All posts by h716a5.icu

He scored heaps of runs in age-group cricket, but had only 55 runs to show for his five Ranji Trophy matches before this season

Srinidhi Ramanujam17-Jun-2022Armaan Jaffer has always had an appetite for runs and long innings. At the school level, at the Under-19 level, at the Under-25 level. And now, it was visible at the senior level too, when he scored his second century of the Ranji Trophy season, on day four of the semi-final and blunted Uttar Pradesh with centurion Yashasvi Jaiswal to take Mumbai close to their first final in five years. Mumbai now lead by 662 runs.After a long gap, this hunger for runs reflected in tangible terms only recently. Having started his age-group cricket alongside Sarfaraz Khan and Prithvi Shaw, he was tipped to be the next big thing with them from Mumbai.But it was a stop-start career for Jaffer after his first-class debut in the 2016-17 season. He missed the following season due to a knee surgery but made his way back into the Mumbai squad in the 2018-19 edition after an unbeaten 300 off 367 against Saurashtra in the Under-23 CK Nayudu Trophy.However, his career never really took off at the senior level as he would have wanted it to.Before this Ranji season, Jaffer had played five first-class matches and had scored a mere 55 runs.Self-doubt started to creep in and “people also started doubting” him. It was because of the reputation he had earned and the expectations he had set after being prolific in age-group cricket. The ‘Jaffer’ tag also had its own share of pressure.Jaffer first hogged the limelight with a record 498 runs in the Under-14 Giles Shield tournament – the highest individual score in Indian school cricket in 2010. He was then picked for the 2016 Under-19 World Cup on the back of three consecutive double-centuries in the Under-19 Cooch Behar Trophy. In the same year, he was added to the Kings XI Punjab squad for INR 10 lakh.But this drive to play long innings was rekindled by Abhishek Nayar, former India and Mumbai batter, post his 2019 ACL surgery.”I didn’t want to take any innings for granted,” he said of his changed mindset.During his rehabilitation in Mumbai, Jaffer trained with Nayar for six months and those interactions helped him get into a better mental state and “not focus on personal goals.” That was a bit of a “different preparation,” he would say.”Talking to him, him sharing his experiences…that motivated me a lot.”On my chat with Nayar, I came to know that it was his dream to hit a six off the first ball on debut like Vinod Kambli did, but that could not happen because he was under so much pressure. Then he could not string good performances, he got out for consecutive zeroes, and he was left out of the team. But he did not lose his hunger of coming back into the team and playing Ranji Trophy for Bombay for many years. Eventually, he made a comeback and went on to play for India as well. That was quite motivating for me.”For me, there was a time when I played five [Ranji] matches, and post that, I did not do anything.”I had scored so many runs in age-group tournaments that there was so much expectation from everyone, and that could not be fulfilled. So there was a lot of self-doubt, but when I spoke to him [Nayar], my dad, then my mindset changed a bit. This season I think my mindset has been better. There has definitely been hard work, but I think my mindset has been better. And that is paying off through my performances.”This clarity was visible in all the three Ranji games he has played so far. In his first match this season, against Odisha in the group stage, coming in at No. 3 and witnessing Mumbai slip from 73 for 0 to 76 for 3, Jaffer cracked a 223-ball 125 and stitched 277 runs with Sarfaraz to help Mumbai take a big lead. The next opportunity came a few months after the IPL, in the quarter-final against Uttarakhand and he scored 60 and an unbeaten 17.On Friday, in the semi-final, Jaffer scored a breezy 127 in the second innings on a flat pitch at the Just Cricket Academy and put on 286 runs with Jaiswal for the second wicket to further close in on the final spot. Mumbai ended the day at 449 for 4 with another massive lead. Jaiswal made his career-best first-class score of 181, his third consecutive century in the format.”The match was on our side, especially after they got out in the first innings,” Jaffer said. “But personally, I did not want to take any innings for granted. Regardless of the match situation, I did not want to take any innings for granted and did not want to waste any innings. My focus was to score runs. That would have helped the team and me.”In general, I haven’t made too many changes to my preparation. What I was doing at the time, I am continuing with the same now. Maybe, it was not destined to happen at the time, but now it is happening. The hard work that I have put in these years is paying off now. My preparation has been normal, I train with my father.”Mumbai might be closing in on a final spot, but Jaffer still has some unfinished business.”Before the season, the message from our coach [Amol Muzumdar] was that Bombay has won the trophy 41 times, so we have to win the Ranji Trophy anyhow. That was the goal right from the beginning,” he added.The senior Jaffer – Armaan’s uncle – has won 10 Ranji titles in his career. The junior may not be far from adding one to his name.

The numbers for batters four to eight are impressive, but the top three probably don’t trust them enough

Danyal Rasool26-Aug-20222:15

Babar: ‘Injuries are part of the game, Pakistan’s bench strength is good’

At first glance, Pakistan’s over-reliance on their top three in ODIs appears to bleed over into T20I cricket, too. Not unlike in the 50-over format, top three are responsible for roughly two-thirds – 67.5% – of Pakistan’s runs in T20Is since the start of the 2021 World Cup. As in ODIs, this figure is by some distance the highest among all sides, India’s top three a distant second, responsible for 58.4% of their team’s runs.And there isn’t much evidence of runs coming from further down for Pakistan either. Since the last T20 World Cup, only two players outside the top three have scored 100 runs in the format, and there’s little clarity on the personnel that make up Pakistan’s best middle order. Take that to the start of 2021: no one from the middle order has managed 200 T20I runs. What Fakhar Zaman, Imam-ul-Haq and Babar Azam do for the ODI side, Babar, Mohammad Rizwan and Fakhar do in T20Is.Related

