Paul Edwards profiles Lancashire’s Ian Folley, who came agonisingly close to an England cap before the yips overcame him

Paul Edwards21-Apr-2020On June 28, 1988 Lancashire’s manager, Alan Ormrod, was watching a second-team game at Elland CC when he received a phone-call from his England counterpart, Micky Stewart. There was a Test Match against the West Indies taking place at Old Trafford in two days’ time and Nick Cook had failed a fitness test. Ormrod was therefore asked whether he thought his left-arm spinner, Ian Folley, was ready to make his international debut. The Lancashire coach replied that while Folley was bowling very well and worth his place in a touring party, he was, perhaps, not quite at the level he had reached the previous summer. The selectors eventually plumped for John Childs, the 36-year-old Essex spinner.Folley was never to receive a call to England colours. Although he finished that season with 57 first-class wickets, he started the next virtually unable to bowl spin at all. His deliveries might bounce four times or sail high over the wicketkeeper’s head. The yips had claimed another victim and Folley’s first-class career was all but over. Within two years of leaving the professional game in 1991 he was to die under anaesthetic at Cumberland Infirmary, where he was undergoing surgery for a perforated eyeball. He had been hit when batting for Whitehaven but had been able to walk off the ground; the operation should have been relatively routine. And the final sadness is that if you mention Folley’s name today many good-natured folk are likely to recall only the way his career ended and the dreadful tragedy of his death, aged 30.But that’s no way to remember you at all, is it, Ian?For one thing, it leaves out all the fun, such as the times you went in as nightwatchman and tried to score the fastest fifty of the season. Let’s put them right, shall we? Let me start again.”Fol!…Bloody hell, can’t he hear me? FOL!…Next over, this end.”There were many summers in the 1980s when those words brought happiness to Ian Folley; and at least a couple of seasons when they may have sparked particular joy in his heart. The pleasure was shared, too. It was felt by his Lancashire colleagues, who knew their tousle-haired, not-so-slow left-armer was one of the best spinners in the land; and the delight was known in abundance by supporters, who thought, like thousands before them, that they were watching Lancs play title-winning cricket.The 1987 season is just such a time and on July 22, Lancashire are playing Warwickshire at Southport. Folley is bowling from the Harrod Drive End and the ball is turning on the first afternoon. (Mike Atherton describes the pitch as a “sandpit”.) But it isn’t just that; players of the quality of Dennis Amiss and Asif Din are reaching forward to where they think the ball will land, only to find it pitching a trifle shorter, thus allowing the bounce and turn to do their work.ALSO READ: ‘Palairet had style. It stood out a mile'”Fol started as a seamer and you could see that in his action because he ran quite energetically to the crease,” said Atherton, who was making his first-class debut for Lancashire in that game. “He had a fast arm action and I think that’s where he got his dip from. The one thing I remember from my debut was the number of people he beat by getting the ball to drop and having batsmen searching for it. He was landing it on a sixpence, he was spinning it sharply and he had that lovely drop on the ball. He was dangerous.””He had this knack, a little bit like Simon Kerrigan, that when he got into a good place, you thought you were going to get a wicket every ball,” adds the former Lancashire wicketkeeper, John Stanworth “His consistency was that strong. I remember stumping Graeme Hick off Fol and the ball spun that much Hick nearly got back. He had this uncluttered knack of being able to produce really good spinning deliveries.”Ian Folley (front row, second from left) and the 1988 Lancashire squad•PA Images via Getty ImagesLancashire win the game at Southport by ten wickets inside two days. Folley takes 12 for 57 and finishes the season with 74 first-class wickets at a tad over 25 runs apiece, an achievement which had not eluded the notice of the selectors.”At the end of that year I’m pretty certain he was on a list for the England tour to Pakistan,” Atherton says. “I think Fol was on an initial long-list of about 30 players and in those days not many Lancashire cricketers were playing for England. I remember it being a big thing in the dressing room when he got the letter.”Folley’s recognition was all the more remarkable given that almost every county possessed at least one high-quality finger-spinner in that era; and his achievement was vaguely astonishing given that he had only turned to slow bowling the previous winter on the shrewd suggestion of Jack Bond, Lancashire’s manager. There is evidence he had mixed his usual left-arm quicker stuff with a few twisters during his time in Lancashire’s junior sides but the Burnley-born youngster had signed his first contract in 1982 primarily as a swing bowler. For a season or two it worked well enough for him but Bond recognised that the Folley’s career would be limited if he stuck to his first discipline and therefore suggested he try spin. The change would be the making of him… and yes, probably the breaking as well.

“Pressure affects people in different ways and I think it was a real big burden for Fol because people were talking him up as the next England spinner”Former Lancashire captain Warren Hegg

The players at Old Trafford accepted Folley’s decision and waited to see what he would make of his new trade. In truth, they were already accustomed to a large dollop of eccentricity from him. “Fol was away with the fairies at times” says Warren Hegg, Lancashire’s former wicketkeeper and captain. And one can see what Hegg means. This, after all, was the lad who had been Graeme Fowler’s runner when he made two centuries against Warwickshire in 1982 game at Southport and had raised his own bat to milk the applause of the large crowd when Fowler reached three figures. “I’ve never scored a century before,” he told his mates in the dressing room.Folley’s innings as nightwatchman also mocked expectations: they were noted for a flurry of boundaries carved through the slips or for calls to take quick singles early in an over, invitations which his partner, often Gehan Mendis, brusquely declined. But this sense of fun never strayed over into the sort of self-indulgent indiscipline that blights a team. Indeed, Folley was so renowned for retiring to bed early in his first few years with Lancashire that his most popular nicknames were “Vicar” or “Reverend”. The extrovert Fol arrived at more or less the same time as he turned to spin.But gradually, maybe even during that last golden season, the fun began to stop. Rather than hoping Folley would take wickets, his team-mates and spectators started to expect him to do so. This is, of course, a perfectly normal response to a colleague’s success but Ken Grime, Lancashire marketing executive in the late 1980s, offers invaluable testimony that Folley felt pressured by it.Micky Stewart (left) was mighty close to handing Folley a Test call-up in 1988•Daily Mirror/Mirrorpix/Getty Images”When Ian started to struggle with a loss of confidence, my mind went back to a lunchtime conversation we’d had during the winter of 1987,” he says. “I’d always found him to be approachable, outgoing, with an impish sense of fun and happy to chat cricket. But somehow that day we got talking about playing under ‘pressure’ and he recalled the first time it had really crystallized in his mind. It was during that charge for the title in 1987.”‘You want to know about pressure?’ he said. ‘You turn up at a ground and realise if it’s a spinning track everyone’s looking at me and Simmo [Jack Simmons] to win us the game,’ he said. ‘That’s real pressure.’ He mentioned the game in question but I can’t recall it now. Although that situation is probably true for many spinners, and indeed many cricketers, it showed a serious side to Ian I’d not seen before. And I got the impression it was something that was on his mind.”In 1989 the ball was going everywhere and anywhere when Folley bowled spin. He could put his fingers down the seam and land it on a putting marker but he knew he was never going to make a career in professional county cricket doing that. Once he tried to tweak it again the yips would have him by the throat. And such was cricket’s sadistic generosity in those days that a head-high no-ball or wide delivered by a spinner merely gave the bowler another opportunity to experience the agony.”It was the most heartbreaking thing to see from a guy who was only that far from playing for England,” Hegg says. “When the pressure was on he’d lose it, but even in the nets he’d lost it a bit. Pressure affects people in different ways and I think it was a real big burden for Fol because people were talking him up as the next England spinner.”Folley did not play another County Championship match for Lancashire after 1988. There were four first-class games for Derbyshire in 1991 but he was released at the end of that season and had to build a new career in the licensing trade while playing cricket in the leagues. In the years since his death there have been serious academic studies of the yips, including a chapter in the philosopher David Papineau’s excellent book and an outstanding paper written by Mark Bawden and Ian Maynard in the (January 2002). The latter identifies “15 general dimensions” that are “descriptive of the overall ‘yips’ experience.”But to a layman or even to an amateur sportsman who has suffered from the yips the whole business is raw agony and not many recover from it. When the body cheats on the mind reconciliation is rarely achieved. “It’s like a worm in your brain that’s hard to get rid of,” says Atherton.You would be 57 today, Fol. No doubt, you would be attending Lancashire’s former players’ reunions, admiring the talent of Matt Parkinson and hoping he does well. But the simple pleasures of the ex-pro were denied you. What you could enjoy, though, was those few seasons when you were very near the top of your profession. What’s more, the folk who saw you bowl shared your pure delight that life could be so much fun. And when they recall such days, to borrow from Michael Frayn, the past becomes the present inside their heads. A choir of close catchers lies in wait and you are once again bamboozling Warwickshire’s batsmen on a July afternoon in Southport. Odd Men In

