat, grey wasteland. In which direction, you wonder, did Nathan Astle hit Andrew Caddick for those two massive sixes that ended up on the roof during his incredible 168-ball 222 in 2002?An aerial photograph of the stadium a little distance away doesn’t answer that question, but it contains an incredible level of detail, and you can point, pretty much, to the spot you’re standing at right now. This is where the Lancaster Park Memorial Gates, built in 1924 to commemorate athletes from the province of Canterbury who served in WWI, still stand, and will continue to stand even as redevelopment takes place around them.The building opposite the Memorial Gates still looks as it does in the photograph. It houses Leon’s on Lancaster, a café that its current owner, Leon Yee, has run with his mother Patricia for at least 15 years, and whose previous owner, Yee thinks, had had it for about as long.All that’s left of Lancaster Park now is grey wasteland, but plans are afoot to develop it into fields for cricket, rugby and football•Karthik Krishnaswamy/ESPNcricinfo LtdYee has read about Lancaster Park’s history, and knows of the time during WWII when it became a potato farm for a few years. He has made an effort to retain the old-school vibe of the café, and its walls are full of old Coke ads and rugby photographs. Out in front, above the sunroof, is a sign advertising a Christchurch cookie company; its mascot plays cricket on one side and rugby on the other.”Originally it used to be a bakery, then turned into a lunch bar, and then sort of like a dairy-lunch bar, and I turned it into a lunch bar-café,” Yee says.The earthquake ravaged much of the neighbourhood, but the café remained standing.”Just, everything shook, and yeah, a little liquefaction from this corner and over on that side,” Yee says, pointing to various neighbouring plots. “I had no problems. Because it’s an old building on piles, wooden ones, it just flexes. Not like a concrete foundation. I haven’t really checked properly underneath, but the EQC [Earthquake Commission] people, they had a look and said it’s fine.”Two houses down from the café is an empty lot that serves as an informal parking zone. You see these all over the city, apart from more visible reminders of the earthquake such as the ravaged façade of the Christchurch Cathedral.”There was a lot of industrial [buildings] and offices around here,” Yee says of the area around Lancaster Park. “Everything’s eroding still, a little bit. They haven’t really fixed everything around here, because there’s other priorities in the city, I suppose.”Leon’s, run by Leon Yee and his mother Patricia, weathered the earthquake that Lancaster Park didn’t•Karthik Krishnaswamy/ESPNcricinfo LtdA lunchtime queue from nearby businesses has come and gone, and I ask Yee how his enterprise has changed with no more sport at Lancaster Park.”I get free weekends,” he says. “I used to open up on the weekends – any events on, concerts, rugby, cricket.”Cricket was always good, because [it was on] sometimes during the week as well. Cricket [was] probably the best crowd, actually. People used to come over, it would be summer, so they’d get drinks and everything.”According to the Christchurch City Council, the site of Lancaster Park will be redeveloped and opened “for public recreational use”, with fields for rugby, football and cricket, as well as “informal, public open space and landscaped areas that reflect on the rich history of the park”.Yee suggests this will give the ground something of its original character, before stands came up all around it and turned it into a 36,000-seater stadium.”Not a big stadium, just embankments,” he says. “Going back to probably what it originally used to be. Might have to go back to work on the weekends, might have to give up golf!”And then, perhaps, the ghosts of Lancaster Park will be ghosts no more.

And who opens with Saeed Anwar? Our panelists discuss in the latest episode of Dream Team

Sreshth Shah03-Aug-202041:19

We pick a post-1990 Pakistan Test XI

In this episode of , Osman Samiuddin, Danyal Rasool and Ahmer Naqvi put their heads together to find Pakistan’s greatest Test XI since 1990. Watch to find out if your favourites make the cut.6:21

Shoaib Akhtar or Waqar Younis?

Nothing shouts “1990s Pakistan” like the image of Wasim Akram and Waqar Younis delivering toe crushers in tandem. If their pace and wiles aren’t enough, throw in Shoaib Akhtar with his menacing speed, and the wristy magic of Mohammad Asif. Spare a thought also for Mohammad Zahid, whose brief career was good enough to earn praise from even Brian Lara. Plenty of contenders, but only three make it. Decisions, decisions.5:34

Fingerspinner or wristspinner?

