Mining the talent pool is top of mind for both teams with an eye out for the T20 World Cup in 2026

Firdose Moonda26-Sep-2024It’s time for a fresh start in the shortest format for both Ireland and South Africa after they experienced contrasting fortunes at this year’s T20 World Cup. While Ireland (admittedly in a tough pool) lost all three matches they played – including one to Canada, South Africa went where they have never gone before and reached the final, only to fall agonisingly short of the trophy.Their snatching-victories-from-the-jaws-of-defeat run lasted eight matches and proved they can step up when the moment calls for it, but maybe not always otherwise. They were blanked 3-nil by West Indies either side of the tournament and while those defeats could be explained by South Africa not having their first-choice squads available, they also pose worrying questions about their depth.Mining the talent pool is top of mind for both teams as they look ahead to the 2026 edition of the T20 World Cup, which means there are certain boxes they’ll hope to tick in this two-match series.Related

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By the way, if you’re wondering why these matches are taking place in the UAE, and not in either of the two countries playing, it is because Ireland were due to host this series and had to come up with what their CEO Warren Deutrom called a “creative way to overcome infrastructure constraints,” which is another way of saying it’s more affordable to play in the UAE. If that sounds difficult to believe, consider that Ireland do not have a permanent home stadium and have to pay rent and bring in temporary facilities every time they play at home, and it’ll all add up. While Ireland are building a new stadium that will be functioning by 2028, the fact that Abu Dhabi is more economical as a venue currently tells you something.Will conditions be the great leveller?The almost-40 degree heat and slow, dry surfaces are foreign to both South Africa and Ireland, and could bring the sides closer together. As things stand, they are as far apart as two teams could on the T20I competitive scale as South Africa have won all five of the games they’ve played against each other. They also have the advantage of having been in the UAE for an extra week so the heat feels “a little bit more normal,” according to captain Aiden Markram.For their part, Ireland are not complaining about the lack of home comforts, as they see the importance of experience in conditions they will come across at the next T20 World Cup, hosted by Sri Lanka and India, in particular.”It helps for a number of reasons. We play a lot away from home now, so it’s getting used to new conditions again and we’re playing a lot on the subcontinent where huge competitions are going to happen in the future, and the next T20 World Cup is the main one,” Paul Stirling, Ireland’s captain said. “It has its advantages and I think as an organisation we need to get that balance right. You want to play in front of your home supporters and your home crowd but I think it’s okay if you occasionally play the odd away game, which is your home series.”Ireland exploring top-order options – and South Africa should tooAndy Balbirnie is Ireland’s leading run-scorer in T20 cricket this year, with 298 runs from 12 matches, but has been left out of these matches as Ireland focus on “introducing a new dynamic,” according to national selector Andrew White. Balbirnie’s strike rate of 113.74 from his 12 matches in 2024 suggests Ireland want more firepower upfront. Heinrich Malan confirmed that Lorcan Tucker, with a T20I strike rate of 123.32, will open the batting for the first time with Harry Tector, Curtis Campher and Neil Rock to come in at No.3, 4 and 5.Likewise, South Africa may find themselves at a crossroads with Reeza Hendricks, who has struggled through much of this year. He has only gone past 20 five times in fifteen T20Is and faces competition from Matthew Breetzke and Ryan Rickelton. The problem is neither Breetzke nor Rickelton, who have dominated run-charts at domestic level, have made the most of his international opportunities. Breetzke has a top score of 19 from six T20Is and Rickelton a top score of 27 from six T20Is. This is the series for at least two of three to make the opening spot their own.Some relief from spin for South Africa (or maybe not) Just last week, South Africa registered their second-worst performance against spin in any bilateral series where at least 40 overs of spin were bowled at them. Afghanistan’s Rashid Khan, AM Ghazanfar, Nangeyalia Kharote and Mohammad Nabi took 16 South African wickets between them in three ODIs. What was clear from the way the South African batters were dismissed was their struggles in reading the turn, especially against Ghazanfar, a mystery offspinner, who coach Rob Walter said they had not seen before.They won’t want to use the same excuse against Ireland and to a large extent, they can’t. South Africa have played against George Dockrell and Ben White and the other spinner Gareth Delaney, has not made the trip after suffering what captain Stirling called an “unfortunate accident,” in the last week. That leaves left-arm spinner Matthew Humphreys, who has one T20I cap, and Gavin Hoey, who has flown in for the T20Is, as an unknown. And, no disrespect to Ireland, but this quartet is not expected to pose quite the same challenge as Afghanistan, even in what could be favourable conditions. This may be South Africa’s opportunity to re-find their confidence against spin and show that things are not quite as bad as they seemed against Afghanistan.Who’s got the variations?Seamers have been seen to suffer on surfaces in the UAE unless they have an adequate number of variations, and it will be interesting to see how they approach things in this series. Lungi Ngidi set the tone in the series against Afghanistan, in Sharjah, where he delivered a selection of offcutters and proved difficult to get away. South Africa didn’t use either of Ottneil Baartman or Lizaad Williams in those matches, but both are capable of doing the same and should be given a run in these games.Ireland are without left-armer Josh Little, who is at the CPL, and will lean on Craig Young and Fionn Hand, both swing bowlers who may be able to make things happen under lights but all eyes will be on Mark Adair. He enjoys the challenge of the death overs, has a wide range of deliveries in his arsenal and is a genuine wicket-taker, who last year became the sixth-fastest to 100 in T20Is. Expect some fireworks.