Glamorgan went unbeaten through the 1969 Championship as they steadily chased down their rivals

Paul Edwards16-Jul-2020Cardiff, July 22, 1969

ScorecardCheltenham, August 14, 1969
ScorecardIn the early years of this century the best cabaret in the kingdom was David Green’s performance in a county press box. Unencumbered by a need to tweet or blog, not that he would have obeyed any injunction to do so, the former Lancashire and Gloucestershire batsman would stroll around the room during a morning’s play, reminiscing about his days as a professional and occasionally commenting on the efforts of his new colleagues. “Ah, I see Edwards is attempting to win the Booker Prize before lunch,” was one observation that amused most occupants of the box at Old Trafford.Rain allowed Green even greater freedom. He would make a series of phone calls, sometimes to berate sub-editors and occasionally to suggest to bank managers that, judging by their investment decisions, he would have been better off leaving his money in the mattress. Cold callers were never so foolish as to ring again. Old players were recalled, assessed and sometimes mocked, although rarely without affection. Anecdotes were told that can never appear in any cricket book. When Green’s copy appeared in the next morning’s it would be accurate, perceptive and exactly the right length, but it would reflect none of this burlesque. On the other hand, it had plainly been written by a former cricketer and it was intriguing to discover that its author had played in the side that fought a mighty battle with Glamorgan for 1969 County Championship. Yet we never asked Greeny about the season his team nearly brought the pennant back to Bristol for the first time in Gloucestershire’s history.ALSO READ: ‘Rice and Hadlee’ and the rest – when Notts ended their droughtHindsight suggests we are stretching things a little. Glamorgan won the County Championship in 1969 and their 31-point margin over Tony Brown’s second-placed team appears substantial. They won their two matches against Gloucestershire very comfortably: by 208 runs at Cardiff in July and an innings and 50 at Cheltenham in August. Twenty years later Green was to write a history of Gloucestershire cricket and his judgement remained clear-eyed: “Nor could there be any complaint about this [Glamorgan’s title] in terms of weather, injuries or anything else, for on the two occasions the sides had been opposed Glamorgan’s superiority had been overwhelming.”So Gloucestershire finished runners-up for the fifth time in their history. (They managed the same trick when Essex won the Championship in 1986 and have thus sprinkled their six second places across five decades. By contrast, Somerset, one of the two other teams never to have won the title, have been the bridesmaids in half a dozen Septembers since 2001.) The celebrations stretched deep into winter in the principality, for no one thought Glamorgan fortunate to be champions. In Alan Jones, Majid Khan and the skipper, Tony Lewis, the Welsh side possessed three batsmen all of whom scored well over a thousand runs. The bowling attack was almost perfectly balanced with the spin of Don Shepherd and Peter Walker backing up the fire of Lawrence Williams and Tony Cordle and the medium pace of Malcolm Nash. Just as significant was the close catching of Walker, Majid, Roger Davis and Bryan Davis, a quartet fit to rank with any in the Wilf Wooller era. “It had become increasingly obvious in 1968 that Lewis’s team were finally fulfilling their potential after several years of rebuilding,” wrote Andrew Hignell in his centenary history, “and there was a growing belief that a Championship-winning team was taking shape.”All the same, any such conviction may have appeared fragile midway through July, by which time Gloucestershire had established a 52-point lead at the top of the table. Though the leaders’ batting that season was relatively unimpressive – no batsman contributed more than Ron Nicholls’ 1173 runs – Brown’s attack possessed two spinners in David Allen and John Mortimore who regularly made the most of turning wickets. Moreover, the new ball was taken by Mike Procter, a hulking but coltish 22-year-old, whose 103 wickets in 1969 were a testament to raw pace and a terrifying run-up. “His bowling was, at first, tearaway fast,” Green wrote, “with an odd chest-on delivery, the pace coming from a swift and athletic approach and a great heave off a powerful right shoulder at the end of a whirling double-overarm action.” The result of Procter’s fury, the spinners’ subtleties and Brown’s shrewd leadership was that Gloucestershire travelled to Cardiff on July 18 having won seven and lost only one of their 12 games.The 1969 Glamorgan team•PA PhotosBut there were another 12 games to play and that lead was less formidable than it might seem from a 21st century perspective. In 1969 there were five bowling bonus points available plus one batting point for 25 runs a team scored above 150. Such points could only be gained in the first 85 overs of the first innings but once they were added to the ten gained for a win, it was plain that Gloucestershire’s advantage could be erased in a couple of matches. And when the teams met at Sophia Gardens Glamorgan were undefeated and had two games in hand…On the first day the home batsmen compiled a very respectable 337, four batsmen making fifties. On the second Cordle was brought on second change when the score was 78 for 2 but took 6 for 21 in 12.2 overs as Gloucestershire replied with 117. called their batting “feeble”. Lewis declined to enforce the follow-on, instead allowing Majid to make his second half-century of the match and challenging the visitors to score 364 in six hours. They were put out for 155, Williams bagging 5 for 30.It was a watershed in the summer although it did not determine the destiny of the title. Before the leaders met again, Glamorgan would win two of their four games while Gloucestershire would have to wait three weeks for their next win, an innings victory over Worcestershire at Cheltenham keeping them at the top of the table.But any thought that the College Ground would fully restore the home side’s fortunes in its usual fashion had been abandoned within a few hours of the start of the next match. Gloucestershire were swept away for 73 in 40.2 overs and Glamorgan’s 283 in reply set up a victory that was completed ten minutes into extra time on the second evening.”The game was lost before lunch on the first day,” wrote Grahame Parker in . “A psychological paralysis had gripped the leading batsmen but the sum of their collective experience should have carried them through. For too long they had been looking over their shoulders at Glamorgan on the charge behind them.”Don Shepherd took his 2000th first-class wicket during Glamorgan’s Championship-winning summer•PA PhotosEight days later Lewis’s players were the ones looking back at the rest and it did not disturb their mental equilibrium in the slightest. They retained their nerve sufficiently to beat Essex by just one run at Swansea in early September, Ossie Wheatley’s flat throw running out John Lever off the last possible ball of the game after Lewis had challenged the visitors to score 190 in two hours. Around 12,000 spectators watched the thrilling conclusion to the game at St Helen’s and many of them were also present at Cardiff the following morning for the match against Worcestershire. Among them was ‘s correspondent, JH Morgan.”Glamorgan entered their last home game happy in the knowledge that if they won they were virtual champions with an unassailable lead,” he reported. “And win they did. Sophia Gardens broke out in pandemonium and the celebrations ran well into the evening… It was not only a great day for Glamorgan but also for Don Shepherd, who took his 2000th wicket in first-class cricket.”It was not quite so straightforward but neither was batting as trouble-free a pastime as Majid had made it look in Glamorgan’s first innings when he conjured 156 runs out of a total of 265. “The pitch was dry and breaking up,” Lewis wrote. “Only three others made it to double figures. I still see him gliding down the pitch to meet Norman Gifford’s spinners. Time and again I expected to see him stranded but the Worcestershire captain, Tom Graveney, in the end had to reinforce his cover field with two fast runners on the boundary.”All five of Lewis’ bowlers took wickets in Worcestershire’s two innings and nine catches were taken at either slip or short leg as the victory was sealed by 147 runs. For the first time in the county’s history Glamorgan had won the title in Wales. A draw against Surrey at The Oval would see them finish the season unbeaten. Gloucestershire lost six of their 24 matches and are still waiting for their first Championship. Match from the Day

