Tag Futebol

Two wickets in five balls might have been the tip of the iceberg in a Bangladesh collapse in years past, but harsh memories spurred Tamim Iqbal and Shakib Al Hasan to buck historical trends

Mohammad Isam25-Mar-2017Tamim Iqbal and Shakib Al Hasan had just taken 11 runs off Lakshan Sandakan’s seventh over as Bangladesh moved to 182 for 3 in 33 overs. Both batsmen had been picking the length of each Sri Lankan bowler quite easily and were getting into the groove as they approached the slog overs.With seven wickets in hand, both batsmen were in the right mindset to start the big hitting early. But then something strange happened. Tamim and Shakib simply knocked it around for the next 11 overs, accumulating a further 59 runs in a period during which both reached personal milestones.Tigers get special phone call

Members of the Bangladesh team were huddled near a mobile phone soon after they had completed the 90-run win over Sri Lanka in the first ODI in Dambulla.Tamim Iqbal later revealed there was someone very special at the other end of the phone: Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, who had made a congratulatory call.
“Our Prime Minister had called,” Tamim said. “We were talking to her after the game. After we had won the Test in Colombo, I couldn’t talk to her. She spoke to Shakib and Mushfiqur. After we had won today, she called the board president’s phone. Many of us got to speak to her. She congratulated all of us. It is a great feeling when the country’s Prime Minister wishes you well.”

If this were 2014, calls of selfish play would have sounded legitimate. After all, it was one of the worst years in recent memory for Bangladesh and even players like Shakib and Tamim were roughing it out. Bangladesh were losing so many games that year, that if a player was called out for playing for his place, they were mildly praised because at least they were doing something to stay in the team.Edginess grew as it appeared that Sri Lanka were also quite ordinary during this period. They were not taking the best decisions, and the outfielders were giving away runs quite regularly. So what was making batsmen as experienced as Tamim and Shakib hang back for so long?What seems to be a plausible explanation is that they were batting conservatively to avoid the pitfalls of the previous nine ODIs. Against Afghanistan, England and New Zealand, Bangladesh have given away good starts with the bat by losing wickets in clusters.Even when they won games during the last three bilateral ODI series, they regularly had a period when their batting fell from comfort to panic, to be bowled out for a lesser total than projected. And such a collapse always came after a sizeable partnership had ended. It set complacency in the dressing room as the next few batsmen couldn’t connect with big hits early in their innings.It had even spilled over to the Test arena, and there was even one threatening to happen in the first innings of the Colombo Test. During this game in Dambulla too, a five-ball spell soon after the 90-run second wicket partnership had Bangladesh losing Sabbir Rahman and Mushfiqur Rahim.Shakib and Tamim had to go through painstaking rebuilding to get Bangladesh back into the fight so they were not about to give it away. It was actually very smart batting if they were sticking to a predetermined plan, something Tamim indicated was the case as he set out to rebuild with Shakib following the double strike.”When I was batting in the 40s, I thought I was struggling,” Tamim said. “But if I had got out during that period, we wouldn’t have put up such a big score. You must have seen Mashrafe bhai coming outside and telling me to play long. Not everything will go according to your plan when you’re playing a long innings. You go through a difficult patch but you overcome it. Shakib played a superb innings. If he got one or two more overs, he would have got a hundred too.”The 11-over period from the 34th to the 44th sure looked ugly at times, as Tamim and Shakib restrained themselves. Tamim had the anchor role but Shakib too was playing conservatively. As their reined-in mentality ate into the last ten overs, anxiety rose.That is until Shakib tore into Lahiru Kumara for three fours in a row in the 45th over. He hammered one into Suranga Lakmal’s body in the next over before launching him over long-on for the first six of the Bangladesh innings. He fell next ball, but had shown Tamim to the unlocked door: now it is your turn.Tamim obliged too, hitting two fours and a six, the latter of which came via a drop at deep square leg, a lucky break for the tiring opener. He fell next ball, having made a solid 127 off 142 balls. It was more Gary Kirsten than his favourite Sanath Jayasuriya, but it worked for both Tamim and Bangladesh.He batted without any added ego through two very important partnerships – 90 for the second wicket and 144 for the fourth wicket. Sabbir got 54 out of those 90 runs, and at times Tamim looked very much like the background man. He is now a senior player in the team, having just become the first Bangladeshi to complete 10,000 international runs.Once Mushfiqur got out, he had to keep the scoring rate intact while Shakib settled in. While it looked odd to see Shakib take 37 balls to find his first boundary, it was clear that both had a set role. As soon as Shakib was hitting them well, Tamim focused back on being the anchor.During their fourth wicket partnership too, Shakib outscored Tamim by six runs. The pair added the 144 runs at 6.08 per over for 23.4 overs. What followed was also part of Bangladesh’s overall plan, but seldom do two very fast partnerships follow two substantial ones in a Bangladesh innings.Yet Tamim and Mosaddek fired 25 off just two overs before Mahmudullah joined the younger batsman to add 35 off the last 2.1 overs. In total, they took 60 off the last 25 balls, a very un-Bangladesh like ending to an innings.Tamim said that he would expect anyone else in Bangladesh’s top six to play a similar role in the future, if the situation demands.”We know that in ODIs, one batsman among the top six has to carry the bat,” Tamim said. “I have scored a lot of fifties but haven’t been able to convert to big ones. I will try to make every good start count.”He said that scoring a hundred which helps the team to win has a special feeling, and he was happy that he contributed to the win by also being involved in two big partnerships.”I am very satisfied,” Tamim said. “We batted first in hot weather. We did all the hard work. Sabbir played brilliantly. Shakib and I had a really good partnership. They were bowling well during a period, and we rotated the strike and looked for the odd boundary.”We planned our innings very well. Getting the hundred, and winning the game is the best feeling you can ever get.”

