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The allrounder had considered going the freelance T20 way, before a conversation with the coach and selectors changed his mind

Shashank Kishore14-Oct-20175:04

I nearly gave up the game at 24 – Munro

In June this year, Colin Munro considered turning into a freelance T20 cricketer. He wasn’t sure of getting a New Zealand Cricket central contract. He had already featured in franchise leagues across India, England, Australia and most recently in West Indies, where he was the highest run-getter for Trinbago Knight Riders in a victorious campaign in August 2017. But an honest chat with the coach and national selectors convinced him to delay making the “tough decision”.The latest vindication of his decision to stay back came on Saturday, when he was among six New Zealand A cricketers chosen to stay on in India to make up the 15-member squad for the short limited-overs series. Munro, who has never batted above No. 4 in his career, is pressing his case to become the first-choice opener.”If you think you are going to get opportunities for your country, stay and play. If you don’t think you are, then you go and try to make as much money as you can, while you can and get that enjoyment. I’m hopefully going to get a crack in this one-day team. It’s all on me now,” Munro tells ESPNcricinfo.”It depends what you want out of cricket. Some people play for stats, some people want to play in a team all the time, some people want to go around playing indifferent conditions.”I nearly chose the other way this year. I’m glad I didn’t. It’s trying to take it each year at a time and see where you are – as long as you keep those lines of communication with the coach and selectors. New Zealand’s been good in terms of letting us know where we sit.”There’s an adventurous streak in Munro’s batting. Since 2012, he has hit 374 sixes across formats, the fourth-most after Chris Gayle, Kieron Pollard and Brendon McCullum. But making a decision about his career at 30 needed some thinking and balance.”I spoke to a lot of people I trusted. T20s are always going to be there, but international cricket’s not always going to be there. I still want to play for New Zealand in all formats.”Growing up, Munro preferred hockey and made it to the Kwazulu Natal’s Under-15 side in Durban, where he grew up and went to boarding school with his brothers. A year later, however, his family moved to New Zealand in search of a better life and opportunities.”I ask myself couple of questions at the end of each game: Did the bowler get me out? Did I get myself out? If I answer them honestly, then the reflection process is pretty good”•Getty ImagesIn Auckland he chose cricket, because the guys who played were “like-minded”.”Hockey involves too much running, I’d rather play cricket and hit sixes,” he laughs.Munro was an instant hit as a “sixer king” in college. They played from just one end at the community ground and leg side was his preferred hitting zone because his mother encouraged him to do so, even if meant broken windows. She would give him two dollars extra in pocket money if he cleared the roof of their house, positioned near cow corner.A decade later, in 2014, Munro would make use of all that practice to smash 23 sixes – seven more than the previous first-class record held by Andrew Symonds – in his knock of 281 for Auckland, against Central Districts.But his path to international cricket wasn’t an easy one. On first-class debut in 2006, he batted at No. 11, but bowled first change and picked up three wickets. He changed clubs for more opportunities with the bat, but that didn’t help either. For the next three years, Munro found it hard to break into the Auckland team as an allrounder. At 22, he considered giving up the game, until he rang up his good friend Carl Cachopa, also a South African-born New Zealand cricketer, who was at the time playing club cricket in Adelaide.”He convinced me to come over, have a season there and get by doing some odd jobs so that I could get the enjoyment [of the game] back,” Munro says of his decision to play for West Torrens in 2009.The laidback lifestyle and the small-city charm drew him in. “I had the worst season of my life, but enjoyed playing with a good bunch of blokes.”He finally broke into Auckland’s squad as a No. 7 allrounder in 2012 when Colin de Grandhomme received a late call-up to the New Zealand squad. Munro made the best of the chance with a match-winning 115-ball 130, which included 12 fours and seven sixes.In early 2013, Munro was summoned to the Test side after James Franklin was injured ahead of match in Port Elizabeth.”McCullum has been a massive influence over the last three-four years. You try to carry forward his legacy. He earned that right to play that way over many years. I’m lucky I’m naturally aggressive, but you can’t hit every ball for four”•Randy Brooks – CPL T20 / Getty”I didn’t [expect a call-up] to be honest,” he says. “The timing of cricket is quite funny. I went and scored three hundreds and a double-hundred, and then got called-up to the tour of South Africa mainly for the white-ball stuff. I was called in as a replacement in case someone went down. I don’t think I had the best preparation, because I knew I wasn’t going to play. I was there just to get a taste of what it is like. I probably didn’t prepare as well as I should have. It pretty much showed when I played in my first Test, where I didn’t bat really well and it showed.” He hasn’t played a Test since.Munro says it has taken close to three years since that forgettable debut to get his mindset right. New Zealand coach Mike Hesson introduced him to Pete Sanford, a sports psychologist last year. He learnt to deal with the tendency of being in two minds when playing a shot, which he admits has been the reason for his inconsistency.He gives an example of this process, which, he says, is slowly yielding returns: playing the reverse sweep for six in the first over of the 2016 World T20, off R Ashwin.”For the last two years, the mental side of things has helped me. Before that, I just relied on natural talent. When you’re young, you don’t believe in such things [mental conditioning]. There is work to be done but as long as I’m striving to be better, it’s all good. I’ve tried meditation but I can’t sit still for long. So talking to people who I trust helps me.”I ask myself couple of questions at the end of each game: Did the bowler get me out? Did I get myself out? If I answer them honestly, then the reflection process is pretty good.”Conversations with Brendon McCullum have helped.”McCullum has been a massive influence over the last three-four years. I was probably arrogant early on. My mouth’s got me into trouble a few times. I also want to try and be a leader now.”A couple of years ago, I was reckless, but I’ve honed my skills. T20 is fun, so you just want to grow up and express yourself as much as possible. You try to carry forward his legacy. He earned that right to play that way over many, many years. I’m lucky I’m naturally aggressive, but you can’t hit every ball for four. Brendon has been pretty good, playing together at Trinbago Knight Riders as well, has helped.”Over the last two years, Munro has become a force in the shortest format. In January 2016, he broke the record for the fastest T20 fifty by a New Zealander, five overs after Martin Guptill set the record. A month later, he was signed by Kolkata Knight Riders at the IPL. CPL and BBL contracts followed. Earlier this year, he was Trinbago’s MVP. But for a man who is in demand across continents, he’s still got his sights on being a key member of the New Zealand squad.”The next six months are huge. I’m trying to break into the Test team but obviously we play just four Tests. But I think it’s about communicating with selectors, following my routines and getting feedback. I will keep pushing as hard as I can, keep banging the door down.”

