England are amused by the reaction to Robinson’s comments but they will want a big performance at Lord’s

Vithushan Ehantharajah26-Jun-2023Ollie Robinson only took up bowling pace at the age of 16. Despite being a promising offspinner, taking a hat-trick aged five for Thanet Districts Under-10s, it didn’t scratch his competitive itch. Fingerspin lacked the aggression he craved. As he explained a couple of years ago, “You can’t bowl bouncers, can you?”On an England Lions tour of Australia in 2019-20, as the squad made their way to the team bus following a training session at Hobart, they passed Australia’s Test captain Tim Paine having a net. Most walked by without acknowledgement, but Robinson decided to have a few words, and none of them were particularly complimentary.During the Test series away to India at the start of 2021, Robinson – a few months out from his debut in the home summer – had a handful of stints as the designated 12th man. On one occasion, having run drinks out to England’s batters, he decided to engage Virat Kohli, who had not been short of chat himself. It is an unwise move to butt heads with Kohli at the best of times, but doing so in a bib when you’re not even playing feels particularly foolish. Robinson thought otherwise.Related

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As you can tell, Ollie Robinson has always wanted the smoke. Whether switching up his bowling or going out of his way to seek it with various heads of state before he had even reached their level, something about the gnarl between bowler and batter calls to him. Drives him. Guides him. And if you did not know that before, you certainly do now.Since the culmination of the first Ashes Test, former Australia cricketers have been lining up – more or less in batting order – to take swings at Robinson. Michael Clarke is the latest, urging the seamer to “shoosh” and suggesting he’d be playing club cricket if England did not have so many injuries among their quicks. It was a variation of Matthew Hayden’s comments a few days earlier, which he concluded by labelling Robinson “a forgettable cricketer”, after his old opening partner Justin Langer used his column in the to warn the 29-year-old he was in danger of being “ripped apart” if he continued his antagonistic ways.Robinson is Australia’s new public enemy number one. A tag he has assumed in typically Bazball fashion – going harder with every new media engagement.”Maybe he sees it as a compliment,” joked England vice-captain Ollie Pope at Lord’s on Monday. “He gets in the battle and sometimes, in a big series like this, emotions take over while you are on the pitch. But he’s a top guy.”It’s worth a quick refresher on how we got to this point. To work backwards – the Wisden column on Australia’s unwillingness to go toe-to-toe with England (despite winning the match); the mid-match press conference calling out Ricky Ponting’s on-field behaviour as a player; the sweary send-off to Usman Khawaja, which led to those questions about Robinson’s conduct, dismissed as nothing more than Ashes fervor by the man himself.

“Australia’s focus remains narrow, while Robinson’s cross-platform content continues a theme from the lead-up to this series: England have done most of the talking”

We could go back even further. Back in March, he set the content machine in motion when stating he wanted to give Australia “a good hiding”. The beauty of that soundbite was the setting: at half-time of Brighton against Crystal Palace at the Amex Stadium. Robinson was in attendance in a social capacity and bumped into sports reporter Adrian Harms, who also covers Sussex (Robinson’s county). Asked for a quick chat with BBC Radio Sussex about the summer ahead, Robinson was happy to oblige more out of courtesy than contractual obligation before firing the first shot.Behind closed doors, England are broadly amused by the scale of reaction towards Robinson. His belligerence has long been regarded as a strength – by no means a unique trait in professional sport. And there is admiration by how unfazed he seems that some of the game’s modern greats are gunning for him.Those who played against him in the County Championship have first-hand experience of his confrontational nature with ball in hand. Earlier this season, he told one Division Two batter exactly what was going to happen in his first spell of the match: “I’m going to get you out, and you’re going to put the picture on your Instagram feed.” He was right – about the first part, at least.There’s also the time in the Covid-19 bubble at the Ageas Bowl in the 2020 summer when, during a game of darts, Robinson made a comment to James Anderson that sent those within earshot into silence. That was broken by laughter from Anderson. Moments later, Phil Scott, England’s strength and conditioning coach, told Robinson: “I think he likes you. He likes the fact you took the piss out of him.””Which of us is public enemy No.1 in Australia now?” Ollie Robinson and Stuart Broad walk to the nets at Lord’s•Getty ImagesWhat similarity there is with the various perceived missteps this last week only go so far. Anderson took the comment with good grace because, even then, he knew Robinson was a highly skilled seamer with enough about him to succeed at Test level. And while Hayden’s mention of Robinson’s “nude nuts” has added to the game’s lexicon – essentially, deliveries with nothing on them – it is not really accurate. His 71 Test dismissals have come at an average of 21.15 across 17 caps, nine of which have come away from home. And though the 2021-22 tour of Australia ended with Robinson publicly admonished for a lack of fitness – and that notorious spell of offspin in Adelaide with sunnies on – he still finished with 11 wickets at 25.54.It’s worth noting Australia’s current pros are not all that bothered. When you’re 1-0 up, you can afford to let these kinds of things slide. Indeed Mitchell Starc was the closest we have got to a retort when asked in his press conference if Robinson had set off the starter pistol for a mouthier Ashes than anticipated. “Is that how I play my cricket?” Starc responded. “Probably not. He can talk all he likes.”Australia’s focus remains narrow, and you could argue Robinson’s cross-platform content, supplemented by – but not limited to – Zak Crawley’s prediction of a 150-run win in the second Test this week, continues a theme from the lead-up to this series. England have done most of the talking.That the second act in an already gripping production is to take place at Lord’s adds a little more on Robinson. Two years ago, he debuted against New Zealand – a day which started with pride and ended with addressing offensive social media posts made between 2012 and 2013. He understands those tweets, and the conclusions they elicit of him as a person, will never really go away. His indulgence in this phoney Ashes war has seen that resurface.Maybe that’s why he has no qualms about speaking his mind when staying quiet may be a bit easier. Returning from such a low ebb to become a de facto leader of this attack – despite Clarke’s intimation – has no doubt thickened his skin and strengthened his resolve.Given the nature of a game as humbling as this, the question to ask is whether Robinson’s mouth is writing cheques he can’t cash. He seemingly does not think so. But there is no doubt he is stepping into this week with the most significant target he has happily donned on his back. In his most high-profile series to date, England need their biggest performance from him if they are to overturn a 1-0 scoreline.The smoke is only getting denser. We are about to find out just how much Robinson wants it.

