R Ashwin has taken fewer deliveries than any other spinner to take 200 Test wickets. That and more numbers on his landmark

Shiva Jayaraman25-Sep-2016 37 Number of matches R Ashwin has taken to complete 200 wickets in Tests. He is the second-quickest bowler ever to the landmark after Australia’s Clarrie Grimmett who took 36 Tests. Muttiah Muralitharan is the next quickest offspinner to 200 Test wickets, having taken 42 Tests. 9 Number of fewer Tests Ashwin has played to take 200 wickets than the previous quickest India bowler. Harbhajan Singh had taken 46 matches to reach the milestone.

Quickest India bowlers to 200 Test wickets

Bowler MatsR Ashwin 37Harbhajan Singh 46Anil Kumble 47Bhagwath Chandrasekhar 48Kapil Dev 50Bishen Bedi 51Javagal Srinath 54Zaheer Khan 63Ishant Sharma 65 10,291 Deliveries Ashwin has bowled so far in Tests – the least by any spinner at the end of the Test in which he took his 200th wicket. Stuart MacGill had finished with exactly 200 wickets in his 41st Test by the end of which he had sent down 10,511 deliveries – nearly 37 overs more than what Ashwin has bowled. Among India bowlers, Kapil Dev had bowled 11,066 balls – 129 overs more than Ashwin – by the end of the Test in which he took his 200th wicket.

Least deliveries for 200 Test wickets by spinners*

Bowler Team Balls WktsR Ashwin IND 10291 200Stuart MacGill AUS 10511 200Graeme Swann ENG 12259 206Nathan Lyon AUS 12419 204Shane Warne AUS 12470 201*At the end of the Test in which the bowler took 200 wickets 9 Number of India bowlers to take at least 200 wickets in Tests. Ashwin is the fifth spinner among them to the milestone. His average of 25.12 is currently the best among the 19 India bowlers who have taken at least 100 Test wickets. 20.58 Ashwin’s bowling average in Tests in Asia – the second best among the 25 bowlers who have taken at least 100 wickets in Asia. Only Imran Khan’s average of 20.28 is better – marginally – than Ashwin’s. Ashwin has taken 159 wickets at a strike rate of 44.0, which too is the second best for any bowler with at least 100 wickets in Tests in Asia. Only Waqar Younis’s strike rate of 38.20 is better than Ashwin’s. Shane Warne is the next best spinner in terms of strike rate in Asia. He is a distant second with a wicket every 52.6 deliveries. 18.86 Ashwin’s bowling average in Tests since 2015 – the best for any bowler with at least 50 wickets during this period. His strike rate of 38.6 is only marginally lower than Mitchell Starc’s, who, at 38.2, has struck most frequently among bowlers with at least 50 wickets during this period. Ashwin’s strike rate while taking 62 wickets in Tests in 2015 was a staggering 36.4: there are only three other instances – all by fast bowlers – when a bowler has taken at least 50 Test wickets in a calendar year at a better strike rate. 51.40 Ashwin’s strike rate – the best among 32 spinners to take 150 or more wickets in Tests. Among those with at least 100 wickets, only Johnny Briggs and Colin Blythe – who bowled on unprepared pitches around the turn of the 20th century – have struck more frequently.

Barbados is celebrating the 50th anniversary of its independence. Is this selection of Bajan players from over the years better than most Test teams?

ESPNcricinfo staff30-Nov-2016

Visually impaired commentator Dean du Plessis talks about how he fell for the game, his phone conversations with Dave Houghton, and life behind the microphone

Dean du Plessis19-Nov-2016The year was 1991 and I was just another self-conscious teenager. Skinny. Pimples. Railroad tracks across my teeth. Although I was a blind boy attending a blind school, there were some partially sighted girls and word was that they were pretty.Ensconced in my bedroom at boarding school in Worcester, South Africa, I scanned through the radio stations, looking for something to occupy my mind. Suddenly my ears were assaulted by a cacophony of sounds. South Africa were playing an ODI in India after being readmitted to international cricket.I had heard the names of some of the South Africans – Kepler Wessels, Allan Donald, Jimmy Cook. But I didn’t even know what a six was. Although my older brother Gary was a good cricketer back home in Zimbabwe, and I had heard people talking about the game, it didn’t really mean anything to me. How could I picture it when I had never seen it?A week later, I was back home for the holidays. Gary and my parents picked me up from the airport. The whole way home from Harare to Kadoma, a two-hour journey, I asked them questions about the game. My dad and Gary were bewildered as to where this interest in cricket had come from, but they supplied the answers that became the building blocks of my passion. I started soaking up facts and names like a sponge, listening intently to debates about the differing merits of Donald and Eddo Brandes.By the end of the holidays I had a firm grasp on the game, and my excitement was peaking because I knew there would be commentary of Currie Cup matches on the radio when I got back to South Africa.The following year the World Cup came around, and Zimbabwe beat England, with Brandes bowling our old export Graeme Hick for a duck. I was totally hooked.When Zimbabwe were suddenly given Test status later that year, and lined up a Test against India, I figured there was only one way that I would be able to follow it. For weeks before the game, I saved my pocket money and converted it into coins. I knew the telephone number for the call box at the Red Lion, a pub at Harare Sports Club, and when the Test got underway, I started calling it to find out the score. Sometimes someone would answer, but they weren’t always that friendly.In the end I reverted to calling Radio One in Zimbabwe, where people were friendly but didn’t necessarily know what was going on. “Maybe you can make sense of this,” they would say. “It says two-seven-five divided by four.” Eventually they knew when it was me calling, because they could hear the coins dropping into the pay phone’s coin box as the call went through. “Yes, is that the guy calling from South Africa?” they would ask.Du Plessis interviews Chris Gayle•Chris du PlessisSoon cricket became an obsession. I managed to obtain Dave Houghton’s home number and started calling him to talk about the game for as long as my allowance would hold out. One day as we were chatting, he heard the “beep beep beep” that warns you the call is about to be dropped because the money has run out. “Quickly,” he said, “what’s your number?” He just managed to jot it down in time and then called me back.The following Sunday, Old Hararians played Alexandra Sports Club, and afterwards everyone was having a beer in the bar. Davie mentioned to my brother what a pleasure it had been talking to me. Gary went home and told my parents, and soon my dad was asking me why I was spending money that was meant for toothpaste and deodorant on phone calls to Houghton. I told him that Davie had called me back, but that just got me into more trouble.I also used to call Eddo, although he never called me back. And at one stage Grant Flower and Alistair Campbell were sharing a flat in town, and I got their number. They were pretty happy to talk, but Houghton is the only person I’ve met whose appetite for discussing cricket exceeded my own. Many years later, after I had become a commentator, the two of us were driving from Harare to Bulawayo for a cricket match. The only break from cricket chatter on the five-hour journey was when we passed through Kadoma, and he said, “Gee, I’m a bit thirsty”, and stopped for a drink.My commentary career came about almost by accident. I had finished school and was back in Zimbabwe in 1999, working on the switchboard for an irrigation company, when Sri Lanka came to visit. I met Ravi Shastri, who was there as a neutral commentator, and was allowed to sit in the commentary box so long as I promised not to make a sound. Eventually some of the commentators started chatting to me and asking for my opinions.Two years later India were back in Zimbabwe, and Shastri interviewed me during one of the tea breaks. Afterwards I was loitering around the press box when I heard a voice that I recognised from my school days in South Africa. It was Neil Manthorp, and I introduced myself. He was doing radio commentary for Cricinfo on the game and asked if I would join him. He ran it by his boss in London, who told him to keep it to 15 minutes. But as it went on, the editor emailed to tell Neil to keep me on for the rest of the slot, and then for the series.Brian Lara has a conversation with du Plessis•Chris du PlessisMy television debut came in 2003 when Mike Haysman persuaded the director to get me on during the second one-day international against West Indies in Bulawayo. Zimbabwe won the game, with Heath Streak and Mark Vermeulen taking them to a six-wicket victory, and the celebrations were extra sweet that night.I was born with tumours behind both retinas, so my eyesight was destroyed before birth. The doctors told my parents that I had three to five months to live. I had my left eye removed when I was three months old, and my right eye came out in 2001, leaving me with two glass eyes.This came in handy during an encounter with Darrell Hair during England’s tour to Zimbabwe in 2004. We had briefly met in Harare, and in Bulawayo we got chatting some more. Zimbabwe had been on the receiving end of several bad decisions from him, so I said, “Darrell, I’ve got something I’d like to give you to help you out.” I took out my right eye and put it in his hand. He went very quiet, then apparently he glowered at me, and then started to smile. Eventually he put his head back and bellowed with laughter. Eventually I had to remind him to please give me my eye back.As remarkable as my story is, I know there are things that only a sighted commentator can do. For example, I can’t analyse the field placements and make suggestions of how they could be changed. But I still feel I have a lot to offer.When I’m wired into the stump microphone, I can generally make out who is bowling from listening to the way that they land and how they grunt, and from that point there are many giveaways as to what has happened. The length of time between the sound of the ball pitching and hitting the bat, the shuffle of the batsman’s feet, and the type of noise that emanates from the bat striking the ball, all give me an idea of what shot has been played. Then the different calls of various batsmen, and the shouts of the fielders or the sound of the crowd, suggest whether the ball has pierced the field and how far it may have gone. So I can follow the game carefully, and along with the facts, figures, scorecards and conversations that I’ve stored in my mind over the years, I can perform a role as an analyst.To date, the only places I’ve travelled for cricket are South Africa and Bangladesh. Opportunities have been a bit short lately, and things in Zimbabwe are not easy. But one day I hope to get out there and see the world.

