What’s in a batting order? Too much opinion, not enough fact

Ray Jennings sent Andrew Hall out to open the batting in Kanpur in November 2004. South Africans, cricket’s flat earthers, thought Jennings was mad. Hall scored 163. South Africans still think Jennings was, and remains, mad.

TELFORD VICE in Cape Town

HOW many players have batted in all 11 positions in men’s Test cricket? Out of the 2 989 who have taken guard in the 2 365 matches yet seen, three.

Syd Gregory, Wilfred Rhodes and Vinoo Mankad are the only members of maybe the most exclusive club in the game. They are the top 0.100368016058883 percentile.

Cricket being the anally obsessive silliness it is, that’s hardly surprising. The bounder! How dare he assume, just because he swats an old ball and tired bowlers about down there at No. 6, he is also capable of opening the batting? Has the man no idea of his station in life?

What is surprising is that as many as nine players have bounced around 10 spots in the order. You could see one of them looming large behind big sunglasses and an even bigger moustache in India’s dressingroom during South Africa’s tour.

Ravi Shastri, now India’s coach, began his career as a No. 10 against New Zealand at the Basin Reserve in February 1981 and ended it as an opener against South Africa at St George’s Park in December 1992. Somehow, over the course of 11 years and 121 Test innings, big Ravi never made it all the way down to No. 11.

None of the nine, as indeed the three, are South African. That, too, is hardly a shock. South Africa could win awards for staidness, for refusing to believe there is a world outside the box. They are the flat earthers of cricket. When plan A doesn’t work, they are all out of plans.

Consequently, South Africans don’t like people who think they’re special. Gregory, born on the site of what is now the Sydney Cricket Ground, and with his father, uncle, brother, brother-in-law and cousin all either first-class or Test players, would have been far too tall a poppy for us to take seriously.

Rhodes was, most famously, an ace left-arm spinner. So that’s him done for in the South African way of looking at these things, even though he had a streak of fast bowler’s mongrel. A proper Yorkshireman, Rhodes refused to crack a smile when the Marylebone Cricket Club awarded him honorary membership in 1949. Instead he raised a suspicious eyebrow and said, “I don’t rightly know what it means yet.”

Mankad added his name to cricket’s lexicon by pulling up in his delivery stride while bowling for India in Sydney in December 1947 to run out non-striker Bill Brown, who was stealing ground by advancing up the pitch before the ball had been delivered. Mankading, the practice was instantly named. Too bloody special by half, this fella.

Remember when Ray Jennings sent Andrew Hall out to open the batting in Kanpur in November 2004? South Africans thought Jennings was mad. Hall scored 163. South Africans still think Jennings was, and remains, mad.

So what happened in Ranchi in the third Test against India represented a spark of revolutionary thinking. On the Saffer scale, at least. Quinton de Kock was in South Africa’s XI, as usual. But he wasn’t keeping wicket! Or batting at No. 7! Or even at No. 6!

He was opening!

Stru’s bob. There was Dean Elgar. And there, with him, daring to believe he was an opening batter, was De Kock. If you blinked you would have missed him: he lasted six balls in each innings. That’ll teach him. Know your place.

De Kock had opened before — at Centurion in August 2017 — and scored 82 and 50. But that was an emergency measure taken after Elgar stood on the boundary and twisted an ankle.

This, too, was a desperate move, prompted by what became South Africa’s worst performance in a series in 83 years. Before their routing in Ranchi, not since March 1936 had they lost consecutive Tests by an innings.

But De Kock’s elevation could serve to start a conversation about whether the batting order, as we have come to accept it, remains fit for purpose. Consider what happened across the dressingroom divide: neither Rohit Sharma nor Mayank Agarwal had opened the batting in India before they walked out to do so together in the first Test in Visakhapatnam. Four innings each later they had scored five centuries between them, including a double ton apiece.

So much for specialisation, which unlike specialness South Africans take too seriously for their own good. That’s why they tied themselves into knots about which of Temba Bavuma or Faf du Plessis should bat at No. 4. Opinions on this non-issue flew as frequently as the sixes Sharma kept hitting off the South Africans’ flaccid bowling, and came mostly from blowhards who offered little except their unsubstantiated views.

Cricket is beset with know-it-alls who confuse the rest of us with people who care what they think. Social media has only encouraged them. You could avoid them in the pub, but refusing to let them catch your attention on Facebook is more difficult.

Rather than put up with bores droning on about why whoever should bat wherever, we could shut them up by knowing how whoever has fared at every stage of every innings in terms of the number of balls that had been bowled when they arrived — taking into account the match situation, the conditions, and the opposition’s strengths and weaknesses.

So if Du Plessis has scored four centuries in six innings when he has taken guard with three wickets down and South Africa 200 runs behind on a turning pitch against attacks that feature more than one spinner, he should bat ahead of anyone who has been less successful in that situation. Bar nothing and no-one.