Oppenheimer or Barbie? Let England’s Old Trafford heroes help you decide

Vithushan Ehantharajah21-Jul-2023Months of build-up had whetted the appetite. After all the talk, all the noise and, crucially, all the hypotheticals, Friday morning brought with it a flash alert in the top right corner of our minds like an overdue Zoom call. It was time to make a decision.There was much to consider. How would you meld free-wheeling fun and cascading disaster-dom? What is the right balance to strike with sparkling entertainment and rallying against what could be the end of what we have in front of us? The pressure was in itself the reward; to know you engaged in a generational cultural event. Yet the inherent risk was the incorrect decision would only reveal itself once it had all played out. By stumps on day three, England were more than satisfied with theirs.It began with Nolan-scale bombs from Jonny Bairstow followed by a happy-go-lucky protagonist in Mark Wood digging deep for raw truths Australia’s top order could not handle. And as England rest on Friday evening still leading by 162 with six second innings wickets to take, they can be satisfied they made all the right calls. Even if the rain does scupper their hopes of keeping the Ashes alive for a decider at the Kia Oval, they have nailed every day of this fourth Test.Related

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Bairstow’s destruction was a manifestation of his own gloom, at a time when things could not have been better for the team. He arrived at the crease following the dismissal of Ben Stokes at the start of the 84th over, by which point England were 437 for 5 with a first-innings lead of 120.There was a moment when continuation of the innings felt impractical. Particularly when Bairstow, up against a new-ball-wielding Mitchell Starc, struggled. His first two boundaries were inside edges narrowly missing his stumps. England were going great – was this really the time to sour it with another Jonny failure?His baggage coming into Manchester was sizeable. An average of 23.50 into Manchester weighed on him like an anchor, a figure helped by a 78 in the first innings at Edgbaston which made up more than half of his runs for the series. Each of the seven missed catches and botched stumping were arrows still lodged in his back. The Lord’s stumping by Alex Carey was unrequited misery on the stumped and superfluous fervour for an Ashes series.For the most part, Bairstow has kept his counsel, but he eventually reached a point of wanting to put his side across. Perhaps articulate the left leg he said wouldn’t be a problem 10 months after a catastrophic break was so much more of one than people knew. Even though he himself dismissed the idea it would be a few months ago.That was to be expected of course given Bairstow’s staunch resolve. If he did not want it to be a problem, it was not going to be a problem. And as much as many wanted to believe him, particularly making Bazball what it was with four hundreds amid 681 runs last summer, it was time to be real. That maybe that Jonny was gone. That maybe the end of who we knew and what we knew was upon us. Until he set about this hellacious retaliation.

The glare up at the media centre as Bairstow walked off on 99 not out said all you needed to know about how he has regarded the coverage over his series so far

The first shot out of the screws was a crunch through point of Josh Hazlewood, with the second right after, this time drilled straight down the ground. A two off the third delivery in that sequence took England up to 501. The first six – Starc pumped off his hip over deep backward square leg – spoke of a return to 2022 vintage. It also brought up his half-century.The 24 deliveries from 55 to 98 were an IMAX-level attack on the senses. Each boundary was a deafening reverberation, a crescendo of dread from an Australian perspective, as if scored by Hans Zimmer himself.The transformation of Bairstow in front of us was remarkable. A man who had previous looked so out of sync with the cricket being played around him was now controlling it. When partnered with James Anderson as the final stand, he found singles where there shouldn’t have been to get the No. 11 off strike. One was taken to silly point, three to Carey, who is now one-and-four for underarm direct-hits while standing back in this series. Even the batter-keeper or keeper-batter debate was changing in front of our eyes. Yeah, Ben Foakes is great. But can he do this?The glare up at the media centre as Bairstow walked off on 99 not out said all you needed to know about how he has regarded the coverage over his series so far. And in many ways, it was a shame – or perhaps a relief – he did not get to three figures. There’s every chance he might have torched the joint in celebration.After a break far too brief to consider the previous hours, England were back out there with a 275 lead. Quite apart from anything, even turning thoughts away from the storms on the horizon, you could argue the greatest trick Stokes has pulled as captain is convincing his team the grind is fun, whether that’s fielding for long periods or bowling yourself into the ground.Jonny Bairstow launches another six over deep square leg•Getty ImagesPerhaps the best example of both those traits is Wood. Too off-the-wall to be a competitor. Too nice to bowl earth-shatteringly quick. Too brittle to be as enthusiastic with his movements. And too good for Australia in his two Tests so far. All through a commitment to pushing himself to the brink.The return at Headingley was greater in pace and wickets than any could have expected. And with constant fears over his ability to go back-to-back, even with the week between the third and fourth Test, the turnaround of just over a day between first and second innings was something to consider.But as Wood prised out Usman Khawaja with extra bounce, jumped wider to create an angle on a short ball to Steven Smith which was gloved behind, and then almost took Travis Head’s face off to get him caught at fly gully, all those assumptions were skewered. All those unsure whether to consider Wood a robust Test bowler either converted or left to look foolish as the conversation moves on.He now has 101 Test dismissals, with an overnight average of 29.30 that could get lower by the end of this match. It could also get higher, but we saw why the 33-year-old has been a key reason this series has been tilted on its head. That he has removed Smith twice in this match will be a memorable haul in itself for a person who has doubted his worth as an international cricketer, even with medals in his collection to remind him otherwise.The game remains there to be won. The battle with the elements now the biggest on the horizon, at least as far as day four is concerned. But as far as Friday was concerned, things played out as well as could be expected.Bairstow’s destruction and Wood’s effervescence gave all within English cricket the perfect experience of the hosts’ most perfect day of the series. And in the right order, too. It has to be before .

