There was one act from the team that stood out for Matthew Mott and summed up the spirit in the Australia side

Daniel Brettig29-Nov-2018Selflessness is the sort of buzzword that often flies around 21st century sporting teams, alongside others such as culture, execution and process. To the words must be found examples of the traits in action, and in the midst of Australia’s triumphant World T20 campaign, the vice-captain Rachael Haynes provided an example that stuck in numerous minds in the team in the hours and days after they lifted the tournament trophy.Opening the batting in T20, or at least coming in while the ball is still new, is a coveted position, and the Australian squad chosen for the Caribbean contained no fewer than eight such players. When, midway through the tournament, the coach Matthew Mott and the captain Meg Lanning were pondering a batting order reshuffle, they went to Haynes and offered her the chance, as a player in form, to move up from No. 6. To her enduring credit, Haynes knocked the chance back, stating that her role as a middle order fixer was critical.A couple of games later, when Australia appeared to be struggling to cobble 120 against West Indies in their critical semi-final in Antigua, Lanning’s dismissal brought Haynes to the crease for an unbeaten innings 29 that, while not enormous in terms of runs, took the team from a barely defendable total to a match-winning one. It’s a tale that speaks volumes for Haynes, Lanning and the culture of the team that was feted in a public reception at Federation Square in Melbourne on Thursday.”Internally we kept thinking ‘she’s in such great form, should we move her up the order and make sure she’s facing more balls’, but she herself said ‘that’s my role, I’m really comfortable’, so it was huge,” Mott told ESPNcricinfo. “The icing on the cake was Rach coming in and doing that at the end and got a lot of momentum back at the back end of the innings, which is huge in T20, if you can go into that break with a bit of a kick along. But she just played it so well.”Traditionally we’re not great in cricket statistically at recognising key performances. That’s something we really worked hard on – we have our own internal measures about a player’s impact in each game, and someone like Rach’s innings rates really highly in our group. Alyssa Healy did a great job at the top of the order but equally it was those contributions at the end that probably get you from 120 to 140 and put it out of a team’s reach.

Professionalism granted Haynes a second chance

In any other era of the women’s game, Rachael Haynes may well have been retired by now. Her three years out of the Australian side coincided with a move towards full professionalism, commenced by New South Wales via corporate sponsorship, then grown to include the whole domestic landscape with last year’s historic first joint MoU with the men. At another, earlier time, Haynes may have fallen out of the system by the time the selectors felt it was time to recall her.
“It’s come so far in such a short period of time,” Haynes said. “I was in a really fortunate position in NSW in that I basically went to them because I was struggling, I was working full-time, trying to be the best cricketer I could be and I wasn’t really doing either very well. That was also the time when LendLease came to the party with their sponsorship of the NSW team, so I was able to cut back at work and put some more time into cricket as well.”
The coach Matthew Mott concurred: “She’s taken her second chance and run with it and I think it’s a great story for cricketers out there who maybe think their days are numbered, you hang in there, keep professional and keep believing, an opportunity could open up.
“She looks like she’s having more fun than anyone at the moment, and trying to eke out as much as she possibly can over the next couple of years. To be honest she’ll be incredibly hard to replace when she goes – she’s really brought that player accountability to the forefront of our team and a lot of the time as coaches we don’t have to do too much disciplining because we know she’s across it, and if there’s behaviours that need to be nipped in the bud she’s onto it.”

