And was USA’s defeat of Pakistan the biggest World Cup upset?

Steven Lynch11-Jun-2024Was the United States’ victory over Pakistan the biggest shock in a World Cup? asked Jack Wilkins from England

There aren’t official rankings for this sort of thing, so this will be a personal view, but the USA’s win over Pakistan after a Super Over in Dallas last week must be near the top of the list. In terms of the T20 World Cup, it was the 14th win by a non-Test-playing country over a Test nation (the 15th soon followed, when Canada beat Ireland in New York.) That number includes two wins apiece by Afghanistan and Ireland before they had Test status.I’m inclined to think that Netherlands’ victory over England at Lord’s in the opening match in 2009 was actually more of a shock, given that it was 15 years ago and the Associate nations were less well prepared then. The Dutch beat England again, by a whopping 45 runs, in Chattogram in 2014, and upset South Africa in Adelaide in the last T20 World Cup in 2022. Also in that tournament, Scotland beat West Indies convincingly in Hobart, the day after Namibia hammered Sri Lanka by 55 runs in the opening match of the tournament in Geelong.There have been 16 similar upsets in the one-day international World Cups, nine of them by teams who later acquired Test status (five by Ireland alone). The biggest surprise probably remains Kenya’s big win over West Indies in Pune in 1996, although Ireland scoring 329 to beat England in Bengaluru in 2011 must be high on the list too. And in last year’s 50-over World Cup, Netherlands beat South Africa by 38 runs in Dharamsala, and a week later crushed Bangladesh by 87 in Kolkata.Frank Nsubuga conceded only four runs in Uganda’s T20 World Cup win the other day. Was this a record? asked Samuel Nagendra from Uganda

Offspinner Frank Nsubuga had the outstanding figures of 4-2-4-2 in Uganda’s T20 World Cup win over Papua New Guinea in Providence (Guyana) last week. This wasn’t quite the most miserly four-over spell in all T20Is: for Canada against Panama in Coolidge (Antigua) in November 2021, slow left-armer Saad Bin Zafar delivered four maidens, finishing with 4-4-0-2.His figures were, however, the most economical for a full four overs in a T20 World Cup match. Going into the current tournament, the record was eight runs conceded, by three bowlers, the most notable figures being Ajantha Mendis’ 6 for 8 for Sri Lanka against Zimbabwe in Hambantota in 2012. However, two days before Nsubuga’s performance, Anrich Nortje finished with 4-0-7-4 for South Africa against Sri Lanka in New York.Nsubuga has done this sort of thing before: against Tanzania in Kigali (Rwanda) in December 2022 he had figures of 4-1-4-2, while against Rwanda in Kigali in October 2021 he returned 4-1-5-2.At 43, Nsubuga is the second-oldest player to appear in a T20 World Cup, after Ryan Campbell, who was 44 when he represented Hong Kong in March 2016.How many people have been out for 299? asked Kyle Longworth from England

Only two batters have had the mortification of being dismissed for 299 in first-class matches. The first was New Zealand’s Martin Crowe, in a Test against Sri Lanka in Wellington in 1990-91. Distracted by the upcoming milestone, he pushed at a gentle medium-pace devliery from his opposite number as captain, Arjuna Ranatunga, and was caught behind. “I had choked,” wrote Crowe. “I didn’t concentrate. I forgot to say ‘Keep still, watch the ball’. Out for 299 – tell me it’s not true! Tears streamed down my face as I realised that this opportunity might never happen again.” It didn’t, for Crowe anyway: and it was another 23 years before Brendon McCullum finally completed New Zealand’s first Test triple-century, against India in February 2014, also at the Basin Reserve.A similar fate befell Glamorgan’s Michael Powell in a Championship match against Gloucestershire in Cheltenham in 2006: after 667 minutes, he was caught behind for 299. According to one report, Powell “trudged off the field as if he had just got a first-ball duck”, after narrowly failing to match WG Grace, the only other man to score a triple-century at Cheltenham College.There have also been two scores of 299 not out in first-class cricket. The first was by Australia’s Don Bradman, in a Test against South Africa in Adelaide in 1931-32. He was left stranded when the No. 11 Hugh “Pud” Thurlow was run out. Irving Rosenwater, in his exhaustive biography of Bradman, puts the lie to the generally held belief that the run-out was caused by Bradman trying to reach 300: “In fact, had Thurlow made his ground safely, Bradman’s score would still have been 299… Thurlow was run out, having been sent back by Bradman.” A seamer from Queensland, Thurlow did not score a run, take a wicket or make a catch in what turned out to be his only Test.Many years later, in a Ranji Trophy match against Madhya Pradesh in Pune in 1988-89, Maharashtra’s Shantanu Sugwekar also finished with 299 not out. He could have fewer complaints about his No. 11: Anil Walhekar survived for 110 minutes, scoring 38 and helping to add 102, before being bowled with Sugwekar one short of 300. Sugwekar was more worried about his partner: “The moment he saw the stumps rattled, he started crying,” he told journalist Akash Sarkar in 2014. “He was crying so much, I didn’t know how to react. I told him jo hota hai hota hai [whatever happens, happens]. Only after I came back and sat down in the pavilion, I realised I had missed a triple-hundred.”Martin Crowe was the first man to be out for 299 in Tests, against Sri Lanka in 1991•Getty ImagesFurther to last week’s question about the men who scored two centuries in the same Test, has a woman ever done this? asked Joslyn Richardson from Australia