Hit-the-deck seamer impresses in Multan after long wait for Test debut

Matt Roller12-Oct-2024Mark Wood’s pace was instrumental to England’s win in Multan two years ago but they hardly missed him this week, such was Brydon Carse’s impact. Carse replicated Wood’s role on Test debut, bowling at high pace with the old ball to finish with match figures of 4 for 140 – which would have been even better but for two dropped catches off his bowling.Wood, who is stuck at home recovering from an elbow injury, sent Carse a WhatsApp message to wish him luck the night before the Test, and another after the second day to reassure him that conditions do not get much tougher for fast bowlers. Carse admitted it had been “a long slog” at times, but the early evidence is that he has the raw materials to make him a success.He has already impressed in white-ball cricket, taking eight wickets in last month’s ODIs against Australia in vastly different conditions. “Playing one-day cricket in England in seven or eight degrees is very different to coming out here, and it’s had its different challenges,” Carse said. “But I’ve thoroughly enjoyed the challenge and the role that I’ve played this week.”Related

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Carse took four wickets at 106 in his four Championship matches for Durham this season, but England’s management viewed those performances as utterly irrelevant. They pick on attributes, not averages, and believed that Carse’s bustling pace and endurance would enable him to withstand the rigours of playing Test cricket overseas.And Carse’s record alone did not tell the story of his summer: three of those four matches came shortly after he found out that he was the subject of an investigation by the Cricket Regulator into a series of bets he had placed as a young professional. It led to a three-month ban, ending his hopes of making his Test debut in the English summer.The prospect of days like Friday – completing and then celebrating his first Test win – helped him through some dark moments. “I had some time off to work on a few things that I wanted to and improve my fitness in certain areas,” he said. “I’ve come back refreshed and just wanting to do well and play as much as I can for England.”Carse was picked for the first Test ahead of Matt Potts, his Durham team-mate, because England want at least one genuine fast bowler in their attack every time they take the field. He regularly hit 90mph/145kph on the first day of the Test, and sustained his pace through the match enough to strike Aamer Jamal on the helmet with a short ball on the final morning.Brydon Carse had to put in the hard yards on Test debut•Getty ImagesHe batted at No. 9, and hit his second ball for six to take England past 800. “I was winding the lads up saying, ‘I don’t think many of you have got off the mark with a six,'” Carse joked. Down the line, he could be a viable No. 8 – as evidenced by a pair of first-class hundreds, most recently against Somerset in August.Carse has been on England’s radar for some time: born and raised in South Africa, he toured with the Lions in 2019-20, shortly after qualifying. He made his ODI debut in 2021, when England’s first-choice squad were decimated by Covid protocols, and impressed some senior players that winter when part of the Lions squad which shadowed England’s Ashes tour.”He got injured quite early on… But you got the impression he could have been added to the squad and actually done a job,” James Anderson recalled on the podcast. “I just really like him: he bowls quick, he can move the ball, and he’s got that sort of action where he almost pauses in his delivery stride and then really snaps at the crease, so it makes it feel even quicker for the batters.”On the fourth evening in Multan, Carse demonstrated that he has skills as well as stamina. He had been gifted a wicket with his first ball of Pakistan’s second innings – Saim Ayub wildly slogging to mid-off – and was bowling in tandem with Chris Woakes, who had started to get the ball reversing. Woakes passed on the message, and Carse pounced.”I joked with him and said, ‘Here we go, right, I’m going to target the stumps,'” Carse said. “And the next ball, it reversed back in.” The ball tailed back late, flicking the top of Mohammad Rizwan’s back pad before cannoning into the top of middle stump. “I felt like I was bowling quite nicely to him in the previous over, so to get him out was a nice feeling.”Along with Potts, Gus Atkinson and Josh Tongue, Carse was one of the fast bowlers that England invested heavily in last winter, awarding them two-year central contracts as they look to build a stock of fast bowlers ahead of next year’s Ashes tour. They share a similar profile: they are all seamers rather than swing bowlers, whose stock balls nip back in.Carse, at 29, is the oldest of those four. After his ban this summer, which reinforced the temporary nature of an athlete’s career, he exudes the sense of a player determined to grasp his opportunity. “It’s been a special five days,” he said. “It’s been hard graft, and it was difficult at times today [Friday] but it’s very rewarding to come away with a win.”

The wicketkeeper-batter is capable of unbelievable things when he’s at the crease but hasn’t stayed there for long enough on this tour

Alagappan Muthu25-Dec-20244:16

Will leaving Reddy out give India better balance?

If a picture is worth a thousand words, then the ones with Rishabh Pant in them would start with “what the…” There is one depicting his reverse scoop to Scott Boland in the second innings of the Adelaide Test. He’s leaning back, away from the ball. His bat is flipped, and the maker’s name is facing the wrong way. A short-of-a-length delivery that would otherwise have cramped a left-hand batter gets tossed out to the boundary and there is disbelief all around.Pant, by now, is on the floor. He had premeditated the shot. There was a touch of extra bounce. The pink ball was up where his chest would have been had he stayed still. But since he hadn’t, he had a bit of distance to make up. So he increased his bat speed, went down to up and swung so hard and so fast that along with making contact with the ball, he knocked himself clean off his feet. Sprawled on his hands and knees, he watched his score tick over from 7 off 8 to 11 off 9.The principles that used to govern batting have but a tenuous grasp of it right now. With every innings he plays, Pant is making it harder for them to hold on. He wasn’t set. His team was trailing. He targeted the bowler who had picked up two of the three Indian wickets to fall, including Virat Kohli. His instinctive, imaginative strokeplay exists outside of match situations and its pull can be so powerful that sometimes what he does ends up deciding the match result.Related