After relegation last season, Saurashtra have come a long way in the 2015-16 Ranji Trophy season. But coach Sitanshu Kotak does not want his team to rest on its laurels

Shashank Kishore in Pune28-Feb-2016In September, Sitanshu Kotak called up Ravindra Jadeja. ” (“What plans?”),” he asked. ” (To help Saurashtra win matches, of course”) came the reply. Jadeja had just been left out of India’s squad across formats, and Axar Patel’s creditable show meant there was no guarantee of an immediate return. A comeback or the itch to prove a point, Kotak says, was far from Jadeja’s mind, but the prospect of being able to play matches immediately had him excited.A month later, on pitches tailored to suit Saurashtra’s strength, in their backyard in Rajkot, Jadeja picked up a mind-boggling six consecutive five-fors, and 37 wickets in three Ranji games. He backed that up with knocks of 91 and 58 in two of those games as Saurashtra opened up a massive lead in Group C. It was the start of their journey from a group that is often considered “weak”. That they came through unscathed till the end, blasting their way into the final, was as much due to the confidence they derived from those early wins as it was to their plan of empowering a young group of players.For Kotak, it was a sense of déjà vu after he missed the chance of lifting the Ranji Trophy as a player in similar circumstances three years ago, when his team had lost to the same opponents. But Saurashtra’s improvement this season – played for large parts without Jadeja and Cheteshwar Pujara, their two talismanic cricketers – was the most heartening sign for Kotak, even though the regret of folding cheaply without a fight at the final hurdle left him gutted.”In my 21 years as a player, I hadn’t seen relegation, so to be relegated as a coach in my first season last year was disheartening. This is as bad as I’ve felt since then, but these things happen,” he told ESPNcricinfo. “Losses aside, the biggest lesson this season has taught us is that we need to be a better green-track team. It’s not enough to score runs on flat tracks and play on turners.”The mention of turners is quite interesting, for it was a strategy that was well thought out. “The plan was simple,” he starts. “We didn’t want to be Himachal [Pradesh], who have been there and thereabouts. We wanted to push for results. Even if it meant we lose two here and there, so be it. We had to play to our strengths initially, just to get out of the rut we had found ourselves in. After getting relegated to Group C, the players were hurt. They finally realised something was wrong, so we thought, ‘Why not play to our advantage and get a head start – surely away, we may have to face conditions where we don’t thrive.'”As it turned out, the ploy to prepare turners helped Jadeja pitch for a comeback, which was a roaring success as, along with R Ashwin, he dismantled South Africa in the Tests. For Saurashtra, though, it was back to the drawing board. Their winning streak came to a halt as soon as Jadeja left for the Tests, as they drew against Goa and Himachal, and soon lost to Kerala. “That was an eye-opener; that is when we felt how weak our batting was, and we needed to tighten our game,” Kotak says. “We needed a mainstay. We’ve been used to not having Pujara around, but not too many raised their hands in the time he wasn’t available.”Sheldon Jackson has been doing well, has played India A too, but we needed someone in the top three. That was a challenge for us, because on seaming tracks, if we lost the toss, we would often fall behind. We could either change personnel or stick to the same set of guys who had shown the spark. We thought, this season wasn’t the best to change too many things because, having made the start, we had to finish it well. In some ways, the absence of a proper club structure in Rajkot means most of the players play outside, while young players who can’t do that get lost. So that needs to improve.”Ravindra Jadeja helped Saurashtra start their season with four consecutive wins•BCCIWhile the decision to stick with the batting seemed to work, the bowlers, particularly the pacers, who had little role to play on raging turners, were a little rusty. Jaydev Unadkat, who missed a good part of last season because of injury, was fit and firing. Hardik Rathod, who had played for Railways last season, returned to his home state in search of opportunities, as did Deepak Punia, the pacer, who previously represented Services. “After we finished our home games, both of them (Rathod and Punia) were key to our plans,” Kotak says. “We worked on their skills right through the season, got them to bowl long spells in the nets. But we made it clear that while a place in the team was no guarantee, at least we would try and look after them better.”As he speaks, it seems that Kotak, the coach, is more flamboyant than Kotak, the batsman, a stonewaller. He says the biggest challenge as coach was to ensure those he played with were involved in planning, even though he consciously made an effort to maintain a distance and a sense of perspective.”That is where I got guys like Jadeja and Pujara to talk to the boys,” he says. “My cricket was limited, so from a coach’s point of view, I had to make them feel comfortable, give them opportunities. These two, having played for India, were a major part of my plan because they have interacted with modern-day coaches and been exposed to the best training methods. You can be a Level-1 or Level-3 coach, but these are things no coaching degree will teach you. My challenge was to bring out the best in them without altering their game. Players react differently in good form, while the same advice when they are in bad form may invite a different discussion. So finding that balance was my challenge, but they were all motivated. The rebuilding phase has to be completed now.”With the side having bounced back to reach the final after having been relegated, Kotak doesn’t mince words when he says individuals need to be self-motivated if they are to consistently challenge top teams. “It’s not criticism, but the truth is, a lot of players get comfortable,” he says. “There has to be a purpose of playing first-class cricket. Either you want to play for India or contribute to the state team because you love the game. There is at times a mentality of not wanting to let go. You should be helping a cause, two or three fifties in a season and you can’t be happy.”A look at Saurashtra’s batting charts this season further drives home the point Kotak is trying to make. The team scored a combined tally of five hundreds, with the highest number of fifties scored by a player being three, by Jadeja and Avi Barot. That the top run-scorer for Saurashtra was Jackson with 538 runs – in comparison Mumbai’s top-scorer Shreyas Iyer had 1321 runs – further reinforces Kotak’s point. Of course it didn’t help that their captain Jaydev Shah, who has been in charge for a record 93 games out of the 105 he has played in, didn’t lead by example, managing a modest 294 runs from 11 matches.Saurashtra have faltered in the past, not having built on their gains from 2012-13. For a while now, their journey has been about taking one step forward, only to fall two steps back. This time around, there is another opportunity to build on the gains made by a young group of players. One way of doing so could be to have a younger captain take charge of the group, which means there could be a slot that could be filled by a promising batsman who is given a longer rope. How they decide to move forward from here could determine if Kotak manages to groom a set of players who go on to become ‘ (long-haul racehorses).

