The opener’s 44-ball 76 on a tricky surface ensured India did not have to break too much sweat in their chase

Deivarayan Muthu03-Aug-20223:29

Takeaways: Suryakumar sparkles, Shreyas’ struggles continue

Suryakumar Yadav has six scores of fifty or more in 20 innings in T20I cricket. Three of them have come from No.3, including the one on his debut against England in Ahmedabad last year, and two from No.4. On Tuesday, he hit his latest half-century as an opening batter, after his partner Rohit Sharma had to retire hurt on 11, turning a potentially tricky chase of 165 into a straightforward one in St Kitts.Suryakumar has the ability to make batting look ridiculously easy. He did so when he kick-started his T20I career with a hook off the first ball he faced, from Jofra Archer, for six. More recently this July, at Trent Bridge, he walloped 117 off 55 balls in a chase of 216 where no other Indian batter passed 30.Related

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In the third T20I in Basseterre, he unveiled two outrageous shots – like only can – that defined the game. When fast bowler Alzarri Joseph pounded a near-140kph delivery on a hard length and attacked the top of off stump, Suryakumar stood tall, extended his arms, lifted his left elbow high, and pumped it over wide long-off for six. Joseph then went wide of the crease and angled another sharp delivery into Suryakumar’s throat, but he sank to his knees and arched his back almost onto the ground and ramped it over the wicketkeeper for four.Just like that, Suryakumar took 29 off 15 short or short-of-a-length deliveries, according to ESPNcricinfo’s data, which allowed Shreyas Iyer, who can be vulnerable to this style of bowling, some breathing space on a bouncy track. Iyer managed just nine off 13 such balls. On the day, he could afford to evade or fend off the short stuff with Suryakumar going all-out at the other end.When West Indies went fuller and tried to york Suryakumar, he put those balls away as well. Obed McCoy, fresh off a record-breaking 6 for 17 in the second T20I, only marginally missed his length in the first over, but Suryakumar still carved him away through the covers for four. Then Jason Holder tried to bluff him with a yorker after the powerplay, with a strong leg-side field set for the short offcutter, but Suryakumar was ready for it. He collapsed his back knee to manufacture the elevation he needed to clear mid-on.Suryakumar Yadav raises his bat after reaching a 26-ball half-century•AFP/Getty ImagesSuryakumar was just as nerveless and decisive in the strokeplay against Akeal Hosein and Dominic Drakes. After bringing up a 26-ball half-century with a swept six off Hosein, he stepped back a bit against the older ball, scoring only 23 off his last 18 balls. When he was finally done in the 15th over, India needed only 30 off 33 balls.”Really happy with the way things went,” Suryakumar said after bagging the Player-of-the-Match award. “I felt when Rohit went inside [retired hurt] it was important for someone to bat till about 15-17 overs. I just went out to be myself and expressed it.”Obviously, we saw yesterday what happened in the second innings [alluding to the pitch slowing down]. So, it was really important, as I said, for someone to bat deep and go on and win the game for the team. So, that was what I was focusing on.”Rohit was effusive in his praise for Suryakumar, saying he made a not-so-easy chase look straightforward.”Once you get a start in this format, it’s always important to convert that because it does well for the team. Of course the thirties and forties for any player look good, but, I think when you get past 70-80 and then go on to get a hundred as well… then you’re scoring those runs for the team. I thought Surya batted brilliantly, [he had] a good partnership there with [Shreyas] Iyer and it was quite clinical.”When you’re chasing a target like that, anything can happen, and it’s not an easy target. The pitch had something in it for the bowlers. So we knew that we were up for the chase. I thought it was important for us to pick the right ball and right shots on a ground like that.”In the absence of KL Rahul, India have used seven different openers in T20I cricket in 2022, with Suryakumar their latest option at the top in the Caribbean.Suryakumar said he relished the rare opportunity. “Really love it because I’ve done that before in the IPL as well [for Mumbai Indians]. So, [I] just backed myself and enjoyed it. I was just holding myself back at that moment. I just knew I had to use some pace and stretched my innings and really loved it.”In all likelihood, Suryakumar will slot back into the middle order once Rahul returns at the top, but his growing versatility could be a potent point of difference for India at the upcoming T20 World Cup.