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Pant’s second-innings hundred in Ahmedabad three years ago had that kind of effect. India were 146 for 6 in response to England’s first-innings 205 on a pitch taking a lot of spin. He took them to 364. That innings included a reverse scoop too.India, and even Australia, were expecting something similar from Pant on this tour. It hasn’t come. He has 96 runs at an average of 19.20.There have been moments, like the second innings in Adelaide. He made 28 off 31 with 20 of those runs coming in boundaries. That night he almost seemed desperate to do what he does naturally. A packed crowd had taken great offence to Mohammed Siraj sending off the local boy Travis Head.Pant was one of several team-mates who rallied around Siraj, running down to the bowler from his spot behind the wicket to put an arm around him. The way he batted, certainly that first ball where he charged down the track and smacked Boland for four over cover, felt like he just didn’t like what was happening to India in that Test and was going to go do something about it. Pant’s rage lasted less than an hour.”Our job here is to explain things to them again and again. We talk to them about small things like match awareness and match situation,” Rohit Sharma said as he explained how he and his support staff manage their maverick wicketkeeper-batter. “We talk to them about all these things. I don’t think it’s necessary to complicate their plans and thought process. Rishabh knows what his expectations are. He has a lot of expectations from himself. He’s working hard in his game. I think he’ll do well in these two matches.”Rishabh Pant combined child’s play with mastery in a moment of scooping brilliance•Getty ImagesIn Brisbane, Pant fell five balls after resuming from a rain break, which was his first ball after that rain break and three balls before what turned out to be the next rain break. Essentially not a great time to lose a wicket. Pat Cummins was the one who took him out. There’s a little head-to-head developing there in BGT 2024: 21 runs, 41 balls, three dismissals, an average of 7. Australia’s captain, who began the series looking rusty, has got on top of India’s difference-maker. It’s helped that they’ve been able to drag him to the crease while the ball is new.Where Travis Head, a batter quite similar to Pant, has been protected by his top order, coming in when the Kookaburra has aged 35 overs, which seems to be the point where it starts to lose some of its sting but not its hardness, making it easier to play shots, Pant has had to deal with its mischief in four out of five innings. He came in during the 17th over in the first innings in Perth, the 20th and the 15th overs in Adelaide and the eighth over in Brisbane. If India could help delay Pant’s arrival to a more amenable time, they might be able to get the best out of him.”He has played only two or three Test matches here,” Rohit said. “He’s in good form recently. He has made good runs in India. He has a good record in Australia. After two or three Test matches, it’s not right to judge him. He knows what he has to do.”At the Gabba in 2021, with a squad that was being held together by bandages and loose string, Pant had the audacity to have a go at Australia, both from behind the stumps – eight of the current squad pulled his name up when they were asked by which Indian player sledges/banters the most – and in front of it.That was a miracle and by definition those are quite rare, except Ahmedabad happened in less than two months, then Cape Town in less than a year. In September 2024, his first Test since the car crash that threatened to take his life, Pant walked in and scored a century. He’s made people believe in miracles. One more in front of 90,000 on Boxing Day at the MCG would do quite nicely for India.

Pakistan had plenty of chances to record a much higher second-innings score than they did, but “same mistakes” let them down

Danyal Rasool29-Dec-2024Pakistan may have a reputation for unpredictability, but followers of the Test side in South Africa know exactly what’s going to happen. It is the tale of the person who bangs their head against a brick wall every day, only because they fantasise about how good it’ll feel the day they stop.There were some tantalising moments when Pakistan wondered if day three of the first Test in Centurion would be that day. But then again, if you’ve been banging your head that long, perhaps it feels that way every day. And yet few innings clip onto them the sense of destiny that Babar Azam’s did overnight. A contribution of note, especially if it helped Pakistan win their first Test in South Africa since 2007, would be a contender as his magnum opus. It may herald his comeback, help his career pick up a second wind. It was a lot to saddle on an innings that had largely been compiled by scratching and scraping his way to an unbeaten 16 in the late summer twilight of the second day.The extended wait thanks to the morning rain added yet more gravitas to the innings, and once play began, you could see whatever you wished to see. Babar’s punch behind square leg off Kagiso Rabada was followed by a slap past point, so did that mean he was back to his best? You’d have to ignore the flatness of the pitch or the fact that on the few occasions Rabada found his line outside off stump, Babar’s struggle with the bounce was hard to miss.Related

