The 2-1 win is the sort of result that they’ve rarely achieved in this country

Danyal Rasool10-Nov-2024If someone told you Australia would bat 99.5 overs in this three-match ODI series, one that produced both a nine- and an eight-wicket win, you would have let out a resigned sigh. Pakistan had lost 26 of their last 28 games across formats in this country, had seen a captain and coach resign within the last month, and played no 50-over cricket for a year. Australia fielded a near-full strength side for each of the first two games, and were, as they often tend to be, reigning world champions in this format. Of course these games were going to be one sided; Australia needed to do little more than turn up wearing yellow.Nobody gave Pakistan a chance. This was the land down under, not the land upside down. They don’t do that kind of thing round here.It is remarkable how simple it was after all. Babar Azam had often tried to hide his side’s weaknesses as leader; Mohammad Rizwan wore them like a war wound. Yes, Pakistan had no answer to Adam Zampa. So they didn’t play a spinner at all. Yes, they didn’t have an allrounder they felt they could trust. So they just played four bowlers. Yes, four express seamers would be an issue for the over-rate. So they made sure they bowled Australia out in 40 overs. Yes, they didn’t have much batting depth either. So they made sure to bowl Australia out modestly enough they didn’t have to chase much.Related

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There Pakistan stood, their glaring weaknesses in full view, their soft underbelly exposed for Australia to slice through. But Pakistan have spent much too long on the defensive against Australia, and have the scarring to show how that ends. The recent Test series against England had demonstrated the value of bespoke conditions as a route to victory, and so, on these bouncier, seaming surfaces, they burnt their bridges and unleashed their four-pronged pace attack.There was Shaheen Shah Afridi, a man denuded – of both his captaincy and his pace – looking for arrows to add to his quiver. Experimenting with his wrist position and finding sideways movement both ways, he was arguably the bowler of the series. Australia opened with Matthew Short and Jake Fraser-McGurk, two men with T20 strike rates north of 150. Up against them with the field in, Shaheen’s economy of 3.76 was the lowest of any bowler all series, and he would account for three of the six times they fell, combining for 78 runs in 84 balls across the series.Saim Ayub lived up to his potential•Cricket Australia/Getty ImagesThere was Naseem Shah, the most proficient at making the ball talk at pace, perfecting the art of bowling beautiful deliveries that don’t get wickets. Arguably Pakistan’s best bowler in the third game, he made up for his relative expense with menace across all phases of play, especially puncturing Australia early on with new-ball wickets in the final two games.Mohammad Hasnain, whose painfully shy exterior belies the fire that burns underneath, didn’t quite get the number of wickets his team-mates did, but snared the one he really wanted. He would toy with Marcus Stoinis, who once accused him of chucking in the Hundred, before bringing his tortured stay at the crease to a close. There was a brief moment when he considered giving the batter an invective-laden send-off before quickly realising it didn’t come naturally to him, and turned his innocent smile back towards the team-mates who rushed to mob him.Polar opposite, of course, is Haris Rauf, the man this series truly belonged to. Perhaps it is his unapologetic extroversion that has seen him do so well in Australia. His record here is well known, but he hadn’t actually played a one-day game in this country until last week. And yet, his main character energy blazed through every pore as he bent Australia to his will. It was exemplified by his takedown of Australia’s flashiest star in this line-up, Glenn Maxwell dismissed three times in nine balls, a microcosm of a mismatch that told the story of this series.There are glimpses of optimism elsewhere, too. Rizwan’s proactive captaincy may signal a tonal shift for a side that has trudged directionless in the shorter formats for several years now. As Fakhar Zaman approaches the home stretch of his career, there is perhaps also the rustle of large shoes beginning to be filled. Saim Ayub’s nerveless displays in two chases that have historical banana-skin potential for Pakistan justify his gradual induction into ODIs; he is already the second-highest Pakistani run-scorer in successful winning chases against Australia in Australia, six runs behind Javed Miandad.The Pakistan players and support staff celebrate after the series win•AFP/Getty ImagesIt is a mark of how dominant Pakistan have been this series that the middle order hasn’t really been tested but there is possibly a sign Babar hasn’t lost his touch in his favourite format. A respectable 37 in the first game was followed by two brief unbeaten cameos replete with that sumptuous shotmaking repertoire that still sees him ranked the best ODI batter in the world.There will be the usual nitpicking from the type of people one tends to weed out of party invitations that this was just one series. That Australia rested a few players in the first two games, and many more in the third. That their eyes are firmly on the Border-Gavaskar prize over the next couple of months, or that Pakistan still have ODI weaknesses they haven’t really demonstrated an ability to address.They’re often the same people who tend to complain about bilateral series having lost their lustre. But bilateral series, like any other competition, only gain their value through teams caring about them, and Pakistan care about wins in Australia perhaps more than anything else in cricket. It is where their brand was birthed in 1992, where scraps of success make up for tidal waves of heartbreak.Maybe Pakistan are building something here, but maybe they’re not. In 2002, when they last beat Australia in an ODI series, they would go on to have disastrous Champions Trophy and World Cup campaigns. For this side, a series win in Australia is a prize that does not need extraneous context. It is a breath of cool air atop a mountain only few get to scale; when you’re at the top you’re not thinking about the next ascent.Within moments of the winning runs being hit, they took laps of honour around the Optus Stadium, their fans thronging the sidelines to sneak a glimpse or snatch an autograph. The players and coaching staff embraced, emotion writ large on their faces. Rizwan threw himself into the arms of the fitness trainer, Shaheen buried his head in Rauf’s shoulders. There was a warm embrace between Rizwan and Babar, the strains of a friendship that has been tested so severely cast off momentarily.Pakistan will always find time to worry about the future, but living in the present is never easier than days like this.

