Homecoming half-century breaks records and gives defending champions a much-needed lift

Tristan Lavalette25-Oct-20220:54

Stoinis: ‘Intention was to put an impact on the game’

When sub fielder Ashen Bandara took a well-balanced catch on the boundary to dismiss Glenn Maxwell, making amends for dropping struggling skipper Aaron Finch on the previous delivery, Sri Lanka could sniff a major upset.With their title defence on home soil wobbling, Australia’s T20 World Cup campaign was in the balance. Well past midnight on the country’s east coast, due to a 7pm start time in Perth which contributed to a modest Optus Stadium crowd of 25,000, a lacklustre Australia were on the brink of being knocked out with most of their supporters sound asleep.Related

Stoinis: I want to be the best finisher in the world'

Stoinis' 18-ball 59* gives Australia NRR-boosting win

As it happened – Australia vs Sri Lanka

Stats – Contrasting records for Stoinis and Finch

Maxwell, for a while mired in a rut, had attempted to kick-start an Australia side who, for the first time in T20Is, didn’t hit a boundary during the powerplay as Finch grew increasingly frustrated with every mis-hit.Maxwell counterattacked Sri Lanka’s talismanic wristspinner Wanindu Harasanga in the 10th over, highlighted by a couple of swiped sixes, but fell with Australia 89 for 3 in the 13th over as the 159 target looked a fair way off. A win was suddenly no certainty, let alone improving their eyesore of a net run-rate which took a pounding after their disastrous opening 89-run defeat to New Zealand.Enter, Marcus Stoinis. He’s a local lad but doesn’t quite get the adulation of the Optus Stadium faithful, being a stalwart in the BBL for Melbourne Stars. Out west, they’re bred parochial, which helps explain why Western Australia’s hard border was so popular among locals.ESPNcricinfo LtdRecently sidelined with a side strain and in and out of form since his heroics at last year’s T20 World Cup, Stoinis has been somewhat overshadowed amid Australia’s slew of big-hitters of late, with newcomer Tim David hogging most of the attention.But in just 18 deliveries, marked by six monstrous sixes at a vast ground which mirrors the MCG for dimensions, Stoinis issued a reminder of his ability to hit a long ball as he single-handedly revived Australia’s campaign and provided a much-needed nudge to Australia’s net run-rate.He modestly later self-described his match-turning knock as “good slogging”, but that did little justice to his targeted assault – particularly on Sri Lanka’s spinners – as he hit the fastest T20I half-century for Australia, and the joint-second-fastest at a T20 World Cup.Stoinis’ batting bravado was in contrast to how he felt when he came to the crease. “I was actually quite nervous to be honest,” he revealed. “The intention was to just go put an impact on the game and probably provide a bit of energy for the boys and get a spark going.”2:13

Kumble: Stoinis had to come in and stamp his authority

With every massive six, a fired-up Stoinis was animated in an attempt to light a fuse under Australia. But it didn’t rub off on Finch, whose struggles were fortunately papered over by the fireworks at the other end.Finch made just 31 off 42, with just one boundary, and particularly struggled against hostile quick Lahiru Kumara, who extracted plenty of seam and sharp bounce in favourable conditions.”That new ball was doing a lot. It was definitely the hardest time to bat,” Stoinis said when asked about Finch’s struggles. “It’s just important that he saw that through and was there to hit the winning runs.”Stoinis’ pyrotechnics spared a lethargic Australia’s blushes. Earlier, they had put in a ragged effort with the ball exacerbated by conceding 24 extras – their highest number since 2007, when they were barely taking the format seriously.Pat Cummins, Josh Hazlewood and Mitchell Starc, who was held back until the fifth over, predictably bowled short of a length but weren’t able to tear through the adventurous Sri Lankan batting order. Cummins leaked 20 runs in the final over, as his struggles at the death continued, in consecutive sub-par performances from him to start the tournament.Fastest fifties in men’s T20 World Cup•ESPNcricinfo Ltd”I don’t think we felt flat,” Stoinis said about Australia’s bowling and fielding. “It felt like we bowled pretty well… there were a few balls up in the air that fell in gaps. There’s definitely things we can tidy up… three or four balls in the game, which could be the difference of 18 runs. It’s the little things we will review.”Australia also had to make a late change after legspinner Adam Zampa tested positive for Covid-19 – though his replacement Ashton Agar used his local expertise to good use by bowling a back of a length to force Sri Lanka to hit to the longer boundaries square.”It’s just team balance that keeps him out of the team,” Stoinis said of Agar. “I think it was an easier option for him [Zampa] to get better when you have got someone like Ash in the wings.”Flexing figuratively and literally, the muscular Stoinis has helped set up a MCG blockbuster against England with everything to play for. “The backs are still against the wall I think,” Stoinis said. “We’ll take the game on. It’s going to be really important for us.”

Three years on, African-Caribbean Engagement programme’s goals are growing with its impact on the game

Vithushan Ehantharajah26-Jan-2023On Tuesday evening, the African-Caribbean Engagement programme (ACE) took over the Long Room at the Kia Oval for an impact report which updated those present on their work over the last two years. Amid the stories was one that embodied an extreme of ACE’s achievements – a player who was one of nine youngsters identified by their Bristol academy who had been selected for Gloucestershire’s age-group programmes.Parish Bailey had not played cricket 18 months ago and his first exposure to it came after ACE development officer Theo Gordon chased down his mother’s car on a hunch. Bailey looked to have the requisite physical attributes to be a cricketer. The remit from above, set by ACE chair and founder, and former women’s World Cup winner Ebony Rainford-Brent MBE, was not simply to fill hubs but to identify and engage talent, even on sporting appearance alone. For Gordon, a quick scarper across a car park was just part of the job.Bailey is now one of 44 players ACE have helped into County Age Group set-ups, of 141 scholars across the country at present who have all had different relationships with the game. As well as others with no previous exposure, there are those who were previously playing in more “informal settings”, such as Afro-Caribbean leagues, or other institutions. Even those who had been grooved by family but never thought to take their talents outside the safe four walls of home. ACE have brought in, polished and realigned these individuals with the more traditional avenues of English cricket by offering more structure and, above all else, comfort.Related