By elevating Jason Holder to the captaincy of a troubled team so early in his career, West Indies have risked stalling the development of an immensly promising cricketer

Daniel Brettig at the SCG27-Feb-20151:38

‘Have to improve death bowling’ – Holder

At the start of the second season of World Series Cricket, the embattled Australian Cricket Board appointed a new young captain in Graeme Yallop. Asked for his prediction of the forthcoming six-Test Ashes series, Yallop blithely predicted a 6-0 victory. A few months later he was left nursing a 5-1 mauling at the hands of Mike Brearley’s England, and would go on to publish a bitter account of the series entitled “Lambs to the Slaughter”.There is something of the lamb being led to a similarly grim fate about Jason Holder at this World Cup. Following a horrendous mess of leadership, board and player problems, his parachuting into the captaincy as the WICB’s man of choice has risked permanent damage to a fine young man and an allrounder of much potential. Imagine thrusting Steven Smith into Australia’s captaincy not this summer but during the 2010-11 Ashes, when he was still more embryo than cricketer, and you will have a fair parallel.Even AB de Villiers has sympathy for Holder’s situation, though he was never likely to show it during a sunny and warm afternoon at the SCG. Smarting from his own reverse in Melbourne at the hands of India, de Villiers tore at West Indies with a ferocity to match that shown at the Wanderers a few weeks ago. He had no qualms about turning his harshest light on Holder himself, utterly destroying his opposite number’s fast medium in an assault that left the younger man at his wits’ end.In 2000, at a time when West Indies’ decline was becoming apparent, Steve Waugh was asked whether he had any advice for his opposite number Jimmy Adams following a particularly heavy defeat in that year’s Boxing Day Test. Waugh did not hesitate with the rejoinder, “oh, have a serious drink tonight”, prompting widespread laughter in the room. Pondering Holder’s plight, de Villiers resorted to empathy rather than black humour.”While you’re playing it’s definitely not something you think about,” de Villiers said. “He’s actually a really nice guy, so yes, we’ve all been there, and I think every captain goes through really tough games – it was a tough game for him today but we had a tough game in the last one at Melbourne. I know for sure he’s mature enough to handle it, he’s got enough teammates and experience to look after him.”Unfortunately for Holder, the conflicts and intrigues of West Indies cricket leave him unable to know for sure who has their mind completely on the job. It also felt more or less inevitable that after his commanding performance against Zimbabwe in Canberra, Chris Gayle would not trouble South Africa for long at the SCG. Likewise Lendl Simmons showed a bizarre lack of awareness when declining to review an LBW decision when he had clearly edged Imran Tahir onto his front pad.Meanwhile Holder must work to understand his own tactical skills as a captain while at the same time developing and maturing as an allrounder. He may have misstepped in the afternoon by underbowling Gayle and Marlon Samuels on a pitch that later offered up generous spin and bounce for Tahir, and his inability to find a way to contain de Villiers allowed his thinking to veer into quite negative zones – he admitted afterwards that his best ploy towards the end of the innings was to hope he could keep de Villiers off strike.”He was obviously in full flow and my main thing was just to get him off strike and bowl a few more balls at [Farhaan] Behardien who had just come tot he crease,” Holder said. “The dropped chances didn’t help. If you take away my last two overs which AB really took me apart, it could have been a different story. We tried to execute some yorkers and we didn’t land them, but he created room which most batsmen probably wouldn’t have.”It was perhaps a time to note that no less a judge than Rohit Sharma had stated how he rated Dwayne Bravo the most difficult death bowler he has had to face, via a mastery of changes in pace and length that keeps the batsman guessing rather than the bowler. Kieron Pollard has a not dissimilar ability to change his pace, and had scored a fine century on this very ground. Both sit at home at the behest of the WICB.Walking off with a South African tally of 408 staring them in the face, Holder’s men looked beaten, and the early overs of their chase – more of a slump really – proved this beyond doubt. Older spectators in attendance, whether in the SCG’s stately Members Pavilion or other, newer quarters of the ground, were left to think back in puzzlement on how this once great collective of island nations had slumped so low, as yet another match between the ICC’s Full Members failed to produce the sort of willing contest served up by the supposedly lowlier Associates.Many of the crowd had already begun to drift out of the SCG in search of an evening drink in Paddington, Surry Hills or Darlinghurst when the night ended on the only note of any positivity for West Indies. The only consolation to be taken from the evening would be that this note would be played by no one other than Holder himself. In an innings of free spirit and ample leverage, he averted the heaviest ODI defeat of all time and performed some sort of salvage job on his team’s net run rate. There is fight in Holder, which is one reason why he has been given such an onerous job at such a callow age.”I’m pretty good with my game at the moment,” he said. “If I analyse my bowling today just one player took me out. It happens and I just need to figure what I can do better when things like that happen. My batting, we had nothing to lose but we needed to get some runs to try to help our net run rate, so just tried to be positive and stay out there. I was struggling a bit with cramp and felt I couldn’t go off, just had to fight it through and put some runs on the board for the team.”Nevertheless, the question the WICB and more senior players must ask of themselves is whether Holder can be allowed to take on so much of the burden of this team at such a developmental time in his life and career. Were his talent to be lost to a lack of confidence, an emergence of bitterness and a creep of indifference, Holder would not be to blame. It would be those around him and above him guilty of leading a lamb to the slaughter.

And Clem Hill’s pioneering work in the field of narrowly avoiding personal milestones

