An opener making a comeback against the odds galvanised his partner as Bangladesh put on their first century stand for the first wicket since December 2022

Mohammad Isam29-Apr-2025A century stand between Bangladesh’s openers was a long-forgotten promise in Test cricket. Opening pairs have come thick and fast, and, since their milestone Test series win in Pakistan last year, had contributed very little to their team’s totals. The selectors have gone through many options and have scratched their heads over the lack of candidates in domestic cricket.They had, however, ignored one batter for a long time. Anamul Haque isn’t perhaps the most obvious choice given the enigmatic international career he’s had since his debut in 2012. He has been a domestic giant, however, piling up numbers that most openers in the country have struggled to match, even those who have played for Bangladesh in recent years. He is the leading run-getter among openers in the 2024-25 domestic first-class season, and he remains an outstanding performer even if you put together runs from all formats.There are, however, complications surrounding Anamul’s name. Many consider him to be too flashy on social media. He also led a players’ revolt against the owners of his BPL team after they stopped paying the players. Anamul and a few other players also then posed with cash when some payments were finally made.There’s the more legitimate question mark of Anamul’s inconsistency at the highest level, of course, but that can be placed against many of his peers in and around the Bangladesh side too.Bangladesh’s recent struggles to find a strong opening pair in Test cricket can be summed up by the fact that the 118 that Anamul and Shadman Islam put on against Zimbabwe in Chattogram was their first century stand for the first wicket since December 2022. Of the 33 opening stands in between, only two even crossed the half-century mark.Shadman then went on to score 120. It was the first century from a Bangladesh opener since Zakir Hasan’s 100 against India in December 2022, also in Chattogram.Anamul himself made a nominal contribution in Bangladesh’s scorecard on the second day of this Chattogram Test. He made a bigger impact than the scorecard would suggest, though. Anamul batted with a smidgen more positivity than Bangladesh’s recent openers have done. He was a little troubled by short balls in the early stages, but also adjusted quickly to playing the Zimbabwe quicks off the back foot. Anamul was also alert to the possibility of the quick single, which was definitely a distinction between him and Mahmudul Hasan Joy, who tends to rely a lot on hitting boundaries in his strong areas.Anamul’s approach rubbed off on Shadman too. He scored exacly twice what Anamul did (39) during their 118-run stand. In recent Tests, Shadman had tended to get stuck early in his innings, but looked far more assured here, every time he looked for runs. His off-side strokeplay was notable for the ease with which he found the gaps, and his straight-driving easy on the eye. Shadman too found regular ones and twos, especially with Zimbabwe stacking their slip cordon against both openers.Shadman Islam scored his second Test hundred•MUNIR UZ ZAMAN/AFP via GettyShadman’s freewheeling batting continued after Anamul’s departure, as he added 76 for the second wicket with Mominul Haque. It was the best Bangladesh’s top-order batting had looked in several months.”I didn’t change anything [as an opener],” Shadman said after the day’s play. “I usually play according to the merit of the ball. I don’t really go out with a lot of plans in my mind. As openers we stuck to our plan. I think we didn’t get a big partnership for a long time but we can make things better in the future.”I felt [Anamul Haque] Bijoy was comfortable in his stay. He didn’t really struggle in the middle. He was connecting the ball quite well. He is a very experienced cricketer. He is always scoring runs. He provided a good start. He was looking good, but he was unfortunate to get out.”That Anamul was playing at all was a bit of a surprise. It wasn’t because Anamul wasn’t scoring runs in domestic cricket. On the contrary, he is the second highest run-getter in Bangladesh in all formats since his last Test three years ago, with 4962 runs at an average of 43.91, with 13 centuries – a hugely significant number from a Bangladesh perspective, with the next-best on that list having scored only eight in that time.Seven of Anamul’s centuries have come in an extraordinary 2024-25 season, which has brought him 2146 runs at 51.09.It’s usually extremely difficult for a Bangladeshi cricketer dropped from the national team, particularly if they are beyond a certain age, to make a comeback. At 32, Anamul had shown the hunger to score runs day in and day out at the domestic level, and made himself impossible to ignore. While Bangladesh were losing the first Test in Sylhet, Anamul was scoring back-to-back hundreds for Gazi Group in the Dhaka Premier Division, virtually forcing the selectors to recall him.Bangladesh aren’t known for giving players a long rope, however, so having made it back, Anamul will know he’ll have to keep scoring runs to keep hold of his hard-won slot.