• Ebony Rainford-Brent: 'This summer has blown a lid off the problem'

• The ACE programme is helping Black players stay in love with the game in England

• ACE programme to go nationwide as ECB take action on anti-racism measures

Formed in January 2020 after it was discovered that the number of black British professional players had declined by 75 per cent and the participation rate among black youngsters aged between five and 16 had dropped to 5.2 per cent between 2017 and 2019, ACE is delivering. At the time of writing, 20 per cent of their scholars are now on county pathways. Though only truly in their second year as a fully functioning entity, they are steadily progressing to their end goal of, ultimately, being obsolete.”The end goal is to be redundant,” says Rainford-Brent. “It would be redundant, or at least our aims would not be what our current aims are. Because, by then, it would be completely absorbed into the system. The way we’d look for talent would be different, we’d be in the right schools. And I think it is possible. But that is our main goal. We said it at our trustee away day a couple of months ago – our goal would be to be redundant.”There may already be in train a shift within ACE as to how they measure success. The initial gauge was how many boys and girls they could introduce into the junior pathways, passing on their talent to the counties. However, following research into ACE by Dr Thomas Fletcher and Dr Tom Brown, of Leeds Beckett and Birmingham City universities respectively, they found themselves to be serving a different purpose.”What the researchers came back and showed is the wider community impact has maybe been equally, or maybe even more powerful,” explains Rainford-Brent. “What it’s doing for the game, what it’s doing for communities, rebuilding and connecting with schools, self-esteem, sense of identity. They believe that we should most probably focus on that more.”

“Don’t get me wrong, racism exists in society and there are a lot of layers there. But when you look at the provision in low socio-economic areas… that is the void I want us to fill as a game.”Ebony Rainford-Brent

It was something of a jolt to Rainford-Brent, who has been performance-minded since the beginning. She was under no illusions the talent out there in minority communities needed to be met more than halfway because of years of being ignored by the system. She remains unequivocal in her belief that when that first full-time contract comes for an ACE graduate, it will invigorate the whole organisation. Indeed, she has a long-term view of mimicking the models of football and athletics by going to schools and imprinting cricket from a young age, while armed with data sets on early tells a child might have an aptitude for, say, batting or fast bowling, and encouraging them down that path.Yet there is a renewed appreciation for the off-field impact, from creating spaces where forgotten communities can embrace cricket, to helping them achieve other ambitions within it, such as coaching and umpiring.”I think I’ve come to realise, actually, the wider bits of what we’re seeing for the game,” she says. “We’re getting into areas where kids that were not engaged in cricket, at all, not had the exposure, and have developed a massive love for the game. Connections such as schools that want to become cricket academies. As we talk about our sport becoming the most inclusive sport, we’re finding models and ways of working that can engage these kids. So we can maybe help with what we’re learning to solve some of these problems our game has.”Therefore our impact might not just be ‘do we get a first class cricketer tomorrow?’ It might be ‘actually, do we help cricket reconnect with communities that have been disengaged?’ And be able to get kids from the grassroots to the elite.”Perhaps the best statistics that encapsulate all this with the high-performance element is the fact that 87 per cent of those who attend ACE sessions cite “social identity” as a key factor in them coming back. That is 10 per cent above the national average across all sports. It is an environment where they feel a little more connected, and a lot more understood.Such a sense of belonging is no coincidence. Everyone working at ACE whether in south London, Birmingham, Bristol, Sheffield, north London and at their soon-to-be running hubs in Nottingham and Manchester, have shared experiences with those they are targeting.”I take my own upbringing as an example here,” explains Rainford-Brent. “My mum was working nights to help me to be able to play cricket. So when we turned up to play cricket sometimes there used to be misconceptions about us because we’d come up with a load of bags, my mum was falling asleep. She’d be with me through to the end of training, then head straight to work after putting me to bed. That was the whole cycle.”So if we see a young person and their parents aren’t there, we are open enough to ask some of these questions. Sometimes you get answers that were similar to a lot of our upbringings. I know from my own experience going through the cricket network, it’s not set up to support lower socio-economic kids and understand some of those challenges. When you live it, you understand.”When we did the mapping of the communities we wanted to get into and the Index of Multiple Deprivation, everything aligned. We knew we were going into some of those communities so we have to be really sensitive so we understand and support. We haven’t put a manual on how it should be done, but all our staff have either worked consistently in those environments or come from those environments. That knowledge is deep-rooted with our team.”Even players who have moved on to the professional ladder, enjoying all the trappings of associations with a first-class county, return to ACE sessions, including England Under-19 Davina Perrin, who is aligned to the ECB’s Central Sparks hub in the West Midlands, as well as Birmingham Phoenix in The Hundred.Davina Perrin celebrates after taking a one-handed catch at the U19 Women’s T20 World Cup•Getty/ICCIt is important to note, those gaining access to cricket through ACE, for the first time or otherwise, are not exclusively black. The south London hub, for example, is reflective of the local community, with contingents of Portuguese and Eastern European among black British. That in itself has shown Rainford-Brent that striving for a more inclusive game comes through addressing issues around class.”If you were to say to me focus on one thing – race or socio-economic, I would go socio-economic first. Because, actually, when you get to the communities that we’re not getting to, they’re all in the poorest areas. I saw the urgency with the black community, which is why I went with ACE.”I think the bigger problem in cricket is really around class. I think that’s the biggest. Don’t get me wrong, racism exists in society and there are a lot of layers there. But when you look at the provision in low socio-economic areas, white working-class areas, etcetera – that is the void I want us to fill as a game. And I think if we did that, we would solve the race problem. We could solve the gender problem in terms of the diversity in the female game being really low. If we got into that one area, diversity would automatically flow. For me, that’s the number one thing I want us to track. If we want to be the most inclusive game, that would solve a lot of our problems.”Such learnings are vital given what lies ahead. The Cricket Disciplinary Committee’s racism trial is due in March, along with a report from the Independent Commission for Equity in Cricket (ICEC) which should be published in the next couple of months. The ICEC report will be of particular interest given the volume of testimony around matters of race, sex and class is set to add darker clouds to those that remain over English cricket. The ECB has made a note of notifying counties of the scale of the findings given the heavy degree of scrutiny that will follow.For someone like Rainford-Brent, both in her role with ACE and her status as a celebrated figure of the game, the ICEC findings will present both opportunity and challenge. That it will be overseen by incoming ECB chief executive Richard Gould, formerly of Surrey, and a key supporter of the ACE programme when initially launched as an initiative of the county, gives her confidence. Nevertheless, there will be a need to push forward while taking a deep breath during what will be a very public and very difficult national conversation.Young players at The Oval as part of Surrey’s ACE programme•Surrey CCC”I kind of want the report to be out so we can get on with starting to really have those conversations. I feel like we’ve had a lot of those conversations over the last couple of years: Azeem Rafiq, Black Lives Matter. But I also feel there might be other areas we haven’t put on as a priority that we may need to discuss.”Me personally, I’m not prepared, to be honest. The only thing from our perspective that we’re ‘excited’ about is we know there are areas of the game in terms of race and socio-economic class that can be solved. We are seeing day-to-day successes in those areas. But in terms of what it uncovers for the whole game, I’m not prepared yet.”I don’t worry what we all say in our cricket chambers as such. But there’s no doubt what’s happened over the last few years, there is a public impression of cricket. We don’t want that and I think that is going to be the biggest challenge we’re going to then have to face, is trying to recreate our brand as a sport.”As the first black woman to play for England and an accomplished broadcaster, Rainford-Brent will be called upon for both comment and solution. And though as above, she has ideas, it is a lot for one woman to bear. But it is abundantly clear few are as robust and in-tune with the matters at hand.For the time being, her priority is fortifying ACE. The other findings of the investigations of Dr Fletcher and Dr Brown were the need for a more professional structure, which are being addressed. Things like fitness, nutrition and personal development plans are now in place, along with more ECB level four coaches, such as Donovan Miller of Essex who has international and franchise experience. In turn, ACE teams won 56 per cent of their fixtures in 2022.The ACE team won 56 percent of their fixtures in the 2022 season•ACE, Vincent BellFemale representation remains an issue, with just 33 per cent across their community hubs. Plans are in place for improving that to 50-50 by adopting a more targeted approach to recruitment as well as female-only academies. Money, as ever, is the only real solution.At present, ACE’s yearly expenditure is £350,000, which comes out through grants from the ECB (£200,000 per annum for two years) and Sport England (£180,000 per annum for three years). Upscaling will cost an estimated £1 million a year.Rainford-Brent ranks seeking funding as her weakest suit. Then again, given how she has excelled in her career, and in everything she puts her mind to, one assumes her floor is higher than most people’s ceiling.No doubt she will find a way, and in turn drag the game along with her. The boldness of creating ACE initially has only strengthened her enthusiasm to take cricket into the light.”We often say, ACE stands for African-Caribbean Engagement but also Accelerated Change and Empowerment,” she says. “We want to be that accelerator.”