IPL 2018 showed there might no longer be a place for batsmen who build innings and that DRS might need some fine-tuning for it to truly work in T20s

Sreshth Shah28-May-2018 Goodbye, accumulatorsBased on ESPNcricinfo’s Smart Stats, if Ajinkya Rahane hadn’t batted at all this season, Rajasthan Royals would have scored 51 more runs. Rahane’s 370 runs this season – at a Smart strike-rate of 101 – was the antithesis of how T20 cricket has evolved since last season: similar numbers in IPL 2017 for Rahane had almost helped Rising Pune Supergiant win the IPL.He’s not the only one. Quinton de Kock, Gautam Gambhir, D’Arcy Short, Manish Pandey and Robin Uthappa fall in the same bracket and have the season’s poorest numbers. Each of them has cost their teams between 33 and 41 runs. They didn’t make any noteworthy performances to offset these numbers either. It’s not impossible to turn it around – Kane Williamson and Ambati Rayudu, are your best examples.Spin’s a Powerplay power moveIt’s long been a theory that bowling a spinner in the innings’ first over helps the fielding side get an over out of the way cheaply, and it’s been implemented this season in the IPL. Piyush Chawla and Nitish Rana did that for KKR this season, while K Gowtham did so at Royals.But apart from the first over, teams have used spin in the Powerplay much more in IPL 2018. Shakib Al Hasan bowled at least two overs in the Powerplay for most of the season, Mayank Markande for the early part of the tournament, and R Ashwin’s innovative use of his spin resources stood out in that regard.In Kings XI Punjab’s game against Royal Challengers Bangalore, Ashwin chose to bowl five overs of spin in the Powerplay, rotating his three spin options to strangle RCB’s batting effort. The tactic doesn’t always work, but it’s one that’s being used more than ever. In 2016 and 2017, spinners bowled 130 and 158 overs in the Powerplay. This year they bowled 191. One giant leap for big-hittingThe most number of sixes hit in IPL 2017 was Glenn Maxwell’s 26. This season, there have been nine who have hit more than that. Rishabh Pant, third last season with 24 sixes, finished this season as the topper with 37. But Pant wasn’t the only one to increase his big-hitting prowess. Last year, Williamson hit 10 sixes, this year it’s 28. Even six-hitting phenom Sunil Narine increased his tally from 10 in 2017 to 23. Dhoni almost doubled his tally from 16 to 30, Shreyas Iyer went from 10 to 21, Shikhar Dhawan from nine to 14. The list goes on.And it’s not just that the number of sixes has coincided with a rich vein of form. Their balls-per-boundary ratio has also seen a remarkable improvement since last season.Players like Gowtham and Deepak Chahar have also shown that range hitting has become a skill that batsmen from Nos. 1 to 11 practice at the training. The season saw a record 872 sixes, 167 more than last season and more than 141 since the second-highest six-hitting season (731 in 2012).Sunil Narine frustrated RCB with a chancy innings•BCCI The diminishing value of wickets in handTime and again this season, both when teams have lost and when they’ve won, the low value of having wickets in hand has been endorsed.Chennai Super Kings had no business to send in Harbhajan Singh and Deepak Chahar when they were 24 for 3 against Kings XI Punjab, but they did, knowing that even if they lost two more wickets for no real addition to their total, they still saved two full-time batsmen from facing the swinging ball at that stage.Rajasthan Royals realised that when they tried using Gowtham as a floater after he caught people’s attention after an 11-ball 33. R Ashwin, too, tried to use himself as a No. 3, but that experiment didn’t turn out well, but it shows that teams are thinking along those lines. Super Kings showed glimpses of that style in the season’s first match, when they won with one wicket in hand. Dwayne Bravo, with CSK seven down, continued to hit the ball knowing fully well that getting out at that stage was curtains for CSK.Kings XI Punjab, too, played in that manner, and that helped during their winning run in the season’s first half, when quickfire twenties and thirties from Karun Nair and Mayank Agarwal were enough for a team where they batted as low as No. 8. It did not pay off as the season carried on, but they did not waste their resources. Royals, on the other hand, tried so hard to protect wickets – Rahane, Short, and Ben Stokes, were all guilty of this – that they often lost their steam in a chase of a par score. Or take Sunrisers Hyderabad, who for all their bowling supremacy, struggled with the bat as Manish Pandey attempted to anchor the innings.IPL 2018 saw the most number of wickets fall per innings, barring the edition that was held in South Africa in 2009. DRS is here to stayIt’s been only a year since Dhoni was pulled up for doing a mock DRS sign during a game, but the IPL has come a long way since then. It was the first season that each team had one review per innings, and the outcomes have shown how crucial getting correct decisions on the field are.In the season opener, Markande’s lbw shout against MS Dhoni was turned down. But the DRS came to the youngster’s rescue there to cap off a memorable debut IPL outing. Another howler was to follow, when Kedar Jadhav was erroneously adjudged not out by the umpire, but the blame on not reviewing that falls on Mumbai.Interventions from DRS helped Faf du Plessis overturn an lbw decision in Qualifier 1 while a rampaging Chris Lynn’s bat-pad catch to Watson at first slip are some other examples.In fact, the powers of DRS should, perhaps, be allowed to clear on-field no balls. Tom Curran was called no-ball during a crucial stage against Mumbai Indians, only for the replays on the big screen to show he was behind the line. There was clear visual proof, but the umpires could not correct their decision despite the glaring evidence.

He has broken records on his home ground, and his last innings at Trent Bridge was 147, but it may not be enough for Hales to keep his place

George Dobell11-Jul-20180:36

WATCH – The moment Hales injured his side

By the time Alex Hales left the pitch at Trent Bridge a couple of weeks ago, he could have been forgiven for thinking he had made his point.He had, after all, just made 147 from 92 balls. And, in doing so, he had helped his side to a second-successive world-record ODI score in completed games on this ground. In the previous one, in 2016, he had smashed 171 from 122 balls. He averages 88.20 in six ODIs at the ground with a strike-rate of 138.24. You might think his position was assured.But it’s not. For with Ben Stokes back to fitness and Joe Root recalled having been dropped from the T20 side, something has to give. And that something, it seems, is likely to be Hales.Who else could it be? Jonny Bairstow has made four centuries in his eight most recent ODI innings; Jason Roy has made two centuries (and an 82) in his four most recent ODI innings; Root averages a fraction under 50 in this format and is seen as essential should England encounter a tricky batting surface and Eoin Morgan is both the captain and the highest run-scorer in England’s ODI history. And Jos Buttler, well he’s Jos Buttler. He might well be on his way to establishing himself as the best limited-overs batsman England have ever had.The management have decided they like the security of playing the extra bowler – with Stokes and Root you could argue they have a seventh bowler – so despite Hales’ record, despite him playing one of his most mature innings as recently as Friday (he made a classy, unbeaten 58 to see England to victory in Cardiff), despite this match being played on his home ground, he looks the most vulnerable. Even with Stokes, at this stage of his recovery from injury, unlikely to be required to bowl more than six or seven overs.This strength in depth is, of course, an asset. It provides reinforcements should injury strike and ensures there can be no complacency in the camp.But it also brings with it some potential issues. For with the standards required to retain a place in the side now so high, it might leave everyone in the squad peering over their shoulder. And once that starts, it can threaten both the stability of the side and the selflessness with which they have played of late.
Morgan’s recent record, for example, is comfortably the least impressive of the batsmen. But while it would be fairly typical of England’s previous World Cup campaigns to abandon a long-held plan in the run-up to a tournament, you would think that lessons have been learned and nobody is seriously suggesting one of the architects of England’s revival should be dropped. England could do without a situation where a couple of poor games results in a player’s position coming under scrutiny but, once you leave a man like Hales out, it seems inevitable.Perhaps this is making a negative out of a positive. Certainly Root, who was omitted from England’s T20 side in Bristol on Sunday, suggested so when reflecting on that situation and it’s true that, right now, there are no obvious cracks in the settled, positive environment around this team.To see the squad laughing and cheering together as Stokes did a more than passable Jordan Pickford impression and save three successive penalties in the pre-training football, was to see what gives every impression of being a settled, united squad. The next few months may require some careful management, though.”Being left out is a great motivator to make sure you’re doing everything you can,” Root said. “It is always difficult being left out and you never like that as a player.”But it demonstrates the competition we have for places. It’s part and parcel of having a really strong squad. And, ahead of a World Cup, that’s what you want. You want guys outside pushing as hard as possible and forcing those difficult decisions. It shows where we have come in the last three or four years in this format. It can’t be a bad thing.”It is equally not a bad thing that England are likely to face an almighty test of their newly-acquired reputation in ODI cricket over the next week or so, too. The long-term aim remains the World Cup and the next few days will provide a pretty good gauge for both these sides of where they are and what they need to improve. There are no guarantees, of course, and readers in Pakistan and Australia may disagree, but whoever beats these sides next year is likely to be very close to winning the tournament.The absence of Chris Woakes remains painful for England. It’s not just his bowling – though he is probably England’s best death bowler – but the security he provides with the bat at No. 8. David Willey, while dangerous when the ball swings, has a bit to prove once it does not. Tellingly, he has only once delivered 10 overs in an ODI in the last couple of years and, on that occasion, England lost against Scotland.Equally, England’s spinners are likely to be tested more in this series than they were by a spinaphobic – no, you probably won’t find that word in a dictionary – Australia and the entire batting line-up is likely to be confronted by more skill and more variation. It looks, in short, like being a high-quality encounter between two sides on top of their games. There’s no World Cup on offer but we might well have a better idea of who is likely to lift it in a year’s time after the next week.

