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Series decider will draw curtain on English Test forays in Asia until 2027

Matt Roller22-Oct-2024England’s men do not play another Test in Asia for more than two years after Rawalpindi. It will therefore act as a decider in more ways than one, not only dictating the result of a gripping three-match series in Pakistan, but also informing long-lasting judgement on just how well equipped, or otherwise, Ben Stokes and his team are to compete in the subcontinent.It is a quirk of the schedule that after 17 Tests in Asia over the last four years, England are not due to return in the next two. Their white-ball sides will be back regularly, including for next year’s Champions Trophy and the T20 World Cup in 2026, but their next Test tour is not until February 2027, in the form of a two-match series in Bangladesh.Since Stokes took over as captain two-and-a-half years ago, England’s record in Asia is an even one: five wins and five defeats, with one of those victories coming under Ollie Pope’s leadership. They are not the only team to have struggled in India over the last decade, losing 4-1 earlier this year, but a second successive win in Pakistan would put the shine on their subcontinent record.Related

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Rawalpindi was the scene of one of England’s greatest wins two years ago, when their batters racked up 506 for 4 in 75 overs on the first day of the series, before their bowlers’ skill and Stokes’ ingenuity enabled them to take 20 wickets on a lifeless surface. They are braced for a significantly different challenge this time around, which is reflected in their selection.Their side is radically different to any that they will pick in the next two years: Rehan Ahmed returns as one of three frontline spinners, while Stokes will act as the second seamer alongside Gus Atkinson. Pakistan’s groundstaff have put in every effort to create a turning pitch, with Stokes suggesting on Tuesday that “a few rakes” had been used, along with fans and heaters.”It looks like it will be a pretty decent wicket for the first couple of days,” Stokes said. “There’s not too much grass on it to hold it together, so the reasoning behind three spinners was, as the game progresses, that will probably come into the game… It was just weighing up who we think will be effective as the game goes on.”It’s pretty obvious there’s been a few rakes put across it… I’ve never been a groundsman, but you’d think a rake would assist the spin. You look down it, and we can have a good guess which ends the Pakistan spinners will operate from.” When asked if only one end had been raked, Stokes clarified: “No, both have – but there are certain areas.”While the grass was cut short on the strips either side of the playing surface in the second Test in Multan, there are only three pitches cut across the square in Rawalpindi this week. “With the outfield being like it was, lush and green, and not too much [on the] square to work with, we’ll probably struggle to get reverse-swing,” Stokes conceded.Ben Stokes and Brendon McCullum inspect the pitch while the fans do their work•Getty ImagesPakistan’s approach towards pitch preparation in the last two weeks has raised some eyebrows: the decision to recycle the same strip in Multan was unprecedented, and groundstaff have gone to great lengths to tailor the surface in Rawalpindi to suit Sajid Khan and Noman Ali. But Stokes has declined opportunities to complain, delivering a simple verdict on Tuesday: “It’s good, innit?”Brendon McCullum believed that the toss skewed the second Test “65-35” in Pakistan’s favour, and it will be significant again in the third. “The toss, out in the subcontinent, plays a bigger role than anywhere in the world,” Stokes said. “[But] I don’t think we’re going to have as extreme conditions as the game goes on: it will be a day-one wicket when we start, not day six.”Historically, England tend to under-adjust to overseas conditions and find themselves wondering why their medium-pacers are ineffective on pitches without a blade of live grass on them. This year, they have been much more open-minded – as evidenced by Rehan’s inclusion as a wildcard third spin option, who they hope will create chances even if the pitch is flat.”Adding Rehan’s free spirit and desperation to change the game every time he’s got the ball in his hand is a massive bonus for us this week,” Stokes said, while discarding the relevance of his quiet season for Leicestershire. “Legspinners have an amazing ability to break a game open… You’d rather have it and not need it than need it and not have it.”The decider also presents Stokes with a final chance for some time to shift perceptions around his batting in the subcontinent: his batting average in Asia is 27.22, his lowest on any continent, with his single century coming on a Rajkot road eight years ago. In eight innings in Pakistan, he is yet to score a fifty.His farcical dismissal in Multan disguised the fact he top-scored in England’s second innings, and was the only batter to find a successful method by relying almost exclusively on his sweeps and reverses. For all his inspirational leadership, Stokes has not scored a Test century for 16 months: with the series on the line, he will be desperate to end that run.The success of the McCullum-Stokes regime will ultimately be dictated by their results next year against India and Australia, but this third Test will go a long way towards determining their team’s reputation in Asia. When asked how important winning would be, Stokes gave a one-word answer: “Very.” For all that England want to entertain, they have a singular focus this week.

Running out a batter who is leaving his crease early is fair, period. And so-called bump catches ought to be ruled on by the on-field umpires

Ian Chappell15-Jan-2023Two major sources of cricket controversies – run outs at the bowler’s end and catches referred to the third umpire – have reared their ugly heads again.Run outs at the bowler’s end can and should be resolved easily. The original law was more than adequate and should never have been changed. It’s a reminder that there are generally two solutions to a problem – a simple one and a complicated one. Cricket is renowned for choosing the latter.Attempting a run out at the bowler’s end without warning a batter is not unsporting. Appealing for a catch that a fielder knows he has caught should not be subjected to crowd booing as it’s legal.Related

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In the Guwahati game against Sri Lanka, I’d have preferred if the India captain, Rohit Sharma, had enforced, rather than rescinded, the run-out appeal against his opposite number Dasun Shanaka. As I said to R Ashwin during India’s 2020-21 tour: “Keep mankading batsmen until they finally work out that what they are doing is illegal.”Ashwin ran-out Jos Buttler at the bowler’s end in a 2019 IPL game. His actions – which should have been applauded – were widely decried and even described as “contrary to the spirit of the game” by the MCC.How could it be against the spirit of the game when it’s legal according to cricket’s laws? Why is the bowler regularly admonished by the public and often booed for cheating when it is the batter who is trying to gain an advantage?If a batter backs up as he should – watching the bowler’s hand with his bat in the crease and only leaving when the ball is actually delivered – he won’t be run out. In the process he may also gain some information that will help when he is at the striker’s end later, facing that same bowler.Bowlers should be able to bring their arm over without releasing the ball and then break the stumps to effect a run out. This was correctly allowed under the old law. If batters were run out under that law, they would quickly learn to back up legally.