What do the auction pools look like, what is the sort of money being spent, and much more

S Sudarshanan11-Feb-2023One more player auction!
Yes. The appetiser the main event needed, right? Last month, we had bids to identify the owners of the five teams. Now, we will know the squads.Ok, tell me more – when, where?
The auction will be held on Monday, February 13, from 2.30pm IST. It will be held at the Jio World Convention Centre at the Bandra-Kurla Complex in Mumbai. The tournament, comprising 22 matches, will be played between March 4 and March 26 across the DY Patil Stadium in Navi Mumbai and Brabourne Stadium in Mumbai.Related

From Mandhana to Kapp – five players who could fetch big money at the WPL auction

WPL auction during T20 World Cup a 'distraction'

Podcast: India's U-19 title a big win for women's cricket

WPL: Rachael Haynes joins Gujarat Giants as head coach

Charlotte Edwards to coach Mumbai's WPL team

What is at stake? How many players will be bought, or sold?
A maximum of 90 slots – the squads can have between 15 and 18 players – are up for grabs. Each team can have up to six overseas players, so there could be up to 30 non-Indian players who get teams. Nineteen players from Associate teams have also been shortlisted.Are players from Associate nations likely to find buyers?
It is not mandatory for teams to pick an Associate player but there’s an incentive for picking one. Teams can field four overseas players in their XIs, as is the case in the IPL, but they have the option of including a fifth overseas player provided she is from an Associate nation.Okay, so what sort of money are we talking about?
For the inaugural season, the auction purse with each franchise is INR 12 crore (US$ 1.46 million approx.). International players had the option of choosing their base prices at INR 30 lakh (US$ 36,000 approx.) or INR 40 lakh (US$ 48,000 approx.) or INR 50 lakh (US$ 60,000 approx.), while uncapped players had their base prices at INR 10 lakh (US$ 12,000 approx.) and INR 20 lakh (US$ 24,000 approx.).Tell me more about the 449 players who are a part of the auction.
Of those, 269 are from India, and 179 are overseas players, including 19 from Associate teams. There are a total of 202 capped players, and 227 uncapped players, with the 19 Associate players not part of those lists.In terms of countries, 29 are from Australia, 31 from England, 23 from the West Indies, 19 from New Zealand, 17 from South Africa, 15 from Sri Lanka, 11 from Zimbabwe, nine each from Bangladesh and Thailand, six from Ireland, four from the UAE, two each from the Netherlands and Scotland, and one each from USA and Hong Kong.2:24

Bates: ‘Franchise cricket has kept me in the game longer than I thought’