Saqlain Mushtaq was at one point in this era the second-best spinner in the world. In the mid-90s, Mushtaq Ahmed was outstanding in England, New Zealand and Australia. Saeed Ajmal was a late bloomer, making his Test debut at 32, but swiftly rising to become one of the best offspinners of his generation. Danish Kaneria was great at his peak. And Yasir Shah has alternated between sensational and downright ordinary. Plenty of arguments to make for all five. Who do the pick as their chosen one?9:03

Does Babar Azam make it in the middle order?

Younis Khan provided Pakistan their batting backbone in the 2000s. Mohammad Yousuf once scored 1788 Test runs in a calendar year. Inzamam-ul-Haq’s claims cannot be ignored. Misbah-ul-Haq surprised you whenever you weren’t expecting it. Ijaz Ahmed and Azhar Ali are what people call underrated. Asad Shafiq has Sobers-like numbers at No. 6. And of course, there’s Babar Azam, who’s on his way to greatness. Which four from this lot make the team?More Dream Teams

The LPL doesn’t need to be an overwhelming success as long as it provides a foundation to return year-on-year

Andrew Fidel Fernando25-Nov-2020It seems almost ludicrous now, but between 2009 and 2014 no T20 team was more dynamic than Sri Lanka. Their win/loss record during those five years (34 wins, 19 losses) was comfortably the best in the world. In World T20 tournaments, they were the most dominant, making three finals in four campaigns, before winning in 2014.And there was an innovative magic here. A sense that as even Tillakaratne Dilshan reverse-slapped his way through the powerplay, or Ajantha Mendis bewitched an opposition top order, yet more adventure lay in wait. Often it did. Rangana Herath, though almost rigidly orthodox on the surface, would make abrupt appearances in must-win games to wrestle oppositions to the ground. Test-match fields (short leg, slip, leg slip) and would be transposed so exactly on to a T20 field, it felt like the whole stadium had entered a fever dream. Sri Lanka were not unbeatable, but damn were they good. And man were they good to watch.ALSO READ: LPL 2020 ready for take-off – powered by stars, riding the crest of chaosHow much they have slipped in six years. Sri Lanka would have had to qualify for this year’s T20 World Cup, had it been played in October as originally scheduled. Since the start of 2017, they have lost twice as many T20 matches as they have won, and a good portion of even these victories were built upon the bowling of Lasith Malinga, who has increasingly seemed a weathered monument to the golden age. In too many matches, Sri Lanka are not only outgunned on paper, they are also out-scrapped, and – here is the clearest sign of decline for a Sri Lanka side – out-thought.That Sri Lanka’s domestic cricket is poor preparation for international cricket is known, but of the three formats, none has been so wantonly neglected as T20. In some years – as in 2018 – Sri Lanka Cricket has organised club-based T20 tournament contested by as many as 23 teams, meaning no fewer than 243 players featured in each round. The result was a competition of embarrassingly diluted quality.In years in which more of an effort has been made, the pinnacle T20 competition has been a hastily dashed together “provincial tournament” in which 60 players are more-or-less haphazardly funnelled into four teams. When these tournaments happen, they last less than two weeks. While almost every other major league in the world, from the Caribbean Premier League to New Zealand’s Super Smash has grown in either length, quality or both, Sri Lanka has persisted with what are essentially glorified intra-squad practice matches of vanishingly modest benefit to both board and players. Overseas, the likes of Jasprit Bumrah, Shadab Khan, Adam Zampa, Evin Lewis, Hardik Pandya and Tom Banton have built careers on the back of T20 league performances. In Sri Lanka, national selectors have largely ignored the results of whatever competition had been cobbled together that year.The Sri Lankan team lifts the World T20 trophy•ICCThat Sri Lanka will finally get a T20 franchise tournament off the ground in 2020 of all years, epitomises the nation’s cricket. Baffling as it is that it has taken this long for a franchise tournament to be attempted, there is also appreciation of the slap-dash brilliance in having organised one in the year a pandemic rips across the planet.There must also be managed expectations, however. The Lanka Premier League will not suddenly undo years of active harm on the domestic cricket front. This league is only 21 days long, has a hectic schedule with double-headers on most days, and will all take place on a single ground. Teams have had practically no time to prepare and plan, and the best on-paper side – Colombo Kings – only got their coach in the week before their first match. Many foreign players may be walking straight out of quarantine into their first match. And the tournament is almost certain to lose money.But then, so what? The first rains after a drought don’t have to bring a downpour. That such a tournament is even starting is enough, for now. Sri Lanka stood on the brink of T20 oblivion, driving bullock carts while other teams rode bullet trains, the format’s data revolution having almost totally passed them by. Now, finally, the island’s cricket is being invested in – franchise owners hailing from as far afield as Canada and the United States, in addition to UAE, Pakistan and India.Whatever its cricketing quality, there are two areas in which the tournament cannot compromise. It cannot be tainted with corruption, for starters. Not only has Sri Lankan cricket been subject to a substantial anti-corruption investigation over the last five years, SLC’s previous T20 franchise tournament – 2012’s Sri Lanka Premier League – had been riddled with credible corruption allegations, which led to the downfall of that league after a single iteration. Second, it is vital that cricketers are paid the fees they expect, for without buy-in from foreign players, future versions of the LPL will not draw the funds from sponsors and broadcasters that will sustain the league.And this year, putting down that bedrock of trust this is really what the LPL is about. It does not necessarily have to be a stellar tournament. It only has to ensure it returns next year, and then the year after that, to stand a chance of reversing Sri Lanka’s T20 descent.