An honest fielder knows when he has caught the ball. There are certain indicators an umpire needs to consider before he makes his decision – a ball that bounces goes straight into the palm rather than lodging in the fingers first

In a game more than a decade ago, England appealed for a catch against a Sri Lanka batter at one point. A number of English commentators bemoaned the not-out decision made by the Sri Lankan video umpire, and the next morning Tony Greig re-enacted a fair catch from the same on-field position.The various cameras collected shots of Greig’s re-enactment and despite him depicting a fair catch, from some angles it appeared as a bump ball. As this case showed, a picture doesn’t always tell the truth.Greig’s well-thought-out move should have put a definite end to catch replays being sent to the third umpire. At the same time, administrators ought to have let it be known and widely circulated among the media that on-field umpires would in future adjudicate on catches. However, this move was never made and catches close to the ground are still referred to the third umpire. Surprise, surprise, there were three such referrals in the SCG Test between Australia and South Africa and all of them created controversy.An honest fielder knows when he has caught the ball. There are certain indicators an umpire needs to consider before he makes his decision – a ball that bounces goes straight into the palm rather than lodging in the fingers first, for instance. An umpire should also be aware of a fielder’s trustworthiness and this should be considered when making a decision.Each administration needs to ensure team captains are aware of their responsibility to make sure the fielding side behaves with integrity.Umpires should be making the on-field decisions about catches and not referring them to – in this case – an unreliable video system. Umpires already give a soft signal, so why shouldn’t they actually make the decision?There is already enough controversy surrounding the game of cricket without the administrators unnecessarily contributing to the drama.

Goes past Alec Stewart to third on England’s Test-runs chart, while making the first double by a visiting batsman in India since 2010

ESPNcricinfo stats team06-Feb-20215 – Number of double-hundreds hit by Joe Root in Tests. Among England batsmen, only Wally Hammond has more such scores with seven. Root’s predecessor as England captain, Alastair Cook, also hit five such scores.3 – Number of double-hundreds by Root as captain – two more than any other batsman to lead England in Tests. Click here for a list of England captains to hit double-centuries in Test cricket.2010 – The last time a visiting batsman hit a double-hundred in Tests in India, before Root in Chennai. Brendon McCullum had hit 225 on that previous occasion, in Hyderabad. McCullum was also the last one to notch up a double-century against India in Tests. He hit 302 in the second innings of the Wellington Test in 2013-14. Click here for a list of double-hundreds (and triples) against India.ESPNcricinfo Ltd2 – Number of England batsmen to score more runs in Tests than Root. Root passed Alec Stewart in this innings. Click here for a list of top run-scorers for England in Tests.22 – Number of Tests since Root’s average was last in the fifties. The previous time before this match that his average was above 50 was at the end of Colombo Test in 2018-19. In two calendar years since, then Root had averaged just 38.67, before hitting the rich vein of current form.ESPNcricinfo Ltd644 – Runs scored by Root in his last-three Tests. Only two other batsmen from England – Hammond and Graham Gooch – have scored more runs than Root in three successive Tests. Hammond racked up 779 runs in three Tests against Australia in 1928-29. Gooch scored 763 runs in 1990 – 122 at Lord’s and 184 at Edgbaston against New Zealand, before amassing 456 runs at Lord’s against India in the next Test. Root potentially has one more innings in this match left to add to his total. Note: Only the highest aggregate for each batsman in a three-match sequence is mentioned here.210 – The previous highest Test score by a visiting batsman at Chepauk, Chennai, which was by Dean Jones – in the famous tied Test in 1986. Root scored 218. His double-hundred was only the fifth by a visiting batsman on this ground and the first in nearly 20 years since Matthew Hayden’s 203.

World Champions carve out a 3-2 series victory over England via unconventional means

Andrew McGlashan29-Sep-2024A series bookended with victories engineered by the spinners; different XIs in every match; a change of captain for the final game; injury and illness updates on almost a daily basis: Australia had to think on their feet during the autumn tour of the UK.It appeared they may have run out of steam after a hiding at Lord’s and when England were on course for 400 in Bristol. But with a helping hand from the rough edges in an inexperienced opposition, they even ended up being able to hold back the clouds long enough.While this tour was far from the most important cricket Australia will play over the next six months, it certainly wasn’t a trip that they shelved under insignificant. Particularly for the ODIs against England they were close to full strength with an eye to the Champions Trophy – only Pat Cummins remained at home to build-up for India’s visit. Whether there is significant collateral from the last few weeks will only be known when the seriousness of Cameron Green’s back injury is determined. Cummins, Andrew McDonald and chief selector George Bailey will hope the injury run does not follow them back home.Related

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“Really proud of the fact that we did have a lot of moving parts throughout these last couple of weeks, but we had guys step up for us,” Mitchell Marsh said after sitting out the decider with soreness. “I’m sure everyone’s looking forward to getting home, a bit of a reset, we get an opportunity to play for our states then obviously it’s a huge summer.”If you had to guess where Australia would bowl the most spin ever in an ODI, Bristol on September 29 – the latest international in an English season – would probably not be top of the list. Neither, for that matter, Trent Bridge where they used almost as much. Wearing pitches at the end of a long season played a part, but it still required alertness and show of faith from Marsh and Steven Smith in the options available.In Marnus Labuschagne and Travis Head they found match-changing performances from somewhat unlikely sources, although as Marsh said afterwards Head is a better bowler than often given credit for. “Every time he bowls, he seems to change the game,” Marsh said. “We are blessed to have a lot of allrounders, both pace and spin, so the more options we have with both bat and ball it gives our side great balance.”Adam Zampa’s absence at Chester-le-Street emphasised his importance to Australia’s white-ball cricket while his recovery from figures of 2.2-0-42-0 in Bristol to end with 10-0-74-2 was a show of his class that will perhaps be lost as the roadshow moves on.Aaron Hardie had an excellent tour with both bat and ball•AFPOne of the biggest gains of the series was the performance of Aaron Hardie, particularly with the ball. The injuries allowed him to have a greater role than would probably have been the case. He bowled with good pace and found significant movement, none more so than the superb delivery to knock over Will Jacks in the decider.”He’s a really good young kid and he’s learning a lot on the run, but I thought he played some really pivotal roles for us with both bat and ball throughout this series so I’m sure he’ll take a lot of confidence back home,” Marsh said. “It was an outstanding tour for him.”Matt Short’s blistering 23-ball half-century in Bristol may also prove significant. After a couple of unconverted starts earlier in the series the approaching rain meant he had to flick into T20 mode which may have brought a degree of freedom, but few can hit the ball harder or longer. He could well have put himself a step closer to the Champions Trophy – a run of three games at the top against Pakistan in November, allowing him a consistent role, wouldn’t hurt.The perhaps unlikely question that was raised during the series was Josh Inglis versus Alex Carey after the latter’s back-to-back 70s while Inglis was recovering from a quad strain. However, after the pair played together at Lord’s the answer was revealed in Bristol when Carey was left out.Although younger players had an opportunity on this tour, the Australia men’s ODI set-up remains one at the more mature end of the spectrum. The Champions Trophy in February will likely mark a 50-over endpoint for several of this generation – 2027 will be a step too far. Mitchell Starc, who swayed from the wicked inswinger to remove Harry Brook at Headingley to be taken for a record 28 off an over at Lord’s, will probably be among that group alongside Glenn Maxwell, Smith and perhaps even Marsh and Josh Hazlewood.For them, all their ODI legacies were cemented by what happened in India last year, but global tournaments, especially the 50-over variety, tend to bring out the best in Australian players. And winning when the going gets tough, as it did in England, will serve them well.