And if Elgar hasn’t had much success against left-arm quicks on greentops, and the opposition unleash two southpaws with the new ball, he shouldn’t come in before the ball is 45 overs old.

Batting orders should be fluid enough to be chopped and changed at a moment’s notice, not stuck in a linear logjam based not on hard data but on some swami’s say-so.

We’ll need a cricket crazy 12-year-old to design the algorithm, but the world isn’t short of them. Then we’ll need to convince the fogeys. Or get Jennings’ buy-in, which probably wouldn’t be difficult.

Syd Gregory, Wilfred Rhodes and Vinoo Mankad would, you hope, see the sense of this, even if others won’t.

Maybe that’s why they’re the top 0.100368016058883 percentile.

First published by Times SELECT.

Ranchi rains India runs, SA wickets

How many more South Africa wickets would have fallen had bad light not taken 34 overs out of the day’s play?

TELFORD VICE in Cape Town

A monsoon of Indian runs followed by the clatter, like gravel on a tin roof, of South African wickets.

The second day of the third men’s Test in Ranchi on Sunday stuck to the script used for much of the rest of the series.

Virat Kohli declared after India piled up 497/9. Then South Africa shambled to 9/2 in the five overs they faced before bad light ended play.

Worse, the players dismissed are Dean Elgar, who has scored the most runs and faced the most balls for the visitors in the series, and Quinton de Kock, whose promotion to an opening berth was the grandest part of the plan to cure the virus that has struck South Africa’s batting.

Both gloved catches to the wicketkeeper having tried to leave short, aggressive deliveries bowled by Mohammed Shami and Umesh Yadav.

Other South Africans will be relieved to know the gloom cut short Sunday’s proceedings by 34 overs: who knows how many more wickets would have fallen had they been bowled.

Rohit Sharma converted his overnight 117 not out into 212, his first Test double century.

Sharma, who made 176 and 127 in the first Test in Visakhapatnam, took his aggregate for the series to 529 — more than any other India batter has scored in a rubber against South Africa.

Having reached three figures with a six off Dane Piedt on Saturday, Sharma went to his second hundred with a pulled six off Lungi Ngidi to the 13th ball after lunch.

Ajinkya Rahane resumed on 83 and forged to 115 before being caught behind off George Linde in the 10th over before lunch to end a stand of 267, a record for India’s fourth wicket against South Africa.

The Indians attacked overtly after Rahane’s dismissal, scoring 191 runs in the 41 overs they faced before the declaration — 4.66 an over. 

Yadav led the way, smashing the first two balls he faced — bowled by Linde — for six and following that with three more maximums in the debutant left-arm spinner’s next over. Yadav ran only a single in his 10-ball 31.

Linde, who was summoned from South Africa after Keshav Maharaj injured a shoulder during the second Test in Pune, bowled with discipline in his 31 overs — more than any other member of the attack — and took 4/133.

Off-spinner Piedt, Linde’s Cobras teammate, will be less satisfied with his lot.

He went into the match having sweated it out for 38 overs for his return of 1/209 in the first Test, and the 20 sixes he has conceded in the rubber is the most by any bowler in any Test series.

Piedt, who was also hit for nine fours in the innings, sent down a dozen of his 18 overs before he bowled a maiden.

He smiled broadly as his sixth straight scoreless delivery was confirmed and accepted Elgar’s two-handed high five. Then he reeled off another two maidens. 

Piedt finished with 1/101 and might have got the joke that he shouldn’t be wearing 63 on his back. Instead he should wear No. 64.

Because that’s what he’s bowled in this series: sixes and fours.

First published by TMG Digital.

SA ring changes but call goes unanswered

“I was just hoping for a wicket somewhere,” Anrich Nortjé on dismissing Virat Kohli to take his first Test wicket.

TELFORD VICE in Cape Town

FIVE changes to their XI failed to move South Africa out of India’s shadow on the first day of the third men’s Test in Ranchi on Saturday.

And that despite the visitors enjoying their most successful first hour of the series to reduce India to 39/3, largely thanks to Kagiso Rabada’s rasping first spell of 2/15.

But, at stumps, which bad light forced six overs after tea, the home side were 224 runs to the good with seven wickets still standing.

Rohit Sharma became Dane Piedt’s least favourite batter in reaching 117 not out, his third century in four innings.

No-one has hit more sixes this year than Sharma’s 17, all in this rubber, and no bowler has been hammered for more sixes in a series than the 11 Sharma has sent arching off Piedt.

The hapless off-spinner might have wished he hadn’t been one of the straws clutched at in the wake of two heavy defeats.