In the past, Steve O’Keefe has dismissed Kevin Pietersen, Virat Kohli, and many more in first-class cricket. Yet Australia have consistently found reasons not to pick him

Jarrod Kimber in Pune24-Feb-2017″He doesn’t spin it enough”. “He’s a white-ball bowler”. “His best ball isn’t anything special”. “He’s at best a second spinner who bats a little.” “Consistent, but nothing special.” “He needs to grow a foot taller and bowl a doosra”.Steve O’Keefe has heard this kind of talk his whole career. He made his debut in first-class cricket in 2005; he played his second game in 2009. In Australia’s post-Warne era, O’Keefe didn’t spin it enough, he wasn’t a legspinner, and there was nothing x-factor about him. The poor guy was just superb at consistently bowling in the same spot and taking wickets at a lower rate than any other modern spinner.So it looked like his best chance was to grow a foot taller, rip the ball sideways, be more dominant with the bat, and learn to bowl a doosra.The problem was, he found the doosra too difficult, so he just stuck with what worked for him. When he took wickets, he often made the joke he had burgled a few.

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When O’Keefe was named in the Australian touring squad to India, he made a big decision. Part of the Sydney Sixers, who were on their way to the finals of the Big Bash League, he decided – and Cricket Australia agreed – that he should be rested from the tournament. It was a big call at the time, and it became a bigger one when his team played in the Big Bash final.But O’Keefe has been trying to break into the Australian team since his first international game in 2010 when he played a neutral T20I against Pakistan. To become the player he has always wanted to be, he needed to make this big call.Those sacrifices seemed to be working when he played for Manly-Warringah against Campbelltown-Camden and took 9 for 54 off 29.5 overs, and also took the catch of the wicket he didn’t take, in true Richard Hadlee style.That wasn’t the only thing O’Keefe did to prepare. The former teacher has worked with Muttiah Muralitharan and Terry Jenner (who said he bowled blancmanges). But, before this series, he also worked with Monty Panesar, talked to Rangana Herath and Daniel Vettori, before then having Cricket Australia hire Tamil Nadu allrounder Sridharan Sriram as a consultant for this series.It was with Sriram who he bowled in the lunch session on day one. While others have been ignoring him or writing him off, he’s been improving and readying himself.

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Shane Warne was quite open on the cricket this morning; Steve O’Keefe wasn’t his first choice. Mitchell Swepson, the young legspinner was. And even as his second choice, he had Ashton Agar. And really if he had the choice, it’s doubtful Warne would have had O’Keefe as his third or fourth. At one stage, O’Keefe spun a ball, and Warne joked it must have hit a rock. In large part because he isn’t one of Warne’s boys. Not part of the suck-up club, not a legspinner or Victorian, O’Keefe is his own man.When O’Keefe was picked, Warne said he was a “safety option”, and also said, “I think O’Keefe is more of a white-ball specialist. I don’t think he’s a red-ball player. I know he bowls very economically, and he’s a good cricketer but I think he’s a lot better suited to white-ball cricket.” This was what we now call an alternative fact.O’Keefe has 225 wickets in first-class cricket at 23.81. His List A average is over 55. O’Keefe also has a better Shield bowling average than Warne’s and, as of today, better figures in India. O’Keefe must have hit a lot of stones in his career.

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Steve O’Keefe was “steady, consistent and in the right areas,” according to Anil Kumble•AFPWhen O’Keefe finally got his shot in Test cricket, it didn’t go brilliantly; in the heat of Dubai, he bowled 57 overs taking 4 for 219 for the match. It was two years before his next Test, against West Indies in Sydney, and it was rained off.When it comes to bad luck, O’Keefe has been a magnet. After destroying a Sri Lanka XI in a tour game, he then pulled his hamstring when, according to Steven Smith, he was looking like taking a wicket every over. At the start of this Australian summer, he received a finger injury. Before the Adelaide Test against South Africa, he injured his calf. And that doesn’t even include his self-imposed alcohol ban after a drunken incident.And so, for his first full tour, when it was quite clear he was going to be relied upon, he has to turn up in India. The ran a story about the mountain that Nathan Lyon and O’Keefe had to climb before this series. Since 2013, Indian spinners have taken 281 wickets at home, while the visiting spinners have 151. Ashwin, on his own, has 139.O’Keefe might have taken six wickets against India A in 2015, including the wicket of Virat Kohli, but the odds were more stacked towards him adding to the list, or pile, that includes Brad Hogg, Gavin Robertson, Cameron White and Jason Krejza. Australian spinners with little experience sent to India to fail.