“Meg was very frustrated when she came in, at the break she was quite cranky and I said to her ‘I don’t think you realise the impact of that innings, it has set us up’, and while it wasn’t a fluent innings, it was a really smart innings, she read the game well and we fashioned out a score.”Paradoxically, given how well the Australia women’s team has fared over the past year relative to the men’s group, It was a brief secondment to the T20 team in New Zealand, where he witnessed career opener Aaron Finch drop down to the middle order to make room for D’Arcy Short, that had Mott discussing it as part of his subsequent plans with Lanning.”Everyone wants to open in T20, it’s the best place to bat, but I was lucky I went away with the men’s team to New Zealand and saw first-hand Aaron Finch bat at No. 4,” Mott said. “I thought that just sent such a great message – it’s not in your best interests but it is in the team’s, so we tried to bring that in and the players really embraced it, Meg and Rach in particular drove that really hard.”We have eight openers in our squad who open for their WBBL franchises, but to me the selfless nature not just of Rachael but of Meg, Ellyse Perry and people like that to bat out of their most preferred positions was a key turning point for us as a team.”For Haynes, the acceptance of a task different from her past roles echoed how she had re-emerged as a mature cricketer and leader after a career of early promise for Australia had been obscured somewhat by three years out of the national side. Called back in 2017 with leadership in mind – Lanning was beginning to struggle with a shoulder problem that would require surgery – the second chance arrived at a time when Haynes was ready not only to play, but to set an example.”It has been really cool. Standing up on that stage when we won the final, I never expected I’d get the opportunity to do that again, so it was a pretty special moment,” she said, having been part of another trophy-winning team in India in 2013. “It makes you realise how hard it is to actually get there and win something like that.”The circumstances when I got re-selected I was pretty fortunate I think, two injuries to pretty senior players in Alex Blackwell and Ellyse Perry, but sport’s like that. Sometimes you just need a bit of a moment and a bit of luck and it can turn really quickly, even when things are seemingly going well, then all of a sudden things can change but I think I was fortunate in that respect. Literally when I got selected back in the team I got a phonecall on the Thursday and was playing cricket for Australia on the Saturday. I got a 50 in that match and then as they say the rest is history.”As captain and deputy, Lanning and Haynes are contrasting characters – Mott talks about the former being “off the cuff” and the latter far more “considered” – but between them and other senior players such as they have created an atmosphere of accountability and honesty that will carry the team strongly into the future.Rachael Haynes smashes one into the leg side en route to her unbeaten 89•Getty Images”They complement each other very well, and Meg feels really well supported by Rach throwing ideas at her here and there,” Mott said. “One of the things we always talk about is surrounding yourself with people who disagree but aren’t disagreeable. She does that really well. A lot of the things that could potentially get in our way, they shut it down pretty quickly. Just little things about dress codes and stuff like that, not over the top.”But if a player is maybe getting ahead of themselves, it might just be a quiet chat over coffee and discussing what their role is in the team and making sure they’re aware of that. They’re really good around selection as well when we’ve had to make some tough calls, supporting players and making sure they understand what their route back into the team is.”The flow-on effect was then seen at the pointy end of the tournament, not least when Georgia Wareham, one of the team’s youngest, conjured a run out early in the final to unbalance England and settle what had been, up to that moment, very visible nervousness among Lanning’s team. “I think you know you’re doing reasonably well when young players come in and do well straight away,” Mott said. “I got a note from someone saying isn’t it amazing when all those jitters were out there in the final, the one person who settled things down was Georgia took her time and got a direct hit run out. From the moment she did that, everyone just relaxed.”Looking back over the past 18 months, Haynes reflected that the road to the T20 World Cup had been chosen in the aftermath of an unsuccessful 50-over campaign in England last year, when effort started to be made to turn those aforementioned buzzwords into consistent and accountable behaviour. “It’s something we’ve worked really hard on and I think particularly after we lost that semi-final in England, our team came together after that and sat down and got really clear on what we stood for as a team,” she said.”I know people sometimes put the boots in a little bit to team culture and words and those sorts of things, but it’s become really meaningful for us, what we stand for, and the type of team we want to be, and also how we connect with the general public and yeah so on the field you see our skill, how we’ve developed athletically, all those sorts of things, but there’s a lot more layers to it than that. The word that gets thrown around about our team is fearless … it means something to us and we’ve brought that to life.”We’re just honest with each other. We talk about how we’re feeling, we are prepared to have conversations that at times could be uncomfortable and I think that’s a sign of a pretty good environment that if someone can stand in front of the team and say ‘I’m a bit nervous about this’ and ‘what if we don’t win’, I think our team’s come such a long way in that respect. It’s just an environment where people can be themselves and also get the best out of themselves.”In a year of Australian cricket’s introspection, Haynes’ is a tale for many to think about, at all levels of the game.

Starting with the steady envelopment of Azhar Ali, it was the sort of spell occasionally delivered by great bowlers at moments of import

Daniel Brettig in Abu Dhabi16-Oct-2018Late in the day, a Pakistani batsman leaned forward and larruped Nathan Lyon into the seats beyond wide long-on.In a way, this was an action replay of Lyon’s last visit for a Test match in Abu Dhabi, when he was bullied by Misbah-ul-Haq during Australia’s second consecutive hiding in 2014. Closer inspection revealed how much things had in fact changed – the batsman was Mohammad Abbas, Pakistan’s last man, and next to Lyon’s name were four top-order wickets, all taken in a breathless six balls before lunch that may well have decided this match. Australia, seeking a first series win in Asia since 2011, have the foothold they need.’Never take your foot off the throat in Test cricket’

Nathan Lyon has conceded Australia’s young team may have taken their “foot off the throat” of Pakistan after he was instrumental in sliding Sarfraz Ahmed’s men to 57 for 5 before lunch. The hosts recovered to 282, before nipping out two early wickets before the close of play.
“If you look at that middle session, or even 10 minutes before lunch, when they were [57 for 5], I think we may have sat back and thought ‘it’ll just happen’,” Lyon said. “But it’s Test cricket for a reason. You play an international, you’re playing against some of the best guys in the world, they’re not just going to roll over.
“I think it’s a good little learning curve for the Australian cricket side, especially a young Australian cricket side, that you can never take your foot off the throat in Test cricket, there’s always someone who’s going to put up a fight. If you take the foot off, you can see those partnerships build up, but then again you’ve got to give credit where credit’s due, I think the way they played around and rotated the strike, wouldn’t let one bowler bowl to one batter for one period of a time was a perfect approach.