Heinrich Klaasen and George Linde — in for Aiden Markram and Keshav Maharaj, both injured — earned debuts, and Theunis de Bruyn, Vernon Philander and Senuran Muthusamy were axed in favour of Zubayr Hamza, Lungi Ngidi and Piedt.

Quinton de Kock handed the wicketkeeping gloves to Klaasen and will fill the vacancy, left by Markram, at the top of the order.

Linde looked like making a dream start when Sharma blipped his third delivery towards short leg — where Hamza couldn’t hold a difficult chance.

Sharma would have been gone for 28, his stand with Ajinkya Rahane would have been capped at 21 instead of resuming on Sunday at 185, and India would have been 60/4.

Ah well. At least Anrich Nortjé will always have the memory of trapping Virat Kohli in front with an inswinger, which followed two outswingers, for his first Test scalp.  

“I was just hoping for a wicket somewhere,” Nortjé told reporters.

Let no-one remind him that the only other bowler to dismiss India’s captain in the series, Muthusamy, is no longer in the team.

First published by the Sunday Times.

Who will score SA’s runs in Ranchi?

“Sixties aren’t going to win Tests for us. I need to bat big.” – Faf du Plessis

TELFORD VICE in Cape Town

THE first question asked of Faf du Plessis at his press conference before the third men’s Test against India in Ranchi, which started on Saturday, earned a suspended sentence.

“We’re making a few changes to the side,” Du Plessis said in response to a reporter who wanted to know what the South Africa captain’s team might look like.

“Probably the batting order will change. Let me think about it — I’ll give you something towards the end.”

Had Du Plessis not thought about it forever and ever, amen?

Had he not had enough time to agonise over his options since South Africa were hammered by an innings and 137 runs in Pune on Sunday, which came after they had crashed by 203 runs in Visakhapatnam?

Of course he had. Du Plessis has likely thought about not a lot else since the start of the series.

Mostly, he’s been thinking about batting. 

“As a player all you want to do is grow,” he said. “For all of us, it’s about converting.

“Sixties aren’t going to win Tests for us. I need to bat big.”

Du Plessis has batted bigger than most. His 137 runs in four innings is more, in South African terms, than only Dean Elgar’s 216 and Quinton de Kock’s 147.

The problem is Mayank Agarwal and Rohit Sharma have each scored more than 100 runs more than Elgar, and that India’s two double centuries and a century put South Africa’s two tons in the shade.

Those centuries, by Elgar and De Kock, were scored in the visitors’ first innings of the series.

That’s an awful lot of grinding, catch-up, losing cricket ago; time in which South Africa have been bowled out all four times and India not once.

“It dents your confidence but international sport is supposed to be hard,” Du Plessis said. “We can’t expect things to just happen.”

But things are bad enough for Du Plessis to clutch at the straw of South Africa’s experience in their previous series in India, in November 2015.

“We came here last time with a team who had the best record abroad and we still struggled.”

Despite the presence of the now retired Hashim Amla, AB de Villiers and Dale Steyn — who bowled just 11 overs in the first Test before breaking down with injury and missing the rest of the rubber — India won 3-0, albeit with the help of unfair pitches.

The surfaces have been exemplary this time. The difference is that the South Africans, their batters especially, but also their fast bowlers, haven’t been up to scratch.

And that the Indians are all but unbeatable at home. They have lost only one of the 32 Tests they have played in India since December 2012, and won 25.

The victory in Pune sealed their 11th consecutive win in a home series, a world record.

“They’ve been much better than any opposition who’ve come here for … they’ve been incredible,” Du Plessis said.

As for the pitch in Ranchi, where only one Test has been played — a draw involving Australia in March 2017, when a double century and three centuries were among the 1 258 runs scored at the cost of 25 wickets — Du Plessis’ eyes were spinning, you might say.

“It looks a bit drier, a bit crustier,” he said.

“I think the wicket will spin. It’s a different colour — it’s got that dark, dry hardness.

“I think reverse swing and spin will be factors.”

So much for what he thinks. What he knows is that, “If you get runs in the first innings, anything is possible.” 

Du Plessis’ team know so just as well as he does. Putting that knowledge into action has eluded them through their own lack of enterprise — if you have feet, use them — and India’s excellence.

The challenge of changing that narrative took a new turn when Aiden Markram was ruled out with a self-inflicted broken wrist.

According to a Cricket South Africa release on Thursday: “In a moment of frustration with his own performance [after being trapped in front by a ball that wasn’t going to hit the stumps in the second innings in Pune], he lashed out at a solid object, resulting in his injury.”

Opener Markram has scored 44 runs in four innings, so his is no great loss to the cause.

Who will replace him? As the press conference broke up Du Plessis got back to the reporter who had asked him the first question.

“Hamza,” Du Plessis said, “Hamza is coming in.”

