Shikhar Dhawan has the uncanny knack of appearing dominant while, the stats show, facing as few balls as possible. Perhaps his ability to deftly manoeuvre the strike during tricky periods is something that has contributed to his fine run

Sidharth Monga02-Dec-2013At a promotional event in Mumbai, after the elongated home season had ended and before the shortened tour of South Africa, Shikhar Dhawan was asked the obvious question. “There will be seam, swing and bounce in South Africa. How will you handle it?” Dhawan reportedly gave his moustache an extra twirl, a bit like how Bollywood actor Akshay Kumar’s character does in every time he faces a crisis, and said, “Indian players now have the belief that if they can perform against them [fast bowlers] in the IPL, they can surely perform against them while playing for India as well.”It does sound like a bit of Bollywood bravado, but under the twirled ‘tache and tattooed triceps, behind those square drives and punches, could be a sly batsman who is more Boycott than Bollywood, more Gavaskar than Guevara. The statistical sample from the 23 ODIs since Dhawan restarted his ODI career is not exhaustive but is big enough to spot a trend.During the five centuries Dhawan has scored in ODIs, he has spent 1161 deliveries at the wicket but faced only 525 of them. Virender Sehwag is a similarly attacking batsman, but during his 15 ODI centuries he has faced 1573 balls out of the 3111 spent at the wicket. That’s a difference of about five percentage points. During his first hundred, in Cardiff against South Africa, Dhawan had faced only 94 balls when he got out in the 38th over. During his most recent, against West Indies in Kanpur, he fell in the 38th over again, having faced 95 balls. Overall, since his comeback to the ODIs in June earlier this year, Dhawan has spent 2464 legitimate deliveries at the wicket, facing only 1167 legitimate deliveries of those. These are striking statistics for a batsman who likes to dominate.Or for any batsman. Cricket is a game of periods of relative inactivity followed by high activity and concentration, and then inactivity when you switch off. If you are a part of the opening act, you don’t want to be at the inactive end for too long. You want to feel the ball on bat, get the nerves out of the way, gets a sense of rhythm. This is when Dhawan has shown a tendency to stay far away from the action. Dhawan has lasted 10 overs in 14 of his 23 ODI innings since his comeback, which gives him a maximum of 840 balls in a period when the ball tends to misbehave. But he has faced only 380 of those deliveries, which is 80 fewer than his partners, and still appeared dominant. If you can’t have bowl at me, I won’t have to leave them alone…Dhawan’s Test career is only three innings old, but he has shown a similar tendency to watch from the non-striker’s end there too. He has taken 236 of the 517 balls he has spent at the wicket in Tests. To not get pinned down on strike is a quality classical batsmen such as Gavaskar and Boycott proselytised as they dug their trenches, but it is remarkable for a boundary-hitter such as Dhawan. He somehow finds a way to stay away from the strike, and still manages to score at a quick rate. He will make a good kho-kho player – an Indian sport where you can be eliminated only when you are active, where you can be made active only when someone passes the activity on to you, and where you have to be quick to run and pass that activity on to someone else once you have been made active.There is another important facet to this tendency of Dhawan. Commentators will always tell you an attacking batsman should not be denied strike lest they lose their rhythm. Dhawan must laugh at that, because he doesn’t seem to be affected. It must give him time to keep twirling the moustache because when he reveals it after reaching a milestone it is stiff, betraying no signs of having broken a sweat.It might be too early to say whether these stats are just the effect of his opening partners – Rohit Sharma in ODIs and M Vijay in Tests, who tend to get stuck before making up with big hits – or whether Dhawan is shrewd with the single, but in his young career he has managed to reduce the chances of his getting out early in an innings. South Africa will obviously bring his biggest test yet, with the seam of Vernon Philander, late swing of Dale Steyn and awkward bounce of Morne Morkel, but there is a good chance Dhawan might be watching the best of the deliveries from the non-striker’s end.

Stats highlights form the third day’s play between New Zealand and West Indies in Hamilton