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Anyone with even a passing interest in Pakistan cricket doesn’t need numbers to know this. Babar’s T20 consistency and Rizwan’s sensational rebirth in the format at the top of the order, combined with Fakhar’s brute force at one-drop are what form the base of a Pakistan T20I innings now. The middle order is unreliable, players picked and dropped after a few games, most likely failing to have any discernible impact. Azam Khan came and went, Khushdil Shah hasn’t really taken to the format, and, perhaps too often, Shadab Khan, Faheem Ashraf, Iftikhar Ahmed and Asif Ali have flattered to deceive internationally. So, naturally, the top three make most of the runs, are top scorers in most games Pakistan win, and have to face most of the overs.That last bit is crucial, and often overlooked. While Babar, Rizwan and Fakhar have scored 67.5% of Pakistan’s T20I runs since the last World Cup, they have faced an incredible 72% of the deliveries. Of course, no other top three has faced even 60% of deliveries internationally, and this is also the largest negative variance – 4.5% – for any top three between runs scored and balls faced in that period. South Africa’s top three at the second least productive, facing 3.5% more balls than the runs they score, but unlike Pakistan, they do leave 51.3% of balls for the middle order to make up the shortfall.Pakistan’s top-order batters rarely allow the middle order in early, and almost never in the powerplay, where the intent has been most notably lacking. Since the start of January 2020, Babar, who has faced more balls as opener than anyone else for Pakistan in this period, has scored at just 6.72 runs per over in powerplays, averaging around 20 off 18 balls. Rizwan scores at 7.20, and while Fakhar is well ahead at 7.80, his powerplay exposure is lower, because he comes in at three. Whether he should open, particular when Pakistan bat first, has been looked at, but those numbers inevitably result in Pakistan leaving most of their aggression for the latter stages of an innings.ESPNcricinfo LtdOne might think the top three are forced into this approach because of the instability lower down, but that might not be quite on point. It’s true there’s a game of musical chairs on there, but whoever gets in there tends to produce the firepower Pakistan invariably need. Surprisingly for a middle order as wobbly as Pakistan’s, in 13 matches since the last World Cup, batters from No. 4 to No. 8 have scored at 152.18, the highest among all T20I sides since then.While Pakistan generally do not begrudge Babar and Rizwan opening in a chase, it can be especially jarring to see Babar using up vast numbers of deliveries in the first innings. For all of Babar’s qualities, he’s not quite proven himself to be the best judge of what a good first-innings score is, and if he has, his ability to bat accordingly is questionable. In all T20s for Pakistan or Karachi Kings since January 2020, Babar’s first-innings strike rate is 123.02. This jumps to 133.42 batting second, with the average ballooning from 36.56 to 61.70.Moving Fakhar up to the top when Pakistan bat first is a statistically sound option: since January 2017, Fakhar’s T20 strike rate as opener is 139.65, the highest among Pakistani openers besides Kamran Akmal, but the solution can extend beyond just the one switch.Curiously, Pakistan’s middle and lower-middle order are more effective when they bat first. Since the last World Cup, Pakistan batters outside the top three manage a strike rate of 161.11 in such situations, the highest once more. South Africa are next at 159.07, but after that, England’s 141.37 is as good as any side has mustered. That number drops to 142.19 when Pakistan chase, higher than all sides bar India, whose middle and lower-middle order are prolific in a chase, striking at 157.79.ESPNcricinfo LtdSo what does that tell us, apart from telling us that Pakistan should try and avoid batting first against India in their Asia Cup games?The way a Pakistan batting unit behaves depending on when they bat means a one-size-fits-all approach cannot be the most efficient way to wring the last run out of their T20I innings. The status quo might well be fine when they chase; it is probably the best way to get the most out of this outfit. But when Pakistan bat first, Babar, and to a lesser extent the other two at the top, simply cannot consume the number of deliveries they do, when statistically the world’s most explosive middle order sits in the dugout, powerless to have the impact on the game the numbers show they can.Perhaps Pakistan’s two most consequential T20I games in the last decade crystallise this side’s batting ability perfectly. Against India in their World Cup’s opening game, they played to their strengths, and there’s arguably no better pair than Babar and Rizwan when chasing a total – especially a below-par one. Against Australia in the semi-final 16 days later, that same reliability became a crutch that hobbled the innings right to the end. Pakistan left runs out there, runs that mattered when Matthew Wade scooped Shaheen Afridi over fine leg 90 minutes later.Babar and Rizwan may have felt justified in their conservatism during that semi-final. If you don’t quite trust your middle order, the value you place on your wicket rises exponentially, especially in key games. It was perhaps reasonable for the openers to be sceptical on that occasion. But, in a format where all sorts of risks need to be taken, lending the middle order that trust is just another one that might be necessary. Because Rizwan and Babar batting together might be a beautiful sight to behold, but when they are setting a target, it can also be a worrying one.

Pakistan have a poor World Cup record, but she feels they are well prepared ahead of their opener against India

Firdose Moonda11-Feb-20231:16

Fatima Sana: I look up to Ellyse Perry and follow her

“If you are a Pakistan [contracted] player, then you have everything. But if you are not a Pakistan player, you don’t have as much. You only have normal things like school cricket, college cricket and that’s it.”That’s how Fatima Sana described the disparity between the professional and the aspiring in Pakistan’s women cricket, which is only set to get bigger as the women’s game enters the big-money franchise era.On Monday, the WPL auction will be held in Mumbai, with the expectation that it will change the women’s game financially and perceptively. And Pakistan will have their noses pressed against the windows when 105 players at this T20 World Cup go under the hammer, none of them in their squad.Related

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Tensions between India and Pakistan mean that, just like the IPL, no Pakistan players will be part of the WPL. If that isn’t enough of a cold shoulder, the Women’s PSL which was due to be played in March, has been postponed to September thus delaying Pakistan’s own opportunity to enjoy a local franchise tournament. The FICA women’s global employment report, released earlier this week, labelled Pakistan women’s cricket “fledgling professional,” with “limited coverage and funding,” and said “fundamental changes are required to create a recognised pathway for female cricketers in Pakistan to make a viable living out of playing professional cricket.”Those changes are actually happening in fast-forward in India, where the WPL is confirmed as the wealthiest women’s league around, and may be worth more than even some men’s leagues. That may not be such a big deal to Pakistan if they could simply ignore the whole thing, but they won’t be able to. Their first opposition in the tournament is India, who they take on 24 hours before the auction, and who will know the Pakistan match is their last opportunity to impress for a big pay cheque.Given all that and Pakistan’s poor World Cup record – they have won only a quarter of their 28 matches and never made it out of the first round – are they feeling a little undone? Not according to Sana. “We’ve prepared ourselves best because we played against the best side, Australia, before the World Cup so that will help us,” she said.Fatima Sana: “In Pakistan, the [cricket] structure is not as good as Australia’s”•PCBPakistan played three ODIs and two T20Is in Australia [the third T20I was rained out] and lost all of them by big margins in the build-up to this World Cup but the results did not concern Sana. “When you play against the best team, you will learn a lot of things. It’s a great chance for us to become a top four team.”For Sana, the learning came from meeting her hero, Ellyse Perry, who she has idolised since childhood and played against once before, but was too nervous to approach. “When I was 11, I first saw Perry and I saw her bowling the last over in a match against England or New Zealand and I thought I will follow her and look up everything to do with her. After that, she became the best allrounder in the world, so that motivated me,” Sana said. “At the last World Cup, I saw her only, I didn’t say anything. Now when I was against Australia, I asked a lot of things about cricket.”The knowledge-exchange wasn’t what Sana enjoyed most about meeting Perry. “The best thing is that I was bowling and she was batting and that was everything for me. I was trying to get her out and next time I will do it.”If the next time comes at this World Cup, it will have to be in the semi-finals at the earliest, since Pakistan and Australia are in different groups. As much as the romantics among us would like this scenario to play out, the realists will caution against imagining it and secretly maybe Sana would say the same. When asked about whether she was concerned about the growing gap between cricket’s haves and have nots, she conceded that “they have a good structure in Australia where they support Under-19, Under-16 and Under-15 teams. In Pakistan, the structure is not as good as Australia’s.”What Pakistan lacks in their structures, they make up for in talent and Sana is one example of that. She began playing cricket in the street with her brothers, who encouraged her to develop her bowling. She was also able to play a range of other sports and competed in the national athletics championships at Under-19 level. She explained that she only really had that opportunity because she grew up in a city, where access is easier than some of Pakistan’s smaller towns or more rural areas. “In Karachi and Lahore, we have lots of girls playing cricket but we need places like Multan and other places [to also develop players]. There are girls who want to play cricket in those areas but they need an opportunity.”That’s a well-worn trope, especially in women’s cricket, but as the WPL auction looms large over this week, it remains as true as ever.