“Over here on good wickets, you have to have a couple of balls up your sleeve that you can go to under pressure”

Deivarayan Muthu14-Oct-2023October 5, 2023, Ahmedabad. Trent Boult vs Liam Livingstone.It’s no secret that Livingstone is particularly strong at pumping the ball over the leg side. The old ball isn’t swinging or reversing for Boult. He denies Livingstone access to the leg-side boundary by darting four balls wide of off stump. He then dangles the bait by angling a ball into the stumps and has him chipping a catch to long-on. This isn’t any ordinary ball. This is a knuckle ball.Just over a week later, against Bangladesh at Chepauk, Boult rolls out another knuckle ball without any discernible change in his arm speed, and has Towhid Hridoy scooping a catch to short extra-cover.Related

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Boult has always been an outstanding operator with the new ball. How outstanding? Since his ODI debut in 2012 in Basseterre, nobody has taken more wickets in the first ten overs of an innings than Boult, who has 88 wickets in 106 innings at an economy rate of 4.16. The ODI landscape has changed since, and Boult is adapting to it by adding some new tricks to his repertoire.He revealed that he has been working on perfecting the knuckle ball for about two-and-a-half years. The variation had also served him well during his title-winning stint with MI New York in the inaugural MLC competition.”Yeah, practice. The old cliché,” Boult said after New Zealand beat Bangladesh in Chennai on Friday. “Yeah, I touched on [it] with Athers (Michael Atherton) at the half-time break that I’ve been lucky enough to play with some decent bowlers over the years, and sharing secrets and asking questions is always the way forward. But yeah, I think over here on good wickets, you have to have a couple of balls up your sleeve that you can go to under pressure, and touchwood, it’s coming out all right; I enjoy bowling it.”The latest knuckle ball brought Boult his 200th ODI wicket in his 107th match in the format. He is the third fastest to the landmark after Australia’s Mitchell Starc (102 matches) and Pakistan’s Saqlain Mushtaq (104).”Yeah, I’m very proud of it,” Boult said. “It’s come with a bit of hard work and, you know, I’ve always enjoyed-one day cricket, and there’s been days where it’s been a lot more successful than others, but very good feeling to tick off 200. It is pretty exciting.”

“It has happened pretty quickly… challenge will be moving around the country with the different wickets and conditions that we face”Trent Boult on New Zealand’s three wins in three games so far

Boult had initially struggled to make the age-group representative teams – he wasn’t even in the Bay of Plenty Under-17 team – the level below Northern Districts, but he kept levelling up. Like, at 18, he made it to New Zealand’s Under-19 World Cup team that also featured Kane Williamson and Tim Southee. Even before he had played senior provincial cricket for Northern Districts, Boult made his first-class debut for New Zealand A against India A in Chennai in 2008. Fifteen years on at the same venue, Boult showed that he continues to evolve as a bowler.Boult also backed the current New Zealand team to adapt to the different conditions that will be thrown at them at this World Cup in India.”Yeah, it [three wins in three games] has all happened pretty quickly obviously,” Boult said. “It’s been a busy schedule, but I think I said earlier in an interview in this tournament that the challenge will be moving around the country with the different wickets and conditions that we face.”But the guys have been clinical so far and delivered the plans that we’ve spoken about with the ball, and yeah, the batting is going nicely as well. So [we] understand there’s a lot of cricket still to come, but it’s a good position to be in three from three.”Boult – and New Zealand – have a well-earned day off on Saturday before they resume training at Chepauk for their game against Afghanistan at the same venue on October 18.