How they got there was partly freakish, given the opening “catch” by Marnus Labuschagne, in which he may have set a new world record for most body parts utilised in keeping the ball from touching the ground. Australia also benefited from Labuschagne’s burgeoning legbreaks, heavy with topspin and delivered with rhythm and momentum as much that of a slow medium-pace bowler as a spinner.But the day’s critical passage, on a pitch offering the merest glimmer of early assistance for bowlers of fast and slow varieties, belonged completely to Lyon. Starting with the steady envelopment of Azhar Ali, it was the sort of spell occasionally delivered by great bowlers at moments of import, whether by Shane Warne on numerous occasions for Australia, or James Anderson on one memorable morning for England eight years ago, as Lyon sat on the roller at the Adelaide Oval while still a groundsman.On that occasion, the Adelaide Oval’s pitch looked ideal for batting, with the promise that a fraction of life might be found in the initial passages. Benefiting from the freakish early run-out of Simon Katich, Anderson duly put the ball in exactly the right place to find edges from Ricky Ponting and Michael Clarke in consecutive overs, leaving Australia 3 for 1 and writing the script for the rest of the match. Despite the best efforts of Michael Hussey, Australia’s tally was inadequate, England’s was mighty, as the tourists won by an innings.There was, however vaguely, a shade of Adelaide’s pitch about this one in Abu Dhabi, with its sparse but unmistakable coverage of grass amid a dryness that should offer plenty to spinners later in the game. Lyon later assessed it as possessing a softness under foot and and moisture that allowed for “purchase”, and Mitchell Starc was certainly able to make the new ball jump in ways he had not in Dubai, despite clearly remaining stiff and sore from the first Test. But it appeared that Azhar and Fakhar Zaman had made a sure enough start before Lyon entered the fray.His first 18 balls, 12 to Azhar and six to Fakhar, did not concede a single run, as Lyon sized up the pace and bounce on offer from the pitch. So often in Asia he has resorted to what he calls “bowling ugly”, in terms of abandoning the flight and overspin of his Australian ways and seeking sharper side spin, variation in pace and relentless accuracy to trap batsmen on the crease. Here, however, he gradually opened up his traditional method, “spinning up the back of the ball” in his words, to drag a batsman forward with flight, then beat him with drop, turn and bounce.”When the wicket’s like that I have to stick to my strengths and my strength is spinning up the back of the ball and bowling like I would at home,” Lyon said. “I definitely went back to bowling like I would in Australia. Personally, that’s just about adapting and using the facilities and what you’re dealt with to your advantage. I was pretty happy with the way the ball came out.”I’m a massive one, especially here in the subcontinent, to bowl in partnerships, build pressure and try and go under two runs an over. I’ve said it over and over in time and that’s one of our things as a bowling group we try and focus on, especially after losing the toss and bowling first on a day one wicket. You have to bowl tight, bowl in partnerships and build pressure, the old-fashioned way. There’s no secrets to it.”Nathan Lyon’s 5-4-4-4 burst before lunch flattened Pakistan on day one•ESPNcricinfo LtdRecognising when and how to bowl in certain ways is a skill as intrinsic to spin as the co-ordination to get the ball down the other end in the right fashion, and the torque to get it humming through the air and fizzing off the pitch. It’s something Warne learned at the feet of Terry Jenner in Adelaide in the early 1990s, as he has related in his book, .”‘Shane, you bowl nicely and rip your leg-spinners, you bowl your wrong ‘uns and your straight ones and you’ve got an unbelievable fipper’,” Warne recalled Jenner saying. “‘You can also catch well and bat too. You’ve got the toys, mate, but you don’t know how to use them. In other words, you don’t know how to get people out.’ I said, ‘What do you mean?’ ‘You need to learn what, when and why.’ ‘I don’t understand.’ ‘What you are bowling, when you are bowling it and why you are bowling it’.” What Lyon produced was a masterpiece of these dimensions.Azhar, out of sorts in Dubai, was gradually reeled in, to the point that he tried a drive at a ball he could not get to the pitch of and dragged back down the pitch for Lyon to take a return catch. As a miniature spell it was mesmerising, and clearly not just to those watching on TV or in the stands. The incoming batsman, Haris Sohail, was beaten by the same drop, the same bounce, propping forward and offering a catch off the splice that silly point Travis Head took expertly. Two in two!On a hat-trick at the end of the over, Lyon waited six balls and then delivered another perfectly-pitched offbreak that Asad Shafiq narrowly kept out with the inside half of the bat. Next ball was slightly straighter, slightly shorter, and again finding the length that Shafiq propped just short of. The inside edge onto the pad was not picked up until DRS was called upon, but its spike on Ultra Edge was as clear as the Australians’ glee. Four Pakistani victims before lunch on day one were untold riches for a team that slogged through two wicketless sessions on day one in Dubai. But there was more to come.Babar Azam, often the aggressor, is the sort of No. 6 who capitalises on the studied efforts of his colleagues up the order. Confronted by the prospect of Lyon flighting and spinning the ball in the first session of the match, with trouble all around him, he was unable to constrain these usual instincts. For Lyon, this offered the chance of the kind of dismissal offspinners dream of – the ball through the gate between bat and pad.”When we talk about building pressure and being able to cope under pressure, that’s one example,” Lyon said. “But to be honest, without blowing my own trumpet, that’s a pretty good offspinning ball. To actually do a guy in the air, but to also spin it through the gate, and hit the top of the stumps, that’s my view of it. Some people may disagree, but I was pretty happy with it.”Haris Sohail is beaten by Nathan Lyon’s turn and bounce•Getty ImagesThe first time Lyon had done this, against New Zealand at the Gabba in 2011, his quarry had been the most modest possible in Chris Martin. Seven years on, Babar was lured down, beaten by dip and turn, and might have been stumped by Tim Paine had the ball not clipped the top of the leg stump. Test match pressure had met the classical skill, and the fifth wicket was down. In the stands, Mickey Arthur held his head in his hands. While Fakhar and Sarfraz Ahmed would mount a rearguard action, Lyon was the day’s headliner, for these wickets had not only flummoxed Pakistan but also left him behind only Dennis Lillee, Glenn McGrath and Shane Warne on Australia’s all-time list.”I’ve never been one for personal success and personal goals. Or at least talking about them,” Lyon said. “But it’s a massive honour to pass the likes of Brett Lee and Mitchell Johnson today. I have played a lot of cricket with Mitch and he’s been like a big brother to me so I know there will be a bit of banter back and forth tonight and a few text messages and stuff. So I look forward to that.”I’ve been very fortunate to play 80 Test matches for Australia and to be in this position to take 314 wickets, personally it’s a great achievement and it’s something I will look back when I retire from the game and sit back with family and friends and have a beer and talk about it. I know my mum and dad will be pretty proud. But, right now it’s about me doing my best for the Australian cricket team and winning Test matches.”This Test match is still a long way from being won, particularly after two Australian wickets fell in Abu Dhabi’s late afternoon light – the game scenario is reminiscent of a pair of recent Asian defeats, in Dhaka against Bangladesh in 2017, and in Kandy against Sri Lanka the year before. Nevertheless, the game is far more open than on the corresponding day a week ago, and it was Lyon above all others who opened it. Just as the second Test has so much more to offer, so too Lyon’s career.