November? Time to get your punching gloves on

Andrew Fidel Fernando01-Dec-2018There are things worth fighting for in life. Freedom. Justice. Human rights. In November, there were fights all through cricket. But – spoiler alert – they were all pathetic.Virat Kohli v Ravi Shastri
The Briefing owes apologies to Virat Kohli and Ravi Shastri, whose seeming owner-labrador relationship this column has been milking all year, only to be told this month that, in fact, Shastri is absolutely not the yes-man everyone thought he was. “About [Shastri] saying ‘yes’ all the time – that is the most bizarre thing I have heard,” Kohli said ahead of India’s tour of Australia. “I don’t think there’s anyone who has said no to me more than him in Indian cricket.” Shastri was not asked by the press to confirm whether this was true, but we know the kind of thing he would have said, don’t we? “Virat is damn right,” he would have boomed. “I agree completely. When I started this job, he told me: ‘Make sure you say no to me.’ People who know nothing about anything can talk all the nonsense they want, but I can look any idiot in the eye and say I’ve carried out the India captain’s request to every last bloody letter.”Yes man? Puh!”Jonny Bairstow v his “critics”
Some people goad the best out of themselves when they are written off or under fire. Unfortunately for Bairstow, who was dropped for the second Test of the series against Sri Lanka, writers, commentators and fans were pretty sympathetic to his situation. Almost across the board, people acknowledged that while England were probably right to go with the XI they did, he had done little to deserve being left out. So what did Bairstow do? He completely made naysayers up. Upon reaching his century in the third Test, he gestured pointedly toward the press box, and in a fired-up interview, said he was “proud as punch” of the century after being “castigated”, even though there’s no known record of said castigation. “People sometimes have an opinion while they are sat at home and don’t see the graft that’s going on,” he went on to say.Yeah, you tell those figments of your imagination, Jonny. That’ll show those jerks. How many Tests have those made-up dolts played anyway? Trying to dump their fictional criticism on you? Get out of here!Cricket v commercialisation
Partly because India continue to refuse to play Pakistan, the PCB has had to come up with creative methods with which to make their “home” series in the UAE extra profitable. Lately, their cricket trophies have begun to lose their battle against commercialisation. Recently, the prize for Pakistan’s T20 series against Australia was shaped like a biscuit – the series sponsors’ product. And now the one for the ongoing Test series against New Zealand has the sponsor company’s name and logo on the actual trophy. Given the propensity of South Asian CEOs to shoehorn themselves into every possible presentation ceremony, there is only one logical conclusion to this trend.Ishita Mazumder/ESPNcricinfo LtdMithali Raj v Ramesh Powar
It is as yet unclear who is the more virtuous party in the unfolding drama between former India captain Mithali Raj and coach Ramesh Powar. Raj has alleged that some “people in power” may be out to destroy her. Powar has said that Raj ignored the team plan and batted for her own milestones. All this needs to be pored over and unpacked over the coming weeks, but one thing is for sure – women’s cricket has reached a significant milestone. After decades of struggle, it finally has its very own globally recognised player v coach spat, replete with accusations of selfishness and favouritism.This is new ground, but dare we hope for more? Could women’s cricket one day match the histrionics and melodrama of men’s cricket? Might we see women cricketers screaming at each other in stairwells? Bawling their eyes out after being shown to be guilty of ball-tampering? Yelling and gesticulating at critics who do not even exist? That’s the dream.Australian cricket v credibility
We’ve all seen it by now, painted on the dressing-room wall at the stadium in Perth. But is “elite honesty” that weird a concept? Other teams may not broadcast it in the way that the new, cuddly Australia does, but they all have their unique value systems. For example, there’s bumslapsmanship (New Zealand), collapsitude (Sri Lanka), McCulluplagiarism (England), contractdisputicity (West Indies), Kolpakshevism (South Africa), and unceasing lunacy (Pakistan). Why pick on Australia?Angelo Mathews v Chandika Hathurusingha
Apparently it takes more than six weeks to get over being unceremoniously axed as captain, jettisoned from the limited-overs team altogether, and having your fitness (read fatness) questioned. Still seemingly annoyed at Hathurusingha, the coach who dumped him, Mathews reached fifty on three occasions in the Tests against England, and on at least two of those, glared in the direction of the dressing room, pointed to his bat, and then made a yapping motion with his gloves, as if to say he was letting his bat do the talking.Next month in The Briefing– Mathews makes a duck in next innings. Hathurusingha flashes note at camera reading “Yeah bat talk nah”.- “No, there is no way I will challenge your absolute authority on selection, strategy or general direction of the team” – Shastri puts his foot down with Kohli.