Andy Zaltzman30-Apr-2013″April is the cruellest month,” wrote poetry whiz TS Eliot in his smash-hit 1922 blockbuster ) does not recall the idiocy, misfortune or twitchiness of the shots Hill played on those five occasions when he fell within a single controlled clonk of three-figure glory. History (by which I mean, the internet, including Youtube) does provide us with evidence of Slater’s five extremely near-misses. He scored his first Test century in his second match, at Lord’s in 1993, an innings of blazing confidence, and a decisive speed of foot and bat that may have been reminiscent of a young Bradman, for anyone old enough to reminisce about a young Bradman. He famously gave the Australian badge on his helmet an extremely amorous smooch on reaching three figures.Slater, however, would prove to be the most vulnerable of all Test batsmen in the 90s. He reached 90 on 22 further occasions, and fell in the 90s nine times, against six different opponents, on eight different grounds. (Only England were unable to exploit Slater’s vulnerability in close proximity to the century. He converted all of his seven 90-plus scores into hundreds in Ashes Tests. Against the rest, he fell short nine out of 16 times. This is entirely understandable. He was an Australian. Playing in the 1990s.)Why was he so regularly floored within touching distance of honours-board immortality? Perhaps he was vicariously infected by the nervous 90s – in that 1993 Lord’s Test, he had seen both Mark Waugh and Mike Atherton fall for 99, the latter painfully run out. Perhaps the prospect of further romantic encounters with the Australian badge distracted him. Most players kiss it these days. It clearly has some moves.On the five occasions that Slater was out for 96 or more, he: charged down the wicket and was stumped (twice, both for 96); attempted to spank a wide legbreak over extra cover, but instead spanked a wide legbreak directly into extra cover’s hands (out for 96); slavered over the juiciest of leg-stump full tosses, and, with drool-soaked bat and with the number 97 gleaming temptingly from the scoreboard, spooned the ball straight up in the air to square leg; andon 99, thin edged a leg glance. Each time, he was out playing a shot that would have brought him to his century. Slater has an esteemed position in the history of the game, and is fondly remembered as a thrilling, high-risk opener who could shape a match from the first ball. But how differently would he be viewed had he never faltered within sight of the milestone? Slater’s 14 centuries put him in joint 16th in the all-time chart of Australia’s leading Test hundred-hoarders. If he had converted those nine 90s, he would be joint seventh, alongside Michael Clarke and Justin Langer on 23. In fact, he would probably not have been alongside Justin Langer, who in all likelihood would not have played quite as many Tests, or scored quite as many hundreds, had Slater converted all of his 90s. And Slater would probably have played more, and scored more tons. The IPL understandably hoovers up the cricket world’s attention like a lonely vacuum cleaner comfort guzzling a dust milkshake, so here are some stats from the Zimbabwe v Bangladesh series, which is operating at the other end of the Glitz Scale.Bangladesh’s troubled Test history has generated its fair share of records, but few of them have been positive ones. In the Harare Test against Zimbabwe, however, the Tigers have achieved a small piece of immortality – they have become the first team whose numbers 5, 6 and 7 have all scored 50 or more in both innings of a Test. Shakib Al Hasan (81 & 59), Mushfiqur Rahim (60 & 93) and Nasir Hossain (77 and 67 not out) were the players responsible. In the first Test, they had amassed just 45 runs between them – the worst performance by Bangladesh’s 5-6-7 since 2005, amidst one of their worst team displays even in their impressive catalogue of failures.The second Test thus represented an impressive fightback in the shootout between Test cricket’s two most defeatable teams. Robiul Islam become the fourth Bangladeshi bowler, and first pacer, to take five wickets in an innings twice in a series.In the first Test, Brendan Taylor became the second player in the last two months to score 171 in a Test, after Hamish Rutherford’s dazzling Dunedin debut for New Zealand. Before then, in 2076 Tests, only one player had scored exactly 171 – Ian Redpath, in the Perth Test in the 1970-71 Ashes.Taylor followed up with an unbeaten 102 in the second innings. The next highest score – and only other half-century – in the match was Malcolm Waller’s 55. Taylor thus became the seventh player to score two centuries in a Test in which no other player has reached three figures. On each of previous six occasions, at least four other half-centuries were scored in the match. Few batsmen have ever been so individually dominant in any Test match.Out of interest (which, by this stage of the article, I assume you are), here are the previous six players to score the only two centuries in a Test match:Rohan Kanhai (West Indies, v Australia, Adelaide, 1960-61) – ten other half-centuries in the matchGlenn Turner (New Zealand, v Australia, Christchurch, 1973-74) – four other half-centuriesAlec Stewart (England, v West Indies, Barbados, 1993-94) – six other half-centuriesSteve Waugh (Australia, v England, Old Trafford, 1997) – four other half-centuriesGrant Flower (Zimbabwe, v New Zealand, Harare, 1997-98) – five other half-centuriesTillakaratne Dilshan (Sri Lanka, v Bangladesh, Chittagong, 2008-09) – six other half-centuries

England will have to take their winning game to the subcontinent to tick off a crucial box, but they have a few ingredients that suggest their grip on the top ranking will be firmer than India’s