The core of their team hasn’t changed from the previous season, so the onus will be on the big-ticket cricketers to show the way

Hemant Brar18-Mar-20199:40

Will Kings XI Punjab be able to punch above their weight?

Where they finished in 2018
After registering six wins in their first nine games, Kings XI Punjab’s season took a nosedive, and they lost their remaining five matches to finish in seventh place with 12 points.Strengths
An opening combination of Chris Gayle and KL Rahul can threaten any bowling attack. While many had written Gayle off before the last season, the West Indian finished IPL 2018 with 368 runs from 11 innings at an average of 40.88 and a strike rate of 146.03. Rahul, meanwhile, was on a different plane altogether, notching up 659 runs from 14 innings at almost 55 with a strike rate of 158.41. Together, they added 545 runs for the first wicket, the most by any opening pair in the tournament.ESPNcricinfo LtdWith 39 sixes in four innings in the recent ODI series against England, Gayle showed that his powers haven’t waned, while Rahul too looked close to his best during the T20I series against Australia. Punjab will once again bank on them for providing big starts.In the bowling department, they will rely on the spinners in the main, with captain R Ashwin at the forefront. He will be backed by mystery spinners Mujeeb Ur Rahman and Varun Chakravarthy, who can bowl everything from carrom balls to googlies, making it hard for batsmen to line them up.Both Ashwin (6.85) and Mujeeb (6.70) have economy rates below seven, and even though Varun is yet to play an IPL match, his economy (4.70) during the Tamil Nadu Premier League was the best among bowlers who bowled at least 15 overs.Weaknesses
The lack of an explosive allrounder can affect the balance of the team. Although they have Sam Curran and Moises Henriques on their roster, neither is a shoo-in for the first XI. And, in that case, Ashwin might bat at No. 7 with a long tail to follow.Squad
ESPNcricinfo LtdThe overseas question
Punjab’s best combination of overseas players would be Gayle, David Miller, Andrew Tye and Mujeeb.While Gayle wasn’t part of the playing XI for the first two games last season, given his recent form, he should be one of the first names on the team sheet this time around. Miller will assume the role of the finisher; Tye and Mujeeb will shoulder seam and swing bowling responsibilities.Nicholas Pooran, Curran, Henriques and Hardus Viljoen are the other overseas players in the squad but it’s difficult to see any of them replacing Gayle, Miller, Tye or Mujeeb at the start.The best XI
1 Chris Gayle, 2 KL Rahul (wk), 3 Mayank Agarwal, 4 Karun Nair, 5 David Miller, 6 Mandeep Singh, 7 R Ashwin (capt), 8 Andrew Tye, 9 Ankit Rajpoot, 10 Mohammed Shami, 11 Mujeeb Ur RahmanCoach: Mike Hesson, Batting coach: Sridharan Sriram, Bowling coach: Ryan Harris, Fielding coach: Craig McMillanWill they make the playoffs?
While the core of the team remains intact from last season, they might again end up finishing outside the top four unless they can bring in the consistency they have often lacked over the years.

It has been a breakout season for the left hander and also one in which the Blues have found a new team ethos

Daniel Brettig27-Mar-2019″Coming from such a large talent base everyone has to fight for their spot just a little bit harder. That fight and that drive, it’s the same for any player, but in New South Wales a bit more selfishness comes out, which in the end helps the team.”This was how the former Australian spin bowler Nathan Hauritz summed up the hyper competitive universe of NSW cricket in mid-2011, capturing the environment that has existed in the nation’s largest cricket state for as long as anyone can remember.It was that November that a tall, slender left-hander called Kurtis Patterson first made his name, pinging Western Australia’s’ bowlers all over the SCG while becoming, at 18 years, 206 days, Australia’s youngest ever first-class centurion on debut. Arriving just a week after Pat Cummins’ storied Test debut at the Wanderers in Johannesburg, Patterson’s teenaged blooming seemed a further vindication of a ruthless system where individual progression and talent identification were key.Yet the starburst of these two debuts masked another, harder side to things. The Blues, having made the Shield final earlier that year, did not make another one until 2014, and none again until this week, when they will face Victoria at Junction Oval. To get there, they have had to reconsider the fundamentals of the state team: sink or swim has been replaced by greater recognition of the need for support and help among peers, with Patterson right in the thick of the changes.But before that paradigm shift, Patterson endured his own share of dead ends. Not least of these was waiting another three seasons before getting the chance to play for the NSW Shield team again. The crush for spots, which saw the likes of Usman Khawaja and the late Phillip Hughes move elsewhere, left Patterson bereft at times in his search for the technical and mental skills to follow up on what he has since reflected was a reasonably fortunate afternoon’s batting by a naive and developing talent.

2018-19 State Cricket Award winners

Sheffield Shield Player of the Year: Scott Boland (VIC)
Men’s Spirit of Cricket Award: Tasmania
Women’s Spirit of Cricket Award: Tasmania
CA Umpire Award: Paul Wilson
Taverners Australia Indigenous Cricketer of the Year: Scott Boland (VIC)