That would be Zubayr Hamza, who has spent the first two Tests on the bench.

He last picked up a bat in seriousness on September 26 in a tour match in Vizianagaram, where he scored 22.

In the same innings Markram retired when he reached 100 off 118 balls, a performance that would seem beyond him now, and not only because he has since faced exponentially better opposition.

Good luck, Mr Hamza.*

* South Africa gave debuts to Heinrich Klaasen and George Linde — who came in for the injured Markram and Keshav Maharaj — and dropping Theunis de Bruyn, Vernon Philander and Senuran Muthusamy in favour of Hamza, Lungi Ngidi and Dane Piedt. Quinton de Kock, who has relinquished the wicketkeeping gloves to Klaasen, will fill the vacancy Markram left at the top of the order.

First published by TMG Digital.

Rabada’s back, but India batters won’t go away

“I look for the special spells when the circumstances are tough, and he bowled very well.” – Vincent Barnes on Kagiso Rabada’s improvement.

TELFORD VICE in Cape Town

KAGISO Rabada bowled, Cheteshwar Pujara edged, and Faf du Plessis took the catch low and to his left at first slip.

It was a common enough occurrence: 124 of Rabada’s 180 Test wickets have been earned by catches, most of them in the arc behind the wicket, 14 by Du Plessis.

But, as South Africa’s captain lay on the turf in Pune on Thursday, he stared at the ball in his hands as he as if he had never seen it.

First he screamed at the thing in celebration. Or was it relief?

Then he smiled at it blithely, as if it was an old friend too many times removed but now happily returned.

Then he stared at it some more, and seemed reluctant to hand it over so the game could continue. 

Perhaps Du Plessis had forgotten what the ball looked like.

Almost four hours passed between Rabada producing an away swinger that found the edge of Rohit Sharma’s bat and was caught by Quinton de Kock, and Pujara’s wicket.

Another hour drained away before Rabada extracted a touch of extra bounce to surprise Mayank Agarwal, whose rocketing edge might have gone clean through Du Plessis’ wishbone had he not taken the catch.

Near on five hours of hard work for three wickets is no-one’s idea of an easy time, but that was as good as it got for South Africa on the first day of the second men’s Test — which ended 4.5 overs early because of bad light with India having reached 273/3.

Maybe Du Plessis was still wondering why his luck seems to have deserted him at the toss on foreign fields.

The coin has come down the wrong way for him in his last six away Tests in charge, and for all seven games — across the formats — he has led his team in Asia.

That must be part of the reason for the more alarming statistic that South Africa have lost 10 of the 19 away Tests they have played in the past four years.

In the four years before that they played 21 on the road and won 10; a clear illustration of their reversal of fortunes in all senses.  

On Thursday, as India did in the first Test in Visakhapatnam, they made Virat Kohli’s continued success at the toss count.

At least, they did after Sharma’s removal in the first hour, when the ball did plenty on a decent pitch.

“If you looked at the conditions this morning, the window was a lot longer for fast bowlers than in Vizag,” bowling coach Vincent Barnes told reporters in Pune. “With a bit more luck we could have had a few more wickets.”

As the day wore on the ball went to sleep on a surface that might as well have been covered by a fluffy duvet, and that helped Agarwal and Pujara take their partnership to 138.

Rabada was easily South Africa’s most threatening bowler on his best day in action for more than a year — he has gone 20 Test innings without taking five wickets — and took 3/48 in 18.1 overs.

“I look for the special spells when the circumstances are tough, and he bowled very well,” Barnes said. “There were a lot of signs that he’s getting to the top.”

So why Du Plessis waited 23 overs before bringing Rabada back after lunch wasn’t completely answered by the fact that he had bowled spells of six and four overs in the morning session.

Ten overs after Pujara went Agarwal was on his way, but with another century to his record.

He followed his 215 in Vizag with 108, a classy performance from a player who had earned an unwanted reputation for not making the most of his starts.

How had he improved his discipline?

Partly, Mayank told a television interviewer, through “a lot of long distance running and meditation”.

The South Africans have spent most of their time on the field in this series doing something similar, though not out of choice.

And they would seem to be in for more of the same on Friday, what with Kohli 63 not out and Ajinkya Rahane looking set having faced 70 balls for his unbeaten 18.

First published by TMG Digital.

SA face the poppadom test

“The last time we came here the wickets were a lot worse — you can still bat on this one.” – Vernon Philander.

TELFORD VICE in Cape Town

WINNING is no longer a serious option for South Africa in Visakhapatnam, and their chances of saving the first men’s test against India are as slim and brittle as a poppadom.

The outlook wasn’t quite as bleak as that until halfway through what became the sixth over before stumps on Saturday, when Ravindra Jadeja came around the wicket and snuck a delivery under Dean Elgar’s bat and onto his pad.