Sambit Bal at Edgbaston13-Aug-2011The only lament for the supporters of English cricket at this moment of glory would be that it was utterly devalued by the abjectness of the opposition. The matter got so desperate on the fourth day that they joined the Indian fans in chanting Praveen Kumar’s name as he threw some meaty punches and warmly applauded him back to the dressing-room after his dismissal. No one who had paid for a seat would have wished to be so emphatically denied of a contest.Of course England cannot be held to account for the feebleness of their opponents. They dealt with what was presented to them to with full force and have now seized the No. 1 ranking with the swagger of a team that belongs. As India have been reminded so painfully on this tour, the top rank on the ICC table doesn’t necessarily translate to indisputable supremacy but, by administering India the mightiest of routs, England have built the most compelling of cases.It is a moment of huge significance for English cricket because their success hasn’t arrived merely by accident or by the happy coincidence of a burst of talent. It has been engineered through years of planning and building and the meticulous construction of a template that made success inevitable.It can be argued that the best of England met the worst of India in this series. But as India’s resistance dissolved into nothingness on the fourth morning, so did the grounds for excuses. Batting on a pitch that yielded England 710 runs, India – fielding their best possible batting line-up – were reduced to 130 for 7.The Indian task was hopeless to start with but in many ways it offered their batsmen a last shot at redemption. In one hour of magnificent swing bowling, James Anderson put the final stamp on the comprehensive superiority of England’s bowlers over India’s batsmen. It became abundantly clear in that hour, if it hadn’t been apparent already, that no matter how well India had prepared, and how mentally and physically fresh they were, England would still have prevailed. Not once in their climb to the top had India’s batsmen encountered a bowling unit so skillful and so persistently relentless.It is futile to go on droning about the ill luck with injury that first removed Zaheer Khan and then Harbhajan Singh. England lost Chris Tremlett after the first Test and Jonathan Trott during the second and for the third and yet grew stronger by the Test. Ian Bell took the No. 3 spot at Edgbaston and made a hundred, and Tim Bresnan has made such an impact that Tremlett will struggle to regain his place in the playing XI. Teams are also judged by their depth; India found themselves hopelessly exposed.It is futile now to look back on those two post-tea sessions in the second Test at Trent Bridge that decisively tilted the series England’s way. Test matches are rarely won by winning only a couple of sessions. The striking difference between the two sides was that India were never able to hold their advantage and England always found the means to retrieve a lost session.Tim Bresnan has starred with both bat and ball in the series•Getty ImagesAny comparison with the great teams of the past would be premature – and England will have to take their winning game to the subcontinent to tick off a crucial box – but they have a few ingredients that suggest their grip on the top ranking will be firmer than India’s: the strongest and most versatile bowling attack in the world currently; a batting line-up that combines solidity at the top with flair at the bottom; a strong number seven and the best tail in the world; and the belief, instilled by performances, that no cause is lost until it is lost. Most crucially, they are a relatively young team with players yet to hit the peak of their careers.India’s hold over the No 1 ranking was always tenuous. Unlike England, their climb to the top was driven not by the system but by the talent and passion of a group of extraordinary cricketers. It was sustained not, as it is usually the case with dominant Test teams, by a group of match-winning bowlers, but by the ability of a once-in-lifetime batting line-up. The wins were achieved by a few memorable bowling performances, but the batsmen ensured that not many Tests