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Shadab Khan was inspired to become a legspinner by Shane Warne, but the bowler he wants to emulate is Steven Smith. He has been puzzling opposition batsmen in similar fashion throughout the World Cup

Vishal Dikshit07-Feb-2016″”Pakistan Under-19 legspinner Shadab Khan’s choice of words left journalists befuddled in Mirpur when he was asked about his bowling action. He simply meant his action was pretty unique and he had not modeled it on anyone he had grown up watching. Before you could come to terms with what he said, added that legspinner he wants to follow is Steven Smith.Shadab has been puzzling oppositions the same way in the World Cup and is Pakistan’s second most valuable player so far, after allrounder Hasan Mohsin. Shadab is the team’s highest wicket-taker with a tally of nine at an astonishing average of 9.33 and has been jolting oppositions’ middle orders after Mohsin does the early damage.Shadab likes to flight the ball. He is not exactly a product of his times in which spinners often rely on mystery balls, flat trajectories and focus more on limiting the runs in one-dayers, instead of taking wickets. Shadab likes to take wickets and it is a reflection of who he grew up watching.”I used to keep watching Shane Warne take wickets on TV,” Shadab said. “So when I started cricket I decided to become a legspinner.”In his run-up, Shadab comes in from wide of the crease and suddenly gets close to the wickets, just like Warne, to either bowl a tight line and length or get some drift before the ball turns. It has worked very well on turning pitches in Bangladesh as he has picked wickets in every match so far.Against Afghanistan, he picked up four wickets for only nine runs in five overs, against Canada he finished with 2 for 44 from 10 overs and against Sri Lanka he sealed Pakistan’s victory by finishing with 3 for 31 in 8.4 overs. Most of his dismissals have been caught and he stumped one batsman in each of the three matches.One of the biggest surprises about Shadab is he did not have a proper coach during his childhood. He was born in Mianwali, a city in north Pakistan that has produced the likes of Imran Khan and Misbah-ul-Haq. But Shadab hardly played any cricket there. He started taking the sport seriously after he moved to Rawalpindi at the age of 12 and then represented his school team. Since then, he has climbed one ladder after another and when at the National Cricket Academy in Lahore, he got tips from Abdul Qadir and Mushtaq Ahmed.” (I am my own coach),” Shadab says with a laugh. “When I started cricket I did not know much, but then slowly I gained experience, came to NCA. They (Qadir and Ahmed) used to tell that as a legspinner it is important to give flight if you want wickets.”Shadab made his youth Test and ODI debuts last October against Sri Lanka and returned with 7 for 146 in his first outing. He picked wickets regularly in the one-dayers too and was Pakistan’s highest wicket-taker in a tri-series involving Australia and New Zealand in Dubai in January.”I did well in whatever chance I got,” Shadab said. “It’s just that I was not getting many breaks there. The focus was just to bowl in right line and length and the batsmen will give their wickets.”So far, he has been helped in some way by the pitches in Sylhet and Mirpur but for the quarter-final against West Indies on Monday, he might have to use his wrist more to extract turn on the flat Fatullah pitch. If he can do that successfully, he might even become the highest wicket-taker of the series. He is currently joint third even though the two above him – pacers Saqib Mahmood and Rory Anders – have played more matches than him.

West Indies know how to put on a T20 show; they hit the biggest sixes, have the flashiest celebrations, and enjoy their time on the field, but they are also one of the smartest teams around