Replays said the ball pitched on leg stump, and the rest was a formality of television umpiring.

Elgar’s streetfighting 160 in the first innings was why South Africa passed 400 for only the third time in their nine tests in which they have batted second in India.

In building his monument to hardegatheid, Welkom’s finest faced, alone, more than half the number of deliveries his 10 teammates managed combined.

The danger of what Elgar might do the second time around was the reason Virat Kohli batted on and on, only declaring when the target was 395: beyond anything any side have successfully chased in India.

South Africa were 384 runs away from what remains an impossible victory when bad light ended play four overs early, and the most important stat on Sunday is the 50% forecast for rain.

What are the chances of anything except an India win?

“The last time we came here the wickets were a lot worse — you can still bat on this one,” Vernon Philander told reporters after the close, a reference to the wretched surfaces prepared in 2015, and which Elgar described on Friday as “a farce”.

Still, closer to the truth though this surface is, it’s still a fifth-day pitch in India.

With Elgar removed from the equation, South Africa might be close to losing by the time you read this. Or worse.

How did we get here?

On the blazing bat of Rohit Sharma, who shared a stand of 169 with Cheteshwar Pujara and became the only man in all 2 363 tests yet played to score centuries in both innings opening the batting for the first time.

Sharma’s 127 followed the 176 he made in the first innings, and the 13 sixes he smote is more than anyone else has hit in a single test.

Neither has any team launched more sixes in a match than India’s 36 in this game.

Keshav Maharaj, Dane Piedt and Senuran Muthusamy won’t need reminding of those frightening facts.

“If you’re a South African spinner you need someone to erase this from your brain,” Graeme Smith said on commentary as another mighty blow sent the ball sailing through the evening sky like a dark comet.

Maharaj, a slight figure at the best of times, was reduced to a gauntly skeletal shadow after adding 29 overs to the 55 — a South Africa record for a test innings — in the first dig. A match bag of 5/318 is not nearly a fair reward for that much hard work.

Maharaj’s nadir came when Ajinkya Rahane, having swept him for four conventionally, didn’t bother turning his bat when reverse-sweeping his next delivery. The ball scooted to the boundary off the pitched spine of the back of Rahane’s bat just as surely regardless.  

But at least Maharaj looked threatening. Not so Piedt, who went wicketless for 102 after taking 1/107 in the first innings and suffered the dignity of Sharma heaving a hattrick of sixes off his bowling.

Muthusamy made a decent enough debut, not least because he used up 106 balls to score his unbeaten 33.

More of that kind of batting on Sunday could give him the chance to be a hero. How much more? That’s like deciding how many poppadoms is enough.

First published by the Sunday Times.

Vizag pitch turns on cue for India

With Ravichandran Ashwin already on his high horse and Ravindra Jadeja not far from that threat level, India are firmly in control.

TELFORD VICE in Cape Town

SOUTH Africa needed 492 deliveries to take India’s first wicket and 189 — not a lot more than a third as many — to claim the next four.

Then the Indians went exponentially better and ripped out three across 62 balls.

It was that kind of day in Visakhapatnam on Thursday: hours of lean and others of plenty.

But the flow of the first men’s Test remained unchanged.

At stumps on the second day South Africa were 39/3 in reply to India’s declaration at 502/7.

With a lead of 463 and Ravichandran Ashwin already on his high horse with 2/9 from eight overs, and Ravindra Jadeja not far from that threat level, India are firmly in control.

It was the 41st time a team had put 500 past South Africa, but only the third occasion it has happened in their 17 Tests in India and the first time anywhere since England racked up 629/6 at Newlands in January 2016.

Mayank Agarwal’s 215 is his career-best score and second only to Virender Sehwag’s 319 in Chennai in March 2008 as the highest innings for India against South Africa.

Rohit Sharma’s 176 was one run short of his best effort, which he made on debut against West Indies in Kolkata in November 2013 — 47 innings ago.  

The 317 openers Agarwal and Sharma shared is the biggest stand for any wicket against South Africa in India, and no South Africa bowler has sent down more overs in an innings there than Keshav Maharaj’s 55. That’s 40.44% of the total of 136.

For all that hard work he earned the wickets of Sharma, Ajinkya Rahane and Hanuma Vihari at the cost of 189 runs.

But the real price will be deducted from how much he has left in the tank for the second innings. If India need a second innings, that is.

By the look of the bokkies caught in Vizag’s floodlights as the sun sank with undignified haste in the 20 overs the South Africans faced, following on is a distinct possibility.

And especially now that the pitch is showing signs of rising from its deadness of the past two days.

“It’s probably one of the toughest surfaces I’ve bowled on in terms of it being a lot slower and not biting,” Maharaj told reporters in Vizag.