Time is running out to make a case for the summer’s big event, but two players in particular have stepped up

George Dobell in St Kitts09-Mar-2019If Chris Jordan were the Barbados-born cricketer qualifying for England next week, you wonder how much momentum calls for his selection would be gathering.As things stand, it is Jofra Archer who is dominating discussions around World Cup selection. And with his pace and potential, you can understand that.But you wonder if the lure of the new sometimes obscures the value of the familiar. For Jordan also offers a compelling package of skills. And, while he has not played an ODI since September 2016, he has provided a timely reminder of his qualities in these last two T20I matches. It’s not impossible it could yet win him a recall.While some limited-overs bowling figures can be misleading – bowlers might see their figures improved by a flurry of late wickets, with batsmen caught on the boundary, for example – Jordan’s figures here were reward for some high-class seam bowling. At one stage, he took four wickets in eight balls for the cost of two runs as Darren Bravo edged a fine one angled across him – the sort of wicket you might see in Test cricket, really – Jason Holder played around a straight one and Nicolas Pooran and Fabian Allen were punished for attempting to run good length, well-directed balls down to third man.This backed up his impressive performance in St Lucia. There he dismissed Chris Gayle with a well-directed yorker – a delivery that proved beyond his ODI counterparts for much of the preceding series – and followed it with an excellent slower ball (and brilliant return catch) to dismiss Bravo.So, in two games, he has shown the skill to bowl with variation and control, and an ability to bowl at most stages of the innings.This second match may prove especially relevant, though. The England management already know he is a good bowler at the death. They are less confident of his ability to maintain a tight line and length and bowl in earlier phases of the game. He may have gone some way towards convincing them here.Jordan has probably been unfortunate to play as little international cricket as he has. He was, by the coaching staff’s reckoning, the pick of England’s bowlers when he played the last of his eight Tests in Barbados in May 2015. But he was then left out of the team for the first Test against New Zealand a few weeks later on the basis that the selectors wanted to give Mark Wood a Test debut to ensure he had some experience at that level before the Ashes. At the time, it was presumed Jordan would be back later in the summer.But a couple of weeks after those Tests against New Zealand, Jordan sustained a side strain when bowling in an ODI. He had already stayed on the pitch too long for his own good – he went for 97 from nine overs – but was then obliged to bat as England went close to chasing 379 from 46 overs. That brief innings worsened the side strain and he was forced into a long lay-off. He fell out of the reckoning in that layoff and has only played half-a-dozen ODIs since.He has not, perhaps, developed his batting quite as much as it once seemed he would. And he does not have quite the pace of Archer or Wood. But he is a bowler with a good range of skills and as good a fielder as anyone available to England. He could be a very useful member of a 15-man World Cup squad.Sam Billings steers the ball through the on side•Getty ImagesMuch the same might be said about Sam Billings. His innings here – his highest in international cricket – showcased both his ability as a ball-striker and his cricketing intelligence. We don’t have to look too far back to see what happened the last time England’s top-order were knocked over cheaply in international cricket but on this occasion, Billings – in company with Joe Root, who made his first T20I half-century since the World T20 final in Kolkata – showed an ability to adapt their game to reflect both the match situation and a pitch offering the bowlers some assistance.With England reeling at 32 for 4 at one stage, his first 34 runs occupied 31 balls before, having established a base, he accelerated so dramatically that his final 16 balls brought him 53 runs. The 44 England scored from the final two overs of the innings left West Indies needing the largest score ever made in a T20I on this ground and a total perhaps 25 or 30 above par.It may well not be enough to earn Billings a place in that World Cup squad, though. With Alex Hales seemingly guaranteed the spot for the reserve batsman, there are only three sports remaining in the squad. While Ed Smith is clearly keen on Joe Denly, there seems limited point in having a third spinner in the squad – it is hard to see any circumstances in which he would play – so it may well be those final three spots are all taken by seam bowlers. It’s not impossible there could be two Barbados-born bowlers in that squad.”That would be a dream,” Jordan admitted. “But we haven’t talked about it. We don’t put that sort of thing in the atmosphere. We try and stay grounded and not get too far ahead of ourselves. We put our energy into what’s in front of us.”At least Billings is winning an opportunity now. The likes of James Vince, Dawid Malan (who has scored four half-centuries in his five T20Is) and Liam Livingstone are struggling to win an opportunity even in this second-string side.It is reflective, up to a point anyway, of the days when Australian cricket possessed such strength in depth that fine players such as Stuart Law (one Test, 54 ODIs) or Martin Love (five Tests) were limited to relatively brief international careers.There is a sense that this T20I series, coming at the end of a long tour, is a bit of an afterthought. But winning the series so comprehensively is a decent achievement for England. West Indies are world champions in this format, after all, and England have rested half-a-dozen of their first-choice players.To bowl a side out for 45 – the lowest total in T20I history by a Full Member of the ICC – and complete victory by 137 runs – only three times in T20I history has a larger margin of victory (in terms of runs) been achieved – is testament to England’s depth.It must bode well for their chances in both the World Cup and the T20 World Cup. But for the likes of Jordan and Billings, it makes securing a place in the side desperately tough.

The batsman looked like he was summoning as much professionalism as he could muster, if only to block out the pain

David Hopps at Wantage Road06-May-2019For an example of a man who has royally messed up, there’s no need to look further than Alex Hales. He was the tall one, taking guard, the one with the stately stance but the ignoble reputation. The one who should have been a big part of England’s World Cup plans, but was instead batting in Northampton in a Royal London Cup group tie, his dreams shattered, his presence with England decidedly not required.One minute you are consumed by the belief that the world revolves around you, that every latest excess will make you more one of the lads, revelling in all the usual laddish addictions – alcohol, sex, drugs … you name it – Hales will either have done it, or have been happy for you to imagine he had. The next minute, you are derided as a menace to England’s World Cup hopes and cast aside. The axe can fall suddenly and brutally.Whether you regard Hales’ removal from England’s World Cup plans after two failed drugs tests as quite proper moral instruction to the disreputable, or something desperately sad, or both, to watch his first innings since his world fell apart was to watch something hollow, a batsman summoning as much professionalism as he could muster, if only to block out the pain.ALSO READ: Notts offer support to Alex Hales but new contract isn’t guaranteedHe played well. “He has something to prove,” said one of Northampton’s electronic scoreboard operators. But that did not really wash. It is not on the field where he has something to prove, it is off it. He made 36, but frankly, history suggests that he could have made 360 and, off the field, he could still make a fool of himself at every degree of the compass.If Hales needs a sense of perspective, he should learn from Samit Patel, whose utterly captivating unbeaten 136 carried Nottinghamshire home by one wicket with three balls to spare, Northants’ 325 for 7 chased down from the disarray of 116 for 5, securing a home semi-final in the process. Patel will tell you he has been unfairly overlooked by England any number of times, and once or twice he has been right, but he brings as much joy to the county game as any professional around.Northampton actually staged a World Cup match in 1999, Bangladesh’s startling victory against Pakistan – a dead match (in the context of the tournament, at least, if not the country’s hopes of Test status) which later became subjected to match-fixing allegations. A picture of the match is displayed in the corridor by the Wantage Road boardroom. It was probably the nearest Hales will get to a World Cup in England, but fortunately it was hidden away from view.Alex Hales smiles for the camera ahead of his Nottinghamshire comeback•Getty ImagesIt was a pleasant place to be on a Bank Holiday, even before Patel’s special intervention. Children were running excitedly around an old-fashioned sweet stall (Samit paid it a visit before he went out to bat, and in case you suspect that is embellishment, there is a picture to prove it) and the Mem Saab curry shack was doing a decent enough trade. But this was not a full house at Lord’s. It was just one of those days, a day Hales needed to deal with, part necessary rehabilitation, part imposition.Nottinghamshire’s director of cricket, Mick Newell, is wary of the psychological impact upon Hales of being dropped so unforgivingly from England’s World Cup squad. “He knows he has made mistakes, but what a price he has paid,” Newell said. “He needs to be playing, be batting, be fielding, be busy.”He is fortunate to have such a supportive county. To reflect upon lessons learned can be the path to a new maturity, to be more at peace with yourself; he is probably some way off that yet.Nevertheless, he buckled down for his 43 balls, prospering via a succession of square cuts, square dabs, and square drives. He looked as if he might conceivably make a hundred by hitting every ball in the same place. Perhaps it was some sort of zen-like process to ease his mind. Then he tried to square cut yet again, against the medium pace of Luke Procter, and dragged on. He was surrounded by fielders in maroon, a man himself marooned.He entered the rudimentary pavilion – “Suppliers for All Your Building and Timber Needs” – to a smattering of polite applause. One would guess that a majority of county stalwarts understand why England made the decision, but this is not the sort of audience to jeer or lose its innate sense of fair play.The intimation by Ashley Giles, England’s director of cricket, that Hales might still have been with England if his failed drugs test had not become public sticks in the craw; England’s much-vaunted team ethic should also exist in private as well as public. The withering attack upon Hales by Eoin Morgan could not have been more brutal. England’s desire to win a World Cup will thrust aside all those who stand in its way. But behavioural rules are better written down rather than adopted and adapted whenever cricket administrators and captains see fit.A couple of minutes’ walk up Adnitt Road, the Looking Glass Theatre Theatrical Costume Hire shop was closed up for Bank Holiday. They were promoting in the window. Said the straw man to Dorothy in L Frank Baum’s original novel: “I do not want people to call me a fool, and if my head stays stuffed with straw instead of with brains, as yours is, how am I ever to know anything?”Dorothy took the straw man to Oz; England have sent Hales to Coventry. But the comparison does not entirely fit. In Baum’s novel, in reality the Straw Man had common sense, but just lacked confidence. The opposite seems true of Hales. He can win one-day trophies with Nottinghamshire this summer and, in his new circumstances, he would be well advised to return to red-ball cricket, too, and enjoy the feel of bat on ball. The past has been a mess, but somehow, to the sound of a World Cup soundtrack that he will not be able to escape, he needs to move on.