Sidharth Monga in Kolkata02-Apr-2016After West Indies beat India in the World Twenty20 semi-final, after the press conferences were done, the players received an informal query about whether there was something special planned at the hotel that night. The players’ reaction was, “What do you mean? We have already done a lot of special things.”Yet, when they reached their hotel, they had something even more special for the world. The video is now the image of the tournament: dressed in their travelling team polos, Darren Sammy and Dwayne Bravo step out of the team bus first, Sammy with a speaker in his hand, playing Bravo’s “Champion” song, delighting the world with a dance that had more than four million views within hours.Earlier in the night, West Indies had created a happy ruckus in the dressing room, using the hot cases on the dinner table and cutlery as their percussion instruments. Even earlier in the night, during the match, Bravo had turned around to the Mumbai crowd after taking a tense catch and shut them off with his Champion dance. Even earlier in the tournament, when West Indies were walking out for the national anthems, usually a tense moment when players are focusing on the match, Sammy carried his mascot kid in his arms.During their only training session in Kolkata before the World T20 final, Sammy noticed some of the women doing the “Champion” dance for the camera were not doing it quite right. He called Bravo out of the nets, and told him, “Hey Bravo, you need to teach them the dance yet.”This is team that puts on a T20 show. They hit the biggest sixes, they have the flashiest celebrations, and they enjoy their time on the field. While this is what the format is sold as, for the players, the cricket is intense. MS Dhoni, for a long time the coolest man in cricket, has begun to snap a little. It is a format where results are more reliant on luck than any other factor, yet it is the most defined by results. It does not even have room for a tie. It can be reduced to a bizarre five-over shootout just for a result.After New Zealand’s stellar run in the tournament was ended by England in the semi-final, a sage-like Kane Williamson summed the format up: “You want to be smart in how you want to execute your skills. Do it as best as you can. Let things unfold to a certain extent. Sometimes in this format the harder you try the worse it can get.”If anything, in that light, the public persona of West Indies suits T20 cricket even more. Hit hard. Dance hard if you win. Smile if you lose. There is always the next league. Except that it is not the case. West Indies are not just one of the smartest T20 teams around, they also care a lot about this World T20.They have reason to care too. Between the World Cup last year and this World T20, captain Darren Sammy represented West Indies only twice. He does not hold a contract with the WICB. He did not get an IPL bid because he believes current international form matters in the IPL. Carlos Brathwaite, who had scored two Test half-centuries in Australia, drew big money in the auction. Just before the last auction, Sammy had scored 89 against Ireland in the World Cup. He believes the world was watching. The world is watching now, and a lot of the stars in this team are involved in an impasse with the WICB. They do not have job security. If they are to make a living out of travelling around playing T20 cricket in the various leagues, they need to keep doing well.Making a living playing T20 cricket in the various leagues has made them one of the canniest T20 teams. They always play under pressure, the pressure of being one of the two or three or four expensively acquired foreign cricketers. They study all the players all over the world. They hardly play with each other – eight matches as a team between the two World T20s – but come together as a bigger ensemble of match-winners than in any other team. Their belief, knowledge and intel is unparalleled.How they have managed to come together in this us-against-the-world crisis is a wonder. They have channelled negativity – some real, some perceived – into a motivational force. In Sammy – establishment man once, and hence not trusted then – they have an inspirational leader. He treats his match-winners as match-winners. He connects with all players on an individual level.The coach Phil Simmons has brought in the much-lacking man management. There now appears a conscious effort among the seniors to mentor the youngsters, to teach them what they have learnt in their vast T20 experience. With the actual cricket, especially in T20s, Simmons lets his team do its thing, trusting that they know what is best for their game.Sample what Simmons had to say about Gayle’s batting after he scored the century in their first match of the tournament: “Sitting and talking to him and trying to see how he works this out, it’s as simple as he makes it look out there. He actually analyses it as simple as he does it. I mean he practices hard, he hits a lot of balls in the nets, but he works it out just as he did. [Adil] Rashid is my bowler for the day, I’ve got to take him down so it’s as simple as that.”West Indies are aware of the declining value of the single in T20s, evidenced by their gung-ho approach to batting•IDI/Getty ImagesOn the night, Rashid had bowled his first over for four runs and Marlon Samuels’ wicket. In a big chase the spinner could have been key. Gayle went after him in his next over, hitting him for back-to-back sixes; Rashid did not bowl another over. Gayle knows his game and his body inside out. He knows he has a finite number of miles in his legs. Every moment of his is deliberate and measured. His power and aura in T20 cricket is worth far more than an agile fielder and runner. West Indies know it, their opponents know it.Watch their nets, and you will see other players at the top of their awareness of their game. Even before they go out and play their warm-up football game, Andre Russell comes out padded and has a 10-minute session of just hitting the pants off every ball thrown at him. He knows in the batting line-up that he is a part of he will not be needed to do anything else. Even though the comforting is playing in the background, this is a scary sight. “I noticed Andre Russell the other day,” Clive Lloyd, the chairman of selectors, says. “We have net bowlers, and I fear for their lives when he’s batting. Because he’s strong, very strong.”In the net next to Russell, Denesh Ramdin looks to nurdle yorkers for imaginary singles, and hits the big shot only if the ball is a half-volley. The two then join the team in the football. Once it is over, Russell bowls full-out in the nets, and Ramdin practises keeping with a chair placed in front of the stump, to simulate a batsman blocking him.Every player in this team knows his game. They know the opposition too. Virat Kohli made 89 against them the other night, which is a big score, but West Indies did great damage control. Kohli might have run them ragged with his bunts into the leg side, but one of his most beneficial boundary shots – through extra cover, where he peppered Australia – was blocked by the fierce Johnson Charles, who did not let Kohli take a second on his watch. All their fielders are not as quick as Charles, but they know where to hide the slower ones. West Indies were not going to let India get away by trying to take wickets, until India threatened to put on 210. They were hardly stretched in the chase either.

