And what’s the highest score by a No. 11 in ODIs and T20Is?

Steven Lynch16-Nov-2021What’s the most runs scored by a country in the last four overs to win a T20I? Did New Zealand come close to the record against England? asked Derek Sanderson from England

New Zealand needed 57 with four overs to go in their semi-final against England in Dubai last week – and got them, with no fewer than six balls to spare. That wasn’t just close to the top, it was the most runs ever successfully chased down in the last four overs of a T20I, according to ESPNcricinfo’s database (which is missing some matches involving lesser teams).There had been two previous T20Is in which a team scored 56 inside the last four overs to win. Australia did it against Pakistan in the semi-final of the 2010 World T20 in St Lucia – mainly thanks to Michael Hussey, who thrashed 60 not out off 24 balls from No. 7 – and they were followed by Zimbabwe against Scotland in Edinburgh in September 2021. (Note that Australia actually scored 61 runs, and Scotland 58 – but the target from the last four overs was only 56, whereas New Zealand needed 57.)In all, the database throws up 148 T20Is in which the side batting second needed to score between 50 and 60 from the last four overs. On only 14 occasions has such a target been reached; the other semi-final of this T20 World Cup, between Australia and Pakistan in Dubai the day after New Zealand’s heist, was the last of those instances.KL Rahul took seven catches against England at Trent Bridge in 2018. Was this a record for a Test match? asked Sharif Ahmed from India

KL Rahul’s haul against England at Trent Bridge in 2018 made him the sixth outfielder to take seven catches in a single Test, following Greg Chappell (Australia) in 1974-75, Yajurvindra Singh (on debut for India in 1976-77), Hashan Tillakaratne (Sri Lanka) in 1992-93, Stephen Fleming (New Zealand) in 1997-98, and Matthew Hayden (Australia) in 2003-04.But the overall record is held by Rahul’s India team-mate Ajinkya Rahane, who held on to eight catches in the first Test against Sri Lanka in Galle in 2015.Akshay Karnewar of Vidarbha did not concede a single run in his four overs in a recent domestic T20 match in India. Has anyone else ever done this? asked Baskar Raghavan from India
The Vidarbha spinner Akshay Karnewar became the first man ever to bowl four overs in a senior T20 match without conceding a run against Manipur in a Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy match in Mangalagiri on November 8, finishing with 4-4-0-2. But he was joined just yesterday by Canada’s slow left-armer Saeed Bin Zafar, who sent down four maidens in a World Cup qualifier against Panama in Coolidge in Antigua.The record was previously held by the lofty Pakistan left-arm seamer Mohammad Irfan, with 4-3-1-2 for Barbados Tridents against St Kitts & Nevis Patriots in the Caribbean Premier League in Bridgetown in August 2018.Before Zafar’s runless spell yesterday, the record for T20Is was three runs (and two wickets) by Mohammed Aslam, for Kuwait against Saudi Arabia in Al Amerat in February 2020; Sri Lanka’s Rangana Herath took 5 for 3 in 3.3 overs against New Zealand in the World T20 in Chittagong (now Chattogram) in March 2014. For the list of the most economical spells in T20 matches, click here.Two women have bowled four overs for no runs in T20Is: Blessing Etim also took four wickets for Nigeria against Cameroon in Gaborone in September 2021, while Perice Kamunya had figures of 4-4-0-0 for Tanzania against Mali in Kigali in June 2019.Mohammad Amir’s 28-ball 58 from No. 11 made only a small dent in Pakistan’s chase of 445 against England in 2016•Getty ImagesWhat’s the highest score by a No. 11 in ODIs and T20Is? asked Christopher Thompson from England

The only half-century by a No. 11 in one-day internationals is Mohammad Amir’s 58 for Pakistan at Trent Bridge in 2016. It only narrowed the margin of defeat to 169 runs, as England had earlier amassed 444 for 3, the record ODI total at the time. Next comes Shoaib Akhtar’s 43, also for Pakistan vs England, in Cape Town during the 2003 World Cup.The highest by a No. 11 in T20Is is 31 not out, by Khalid Ahmadi of Belgium against Malta in Marsa in July 2021. His innings helped Belgium recover from 74 for 9 to 128, which looked enough when Malta were bowled out for 125 – but they then received five penalty runs following a disciplinary breach by Belgium’s captain, which meant they won the match. There have been three other scores of 20 by No. 11s in T20Is.I was amazed by the scorecard in the match mentioned in one of last week’s questions, in which the Maldives women’s team was bowled out for 8, with only one run off the bat and nine ducks. Is that the lowest total in internationals? asked Kelvin Marshall from Australia