Shiva Jayaraman21-Dec-2013

• This was Ross Taylor’s third hundred in three Tests against West Indies. He became only the second New Zealand batsman after Mark Burgess to score hundreds in three consecutive Tests. Burgess’s hundreds in three consecutive Tests were spread over almost three and half years, from 1969 to 1972. Click here for a list of batsmen who made centuries in three or more consecutive Tests.
• Taylor has become only the second New Zealand batsman after Andrew Jones to make three hundreds in a Test series. Jones scored three centuries and a fifty in six innings against Sri Lanka in 1990-91.
• Taylor’s 493 runs in this series are the second-highest by a New Zealand batsman in a home series and the joint sixth-highest in any series. Glenn Turner’s 672 runs in the West Indies in 1971-72 are the most by a New Zealand batsman in a Test series.
• Taylor has scored 864 runs at 72.00 from ten Tests this year. He’s just seven runs behind John Reid’s 871 runs in 1965 – the most runs scored by any New Zealand batsman in a calendar year. Reid’s tally though took three Tests and eight innings more than Taylor has taken to score his runs. Among the five instances of New Zealand batsmen scoring 800 or more in a calendar year, three have come from Taylor. He’s also the fourth-highest run-scorer in Tests this year.
• West Indies’ top four batsmen collectively scored only 16 runs in their second innings – the ninth-lowest they have ever scored in a Test innings. The last time their top four scored 16 or fewer in an innings was in 2000, when they had three such instances.
• The 36 wickets that New Zealand’s left-arm fast bowlers took in this series was the biggest haul by such bowlers in a series of three or fewer Tests, beating the 30 wickets taken by India’s left-arm seamers against Zimbabwe in a two-Test series in 2005, and Sri Lanka’s against West Indies in 2001-02. New Zealand’s new-ball bowlers have taken 38 wickets from the three Tests in this series. This is their best ever in Tests, beating the 37 wickets they took against the same opposition in 1979-80.
• BJ Watling added three more catches to the five he took in West Indies’ first innings. This was only the fourth instance of a New Zealand wicketkeeper taking eight or more catches in a Test. The five catches he took in the first innings was the 15th instance of a New Zealand wicketkeeper collecting five or more dismissals in an innings. Adam Parore and Brendon McCullum have each collected five or more dismissals four times in an innings.
• Sunil Narine’s career-best figures of 6 for 91 in New Zealand’s first innings were the second-best figures by a spinner in Tests in Hamilton and only the third time a spinner has taken a five-wicket haul at this venue. Harbhajan Singh’s 6 for 63 in 2009 are the best bowing figures by a spinner at this venue.
• This year has been the best for West Indies spinners in terms of the number of five-wicket hauls they have taken in Tests. Narine’s five-wicket haul is their sixth – in addition to the five taken by Shane Shillingford – in 2013, their highest ever in a year, beating the five they took back in 1950. The 60 wickets that West Indies spinners have taken this year are also the most they have taken in any calendar year. Their previous best in a year was 59 wickets, which they have taken on three separate occasions, the latest being last year.
• Tim Southee became the 12th New Zealand bowler and tenth fast bowler from the country to take 100 Test wickets when he dismissed Veerasammy Permaul in the second innings. Southee has taken 101 wickets at 31.44 from 29 Tests.
• West Indies’ last three batsmen were all dismissed for ducks in their second innings. This is the first such instance for them since 2001 against Sri Lanka, and their fifth such instance in Tests.
• Shivnarine Chanderpaul made his 29th hundred in Tests, in West Indies’ first innings. Among West Indies batsmen only Brian Lara, with 34, has more hundreds in Tests. Only 11 other Test batsmen have scored more centuries than him.

After a solid first season, Suryakumar Yadav’s form fell away as he swung between the extremes of over-attacking or going into his shell. His 120 against Maharashtra suggests he might have found the middle ground

Amol Karhadkar at the Wankhede Stadium08-Jan-2014Flamboyant. That’s the best way to sum up Suryakumar Yadav’s batting style. So talented is the Mumbai middle-order batsman that he not only has all the shots in the book but can improvise at will too.However, talent without temperament leads to inconsistent performances. Suryakumar hasn’t been an exception to the rule. Over the last two domestic seasons he has time and again thrown away starts with mediocre shot selection. Whether it’s been against Vidarbha at Wankhede or Gujarat in Valsad, Suryakumar has gotten himself out more often than bowlers have.For a talent like Suryakumar, it was unfathomable that he hadn’t scored a first-class century since West Zone’s Duleep Trophy tie in Valsad in January 2012. Still, the Mumbai selectors and team management were backing him to the hilt, hoping he would translate his talent into performance, just as he had done in 2011-12, his first full season in the Ranji Trophy, which he finished as the tournament’s fourth-highest run-getter.Since then, it had been a slide for Suryakumar. Till Wednesday, that is, when he justified the faith shown in him by scoring a classy 120 to rescue Mumbai on the first day of their quarterfinal against Maharashtra.Suryakumar had no qualms in admitting he got “carried away” by the success he achieved in his opening season. “After the kind of first season I had, I got carried away a little bit and started playing too many shots at inopportune times,” he told ESPNcricinfo. “I was kind of trying to manufacture shots, sometimes pre-determined, rather than playing the ball to its merit.”Experts believe players like Suryakumar sometimes fall into their own trap. “Those who have too many shots to choose from tend to falter in shot selection. Surya I think belongs to the category of players who tend to end up playing to the gallery rather than thinking about the situation of the game,” said former India coach Sudhir Naik. “Such players need to realise how and when they need to restrain their instincts. It’s purely up to how the individual manages himself.”Suryakumar stressed he has “now completely realised” his game after too much experimentation over the last two years. While going through a lean patch – 58 runs in four innings in 2012-13 followed by 376 at an average of 34 in 13 innings this season – Suryakumar first tried to break the shackles by “over-attacking”. Then, at the start of the season, he got stuck in a mindset of “trying to build the innings”. The middle ground seemed elusive.”But then I realised that for me to succeed, I had to back myself and play naturally,” Suryakumar said. “At the same time, I needed to keep myself in check.”Suryakumar needed to find a method to achieve this. “Sometime during the season, I started talking to myself, something that I never did earlier,” he said. “It helped me enjoy my game more and kept myself from drifting away.”Even during Wednesday’s knock, he had a lapse in concentration. Immediately after completing his fifty, he missed the ball after charging down the wicket to left-arm spinner Akshay Darekar but was reprieved by Maharashtra wicketkeeper Rohit Motwani. “I told myself then that I had to start afresh after the chance and it worked,” he said. “Earlier in the season, I would have perhaps decided to go into a kind of shell but today I just told myself to enjoy batting with Vinit (Indulkar) and go with the flow and it kind of worked.”