“You got slow turn but the ball didn’t really kick off the wicket. When the ball got softer the odd one straightened or there was a little bit of bite, but the cracks have been opening because of the heat.

“So there is a little bit of assistance coming through now as opposed to when we started. I’d say about a day-and-a-half [before that started happening].”

If South Africa do make India bat again, Maharaj sounds up for the challenge.

“I love bowling. Whether the outcome is five wickets or two wickets, I love bowling.

“As long as the feel [of the ball] in my hand is good then I’m on the right track.

“Long spells is something I’ve always wanted. It’s the long hours that I train alone that has given me the match fitness to bowl them.”

Maharaj’s supporting spinners, Dane Piedt and debutant Senuran, might not feel the same way having taken a combined 2/170 from 34 overs.

Senuran won’t complain that, for his first wicket at the highest level, he produced a ball that turned appreciably, made no less than Virat Kohli look clumsy, found the leading edge, and nestled in the bowler’s happy hands.

Even so, it would have helped neither Senuran’s nor Piedt’s mood that Dean Elgar needed only four deliveries to remove Agarwal with a filthy full toss that produced an even more filthy sideways smear of a stroke — and a squeaky-clean catch of fine judgement by Piedt at deep midwicket.  

Piedt returned as nightwatchman after Ashwin, eyes as bright as his bowling bristled with visceral dangers, zigged a delivery through Aiden Markram’s gate and zagged another that took Theunis de Bruyn’s bottom edge before being superbly taken by Wriddhiman Saha.

But Piedt lasted only four balls before Jadeja flattened his middle stump with a delivery that turned with ominous sharpness.

Expect Friday to be that kind of day. And Saturday and Sunday.

First published by TMG Digital.

SA stuck in Vizag sandbox

“I feel like left-handers complain all the time, but it’s a terrific challenge to bowl into the rough.” – Senuran Muthusamy on a pitch that looks like the craggier parts of outer Afghanistan.

TELFORD VICE in Cape Town

“GOTTA think outside the box here,” Dale Steyn posted on social media as bad light followed by rain closed in on Visakhapatnam on Wednesday.

By then India had sidled to 202 without loss on the first day of their men’s Test series against South Africa.

Easy for Steyn to say. He didn’t have to bowl any of the 59.1 overs South Africa’s attack sent down on a pitch that, when the television cameras glided over it, looked like the craggier parts of outer Afghanistan.

The champion fast bowler, now retired from Test cricket and all that, was comfortably far away.

How his team could have used his insight to find the sides of that box on their way out of it. Instead they are stuck in the middle without him.

You could see inside South Africa’s heads in their decision to deploy all three of the specialist spinners in their squad.

Keshav Maharaj, Dane Piedt and debutant Senuran Muthusamy bowled 35 of the day’s overs — a mite less than 60% — but had as little success as Vernon Philander and Kagiso Rabada, the only seamers the visitors picked.

“At training [on Tuesday] we saw the wicket was quite dry and we might go in with the option of three spinners,” Muthusamy told reporters in Vizag after the early close.

“It seamed a little bit for the first 20 minutes, half-an-hour. It was a bit soft and tacky, so it gripped. But it flattened out as the game progressed.”

India’s approach was apparent from their move to send Mayank Agarwal and Rohit Sharma to open the innings.

Agarwal has taken guard at the top of the order in all of his previous seven innings, but none of those were in India. Sharma had batted everywhere from No. 3 to 6 in 47 trips to the crease, but never opened.

Talk about thinking out of the box. It was the first time since December 1972, when Sunil Gavaskar and Ramnath Parkar began the innings against England in Delhi, that India sent to the crease together two players who had never opened at home.

That mattered little, what with Agarwal lashing the third delivery of the match, bowled by Philander, through backward point for the first boundary and Sharma playing far from his body and with minimal foot movement to send Rabada’s second effort flying through point for another.

And so on and so forth for much of a day’s play that ended with Agarwal 84 not out and Sharma 115 and going strong. Neither offered a genuine chance.

The flinty, disciplined Agarwal, playing his fifth Test, improved on the 77 he made against Australia in Sydney in January as his career-best score.

Sharma has had more than twice as many T20 innings for India as he has had Test knocks, and the way he played — with verve and nerve, and not a little skill — gave fogeys old and young something to think about. 

On another day, given a smidgen more help from the surface, the seam movement Philander found might have helped him take a quiver of wickets.

Instead, Sharma, in particular, showed impeccable judgement of the exact location of his off stump and left adeptly.

“They dealt with what we delivered quite well,” Muthusamy said. “A few balls went in the air and there were a few inside edges and plays and misses here and there, but they batted really well.”

Muthusamy was confident the pitch would take turn as the match moved on, and that other bowlers would aid his cause by causing wear and tear in key areas on the pitch.

