The first female chief of the Professional Cricketers’ Association in England talks about her new role, and what’s worrying her about the global women’s game

Matt Roller08-Mar-2021English women’s cricket is in a transitional phase. Forty-one players signed professional terms last year as part of a revamped domestic structure, joining the centrally contracted England players in becoming full-time athletes. With a full schedule of regional fixtures due to be staged this summer, the women’s game has never been on a stronger footing nationwide.Charlotte Edwards’ appointment as the new president of the Professional Cricketers’ Association (PCA) is well-timed. Edwards realised when she was approached to take on the role – first by Isa Guha, a PCA board member and her former team-mate, then by chief executive Rob Lynch – that she was better placed than anyone else to help the players union’s new members transition from amateur to professional status.Edwards’ playing career spanned a period in which women’s cricket changed markedly. When she made her England debut in 1996, she paid for her own blazer and wore a skirt; in her final international appearance, some 20 years later, she was playing in a team of full-time professionals under the gaze of the world’s media in Delhi. And she is aware of the scrutiny that professionalism brings, after the dramatic circumstances of her own international retirement five years ago.”We’ve been PCA members for ten years,” Edwards told ESPNcricinfo. “I joined as a player in 2011, three years before we became full-time professionals. I really do feel there’s been a shift: they want to be really inclusive now, and they really want to support the women’s game. There were challenges when I became a professional and hopefully I can share some of those experiences with this group of players and with the PCA, for them to understand what support we can give them.”Edwards highlights three main areas in which she wants to “be really active” in her role as president: helping the professional game navigate the choppy waters of the Covid-19 pandemic and its financial implications; involvement in the Professional Cricketers’ Trust and its fundraising activities; and assisting the women’s game in its shift towards fully professional status, helped by the formation of a new PCA women’s player committee, which was ratified at the same time as her presidency. The third of those, she said, “is probably where my specialism lies”.Related

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On top of her own first-hand experiences as a player, Edwards has been involved with the Southern Vipers since their inception in 2016, initially as a captain and later as director of cricket and head coach, and she has seen the strides made by their five new professionals over the winter. In particular, she acknowledged that in a regional set-up that remains semi-professional, players will respond differently to the challenges involved.”There’s pressure with the contracts,” she said. “Suddenly, it’s these players’ livelihood, and that affects people in different ways, as I’ve seen with my own eyes. With only five contracts [per regional hub], we’ve got an enormous talent pool in this country and there is going to be huge competition for places.”There are 17 centrally contracted England women’s players, who train full-time, like their male counterparts. The ECB awarded domestic contracts to 41 players in December 2020: five at each regional hub, plus a sixth contracted player at the Western Storm. Some players on domestic contracts have continued to work part-time elsewhere as they are contracted for 15 hours a week at their regional hubs.”Players have a platform to perform now. If Georgia Adams, for example, has another brilliant start to the summer, it would be hard [for England] to ignore her sheer weight of runs. I’ve seen the Vipers players kick on enormously over the last six months that we’ve been working with them. If that happens around the country, we’ll have a pool of 40 or 50 players that can firstly make our domestic competition very strong, but equally mean there’s a bigger pool to pick from for England.”There will be players from the England team dropping down onto regional contracts at some stage too. Without doubt, this regional structure is going to create competition now, which is a good thing for English cricket, but we’ve got to make sure that we support the players as much as we possibly can.”But outside of England, Edwards is concerned about the state of the women’s game. This time last year, she was working as a broadcaster at the T20 World Cup and watched a record crowd of 86,174 attend the final at the MCG on International Women’s Day; 12 months down the line, she feels that too few boards have stumped up the required investment to convert that landmark moment into something more tangible.”We’ll have a pool of 40 or 50 players that can firstly make our domestic competition very strong, but equally mean there’s a bigger pool to pick from for England”•Nathan Stirk/Getty Images”It’s hard to think that was 12 months ago,” she said. “This is a perfect opportunity for some of these boards to show how serious they are about women’s cricket. The standard of international cricket is a massive concern: there are two or three teams that are really going away from the pack at the moment, and that gap will only be closed if these countries invest in women’s cricket and put the resources around the teams in place.”I think the ECB have really set the standard, and Cricket Australia and New Zealand Cricket are clearly alongside them. The worrying thing for me is the likes of India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh – they just haven’t played any international cricket in 12 months, which can’t be good. A team like India – their male counterparts have played in so many series in that time, so there needs to be some balance there, really.”With a World Cup 12 months away and a Commonwealth Games 18 months away, that really needs to be a priority for them. They need to invest money in their women’s programmes or nothing will change.”In particular, Edwards highlighted the example of West Indies, whose sloppiness in the field and with tactics during their 5-0 defeat in their T20I series against England last September spoke of their recent stagnation.”They won the World Cup in 2016, and in many ways they’ve gone backwards since then. It’s really sad to see. They lit up that World Cup and then it was wonderful to see the public get behind them in their home tournament in 2018. But they just don’t seem to have invested: it’s still the same crop of players who are getting a lot older now.”That comes down to investment in grassroots and in pathways. It’s similar with New Zealand: they don’t seem to have those young players coming through that are competing. England have dominated them in many ways and that is a concern. We want international cricket to be really competitive, and I’m not seeing enough competitive cricket at that level at the moment.”Perhaps the true test will come next year. In the space of 12 months, from March 2022 to February 2023, World Cups will be staged in both ODI and T20I cricket, with a Commonwealth Games in between for good measure. It is not simply because she is a former England captain that Edwards hopes Australia do not blow everyone else away.”You just hope the boards get behind it, really invest, and that we see the best of the women’s game with lots of different countries competing to a high standard. We know that when it’s at its best, it’s a great product and it’s fantastic to watch.”