Mantri may have had a modest record at the Test level, but that didn’t prevent him from being an influential figure in Indian cricket

Ayaz Memon23-May-2014When he turned 90 on September 1, 2011, I asked Madhav Mantri if he was going to take fresh guard for the last decade to his century. “That is for those who get nervous in the 90s,” he replied, joining in the jest. “After seven first-class centuries, I should be able to play freely.”Mantri’s passing on Friday was typically without much ado, 100 days short of turning 93, ended a life-innings that was remarkable, not so much for its longevity but that he should have been such an influential figure in Indian cricket despite having played only four Tests as wicketkeeper-batsman.He never scored a century in Tests. His career at the highest level was brief – between 1951 and 1955 – and more about thoughts of what might have been than any great achievement, as 67 runs and nine victims would testify. His first-class career over almost two decades, in contrast, fetched him 192 dismissals (including 56 stumped, testimony to the quicksilver reflexes he was praised for) and 4403 runs at a fairly healthy average of 33.86. And those seven centuries, of course.Even so, these are not spectacular numbers. Indeed, for a while, it seemed that his claim to fame was his nephew, Sunil Gavaskar, who exploded on the international scene with a record 774 runs in his debut Test series and soon developed into a run machine.But viewed over a sweep of more than half a century, Mantri acquires a strong and compelling identity all his own. Apart from what he achieved on the field of play, he was also Mumbai Cricket Association president, national selector for four years between 1964-68, manager on the Indian team’s tour of England in 1990, and BCCI treasurer between 1990 and 1992. He also coached, criticised, advised, and mentored players and administrators almost till his last breath, as it were.

He had a sense of righteousness that seemed to stem from his very core. The notion of the British disciplinarian seems almost Dickensian in these free-flowing, individualistic days of ours, but Mantri, austere, stern and fair to the core, embodied it

If cricket was his all-consuming passion, Mumbai’s place in the national game was an obsession for him. Indeed, though the much-touted “Bombay school of cricket” has been represented by the likes of Vijay Merchant, Subhash Gupte, Bapu Nadkarni, Ajit Wadekar, Dilip Sardesai, Gavaskar, Dilip Vengsarkar and Sachin Tendulkar over the decades, in my opinion Mantri was its exemplar; not so much for his performances as for his beliefs.A great deal of this mindset was exhibited on the maidans of Mumbai, and especially in club cricket, which between the 1950s and the 1980s was played with rich fervour and never-say-die commitment, demanding the best from players in performance and behaviour.The rivalry between Mantri’s club, Dadar Union, and its most famous adversary, Shivaji Park Gymkhana – which could be compared to the War of the Roses in English county cricket – is not only part of the lore of Mumbai cricket, it provided a grooming ground for the “Bombay school”, the ethos of which Mantri was to become instrumental in establishing.It said you needed to be tough, unrelenting and unforgiving in matters of discipline, as Mantri was – on himself and others. He is reputed to have tamed even the mercurial Subhash Gupte when the legspinner played for Dadar Union. In Mantri’s book, there was no room for dilettantes, however brilliant.Madhav Mantri embodied the tough and unyielding attitude that came to define Mumbai cricket•MiD DAY Infomedia LtdHis punctuality, for instance, is part of lore in Mumbai cricket circles (and it extended beyond match hours). More so, he had a sense of righteousness that seemed to stem from his very core. The notion of the British disciplinarian seems almost Dickensian in these free-flowing, individualistic days of ours, but Mantri, austere, stern and fair to the core, embodied that image. He was from another era, as it were, and a sterling proponent of those values – in every aspect of life.Of course there is duality in this. Bishan Bedi, for instance, also owed much to the idea of the English gentleman cricketer. But where Bedi was sociable and full of cheer, Mantri was sparse with his praise and modest of lifestyle. Both were like characters from John Galsworthy’s Forsyte Saga.Mantri was a bit Old Testament, if I may be permitted the usage, in his approach to life: singular in his thinking (he was a bachelor too), fastidious about rights and wrongs, seeing things in black or white – though without lapsing into violent biblical recourse to set things right.So when Gavaskar as a young boy once wore his uncle’s India cap, he was quickly admonished. “This has to be earned,” he was told. And when Gavaskar as a young man came and told his uncle of how well his team had done in scoring 400 for 1 in a match and he had thrown his wicket away after having scored a bagful, he was roundly castigated. For Mantri, such disregard for team and self – in that order – revealed a flaw in character, not just tactics. It was the lesson he carried throughout his life: at the playing level when he was active, and at a personal level till he breathed his last. This is the legacy he leaves behind.