How many players are in the top bracket, in terms of the base price?
A total of 24 players, including ten Indians, have the highest base price.The Indians are Harmanpreet Kaur, Smriti Mandhana, Deepti Sharma, Renuka Singh, Jemimah Rodrigues, Shafali Verma, Pooja Vastrakar, Richa Ghosh, Sneh Rana and Meghna Singh. The overseas players in this bracket include Ashleigh Gardner, Ellyse Perry, Meg Lanning, Alyssa Healy, Jess Jonassen and Darcie Brown from Australia; Sophie Ecclestone, Nat Sciver-Brunt, Danni Wyatt and Katherine Sciver-Brunt from England; Sophie Devine from New Zealand; South Africa’s Sinalo Jafta; West Indies’ Deandra Dottin; and Loryn Phiri of Zimbabwe.In the next category, INR 40 lakh, there are 30 players, including eight from India.Who could be the big buys?
The first set includes Devine, Ecclestone, Gardner, Harmanpreet, Mandhana, Hayley Matthews and Perry, with only Matthews at a base price of INR 40 lakh. That could see fierce bidding as teams would want to snap up the multi-faceted players, who could offer them a leadership option, too. Lanning, Healy, Deepti and Kapp, among others, will come up in later sets, which could see teams perhaps go slow at the start.Any surprises in the auction list?
Jafta and Phiri are in the top bracket, while more established names from South Africa, like Marizanne Kapp, Shabnim Ismail and Mignon du Preez have their base price at INR 40 lakh, and those from Zimbabwe, like captain Mary-Anne Musonda or allrounder Precious Marange, have their price set at INR 30 lakh.Interestingly, South Africa allrounder Dane van Niekerk has listed herself at INR 30 lakh, while Lizelle Lee, who retired from internationals last year, has a base price of INR 40 lakh. And Chloe Tryon is in the INR 30 lakh category. Australia’s Grace Harris has asked for INR 30 lakh while her sister Laura Harris, who is uncapped, could be a steal at INR 10 lakh.9:43

WPL a game-changer for unearthing the depth of Indian cricket

Are all the Indian Under-19 world champions in the mix?
All of them, including the reserves.But only ten from the other teams are in contention: England’s Grace Scrivens, New Zealand’s Fran Jonas, Ireland’s Amy Hunter, Bangladesh’s Shorna Akter, Sri Lanka’s Vishmi Gunaratne, Zimbabwe’s Kelis Ndhlovu, West Indies’ Jannillea Glasgow, and Theertha Satish, Mahika Gaur and Vaishnave Mahesh from the UAE. Apart from Scrivens and Akter, everyone else has represented their respective countries at international level.Who are the youngest and the oldest players in the auction?
Latika Kumari, aged 41, is the oldest player in the auction with Zimbabwe’s Marange close on the heels at 40. Kumari played six T20Is for India between 2009 and 2014, including the T20 World Cups in those two years. She last played for India in 2015 and represented Delhi in the domestic circuit.On the other side of the spectrum are three 15-year olds, the joint-youngest in the auction. Fast bowler Shabnam MD and left-arm spinner Sonam Yadav, both of whom were part of the victorious India Under-19 side, and Andhra left-arm spinner Vinny Suzan all have a base price of INR 10 lakh.What about uncapped Indians who are prominent players in the domestic circuit?
Disha Kasat, who captained Vidarbha to the semi-finals of the Senior Women’s T20 Trophy earlier this season and also topped the run-chart, is listed at INR 10 lakh, while Rajasthan’s Jasia Akhter, who had the highest strike rate (138.57) among the top ten run-scorers in the competition, is at INR 20 lakh. Sarla Devi is the only one in the auction pool from Jammu and Kashmir, while the more experienced, hard-hitting allrounder Rubia Syed doesn’t figure.Left-arm spinners Sonal Kalal from Rajasthan and Sahana Pawar from Karnataka, both among the top five wicket-takers in the domestic tournament, are in the pruned list at a base price of INR 20 lakh and INR 10 lakh respectively.*1135 GMT, February 12: The story was updated after 40 more players were added to the auction list

With several teams stacked together on eight points, it’s anyone’s guess as to who will make the playoffs