Before the IPL, there is one more T20I against Sri Lanka which gives him more time to get into his groove

Saurabh Somani29-Jul-2021Before India’s second T20I against Sri Lanka, the last time Kuldeep Yadav had bowled in a T20 game was in IPL 2020, a competition in which he played only five games out of a possible 14 for the Kolkata Knight Riders. He bowled 12 overs in those five games, for one wicket only. The last time he bowled for India in a T20I was back in January 2020 against Sri Lanka. He conceded at 9.50 runs per over when Sri Lanka’s overall scoring rate was 7.10 in a total of 142 for 9.To find the last time Yadav picked up more than one wicket in a T20 game while conceding runs at less than nine an over, you have to go back to February 2019. There is a neat before and after division for Yadav, very marked in T20s, in 2019. Until IPL 2019, he could do no wrong, as an average of 19.43 and an economy rate of 7.32 showed. Since IPL 2019, those numbers ballooned to 42.33 and 8.61 before Wednesday’s T20I.He had a full Murphy’s hand of bad luck, bad performance, and bad timing in the last two years. It took a pandemic to get a regular spot in the XI back on India’s tour of Sri Lanka, beginning with the ODIs, where he began well. He might not have played the T20Is, but was fortunate enough to be one of 11 men left in the original squad who didn’t have to isolate after Krunal Pandya tested positive.Related

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Ironically enough, while luck played a part in him getting a look-in again, Yadav wasn’t quite lucky when actually bowling in the game. He should have had Dasun Shanaka lbw with his second ball, struck plumb in front. Not given on the field, India erred by not opting for the review. He could have had Dhananjaya de Silva caught behind in his second over, but Sanju Samson couldn’t latch on to a sharp chance off a bottom edge. He then should have had Minod Bhanuka on the first ball of his third over, only for Bhuvneshwar Kumar to spill a fairly straightforward chance running back from point.Yadav also had a boundary conceded in his fourth over when it should have been a single, due to a fumbled stop at long-off. Every over he bowled, he was on the wrong end of the luck divide. On another day, Yadav will bowl in exactly similar fashion and end up with something like 4 for 20, instead of the still creditable 2 for 30 he had on his T20 return.What Yadav did was impress India’s bowling coach Paras Mhambrey enough to declare that the spinner was on track to strengthen his chances for selection to the T20 World Cup.”He is an extremely talented bowler. And he’s a thinking bowler,” Mhambrey said after the match. “There were a lot of discussions we had during the period before the games that we spent together. We were seeing videos, discussing plans. It all boils down to execution, so the credit should be given to him and the way he has taken it up. Yes, there’s challenges, and yes he’s been on and off, in and out of the team for a while now – which he knows. He also knows that he needs to work hard to maintain his position, which he’s doing. I’m so happy to see that, and very happy as well with the results that he’s getting. I’m sure he’ll take a lot of positives from this. Thinking ahead, the World Cup is also round the corner, he’ll really increase his chances to be part of that squad.”After the first ODI, Yadav had admitted to feeling the pressure and nerves that accompanied a long absence from international cricket. “Pressure… nervousness is always there when you play, and I was playing after a long time,” he had said.Yadav had also spoken of how sitting on the sidelines breeds self-doubt, even from the most well-intentioned help. “There are many people who want to help you, talk to you. But if you talk to too many people, then you create doubts within yourself also,” he had said.Pressure, nerves, doubt, they were all by-products of an extended time on the bench. Yadav is bowling in an era of unprecedented depth in Indian cricket, which means time on the bench comes with the territory. There was no greater showcase of depth than the fact that an Indian team already missing several first-choice picks who are in England, had to make do with a lopsided XI where Bhuvneshwar Kumar batted at No. 6 for the first time in his international career – and still managed to squeeze Sri Lanka to a last-over win.Yadav’s bowling was particularly impressive given the low total that India were defending, and how they needed all their spinners to do the twin jobs of tying down runs and getting wickets.The T20 World Cup is still some way off, and whether Yadav ultimately makes it might have more to do with how he, and the other spinners in contention, perform in the second half of the IPL. Before that, there is still one more T20I against Sri Lanka, which gives Yadav more time to get into his groove. He grabbed his opportunity with a good performance when he got to bowl in a match, and has a second one in the last T20I. After months of bowling in the nets, getting game-time and doing well might feel like several steps forward in itself, World Cup or no World Cup.