The numbers that mattered as a high-scoring thriller between RCB and CSK went down to the last over

Sampath Bandarupalli18-Apr-202333 The number of sixes hit in the match between Royal Challengers Bangalore and Chennai Super Kings, the joint highest in an IPL game. This has happened twice before, with CSK involved in both the previous games: RCB vs CSK in 2018 in Bengaluru, and Rajasthan Royals vs CSK in 2020 in Sharjah.Related

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444 Total runs scored by RCB and CSK at in Bengaluru on Monday – the sixth highest aggregate for an IPL match and the highest in Bengaluru. The most runs scored in an IPL match at this venue before this was 425 during last week’s contest between RCB and Lucknow Super Giants.226 for 6 CSK’s total in this match was their third highest in the IPL. Their highest score in the league is 246 for 5 against Royals in 2010, while their second highest is 240 for 5 against Kings XI Punjab (now Punjab Kings) in 2008.ESPNcricinfo Ltd226 CSK’s total was also the highest by a visiting team in Bengaluru, surpassing Kolkata Knight Riders’ 222 on the opening night of the IPL in 2008. It is also the third highest score conceded by RCB.17 Sixes hit by CSK in their innings, their joint most in an IPL match. They have hit 17 sixes on three occasions previously, including twice against RCB in 2018 and 2022.15 The number of sixes Shivam Dube has hit against RCB in 105 balls across three innings. Dube has scored 193 runs at a strike rate of 183.8 and an average of 96.5 against his former franchise. At the same time, he averages 20.29 against the other IPL franchises.RCB – Shivam Dube’s favourite opponents•ESPNcricinfo Ltd75 for 2 RCB’s powerplay score in this match was their second highest in the IPL. Their highest powerplay total is 79 for 1 against Kochi Tuskers Kerala in 2011.36 The number of runs Faf du Plessis’ reprieve by MS Dhoni in the second over of the chase cost CSK. Du Plessis was dropped on 0 off the second ball he faced. He finished with 62 off 33 balls. According to ESPNcricinfo’s Luck Index, the other batters would have scored 26 off 31 had the catch been taken.

Australia icon looks to broaden her horizons during transformative stint at WPL

Vishal Dikshit14-Mar-20232:47

Healy: I like to lead from within the group and empower players

Captain Alyssa Healy gathered her UP Warriorz team-mates one day in the team hotel and asked each one of them to write down their answer to the question: “What do I want to get out of this season?” whether on or off the field. Many overseas players wrote about learning the Indian culture, someone wrote about enjoying every moment of the WPL, one about sharing her experiences and another about learning from the seniors, and so on.The objective of this exercise was break the ice between the players, get them to trust each other, and form a well-knit unit, and not just a squad of 16. Even though Healy does not take the credit for this – it was suggested by the team owner Jinisha Sharma – she says “it was a little tough initially” for them to get together and form relationships quickly, because the squad didn’t have much time to know one another between the T20 World Cup, which ended on February 26 in South Africa, and the WPL, which began on March 4 in Mumbai.Now that the team has been together for two weeks and a few games, Healy is unflinchingly working towards her own objective for the WPL: to get the most out of the Indian domestic players.

These players are amazing and it’s not about us, it’s almost about them and helping grow the sport hereHealy on the young Indian players within the UP squad

“I feel like sometimes we forget that this is the WPL, and this is the Indian league and we’re the foreigners coming in to play a part and play a role and do our job,” Healy told ESPNcricinfo. “But this is more so about growing the game in India and seeing these young, amazing Indian players get a chance on a big stage to show everyone what they can do. I think sometimes the international players come in and sort of overshadow that fact.”There’s a lot of talk about all the international players making all the runs and taking all the wickets, but what the UP Warriorz in particular have as a strength is we’ve got some really good Indian players within our squad that are really going to shine at the right times, and our job as international players is to complement that and do our job where we can.”Warriorz have won only two of their first four games, but they can boast a line-up that covers most bases, if not all. They have the fastest bowler in the world, Shabnim Ismail, who has already bowled 127.5kmh; their spin duo of Sophie Ecclestone and Deepti Sharma has picked 13 wickets together with economy rates of 7.03 and 8.20 respectively in a high-scoring tournament; Grace Harris is a belligerent finisher, and Tahlia McGrath has struck two half-centuries already, with an overall strike-rate of nearly 160.Alyssa Healy has been leading from the front for UP•BCCIIt is the Indian names, however, that Healy wants to focus on. Twenty-eight-year-old hard-hitting batter Kiran Navgire, allrounder Devika Vaidya who is now opening the batting for them with the captain, middle-order batter Simran Shaikh, and Under-19 star Shweta Sehrawat, who opened initially but has been moved down the order now.”A Deepti Sharma, a Raja [Rajeshwari Gayakwad]…everybody knows them already, they’ve played for India, but there’s players like Devika, to come in and do what she did [making 36 not out in a ten-wicket win against RCB] and just remind everyone that these players are amazing and it’s not about us, it’s almost about them and helping grow the sport here,” Healy elaborated further. “I’ve been trying to communicate that to them and that’s where the trust is being formed, that I’m here for them, I’m here to promote them, I’m not here to promote myself and give myself the best opportunities to go out there and make runs or take wickets. I want them to do that and them to be really proud of themselves at the end of the tournament.”Healy has, after all, already played nearly 250 international games for Australia, plus all eight seasons of the WBBL (including two titles), and she also featured in the last season of the Hundred as well, for Northern Superchargers. She will be 33 later this month, and with the kind of maturity that often comes with age, exposure and experiences, Healy wants to give back to the game, even if it means to players of another team, who have been coming close to beating Australia in recent finals.”A big thing is that cricket is such a small part of our lives and at the end of the day it’s not everything in our lives either, and we sort of forget that, we get wrapped up in how important cricket is and it’s the be-all and end-all,” Healy explained. “But at the end of the day, you’re going to retire and you have your whole life ahead of you so if you can learn some skills or learn how to be a well-rounded person in your cricketing career, I think that’s going to be beneficial for the rest of your lives, so an exercise like that (about achieving something from WPL) is really exciting for the group to think, ‘ok, what do I want to get out of the WPL?’Meg Lanning, Beth Mooney, Harmanpreet Kaur, Smriti Mandhana, and Healy unveil the WPL trophy•BCCI”It’s not just about runs and wickets and being the best player in the competition. A lot of them have written out there that they want to dive in and experience our culture and get to know me, and for me, mine is like to dive in and experience the Indian culture a little bit more and get to know some of these girls and their families outside of cricket, and things like that. Making a commitment and putting it on a board means that you’re accountable for that and you walk in there every day and say, ‘am I living that?’ So that was a big push from Jinisha [Sharma, the owner], which I was really excited by, because it’s sort of one of my life mottos as well.”According to Lisa Sthalekar, the Warriorz mentor, Healy went to Deepti, the vice-captain after joining the squad to say, “I’m here to help you, this is your side, you’re from UP, I’m the outsider, let me help you guide this team, because you’ll be in this team for as long as you want whereas I’m here for a small amount of time.” Sthalekar has known Healy for well more than a decade from her domestic cricket days and was Healy’s team-mate in each of her three debuts in international cricket, back in 2010 and 2011. She says Healy has always been about the bigger picture “for as long as I can remember”.Related