In the highest-scoring match in ODI World Cup history, Glenn Phillips returned incredible figures of 3 for 37

Sidharth Monga28-Oct-2023Matches in a World Cup come so thick and fast that there is hardly any buzz at a venue two days before the game. Two days before this fixture, Australia were only arriving in Dharamsala and then racing to the Bhagsu Nag waterfall for a quick dip. New Zealand had been around for nearly a week so they began training.Glenn Phillips, who had done the Triund trek with his wife Kate, was the first to break away from fielding practice. He picked up a ball, pitched two stumps on a side pitch in the main ground, got one of the support staff to wear a mitt and keep wicket, and bowled for an hour. No break or batter. Just bowl, bowl, bowl. On a good length, wicket to wicket, always. Towards the end, Tom Latham joined him with wicketkeeping gloves on.It’s a common sight at almost every New Zealand training session. A wicketkeeper batter who doesn’t keep much after a back injury, Phillips is obsessed about becoming an allrounder. It is a bit of a strange choice in this era because the field restrictions make life difficult for part-time bowlers, and cricketers have become much more professional: with the amount of cricket increasing, batters tend to look after their bodies and not bowl in the nets to reduce risk of injury.Related

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Phillips has gone to the other extreme. He even changed his domestic team to Otago, where he gets to bowl more. Over in England, he bowled a lot while playing for Gloucestershire. He is so into bowling he is half serious when he gets upset that TV graphics don’t classify him as an allrounder.Phillips has always been like that. If he gets into something, he gets into it properly. He tries to understand it, and then work the hardest he can to get it right. Be it walking in the hills, which also partly explains his move to Otago, archery or bowling. Always used to contributing in more ways than one, Phillips needed to add bowling to his skill set once wicketkeeping became difficult.And what a good job Phillips has done with the ball in this World Cup in an unforgiving era for part-time bowlers. He has six wickets at an average of 17.16 and economy rate of 4.68. In Dharamsala, though, he went from being a serviceable part-time bowler to a rescuer, registering figures of 10-0-37-3 in the highest-scoring World Cup match of all time, in which runs were scored at 7.71 an over across 100 overs.Just for a measure of how incredible this performance was, ESPNcricinfo registers Phillips’ impact as only slightly behind the bloke who scored 109 off just 67 balls to set Australia up for 388.Glenn Phillips doesn’t do half measures•AFP/Getty ImagesAustralia were 144 for 0 in 13 overs when Phillips started bowling. While he finished his 10 overs on the trot, again a tribute to bowling fitness built through hours in the nets, the other end conceded 59 runs for no wicket in nine overs.What Phillips did was what he practised: try to turn the ball hard but more importantly keep it within the stumps. He got the rampaging David Warner and Travis Head with offbreaks that didn’t turn, cramping the left-hand batters for room.None of his team-mates will be surprised at Phillips’ success with the ball. “If you came and watched some of our training you’d see that he bowls a lot of overs,” Daryl Mitchell said. “That’s what GP does. He’s a threat across all three aspects of the game, with bat, ball and in the field, and we’re very lucky to have him.”Phillips comes across as an intense person. He probably trains the hardest, running fast after every ball, and he was the first to dive on this sub-par Dharamsala outfield in this match, and kept doing it repeatedly. By all accounts, though, he is a fun person to be around, and knows the line between dedication and obsession.If only the broadcast graphics changed his job description to an allrounder, Phillips might be even more fun to be around.

One team used the reverse-sweep to maximum effect, while the other tried to play their normal game in an abnormal Test match

Alagappan Muthu28-Jan-20242:26

Manjrekar: Indian batters found wanting temperamentally in Hyderabad

In the 15th over of the second of two rip-roaring defences happening about 10,000 kms apart, Rohit Sharma played a reverse sweep.He played it about as well as you’d expect a man who has played it only seven times before in his entire Test career. Bazball has done a lot of hard-to-believe things since it started. Add making Rohit look off-putting to the list.India’s captain had to go to such extreme measures because the previous ball he was beaten pushing forward to defend. And he was beaten again, pushing forward to defend, the ball after that reverse sweep.Pushing forward to defend is the ball that the spinner had to bowl in Hyderabad.Pushing forward to defend is the ball India couldn’t bowl in Hyderabad.Related