The teams have built a rivalry that’s given the IPL some of its strangest finishes and most replayed highlights

Varun Shetty02-May-2025Openers and Ashwin drub RCB
IPL 2011, final, ChepaukThe only final between these two teams was one-sided. CSK’s openers Michael Hussey (63 off 45) and M Vijay (95 off 52) took them to 205. Chris Gayle was the one threat to the total, but MS Dhoni bowled R Ashwin to him first up, and the ploy worked. RCB’s innings never took off and they lost by 58 runs. CSK lifted the trophy for the second straight year.CSK celebrate their title win in 2011•Associated PressMorkel takes Kohli down
IPL 2012, ChepaukCSK needed 43 off two overs when, lacking options, RCB captain Daniel Vettori chucked the ball to Virat Kohli for the 19th. Albie Morkel smashed him for 4, 6, 4, 6, 2, 6 to leave 15 to win off the 20th. Vinay Kumar dismissed Morkel, but after a couple of Dwayne Bravo blows, it came down to three to win off the last ball. Ravindra Jadeja edged Vinay Kumar for a boundary to complete the heist.RP Singh blows it
IPL 2013, ChepaukKohli had begun to celebrate when Ravindra Jadeja edged the final ball, bowled by RP Singh, straight to deep third only to see that the umpire had called a front-foot no ball. CSK needed two off the final ball and managed to run one while the ball was in the air, giving them the win. Singh had 16 to defend in the final over and came back strong after Jadeja took 10 off the first two. But he overstepped on the final ball to leave Kohli fuming.Ravindra Jadeja completes the winning run while umpire Anil Chaudhary signals a no-ball•BCCIRCB survive Dhoni epic
IPL 2019, ChinnaswamyChasing 162, CSK sunk to 28 for 4 in 5.5 overs. Dhoni steadied the ship even as more wickets fell around him. He began his acceleration in the 16th over and, in typical Dhoni style, took it to the last over. CSK needed 26 off Umesh Yadav. Dhoni went 4, 6, 6, 2, 6 to leave two to get off one. But he missed the last ball, and Parthiv Patel hit the stumps direct from behind to give RCB the win. Dhoni finished with 84* off 42 balls.RCB’s biggest moment
IPL 2024, ChinnaswamyCSK weren’t winning the game, but with Dhoni at the crease, playoff qualification prospects were alive with 17 needed in the final over. Dhoni had already smashed a massive six off the first ball, but Dayal’s back-of-the-hand slower one had him caught next ball. The magic seemed to leave with him. With 10 needed off 2 balls to qualify, the stage was still set for a CSK heist. But Dayal held his nerve against Jadeja. The win completed RCB’s remarkable six-match winning streak and sealed their place in the playoffs.

More than a test of his ability, the five-match series will be a test of Jaiswal’s adaptability

Sidharth Monga16-Jun-20250:58

Chopra: ‘I will back Jaiswal to do well in England’

Open trials are a wonderfully democratic notion. A place where you can bypass the need for local loyalties and connections. Especially when said trials are being conducted by an IPL team. However, in reality you have a short window of time to impress while facing bowlers you most certainly have not seen before, or heard of even.Most players are invited to trials on word-of-mouth recommendations from local rumour mills that get excited seeing young talent. One such boy at the DY Patil Stadium in Navi Mumbai was then 16-year-old Yashasvi Jaiswal, yet to have played for the Mumbai senior side. His journey to the trials was astounding: leaving home, a village in Uttar Pradesh, at the age of 10 to live alone in big, bad Mumbai, starting out lodging in a tent at Azad Maidan.Nobody cares for such stories at these trials or any selection. You do so much yet you are still just one of hundreds who have turned up, hoping to catch the eye of a scout or a coach. The first ball Jaiswal faced in the nets, he moved across and ramped. This audacity, this courage, struck a chord with the Rajasthan Royals (RR).Related