were lost.The reason why the air of despondency is so thick around Indian cricket in the aftermath of their Birmingham defeat – their third biggest in history and the biggest since 1974 at Lord’s when they were bowled out for 42 – is that their batting has not, in the past ten years, been so embarrassing over a period of six innings. As they slumped to 56 for 4 in the morning session today, there was a real danger that they would be beaten by Alastair Cook alone. And when the last wicket fell midway through the second session, someone wondered if they should be granted a third innings for the sake of the 8000 spectators who had shown their faith by buying non-refundable tickets for the final day at 15 pounds each.The scary part for the Indian fan is that the golden age of Indian cricket might have already passed. The batting isn’t likely to grow stronger in the immediate future. If anything, it will grow progressively weak as the greats start departing. The Indian cricket administration has done a spectacular job harnessing the passion of the Indian fans to become the richest, and consequently, the most powerful cricket body in the world. But a vision for sporting excellence has rarely been a boardroom agenda. During this Test, Gautam Gambhir and MS Dhoni were asked about the effect of excessive cricket on the mental and physical readiness of the team. Both refused to offer direct answers. Gambhir said it was a question for the BCCI. Dhoni offered no comments, saying that he didn’t want to start a controversy. What they didn’t say said enough.It is no shame to lose to a team that has been decidedly superior. What should hurt Indian cricket is that there hasn’t even been the pretence of a contest. It’s hard to recall a fall from grace so dramatic, so swift and so complete. While it shouldn’t obscure what this team has achieved over the past decade, it’s the next ten years that Indian cricket should worry about. Something could still come out of this if the lessons from the wreckage were absorbed.

Plays of the day for day two of the third Test between New Zealand and India in Wellington

Sidharth Monga in Wellington04-Apr-2009Round the stumps
Zaheer Khan didn’t hit rhythm right away today. It looked New Zealand would get off to a reasonable start, especially from the way Martin Guptill played. In his fourth over, though, Zaheer went round the stumps, and got his first ball from there to bounce into Guptill’s body. Surprised by the sharp bounce and inward movement, Guptill was late in playing the defensive shot, and played the ball on to the stumps.Through the legs
Munaf Patel to Iain O’Brien. The batsman defends the ball back to the bowler, and covers his stumps, and is in the crease. But Munaf still wants a shy at the stumps, so he goes low, and finds a wee little gap O’Brien’s legs to get the ball through. Too bad he still couldn’t find the stumps.Also featuring in the Munaf-O’Brien pleasantries were bouncers, some of which were dished the other way round yesterday. Munaf bounced him one today and looks were exchanged. Wonder what was said then.Bow to the legend
Think twice before believing Jesse Ryder is the most popular player in Wellington. When Chris “Tom” Martin comes to bat, the decibel levels rise like they have never risen before. The first ball Martin faced today was a yorker from Harbhajan down the leg side, and the cheers then, presumably at Martin’s first runs of the series, proved to be too early. But Martin would get off the mark, with a straight loft off Harbhajan, sending the crowd into a frenzy. For someone who has scored just two runs in his 11 previous innings that must have been a particularly satisfying way to get off the mark.Milestone man
This has been a good year for O’Brien for he has established himself in the New Zealand and this Test has been one with milestones for the Wellington lad. He brought up his 50 Test wickets yesterday, and was pretty proud of it. But when he swatted a full delivery off Munaf straight past mid-off, he crossed another milestone, albeit less significant – 100 Test runs, in his 17th Test. Forty-two of those runs have come in this series, and consequently – at 4.9 – his batting average is now more than twice Martin’s – 2.28.