I did remember to check this in connection with last week’s answer. No woman has ever scored two centuries in the same Test: the closest was by India’s Sandhya Agarwal, who made 143 and 83 against Australia in Mumbai in 1983-84.New Zealand’s Emily Drumm had a notable double of 161 not out and 62 not out against Australia in Christchurch in 1994-95, and there were similar what-might-have-beens for the distinguished England trio of Rachael Heyhoe-Flint (113 and 59 not out against New Zealand in Scarborough in 1966), Enid Bakewell (114 and 66 not out vs New Zealand in Christchurch in 1968-69) and Jan Brittin (146 and 59 not out vs Australia in Guildford in 1998). For the list of those who have scored two half-centuries in the same women’s Test, click here.I’ve been told that two of the not very many instances of a bowler taking ten wickets in a first-class innings happened on the same day. Is this true? And when was it? asked Jamie Friston from England

There have only been 84 instances of a bowler taking all ten wickets in an innings in 11-a-side first-class matches. But it’s correct that two of these happened on the same day – Monday, June 20, 1921. At Cardiff Arms Park, Glamorgan (in their first season in the County Championship) were starting the second innings of their match against Derbyshire, in which 20 wickets had fallen on the first day. The procession continued: Glamorgan were all out for 106, with seamer Billy Bestwick taking all ten wickets for 40. Bestwick was 46 at the time, and remains the oldest bowler to have performed this feat in first-class cricket. He was well known for enjoying a pint or two of beer, as the Derbyshire historian John Shawcroft recalled: “It was a remarkable performance, and it indicates just why the county adopted a tacit policy of turning a blind eye to some of his drinking adventures. Derbyshire accepted Bestwick for what he was – a magnificent bowler whose behaviour, because of his drinking, was sometimes erratic, but who gave of his best on the field.”Meanwhile, not far away at New Road, Worcestershire were resuming their first innings against Somerset, having reached 108 for 4 overnight. Slow left-armer Jack White, who would make his Test debut for England a couple of weeks later, had taken all four – and he now worked his way through the rest, finishing with 10 for 76 as Worcestershire advanced to 237, exactly equalling Somerset’s first-day total. White was an amateur, a point made by the Times in their headline: “Ten wickets in an innings – Mr JC White and Bestwick”.By chance, two days later Derbyshire met Somerset in a Championship match in Derby. White took 13 more wickets as his side won, while Bestwick collected five. There’s a photograph in the Somerset museum of the two all-ten men shaking hands.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

“I am not trying to make a place for myself in the India team – if I have the ability to make the team win, then only I want to play”

Daya Sagar29-Sep-20242:40

Radha: ‘Can only justify playing if I’m helping the team win’

There are the star batters. And then there are the spinners. The main sources of strength, and hope, for India at the T20 World Cup in the UAE next month. At the forefront of that spin attack are Deepti Sharma and Radha Yadav, the senior pros, and the second of those, Radha, is talking up the spinners’ preparedness for the task at hand: “Whatever the pitch, the conditions and the pressure of big matches, we are ready.”With Shreyanka Patil and Asha Sobhana, plus the part-timers, for company, Radha, with her left-arm spin bowled with a high action, and offspinner Deepti form a formidable spin attack.Related