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“People may love her or hate her, she does polarise people, but one thing is that she’s always seen the game broader than just her own experience in that one moment,” Sthalekar said. “A prime example is that T20 World Cup [final in 2020] at the MCG. She could have had blinkers to the World Cup final thinking ‘it’s in my home country, we are expected to win, we only just got into the final’. But what does she and all the rest of the players do? They open the blinkers up and go, ‘this is actually bigger than us. This is about past players, it’s about volunteers, it’s about women’s sport in this country’. She took all of that on and went, ‘I’m just going to live this moment and enjoy it,’ and she had a smile from ball one, even before she hit a four, and then just soaked it up.”Healy took India down in that 2020 final with a momentous and brutal 75 off 39 that gave Australia an 85-run victory. Exactly three years later, she is now leading a side full of Indians – some experienced and many raw – to share her experiences with them, to groom and chaperone them, and prepare them for the big stage where she has lifted many a trophy.

It’s a natural cycle for all teams except that the high number of injuries has made it more challenging for India

Sidharth Monga10-Jul-20232:18

Can India’s inexperienced quicks master the Caribbean challenge?

India’s pace attack on the Test tour of the West Indies carries a total experience of 88 Test wickets between them; Mohammed Siraj, the leader of the pack, has 52. The last time India played a whole Test series without a single fast bowler with 100 wickets was against West Indies in 2013-14 at home where fast bowling didn’t really matter that much.For a series in conditions where you need at least three fast bowlers, you need to go to the current coach Rahul Dravid’s playing days: the 2011 tour of the West Indies. All it has taken to get such a raw attack is for one bowler, Mohammed Shami, to be rested. India seem to have moved on from Ishant Sharma. We don’t know if, how much, or how effectively Jasprit Bumrah will play Test cricket. Umesh Yadav is either injured or dropped, but he is anyway on the wrong side of 35.This has not happened all of a sudden but this is the point where the realisation is right in the face: the great Indian Test team is in transition. Great as the spinners are, especially with their added contribution with the bat, India have had great spinners operating in tandem before. What really set this team apart from other Indian teams was the unprecedented availability of at least three fit, experienced and high-pace fast bowlers at any given point of time.Related

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India’s scarcely believable, freakish series win in Australia in 2020-21 seems to have spoilt the Indian fan, media and even the board. That’s probably why India’s defeat in the World Test Championship final – the final, mind you – was casually called a disaster or a debacle. India were up against the only team in Test history to feature four bowlers with 200 or more wickets, a side which could afford to rest one of them because of the impending Ashes. In conditions that favoured fast bowling so much that India didn’t even play R Ashwin.India might not have a title to show for it, but they have dominated Test cricket as much as is possible in an era where most international sides are equally professional. They have lost just three home Tests in ten years, won consecutive Test series in Australia, drawn one in England, and come agonisingly close to winning one in South Africa. They have made both of the WTC finals despite a freakish number of injuries since the start of that Australia tour in 2020-21.Expectations, though, need to be tempered now. Amid the euphoria of the World Cup win in 2011 and the bold assertion of the BCCI in cricket politics and economy, it was almost forgotten what a weak pace attack India had in 2011, which led to eight straight Test defeats in England and Australia. If not such drastic reversals, we should be prepared for at least a downturn of some degree from this team in transition.Yashasvi Jaiswal is set to make his Test debut in the Caribbean•ICC via Getty ImagesAnd don’t get swayed by their failure to qualify for the ODI World Cup, West Indies are a potent threat at home. They have beaten England in successive home series, drawn with Sri Lanka and Pakistan, but have been dominated by India and South Africa.West Indies’ pace attack has only got better since they lost to India in 2019. Kemar Roach is among the top-five wicket-takers for West Indies, Shannon Gabriel is headed towards the top ten, the allrounder Jason Holder averages under 30 with the ball, and Alzarri Joseph is nearing his prime.Although historically Rosseau and Port of Spain are not known to be so, if West Indies can somehow create surfaces that take India’s spinners out of the equation, don’t be surprised if the visitors are in trouble in the series.It is not just a bowling transition for India. The future of the team’s leadership, you would assume, depends on how the World Cup goes, which means the captain and the coach can’t quite formulate longer-term plans yet.The selectors, who have to maintain some sort of continuity, seem to have started playing their shots. They seem to be mindful they don’t want to be blooding two or three rookie batters all at the same time. That’s why Yashasvi Jaiswal is all set to replace Cheteshwar Pujara at No. 3. Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma and Ajinkya Rahane are closer to the end of their careers than the middle.This is a natural cycle for all teams except that the unexpectedly high number of injuries has made it more challenging for India. There are injuries and age in the bowling department, uncertainties around batters and captains, and the game-changing wicketkeeper is indefinitely out after his car crash at the turn of this year.The situation is not too different from when India went to the West Indies in 2011. They rested Zaheer Khan, and suddenly they had an inexperienced attack. The initial replacements either didn’t have express pace or lacked supreme fitness. It took about four years of rebuild and the introduction of a freakish generational talent in Bumrah for India to reach a level where they compete in almost all conditions in the world.There are two more important away tours at the end of this year (South Africa) and the next (Australia) on which hinge India’s chances of making it to the WTC final. India will have done extremely well if the expectations remain high by the end of this cycle.