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There’s nothing to say Jaiswal wouldn’t have made it through the traditional route of playing for his state side – after all, he had made it this far doing the same, and would go on to play for India Under-19 before turning 17 – but this is how it transpired. RR happen to be an anomalous T20 franchise that is format agnostic at their High Performance Centre in Talegaon in Maharashtra. It might not be all philanthropy. They realise kids in India don’t grow up playing a lot of T20 and come with little understanding of the format. So it is better to eliminate errors and have kids expand their games holistically rather than focus on a format they don’t yet know the grammar of.In Jaiswal, RR struck gold. His hunger and drive were comparable to the greats of the game. The courage was evident in his audacious journey from Bhadohi to Bombay. This level of ambition and RR’s investment in him were a match made in batting heaven. RR’s High Performance Centre is led by former Mumbai opener Zubin Bharucha, whose technique and understanding of the game is highly regarded by no less than Sunil Gavaskar. They went about dismantling Jaiswal’s game and then putting it back together.Yashasvi Jaiswal lived in the groundsman’s tent in Azad Maidan while training•Satyabrata Tripathy/Hindustan Times/Getty ImagesWhen Jaiswal played for India Under-19, former Test captain Rahul Dravid was in charge of India’s development squads. Even if he didn’t tour with every Under-19 or A team, he was the one who established the structure and oversaw the feeder systems to India’s senior teams. He remembers Jaiswal as exceptionally talented but someone who needed improvement to do well at senior levels. He was not in the league of, say, Rohit Sharma or Virat Kohli before him.When Jaiswal made it as a standby batter for India’s squad for the final of the 2023 World Test Championship, Dravid was the head coach. He saw a much-improved batter. “Some of the practice pitches leading into the Test match were really spicy,” Dravid tells ESPNcricinfo. “It had been raining, and they were not well prepared. And he was willing to go out there and bat against whoever. Side-armers, [Mohammed] Shami or [Mohammed] Siraj or whoever. He just wanted to bat in those conditions, which for me and our other coaches was, ‘Wow, he wants to learn, he wants to improve. He wants to get better.’ From the time that I saw him at Under-19 to then, just his range of shots had improved.”Those who saw Jaiswal and Bharucha work in the intervening years talk of an obsessive streak. There were days when Jaiswal played 300 reverse sweeps to a variety of deliveries: different angles, height of release, pace, length, line. Any shot that needed work was met with similar dedication. There were days when they would practise just the sequencing of reverse sweep, orthodox sweep and the single down the ground. Or just the side-arm replicating bouncers at extreme pace from different angles. Often he left the nets with bloodied palms.Rahul Dravid was wowed by Yashasvi Jaiswal’s hunger to get better•AFP/Getty ImagesJaiswal was still a relatively blank slate so they could work on developing his ability to play shots to where fielders weren’t, and did so relatively safely. The idea was to face a variety of angles and deliveries in a single session. Sometimes he would face close to 100 overs of throwdowns and over-arm deliveries in a day.Skill was only part of it. This is a challenge to the notion that India has so many people playing cricket that they should automatically dominate the world. Amid such high competition, only the most desperate make it, but they also tend to be those who have had a hard childhood, which results in their desperation to succeed in the first place. In Jaiswal’s case, the RR medical team found that his body had been deprived of nutrients most kids his age should grow up with.It is again a testament to Jaiswal’s determination that he has kind of caught up when it once looked impossible. Only deeper into his career will we know how well he has progressed. Jaiswal became extremely diligent about nutrition, more deliberate in how he trained and worked out, realising this could be the difference between a good innings and a big innings, or 50 Tests and 100 Tests.If anything, Jaiswal might be a little too absorbed by his game. Those who have observed him describe him as a maverick, but one who can at times get caught up in his own head. While it is what gives him laser focus, it has the potential to ruffle those around him. That aspect of his personality is also something he has had to work on.Yashasvi Jaiswal celebrated a hundred on Test debut•Associated PressBy the time Jaiswal made his Test debut, his hunger for big innings was apparent. The West Indies attack wasn’t great in Dominica but they were disciplined on a slow pitch and slower outfield. The hosts had been bowled out for 150 so there was time in the game and Jaiswal made sure he nailed this opportunity. He went into stumps on 40 off 73, but completely shut shop the next morning when Jason Holder and Kemar Roach tested him. He added just seven in nearly an hour and ended up with 171 on debut.When conditions and match situations called for it, Jaiswal dominated England in only his third series, charging James Anderson, scoring two double-centuries, hitting 32 sixes. This ability to adapt his game to the demands of the conditions and the match situation is what most impressed Dravid, who exists between tolerating the notion of natural games and appreciating those who play the situation.”They’re all an ability to say I want to score runs, I like scoring runs, I know how to score runs and I’ll do whatever it takes to score runs,” Dravid says. “Sometimes bat aggressively, sometimes bat defensively, sometimes play from middle stump, sometimes play from outside leg stump. That’s a really good trait.”4:19