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“Look, whatever the team combination, all of us spinners are ready. Our preparations are going on,” Radha told ESPNcricinfo at a QUA brand shoot in Delhi earlier this month. “We [the spinners] always talk about what kind of pitch we are playing on and how to bowl on that pitch, how much turn we should try to get, which variations to bowl… There is a good bonding among the four of us, even though this spin quartet is new.”Not long ago, Radha had found herself out of the India T20I team. She wasn’t in the mix after the T20 World Cup in South Africa, in February 2023, and only returned to the lineup after WPL 2024 for the tour of Bangladesh in April 2024.Speaking in May, Radha had attributed her success at the WPL – ten wickets at an economy of 7.48 – to being calmer and less aggressive than before: “Because of the aggression, I used to lose my rhythm at times. So now, I try to be calm with a smiling face.” Since her comeback, she has picked 22 wickets in 13 matches and has conceded runs at only 6.27. The change has worked, clearly.Since her comeback, Radha Yadav has picked 22 wickets in 13 T20Is and has conceded runs at only 6.27•Getty Images”I am not trying to make a place for myself in the India team, if I have the skill and the ability to make the team win, then only I want to play,” she said. “Otherwise, I don’t think I have to be a permanent member of the team. The only thing that goes on in my mind is how much I should improve myself so that I can make my team win in any situation.”Not trying to win every battle and every moment of a game have helped too.”If you have gone through a bad time, then to come back after that, your mindset should be very good, so that you can accept everything and express yourself,” Radha said. “Amol [Muzumdar, the head coach] sir has told me a lot about controlled aggression, and I have learned controlled aggression from him.”Earlier I used to think only about cricket. But my friends explained to me that sometimes one has to go out, one has to enjoy life. Cricket is just a part of life, not the whole life. Now when I am not playing cricket, I don’t think about cricket too much. I live with my parents. I go to cafes with friends. My hobbies are playing FIFA, dancing, going on long drives; I have started doing all this a lot more now.”But it isn’t, and can’t be, only about a mindset change. Sure, it has helped Radha visibly, but she has looked a better bowler, more penetrative, more impactful.

“The learning and teaching are not limited to cricket only; we learn a lot as human beings too. We see how a big player is playing, their approach, their mistakes, their failures. There is a lot to learn”Radha Yadav on the biggest benefit of franchise cricket

“I always see how much more I can improve, how much fitter I can get, how much I can sweat in the gym… all these things are in my hands,” Radha said. “Of course, no one can say that ‘okay, I have done all this, now I will also get the results’. That is not in my hand. After this, whatever results come, I accept that too.”Yes, earlier it was a little difficult – ‘I am working so hard and the result should also be good’. But that does not happen. Everyone is working hard, but the result will come only when it has to come. I think I have figured it out.”Some skills keep changing because you cannot use the same skillset all the time. You have to evolve. But if you are successful in a skill, then you can continue. But your basics should be clear to you, only then you can evolve.”8:27

Newsroom: Is this India Women’s best chance to win the World Cup?

The turnaround began at the WPL this year. Radha has played for Sydney Sixers in the WBBL in the past, but her latest coming can be linked directly to the WPL where, incidentally, Patil and Sobhana were the top-two wicket-takers. The franchise circuit is certainly helping women’s cricket.”A lot of players come together in franchise cricket. Our domestic players also learn a lot from foreign players. We international players also learn a lot from them,” Radha said. “The learning and teaching are not limited to cricket only; we learn a lot as human beings too. We see how a big player is playing, their approach, their mistakes, their failures. There is a lot to learn.”Now there is the T20 World Cup. In the UAE. There is a lot of hope going around, that this might be India’s turn to get the global title they haven’t so far. If India are to pull it off, spin will have to play a massive role. Hearing – and reading – Radha, and looking at her performances in the recent past, she does seem ready for it.

Brook scored a triple-century while Root went past 250 as England declared for 823 in Multan. Here are some key numbers from their innings

Sampath Bandarupalli10-Oct-20240:57

England rewrite the record books in Multan

1 England became the first team to post 800-plus runs in an innings against Pakistan in Tests. The previous highest against Pakistan was 790 for 3 by West Indies in 1958 in Kingston.It is also the highest total by any team in Pakistan, with the previous highest being 765 for 6 by Pakistan against Sri Lanka in Karachi in 2009.454 The partnership between Joe Root and Harry Brook is now the highest for England in Test cricket, bettering the 411-run stand between Peter May and Colin Cowdrey against West Indies in 1957, also for the fourth wicket.Related