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At every available opportunity – and even sometimes when it didn’t quite present itself – England went for those sweeps and reverse sweeps and they nailed ’em. It eventually got to the point where they were setting records.Since 2014, only once has a team made more runs with those shots in India, and that was England in Chennai 2021 when Joe Root, who loves to take that broom out too, made a double-century.Ninety-two runs in 56 balls, including 18 of the 42 boundaries, would be handsome returns on their own. But they had another more profound effect. All of a sudden India’s great strength – the axis of R Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja – was prevented from doing what they’ve done for years and years: land six balls on roughly the same spot, pulling and pushing the batter around the crease, picking away at their technique and making them question all of the life choices that had led them up to this moment.Having to protect unusual areas in the field, Rohit hedged his bets. He had sweepers out on both sides of the ground, sometimes as many as five, which meant India couldn’t really build up to a dismissal. An England team that was seven down still scored 72 runs in an hour of play, with 27 singles, four twos and three threes this morning. Rohit had good reason to spread the field out – India were already behind in the game and they were batting last so he couldn’t risk giving away easy runs. Also, by this point, the pitch had become really slow. Like rainbow wheel of death slow. There was enough time for batters to adjust to the turn after the ball bounced.India had been forced into a corner. “It happens,” their bowling coach Paras Mhambrey said on Saturday.Maybe. Yeah. But at home? Never before had a lead of 190 resulted in defeat.KS Bharat is knocked over by Tom Hartley•BCCIEngland here was the first time in 11 years that a visiting side had made more than 400 in their second innings. And they came at breakneck pace. 4.11 an over. Only 9.9% of the spinners’ overs were maidens, the lowest figure for India since Jadeja and Ashwin started playing Test cricket together.This doesn’t happen. This was a dream. An unreal fever dream.Rohit pushes forward to defend again. Only this time the balls stays the course. It doesn’t leap past the outside edge like a show pony. It slithers in, past his inside edge and onto his front pad. He’s out lbw. According to ESPNcricinfo’s ball-by-ball data, at tea on the fourth day, India had made nine runs from 56 good-length balls for the loss of two wickets. England had made almost half their total – 198 – off of these deliveries.They had their luck, of course. Ollie Pope was not in control of a third of the sweep shots that he played, including one that would’ve dismissed him had it not been for a fielding lapse. But he never stopped trying. That is why Mhambrey said he was brave. You take a significant risk playing like that – looking stupid if it doesn’t come off – but what it also did – if you practice it as hard as England do, if you commit to it as well as England did – is throw off arguably the most disciplined bowling attack in Test cricket.Pope made a century with just his sweeps. The story behind that, in his words: “They’re very skilled bowlers, the guys that we were facing and you can pretty much know where each ball is going to land and if you’re trying to defend each ball there’s probably more of a chance you’re going to get out rather than if you’re going cross-batted shots. And I feel like we’ve practiced those shots enough that if you get out for none playing the reverse sweep, you’re not going to get a lot of chat in the change room about that.”So I think you can go and just commit to it. I don’t think I nailed one for my first 20 odd runs and I was like why isn’t it hitting the middle of the bat. But out here it could be as safe as a defence playing reverse sweep or a sweep and I think if we keep sort of nailing that we get more bad balls as batters if we can hit their best ball for four with the reverse sweep then that can lead to more short balls and more half-volleys and that opens up the whole field.”Ollie Pope used the reverse-sweep to maximum effect•BCCIIndia, on the other hand, preferred to ride the risk that the good length ball presented. They were happy use the full face of the bat, even when they weren’t to the pitch of the delivery, in conditions that offered uneven turn and bounce. This exposed both their inside and outside edges – in Shubman Gill’s case even the middle of his blade didn’t help – as Tom Hartley, Joe Root and Jack Leach held their disciplines superbly. They were allowed to. India attempted only 18 sweeps or reverse sweeps.Perhaps England could be that bit more cavalier because they had little to lose. They were trailing by 190 runs when they launched the attack that secured them a victory that will rank alongside Mumbai and Kolkata 2012. To be that far off the pace and still make that many moves without conceding even in the slightest bit to doubt. It’s remarkable.Did India concede to doubt? Maybe. Maybe not. What they did though is to try and play normally in this abnormal Test match which has had 25,000 people visit the ground on each day, which has seen over 1000 runs scored at rapid pace even though the pitch was a selectively-watered turner, which in the end only turned because for the sixth time in history a batter overhauled his team’s deficit all on his own and which had a spin attack comprising a guy on one leg, another who describes himself as “right-arm optimistic” and two with a combined one Test’s experience outbowl Ashwin and Jadeja.One method doesn’t necessarily trump the other. In fact there’s a strong argument to be made for both teams just sticking to the ways that’s brought them immense success. It’s just that one of them made history and the other could only come close.

Despite some high-profile absentees, there are 13 contracted England players across seven franchises this season

Matt Roller19-Mar-2024The 17th IPL season gets underway in Chennai on Friday and runs until the end of May, with strong English representation. Despite various high-profile absentees, there are 13 England players under contract across seven different franchises, with plenty at stake in the build-up to the T20 World Cup in June.

Missing stars

England’s all-format players spent four months in India during the off-season across the World Cup and their Test tour, and many have opted to skip the IPL as a result in favour of some time at home. The result is that the cast of Englishmen at IPL 2024 is slightly weaker than in most recent seasons, though there are still more than a dozen players involved.Ben Stokes and Joe Root both made themselves unavailable before the auction, while the ECB blocked Jofra Archer from entering as he continues his rehabilitation from injury. Gus Atkinson, Jason Roy (both KKR), Harry Brook (DC) and Mark Wood (LSG) have all pulled out of their deals in the past six weeks for personal reasons or to manage their workloads.

All eyes on Punjab Kings

Jonny Bairstow is the only England player set for a third stint in India since October, having also featured in the World Cup and in last month’s Test series. He was retained by Punjab Kings despite missing the last edition through injury and has only played a dozen T20 games since the end of IPL 2022, but has an excellent track record in the IPL across three previous seasons.He is joined by three international team-mates at Punjab in Liam Livingstone, Chris Woakes and Sam Curran, who was retained on his record INR 18.5 crore (£1.8m) salary despite struggling for form over the past 12 months. Trevor Bayliss, England’s World Cup-winning 2019 coach, is in charge, adding to the sense that English viewers will follow Punjab’s fortunes more closely than any other franchise.Livingstone’s T20 form has fallen off a cliff since IPL 2023, averaging 20.76 with a strike rate of 129.30 across his last 40 matches in the format. He is still highly likely to make England’s World Cup squad, but could do with a strong tournament to rediscover his rhythm and confidence ahead of their title defence in the Caribbean.