Jaiswal ‘the greatest news’ to come for India in Australia

In Australia, on tracks with excessive seam movement, Jaiswal’s usual set-up on middle stump followed by a shuffle was exploited by Mitchell Starc to get him on middle and leg. Jaiswal was quick to correct it by starting from outside leg. He was the first Indian batter to walk at the bowlers without compromising on back-foot shots. He was the second highest run-getter in the series, India’s best batter by a distance, and easily the best opener.In a young career of 19 Tests, Jaiswal has 14 fifty-plus scores at strike-rates ranging from 40.38 to 141.17. In a treacherous era for batting, he is averaging 52.88 when the overall average for openers in Tests he has played is 36.42.Jaiswal comes to England as a key member of the Indian Test team. There’s no Kohli or Rohit. Jasprit Bumrah will likely play only three Tests. Along with Rishabh Pant, Jaiswal has the most accomplished record among India’s Test batters.If England stick to playing Bazball, the pitches will be truer than the one we saw in the World Test Championship final. Such surfaces will call for Jaiswal to capitalise on starts and go big. If it seams, he will need to perhaps counterattack and respond to England’s methods. Conditions can vary a lot with the weather in England. More than a test of his ability, this tour will be a test of Jaiswal’s adaptability. And he’s shown plenty of ability to adapt already.

The people that matter have seen Shubman Gill grow as a leader over the past two years. Now, he must prove them right

Sidharth Monga24-May-20257:44

Chopra: Gill as Test captain an ‘investment of faith’

When England came to India at the start of 2024, India were looking at the start of a transition. Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli and R Ashwin, all similarly aged, were not going to be around forever. The series started with a defeat, but India rallied to win 4-1. A young man, a promising batter averaging 31 after 20 Tests and playing for his spot in the side, rose to the occasion and scored two centuries.At the end of the series, coach Rahul Dravid told the selectors that he had seen leadership potential in Shubman Gill. Despite being at a sensitive point in his own career, Gill showed the willingness to be involved in planning, took interest in others’ games, and displayed an even temperament. They also saw that he cared for Test cricket. He had yet to captain Gujarat Titans (GT) even. He had not been a captain at the Under-19 level. He had led Punjab in the Ranji Trophy in only one match.In the year-and-a-half since, the selectors have noticed Gill grow as a leader. Working with the astute Ashish Nehra at GT, he has only become more confident and assertive.Related