And does Josh Inglis now have the fastest hundred on Test debut?

Steven Lynch11-Feb-2025Josh Inglis got to his hundred very quickly in the first Test in Galle. Was it the fastest by anyone making their debut? asked Keith Hartwell from Australia
Australia’s Yorkshire-born batter Josh Inglis zoomed to 100 on his Test debut against Sri Lanka in Galle last month in just 90 balls. This has been bettered on debut only by India’s Shikhar Dhawan, who got there in 85 balls against Australia in Mohali in March 2013: he finished with 187 from 174 deliveries. The previous fastest debut century for Australia came up in 126 balls, by Mark Waugh against England in Adelaide in January 1991.Kavem Hodge scored a hundred the other day in an innings in which no one else managed double figures. Is this unique in first-class cricket? asked Remi Durant from England
This remarkable innings happened last week during the West Indian domestic competition: in Kingstown (St Vincent), the West Indies Test batter Kavem Hodge made 126 in Windward Islands’ total of 166 against Trinidad & Tobago. Two others scored nine, but no one else made it into double figures.There have been two previous instances of this in a completed first-class innings. For Worcestershire against Glamorgan in Swansea in 1977, the New Zealand opener Glenn Turner carried his bat for 141 in a total of 169, in which the next-highest score was seven, by the No. 9 Norman Gifford. More recently, in a domestic match in Rawalpindi in Pakistan in September 2023, Zeeshan Malik made 108 in the home side’s total of 144 against Faisalabad: the next-highest contribution was nine extras.Nick Welch scored 90 on Test debut for Zimbabwe the other day. Has anyone scored a hundred in their first Test for them? asked Dion Brooks from Zimbabwe
Nick Welch was out for 90 in his first Test innings for Zimbabwe, against Ireland in Bulawayo at the weekend. That was the nearest any Zimbabwean has yet come to scoring a hundred on Test debut without getting there: Takudzwanashe Kaitano made 87 against Bangladesh in Harare in 2021.Zimbabwe’s Johnathan Campbell (tossing the coin) is the fourth son to follow his father (Alistair) as a Test captain•Zimbabwe CricketBut three men have scored a century in their first Test for Zimbabwe. Dave Houghton did it in their inaugural Test, with 121 against India in Harare in 1992, while Hamilton Masakadza hit 117 as a 17-year-old debutant against West Indies in Harare in 2001. More recently, Gary Ballance made 137 not out against West Indies in Bulawayo in February 2023, in his first Test for Zimbabwe after 23 for England; it turned out to be his only Test for his native country.For the list of all those who have reached 50 on Test debut for Zimbabwe, click here.Johnathan Campbell captained Zimbabwe in his first Test. And also followed his father as a Test captain. How rare are these two things?! asked Tim McAndrew from England
Johnathan Campbell was pressed into service as Zimbabwe’s captain on his debut against Ireland in Bulawayo last week after Craig Ervine’s withdrawal. If you exclude those who skippered in their country’s first-ever Test matches, Campbell is only the third to do this in over half a century (since England’s Tony Lewis against India in 1972): Lee Germon captained New Zealand on debut against India in Bengaluru in 1995, and just last February, Neil Brand skippered South Africa in his first Test, against New Zealand in Mount Maunganui. For the full list, which does include countries’ inaugural Tests, click here.Campbell is the fourth son to follow his father as a captain in Test cricket – in his case Alistair Campbell, who led Zimbabwe in 21 of his 60 matches. The earlier pairs were Frank and George Mann (who both captained England on their Test debuts), the Nawab of Pataudi senior and junior (India), and Colin and Chris Cowdrey (England).Sachin Tendulkar captained India in 25 Tests but won only four of them. Is his win percentage of 16% the worst among all Test captains? asked Vivek Seth from Australia
You’re right that Sachin Tendulkar won only four of his 25 Tests as captain. But that win percentage isn’t the worst, as the “%W” column in this list shows. Considering everyone who skippered in 25 or more Tests, John Reid (New Zealand) won only three of his 34 matches in charge (8.82%), Kapil Dev (India) four out of 34 (11.76%), Kim Hughes (Australia) four out of 28 (14.28%), and David Gower (England) five out of 32 (15.62%). The highest win percentage of all belongs to Steve Waugh, who won 41 of his 57 Tests as captain of Australia – 71.92%.Shiva Jayaraman of ESPNcricinfo’s stats team helped with some of the above answers.Use our feedback form, or the Ask Steven Facebook page to ask your stats and trivia questions