The former offspinner talks about his career, coaching, and how his England team would have fared against the Bazball side

Vithushan Ehantharajah23-Nov-2023It is coming up to ten years since Graeme Swann called time on a distinguished England career. Yet even with a CV that boasts three Ashes victories, including in Australia in 2010-11 (a success which led to England’s No. 1 Test ranking), a Test victory in India in 2012 and a T20 World Cup, there is one great regret.”I wish I got a hundred, that’s something that really annoys me,” he reveals. The highest score of “only” 85 against South Africa in December 2009 grates the offspinner who did manage four first-class centuries.”I look back now and think, ‘Why didn’t you just have that extra five minutes here and there in the nets?’ Why not listen to the little devil on your left shoulder rather than the one on your right that said, ‘Just bat through until tea’ rather than ‘Imagine hitting this bowler for six right now’? I always listened to that idiot.”I still dream about cricket. I take slip catches in my sleep. I’m always fielding or batting in my dreams – never bowling. Which probably tells me something – that I was a very frustrated batsman.”At this point, I offer a different perspective. Perhaps Swann does not think about bowling because, well, what more was there to achieve? In the land of the living, 255 Test dismissals put him seventh on England’s all-time list, second behind Derek Underwood’s 297 as the country’s most productive spinner, at an average of 29.96. Impressive numbers through performances that elevated him as one of the best fingerspinners of his era.Related

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“Yes, maybe,” replies Swann. “I get your point, 100%. You know, I’ve never really delved into the dream world. But now I do, and you’re absolutely right.”It was on the eve of the Ashes Boxing Day Test in 2013 that Swann called it quits after 60 Tests. A nerve issue in his right elbow, which had been under the knife earlier that year, meant he had lost the feeling in his fingers. With the urn gone after the three matches, he decided that was that.England eventually succumbed to a 5-0 whitewash, amplifying the sentiment Swann had deserted his team-mates. It was the only time he felt mischaracterised by the media. “But there’s no point holding grudges,” he says, phlegmatically, before joking: “And the one guy I’ve got a grudge against, one day I’ll push him in the sea.”That the third Test in Perth was his last game of cricket underlines the terminal nature of the injury. Nevertheless, stepping away altogether was tough. “You keep thinking – could I have waited? Could I have seen if my elbow got better? And then I’d see England playing again and get massive pangs of jealousy.”I’ll be honest, I still get it now. I think it’ll help when Jimmy Anderson breaks a hip or something by the time he goes. But seeing your mate still doing it and being on the outside, it is hard. It’s not enjoyable. I’d love to be a grey-haired, wily old spinner playing for England like him. I don’t think I could have kept my fitness up, to be fair.”That’s life. I was dealt an amazing hand for five years, if I bemoan the end of it, it’ll take away from how amazing those five years were.”

“Being able to get involved and hopefully do something for the good of the team and English cricket, it gets me out of bed with a skip in the morning”

England still have not got over Swann. Beyond the wickets was a level of control, particularly in the first half of matches, which allowed Andy Flower’s chart-topping team to operate with him as one of a four-man attack alongside three quicks.It is a balance England have not replicated since. Since Swann’s retirement, debuts have been handed to ten spinners – 12 if you broaden the criteria to include Will Jacks and Liam Livingstone, both selected in Pakistan last winter to pitch in with the slow-bowling load.Moeen Ali has come closest to stabilising an XI in the manner that Swann did, while Jack Leach has developed a similar attacking verve as the designated Bazball spinner. But it speaks of a lack of depth that Moeen reversed his retirement last summer when Leach was ruled out of the Ashes with a stress fracture. And with Moeen now back in Test retirement, options for the upcoming five-match series in India are looking light on the ground.Swann was integral to success in 2012-13, with 20 wickets at 24.75 as part of a dual-spin threat with Monty Panesar (17 at 26.82) to secure England’s first win in India since 1984-85. Now, as they look to repeat history against the No. 1 side in the world, he has a different part to play.The 44-year-old is currently out in the UAE with the England Lions, working with the eight spinners among the 20-man squad as an ECB spin consultant, a role he fulfilled last winter. This time around, there is an onus on ensuring potential bolters can deal with being thrust into the bright lights of a Test series in India.Swann appeals for Rahul Dravid’s wicket in his first over of Test cricket, Chennai, December 2008•Anthony Devlin/PA Photos/Getty ImagesLancashire left-arm spinner Tom Hartley and Sussex’s Jack Carson, an offspinner with Swann-like traits, could receive maiden Test call-ups. With the Lions due to tour alongside the Test series with red-ball matches against India A, others could play themselves into contention. Brendon McCullum and managing director Rob Key will drop in for a portion of the training camp to gauge what options there are before picking their squad for the series.Thus, players having such ready access to Swann is a boost. And high on the list of frequently asked questions is what Test cricket is actually like.”A lot of them are just worried about what it’s like in Test cricket; do you have to bowl magic balls or do anything different? You actually don’t – the pressure of Test cricket is felt by the batsmen, just as much, if not more than the bowler.”I was exactly the same back in the day. I thought you had to be absolutely better than you’ve ever been every time you bowl in Test cricket. You actually don’t. You have to be yourself and be very consistent. That’s probably what I try to get over the most – they’ve all got the balls in their locker to take wickets in Test cricket already.”Much of what Swann imparts is on the mental side. Performance director Mo Bobat noted how beneficial it had been for all players to tap into his tactical nous. It was a characteristic that was perhaps lost in his enthusiastic, at times class-clown persona, but was a vital part of the whole package, underpinning his skills, and a reason why he would often pick up wickets early in his spells. Notably in the first over on Test debut in Chennai back in December 2008 when he picked up both Gautam Gambhir and Rahul Dravid.