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The festive crowd in South Africa can be quite partisan, but even those who braved the uncooperative weather in the morning – and there were a few thousand of them – understood the precipice it briefly felt like Babar’s career hinged on. Every boundary met murmurs of approval from the wider crowd, amplified by a vociferous pocket in the Grandstand who held up placards of support, and chanted his name. Like them, he appeared to be raging against the dying of a career that should have been in its prime at this stage.When he whipped sudden local favourite Corbin Bosch to midwicket for four and got himself off strike with a single, it was his highest score in nearly two years. A nudge into the deep got him past a milestone that once had been a glib stepping stone, a half-century that brought the dressing room to its feet.But hope can bring its own kind of torture, especially when it comes with the gnawing sense of approaching doom. This was not an innings of a turning tide as much as it was opportunistic accumulation. The infuriating, inveterate dab to the slips had not been cut out of his game, the tendency to get caught squared up against seam movement always rendered him vulnerable. This was not a new Babar, just the same man with the same ability, and ultimately, the same fallibility.Babar Azam scored his first fifty in nearly two years in Test cricket•Associated PressAnd it didn’t take much. South Africa had positioned a fielder at deep third all afternoon, so square it barely counted as a catching position. Marco Jansen tossed one out wide to Babar; he would later say one of the plans involved inducing Pakistani batters into playing shots they attempted because of impatience rather than intent. But, really, it was short, wide, boundary fodder.In the past, Babar’s eyes would narrow as he ruthlessly dispatched it along the ground, piercing whatever gap needed to be pierced to find the boundary. Now, his widened eyes appeared childlike, as if the sweets cupboard had been left unlocked, and he snatched greedily without seemingly appreciating the trap it was.He was late; Jansen is quick. His bat face tilted upwards; Jansen is tall. And Bosch at the boundary had a gift, because Pakistan in this Test have exhausted a year’s supply of generosity on the debutant. Babar’s expression suggested disbelief, though the mind can superimpose emotions onto human faces; he might just as easily have been blank.

“When we play outside Pakistan, we’re not able to finish well, whether it’s innings or matches. That is a slight concern. We made some of the same mistakes today”Saud Shakeel

Saud Shakeel, who Jansen would ensnare with an equally inoffensive delivery, spoke openly of Pakistan’s frustrations. “We’re making some of these mistakes; it also happened when we went to Australia. When we play outside Pakistan, we’re not able to finish well, whether it’s innings or matches. That is a slight concern. We made some of the same mistakes today. This 148-run target could easily have been a 200-plus target.”Listening to what might have been, though, is perhaps more painful for Pakistan supporters than the head-banging. Pakistan could have set a higher target in 2007 or 2013 in Cape Town, or 2018 in Centurion. They could have made South Africa work for their wickets a little more on the third day, or been more effective at polishing off South Africa’s last two wickets on the second. They could yet produce a remarkable bowling effort and still salvage it all, with 121 runs still to play with.Or perhaps, because they never do, maybe it never was possible. As Babar’s expression suggested, if you really wanted to read into it, some hopes are always accompanied by doom. Perhaps all there is to Pakistan in South Africa is the head, and that brick wall.

Jimmy Adams upstaging Wasim Akram in St John’s or Pat Cummins’ Australia beating Bazball? Pick between two classics

Deivarayan Muthu08-May-2025Update: This poll has ended. The ENG-AUS 2023 Birmingham Test moves to the round of 16.

West Indies’ one-wicket jailbreak vs Pakistan – St John’s, 2000

After more twists and turns than a whodunnit, Jimmy Adams upstaged Wasim Akram to complete a one-wicket heist with a healthy helping of luck. West Indies benefited from two umpiring errors and Saqlain Mushtaq fluffing two run-out chances, including one when Adams and No. 11 Courtney Walsh were both stranded at the striker’s end.When West Indies were 202 for 9, still 14 runs away from victory, Saqlain panicked under pressure and failed to gather the throw cleanly at the bowler’s end. Adams and Walsh eventually scrambled a leg-bye, leaving Pakistan wondering what might have been. Walsh held on limpet-like for 72 minutes with his captain Adams, who remained unbeaten on 48 off 212 balls, as West Indies clinched one of their most memorable and dramatic wins in Test cricket at the turn of the century in St John’s.Despite the lapses in the field, Akram had kept Pakistan in it by taking out four of West Indies’ top six – he came away with a match haul of 11 wickets – but Adams had the final say when he squeezed a single to point off Akram.