April is the start of the cricket season in North America and Canada. And some players travel far and wide to get their fix

Samarth Shah10-Apr-2014April showers bring May flowers, the saying goes. In North America, April showers also bring with them the onset of the cricket season. The Northwest Cricket League (NWCL) based in Seattle in the United States of America and the British Columbia Mainland Cricket League (BCMCL) based in Vancouver, Canada kick off their summer with T20 competitions. Some of us cricket addicts from Seattle play in both leagues, since Vancouver is a mere two- or three-hour drive away. BCMCL is a bigger league than NWCL; their season starts a couple of weeks earlier.So in April 2011, on a rare dry and unseasonably warm morning, four of us drove across the Canadian border, to play against Richmond Cricket Club at their home field, Minoru Park. We were playing for Centurions, a happy-go-lucky, but inconsistent outfit capable of hitting towering highs and sobering lows multiple times in the same season. It was the opening match and we hadn’t had a minute of practice because the weather in the preceding days, weeks and months was simply not conducive to being outdoors.The rain arrived, as was its wont, in the afternoon, but we defiantly got a full game in. We even managed to beat a strong Richmond side, although with everyone out of nick, it was an ugly affair. The bowlers all got a few overs. I didn’t manage a wicket, but was satisfied to have conceded only six each off the 17th and 19th overs. The batsmen all got a hit as well.Yet there were complaints on the trip back. Were a couple of overs of bowling or batting in the drizzle really worth a four-hour round trip?It poured continuously for the next six days but miraculously, the following Saturday dawned bright and sunny. The same four cricket addicts, despite all the moaning from the previous weekend, once again packed into a car and travelled across the border, this time to Centurions’ home turf at Crescent Park in White Rock to take on Newton-Surrey. The ground was damp early on, but it dried out and once again we got a full game in. Once again we won. I bowled my full quota of 4 overs, and even managed a couple of wickets, including one of the league’s finest allrounders, caught-and-bowled.With back-to-back wins, we were now in joint-first place in our pool of four teams. Our arch-rivals Salim-Akbar had also won both their games. Only one team from the pool would qualify for the knockout phase. It all came down to the last league game: Salim-Akbar v Centurions, the following weekend. The winner would proceed towards T20 glory, the loser would simply look ahead to the 50-over competition, starting in May.Again, it rained continuously. It was still pouring outside on Saturday morning as I ate my breakfast. The weather forecast said it would rain all day. We’d been informed that a game was unlikely, that the outfield was water-logged, and that we ought to stay in Seattle. No trip across the border, we thought.At 10am though, the rain suddenly stopped.I sent a message to the captain, who was on his way to the ground. The game was scheduled at noon though he still expected the game to be called off. But it had to be the umpires who made that call and not him so I was asked to head north. He said he’d call me as soon as the umpires had made their ruling, at which point I could turn around and head back home.A similar message was sent to the other players, but most of them had already made alternate plans. I was near the town of Bellingham, still on the USA side, at 11am, when the captain called. “Where are you?” he asked.”An hour away. Should I turn around now?” I replied”Umm… The game has indeed been called off. The outfield is unplayable.””OK, I’ll head home then.””No, you see, the pitch and run-ups are okay, and the league would like to not postpone the game. So they’ve asked us to have a bowl-out.”I’d never participated in a bowl-out before. We had half a dozen guys headed to the ground, all from Vancouver, but everyone apart from me was a batsman. (You know T20 is a batsman’s game when all the batsmen are ready to play at the drop of a hat, but the bowlers have all taken a vacation.) The captain politely requested that since I was only an hour away if I could perhaps come by the ground for the bowl-out.Before I realised it, I was waiting in line at the border, window rolled down, immigration papers held outside. I was at Crescent Park 20 minutes later.We won the toss, bowled and as the only specialist bowler on our side, I went first. I pitched it on off stump, on a good length, but on the wet pitch, it skidded on with the arm, missing the leg-stump by millimeters. Salim-Akbar’s first bowler also missed. Our second guy missed. So did their second guy. In fact, the first nine balls all missed.Salim-Akbar’s fifth candidate charged in from his full 20-yard run, with fire in his eyes. I thought he might deliver a scorching bouncer in a bowl-out, but he went for the yorker instead. It just kissed the outside of leg-stump, and dislodged the bails.Salim-Akbar were in the knock-outs. My international tour was over, after just one ball.If you have a submission for Inbox, send it to us here, with “Inbox” in the subject line

The class of Craig Kieswetter and Ravi Bopara lead ESPNcricinfo’s countdown of the things that mattered in the latest round of NatWest T20 Blast matches

Tim Wigmore16-Jun-20145. A tale of two England wicketkeepers
If this were the IPL, Craig Kieswetter would be a run shy of wearing the orange cap given to the top scorer in the tournament. The T20 Blast eschews such wheezes, but there is no doubting Kieswetter’s T20 pedigree. He is currently second in the scoring list and, since his last international appearance, he has scored 801 runs in English T20 at 57 apiece.It was raw power that earned Kieswetter his first international caps, in Bangladesh in 2010, but his game now possesses more refinement. He has spoken about his improved ability to assess conditions and gauge a match-winning total; a 48-ball 55 in Somerset’s opening game at Bristol may have appeared sedate but it was the prelude to a comfortable win.Kieswetter is closer than many think to an England recall: he was an injury replacement in the World T20 squad in Bangladesh and will hardly have been harmed by missing the defeat to the Netherlands.Thanks to Jos Buttler’s emergence, his route into England’s limited-overs sides would be as a specialist batsman opening the innings. If his Powerplay impact smiting the ball down the ground is not in doubt, there are legitimate questions over what comes next: even his 70 at Arundel on Sunday contained a 22-ball lull without a boundary. Yet to focus on this feels churlish given Kieswetter’s fourth half-century of the season set-up a 34-run win. If England’s interest is reawakened, they would find much more than a harum-scarum hitter.And what of the other would-be England keeper? Having relinquished the gloves for his county five weeks ago, Steven Davies may no longer qualify for membership of the group. Forty-seven runs in four T20 innings as a specialist batsman led to Davies being dropped from Surrey’s side on Friday night. He turns 28 tomorrow.4. Notts need overseas aid
With Alex Hales, Michael Lumb, James Taylor and Samit Patel, a formidable quartet unwanted by England apart from Hales’ T20 involvement, Nottinghamshire have one of the most intimidating batting line-ups around. So it is a curiosity that they have still only registered two victories this season.One explanation lies in a lack of overseas aid: Peter Siddle is focusing exclusively on Championship cricket. What they would give for David Hussey. He averaged 35 with the bat in T20 cricket for Notts, but his 10-year association with the county ended last season.Director of cricket Mick Newell has conceded: “His type of cricket is exactly what’s missing.” But Caribbean Premier League commitments render a return impossible. Unless Notts change their policy, more success from Michael Lumb and James Taylor – who average 17 between them – is urgently needed to prevent a shock exit in the first round.Player focus: James Hildreth (Somerset)