Trio hasn’t played long-form cricket since March, and weren’t included in the XI for the second T20I either

Sidharth Monga06-Dec-2020T20I > Test warm-upTouring teams often complain these days that they hardly get decent opposition during tour games, which makes them less preferable to intense training sessions within the team. This Australia A side, though, was way better than just decent. It included Test captain Tim Paine, regulars Travis Head and Joe Burns, squad members James Pattinson, Will Pucovski, Michael Neser and Cameron Green, and also Jackson Bird, good enough to walk into this Indian side as the third seamer.However, India chose not to release any of the Test players in their T20I squad though none of them has played multi-days cricket since March. Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Shami and Mayank Agarwal didn’t even feature in the second T20I at the SCG. It is not like they were overworked: Agarwal and one out of Bumrah and Shami had missed each of India’s last two limited-overs internationals.Navdeep Saini, who had two disappointing ODIs before being dropped, could have used this opportunity to stake a claim for the format experts feel he is best suited to, especially at a time when India are scrambling for a third seamer in Ishant Sharma’s absence.Not sparing KL Rahul is understandable with an international series there for the taking, but could India have given one or two of the other Test regulars game time instead of them just sitting and watching a T20 international?Prithvi Shaw started his Australia tour with a duck•Getty ImagesDucks for both openersThough it is assumed that Agarwal is a lock in the opening role, there are question marks over who his partner will be. The incumbent Prithvi Shaw has had an ordinary year throughout, although that included only three first-class matches before this one. His IPL form might be in a completely different format, but he now has four ducks in his last seven innings. More than just the score though, what will worry India is the shot he played to get out today: a nothing push to a wide delivery, which even when middled wouldn’t have fetched a run. That is nothing but a recipe for disaster against the new ball in Australia.His competitor by the looks of it, Shubman Gill, faced only one delivery which seamed back in to take a healthy inside edge onto the pad only to be ballooned for a catch to slip. It wasn’t what anyone would call a bad shot, but he didn’t bat long enough to see what kind of form he is in. In theory, there are three more innings left before the first Test for both Shaw and Gill to impress the team management.Hanuma Vihari ahead of RahaneRahane will – by virtue of being appointed vice-captain – lead India once regular captain Virat Kohli leaves for paternity leave after the first Test. That makes his form further more important after starting his last few series with a question mark over his place in the side. He began nervously, playing and missing and even edging the medium-pacer Mark Steketee, but got into his work even as wickets fell at the other end. Whenever he got the opportunity, he transferred the pressure back by punishing every loose ball. The short delivery asked a few questions of him even when he was set, but overall the unbeaten 108 will lend him good confidence going into the Tests.However, there was another possible pointer: he didn’t promote himself to No. 4 in Kohli’s absence. Usually you see batsmen go one position up when someone is missing, but the Indians instead promoted Vihari for this game. Possibly Rahane is comfortable with his No. 5 spot with Vihari moving above him once Kohli leaves, leaving the No. 6 for one of Gill, Rahul or even Rohit Sharma to grab.Leg gully for PujaraAustralia’s Test captain Paine would have started getting déjà vu of the disconcerting sight of Pujara’s backside as he got