Australia beat Bazball – Birmingham 2023

“Boring, boring, Aussies” was the chant from the Hollies Stand at Edgbaston on the fourth afternoon when Usman Khawaja was digging in and slowly building for Australia in their pursuit of 281. By the fifth evening, the crowd was stunned into silence as Australia aced the old-school long game to beat England’s new-age fast play.When Khawaja fell for 65, with Ben Stokes ending his near-five-and-a-half-hour vigil, Australia had slipped to 209 for 7. Then, when Alex Carey’s wicket left Australia at 227 for 8, it certainly felt like England’s Bazballers were on their way to another famous win. Australia captain Pat Cummins, though, flipped the mood and result with an unbeaten 44 off 73 balls, with No. 10 Nathan Lyon hanging on in an unbroken 55-run partnership for the ninth wicket.After having come under fire with his defensive fields on the opening day, Cummins played the decisive hand on the final day, absorbing good balls from Stokes and Ollie Robinson and lining up Joe Root’s part-time offspin for a brace of sixes. After sealing the deal, Cummins let out a big roar, threw his bat and punched his fist in a rare show of emotion that summed up how much this win meant to him and Australia.

With the Champions Trophy almost here, it is only natural for thoughts in the country to turn to the World Cup hosted there 29 years ago

Danyal Rasool16-Feb-2025″The worst experience,” Aaqib Javed says without hesitation “was Bangalore.”We’re standing behind the practice nets at the National Cricket Academy in the Gaddafi Stadium. A young hopeful from regional Punjab is trying to impress Aaqib, Pakistan’s interim head coach. It’s a lovely winter’s day, the sun washing over the ground without yet carrying the oppressive potency it will gain in a few weeks. There’s machinery and construction equipment all around. Pakistan’s most famous cricket stadium, with its iconic Mughal façade, is being torn down and rebuilt to service the demands of the 21st century and of the upcoming Champions Trophy.It’s a fitting time to reminisce, and Aaqib is thinking about 1996 quarter-final. “If you look at the stadium,” he says, about the Chinnaswamy, “the stands are right on top of you. If there was any flashpoint, or if anything notable happened, the din was unimaginable. It was so loud that our ears continued ringing the next day.”Related