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In 2010-11 in Hobart, England XI played Australia A. It was at the height of the ‘Kevin Pietersen struggles against left-arm finger spin’ era. And, in that game, Pietersen received a well-pitched ball around off stump, which straightened and bowled him. It was a handy ball. It wasn’t flashy, just good, and Pietersen was all around it.Because of that ball, and the thought about Pietersen against left-arm spin, Australia picked a left-arm finger spinner for the Gabba Test. They picked Xavier Doherty. O’Keefe had bowled the ball.It seems that even when it is inspired by his own work, the Australian team has looked for reasons not to pick O’Keefe. His era has had players like Michael Beer, Doherty, Agar, and Glenn Maxwell, while O’Keefe has struggled for games with a vastly better record.His first-class stats are remarkable from a distance, but not quite as pretty in close-up. In his career, he has taken more than 30 wickets in a Shield season only once. But that season, 2013-14, he was the Shield’s leading wicket-taker with 41.O’Keefe’s biggest problem seems to have been that he doesn’t bowl much at all. Lyon has had five summers where he has bowled more than 2000 balls, O’Keefe, due to injury and occasionally form, has never had a season where he bowled that many. The year he took 41 wickets was the only season he got close. What that means is that there has never been that huge pressure to pick him.He has two ten-wicket hauls and eight five-wicket hauls in first-class, which is also splendid, and it’s a far better haul record than Lyon has managed. But Lyon got there first. And Lyon has done it in Tests. So while O’Keefe has a first-class average of 14 less than Lyon’s, he has never been seen as a potential replacement, just an occasional supplement. His good record is more a curiosity to cricket nuffies than anything of substantial weight.It’s rare anyone ever demands that O’Keefe is in the team; at most, he gets the question, “with his record, why doesn’t he play more?” That he can bat – his first-class batting average is almost identical to Mitchell Marsh’s – has never swayed anyone significantly. If O’Keefe had this record and was a legspinner, he’d be starring in dandruff ads and inking his first autobiography. Instead, he is a left-arm fingerspinner with five Tests at the age of 32.

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Steve O’Keefe defied the usual doubters with his consistent bowling•AFPWhen O’Keefe opened the bowling, there was concern from many that he was simply doing that job because Smith had seen Kohli do it with Ashwin. Australia were making a grave error, they thought, in not using Josh Hazlewood with the new ball. But Australia had a plan to scuff up one side of the ball early and O’Keefe was the perfect man to do that. When Hazlewood came on with the scuffed ball, he bowled superbly and made the first breakthrough.Just before lunch, Lyon was bowling beautifully, ripping the ball, bowling quickly, and looking like he was about to take a big haul. But he was replaced by O’Keefe, who wasn’t bowling well, who wasn’t creating the chances that Lyon was. Even O’Keefe referred to his bowling before lunch as ordinary.So before the lunch break ended, O’Keefe and Sriram went out on the field early to work on his bowling. His first two overs after the break were fine, but then he changed ends, bowling from the same end as Ravindra Jadeja. His figures at that point were 9-1-30-0.Then his second ball back, KL Rahul ran down the track and tried to end him. Instead, he gave O’Keefe a wicket and himself an injury. It was a significant breakthrough, India were trying to dominate, and the game was about to lurch one way or another.The next ball Ashwin drove towards mid-off for a single. Then a full ball that straightened, Ajinkya Rahane played across it and edged to second slip. Then a dot ball. Then a quick ball just outside off, just slightly straightened, and Saha got an edge. Four overs later, Jayant Yadav launched his front leg at a ball similar to Saha’s, but it turned more, and he dragged his foot, and Wade took the bails off.Later on, Jadeja would decide that O’Keefe had to go, buthe succeeded only in sending himself off the ground, after finding Mitchell Starc in the deep. Big Umesh also felt like he had to hit out, and took a huge swing at a ball to be caught at slip.According to Anil Kumble, O’Keefe had been “steady, consistent and in the right areas”.  And with that simplicity, O’Keefe had six for five from his last 25 balls after changing ends. O’Keefe hadn’t spun it a long way, he wasn’t suddenly taller, there was no doosra, he had a red ball in his hand and he was simply consistent.It’s just that today, it was special, and today, he burgled more than a few. And he did it on the biggest stage on which he’s ever been allowed to play.

Padmakar Shivalkar and Rajinder Goel, who are honoured by the BCCI this week, were so much more than hard-luck stories