Zimbabwe coach admits that recent developments have been disturbing for the players, but expects the team to make a big statement in the tri-series in Bangladesh

Mohammad Isam11-Sep-2019You’re the head coach of an international team. You do what you can, within your means and resources, to make the team as good as it can be, but things outside your control lead to the team being suspended from the international game. What do you do then? Lalchand Rajput, the Zimbabwe coach, has what he calls a simple motto: “Be positive, look ahead, and think about what you want to achieve. That’s it.”As things stand, the Zimbabwe men’s and women’s cricket teams are suspended by the ICC. The reason is a spat between Zimbabwe Cricket and the country’s Sports and Recreation Commission. The conflict, based on what we know, has been resolved. The ICC decision stands, but if everyone in Zimbabwe plays by the rules, that could change in the not-too-distant future.The players, of course, have been hit hard, and they have made their displeasure public. Sikandar Raza, the senior allrounder, has been dropped from the squad for the T20I tri-series in Bangladesh – with Afghanistan as the third team – because of disciplinary reasons, while Hamilton Masakadza, the captain, has announced his desire to quit after the series because “with Zimbabwe barred from [ICC T20 World Cup Qualifier in Dubai next month], I feel the time is right to shift the focus to the next generation”.
It can’t be easy under the circumstances, and Rajput admits that it isn’t.ALSO READ: Brickhill – The troubled history of Zimbabwe player unions“Obviously everyone was worried, because no one knew what was going to happen. The players were disturbed because it came as a surprise. We had just landed in Netherlands [for a white-ball series], and before the first game we got the news. So everybody was worried, understandably,” Rajput told ESPNcricinfo. “It was a difficult phase, that tour. But we tried to motivate the players, we tried to … I told the players to leave these things behind, and once at the ground, focus on the job. I think we have overcome that. We want this to be a new beginning for us, I’d say, a fresh start, and I hope we move forward now.”We will, of course, miss Raza, because he has been one of our better players. But we have to move on, move forward with the players we have. Whatever team we have got, we must utilise to the best potential.”

Yes, things have happened back home, but that’s not really in our control. But that’s why we have to try and be very positive, look ahead. Hopefully, there is a future, because that’s what we are here for

Fortunately for the team, their trip to Bangladesh wasn’t cancelled, and they now have a chance to make a statement in the T20Is in Dhaka before travelling to Singapore to take on the home side and Nepal in another T20I tri-series.”A lot of eyes are on Zimbabwe cricket – that’s what I have told the players. Everyone is watching us, so we have to make sure we do well; if you do well, things will change,” Rajput said. “In cricket, the bottom line is performance. It’s a good platform for us, that we are getting to play. We have got a nice mix of young and experienced players, and they are hungry. They want to perform, and this is the best platform. So, hopefully, we do well, and do well in Singapore as well.”It should help. After all, bar a 1-1 Test series in Bangladesh late last year, it’s mostly been rough going for Zimbabwe since Rajput’s appointment was confirmed, in August 2018. They swept UAE 4-0 in an ODI series at home in April this year, but have lost everything else in the format – in South Africa and Bangladesh last year and in Netherland and Ireland this year. And in T20Is, the record is one win and four losses in six matches.As things turned pear-shaped, first at home and then in the form of the ICC suspension, everything seemed to be in a state of disarray; emotions among players ran high, with questions about the team’s – and their – future uppermost in everyone’s mind.While accepting that the circumstances – “not in our control” – made things tough for him and the players, Rajput, whose last gig before joining Zimbabwe was with the Afghanistan team, said he just shifted to what was his “speciality”, man-management.”Yes, things have happened back home, but that’s not really in our control. But that’s why we have to try and be very positive, look ahead. Hopefully, there is a future, because that’s what we are here for. You can’t think about the things that have happened. You do, but you have to look ahead too. We must all think of what we are going to do next. My motto is simple: be positive, look ahead, and think about what I want to achieve.Lalchand Rajput was the coach when Afghanistan achieved Full-Member status•Getty Images”In international cricket, the mindset is the main thing. A player is judged by the nine inches above his shoulders. If you have a good head, a strong mind, you can conquer anything. Look at Steven Smith. His technique isn’t what coaches teach you, but look at the runs he has scored in England. It’s because he is mentally strong. That’s all the matters. Technique will take you only so far. After that, it’s the mindset. It’s the self-belief.”I said that to the Afghanistan players too, and that’s what I am telling the players in Zimbabwe. If you have the self-belief, that I can do it in the middle, then you can. As a coach, my job is to give them the self-belief, the confidence. I can give those inputs, what it requires to perform in the middle. After that, of course, it’s over to the players. Whatever the conditions and circumstances, you have to have the courage. If you have the courage, you can conquer anything. No backward steps.”In Bangladesh now, Zimbabwe are the lowest-ranked of the three competing teams: 14th, with the home side at No. 10 and Afghanistan three spots higher. Rajput is, however, targeting a final appearance.”The pressure is on Afghanistan and Bangladesh. We have nothing to lose, and we have to play fearlessly. We have to give our best in every game, and if we can show some self-belief, we can do anything we want on the ground,” Rajput said. “We have to reach the final, that’s the main thing. We go one game at a time, take stock after each game, and see what we need to do. In T20s, I believe there are no favourites. You do well on the day, and you win. That’s what we have seen in T20 competitions. We are as good as any other team in T20s, and if we play to our potential, we can win matches.”We have a good bunch of players coming through the ranks now, and we have the regular seniors too. This is a transition period for us, and hopefully, we will overcome it, and you’ll see a better Zimbabwe team in the near future.”Rajput has just under two years to go on his contract but Masakadza, who took over as captain across formats in February this year, won’t be a part of the remainder of Rajput’s time with the side.”He has served Zimbabwe cricket for a long, long time,” Rajput acknowledged. “He has been an ambassador for Zimbabwe cricket, he has done yeomen service for us. His performances are right up there, they speak for his skills and ability. As a coach, I have had a wonderful time working with him, and I hope he leaves on a high note. If we can win the final, that would be a perfect farewell for him. That’s what we are hoping for.”