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There’s never a perfect time for such a leadership change. In hindsight, the selectors should perhaps have appointed Gill as vice-captain during the Bangladesh Tests last year. He would have had an apprenticeship of two home series – New Zealand the other – before going to Australia where Rohit didn’t start because of the birth of his child. Then again, who could have predicted a downfall in Rohit so sharp that he would drop himself during the Australia tour?The one thing that could have been predicted was that Jasprit Bumrah as captain was a risk for Bumrah himself. Being captain requires him to play every Test, which ended up in a breakdown in Australia India don’t want to risk again. Bumrah the bowler is too valuable to be doing that.It could be argued that Gill should not have started his captaincy stint on such a tough tour, but the selectors have been clear about two things. The captain should come from the best XI. That eliminated Rohit. Nor did they want to look back for a stop-gap arrangement in KL Rahul and/or Kohli.Given Bumrah’s fitness issues, it came down to Gill and Rishabh Pant, two of India’s best Test batters in the last five years. It came down to a judgement call. Pant is coming back from a big accident. He has exceeded expectations by playing ten Tests in a row. But the selectors want to be careful with him. His own game is not in a great place either.ESPNcricinfo LtdThat’s an argument that can be made about Gill as well. He averages 35.05 after 32 Tests.This is where you have to trust the selectors beyond just numbers. They see potential and a high ceiling, which Gill has shown in ODIs. Scratch a little beyond the raw numbers, and you see the difficult conditions Gill has batted in. In Tests involving him, the overall average of all top-six batters has been 32.92. So he has been among the better batters in his time.This stage of Indian Test cricket is not too different to 2013, 2014 and 2015. Kohli took over the captaincy with pretty similar pedigree. He was 26, Gill is 25. He had played 29 Tests and averaged 39.46. He had had a horrible tour of England, which he needed to get over. He was an accomplished future ODI all-time great, Gill is an accomplished future ODI all-time great. Kohli had had two seasons as a full-time IPL captain at the time.Kohli had the support of the hype machine in Ravi Shastri, who shielded him when shielding was needed and propped him up when propping up was needed. Kohli’s best years as captain coincided with the Committee of Administrators running the BCCI, which reduced the need for politicking. He also had the blessings of MS Dhoni, who made the transition smooth. Gill will not have these luxuries.On the shoulders of Shubman Gill and Rishabh Pant will rest the immediate future of India’s Test cricket•Associated PressKohli, though, had an uncertain start. He didn’t know if Dhoni, the full-time captain, would play or not. And then Dhoni retired mid-series in Australia. Gill has had a proper induction into the job. He was sounded out at some point during the IPL after which has had meetings with the selectors practically as the captain of the team. They see clarity of thought in what he wants for Indian cricket and how he intends to go about it.Now it is up to Gill to chart his own path. He has to decide whether India continue playing the bob-each-way cricket they played in Australia or if they revert to chasing 20 wickets as cheaply as possible. He has to decide whether he continues to bat at No. 3 or whether he takes the No. 4 position that has belonged to the best batter of the side for the best part of more than the last three decades. More importantly, he needs to score big runs, which nobody can do for him.Kohli scored four hundreds on that Australia tour in 2014-15, which established his authority as the captain. Gill can get help with captaincy, but he has to score his runs.These are challenging times, but these are also exciting times. Both for Indian cricket and Gill.

India’s last five wickets added just 31 runs, after a similar collapse in the first innings, to keep England in the hunt

Matt Roller23-Jun-2025

Josh Tongue took three wickets in one over•Getty Images

Josh Tongue was nonplussed by Ben Stokes’ “rabbit pie” celebration, but his demolition of India’s lower order has kept England’s hopes alive at Headingley. Tongue took 4 for 7 to wrap up the first innings and then struck three times in four balls on day four, living up to his nickname of “the mop”, given to him by his Nottinghamshire team-mate Ben Duckett after repeatedly cleaning up tailenders at county level.Tongue admitted before the third day’s play that he had been unaware why Stokes had celebrated his first-innings dismissal of Prasidh Krishna by mimicking eating until he saw a tweet by Stuart Broad which explained he was “eating rabbit pie”. He has twice knocked over India’s tail in Leeds to emerge with match figures of 7 for 158.England have repeatedly struggled to finish teams off under Stokes’ captaincy: since he took over three years ago, only Pakistan have a worse record when bowling for the last three wickets. In the reverse series 18 months ago, India’s lower order regularly frustrated England, with three eighth-wicket partnerships between 75 and 80.Related

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But Tongue’s pace, height and beyond-perpendicular action have proved a lethal combination in Leeds, with India twice collapsing from positions of strength. He found himself on a hat-trick on Monday evening after Shardul Thakur and Mohammed Siraj were caught behind the wicket, and while Jasprit Bumrah kept his first ball out, he chopped his second onto middle stump.India’s Nos. 8-11 have managed just nine runs between them in the match, despite the selection of Thakur as a bowling allrounder. Thakur was the first of Tongue’s three victims in the second innings after nicking off to Stokes in the first, and has so far played a bit-part role in the match after bowling six wicketless overs for 38.”We felt like if we got to their lower order quickly, we could get through them,” Tongue said. “I don’t mind bowling at the tail: you’ve got a good opportunity to take wickets. All I tried to do was to hit the pitch hard. I felt like I got more out of the pitch when I did that; I thought when I went that tad fuller, it was nicer for the batters to get on the front foot and drive me.”