Key wicket opens door for England, but figures take a dent in tricky return to action

Alan Gardner13-Jun-2022Early in Jack Leach’s first spell on this fourth day at Trent Bridge, with New Zealand having lost an early wicket and hoping to avoid a Tricky Third Innings wobble, a delivery bowled from over the wicket to Devon Conway brought excited gasps from the crowd. What was it that had got them going? Turn and bounce from the rough outside the left-hander’s off stump? A devilish new variation that Leach had been working on back at Taunton, aka Ciderabad?Not quite. Conway had been done, all right, going back to one outside off – but it was the classic “straight-onner”, skidding past the outside edge and into Ben Foakes’ gloves. The ball may have actually turned a fraction, but to all intents and purposes it carried on through on its original path, whether by design or otherwise (Leach isn’t really known for his arm ball). Bit of flight, some natural variation. “Bowling, Nut!”To get to the rub: England doesn’t really do spinners, and slow left-armers don’t really do mystery. But Leach isn’t the sort to be deterred; persistence in the face of adversity is basically his calling card. In Barbados over the winter, he ploughed through 94.5 overs – the heaviest workload by an England spinner in 60 years. Leach took six wickets in the match, but his side were still five short of forcing victory when time ran out.But Leach has had plenty of success overseas – particularly in Asia, where he averages 27.32. At home, he struggles to get a game. This match in Nottingham was his first Test on UK soil since 2019. Well, technically, Lord’s last week was, but having concussed himself chasing a ball to the boundary in the sixth over of the game, that probably doesn’t count as a fair crack.Ben Stokes then chose to bowl first, on what England were soon to discover was one of the flatter Trent Bridge surfaces of recent memory (although that perception was aided in no small part by the number of missed chances in the first half of the match). One of the less-remarked-upon aspects of England’s decision at the toss was that Leach, who averages 80 in the first innings of Tests, was going to be asked to perform another thankless task. Only one of these sides picked a specialist spinner, and the one that did wasn’t about to do the guy any favours.Still, Leach plugged away, doubtless not helped by his inability to train properly in the build-up due to concussion protocols. He saw catches put down off both Daryl Mitchell and Tom Blundell, New Zealand’s two centurions, and finished with 2 for 140. Hard yards in the holding role, struggling to hold much at all.Devon Conway’s reverse-sweeping was a feature of his strokeplay against Leach•Getty ImagesBack to the New Zealand second innings. No great wear and tear to the deck, although Michael Bracewell, New Zealand’s debutant allrounder got one or two to turn (Bracewell is 31 but only took his first first-class wicket in 2019). There’s a little bit of rough outside the left-hander’s off stump from the Pavilion End, where Leach has tended to operate, and it is into that patch that he loops the ball up to Conway.Another fact to note: Leach’s Test bowling average against left-hand batters is 52.29, compared to 28.43 when bowling to righties; New Zealand’s top seven includes four left-hand batters.Despite the departure of Tom Latham, bowled while leaving, there is no sense New Zealand are going to allow themselves to be tied down once Leach is introduced to the attack in the 16th over. Conway brings out the reverse-sweep in Leach’s fifth over, the first of four that he will send rattling off the middle of the bat to the cover boundary; in Leach’s seventh, Will Young, ostensibly the preferred target, twice sashays down to launch the ball over mid-on.Conway looks increasingly at ease, another reverse for four bringing up his half-century. But Leach tosses one up again, perhaps a little higher and wide of off stump. There’s just enough dip and bounce as Conway looks to sweep in orthodox fashion for the ball to take the top edge and sail gently towards Jonny Bairstow at deep square leg. After a century stand the pin has been pulled, triggering the first of a series of detonations in the New Zealand top order.Related