How West Indies have managed to come together in this us-against-the-world crisis is a wonder. They have channeled negativity – some real, some perceived – into a motivational force

They were perhaps the first team to recognise the declining value of the single, which again comes from the awareness of their own game. Sammy knows they are not good at rotating strike, but he also knows they are the best at hitting boundaries. In T20 cricket, boundaries trump strike rotation. Let them stop us from hitting boundaries first, he says. It is not all bravado. Their use of spinners in the first half of the innings, and defensive quicks in the second, is a testament to their T20 smarts. And they are missing one of the sharpest brains in T20, Kieron Pollard. During a match last year, Pollard noticed Mahela Jayawardene did not quite kill the ball when he defended off the front foot. When there was a brief window at the start of the innings to get him there, he moved himself to silly point and caught Jayawardene for a duck.Lloyd debuted for West Indies in 1966. He has seen the game evolve over 50 years. He is of the view that West Indies, as a team, have been at the forefront every time there has been a revolution in the most popular format at that time. Four fast bowlers, athletic fielding in one-day cricket, Viv Richards, and now T20 cricket. Even though they hardly play together, West Indies have been the most consistent T20 international side. Lloyd’s view can be argued against, but it has more than an element of truth to it.”It has given our cricket a lift, playing the IPL and the Big Bash and so on,” Lloyd says. “You are playing against different people and in different conditions. County cricket was our sort of learning school. We picked up a lot, and became more professional. The same thing is happening here. We have some of the best one-day cricketers around. You are playing in India, South Africa, Australia, Bangladesh and some of them playing in England at the moment. It’s given us that rounded thing to be professional and playing a lot more cricket outside of the West Indies.”Looking at West Indies go about their business, there is a solid confidence that if they do not slip up they will win this thing. “The only team that can beat us is us,” Bravo is supposed to have said in a team meeting. If they do win this thing, there will be a mad party. If that happens, don’t forget that the men doing the “Champion” dance are a team of shrewd professionals who do not have the security of contracts with their regional team.

11-Aug-2016Saha brought up his fifty, but was troubled by a few rising deliveries•Associated PressAshwin and Saha moved towards centuries, and were on 99 and 93 respectively as India went into lunch on 316 for 5•Associated PressAshwin was the first to reach the landmark, stepping down to Roston Chase and launching him into the stands•Associated PressSaha joined his comrade four overs later, driving Chase square of the wicket for his maiden Test century. In doing so, he became only the fourth Indian wicketkeeper to score a Test century away from home•AFPBut Saha fell exactly an over later when debutant Alzarri Joseph got him to nick to the wicketkeeper, breaking the 213-run sixth-wicket stand•Associated PressIndia lost their last five wickets for the addition of just 14 runs. Miguel Cummins accounted for Ravindra Jadeja, Ashwin and Ishant Sharma as India were bowled out for 353•AFPWest Indies’ openers began a solid reply, putting on 59, before KL Rahul nailed a direct hit from short midwicket to catch Leon Johnson short of his crease•Associated PressBut Kraigg Brathwaite stayed put with an unbeaten 53 and, in the company of Darren Bravo, steered West Indies to 107 for 1 at stumps, trailing by 246 runs•AFP

Eight editions have produced five champions. How closely have you followed it?

ESPNcricinfo staff29-May-2016

Stats highlights from third day in Dubai where Darren Bravo and Marlon Samuels steadied West Indies’ innings

Bharath Seervi15-Oct-201657.95 Darren Bravo’s average in Tests in Asia – his highest in any continent. In 26 innings in Asia, he has scored 1391 runs. Four of his seven Test centuries have also come in Asia. Outside Asia, he averages just 32.55 scoring 1823 runs in 58 innings.0 Overseas batsmen who have scored more runs in Asia than Bravo’s 1391 since his debut. Alastair Cook is the only one with more than 1000 runs in Asia among visiting batsmen since Bravo’s debut. Bravo’s average of 57.95 lies fourth among 16 overseas batsmen with 500 or more runs in Asia since his debut.65 Runs scored by Marlon Samuels in the last two away tours – Sri Lanka and Australia – in nine innings. He had scores of 11, 0, 13 and 6 in Sri Lanka and 9, 3, 0, 19 and 14 in Australia in 2015-16. He has scored 76 in the first innings of this tour.2012 The last time West Indies’ No. 3 and 4 both scored 50 or more in the same Test innings, also done by Bravo and Samuels against Bangladesh in Khulna. West Indies had seven such instances between 2010 and 2012 but this innings was the first since then.13 Consecutive partnerships between Samuels and Bravo that failed to reach 50 runs in Tests before they added 113 runs in this innings. Their last stand of 50 or more runs came at against India at Eden Gardens in 2013. Since then, the average partnership between them was only 21.15. They had three 50-plus partnerships in their first ten outings. That Khulna Test of 2012 was the last time they had a century stand.2014 Last time West Indies reached 300 runs before losing their sixth wicket in a Test innings – against Bangladesh in Kingstown. Since then, their top-six partnerships have averaged only 29.05 per wicket, which is the lowest among all teams.14 Maidens delivered by Yasir Shah from his 36 overs till the end of day three. West Indies had bowled only 17 maidens as a team in their 155.3 overs in the first innings. Apart from Yasir, the other Pakistan bowlers have bowled a combined 15 maidens from their 73 overs.2 Fifties for Samuels in two Tests against Pakistan. Prior to this match, he had played only one Test versus Pakistan, in Basseterre in 2011 and had made 57 in the first innings of that match.15 Fours conceded by Yasir in this innings so far – already the joint-most by him an innings in the UAE. He had conceded 15 fours against New Zealand in Sharjah in 2014 from his 44.1 overs. Out of his 97 runs conceded, 66 came from boundaries including one six.