V Ramnarayan08-Mar-2017Between Vinoo Mankad and Ravindra Jadeja, India has produced a long line of left-arm spinners who have played Test cricket, but also perhaps an equal number of classy exponents of the craft never to have represented the country.Among the specialist left-arm spinners I have watched or played with and against, the likes of Mumtaz Hussain, Rajinder Singh Hans, Suresh Shastri, B Vijayakrishna, S Vasudevan and Sunil Subramaniam might have fared well internationally had they been selected. Then there were Rajinder Goel and Padmakar Shivalkar, who with their considerable longevity in domestic cricket and innumerable match-winning exploits were in a different league altogether. They would be certainties in any all-time India XI made up of those who missed out during their playing careers.To begin with, Goel and Shivalkar emerged as talented young bowlers at a time when India had a surfeit of quality spinners at the first-class level. Even before the famous quartet became a part of the team, India often fielded three or four spinners, including allrounders, in the playing XI. Around the time Goel made his first-class debut for Patiala, Subhash Gupte, Ghulam Ahmed, Salim Durani, Vinoo Mankad, Chandu Borde, AG Kripal Singh, VV Kumar and Bapu Nadkarni were doing duty for India. For a long while, both Goel and Shivalkar were even overshadowed in their state and zonal teams by the presence of great Test bowlers of similar specialisation.Between them the two stalwart spinners of contrasting styles but comparable mastery over their art took more than 1300 first-class wickets with miserly economy. Goel yielded just 18.58 runs per wicket and Shivalkar just under 20. Why couldn’t they break into the Indian team despite such sterling figures? Quite simply because the man who kept them out, Bishan Bedi, took 1560 first-class wickets, including his 266 Test victims. He was a class act, widely regarded as the best in the business internationally in his time.Goel gets Gundappa Viswanath in the Duleep Trophy final of 1975•Rajinder GoelIt is often said that Goel and Shivalkar were unlucky to have been born when they were, with the world-class Bedi shutting them out permanently from the Indian dressing room – except once, when Goel got close, warming the reserve bench. There are ardent supporters who dismiss the bad-luck theory with scorn, saying the selectors ought to have played Goel and Shivalkar regardless of the Bedi factor, at least in a stop-gap, horses-for-courses capacity occasionally. Did India not go into Test matches with two offspinners in the playing XI, they argue. Erapalli Prasanna and Srinivas Venkataraghavan both always figured in the Test squad of 14 throughout their careers, if you exclude Prasanna’s largely self-imposed exile between 1962 and 1967, and Venkat’s omission for the 1967-68 tour of Australia and New Zealand.Goel, who debuted in his teens in the late 1950s, was something of a late bloomer, to go by his early performances in the Ranji Trophy. When he moved to Delhi, he and the young Bedi often bowled in tandem, Bedi setting hard-to-match bowling records at first-class level just as he did in Test cricket. Goel was rarely far behind, though, and the two, along with offspinner DS Saxena, ran through most opposition line-ups, especially within the North Zone, which included Services and Railways, both Central Zone teams later.If Bedi’s action was described as poetry in motion, Goel’s bore the economy of movement and precision of a master craftsman at work. He began to express himself uninhibitedly in the 1970s, once he moved from the Delhi Ranji side to Haryana. With 637 Ranji Trophy wickets, and 750 first-class wickets overall, he set a well nigh unattainable goal for any bowler after him. He never led Haryana to the Ranji Trophy title, but did bring them close to the final stages of the tournament on a few occasions.Goel was a menace to opposing batsmen in the Duleep Trophy as well, his 7 for 98 and 5 for 36 in a losing cause against South Zone in the 1975 December final was perhaps his finest display in the tournament. In a match dominated by two century-makers, Brijesh Patel of South Zone and Surinder Amarnath of North, the slow bowlers, captain Venkataraghavan, Bhagwath Chandrasekhar and Prasanna, bowled South to a 37-run victory. Sitting in the stands, I enjoyed the rare opportunity of watching Goel’s metronomic accuracy and ability to extract purchase from the wicket with a slightly roundarm style. He was quicker through the air and a delightful contrast to the flight and guile of his fellow left-armer and captain Bedi, who claimed six wickets in the match. Watching Goel demand the utmost respect from batsman after batsman on that sporting Chepauk pitch led you to wonder how devastating he could have been on drying or soft wickets – perhaps as deadly as Derek Underwood if not more so.Shivalkar played in a big match, against international stars, before he broke into the Bombay side•Nitin MajumdarShivalkar’s was an even more poignant story – if we believe that distinguished cricket careers must receive the ultimate stamp of approval of Test-match appearances – considering his fairy-tale beginning in first-class cricket.He found a place in the Cricket Club of India President’s XI in a match at the Brabourne Stadium in March-April 1962 (when he was barely 22) against an International XI led by Richie Benaud on a world tour. The wicket was a batsman’s paradise, the outfield fast as greased lightning, and the visitors’ batting line-up formidable and world-class. The tourists made 518 batting first, but the CCI XI, whose attack included opening bowlers Rajinder Pal and GS Ramchand, as well as spinners Gupte, Sharad Diwadkar, and Shivalkar, the debutant, withstood the onslaught bravely, especially Gupte (4 for 161) and Shivalkar (5 for 129).In the first innings, Australia’s boy wonder Ian Craig put on 208 for the first wicket with Bob Simpson, and Tom Graveney made 95. Shivalkar took the wickets of Craig, Everton Weekes, Raman Subba Row and Benaud. In the second innings he took 2 for 44, bowling Weekes and getting Graveney caught and bowled.Imagine Shivalkar’s frame of mind as he went home after that match. Wouldn’t he have nursed dreams of playing for India after dismissing so many top-class batsmen? Unfortunately he had to wait for many years to break into the Bombay XI even, thanks to the presence in that side of left-arm allrounder Bapu Nadkarni, who continued to serve India well until as late as 1968, along with fellow left-armer Bedi, who was already on the verge of greatness and firmly entrenched in the India XI by then. Shivalkar toured Australia later in 1962 with a CCI side, with some success.Goel was a senior colleague of mine in the State Bank of India team. I had the privilege of sharing the attack with him and legspinner VV Kumar, another fine bowler, in the Moin-ud-Dowlah Gold Cup. Those were the only games in which I was able to watch Goel’s bowling from close quarters.There was much to learn from his focus and control. He was gentle in his ways, had a soft corner for the underdog, and took a keen interest in the careers of younger cricketers like me. He was one of few players I knew who could look beyond their own fortunes to empathise with others. Other State Bank colleagues and I, and fellow inmates of a conditioning camp at Chepauk, struck up a warm, comfortable friendship, with Goel , as we all called him. I remember he never pulled rank on us, though he was eminently qualified to do so.Shivalkar with Prasanna, another of the top-flight spinners who could have been said to have kept him out of the India side•AFPSome years later I visited him in the Chepauk dressing room when he was representing Haryana in a Ranji Trophy match. He had already broken VV Kumar’s record for most wickets in the tournament, perhaps even gone past 500 – I don’t quite remember. When I asked him if he would retire at the end of the season, he quickly replied in the affirmative.” youngsters help .” When I warned him to beware of S Venkataraghavan, still fit and rapidly closing in on his tally of Ranji Trophy wickets, a new look of determination came into his face. He quickly changed his mind about retirement, and the rest is history.Like Goel, Shivalkar was probably past his best when I first met him on a cricket field, but he was still a potent force with his deceptive flight and loop. The first occasion was a historic Ranji Trophy quarter-final match between Hyderabad and Bombay during the 1975-76 season. Batting first, Bombay were all out for 222 on the first day and we took a first-innings lead of 60-odd runs. Shivalkar sent down a marathon 50 overs for figures of 2 for 77. It was a slow surface and he had apparently lost some of his sting of yore, but he was still a slippery customer, with beautiful flight that left the batsman constantly guessing whether to go forward or back.Bombay captain Ashok Mankad and debutant Rahul Mankad counterattacked adventurously, and they declared the second innings with just over three hours of play left. We were bundled out for 146 and Bombay went on to achieve yet another Ranji win, beating Bengal and Bihar in their next two matches. Though legspinner Rakesh Tandon was the wrecker-in-chief in the last innings, taking six wickets, it was Shivalkar (4 for 39) who wove a web of controlled deceit around Hyderabad’s timid batsmen.A year later I met Paddy again at Delhi’s Feroz Shah Kotla, when he bowled brilliantly on a good batting strip to claim ten wickets in the match as Bombay beat Rest of India by an innings in the Irani Trophy. He was at his skilful best.Goel bloomed when he moved to the Haryana side in the 1970s•Rajinder GoelI remember some other Ranji Trophy matches memorable for Shivalkar’s exploits, though I did not witness them firsthand. The first was a semi-final at the Brabourne Stadium that Bombay won by a big margin against Mysore. Shivalkar’s figures in the match were 8 for 19 and 5 for 31. Mysore’s famed batting line-up, which included GR Viswanath and Brijesh Patel, folded for 90 and 111. He followed up with ten wickets in the final, in which Bombay beat Bengal by another big margin.In yet another famous final, the very next season, Paddy had the incredible figures of 8 for 16 and 5 for 18, as Tamil Nadu crashed to defeat in two days and one ball, after their spinners, Venkat and VV Kumar, bundled Bombay out for 151 on the opening day on a wicket tailormade for them. The story of this match tends to be retold every time the act of underpreparing wickets backfires on the host team, as in the recent India-Australia Pune Test match.Goel is a tiny man, while Shivalkar is taller, Both are wiry and weighed next to nothing during their playing careers. Goel’s brisk walk to his delivery stride, his streamlined finish facilitated by his boyish frame and excellent use of the crease, tended to produce a tantalising drift towards the leg stump, after which the ball would land just short of the batsman’s reach – and spit fire on helpful surfaces. Shivalkar had a straighter, more leisurely run-up to the wicket, and a classic high-arm action. Quite possibly the best attribute of their cricket was their utter dependability. With them in the side, their captains only had to worry about their supporting bowlers.Both were tireless, with their smooth actions demanding the minimum of effort – or so it seemed. Yet it was their unstinting work in the nets that made their seeming effortlessness in match situations possible.If a comparison must be made between them, it must be to state that there was hardly anything to differentiate them, except the possibility that with his flight and subtle variations, Shivalkar posed a more attractive proposition on good wickets, with Goel perhaps more destructive on crumbling surfaces. Those who know of his parallel career on stage will, of course, tell you that Shivalkar is the better singer of the two.