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It is also the highest partnership in Tests against Pakistan, going past the 446-run stand by Conrad Hunte and Gary Sobers for the second wicket in 1958 in Kingston.3 Number of partnerships in Test cricket, higher than Root and Brook’s 454 in Multan. It is now the highest stand by a visiting pair, surpassing the partnership of 451 runs by Don Bradman and Bill Ponsford against England for the second wicket at The Oval in 1934.1 Root and Brook also put on the highest stand for the fourth or a lower wicket in Tests as the previous highest was 449 between Adam Voges and Shaun Marsh against West Indies in 2015 in Hobart.ESPNcricinfo Ltd3 Instances of two batters scoring 250-plus runs in the same Test innings, including Root and Brook in Multan. Hunte and Sobers for West Indies against Pakistan in 1958 were the first to do so, while Sri Lanka’s Mahela Jayawardene and Kumar Sangakkara replicated the feat against South Africa in 2006.Root and Brook are only the second England pair with double hundreds in the same innings, after Graeme Fowler and Mike Gatting against India in 1985 in Chennai.1 Root and Brook are the first pair from England to share multiple partnerships of 300-plus runs in Test cricket. They put on 302 against New Zealand in Wellington last year, also for the fourth wicket. Only eight pairs before Root and Brook have shared two or more 300-plus run stands in Test cricket.310 Balls needed for Brook to complete his triple-century. It is the second-fastest in Test cricket, behind Virender Sehwag, who took only 278 balls for his triple against South Africa in 2008. The previous fastest for England was by Wally Hammond, off 355 balls, against New Zealand in 1933.Harry Brook became the first England batter in 34 years to score a triple-century•Getty Images823 for 7 England’s total against Pakistan in Multan is the fourth highest by any team in Test cricket. England has accounted for three of the four 800-plus totals, while Sri Lanka’s 952 for 6 against India in 1997 is the highest.6 Number of Pakistan bowlers to have conceded 100-plus runs in England’s first-innings in Multan. Only once before did six bowlers concede 100-plus runs in a Test innings – Zimbabwe against Sri Lanka in Bulawayo in 2004.1 Maiden over in England’s innings – by Shaheen Shah Afridi in the fifth over of the innings. England’s innings of 150 overs (900 balls) is the longest, with as few as one maiden in a Test innings. The previous longest was 709 balls by South Africa against England in 1939, where none of the 88.5 eight-ball overs was a maiden.12664 Test runs by Root. He is now the leading run-scorer for England in Test cricket, surpassing Alastair Cook’s tally of 12472. Root is now fifth in the list of highest run-getters in Test cricket.317 Brook’s score against Pakistan in Multan is the fifth-highest for England in Test cricket. Brook is also the first England batter to score a triple hundred since Graham Gooch against India in 1990 at the Lord’s.4 Centuries by Brook in all four Test matches he played in Pakistan. He is the first batter to hundreds in four consecutive Tests on Pakistan soil. Brook is only the fifth batter with hundreds in four consecutive Tests against Pakistan, after Brian Lara, Jacques Kallis, David Warner and Kane Williamson.3 Double hundreds in Asia for Root, the most by a visiting batter in Tests. Root’s previous two double tons in Asia have come in Sri Lanka and India in 2021. He is only the third batter with double tons in India, Sri Lanka and Pakistan, after Sehwag and Jayawardene.

It’s the difference in the sides’ performances in the field that has created the gulf between Sri Lanka and New Zealand in Galle

Madushka Balasuriya28-Sep-2024Where New Zealand succumbed, Sri Lanka soared. Nowhere was this more true than in the field. Sure, you can wax lyrical about Kamindu Mendis – sorry, we need to mention him as often as we can now – and go on about Prabath Jayasuriya’s latest big haul in Galle. But the reality is that the difference in this game has by and large been because of the sides’ performance in the field.We have already talked about New Zealand’s fielding mishaps across this second Test, with batting coach Luke Ronchi unable to reflect on Sri Lanka’s dominance on day two without harking back to the missed opportunities of the opening day.But it was only on day three that those errors were broadcast in a genuinely cold, harsh light.Related

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Dhananjaya de Silva’s catalogue of catches alone might be enough to put New Zealand’s efforts to shame. Low near the ankles? Check. Plucked overhead? Check. Caught on the rebound? Check. Swiftly by his side? Done. So effective was his catching that it was almost contagious, as Pathum Nissanka later grabbed two smart chances at short leg, not to mention Dinesh Chandimal’s excellent running grab over his shoulder.”I thought it was just one of those days where they caught very well,” Tom Blundell offered at the end of Saturday’s play. “I thought the way that they caught and the way that they fielded was pretty outstanding most of the time.”To compound matters, New Zealand decided to put their own bizarro spin on things. Within 105 minutes on Saturday morning, any faint hopes of rescuing a result almost entirely evaporated as New Zealand, for all intents and purposes, lost the plot.