Has any other player been thrown in at the deep end against tweak the way he has?

Andy Zaltzman24-Nov-2016Alastair Cook has faced 8273 balls of spin in his Test career. He has been bowled out by three of those deliveries. The first was bowled by Pragyan Ojha, at the end of Cook’s series-shifting 176 in Ahmedabad four years ago. It was the 4944th ball of spin the England opener had faced in Tests, meaning he had faced the equivalent of more than nine complete Test days of spin before a tweaker hit his stumps, at which point his career tally against spin was 2252 runs for 33 dismissals, at an average of 68.Since then, he has been bowled out by Nathan Lyon, at The Oval in 2015 (the only one of the 5516 balls of right-arm spin to have shifted Cook’s spinnimpregnabails); and by Shakib al Hasan in Chittagong last month.Ben Duckett, by the most alarm-clanging of comparisons, has faced 172 balls of spin in his Test career. He has also had his timbers rattled by three of them (and been caught off four of the others). Duckett has been bowled once every 9.3 overs off Test tweak; Cook once every 459.4 overs. It appears that only one of them will be playing in the third Test, in Mohali.Clearly, not being bowled out is only one facet of batsmanship, and I am comparing a flamboyant attacker with statistically one of the toughest players to bowl out in Test history (although Cook’s stumps have been far more regularly clonked in the past three years – 15 times in 39 Tests since Adelaide 2013-14, when Mitchell Johnson bowled him with a masterpiece of high-speed unplayability that would have bowled out a brick wall; 12 times in 98 Tests prior to that).Nevertheless, Duckett’s spin-stump-vulnerability numbers are striking. And to a large extent, unsurprising. Few England debutants can have had such a difficult introduction to Test cricket since fresh batting meat was fed to the rampant West Indian pace lions in the 1980s and early 1990s.Duckett, on debut, faced 12 balls of Mehedi Hasan’s offspin before he first faced a seamer. He then faced two overs of Shafiul, and one of Kamrul Islam Rabbi. Since when, he has faced nothing but spin – 160 consecutive balls of tweak, twirl and torture.By comparison, Duckett’s three predecessors as Test debutants in the opening batting slot – Sam Robson, Adam Lyth and Alex Hales, who played an entire English summer each (plus a series in South Africa in Hales’ case) – between them have faced 2065 balls of pace and 526 balls of spin.The 20% of spin deliveries faced by Robson, Lyth and Hales reflects almost exactly the proportion of spin bowling in the last summer’s County Championship Division Two, where Duckett played with such success and panache. Spinners bowled 19.5% of the overs, taking 14.3% of the bowlers’ wickets. The figures for all first-class cricket in England over the past two years are similar (23.9% of the overs and 20.1% of the wickets). Duckett found himself stepping up from the lower tier of county cricket into Test cricket in Asia – where, this decade, 58.5% of the overs and 60.3% of the wickets have belonged to spinners. Robson, Lyth and Hales struggled in an examination for which they had spent their careers preparing. Duckett has almost been trying to learn a new sport.Hardened Test veterans have struggled in India recently – Hashim Amla managed just 118 runs in seven innings a year ago in India, having averaged 93, with seven centuries, in his previous 11 Tests in Asia. Faf du Plessis began the same series averaging over 50 after 22 Tests. He scored 1 for 3 in the first 13 balls he faced in the series, and finished with 60 runs in four Tests. Nor does an initial failure necessarily presage lifelong struggles. Mike Gatting scored 109 runs in his first seven Tests in Asia but went on to score 575 runs at 95 on England’s 1984-85 tour.Haseeb Hameed, with a tighter, defensive-oriented technique, and without having his game pre-scrambled by the difficult wickets in Bangladesh, has prospered in India, and looks set for a long career as a delightfully stylish old-school Dravidian grinder for England. But at least he had the advantage, in three of his four innings, of facing a few overs of pace before the tweakers came on (he has faced, in his four innings, 25, 5, 29 and 18 balls of pace before facing a spinner). The same applied to Cook in his famous debut in 2005-06, when he made 60 and 104 not out against Kumble and peak Harbhajan.Roland Butcher, Andy Lloyd, Paul Terry, David Smith, Wilf Slack, Tim Curtis, Rob Bailey and Matthew Maynard, who all made their debuts against the 1980s West Indians and were swiftly consigned to the Test match scrapheap, might have dreamed of facing an attack that gave them 90% spin. Graeme Hick and Mark Ramprakash, who began against Ambrose, Marshall, Walsh and Patterson in 1991, would no doubt have bitten their own arms off for the prospect of that quiver-inducing quartet bowling only 10% of the overs in their debut series.In terms of the chasm that these newcomers of different generations have been asked to straddle, Duckett’s was just as wide. Nothing in county cricket could have prepared him, and it is to be hoped that the experience will not adversely affect his game or his prospects.He has failed, and, with the exception of what should have been a match-turning half-century in Dhaka, failed badly. What has been learned about him in his four Tests? Not much of long-term relevance, I think. He has shown talent, strokeplay, cojones, exploitable frailties that could be rectified (a tough assignment in the zero days of cricket between the Tests on this tour). And an absolute impregnability against pace.Or, at least, an absolute impregnability against the 18 balls of pace that he has faced. How many top-order batsman have remained undismissed by pace bowlers in their first four Tests? Very few, I would guess. Perhaps none. As starts to a top-order Test batting career go, Duckett’s winter has been roughly equivalent to passing your driving Test, then being plonked into Apollo 11 and told to pilot it to the moon and back. If I may exaggerate slightly.

