From Jos Buttler to Dom Sibley, we take a look at whose star has risen and which players missed out

Andrew Miller10-Oct-2021

Winners

Jos Buttler
More than anyone, Buttler epitomises the stand-off that England and Australia have endured in the run-in to this Ashes squad announcement. Of all the players who were uneasy about the quarantine restrictions in store, no one felt it more than England’s vice-captain – an integral member of the T20 World Cup squad, and also the father of two young daughters, the second of whom was born last month. With the prospect of three months on the road, his apparent refusal to travel unless the players’ families were factored into the plans was critical to a number of concessions being granted – even if a few “critical” details remain to be resolved. In a purely playing capacity, Buttler’s recent Test form is not a lot to write home about. He has passed fifty once in 10 innings in 2021 so far, although when he made his return to the Test team in 2018, you suspect that England’s Ashes tour was always the endgame. Rather like the absent Stokes, some characters are just the sort you need for the toughest assignments.Dom Bess
It’s been a rocky road for Bess in the past year. His anguish in India in the spring was palpable, as he became a rather unfortunate fall guy for England’s wider failings on spinning surfaces at Chennai and Ahmedabad – despite never looking at his best, he had fronted up with 17 wickets in England’s three consecutive wins in Asia, after all, including a five-for at Galle in his first outing of the winter. He never came close to a recall this summer despite being included in a handful of squads later in the summer, but then neither did his former Somerset spin-twin Jack Leach, as England chose to field a seam-only attack for their first three Tests, until an abortive return for Moeen Ali against India. But now, with Moeen retired, Bess has an unlikely chance to reassert his status as England’s No. 1 spinner – Australia is an unforgiving venue for such a comeback, particularly as a fingerspinner. But England admire his all-round package, including a compact and combative batting technique in the lower-middle order. In the absence of Stokes, Moeen, Sam Curran et al, the need for de facto allrounders may yet tip the scales in his favour.Dom Bess won a place in England’s Ashes squad•PA Images/GettyJoe Root
Talking of anguish, you could see it in Root’s features when he spoke to the media at the height of the Ashes impasse a fortnight ago. As England’s captain, his desire to present a united front on behalf of his players was visibly at odds with his “desperation” to take his sensational batting form back to the most notable country in which he has yet to make a Test hundred, and set about making amends for England’s 4-0 beating in 2017-18 – a tour which ended with him retiring with exhaustion during his final unbeaten half-century of the campaign in Sydney. At the age of 30, and with the World No. 1 batting ranking under his belt, Root travels as England’s best prospect of upsetting the odds – and as the Barmy Army have helpfully pointed out, he does so with more Test runs this year than his opposite number Tim Paine has amassed in his entire career. There’s nothing perfect about the circumstances of this tour, but for Root himself, this may be his greatest shot yet at Ashes glory.

Losers

Ben Stokes
For the second time in the pomp of his career, Stokes looks set to miss an Ashes tour of Australia, one of the ultimate highlights for any England cricketer. In 2017-18, his availability – or lack thereof – was the subject of an intense and destabilising period of speculation in the wake of his arrest outside a Bristol nightclub, and so England have nipped all doubt in the bud this time round with a very to-the-point statement that he is “not available for selection”, given his ongoing break on mental health grounds. Nevertheless, after an apparently successful follow-up operation on his injured left finger, the ECB did state that he would undergo “intensive” rehabilitation “for the next four weeks” – an oddly specific timeframe given England’s departure date in early November.Dom Sibley
Eighteen months ago, Sibley looked like the coming man in England’s Test ranks. At a time when Chris Silverwood, newly promoted to head coach, was re-emphasing the virtues of batting time and posting 400-run first-innings scores, his bloodless crease occupation was just the ticket for a team whose middle order was still pumped with post-World Cup adrenalin and were rather grateful for the chill he brought to their tempo. A gutsy maiden hundred in Cape Town helped turned the tide on a thrilling South Africa tour in January 2020, and six months later he added another against West Indies – again enabling his team to come back from a first Test loss. This summer, however, his strokelessness became his undoing – in particular his inability to rotate the strike and release the pressure on his batting partners. He was ditched after two Tests of the India series, and despite a return to form in Warwickshire’s County Championship victory, he’s not yet being trusted for a return. Zak Crawley, in particular, can be grateful for the perceived higher ceiling to his talent, after his year from hell with the bat.James Vince made a memorable half-century in opening Test of the 2017-18 Ashes•Getty ImagesJames Vince
Let’s face it, it’s the one name we all secretly thought might be in with a shout on this tour. Dawid Malan is back in favour, after all, having proven relatively successful on the 2017-18 tour with a century in Perth, but without having featured in Test cricket since the subsequent summer. Similarly, Vince has been lying in abeyance ever since that trip too – and who knows how different history might have been had he not been run out for 83 on the first day of the series at Brisbane? After an innings of such pure and unfettered strokeplay, you wonder if he might still be batting now but for that direct hit. His most recent Test innings was 76 against New Zealand at Christchurch four months later, and he played a walk-on part in the World Cup win since then too. But despite some flickers of destructive intent for Hampshire this summer, including a lacerating innings of 231 from 220 balls against Leicestershire, and a maiden international hundred in the ODI series against Pakistan, it seems that Vince’s return, at the age of 30, would have been just a little bit too back to the future.