“I’ve watched that innings a couple of times since it happened and I just think I look so ugly as a player,” Patterson told ESPNcricinfo. “I was in a different vein of form to what I was this season around the Test stuff. I feel like now I know my game, particularly with four or five-day cricket, I know what I need to do and during this year I was able to really believe and stick to that. Whereas back then I was hitting the ball really well but I was probably a bit more of a slogger than I am now.”I just went out there as an 18-year-old with no fear and just thought I wasn’t going to get out. I’d come off three hundreds in a row and then it was a small case of fortune favouring the brave because I had a couple of lbw shouts early on there that on other days one, possibly two of those are given out. I had a few nicks through gully early on, before I’d got to 30 or 40, slightly thicker or thinner edges on those and they’re out on other days. I certainly look back then and see I was a very different player, a bit young and naive and I was able to get away with it that day.”He was far less successful in getting away with it the following two summers, in which only a single appearance in a tour game against the 2013-14 English tourists broke up his time in club cricket with St George. He learned from painful experience that getting hung up on his own place on the fringes of the state team was serving only to stop him from progressing any further.”I’m not sure if difficult is the right word but it was an interesting little time in my career,” Patterson said. “I guess after that when I was dropped it certainly hurt. I’d had a taste for it, like the Test matches this year, once you have a taste I really want more. I wanted more back then as well.”I think I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little bit disappointed how it transpired but also from the point of view that I started overthinking about what do I have to do to keep my spot in the team. I think it led me down an overly negative path and I think that reflected in my cricket that following year when I had my first contract was actually my worst year of club cricket. I barely scored a run for my club, all my focus was on NSW, which didn’t help. Fighting to get a game for the Thunder as well.”Once the state season had finished that year, I hadn’t played a game but I just felt this wave of relief, I felt a lot more relaxed and I wasn’t even in the team. Once that carrot was taken away and finals time started for St George, I just felt like a different person. Went out there, scored a couple of hundreds and a 50 in the three games in the finals, felt like a weight was off my shoulders and was able to go out there and just play. We ended up winning the first grade title. But that was a real learning curve for the first year of professional cricket for me.”

Dad was terrific for the fundamentals of batting and also the fundamental aspect that you need to work hard to get anywhereKurtis Patterson on the impact of his father

Patterson’s schooling in the hard ways of NSW came via his father Brad, an accomplished grade allrounder for Northern District and Sydney University, and in his close observation of the major players of his childhood: Steve Waugh most of all. “I remember when I was growing up I got to an age where I understood cricket, knew what was going on,” he said. “Dad and I would go along and watch the old ING Cup games and see the Waugh brothers turn out, Shane and Brett Lee turn out, players who were dominant players for Australia as well but also playing for NSW. It really gave me motivation that this is who I want to play for. I was lucky I was one of the young ones who gets noticed a bit younger, because it doesn’t happen all the time.”Dad was terrific for the fundamentals of batting and also the fundamental aspect that you need to work hard to get anywhere. Him and I did a lot of hard work when I was young, particularly once cricket season came around, we’d be down at the park for probably a minimum three days out of those Monday to Fridays at school, outside of all my school and club and rep training, we always found time. It was never pushed on me by him, it was always me asking him and he was very big on that. It wasn’t going to be him to push me, it was up to me whether I got the motivation to go down there, and he would always come along and throw balls. “From the time Patterson secured his NSW spot in 2015, the dividends have been consistently accruing, aided this season by technical and mental advancements made with the help of the state’s batting coach Beau Casson and the team psychologist Gerard Faure Brac to score hundreds more frequently – two in the Shield, two in a single tour game against the Sri Lankans, and then another in his second Test at Manuka Oval.However, Patterson’s individual story has been paired with an equally compelling one for the NSW team as a whole. Following several years of underperformance there were personnel changes such as the departure of the coach Trent Johnston (replaced by Phil Jaques), the retirement of Doug Bollinger and the move southwards of Nic Maddinson. Arguably more significant was a change in attitude that had the Blues, this collective of ambitious, talented individuals, thinking far more about each other. “Selfishness…which in the end helps the team,” as Hauritz put it, was no longer the order of the day.Kurtis Patterson’s parents celebrate his century•Getty Images”The biggest difference from last year was I think the senior players have really bought into not only improving their own game but trying to up-skill our younger players,” Patterson said. “That’s not just the younger players in the Shield or one-day XI but there’s been a really good focus since day one in pre-season that we’ve adopted a young squad this year and it’s up to us to make them feel as comfortable as possible and up to us to help them improve their cricket in any way.”We’ve got to give a lot of credit to Phil Jaques and Peter Nevill but also guys like Moises [Henriques] and Trent [Copeland] as well. I think sometimes, if you ask players who are still obviously trying to play cricket for Australia, and do the best for themselves, to take an extra role of taking a couple of young guys under their wing and really making an effort as a leadership group to be there for those young guys, I don’t think every cricketer would take time out of their own schedule to do that.”Contributions have been far more even as a result, from Nick Larkin and Daniel Hughes up the top of the batting order to the recent breakout displays by Sean Abbott and Harry Conway with the ball. A team that had in recent years developed a reputation for only winning games when the likes of Mitchell Starc, Josh Hazlewood, Cummins, Steven Smith and David Warner were available now face Victoria in a Shield final with a far richer array of burgeoning talents. NSW cricket is still very much a place for survival of the fittest, but these Darwinian traits are no longer quite so evident in the dressing room.”We’re all aware of how competitive it is to play for the Blues,” Patterson reflected. “But I think what was overarching everything is if we do this and help these young guys, there’s an element that potentially down the track they may be good enough to take our spots, but the reality is we’re making the NSW cricket team better, both in the short and long term by adopting that. We all really bought into trying to be better people and better mentors to our younger guys, which is a great testament to Phil and Pete who are the ones who really drove that early on and it has shown great results.”