Tongue missed the whole of the 2024 summer through injury, and said that he was proud to have returned to Test cricket after a long period on the sidelines. England have long admired his ability to bowl at speeds approaching 90mph/145kph on a consistent basis, and to nip the ball in off the seam, and his success against the tail has relied on those qualities.He also joked that he would adopt Duckett’s nickname for him. “I’ve done it twice now, so I might have to start calling myself that [the mop],” Tongue said. “When they were batting, it flattened out, and it was quite hard work in the wind. We stuck to our task, trying to hit the pitch as hard as we could to get something out of it, and thankfully, we got the wickets.”KL Rahul, whose dismissal for 137 was the first wicket of a collapse of 6 for 33, said that India “wanted at least 40 or 50 runs more” than they managed. “I don’t look at it as the lower order being from a different squad: they’re still from our squad, they’re still trying their best,” he said. “Everyone’s putting in a lot of work in the nets, and sometimes it doesn’t happen.1:32

Draw off the table? – Tongue and Rahul on day five possibilties

“Before the series, the chat as a group was how could we get 350 and 400 runs every time we go out to bat? The positive is that we’ve been able to do that… Yes, there’s learnings, and a few of the batters, if they can come good, that 350 can become 450 and 500, and that’s ideally what a batting group would want. But we’ll take the runs that we’ve got in this innings.”The total lack of contribution from India’s tail was further laid bare by England’s partnerships of 49 (Harry Brook and Chris Woakes) and 55 (Woakes and Brydon Carse) for the seventh and eighth wickets in their first innings, both at better than a run a ball. Where England’s last five wickets added 189, India’s have managed to put on 24 and 31.Ollie Pope said on Sunday evening that England’s lower-order runs had struck a psychological blow. “[A lead of] 40 or 50, just from a mindset, might have given them a little bit more confidence, knowing that they’ve got that headstart almost; playing the game from an even playing field is quite important.”But more significantly, they ensured that the fourth-innings target did not grow out of control: instead, after Ben Duckett and Zak Crawley saw off the final half hour, England require 350 in 90 overs on the final day at a venue when four of the last six Tests have seen successful fourth-innings chases of 250 or more.

And how rare is it for a batter to be dismissed for 99 and 0 as Harry Brook was?

Steven Lynch01-Jul-2025India lost the first Test against England despite having five individual centurions. Has this ever happened before? asked Krishna Saha from Bangladesh, and many others

India’s feat of losing the first Test against England at Headingley last week is not only unique in Test cricket, it has never happened before in more than 63,000 matches in all first-class cricket.There was only one previous case of a team scoring four centuries in a Test but losing. This was by Australia in a timeless match against England in Melbourne in 1928-29. That included 112 from Don Bradman, his maiden century, in his second Test.There have been 11 further instances of a team scoring three individual hundreds in a Test but losing.Rishabh Pant scored two centuries in the first Test in England. How many wicketkeepers have done this in Tests? asked Mark McKenzie from Scotland

That stunning double of 134 and 118 by Rishabh Pant in the first Test against England at Headingley last week was only the second time anyone has scored twin centuries in a Test match in which he was also the designated wicketkeeper.The other one was Zimbabwe’s Andy Flower, with 142 and 199 not out against South Africa in Harare in 2001.Pant was the seventh man to score two centuries in a Test for India (Sunil Gavaskar achieved the feat three times, and Rahul Dravid twice), but the first to do it against England. The only other player to score two centuries in a Test at Headingley was Shai Hope of West Indies in 2017. Jonny Bairstow (against India at Edgbaston in 2022) and Kumar Sangakkara (twice) also achieved the feat, but not in matches in which they kept wicket.Harry Brook scored 99 and 0 in the first Test. How rare is this? asked Orlando Coelho from India