“I feel like left-handers complain all the time, but it’s a terrific challenge to bowl into the rough,” he said, no doubt with fellow left-armer Maharaj in mind.

True. Thing is, another specimen of the sinister style of slow poisoner, Ravindra Jadeja, knows that, too.

First published by TMG Digital.

New Zealand prevail in contest for the ages to reach World Cup final

India’s captain, a Goliath of the game, was downed by a sliver of the ball as small as David’s pebble. He fumed off the field like Daddles the duck himself.

TMG Digital + Print

TELFORD VICE at Old Trafford

THE winners wore black, the losers were blue, and the men’s World Cup is alive and kicking all the way into its last few days.

In one of the most rivetting one-day internationals yet played, New Zealand beat India by 18 runs in their interrupted semi-final at Old Trafford on Wednesday.

The other team in Sunday’s showdown at Lord’s will be decided at Edgbaston, where England and Australia will play the other semi on Thursday and, if needs be, Friday.

New Zealand added 28 runs off the 23 balls they faced on Wednesday to complete an innings that rain on Tuesday halted at 211/5. They totalled 239/8, and dismissed India for 221 in 49.3 overs.

The day’s drama started when Ravindra Jadeja, in the space of two deliveries, undid New Zealand’s chances of setting a bigger target.

The first of those balls, the 11th of the day, was bowled by Jasprit Bumrah and smeared to midwicket by Ross Taylor — who turned for two but couldn’t beat Jadeja’s precise pick-up-and-throw for a direct hit on the only stump he could see.

Then Tom Latham tried to heave Bhuvneshwar Kumar over the midwicket fence — where Jadeja held a superbly judged catch.

Taylor was gone for 74, grafted hard off 90 balls, and Latham for 10, and five balls later Matt Henry was also caught in the deep.

And if you thought that was crazy, you ain’t seen nothing yet.

India crashed to 5/3 in the first 19 deliveries of their reply — Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli and KL Rahul, their bristling top three, all among the top 15 runscorers at the tournament, gone for a single each; the first time that has happened in all 4 190 ODIs yet played.

Sharma edged the fourth ball he faced, a pearler of an out-swinger from Matt Henry, and was caught behind.

Not for 56 innings in the format has he had a shorter innings; a stream of success that started in August 2017.

Since then, and before Tuesday, he had scored 16 centuries — among them a double ton and two efforts of more than 150 — averaged 67.12 and lugged a strike rate of 96.61.

Most pertinently, he had reeled off centuries in his previous three innings at this World Cup, against England, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, to go with those he scored earlier in the tournament against South Africa and Pakistan.

But as he trooped off on Wednesday he looked as dazed and confused as a clueless No. 11.

Seven balls later Trent Boult bent an inswinger into Kohli’s pads and Richard Illingworth raised the finger of fate. Kohli referred the decision and the review showed the ball only just clipping the bails.

India’s captain, a Goliath of the game, had been downed by a sliver of the ball as small as David’s pebble. He fumed off the field like Daddles the duck himself, shaking his head as he went.

Three deliveries after that Henry had his second after Rahul was caught in two minds about playing or leaving an out-swinger — and classily caught by a diving wicketkeeper Latham.

Not a lot seemed to happen for the next 40 balls, 33 of them dots, except that 19 runs were scored.

Then Dinesh Karthik half fended, half bunted Henry from outside off stump to the left of gully. Cue Jimmy Neesham to swoop and claim, one-handed, perhaps the catch of the tournament and reduce India to 24/4.

Rishabh Pant and Hardik Pandya pretended they weren’t two of the most destructive hitters in the game in the cause of restoring order, which they did in a stand of 47 off 76 balls.

It ended when Pant could fake it no longer and heaved left-arm spinner Mitchell Santner to long on. Santner did for Pandya in similar fashion, and also for Pant’s score of 32.

Between those dismissals you could feel the hope rising from the crowd, significantly smaller than Tuesday’s but still predominantly India heavy, as Dhoni crossed the boundary and made his way once more unto the breach.

Did 2011’s captain fantastic, now an ageing uncle, still have what it took?   

The question wasn’t quite answered because Jadeja returned to the fray to do his damnedest to win it for India with a breathtaking innings of guts and gumption.

The 116 he shared with Dhoni was a World Cup record for the seventh wicket, and when it ended — by way of skied drive to mid-off in Boult’s last over — India’s serious hopes ended, also.

Jadeja hammered his 77 off 59 balls with four fours and as many sixes, a wonder that no-one who saw it will forget.

Neither will Dhoni’s brutish cut for six off Lockie Ferguson to narrow the equation to 25 needed off 11 balls fade in the memory.

Two balls later he was run out trying to take two by Martin Guptill’s outrageous direct hit from deep backward square leg.