Duckett has shown talent, strokeplay, cojones, exploitable frailties that could be rectified. And an absolute impregnability against pace

England’s selectors owe him the chance to test his talents in the alternative cricketing universe of non-Asian Test cricket; English cricket owes the Ducketts of the future the chance to learn more of the skills they will need in the unforgiving, judgemental Test arena, before they are shunted into that arena with a cursory “Don’t worry, it’ll all be over by Christmas.”● England, of course, are not the only Test team making changes. Australia introduced three debutants in the third Test, in Adelaide, after jettisoning the two debutants who had been baggy-greened for the first time in Hobart, making this the first series since the 1981 Ashes in which Australia have given Test debuts to five players. England, by selectorial contrast, did so seven times from 1984 and 1997, before central contracts came in and ended everyone’s fun, bringing a sad close to the days when county batsmen’s hearts would flutter in anticipation after edging a cut for four, hoping that those runs might be enough to catapult them into the international arena.Adelaide is only the third Test in the past 30 years in which Australia have given debuts to three players in the same match – England have done so eight times in that period, India and Pakistan six each – and only the fourth time since Bodyline in 1932-33 that they have done so during a series (rather than in the first Test).The most recent of these four was when they brought in four brand-new players as part of six changes for the decisive fifth and final Packer-era Test against India in 1977-78, following two thumping defeats. Rick Darling, Graeme Wood, Bruce Yardley and Ian Callen were the ninth, tenth, 11th and 12th debutants for Australia in that series, and helped their nation win a high-scoring classic.This is only the fifth time since the 1880s that Australia have selected two or more players for their first caps in consecutive Tests in the same series – they did so in that 1977-78 series against India, in the 1972 and 1928-29 Ashes, and against South Africa in 1931-32.And, to conclude the Australupheaval stats, this is the first time a team has deliberately picked three debutant specialist batsmen in the same Test since Pakistan did so against New Zealand, fifteen-and-a-half years ago, in March 2001. Those men were Faisal Iqbal, Imran Farhat, and a seasoned player approaching 27, who, in those days of youthful Pakistan batsmanship, might have thought his international prospects had already disappeared, by the name of Misbah-ul-Haq. (I exclude West Indies v Bangladesh in 2009 and Zimbabwe v Sri Lanka in 2004, when disputes with governing bodies led to selectorial mayhem.)(In fact, excluding those matches, nations’ maiden Tests, South Africa’s first two games after readmission in 1992, and a couple of instances in the Packer era, Adelaide provides only the third instance of three debutant batsmen being picked in a Test since 1970; other than the Misbah debut, the other occasion was when Sri Lanka, in only their sixth Test, overhauled their team with seven new caps for the first Test in New Zealand in March 1983.)