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Bangalore’s crowd on the day will take that as a compliment, and in truth, they had much to shout about that night. India beat Pakistan in a feisty encounter, ending Pakistan’s defence of their World Cup title and their dreams of lifting cricket’s biggest trophy on their own patch, at the Gaddafi Stadium, where the final was held.The 1996 World Cup was perhaps the last major cricket tournament of a sepia-tinted era, before modernity arrived on cricket’s doorstep at the turn of the century. Aaqib, and Pakistan, look upon it with a special kind of fondness for a very particular reason: it remains – at least until the Champions Trophy kicks off on 19 February – the last ICC event Pakistan has hosted.”I have good memories of that WC,” Aaqib says. “We played a few matches in Lahore. It was completely normal in terms of security, both in India and Pakistan. When we went to India, it was all very relaxed there too.Aaqib has good reason for his happy memories. Pakistan were among the strongest starters in the tournament, and played all their group matches at home. They won all four games he played in, losing just the one to South Africa where he was absent, and finished second in their group.Aaqib Javed, Pakistan’s white-ball coach, doesn’t have fond memories of the 1996 quarter-final In Bangalore, where Pakistan were knocked out of their home World Cup•AFP via Getty ImagesMuch of the feel-good factor had little to do with the cricket itself but where it was played. The subcontinent was a nascent cricketing power hub at the time. Pakistan and India co-hosted the 1987 World Cup; this time around, Sri Lanka joined them. Pakistan’s fans had begun to enjoy the taste of high-profile cricket they were getting, Lahore, Karachi and Gujranwala were packed to the brim; according to Aaqib, there wasn’t any standing room left. Pakistan believed the floodgates would open in the years that followed. A parching drought, instead, has seen them go more than a generation without a similar event, to the extent that most Pakistanis have no memories of what hosting such a tournament is like.Ehsan Mani, a recent PCB chairman and former president of the ICC, does. He was directly involved in the management of the 1996 World Cup. As a member of the Pak-Indo-Lanka Joint Management Committee (PILCOM), the advisory committee for the tournament, he has fond memories of what he remembers as a constructive relationship with his counterparts in India and Sri Lanka.”In 1987, India took the lead,” he says. “In 1996, Pakistan took the lead. We played a big part in actually getting the hosting rights. The difference at the time was, India wanted to work with us, and there was a lot of mutual respect between us. The world was different. India-Pakistan matches were the largest in the world then too, but India didn’t have as much money in those days. In fact, Pakistan was more or less equal in reserves and profits to India. The dynamics were very different.”Mani views his partnership with the late Jagmohan Dalmiya as instrumental to the success of that 1987 tournament, recalling they used to speak “four or five times a day”. Dalmiya worked on the commercial side and Mani handled the media aspect. The tournament ran into headwinds early, with an issue Pakistan have over the years become accustomed to needing to handle: security concerns.Back then, though, those concerns affected Sri Lanka, which was in the midst of a civil war, with Australia and West Indies refusing to send their teams to the country. Mani recalls how Pakistan and India stood up for South Asia’s new emerging cricketing nation.In February that year, Pakistan and India put together a joint team – six Pakistanis and five Indians, captained by Mohammad Azharuddin, who played an ODI