Kings XI Punjab could do with quicker runs – and not more runs – from their captain

Karthik Krishnaswamy10-Oct-20207:41

Did KL Rahul’s sedate strike rate cost Kings XI?

It feels almost unfair to begin with that quote, but then again, how can one not? On a day when KL Rahul made 74 off 58 (strike rate 127.58) and his team lost by two runs while chasing 165 for a win?How can you not begin with that quote when Rahul wears the Orange Cap with 387 runs at a strike rate of 134.84, while his team sits at the bottom of the IPL table with just one win in seven games?How can you not draw a line connecting all the runs Rahul has scored, and his manner of scoring them, with his team’s results?There are other factors behind where Kings XI sit halfway through their league campaign. Their bowling, for one, particularly in the death overs. But think of it this way: Rahul has been on strike for 287 of the 824 balls faced by Kings XI’s batsmen this season. That’s just under 35% of all the balls they have faced. No other batsman has had as much influence on how their team’s innings have been shaped. No bowler, by the simple fact that they are restricted to delivering at most a fifth of their team’s overs, has had a comparable influence.KL Rahul’s smart runs in his last five innings•ESPNcricinfo LtdAn overall strike rate of 134.84 doesn’t sound terrible. But over the first 30 balls of all his innings, he’s made 195 off 174 balls, at a strike rate of 112.07. Keep in mind that if he has faced 30 balls, he’s used up a fourth of his team’s quota of deliveries.It isn’t that Rahul can’t play any other way. In IPL 2018, he had a first-six-overs (powerplay) strike rate of 157.57. Since then there’s been a perceptible shift in approach, with his strike rate in that phase dropping to 120.83 in 2019 and 116.00 this year.There are reasons behind why he is playing this way, of course.One, Rahul and the Kings XI management probably believe he has the game to make up for his slow starts if he spends a certain amount of time at the crease. So he has a certain allowance to put a price on his wicket – a bit of a luxury in T20s – and play risk-free cricket for a certain amount of time.When it comes off, it can be spectacular. For instance, he smashed 42 off the last nine balls of his innings against the Royal Challengers Bangalore, and finished with 132 not out off 69.But how often will he get that deep into his innings, and once there, how often will he explode as spectacularly? Rahul made 90 off 39 (strike rate 230.77) after crossing the 30-ball mark against the Royal Challengers, but in the three other games where he’s gotten to that point of his innings, he’s made 32 off 24 (against the Rajasthan Royals), 31 off 22 (against the Chennai Super Kings) and, on Saturday against the Knight Riders, 39 off 28.

Compare the situations Maxwell has walked into with the relative blank slates Rahul has at the start of his innings, and you might begin to see that different types of players get judged by different standards in T20 cricket. Recognising that, ask yourself this: what exactly does being the leading run-getter in a T20 league mean if your team has lost six out of seven games?

That’s not a whole lot of payoff. And if Virat Kohli hadn’t dropped him twice just before he went on that late blitz against the Royal Challengers, Rahul would have finished with 83 off 55 (41 off 25 after the 30-ball mark) or 89 off 59 (47 off 29).Rahul certainly can make up for slow starts, but he hasn’t been doing it consistently this season. It can’t be easy for anyone to bat with a certain rhythm for a significant length of time and suddenly change their approach and pull it off time and again.The second reason behind Rahul’s approach could be that he’s often batted alongside someone scoring rapidly enough to make him – or the team management – believe that his best role is to give that batsman the strike and keep the partnership going. Mayank Agarwal has been the quicker-scoring partner in two century opening stands this season, and in both games, Kings XI seemed to be in an impregnable position when he and Rahul were at the crease.Kings XI, however, have lost both those matches. It’s not an unexpected outcome. Data drawn from all seasons of the IPL shows that long partnerships with one partner scoring slowly are often counterproductive. Perhaps Rahul and the Kings XI know this, but feel it’s the only option left to them. That could be another reason behind Rahul’s approach. He may be batting in this manner because the Kings XI either don’t bat that deep – they have played an extra bowler in their last two games and ended up with a long tail – or don’t trust their middle and lower order to build on smaller but more explosive starts from their top order.KL Rahul was dismissed at a most inopportune time for his team•BCCIThat the Kings XI sent in Prabhsimran Singh – who had 258 runs in 15 T20 innings, at a strike rate of 139.45, before Saturday – and not Glenn Maxwell when they needed 21 from 16 against the Knight Riders would suggest they haven’t invested a whole lot of trust in at least one of their regular middle-order batsmen.The fact that Maxwell had only made 48 off 56 balls over six innings before Saturday might suggest that the Kings XI had a reason to not trust him, but that begs two questions: One, why play him at all? And two, could his lack of form and rhythm have something to do with how the Kings XI have used him, or at least be part of the same vicious cycle?Maxwell came into this IPL season having just played two counterattacking, match-winning knocks – 77 off 59 and 108 off 90 – in three ODIs against England. T20 is an entirely different format, but that sort of ball-striking form surely can’t just disappear so quickly.But it can get misplaced if you’re playing in entirely different conditions, and you walk in time and again with not a lot of time to get used to those conditions.In three out of his seven IPL innings this season, Maxwell has finished not out having faced fewer than ten balls. On three of the other four occasions – against the Delhi Capitals, the Mumbai Indians and the Sunrisers Hyderabad – he’s failed to make a significant contribution after walking in with the Kings XI struggling in chases. He’s not been at or even close to his best, but he’s usually not come in with time to play himself in.It’s the job description of the middle-order hitter in T20s, of course: a lot to do in not a lot of time. But compare the situations Maxwell has walked into with the relative blank slates Rahul has at the start of his innings, and you might begin to see that different types of players get judged by different standards in T20 cricket. Recognising that, ask yourself this: what exactly does being the leading run-getter in a T20 league mean if your team has lost six out of seven games?