Shashank Kishore27-Apr-2023David Warner, Ricky Ponting and Sourav Ganguly have a lot to ponder over•BCCIDelhi CapitalsPlayed 7, Won 2, Lost 5, Points 4, Position: tenthChallenges:Top-order stabilityThe missing piece:Rishabh Pant, who is recovering from multiple injuries following a car crashHow they’ve fared:David Warner the white-ball destroyer is still finding his gears and Prithvi Shaw as an Impact Sub seems woefully out of form, returning a highest of 13 in six innings, with familiar questions raised around his handling of swing and pace. Sarfaraz Khan was given just one game to prove himself in a role – wicketkeeping – he was groomed to perform in Pant’s absence but lost his place completely after two matches. He’s back again after four games to shore up a misfiring batting line-up. Elsewhere, Mitchell Marsh’s early unavailability due to his wedding led to a roulette with Rilee Rossouw and Rovman Powell coming and going. The chop-change is a reflection of the uncertainty in the camp as they fight near the bottom.Mayank Agarwal and Co can’t afford to take their eye off the ball for the remainder of the season•AFP/Getty ImagesSunrisers HyderabadPlayed 7, Won 2, Lost 5, Points 4, Position: ninthChallenges:Top order in a fluxHow they’ve fared:Mayank Agarwal has struggled and when he was shunted down the order against CSK, it seemed like an eerie rerun of his previous year with Punjab Kings. Abhishek Sharma has faced a similar fate, of being moved up and down while England’s Harry Brook, signed to play a middle-order role, has come good as an opener only once in the five knocks he has played at the top. Meanwhile, lower down, Washington Sundar* has elicited debates if he should be batting a lot higher, especially in the CSK game where their right-handedness in the middle order played into Ravindra Jadeja’s hands on a typical Chepauk deck.KKR have started the second leg of league matches on the right note•AFP/Getty ImagesKolkata Knight RidersPlayed 8, Won 3, Lost 5, Points: 6, position: seventhChallenges:Top order instabilityThe missing piece:Shreyas Iyer, their designated captain, who is undergoing rehab following a back surgery in UKHow they’ve fared:The 17 wickets they’ve lost are the most by any team in the powerplay this season. They had tried five different opening combinations in their first seven games. Against RCB on Wednesday night, they tried a sixth and had their highest opening stand of the season – 83 between Jason Roy and N Jagadeesan. Part of the reason for this chop and change has been due to injuries. Rahmanullah Gurbaz’s niggle meant bringing in Jagadeesan and Roy’s absence during the initial stages meant they tried a number of others up top – Mandeep Singh, Venkatesh Iyer, Gurbaz, Litton Das and Sunil Narine among them. Their win on Sunday night brought the promise of a more settled pairing at the top.Mumbai have plugged the Bumrah-Archer gap by using Arjun Tendulkar, Riley Meredith, Cameron Green and Jason Behrendorff•Associated PressMumbai IndiansPlayed 7, Won 3, Lost 4, Points: 6, position: eighthChallenges:Death bowlingThe missing piece(s):Jasprit Bumrah, who is out of the season, and Jofra Archer, who has featured in just two games so far to manage his elbow condition.How they’ve fared:They’re feeling the absence of the Bumrah-Archer pairing that they hoped would give opponents sleepless nights. It’s a gap they’ve plugged by using Arjun Tendulkar, Riley Meredith, Cameron Green and Jason Behrendorff. Since the win against Sunrisers, where Tendulkar defended 20 in the final over, they’ve conceded 200-plus in two losses. Kings ransacked 109 off their last six overs, while Titans managed 94. Mumbai are fast running out of options.Kings have struggled to make strong starts in the absence of Shikhar Dhawan•Associated PressPunjab KingsPlayed 7, Won 4, Lost 3, Points 8, position: sixthChallenges:Soft under-belly to their top order in Shikhar Dhawan’s absence due to a shoulder niggleHow they’ve fared:It looks among the weakest top-three on paper without Dhawan, who brings his experience of being able to anchor or explode based on situations. Matt Short has been inconsistent, Atharva Taide inexperienced and Harpreet Bhatia unable to force the pace despite getting starts. This has meant there’s been an over-reliance on Prabhsimran Singh and the returning Liam Livingstone to fuel their starts. They can’t wait for Dhawan to be back.Glenn Maxwell and Faf du Plessis have been crucial to RCB’s prospects•Associated PressRoyal Challengers BangalorePlayed 8, Won 4, Lost 4, Points 8, position: fifthChallenges: Overcoming the Rajat Patidar voidHow they’ve fared: It has been Faf du Plessis, Virat Kohli and Glenn Maxwell, or nothing. The overreliance on the big-three has become their biggest talking point yet again. When Rajat Patidar came in as replacement and set the stage alight by hitting the IPL’s first century by an uncapped player in the playoffs, he brought with him the promise of being able to switch between being an accumulator and an enforcer. But in his absence due to a heel injury, Mahipal Lomror and Shahbaz Ahmed haven’t been able to grab those opportunities. Shahbaz has managed scores of 2 and 2 at No. 3, while Lomror had scores of 26, 0, 7* and 8. On Sunday, just when it appeared as if he’d repay the faith, he was out for 34 in a steep chase.KL Rahul slowed down, went deep, but couldn’t finish the job for LSG against Titans•AFP/Getty ImagesLucknow Super Giants Played 7, Won 4, Lost 3, Points 8, position: fourthChallenges: Capitalising in the PowerplayHow they’ve fared: Poorly. All said, conditions at home in Lucknow have been challenging. They’ve played on black soil decks that have aided turn and low bounce, where 150 and perhaps not 200 have been the order of the day. Yet, KL Rahul’s powerplay approach continues to be a subject of raging debates. It was partly justified in a two-paced Jaipur deck last week, when he went slow and built a platform with Kyle Mayers to set up 154, which they defended superbly. But the same approach cost them a win and a place in the top-two at the halfway mark when he dropped anchor until the final over to make a 61-ball 68 only for LSG to lose by seven runs in a chase of 136, especially after needing 31 off 36 with nine wickets in hand at one stage. All said, Rahul’s powerplay strike rate of 113.91 is the third lowest this season among batters who’ve faced at least 100 deliveries.Dhruv Jurel has done his credentials no harm in recent matches for Royals•BCCIRajasthan RoyalsPlayed 7, Won 4, Lost 3, Points 8, position: thirdChallenges: Absence of an Indian finisherHow they’ve fared: They invested heavily in Riyan Parag to play a finisher’s role, but after meagre returns – 54 runs in five innings at a strike rate of 112 – it appears they may have begun looking elsewhere for the moment. Fortunately, they’ve found Dhruv Jurel. The 20-year-old was in their camp for the entire 2022 season as an apprentice, and when it appeared as if Royals may have erred in sending him ahead of the seasoned Jason Holder, Jurel let his bat do the talking on debut. Not even the prospect of needing 74 off 30 proved daunting enough as he smashed an unbeaten 15-ball 32 in an innings full of eye-catching strokes. The Royals lost narrowly, but Jurel did his credentials no harm. Since then, he’s featured in five more games. In their most-recent outing against RCB, he was preferred over Parag and threatened another jailbreak in making an unbeaten 15-ball 34 in a chase of 189.Sai Sudharsan has scored 176 runs in five innings at a strike-rate of 123.94•BCCIGujarat Titans Played 7, Won 5, Lost 2, Points 10, position: second Challenges:Finding an anchor in Kane Williamson’s absenceHow they’ve fared:When Williamson damaged his ACL and limped off the field in their IPL opener, Titans may have yearned for someone to take over his role. They’ve found B Sai Sudharsan who has proven his capabilities in stepping up by leaving his imprint in a team full of explosive hitters. He’s gotten off to starts in each of the five games, with the back-to-back half-centuries against Capitals and KKR being the standouts. His 176 runs in five innings have come at a strike-rate of 123.94.Eden Gardens turned a fair bit yellow for MS Dhoni’s visit•BCCIChennai Super KingsPlayed 7, Won 5, Lost 2, Points 10Challenges:Inexperienced seam-attack after injuries to Deepak Chahar, Ben Stokes and Mukesh ChoudharyHow they’ve fared:Their bowling frailties could’ve been exposed but MS Dhoni has backed rookies Tushar Deshpande, Akash Singh and Matheesha Pathirana to do the heavy lifting upfront and at the tail end. At the halfway mark, they’ve repaid the faith. Deshpande has stepped up and has seemingly overcome a no-ball problem, while Akash has impressed with his zip and swing with the new ball. Deshpande has picked up 12 wickets in seven games and is only the second CSK player, after Ravindra Jadeja, in the top 10 charts for the most impactful bowler of the season.