New Zealand have called up Georgia Plimmer and Mikaela Greig as replacements

ESPNcricinfo staff17-Mar-2024 • Updated on 18-Mar-2024Amelia Kerr and Sophie Devine will not be part of New Zealand’s opening T20I against England, which gets underway in Dunedin on March 19.Kerr, fresh off winning the Debbie Hockley Medal at the New Zealand Cricket awards, was part of the Mumbai Indians side that went down to Royal Challengers Bangalore in the WPL eliminator on Friday night. But “travel complications from India mean Kerr won’t return to New Zealand in time to feature in the opening T20I”, NZC said in a statement.Devine, the New Zealand white-ball captain, scored a 27-ball 32 as RCB beat Delhi Capitals in the final to lift the WPL trophy. Devine and Kerr will link up with the New Zealand squad on Wednesday ahead of the second T20I in Nelson on March 22.Related

Amelia Kerr, the special talent who keeps on giving

Ravindra and Kerr win top honours at NZC awards

New Zealand have called up batters Georgia Plimmer and Mikaela Greig* into the squad as replacement. While Plimmer has played 12 ODIs and 21 T20Is for New Zealand, Greig is yet to make her international debut. Both Plimmer and Greig will remain in Dunedin after the first T20I and reassemble with the New Zealand A one-day squad ahead of the first 50-over match against England A on Saturday.With Devine and Kerr unavailable, Suzie Bates will lead New Zealand in the opening T20I.”It’s obviously disappointing not to have Melie [Kerr] or Sophie with us for the series opener,” New Zealand head coach Ben Sawyer said. “We’ve known that this could be the case for some time now, so we’ve made plans for all scenarios and the positive is that it gives other players an opportunity to test themselves against a strong England side.”Sawyer also threw his weight behind Plimmer and Greig. “Georgia has been a regular part of our group for some time now and she’ll be involved in the ODIs – so we have full confidence she can come in and contribute in the opening T20I,” he said.”Mikaela has been impressive for the Central Hinds all summer and deserves an opportunity to join the group for the first time. She’s shown this season that she possesses power and hitting ability which are important qualities in T20 cricket and we believe she has the ability to contribute if selected in the XI tomorrow.”England also have four players unavailable for the first three (of five) T20Is because of their WPL commitments. Alice Capsey (Delhi Capitals), Sophie Ecclestone (UP Warriorz), Nat Sciver-Brunt (Mumbai Indians) and Danni Wyatt (Warriorz) will only link up with the squad ahead of the fourth T20I. Kate Cross (RCB) has been named only for the ODI series while Issy Wong (Mumbai Indians) did not find a place in either squad.Lauren Bell (Warriorz) and Heather Knight (RCB) had earlier pulled out of their WPL deals to make themselves available for the entire New Zealand white-ball series since the ECB had told the players involved in the WPL that staying in India until the tournament is complete would mean non-selection for the first three T20Is in New Zealand.New Zealand squad for first T20I vs EnglandSuzie Bates (capt), Bernadine Bezuidenhout (wk), Izzy Gaze (wk), Eden Carson, Maddy Green, Mikaela Greig, Brooke Halliday, Fran Jonas, Jess Kerr, Rosemary Mair, Georgia Plimmer, Hannah Rowe, Lea Tahuhu

Jules Kounde hopes the "best man wins" the Ballon d'Or when asked to pick between France team-mate Ousmane Dembele and Barcelona co-star Lamine Yamal.

Kounde asked to vote his favourite for Ballon d'OrBelieves both Yamal and Dembele deserve to win the awardDefender avoided picking an outright winnerFollow GOAL on WhatsApp! 🟢📱WHAT HAPPENED?

Barcelona and France defender Kounde was diplomatic when asked to pick his favourite for the 2025 Ballon d'Or between Yamal and Dembele. Being team-mates with the former at Barcelona and the latter for France, Kounde made a big U-turn on his comments from August. Having selected the teen sensation as his favourite for the prestigious award earlier, the full-back now shied away from choosing an outright winner. 

AdvertisementGetty Images SportTHE BIGGER PICTURE

Yamal had a near-historic campaign with Barcelona, guiding the Catalans to La Liga, Copa del Rey and Supercopa de Espana triumphs to capture a domestic treble. He was also fascinating to watch in the Champions League as Hansi Flick's men reached the semi-final. In 55 games across competitions, the teenager scored 18 goals and delivered 21 assists. 