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Leach ended his spell with figures of 11-2-53-1 – not the work of a defensive spinner, you’d say. But the data suggests Leach has been bowling both faster and shorter since his first came into Test cricket in 2018, rather than throwing it up and seeing what happens. Getting the right balance was something Foakes touched on afterwards.”There seemed to be a bit of turn and bounce when it was slower, so it’s just trying to get that pace right,” he said. “I thought he did a good job and adapted well, and picked up a reward. It’s just trying to make the most out of the wicket, it’s obviously a nice wicket and fast-scoring ground and when a batter attacks you, and you’re trying to also attack, it’s a tricky balance. But once it was slightly slower it seemed to bite a bit more.”Later in the day, as New Zealand’s slide towards jeopardy gathered pace, Leach thought he had struck again when turning one past Blundell’s outside edge – but DRS chalked off the wicket. Bracewell then dented his figures with a couple of bludgeoned fours down the ground. The fact that Bracewell found greater degrees of drift and turn with the ball would probably have hurt more.Leach is already an England cult hero, as attested by the fans at Trent Bridge wearing t-shirts printed with a wagon wheel of his 1 not out at Headingley. But if he is going to stay the course as England’s No. 1 Test spinner, then it will be on the back of his bowling. Work to be done, but still time for “Nut” to crack it.

Gujarat Titans capped off their debut season with the IPL crown, and social media was abuzz about the achievement

ESPNcricinfo staff29-May-2022

Congratulations @gujarat_titans for a phenomenal debut season #IPLFinal #GTvsRR #ipl2022

— Mayank Agarwal (@mayankcricket) May 29, 2022

Ben Stokes struggles for answers as New Zealand pair grind England down

Andrew Miller03-Jun-2022″It’ll be difficult, no doubt, looking across to the New Zealand balcony at times – but that’s just life,” Brendon McCullum had said in the build-up to his first Test as England coach. But of all the emotions he might have expected to feel while gazing in their direction, envy probably wasn’t the first name on the team-sheet.Two days into the gig, the magnitude of McCullum’s challenge yawns before him, even as his former team-mates kicked back in the June sunshine, and soaked up an unbeaten 180-run stand that is just 30 runs shy of New Zealand’s all-time record in England, and already 41 runs higher than anything England mustered in their 2021 home summer.Related

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All he could do was watch and digest, as Tom Blundell and Daryl Mitchell thwarted England’s apparent morning surge with uncomplicatedly dour application, piecing together a 56-over alliance that spanned roughly the same timeframe as the previous 14 wickets of New Zealand’s performance.Wishful thinking alone was never likely to right England’s listing ship, and so in the long run it may actually help McCullum’s cause for this contest to continue to go south at a rate of knots – much like the 2-for-4-and-all that that greeted Duncan Fletcher at Johannesburg in 1999-2000, or the 51-all-out in Jamaica a decade later that gave Andy Flower licence to get biblical on England’s standards. McCullum did declare, after all, that England are at “rock-bottom” – it’s probably prudent to feel the sea-bed for himself before using it to kick for the surface.In Matt Potts, at least, he’s already identified a gem – an intelligent, but down-and-dirty toiler who has already added two more scalps to his four from the first innings, and who looks, on the face of it, to have bought in unequivocally to McCullum’s gut-busting imperatives. And if, even in what now seems likely to be a losing cause, one of England’s young-gun batters can show a return on the investment of faith that has been placed in them, his project will have just a touch more traction to take into the rest of the summer.For the time being however, all the promise of England’s new beginnings has ebbed away from this particular contest, leaving Paul Collingwood, the assistant coach, to trot out a refrain that he himself became all too accustomed with during the team’s toothless travails in Australia and West Indies.