“Who should replace Marcus?” Somerset regulars have wondered in recent years. The reassuring thud emanating from Trescothick’s bat in the Championship has made the question seem less pressing, but a groin injury, forcing him out of both Somerset’s weekend matches, perhaps provided clarity about his successor. James Hildreth led Somerset to a pair of wins and, with Trescothick preoccupied by the tantalising prospect of the club’s first Championship title, may get more captaincy experience in white-ball cricket in 2014. It would be apt if Trescothick handed the baton on to another batsman sharing his undiluted commitment to the West Country.

3. We’re all Boplievers now
With England’s Test players available only fleetingly, attention has been on others to inject the Blast with some homegrown razzmatazz. For all the hype, Andrew Flintoff has not appeared and Kevin Pietersen has managed five runs. Into this void, step forward Ravi Bopara. His runs have always contained panache. Now this is being married to a most welcome quality: inevitability.In the space of three nights last week, sumptuous unbeaten innings of 81 and 66 made a pair of onerous-sounding chases seem facile, and took Essex top of the South Division. Bopara now has 207 runs – 72 of them in sixes – in this year’s competition, and has only been dismissed once. We are all Boplievers now.2. The UK’s worst T20 team
Memories of the formidable Sussex T20 side that reached five quarter-finals in six seasons from 2007, including winning the tournament in 2009, are fading. A pair of weekend defeats, including a ten-wicket thumping at The Oval, reinforced Sussex’s status as the country’s worst T20 side around. The problem is primarily with the batting: for all Ed Joyce’s elegance, Sussex are over-dependent on Luke Wright for impetus to reach imposing totals. Since scoring 56 against Surrey, Wright has failed to pass 31 in his last six T20 innings.The upshot is that no county has won fewer than Sussex’s three games since the start of 2013, and they have lost all but two – the opening games of this season – of their past 15 T20s. “Focus on the league” time beckons.1. Glamorgan’s premature revenge
“Let’s Get Revenge” declared Glamorgan’s posters in preparation for the visit of Somerset to Wales on July 4. Nothing wrong with that: a little spice never goes amiss in county cricket. But then Glamorgan had to go and ruin it all by having the chutzpah to win at Taunton, ruining the presumption of the marketing men. They should have had a little more faith. After Friday’s tie against Kent, when a superlative final over from Michael Hogan prevented the visitors scoring the three runs they required for victory, Glamorgan lie third in the South Division.

From friendly knockabouts to a second Ashes series win in the space of six months. It’s been an action-packed time for England allrounder Nat Sciver

Vithushan Ehantharajah19-Mar-2014Whenever an exceptional talent comes into the sporting world, the temptation is to look for the story. Not so much the pleasantries of why they play the game, but the extra, grimy bits. You know, the backstory that turns a vigilante billionaire, with time and army-grade trinkets at his disposal into the Dark Knight. A compelling fable that speaks of a past that serves as a well of emotional fuel for the toils of top-level sport.For England allrounder Nat Sciver, that moment may have been the passing of her beloved rabbit, Floppy.The scene is Poland, where Sciver grew up between the school years of six and nine. Central Europe is on the cusp of winter; in the space of a week, summer turns to winter with little fuss, and temperatures fall dramatically from 30 degrees to minus 20.”We kept the rabbit outside for most of the summer,” remembers Sciver, with a glint in her eye and fondess. “I sensed it was starting to get cold: ‘Ermm, mum – we should probably bring the rabbit in.’ The next morning, I went out to feed it and it was just stuck there, not moving.” Sciver crooks her neck and cocks her elbows, clenching her fingers into the tops of her palms to resemble paws. She then scrunches her face into what presumably resembles Floppy’s final expression. “It was traumatic.”In truth, it was not a vow to avenge the demise of Floppy that set Sciver on the trail she now blazes. Quite simply, it was the desire to excel at one sport.Originally it was football, which she first played in Netherlands as part of a mixed team. She kept it going upon moving to Poland, before taking up tennis, which she enjoyed before a pushy coach soured her affection for it. Cricket was her third choice.”I can’t really say that, as I’ve gone and played for England now, can I?” she asks. “I have always been a very active person, so I needed something to do – a sport to be competitive at. It was only when I came to England that I started playing cricket. My dad played at school and throughout university. Every summer after he left he’d have this weekend where he would get back together with his mates and play.”I used to go along with him, but they don’t like it much when a girl bats. Particularly when she does as well as I do!”From friendly knockabouts to a second Ashes series win in the space of six months. It’s all happened so quickly for Sciver.Making her senior England debut against Pakistan at Louth in July 2013, she earned the Player-of-the-Match award in her second outing against the same opposition for an impressive 3 for 28 on her university ground at Loughborough. She then played five of the six limited-overs matches of the summer’s Ashes series, seeing out the third T20 with a finisher’s knock of 37 not out.Prior to the winter tour of Australia, Sciver became the first English cricketer to take a T20I hat-trick, completing the feat during the tri-nation match against New Zealand in Barbados.Then came an Ashes defence, and her first taste of Test cricket. “How great was that?!” She’s a fan.And who wouldn’t be after match at the WACA; ebbing and flowing into a final day before England won and secured the six points on offer. Sciver’s contribution to the match was a notable one, coming into the England first innings at 96 for 4 and taking the score to 189 before she departed for 49.”It was annoying to get out so close to a fifty and fall short, especially after batting for what, like, a thousand balls [140]. But it was just amazing. Every day, a different team would be on top. I was quite nervous during day four when [Ellyse] Perry was in and threatened to take the game on her own. She showed later in the series just how destructive she can be.”The opportunity for this chat comes in the aftermath of England’s defeat in the final T20 of the Ashes tour, at Stadium Australia in the Sydney Olympic Park. England have already won the series and at the end of the game are presented with the trophy.