Few home comforts at Chelmsford for nominal series hosts, but plenty of lessons for the international game

Andrew Miller10-May-2023They came in droves. From Newham and Whitechapel, from Dagenham and Redbridge, all #BackingGreen as the Cricket Ireland hashtag implored, and turning an improbable suburban enclave in Essex into the ultimate home-from-home.Unfortunately for the nominal hosts Ireland (although not, it must be said, unexpectedly), the #Green in question had a more tigerly tinge to it, as London’s Bangladeshi community seized on the chance for a raucous day out in Chelmsford – and by the time they’d all been sent hurtling back towards the tube network by a dramatic late-afternoon thunderstorm, it was as if they’d come armed with Dhaka’s rainy-season weather too.And so, when Mark Adair spoke afterwards to Ireland’s lone media representative in front of an abandoned, waterlogged outfield, to reflect on the washout that had ended his side’s hopes of automatic World Cup qualification, the day’s prior events all felt a bit like a fever dream.Related

• Bangladesh enhance their ODI credentials with dramatic Chelmsford win

• Ireland vs Bangladesh washout gives South Africa ODI WC ticket

• Rain intervenes after Mushfiqur fifty helps Bangladesh to 246

The flags, the drums, the face-paint, the cuddly tiger toys. None of that remained, just a desperately dank media marquee with raindrops sheeting down the plastic windows – which, ironically, was perhaps Ireland’s first true taste of home (dis)comfort, seeing as a washout in temporary facilities at Malahide was exactly what they had been seeking to avoid when the decision was made to outsource this, their final Super League campaign.But, with apologies to Ireland’s now-deferred tilt for World Cup qualification, this had still been one of the more notable rain-wrecked ODIs. Not so much for the performances (mighty though Mushfiqur Rahim’s birthday half-century had been), but for the lessons that were learned about the resilience of the format.At a time when the international game is feeling the squeeze like never before – with the return of Ireland’s star seamer, Josh Little, from the IPL embodying the wrench of priorities that the world’s leading players are currently feeling – there was a vitality to the day’s events that underlined what stands to be lost if an endless treadmill of T20 leagues becomes the norm.All things being equal, Ireland versus Bangladesh is precisely the sort of contest that even the most fervent of cricket fans could be forgiven for overlooking, but if the Chelmsford experience reminds us of anything, it is that passion cannot be faked. It may be the smallest ground on the county circuit, but with more than 3000 Bangladesh fans packing out its stands, it offered up a stage on which those supporters could celebrate the ties that still bind them to a homeland that, in many cases, they left behind several generations ago.The top deck of the Tom Pearce Stand throbbed all day long, with its oversize Bangladesh flag shimmering to every half-chance, and with the whole crowd bursting into a rendition of “Happy Birthday” (complete with specially printed banner) as Mushfiqur made his way to the middle in the 22nd over of the day.They came in droves, and turned an improbable suburban enclave in Essex into the ultimate home-from-home•Cricket IrelandAnd even when the rain arrived to ruin a keenly poised contest, a significant throng stayed back to the bitter end, braving the lightning strikes that at one stage even fried the grimly static replay screen, so that they could line the route from the pavilion to the team bus to bid their heroes goodnight.”When the crowd comes to see the match, players always enjoy,” Najmul Hossain Shanto said at the close. “It is always helpful for our game. Some of the players have family here, probably they will come in the next match as well. The crowd here was 80-90% from Bangladesh. We didn’t feel that much [like visitors].”And so the inevitable question arises. Could any of this be adapted to help safeguard the long-term future of international cricket? Of course, the notion of neutral-venue internationals isn’t exactly a new one. It’s 111 years since the 1912 Triangular drowned in weather not dissimilar to Chelmsford’s denouement, while Pakistan spent more than a decade in the desert – metaphorically and otherwise – after their security situation drove them from their homeland in 2009.Prior to setting up a new base in the UAE, Pakistan also played two memorable Tests against Australia in England in the summer of 2010, including a second Test at Headingley that tapped into Yorkshire’s diaspora every bit as effectively as Chelmsford did for East London’s. The fact that that ECB-PCB relationship did not continue into future seasons owed rather more to the events at Lord’s later that summer than to any sense that the bottom line did not add up.This time, however, you wonder if the timing feels more apposite. Perhaps not for Ireland in the short term, whose years as a Full-Member Nation have inadvertently come to epitomise the international game’s slow-puncture (although let’s judge the strength of their own diaspora if cricket ever manages to tap into the US market).

“A day like today is a celebration of the trust and confidence in our relationship with the Bangladeshi community”Arfan Akram, Essex’s East London Operations Manager