against a Sri Lankan XI in Colombo, to show how safe the country was for cricket.Work on the Gaddafi Stadium’s renovations races against time early in February 2025•Asif Hassan/AFP/Getty Images”It was about personal relationships with our counterparts” Mani says. “We got on well with each other. There were certain government policies that made things complicated, but when you get on well at board level, it eases things.”In the end, Australia and West Indies didn’t go to Sri Lanka anyway, but the tournament ticked along nicely. Sri Lanka won their other three matches and eased into the quarter-final, as did Pakistan and India, who met each other in that Bangalore cauldron. Pakistan captain Wasim Akram famously pulled out of that match.”Pakistan were looking very strong at the time,” Aaqib says. “In that India game, Wasim Akram dropping out at the last minute was a huge blow. We found out at the toss he wasn’t playing. When your captain, and a bowler like Wasim Akram, is suddenly unavailable, it has a huge effect on morale because we had no strategic or mental way of preparing for it. I don’t understand what happened there but it definitely hurt us.”There was a further flashpoint when Aamer Sohail sledged Venkatesh Prasad during a strong Pakistan response to a stiff target, only to be cleaned up next delivery and for Pakistan’s chase to eventually fall apart. In Akram’s absence, Aaqib says ” we just conceded too many runs. 280-odd was too much. We could have coped around 250-260 – at the time that was what was considered chase-able.”While any animosity between the two sides remained on the field, Mani believes all of that had changed markedly by the time he became chairman in 2018. “Our relationship aged poorly. When Sourav Ganguly became BCCI president, we felt he was effectively a frontman for Jay Shah [who served as the Asian Cricket Council president at the time]. Things were not very good.”The PCB was awarded the 2025 Champions Trophy weeks after Mani left the PCB. Pakistan had also put in a joint bid for a T20 World Cup with the UAE, as well as for the 2031 ODI World Cup with Bangladesh, but neither ultimately ended up successful. It is something Mani says he’s disappointed the PCB did not actively follow up on after he left.Ehsan Mani (second from left) remembers a more cordial age of India-Pakistan cricket relations: “It was about personal relationships with our counterparts”•Getty ImagesAs a result, the PCB, as well as Pakistan at large, have thrown their entire investment – financial and emotional – into the Champions Trophy. Though stadium upgradations were left until the 11th hour, no expense was spared in razing Gaddafi Stadium to the ground and building it anew, while renovations of varying degrees have taken place in Karachi and Rawalpindi. At the same time, the PCB pushed India harder than they ever have in the past in an attempt to ensure the entire tournament took place in Pakistan.It didn’t ultimately happen, and the UAE had to be roped in as a venue for all of India’s games. As such, Pakistan find themselves in a farcical situation: Lahore hosted the 1996 World Cup final, a tournament Pakistan co-hosted with India and Sri Lanka, but may not host the final of this event, officially awarded solely to Pakistan.”As soon as the ICC awarded events to India and Pakistan, the ICC should have got involved,” Mani says. “It [the negotiation about India] should have nothing to do with the PCB. It was an ICC event. Greg Barclay [then ICC chairman] should have dealt with it.”If you remember, Pakistan and India were not playing cricket before 2004 for many years. Pakistan had Mr Shaharyar Khan as the chairman, who was highly respected by the BCCI and everyone else. I went to India as ICC chairman and said we should not mix cricket with politics. And when I