He ended his innings on Friday with 1001 maximums to his name, 311 ahead of second-placed Kieron Pollard

Bharath Seervi30-Oct-2020When Chris Gayle tonked young Kartik Tyagi over the lengthy leg-side boundary for his seventh six of the night, for the Kings XI Punjab against the Rajasthan Royals, it took him up to an incredible 1000 career sixes in T20 cricket, the first to get to the mark. Already more than 3000 runs in front of Kieron Pollard when it comes to most runs in T20s, Gayle has – again – gone where no man has in the shortest format, stretching his lead at the top of the sixes’ chart to 311 by the time he finished up, with Pollard second at 690.”A thousand maximums – another record? Oh, man,” he joked when asked about the achievement on Star Sports. “I don’t know, I just have to give thanks. Have to give thanks for hitting it well at age 41. A lot of dedication and hard work has paid off over the years. Still here, still doing it, same way. Very grateful.”ESPNcricinfo LtdHere’s a look at Gayle’s incredible achievement, through numbers.1001 – Sixes for Gayle in T20s. His first six came playing for Jamaica against Bermuda in the Stanford 20/20 in 2006. He has 1041 fours in the format too, just 40 more than his number of sixes.349 – Number of sixes by Gayle in the IPL, which are the most by a batsman in any T20 league. He also has the most sixes in the CPL (162), Bangladesh Premier League (132) and T20 World Cup (60).263 – Sixes by Gayle for the Royal Challengers Bangalore, the most he has hit for a single team, followed by 124 for the Jamaica Tallawahs, and 105 sixes for West Indies (in T20Is).61 – Sixes Gayle has hit against the Kings XI Punjab, his most against a single opposition. He has also smashed 84 sixes for Kings XI since he joined them in 2018.135 – Sixes hit by Gayle in 2015, his most in a calendar year. He next best is 121 in 2012. Overall, he has hit 100-plus sixes in six different years – 2011 to 2017, barring 2014.18 – Most sixes by Gayle in a T20 match, for the Rangpur Riders against the Dhaka Dynamites in the BPL final in 2017. He hit 17 sixes in his knock of 175* for the Royal Challengers in 2013. No other batsman has hit more than 16 sixes in a T20 match.17 – Sixes for Gayle against Dwayne Bravo in T20s, his most against a single bowler. He has hit 12 sixes against Imran Tahir and 11 each against Piyush Chawla, Rashid Khan and Shahid Afridi.18 – Number of times Gayle has hit ten or more sixes in a T20 match. No other batsman has done it more than three times – Evin Lewis, Andre Russell and Shreyas Iyer.

How often did India and Australia produce uncertain responses from the opposition batsmen, and how often did that uncertainty result in a wicket?

Sidharth Monga29-Jan-2021This was a freak series
Two events of the sort that ought to occur not more than once in six series of four Tests apiece took place in this Australia-India series: India were bowled out for 36 in Adelaide, and then batted out 131 overs for the loss of just five wickets in the fourth innings in Sydney to draw the Test. On the surface these are rare events but look deeper and they are even rarer.ESPNcricinfo’s control factor metric judges uncertainty in batsmen’s response to bowling. Over time, in aggregate, it is an elegant measure of the potency of a bowling attack and of the luck the teams enjoyed. In the Adelaide 36 all out, their bowlers were potent, but the luck Australia enjoyed to go with it was lethal. In a series where a wicket fell for about every nine balls in which a batsman was not in control, India lost a wicket once every 3.56 such balls in that Adelaide innings. We have control data for 1214 Test innings over the last ten years in which eight or more wickets have fallen. Only four times has uncertainty produced more frequent wickets.The conditions and the Australian bowling made it far worse for India by evoking false responses every four balls. There have been 135 completed innings that have been more difficult than this, but most have featured better luck for the batting side.Related

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The pitch in the Wanderers Test of 2017-18 was treacherous, producing a false response every 3.2 and 3.3 balls in India’s first and second innings. However, in those innings, they lost a wicket every 14.3 and 14.5 such balls, thus posting a combined winning total.During the Sydney escape, on the other hand, there was just enough in the pitch, and the Australia bowlers created enough chances, but India enjoyed more luck. Not in terms of catches (because those owe to the opposition’s mistakes, and often tend to even out) but because indecisive responses did not result in enough dismissals. Australia produced indecisive responses off 135 balls for just five wickets; on the final day, 93 false responses brought just three wickets. In 193 innings played on the final day of a Test in the last ten years, only four have needed more false responses to create a wicket.Unlucky India, lucky India
India were desperately unlucky with injuries both between matches and during them. They were also part of an unlucky once-in-a-generation collapse, but overall, once the ball was in play, India were the luckier side in the series – just like they were the less lucky one in England in 2018.In Adelaide, India lost a wicket every 6.3 false responses to Australia’s 7.8, but in the remaining Tests the indecision created by India proved to be consistently more dangerous. Overall Australia created uncertainty every 6.27 balls and India every seven balls, which is a huge credit to an inexperienced attack.ESPNcricinfo LtdDuring the 4-1 loss to England in 2018, India created indecision once every 4.3 balls – more often than England, who did so once every 4.8 balls, but lost wickets to indecision more often than the hosts: every 10.7 balls of not being in control to every 14 balls for England. That should put numbers to the feeling that pundits and the Indian team had, that the games were much closer than the eventual series scoreline indicated.Australia’s (lack of) depth
On the 2018 tour of England and the one to New Zealand in 2020, India showed they had the resources to get into competitive positions, but were thwarted by the depth of the home sides – which is usually accentuated in such circumstances because the secondary skills of allrounders blossom in familiar conditions. First Sam Curran and then Kyle Jamieson thwarted India with the bat, much like R Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja tend to do at home for India at times when the opposition feels they are just one push away from ascendance.On those tours of England and New Zealand, the home team’s bowling allrounders added immensely to their batting depth, but during this series, Australia’s batting allrounder, Cameron Green, couldn’t do much with the bat – except for score quick runs when setting up a declaration – let alone add depth to their bowling.Curran scored 272 runs at 38.85 and took 11 wickets at 23.54 in that England series, Jamieson averaged 46.50 with the bat and 16.33 with the ball, and Green averaged 33.71 with the bat thanks to two no-pressure declaration knocks, while taking zero wickets. That it comes down to contributions from the allrounder shows how well India have competed on recent away tours.Pat Cummins is no slouch against left-hand batsmen, but in this series Jadeja and Pant didn’t lose their wickets to him once over about 30 overs•Getty ImagesIs left right against Cummins?
India had two left-hand batsmen – both in the lower middle order but not restricted to those positions – and Cummins didn’t manage to get either of them out in the nine innings they batted between them. Close to 30 overs of bowling for 91 runs and zero wickets to Cummins is a win for the strategy, but it doesn’t mean Cummins is an easy bowler to face for left-hand batsmen. Coming into the series he averaged 19.6 against right-hand batsmen and 25.1 against left.Even in terms of creating indecision, Cummins was the second best among the Australia bowlers in the series, but while the 30 false responses induced by him brought him three wickets, none of those was of a left-hand batsman. It was a sound tactic for India to introduce left-hand batsmen into the line-up, and then manage a right-left combination, but it took some luck for Rishabh Pant and Ravindra Jadeja.Historically right-arm quicks have had to work harder for the wickets of left-hand batsmen, though not to this extent: a right-hand batsman’s wicket falls every ten balls of indecision versus 12 balls for a left-hand batsman.What do the control numbers say about England in India?
It’s not always that the luckier side wins; rather, luck becomes more crucial when two evenly matched sides face off. The last time England toured India, for example, they were luckier, losing a wicket every 12.5 balls of indecision as against India’s 11.9. However, India’s bowlers were superior: they created a false response every 5.6 balls as against England’s 7.6. That’s 25 more false responses, or two wickets, in a day’s bowling. When India toured Australia, this difference was down to nine balls in favour of the hosts. India created 13 more opportunities in a day’s bowling than England in 2018. These are close enough margins for luck to play a part. Can England come as close to the hosts as India have been doing on their recent difficult tours?