Buttler’s back

Jos Buttler was the MVP at IPL 2022 but had a quieter season in 2023 as Rajasthan Royals failed to qualify for the knockout stages, with more ducks (five) than half-centuries (four). He cut a tortured figure at the 50-over World Cup in India, unable to turn England’s fortunes around as they crashed out in the group stages and averaging 15.33 with the bat, but has said recently that he feels “refreshed” after a rare six-week break.”I’m feeling good, feeling refreshed,” Buttler told talkSPORT last week. “[Going to] South Africa at the start of the year was brilliant for me: I really enjoyed the tournament [the SA20]… a change of environment with some different people and to get out of the England bubble for a little bit is good sometimes, and had a bit of quiet time now before a busy period with the IPL and the World Cup.”Buttler’s leadership – both with the bat and in the field – was vital to England’s T20 World Cup triumph in Australia in late 2022, and their coach Matthew Mott will hope that a strong season with the Royals will give Buttler the ideal preparation for their title defence in the Caribbean.Jos Buttler had a forgettable IPL 2023 with five ducks, but will be hoping to turn his form around before the World Cup•BCCI

World Cup tune-ups

Several members of England’s likely World Cup squad will find themselves running the drinks at some stage in the tournament, with the number of overseas players allowed to feature for each team still capped at four per match. Will Jacks and Reece Topley are both likely to spend much of the season on the RCB bench, while Moeen Ali and Phil Salt are not guaranteed starters.But even if they do not end up playing much, the chance to focus on T20 cricket for an extended period of time should prove beneficial: for England players who are not involved in the IPL, the only competitive cricket on offer to help prepare for the World Cup comes in the early rounds of the County Championship season.England have only played five T20Is – all in the Caribbean in December – in the last six months and do not have any fixtures scheduled until a four-match series against Pakistan from May 22. While the outline of their squad looks relatively clear, a fringe player like Luke Wood, Tom Kohler-Cadmore or Tom Curran could yet make a late bid for inclusion based on IPL form.

Backroom influx

There has been a steady increase in the number of Englishmen involved in franchises’ backroom staff across the last few seasons, with Vikram Solanki notably guiding Gujarat Titans to consecutive finals – and the 2022 title – in his role as their director of cricket.Mo Bobat left the ECB last month to become the new director of cricket at Royal Challengers Bangalore, where he will work with the former England coach Andy Flower as well as James Bell (psychologist), James Pipe (physio) and Freddie Wilde (analyst). Carl Crowe is also back at Kolkata Knight Riders as a spin-bowling coach, after leaving Lancashire.

All the England players at IPL 2024Moeen Ali (CSK), Phil Salt (KKR), David Willey (LSG), Luke Wood (MI), Jonny Bairstow, Sam Curran, Liam Livingstone, Chris Woakes (all PBKS), Jos Buttler, Tom Kohler-Cadmore (both RR), Tom Curran, Will Jacks, Reece Topley (all RCB)

SRH’s opening duo of Travis Head and Abhishek Sharma had been dynamic, but they were stopped in their tracks with the title on the line

Karthik Krishnaswamy27-May-20241:21

What changed for Starc towards the end of the season?

They’re called Travishek because it’s the easiest way to combine their names, but it also makes sense because Travis Head takes first strike for Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) and Abhishek Sharma starts at the non-striker’s end. Almost as a rule.Before the final of IPL 2024, there had only been three exceptions to this. Abhishek had taken first strike twice against Royal Challengers Bengaluru, and once against Lucknow Super Giants. On all three occasions, an offspinner had bowled the first over.On Sunday, against Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR), Abhishek took first strike for the fourth time this season. This time he wasn’t facing an offspinner.He was, instead, up against Mitchell Starc.You could understand why Head might have felt less than enthusiastic about the prospect of facing Starc with a new ball. Just watch this. And that’s a video from six years ago. There was also this, of course, from last Tuesday in Ahmedabad:

Mitch Starc, tomaye mene gelam!pic.twitter.com/Etq4is5Cgw

— KolkataKnightRiders (@KKRiders) May 21, 2024

Over all the years they have come up against each other, Starc has rattled Head’s stumps with full, fast balls bending past the outside edge, and rattled them with balls threatening to shape away before nipping back past the inside edge.For most of IPL 2024, Starc had looked like a bowler not quite in full control of the complicated mechanics of his run-up and delivery. The ball wasn’t coming out of his hand in quite the way he would have liked it to and was landing in the slot, meeting the middle of bats rather than swerving and ducking past their edges. By Tuesday, however, he seemed to have found that elusive thing they call rhythm. Right in time for a meeting with his old sparring buddy, Head.It fell to Abhishek, then, to negotiate Starc and the brand-new white ball.Related

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Abhishek could have been out three times in Starc’s first four balls. There was a swing and miss off the first ball, and a poke and miss off the second, both regulation balls from a left-arm swing bowler that left the left-hand batter outside off stump. Then, Abhishek opened his bat face, steered the fourth ball to the left of deep third, and took a chance on a tight second run. A better throw may well have beaten his dive.Looking back at how Sunday night unfolded, might SRH have to have lost Abhishek to any of those three balls, in any of those routine ways, rather than the way they actually did? Like, I mean, here’s how it happened:

Ball of the season?pic.twitter.com/fnl7oWkhQb

— KolkataKnightRiders (@KKRiders) May 26, 2024

Yes, KKR social-media admin person. That was, in all likelihood, the ball of the season. It was angled into the left-handed Abhishek, and it pitched around middle stump. It would likely have missed leg stump if it had continued along its initial trajectory, but it began to shape against the angle just before it pitched, with devastating consequences.It clocked 139kph, and that doesn’t sound hugely impressive when you pit it against the mid-to-late 150s balls that Gerald Coetzee and Mayank Yadav have bowled this season, but 139kph is blindingly fast when the ball swings like that. Particularly when it swings from that length. The length that freezes batters’ feet and squares them up. The length that shaves paint off the top of the stumps. The top, on this occasion, of off stump.You need all those inadequate words of description, because Starc, when asked about it in his post-match press conference, only had this to offer: “Not much to it. Run in, try and hit the stumps, try to swing it. That’s what I’ve tried to do for the last 14 years. Doesn’t always happen. I’ve been lucky enough that it’s happened twice in the last two games, with Trav as well.”I mean, that’s part of my experience that I’m supposed to be bringing to the group is to start us off and lead the way [with] powerplay wickets. We’ve seen how important they are through the tournament. We were fantastic in the powerplay again today, as we were in the first qualifier against them.”It’s always nice to bowl a ball like that, but there’s nothing special about the plan: just run in, try and bowl fast, swing it, and see if one can hit the top of the stumps. It’s nice when it comes off.”Abhishek Sharma is bowled by an unplayable delivery from Mitchell Starc•BCCIWith time, with distance, with a little less recency bias, we may be able to pick out other candidates for ball of the season. When that happens, our selection is likely to include another work of top-of-off artistry from a KKR bowler: Vaibhav Arora to Shai Hope at Eden Gardens.It was similar to Starc vs Abhishek, sliding past the outside edge to light up the bails, except it was from a right-arm bowler to a right-hand batter, and it was seam movement rather than swing.Both Starc vs Abhishek and Arora vs Hope showcased a key piece of KKR’s title-winning jigsaw. KKR took the joint-most powerplay wickets of any team in IPL 2024, and their 27 came in 14 innings as against Rajasthan Royals’ 15.Starc took 11 powerplay wickets, and Arora nine. KKR finished the season with two of its top four wicket-takers in that phase.IPL 2024 was – it still feels weird to use the simple past tense rather than the present perfect – the season of the stratospheric total, and the two finalists were the teams that reached for the stratosphere most often. But where KKR’s batting explosions could come from anywhere in a line-up of immense power and depth, SRH’s owed theirs, for most part, to a turbocharged opening pair and a six-hitting machine in the middle-order.After SRH won the toss and opted to bat on Sunday night, KKR’s clearest path to victory was to take these three out as cheaply as possible, and the top two as quickly as possible.Starc, with Abhishek in his sights rather than Head, had done half that job. The surviving half of Travishek now took strike to Arora, bowling right-arm over.Vaibhav Arora got Travis Head with sharp swing•AFP/Getty ImagesOver the last couple of years, as Head has dominated a World Test Championship final, a World Cup semi-final, a World Cup final and an IPL with his daredevilry, a theory has developed around how best to bowl to him, particularly early in his innings: angle the ball into him from right-arm around or left-arm over, and cramp him for room. Head likes to stay leg side of the ball against the fast bowlers and free his arms, and he’s bloody good at doing that – under no circumstances, then, should you give him any semblance of room.Before Sunday, Head had fallen four times to fast bowling in the powerplay this season. He had been out once to the right-arm over angle, when Chennai Super Kings’ Tushar Deshpande had slanted the ball across him and got him to hit towards the longer off-side boundary. He had been dismissed three times by the ball angling into him from left-arm over.Arora began from right-arm over, in theory Head’s preferred angle. It can be a difficult angle to bowl from if you’re bowling to someone like Head, because there’s only a tiny sliver of a line you can bowl without either offering room or straying onto his pads. It’s particularly tricky if, like Arora, you swing the ball away from the left-hander.1:09

Moody: SRH’s batters have failed to adapt to conditions that are not batting friendly

In those circumstances, Arora bowled the perfect delivery. It started some way outside leg stump, and then began to swing, pitching roughly in line with leg stump and reaching Head when it was just about in line with off stump. Head’s feet tend not to move all that much even when he plays some of his best shots; it can even be an advantage when he can free his arms and swing cleanly with a vertical or horizontal bat. This ball, though, drew a defensive response, and it mattered that his back foot was stuck in its initial position. He followed the ball with his hands, showing only half his bat face.Head has enjoyed days when he has offered similar responses to similar balls early in his innings and survived. Cricket can be like that, with the slimmest margins between the play-and-miss and the edge to the keeper.On another day, Head may have survived this Arora ball, and forced him to go back and bowl another ball, and another ball, all the time contending with the small margins of bowling to a champion.On this day, it was Arora who ran towards his KKR team-mates, arms extended, as if to show just how much this wicket meant to the balance of this match. “Thiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiis much.”This IPL final was 12 balls old. KKR were already in front, by a significant margin. The tournament’s best new-ball pair had won a decisive victory over its scariest opening partnership.Move aside, Travishek. Make way for Starora.

And it had to do with Pat Cummins, his man-management skills, and the freedom he gave Head to play the way he wanted to without fear of failure

Shashank Kishore19-Apr-2024Travis Head remembers the April of 2021 very well. He was at the Flinders Ranges, 450km north of Adelaide, at a camping trip, half-anxious about a decision that would soon change his career trajectory.He had just been axed from Cricket Australia’s central contracts, but was oblivious to the call made in the boardroom because he was in a no-network zone. For two full days, CA’s attempts to reach him to convey their decision proved futile. Eventually, with a Wi-Fi network somewhere near the second-highest point at Flinders Range, Head got the information. He bottled his disappointment, not wanting to ruin a vacation with the family of his wife-to-be, but he knew he needed to break out of his pattern of thrilling and frustrating in equal measure.Three Aprils on, sitting in New Delhi as one of the pace-setters of IPL 2024 for Sunrisers Hyderabad, Head remembers that period as the one that proved to be the catalyst for change and made him a powerplay behemoth.Related