“I still dream about cricket. I take slip catches in my sleep. I’m always fielding or batting in my dreams – never bowling. Which probably tells me something – that I was a very frustrated batsman”

“It comes with experience and age, which these lads haven’t got at the minute. But I definitely think as a bowler, you should know how to get a guy out as he’s walking to the crease, just by the way he holds his bat, the way his pads are on…”Pads?”Oh you can gauge so much. If his back knee is dirty, he’s a sweeper. If the bottom of his pads are loose, they tend to be light-footed and like going down the wicket. If they’ve got a very heavy grip, they’re more likely to be a bat-pad candidate. If they grip it very high up, they’re going to look to hit you over the top. Things like that.”You can pick up all these little clues before you’ve even bowled a ball. You don’t want to be giving him ten balls to work him out. If you’re trying to settle into a spell, you miss out on the best opportunity to get them out. You should have worked him out before he even gets to the crease.”All of this was developed over time. Beyond a solitary ODI cap in January 2000 in South Africa, where he irked head coach Duncan Fletcher enough to not feature again under his tenure, Swann’s introduction to Test cricket came at the age of 29.Made at Wantage Road, then refined at Trent Bridge after moving from Northamptonshire to Nottinghamshire, ability grew with maturity. While the county career arc of moving from a smaller county to a Test match ground is nothing out of the ordinary, Swann feels modern domestic spinners lack the opportunity and guidance he was afforded.On still missing playing cricket: “Seeing your mate [James Anderson] still doing it and being on the outside, it is hard. I don’t think I could have kept my fitness up”•Philip Brown/Getty Images”A lot of these spinners when they play [for England], they are 21-22. I was very lucky in the end the way my career panned out. By that stage you’ve got so much more knowledge and experience under your belt that it’s a lot easier to adapt.”I had brilliant captains. Growing up in Northampton on dust bowls, we always had attacking fields. Then Chris Read and Stephen Fleming at Notts just left me to do it myself, provided I could justify why I wanted fields for a positive reason.”I think that’s what Ben Stokes does and why he is getting so much out of Jack [Leach]. You do have to try and take wickets every ball, you can’t just be that guy who lands it on the spot and waits for a mistake.”Swann hopes Stokes’ influence will ensure more captains take a punt on their spinners, particularly earlier in the season when the convention is to leave them out. He also appreciates his job as a consultant means he must use his contact time with the young spinners wisely.That he is even coaching at all is a change of tack. “I didn’t ever think I’d enjoy coaching, or get as much out of it,” he says. He regards himself as a freelancer, balancing work with the ECB and Trent Rockets men under his former coach, Andy Flower, with commentary gigs.He expects news on whether he has made the cut to commentate on the Test tour of India will come at the last minute, which could eat into his availability for the Lions. But it is clear the pull of moulding the next generation of English cricketers – maybe even finding the next Graeme Swann – has a unique appeal. Even a sense of duty.

“As a bowler, you should know how to get a guy out as he’s walking to the crease, just by the way he holds his bat, the way his pads are on”

“I enjoy the commentary, it’s great. But like Rob Key said when he started doing the [ECB managing director] job, whatever you say on TV, it doesn’t actually affect anything. It’s just your opinion.”Being able to get involved and hopefully do something for the good of the team and English cricket, that’s a different feeling altogether. It gets me out of bed with a skip in the morning rather than dragging myself out, moping after the dog in the park.”Nothing gets close to playing, I can tell you that. But that happens; you play and experience the best years of your life and I was lucky to be in a very successful England team for a few years. When I look at it, I still think we’d beat any England team. Even the Bazball one – we’d beat them. I don’t mind going at five an over if I get five-fer, it’s like playing against Pakistan!”But you’re always chasing, you’re always trying to get that feeling back. If you’re born into cricket, and raised playing cricket, you just want to be involved. After a while, you’re itching to get back out there. And I’ve loved every minute of it so far.”

For a while, Bazball was on show, and then the spinners came in, and then Jaiswal took it up a notch

Alagappan Muthu25-Jan-2024At the stroke of 30 minutes at the crease, Yashasvi Jaiswal jogged across for a single.He wouldn’t have known it in that moment but he had just become personally responsible for two of the four fastest fifties India have ever recorded as a team in Test cricket.A wave of applause swept the ground, made slightly eerie by how some of it seemed to be coming out of loudspeakers at the ground. There were 21,000 people here. They didn’t need amplifying.Related

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Jaiswal struck the first ball of the innings for four and the first ball of spin for six. Ben Stokes had taken a gamble by having a debutant open the bowling. It backfired to the extent that in the UK, Simon Kerrigan, who was thrown into an Ashes Test match only to be mauled for 6.62 an over and never seen in Test cricket ever again, began trending.Tom Hartley’s day (9-0-63-0) made it clear that spinners aren’t guaranteed success even if conditions are in their favour. They have to put it in the right spot.India, themselves, needed a little time to come to terms with that.

****

The forward defensive in a cricket match is like the blue in the sky. It’s everywhere.England have recently been doing something to make it rare and for a little while they were having success here too.R Ashwin was bowling to a fresh-to-the-crease, battling-with-something-in-his-eye Jonny Bairstow with three men on the leg side boundary.Rohit Sharma was asking his best fielder Ravindra Jadeja to go as far back at point as he has ever gone in the first session of a Test match. The run-rate was hovering around five after the first 10 overs.Jonny Bairstow is bowled by Axar Patel•BCCIBazball had pushed India back.So India made Bazball come forward. And defend. Because the forward defensive on a spinning pitch is like a freshman at a college party. It can be a bit awkward.Ben Duckett played for spin and got lbw. Jonny Bairstow played for the straight ball and got bowled. Both times India dragged the batters onto the front foot but prevented them any other luxury. They couldn’t get to the pitch to smother the turn. They didn’t have room to free the arms. The stumps were in play so they couldn’t hit across the line without taking a risk. They also didn’t stray on the pads so the flick for single wasn’t on. And of course, no one could quite tell which way it was going to turn.None of this had anything to do with the pitch. It was just discipline taken to a whole other level.Ashwin and Axar Patel, in particular, were able to hold this in-between length for long enough that it triggered two England collapses, 3 for 5 and 3 for 16.

****

Hartley, Jack Leach and Rehan Ahmed all turn the ball into the left-hander. And only one of them has Test match experience of any consequence. So when they tried to bowl full and bring India forward, they went too full, and India could come forward with glorious abandon.Jaiswal seems to pick up an opportunity to attack quicker than most others. It was almost predatory the way he went after a spin bowling attack that was one part solid and two parts hope. Almost similar deliveries were being dispatched with a slog sweep over midwicket and with inside-out drives through cover. And as if that wasn’t enough, he began charging at them too.England might just be able to match India’s batting in this series but the difference in the quality of the bowling was stark. Hartley really had no one to lean on like Axar did when he come on to bowl.”[Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja] come and tell me, this is what is happening from this part of the wicket, and that becomes a plus point and I am aware of what I need to do,” Axar said. “We keep having these conversations during matches. I have a lot of fun bowling with them. They’ve been playing for so many years, so it’s a plus point.”It almost felt unfair.