There have been two lower totals than that Maldives innings, which was against Nepal in Pokhara in the South Asian Games in December 2019. Two days previously, in the same competition in Pokhara, Maldives had managed only 6 – three of their batters got off the mark, though – against Bangladesh, after that team ran up 255 for 2. That equalled Mali’s total of 6, against Rwanda in Kigali in June 2019.The lowest in men’s T20Is is Turkey’s 21 in Ilfov County in Romania in August 2019. That came against the Czech Republic, who had earlier equalled the record T20I total of 278.Use our feedback form, or the Ask Steven Facebook page to ask your stats and trivia questions

A comprehensive, numbers-based look at the greatest upsets in Tests, taking into account team strengths, recent form and result margin

Anantha Narayanan05-Jan-2022At the beginning of 2021 I had come out with an in-depth article in which I had determined the greatest upsets in Tests and ODIs. Now, after Bangladesh’s fantastic win in Mount Maunganui, it’s time to revisit that piece, because this win breaks into the all-time top five.Normally a selection like this is done using subjective ideas, often from memory. However, I determined these matches through totally objective methods, quantifying all relevant factors.Before looking at the updated list, here are the factors I have considered. To know more about the methodology used, please read the original article.1. Team Strength Index (TSI) differential between the two sides. This takes into account the teams’ strengths based on the location (home/away for each team)
2. Recent overall form of the winning (weaker) team. This is based on the results of the last 10 Tests, across venues, with a point for a win, half a point for a draw and none for a loss. That is the Result Index, and “10-RI” is the value taken for this parameter. Thus, a team which has lost a lot recently gets a higher score, which boosts the overall Upset Index total.
3. Recent location-specific form of the winning team. The same process as above, applied to the most recent five home/away matches
4. Recent overall form of the losing (stronger) team. In this case, the RI value is taken as is
5. Recent location-specific form of the losing team
6. Team Performance Points of each team in the Test. A total of 10 points is allocated between the two teams, depending on the margin of the result.
7. Location of the match (away, neutral, home): five points for an away win, three for a win at a neutral venue, and one for a home winSince that article was first published, we have had two great upsets, both good enough to breach the table featuring the top 12. Bangladesh’s eight-wicket in in Mount Mounganui, their first in New Zealand, comes in fifth place. The relevant parameter values for Bangladesh are given below.TSI Differential: 30.8 (42.8-73.6)
Recent Overall form – Bangladesh: 7.5 (LLWLDLLWLL)
Recent away form – Bangladesh: 3.5 (WLDLL)
Recent Overall form – New Zealand: 8.0 (LDWWDWWWWW)
Recent home form – New Zealand: 5.0 (WWWWW)
Team Performance Points – Bangladesh: 6.85 (a rather easy eight-wicket win)
Match location – away win: 5.0Total points: 66.65Anantha NarayananThe aggregate of 66.7 Upset Index points puts Bangladesh’s win in the fifth position, just behind Afghanistan’s amazing away win against Bangladesh in Chattogram. A very well-deserved position for what was, inarguably, Bangladesh’s greatest win and one of the greatest team achievements ever.Let us not forget that the win was achieved without Shakib Al Hasan and Tamim Iqbal. And the cherry on top was the margin of the win, with the match not going past lunch on the fifth day.The top 10 also has another recent match, which happened just after the piece was originally published in January last year. That game was India’s Brisbane win, which is now in eighth position, with 64.5 Upset Index points. India, with its depleted team, managed to upset the rampant and strong Australia, with a strong and unexpected fourth-innings chase.

Andrew Strauss’s axing of England’s veteran pairing is a message to the entire Test set-up

Andrew Miller08-Feb-2022And there we were all thinking, the response to another Ashes train-wreck had been just a little bit … meh.At no stage of the winter just gone had there been any sense that an alternative narrative was there to be grasped; from the moment that Rory Burns’ stumps were splattered at Brisbane, there was not even a fleeting flicker of hope that England had any residual control over their destiny.And so, after just another bog-standard beating in Australia, out the ECB had trotted with a seemingly bog-standard response: the sacking of a coach who had been thrown in over his head, and the execution of the executive who had set him up for that failure. A cigar-chewing assistant then made it a trio of sacrifices in as many days – and that, quite conceivably, could have been that. A sufficiency of blood-letting to meet the needs of the news cycle, then swiftly onwards to the next big date in England’s never-relenting diary.It turns out that Andrew Strauss had alternative plans, and not for the first time in his iron-fisted role as England’s maker-of-stuff-to-happen. “Red-ball reset”, you say? Coming right up – here comes the only man at the ECB with the spine to stand up his platitudes, and this time he’s delivered with the most extraordinary bonfire of vanities this side of the central contracts era.It’s hard to recall a more ruthless cull of England’s red-ball ranks since the turn of the millennium. The fall-out from the 2013-14 Ashes was every bit as gory, of course, though less startling, given that the dismantling of a great England team had already taken place on the field, rather than in the selection committee. Aside from the thorny issue of Kevin Pietersen, there wasn’t much left to be decided where the likes of Jonathan Trott and Graeme Swann were concerned, let alone Scott Borthwick and Boyd Rankin.This time, however, you’d arguably have to rewind to Graham Gooch’s legendary tour of the Caribbean in 1989-90 for a comparable headline shock – the binning-off of two all-time England legends (for James Anderson and Stuart Broad now, read David Gower and Ian Botham then), and the investment in a gang of impressionable rookies, charged with nothing more complicated than looking to the example of their captain for clues as to how to seed their own revivals.Related