From his early days as an anchor, he is now an enforcer, and well on his way to becoming a household name in Chennai

Deivarayan Muthu20-May-20232:34

How Gaikwad thrives in T20 despite being a conventional batter

In the lead-up to the match between Delhi Capitals and Chennai Super Kings, Aaron Finch suggested that the Delhi pitch resembled a “dry riverbed with jigsaw-puzzle-type cracks”. The ball didn’t turn that much, but it stopped on the batters regularly. Deepak Chahar later said it was a “160 wicket”. But Ruturaj Gaikwad and Devon Conway, like they have often done this season, put up a batting clinic to propel CSK to 223 for 3 and seal their spot in the playoffs, perhaps even the second spot on the table.Let’s talk about Gaikwad. He had started his IPL career as an anchor who would allow others around him to bat at higher strike rates. In the past, he would only take the lead if he made it to the second half of the innings. His powerplay strike rates in his first three seasons were 100, 113.41 and 112.03.In IPL 2023, Gaikwad has shelved the caution and gone harder in the early exchanges, as his powerplay strike rate of 147.17 indicates. Only Ishan Kishan (147.57), Faf du Plessis (167.83) and Yashasvi Jaiswal (175.24) have better powerplay strike rates than Gaikwad this IPL among batters who have faced at least 150 balls during this phase.Related

Gaikwad, Conway script CSK's big win

At spin-friendly Chepauk, where Gaikwad had never played an IPL game before this season, that strike rate has jumped to 158.71. The ability to adapt to conditions on the fly against both pace and spin has even vaulted him back into the national reckoning.It was on show in what was a must-win game for CSK on Saturday afternoon. When Axar Patel pushed out a full ball – by no means a wide half-volley – outside off, Gaikwad stretched out, opened the face of the bat and pumped him over extra cover with the intended turn. When Khaheel Ahmed and Anrich Nortje tried to tuck him up with short balls, he dealt with them as confidently.Even after the powerplay, Gaikwad continued to attack. The passage of play against Kuldeep Yadav, in particular, highlighted Gaikwad’s evolution as a T20 batter. Kuldeep had just found some grip with his wrong’un, drawing a toe-ended mis-hit over extra-cover. When the left-arm wristspinner tried to find more grip by tossing the ball up, other batters, including the previous version of Gaikwad, might have sat back and just tapped it. But this version of Gaikwad brought both brawn and brain to launch Kuldeep for three successive sixes down the ground – the long-on and long-off boundaries are smaller than the square boundaries in Delhi.

“T20 can cater to different types of players. It can cater to brute force, the Andre Russell types, and the beautiful classical players like Ruturaj, who can still score at a very high strike rate as well by playing good cricket shots all around the ground”Mike Hussey on Ruturaj Gaikwad