Middle-order implosion after dismissals of Babar and Rizwan sets off familiar cycle of recrimination

Matt Roller30-May-2024You knew it was coming, didn’t you?Pakistan have spent 2024 kidding themselves – but just about nobody else – that they would break up the most prolific opening partnership in T20 international history. For their first 13 matches of the year, Mohammad Rizwan and Babar Azam took it in turns to slide down to No. 3, giving Saim Ayub – and, briefly, Haseebullah Khan – opportunities to open the batting.But at The Oval, they made the change that was nothing short of inevitable. Ayub was one of the players of the tournament at last year’s Caribbean Premier League but, one game before the T20 World Cup, he was dropped. His 12 T20I innings this year have brought him 163 runs at just 13.58 and his last four opening stands with Rizwan were worth 7, 6, 16 and 0.Related

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It meant a return for the pair who have scored more heavily than any other in this format: Rizwan and Babar, reunited at the top of the order. It is impossible to question the volume of runs they have scored together: they are the only opening partnership with more than 2000 T20I runs, with an average stand of 49.18. They have put on 100 or more eight times; nobody else has managed more than four.Yet they have always managed to split opinion in Pakistan, and you can be certain that they will do so once again when they arrive in the United States this weekend. For the most part, they are immensely popular: there is even a Wikipedia sub-entry for “RizBar fandom”. It is their scoring rate as a partnership – 7.98 runs per over – which invites regular criticism.They have become even more restrained at T20 World Cups: Babar’s strike rate in his two World Cups is 114.47, while Rizwan’s is exactly 120. For every partnership like the unbroken 152 to beat India by 10 wickets, there has been a stand of 71 in 10 overs in an under-par total in the 2021 semi-final defeat to Australia.This was the sort of innings that both players might see as justification for their tendency to lean towards cautiousness. Pakistan resolved to play with a more attacking template after their defeat to Ireland earlier this month, and scored at more than 10 runs per over in consecutive run chases to win that series 2-1.But they have long preferred chasing to batting first, and this was a performance which highlighted why. Rizwan and Babar made an uncharacteristically fast start against some hostile new-ball bowling: Mark Wood hit 96mph/154kph and Jofra Archer passed 90mph/145kph, but both conceded early boundaries. When Babar failed to capitalise on Archer’s width, he threw his head back in frustration.Azam Khan was bounced out by Mark Wood•Getty ImagesAnd when Jos Buttler threw the ball to Moeen Ali for the fifth over, as though dangling a carrot, Babar bit it clean off the string: he charged down to the first ball of offspin he faced, lofting Moeen into the lower tier of the pavilion. Rizwan shimmied around in his crease, looking to unsettle the bowler, and dabbed delicately past short third.After Babar slapped Archer through the off side for back-to-back boundaries, Pakistan were 59 for 0 with a ball left in the Powerplay – their highest opening stand of the year, and the highest since this pair were first broken up. So when Babar steered the final ball of the sixth over – Archer’s legcutter – straight to short third, it did not take much foresight to work out what would happen next.Rizwan fell four balls later, clean bowled by a ball that didn’t spin from Adil Rashid, and Pakistan’s middle order subsided. Usman Khan, restored at No. 3, was the only man to make an impact, hitting three fours and two sixes in his 21-ball 38. The rest fell away against Rashid and Wood, with Azam Khan’s five-ball duck – which culminated in gloving behind a bouncer, via his shoulder – the lowlight.When Haris Rauf was run out off the penultimate ball of the innings, Pakistan had been bowled out for the second match in a row and had turned 59 for 0 into 157 all out. No wonder Rizwan and Babar prefer to do the hard work themselves, if that is all the middle order behind them can muster. It is a classic case of self-perpetuation.Rizwan and Babar bat deep, which means the middle order rarely get the chance to face many balls; when they do, their dearth of recent opportunities means they underperform. That, in turn, means that Rizwan and Babar feel the need to get things done themselves; and the middle order’s opportunities are limited once again. What came first, the chicken or the egg?And so, Pakistan head to the World Cup with the same old opening pair and the same old problems. Over the next four weeks, they will probably beat a team they shouldn’t. They will probably lose to a team they should beat. They will probably end up making it to the Super Eights, and probably even to the semi-finals. This is another season of the same show.It is still possible that Rizwan will take the gloves back too, reprising his role from the last two T20 World Cups. Azam had a shocker in the field, dropping a pair of straightforward chances: the first a top edge off Phil Salt, the second a regulation outside edge from Will Jacks. Next time somebody describes Pakistan as “unpredictable”, don’t listen: in T20 cricket, there is an inevitability about this team. Dread it, run from it, Rizbar arrives all the same.

Be it batting, bowling or captaincy, not much has gone to plan this season for the traditional IPL powerhouse

S Sudarshanan16-May-20245:11

Making sense of Mumbai Indians’ summer of discontent

Coming into IPL 2024, Mumbai Indians (MI) had some of the very best India players available to them. There was Rohit Sharma, India’s captain, at the top. They had the No. 1 T20I batter in world cricket, Suryakumar Yadav, although he did miss MI’s first three games owing to fitness issues. In the bowling department they had a fully fit Jasprit Bumrah, who had missed the previous IPL due to injury. And, to cap it all, MI had also traded back into their books Hardik Pandya, India’s premier seam-bowling allrounder.On the back of that strong Indian core, many would have tipped MI to at least make it to the playoffs this time. But they were the first team to be knocked out of IPL 2024, and the wait for a sixth title now extends to four years – the longest they have gone without a title since their first one in 2013.Even before the tournament started, MI had created a stir by abruptly replacing Rohit as captain with Hardik, a move with which several die-hard MI fans were not too pleased. A few good games might have quickly solved that, but it was not to be. So, what has gone wrong for the team that has traditionally been a powerhouse in the IPL, despite boasting a strong squad, team management, and one of the most robust scouting systems going around?Related