In 2017, she watched England lift the World Cup from the stands. On Saturday, she could be up on the balcony with the trophy

Matt Roller20-Aug-2021England’s World Cup win at a sold-out Lord’s in 2017 was a defining moment for the women’s game. Every England player involved ranks it as the highlight of their career and administrators regularly cite it as the day they finally recognised that a small amount of investment would lead to exponential growth.But for a handful of the current England team, the memories are bittersweet. While the rest of the squad celebrated a historic win in the dressing room, they were joined by Kate Cross, Amy Jones and Tash Farrant, the three centrally-contracted players who had been left out of the squad for the tournament.They watched the final together, sat with the squad’s family and friends in the stands, and each of them has expressed the bizarre cocktail of emotions they experienced throughout the day; a shot of joy and a chaser of anguish, garnished with a sprig of despair. “I had to take myself away and thought, ‘You’re not involved in this. It’s not your day,'” Cross recalled earlier this year.Four years later, Lord’s hosts its next major women’s final on Saturday. Southern Brave, having won seven group games out of eight, were due to face the winner of Friday’s eliminator: Oval Invincibles, playing at their home ground by happy coincidence, against a Birmingham Phoenix side that had snuck up on the blindside. It meant a chance to put right the disappointment of 2017 for Jones and Farrant, with Cross watching on from Sky Sports’ commentary box.For the first 149 balls, Jones was in the driving seat. She captained her side well in Invincibles’ innings, stifled their scoring with spin and medium pace in the first half of the innings, and rightly recognised that slower bowlers would be more effective than her quicks at the death. Even without Shafali Verma at the top of Phoenix’s batting order, a target of 115 looked straightforward.In the chase, Jones played with poise and calm at No. 3, despite the loss of both openers for ducks. Her paddle-sweep off a fired-up Shabnim Ismail was the pick of her shots, but she punched through cover and pulled square of the wicket with crisp timing.Amy Jones will have to wait for her Lord’s moment•Getty ImagesBut Farrant’s intervention proved to be defining. First, she ended a partnership of 51 between Jones and the Australian Erin Burns, flinging herself to her left at mid-off to take a spectacular catch.”I knew that we needed something special because they were building a really nice partnership and obviously Amy is a gun batter,” she said afterwards. “I just threw my body at it.”As soon as she had finished celebrating, Farrant was back into the attack for her second set of five, with Jones in her sights on 35 off 24 balls. Verma’s absence meant Katie Mack have shuffled up to open, with the results that Phoenix had an inexperienced middle order; another wicket meant it would be exposed in the second half of the chase.Jones had scored heavily through cover against Invincibles’ seamers and Farrant went wide on the crease, bowling her left-arm seam from round the wicket. She rolled her fingers down the side of the ball, inducing a false shot with a 51mph/82kph offcutter. Jones was through the shot early, chipping to extra cover. Jones held her hand to her face as she stood in disbelief before trudging off; Farrant roared in celebration.It sparked a dramatic collapse of 28 for 8 in 45 balls as Phoenix’s middle and lower order froze, caught in the headlights as Farrant rattled through the tail while Jones sat disconsolate in the dugout, forgetting to take her helmet off as though refusing to accept that another Lord’s final was slipping away from her grasp.Related

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Farrant ended with 4 for 10 from her 19 balls after Kirstie Gordon slapped a cut to Marizanne Kapp to seal Invincibles’ win, taking her to the top of the wicket-taking charts for the competition – and crucially, taking her to Lord’s on Saturday. She led the team on a lap of honour around the boundary ahead of the men’s eliminator as the dust settled.”I felt quite emotional actually after the game, knowing that I’m going to play a final at Lord’s,” she said. “I was at that game watching in the crowd and knew that it was somewhere I wanted to be and somewhere I wanted to play on the big stage. The atmosphere is going to be electric but we’ve already played in front of some really vibrant crowds and hopefully that’s the same again tomorrow.”I was potentially quite one-dimensional before: if the ball was swinging I was good, but if it stopped, I didn’t have the tricks up my sleeve to deal with that. I’ve really worked on my death bowling – my slower balls and bowling yorkers – and I want to be one of the best death bowlers in the world. I’m also keeping it really simple and making sure I execute what I want to bowl every single ball.”It has not been a smooth journey for Farrant since she made an England debut as a teenager, with the loss of her central contract in early 2019 a particularly low moment. She has forced her way back into the set-up through weight of performances in domestic cricket and now, four years after she had hoped, she has the chance to win the Lord’s final she had dreamed of.

After a 2020 IPL season that lacked spark, Sunil Narine brought his best at just the right time in 2021

Saurabh Somani12-Oct-20212:32

How do you play Sunil Narine? Here’s Gautam Gambhir’s advice

Old T20 champions don’t die. They just wait for the IPL playoffs for a rebirth.It was MS Dhoni in qualifier 1, and it was the turn of Sunil Narine in the eliminator. Narine was not supposed to be as much of a wicket-taking force as he was in his glory days, before the remodelled action, before the analysts got hold of his videos. Narine, the batter, was supposed to be all sorted out, and Kolkata Knight Riders couldn’t even use him as an opener anymore.Three balls while bowling and three swings of the bat first up cleared all those doubts away.He fizzed an offbreak that got enough bite from the surface to beat Virat Kohli’s slog across the line. He then did AB de Villiers for length as well as turn, a rare enough occurrence by itself. And then he got Glenn Maxwell, who has turned every variety of sweep into a personal library collection this IPL, on that very shot. Three balls that ripped the heart out of Royal Challengers Bangalore’s innings. For good measure, Narine had begun by getting KS Bharat, Royal Challengers’ hero in the previous match, with a carom ball first up.Watch the IPL on ESPN+

Sign up for ESPN+ and catch all the action from the IPL live in the US. Match highlights of the eliminator between KKR and RCB is available here in English, and here in Hindi (US only).