England’s No. 3 on missing out on the World Cup final, and his ambitions to make the 50-over cut

Andrew Miller11-Jan-2023A penny for Dawid Malan’s thoughts, an onlooker from the sidelines at the MCG in November, as a senior England batter marshalled a World Cup-winning run-chase against Pakistan with an unflappable 52 not from 49 balls.The man in question, of course, was Ben Stokes – the Red Adair of England run-chases, air-lifted back into the T20I side after an 18-month absence and proving once again that his big-match temperament is second-to-none.That match situation, however, could have had Malan’s name all over it. A middling target of 138 to aim for, and loss of two early wickets affording the incomer the right and rationale to build cautiously into his work, as would have befitted a man with a proven, former world No.1-ranked, record at No.3 across 44 of his 55 T20I appearances for England.But Malan himself was denied the perfect pay-off. His campaign was curtailed by a groin injury, picked up during England’s tense group-stage win over Sri Lanka, and despite believing he’d done enough to be trusted for a recall in the final against Pakistan, it wasn’t to be.”It was tough,” Malan tells ESPNcricinfo. “Initially we discussed that we were just going to treat the symptoms, but then on the day before the World Cup final, I ended up having a scan which I was not too happy about, because I was felt that I was okay.”I did the fitness test and everything that was required, and I was able to get through everything that was asked of me in a two-and-a-half hour session, with just a bit of throbbing to some extent.”But after the training session, when Jos [Buttler] and Motty [Matthew Mott] called me in, they said ‘look, even though you’ve passed everything, there’s still a risk’.”The issue, Malan adds, came down to the vast dimensions of the MCG, and the dangers of aggravating not only his niggle, but that of Mark Wood too – another key influence whom England opted to do without, despite appearing to overcome a hip flexor problem that had ruled him out of the India semi-final.”If we were playing at a smaller ground like Bangalore, where you are not going to rely on running threes and twos and chasing down balls in the outfield, definitely it would have been worth the risk,” he adds.”But playing the MCG, when every run would have counted in a World Cup final … as a cricketer, you have to put your ego away sometimes, even though you’re gutted at the decision. It’s about winning the World Cup as a team, it isn’t about putting your own personal pride in front of the team. Even though that’s a tough pill to take, it is the right decision. We won the World Cup by not risking two players that were touch-and-go on fitness. The rest is history.”That history now shows that England are the concurrent 50- and 20-over World Cup champions, the first men’s team to achieve such a feat. And while Malan was not involved in the epic 2019 campaign, he has been an integral member of the T20 team in between whiles, including the side that succumbed in the semi-final in the UAE 12 months before the MCG triumph – a campaign that he says came with significantly more expectation than the one just gone.”The disappointment of losing that semi in 2021 was there for everyone to see,” he says, recalling a penultimate-over loss to New Zealand in Abu Dhabi. “With what we had available as a team, we were gutted that we didn’t win the World Cup that year, but I guess expectations probably weren’t as high this time around. We obviously wanted to win, but I didn’t think it would be realistic.”Dawid Malan launches a six over the leg side against South Africa in the summer•Getty ImagesThe reasons for such reticence were myriad. The retirement of Eoin Morgan had bled into a transitional summer in which England failed to win any of their four home white-ball series against India and South Africa, while injuries to key personnel – in particular Jofra Archer and Jonny Bairstow – meant they were far from being the frontrunners that had gone into previous ICC events.”If we played as well as we could, we could definitely win, but after the summer that we had, I didn’t think the pressure was on us as much as a team,” Malan says. “Australia and India were in better form than we were.”But it’s been a long journey, from when Morgs took over in 2015, to where it is now with Jos and Motty as the leaders in the group. I was on the outside initially, watching how they went about their business, but they’ve stuck to their guns for seven years now. Everyone in the country has bought into that, and to win two World Cups in the last couple of years is incredible.”Nevertheless, you get the sense that Malan would have relished a touch more vindication for this own methods in the course of England’s latest trophy-winning campaign. His tally for the tournament finished at 56 runs from 68 balls across three innings, including an ill-paced 35 from 37 that contributed to their rain-affected defeat against Ireland, and a cameo of 3 not out from one ball against New Zealand, after being shunted down to No.8 to make way for the perceived heavier hitters.Despite some eye-popping feats in the course of his England career, including 1000 T20I runs in the space of a record 24 matches, and a 48-ball century against New Zealand in 2019, criticism has been a constant companion for Malan. Specifically, the perception that he tends to be slow out of the blocks.In the course of his T20I career, Malan has made 30 scores of 30 or less, at a strike-rate of less than a run a ball (97.05). Once he’s into his stride, however, few opponents can live with his acceleration – as evidenced by a strike-rate that soars to 165.56 on the 15 occasions that he’s gone past fifty.And it was this point upon which Mike Hussey, England’s batting consultant, chose to dwell when presenting Malan with a cap to mark his 50th appearance during the World Cup. In particular, Hussey zeroed in on his “BASRA”, which is no longer simply a port in Southern Iraq, but now a means of assessing a player by their “batting average [and] strike rate aggregated” – which in Malan’s case is currently a lofty 174.55 (38.84 and 135.71), behind only Kevin Pietersen and Jos Buttler among England players.