The visitors have subverted a predominantly off-side sport to choke Australia and make up for missing fast bowlers

Sidharth Monga06-Jan-2021As an attack, man for man, it was clear India were outmatched in this series the moment it was announced that Ishant Sharma would not be making the trip. By the time Mohammed Shami was also injured, the contest between the two bowling attacks became one-sided.After that, there was no way India could match Australia blow for blow playing traditional Test cricket. They were up against one of the greatest attacks when it comes to that.Related

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And traditional Test cricket is predominantly an off-side sport – especially in Australia, New Zealand, England and South Africa. The bounce is true and the pitches are quick, so it is easy to score on the leg side off deliveries even ending up at off and middle. Fast bowlers spend time delivering tens of balls outside off, threatening the outside edge with catching men in slips and gully and dragging the batsmen across, before trying the change-up for the lbw.In this series, India have subverted the tradition by not just bowling straighter but also keeping in place tight leg-side fields. The leg slip or leg gully has accounted for at least one dismissal of each of the key Australia batsmen: Steven Smith, Marnus Labuschagne and Tim Paine. Smith has clipped to backward short leg and been bowled around his legs once each; Labuschagne has flicked straight to leg gully on one occasion; and Paine has been caught at leg slip off R Ashwin once.Australia’s right-hand batsmen have played more on the leg side than off side so far this series•ESPNcricinfoThe wickets don’t come just like that. There has to be persistent bowling at the stumps for that to happen. In this series, 45.5% of deliveries bowled to Australia’s right-hand batsmen have been played on the leg side. And this number excludes the wicket-taking lbw and the bowled deliveries, and also the leaves down the leg side. On the other hand, only 31.8% of the balls have been played into the off side.Contrast this to how Australia have bowled: 33.1% balls bowled to India’s right-hand batsmen played into the leg side, and 36% into the off side. In the Ashes in 2019, for example, Australia faced a similar line of attack: their right-hand batsmen played 32.7% of the balls bowled to them into the leg side and 35% into the off side. Balls they played into the leg side in the Ashes were likelier to be errors by the bowlers, as they scored 5.41 an over off them and averaged 81.1.India’s leg tactics to Australia paying off•ESPNcricinfoDuring the current series, though, balls played into the leg side have yielded only 2.65 an over for a wicket every 21.5 runs. Even India, on their last trip to Australia, played more traditional cricket: 33.9% of the balls Australia’s right-hand batsmen played went into the leg side for 4.93 an over and 49.5 per wicket; 41.9% went into the off side.Batting against this Indian attack, Australia have had significantly fewer opportunities to leave the ball while playing at them has brought them hardly any runs. The moment Australia look to score off these straight deliveries, mostly defensively, they bring the leg trap into play. Depending on the bowler, there is a leg gully, a short leg, one or two short midwickets, a mid-on or a long-on and one or two boundary riders square on the leg side.The plan marries with the theory that if you deny Australia quick runs and boundaries, they are not good at patiently batting time and waiting for less potent spells. This has been their slowest series this century. These fields with the freedom to bowl straight has given India a bigger margin of error while possibly bringing in more modes of dismissal into the picture.”They’ve certainly come in with a plan, making sure that they’re really not leaving stamps and having a really heavy leg-side field,” Labuschagne acknowledged. “It obviously slows the scoring rate down because you know those shots that you do get on your legs go for one or four. And then they’re always keeping those catchers in the game. We also need to come up with ways to put them under pressure.”Australia and India’s control across first two Tests•ESPNcricinfoThis has resulted in interesting overall numbers in the series. Both sides have scored nearly the same number of runs – Australia’s 679 against India’s 676 – for the loss of same number of wickets – 32 – but Australia have had to face more balls for it and they have been more in control than India: 86% to 83.1%. According to ESPNCricinfo’s control metric, Australia’s batsmen have been in control more often and not in control less often than India and yet both sides have lost the same number of wickets for almost the same number of runs. In other words, India have had such field sets that they have cashed in more on Australia’s indecision.This is nothing less than a heist: flipping the geometry of the game, turning a traditionally negative form of operation into an attack and out-thinking the home team. However, it can be argued India didn’t have a choice. They had a raw attack outside Jasprit Bumrah and Ashwin. They couldn’t be expected to compete with channel bowling for long periods. As bowlers from India historically have been, they would have been – Umesh Yadav still is – prone to bowling too straight and get picked off. Instead of asking them to play a different game, India protected their weakness and with discipline and some fortune, turned it into a strength.Against a well-oiled brute of a bowling unit, India have indulged in non-traditional warfare. It sounds great on paper to say that the more you make them play the ball while denying them opportunities to score, the more the chances of taking a wicket; but to execute it is quite another achievement. The bowling still has to be precise and relentless. Also it is not clear if this was a discussed plan in team meetings or if it is a case of individual bowlers – Bumrah and Ashwin are clever enough to do so – coming with their own plans and the others going with the flow.The efforts of Bumrah and Ashwin have been immense. This is why Ajinkya Rahane went to Ashwin before using Mohammed Siraj on the first morning during the second Test in Melbourne. India had tied Australia down with a plan that relied entirely on control; they didn’t want to risk losing it bowling a debutant early on. Ashwin used the moisture in the pitch expertly and laid the foundation for the leg trap to continue.Between them, Ashwin and Bumrah have bowled 156.1 overs of the 268.5 that India have been in the field for. They have conceded just 366 runs for 18 wickets between them.Heist while it might be, the thing with heists is they are not repeatable so easily. In the longer run and over a four-Test series, you would expect a bowling unit drawing the larger amount of indecision from the batsmen to prevail. If India have out-thought them so far, expect Australia to put their best brains at work to try to counter this line of attack. It will be fascinating to see if India continue with the leg trap and how Australia respond in the coming two Tests.