When he came out to bat, it was an inspired promotion up to No. 5. First ball, dug halfway into the pitch, and pulled ferociously over deep square leg. Second ball, picked up off his pads and over cow corner. Third ball, hit straight through the line, bottom hand coming off the bat handle even as he made contact. There was a wide in the middle which meant that an equation of 59 from 52 balls had become 40 off 49. Three balls that knocked any control out of Royal Challengers’ defence.Remodelled action lacking bite? Batting no longer a threat? Save that for another day. Narine has found a way to come back.Not only did Narine deliver spectacularly with both bat and ball, he was used superbly by Knight Riders’ captain Eoin Morgan too. With Varun Chakravarthy and Shakib Al Hasan to call on, Morgan could delay introducing Narine till the ninth over, a point at which the preceding four overs had brought only 17 runs. The pressure to increase the scoring rate led to the wickets of Bharat, and then Kohli.The wicket of de Villiers was just great bowling, and with the runs drying up further, Maxwell was also consumed by the urgency of hitting out. Maxwell could have waited, with only three balls of spin to come and the pacers slated to bowl the last three overs. But Maxwell has achieved huge success in this IPL by taking down spinners, so it wasn’t a tactical gaffe to try and hit Narine. It was just a champion bowler getting the better of a champion batter with the combined effect of pressure and accuracy.It was in CPL 2020 that Narine first unveiled his new bowling action, hiding the ball behind body in his run-up. While that denied batters a look at his grip and seam position, it would have led to a reduction in ‘feel’ in his hand and body into his delivery. IPL 2020 wasn’t too hot, with just five wickets in 10 games, at an economy rate of 7.95. His Smart Wickets (6.14) and Smart Economy (7.41) suggested he bowled better than the bare numbers indicated, but he was still far short of being high-impact match-winner.Sunil Narine scored 26 off 15 to break open a tricky chase•BCCICut to IPL 2021 and Narine has been Knight Riders’ highest impact player so far in the season. His player rating per match, as per ESPNcricinfo’s Smart Stats is 43.24, the ninth highest overall. His bowling rating is 37.63, the sixth best (both for a minimum of seven games played). The latest match might have been dazzling, but over a season, such high numbers can only come from consistency.When Narine was sent out to bat, Knight Riders had more pedigreed left-handers if they wanted to go that way, in Shakib and Morgan. They had Dinesh Karthik, if they wanted to have a left-right combination with Nitish Rana in the middle. But with 11 overs bowled, and Mohammed Siraj having bowled three of them, Royal Challengers had only one over of pure pace left, the type of bowling Narine is most vulnerable to.If Narine forced Kohli to turn to Siraj, it would mean an easier latter half of the innings. If not, Narine had the batting chops to deliver boundaries against the other bowlers. Even he might not have expected three sixes off the first three legal balls he faced though. Kohli gambled on Daniel Christian, and Narine called the bluff at the poker table. The short-into-the-body stuff only really troubles Narine when it’s bowled at above 140kph. Christian was 20 clicks slower.What that one over of three sixes did was allow Knight Riders breathing room to deal with a Royal Challengers fightback, their own nerves, and the vagaries of a turning pitch. Knight Riders could have sent a proper batter instead of Narine and had a successful over, getting 10-12 runs off it instead of 22. But that would have meant taking a risk later in the chase, when the stakes were higher. Narine eliminated that possibility.”He was outstanding today. Both with the bat and ball, his impact was huge,” Morgan said after the game at the press conference. “He changed momentum when he went out to bat and swung it completely in our favour. And I think with the ball, he bowled as good as I’ve ever seen him bowl. Which, you know, is saying a lot. The guy is consistently exceptional every time he takes the field and always seems to take big wickets in the game.”If ever a series is made on Narine’s time in the IPL, ‘consistently exceptional’ might be an accurate title for it.

Shoriful Islam, Haider Ali, Jayden Seales and Ravi Bishnoi, among others, are making their presence felt in senior cricket

Sreshth Shah14-Jan-2022

Australia

Attacking legspinner Tanveer Sangha has developed into a mainstay at his BBL side Sydney Thunder and domestic side New South Wales. He has even been part of multiple T20I squads for Australia, including the one that was scheduled to play in South Africa, a tour that was cancelled because of Covid-19, while he did not get a start in New Zealand. His T20I call-ups were on the back of the 2020-21 BBL season, where he was the leading wicket-taker among spinners.

Bangladesh

Shoriful Islam, the left-arm seamer, is now a regular member of the senior side. His variation-packed bowling has made him a go-to death-overs bowler, and he has contributed to series wins at home against Sri Lanka (ODIs), New Zealand and Australia (both T20Is).Related

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After an underwhelming T20 World Cup in the UAE, he went to New Zealand and did his bit in Bangladesh’s historic Test victory in Mount Maunganui with his first-innings wickets of Tom Latham, Ross Taylor and Rachin Ravindra.In the same Test, Mahmudul Hasan Joy was one of the chief contributors with the bat. After his impressive performance – 376 runs at 41.77 – in the National Cricket League, Bangladesh’s premier first-class tournament, Joy made his Test debut against Pakistan in Dhaka. He was dismissed for 0 and 6 but in Mount Maunganui, his 78 in the first innings helped Bangladesh take a substantial lead.Batting allrounder Shamim Hossain smacked 60 runs off 28 balls in two innings as a lower-order finisher in his debut T20I series in Zimbabwe. Bangladesh tried to harness his potential in the run-up to the T20 World Cup, with games against Australia and New Zealand at home, and despite single-digit scores in all those outings, they picked him for the World Cup. He played two games there, scoring 11 off 20 against South Africa and 19 off 18 against Australia.Yashasvi Jaiswal was retained by his IPL franchise, Rajasthan Royals, ahead of the 2022 auction•BCCI

India

Ravi Bishnoi, the highest wicket-taker at the 2020 World Cup, earned a handsome IPL contract with Punjab Kings (then Kings XI Punjab) soon after the tournament. His quick-arm action, and excellent googly, has made him a difficult bowler to score off. In 23 IPL games, he has an economy rate of 6.96 and is expected to earn good money at the mega auction before the 2022 season.Yashasvi Jaiswal, the Player of the Tournament in 2020, had a lukewarm step up to the IPL with Rajasthan Royals, but despite that the opener got to play regularly through the last two seasons. Seeing his potential, Royals named him as one of three retained players ahead of the next auction. He has also become a regular in Mumbai’s domestic white-ball sides.