After some early trouble against the new ball, the India opener hit his stride and never looked back

Karthik Krishnaswamy in Pune10-Oct-2019There are no secrets in international cricket. An air of mystery may briefly surround a debutant, but by the time he’s batted or bowled for a session, dossiers containing the smallest detail about his technique are already on the way.

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Mayank Agarwal had played four Tests before South Africa met him for the first time. Even if they hadn’t spent as much time planning against him as they might have for, say, Cheteshwar Pujara or Virat Kohli, they would have arrived in India with a fair idea of how to bowl to him.During the first two Tests in Visakhapatnam and Pune, some of those plans have been evident, and there have been moments when they have threatened to get his wicket. And yet, here we are, three innings into the series: 330 runs, two hundreds, an average of 110.00.There was a fair amount of grass on the first-day pitch in Pune, and the fast bowlers could extract a bit of seam movement and bounce right through the first session, and sporadically thereafter. South Africa had three quicks in their attack, and each of them tested Agarwal early, homing in on the same technical issue: his tendency to get closed off with his front-and-across trigger movement.It’s a good position to get into against the full ball outside off stump, and quite naturally he’s an excellent driver through the off side, whether it’s the straight-bat punch, where his power comes from his front-foot weight transfer, or that whippy drive with the bottom-hand flourish. It’s also a good springboard for the square-cut, helping keep the batsman side-on and in the ideal position to slap away at any width.Agarwal was quick to pounce on any opportunities to play these shots, and 36 of his 63 runs against pace came via the cover drive, the cut and the off drive.A close-in fielder is airborne as Mayank Agarwal drives•Associated PressBut that front-and-across movement can also get batsmen in trouble against the incoming ball. Vernon Philander had a tight lbw call turned down – it returned an umpire’s-call verdict on both line and height when reviewed – when Agarwal was on 5.Agarwal can also get into awkward positions against the rising ball on or just outside off stump, thanks to that front-and-across press. Batsmen often hop back and across to ride the bounce of this kind of delivery, and get behind the line – close your eyes and think of Rahul Dravid negotiating this kind of ball.But since Agarwal starts from such a closed-off position, his back foot has a longer distance to travel before his body is behind the line of the ball. When he’s facing a bowler of Kagiso Rabada’s pace, there usually isn’t enough time for this, and he ends up jabbing away from his body, employing a roll of his wrists to try and keep the ball down.WATCH: South Africa’s bowling coach Vincent Barnes says Rabada is nearing his bestIt’s a risky shot when there’s a bit of extra bounce, which Rabada can extract from almost any pitch. On 1, Agarwal edged one of these wristy jabs and sent it flying between third slip and gully.The other weakness of the front-and-across press is that it can cramp the batsman for room against the short ball at the body. Agarwal was batting on 9 when he ducked into one such delivery from Anrich Nortje, who hit the high 140 kph consistently on debut, and the ball pinged off the top of his helmet.But opening batsmen expect this test of their technique, particularly when there’s a bit of help for the quicks, and learn to accept that they need some luck early in their innings. It helps to have a flawless technique, of course, but who has that?Mayank Agarwal negotiates a short ball•BCCIHaving come through that testing early period, Agarwal became increasingly secure. He got a bit of a helping hand in moving his innings into gear, with Nortje following that bouncer up with four half-volleys in his next seven balls, and all of them flew to the off-side boundary.Thereafter, Agarwal was in for the long haul.South Africa still tried various things to get him out. Nortje, for instance, returned after lunch with a short leg and a leg gully in place, and bowled short and into Agarwal’s body from both over and around the wicket. It must have caused a bit of discomfort, but the impressive thing about Agarwal’s response was his decisiveness: he either ducked or went for the pull or hook. He didn’t get trapped in between the two options, or fend at the ball with his gloves rising to protect his face.There was one hook that he didn’t fully control, but he kept it down, having got into a good position before he played it, moving back and across so the ball was over his left shoulder.There was only so long that Nortje could keep going with this line of attack. By the fifth over of his spell, and the 43rd of the innings, the ball was sitting up with no venom, and Agarwal pulled him for two dismissive fours.”When it comes to short-ball bowling, sometimes it can give you an advantage as a batting team, because if you try and use it too often, the bowler, especially in this weather, gets tired,” was how Cheteshwar Pujara summed up Nortje’s efforts, at the end of the day’s play. “But at the same time I think we handled it well.”Cheteshwar Pujara dispatches a short ball•BCCIThe left-arm spinner, Keshav Maharaj, tried to keep Agarwal quiet with a packed off-side field: long-off, three men in the covers, backward point, slip, and occasionally silly point as well. He left one big gap, though, between backward point and the squarest of the covers, in an attempt to tempt Agarwal into cutting good-length balls.Agarwal was wise to this, and he kept punching into the covers with a straight rather than angled bat. Perhaps Maharaj could have forced an indiscretion had he shown a little more discipline; instead he gave away a pair of early boundaries with flighted half-volleys.In any case, it was only after facing 36 balls from Maharaj that Agarwal finally managed to pierce that gap to the left of square cover, off a ball that was just short enough for him to stab it away with an open face. That shot brought up his half-century, and the fielder immediately dropped back onto the boundary.At this time, Agarwal was batting with Pujara, who was dominating his individual battle with Maharaj. Pujara used his feet at every opportunity, and got into excellent positions to whip the left-arm spinner against the turn. Because of this, Maharaj always needed an extra leg-side fielder against Pujara. What this also meant, though, was less protection square of the wicket on the off side when he overcompensated and dropped his length back.Pujara moved to his fifty with a pair of boundaries off Maharaj – a dancing flick wide of mid-on, and a square cut – in the 50th over of India’s innings. At this point, he had scored 27 off 36 balls against Maharaj, while Agarwal had made 23 off 60.Agarwal had been content to play his own game against Maharaj, uninfluenced by Pujara’s at the other end. He didn’t try and leave his crease, or try and sweep or manufacture any other shot against the turn. Through his innings, according to ESPNcricinfo’s data, he only played three balls from Maharaj into the forward square leg, backward square leg, and fine leg sectors of the field.Mayank Agarwal plays one straight•BCCIPujara fell to Rabada just before tea, and Agarwal would join him in the dressing room shortly after. Both were out in near-identical fashion, playing defensive shots to balls that straightened in the fourth-stump channel, and getting caught by Faf du Plessis falling to his left at first slip.By then, though, Agarwal had brought up his century, and broken free of the Maharaj strangle in the most emphatic fashion, going from 87 to 99 with a pair of majestic straight sixes. A late cut off Philander in the next over, a shot that showed off his deft hands, moved him into three figures.”He’s an experienced player, he’s scored so many first-class runs, which has helped him a lot,” Pujara said of Agarwal. “When it comes to being nervous in the 90s, I think he’s someone who is fearless, and since he has scored so many first-class tons, he knows how to convert his fifties into big scores, and once he goes past hundred, as we saw in the last game, he can score heavily and he can score a big hundred.”That habit has come from first-class cricket, and I’ve seen him bat in first-class cricket. I didn’t have to tell him much. To be honest, we were just communicating about what [South Africa’s] gameplan was. At times, if there was an error from his batting, I would just tell him to play close to his body when his bat was going away, but apart from that I think he’s batting really well and I don’t have to guide him much.”All that first-class experience that Pujara alluded to has also helped Agarwal become selective in his strokeplay, depending on the conditions and the bowling. The lofted drive, for instance, was a regular feature in Visakhapatnam, and made its first appearance when he was batting on 32. He played that shot off Dane Piedt, who turned out to be a weak link in South Africa’s attack in that game.Here, Agarwal was facing a better-balanced attack capable of maintaining pressure from both ends. His range of strokes, therefore, was less expansive; there were no sweeps, paddles or reverse-sweeps, and the lofted hits only came out of the kitbag when he was in his 80s.Agarwal’s centuries in this series, in effect, have both been ideal responses to the circumstances they came in. Not much more can be asked of an opener playing in just his third Test series.