One: Free him of Test captaincy, Two: Have him bat at No. 6, where he’s shown he’s most comfortable

Firdose Moonda29-Jan-2021Now, we need to talk about Quinton de Kock.And we need to talk about review. The one just before lunch. The one where Kagiso Rabada hit Imran Butt on the back as he turned away from a ball that kept low and would’ve, quite clearly, missed leg stump. The one where everyone, including de Kock, appealed in jest. Then, with an expression that said ‘we’ve nothing to lose except another review’, he called for the DRS.Replays confirmed that even if leg stump had taken a walk to fourth or fifth stump, the ball still would have missed. De Kock’s record of successful reviews in this Test remained at zero. In the overall analysis of the Test, this moment may not even feature, but at the time, it said something. It said de Kock, even if he didn’t seem desperate, wasn’t tactically astute. In the first innings too, he reviewed after two errors, all more costly than the one dissected above.De Kock first used DRS against Azhar Ali in the first innings off an Anrich Nortje delivery with Pakistan on 35 for 4. It made sense to try and dislodge another and heap pressure. But the impact was outside off and Azhar survived. Mistakes happen.The second, also against Azhar, was off George Linde’s left-arm spin. Azhar had come forward to defend and it wasn’t conclusive if the ball hit the bat or the pad first. It was so inconclusive that even the third umpire could not take a decisive call. South Africa may have been unlucky to have lost the review, but they lost it nonetheless. You’d think that should have made de Kock more discerning about when to use the third review.He decided to call for Mohammed Rizwan off a Lungi Ngidi delivery that jagged back in and hit him on leg. At first glance, it seemed an optimistic appeal and replays showed it was missing leg by some distance. Pakistan were 156 for 5 at that point and South Africa had to bowl for another 50 overs without any reviews.Dean Elgar could be a captain in the medium term for South Africa•PCBAdd to that de Kock’s drop of Faheem Ashraf, when he moved too late to take what would have been Rabada’s 200th wicket, his rash stroke in the first innings, his asking of Aiden Markram, part-time offspinner, to bowl with the second new ball when it was just 10 overs old, some of the field settings during the Fawad and Faheem stand and the lack of accountability he showed afterwards. It’s fair to say this was not de Kock at his best.Asked what South Africa could do to avoid batting collapses, de Kock did not know. “If I knew I would let you know and if we knew how to fix them we wouldn’t be doing it in the first place,” he said. Then asked whether there was a way South Africa’s spinners could have done better, de Kock did not know, again. “If there is, I’d like to know how and what we didn’t do right.”Asked if there was something different South Africa could have done with their team selection, given the last minute injury to wristspinner Tabraiz Shamsi and the wealth of seamers in the squad, de Kock did not know. “I haven’t really thought about it.”He acknowledged that South Africa’s first innings of 220 was not good enough and that it cost them the game – which it did – along with the 8 for 60 in the second innings. But the rest of his post-match assessment was uninspiring in its dourness. All that said, we need to cut de Kock some slack and see if the issue lies elsewhere.It’s only de Kock’s third Test as captain and he is in charge of a team that has won just three of their last 12 Tests. South Africa are also on a 13-Test streak without a win in Asia dating back to July 2014. He has been burdened with the leadership in all formats, is the wicket-keeper in all formats, and expectations on him as a batsman, and perhaps the most talented batsman in the line-up, to perform are high.Temba Bavuma batting below de Kock isn’t helping South Africa•PCBDe Kock is dealing with a lot and even though the team management insist they are taking as much as they can off de Kock’s hands  – Mark Boucher does more press engagements than previous coaches, for example – they may need to more, and do it quickly, starting with where de Kock bats.Since being promoted to No. 5 against England last January, de Kock has scored 160 runs in six innings. Add the 18 he made at Lord’s in 2017 in that spot, and he averages 29.33 at No. 5, below his overall average of 37.70 and well below the 49.87 in his most preferred No. 7 spot.South Africa’s reasons for batting de Kock at No.5 are obvious. He is an aggressive batsman who can easily wrest an advantage and so, they want him to have as much time in the middle as possible once a foundation has been laid. But that means they are left with a specialist batsman, Temba Bavuma in this case, batting lower than de Kock and often rendered largely ineffective because of the amount of time he spends with the lower-order.Bavuma has spent more than a fifth of his career batting with the tail, more than any other specialist batsman since his debut in 2014. That could be part of the reason he has only one Test century to his name – scored five years ago – and it could also be part of the reason he bats ultra conservatively when we know he can be more proactive. His 40 in the second innings here showed him to be technically sound, adept against the spinners and at times, urgent.Given the statistical evidence and the cricketing logic, it would seem South Africa have a simple fix. Switch de Kock and Bavuma’s batting positions so that their captain, wicket-keeper and best batsman is positioned where he is most comfortable and their specialist can do his job.But there are also other things South Africa can do to lessen de Kock’s load; one of the things that is sure to enter the conversation is to release him from the captaincy. That would require South Africa to make either another temporary appointment or to look at a medium-to-long term solution based on what they’ve seen from the candidates so far. And if the latter is what they go with, then Dean Elgar is the frontrunner to take over.His current hand injury aside, and luckily for him it’s not a fracture but severe bruising, Elgar appears available and in the right kind of form to lead by example and probably should have been considered as soon as du Faf Plessis stood down last January. Since 2016, Elgar has been the most prolific opening batsman in world cricket, with more runs and more hundreds than anyone else. He is the most experienced player in the squad apart from du Plessis and is arguably the most dogged. He has even indicated it’s a job he wants to do.At 33, Elgar could play for another four or five years and can lead South Africa through their transition. That would also give them the stability to move on to someone like Aiden Markram, long thought to be the captain-in-waiting, or someone else, but it would make sense to give the job to Elgar now. But not right now.It probably won’t be a good look or good for team and individual morale for South Africa to change captains mid-series so de Kock should continue to lead the team in Rawalpindi. The only way to relieve him there would be to bring in Kyle Verreynne to keep wickets, in place of the allrounder, or move him down the order to No.7.But when de Kock returns home with the Test side after their match on February 8, he should do so knowing someone else will take the reins for Australia, a series that has historically been hard-fought on and off the field.If that happens that will not mean de Kock is any less of a player or any less important to South Africa. In fact, the opposite. It will mean he is so crucial that someone has talked about him and decided he needs to be looked after better,

Also: was Harshal Patel the first to take a five-for against the Mumbai Indians?