“We’ve tried hanging the ball out there with the seamers, we tried going straight. [We] had a bit of a bounceathon session, which nearly created a couple of chances”Paul Collingwood, England’s assistant coach

“Certainly the rhythm of the game has completely changed this afternoon,” Collingwood said. “Yesterday’s excitement, the movement in the pitch and obviously all the wickets falling… you think that kind of excitement was going to continue for the rest of the day.”But I think the heavy roller made a decent impact, which is good signs for us for our second innings, and once the ball got soft we weren’t able to create too many chances. Give a lot of credit to Mitchell and Blundell for the way they played. From our point of view, we tried everything I think.”From heavy-metal cricket to heavy-roller chat. The game doesn’t get sixier than that.Unquestionably the ball did not play ball for England’s quicks in this second innings. The atmospherics that had been in attendance on day one had vanished, and so too the spurious suggestions that this Lord’s surface had been doctored – for the record, it has consistently been the flattest in the country ever since MCC installed its state-of-the-art drainage system some 15 years ago, and inadvertently sucked all the moisture from the square.In its place, we got a benign day-two wicket that rewarded New Zealand’s canny application, and left England regretting – not for the first time this year, and certainly not the last – that they have exhausted their entire stock of 90mph bowlers through a heady combination of injury, ill-fortune and rank mismanagement.Oh, for an X-Factor. That eternal cry of English cricket. In the mid-afternoon, just when England most wished they could unleash the sort of hot wheels that could have unlocked a well-set partnership, Sky Sports flashed up a list of England’s wounded quicks. The names on that doom-scroll included Jofra Archer, Mark Wood, Olly Stone and Saqib Mahmood at the brisker end of the spectrum, as well as Ollie Robinson and Chris Woakes among the less-express options with proven records at Lord’s.And in their absences, it was as though England were enduring an Adelaide flashback, as Ben Stokes took it upon himself to dispatch three men back for the hook, rustle up a short leg and a catching midwicket, and indulge in what Collingwood later termed a “bounceathon”.It was mercifully short-lived – albeit it nearly succeeded in tempting Mitchell to hole out to mid-on – but given these were the tactics that caused his side-strain during the Ashes, just briefly you wondered if Stokes was already slipping into the phase of his captaincy, the sort of beginning-of-the-end that Andrew Flintoff produced while wrecking his dodgy ankle with a 50-over spell on this very ground in 2006.Matt Parkinson bowls on his Test debut after he came in as a concussion substitute for Jack Leach•Getty Images”You can see in Stokes, we’ve got a proactive captain there who is willing to try different things,” Collingwood said. “We’ve tried hanging the ball out there with the seamers, we tried going straight. Obviously, you had a bit of a bounceathon session there, which nearly created a couple of chances.”And yet, the one thing that Stokes didn’t really try out was the newest toy in his armoury. It wasn’t until 3pm on this second day that Matt Parkinson was given his first outing, and even allowing for the impossibility of his first-innings involvement – he was still somewhere on the M1 when New Zealand’s final wicket fell – his introduction at 90 for 4 in the 33rd over felt reticent, certainly when compared to the decisiveness of England’s concussion call on that chaotic first morning.It felt muddled too, as if Stokes – like Root before him – had no intuitive feel for the new man at his disposal. Each of his first ten overs were bowled from the Pavilion End, thereby requiring his legbreak to turn up the slope rather than roll with it, and while Collingwood later justified the move by claiming that England were looking for drift and “slide” for lbws and bowls, the tactics attracted more than a few raised eyebrows from an unusually legspin-savvy media contingent.For it is Parkinson’s fate that his debut should be so intertwined with a match that has the late, great Shane Warne so central to the narrative. His call-up was announced just moments before the game paused for remembrance in the 23rd over, and is being presided over from Sky Sports’ newly consecrated Shane Warne Commentary Box, from where his old captain, Mark Taylor, euphemistically described Stokes’ choice of ends for Parkinson as “interesting” … with the word taking on the sort of connotations that “ordinary” often did for his old mate.Again, it’s too early to presume anything about long-term trends in this match, for England as a whole, for Stokes as a captain, and certainly for Parkinson as a weapon – after all, barely 36 hours have elapsed since he was spirited away from his Jubilee barbecue in Manchester.But there’s something especially fragile about the plight of English legspinners. Thirty years, after all, have elapsed since Ian Salisbury’s debut on this ground against Pakistan, and the manner in which the hope of that magnificent occasion dissipated was brutal, while each of the last two specialists to play here – Chris Schofield in 2000 and Adil Rashid in 2018 – didn’t even bowl a single ball.So, in that respect, at least he’s up and running – liberated from the bubble-life purgatory that has been his lot for the past two years, and released into the wild at a time when his county form, 24 wickets at 25.95, certainly permits him to trust his talents in the Baz-prescripted manner. But, as with pretty much everything about England’s performance from the first-day lunchbreak onwards, the room for improvement is palpable.”I’m sure it’s been a big shock,” Collingwood said. “Obviously he was in his back garden yesterday afternoon and gets a phone call, rushes down to London, receives his cap off Jeetan Patel and goes out there. I’m sure he would prefer the game to be a bit longer – in days three, four and five – so there wasn’t a hell of a lot of assistance out there. But what you can see is a pretty accurate legspin bowler and I’m sure he’s delighted with the experience and enjoyed his day.”