Double-strikes, double-drops, and triple-strikes feature in the plays of the day from the second T20I between Sri Lanka and Bangladesh at the Khettarama

Andrew Fidel Fernando in Colombo06-Apr-2017The slower-ball salvo
Lasith Malinga is the only bowler to have claimed three ODI hat-tricks. So, perhaps, it is only fitting he should have one in the format for which he is most famed. It has been a while since he was at his fastest, or his fittest, but what he lacked for firepower, he made up for in wiles. Mushfiqur Rahim was first to be dismissed – bowled by an offcutter that evaded his slog sweep and shaved off stump. Mashrafe Mortaza was also bowled by a delivery that dived on him. Having watched Malinga bowl four slower balls in succession now, debutant Mehedi Hasan perhaps expected the quick one, but was done in by another slow dipper – the ball hitting him on the pads in front of the stumps. When the umpire raised his finger, Khettarama broke into raptures.The fumble
Mashrafe had largely had an unremarkable final match and in the 14th over missed the chance to shut the door on a struggling Sri Lanka. Chamara Kapugedara had hit the ball to fine leg, taken the first run quickly and was halfway down the pitch for the second, when Seekkuge Prasanna sent him back. Mushfiqur collected the return throw and attempted to relay the ball to Mashrafe at the non-striker’s end, but though Mashrafe was in position, and the throw came in adjacent to the stumps, Mashrafe leaned over the wickets and attempted to take the ball in front of the stumps and fumbled it. Kapugedara was allowed to live on – if only for a few more overs.The first-up double-strike
Mustafizur Rahman has turned many a match for Bangladesh in the past two years, and he bowled a definitive over again in this match, claiming two wickets off his first two balls off the evening. The first one was angled across Asela Gunaratne, and though the batsman struck the ball well, he hit it straight to the cover fielder, at throat height. The next ball was slightly overpitched again, but this time to left-hander Milinda Siriwardana. He ventured a square drive, but picked out point.The double-drop
Having largely fielded well in the last two matches, the drops returned to Sri Lanka’s cricket on Thursday. Both of these chances were tough, but they would be telling. Shakib Al Hasan was on four off five balls when he slammed Seekkuge Prasanna towards deep square leg, only for Vikum Sanjaya to fail to hold on to a difficult running catch. Two balls later, he top-edged another one towards deep midwicket, which the advancing Dilshan Munaweera failed to cling to. Shakib would go on to top-score for Bangladesh with 38 off 31 balls.

Essex have struggled to deal with Division One cricket in their recent attempts, but there is an air of confidence around Chelmsford

Alan Gardner05-Apr-2017Not too much has changed at Essex in the months that have passed since they were confirmed as Division Two champions on a September afternoon last year. Traffic still hums gently by on the Parkway behind the River End. The old brick pavilion, theoretically subject of redevelopment plans, still sits squinting southeast across the square, as it did back in the glory days of Gooch and Fletcher – though there are some new photos on the walls inside, marking the occasion when Ryan ten Doeschate’s side secured their promotion against Glamorgan.There is some fresh signage around the ground and a new sponsor for a place fondly known as the ECG (try saying it with an Australian twang), now officially the Cloudfm County Ground. The Colchester-based facilities management company – no, it is not a radio station – have forked out to renovate the players’ changing rooms, so there are clearly some perks to life in Division One. No one will be complaining about the showers at Essex this season.A sense of anticipation is also in the air, one that has not been felt in these parts since 2010 – the last time Essex attempted to crack Division One of the Championship. They were on a cloud for most of last season, as Chris Silverwood successfully sold his players the dream of getting promoted in his first year as head coach. Now the atmosphere is even more rarefied. “We’ve got to aim bigger, haven’t we,” Silverwood smiles.There is not much talk of survival, although that would surely be an achievement (on three previous trips up, relegation has swiftly followed). Instead, Silverwood and ten Doeschate want Essex to “make our presence felt”, and leave the points table to take care of itself. They may not have an international ground, like the other seven teams in the top tier (Taunton will host a T20I this summer) but that won’t stop Essex getting a little bit bolshy in their attempts to stay in increasingly elite company.Silverwood has another mantra, when asked if a county of Essex’s means can still win the Championship: “Why not?” It is a decade since Sussex’s third title and almost 20 years since Leicestershire; Essex’s last success was a quarter of a century ago, in 1992 under Graham Gooch. In recent times, Test match counties have taken the pennant hostage (although Durham may now plead exception).

We’re very confident with our preparation and the squad we’ve assembled – apart from depth a little bit. But the guys we have, we feel we can competeRyan ten Doeschate