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So far this IPL, he has been able to unlock the genius everyone thought he was capable of when he came into the tournament eight years ago, playing alongside Virat Kohli, Chris Gayle and AB de Villiers at Royal Challengers Bengaluru.Just last week, Head clubbed a hair-raising fourth-fastest IPL hundred, off 39 balls, at the same venue where he failed to make an early first impression at the IPL all those years ago.”I just look at probably a period of time which was around when I lost my contract,” Head says. “I went away for South Australia [his domestic team], played well and found myself back in the team around that Ashes series in [December] 2021.”Prior to that series, a reassuring conversation with Australia’s new Test captain Pat Cummins set into motion a series of small but significant events that Head believes have become life-changing. He has already won a World Test Championship title and a 50-over World Cup crown over the past year, and now has his sights set on T20 World Cup glory.”The change in guard with him [Cummins] being captain – and I guess the confidence he gave me to go out and play the way I do in domestic cricket – I probably look back as the moment [when things turned],” Head says of his second coming. “And again, it’s never guaranteed, but I was able to go out and get runs in that Test [in Brisbane, where he made 152] ] and start what has been the last three years.”The crux of that chat with Cummins was that Head should forget that his place was under scrutiny. It was, at its core, Cummins’ man-management principle at play. Head went from “playing not to get out” to “playing to score runs”, apart from freeing himself mentally.”I chill maybe with a round a golf here and there”•Getty Images”I played probably a little bit more aggressively while I still worked hard on my technique and a few things. But I sort of hit a moment in the road where it didn’t really matter if I didn’t play for Australia again,” he says. “I would love to have, but if it wasn’t to be, it probably gave me a bit more of that more relaxed, [and] comfortable sort of environment and attitude around things.”Head can’t thank Cummins enough for his role in insulating him from the pressures an elite sportsperson could face from time to time.”In terms of leadership, around that Ashes series, he had a conversation with me around how he wanted to see me play and how he wanted me go about it, which obviously we’ve seen the progress of and the results from – which has been nice – and then here I think he’s been really good,” he says. “I think a lot of guys obviously asked [me] about him leading into this IPL. The Indian guys, when I got here, asked about what he’s going to be like, and I said he would be really relaxed, be really calm and someone who talks a lot of sense. He’s very measured and understands the game, and he’s just really, really well-rounded off the field.”He’s really enjoyable to be around; he creates a really good environment. That’s very inclusive. That’s very enjoyable. That’s very relaxed. And I think you’re seeing that in the way we’re playing that game style about being aggressive and relaxed. But I think you’ll also be seeing guys play with a smile on their face and really stepping forward into that pressure. And I think that’s what he’s asking the guys [to do].””He’s really enjoyable to be around; he creates a really good environment” – Travis Head on Pat Cummins•ICC/Getty ImagesHead revealed that taking the attack to the bowlers in the powerplay this IPL has been a team decision that came with everyone knowing they will be backed the same way even if it were to fail on the odd occasion, like it did against Punjab Kings when SRH found themselves 39 for 3 after five overs, which left them needing to significantly change their Impact Player strategy.They eventually made 182 and won by two runs, but it merely reaffirmed their commitment to a brave new approach that has changed the way teams look at them this IPL.”Being asked to play [in] this style is, I guess, a little bit foreign for some guys,” Head says. “Some guys can sometimes be worried about the negative side of things. Like, ‘what happens if I don’t get runs; could I find myself out of the team?’ I think you’ll never ever see Pat not back you or not have a smiling face.”And if one of the guys was to hit the bull’s trap in there and walk off – and if it was what we spoke about, and if it was what the captain asked – he’d never be negative around that. And he’s been really vocal about that in the last couple of weeks in the batting line-up – like this is how we want to play.”Having this clarity not just around him, but also the team, has allowed Head to revel at the IPL too. Amid the travel and the chaos in general – of doing things beyond just playing cricket, like commercials and sponsor and media commitments – Head has managed to maintain what he calls a “balance” when he prepares for every game.By that, he means he isn’t always overly intense while studying scenarios or match-ups, and simply works on his own pulse, learning by speaking to his team-mates and using his own experience.”If there’s someone I don’t know [in this IPL], I go to Abhishek Sharma or [to] guys who have faced them•BCCI”I try to maintain a balance, but the balance is probably skewed a little bit to making sure I just go out refreshed and ready to go,” he says. “So I don’t deep dive into a lot of stuff. We’re lucky that we’ve played a lot of these guys around the world, and you see a lot of familiar faces.”If there’s someone I don’t know, I sort of go to Abhi [Abhishek Sharma] or guys who have faced them. And the Indian guys or these guys that have played against them try and tap into conversational stuff. I don’t like to sit around and watch a heap of footage or anything; [rather, I] just try and stay pretty relaxed about things.”Head relaxes by playing a round of golf wherever he can. Prior to knocking the sails out of RCB, against whom he cracked 102 off 41 balls, he spent two full days at a golf resort in Bengaluru’s outskirts.”We have been fortunate to have slightly bigger breaks, which I think can sometimes be good and [sometimes] bad,” he says. “Probably one less day would be nice about things. With training – and there’s no real heavy structure around things – it’s very relaxed. It’s very much [about] ‘get what you need to get done’.”But yeah, I chill maybe with a round a golf here and there, have a couple of nice meals at restaurants or in the hotel with some of the guys, and then getting down to training and having two really good training sessions before a game. That has sort of been the process over the last couple of weeks, and it seems to be working. Like I said, the team is in a great mindset at the moment. It obviously helps winning, but the vibe’s really, really good [too].”