Pakistan

Soon after the World Cup, Haider Ali became the youngest to score a fifty in the PSL representing Peshawar Zalmi. He then travelled to England and made his T20I debut in style, with another fifty. An ODI debut followed against Zimbabwe, and in domestic cricket, he has piled on the runs representing Northern, including hitting a double-century. He has played on away T20I tours in New Zealand, South Africa, Zimbabwe and Bangladesh, and most recently scored his highest T20I score of 68 against West Indies.Haider Ali struck a half-century on his T20I debut•Getty ImagesMohammad Wasim, the fast-bowling allrounder, came into national prominence after a stunning run for Islamabad United in PSL 2021. That led to him going to the West Indies, where he made his T20I debut in a rain-affected series, and later to the T20 World Cup. Although he did not get a game there, he took five wickets in three T20Is in Bangladesh and followed it up with eight wickets in three T20Is against West Indies at home. Last week, he was named the Emerging Player of the Year at the 2021 PCB awards.Mohammad Huraira was Player of the Match in the highly anticipated Afghanistan vs Pakistan game at the 2020 World Cup. After going under the radar for most of the last two years, there was interest in him last month, when he struck a triple century in the Quaid-e-Azam Trophy, becoming the second-youngest Pakistani after Javed Miandad to do so in first-class cricket. What stood out most in that knock was his strike rate of 90.67.

West Indies

Fast bowler Jayden Seales had an excellent start to his international career with the wicket of Keegan Petersen in his very first over in Test cricket in June 2021. Then, when Pakistan toured the Caribbean, he took a five-wicket haul in the second innings in a match-haul of eight wickets to take the Player of the Match award in West Indies’ win. That made him the youngest West Indian to take a Test five-for since Alf Valentine in 1950. He also played in the Lanka Premier League for eventual champions, Jaffna Kings, and was part of West Indies’ white-ball squads against Ireland in December.Jayden Seales dismissed Keegan Petersen in his first over in Test wicket•AFP/Getty Images

Zimbabwe

Both middle-order batters Dion Myers and Wessley Madhevere, captain and vice-captain in 2020 respectively, are now regular members of the senior side in all formats.Madhevere has three half-centuries in ODIs and four in T20Is. He has also been used as a sixth-bowler in the white-ball formats. Myers made his international debut in all three formats in July 2021 against Bangladesh at home and has 13 international caps to his name.Batter Tadiwanashe Marumani has played three ODIs and 11 T20Is, but his returns have been below par.But allrounder Milton Shumba, meanwhile, is developing into a finisher in T20I cricket. His unbeaten scores of 46, 45 and 66 in the second half of 2021 against Ireland and Scotland makes him one of Zimbabwe’s brightest prospects.

The debutant legspinner was not fazed, even by batters of big hitting repute, and that is a very good sign