What strikes you with Sciver is her humility and exceptionally dry wit. She’s funny and engaging enough for you to forget you’re talking to a 21-year old, jugging studies – she’s currently in her final year of a sports-science course – and the demands of international cricket

Sciver has just excused herself from the raptures of her family, who have been here for the duration, aside from her mother, who had to return home for work the day before this match in Sydney. An employee at the foreign office, it is Nat’s mum’s work that had her jumping from country to country (Nat was born in Tokyo).It’s hard to imagine her kicking up a fuss about uprooting. What strikes you with Sciver is her humility and exceptionally dry wit. She’s funny and engaging enough for you to forget you’re talking to a 21-year old, jugging studies – she’s currently in her final year of a sports science course – and the demands of international cricket.Paul Shaw, head of England women’s performance, believes Sciver will be the best allrounder in the world in 12 months. Sarah Taylor rates her the most naturally talented player she has seen. Sciver seems to take all the comments in her stride, swatting away praise while appreciating it. Our chat is broken off for a young girl who has been waiting patiently for the last five minutes, desperate for a lull in conversation to ask for Sciver’s autograph. “That’s always pretty cool,” Sciver remarks later.In the second ODI, at the MCG, Sciver played the innings of her career so far. Coming in with 116 still needed, and a required rate of near 7, the game had been set for an England fall. To be honest, Australia should have won at a canter, but Sciver’s thumping shots, particularly through midwicket, shook them.As partners fell at the other end, Sciver recognised it was almost entirely down to her, and batted smartly to retain as much of the strike as she could, then making it count. It was compelling to watch and she was rewarded for her application with her first half-century for England.She was unable to finish the job, becoming the final wicket to fall, 27 runs shy of the target. Another partner or two and she would probably have finished the job.”Honestly, I couldn’t tell you what I was thinking in the moment – I just zoned out. It’s probably my main strength – coming in and taking advantage of the licence to hit boundaries at the end of the innings. In our team meetings we talk a lot about responsibility and players taking that responsibility to bat all the way through or take wickets. When more wickets fell, I had to take it upon myself to be the person at the end. To be honest, I’m a bit pissed off I couldn’t finish it.”That being said, I did quite enjoying paddle-sweeping Ellyse Perry, twice.”The next port of call for Sciver is the World T20, her first international showpiece event. The intervening period consisted of course work and enhancing her boundary options, which she feels need reassessing on slow, unfamiliar Bangladesh wickets.England are one of the favourites for the title they won in 2010. They also arrive buoyed by the announcement that the team will become fully professional. A few days earlier, the Chance to Shine programme reached the 1 million mark in terms of girls benefitting from the scheme since its introduction in 2005. Women’s cricket in the country is at an all-time high in terms of stimulus and financial backing.Thanks to players like Charlotte Edwards, Sciver has the opportunity to play most of her career as a professional. The tireless work of those who came before her is not lost on Sciver, but there is still plenty work to be done for the women’s game to attain the extra credit it deserves.In Australia, England were presented with the women’s Ashes trophy, with nothing but the blaring of a nondescript dance tune. No fireworks, no ticker tape – they were not even called up individually, despite the two-and-a-half hour gap between theirs and the men’s T20 later in the evening.They promptly vacated the stage, which was packed up quicker than it had been erected, leaving Giles Clarke to amble around and hand out medals individually, like a geography teacher accounting for his class on a field trip. It left a bad taste in the mouth.Sciver had a theory: “My guess would be, had it been the Australians winning, they might have had a bit more fanfare. Ah well, it’s okay – I took a massive divot out of the field earlier, so they were probably upset about that.”Nothing seems to faze this young woman. She is a fearless new talent who is more than capable of taking women’s cricket further forward in their exciting new world.