into his usual attempt to grind out the bowling: 167 balls for his 69. However, this time there were slightly funky fields in place to test out certain plans: leg gully at first followed by silly mid-on later. Then something rare happened: a well-set Pujara fell against an Australian side without maximising the start when Pattinson had him gloving a short ball to leg gully. The short ball did trouble Pujara in New Zealand, but that is a side equipped with an attack – thanks to left-armer Neil Wagner – that can bother nearly anyone with the short ball. Do watch out, though, for the leg gully if Pujara gets in during the Tests.Travis Head celebrates a wicket•Getty ImagesWriddhiman Saha preferred to Rishabh PantPant has been India’s first-choice wicketkeeper in overseas Tests for his batting ability as well as because teams don’t need the purest of wicketkeeping on pitches that don’t turn. However, India chose to go with Saha in the tour game. This could change by the time the first Test arrives, though tour games have often been good indicators of what India intend to do in Tests. In New Zealand, for example, Pant batted ahead of Saha.Be that as it may, Saha managed just a duck here, thanks to what seemed a dubious lbw call to an offspinner from around the wicket as the ball might have pitched outside leg.Pattinson stakes a claimEither through injury or due to plenty of fast-bowling riches, Pattinson having played only 21 matches so far is a loss to Test cricket. Among those who have taken at least 80 Test wickets, Pattinson’s strike rate of 48.9 is No. 16. It is just that two men ahead of him are also part of the current Australian attack: Pat Cummins and Mitchell Starc. However, Starc has taken leave to tend to an illness in family and has not been in great form in the internationals so far this summer. If Starc doesn’t make it to Adelaide, Pattinson has made a right claim to that spot with a three-for, including the wicket of a well-set Pujara.Head captains PaineIt is interesting that Australia’s Test captain Paine was on the field but was led by Head. An equivalent of that would be Vihari leading Kohli in a match. There is already talk of Australia grooming Head for a possible leadership role in the future, but in the here and the now, at some point in the series, Head and Matthew Wade might come under pressure from Green to even keep that middle-order position.Green is a bowler who gets disconcerting bounce not much unlike Kyle Jamieson, who troubled India earlier in the year in New Zealand. However, Green’s bowling workload is being micro-managed: spells no longer than four overs, not more than eight overs in a day. And Head himself made an audition for the role of a part-time – and the only – spinner in the Australia A XI today, bringing himself on to relieve the fast bowlers and even ending up with the wickets of Saha and Kuldeep Yadav.

Also: what is the lowest run-aggregate for a completed first-class match?

Steven Lynch06-Apr-2021 There were 651 runs in the final ODI at Pune. Was this a record for a match without an individual hundred? asked Ray Penson from South Africa

The highest score in that exciting one-day international in Pune last week was Sam Curran’s unbeaten 95. There has been only one ODI that produced more runs but no individual centuries: in Port Elizabeth in 2001-02, Australia (330 for 7) beat South Africa (326 for 3) in a match that produced 656 runs but a highest individual score of 92, by Ricky Ponting. There have been 23 other ODIs with a total of 600 or more runs, but no centuries.Curran’s score equalled the highest by a No. 8 in one-day internationals, set by Chris Woakes for England against Sri Lanka at Trent Bridge in 2015.Both Tests in the recent West Indies vs Sri Lanka series were drawn – when was the last 0-0 draw in a Test series? asked Rishi Ramaswamy from the United States