The England batter Harry Brook followed up his 99 in the first innings at Headingley last week with a first-ball duck in the second. He’s only the fifth man to be out for 99 and 0 in the same Test, following Pankaj Roy (India against Australia in Delhi in 1959), Mushtaq Mohammad (Pakistan vs England in Karachi in 1973), Misbah-ul-Haq (Pakistan vs West Indies in Bridgetown in 2017) and Babar Azam (Pakistan vs Australia in Abu Dhabi in 2018).Two other men have made 0 and 99 not out in the same Test: Geoffrey Boycott for England against Australia in Perth in 1979, and Andrew Hall for South Africa vs England at Headingley in 2003.Only four other batters before Harry Brook have been dismissed for 99 and 0 in the same Test•Getty ImagesIndia’s first-innings 471 at Headingley included three individual centurions. Was this the lowest total to include three hundreds (and three ducks!)? asked Sandeep Koparde from India

You’re right that India’s 471 at Headingley last week was the lowest completed Test innings to contain three individual centuries. The previous mark was South Africa’s 475 against England in Centurion in 2016 (Stephen Cook 115 on debut, Hashim Amla 109 and Quinton de Kock 129 not out). Australia’s 494 all out against England at Headingley in 1926 also contained three individual centuries, as did West Indies’ 497 against India in Kolkata late in 2002.Leaving aside the all-out stipulation, the lowest Test total to include three hundreds is South Africa’s 393 for 3 declared against England at Lord’s in 2008.The highest Test total to include three dismissals for ducks is Afghanistan’s 699 against Zimbabwe in Bulawayo in 2024. There were also three individual centuries (two of them over 200).I heard that Dilip Doshi once had figures of 8-7-1-1 in a one-day game in England but was dropped for the next match. Is this correct? asked Rahman Ashwini from India

Remarkably, it is true. Dilip Doshi, the left-arm spinner who sadly died last week aged 77, was playing for Nottinghamshire in 1977. He conceded only a single in his eight overs as Northamptonshire were skittled for 43 in their Sunday League game at Wantage Road in June.Their next match in the competition was against Kent at Canterbury a fortnight later. Doshi recounted in his entertaining autobiography Spin Punch: “I changed at around 12.30 for the two o’clock start, but was informed ‘Thank you, but Kenny Watson is playing in this one.’ I was aghast. After all, I had won them the last match. Kent players such as Derek Underwood could hardly believe this.”The explanation seems to be that Nottinghamshire had three overseas players on their books – Doshi, the South African allrounder Clive Rice, and Watson, another seamer from South Africa – and only two could play in any game. According to Doshi, “Rice felt there was no place for the slow bowler in limited-overs cricket, and he sold this idea to the cricket committee.”Doshi was a late starter in Test cricket, mainly because the left-arm spinner role in the Indian team was held down for many years by Bishan Singh Bedi. Doshi finally got a chance in 1979-80, when he was nearly 32. He still finished with 114 Test wickets: at the time he was only the second bowler (after Australia’s Clarrie Grimmett) to make it to 100 after making his debut when over 30. They have since been joined by Saeed Ajmal (Pakistan), Ryan Harris (Australia), Mohammad Rafique (Bangladesh) and Bruce Yardley (Australia).Shiva Jayaraman of ESPNcricinfo’s stats team helped with some of the above answers.Use our feedback form, or the Ask Steven Facebook page to ask your stats and trivia questions

England beat NZ in a rain-affected T20I series, but all the talk remains about the upcoming Ashes. Andrew McGlashan joins Alan Gardner and Andrew Miller with the latest from down under

ESPNcricinfo staff24-Oct-2025England clinched their T20I series against New Zealand 1-0 after another washout in Auckland, with attention now turning to the ODIs – and the Ashes campaign beyond. On this week’s pod, Alan Gardner was joined by Andrew Miller and Andrew McGlashan to discuss the development of Harry Brook’s T20 side as well as the latest news from Australia, including an update on Pat Cummins’ fitness and Marnus Labuschagne pushing for a Test return.