Saved for the Lord’s Test with a long break on this tour, Bumrah took his 15th five-wicket haul on the second day to make his place on the honour’s board

Sidharth Monga11-Jul-2025

Jasprit Bumrah picked up his first five-for at Lord’s•Getty Images

Jasprit Bumrah’s favourite phrase is “money in the bank”. Not sure he follows professional wrestling, but in WWE, “Money In The Bank” is a briefcase that contains a contract entitling the holder to a title shot anytime, anywhere. So the champion could have just survived an hour-long Iron Man and you could cash in at that moment and beat him.Bumrah walks around with the air of a man carrying an invisible briefcase that guarantees wickets anytime, anywhere. Or he has the air of a man who knows he is a genius fast bowler.In Bumrah’s world, money in the bank is days when he bowls well without results. He believes the results will show up sooner or later. Unlike Money In The Bank in WWE, which can be cashed in anytime, money in the bank in cricket depends on various elements not in a bowler’s control: luck, batter’s intent and conditions, to name a few.Related

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Bumrah respects the occasional disconnect between effort and outcome in cricket and bides his time. He hardly goes searching because he believes he deserves more wickets in a certain spell or on a certain day. He doesn’t risk releasing pressure and ruining it for the bowlers who follow.His body, though, is beginning to test his patience. There is this whole unfortunate scenario in the aftermath of his back stress reaction at the start of the year. He is playing only three of the five Tests in this series. There has been too much focus on “will he, won’t he”. It is not the kind of attention he wants.Bumrah has not been pleased with all of it. His demeanour has been a little testy, only a little. There have been suggestions he wanted to play at Lord’s, and so did not play at Edgbaston despite India trailing 1-0 in the series and having more than a week off before that Test. The matches he plays and misses is not his call alone but that of the team in discussion with him.Jasprit Bumrah picked up his first five-for at Lord’s•Getty ImagesAs India won without Bumrah at Edgbaston, two curious but eventually shallow bits of stats did the rounds: Mohammed Siraj’s bowling average improves from 33 to 26 in his absence, India’s win percentage goes up from 40 to 70.It is in this context that the first day of money in the bank at Lord’s becomes a little curious. Bumrah started it by drawing an edge with the first ball he bowled to Ben Duckett only to see it not carry. He swung the ball bewitchingly late, paired it with nip off the pitch, and made a few batters look incredibly silly. He induced a false shot once every three deliveries, sprayed the ball a little on a few occasions, and ended with just one wicket in 18 overs. You wondered if he took this day with the same equanimity and considered it more money in the bank.A teaser of what was to follow was seen late on day one when Bumrah went for the mightiest of tricks in fast bowling: swing one way, seam the other way, and hit the top of off. It is arguable whether it is physically possible for batters to react to this kind of movement. Mostly they hope the ball misses the stumps. The beauty of that Harry Brook dismissal was that Bumrah had tried each end without luck. He then went back to the end with lower bounce, and bowled the exact length needed to hit top of off, which had shortened by a metre since the first session. That is the extent of how soft the balls are going.2:43

‘Don’t want to be fined for making statements about ball change’

On the second morning, Bumrah repeated the trick twice from the bouncier Nursery End with the second new ball. He made the length adjustment again. To Ben Stokes, he went slightly closer on the release from around the wicket. To Joe Root, he swung the ball away a lot, pitched it up, then found seam movement against that angle; it would have just missed off but the inside edge took it on to uproot middle stump.With three swipes of genius, he ripped out the heart of England’s batting. Then came the ball change, which resulted in a quiet period with the replacement ball. He came back after lunch, went closer on the release to Jofra Archer, got awayswing and then seam back in, and hit the stumps three-fourths of the way up.Patient as Bumrah is, this five-for – his 15th in 47 Tests – had a bit of “I’m cashing in” than relying on circumstances to change while he keeps bowling good length and line. He still hit the good length with 54% of his deliveries but went into the 6-7metre band 30% of the time, which is slightly high for him. Perhaps he was just a little impatient. Perhaps he wanted to hit the stumps more often: eight times in 18 overs on day one to seven times in nine overs on day two.The attention will remain on Bumrah. Whatever the result at Lord’s, as the fourth Test in Manchester approaches, people will start asking which of the remaining matches he will play. And if it is 2-2 after Old Trafford, and he’s already played three Tests, there will be questions about whether he should push himself and play the finale. There is no way around it. The good thing is, Bumrah still has plenty of money in the bank, and not the WWE version, which you lose when you cash it in for a title shot.