“Playing the 50th game for this franchise, [it] couldn’t get better,” Gaikwad said after collecting the Player-of-the-Match award. “Really grateful and thankful for this wonderful franchise for backing me throughout. I think the wicket was holding up a little bit, but it was a bit difficult to hit the fast bowlers.”With the spinners, we have a chance because the straight boundaries are slightly shorter. In Chennai, there are always big boundaries, so you have to rotate the strike. Here you can take that extra risk of hitting it for six, and once we set a platform, with Shivam Dube to come in, Mahi [MS Dhoni] to come in, Jaddu [Ravindra Jadeja] to come in, we have that power. So back yourself and just go for it.”CSK’s batting coach Mike Hussey had spoken glowingly of Gaikwad’s evolution last month.”It’s been amazing to watch him develop since he was first here at CSK to where he is,” Hussey said. Now he’s such a self-aware player. He has a great understanding about his game and what he wants to improve. He has a beautiful all-round game, and he plays good cricket shots, and he is slowly adding more power to his game. He is making it very difficult for bowlers to bowl to him because he can hit even good balls for fours or sixes as well.”He is a brilliant player. T20 can cater to different types of players. It can cater to brute force, the Andre Russell types, and the beautiful classical players like Ruturaj, who can still score at a very high strike rate as well by playing good cricket shots all around the ground.”The CSK management takes a lot of pride in the progress of Gaikwad. When they snapped him up for his base price of INR 20 lakh in the IPL 2019 auction, Gaikwad was only in his second full season at Maharashtra and had played just five T20s. He is now one of the mainstays in the CSK batting line-up and perhaps a future captaincy candidate.”In cricket, you say you can play your way, but he can play according to what the demand of the game is,” Dhoni recently said of Gaikwad at an event in Chennai. “Over the years he has evolved and as Mo [Moeen Ali] said, he’s very calm and he doesn’t speak a lot. So, at times, initially it was difficult to assess whether he was under pressure or he’s not under pressure because he was quite the same .”Once, another Gaikwad with Maharashtrian roots, a certain Shivaji Rao, went on to become a household name in Chennai. That’s some way away, but if this Gaikwad continues to expand his range even further, he could soon become a huge name in Chennai, too. He is certainly headed that way.

The seamer looks back at his epic stand with Kusal Perera, his bowling, and his sudden call-up to Sri Lanka’s Test side