England’s selectors name their preliminary World Cup squad on Wednesday, and there will be several bowlers sweating on their chances

Andrew Miller16-Apr-2019England’s selectors are set to name their preliminary World Cup squad on Wednesday, and while the majority of their squad picks itself – including all the frontline batsmen plus Alex Hales, the designated understudy – there will be several bowlers sweating on their places. ESPNcricinfo runs the rule over the margins

David Willey v Tom Curran

Which do England value most? The starter, David Willey, or the finisher, Tom Curran? Neither is often called upon to bowl a full quota of overs in ODI cricket (Willey has done so twice in his last 25 ODIs dating back to June 2016, Curran three times in 13 matches all told). And both were peripheral figures in 2018, thanks to back and side injuries respectively. But, when Willey got his chance in the T20Is in the Caribbean last month, he seized it with four wickets in his first 15 balls to seal a 3-0 series win. His left-arm line, allied to reliable new-ball swing, offers something different that no-one else in World Cup contention can offer. Curran, by contrast, would be a very handy bowler to call upon in the clutch moment of a run-chase, but others higher in the pecking order perhaps offer more at other moments of the game.Winner: Willey

Liam Dawson v Joe Denly

It’s the age-old battle between solid, reliable, unglamorous fingerspin and box-of-tricks wristies with the potential to serve up wonder-balls and full-bungers in equal measure. But when it comes to the role of spare-part spinner in a World Cup squad, there’s no real need to get funky with the thinking. Liam Dawson was the man in possession in Sri Lanka before Christmas until a side strain offered Joe Denly his chance to make a mark. And though he has played just three ODIs in as many years (and bowled in only two of those) Dawson’s left-armers offer a degree of off-the-peg serviceability that James Tredwell used to offer in years gone by – and though less recognised for his batting than Denly, he offers plenty in terms of late-innings oomph too.Winner: Dawson

Jofra Archer v Liam Plunkett

Jofra Archer will surely be named in England’s 15-man squad on Wednesday – for the simple reason that it will be easier to offer caveats about his 50-over effectiveness now (“Only 14 List A games to date … final decision to be taken after ODIs v Ireland and Pakistan in May … etc”) than it would be to shoehorn him in on the eve of the tournament at the expense of a player with a proven 50-over track record … such as his fellow Sussex allrounder, Chris Jordan, whose late sprint for selection would appear to have come too late.But talking of proven players, Liam Plunkett will surely be named in that same 15 too, because England value loyalty, and few players have earned more loyalty points than the hit-the-deck hero with 77 wickets in 49 ODIs since the 2015 World Cup, more than any other England seamer. That said, Plunkett’s form is a worry. His first outing of the season for Surrey was rusty, and he will need an awkward combination of rhythm and freshness by May 30 if he is to be the bowler that England have valued so highly for the past few summers.Winner: Both, for now

Rajasthan Royals’ 25-year-old bowling-allrounder first took to legspin as a way to better his chances of being picked. Since then, he’s evolved to add a handy skill to his repertoire as an allrounder

Annesha Ghosh19-Apr-2019Coming up with a fitting celebration for dismissing AB de Villiers and Virat Kohli in the same match can be difficult for any bowler. To do that after getting de Villiers out in back-to-back IPL seasons can pose twice the challenge. But, not only has Shreyas Gopal, the Karnataka and Rajasthan Royals wristspinning allrounder, aced the celebration game, the quality of his wicket-taking deliveries through IPL 2019 has generated a whirlpool of buzz around the 25-year-old.”To get them out is one of the biggest moments of my cricketing journey,” Shreyas told ESPNcricinfo. “Not many people have too many plans against them because they are world-class players.”Shreyas is the side’s second-highest wicket-taker this season with eight wickets, and the de Villiers and Kohli dismissals were part of a haul of 3 for 12 in a home match against Royal Challengers Bangalore, where he also dismissed Shimron Hetmyer. Last season, he had taken 4 for 16, a performance that helped knock out Royal Challengers. While that four-for featured only de Villiers’ wicket among the two big names, it was, perhaps, a more accurate testament to Shreyas’ control over the googly.

“If you compare my googly to Rashid Khan’s, I think he has a far deadlier googly; it is something I want to learn. He has a very different grip. I don’t change too much [with mine]. It’s just the normal legspin, and normal googly I bowl.”

In that match, Shreyas had de Villiers stumped with the wrong’un and had even dismissed Moeen Ali earlier with it. A variation for most wristspinners, the googly in his arsenal is a stock ball against left-handers. He bowls nearly three times more wrong’uns than legbreaks to left-hand batsmen, and has most wickets – both right- and left-hand batsmen included – off googlies this IPL than any other spinner. Shreyas is also the joint-second most successful bowler in the middle overs in IPL since 2018, with 19 wickets. Imran Tahir leads this list with 21 wickets, while Rashid Khan also has 19 dismissals.Against his former franchise Mumbai Indians last Saturday, Shreyas bowled two cracking googlies in the first over to another left-hand batsman, Quinton de Kock. The result? He beat Mumbai’s top-scorer in both instances and conceded seven runs off 11 balls to de Kock. Against the other Royals bowlers, de Kock struck at a rate of 125 or more.No one has struck more with the googly in IPL 2019 than Shreyas Gopal•ESPNcricinfo LtdA craft he “only properly” began cultivating during his Under-17 days, Shreyas insists “there isn’t much trick” to his wrong-un, unlike the variants used by some of his contemporaries.”If you compare my googly to Rashid Khan’s,” said Shreyas, “I think he has a far deadlier googly. It is something I want to learn. He has a very different grip. I don’t change too much [with mine]. It’s just the normal legspin, and normal googly I bowl.”J Arunkumar – the two-time Ranji Trophy-winning former Karnataka coach, who handed Shreyas a first-class debut in the 2013-14 domestic season – believes there is a mix of factors that make Shreyas’ googly efficient.”First, it’s his arm-speed, which may be a bit slower for other bowlers of the googly,” Arunkumar said. “In Shreyas’ case, the ball comes out of his hand at nearly the same speed, which makes it difficult for the batsman to read it from the fingers. So the only thing you can do is try and read it through the air, which is not the easiest of things to do. And he’s also mastered the length – he doesn’t pitch it right up nor is it short. So the batsman is in doubt whether if it will come in or go away – often like a top-spinner.”Does Shreyas agree with Arunkumar’s dissection of his googly?”I am not aware of my arm-speed or things like that, to be honest. It’s something that’s really natural to me. I’ve almost had that same action right through my small career so far, and I don’t think I can change that now either, so it’s just going to be that way.”