It has been nearly six years since all the Tests in a series have been drawn – in the rather soggy two-match encounter between Bangladesh and South Africa in Bangladesh in 2015. The last three-Test series to comprise three draws involved New Zealand and England, in 2012-13.In all there have now been 40 Test series which ended up 0-0. That includes 17 of two Tests, 17 of three, and two of four matches. There have even been four five-Test series in which all five games ended in draws: India vs Pakistan in 1954-55,
Pakistan vs India in 1960-61, India vs England in 1963-64, and West Indies vs New Zealand in 1971-72.Seven different England bowlers took wickets in India’s innings in the last of the recent one-day internationals – was this a record? asked Alan White from England

You’re right that seven England bowlers claimed wickets in the third ODI in Pune last week: Mark Wood took three and Adil Rashid two, while Moeen Ali, Sam Curran, Liam Livingstone, Ben Stokes and Reece Topley had one each.This actually equals the record for an ODI innings: there have been four previous instances of seven wicket-takers, by New Zealand against India in Auckland in 1975-76, New Zealand vs Sri Lanka in Dunedin in 1990-91, Netherlands vs Bermuda in Rotterdam in 2007, and Australia vs Scotland in Edinburgh in 2009.The 1878 Australian team that skittled MCC for 33 and 19. Fred Spofforth (seated, extreme left) took 6 for four in the first innings, Harry Boyle (seated, extreme right) 6 for 3 in the second.•The Cricketer InternationalWhat is the lowest run-aggregate for a completed first-class match? asked SM Nazmus Shakib from Bangladesh

The fewest runs in a first-class game is 85, in the Quaid-e-Azam Trophy match between Quetta (41 all out) and Rawalpindi (44 for 1) in Islamabad in 2008-09: it was all over in 20.1 overs. There were unusual circumstances: bad weather had prevented any play on the first two days, and both sides forfeited their first innings.The lowest for a game in which all four innings were played is 105 runs, in the match between MCC (33 and 19) and the touring Australians (41 in 66.2 four-ball overs, and 12 for 1) at Lord’s in 1878. It was all over in one day – Fred “The Demon” Spofforth took 6 for 4 in MCC’s first innings, and Harry Boyle 6 for 3 in the second. WG Grace was out second ball in the first innings, for four, and made a duck in the second.”One of the most remarkable matches ever played at Lord’s was commenced at three minutes past 12, and concluded at 20 minutes past six the same day,” said Wisden, which went on to report that at the end, “a stream of at least one thousand men rushed frantically up to the pavilion, where they clustered, and lustily shouted ‘Well done Australia’, ‘Bravo Spofforth’, ‘Boyle, Boyle’ &c, &c; the members of the MCC keenly joining in the applause of that ‘maddened crowd’, who shouted themselves hoarse before they left to scatter far and wide that evening the news, how in one day the Australians had so easily defeated one of the strongest MCC elevens that had ever played for the famous old club.”How often has a first-class hat-trick involved three catches, all by the same fieldsman – not a wicketkeeper – which just happened in a match in Dunedin? asked Russell Smith from New Zealand

The instance you’re talking about was achieved by Otago’s Dale Phillips, off the bowling of seamer Michael Rae, in the Plunket Shield match against Central Districts at Dunedin’s University Oval last week. Phillips, the brother of the New Zealand Test player Glenn, was fielding at short leg.There had been four previous hat-tricks in first-class cricket involving the same fielder. The first was by George Thompson off the bowling of Sydney Smith for Northamptonshire against Warwickshire at Edgbaston in 1914, and they were followed by Cyril White (off Raymond Beesly) for Border vs Griqualand West in Queenstown in South Africa in 1946-47. More recently, Ali Waqas caught three in a row off Samiullah Khan for Sui Northern Gas in Peshawar in 2014-15, and Marcus Trescothick took three in a row off Craig Overton for Somerset against Nottinghamshire at Trent Bridge in 2018.There have also been five wicketkeeping hat-tricks, all of them caught, apart from Sam Brain’s three successive stumpings off Charles Townsend for Gloucestershire against Somerset at Cheltenham in 1893.Use our feedback form, or the Ask Steven Facebook page to ask your stats and trivia questions