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Hardik’s forgettable homecomingHardik’s first IPL stint with MI – from 2015 to 21 – helped his stocks grow, catapulting him onto the international stage. In 2022, he enhanced his credentials by leading Gujarat Titans (GT) to the IPL trophy in their maiden season, before taking them to a runners-up finish last year. Hardik’s form during those two successful seasons with GT – 833 runs at an average of 37.86 and a strike rate of 133.49, and 11 wickets at an economy of 8.10 – showed he was back to being at his best as an allrounder – and seam-bowling allrounders are always a prized asset in Indian cricket.But Hardik was tested immediately after returning to Mumbai colours. To kick off this season, he was incessantly booed in Ahmedabad when he led MI against his former side, GT, and MI started their season with a loss. The heckling did not stop in his second outing either, when MI played an away game against Sunrisers Hyderabad. And if Hardik expected any respite in front of his home crowd in Mumbai, he was in for a nasty surprise, as he was jeered during MI’s first home game this season.And as the tournament wore on, Hardik’s shortcomings on the field became hard to ignore. Across the first 13 matches, he batted at all positions from Nos. 4 to 7, and had been dismissed trying to hit out before getting set on several occasions. With the ball, Hardik picked up 11 wickets in these games, but at an economy rate close to 11.Has Hardik Pandya, the bowler, been trying too hard to impress?•AFP/Getty ImagesReturning to action after five months out due to an ankle injury he suffered during the ODI World Cup last October, Hardik bowled his full quota of four overs five times in IPL 2024; something he had done only six times across the previous two seasons. This time, Hardik often took the new ball ahead of Bumrah, and among those who have bowled at least nine overs in the powerplay so far this season, only Naveen-ul-Haq, Mitchell Starc and Gerald Coetzee have a worse economy in the phase than Hardik’s 10.55.Some of Hardik’s captaincy calls have also come under the scanner: like holding back Bumrah when SRH were blazing away to a record score, sending Tim David ahead of himself when MI needed 40 runs off 26 balls in their opening match, bowling the last over against Chennai Super Kings only for MS Dhoni to hit him for 20 off four balls, or even throwing Tilak Varma under the bus after a narrow defeat to Delhi Capitals. Pictures of bowlers running to Rohit or Bumrah to consult on field positions, and of a largely reclusive Hardik, when being taken for runs or during wicket celebrations, did not help either.Rohit’s up-and-down seasonThe idea behind the captaincy switch, as explained by head coach Mark Boucher, was to free up Rohit, the batter, after two underwhelming seasons for MI.11:32

Runorder: Captaincy aside, what’s gone wrong for Mumbai this season?

It seemed to have been working for MI after Rohit got off to blazing starts in the first few games. Thanks to him, MI had the second best run rate (10.66) in the powerplay in their first six games. Whether it be left-arm seam, right-arm pace or spin, Rohit was treating the bowlers with disdain, using sweeps, reverse-sweeps and scoops among other shots. In fact, only twice in his IPL career had Rohit scored more off his first 12 balls than the 26 he did in Hyderabad: 37 in April 2015, and 27 in May 2015.Rohit even hit his second IPL century – his first since 2012 – in MI’s loss against CSK, but his form has tapered off since – he averages 8.66 with a strike rate of 88.13 in his last six outings. He was dismissed inside the powerplay in only two of the first seven innings, but has only managed to play out the first six overs in only one game since. Rohit’s loss of form means his overall strike rate of 145.42 – his career best in the IPL – has been reduced to a mere footnote.MI’s bowling woesThink of MI’s overseas bowlers in each of their title-winning seasons: Mitchell Johnson (2013), Lasith Malinga (2013, 2015, 2017 and 2019), Mitchell McClenaghan (2015 and 2017), and Trent Boult (2020). All of them complemented the Indian bowling contingent in MI’s success stories. Once Jason Behrendorff – who picked up 23 wickets last year – was ruled out of this season, MI’s bowling resources took a hit. All of Coetzee, Luke Wood, Kwena Maphaka (a teenager who only rose to prominence in the Under-19 World Cup earlier in the year) and Nuwan Thushara were playing their first IPL, and couldn’t take on the mantle of second seamer behind Bumrah.MI’s collective economy of 10.04 in the first six matches was the worst for any team in IPL 2024. They also had the third-worst average (35.72) in that period, even though they had picked up 33 wickets. Despite that, Bumrah was a class apart in those games with an economy of 6.08 and ten wickets (average 14.60). Coetzee was MI’s next best bowler with nine wickets until then, but conceded runs at over ten an over. Getting Bumrah back this season should have lifted MI’s bowling performance, but they faltered and let teams post tall scores, including SRH’s record-breaking 277.Where has Kumar Kartikeya disappeared to?•BCCIA part of this was also down to the absence of a reliable spinner in their ranks. It took time for MI to back their premier spinner Piyush Chawla, who has been their second-most economical bowler since their seventh outing. MI played Shreyas Gopal and Shams Mulani, and also used the offspin of Mohammad Nabi with little effect, before continuing with Chawla, who has picked up ten wickets in IPL 2024.Their reluctance to try Kumar Kartikeya, who had played eight games and returned five wickets last season, is confounding. He bowls wristspin as well as fingerspin, and picked up eight wickets at an average of 11.87 and an economy of 5.58 in the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy 2023, India’s domestic T20 tournament. Kartikeya was regularly among the first at MI’s optional trainings this season, but has failed to make the XI 13 games in.Fluctuating batting fortunesTill their fifth match on April 11, MI’s run rate (10.11) was only marginally less than Kolkata Knight Riders’ (10.45). But since their loss to CSK – their fourth defeat in six matches – MI have been the third-slowest team in the powerplay. They have lost 25 wickets in the first six overs, the second-most for a team this season.Rohit’s form, as already touched upon, has been patchy, and his opening partner Ishan Kishan’s returns have been poor. In MI’s first six matches this season, Kishan and Rohit added four fifty-plus partnerships, including 101 vs Royal Challengers Bengaluru. But in five of the next six games, they did not cross 35.Like his team’s, Ishan Kishan’s season has been forgettable•AFP/Getty ImagesSuryakumar, after being declared fit, returned to hit three fifties and a century in ten innings. But Tim David and Romario Shepherd’s inconsistency, coupled with Hardik’s own poor returns, has meant MI have lacked a reliable finisher.”T20 cricket is about momentum, but we didn’t get that momentum right from the beginning,” Chawla said after the loss against KKR at Eden Gardens. “Sometimes we bowl well and then we end up not batting that well. Likewise, sometimes we bat well and the bowling is not [up to the mark]. It’s not just that we are lacking in one department. As a unit, we have failed in a few games. These things happen, and we have to accept that fact.”MI do have a few positives from the season: Akash Madhwal’s spell against Rajasthan Royals, a couple of 40s from Nehal Wadhera after getting a late look-in, Anshul Kamboj’s debut, and Tilak’s consistency are some of them. But, given how this season has played out, the MI team management is probably glad they have the chance to start afresh at the mega-auction ahead of the next season.