Alex Lees, Matthew Fisher, Saqib Mahmood: Who are the new faces for England's West Indies tour?

Root to remain Test captain as Thorpe becomes latest casualty

James Anderson, Stuart Broad dropped from England Test squad for West Indies

“[The players] have the best possible example right there with them in the dressing room in Joe Root, in terms of what world-class performance looks like,” Strauss said at Lord’s last week, in perhaps the first real attempt to frame Root’s otherwise questionable leadership credentials in unequivocally positive terms. “That has to be their ambition, to reach that level of performance.”Strauss has previous in this regard of course – specifically where the two most totemic men in his sights are concerned. Back in the spring of 2015, in his first incarnation as director of cricket, Strauss followed up his dismissal of Peter Moores as head coach by backing the incumbent captain, Eoin Morgan, and sanctioning an ODI squad to face New Zealand that had neither Anderson nor Broad in its ranks … nor Gary Ballance, Ravi Bopara and Ian Bell, to name the other men who never played in coloured clothes again after that winter’s abject World Cup showing.It just so happens that the white-ball squad never looked back after that – and that’s a precedent that won’t have been lost on Strauss either, as he banks on a similar shock to the red-ball system providing equally tangible short-term gains.When asked last week about the message that Silverwood’s sacking would send, Strauss had hinted that he was only just getting started on the unleashing of ructions within the squad. Throughout the Ashes, England’s previous management had been broadly protective of their team’s on-field failings, citing bubble fatigue and rain-wrecked build-ups, rather than address the huge technical shortcomings that had allowed Australia to run riot in the key moments, and prevent their opponents from reaching 300 in any one of their ten innings of the series.Stuart Broad and James Anderson discuss bowling plans•Getty Images”You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to see performances have been poor for the last 12 months,” Strauss said. “Anyone who thinks otherwise is deluding themselves. The players have to … get better. International cricket is a tough old gig and you have to have resilience, toughness, you have to want it.”And so, the question has been posed to every man in the squad – directly through the ditching of eight men who featured in the Ashes, and indirectly through the retention of a select few whose places will now be challenged by the likes of Alex Lees and Saqib Mahmood. Do you want it? Genuinely?On the face of it, Strauss appears to have asked the right question of the wrong two people. Of all the myriad failures during the Ashes, the contributions of two veteran seamers who averaged 23 and 26 respectively would appear to be low on the list. And yet, there was a sense in the course of the Ashes – most particularly after the Adelaide defeat, when Root complained publicly about the defensive lengths that his senior pairing had bowled, but again at Sydney, when Broad’s refreshing but condemnatory monologue laid the squad’s failings straight back at the door of the batters – that the captain’s view of the campaign didn’t entirely chime with the views of his key lieutenants.Either way, the irony of the situation will not be lost on Anderson and Broad, for their pre-eminence as a pairing has scarcely been challenged for 14 mighty years – ever since the famous moment at Wellington in 2008, when the same question was posed to their own new-ball forebears, Steve Harmison and Matthew Hoggard.It’s already been made clear by the ECB that this does not need to be the end of the line for either man. Indeed, history shows that that moment of baton-passing at the Basin Reserve was not the final sign-off for Harmison – he flitted about the margins for another 18 months before bowing out in glory with England’s Ashes recapture at The Oval. Hoggard, however, never played again, despite having seemed the only seamer still at the races on that Ashes whitewash the previous winter. The end for elite sportsmen, just like politicians, tends to be swift, surprising and distinctly unglamorous compared to the status they had previously taken for granted.So, here we go then, with the question that may come to define the summer of 2022, and by proxy, England’s fortunes therein. Do England’s most garlanded fast bowlers genuinely retain the hunger to redouble their efforts in the early weeks of the English season, and rip back that shirt that has been so unjustly swiped from them? Or is this a cunning display of bluff-calling from Strauss – a team-mate who went through his own moment of reckoning on that quietly seminal New Zealand tour, and a captain who knows better than anyone what this pairing’s pomp was truly like, as they led the push to England’s No.1 Test ranking way back in 2011.The easy option would be to retire and soak up the plaudits for two of cricket’s most remarkable careers, but that of course is precisely the point. If anyone is expecting to be able to take the easy option for England, at this abject juncture of their Test-match story, then there’s no point in coming on board.