On Sunday, the cricket at Sabina Park echoed some of the very best West Indies-Pakistan contests there have ever been

Danyal Rasool16-Aug-2021Port-of-Spain, 1988. Curtly Ambrose has just got rid of Javed Miandad for 102, Viv Richards taking the catch to deal a potentially lethal blow to Pakistan’s hopes of a stunning fourth-innings chase. Soon after, Malcom Marshall traps Wasim Akram in front. Richards removes Saleem Yousuf, and it’s down to the last man Abdul Qadir to survive the final five deliveries. He keeps Richards, soon to be declared the Player of the Match, out. Pakistan have drawn a classic in Trinidad, in what will go down as one of the classic series of the era.The Sisyphean task of following those two divine cricket sides has been a ball and chain around West Indian and Pakistani necks in the decades since. The decline of what were then cricketing behemoths has been well-documented and, for dramatic purposes, sometimes overblown. Players from both sides of that era relish opportunities to dig the boot in, making unfavourable comparisons between their teams and the pale imitations that have followed in their footsteps. West Indies will shrink into cricketing obscurity for a while, and Pakistan descend into farce. They might be on opposite sides of the world, but somehow the sun has set on these two giants simultaneously.Thirty-three years later, the sun rises once more. Not in the Caribbean, nor in Karachi, but where it never used to set. Lord’s, 2021. The traditional home of cricket is at the centre of the cricketing world’s attention, not just because of England, but the team they host. India leads cricket’s attention economy now. It’s an absorbing Test match in its own right, in a packed stadium, and when old memories begin to stir 5000 miles away in Jamaica, barely anyone notices.West Indies and Pakistan are playing Test cricket once more, empty stands their backdrop. That might be because of the Covid-19 pandemic, but the days of full crowds and global attention for West Indies-Pakistan contests have long gone anyway. With quiet dignity, West Indies are trying to reignite the dying embers of the Fire in Babylon, while Pakistan, equal parts inspirational and cack-handed, search for stability and try to steer themselves back to something approaching that 1980s unit.There are no Marshalls or Imran Khans here but only those held hostage by nostalgia would insist the denouement at Sabina Park wasn’t worth watching in its own right.Antigua, 2000: An inspired Wasim Akram couldn’t quite prevent West Indies from sneaking a one-wicket win•AFPBabar Azam is crucial for Pakistan at the start of the final day, West Indies sniffing menacingly at the tail. But the vagaries of Test cricket kick in. Early in the day, a Kyle Mayers delivery hits a crack nowhere to be found for the remainder of the day. It grows big on Babar, and goes to slip. Jayden Seales, far from being alive in 1988, was not even born when, in 2001, a Jimmy Adams-led West Indies side stole a one-wicket win over Pakistan in Antigua. He runs through the tail, casually tumbling over an Alf Valentine record in the process.Pakistan set a target of 168. Forget 1988: this is the same target Abdul Hafeez Kardar’s team had set in 1954 at the Oval. The total that Fazal Mahmood defended for him exactly 67 years ago to the day, running through England in England to produce perhaps the most inspirational origin story in Test-match cricket. The baton has now passed to Babar and Shaheen Shah Afridi, each born more than