All you need to know about the SA20 2025-26 auction

Firdose Moonda08-Sep-2025The SA20 is avoiding the word mega (because that belongs to the IPL) but the auction of season four is big. Very big.Almost two-thirds of the player pool is up for grabs, with 84 of the 114 player spots across the six franchises available. The teams were permitted no more than six retentions or pre-signed players and were also allowed to sign a wildcard player, who falls outside the R41 million (approx USD 2.31 million) salary cap.There is no rookie draft in place anymore to prevent a high turnover of young players and instead, franchises must sign a minimum of two under-23 players in their final squads.Related

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Squad composition is unchanged from the previous three seasons, with 19 players per squad and a maximum of seven overseas players. Here’s the lowdown before the first gavel hits.Who has what going in?
Pretoria Capitals, who will be under a new coach in Sourav Ganguly for season four, have the biggest purse of R32.5 million (approx USD 1.85 million) and most number of spots to fill – 16. They are also the only franchise with two Right to Match (RTM) cards available to them. Similar to the IPL, the RTM can be used to buy back a player who was part of a franchise in the previous season by matching the winning bid. All three of Pretoria’s current players – Will Jacks, Sherfane Rutherford and wildcard Andre Russell – are overseas players so they only have four international spots left.Durban’s Super Giants have R29.5 million (approx USD 1.68 million) and 15 spots available with one RTM card. They also have four overseas places available after pre-signing Sunil Narine and Jos Buttler and retaining Noor Ahmed. Heinrich Klaasen is their wildcard.Sunrisers Eastern Cape and Joburg Super Kings both have R21.5 million (approx USD1.2 million) and 14 player spots available, four for overseas players, with one RTM card each. Paarl Royals have R14.5 million (approx USD826,000) and 13 spots, including five overseas while MI Cape Town have R11.5 million (US$650,000) and only 12 places to fill but four for overseas players. Neither Paarl nor MICT have an RTM card. What do the base prices look like?
The base prices range from R200,000 (approx USD11,400) to R1.5 million (approx USD85,500), which is what some of the high-profile international names such as Rahmanullah Gurbaz, Mustafizur Rahman, Moeen Ali, Jason Roy, Maheesha Theeksana and Johnson Charles have set for themselves. A further 32 players including James Anderson, Shakib Al Hasan, Reece Topley, Craig Overton, Logan van Beek, Corey Anderson and Bhanuka Rajapaksa have set their base prices at R1 million (approx USD57,000).In-form Matthew Breetzke is among players expected to attract big bids•AFP/Getty ImagesMost of the 549 players on the auction list have opted for the lowest base price but South Africa’s premier bowlers have rated themselves slightly higher with a host of them opting for base prices of R500,000 (approx USD 28,500). Among them are a resurgent Lungi Ngidi, who has maintained fitness across formats, teenage left-arm seamer Kwena Maphaka, Gerald Coetzee, who only played one match for JSK last year as he battled with injury, Anrich Nortje, who has not played any cricket since the IPL, Lizaad Williams, who has recovered from knee surgery and was awarded a national contract in this cycle, left-armer Nandre Burger and allrounder Wiaan Mulder.Leading spinners Keshav Maharaj and Tabraiz Shamsi, and veteran Imran Tahir have also opted for a R500,000 base price alongside experienced batters Aiden Markram, Quinton de Kock, Reeza Hendricks and Rassie van der Dussen. Dewald Brevis, who has enjoyed a breakthrough year across formats, is also at R500,000.Will someone cross the R10 million mark?
Unless you’re South African this number may not mean anything but it’s considered the high-water mark for this auction after Tristan Stubbs was picked up for R9.2 (approx USD 525,180) million in the first auction in 2023. Should a player command a R10 million price tag, that would be worth more than half a million US dollars, (around USD 570,000) which, for anyone, is a tidy payday.Some of the favourites to attract that kind of money include South Africa’s T20I captain and two-time title-winning SA20 captain Markram (but he has only scored 20 or more twice in his last ten T20I innings), Maharaj and in-form batters Matthew Breetzke and Brevis.Are there any overseas names to look out for?
The absence of England’s Test players, who will be involved in the Ashes, is the biggest talking point of this season after Joe Root and Jonny Bairstow were two of the major catches in the previous edition but there is still a strong contingent at the auction. Headlined by Anderson, who had three matches in the Hundred this summer, there are 96 English names on the auction list. Contrastingly, there are only two Australians – D’Arcy Short and Peter Hatzoglou.James Anderson will have a base price of R1 million at the auction•Getty ImagesWest Indies have 28 players in the auction list, Sri Lanka 24 and Afghanistan, who have historically had a strong contingent of players in the SA20, have 19, followed by Bangladesh with 15 and New Zealand with six. Of the other Full Members there are five Zimbabweans – Brian Bennett, who was schooled in the Eastern Cape, Ryan Burl, Richard Ngarava, Sean Williams and Brad Evans – and five Irish players have thrown their names into the hat.Notably, there are no Pakistan players in the auction list. While the SA20 has always said it remains open to players from across the cricketing world, all six franchises are owned by IPL team owners.From Associate nations, 16 players from the USA, eight Netherlands players including former South African international Roelof van der Merwe, six Scottish players, four Namibians including captain Gerhard Erasmus, four from the UAE, and one Nepal player Dipendra Singh Airee are in the list. When and where is the auction?
The auction will take place on Tuesday, September 9 from 2pm South African time (5.30pm IST) and will be held in Johannesburg.