“Why not?” Silverwood counters. “You’re going back to the Keith Fletcher days. I encourage them to dream big but then you’ve got to have the courage to chase it. It’s our job to create the environment for them to do that, go out and chase things down. They’re all so excited about playing in Division One, pitting themselves against the best teams in the country. So, let’s go out there and show our skills.”Every game we’ll view as a must-win game. To me it’s great that we get to play at Test grounds, it’s great experience for the boys. We’ll look at it from a positive stance, not feel the pressure of going there. It’s part and parcel of the fun of being in Division One.”Ten Doeschate is six degrees of separation from Gooch, in Essex captaincy terms, and grew up closer to East London than east London, but he seems to channel what he calls “the tempo and the mood of the club” as well as any native. Last year, also ten Doeschate’s first in charge, was a watershed season in which 1157 Championship runs flowed from his bat but he was surrounded by team-mates making similarly emphatic contributions.Essex will be hoping for more of the same, particularly given their ability to field a batting order that has plenty of Test – let alone Division One – experience, Alastair Cook’s hip problem notwithstanding. Ten Doeschate is not setting any lofty targets, however. “I guess the job of myself and Silvers is to take the pressure away from the players,” he says.”I think it’s very dangerous to make that the goal, to stay up. With two teams going down it doesn’t leave much margin for error. At the moment we’re staying away from numbers and positions, we want to set goals: making our presence felt, being very aggressive, competing all the time. We’re very confident with our preparation and the squad we’ve assembled – apart from depth a little bit. But the guys we have, we feel we can compete.”Essex were competitive for a large part of their previous Division One campaign, in which several of the current squad, including ten Doeschate, Cook, Ravi Bopara and Tom Westley, played a part, but lost four of their final five matches to finish bottom. Ten Doeschate feels better prepared for the challenge this time.”The mindset was very different back then, we’ve certainly grown as a four-day team. One of the things back then was the daunting proposition of stepping up; if anything, the division has become a bit tougher, but I think what we can learn from that is not being overawed by it. But getting that balance right, we need to step up, we need to do better than last year but at the same time not focus too much on how difficult it is going to be.”The difficulty is accentuated by Essex needing to replace two club stalwarts in Graham Napier and David Masters, who retired after taking more than 100 wickets between them in 2016. Neil Wagner, the ultra-competitive New Zealand left-arm quick, was talked into signing by old Otago team-mate ten Doeschate and, although he was playing a Test match this time last week and only landed in the country a couple of days ago, he hopes to be “not too jetlagged” to make an impact against previous club Lancashire – for whom he claimed 32 wickets at 29.28 last season – at Chelmsford on Friday.Adam Wheater could push James Foster out of the wicketkeeping role•Getty ImagesWagner has been given his preferred shirt, No. 13 – “First time I’ve got my number, pretty stoked about that” – and Essex will be hoping that is unlucky for opposition batsmen during his three-month stint.”He’s aggressive, he’s in your face, he bowls loads of overs – he’s exactly the type of character that we want within our bowling attack,” says Silverwood, suggesting that Wagner and former South Africa offspinner Simon Harmer, signed on a Kolpak, will add an “extra dimension” to Essex’s bowling this year.Another thing that may be different around Chelmsford is the identity of the man behind the stumps. James Foster, ten Doeschate’s predecessor as captain and first-choice Essex wicketkeeper pretty much since the advent of a two-division Championship, faces renewed competition from Adam Wheater, who left for Hampshire in 2013 but is back and hopeful of finally dislodging “Fozzy”. Wheater kept in the match against Durham MCCU earlier this week and, perhaps more significantly, scored a hundred. “We just want to pick what we think is the strongest team to win games, and I’d say Adam’s slightly stronger on the batting department,” ten Doeschate said, although a final decision is yet to be made.Cook’s injury means Silverwood can defer another tough decision on whether to leave out one of Nick Browne or Varun Chopra, another Essex product enticed back to old haunts, or tinker with the middle order. It will also deprive onlookers of a duel between Cook and his England team-mate James Anderson, a bowler ten Doeschate admits will provide an immediate examination of his team’s Division One credentials.He doesn’t pause, though, before suggesting Lancashire may have “a chink in their armour with their batting” that he hopes his bowlers can exploit. For Essex, there’s no time like the present to start making your presence felt.

Australia’s captain and coach took a punt on an injured Ellyse Perry in the Women’s World Cup final four years ago. Here’s what happened next

Daniel Brettig26-Jun-2017From behind the stumps, Australia’s captain Jodie Fields could tell things were badly wrong. In attempting to deliver her first over of the 2013 World Cup final in Mumbai, Australia’s outstanding allrounder Ellyse Perry had stopped in her run up not once but twice.Among a leader’s most vital attributes is the ability to give the appearance of calm even when things are going awry. For Fields, the task of maintaining an even strain amid Perry’s ankle problems was difficult in the extreme. “I must admit at the top of the mark there a couple of times my heart sank a bit,” Fields said at the time. “I thought ‘oh no’.”Perry’s selection for the final had been a major gamble due to ankle troubles that required a painkilling injection before the game and would lead to surgery a matter of days after it. Her contribution to the tournament itself had been minimal due to the injury, leaving the teenager Holly Ferling to perform ably as a pace bowler in Perry’s stead.But for the final, Fields and the coach Cathryn Fitzpatrick had chosen to back Perry, and for a few minutes it looked like a failed gambit. West Indies had made a serviceable start in pursuit of Australia’s 259 for 7, with the power of Deandra Dottin and Stafanie Taylor to come. In obvious discomfort after two failed run-throughs, Perry remembers her approach to the wicket feeling decidedly unnatural, in contrast to the smooth rhythm, gather and speedy delivery that had made her such a fearsome prospect for all comers. At the time Perry feared she would be “in for a bit of a long night”, and four years on she admits it was a step into the unknown.”It was a little bit uncomfortable and something I hadn’t felt before with my ankle leading into that match,” Perry says, ahead of Australia’s 2017 World Cup opener, also against West Indies. “But I just needed another shot at it to work out how to bowl.”

What followed the halting start was a passage of play that emphasised not only Perry’s value but also the beauty of pace and spin working in concert

The importance of finding a way to the crease was underlined by what was on the line – this was not only the competition decider but also the final match for Perry’s longtime state and national team-mate Lisa Sthalekar, who had just bowled the previous over. Equally, it was a stern test of the judgement of Fields and Fitzpatrick, four years on from a horrid World Cup campaign on home soil that had forced plenty of behind-the-scenes change to Australia’s coaching setup. Australia’s batting had delivered a strong total, but nothing beyond the reach of Dottin in particular.”In a final, when you put runs on the board, it’s really important to shut down the opposition early in your bowling innings and just not let them get any momentum,” Perry says. “West Indies are probably the most powerful team in world cricket for both men and women, so we were really well aware of their dangers.”After a brief break, Perry tried for a third time, pushing through a contrasting combination of pain and also lack of natural feeling in the joint. It was not the smoothest approach, but she got there, whirring her arm over at pace and getting the ball through to Fields, who followed up by running down to her bowler for an encouraging word or three. With each delivery, Perry’s rhythm improved, then sixth ball she pinned Kycia Knight on the crease to win an lbw verdict. There was as much relief as elation in Australia’s huddle.What followed the halting start was a passage of play that emphasised not only Perry’s value but also the beauty of pace and spin working in concert. Sthalekar wheeled away distinctively, Australian cap firmly in place, and gained expansive turn from the Brabourne Stadium pitch. Meanwhile Perry gathered speed and venom as her ankle warmed up, following up with two more quick wickets to have the figures of 3-2-2-3. Having for a moment looked like chasing Australia’s total without having to deal with Perry at all, West Indies were soon in a world of pain.”In that period we bowled really well in partnerships,” Perry recalls. “Lisa bowled incredibly well at the other end and we just started to put a bit of restriction on West Indies, and I think in a final when you build that kind of pressure it often leads to wickets or mistakes being made by the opposition, so from that point of view I think everyone found their role in the team on that day.Ellyse Perry and Australia gave Lisa Sthalekar the perfect send off•ICC/Getty”I’ve been very fortunate to spend a lot of my career playing with Lisa or her coaching me when I was a junior, so to be on the field when she finished her international career in such fantastic style, from the team’s perspective it was a real pleasure to be able to send her out like that and give her what she deserved after such wonderful service to Australia.”Thanks in no small part to Perry’s persistence, Sthalekar’s night turned into just about the perfect send off: she delivered a pair of classical offbreaks to defeat Dottin and West Indies captain Merissa Aguilleira, and then closed out the match with a stunning snaffle at short midwicket off the bowling of Julie Hunter. Sthalekar was in many ways a forerunner for spin bowling in Australia’s armoury, going from a time when she was commonly the only slow bowler selected to a 2017 when Meg Lanning’s team may select as many as three in the one side – caps on and all.”I noticed that there weren’t a lot of spinners in the women’s game,” Sthalekar says. “Especially in NSW, we didn’t really have any spinners coming through the ranks. I think the next one was Erin Osborne and she made her debut in 2009. For a long period of time I was the sole spinner in NSW. I certainly felt that, knowing spin played a crucial role. But the funny thing is I never really got coached in my bowling either.”Never really had access to any specialist coaches, maybe David Freedman every now and then at a NSW Breakers training session, but nothing next to what the girls get now. It was almost like the coaches involved were predominantly batting or fast-bowling coaches – spinners were left to their own devices.”I’m glad to see a lot of them are bowling with their caps on as well, that’s what I’m really proud of!”Perry’s effort, meanwhile, was described by Jarrod Kimber in these terms: “Perry bowled her entire 10 overs, often limping in between balls or overs, but she just kept going until Australia had won the World Cup. In her last over, Perry bowled a bouncer. It was a special effort, courageous and skillful… what Perry did deserved to be added to illustrious list of Australian cricket propaganda. It’ll start as a gutsy effort that won a game Australia should have always won. Yet, in a few years time, as people forget the details and just remember the result, it’ll be known as the World Cup Ellyse Perry won on one leg.”After surgery, Perry was able to return to Australia’s line-up in time for the Ashes later that year. Four years on, she is back at the World Cup, ready to have another tilt at the trophy. “Any success we’ve had in World Cups sits really high in my memories, and all of us as a team really hold on to those memories because they’re really special, some of the proudest moments of your career,” Perry says. “The ankle injury didn’t really change that experience.”