“We’re here to win games of cricket, not make the highlights reel. There’s so many people that feel like, ‘oh, you have to hit the ball 130 metres and get on Instagram’. That’s irrelevant.”Dawid Malan

“It was the first time I’d heard of it,” Malan admits. “But when you hear someone like that give you praise like that, it’s an unbelievable feeling and gives you a lot of confidence.”Batting at 3 in T20s is a tricky position,” he adds, “because if you want to be positive and take it on in the first over of the game at 0 for 1, if you get out, you’re 10 for 2, and you’re probably not going to be scoring the 180 that you need to on that specific wicket. Then sometimes you walk in in the last over of the powerplay, or in the eighth over with all the fields out, and there’s a different match-up to what you’re used to.”When you open the batting, you can play the same way every single game, it’s the easiest thing to do, whereas there’s a bit more responsibility when you bat at No. 3. Yes, I found that quite tricky at times, but I’ve had leaders like Morgs and Jos giving me the confidence to just play it as I see it, and that’s massive for me because then I can shut out the criticism.”There’s always criticism, sometimes it’s fair, sometimes it isn’t, but we’re man enough as players to hold our hands up when we get it wrong. Sometimes you feel it’s the same topics over and over, no matter what you do, but all it is, is people looking at stats instead of looking at what’s actually in front of you.”There is, however, one other stat that matters where Malan is concerned. More often than not, he ends up on the winning side – in 33 of his 55 T20I matches, in fact, or 60%, which places him second among England players with 50 or more caps, behind only the Player of the World Cup final (and star pick at the IPL auction), Sam Curran.”We’re here to win games of cricket, not make the highlights reel,” Malan says. “There’s so many people that feel like, ‘oh, you have to hit the ball 130 metres and get on Instagram’. That’s irrelevant. Your team is judged on success. You’re judged on how many games you win as a player, not how many big bombs you hit.”I’d much rather average 20 at a strike rate of 130 and win every game than hit a couple of good sixes at 160, and do nothing else. You don’t win games of cricket like that.”Malan drives through the covers•Getty ImagesHe’ll be getting plenty opportunities to hone his methods in the coming months. Despite a rare period of downtime in December, in which he enjoyed Christmas at home for the first time in five years, Malan is already back on the road. His first stop is a stint at Comilla Victorians in the Bangladesh Premier League, and then – later this week – he embarks on the start of the ILT20 in the UAE, where he will link up with his fellow World Cup winners Moeen Ali and Chris Woakes at Sharjah Warriors, not to mention his Yorkshire team-mate Tom Kohler-Cadmore and Warwickshire’s Chris Benjamin.”We’ve got a group of English guys and a few of the Afghani guys as well, so it’s going to be brilliant,” Malan says. “Any franchise tournament is fantastic. But with so many overseas players allowed in each team, that pushes the standard up so much more.”It’s an exciting time. The IPL investment [in the ILT20] means it’s likely to have the biggest purse for players and attract the biggest names. And I guess that’s ultimately what attracts players to different tournaments, how much they get paid to some extent, not only the brand of cricket and the conditions that you play in. It has the makings of being a fantastic tournament.”It could be another significant year for Malan too, with England’s defence of the 50-over World Cup looming in India in the autumn. And while his ODI career has been restricted to just 12 appearances so far, he would appear to be in the right place at the right time, with Morgan’s retirement and Stokes’ withdrawal from the format creating openings, not just for new players but for experienced ones too. He responded with two centuries in his six matches in 2022, including a Player-of-the-Match performance against Australia in Adelaide, and believes his game is well suited for England’s needs.”It’s a bizarre one,” he says. “You’re good enough to play T20 cricket but not for the 50-over team, but within this group and with players retiring there has been more of an opportunity. Hopefully I’ve taken those opportunities in the last few series, because it’s something I want to be part of, I want to play in that 50-over World Cup, and I’ve had some good chats with Motty and Jos about moving forward.”And while Malan does not seem to harbour similar ambitions to regain his Test place, after the rigours of last winter’s Ashes, he – like many others in the English game – has been a fascinated onlooker as Stokes and Brendon McCullum have set about reviving the team’s fortunes with a heady mix of positive cricket and even more positive reinforcement within the dressing-room.”That’s unbelievable, isn’t it?” he says. “It’s fantastic to see how things have changed around and it just shows you what happens when leaders are confident and back their players to express themselves, instead of worrying about the media and the negative side of it.”I guess that’s what Eoin did in the 50-over cricket. He said ‘these are the players I’ve identified and I back them to the hilt’, and gave them a decent opportunity, whether the press or commentators agreed with it or not. It’s amazing when players feel backed how often they go out and perform.”

At possibly one of the worst times to take over as captain, he produced a masterclass

Sidharth Monga27-Dec-2020At his pre-match press conference, Ajinkya Rahane was asked a question that was unusual but not surprising given how India’s cricket is popularly narrated. Rahane was asked if he would be asking outgoing captain Virat Kohli for advice through the rest of the series.This is not about the Kohli obsession, though. This is about Rahane. He didn’t find it or offensive or disrespectful. If he did, he didn’t show it. Nor did he say it was team for the remaining three Tests and he didn’t need advice from outside. And it wasn’t as though he was going to take into a diametrically opposite direction. Wary of headlines perhaps. “I wouldn’t like to disturb him,” Rahane said like a polite student. The other predominant query was around running Kohli out. He repeated he had apologised to Kohli and he was okay with it. He said Kohli also had a chat with the team before he left.It was as though those watching the cricket would rather a cardboard cut-out of Kohli than Rahane, and that is not Kohli’s fault. He just does what he believes is best for his cricket, and that happens to be what a lot of people believe and a lot of people prefer to watch.Could there be a worse time to take over for Rahane? He ran out his captain, which became the image of the Adelaide defeat. He was now going to be without Kohli the batsman and two of his first-choice bowlers. Most importantly, though, he was not coming in with that amazing confidence of runs behind him.The last three years, when Rahane really should have blossomed, have been more about finding himself. That he was dropped at the start of the South Africa tour in early 2018 was not perhaps as hurtful as the lack of second thought around it. When he came back, he played a crucial part in India’s fortunes-turning Test win at Wanderers, scoring a dominating 48 after India had fallen behind in the first innings in a low-scoring Test. Then all of a sudden he was India’s No. 4 in ODIs too. Only to be discarded a series later, unsure when the next question marks would emerge.The shot that brought up Ajinkya Rahane’s 12th Test century•Getty ImagesSince then, even though he had a hand in India’s wins at Trent Bridge and Adelaide Oval in 2018, Rahane has not been that dominating Test batsman he had been. Any failure – which is part of life in cricket than success – gets magnified. Like Cheteshwar Pujara, he doesn’t get too many chances at making comebacks as he plays in just the one format. One of those two is perennially under the scanner. Rahane makes it worse for himself because he puts himself through the struggle of a format he is not suited to, but that is his choice and he should continue fighting in the IPL as long as he has teams willing to play him. But there is a school of thought that that leaves his Test game unsure.It was in this light that Rahane began the series, only to run Kohli out and wear the look of a man doomed to publicly atone for his sins. That’s not how sport works. Two errors followed, and he became the most culpable – “look, no feet” – part of a once-in-a-generation collapse. Rahane said he didn’t want to think about all that, but live in the moment. In a way perhaps it was good. The only way now was up.Related