Shashank Kishore17-Feb-20221:33

Suryakumar: Felt like this was a perfect debut for Bishnoi

Ravi Bishnoi’s first act as an India cricketer wasn’t his most memorable one. What should’ve been a regulation catch at long-off to dismiss Nicholas Pooran turned into a six because Bishnoi’s overbalanced foot touched the ad cushions. Even as the umpires conferred to indicate ‘out’ as the soft signal, Bishnoi knew he had erred. When the big screen merely confirmed what he had known all along, Bishnoi had a sheepish look: tongue out and looking away, not wanting to make eye contact with Yuzvendra Chahal, the bowler, and Rohit Sharma, the captain. Less than an hour earlier, a beaming Bishnoi had received his first cap from Chahal.But within an over of that lapse, he was summoned to bowl his first over in international cricket. West Indies had just lost their second wicket in Kyle Mayers, and Rohit was in no mood to sit back and let the visitors recover. He had a new batter – a right-hander in Roston Chase – and he went on an all-out attack. Had he held them back any further, it’s also possible a dewy outfield could have made things tougher for young Bishnoi. One of the batters Bishnoi would be bowling to – Pooran – was his IPL team-mate for two seasons at Punjab Kings. Not that it was much of an advantage just yet, because, for Bishnoi, this was going to be a battle from within. Would he be able to manage his jangling nerves? Will he allow the occasion to get to him? An hour later, you could say he didn’t.Bishnoi began sloppily sliding wrong’uns wide outside off, and then down leg. But from thereon, a mesmeric two overs changed the face of the game entirely. Up until then, Pooran had started to tuck in, quickly allowing West Indies to move past a middle-overs stutter. This approach came with the knowledge he had more explosive batters for support. Kieron Pollard, Odean Smith, Romario Shepherd and Roman Powell. But when Bishnoi struck to dismiss Chase in his second over, West Indies sputtered again.What stood out with the Chase wicket was the set up. Midwicket was left open. The ball was on middle and off. It was a wrong ‘un. Chase knew all of this and yet could do nothing about it. Bishnoi’s flatter trajectory and fizz off the pitch left him with no time to really react. He was tempted by the gap on the leg side. He went for it and was out lbw. Could he have survived had he tried to play straighter? Perhaps. Here, he was looking to nudge the ball and closed the face of the bat. It was a grave mistake. Chase was as close as Bishnoi would get to bowling to a “Test-class” batter on the night – at least the stats say so – and getting him the way he did would have been particularly satisfying. Two balls later, Powell’s attempt to unleash a fierce slog sweep led to his finding wide long-on.When Akeal Hosein walked in ahead of Pollard, supposedly to negate the effects of a legspinner, the left-hander was left befuddled, because he was welcomed by another ripping googly. Bishnoi’s wry smile at the end of a double-wicket over told you he’d outfoxed the new man. Was he really expecting him to spin the ball back in? This was an exhibition of wrong ‘uns bowled at similarly rapid pace but different lengths. By the time the batters had realised it was time to treat Bishnoi as a googly bowler, he had figures of 2-0-7-2.Bishnoi’s fearlessness, even against a batter of Pollard’s repute, was a refreshing sight. He kept delivering his stock ball – the googly – knowing fully well that the batters were expecting it. And therein lay the beauty of his effort. The team management let him be his own boss; they trusted him to do a job and he did.”Bishnoi is a very talented guy, no doubt about it,” Rohit said at the presentation. “We see something different in him that’s why we drafted him in the squad. He can bowl anywhere from the powerplay to the back end of the innings as well, gives us options to rotate other bowlers. Very happy with his first game for India, he’s got a very bright future. He’s got solid talent. It’s just about us now, how we use him.”The team management sees “something different” in Bishnoi. They’re also in that phase of T20 World Cup preparation where they’re happy to try different things, like fielding two legspinners of different varieties in the same XI. Where Chahal teases batters with his loop and dip, Bishnoi is fast and fizzy. On Wednesday, we may have seen the start of a blossoming partnership. For Bishnoi, already an IPL star, the journey in the big league may have just begun.

Surrey coach Batty backs batter, but promotion shows lack of communication

Matt Roller19-May-2022Ollie Pope has never batted higher than No. 4 in a first-class match but Rob Key confirmed on Wednesday that he is in line to bat at No. 3 for England in their first Test against New Zealand.The decision represents a monumental show of faith in a batter who has averaged 22.29 in the last two years across 29 Test innings. Candidates were relatively thin on the ground after Ben Stokes had agreed that Joe Root should return to No. 4 but Dawid Malan – still centrally-contracted and the third-highest run scorer in Division One – would have been a sensible, pragmatic choice.But by backing Pope, Key and his selection panel – Stokes and Brendon McCullum were the others to cast votes – have underlined just how highly they rate him. There is a huge disparity between Pope’s averages in Test (28.66) and first-class cricket (51.52) but several iterations of England management teams have made clear that they believe the latter to be a more accurate indicator of his ability than the former.Related

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Pope’s Ashes series ended in grisly fashion, bowled around his legs by Pat Cummins on the final evening in Hobart when getting so far across to the off side that his leg stump was exposed. He ran drinks in the Caribbean but a run of 58, 127, 47, 5, 84 and 96 for Surrey – all at No. 4 and with a simpler stance – has helped convince England that he is still the most promising young batter in the country.”With a lot of these guys now,” Key said, “the bet is that with the talent they have, this environment, these coaches, Brendon McCullum and Ben Stokes can get the best out of one of our most talented cricketers. And Ollie Pope is one of those that, if we can unlock him, which I think they can, there’s a seriously good Test cricketer there.”That Pope will bat at No. 3 for the first time in a Test match, rather than for Surrey, exposes the leadership vacuum that emerged at the ECB after England were thrashed in the Ashes. Gareth Batty, Surrey’s interim head coach, is open to the idea of moving Pope to No. 3 in the Championship if England make a request, but with no managing director, coach or captain at the start of the season, there was nobody who could have asked.

ESPNcricinfo picks out eight players who pushed their case for integration within the India mix

Annesha Ghosh30-May-2022The 2022 edition of the Women’s T20 Challenge might have been its most pertinent one yet as far as helping chart a roadmap for India’s immediate future.A league-stage elimination in the ODI World Cup a month ago rounded off a forgettable year-long run for the national team in the 50-over format where they lost all bilateral ODI engagements before failing to make the knockouts of a world tournament for the first time in four tries. A packed T20I-heavy season now beckons.Related

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A bilateral series against Sri Lanka, ahead of the Commonwealth Games in July-August, might materialise. A series against hosts England and the fifth edition of the Asia Cup T20, likely in October, then follows before ODI world champions Australia touch down for a series in December. The focus then shifts to the inaugural Under-19 Women’s T20 World Cup and the senior world event in the same format to be played in January and February.With veterans Mithali Raj and Jhulan Goswami inching closer to the end of their storied careers and India needing options to fix their inconsistencies in all three departments, ESPNcricinfo picks eight players who made a mark during the Women’s T20 Challenge and have pushed their case for (re-)integration within the India mix.Jemimah Rodrigues has her eyes set on returning to the Indian team•BCCI