The allrounder came through scrutiny on his batting during the Ashes in a series where his bowling came to the fore

Alex Malcolm02-Mar-20220:34

Cummins: Green gives us options and confidence

Cameron Green has been a Test cricketer for 15 months and yet Australia’s historic trip to Pakistan is the first time he has needed his passport.The last time Australia’s Test team toured overseas in 2019, Green was in India with a Cricket Australia National Performance Squad for a white-ball training camp in Chennai and not even close to Test calculations.He has never played a first-class match overseas. But after a breakout home Ashes series, where his all-round skills gave Australia’s batting vital runs in Sydney and Hobart and their bowling unit unprecedented depth, the 22-year-old suddenly looms as a pivotal cog in Australia’s plans to conquer subcontient conditions.”I’m just going with a pretty open mind,” Green told ESPNcricinfo. “I’ve been on a couple of NPS tours to India. I had a little insight then, which I’m really thankful for. But obviously [Australia haven’t] been to Pakistan in 24 years.”Despite the extraordinary expectation due to his raw skills, the reality is that Green is learning international cricket on the run.Related

• How Green's meticulous foresight helped reach the zone of proximal development

• Gen Z boys Naseem and Green bring back '90s memories

• Australia, depleted Pakistan prepare for dive into the unknown

• A chance for Pakistan cricket to make the most powerful off-field statement

• What the Ashes told us about Australia's Test team

They say it takes a village to raise a child but in terms of raising a Test cricketer, sometimes a village of voices can be overwhelming.Green has already found that out in his short career. He is of a generation that is attached to their phones, but he has already developed a policy that will hold him in great stead in an international career that appears to have no limits.”During a Test match, I know my friends and family aren’t too happy, but I don’t speak to many people,” Green said. “I think when you do well, people say you’re going a lot better than you actually are. And then when you’re not going as well, people think you’re a lot worse than you actually are.”So I just try and keep yourself a little bit more neutral during the game by getting off your phone. Apologies to my friends and family. But that’s what I try and do.”Cameron Green found form after some mid-series technical tweaks in the Ashes•CA/Cricket Australia/Getty ImagesBut there are some key voices he trusts. Beau Casson and Matt Mason, Western Australia’s batting and bowling coaches, were two he turned to in his precious time in Perth before departing for Pakistan.Despite there being 31 days between the Hobart Ashes Test and Australia’s arrival in Islamabad, Green was only allowed 12 of those to move freely at home due to WA’s border restrictions and Covid quarantine rules. He used the time wisely to look at how he could improve as he embarks on the next phase of his Test career.”It was really good to catch up with Beau firstly, to discuss a few things technically, batting-wise,” he said. “And then it’s nice always to catch up with Mase and go through a few little things I need to consider fixing or to keep having a look at when I’m in Pakistan.”Green’s batting drew a lot of attention during the Ashes series, particularly after he was bowled twice in just eight balls faced across his first two innings in Brisbane and Adelaide. Former Australia captain Ricky Ponting broke down his alignment in detail on Channel Seven during the Adelaide Test, explaining that Green was too open with his shoulders, hips, and feet in his set-up and that it was exaggerated further after his back foot trigger movement.

In Shield cricket, they probably give you a bit more to drive, and then Test cricket they don’t miss much full. So that’s probably the biggest challenge I’ve found so far. Trying to be able to find a different way to score other than basically just sitting on the front footCameron Green