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Come MCG, and there was no hangover of Adelaide either in the field or with the bat. That belief that Australia could be bowled out cheaply again if they bowled well and to their plans shone through. That it would be down to their batting again. And that, with some luck, they could get into a position similar to the first innings in Adelaide once again against this excellent attack.Within the first hour it was down to Rahane to arrest another collapse. That advantage Rahane had was that in their contrasting styles, Shubman Gill and Pujara had exhausted the first spells of the quicks. He played like a man who backed himself, bucking a discernible trend where he looks for an early boundary or two and provides bowlers a chance. In the last three years, no Indian batsman has hit more not-in-control boundaries in the first 30 balls of an innings than Rahane. In this series, though, he has registered two of his lowest scores after facing 25 balls: 1 and 3.ALSO LISTEN: Rahane says catch me if you canThis is also counter to the criticism against defensive batting: that you will eventually get one with your name on it so better get scoring. The proof of this pudding was in front of Rahane already: Pujara’s defensive innings had made sure Pat Cummins had put in an eight-over spell in the morning. It had made it slightly easier for Rahane; he would have liked for it to be even easier by playing out Josh Hazlewood too.Soon the instinct took over, and he started to put away every loose ball. Analysis showed his interception points were further down the pitch, which probably was the case, but they were comparing an off drive in his 70s against tired bowlers to his dismissal on nought against bowlers who had the bit between their teeth. It is not as if there weren’t any errors. This is Test batting against a quality attack in testing conditions. Errors are bound to happen, but his control percentage of 88 was remarkable.Once he was in, the dominating Rahane was back. From 17 off 59, he broke free with a pull and kept scoring at an even pace. Test batting was fun once again. Every slight error – and now he had gone into the second string of Nathan Lyon and Cameron Green – was now punished. By the time Rishabh Pant and Ravindra Jadeja batted with Rahane, he knew he had the opportunity to push home the advantage. Rahane matched Pant stroke for stroke, and outscored Jadeja.The display was an education for someone like the debutant Gill. “The way he was so patient [was amazing],” Gill said. “This knock was all about patience. More importantly when you are playing such a high-quality bowling attack, sometimes you go into a shell and not able to score runs. And the way Ajinkya bhai played, it was such a magnificent knock to watch from outside. Those tough periods. How to see off those periods. And then he was making sure he put all the loose balls away.”Thanks to his hundred, India now stand one session of batting short of batting Australia out of this Test. Just imagine the magnitude of this achievement: three first-choice players missing, the shock of 36 all out, losing the toss, in an away venue against one of the best attacks of all time, and to be in this position. It will be difficult to stay in the moment.

The allrounder has had a storied career, which he has now put into a book, but hopes there’s at least one chapter still to complete

Alex Malcolm25-Oct-2024The tone in Glenn Maxwell’s voice changes when he talks about Test cricket.It’s not what you would expect from the author of some the greatest innings ever played in coloured clothing for Australia. The 201 not out in Mumbai, which he relives in great detail in his soon-to-be-released autobiography , written with Adam Collins. The 40-ball century against Netherlands. The 51-ball 2015 World Cup century against Sri Lanka. The impossible chases of Old Trafford, Bengaluru, Guwahati and Hobart. Maxwell could quite rightly dine out on those stories for the rest of his days.There is a myriad of off-field stories, too, some deeply personal. The broken leg. The golf-cart concussion. Severe mental health challenges. A miscarriage. Maxwell speaks with honesty and vulnerability about all of it and how it has shaped him through his 36 years.Related

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But long after the words have been printed, and the book hits the shelves, Maxwell is hopeful another chapter will be written. He has not given up on his dream of adding to his seven Test matches.That sentence in itself is striking. He hasn’t played Test cricket for seven years. He has not played a first-class game since July 2023 and has played only two in the last five years.He is nowhere near the conversation to play in the upcoming series against India, despite a top-six spot being available. But the carrot of the Sri Lanka tour in January has been dangled in front of him and he is all-in on chasing it after coming within touching distance of a place in the XI on the 2022 tour.”I think if I gave up on that Test dream now, I don’t think I’d be doing justice to that younger Glenn Maxwell who was dying to put on the baggy green when he was a kid,” he tells ESPNcricinfo. “And I think while there’s still a glimmer of hope, I’ll keep going for it.”Maxwell’s Test career is currently a story of what might have been. There is a sense when you speak to him, and when you read his book, that his brief tastes, and the many near-misses on Test selection that he details, have built up just as much scar tissue as the hardware holding his broken ankle together.

“If I gave up on that Test dream now, I don’t think I’d be doing justice to that younger Glenn Maxwell who was dying to put on the baggy green when he was a kid”

“I think the hard thing with Test cricket is, when I grew up, that’s all I wanted to do,” Maxwell says. “I definitely got my chance at Test level a bit prematurely. It all happened really fast when I got my chance to debut. It was just a whirlwind. I had no idea what I was doing. I probably hadn’t had the experience at first-class level that I would have liked.”And then when I came back in 2017, I felt like I was a ready-made first-class cricketer and was really at peace with my game and where I was at. A lot of these things in Test cricket are timing. Adam Voges is probably the perfect example. He came in and he averaged 60-odd [61.87] in his Test career. He got his opportunity when he was at the top of this game.”I suppose the thing I’m proud about in my Test career – I was able to sort of fight back at different times, get back in squads and be really resilient that way.”Voges’ story is a source of inspiration for Maxwell. Voges made his Test debut at 35 and played 20 Test matches, scoring five centuries, including two doubles. However, he got his opportunity in 2015 after scoring 1358 runs at 104.46 in the 2014-15 Sheffield Shield season. Only three batters have ever had a better Shield year and scored more than his six centuries in a single season.Maxwell has only made seven first-class centuries in his 69-game career, including his lone Test century in Ranchi. The lack of hundreds has been used against him from a Test selection standpoint. It is a notion that irks him. He detailed a frustrating exchange with selector Trevor Hohns in 2017-18, when he backed up his March Test century in India with scores of 60, 64, 45 not out, 278 against an international-standard New South Wales attack, and 96 across four consecutive Shield games while batting at No.3 for Victoria.Maxwell brings up his Test century in Ranchi in 2017•Associated PressMaxwell queried Hohns on why he wasn’t considered to play in the Ashes.”The answer was blunt: not enough tons,” Maxwell writes. “It’s the only time I’ve come close to losing it in a situation like that.”Maxwell no longer has to worry about such sentiments among the current Australian selection panel. They have said publicly that Shield cricket bears no relevance to Test conditions in Sri Lanka. They have also said that Australia’s ODI and T20I specialists, who miss a lot of first-class cricket due to white-ball duties, should not have their lack of Shield cricket held against them.It is the type of bespoke management that Maxwell appreciates and has led him to making a quiet return to red-ball cricket via Victoria’s second XI, where he scored 14 and 10, before hopefully making his Shield return after the two white-ball series against Pakistan. The leg injury remains a big part of his careful management.Maxwell enjoyed the red-ball return without the pressure of needing to perform and believes he can get up to speed quickly to the rhythm of red-ball batting if he’s selected on the tour of Sri Lanka.