four decades after that triumph.History can weigh you down, but Afridi seems uplifted. He tears through the West Indies top order. Jermaine Blackwood, born in Jamaica, comes to the crease. He’s been under pressure because of his ostensibly cavalier approach to Test batting; many of the traditional old guard might almost view it as iconoclastic. But in a low-scoring match, quick runs are gold dust, and he gets 55 of them.The shadows lengthen, the skies darken, and the sun really does begin to set. It’s perhaps setting on the West Indies, a middle-order collapse having left the last three surely too much to do. But Kemar Roach is raging against the dying light. The most experienced player out there for West Indies, he will later say it was the first time he’d found himself in such a situation.It doesn’t show. As the runs tick on and Pakistan begin to panic, the ghosts of Antigua are hard to dismiss. There was much bitterness from Pakistan after West Indies’ one-wicket heist on that day, fans to this day adamant it was the umpiring that cost Pakistan the game. There was some truth to that, and had that Test been played with DRS, both Adams and last man Courtney Walsh might not have survived to hit the winning runs. But Pakistan, as ever, had their own chances too. A couple of run-outs, farcically missed, meant it needn’t have come to that at all.Jayden Seales became the youngest West Indies bowler to take a Test-match five-for•AFP/Getty ImagesIn the present, in Jamaica, Pakistan are playing without DRS once more, having frivolously burned all their reviews. But with the game coming to an excruciating end, both sides are having trouble holding their nerve. Roach goes after a short ball and sends it straight down Hasan Ali’s throat at midwicket. Hasan drops it. Pakistan might have blamed the umpires in Antigua, but they have only themselves to castigate here.Roach repeatedly trusts the teenager Seales with plenty of the strike, and much as Walsh kept Akram out in Antigua, Seales is up to fending Afridi off. It’s down to the last rites now. Hasan to Roach is not Marshall to Akram, but it’s difficult to imagine the viewing could have been more compelling. An edge evades a desperate dive from Mohammad Rizwan, and scampers away for four. A few minutes earlier, Rizwan had bucked the trend of Pakistani fielding ineptitude, sprinting half the length of the ground at a pace that might have impressed Jamaican sprinters, taking a sprawling catch close to the boundary. But against this West Indies side, one moment of magic wasn’t enough, and Pakistan desperately needed him to pluck that nick out of thin air, too.Roach knocks off the final runs, and this West Indies side has done what Richards’ men failed to do in Trinidad all those years ago. In an empty stadium, the groundstaff, the production crew, make no pretence to neutrality, bursting into yelps of glee as the West Indian players storm the pitch. Hasan sinks to the ground, his eyes beginning to shimmer, and Roach reaches out and helps him back up, enveloping him in a warm embrace. There’s no crowd to be heard, but you can feel the roars across the Caribbean filling your ears, the perfect soundtrack to nigh-on the perfect Test match.The sun sets, and the world’s attention, for the most flickering of moments drawn to Jamaica, will invariably switch to London overnight. But in crystal twilight at Sabina Park, two cricketing nations tethered to historical successes have broken free to produce a modern classic fit to stand on its own.