The 18-year-old only has a handful of professional appearances but has already been around the Test squad and played for Australia A

Deivarayan Muthu13-Aug-2025Since breaking into Australia’s Under-19 World Cup squad after being originally named as a non-travelling reserve last year, Ollie Peake has ticked off landmarks like items on a shopping list.In a space of 17 months, Peake has won the Under-19 World Cup, made his Big Bash League (BBL) debut for Melbourne Renegades, marked his Sheffield Shield debut for Victoria with a half-century, and has even had a stint with the Australia side as a development player on their tour to Sri Lanka earlier this year.Related

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Peake, an 18-year-old left-hand batter, is currently in Chennai training at the MRF academy in the lead-up to red-ball four-day matches in Lucknow with the Australia A side. This is his third trip to the subcontinent, and he seems to have a reference point for what to do in these conditions, which are usually favourable to spin.”I guess the first time we came over here [with the Australia Under-19s], you have to play the bowling differently to Australian spinners because the conditions are more extreme,” Peake said. “Batting for ten minutes, I was absolutely cooked at the time. So, I had to learn how to sort of take a bit more pressure off mentally and try and relax a bit more. And then sort of worry about technique after that because if you can’t bat for more than 10 minutes, then you’re not going to have too much hope.”But, yeah, at the moment, trying a few different things like getting lower in my stance, try and be really proactive on my feet to the best I can. That’s something that all the boys are all doing pretty well. And then evolving with a few sweep shots and reverse-sweeps and stuff like that to counter the bowler’s best balls as well.”Ollie Peake was part of the Sri Lanka tour in early 2025 as a development player•Getty ImagesHaving coped with Chennai’s unforgiving heat and former Ranji Trophy champions Saurashtra during a three-day red-ball fixture at the MRF ground, Peake has been trying to find ways to accumulate runs in risk-free fashion.”I’ve picked up heaps of stuff in the last five or six days,” Peake said. “The training has been really intense and super beneficial as well. Apart from different sweep shots, I’m in the process of trying different stuff like how to defend more off the back foot, score off the back foot a lot more. So, I’m just trying to sort of find ways to mitigate risk and score quickly when the conditions are really extreme.”Peake believes his time with the senior Australia side in Sri Lanka is a key step in his progress.”It was a pretty cool experience going over there and learning off guys who I’ve watched on TV for ten years,” Peake said. “A lot of the stuff that I got out of the trip was not necessarily in the nets batting; it was more talking to people about their pathway and how they approach spin bowling and what they do outside of cricket as well. I found most value just talking to people, having dinner and that was really beneficial.”

It feels like it’s all happening pretty quick. I absolutely love playing cricket and travelling the world. You couldn’t really ask for too many better things, could you? But I don’t think it’s a fluke by any degreeOllie Peake on his rapid rise

Peake is still a teenager and has played just six professional games so far in senior cricket, but selectors see him as a player with immense potential and the Geelong cricket community sees him as their next hero after Aaron Finch.”It [Geelong] is a cool place to grow up,” Peake said. “I think everyone’s aspiring to be like Finchy in Geelong and dad [Clinton Peake] was lucky to play with him for a few years for Geelong cricket club and yeah, to learn off dad as well at Geelong has been great and the community is unreal.”The cricket club is really giving and really generous with their time. I think I’ve been there my whole life, so it’s pretty cool to try and turn into Finchy and for kids to look up to me in a way is a cool thing in a bit of a full circle moment.”When he was growing up Peake also played first-team football for Geelong Grammar before an injury seemingly ended his football ambitions. At Geelong Grammar, Peake was mentored by the late Troy Selwood, and he credits the former Brisbane Lions midfielder for shaping his sporting career.”A lot of my best mates are actually footy players, so I can still sort of connect with AFL and I guess live vicariously through them in a way and get my footy kick out of that,” Peake said. “Troy was a massive mentor for me. He really helped me with that sort of balance, life balance, which inevitably helps with your chosen sports performance and he was huge for me from Year 10 to 12. But I did love my footy growing up.”Ollie Peake will be pushing for a regular spot in the Victoria side this season•Getty ImagesClinton has been in his son’s shoes before – in 1995 at the MCG, he became the first player to record a triple-century in youth Tests – and continues to be a sounding board for Ollie.”We train in Geelong and whenever I feel like I’m not really batting too well, he [dad] is probably someone that I can go back to,” Peake said. “I do it less frequently now but after I walk away from a session with him, I feel ready to go to play against anyone.”I reckon probably my best skill in cricket is sort of the way that I think about the game, not necessarily having a really good pull shot or cut shot or cover drive. It’s more mental skills. So I think it’s been trained along the journey. I think dad’s been a massive help for that.”Peake’s elevation to the Australia A team may seem rapid from the outside, but for him it’s reward for his behind-the-scenes grind for a number of years.”Not a blur as such but, yeah, it’s definitely going from one thing to the other,” Peake reflected on his rise. “It feels like it’s all happening pretty quick. I absolutely love playing cricket and travelling the world. You couldn’t really ask for too many better things, could you? But I don’t think it’s a fluke by any degree.”I think it sort of goes back to Covid, when I was training every day and banking up hours and it just feels like everything sort of clicked. Very fortunate to be able to represent all these different teams.”It may not be too long before Peake makes the step-up to the main Australia team, especially if he has a successful tour of India with the A team in September.