“We went into that first innings with the same mindset [as in the second innings] as a batting unit. It just didn’t really work out, I guess”Tom Blundell

While batting in Galle day three onwards is usually not the most straightforward affair, the extent of New Zealand’s capitulation was startling. Their 88 all out was the fourth-lowest total at the ground and the second-lowest by a side in the second innings in Galle. It was also New Zealand’s 19th-lowest Test total ever, but the innings deficit of 514 was only second to the 570 they conceded to Pakistan 22 years ago.Such was the extent of the trauma, you wouldn’t be surprised to learn of some of their batters falling into the black hole, finding the fourth dimension cube, screaming into the void but in vain, as the growing helplessness of the inevitable outcome slowly engulfs them. Think Matthew McConaughey in but tears.Batter after batter after batter poked, prodded, and edged, time and again. You might as well have removed the scoreboard entirely and just replaced it with a neon sign broadcasting “c de Silva b Jayasuriya”. Five times that happened over the course of the innings, the joint-highest for a bowler-fielder pairing in a Test innings.Kane Williamson and Devon Conway gave us a glimpse of what could have been for New Zealand•AFP/Getty Images”Obviously the first innings wasn’t ideal,” Blundell said. “You know, things happen pretty quickly over here and if you look at the Sri Lankan outfit, they’re a very good team. The way their spinners operate, they’re very good in their conditions.”We went into that first innings with the same mindset as a batting unit. It just didn’t really work out, I guess.”Not only did it not work out, so insufficient was New Zealand’s effort, that in the end it was No. 9 Mitchell Santner, with a 51-ball 29, that offered the most resistance. His stand of 20 with last man Will O’Rourke was the highest of the innings.At this point, those that had driven down to Galle to enjoy a weekend of Test cricket were already planning out their newly freed-up Sundays. That was until New Zealand finally woke up. A 97-run second-wicket stand between Kane Williamson and Devon Conway, off just 108 deliveries, headlined New Zealand’s second offering and you might just about have a glimpse into what might have been.Sure, they lost wickets in a clump after that too, but a yet-to-be-dislodged partnership of 78 off 84 deliveries between Blundell and Glenn Phillips lends even more credence to this one simple fact: New Zealand are better than this, it’s just a shame we haven’t been privy to it.

Even for Pakistan, their recent administrative churn has been excessive, and the instability is reflected in the team’s performances

Osman Samiuddin09-Sep-2024The on-field reasons behind Pakistan’s recent plunge are well-documented, in both white- and red-ball cricket. In a way, though, they are a red herring because the biggest driver for those results is the mess off the field.Historically the PCB has had a well-earned reputation for dysfunctionality; the (sadly brief) bouts of sound administration are the exceptions not the rule. In its defence, this is not entirely the PCB’s doing. The board remains bound to the country’s politics. The chairman is effectively appointed by the prime minister and the premiership itself has hardly been a stable post, so… (This, by the way, is the textbook definition of political interference in all textbooks other than the ICC’s.)But even in a rich canon, the instability of the last three years – from the end of August 2021, when Ehsan Mani stepped down as board chairman – stands out. A succession of board heads, nearly a team’s worth of head coaches, enough selectors for two XIs to have a game: here, then, are the real numbers behind Pakistan cricket’s current malaise.

Four

Chairmen or heads of board since Mani stepped down: Ramiz Raja, Najam Sethi, Zaka Ashraf, and the incumbent, Mohsin Naqvi. It’s tempting to see this as a kind of limbo dance line, each successor lower than the last, but once the bar gets this low, it doesn’t really matter.Where would you begin anyway? Ramiz’s neutering of Pakistan’s pitches was terrible, needless and deliberate. It wasn’t worse than his neutering of the executive function of the board, though, bringing in an enfeebled CEO to replace Wasim Khan and, in the process, hoarding all power unto the chair itself.Related