A lack of long-term planning and the superfluousness of pace in Bangladesh’s domestic cricket are among the reasons for their fast bowlers’ inability to put New Zealand under pressure despite bowling with the cushion of a massive first-innings total

Mohammad Isam in Wellington15-Jan-2017Both times the new ball was available during New Zealand’s first innings at the Basin Reserve, the Bangladesh captain handed it to Mehedi Hasan. Apart from becoming the first spinner to open the bowling in the first innings in this country, it was a clear signal from the Bangladesh team management that they were giving a skilled spinner his favourite condition of ball to give him the best opportunity to make an impact.Mehedi didn’t take a wicket in his 37 overs, bowling steadily, but the conditions didn’t allow him to get the ball to grip on the pitch, and he wasn’t able to slide the quicker delivery into the left-handers’ pads like he did so effectively at home against England in October. Shakib Al Hasan and Mahmudullah took two wickets each but that is not to say that Mehedi didn’t bowl well. Given his lack of experience, this was his first major challenge outside home. Still, he got the best bite of the cherry.Even though Taskin Ahmed, Kamrul Islam Rabbi and Subashis Roy bowled more overs than the combined numbers of the spinners, it is spin that is king for Bangladesh, home and away. The three rookie seamers took six wickets in 81.2 overs, giving away 317 runs at 3.90 per over and picking up a wicket roughly every 13.3 overs. The three spinners on the other hand eked out four wickets in 67 overs, but they bowled tightly, conceding 3.12 per over. Even in conditions more favoured to pace bowling, spin remains key to Bangladesh’s planning, execution and performance.The pace bowlers’ failure to adapt to different situations during New Zealand’s 148.2-over innings, mainly through inexperience, suggested they were as yet not equipped with the methods to either take wickets regularly or hold up one end. New Zealand scored at a run rate of 3.80 in the 77 overs they played on the third day, allowing them to get close to Bangladesh’s total despite only going at 3.46 in 71.2 overs on day four. Four of their batsmen got past the 50 mark but more crucial was the fact that their innings contained four 50-plus stands.Had Bangladesh brought a pace attack with a stronger base and with plenty of quality longer-format action behind them, New Zealand would have certainly faced more wicket-taking deliveries, which would have had a domino effect over the day and a half of their batting.

Everyone knows Taskin as a limited-overs bowler of immense promise but he came into this tour having only played ten first-class matches, all of them before his international debut in 2014

At a time when Bangladesh have possibly their best ever pace attack in limited-overs cricket, they are consistently fielding some of their least threatening pace attacks in Tests. It hasn’t always been the case. Considering only their tours to New Zealand over their 16 years as a Test side, the current group of pacers makes up the weakest attack. Back in 2001, Bangladesh had youngsters in Mashrafe Mortaza and Mohammad Sharif, the workmanlike left-armer Manjural Islam and the experienced Khaled Mahmud and Hasibul Hossain. Mahmud was a dibbly-dobbly medium pacer while Hasibul had by then become quite erratic. Though the motley crew didn’t do anything great, it was still a bowling attack that could attack.Mashrafe was the attack leader in 2008 and bowled well in tandem with the aggressive Shahadat Hossain and the newcomer Sajedul Islam who troubled Stephen Fleming. Shahadat returned in 2010 with Rubel Hossain, who had a pronounced sling in his action back then, and the slippery Shafiul Islam.The comparison with previous attacks is certainly unfair and not the intention here, but it is a major worry that Bangladesh continue to take rookie fast bowlers on overseas tours. Rubel, carrying the drinks in the first Test, should have been developed into the attack leader by now. Instead, it is the debutant Taskin who has to take on that role given his ODI experience.Among these bowlers, Manjural and Hasibul have retired long ago while Mashrafe hasn’t played a Test since 2009. Sharif couldn’t make it big in his 7-year international career while Shahadat’s career has been derailed over the last few years. Among those who came here last time, Sajedul is no longer considered by the selectors while Shafiul is recovering from an injury. None of these bowlers apart from Shahadat, Mashrafe and Shafiul were given a longer rope, and even when picked never get to bowl enough overs at home, even at the domestic level.It is also unfair to point fingers at the current attack, which has been able to ensure New Zealand were bowled out, albeit only for the third time at home against Bangladesh. Rabbi, who was chastised for being picked against England in October as if he had forced himself into the team, took three wickets including the first-ball dismissal of Jeet Raval with a delivery that held its line with extra bounce. He bowled well in patches, and looked more comfortable as the ball got older.Taskin’ first Test wicket was of Kane Williamson, someone he has troubled throughout the tour. He was quick in spells on the fourth day, getting deliveries to rise to the batsmen’s ribcage. But he has to figure out a way to build himself into a wicket-taking bowler in the longer format.Subashis, who like Rabbi has plenty of first-class experience but has never really been used in long spells that much, was steady at best and ineffective at worst. Among the three, he was given the first use of the new ball. He was picked on the back of a good performance in the domestic one-day tournament with his last good showing in first-class cricket coming in 2015. He has taken only two five-wicket hauls in 51 games. He had only played one first-class game abroad before this Test, but during his Under-19 days toured Malaysia, Pakistan, South Africa and Sri Lanka.Those who saw him make his mark in the Dhaka league system back in 2006-07 say he had a problem finishing his run-up, often going into the danger zone and bowling with a stuttering follow-through. Neither problem looks to have gone away.Rabbi, playing in his 50th first-class game, also impressed the decision-makers in Bangladesh cricket on the basis of domestic one-day and T20 matches, but has a high economy rate (3.52), strike-rate (70.3) and bowling average (41.27) in first-class cricket. He has only twice taken more than 20 wickets in a year in the last decade.Everyone knows Taskin as a limited-overs bowler of immense promise but he came into this tour having only played ten first-class matches, all of them before his international debut in 2014. When he turned up for the press conference on day four, he was visibly sore having bowled 29 overs over two days. It is not his fault that it has almost been four years since he last bowled so many overs in an innings. Of course the system of handling pace bowlers in Bangladesh is held accountable, but such a question becomes irrelevant during a Test match that is slipping out of hand.Taskin, Rabbi and Subashis do not have too much time to rest now that they have a challenging fifth day ahead. They will also need to turn around quickly ahead of the second Test; Rubel isn’t highly rated as a long-format bowler and, given his record, not a lot should be expected of him either.A bowling attack that can take 20 wickets can win Bangladesh a Test match, but that is possible only at home with skilled spinners in helpful conditions. There is little long-term planning towards developing a pace attack that can do the same in helpful conditions away from home.