On the other hand, Dembele dazzled in a new false nine role under Luis Enrique at Paris Saint-Germain, with Les Parisiens winning a historic quadruple, including their maiden Champions League title. The former Barca and Borussia Dortmund star scored 33 goals and registered 13 assists in 49 games.

WHAT JULES KOUNDE SAID

Back in August, Kounde conceded that Yamal is the most deserving candidate to win this year's Ballon d'Or. However, in a press conference on Wednesday, the Frenchman backtracked on his words. He said: "I've already answered, I'll do it again. Both deserve it. They had an extraordinary season, with trophies to boot. Being teammates with both, it's difficult. I'm not the one voting, and there are arguments for both. I'm very happy to be with Lamine, to see how he's carrying us. Ousmane has reached a kind of fullness, he's playing his best football, with the statistics. May the best man win."

As a key part of Barcelona's successful side, Kounde may have expected a nomination for the award this time around, but was not on the list of candidates. Asked for his thoughts, he said: "It's always gratifying. I would have enjoyed being there, I think I could have been there given my season. I'm not there, it's a source of motivation."

ENJOYED THIS STORY?

Add GOAL.com as a preferred source on Google to see more of our reporting

AFPWHAT NEXT FOR JULES KOUNDE?

The 26-year-old will next be seen on Friday, when France take on Ukraine in a World Cup qualifying game, followed by an encounter against Iceland on September 10. Kounde recently committed his future to Barcelona by signing a new contract, which will see him remain at the club until 2030.

MatériaMais Notícias

O técnico Luís Castro está novamente com as atenções voltadas para o Botafogo. Na noite de sábado (7), o comandante pegou o voo de retorno para o Rio de Janeiro. Na segunda-feira (9), o time principal do Alvinegro inicia sua pré-temporada.

+ MERCADO DA BOLA: veja as movimentações do seu time de coração

Em entrevista ao jornal “A Bola”, Castro reconheceu que, neste ano, tem perspectivas ainda maiores para o Glorioso.

RelacionadasBotafogoEm jogo-treino, equipe B do Botafogo vence ResendeBotafogo07/01/2023BotafogoBotafogo deixa em aberto situação de três atletas inscritos na Copinha que estão do time sub-23Botafogo07/01/2023BotafogoBotafogo negocia patrocínio para as costas de sua camisa, diz jornalistaBotafogo07/01/2023

-O Brasileirão é um campeonato muito competitivo e agora, ainda por cima, subiram Cruzeiro, Vasco da Gama, Grémio e Bahia, clubes de grande dimensão. Quero fazer um campeonato mais estável, o que é quase impossível, pois há enorme alternância de resultados. Queremos fazer o melhor possível e o melhor seria, por exemplo, entrar numa Taça Libertadores… – disse.

O técnico afirmou que o Botafogo tem sua situação financeira normalizada e opinou sobre a chegada de técnicos portgueses no futebol nacional.

-É verdade que os treinadores portugueses são hoje apetecíveis. Os bons resultados têm sucedido, a metodologia aplicada é interessante e apreciada em todo o mundo – afirmou.

Depois do cancelamento da pré-temporada nos Estados Unidos, os botafoguenses se preparão no Rio de Janeiro.

Bayern Munich star Harry Kane has been told he made a "massive mistake" with a Tottenham contract that scuppered a Manchester City move.

Kane is a Tottenham legendTold he made a contract errorNow starring at Bayern MunichFollow GOAL on WhatsApp! 🟢📱WHAT HAPPENED?

Arsenal legend Ian Wright believes it was "crazy" for England captain Kane to sign a six-year deal with Tottenham back in 2018, a decision that arguably put pay to a 2021 switch to Manchester City. Pep Guardiola's side bid £100 million ($132.7m) for the striker but Spurs wanted more before he joined Bayern two years later.

AdvertisementGetty Images SportWHAT WRIGHT SAID

He said on the SDS YouTube channel: "You think about that deal for Harry Kane, is he going to go to Man City? I was excited for him. I was thinking it was going to happen, but he signed a new contract before the 2018 World Cup, and for me, that was a massive mistake, that was crazy."

THE BIGGER PICTURE

If Kane had moved to City, it is unlikely they would have signed the prolific Erling Haaland in 2022. The England star missed out on the chance to win his first-ever major trophy earlier, something he finally achieved with Bayern's Bundesliga title success earlier this year. We may never know whether Kane regrets signing that Spurs contract all those years ago but he has still had a career to be proud of. 

ENJOYED THIS STORY?

Add GOAL.com as a preferred source on Google to see more of our reporting

Getty Images SportWHAT NEXT?

Before Kane's Bayern begin their Bundesliga title defence later this month, the 32-year-old could feature for the German giants in their pre-season friendlies against Lyon, Tottenham and Grasshoppers on August 2, 7 and 12 respectively.