So what if Trent Bridge was a snoozefest? We’ve got all these numbers, haven’t we?

Andy Zaltzman15-Jul-2014As crushingly dull Test matches go, Trent Bridge was unusually interesting. There were swings in momentum, spells when each team’s bowlers sparked mild panic in their opponents, and a brief period on the final day when a miraculous victory for England over (a) India and (b) the pitch, was a lively possibility.There was some beautifully classical strokeplay by Murali Vijay, and another promising upswing in the still new but constantly undulating career of Joe Root. There was the glorious sight of promising young tearaway Essex paceman Alastair Cook bouncing out the great allrounder Ishant Sharma with some savage leg-theory bowling, appropriately pinged down on the home ground of Bodyline legend Harold Larwood. There were some interesting sub-plots developing in the overall narrative of the summer – Cook’s continuing struggles with the bat (more of which below), edgy starts for Shikhar Dhawan and Virat Kohli, uncharacteristic carelessness by the usually iron-minded Cheteshwar Pujara, and a mixture of promise and concern emerging from both sets of bowlers. And, most memorably, there were extraordinary, statistics-melting tenth-wicket partnerships, which, even on a surface that could be used to humanely euthanise a herd of unusually perky rhinoceroses, defied precedent and belief.Despite all this, the match was inherently tedious. There was insufficient jeopardy for the batsmen, no reward for the bowlers, and the inescapable sense from the first morning onwards that it would take a rare combination of absolute brilliance and total uselessness to force a result. After the Nagpur travesty in December 2012, England and India have now played out two stolid draws on two of the most miserable surfaces prepared for Test cricket in recent years. This type of surface is equivalent to playing baseball underwater, or football in a giant tub of blancmange (if I may exaggerate slightly). It suits neither team, nor the game as a whole.Even from a dull match, however, a volcano of stats may erupt. Here are some that, hopefully, are of relevance to the remaining four Tests that lie ahead in this stupidly, irresponsibly congested series.England bowler-workload stats
In the six home summers from 2008, the season that James Anderson and Stuart Broad both became regulars in the Test team, up to and including 2013, Anderson had averaged 39.1 overs per match in the 38 Tests he played (out of England’s 40 home five-dayers in that time). Broad averaged 35.1 overs in his 36 home Tests. In three Tests this summer, Anderson has averaged 51.2 overs per match, 31% more than his 2008-2013 match average, and Broad 49.2, up 40% on his normal workload.Broad has bowled 50 or more overs at both Lord’s against Sri Lanka, and at Nottingham – he had only done so twice in his 68 previous Tests (both in 2012, although he was rewarded in those two games with 11 wickets against West Indies at Lord’s, and 8 versus South Africa at Leeds).Anderson’s 59 overs at Trent Bridge represented his third-highest workload in a Test. Perhaps ominously, Lord’s has been the scene of seven of his 15 hardest-working Tests in terms of overs bowled.India’s first innings was just the 12th time in Test history that four specialist pace bowlers have each bowled 33 or more overs in an innings. It was also the third successive Test in which four England seamers had bowled 25 or more overs in the same innings, which had happened only three times in England’s previous 99 Tests.This would probably not be a significant issue if the Tests were played in alternate weeks, as they were in the old days before cricket’s sage authorities realised that some golden geese do, in fact, keep laying eggs if you squeeze them aggressively whilst holding a gun to their heads. Both sides may need to rest key bowlers, which is something that should never be necessary, and can only become necessary due to (a) incompetent or avaricious administration, or (b) the earth’s rotation and orbit suddenly speeding up to make days and years significantly shorter. Neither of which concerns should affect Test cricketers.

There was the glorious sight of promising young tearaway Essex paceman Alastair Cook bouncing out the great allrounder Ishant Sharma with some savage leg-theory bowling, appropriately pinged down on the home ground of Bodyline legend Harold Larwood