Interview by Andrew Fidel Fernando18-Feb-2019You were in Sri Lanka playing domestic cricket, and there were five seamers with the Sri Lanka squad. They suddenly started getting injured and you got a call-up to Australia. Was it unexpected?I didn’t think I’d have a comeback into the national team this quickly, to be honest. I had had a lot of injuries, and I was playing the domestic season. I was training hard. I only came for the second Test in Australia, and I wasn’t thinking of any further tours. I was able to get a few wickets there. So, I’m happy to even be here in South Africa.You’d been bowling an average of less than six overs an innings in domestic first-class this season. Were you worried you’d pick up an injury with the Test workload in Australia?I was a bit nervous before the game, just because I hadn’t bowled much. But then when the match started, that fear disappeared. All I was thinking was: how do I get the ball off the captain and into my hands? There are reasons why fast bowlers don’t get to bowl much in Sri Lankan first-class cricket, but on Australian pitches, I knew I’d have to bowl a lot.What did you learn from that Test that helped you in South Africa?Playing a Test for the first time in one-and-a-half years gave me a lot of confidence. I got a couple of wickets with the new ball as well. So, I was feeling good. But it was also important to realise how to bowl after 15-20 overs have gone. I didn’t do well with the older ball there, so that was the biggest lesson. Once the shine goes, you’ve got to bowl really tight to keep Test batsmen quiet. Our line and length wasn’t great in Australia.You got four wickets in the first innings at Kingsmead. What did you do right?I’d known that South Africa pitches helped quicks. I hadn’t come here even on a Sri Lanka A tour, but we did watch videos of previous Durban Tests. I had belief that I could do something with the new ball. In the first over itself, I knew that it was helping me out. They had some of the best batsmen in the world in their top order, so it’s a big thing that I was able to get them out. I got the wicket of Dean Elgar in the first over itself, and I think that confidence carried me right through the Test. Then Hashim Amla should have been out in the same over, but the umpires didn’t allow our review.Having been the most successful bowler in the first innings, you must have gone into the second innings with a lot of belief?I did. But because we were almost 50 runs behind after the first innings, we had to both take wickets, and cut down the runs. Thankfully we were able to do that.When South Africa were almost 300 runs ahead with five wickets in hand, it looked like they were well in control. But then you and Lasith Ambuldeniya managed to shake things up, and get Sri Lanka back in the game. What were you thinking when you came in for that spell?I’d leaked a few runs in the first couple of overs I’d bowled that day. There was a ball that went through the slips as well. When I came back in the afternoon, I thought that would be my final effort. If they were going to get 350 or 400 runs ahead, we knew we were dead. I didn’t know if it would be my last spell in the game. I was able to bowl really well there. I do come around the wicket to the right-hander with the old ball. I’d been practicing that in the nets, and it worked in the match.Vishwa Fernando traps Faf du Plessis lbw•AFPSo you’d taken eight wickets in the match, and once their innings was over. Did you think your job for the game was complete?I was pretty happy with my eight wickets, but there was also a feeling that I shouldn’t have given away so many runs (his match figures were 8 for 133), and should have done a little bit more. But in the end I’m happy with the performance because we did end up winning.You’re in the dressing room now, and you’re watching the tailenders get out quickly, one after another. What’s going through your mindI didn’t have my pads on when Dhananjaya [de Silva] and Kusal [Perera] were batting. When they were batting together, I had a lot of hope we could win. Their quicks had stopped bowling, and South Africa had gone to spin. But then Dhananjaya got out, and Suranga Lakmal went out and got out first ball, unfortunately, and I had to start putting my pads on. I was pretty sad, to be honest. I felt like we had too many runs to get, and too few wickets. They had a 75-80% chance to win. But then I got to the middle, I felt differently. I told Kusal straight away that I wasn’t going to give away my wicket.Kusal said you’d told him you’d hit the ball with your body if nothing else. Did you say that?(Laughs) Yes I did. My job was to protect my wicket, not to score runs. So I told Kusal you score the runs. Let’s get 10 runs closer, and another 10 runs closer, and take it from there.South Africa weren’t that interested in getting Kusal’s wicket, and they were really targeting you. Were you afraid?I wasn’t afraid. Well, I wasn’t afraid that I would get hit, at least. I was afraid that I would lose my wicket. Kusal can’t play the whole over. I had to bat one or two balls at least. There was a lot of pressure. The fast bowlers were having a go at me, and the close fielders were having a go at me. I did say a few things back.Sometimes when a bowler bowls, he’ll come and give you a stare. I’ve done that plenty of times to batsmen, and they’ve looked away. I didn’t want to give the South Africa bowlers that satisfaction. I stared at them back. I didn’t want to show that I was afraid. I wanted them to know I wouldn’t throw away my wicket.Do you usually have a good technique against fast bowling?(Laughs) I’m not going to even talk about technique! I can hang on to my wicket. I don’t have very good technique, but I can hit a ball with my bat.You ducked a lot of balls. Is that something you do well?I do it a lot at club level. But there were about two times in domestic cricket when I was in the same situation and had to play a lot of balls, but I wasn’t able to do it on those occasions. This is the first time I was able to do it. This was the fastest bowling unit that I’d faced. And they swung it a lot as well.Were they reversing the old ball?Dale Steyn and Kagiso Rabada were reversing the old ball a bit. Duanne Olivier was trying to bounce me out. I played a couple of overs of Keshav Maharaj as well, and that was a different challenge. He was the guy who’d just taken a lot of wickets.Early on in your innings, did you think there was a chance of victory?My first goal was to hang on until Kusal got his hundred, because he was on about 80 when I walked in. But even after he got there, we still had another 50-odd to get. So we just broke it down, and said let’s take it 10 runs at a time. We’ve got all the time in the world. I told him I’d somehow play the two or three balls an over I had to face.When did you feel you could actually win it?Kusal is someone who can hit 15-20 runs in one over if he has to, so we were trying to slowly get it down to roughly that amount. So when it got down that low, that’s when I really started thinking that we can’t get it to this stage and end up with a loss. But then it was around then that South Africa took the second new ball. Still, I thought: I’m not going to give away my wicket.Was there more pressure when a win actually became possible?There was crazy pressure. I can’t put that into words. I’m a bowler, not a batsman, so I was massively worried. But I was intent that I wasn’t going to throw it away. If I’d played a dumb shot, or backed away from the wicket and got out, then that would have been wrong. But if I got out defending, and they nicked me off or something, I could live with myself. Once they took the second new ball, Kusal and I didn’t even talk about it, because there’s nothing to do. Though I think that although he was earlier happy to let me bat two balls in an over, he tried to give me only one ball.Vishwa Fernando in action•AFPThere was one over when Rabada bowled two bouncers to Kusal to finish an over, and he ducked both balls. It seems like he did actually trust you a bit?Kusal did trust me from the start. Aftar that Rabada over, Steyn bowled a few balls at me and luckily I was able to get a run away in the middle of the over. I edged it and it fell short of the slips. I saw Kusal running at me, and I ran to the other end as well.You had to dive once to make your crease as well…Yeah, we had to get two runs off that shot for Kusal to keep the strike, but we decided late that we were going to run. So that’s why there was a run-out chance. I dived from very far away from the crease. (Laughs.)So they’ve got the second new ball now. Were they swinging it?They were. And there was definitely enough swing to get a batsman out. But I knew as a bowler, that after they take the second new ball, they’d be trying to get me out with the fuller ones – either bowled, lbw, or caught behind – rather than with a bouncer. So that’s what I was expecting.Around about then, Kusal hit two incredible sixes off Steyn. How did you feel at the other end?I’ve got no words to describe them. If you can hit those sixes off bowlers of that stature, then you’re a great batsman. Sanath Jayasuriya is the only other batsman I’ve seen who can hit those shots off those balls. That’s incredible talent. When I saw that, it helped me keep going. I thought as long as I stay here, he will win it.Describe what you felt when Kusal hit the winning run.It’s hard to describe. It’s one of the happiest days of my life. We had been wanting a win so badly, so it was big for us.A couple of days later, how do you reflect on it?I’m so happy to have been a part of a win like that. Hopefully, a lot of people in Sri Lanka enjoyed it as well. I hope that like they are with us after a win, that they will be with us if we lose as well. You do win and lose in cricket. There’s luck involved as well as talent.Any personal goals for the second match?I had a chance to get five wickets in both innings in Durban, but couldn’t get there. I don’t have a Test five-wicket haul yet. So That’s my big target, as long as the team wins.