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BCCIFor someone who grew up idolising Anil Kumble and Shane Warne, he also had the opportunity to hone his craft under the watch of those two greats: first at Mumbai Indians, where Shreyas played only six games across three seasons (2014-16), and subsequently at Royals, who picked him at the 2018 auction.Kumble was the mentor at Mumbai when he handpicked Shreyas. “Anil sir picked me (for IPL 2014) when I was in the Under-19s, and it’s something I’m really grateful for. Interacting with so many of the best players in the world [during those three seasons], you try and take their thoughts and experiences into your cricket back home and train on that.”And the subtle changes, and variations and just the mindset, I think, if you bring that into your game, you are definitely going to be a better player. Because the best part [about Kumble] was he was never shy or hesitant about giving me any insights, which I’m trying to use in my game.”Shreyas Gopal has been among the top bowlers in the middle phase of games this IPL•ESPNcricinfo LtdWarne, too, added depth to his understanding and knowledge of the nuances of wristspin. “Warney [Shane Warne] was a great mentor last year. He’s someone who’s very tactical in his moves, likes having different strategies and field placements for each batsman. That’s how he works. So [he gave me] small tips on how to study a batsman, bring in subtle variations – it could be in terms of bowling, or my run-up, speed to the ball, different kinds of loading. Again, for him it was easy, but if I’m able to get to about halfway there, I’ll be happy.”

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Shreyas first made waves playing for Jain College in the now-defunct Toyota University Cricket Championship in 2012-2013, a breeding ground for cricketers in Bengaluru like Robin Uthappa, Manish Pandey and Karun Nair. Arunkumar’s earliest encounter with Shreyas happened around that time, at the Karnataka Under-23 nets, where he began grooming the allrounder alongside Nair and KL Rahul.At the time, though, Shreyas’ cricketing credentials rested largely on his batting, which, in hindsight, said Arunkumar, makes his rise through the Karnataka and Royals ranks as a wristspinning-allrounder even more remarkable.”That’s because Shreyas was a talented bowler all through, but [he] was not serious about his bowling initially,” Arunkumar said, laughing. “He was like, ‘I’m a batsman and I can bowl a little.’ So, even if he got hit, he wouldn’t be bothered much. But when we picked him for Ranji and explained to him the role we wanted him to play in the side, I could see the extra effort he would put in.”A top-order bat for most of his early age-group cricket, Shreyas’ willingness to turn his secondary skill into a primary asset set him on course to reinventing himself as someone capable of doubling up as his captain’s strike bowler. Soon enough, recounted Arunkumar, Karnataka, benefitted from Shreyas’ industry.”To his credit, the batsman Shreyas Gopal started bowling two-three hours in the nets to shape himself into a legspin-bowling allrounder. As a result, in his debut Ranji season, once our pacers would run through the top order, we would rely on Shreyas to take two-three middle-order wickets, at times even five.”Shreyas was instrumental to our wins because prior to that point, those middle-order wickets had become a bit of a concern for us. Every so often oppositions would be, say, 150 for 5 and then suddenly 270-odd for 6. So Shreyas came in started getting us those crucial middle-order wickets.”Getty ImagesFinishing with a match haul of five wickets on Ranji Trophy debut, and then turning in consistent performances with the ball in subsequent seasons, Shreyas gradually emerged as a first-choice bowling option on the team sheet. His tally of 200-plus wickets across domestic competitions includes a hat-trick against Rest of India in the 2014 Irani Cup title triumph, also the first ever such feat in the tournament. More recently, he took 13 wickets at an average of 9.30 in Karnataka’s 2019 Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy victory.Shreyas strengthened his case for selection across formats, Arunkumar underscores, with his “ability to get quick hundreds”. His four first-class tons, two of which came during Karnataka’s back-to-back title triumphs, lend credence to that claim. His maiden Ranji Trophy hundred against Bengal saw him score at a strike rate of 73.6 batting at No. 9.His quick-hitting prowess came to the fore recently with a seven-ball 19 against Chennai Super Kings and a seven-ball 13, the latter memorably helping Royals clinch a final-over win at the Wankhede.The reliance on both skills, Shreyas admitted, has helped him feed one discipline off the other. But neither would have flourished, he added, had he not chosen to bowl legspin in the first place.”When I was little, I was always told there aren’t too many legspinners around, so that was one of the reasons I really tried doing it. If it worked, it worked, otherwise I always had batting to fall back on. Having said that, it was one of my better choices to having taking legspin seriously.”He possesses a strong fielding acumen too, as seen in the back-pedalling catches to dismiss Chennai Super Kings’ Shane Watson and Mumbai’s Kieron Pollard last week. Shreyas, who is gradually progressing, has a desire to play for India eventually.”Everyone’s dream is to play for India, mine is nothing less. But I don’t want to get or think too ahead of myself. It’s just been the start of a couple of good IPLs that I’ve had; in fact, a couple of games I’ve had, not even seasons. It is important I have my head on my shoulders and continue to put in the same hard work and leave the rest.”