went to meet the ministers in India, the BCCI board members used to come with me to these government meetings and support what I was saying. It was a different world.”Though 1996 remains Pakistan’s most recent reference point, Aaqib in his position as the current side’s coach cautions against assigning too much weight to it. “The biggest mistake you can make in such an event is when you start treating it as a special event. You end up making the wrong team and break your continuity. Look at the T20 World Cup last year – we brought back players who haven’t played in ages. Mohammad Amir came in, Imad [Wasim] came in, Shadab [Khan] batted at four, Imad at five, it became a bit of a mess.”When we were kings: 1992 marks a high point in Pakistan cricket that remains a magnet for nostalgia•PA Images via Getty ImagesIn a quirk of fate, Pakistan are official hosts of an event they go into as defending champions, just as they were last time around, in 1996. And though Pakistan have long viewed that ’90s side as something of a quixotic ideal, Aaqib thinks at least part of the reason why it is regarded that way is nostalgia.”That side had bigger names,” he concedes. “Those huge names are absent from our current side. But when Wasim didn’t play that quarter-final, there was a huge drop-off in terms of quality. Now you won’t feel one absence forces you to drop so far down skill-wise. Javed Miandad and Saleem Malik were fading away, and that was an ageing team that hadn’t been refreshed after 1992.”It is also the time, perhaps, from which disillusioned Pakistan cricket followers hail in their greatest concentration. Pakistan is a young country; the average age is less than 21. Stories of Pakistan’s cricket team from the ’90s – one of cricket’s most charismatic and enigmatic sides – are often filtered through the lenses of former fans, who rode the high of ’92, enjoyed the optimism of the rest of the decade, and signed off when it became clear Pakistan were not so much on the cusp of a golden age as on the crest of a wave that was soon to crash. Current fans have heard, but cannot verify, that that was when following Pakistan cricket was truly worth it.The 1996 World Cup, when cricket came home, is perhaps something of a psychological shortcut to that time, one not available to those who came after. “I think cricket fever is just as high now, if not higher,” Aaqib says. “Especially with social media and the hype that it can create. And the average fan’s cricket sense has increased. When cricket’s on, everything else shuts down, TV dramas, other programmes and all the rest.”And unlike those who saw that tournament through a heady, optimistic lens of what the future held, Pakistan now know how rare these moments are. There isn’t another men’s ICC event slated in the calendar for them to host, and each one invariably comes with the added complication of India’s refusal to travel.So if Aaqib believes Pakistan shouldn’t treat it as a special tournament, he will have his work cut out convincing everyone else.

India kept the series alive with a heroic draw at Old Trafford. Alan Gardner hears from Sid Monga and Vish Ehantharajah about a fractious finish and what to expect at The Oval

ESPNcricinfo staff29-Jul-2025India fought their way to a valiant draw at Old Trafford, although most of the headlines revolved around England’s frustration at not being able to call the Test off early as Ravindra Jadeja and Washington Sundar batted on to centuries. On this week’s Switch, Alan Gardner was joined by Sid Monga and Vish Ehantharajah to look back on the fourth Test. Among the topics discussed were England’s petty reaction, the character shown by India, significant milestones for Joe Root and Ben Stokes, and how the two teams are shaping up ahead of the final Test of a gruelling series.