Based on their showing against Pakistan, it’ll take a brave man to predict a better fate for the top four in New Zealand

Mohammad Isam08-Dec-2021Shaheen Afridi toyed with Shadman Islam. He got him to jump around the crease and then sent him out with a full delivery that rammed into his pads.Hasan Ali got one to scissor between debutant Mahmudul Hasan Joy’s defence. Then, he had Bangladesh’s captain Mominul Haque, with a full and fast delivery he couldn’t get bat to.Having roughed Bangladesh up with full deliveries, Afridi then adopted the short-ball trick to great effect as Najmul Hossain Shanto lobbed a simple catch to one of the two gullies stationed for just that.Related

• Bangladesh's crumbling home advantage

• Stats – Pakistan and Sajid Khan set new benchmarks in Dhaka

On the fifth morning of the second Test, Bangladesh’s top four were dismissed in no time after they had been asked to follow-on. And it’s Pakistan’s takedown of their brittle line-up in each of the four innings this series that was crucial to the 2-0 sweep.The 7.62 Bangladesh’s top-four batters averaged is the worst when they have batted in at least 16 innings in a Test series. Yet, all considered, they were about 20 minutes away from securing a draw, mainly due to Shakib Al Hasan and the lower-order resistance – and all the time lost to the weather earlier. But when the top four cave in as easily as they have, it doesn’t help.What contributed most to the top four’s meltdown was Mominul having his worst Test series to date. He made only 14 runs, the least he has scored in any series in which he batted at least four innings. His previous lowest across four innings was the 94 he made against England in 2016.

Shadman, Mahmudul, the uncapped Mohammed Naim and Fazle Mahmud are the opening options in New Zealand. Can they cope with the green in New Zealand? Against Trent Boult, Kyle Jamieson, Tim Southee and Neil Wagner? It will be tough, that’s for sure.

While the top four have been poor, it’s also important to factor in their inexperience. Shadman and Shanto are playing their tenth and 11th Tests respectively, while Saif Hassan, who missed the Dhaka Test because of a fever, is just working his way up having made his debut last year. Mahmudul, meanwhile, is an absolute rookie.They are all considered to be in the list of the country’s next-in-line batters, who have all made at least one century in the season’s first-class tournament. But how much is that really worth?In Chattogram, Russell Domingo had said that the domestic structure doesn’t prepare young players to make the transition to the highest level. It was a bold statement from a coach, who himself has often found himself at odds with the board bigwigs. “There’s some exciting young players coming through but they are a long way off from where they need to be as international batsmen and bowlers,” Domingo had said. “The more cricket they play at the domestic level or ‘A’ team tours, the better will be for the national side.It’s clear that Bangladesh aren’t the same side without Tamim Iqbal, but he is still some way from match fitness•AFP/Getty Images”Right now, the step up from domestic to international cricket is a massive step. It is something BCB needs to look at to make sure they impact the game and not take a long time to find their feet.”What would be most worrying for Domingo – and other stakeholders of the game in Bangladesh – going into the New Zealand series is the number of balls that the top four have faced in this series. It is the lowest for Bangladesh when they have batted at least 16 innings in a Test series, roughly one-third of the 854 balls that they face on average in a home series.It’s clear they aren’t the same side without Tamim Iqbal, who scored four Test half-centuries in a row this year. His attacking salvo derailed Sri Lanka a couple of times in the Test series in April. Since his debut in 2008, Tamim is the fourth-highest scorer among Test openers. It’s an understatement when we say Saif, Shadman and the new lot of batters coming in have big boots to fill.Tamim is still a while away from returning to competitive cricket – he has multiple fractures in his thumb – which means Shadman, Mahmudul, the uncapped Mohammed Naim and Fazle Mahmud are the opening options in New Zealand. Can they cope with the green in New Zealand? Against Trent Boult, Kyle Jamieson, Tim Southee and Neil Wagner? It will be tough, that’s for sure.

Welcome to WordPress. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start writing!