But for the international game as a whole – faced with a haemorrhaging of TV revenue that hastens a vicious spiral of decline – there’s never a bad time to be reminded that the game exists because of its fans, and not because of its rights deals. Bangladesh’s supposed lightweight status has meant that latter factor has been allowed to determine their value to England – by whom they haven’t been invited in a bilateral capacity since 2010 – even though the sheer joy that they bring to their support has lit up two of the last six English summers, thanks to their involvement in the 2017 Champions Trophy and the 2019 ODI World Cup.And there’s another pressing factor at play too, one that Essex in particular recognise all too well. English cricket’s ongoing racism reckoning is set for another seismic moment when the Independent Commission for Equity in Cricket (ICEC) finally sees the light of day, and when it does, the game as a whole can expect a litany of criticism on the grounds of class, race and gender. What’s more, Essex themselves are also braced for the findings of Katherine Newton KC’s report into specific allegations at the club, many of which were raised by their former player, Jahid Ahmed, who also happened to be the first British Bangladeshi to play county cricket.And, right there, is the nub of the issue for the English game. Tower Hamlets, where a third of London’s Bangladeshi community lives, is barely half an hour door-to-door from the County Ground while Jahid himself was born in the city of Chelmsford, even though he described the club on his doorstep as “a white man’s world where brown people were outsiders”.It is all evidence of a huge and shamefully untapped market. And yet, those same fans who flocked to Tuesday’s game might not have turned out in such force had it not been for the chance to congregate around their heritage, and effectively embrace that outsider status. It all points to a design flaw at the heart of international cricket – one that effectively runs counter to the expectations of multiculturalism – and if the ICEC is to offer any sort of closure to English cricket, it will be obliged to map out a resolution that cuts both ways.BCBBut to judge by an undeniably uplifting afternoon at Essex, English cricket is already better prepared to deal with whatever fallout awaits, not least because the concessions required to make Bangladesh’s fans feel welcome on such an occasion – the installation of a prayer room in the indoor school, for instance, or the provision of halal food, and the scaling-back of alcohol outlets in anticipation of a predominantly Muslim crowd – are now part of the club’s everyday considerations, rather than just tacked on reluctantly at the end of a planning meeting.”A day like today is a celebration of the trust and confidence in our relationship with the Bangladeshi community,” Arfan Akram, Essex’s East London Operations Manager, told ESPNcricinfo. Akram’s remit includes the ECB’s acclaimed new hub in Leyton, where much of the face-to-face engagement with those communities takes place. On any given night in the nets, club players are likely to rub shoulders with current Essex players such as Feroz Khushi or Aron Nijjar, and even the former Bangladesh spinner Enamul Haque, who is now a coach at Newham College.And the net effect of that grassroots outreach has already been felt in the lead-up to these three matches, as Akram explained.”Demand for cricket in East London is outstripping supply,” he said. “The beauty of these three games is that we haven’t been using a central sales platform, it’s us sending WhatsApp messages and the system going mad in ticket sales. That can only happen if there’s a culture in the club that people want to be a part of.”The historic incidents will need their time, and fair process, and we’ll be able to move forward when we have closure. But this will help us in the long-term transition of the club.”None of which is of any immediate consolation to Ireland, of course. On the eve of the game, their captain Andy Balbirnie had conceded that his team’s presence in England for such a crunch contest was “slightly disappointing”, and that their “home” status was set to be anything but. And yet, here they were regardless, embracing the fanaticism that their opponents brought to the occasion, and accepting into the bargain that the health of one is the health of all when it comes to the fragile ties that keep international cricket viable.

From press conferences set against statues of bald eagles to construction workers burning the midnight oil, it’s all happening in Texas as cricket looks to light a spark

Peter Della Penna13-Jul-2023It’s 2am in Grand Prairie, Texas, a city of 200,000 people. While most of its residents are happily asleep, there’s a lot of noise coming from just off Exit 34 of US Interstate Highway 30. With the first ball of the inaugural season of Major League Cricket (MLC) less than 18 hours away, a few dozen construction workers, not to mention MLC tournament director Justin Geale and a small number of his staff, are burning the midnight oil to get everything at the venue finished.Until 2020, the stadium was the home of a minor league baseball team called the Texas Airhogs. But minor league baseball’s Covid-enforced cancellation of the 2020 season started a domino effect that resulted in the Airhogs folding, MLC taking over the lease of the stadium, and spending more than $20 million to renovate and repurpose the facility for cricket. That included stripping apart the original seating structures to allow the outfield to be redesigned for cricket before relaying the grass and installing new seats everywhere.The stadium might not look new to residents as they drive by, but on the inside, the smell of fresh paint is still pungent in the air. Cement is still drying from the newly installed section-pole markers. The sound of power-drills continues to whirr as cup-holders are attached to chairback seats being installed in high-end sections of the stadium.A few hundred feet away, numbered stickers are going on seats. The only thing breaking the monotony of working through each seat of the empty stadium is the sound of Zac Brown Band’s classic country anthem “Chicken Fried” blasting away on one of the construction crew’s speakerphones. According to the construction foreman, they’ll be on the job for another six hours, till well after the sun rises, to see the job to its completion.Burning the midnight oil: not much time and still quite a few finishing touches needed at the Grand Prairie stadium•Peter Della PennaIn temperatures well past 100F (38C) all week, local workers who have never seen a cricket match have been pouring thousands of hours of sweat – mostly in 15-hour shifts, ending purely for a union-mandated nine-hour break before coming back to repeat the 15-hour cycle all over again – to get everything ready to give the newly formed American
franchise cricket league its grand debut in Grand Prairie.”Growing cricket in America is not a piece of cake,” Sameer Mehta, co-founder of MLC, tells ESPNcricinfo in Dallas after the conclusion of the tournament’s trophy unveiling and captains’ press conference. “We’ve got a unique set of challenges out here. We’ve got cities that are lukewarm interested. We’ve got audiences that are not used to cricket happening locally so they focus on cricket that happens elsewhere, even though they love the sport. We’ve got a wonderful sport that people are confused about. Is it five days, is it one day, is it T20? And then we have no facilities.”So it’s taken us four years, and we’ve got somewhere. We’ve got one, I would say, pretty well-done facility in Grand Prairie. We’ve got a facility in Morrisville that the city was kind enough to build and that we are enhancing. We have four more in the pipeline. I feel very good with where we are right now. We are at the start of something. Four years back, it wasn’t the start. Four years back, we were building something. Now we are going to start executing.”Part of the reason that the Grand Prairie venue was targeted for securing the lease towards the end of 2020 is because Mehta believes the Dallas Metroplex local community will embrace local cricket. Communities like Plano and Irving have a heavy South Asian influence, seen not just in the number of South Asian shops, but also by the fact there more than 250,000 subscribers of Willow TV (MLC’s American TV broadcast partner) between the Dallas and Houston metro areas. It stands Grand Prairie in sharp contrast to the transient experience of Lauderhill, Florida, as a neutral site where 15,000 fans flooded in during the summer of 2019 to watch India play matches against West Indies while USA played in front of 19 people just weeks later on their home ODI debut against the likes of Papua New Guinea and Namibia.