Casson, Justin Langer, and Andrew McDonald had already been aware of the issue out of the India series 12 months earlier. But even Casson was impressed by Green’s ability to fix it on the run and deliver back-to-back scores of 74 in Sydney and Hobart.”Ricky was absolutely spot on with his assessment,” Casson told ESPNcricinfo. “The whole picture of batting, it’s not just the physical component. The excitement of playing in an Ashes series, wanting to do well, can actually sometimes influence what your body’s doing.”But he was very deliberate in what he did. And he actually did it in warm-ups for a Test match which is pretty unique. You don’t have the ability to be able to go, I just want two weeks away to get this right. He was able to put it into place. I think that showed he had it stored away and probably just went a little bit away from what we used to do.”They’re the geniuses, aren’t they? The ability to be able to take in information but work out how it actually applies to me.”Beyond the technical, though, Green is aware that the biggest step up to Test level is finding ways to score against different bowlers in different conditions.”In Shield cricket, they probably give you a bit more to drive, and then Test cricket they don’t miss much full,” Green said. “So that’s probably the biggest challenge I’ve found so far. Trying to be able to find a different way to score other than basically just sitting on the front foot.”I think the change is actually not telling myself to get forward. In Shield cricket, I’ve got a pretty front-foot dominant game.”I kind of really try and get forward and look for the drive. And then everything else I kind of shut down. I try not to get on the hook. I think it’s a pretty low percentage shot in general, but I think in Test cricket, you need to play it. That’s kind of what I’ve found recently.”Cameron Green gives Australia options to balance their side•CA/Cricket Australia/Getty ImagesCasson also noted that Green could use his height to his advantage off the back foot, as he did at times in the Sydney and Hobart innings. Players who develop their games at the WACA tend not to stand up and punch with a vertical bat through the off side, with the extra bounce bringing nicks into play. But it is a shot he will need on the slower pitches overseas. Casson has encouraged him to use his height and reach off both feet on slower wickets, as Kevin Pietersen did with great effect during his career in Asia.”I don’t think it’s rocket science, but I think looking to strike the cricket ball a little bit more because those stumps are in play,” Casson said. “But just not committing one way or the other in terms of looking to lock yourself off.”Green admits it’s a work in progress, not dissimilar to what his bowling was a year ago when he was still working through action changes to avoid the repetitive stress injuries he was having in his lower back.But he has emerged on the other side of that after a sensational Ashes series where he took 13 wickets at 15.76 and looked a different beast to the bowler who went wicketless in his debut series against India. Mason, who has worked extremely closely with McDonald on Green’s development as a bowler, believes it was all part of the plan.”We had such a big focus for those two seasons around the technical that I think his frustration boiled over at times,” Mason told ESPNcricinfo. “The first bit was to make him safe so he can play cricket and the next bit was to learn the game of cricket. I thought as the Ashes series progressed his confidence grew and his ability to ball better lengths and more wicket-taking balls was evident.”Now the conversation has turned to whether Green could play as a third seamer instead of a fourth, to allow Australia to pick two spinners in Pakistan and the other upcoming subcontinent assignments over the next 12 months.”Potentially,” Green said. “Again, it’ll be a really big learning curve. In saying that, if I’m the third quick and there’s two spinners in front of me as well, I’m still going to be the fifth bowler.”Mason feels that people still needed to temper their expectations on Green’s bowling.”I think the sky is the limit, but it’s a process we’ve got to be patient with,” he said. “Cam is a once in a generation cricketer, I think. We’ve got to curb our expectations. He can bowl well in excess of 145kph, and eventually, I think that’s what we’ll see from him more regularly.”But he’s also not as robust or as resilient as he needs to be just yet for that sort of role. I think what Australia have done brilliantly through Andrew McDonald, Justin Langer and now Pat Cummins as captain is they’ve kept that patience level in terms of watching his overs. And it’s that management of him that’s allowed him to back up in Test matches.”As he gets older and more mature and more robust, those restrictions will start to come off and then after that, you know he’s free to go and he could be absolutely anything.”It’s easy to forget Green is still a 22-year-old on his first Test tour overseas. He even used the plane trip to Islamabad to do some economics study for his online degree. His next assignment could be his toughest yet.

Also, who can forget Manish Pandey’s assault against Kings XI Punjab in the 2014 final?