Another season of cricket’s most popular T20 league went by. How closely did you follow?

ESPNcricinfo staff23-May-2017

Plays of the day from the second T20 international between West Indies and Pakistan in Port of Spain

Nikhil Kalro and Deivarayan Muthu30-Mar-2017Shadab uses Newton’s first lawEvin Lewis pushed a length ball towards Imad Wasim at mid-on, and although he set off from the back foot, it seemed the single didn’t involve much trouble. Wasim picked up cleanly and under-armed a direct hit at the bowler’s end. But more work was done by Shadab Khan from mid-off, who somehow managed to get in Lewis’ path. Lewis veered away to avoid a collision, but so did Shadab. Both players eventually rammed into each other. Lewis lost control of his bat and didn’t get either of his feet back in the crease when Wasim’s throw hit the stumps.The nastiest collisionThe Queen’s Park Oval witnessed three collisions in a bizarre sequence of events in the second innings. Nine balls after the collision between Shadab and Lewis, Chadwick Walton rammed into Sohail Tanvir. In the same over, Ahmed Shehzad collided with Walton and had to be stretchered off the field in an ambulance. Marlon Samuels had dabbed the ball in front of point, from where Shehzad ran in to attack the ball, but lost his balance. His neck crashed into the knee and upper back of Walton. The injury looked worse but seven overs later, Shehzad returned to the field.Captain Carlos shows the wayOn a day when West Indies’ fielding was close to its worst, Carlos Brathwaite was at his best. He seemed peeved watching his team-mates shell catches, miss run-out chances and embarrassingly fall over the ball. Evin Lewis, Jason Holder, Rovman Powell were all guilty. The West Indies captain decided to take things in his hands to show his boys how it’s done. When Imad Wasim carved Kesrick Williams in the air in the 17th over, Brathwaite tore back from mid-off, then dived full length to his right to pluck the ball with both hands. That he maintained his stability despite landing on his knees made the catch even special.Captain Sarfraz mentors Shadab to successShadab stormed through Walton’s gate with a fizzing googly. But his next googly – short on the leg stump – did not go down well with his captain Sarfraz Ahmed. After Marlon Samuels nailed that errant googly to the square-leg boundary, Sarfraz yelled: [no, I’m telling you not to]. Shadab soon sent down a regulation legbreak to beat Kieron Pollard in the air and have him stumped.

Even when South Africa have been winning in recent times it’s been despite a lack of big hundreds from the main batsmen