“I might sort of have this persona on-field where it all looks confident, everything looks all sweet, but it’s not always like that behind the scenes”

“The interesting thing about last week, even just playing the second XI game, was having a few technical changes and working through them, having a few different sets of eyes looking at your batting, and just trying to work your way through that has been really enjoyable,” he says.”I remember in 2022 [in Sri Lanka] the first couple of net sessions that I had working through all those cracks, and working through your different techniques of facing spin that’s exploding, was so enjoyable. And it doesn’t take long when you’re really experienced in those conditions to work out a way to play over there.”It’s probably what makes Cameron Green’s success over there so extraordinary, the fact that it’s the first time he’s played Test cricket over there in those conditions, and he was so successful and strong-minded in the way he was going to go about it. It takes a strong mind to have success over there. I’d just love to be over there.”Maxwell’s mental-health journey is fascinatingly recounted in the book. He is very open about the challenges he has faced throughout his career.”I hope people can get a better idea of the different anxiety I’ve probably had,” he says. “I might sort of have this persona on-field where it all looks confident, everything looks all sweet, but it’s not always like that behind the scenes. There’s so much that sort of goes into it, and there’s a lot of conversations, a lot of thoughts that are going on. And it’s not always as smooth as it seems.”1:43

Where does Glenn Maxwell rank in T20 cricket?

One of his darkest periods was between 2018 and 2020, which coincided with Justin Langer’s tenure as coach. Maxwell is not shy in outlining his turbulent relationship with Langer back then, detailing his personal perspective of a series of incidents, including his omission from the 2018 Test tour of the UAE, the 2019 World Cup, where he was subjected to a bouncer barrage in the nets that he felt was coach-directed, and a fiery exchange in early 2020 when Maxwell said the coach accused him of faking an elbow injury to miss a tour.But Maxwell sees a clear delineation between their relationship as player and coach and their friendship away from the game, which included a lot of golf and some great conversations about life.”We’re still on great terms,” Maxwell says. “We had a really good friendship, and I suppose his coaching tenure at the back end, I probably didn’t get out of him exactly what I probably needed at that time.”The other roundabout relationship he writes about is with Steven Smith. He reveals that the pair did not see eye to eye when Smith was the national captain. But Maxwell also notes he was partly to blame.”I’ve learned the amount that you invest in relationships is the amount you get back,” he says. “And I think potentially, looking back on early relationships, they might have been a lot of one way. I reckon I expected a lot of things to go my way, without actually investing back in.

“Maxwell queried [selector Trevor] Hohns on why he wasn’t considered to play in the Ashes. “The answer was blunt: not enough tons,” Maxwell writes. “It’s the only time I’ve come close to losing it in a situation like that”

“Steve is probably the one who we’ve come… probably not full circle, it’s never like we weren’t friends, it was we weren’t as close as we are now. Now we’re messaging most days, we play golf together, we enjoy each other’s company, and we spend a lot of time talking about not just cricket stuff, but off-field, real things as well.”Maxwell is as comfortable as he has ever been with his place in the world as a husband, a father and a cricketer. He is adamant his story is not completely told, and has no plans to retire anytime soon. He feels he is in the perfect head space to handle a Test match recall. But he knows there are no guarantees, and he says it won’t define his career.”I’m at peace with pretty much everything,” he says. “So it sort of makes it a little bit easier to go out there and not get too wrapped up in the moment, not to put too much pressure on myself to do certain things, and hopefully that just is able to bring out the best in me.”Whatever happens at the back end of this summer, whether I get picked or not, I won’t judge that as a tick or cross on my career. It’s just going to be another thing. As I said, I’d love to be over there, and if I do get the opportunity, I won’t be putting too much pressure on myself.”

On Wednesday, the seamer showed if there is a bit of help about, he could be genuinely incisive in the powerplay

Karthik Krishnaswamy29-Sep-20221:38

Arshdeep Singh: ‘The main motive of our team is adaptability’

What makes the new ball swing in one place and not in another? Cricket has grappled with this question for well over a century, and while all that grappling has given us numerous hypotheses, we have no conclusive answers.Bhuvneshwar Kumar may have puzzled over this question as well, if he watched the Thiruvananthapuram T20I in Bengaluru, where he is undergoing “conditioning-related work” – as per the relevant BCCI press release – at the National Cricket Academy after being rested for the series against South Africa. Having just completed a three-match series against Australia during which the new ball hardly ever swung, he may have felt a complex surge of emotions while watching Deepak Chahar and Arshdeep Singh bend it this way and that at the Greenfield International Stadium.Related

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Bhuvneshwar bowled 42 balls in two matches against Australia and conceded 91 runs, while picking up just one wicket.In Thiruvananthapuram, Chahar and Arshdeep reduced South Africa to 9 for 5 in the space of 15 balls. Both got the ball to swing both ways, and the pitch gave them further assistance by way of its two-paced nature. The jaffas were getting batters out – Arshdeep, for instance, dismissed a pair of left-handers back-to-back, nicking off Rilee Rossouw with an awayswinger before clean-bowling David Miller with one that swerved wickedly late in the other direction – but so were wide and seemingly cuttable balls that stuck in the surface.If you were a swing bowler, or a fast bowler of any description, these were conditions made for you.KL Rahul, who helped steer India to their target of 107 with a painstaking unbeaten 51 off 56 balls, described the conditions as being among the toughest he has ever batted in in a T20 game. “The balls were flying, it was nipping around, it was two-paced,” he told the broadcasters after the match. “Everything that can be hard for a batsman, that was the wicket today.”Given how much help there was for swing and seam bowling, how much can India take away from their fast bowlers’ displays as they finalise their plans for the T20 World Cup? In particular, where does Arshdeep currently sit in the hierarchy of quicks they have picked for that tournament?Of the four specialist fast bowlers in India’s 15 for the World Cup, Bumrah – if fit – is probably the only one guaranteed to start their tournament opener against Pakistan at the MCG. If they’re in their best physical shape and bowling rhythm, Bhuvneshwar and Harshal Patel would probably start alongside him. But neither has been at his best in recent months.Arshdeep has done all the right things ever since getting called up•BCCIThe break Bhuvneshwar is getting during this series is a welcome one ahead of the World Cup, given that he has played more T20Is (24) than any other India player this year. But while that should refresh him, India might still be worried about one facet of his bowling when he returns: his performances at the death (overs 17-20). Seven of the 14 most expensive overs he has bowled in this phase during his T20I career have come this year – four of them .India haven’t always had their first-choice fast bowlers operating this year, of course, and the presence of Bumrah and Harshal should reduce Bhuvneshwar’s death-bowling workload considerably, freeing him up to bowl most of his overs in his best phase, with the new ball. But Harshal hasn’t looked at his best since returning from a rib injury, and his death-overs economy rate for India this year (11.00) has been nearly as high as Bhuvneshwar’s (11.37).This is where Arshdeep has really stood out; he has a death-overs economy rate of 7.38 in T20Is this year, easily the best among all India seamers to have bowled at least four overs in this phase – Hardik Pandya, at 10.25, is a distant second.Arshdeep’s end-overs numbers are spectacular, but not hugely surprising, since he earned his India cap specifically because of his accuracy, control and smarts in that phase. But he has shown he can do more; you will remember that he began his T20I career with a new-ball maiden in Southampton, and over his first 12 T20I games he has done quite well in the powerplay, as a first-six-overs economy rate of 7.50 would suggest. His numbers aren’t nearly as spectacular as Bhuvneshwar’s in this phase – an economy rate of 5.68 while taking 18 wickets at an average of 15.77 this year – but we’re comparing a rookie bowling outside his favoured phase with one of the world’s great powerplay bowlers.And when there is a bit of help about, as there was in Thiruvananthapuram, Arshdeep can be genuinely incisive. He is an unusual sort of left-arm quick, more proficient at swinging the new ball away from the right-hander – genuinely swinging it, and not just slanting it across – rather than into the stumps. This is why he gets so close to the wicket while bowling left-arm over – it minimises the angle across the right-hander, so he can keep lbw in play, just about, while bowling outswing – and also why he loves going round the wicket.In Thiruvananthapuram, though, he showed he can also bowl the other one – two of his wickets came from balls that swung away from the left-hander, and he constantly kept Aiden Markram guessing which way the ball would go while seldom wavering from a tight initial line.These were, in short, excellent signs for India. The conditions may have been extremely helpful, and as a consequence, it is hard to say whether Arshdeep’s display made any real difference to his chances of starting at the World Cup. But he has done all the right things ever since getting called up, and on Wednesday night he did all the right things once again.