Sampath Bandarupalli26-May-2022Cometh the knockouts, every team looks for an unlikely hero in realising their title dream. There have been instances where the local talents step up and even outplay the proven performers on their day. Nearly every IPL season has seen at least one uncapped player produce a match-winning performance in the playoffs. We look at five of the most notable such contributions in the IPL playoffs.Manvinder Bisla takes a break on his way to 89 against CSK in 2012•Associated PressManvinder Bisla – 89 (48) vs Chennai Super Kings, 2012
Kolkata Knight Riders faced a selection dilemma ahead of the 2012 final against the Chennai Super Kings. With L Balaji injured after the qualifier, Knight Riders decided to bring in Brett Lee while Manvinder Bisla replaced Brendon McCullum. Bisla played six matches in the first half of the league stage but featured only once after that.He opened the batting with Gautam Gambhir in pursuit of a 191-run target for their maiden title. Gambhir was the second-highest run-getter of the tournament but was dismissed in the first over, making it a difficult chase for Knight Riders. Bisla stepped into the aggressor role, scoring 40 off 21 in the powerplay. He continued to take risks post the powerplay and brought up a fifty off 27 balls.Bisla and Jacques Kallis added 136 runs for the second wicket in just 13.4 overs, of which Bisla alone scored 88. He got out to a slower delivery off Albie Morkel in the 15th over after scoring a 48-ball 89 with eight fours and five sixes. Knight Riders still needed 52 off 32 balls, which they reached with two balls to spare, denying a hat-trick of titles for Super Kings.Manish Pandey shows off his dance moves after clinching the title for KKR in 2014•PTI Manish Pandey – 94 (50) vs Kings XI Punjab, 2014
Knight Riders needed 200 runs to win the 2014 final against Kings XI Punjab in Bengaluru and claim their second title in three years. But they were jolted by an early blow with Robin Uthappa getting out in the first over. He had scored 40-plus runs in each of his previous ten innings, helping Knight Riders to reach the final despite an ordinary first half.The onus was on the local boy Manish Pandey to drive the chase. He had a middling season before the final, scoring only one fifty in 15 innings. Pandey started his innings with a boundary on the first ball and went on to bring up his fifty off 31 balls. His 71-run partnership off 7.2 overs with Yusuf Pathan cut the required rate below 11.Pandey targeted Karanveer Singh and Parvinder Awana, against whom he collectively scored 70 off just 29 balls. He eventually fell to Karanveer in the 17th over after scoring a 50-ball 94. Pandey’s dismissal left the Knight Riders needing 21 runs from three overs, with four wickets in hand. They got to the target when Piyush Chawal hit the winning runs with three balls to spare.Bipul Sharma played a key role with both bat and ball during the 2016 playoffs for Sunrisers•BCCIBipul Sharma – Sunrisers Hyderabad, 2016
In a pace-dominant line-up of Sunrisers Hyderabad, Bipul Sharma not only filled the void of a spinner, but also provided valuable contributions with the bat down the order. He made his mark in all the three playoff games in that season as Sunrisers marched towards the title. In the Eliminator against Knight Riders, he hit two sixes off Morne Morkel in the 20th over, pushing Sunrisers to a match-winning total of 162.Bipul’s all-round performance in the qualifier against Gujarat Lions was critical in Sunrisers’ win, where he picked the wicket of Brendon McCullum in the 12th over. He later walked to bat at No.8 when Sunrisers needed 46 from 25 balls. David Warner was struggling to find support while he alone scored 74 in the team’s total of 117. Bipul’s arrival eased the pressure as he struck three sixes in the 11 balls faced, scoring an unbeaten 27 and taking them over the line with four balls to spare.In a high-scoring final in Bengaluru, the home side Royal Challengers stood a great chance to win the title, needing 68 off seven overs with eight wickets in hand. Bipul deceived AB de Villiers on the fifth ball of the 14th over, which turned out to be a decisive wicket for Royal Challengers, who fell nine runs short of the target.Krunal Pandya provided the late lift for Mumbai Indians in the 2017 final•BCCIKrunal Pandya – 47 (38) and 0/31 vs Rising Pune Super Giant, 2017
Mumbai Indians topped the points table in the 2017 season but lost both their league phase games against the Rising Pune Super Giants, against whom they also lost in the first qualifier. Super Giants looked all set to make it 4-0 against Mumbai, having reduced them to 79 for 7 by the 15th over.But Krunal Pandya added 50 for the eighth wicket with Mitchell Johnson off 35 balls. The last three overs alone yielded 37 runs as Mumbai finished with 129 for 8. Krunal was dismissed on the last ball of the innings, scoring a 38-ball 47, with three fours and two sixes.Krunal, who later opened the bowling, gave only 17 runs in his first three overs while being denied a caught-behind dismissal of Steve Smith. His fourth over cost 14 runs, but Mumbai won the title by one run, despite a fighting fifty from Smith.Rajat Patidar – 112* (54) vs Lucknow Super Giants, 2022
Rajat Patidar was not part of any team in IPL 2022 until a week into the tournament. But he returned to his franchise for the 2021 season, Royal Challengers Bangalore, as a replacement for Luvnith Sisodia. Two months down the lane, he is the reason behind his team’s existence in the title race. Against a quality bowling attack of Lucknow Super Giants in the Eliminator, Patidar struck an unbeaten hundred, scoring 112 off just 54 balls with 19 boundaries.Without his effort, Royal Challengers would have been nowhere near to the 207, after the trio of Faf du Plessis, Virat Kohli, and Glenn Maxwell contributed only 34 off 35 balls. Patidar got to his fifty in 28 balls and took only 21 balls for the second fifty.Patidar was particularly critical of the spinners, smashing Krunal Pandya and Ravi Bishnoi for 58 off 22 balls, with six fours and four sixes. He and Dinesh Karthik added 84 runs in the final five overs. Super Giants fell 15 runs short of the target, scoring only 50 runs in the same five-over period.Honorable mentions
Washington Sundar – 3 for 16 (4) vs Mumbai Indians, 2017Rahul Chahar – 1 for 14 (4) and 2 for 14 (4) vs Chennai Super Kings, 2019Pragyan Ojha – 3 for 28 (4) vs Royal Challengers Bangalore, 2009Suryakumar Yadav – 71* (54) vs Chennai Super Kings, 2019Saurabh Tiwary – 52* (31) vs Royal Challengers Bangalore, 2010