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Sethi took the board backwards, literally, in replacing the 2019 PCB constitution with the 2014 version. This remains a deep wound, taking a board with independent directors and a chairman with curbed powers back to the days when the chairman was the sole decision-maker. Sethi also upended the domestic structure, bringing back departmental cricket, and planted the seeds of the disjointedness seen in the current sides. All in less than six months.The less said about Ashraf the better, if only because there literally is nothing to be said about his tenure. His only aim was to somehow cling onto the position. He failed.And now Naqvi. One might think that as the interior minister of Pakistan, maybe, just maybe, he has slightly more important things to deal with than hard-selling the Champions Cup as the panacea to cure Pakistan cricket. What three new tournaments will do that the four existing ones haven’t been able to, nobody is clear about, other than bloating the domestic calendar and stretching it to nearly 12 months. Maybe, they hope, that by adding “Champions” to the name, champions will somehow be abracadabra-ed out the other end.We already know the real winners of these tournaments, though – the five team mentors who don’t coach or play (other than two) but who earn a cool PKR 5 million (about US$18,000) a month each. Not only is that more than the coaches and players in these tournaments get, it is also more than any centrally contracted player in Pakistan bar the three in the highest Category A do. It’s still not clear what, if anything, their brief is beyond “inspiring” players (this must be the magic bit).Again, it’s not just the names. Change has meant entire coaching systems and strategies being flung aside. Misbah-ul-Haq was in what we might recognise as a traditional head coach role (though he also had unprecedented influence as chief selector). Saqlain Mushtaq was coach under a chairman who didn’t hold much stock in coaches, and turned out to be more a hands-off spiritual guide. There was the short-lived return of Mickey Arthur as team director, with Grant Bradburn as the head coach. Then, in Mohammad Hafeez, the team director and head coach became one role. Now there’s no team director but there are two head coaches.There has been an eclectic support cast, including Matthew Hayden as a mentor, Adam Hollioake as batting coach, two different high-performance coaches on two successive away tours, Mohammad Yousuf as a batting coach now transitioned into a selector, and seven different bowling coaches. For a time, the manager was an empowered cricket strategist and not simply the guy who holds the passports, books the flights and makes sure shirts are tucked in at breakfast, as pretty much all previous managers were.Is it any surprise, given this churn, that players new and established look so frazzled? Who does Abdullah Shafique turn to, to claw out of the rut he has been in? Who tells Babar Azam what is going wrong and how to make it right? If the development of Pakistani bowlers is arrested across all formats, is it any surprise?One series you’re heralding a new dawn and playing the New Pakistan Way; the next, you have new management, a new captain, and it’s back to the Old Pakistan Way: an Australian whitewash.By tossing the captaincy hat between Babar Azam and Shaheen Afridi, the PCB has managed to destabilise two of the most vital players of the team•AFP/Getty Images

Five

Different chief selectors. This stellar list includes Shahid Afridi (as with all the best Afridi interventions, it was short-lived), Haroon Rasheed (the new Intikhab Alam, finding a way back into any and every administration with such frequency that he’s never actually been out) and Wahab Riaz . It is as many head selectors as Sri Lanka, Australia, England and South Africa put together have had over the same period. Australia have had five different chief selectors since 1996-97. What’s more, as part of various committees (and including the chiefs) 23 different men have selected Pakistan teams since August 2021.They have tried traditional selection committees, with one head and two or three members. They had one with a chief and consultants, one of whom, for one day only, was Salman Butt (it’s okay, the other one was Kamran Akmal). One chief had to step down because of an alleged conflict of interest after it emerged that he was in business with the agent of Pakistan’s biggest players (except, 11 months on, nobody has been told what’s happening with that inquiry). Some committees have had coach and captain in it. Some have had seven members, each with a vote, but no chief. The current one has nine members, of whom four can cast a vote, with no chief.Is it surprising, then, that since August 2021 no side has used more players across all formats? India have used the same number – 66 – but have played 55 more games in doing so. In a time of three formats and multiple schedule challenges, it is natural there will be a need to use more players, to both build and use depth in the player pool. But with Pakistan it does feel very much a direct consequence of 23 different men having 23 different ideas about which players to select.Last year Inzamam-ul-Haq had to resign as Pakistan chief selector within a few months of being appointed because of a potential conflict of interest•AFP/Getty Images

Three

Full-time captains. Other than stand-ins, Babar, Shaheen Afridi and Shan Masood have been the only full-time Pakistan captains in this period. Given the backdrop above, their own brutal history with captains (in 2010 alone, Pakistan used four), and that Australia (4), England (4), Sri Lanka (6) and Bangladesh (5) have all used more men across all formats in this period, this should be remarkable.Except that Babar being pushed into resigning as the all-format captain after the World Cup last year and giving way to Afridi in T20Is looks like the pivotal moment in the destabilising of this side. Afridi was removed after a single bilateral T20I series by a different administration than the one that had appointed him. That led to significant discontent for a bowler who was probably still smarting over the way the board had bungled his rehab from a knee injury earlier.Meanwhile, Babar returned, no doubt warier and singed by the experience. He also did with the knowledge that no matter how reactive or inert a captain he was, he had led Pakistan to that 2-0 win in Sri Lanka on his last assignment, playing the New Pakistan Way. And that now, a man averaging less than 30 with the bat after a decade of Test cricket had replaced him as captain.Somehow, one after the other, two administrations managed to unsettle two of the side’s most valuable players and, to no surprise, here both are, struggling with their games and here is Pakistan, with two official captains, looking leaderless on the field.Off it they are looking worse.