By the time his battling 186-ball innings ended, Dawid Malan barely had enough energy left this time to admonish a failure

Alan Gardner at Headingley28-Aug-2017Dawid Malan played an innings that will help England win the Headingley Test match; Dawid Malan played an innings that will hasten the end of his Test career. Like a batting Mobius strip, these are two opposing statements that join in the middle to form some sort of truth.Malan came into England’s Test side almost by stealth, a batting replacement for a spinner, Liam Dawson. A free-flowing left-hander who caught Trevor Bayliss’ eye with 78 off 44 and the Man of the Match award on T20 debut in June, Malan looks like a man picked to fit in with England’s go-faster-stripes middle order – but that is not how he has played. After scores of 1, 10, 18 and 6, he hit a maiden Test fifty at Edgbaston last week, though it is not enough to quieten the chatter around England’s inexperienced top five.In the first innings of this match, with England in early trouble, Malan’s contribution was another tentative single-figure score that ended when he was bowled off an inside edge. Self-abnegation is not his style but Malan seems intent on taking that route, tightening the cilice beneath his thigh pad and wondering if he should apply to join Opus Dei.Test match batting is often about denying your instincts, packing away a shot here, resisting the bait there. But Malan’s movements at the crease have become so tight and restricted that he almost seems to be batting inside a cardboard box.His first scoring shot of the day is a compact punch down the ground off Shannon Gabriel and he eats dirt when risking a single to mid-off to the same bowler. In the same over, he nearly falls when flicking just above the leap of square leg. West Indies are circling England warily but suddenly they extract Joe Root. Malan’s burden seems to about to become unbearable.When Malan cover drives, the bat swishes out and up in an anti-clockwise arc, like the windscreen wiper on a bus. He doesn’t play that shot too often here but it should have been responsible for his downfall. The introduction of Jason Holder, West Indies’ least-threatening quick, is met by an almost Pavlovian reflex to finally try and assert himself but, having already been beaten driving at a full ball aimed into the rough outside off stump, he then nicks off.It is not a particularly surprising mode of dismissal, similar to his flash at Morne Morkel at Old Trafford (though Holder is bowling round the wicket rather than over) and familiar to anyone who has watched much of Malan in county cricket. Familiar to anyone who has ever watched a left-hander flirt injudiciously outside off, in fact.The edge flies straight and true to first slip and you can picture the windscreen wiper coming back down, this time in the form of an angry flick at the ground. England had lost Root in the previous over – though Shai Hope again juggled West Indies’ destiny in his hands – and Malan is the set batsman in a new partnership, England only 43 runs ahead. He might have been out on the previous evening, if only West Indies had reviewed, but this one has an air of finality about it; like Tom Westley, Malan may have just iced himself.The fates are about to intervene once more, however, in the form of West Indies’ Achilles hands. Tom Emmett, the Yorkshire left-armer of the 19th century, used to say: “It’s an epidemic, but it’s not catching.” Nevertheless, those watching at Headingley the past four days ought to be wary of standing too close.Malan’s outside edge is still heading to first slip but here comes the superhero intervention. Unfortunately for West Indies, it comes in the form of their wicketkeeper, Shane Dowrich, who soars across into Kieran Powell’s eyeline and then withdraws his gloves with almost exaggeratedly comic timing. Powell has been stuffed, though a man who hadn’t already missed a sitter in the first innings might have found the muscle memory to cling on. Malan’s bat swipe does not materialise; he is beaten again next ball but the mental retrenching has begun.Holder settles into a spell that is tighter than Scrooge McDuck’s wallet, bowling three of his four maidens to Malan and conceding just six runs in as many overs. Time stretches out as West Indies decline to take the second new ball and Malan inches his way to the interval. Since the drop, he has added nine runs from 51 deliveries.After lunch, an inside edge squeezed through his legs takes him to fifty for the second time in Tests. He looks drained, a little relieved; but there is more work still to do. With Ben Stokes now intent on taking the game away at the other end, Malan finds his timing to stroke fours off Kemar Roach and Gabriel. At Edgbaston, Malan talked about his ritual of tapping his partner’s bat in between overs – Alastair Cook in that instance – and Stokes seems just as happy to indulge. Their partnership is approaching 100 and England are seizing control. Malan begins to breathe a little easier, though still nothing comes easily.One ball after the drinks break, Stokes picks out long-off. Malan is then cleaned up by the 186th delivery of an innings that he has spent more than four hours mining from the core of his being. He slumps on his bat, barely enough energy left this time to admonish a failure to get forward. England are 143 ahead – exactly 100 on from Malan’s reprieve. Their future is still uncertain. And so is Malan’s.