Steven Lynch13-Apr-2021Was Fakhar Zaman’s 193 the highest score by a batsman in a losing cause in a one-day international? asked Navjot Bhatia from India
Fakhar Zaman’s remarkable solo innings of 193 against South Africa in Johannesburg last week (the nexthighest was Babar Azam’s 31) just missed out on this distinction. The bespectacled Zimbabwe batsman Charles Coventry clattered 194 not out against Bangladesh in Bulawayo in August 2009, but his side ended up losing by four wickets. In all, there have been 18 innings of 150 or more in a losing cause in ODIs.Zaman’s onslaught did set a different record, though: it was the highest score for the side batting second in an ODI, beating Shane Watson’s 185 not out for Australia against Bangladesh in Mirpur in April 2011.Was Harshal Patel the first player to take a five-for against the Mumbai Indians in the IPL? And who had the previous best figures against them? asked Lakshmi Narayanan from India
The Haryana seamer Harshal Patel’s 5 for 27 for the Royal Challengers Bangalore in the opening match of the 2021 IPL, in Chennai last week, did indeed make him the first to take five in an innings against five-time champions the Mumbai Indians. The previous best against them was 4 for 6 by Rohit Sharma – now Mumbai’s captain, but then with the Deccan Chargers – in Centurion in 2009. Eight seasons later, Samuel Badree took 4 for 9 against them for RCB in Bengaluru.Patel’s haul was the 22nd five-for in the IPL: the best figures in the competition remain 6 for 12, by Alzarri Joseph – in his first match – for the Mumbai Indians against the Sunrisers in Hyderabad in April 2019.Darren Stevens scored a century in Kent’s first match of the season, aged 44 – who’s the oldest to score a hundred in the Championship? asked Michael Caldwell from England
In making 116 not out for Kent at Northampton last week, Darren Stevens – who turns 45 on April 30 – became the oldest man to make a hundred in the County Championship since 45-year-old Chris Balderstone, for Leicestershire against Sussex at Grace Road in July 1986. The previous day, Geoff Boycott, who was about a month older than Balderstone, had made his final Championship hundred for Yorkshire.But they are all a fair way behind the oldest County Championship centurion. It’s WG – but probably not the one you immediately think of. WG Grace hit his final first-class hundred (in a non-Championship game for London County vs MCC at Crystal Palace) the day after his 56th birthday in 1904 – but WG “Willie” Quaife was 139 days older when he made 115 for Warwickshire against Derbyshire at Edgbaston in 1928.Forty-four-year-old Darren Stevens made an unbeaten century for Kent, but he’s a long way from being the oldest player to score a hundred in the County Championship•Getty ImagesAccording to his player page, Hansie Cronje also played for Ireland – when was this? asked Zaheer Gill from the United States
The former South African captain Hansie Cronje played three matches for Ireland in 1997, as their permitted overseas player during the Benson and Hedges Cup, an English domestic competition. Cronje scored 94 not out in a victory over Middlesex in Dublin, and added 1 against Somerset in Taunton and 85 against Glamorgan in Cardiff. Cronje was not the only notable overseas player to feature for Ireland: the Waugh twins, Shahid Afridi, Saqlain Mushtaq, Jesse Ryder and Jonty Rhodes are among those who also made a few appearances for them.Who was the first Test player born in Afghanistan? asked Jamal Khan from Kabul
It’s usually said (and shown online) that the mercurial Indian allrounder Salim Durani, who collected 75 wickets and more than 1200 runs in his 29 Tests, was born in Kabul in 1934. But it might not be as simple as that, as Gulu Ezekiel explains in his entertaining new book Myth-Busting: “Salim has stated that he was born ‘under the open skies’ when his mother went into labour and gave birth while they were travelling in a camel caravan from Karachi to Kabul in the region of the Khyber Pass.” So we will probably never know – he might have been born in Afghanistan, if the camels had made it across the border from what was then undivided India. But if they were still the other side of the line, then the first Afghan-born Test cricketers were the XI who took the field for their inaugural match, against India in Bengaluru in June 2018. Ironically, Durani was invited to that match as a guest of honour thanks to the legend of his Kabul birthplace!Use our feedback form, or the Ask Steven Facebook page to ask your stats and trivia questions

Jaykishan Plaha tells of physical and mental struggles after training accident involving Australia star

Valkerie Baynes25-May-2021Since Jaykishan Plaha was floored by a ball, driven at point-blank range by David Warner into his head during a net session at the 2019 World Cup, he has been trying to show that he is so much more than “that guy who got hit”. But that was just part of the problem.A fractured skull, severe concussion that led to a temporary loss of feeling and strength down his right side, anxiety and depression followed as he came to terms with the setback in his cricket career, and the net-bowling opportunities he had enjoyed with some of the world’s best players dried up in that moment. Things spiralled so badly that he began to feel like he “didn’t want to be here”.”The ball before, one of the guys actually asked me to swap nets,” Plaha recalls. “I was like, ‘no, I’m all right, I want to bowl to David Warner, I’m liking this, I’m liking how it’s going’.”I bowled an inswinger and the ball came crashing straight at me. I thought either it’s going to take my eye out, or it’s going to hit me one way or another, hit my nose maybe. When the ball hit me, I heard a loud beep in my ear which was a concussion. So the right side of my whole body switched off completely. I couldn’t feel anything, that’s the reason why I dropped to the floor.”I was just in a state of shock, I could see everyone three times. Everyone came rushing over, David Warner was obviously shocked.”David Warner looks on after net bowler Jaykishan Plaha was struck on the head by a ball•Dibyangshu Sarkar/AFP via Getty ImagesThankfully there was top medical support on hand at the Kia Oval as Australia and India prepared for their group stage match that day. Plaha was taken for CT scans, which revealed a depressed fracture to the left side of his skull. He was able to walk again within a day or two and was released from hospital after four days.He began to regain strength in his right side and “everything was responding pretty good”, but then came the blackouts and his progress stalled. A recovery that was expected to take six weeks took seven months.”In my mind, I just thought ‘I’m not going to be the same player’,” Plaha says. “Whenever I was going out, shopping or something, everyone knows about it, so they’ll be like, ‘oh you’re the guy that got hit’. When people keep saying it, you get frustrated, then I just stopped going outside.”It did affect me very, very badly. I was getting very angry. I was getting anxiety, depression. I would just sit there on my own in the house, I just wanted to be left alone.”It was all down to myself to pick myself up and understand what was going on because I was slowly getting to a stage where I didn’t want to be here no more.”