Cricketers are now willing and eager to take inputs from the former cricketers in the commentary boxes

Jarrod Kimber27-Jan-2020Rassie van der Dussen is standing and staring at Nasser Hussain in Port Elizabeth. van der Dussen has what cricketers call a “small-bag day”. That’s when you have already batted for the last time in the game and you’ll not be bowling. You’re at the ground purely because it is expected, but you have no real function. Most players use this time to do some extra fitness; Dean Elgar is doing laps of the outfield.van der Dussen is not moving much at all. The previous night he moved a lot to Joe Root’s fast offspin, his bat swinging across his front pad in panic. Root spun some and skidded others from around the wicket; van der Dussen was more victim than batsman. Such was the spectacle that now Hussain is on the square demonstrating for Sky the correct method to play this kind of bowling.This kind of broadcasting is not exactly new. Sky have become masters of it, but SuperSport, Channel Nine, Ten Sports and Channel Five have all done it in the past. The difference in this case is that the most captivated viewer isn’t a kid hoping to learn something about playing offspin from around the wicket, it is van der Dussen.It’s not unknown for players to watch clips of their techniques, but it’s almost unheard of for them to be watching a Masterclass about themselves live. Most would worry about appearing to admit to flaws or weakness by doing so.ALSO READ: Trevor Bayliss: ”I’m a player, really. I think I understand how players think’“If there is something that Nasser said that could help me by 1%, I’d like to know what it is,” van der Dussen said to me later.If you looked around the field before day five at St George’s Park, you’d see that players, coaches and commentators were in contact all over the place. Joe Root sought out former players on the ground, asking for their thoughts on bowling strategy. He spent more time intelligence-gathering than warming up.Sam Curran talked to Surrey team-mate Gareth Batty.Stuart Broad was in an on-field interview, mentioning how his former wicketkeeper Matt Prior was helping him with his lengths.Over the course of the Test, Darren Gough, who has been on England’s last four tours (three as commentator, once as coach) and is commentating for talkSPORT 2 now, talked to England coach Chris Silverwood, Root, Chris Woakes and Mark Wood about cricket matters.Darren Gough, commentating on the match, had advice for Mark Wood on his lengths on the St George’s Park pitch•Getty ImagesAnd SuperSport’s Kevin Pietersen and Shaun Pollock were walking Faf du Plessis through tactics on playing spin.There are paid coaches in team tracksuits, and there are unpaid consultants in their day clothes.The line between commentator and/or coach has never been slimmer. Shane Warne is a global commentator and owns a small stake in Rajasthan Royals. Wasim Akram is director of cricket operations at Karachi Kings and does a lot of commentary. Both men are also fixtures at grounds around the world, transient mentors sharing secrets about their craft. Ravi Shastri was the biggest voice in Indian cricket before he took over as coach.In Australia, Darren Lehmann was the national coach and, at the same time, a commentator on the Big Bash. Sitting next to him would often be Mark Waugh (then Australia selector) and Ricky Ponting (soon to be an Australia support coach). This season the Test captain, Tim Paine, has also been commentating at the BBL. And Mark Ramprakash was often on Sky as a pundit at the same time that he was England batting coach.Before play begins most days, these former-player commentators are often down on the field, sometimes for broadcast reasons, sometimes catching up with old friends. It’s not a new thing, but what has changed is how much players and coaches talk to these former cricketers, and the substance of these conversations.ALSO READ: ‘Bowling in limited-overs cricket these days needs to come with a health warning’“The relationship we have with them works,” says Gough, “because they know we still want them to do well. They trust us. They invited us in for drinks. They listen – doesn’t mean they’ll do it. It’s opinion; sometimes you can see more from the commentary box than out on the pitch.”Batty may not be as big as the other names here, but within the spin-bowling and coaching communities, he is a hugely respected figure. He has a player-coaching role at Surrey, and there are very few times he is out on the ground before a match when he isn’t chatting to someone from a team. On England’s last tour of Sri Lanka, he was in regular contact with Saqlain Mushtaq (then England’s spin coach) and Root as the England captain tried to develop his bowling. This tour Gough has talked to England’s new spin coach, Jeetan Patel, and Dom Bess. “It’s just spinners’ union,” Batty says. But towards the end of that Sri Lanka tour, SLC offered Batty a coaching role.In part, broadcasting has changed. Until Simon Hughes started as the Analyst on Channel 4, it was fairly rare for commentators to go into great detail on technical or strategic matters. Now it’s more unusual for broadcasters to overlook them.Team analysts sometimes slip into the Hawk-Eye or TV trucks for intel. Commentators have access to data from CricViz or Opta that allows them to prove a bowler has bowled too short or too straight. Ian Ward gets players to take him through things that have happened in the game, much like a coach would. Star’s Select Dugout is a separate service that focuses on in-game analysis and allows for a depth in commentary that isn’t usual. (Dean Jones was on recently after he was coaching Islamabad United.) Trent Copeland provides analysis for Channel Seven while still being an active player for New South Wales.Not everyone is a fan of unsolicited expert opinion; Faf du Plessis would rather players listen to the support staff hired for that purpose•Getty ImagesAs Mark Butcher notes, “Almost all broadcasting is now former players. There was a wall which was journalist v player. That’s gone.”Historically there has been a divide between former and current players. Players leave the game and either join the media or, through it, become voices on the game. They often have no real links to the current crop, but they possess strong views that will be reported.It’s why some boards in recent years – among them South Africa and England – have brought together past and present players. The idea is to create some kind of unity between people with the shared experience of having played. In part it is also that if there’s a personal link, there won’t be as much chirping from former players about the current lot.Butcher believes Andrew Strauss has played a role in this. “Since Strauss, the players and commentators’ relationship is better than before. He encouraged players to chat to Sky and see how things were put together. To learn that it wasn’t an ‘us and them’ thing. We have a job as broadcasters, and they need to understand it a little better.”ALSO READ: Nathan Leamon: ‘Analysis is easy. The trick is turning it into info players can use’Butcher, who stood on the ground at St George’s Park that morning, remembers only one occasion in his career when he chatted to a commentator on the field to help his game. “I might have asked [David] Gower once, but it wasn’t the done thing.” Gough doesn’t remember it happening in his time at all.But modern players are more open to people outside the system giving them help. Players get information from analysts who come from backgrounds of teaching or journalism. They are more open to new ideas and different ways of thinking. Professional athletes want to get better, and they’ll use information from anywhere to do that.When Shan Masood came into Tests, he made 75 on debut and then had a rough patch. He looked like a player who would struggle to hit it off the square and missed out on PSL contracts. Masood went around looking for experts who could help him rebuild his game, among them Gary Palmer (Alastair Cook’s batting coach). Since then he has made an impressive return to Test cricket and has upped his scoring rate to be a legitimate option in white-ball cricket.Those who know van der Dussen refer to him as a sponge. He says, “Obviously not all information is applicable to you, but in general it’s better to know more things than you don’t. So I listen to as many people as possible to improve myself.” van der Dussen likes to look for self-improvement in all facets of his life, so when he heard Hussain had been critical on air, he thought he should go over and take a look. “Maybe he can give me some solutions, if I can call it that, that can apply to me.”With most broadcasters today being former players, the lines between journalist, commentator and coach are blurring•Getty Imagesvan der Dussen thought it was good to watch, even if he didn’t agree entirely with Hussain. “I like to hear different opinions. You maybe think you are doing something in a good and correct way, but someone else might see something different. They might see you objectively.”I am always looking for extra tips and information – try and learn from other people’s experience. I try remove myself from the situation. Try to see myself as another player. And if I was another player, how would I try to improve that player? Maybe it is a modern way.”But he understands it isn’t for everyone. The day after we spoke, his captain, du Plessis, expressed his reservations at a press conference. “It’s dangerous to listen to all the outside influence. As a young player, when great players talk about how you should bat, guys listen because they want to improve. But there is also enough information in our dressing room. Most importantly, it’s about trusting what has got you to the level now to be successful and not feel you have to change your game to be successful.”If it wasn’t entirely aimed at van der Dussen, it was in part at least.While some players may not approve, it’s clear this by-any-means-necessary self-development is moving into the game. Gough sees it as an advantage for the players. “They’re looking for some help with in-game management from someone outside the bubble. In the commentary box we can sometimes see things clearer, without the day-to-day stuff.”South Africa’s Rassie van der Dussen watches Nasser Hussain conduct a masterclassIn American sport, teams often have huge backroom support systems. If you’re a linebacker, you have a linebacker coach and a large number of support staff who ensure that your performance is the best it can be. Cricket is still a long way off that. Few teams travel with wicketkeeping coaches, and while you may have a spin coach – though that is rare – that person may be a former offspinner and you a wristspinner. The wisdom of crowds allows you to supplement your coaching staff and get a fresh view.England Cricket recently tweeted a picture of Gough with Mark Wood, asking: “So what’s @DGoughie saying to @MAWood33?” Fans reacted with their own jokes – mostly at Gough’s expense. But according to Gough, he told Wood: “On this pitch, you know what you are doing, pitch it up, pitch it up.” Wood had bowled plenty short or back of a length. When he went full, he got two wickets.ALSO READ: Mark Wood’s grin says it all for a bowler loving lifeAround the time van der Dussen was watching Hussain, Broad was expanding in an on-field interview on his chat with Prior, who, he says, knows his bowling better than anyone.”He said, ‘Remember on pitches like that when the teams are too far behind, you don’t have to get too funky with legcutters or anything like that. Obviously they have their use. But actually the pressure of the scoreboard, if you bowl your best ball more often than not hitting the top of off stump, batsmen will make mistakes.’ So I went in with that mindset yesterday morning.”That ended with Broad taking 3 for 0 in 16 balls. Broad was talking to talkSPORT 2. It was talkSPORT 2 who brought Prior to South Africa as part of their commentary team.