“You walk into baseball, and facilities are unbelievable. You walk into a stadium and you go ‘wow’ and you go, ‘This could be cricket in America.’ I don’t know how many years it would take to get there, but you see cricket working like it. It’s got a different feel to it than anywhere else in the world.”Faf du Plessis, who will captain Texas Super Kings, on sport in the USA

There may be some credence to Mehta’s $20 million investment bet on Grand Prairie. Opening night at Grand Prairie Stadium has already been confirmed as a sellout at the 7,200 seat venue, albeit with between 1,000 to 2,000 seats given away for free to local MLC academy players and their families. Ticket sales have not been quite as robust in Texas for the remaining seven fixtures over the first week before the tournament shifts to Morrisville, North Carolina. But the amount of revenue-generating ticket sales has been healthy enough to be in the mid-four-figures, a volume of daily ticket sales that is unprecedented for a cricket event in America.”Five of those days are going to be sold out,” says Mehta, believing that there will be more buyers on gameday. “Three of those days are going to be at least half full, possibly sold out. Now that doesn’t mean that we won’t get some academy kids to come fill up some seats. But my view is, as far as the economics of the event go, we have crossed $2 million in ticket sales. We are fine and the product will fine.”There will be three days where we may have less than full attendance, but otherwise people have shown enough enthusiasm to come. Again, this is Texas in the middle of summer [with temperatures forecast to be 103F at game time], but we couldn’t get any other window to play because of the world calendar and 11 games in a small time frame and that too without a huge
marketing blitz. It’s been very organic and the majority of the games in Texas will be sold out, and Morrisville will be all sold out.”Even for a player who has seen it all in international cricket and the franchise scene, Texas Super Kings captain Faf du Plessis said he has been impressed since arriving in Dallas to lead the home-town franchise. Du Plessis was one of several players were hosted on field at a baseball game by the reigning World Series champion Houston Astros last week – most MLC teams used the Prairie View Cricket Complex in Houston as a training base while Grand Prairie Stadium was going through its finishing touches – and it gave him a glimpse of where cricket in America might one day reach if MLC goes according to plan.A very-American wing of Perot Investments HQ was the scene of the pre-tournament captains’ press conference (In pic: Anurag Jain, co-owner of Texas Super Kings, and Aaron Finch, captain of San Francisco Unicorns)•Peter Della Penna”You come to a sport in America, it’s very big,” du Plessis said at the captains’ press conference, held at the Perot Investments HQ in Dallas, in a wing adorned with Texas-sized American flags and massive statues of American bald eagles (H Ross Perot Jr is a co-owner of the Texas Super Kings, and grandson of the late influential Texan billionaire best remembered for his attempted US presidential run against George Bush and Bill Clinton in 1992). “You walk into baseball, and facilities are unbelievable. You walk into a stadium and you go ‘wow’ and you look at it and you go, ‘This could be cricket in America.’ I don’t know how many years it would take to get there, but you look at and see cricket working like it. It’s got a different feel to it than anywhere else in the world.”Something I would like moving forward is to just rub shoulders with these people, whether that’s American football or baseball, just high level elite sportsmen coming together and sharing a dressing room… I think that to grow cricket, you need these other sportspeople to talk about cricket as well because we’re going to need all of the American people to jump on this and actually make this a success.”That means American players too. One of the things absent from the launch press conference was American flavour on the podium. Whereas PSL teams are mostly captained by Pakistan players, IPL teams by Indian players, CPL teams by West Indian players, American players have been mostly relegated to the background in year one.But one of the leading lights for USA on the franchise scene over the last five years has been fast bowler Ali Khan. After making his big splash in the summer of 2018 with Trinbago Knight Riders to propel them to a CPL title, he has turned into a fixture in various other Knight Riders-affiliated squads, including becoming the first American in an IPL squad with Kolkata Knight Riders in 2020. Being part of the Knight Riders lineup on opening night when they take on Texas Super Kings holds extra significance for Khan because he now lives in the state, having moved from Ohio in 2020, and married a Texan girl with Pakistani heritage this past May.

“Playing for Knight Riders, the franchise I’ve been with over the years, and playing in my hometown in Texas where I live now, that’s really exciting. Having your own family members and friends coming to watch, it’s really exciting. Having a facility like this in America, it’s a game-changer.”USA and Knight Riders fast bowler Ali Khan

“It’s a very special moment for cricket in America,” said Khan. “I think it’s going to be a really huge success. A lot of people have been waiting for this to happen over the years. So finally, we have something coming into our own country. I’ve been playing franchise cricket around the world, but having a league in our own backyard, it’s really good and I’m really excited to see it. I
can’t wait to get it started.”Playing for Knight Riders, the franchise I’ve been with over the years, and playing in my hometown in Texas where I live now, that’s really exciting. Having your own family members and friends coming to watch, it’s really exciting. Having a facility like this in America, it’s a game-changer. It can only get better from here.”

ESPNcricinfo presents its team of the US Masters T10 tournament

ESPNcricinfo staff28-Aug-2023Aaron Finch (California Knights)Finch has only just quit the game internationally, so he is not quite in the turning-the-clock-back category yet, and is still pretty huge in the Big Bash League. That showed, never more than early on in the tournament, when he smashed 75 not out in 31 balls and 63 not out in 30 balls against New Jersey Triton’s and Morrisville Unity respectively. California lost both matches, though, but not for want of trying on Finch’s part, who ended as the highest scorer in the competition, with 236 runs from eight innings at a strike rate of 203.44.Mohammad Hafeez (Texas Chargers)He was the Player of the Tournament, and totally deserving of the honour, after scoring 210 runs in eight innings at a strike rate of 253.01 – the best among the batters – and picking up seven wickets at an economy rate of 8.85. In the final, he didn’t need to bowl, but was the best batter, scoring 46 in 17 balls in Texas’ chase. A collapse meant it wasn’t enough to win the game for them, who had to get to the title after a Super Over, but Hafeez showcased his all-round ability in spades.Jacques Kallis (California Knights)He’s close to 48, but he is arguably the greatest all-round cricketer since Garry Sobers. And there were plenty of signs of the old class-is-permanent cliché, particularly against Texas, where he smashed 64 not out in 31 balls and put up a stand of 158 with Milind Kumar to make it a one-sided contest. There were all the old trademark shots on display, and that inside-out drive over the covers looked good enough to eat. If that was a high-scoring game, he played a measured knock in a low-scoring game against Atlanta Riders, where he scored 38 not out in 27 balls in a five-run win.

We've traveled back in time to witness @jacqueskallis75 deliver batting performance for today's match 1!

Tune-in to #USMastersT10OnStar
Tomorrow | 6:30 PM onwards | Star Sports 1 & Star Sports 1 Hindi#Cricket pic.twitter.com/JLdxcH3idf

— Star Sports (@StarSportsIndia) August 19, 2023