The superstar from the T20 league circuit is all but certain to play the three T20Is against India next week

Andrew McGlashan17-Sep-2022There has been a lot of talk about what Tim David be able to do in an Australia shirt. Next week we will get the first chance to see what he do.It was always likely these three games in India would provide David the chance to make a debut for his second international team – he has played 14 T20Is for Singapore – but the injuries to Mitchell Marsh and Marcus Stoinis have made it all but certain.Related

• Smith to bat at No. 3 in India T20Is in Mitch Marsh's absence

• Australia challenged to 'find a way' to fit Tim David in

• Tim David earns Australia call for T20 World Cup

• Being a finisher was never 'a sole focus' for Tim David

• Ponting: Tim David 'could actually win you a World Cup'

By the time the World Cup comes around in a month’s time, David could have eight matches for Australia under his belt with series against West Indies and England to follow.But David’s is a strange entry into Australian colours because he’s been up in lights on the big stage for some time already, yet apart from his two-month stint in the BBL, he is outside of the Australian cricket system. The way the sport’s landscape is rapidly changing, he is unlikely to be the last to take this path. Some of his new team-mates are still to be introduced.”I look forward to meeting him,” said Mitchell Starc, who will now have to wait until next month having sat out the India trip. “He’s obviously plied his trade around the world in different leagues. He’s got his opportunity now in the World Cup squad.”Think we’ll see more and more players [emerge] in that fashion. Certainly the next generation I’m sure we’ll see it more and more with more opportunities in different leagues, that’s just the way cricket seems to be heading at the minute.”I’m much the same as [the public], I’ve seen him on TV. Obviously that power and what he brings to the table to any team he plays for and now he has a chance to do that on the international stage.”David’s body of work produced during his globe-trotting cannot be doubted. Of teams he has played more than two games for since December 2020 (when his T20 league career started to take off with Hobart Hurricanes) his lowest strike-rate is 143.92 with St Lucia Kings in the CPL. His strike-rate of 216.27 for Mumbai Indians in the last IPL made a mockery of him being left out during that competition.That latter figure also suggests he should not have too many concerns adapting to the conditions over the next week in India. The quality of the bowling may be a different challenge given that there is rarely a weaker link that is sometimes the case in franchise cricket, but he has a good grounding.”One of the rare things he has which there isn’t a whole lot of in Australia is just raw power,” Glenn Maxwell said. “He’s able to muscle the ball, much in the same way Stoinis and Mitch Marsh do it. He’s probably developed his game a little bit over the last two years where he’s got a bit more off-side [shots] so he’s not a one-dimensional hitter, he’s able to clear the boundary in different areas. He does it against spin and quicks which is something that’s really impressive and something that impressed me during the IPL as well watching him go about his business.”However, in terms of David’s position in the team, it’s what comes after India that is most interesting. Assuming that Marsh and Stoinis are both fit come the World Cup there remains a decision to be made as to how he fits into the final XI.4:48

Hodge: Australia shouldn’t look back from this point when it comes to Tim David

Despite being able to shed his tag of “Mr Fix It”, Steven Smith would appear the most vulnerable (setting aside, for a moment, the ramifications of Aaron Finch’s poor form extending through the next few weeks).”I feel like when I’m playing good T20 cricket, I’m in that team for sure,” Smith said during the recent one-day series against Zimbabwe. “The role that I’ve been given the last couple of years is the ‘Mr Fix It’ role and that tag’s been taken away from me now. I can just take the game on and if I want to smack someone for six first ball, then I’m able to do that freely.”Whether that is really his game, though, is the question. While not a completely fair comparison given their roles, in 200 T20 innings Smith has hit 130 sixes and in 119 innings David has already struck 165.There remains a feeling that Australia like having Smith in their line-up. So if they keep him and swap David for a more like-for-like player, the only option would be Stoinis, who helped win the World Cup semi-final against Pakistan last year and has since struck at 162.50 in T20Is. He can also provide some overs if needed.A lean return in these three matches against India should not dampen David’s chances of playing the World Cup, either. But if he replicates the type of innings he has already shown around the globe, then he will be even harder to leave out than it already looks.