One player who dazzled in Arsenal’s 3-0 win over Real Madrid in the Champions League on Tuesday night is “now looking” to leave the Emirates Stadium this summer, according to a report.

Arsenal make history with stunning victory over Real Madrid

Mikel Arteta watched on from the sidelines as his side dominated European champions Real, in what was a statement performance from the Gunners.

Arsenal want to finalise £17m deal for Fabregas target "as soon as possible"

The former Gunners star is apparently eyeing him for Como.

By
Emilio Galantini

Apr 8, 2025

Declan Rice made all the headlines with his stunning pair of free-kicks, with makeshift striker Mikel Merino also adding to his tally of strikes this season by scoring Arsenal’s third of the contest.

The Premier League side have placed one huge foot in the Champions League semi-finals, and Carlo Ancelotti will be debilitated for the second leg after midfielder Eduardo Camavinga was sent off in the dying minutes of Real’s heavy defeat.

That being said, Los Blancos still pose a huge threat, and have made some truly historic comebacks on big nights in Europe over the last decade. Taking this into account, Arteta is definitely not counting his chickens just yet.

“I know how much work and how many decisions a lot of people have made in this football club, to live the night that we had tonight,” said a joyous Arteta after Arsenal’s 3-0 win over Real.

“I told them, thank you so much for making us enjoy the journey, to come here, and thank you, for me feeling so convinced that tonight we’re going to do it, and we’re going to make it happen. It was a genuine feeling because I think we are prepared to do that, and now we have to go to the Bernabeu and do it, and that will be another step.”

Alongside the likes of Rice, another key performer who’s attracted serious praise for his display against Real comes in the form of £200,000-per-week midfielder Thomas Partey.

The Ghanaian has been lavished by media for his “masterclass” in front of the back four, helping to break up Real’s play and averaging an impressive 94% passing accuracy over the 90 minutes. Partey also made more tackles than any other Arsenal player bar Jurrien Timber (WhoScored), and was unlucky not to get on the scoresheet.

Thomas Partey "now looking" to leave Arsenal this summer

The 31-year-old has been very useful for Arteta this term, impressing both at both right-back and in midfield, but his contract is currently set to expire this summer as things stand.

There has been little noise regarding a potential new deal for Partey, with journalist Sergi Sole providing an update on his future in a piece for Mundo Deportivo.

Indeed, it is believed that Partey is “now looking” to leave Arsenal this summer, as he is keen to embark on a new chapter at this stage in his career, and Barcelona are thought to be his preference.

Performances like Tuesday night’s showcase why losing the African for nothing is a real blow for Arsenal, and new sporting director Andrea Berta should very seriously consider the possibility of attempting to change his mind and negotiating fresh terms.

Partey could still have a pivotal role to play and could prove a useful asset to have yet again next season, when Arteta will be hoping to end Arsenal’s long wait for a Premier League title.