And how often have three batters made hundreds on the first day of a Test?

Steven Lynch27-May-2025MS Dhoni recently made his 200th dismissal as a wicketkeeper in the IPL. Is he top of this list? asked Abhishek Kapadia from India
Mahendra Singh Dhoni became the first wicketkeeper to reach 200 dismissals in the Indian Premier League during Chennai Super Kings’ recent match against Kolkata Knight Riders at Eden Gardens, when he caught Angkrish Raghuvanshi off the Afghanistan left-arm spinner Noor Ahmad.A couple of weeks later, Rishabh Pant made it to 100, during Lucknow Super Giants’ match against Sunrisers Hyderabad in Lucknow. Two other keepers, who played what appear to be their final IPL games last year, also made more than 100 dismissals: Dinesh Karthik 174 and Wriddhiman Saha 113. For the full list, which will be updated, click here.Yuzvendra Chahal just took his second IPL hat-trick. Has anyone else got more than one? asked Suresh Moti from India
The Punjab Kings legspinner Yuzvendra Chahal took a hat-trick towards the end of CSK’s innings in Chennai at the end of April. It was his second in the IPL, after a hat-trick for Rajasthan Royals against Kolkata Knight Riders at the Brabourne Stadium in Mumbai in April 2022.Chahal’s recent hat-trick was the 23rd in the IPL, and he’s the third bowler to have taken more than one. The first man to double up is perhaps a bit of a surprise: Yuvraj Singh picked up two hat-tricks with his slow left-armers during the 2009 IPL in South Africa, for Kings XI Punjab against Royal Challengers Bangalore in Durban, and against Deccan Chargers in Johannesburg. These were the only six wickets Yuvraj picked up in 14 matches in that tournament.Another legspinner, Amit Mishra, actually took three IPL hat-tricks, all for different teams: for Delhi Daredevils against Deccan Chargers in Delhi in 2008, for Deccan Chargers vs Kings XI Punjab in Dharamsala in 2011, and for Sunrisers Hyderabad vs Pune Warriors in Pune in 2013.We were watching Ben Duckett bat against Zimbabwe, and were wondering what the highest Test score by an England batter on his home ground was? asked Giles King from England
Ben Duckett did look in imperious form on the first day of the Test against Zimbabwe at Trent Bridge last week, and it was something of a surprise when he holed out for 140.This particular England record is held by Geoff Boycott, with 246 not out against India on Yorkshire’s home ground of Headingley in 1967 . That was a famous – or possibly infamous – innings, as he batted for 573 minutes in all, and was dropped from the next Test for slow scoring. The only other England batter to score a Test double-century on his county’s home ground was Denis Compton, with 208 against South Africa at Lord’s in 1947.The highest Test score by anyone on their home ground is 374, by Sri Lanka’s Mahela Jayawardene against South Africa at the Sinhalese Sports Club in Colombo in 2006 .Geoff Boycott’s infamous crawl to 246 at Headingley in 1967 is the also the highest score by a batter at his home ground•Daily MirrorBefore his hundred against Zimbabwe, Zak Crawley had scored seven half-centuries since his previous three-figure score in Tests. What’s the record for this? asked Gerry Watson from England
Zak Crawley’s 124 against Zimbabwe at Trent Bridge last week broke a century drought that stretched back to his superb 189 against Australia at Old Trafford in July 2023.Since then, you’re right that Crawley had reached 50 seven times in Tests without going on to a hundred (all seven scores were between 60 and 79). The record for England is 14 half-centuries between hundreds, by another Kent player in Alan Knott, between July 1971 and January 1975. Alastair Cook had two spells of 11 half-centuries without a hundred, while Jonny Bairstow and Joe Root have both had one.They’re all quite a way short of the overall record: the Australian captain Allan Border had no fewer than 21 half-centuries between Test tons in October 1988 and February 1992, while Temba Bavuma of South Africa collected 19 half-centuries between his first two Test hundreds, in January 2016 and March 2023. The Sri Lankan wicketkeeper Niroshan Dickwella has so far made 22 half-centuries in Tests – but no hundreds at all.Three England players scored centuries on the first day at Trent Bridge. How often has this happened in a Test? asked Frank Donaldson from England
England’s 498 for 3 against Zimbabwe at Trent Bridge was the fourth-highest total by one side on the first day of a Test, and was also only the fourth time three different men had scored centuries on the first day: the same England trio (Zak Crawley, Ben Duckett and Ollie Pope) also did it against Pakistan in Rawalpindi in 2022.The other instances were both by Australia, against England at The Oval in 1884 (Percy McDonnell, Billy Murdoch and Tup Scott) and South Africa in Adelaide in 2012 (David Warner, Michael Clarke and Michael Hussey).Shiva Jayaraman of ESPNcricinfo’s stats team helped with some of the above answers.Use our feedback form, or the Ask Steven Facebook page to ask your stats and trivia questions