At the same MCG where, two years ago, 90,293 people had cheered for Kohli, this Boxing Day Test has panned out very differently

Alagappan Muthu27-Dec-2024Virat Kohli got booed at the MCG.Sound at this ground seems to bubble up, like in the old cartoons where witches prepare their potions, the pot frothing away with each new ingredient until one of them makes the whole thing explode.The shoulder barge with Sam Konstas happened between overs. It wasn’t caught live, like Mohammed Siraj’s send-off to Travis Head. That noise was full throated and organic and it was dwarfed on Friday when Kohli nicked off for 36 off 86. The crowd knew what had happened. They didn’t need help from replays on the big screen or nudges on social media. The displeasure was instant and it rolled down like thunder.”BOOOOOOOOOO!”India had gone from 153 for 2 to 154 for 4.Related

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Steven Smith hits a new high, Rohit Sharma falls to a new low

Seven balls earlier, Kohli had been involved in a mix-up and India lost their top-scorer of both the innings and the series. Yashasvi Jaiswal looks up to Kohli. At training, he steps off from facing the bowler to gather his inputs. Here he barely looked at him. They were three feet apart, both stuck at the bowler’s end, and he barely looked at him. To be fair, though, the single wasn’t on. Pat Cummins was too close at mid-on. There was incredulity in Australia’s celebrations, and ferocity in everything they did afterwards. Those last five overs to stumps were pure theatre.Mitchell Starc came back into the attack. The slip cordon sprouted extra people. The idea that a ball could ever be left alone seemed increasingly obtuse. And half-an-hour’s play began to stretch to eternity. Eighty-five thousand people added to the occasion as they synced their hands coming together to the bowler’s feet pounding the turf.Kohli had been able to stay in his bubble for the entire time he was in the middle until right this very moment.Right this very moment, it popped.”He was really disciplined today,” Steven Smith said at the press conference. “He was leaving nicely, making the bowlers come to him a bit more, and scoring well through the leg side and when we went short. So yeah, I thought we were in for a bit of a masterclass there. But fortunately, Barrel [Boland] got one to sort of straighten, probably off the line on that fifth, sixth stump. And it probably was one of the only ones he played at.”Two years ago, Kohli had made 90,293 people sing his name here. A sizeable portion of the 172,389 that have come through the gates on days one and two of the Boxing Day Test have felt very differently. The put a big red ball on his nose and bumped subtlety off a cliff. “Clown Kohli” said the headline. Cutting Stuart Broad out feels less petty now.Australia’s tabloids haven’t shied away from saying what they think about Virat Kohli•The West AustralianKohli was name-checked by the head of the local organising committee for LA 2028 to explain how cricket got into the Olympics. He is the third-most followed sportsperson on Instagram after Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi. More to the point, Australia have seen him as their kind of player. Gifted. Positive. Never-give-up. The respect he used to get here wasn’t grudging. It was genuine and it’s eroded because he hasn’t been making runs; far too busy making errors of judgment. There was one at Melbourne airport when he rounded on Australian media for disrespecting his privacy. Another at the ‘G when he disrespected an Australian cricketer’s privacy by making a beeline straight for him.Kohli was in the middle of turning all of that around. For 35 off 83 balls he was pristine. For the last 1 off 3 he was something else. Shaken. Resigned. Done. He didn’t even look back once he edged the ball. His hands just dropped. He just knew.India needed him in the middle when their best batter of the tour, KL Rahul, was dismissed last ball before tea. There were still seven minutes on the clock for the resumption when he and Jaiswal walked out to the dugout. There has always been an eagerness about this batting. It is supposed to translate as wanting to be out there. But it was coming off wanting it too much. The run-out in the dying stages of the second day’s play against New Zealand in Mumbai. Taking guard way in front of his crease in Perth. Chasing after that one cover drive that was supposed to get him into rhythm.On a Melbourne pitch that wanted to patch things up with the batters after putting them through the wringer for the last two or three years, all Kohli had to do was trust himself; trust his training to come through. And it did. The first thing he did once he made it to the crease was practice this leave. People sometimes do the front-foot push just to get a feel of the hands going through to the line of the ball. He’d done enough of that.He’s still popular in Melbourne, mind you, but the local fans’ patience is running thin•Getty ImagesWhen Kohli got off the mark, Cummins looked down at his hands curiously, as if to figure out just how he could bowl on the pads of one of history’s greatest flickers of the ball. He was responding to length a lot better in this innings, actually shifting his weight back when he had to instead of always lunging forward. Even with his leaves.There were a couple that were wide of off stump but he still shifted his weight back, in response to the shorter length, and pulled his bat up. Then there was another against Cummins that was pitched up and on that fifth stump line. He covered his stumps, pressed forward, and then left. The impact point with the ball on the cover drive that brought him his first boundary was right under his eyes. Reaching for the ball has been his forever problem. He wasn’t doing that here. He could only stomach shouldering arms to 34 deliveries across his five previous innings in this Test series. He did it 21 times here, in just two hours at the crease, and it looked so easy. He looked so good.Then came the run-out. Kohli looks for those rapid singles too. He managed one early in his innings, but that time he’d cushioned his shot and the man at short cover meant to prevent the rotation of strike became redundant. Later in his innings, he nudged one off his toes to the left of midwicket, who try as he might, couldn’t get there, and the right of mid-on.”Been stealing doubles since 2012,” he had said during one of his more dour centuries in the West Indies last year, pointing to the act of how he gets going simply by running between the wickets. The glamour shots look good on the reels but singles and twos are the essence of his batting. The fact that it led to his wicket two months ago and his partner’s wicket now – both resulting in the team’s implosion mere minutes before stumps – must be difficult to digest.Kohli got booed out of the MCG. But it almost seemed like he couldn’t hear them.He had looked so good.