Jemimah Rodrigues

The disappointment over her curious World Cup omission behind her, Rodrigues made the right noises after her match-winning 44-ball 66 for Trailblazers in the Women’s T20 Challenge.”[…] the Commonwealth and the [T20] World Cup [are around the corner], so I definitely wanted to be in the best touch and the best form and it’s nice to score those runs. It gives you more confidence scoring runs and going back into the Indian team,” she said, having scored a 21-ball 24 in the previous game. That she adds immense value as a fielder is also relevant given that’s what T20I captain Harmanpreet Kaur is looking for.Taniya Bhatia has upped her T20 game•BCCI

Taniya Bhatia

For a player who doesn’t get picked to play for India anymore – and certainly not anywhere in the top-order, the opportunity to bat alongside the national captain and rescue her team in the Women’s T20 Challenge was something of a game-changer. And Bhatia responded with a 32-ball 36 against Velocity.Bhatia, who finished as Punjab’s leading run-getter in the 2021-22 domestic T20 season, has fallen down the pecking order in international cricket thanks in part to the mercurial (and accidental) rise of Richa Ghosh. But she remains a force to be reckoned with. Her diving take of Shafali Verma’s edge off Deandra Dottin in the final proved a telling blow given victory in the end came with a very small margin.”Given we have mostly T20Is line-up, I have tried to prepare accordingly since returning from the ODI World Cup,” Bhatia said after Supernovas’ title triumph. “With the bat, I was focused on playing what the situation demanded instead of worrying about what’s happened in the past or happening now on the outside.”Simran Bahadur picked up four wickets in two matches in the Women’s T20 challenge•BCCI

Simran Bahadur

India’s search for a pace-bowling allrounder had been a wild-goose chase until Pooja Vastrakar found a second wind on the tours of England and Australia last year. And Bahadur took her down during her 10-ball 20 in the death overs of a wildly see-sawing final game. A player capable of that kind of power against that kind of bowling in that kind of pressure deserves keeping an eye on.Bahadur, the Delhi allrounder who has one ODI and four T20I caps, was impressive with her lower-order hitting even in India A’s title-winning Senior Women’s One-Day Trophy campaign last December. In the Women’s T20 Challenge, she finished with four wickets in two matches, though her tally would have been almost double that had she and her Velocity team-mates not shelled their chances.S Meghana showed admirable footwork in a 47-ball 73•BCCI

S Meghana

In her only innings of the tournament, the Trailblazers opener showed what she might bring to the table as a regular in the T20I side. Her 47-ball 73 was a prime example of not only her range of shots but her footwork as well. Whether she was dancing down the track or using the depth of the crease, it was all perfectly timed.A prolific run-getter in domestic tournaments over the past two seasons, Meghana had made 4, 49, and 61 in her maiden ODI series, on the New Zealand tour, earlier this year. In the only T20I India have played in 2022 – which also marked her return to the shortest format for the first time in five years – she top-scored with a 30-ball 37. This fifty in the Women’s T20 Challenge should, one hopes, lead to more game time with India.Harleen Deol made a 19-ball 35 in Supernovas’ opening win in 2022•BCCI

Harleen Deol

India haven’t always been great with their approach to find new personnel. And even when they do find them, those players often go through a period where they have very little idea of what their role in the team actually is. Deol, for example. has been shunted up and down the T20 batting order all year; collateral as India ran through a slew of talent without ever really giving them the chance to settle.A consistent performer across the past three seasons of the Women’s T20 Challenge, Deol made a 19-ball 35 in Supernovas’ opening win in 2022. A gun fielder like Rodrigues, she took two catches in the opening fixture and was reliable with her ground fielding all through. As India transition into a new phase, having Deol in the batting line-up, or at least on the bench, might be worth a shot.Priya Punia showed improved intent in the Women’s T20 Challenge•BCCI

Priya Punia

The Delhi batter’s T20I debut in February 2019 raised eyebrows because, at the time, her game seemed more suited to ODIs. She scored 4, 4, and 1 in that series, against New Zealand, and never played the shortest format for India again.Now, in the Women’s T20 Challenge, Punia showed an improved boundary-hitting ability and intent to rotate strike. Her 20-ball 22 and 29-ball 28 were just the foil Dottin needed to do her thing, especially in the final. Punia’s two brilliant catches of Smriti Mandhana and Sophia Dunkley were also a sign of the work she may have put in on her overall game to improve her chances of an India recall.Kiran Navgire has issues with the short ball, but the rest of her game is very eye-catching•BCCI

Kiran Navgire

A 34-ball 69 or a 13-ball duck – what will you remember from the 27-year-old uncapped batter’s outings in the Women’s T20 Challenge?No matter the answer, two truths about Navgire, the highest run-getter in Indian domestic T20s this season, are beyond doubt. One, the raw power she showcased in a blistering fifty on debut in the Women’s T20 Challenge warrants exposure at the highest level. Two, she could be doubly dangerous once she works out her issues with the short ball.

Rashi Kanojiya

After what appears to be a gradual but decisive sidelining of Ekta Bisht, Rajeshwari Gayakwad and Radha Yadav are the only left-arm spinners of note still in selection contention. And with Radha going through a lean patch, there couldn’t have been a more opportune time for the Uttar Pradesh left-arm spinner Kanojia to take 4-0-22-0 on her Women’s T20 Challenge debut, for eventual champions Supernovas in the final.Whether that performance, clubbed with her impressive showings in domestic tournaments over the past year, translates into an India call-up, remains to be seen.