The last run Dhoni completed took him to 50, but he didn’t raise his bat as he sauntered off.

Classy to the end, uncle.

Hattrick of horror hits South Africa’s World Cup hopes

South Africa have made lower totals eight times in World Cup games – and won half of them. But that was in the 1990s, or before T20 revolutionised white-ball cricket.

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TELFORD VICE in Southampton

SOUTH Africa have never made a worse start to a World Cup, and that’s a fact.

They’ve been to seven previous editions of the tournament, every time managing to win at least one of their first three games.

Four times they’ve won two out of three, and in 1999 they reeled off victories against India, Sri Lanka and England first up.

But things are different this year, which was confirmed in Southampton on Wednesday.

India’s victory over Faf du Plessis’ team followed England and Bangladesh beating them at the Oval on Thursday and Sunday.

For the first time, then, South Africa have nothing to show for their efforts three matches into a World Cup campaign.

They crashed to 89/5 in the first half of their innings and recovered to a barely mediocre 227/9.

Rhohit Sharma’s undefeated 122 guided India to their win, which they reached with six wickets standing and 15 balls to spare.

South Africa have made lower totals eight times in World Cup games — and won half of them. But that was in the 1990s, or before T20 revolutionised white-ball cricket.

Cold shivers would have rattled through South Africa’s dressingroom in what might have been the fateful 13th over, when Faf du Plessis took a blow on the bottom hand from Hardik Pandya.

Minutes of medical attention passed before he eased his glove back onto his hand and continued the fight.

By then, Hashim Amla and Quinton de Kock had been dismissed. To lose the captain into the bargain would have turned South Africa’s not very good campaign from bad to ugly.

Du Plessis and Rassie van der Dussen steadied the innings with a stand of 54 that endured into the 20th over, when leg spinner Yuzvendra Chahal dismissed both in the space of six balls.

Van der Dussen lurched too early into a reverse sweep and was bowled. Du Plessis suffered the same fate, undone by the pace of a top spinner.

David Miller and Andile Phehlukwayo put 46 runs into the partnership pot before Morris and Kagiso Rabada came up with the highest stand of the innings, a sturdy 66 that took South Africa into the last over.

India had bowled to their strengths superbly, and to fields at times strewn with three slips and, at others, harbouring a leg slip. Jasprit Bumrah sniped away relentlessly, beating the bat frequently, and Chahal took 4/51.

No slow bowler has claimed more wickets for India in a World Cup match, and overall only Ashish Nehra, Venkatesh Prasad, Robin Singh and Kapil Dev — seamers all — have bettered his haul.

South Africa knew they needed to bowl exponentially better than in their first two games if they hoped to defend such a small target.

Imran Tahir took the new ball but, unlike against England at the Oval on Thursday, when he also did so and bowled Jonny Bairstow with his second delivery, there was no early strike.

So, after Rabada’s opening burst of six balls, Morris came on and bowled his best spell in years, moving the ball off the seam at pace and finding the consistency he has lacked.

Morris’ first four overs cost just 10 runs and included a maiden, and his next two were also scoreless. Not bad for a bowler who had sent down only five maidens in his previous 35 one-day internationals combined.

Rabada, too, rekindled the fire that has gone out for much of the past year. His reward was finding Shikhar Dhawan’s edge in his first spell.

But it could have been so different. In Rabada’s first over Dhawan slashed a cut marginally over JP Duminy at point and Sharma blooped another ball behind him — where Du Plessis arrived from second slip just too late to take the catch. Six balls later Sharma sent another screamer, off Morris, just out of Duminy’s reach.

India might have been 5/3 at that point, and Rabada emphasised South Africa’s frustration with the last delivery of the fourth over, which splintered the toe of Dhawan’s bat.

It came as cold comfort that Morris’ 10-3-36-1 were the most economical figures yet recorded at this year’s tournament, followed by Rabada’s 10-1-39-2.

Much of the world would have been glued to the battle between Rabada and Kohli in the wake of the South African’s incendiary remarks — at least, the reaction to them was incendiary — about the India captain’s inability to handle the kind of aggression he routinely visits on opponents.

Rabada’s first delivery to Kohli was an easily ducked bouncer, but they treated each other with respect throughout.

It was Phehlukwayo who took the biggest wicket of them all with the help of a wonderful arching leap by De Kock, who held a one-handed catch.

But Sharma was entrenched by then, and remained so to take India home. He faced 144 balls and hit 13 fours and two sixes.

Sharma was 107 not out in the 44th when he swung a cross bat at a slower delivery from Rabada, and sent the ball looping into the evening sky.

Miller, at short cover, one of the finest fielders in the game, waited with cupped hands. But, somehow, the ball popped out and spilled to earth.

Yes, it’s becoming that kind of World Cup.