The allrounder batted just once and bowled four overs in the entire series

Karthik Krishnaswamy14-Oct-20250:57

Gambhir: ‘Reddy deserves a go in home conditions’

Nitish Kumar Reddy didn’t bat in the first Test in Ahmedabad, not needed after being slotted at No. 8 in India’s only innings. He bowled four wicketless overs in West Indies’ first innings, and wasn’t used in their second.Promoted to No. 5 in the first innings of the second Test in Delhi, he scored 43. Then India, making West Indies follow-on, spent a cumulative 200.4 overs on the field across their two innings. Reddy didn’t bowl a single over in either innings.India view Reddy as a promising seam-bowling allrounder and are looking to develop him into a player who can give their line-ups the depth and balance they have so often struggled to achieve on past tours away from Asia. To do this, they want to give him as much exposure to Test cricket as possible, even in Indian conditions where his bowling may not be needed all that much with spinners taking on the bulk of the workload.Related

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There is value in this strategy, but how much did Reddy gain from playing the West Indies series, and how much did India gain from his presence in their XI? Did he gain and contribute anything other than the fleeting appearances he made on the scorecard?India head coach Gautam Gambhir certainly felt he did.”Look, for me, it is not important how many overs [Reddy] has bowled,” Gambhir said in his post-series press conference. “It is important that he is gaining experience. Gaining experience at home as well. Sometimes you learn a lot just by playing a game of cricket as well.”It is a Test match. And we don’t want to use a 23-year-old boy just on tough tours away from home. That’s not going to be fair to him, that we decide to play him only in overseas tours, be it Australia, South Africa, New Zealand, or England. I think when he has done well overseas, he deserves a go in home conditions as well.2:13

Why didn’t Nitish Kumar Reddy bowl a single over in the Delhi Test?