The Capitals vs Royals was a truly thrilling exhibition of ferociously fast bowling

Alagappan Muthu15-Oct-20202:15

Bishop: Nortje has brought skill and control along with pace

Jofra Archer is feeling it. He doesn’t have the ball in hand yet. He’s not even on the field. But he has the smile of a teenager who had just discovered how to turn off parental controls on the TV. he’s dancing.Being a fast bowler is fun.Archer has pace that pokes holes into the laws of physics. A run up that’s sometimes only a dawdle shouldn’t produce speeds that petrify the batsman, but everywhere he goes and whomever he faces, he continues to do just that.At some point, maybe in the three days off he probably gets every season, he should let the world’s scientists take him apart so we can all finally and fully understand his extraordinary physical abilities.Prithvi Shaw certainly had no warning of the carnage on the way. He took strike as he normally does. He went after a length ball as he normally does. And he got bowled neck and crop because of a hair-raising abnormality that cricket always makes room for.Pace. 144 kph.Archer was unplayable from the very first ball he bowled in Rajasthan Royals’ game against Delhi Capitals in Dubai. He made Ajinkya Rahane shrivel away from a bouncer. That was 147 kph. He took him out too and the new guy had to face 151 kph.This was fast bowling in its purest form. Archer was operating at a level so far above the opposition. No one could touch him. They didn’t even dare, really. That is the majesty of pace. And this game was all about it.ESPNcricinfo LtdAnrich Nortje looks every bit the speedster. Big biceps. Broad shoulders. Long run up. But Jos Buttler doesn’t seem fussed. He calmly gets into his stance, crouches a bit as the ball is about to be delivered, plants his front leg down the pitch because it’s full and swings it for six. That was 148 kph and hitting it out of the park was a statement.This game was being played on a used pitch. Slower balls were bound to stick in it. A very useful advantage against a batsman like Buttler, who likes it coming onto the bat. There was logic in a change of course. But that involves a fast bowler admitting a little bit of defeat; that he can’t overpower his enemy. Nortje wasn’t ready for that.So he cranked it up to 156 kph. That, btw, is only five clicks slower than the world record.Buttler met it with one of his scoops. It doesn’t even matter that it went for four. The simple fact that he thought he could play that ball with less than a full bat was bonkers. Some players really do live to face heavy metal bowling like this. It is a morbid thrill; the thought that they can take em down.Nortje knew he had a problem. “First ball, I didn’t expect him to go. I didn’t expect the scoop either.” But he didn’t waver. He ran in again, gathering speed. This one was 155 kph and like the guitar solo from it had a bone-chilling effect.It cuh-lean bowled Buttler.”Maybe he was expecting something else,” Nortje said at the presentation. “Maybe a short ball or the slower slower but I just thought I’d stick to my strengths and at the end it paid off.”

KG, Archer, Ana
I’d have paid to watch them live tonight.
Fast bowling is strong, and this competition is being dominated by these beasts!

— Dale Steyn (@DaleSteyn62) October 14, 2020

All of this leaves Kagiso Rabada in a of a situation. IPL 2020’s highest wicket-taker is, officially, the slower of the Capitals’ two speed demons.”It looks like it [Nortje hits 156 kph] every game. I’m really happy for him. I’m not that happy for the batter,” he told . “Maybe now when we have a drink when we get back to the hotel, he’ll sneak a cheeky one past. But when we’re playing, we’re just thinking about the delivery. Not the speed gun.”Still, if you can summon the kind of pace that Archer, Rabada and Nortje do, you don’t take a backwards step. You just stand at the top of your mark. Run in as hard as you can. Savour the wind in your hair. Make a note of the silly things you make the batsman do for when you tell the story later. Get into your delivery stride. And. Just. Go. Whang.Fast bowlers like that attain nirvana on a cricket field. And the whole world gets high watching them.