All the key numbers from Pakistan’s record-breaking chase against England in Karachi

Sampath Bandarupalli23-Sep-2022200 – The target chased down by Pakistan in the second T20I, in Karachi. This is the highest successful chase in T20 history without losing a wicket. The previous highest was 184 by Kolkata Knight Riders against Gujarat Lions in 2017, while the previous best in T20Is was 169 by New Zealand against Pakistan in 2016.ESPNcricinfo Ltd1 – Pakistan also became the first team to successfully chase a target of 200 or more against England in men’s T20Is. India’s 199-run chase in Bristol in 2018 was the previous highest against England in this format.203 – Partnership between Babar Azam and Mohammad Rizwan. This is the biggest stand in a T20 chase. The duo improved on their record – a 197-run stand which they set against South Africa in Centurion last year.ESPNcricinfo Ltd1 – This is the first time England have gone down by ten wickets in a men’s T20I. It was also only the second instance of Pakistan winning a T20I by ten wickets. They beat India by the same margin during last year’s T20 World Cup.1 – Babar and Rizwan became the first pair to share a 200-run stand for Pakistan in T20Is. They have had five 150-plus stands in T20Is while no other pair has even one for Pakistan. Their five stands of 150-plus runs are also the most by any pair in all T20 cricket.3 – Successful chases of 200-plus targets by Pakistan in men’s T20Is. All three chases featured an opening stand of 150-plus between Babar and Rizwan. They added 158 in pursuit of 208 against West Indies in Lahore last year and had a 197-run stand during a chase of 204 against South Africa in 2021.ESPNcricinfo Ltd2 – Hundreds for Babar in T20Is, the first Pakistan batter with multiple centuries in this format. It was also his seventh century in all T20s, the most by any batter from Asia, going past Rohit Sharma, KL Rahul and Virat Kohli – all with six tons.1929 – Partnership runs between Babar and Rizwan in T20Is. They now hold the record for most runs as a pair in men’s T20Is, surpassing Shikhar Dhawan and Rohit’s tally of 1743 runs. The seven century stands between the Pakistan duo are also a record in this format.3 – Players to score a century in all three international formats at a single venue, including Babar in Karachi. He joined the list of Faf du Plessis at the Wanderers in Johannesburg and David Warner at the Adelaide Oval in scoring a century in all three formats at a venue.

And how often has a team lost an ODI despite a hundred and a five-for?

Steven Lynch05-Sep-2022Deepak Hooda played 17 international matches for India before losing one. Was this a record start for a player? asked Syed Abbas Ali from India