All the statistical highlights from the thrilling Centurion Test

Namooh Shah29-Dec-20248.0 South Africa’s win-loss ratio in Tests in Centurion is the highest for a team at any venue for a minimum of 20 matches, followed by Pakistan’s 7.6 in Karachi.2 – South Africa’s two-wicket victory is only the second time that they won with two or fewer wickets remaining.31 not out by Kagiso Rabada is the third best score of a No.10 batter in the fourth innings of a winning Test. The top two scores in this list were registered more than 100 years ago.Related

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1 – For the first time in their Test history, South Africa’s ninth and tenth-wicket stands added 40-plus runs three times. Overall, it was the eighth time this has happened in Test cricket.139 – Number of runs added by the ninth and tenth-wicket stands of South Africa (51*, 47, 41) in the Centurion Test is the second highest by them in winning cause.51 – Marco Jansen and Kagiso Rabada added 51 for the ninth wicket, which is the seventh highest unbroken partnership for the last two wickets in a winning cause in Tests.1 – Mohammad Abbas’ figures of 6 for 54 is the best by a Pakistan bowler in South Africa. Four other Pakistani bowlers have also taken six-wicket hauls each in South Africa.3 – Abbas’ figures in the fourth innings is also the third best for a bowler and best by a Pakistani in a losing Test since 1948.16 Number of Test wickets taken by South Africa bowlers, who did not share the new ball. It’s also the most by them, going past their 15-wicket mark, against England in Johannesburg in 2020.

Stats highlights from the Champions Trophy match between Pakistan and India in Dubai

Sampath Bandarupalli23-Feb-20256-0 – India’s head-to-head record in completed ODIs against Pakistan since the 2017 Champions Trophy final after the six-wicket win in Dubai.158 – Catches taken by Virat Kohli in ODIs, the most as a non-wicketkeeper for India, going ahead of Mohammad Azharuddin’s 156. Kohli ranks third in the overall ODI list, with Mahela Jayawardene (218) and Ricky Ponting (160) ahead of him.287 – Innings Kohli needed to complete 14,000 ODI runs, the quickest to get there. Sachin Tendulkar, who got there in 350 innings, was the previous fastest, while Kumar Sangakkara is the third in the list – he needed 378 innings.Related

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147 – Dot balls in Pakistan’s innings of 241 against India in Dubai – a similar pattern from their previous match against New Zealand, where they played 161 dots in 47.2 overs.But there was not much of a gap between Pakistan and India on the dot-ball front: Pakistan’s innings had 49.33% dot balls, while India’s had 47.84%.However, India outscored Pakistan with boundaries: 42.62% of India’s total was scored through boundaries, while Pakistan had 30.71%.43 – Runs conceded by Shaheen Afridi in the powerplay on Sunday, the most he has conceded in the first ten overs of an ODI innings. Shubman Gill alone scored 33 off those in the 25 balls he faced, with seven fours.4.33 – Run rate during the partnership of 104 between Saud Shakeel and Mohammad Rizwan, which came off 24 overs. It is the lowest scoring rate in a century stand for Pakistan in men’s ODIs since March 2014.53.1 – Overs bowled by India in the middle overs (11-40) in this Champions Trophy before taking a wicket in this phase – Rizwan at 33.2. India failed to take a wicket during the middle overs in their previous match against Bangladesh. The average runs conceded per wicket by India in the middle overs of this Champions Trophy is 85.66, much poorer than the 16 wickets at 25.87 in the middle overs during the recent three-ODI series against England.