“And wherever we can get the opportunity to put him in in Indian conditions, we will continue to do that, because it is important for us to groom someone like Nitish, because you know that there are not many seam-bowling allrounders, and we have spoken for decades and decades about seam-bowling allrounders.”So whenever we get that opportunity, we will keep grooming him. And it depends on the captain, it depends on the conditions as well, how many overs he bowls, but again, I think [just] seeing Jasprit Bumrah and Mohammed Siraj bowling at home will be a great experience for him.”India captain Shubman Gill expressed similar views in his post-match interview with the host broadcaster. On Sunday, when asked about Reddy’s lack of bowling, India’s assistant coach Ryan ten Doeschate had spoken of the difficulty teams face when they juggle the twin objectives of winning Test matches and developing players for the future.”The priority is to win the Test match, so you’re first going to get a strategy call on who’s the best bowler [for a situation], and then, if it allows, you’ll fit pieces in where you can buy guys time or get another batter to the wicket like we did, changed the [batting] order in the first innings, given the position we were in,” ten Doeschate said. “But we’re never going to sacrifice the strategy for the sake of development […] Obviously [four] overs in this series so far and only one real chance to bat is not ideal, but the strategy will always come before the development of players.”With three allrounders in their XI, India have a certain amount of flexibility around how they line them up from Nos. 6 to 8. But there’s a hierarchy too. Ravindra Jadeja is proven as a top-six batter in Test cricket around the world, and has been in red-hot form all through 2025. Washington Sundar enjoyed an excellent tour of the bat with England, scoring a maiden Test hundred to help save the fourth Test at Old Trafford alongside Jadeja and following up with a 46-ball 53 at The Oval, extending India’s lead by what proved a crucial margin while batting with the tail – they eventually won that match by five runs.India rate Reddy’s batting ability highly, having seen him score a brilliant rearguard hundred against Australia at the MCG last year, in only his third Test match. But his average of 29.69 after 14 innings suggests he’s still a work-in-progress.Reddy had impressed on the Australia tour•Associated PressSo far in his career, he has shown he has an excellent attacking game against spin – he even demonstrated this with his reverse-sweeping and use of feet against Nathan Lyon in Australia – but has work to do against the swinging and seaming ball. During his innings in Delhi, he was troubled by Jayden Seales’ late away movement, and his open-shouldered technique often left him reaching for the ball.India believe Reddy’s ceiling can be raised substantially, but for now he remains behind Jadeja and Washington, who have an edge both in terms of experience and watertight techniques, in the allrounders’ batting hierarchy.This is why India sent in Jadeja when India lost their fourth wicket in Ahmedabad: they led West Indies by only 56 at that point, and had lost Gill and KL Rahul in the space of 11 overs. Jadeja and Dhruv Jurel proceeded to put on a double-century stand, and India declared five overs after Jurel’s dismissal.In Delhi, where they batted first, India got to a position where they were able to promote Reddy up the order, and sent him in at 325 for 3. He got to face 54 balls – and would have spent longer at the crease had he not been dismissed – which, in the end, turned out to be more than Washington’s series batting workload of 13 balls before India’s Ahmedabad declaration.Washington, of course, got to bowl a lot more than Reddy did, but it’s normal for an offspinner to bowl more overs on Indian pitches than a medium-fast seam bowler.Reddy has picked up nine wickets in eight Tests•Getty ImagesThere’s an argument to be made that India could have used Reddy for more than just four overs across the series. They could have perhaps given him a couple of overs with the new ball in Delhi, when Jasprit Bumrah, who had bowled a spell towards the end of West Indies’ first innings, didn’t open the bowling after India enforced the follow-on.They could have tried him as a partnership-breaker at some point, particularly when John Campbell and Shai Hope put on 177 for the third wicket. They could even have given him an over or two towards the end of sessions – they even brought on the highly occasional legspinner Yashasvi Jaiswal to bowl the last over of day three. But they didn’t bowl Reddy at all in the second Test.This may have felt like a waste of a resource, but it also made sense when viewed with cold objectivity. It made sense that Reddy’s four overs in the series all came in the first innings in Ahmedabad, when India bowled on a day-one pitch with an even cover of grass. There was no point in either Test, thereafter, where Reddy’s medium-fast bowling posed a genuine wicket threat, with Delhi’s turgid surface particularly hostile to his style of bowling.At every point as they strove to take 20 West Indies wickets, India probably felt there was a better option than Reddy for the conditions. Even though they had to bowl more than 200 overs over back-to-back innings to get those 20 wickets, they had an attack deep enough to carry the workload. This wasn’t necessarily the case on their tours of Australia and England, where their prioritising of batting depth over wicket-taking depth led to Bumrah and Siraj getting overbowled.In the home Tests, Washington and Jadeja are proper allrounders, and India had another genuine, wicket-taking spinner in Kuldeep Yadav. All three spinners could bowl long spells when needed, allowing Bumrah and Siraj to rest between spells, even if they ended up sending down their third-highest and fourth-highest match outputs in home Tests.It brings into question the decision to enforce the follow-on. Ten Doeschate admitted at the end of day three that India had probably misread the pitch and its state of wear and tear but even if this pitch was to deteriorate far quicker than it did, it surely made sense for India to bat again and bowl when it was at a more advanced stage of breaking-up?Reddy scored 43 in the first innings of the second Test•Associated PressThere was ample time left in the Test match, and little threat of rain. And the bowlers would surely have appreciated being able to put their feet up for at least a session. The decision, in the end, continued a worrying trend of selections and strategies dating back to the Australia tour that have shown this team management to treat bowlers’ endurance as an unquenchable resource.So we come to the question, then, of why play Reddy at all if his bowling, at its present level, isn’t going to be of much use on most Indian pitches? Why not instead play a proper batter in Devdutt Padikkal or a third spin-bowling allrounder in Axar Patel?The answer is that no team knows the shape that a match will take before it begins. Reddy isn’t the finished article with either bat or ball, but has shown enough evidence in his Test career that he can hold his own as a batting allrounder. It’s a quirk of circumstance that he finds himself playing alongside two other allrounders who presently merit batting above him and, particularly in Indian conditions, bowling more overs than him.And because India have Jadeja and Washington Kuldeep, it makes perfect sense for them to play Reddy rather than Axar. They already have enough spinners and a deep-enough batting line-up, so it gives them the chance to give Reddy more exposure to Test cricket, particularly as a batter. And because India have all that batting depth, another specialist batter like Padikkal could end up playing a bit-part role across a series while not even giving India the possibility of a few overs if circumstances should allow it.India may well pick Padikkal ahead of Reddy in their next home series, against South Africa in November, where they may feel the need for a specialist batting option against a potentially far more penetrative bowling attack. But in this series against West Indies, India had something to gain, and not a lot to lose, from playing Reddy.