The big-hitting Deepak “Hurricane” Hooda played eight one-day internationals and nine T20Is for India, finishing on the winning side each time, before finally tasting defeat at the weekend, against Pakistan in the Asia Cup in Dubai. Hooda did indeed make a record start to any international career: the Romanian players Satvik Nadigotla and Shantanu Vashisht began with 15 and 13 wins respectively (all in T20Is), while South Africa’s David Miller started with 13, and Collis King 12 for West Indies.The great Australian allrounder Keith Miller started his career with 25 international matches (all Tests) without tasting defeat, but that did include the occasional draw. Roger Harper began with 24 for West Indies, while Miller’s frequent team-mates Ray Lindwall and Arthur Morris both avoided defeat in their first 23 matches.At the other end of the scale, Bangladesh’s Habibul Bashar lost the first 22 international matches he played (17 ODIs and five Tests). His compatriots Minhajul Abedin and Shafiul Islam lost their first 20, as did Brendan Taylor of Zimbabwe.Going into the Oval Test, I noticed that South Africa have had nothing but wins or defeats in their last 43 Tests – no draws. Is this a record sequence? asked Anwar Mohamad from Pakistan

Before the third Test at The Oval, South Africa had won 23 and lost 20 of their previous 43 Test matches, with no draws. That’s easily a record for positive results, beating 26 by Zimbabwe between 2004-05 and 2017-18 (mostly defeats) and 23 by Australia between 1999-2000 and 2001 (mostly wins). England (1884-85 to 1891-92), Australia (2001-02 to 2003-04) and Pakistan (2015-16 to 2018) all had sequences of 22 Test matches without a draw.How often have there been consecutive innings victories by opposing teams in the same series, as in the current one against South Africa? asked Peter O’Donnell from England, and many others

The successive victories by South Africa at Lord’s and England at Old Trafford this summer provided only the sixth instance of countries exchanging innings wins in the same series. The first came in Pakistan’s first two Tests, in 1952-53: India won by an innings and 70 runs in Delhi, but Pakistan turned the tables in the second Test with victory by an innings and 43 in Lucknow.Since then it’s also happened in the series between Australia and England in 1965-66 (third and fourth Tests), England vs West Indies in 1966 (fourth and fifth Tests), India against South Africa in 2009-10 (both matches of a two-Test series), and England vs Australia in 2015 (fourth and fifth Tests).Ricky Ponting’s 164 and Nathan Bracken’s five-for against South Africa in Johannesburg in 2006 were not enough to win Australia the match•Hamish Blair/Getty ImagesIn the last ODI against India, Zimbabwe lost despite one of their players scoring a hundred and another taking five wickets. Has this ever happened before? asked Uzzwal Kaushik from India

The match you’re talking about was the third of the recent series in Harare: Zimbabwe lost by 13 runs to India despite Sikandar Raza scoring 115 and Brad Evans taking 5 for 54.There have been four other instances of a century and a five-for not being enough for victory in an ODI, the most famous being the 872-run match in Johannesburg in 2005-06, when South Africa beat Australia despite Ricky Ponting running up 164 and Nathan Bracken taking 5 for 67. That was the second such occurrence: in Sharjah in 1991-92, West Indies fell one run short of Pakistan’s total, despite 122 from Richie Richardson and 5 for 53 from Curtly Ambrose.Since then, West Indies lost to England in a rain-affected match at The Oval in September 2017 despite 176 from Evin Lewis (before he retired hurt) and 5 for 56 from Alzarri Joseph; and India went down to England in the 2019 World Cup at Edgbaston even though Rohit Sharma made 102 and Mohammed Shami took 5 for 69.Further to last week’s question about the most Test wickets on a particular ground, has any visiting bowler done better than the 35 of SF Barnes and George Lohmann? asked Ed Blight from England

The short answer is no: the long-ago England pair of Sydney Barnes and George Lohmann still share the record for most Test wickets on one ground away from home, Barnes in Melbourne and Lohmann in Sydney. Next comes Shane Warne, with 32 at The Oval. Warne also took 29 at Trent Bridge, a number equalled by England’s Angus Fraser in Port-of-Spain. For the list, click here.If you count matches played by Pakistan in the UAE (usually considered home Tests for them), then Yasir Shah has taken 55 in Dubai and 46 in Abu Dhabi, while Saeed Ajmal collected 37 in Dubai.Shiva Jayaraman of ESPNcricinfo’s stats team helped with some of the above answers.Use our feedback form, or the Ask Steven Facebook page to ask your stats and trivia questions