Firdose Moonda at The Oval28-Jul-2017So there were clouds. This is England. There are always clouds somewhere, right?And there was movement. This is England. They use the Duke ball. It swings, it seams, it wobbles, it whizzes.But these are South African batsmen brought up on pitches greener than most outfields, bouncier than rubber, who learn to survive and then thrive in conditions others emerge from, at best, humbled, at worst, hurt. These are batsmen who are, as Faf du Plessis explained when asked about his decision to bat first at Trent Bridge, “not scared” of a bit of spice. “Brave,” du Plessis called them, especially the openers and Dean Elgar was first to take guard at The OvalHe refused to be drawn into playing at anything that swerved away so Stuart Broad’s first few screamers were ignored. Broad had to get straighter and closer, whisper his threat rather than shout it. “How did you not touch that?” Broad asked Elgar after the fifth ball of his second over veered dangerously close to the edge but couldn’t find it. Elgar shrugged sheepishly, admitted he had no idea and then, as his luck sank in, just grinned.Broad had to go shorter, show more aggression, add the adjectives to the sentence he was scripting that basically said, “I am going not going to make this easy for you” to Elgar. The fourth ball of his fourth over landed on a length and reared up towards Elgar’s nose. He threw his head back and pulled his bat in, the ball leapt over him and missed everything. Broad didn’t bother asking any questions about that one. Elgar couldn’t even bring himself to grin in relief. But he survived. Just like du Plessis promised he would.Why then, after such a fight against big, bad Broad which included a fair amount of discipline in his shot (non)selection, did Elgar decide to go chasing after Toby Roland-Jones? He reached for one, even as it tried to avoid his outside edge, then came forward to another and although Elgar was so convinced the sound was bat-pad that he reviewed, Ultra Edge showed a faint spike when ball passed bat and the on-field decision stood.And so it began.Faf du Plessis pads up against James Anderson and regrets it•Getty ImagesHashim Amla had an lbw appeal reviewed off the first ball he faced. Had he been given out, he would have stayed out for it was an umpire’s call on review and Aleem Dar had not been convinced of this one. Roland-Jones did not have to wait too long to get his own back. Amla was out two overs later when a lifting delivery clipped his glove.At 30 for 3, it suddenly looked like having Quinton de Kock as high as No.4 was risky, especially because he changed absolutely nothing about his approach. The ball after Amla’s dismissal was short and wide from Broad, the same Broad who had been such a beast to Elgar, de Kock cut it for four. The first ball of the next over was from Roland-Jones, the same double-barrelled newbie who plucked Heino Kuhn and Amla, but it was on the pads so de Kock clipped it for four. Three balls after that, de Kock drilled Roland-Jones through mid-off. Three boundaries in 10 balls. De Kock seemed to be playing an entirely different game.That de Kock is given the freedom to play naturally is going to serve South Africa well in future, but they may be wondering when it will naturally occur to de Kock to rein it in. Maybe never. Certainly not today, when he tried to work one to the leg side and outside-edged to gully.Before the Test, du Plessis admitted he had not seen much of Roland-Jones. By 5pm, he may have decided he never wanted to see Roland-Jones again, even though it wasn’t the debutant that dismissed du Plessis and sunk South Africa further. That was the old-timer, James Anderson, who soon saw that movement off the seam, not swing, was what he should be search for. Du Plessis has made his reputation on defence but he has not been able to replicate the efforts of Adelaide or Johannesburg too many times recently. This time, he got a good ball from a great bowler and should have offered a shot. He didn’t.The rest…well, the rest was a case of how long they could last and how close they could come – first to 100 and then to avoiding the follow-on – but for South Africa it will also be about answering questions about what has become a familiar batting concern which has crept up on them over the last year. Even though, South Africa have only lost two of the 14 Tests they have played in that time, their top-order have not been performing to the standards of the line-up in years gone by. They’ve had 12 centuries, in those games an average less than one a match. Over the same period, India, Australia and Sri Lanka have average more than one century a match. This year is also South Africa’s second-leanest year in the last six (in years where they have played more than five Tests). Only 2015, which included their disastrous tour to India, was worse and it’s worth considering what’s caused them to drop off.Personnel plays some role. Graeme Smith, Jacques Kallis and for now, AB de Villiers, re no longer part of the Test set-up and Amla has not scored a daddy-hundred since his double against England in January 2016. Elgar grinds much more than he flows, and not having a settled opening partner has not helped, JP Duminy was always out of form and while de Kock and Temba Bavuma often had each other, there were many occasions in which they lacked the lower-order support to go really big.But there are also conditions. South Africa have spent the last year playing at home, in Australia, in New Zealand and in England – all places where the ball can star as much as, or more than, the bat as the manner of the victories illustrated. They won the series in Australia because they bowled the hosts out for 85 in Hobart, they won at home because they groomed their green mambas and then lured Sri Lanka’s batsmen into its mouth and they won in Wellington because they bowled New Zealand out for 171 at the Basin Reserve, but that was the series that warned them all was not as well as it could be.In that same match, South Africa were 94 for 6 in their first innings before de Kock and Bavuma rescued them and 80 for 5 and 95 runs behind after four days in the next Test in Hamilton but rain saved them. They will be hoping for something similar this time, though there is much more time in the game and their situation is much more dire. Yes, there are clouds and yes there is movement and yes this is England, but where is the real South Africa?