“When I started playing again, someone was like, ‘oh, this guy was bowling to David Warner and now he’s playing with us, he’s not the same’. Stuff like that affects you mentally”Jay Plaha

Plaha, 25 and from west London, started out as a spinner, picking up fast bowling relatively late as a 17-year-old, but he was always a kid who just loved the game and it took him far. Before the World Cup, he was a net bowler for India and Pakistan tours of England and enjoyed a stint in the Kolkata Knight Riders nets during the 2019 IPL.Like most young players with ambitions to play at the highest level, Plaha has always put pressure on himself to perform. The opportunities on offer as a net bowler for elite teams also brings pressure; not only are you able to talk to and learn from the best, you’re in prime position to be seen by the best too. When he was injured, he feared all that could be over.”When I started playing again, I had a match and someone was like, ‘oh, this guy was bowling to David Warner and now he’s playing with us, he’s not the same’, stuff like that, and it does affect you mentally,” Plaha says.Plaha’s family recognised that he might be suffering with mental health problems after the accident and supported him as he sought help from a specialist.”As men, we’ve been told we have to look a certain way… we have to talk a certain way”•Kamini Plaha”That period of time, I was struggling really bad and I think if I didn’t ask for help, it would have been a very, very different story and it would have had a different impact on my whole life,” he says.”As men, we’ve been told that we have to look a certain way, we have to be built a certain way, we have to talk a certain way.”But inside there’s a lot of people out there, including myself, that don’t show it. We just smile it off, we laugh: ‘We’re all right, we’re okay, we’re fine.’ But when we go back home, you lock yourself in, headphones in. It’s a very, very dangerous place to be in, your own mind can be a very, very dangerous place to be in.”When the Covid-19 pandemic hit and the UK went into lockdown for the first time last year, Plaha weighed 86kg compared to his usual 72kg. He took time off work, began training in the gym again, started boxing and playing NFL with friends and got into better physical shape than ever. He also began a video diary, documenting his experience over two years with a YouTube series called “The Comeback”. But his comeback wasn’t easy.”In the garden I was working with my dad, countless hours with tennis balls, I thought a tennis ball was going to kill me,” he says.Warner is reunited with net bowler Plaha after the training accident•ICC via GettyBut he has found something of that young kid who just loved the game. Now playing for Staines & Laleham CC in the Surrey Championship Division Four, he says he has gained pace and become a batting allrounder – he leads the club’s batting rankings with 174 runs from five innings and a highest score of 85 not out. His return to bowling has progressed more slowly this season due to a calf injury.Plaha hopes to go on to play in the Surrey Premier Division and plans to spend a few months honing his game in Australia with the aim of eventually securing a professional contract.”I’m seeing my options now, and that’s the main thing,” Plaha says. “Seeing that, you know, ‘he had a head injury but he’s gone to the top’. That’s what the dream is right now.”

Will any of the new signings make a mark as the tournament resumes?

Andrew McGlashan17-Sep-20211:44

Ricky Ponting ‘thrilled’ to reunite with Delhi Capitals

David Warner (Sunrisers Hyderabad)

IPL so far Innings 6; Runs 193; Average 32.16; S/R 110.28
He is one of the key players in Australia’s World Cup plans, but Warner lost the captaincy of Sunrisers and his place in the team shortly before the IPL was suspended. He questioned team selection before he was demoted while the tempo of his batting was proving problematic for a side that was top-order heavy with overseas batters. There may be a natural opening for him to return, however, with Jonny Bairstow withdrawing from the competition.

Steven Smith (Delhi Capitals)

IPL so far Innings 5; Runs 104; Average 26.00; S/R 111.82
Smith suffered a recurrence of his elbow problem during the first stint of the competition and has spent the last few months nursing himself back to fitness in pre-season training with New South Wales. He has steadily been increasing the volume of balls he hits at nets – which normally tallies into the hundreds for someone who loves batting – but the pressure of match scenarios could be the real test. He was not in the starting XI when the competition began before a couple of handy displays and it remains to be seen how he fits into the balance of Capitals’ batting order.

Glenn Maxwell (Royal Challengers Bangalore)

IPL so far Innings 6; Runs 223; Average 37.16; S/R 144.80
After his forgettable returns in 2020, Maxwell had enjoyed a promising first half to the tournament in India as RCB found themselves in the top half of the table. A lot of Australia’s hopes would appear to rest on Maxwell’s shoulders with the bat because of the point-of-difference he can bring to the line-up so his form over the next few weeks will be watched closely.Glenn Maxwell, Steven Smith and David Warner will be among those searching for pre-World Cup form•BCCI

Marcus Stoinis (Delhi Capitals)

IPL so far Innings 6; Runs 71; Average 23.66; S/R 144.89 | Wickets 2; Average 54.50; Econ 10.90
It is an interesting dynamic that the key role Stoinis could play in Australia’s side – that of middle-order finishing – is being refined at the IPL rather than in the BBL where he bats in the top order for Melbourne Stars. Under Ricky Ponting’s guidance at Capitals he has shown promise given a regular position lower down the order. Don’t discount his bowling, either, especially if pace off the ball becomes important.

Josh Hazlewood (Chennai Super Kings)

IPL so far N/A
Hazlewood did not travel for the first part of the competition, opting to finish the season with New South Wales before spending time at home. He played eight of the T20Is on the recent tours of West Indies and Bangladesh, one of the most sustained periods in the format of his career, where he worked on developing cutters and changes which brought eight wickets in four games against Bangladesh.Related

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Moises Henriques (Punjab Kings)

IPL so far Innings 2; Runs 16; Average 8.00; S/R 80.00| Wickets 1
Had limited chance to make an impact earlier in the year and then struggled on Australia’s recent tours, especially in the tough conditions of Bangladesh and missed the World Cup squad. The delay to New South Wales’ season means he will likely miss less domestic cricket than would have been the case.

Dan Christian (Royal Challengers Bangalore)

IPL so far Innings 3; Runs 3; Average 1.00; S/R 37.50
Christian, who was recalled to the Australia side for the first time in four years for the recent tours, hasn’t made the 15 for the World Cup but will be among three travelling reserves. He couldn’t get past 1 in the first stage of the tournament.Nathan Ellis is one of the Australians to pick up a replacement deal•Getty Images

Chris Lynn (Mumbai Indians)

IPL so far Innings 1; Runs 49; S/R 140.00
Lynn made a decent start in Mumbai Indians’ opening game but dropped out of the side when Quinton de Kock became available and spent the rest of the time warming the bench.

Ben Cutting (Kolkata Knight Riders)

IPL so far N/A
Like Lynn, Cutting does not have a state contact in Australia and was not used by his team in the first part of the competition. With Andre Russell, Sunil Narine and Shakib Al Hasan the all-round overseas options it’s tricky to see where he fits in unless injury strikes.

Nathan Coulter-Nile (Mumbai Indians)

IPL so far Wicketless in one match
Another who has effectively become a T20 freelancer, Coulter-Nile is likely to find it tough to get a starting position.

Nathan Ellis (Punjab Kings)

T20 record Matches 33; Wickets 38; Average 25.02; Econ 8.03
A hat-trick on international debut continued Ellis’ rapid rise and followed two successful BBL seasons where he had already shown his skills at the death. With Kings needing replacements for Riley Meredith and Jhye Richardson there is a good chance he’ll get game time. He is a reserve in the World Cup squad

Tim David (Royal Challengers Bangalore)

T20 record Innings 55; Runs 1420; Average 35.50; S/R 153.18 | Wickets 5; Average 53.20; Econ 8.96
Not an Australian (he was born in Singapore) but he is eligible for the national side and is getting noticed with his performances around the world. The last few months have taken him from the BBL to the PSL to the Hundred and the CPL before landing a replacement role at RCB.

Ben Dwarshuis (Delhi Capitals)

T20 record Matches 82; Wickets 100; Average 23.73; Econ 8.19
In 2017-18, left-arm quick Dwarshuis was included in the Australia squad for the T20I tri-series involving England and New Zealand. Though he didn’t debut and hasn’t featured since, he has remained a consistent performer in the BBL and last season was the joint second-leading wicket-taker as Sydney Sixers secured back-to-back titles.