The former allrounder also backs Harry Tector to deliver at the big stage

Sreshth Shah15-Oct-20222:07

Kevin O’Brien: ‘Harry Tector’s progress has been super’

Kevin O’Brien’s retirement, earlier this year, meant that Ireland’s biggest World Cup matchwinner – historically at least – will not be with them for the first time since the side played their maiden T20 World Cup game way back in 2009.Those are some big shoes to fill for Ireland at a global event, trying to qualify out of the first round before the big teams await, but O’Brien has earmarked two 22-year-olds to fill that void – Josh Little and Harry Tector. The reason? Just like O’Brien, the duo is not scared by the big stage, they enjoy it instead.Little, the left-arm swing bowler with two younger sisters also playing for Ireland, caught global attention last year with his control, and even made ESPNcricinfo’s ODI team of the year in 2021.During the home season this year which included visits from India, New Zealand, South Africa, and Afghanistan, he sustained the control. But most impressive was his stint with Manchester Originals at the Hundred, where he took important top-order wickets to finish as the competition’s joint fourth-highest wicket-taker, while also adding a mean bouncer to his artillery. Both those qualities could prove deadly in the first round, where Ireland are up against West Indies, Zimbabwe and Scotland.1:21

Kevin O’Brien: ‘The wickets in Australia will suit Andy Balbirnie’s game’

“Josh is the leader of the attack even though he is very young,” O’Brien told ESPNcricinfo on the sidelines of the Legends League Cricket tournament recently. “He is relatively early in his international career but he has taken the mantle on his shoulders and he is performing well. For Ireland to go deep into the tournament, they need Josh bowling well, Josh taking wickets.”With Josh, he is a wicket-taker. The thing is that Josh likes playing on the big stage, in front of big crowds, that doesn’t faze him. He likes being put under pressure and likes a challenge and rising to the occasion. That is going to stand somebody in good stead at the World Cup when every game can be a pressure game. I expect Josh to go out there and perform well and take wickets.”As for Tector, the middle brother in a trio of siblings who have all represented Ireland across various age groups, the big stage brings the best out of him, according to O’Brien. Usually, a specialist batter at No. 4 or No. 5, Tector stands tall when the quicks run in, and has a compact transition into his shots, be it driving on the up off the front foot or rocking back to pull from inside the crease.His apparent comfort in playing top-class bowling was evident when he scored 64 not out off 33 balls and 39 off 28 against India in the two T20Is over the summer. Even though the ODI format is where Tector has thrived the most – scoring a hat-trick of half-centuries in the West Indies in early 2022 and two centuries in three ODIs against New Zealand during the home summer – O’Brien believes his recent match-time with Barbados Royals at the 6ixty and the CPL will help him transition those skills into the T20 format.Josh Little had an impressive stint at the Hundred•Sportsfile/Getty Images”Harry likes being in the limelight, in the middle,” O’Brien said. “He has got a very calm head on his shoulders. He knows how to time a run-chase well. That’s an important attribute batting at No. 4 in limited-overs cricket. That’s important, to stay with the rate, whatever it is. To be able to stay within touching reach of it. And obviously come home as well.”The one thing Ireland need to improve – if they are to come out of the first round as one of the top two teams in their group, and have a head-turning run in the Super 12s – is to not let the game slip away when they are in strong positions. During the second T20I against India, they nearly chased down 226 only to fall short by four runs. And then against New Zealand, they lost two ODIs they could have won, by one wicket and one run respectively.Related

Exhaustion, relief, joy – when Ireland couldn't afford to lose, and didn't

Balbirnie: Ireland want to excite people

How much have teams changed since last T20 World Cup?

All you need to know about the T20 World Cup 2022

McBrine dropped from Ireland's T20 World Cup squad

“The big thing that the team probably will take [from the defeats] is the fine margins against the better teams in the world,” O’Brien said. “I think World Cup cricket, tournament cricket, that’s different from playing series all the time. The first group [round] is three games. You win three games and you qualify, so obviously you want to play good attacking, aggressive, fearless cricket. But ultimately you want to win the game.”You have got to adapt to situations that are dealt to you on the current day. If that means you play a bit reservedly or within yourself to be there till the end of the match and win the game, then that’s what you must do. Ultimately that is the challenge for the team – to play according to what the situation dictates.”Ireland, led by Andy Balbirnie, begin their World Cup campaign against Zimbabwe in Hobart on Monday. They stay in the same city for their next two matches, against Scotland (Wednesday) and West Indies (Friday). They had an ordinary warm-up, however, losing to Namibia and having their Sri Lanka fixture washed out.

Karthik Krishnaswamy and Alex Malcolm are back to discuss all that happened in the second Border-Gavaskar Test

ESPNcricinfo staff26-Feb-2023A dramatic second-innings Australian collapse in Delhi – they lost their last eight wickets for 28 runs – meant India have the Border-Gavaskar Trophy all wrapped up with two Tests to play (as holders, they retain the trophy even if the series is drawn). This, despite the hosts having looked vulnerable at various points during the match. Where did the match turn (no pun intended)? Karthik Krishnaswamy and Alex Malcolm look back.