Loss of new ball could have unsettled veteran, instead it was catalyst for another key display

Vithushan Ehantharajah25-Aug-2022James Anderson stands at the top of his mark, new Dukes in his hand, braced to deliver the first ball of a Test match at the James Anderson End. And those of us foolish enough to think India’s no-show at Emirates Old Trafford last year had scuppered one last appearance for England’s greatest quick at his home venue gladly chomped down on those sentiments.He is as ready and able as he ever has been, 18 dismissals at 20 in the summer so far, enough to not dare predict an end for the 40-year-old. His first ball is so comically down the leg side, even he sees the funny side. With that out of his system, Anderson goes on to bowl three for 32 from 15 overs, as South Africa are skittled for 151 on day one of this second Test.As much as this was business as usual in his 100th Test appearance at home, Anderson’s performance began with the kind of jolt that had not been felt for generations. As he was going through his warm-ups on a practice strip after Dean Elgar decided to bat first, Stuart Broad sidled up to do the same, just as they had done for their previous 130 matches together over the last 14 years. And ahead of what was to be the 200th time the pair had opened the bowling together, the usual conversation ensued.”Are you happy at that end?” Anderson enquired, gesturing towards the Brian Statham End. “I’m not taking the new ball,” Broad replied.”It was the first I knew about it,” Anderson said in his press conference at stumps. The laughs accompanying the anecdote said it all: a disbelief that had still not dissipated, seven hours and 81.2 overs of play later.For the first time since January 2010 at Cape Town, the Branderson collective were not opening up a first innings despite both being in the XI. And while it was tactical back then, with Graham Onions getting the chance ahead of Broad, Thursday felt more of a seminal moment with Ollie Robinson the one to knock Broad back to first change.This was a reluctant but necessary step towards the future. Robinson, aged 28, is a man returning for a spot that, even only 10 Tests in, is rightly his. Fitness issues overcome, he showcased all the skills that had garnered 39 dismissals at 21 so far, and immediately set about putting to shame Broad’s work in the first five Tests in the Stokes-McCullum era (18 wickets at 35.61). In his first seven-over spell, Robinson’s average seam movement of 0.93 degrees was higher than any of Broad’s previous nine this summer. That he finished with just one for 48 was a reminder of the game’s inherent unfairness. He deserved much more.Broad bided his time at mid on, offering wisdom or scampering around at midwicket, seemingly hell-bent on providing visual proof there is plenty of road to come. Unfortunately for him, the continued pontification about Anderson’s retirement has resulted in Broad being dragged into the same conversation. Is he closer to retirement than Jimmy? Yeah, probably. And it was hard not to feel that way with the new ball out of his possession. A player irked at constantly being lumped in with Anderson – four years his junior – has finally been unseated from his status in the team. It all had a Touching The Void feel to it, with Broad the one dangling over the edge. Then, 10 overs into the match, he replaced Anderson. And, just like that, he was back on top of the mountain.It took just 11 balls to get into the game: Elgar, on the verge of nuggeting his way into a set position, was set up for an uncharacteristically flustered dismissal. A couple of rejected lbw appeals had the opposition skipper wanting to press forward, and some familiar nip away drew an edge that nestled into Jonny Bairstow’s hands low at third slip. Midway through Broad’s next over, Joe Root’s hands were pounded at first as extra lift and more accompanying nip left Keegan Petersen short of options but to defend in vain.Both of Broad’s celebrations were dripping in emotion. Not the kind suggesting disappointment being exorcised, but almost as if he was reaffirming something to himself. When informed by Stokes that he would be giving up his new-ball privileges, he responded positively, which perhaps reflects an environment in which the team comes first, but the person is just as important. And beyond picking off Kyle Verreynne for overall figures of three for 37, Broad’s influence when the ball was in other people’s hands was every bit as noteworthy.If he was not sacrificing his body, he was offering chunks of his grey matter, too. Anderson’s lbw dismissal of Simon Harmer was celebrated immediately with a point to Broad at mid-off.”The ball before, he [Harmer] actually lunged at me and got a good stride in,” Anderson explained. “Broady said, ‘put your square leg back, but bowl the same ball’. So I put square leg back thinking he might think I’m going to bounce him. Then his stride was much shorter and he was sort of stuck on the crease.”I didn’t think about it, so it was good that he was thinking about the game and thinking about field positioning. It’s nice when something like that comes off.”Related

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There was more to come when Keshav Maharaj was sent back to the dressing room with the very next ball. At the top of his mark to Kagiso Rabada, Anderson admitted to excitement at the prospect of a first Test hat-trick. Again, Broad offered a word of advice and the mother of all humblebrags: “He came over and said, ‘when I took my two international Test hat-tricks… I just went full and straight’. Anderson tried but sent his effort down the leg side.By the close, the cameras were transfixed on Broad padded up in the dressing-room: ready, shadow-swishing in preparation for the much-vaunted Nighthawk cameo. The prospect of quick late runs was enticing given how quickly he might have hacked into the 40-run deficit that Zak Crawley and Jonny Bairstow will be eyeing up on Friday morning. But there was something amusing, poetic and intriguing about the fact that a day that began without Broad was ending with all eyes on him.The new England dressing-room has reignited his sense of self, partly because it is more closely aligned to the character of a man who believes he is capable of anything. And while we may never actually see the Nighthawk in action, the faith being put in his batting at present is a new crutch. All of 157 Tests into his career and he has emerged – heck, reimagined – as something of a playable wildcard.In many ways, it perpetuates his standing as a cult figure within the game. He may have to get used to life without the new ball, but this new role – indeed this new way of being – may just stave off the impending sadness of an England cricket team without Stuart Broad.