Because of the slower pace of the game, big, banana swing is far more common in the women’s game, almost defining its entire vocabulary

Sidharth Monga03-Oct-2024Cricket balls swing. Swing makes the game richer. It might be the least challenging of the movements bowlers access, but visually it is arguably the most spectacular. It occurs over a longer trajectory than seam and turn off the surface, and it is quicker and higher in degree than the subtle drift and dip of the spinner. Extra swing is among the first things that stand out in women’s cricket.Think Shikha Pandey’s inswinger going as wide as the wide guideline at one point before ducking back in to take the top of Alyssa Healy’s off and middle stump, or this hypnotic highlight reel of Megan Schutt hooping the ball in again and again.Cricket balls swing more in women’s cricket. This is not just a visual impression created by the many reels and Twitter videos we see of the banana swing in women’s cricket. Data backs what we see. We compared swing in all T20 cricket in the year 2023 in both men’s and women’s cricket. The median swing in men’s cricket was 0.54 degrees, but in women’s cricket it was 0.74 degrees. That is not a small difference.It is natural that the ball should swing more in women’s cricket. Rabindra Mehta, a NASA scientist who once shared the new ball with Imran Khan at school, has spent a significant amount of his time studying swing. A “side force” makes the ball swing, Mehta has written in his papers, which is generated because of a pressure difference between the two sides of the ball split by a seam that is not wobbling or wobbling very little.Mehta’s experiments have shown the maximum side force is generated when the ball is bowled at 112.65kph, the seam is tilted at 20 degrees, and the backspin on the ball is 11 revolutions per second. Some later papers suggest 108kph generates the maximum swing. About half the deliveries bowled in women’s T20 cricket in 2023 were between 100 and 110kmph, and 21% in the 110-120 band.There are other factors such as height and time in the air. Mehta once contended how in the 2007 men’s ODI World Cup final, Chaminda Vaas didn’t find swing but Nathan Bracken in the same match did because Vaas didn’t release the ball “in the optimum altitude”. Because of the slower pace in women’s cricket, the ball spends more time in the air.Related

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As a combination of more time in the air and the ideal side force, both because of the slower pace compared to the men’s game, women’s cricket is the ideal playground for swing. Or at least conventional swing. Old-ball swing is slightly complicated. For the sake of convenience, we call all old-ball swing reverse swing these days. The literal reverse swing needs a tilted seam and high pace that women, at least so far, don’t ever hit. Contrast swing, though, is achievable at their pace with an upright seam provided the ball is ready. There is hardly any time for this to happen in limited-overs cricket, and women play so few Tests that there is hardly any contrast swing of note.Now we need to make ourselves a little less comfortable about our trust in what we think we see. The casual, almost unanimous assertion is that women swing the ball predominantly into the right-hand batter. Pandey, whose inswinger to Healy got dubbed the ball of the century by many including Wasim Jaffer, is the first one to dispel the notion despite being an inswing bowler herself.”I don’t really agree that there are only inswing bowlers,” Pandey tells ESPNcricinfo. “There are a lot of outswing bowlers as well. Shabnim Ismail, for example, is a seam bowler, but she does get the ball to swing out. Marizanne Kapp is someone else who swings the ball both in and out. Katherine Brunt used to get nice shape out. Towards the later part of her career only, she learnt how to get the ball to come in, but that was very subtle, not banana swing. So probably what you’re trying to say is banana inswing.”As a kid growing up, my bowling action was such that my hand was very close to my knee. I didn’t use to get that big inswing when I started. But then I realised that in domestic circuit, the ball coming in was the one that was fetching me wickets. So subconsciously my action became more and more inswing-friendly because I was getting wickets. And at that age you were not really thinking about anything else, you’re just thinking about the results.”Shikha Pandey: “Subconsciously my action became more and more inswing-friendly because I was getting wickets”•Annesha GhoshWhen Pandey made it to international cricket, she realised within a year that just big booming inswing was not going to cut it. People began to take the off-stump guard and cover the stumps by getting outside of the line. Bowled and lbw were almost out of the picture. She started to work on the ball that straightens, and now has that variation, which basically uses angles on the crease and slight technical adjustments.The point is, there are enough outswing bowlers in women’s cricket too. “Look at the current scenario,” Pandey says. “In India there is Pooja Vastrakar, who bowls outswing and wobble-seam to bring the ball in. Renuka Thakur is mostly inswing. In England, Lauren Bell inswinger, Natalie Sciver mostly seam bowler. Kate Cross again, wobble seam to get the ball to come in, otherwise she gets the ball to shape out.”In Australia, Megan Schutt inswinger. Darcie Brown is a tearaway bowler, genuine outswinger, doesn’t swing the ball in at all. Tayla Vlaemink is fast, 125ks, doesn’t need swing. Kim Garth, again, genuine outswinger, but has worked on the wobble-seam delivery. South Africa, Shabnim is now retired, but as I said she bowled beautiful outswing. Marizanne gets the ball to move both ways in the air. Ayabonga Khaka is an inswinger.”Preliminary data – just counting the number of bowlers of each kind – seems to suggest there is a much more even split of inswing and outswing in women’s cricket than widely assumed. We dig deeper. The following bell curve suggests no partiality towards inswing. If anything, the peak of the graph tells us the likeliest ball we are to see in women’s cricket is a small outswinger. Minuses are outswing for the right-hand batter, pluses are inswing. It probably is indeed true that we have let highlight reels cloud our opinion here.ESPNcricinfo LtdIn India, though, inswing bowlers are easier to find. Krithika Venkatesan, talent scout at Royal Challengers Bengaluru, says young bowlers are mostly inswing bowlers, and they tend to run the risk of getting injured when trained to add outswing to their arsenal.Beyond the visual appeal, though, the extra swing and everything that comes with it has a significant impact on almost the whole vocabulary of women’s cricket. Almost everything in fast bowling is described in relation to good length. For men, we all tend to agree that a good length is a pitching point from where the ball can hit the top of the stumps.This hack doesn’t quite work for women. The height of the stumps is 0.71m. On average, in 2023, men hit that height when the ball bounced 6-7m from the stumps. It is consistent with what we have largely agreed upon in men’s cricket: 6-7m from the stumps is good length, 7-8m is the hard length, and 5-6m the aggressive good length. For women to hit the top of the stumps, they have to pitch in the 7-8m band, closer to 8 than 7. Now, at their pace, against batters of shorter stature, if they bowl that length, it gives batters enough time to play off the back foot.Women, thus, have to operate more on the literal definition of good length: one where a batter is not close to the pitch of the ball if they play forward, and hurried if they go back. So everything gets pushed a metre fuller in women’s cricket.Women’s cricket uses a smaller ball and shorter boundaries, but the pitch and the stumps remain the same. It becomes a completely different sport. Women fast bowlers have to bowl fuller. And because they swing it more, fast bowlers train to bowl a 4-5.5m length, and then adjust to the given conditions. Now this sounds a little too ambitious, but they believe the movement brings in jeopardy. A drive even slightly on the up comes with risk. Nor do women batters charge at the quicks as often as men do.Some coaches believe that batters’ hitting technique has far more room for improvement in women’s cricket than the bowling. It is evident in how bowling slow rollers is not good enough in women’s cricket anymore as batters have learnt to generate their own power into shots.In T20 cricket in 2023, women fast bowlers bowled 12.48% of their deliveries in the 4-5m zone. Men went into the aggressive 5-6m good length only 9.61% of the time. Women extracted better results from 5-8m lengths before the shorter balls started going for more runs. These are not great trends for their optimism. The batters will still keep unlocking their hitting prowess; how bowlers catch up is something to keep an eye on.