South Africa pull one back finally, and our correspondent is there to watch – while practising a bit of yoga on the side

Firdose Moonda19-Jul-2017July 2
What should be a straightforward short commute from London to Leicester turns into a three-hour trip via Bedford because they are working on the train lines and there is a replacement bus to take us most of the journey. It means I arrive late in Leicester. So late that I miss seeing South Africa bowl West Indies out for 48 and arrive in time to watch them knock off the runs inside seven overs. It’s not really a day to talk to a batsman but I take the chance to interview Laura Wolvaardt, the young opener in her final year of school, who is deciding between a career in cricket and a medical degree. That she even has that choice is a victory for the women’s game.July 3
Back to the men in London, where Russell Domingo has returned to the team camp and confirms he has reapplied for the coach job. The team are in good spirits and many of them have their families with them. Faf du Plessis is at home with his and news comes through that mother and baby are doing well. After interviews, I walk through (you guessed it) Hyde Park, where Morne Morkel, his wife Roz and son Ari are enjoying an evening picnic. Ari has a bat and ball with him and is keen to face some fast bowling, but because his dad is managing his workload, I take the ball. After a loosener, I find my length and with my second delivery, I beat the bat to dismiss an international cricketer’s son. He has not yet turned two, but I’m claiming it.July 4
The trip just keeps getting better for me because today I get a raise. In the form of a plastic step. After almost a decade working in cricket, I will finally be tall enough to see eye to eye with my interviewees, and taller than some of my colleagues.I take a walking tour of London in the evening, exploring the history of European immigration in Soho. The French were particularly prevalent in the area and Charles de Gaulle formed the Free French Front at a pub on Dean Street. They were also waves of Dutch, Hungarian and German residents – including Karl Marx.Is that fair play in a height contest?•Firdose Moonda/ESPNcricinfoJuly 5
Dean Elgar becomes the 12th South African since readmission to deliver a captain’s pre-match press conference and he is awfully nervous about the whole thing. Far from the bullish opener we have come to know over the last five or so years, Elgar is softer-spoken today. His father, one of his high-school teachers, and his best friend will all be in attendance at the match: all of them had promised him they would make a special effort to get to Lord’s if he ever played a Test there, so this is as big an occasion for them as it is for him. He doesn’t reveal too much else, except that he probably won’t bowl himself.July 6
And at first it seems he may not need to. South Africa enjoy a good morning session even though they drop two catches. Elgar seems to have things under control – until Joe Root takes it away from him. I have the chance to chat to Vince van der Bijl about a charity project he has involved the MCC in, in Masiphumelele, a township outside Cape Town. Van der Bijl is passionate about doing good and contributing to making a meaningful change to South Africa, especially as a member of the privileged class.July 7
England get far ahead of South Africa. Temba Bavuma and Theunis de Bruyn are given a chance to bowl, neither with any success. And then the new opening pair also fail. South Africa knew it would be tough, but this tough… perhaps not.July 8
The final Test in the series between the All Blacks and the British and Irish Lions, who are locked at one-all, is being played this morning. I saw pubs packed early in the morning for the previous two, and I decide to try and get to one for the third match. The one I try, closest to my guesthouse and the tube station, is so full, I can’t even squeeze in, so I go to Lord’s instead. I join a throng of people huddled around a small screen in one of the shops. We see a Lions penalty that makes it 15-all and that’s the way it stays. “What happens now?” one bewildered fan asks. “Does it just stay a draw?” I tell him it does. “What an anti-climax.” I agree. See, it’s not just cricket where things happen for days only for there not to be a winner.Soho: a magnet for European immigration over the decades•Firdose Moonda/ESPNcricinfoJuly 9
At Lord’s, there will definitely be a winner. England make a mess of South Africa as returning captain du Plessis looks on. He joins Elgar for the post-match press conference and Elgar jokingly returns an imaginary armband to him.In more sombre news, Domingo has had to leave the tour again. His mother, who had recovered from a car accident she was in two weeks ago, enough to be discharged from hospital before the first Test, has suffered a setback, been put on life support, and passes away later that night. Suddenly the South African camp really is about life and death. Just a week ago, du Plessis welcomed a daughter into the world; now Domingo will bury his mother.July 10
What should have been the fifth day is now a day spent analysing the defeat. I decide to do my work at the Monocle Café in Chiltern Street, a creative hub I really enjoy. Back home, I am an avid listener to Monocle Radio and in this café, they even play it in the toilet. In the evening, there’s time for a stroll through Marylebone, which is a good way to say goodbye to London for now.July 11
Nottingham is a new stop for me and I am excited to head there. was the first play I performed in when I was at school. I was in second grade and I don’t remember my character, but I’m fairly sure it wasn’t Maid Marian. I’ve been told this is a city of students but also a good way to experience some old England, and my first look around does not disappoint. Cobbled streets and gorgeous churches greet me. So does the rain.Soaking in some of old England in Nottingham•Firdose Moonda/ESPNcricinfoJuly 12
Gunn & Moore have invited Quinton de Kock, Vernon Philander, Duanne Olivier, Aiden Markram and some media to their factory to see how bats are made. It’s a fascinating and intricate process that involves pressing the blade and shaping it to individual preferences. Some of the staff at the factory have worked there for decades – one, Kevin Stimpson, for 43 years – and are well versed in what several international players want. Olivier meanders along somewhat aimlessly and admits he doesn’t have all that much use for bats, while Markram muses about when he might go home. I suspect it will be fairly soon, but it will also not be long before he plays Test cricket.July 13
“I wouldn’t say I was the best manager in the world but I was in the top one,” Brain Clough, the former Nottingham Forest coach once said. His was a story of triumph over adversity, much like South Africa’s will have to be if they are to square the series. A statue of Clough looms over the city’s main square, about a mile from the Trent River.July 14
On a cloudy morning, at a venue where England bowled Australia out for 60 in a Test, du Plessis chooses to bat first. At best, it seems brave. South Africa were skittled for 119 the last time they faced this attack, remember? But moving de Kock to No. 4 works a charm and South Africa are much more convincing. I sense the makings of an epic comeback.July 15
Qamar Ahmed, who will turn 80 later this year and is covering his 427th Test, has invited a bunch of us to Ye Olde Trip to Jerusalem, which claims to be the oldest inn in England. It opened its doors in 1178. Qamar assures us he was not there on opening night, but regales us with tales of India in the 1940s, London in the 1970s, and everything in between. I’ve seen a lot of Qamar on the road and I always enjoy spending time with him. He promises to take me to Curry Mile in Manchester and I’m going to hold him to it.Brian Clough – an inspiration for the touring South Africans?•Firdose Moonda/ESPNcricinfoJuly 16
I have picked up a second yoga student. The ‘s Jonathan Liew joins my morning class before play, which has now evolved into a full 45-minute session. I put the boys through sun salutations, lunges, and some basic back bends. I try to keep it slow and gentle, much like South Africa’s batting. Hashim Amla and Elgar tick over and South Africa build a big lead, big enough to stick England in just before the close.July 17
A third yogi joins the group. This time, it’s Nick Hoult. Like me, he is a runner, so we have a lot of the same aches and pains – but not as many as England. Far from putting up the fight South Africa are expecting, England collapse. South Africa dedicate the win to Domingo, who should be back in a week’s time, ahead of the third Test. The squad will have a few days off but I will go to Bristol, where the South African women’s team are playing England in the semi-final. By the time I see the men again, du Plessis hopes he can pick up a few tips on how to win knockout matches from Dane van Niekerk, and there will be a decision on the coaching position. There are some big things happening for South African cricket in the next three weeks.