The India No. 3 says it was a ‘difficult pitch to bat on’ and explains how he paced his innings

Karthik Krishnaswamy in Visakhapatnam05-Oct-2019He took 20 balls to get off the mark, hit his first boundary off the 42nd ball he faced, and at one point had scored only eight runs off 62 balls.Cricket fans have grown used to starts like these from Cheteshwar Pujara, and they know the kinds of innings that can mushroom from these beginnings. But this was different; India were batting on the fourth day to try and set a target, and even as Rohit Sharma was providing their innings impetus at one end, there was none coming from the other.Rohit himself, perhaps, was feeling impatient. At one point, he was caught on the stump mic yelling “Puji (run), *expletive redacted*” when Pujara turned down a single.At the drinks break at the end of the 26th over, India’s run rate was 2.42.

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It wasn’t as if Pujara hadn’t been trying to score quickly; time and again he had stepped out to the spinners, trying to drive them through gaps in the infield. These were narrow gaps, between straight midwicket and mid-on, and short extra-cover and mid-off, but these are fields he is used to piercing. Except it wasn’t happening for him.There had been chances too, tough ones but chances nonetheless: a thick edge off the offspinner Dane Piedt that had deflected onto the wicketkeeper’s right pad, an airborne flick that short leg couldn’t hold on to.Other batsmen might try to change their game plan at this point. Pujara didn’t, at least not drastically. Around the time of the drinks break, he decided to make a minor tweak in his technique.”It was a difficult pitch to bat on,” he explained in his end-of-day press conference. “It was not easy to rotate the strike, it was not easy to time the ball well, and specially with my game and the kind of shots that I play, I was finding it a little difficult early on, but I always knew that once I am set, once my body is warmed up, once I find the right pace of the pitch, [things can change] because early on it was a two-paced pitch against fast bowlers and even against spinners.”But once I knew that, I actually changed my point of impact a little later on.”Cheteshwar Pujara celebrates a fifty he had to earn the hard way•BCCIHe decided, in effect, to meet the ball further out in front of his body. “Early on I was trying to hit too hard; trying to play little late wasn’t helping me,” Pujara said. “Then obviously I had to play little bit up front with the bat because the pitch was quite slow against spinners, so I had to generate power. So I was playing in front with the bat.”Pujara steps out of his crease often to the spinners, but unlike most other batsmen he doesn’t do it with the aim of hitting over the top. He sashays out of his crease to get as close to the pitch of the ball as possible. If he achieves this he looks to drive the ball into the gaps, always along the ground. If he doesn’t, he adjusts and blocks, often using his front pad adroitly as a line of defence.Before today, he had only been out three times in Test cricket while stepping out of his crease; caught at long-on off Jeetan Patel in Hyderabad in 2012 after scoring his maiden Test hundred (after which he vowed never to play that kind of shot again); stumped off Graeme Swann in Mumbai later that year, after scoring 135; and caught-and-bowled by Nathan Lyon in Sydney this January, for 193. Spot a pattern?Now, to the second ball he faced after the drinks break, Pujara stepped out to Piedt with that technical adjustment in mind. He tried to whip the offspinner through midwicket, looking to meet the ball further out in front of his body than usual, and only managed an inside edge.If Quinton de Kock had caught it, Pujara could have been out for 8 off 63 balls. That’s the risk inherent in changing your game midway through an innings.But with the risk can come reward too. Off the next 11 balls he faced, Pujara hit five fours, all of them beautifully controlled. Four of them came after he had danced down the track – through square leg, wide mid-on, extra-cover and fine leg – and the fifth came off a crisp square cut when the bowler, Keshav Maharaj, overcompensated with his length.Cheteshwar Pujara plays one away towards fine leg•BCCIPujara was finally out for 81, having scored 73 off the last 86 balls he faced. With Rohit scoring his second hundred of the Test match, a majestic, six-filled 127, India declared to set South Africa a target of 395, with a theoretical 13 overs on day four – they managed nine before bad light ended play – and all of day five left to play.The timing of the declaration more or less ruled out a South Africa win, but there is one school of thought that India may have delayed it too much, and left themselves too little time to take ten wickets on a track where the visitors’ first innings lasted 131.2 overs.Pujara explained the thinking behind the timing of India’s declaration.”We did not want to bowl too many overs [before stumps] because we wanted to keep the ball hard for the start of day five,” he said. “Once the ball gets soft it is slightly easier to bat. We picked up a crucial wicket (of Dean Elgar) so as a team we are happy with the way things went today, and hopefully we start well tomorrow and finish the day on a good note.”India’s dismantling of South Africa’s spinners suggested that the pitch hadn’t deteriorated to any great extent, but Pujara said India’s bowlers, both the quicks and the spinners, would have a decent amount of help. He pointed to Ravindra Jadeja’s lbw dismissal of Elgar, which was aided by the ball keeping low, as a pointer to how things could pan out on Sunday.”I think there is enough rough for spinners, and the cracks will open up a bit more on day five,” he said. “The cracks will help the fast bowlers, and we have seen that the pitch has got variable bounce. I don’t think it will bounce that much but there will be more bounce for the spinners on the rough.”If we see the variable bounce for Jaddu in that delivery against Elgar, I think the ball hit the crack and kept a little low. So if there is variable bounce I think the spinners will enjoy hitting the ball on the cracks. But fast bowlers will be difficult to play on the cracks [too].”

In recent times, Indian pitches have offered less home advantage than most pitches in the world. Yet, Kohli’s men have found a way to dominate by outlasting the opposition

Karthik Krishnaswamy in Ranchi16-Oct-2019Since the start of 2016, India’s spinners have collectively averaged 25.32 in Test matches at home. Visiting spinners in India, in the same period, have taken their wickets at 51.18, or more than twice the cost.Watch cricket on ESPN+

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For spinners, India is simultaneously the best place and the worst place in the world to bowl in.