He seemed to be out of favour in limited-overs by mid-2017, but a door that appeared shut is now a window full of possibilities

Saurabh Somani18-Nov-20211:12

Daniel Vettori: Ashwin’s skill helped him set Chapman and Phillips up

Since India’s tour of England which began in August, the team has played four Tests and six T20Is, including the first game of the ongoing series against New Zealand. If told at the start that R Ashwin would feature in four of those international games, how many people would have predicted zero Tests and four T20Is?Ashwin, a bonafide candidate in discussions of an all-time India Test XI, has suddenly got a new lease of life in white-ball cricket. A door that appeared slammed shut after mid-2017 is now a window full of possibilities.Not that the white-ball skills were lacking. In the IPL, Ashwin regularly showed how effective he could still be in limited-overs cricket. IPL 2018, the first one since his limited-overs exile, was a decent outing. But from IPL 2019 onwards, Ashwin has been among the top bowlers in the most competitive T20 league on the planet. He’s done it with guile, nous and a fine control. The door might have appeared shut, but Ashwin kept knocking on it.Related

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It is the mark of a good team that there will always be quality players on the outside, hungry to get in. Ashwin was one of those players for India’s limited-overs teams in the recent past. It is also the mark of a good player that once in, he’ll make himself difficult to dislodge. When Washington Sundar’s injury meant he wouldn’t be there for the T20 World Cup, that opportunity came Ashwin’s way. It wouldn’t have, if he hadn’t stacked up the performances he did leading up to that. And once back, Ashwin has bowled his full quota of 16 overs in four T20Is, taking 8 wickets and giving up runs at just 5.375 per over.More than the limited sample size of his recent T20Is, it is the IPL that reveals Ashwin’s value and effectiveness.The middle overs of T20 cricket are spinners’ bastions, but a bowler versatile enough to be effective elsewhere is gold-dust. Since IPL 2019, no spinner has bowled more in the powerplay than Ashwin’s 38 overs. Not coincidentally, no one has taken more than the 10 wickets Ashwin has in the powerplay in this period either. In the middle overs, Ashwin has taken 22 wickets, which seems at first glance a tad less for 105.5 overs bowled, especially when set against fellow spinners like Rahul Chahar (37 wickets in 128 overs), Yuzvendra Chahal (50 wickets in 127.1 overs) or Varun Chakravarthy (27 wickets in 84 overs). However, Ashwin’s role has often been to enforce control for his team, and he’s been excellent at doing that. Ashwin remains a bowler who seeks wickets, but he does so while also keeping one foot on the opposition’s run-rate.What the bare figures don’t account for, is Ashwin’s impact even when it comes to wicket-taking. That is something Smart Stats brings into focus, with an algorithm that takes into account the quality of batter dismissed, and the match situation in which the bowler operates and assigns a value to a wicket in accordance with that. In IPLs since 2019, Ashwin has the difference between the Smart Wickets he’s taken and the conventional ones. He has 35 wickets in 42 innings, but in terms of Smart Wickets, the figure is 50.1. Among spinners, only Chahal has a bigger difference in that time frame, with his 57 wickets worth 74.27 Smart Wickets. Ashwin’s strikes have had game-changing impact, because he’s gotten top order batters early. And he’s done it while keeping the runs in check too.R Ashwin (left) has made himself difficult to dislodge from the T20I team•BCCIHe illustrated exactly those qualities against New Zealand. Brought on for his first over within the powerplay, he gave up only six runs. In his second over, immediately after Martin Guptill and Mark Chapman had taken 15 off Deepak Chahar, he conceded seven runs. And that too, was because bowling first and one over in the powerplay meant he had to suss the pace of the pitch by degrees.”It is kind of tricky, right, in a T20 game, how much do you toss it up? When do you toss it up? The windows for attacking the batsmen are pretty less, so you need to find them and then deliver those balls,” Ashwin would tell host broadcaster Star after the game. “Line and length, you can’t miss much of it.”Identifying the right pace is always a challenge when you’re bowling first in a T20 game. I bowled my first over inside the powerplay, so the pockets of change of pace had to be much lesser than what you did later on in the game. Identifying that pace took a little bit of time for me. I probably slowed it down once or twice in the first two overs I bowled, and then I realised if you slowed the ball down the purchase was better on this pitch.”By his first two overs, Ashwin had figured out that slowing the ball through the air and landing it correctly would get him more bite. And when he was brought back for his final over – the 14th of the innings – he did what he often has, prising out wickets to cause an inflexion point in the game. Chapman was done in by a classical off-break, while Glenn Phillips got a carom ball that pinned him in front after two off-breaks. New Zealand had lost two wickets, one of a set batter who was accelerating and another of a big-hitter who could have wrecked India’s death overs.Guptill, who lashed 70 from 42 balls in New Zealand’s total, summed up the difficulty of facing Ashwin in reply to a question from ESPNcricinfo. “He’s a wily bowler, got a great control of his line and length,” Guptill said. “And he just doesn’t bowl bad balls. I don’t remember him bowling any bad balls. He’s just very difficult to get away. His change of pace is so subtle and so well controlled, he’s just very hard to get away.”The T20 success for Ashwin is not unexpected, given the pedigree he has shown. He also gave a teaser of what could be coming New Zealand’s way on this tour, bowling a more classical pace of off-spin and finding bite in the surface. If he could do it with a white ball, given only four overs, what might Ashwin do with a red ball, with more overs and more purchase, with wickets to make up for after having sat out four Test matches?