An Indian-inexperience-in-“English-conditions” stat
None of India’s top five at Trent Bridge had ever previously played a Test in England. Excluding visiting nations’ first tours to this country, the 2014 Indians thus became only the second-ever touring team in England to field a top five with no Test match experience in English conditions.The only previous occasion was when the 1965 South Africans, in the first Test at Lord’s, managed to field an entire XI that had never played in England before.For anyone who thinks that the precedent of a different country’s cricketers, 49 years ago, playing in a series of a different length, might be of relevance to this summer’s action, those 1965 South Africans drew the first Test, and went on to win the series.An Alastair-Cook-being-bowled-out stat
When Alastair Cook was bowled behind his legs by Mohammed Shami, it was (a) the first time in his 105-Test career that he had been bowled behind his legs, and (b) the fifth time he had been castled in his last 13 Test innings, dating back to his understandable failure to prevent Mitchell Johnson’s 0.4-second masterpiece clonking into his off stump at 90-plus miles per hour in Adelaide in December.Prior to that, he had his timbers shivered just 12 times in 175 innings. If you take out his first ten Test innings, in which he was bowled three times, then, between being cleaned up by Mohammad Sami for 105 at Lord’s in 2006, and being stumpically dismantled by Johnson in Adelaide, Cook had been bowled out just nine times in his 165 innings – once every 18.3 innings.By way of comparison, since Cook’s debut in March 2006, all other top-three batsmen collectively have, on average, been bowled out once every 6.5 innings, or once every 468 balls faced (78 overs). Until Adelaide, Cook had been bowled out once every 14.6 innings, or once every 1400 balls (233.2 overs; once every 290 overs since the Sami dismissal).He was for seven years the Least Bowlable Batsman in Test cricket. Since taking guard in Adelaide – with his team collapsing around him, after Clarke and Haddin had wrestled the game away from England for the second consecutive Test, and minutes after Baggy Green numbers 10 and 11 Harris and Lyon had just deposited Graeme Swann, the strategic lynchpin of Cook’s team and England’s most successful offspinner of the past 50 years, into the stands for six – England’s captain has been bowled out once every 2.6 innings, or once every 97 balls (16.1 overs). So since Adelaide, he has been getting out bowled 18 times as frequently as he had in his previous 92 Tests.A temporary blip? A technical glitch? Mental fatigue? An irrelevant statistical quirk? A symptom of a deep-rooted batting malaise? All of the above? Or bits of some of the above? Ring up the ECB and ask.Some India-failing-to-finish-things-off stats
If the Indian bowling attack was a restaurant, it would have made some decent dishes in recent months. However, having made the food, they would have completely failed to serve it. It would have stayed sitting under a heat lamp in the kitchen until it had gone distractingly crispy on top, whilst the diners had all given up and gone home to order a takeaway.The prospect of India ever again bowling anyone out twice away from home must seem remote to their supporters. And perhaps to their bowlers. In their last four Tests, all away from home, India have conceded:1. Their record fourth-innings score (450 for 7 against South Africa, the third-highest fourth-innings in Test history2. The highest-ever third-innings score (New Zealand’s 680 for 8), in which they also smashed the record for most runs conceded after the fall of the fifth wicket (586 is the new mark, which will take a heroically persistent display of bowling bluntness to beat)3. The highest-ever last-wicket stand in Tests – Root and Anderson’s 198 – which contributed to a total of 294 runs scored after the fall of the seventh wicket, the sixth-highest such total ever, and the most conceded by India for the last three wickets of a Test innings.A batting-collapse stat
India’s second-best tenth-wicket stand (the 111 added by Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Shami) was immediately preceded by their equal second-worst performance for the fall of wickets numbers six through nine . India subsided from 344 for 5 to 346 for 9, equalling the two runs they added when collapsing from 267 for 5 to 269 for 9 against West Indies in Kolkata in 1948-49. Their worst such performance: three years ago, on the same ground, when Broad’s hat-trick, and Tim Bresnan’s dismissal of Rahul Dravid, turned 273 for 5 to 273 for 9 in the space of six balls.Some more tail-end-tonking stats
* Not only did Anderson and Root demolish the record Test tenth-wicket stand set at the same ground last year by Ashton Agar and Phil Hughes, but, with Bhuvneshwar and Shami, they hammered the match record for most runs added by last-wicket partnerships – 313, or 23% of the total runs scored in the match. The average proportion of a Test match’s total runs added by tenth-wicket partnerships is 3.4%. There are more important facts in the world than that one. But it is still a fact, and in a world of lies, half-truths and misinformation surely that must count for something. (I am wasting my life.)* The Trent Bridge Test also broke the record for most runs added after the fall of the seventh wicket – 548 in the three innings played, overhauling the previous best of 498, that had stood since the Adelaide Ashes Test of 1907-08.* This was the first Test ever in which numbers 8 to 11 collectively made five half-centuries. Only twice had the last four batsmen made four 50-plus scores in a Test (West Indies v Australia, Barbados, 1955; and New Zealand v India, Auckland, 1989-90, when India had the Kiwis reeling at 131 for 7, before letting them off the hook, to end on 391 all out, thanks to Ian Smith’s 136-ball 173).* I think that is probably enough stats. I need to lie down and think of an old-style Oval pitch and bouncers flying over the keeper’s head for four byes.

Following yet another Pakistan batting collapse, it’s time to take a good long look at team composition and strategy

Umar Farooq at the SSC17-Aug-2014The tale of the Pakistani batting slump is nothing new. A combination of poor shot selection, insecurity, lack of confidence and a fear of Rangana Herath led to a familiar story repeating itself at the SSC. Pakistan was given a target of 271 to chase down in four sessions but it took only one session for their batting to unravel to an extent where victory was only a remote possibility.The famous victory in Sharjah this January is a one-off in recent years as Pakistan have rarely been strong chasers. It isn’t a lack of ability, but more about losing it within their mind.On day three, Grant Flower tried to make sense of Pakistan’s problem, but Herath dominated his answers; several times he applauded Herath and put Pakistan’s first-innings collapse down to his skills. Perhaps his responses reflect the sense prevailing in the dressing room, that the opposition can dictate their fate.Flower was also confident Pakistan could do well the second time around. That did not happen; their top order did not look comfortable at all. Sarfraz Ahmed is the only positive Pakistan can take forward. The average opening partnership in their previous 13 Tests is 26.15, and the experiment with Ahmed Shehzad and Khurram Manzoor does not seem to be working. Both have been guilty of throwing their wickets away with poor shot selection. While Shehzad will be persisted with, Manzoor is not likely to get too many more chances.Azhar Ali suffered a dip in form in 2013 and was replaced by Mohammad Hafeez, but his impactful hundred in Sharjah pushed him up the pecking order once again. Expectations of him grew as well, but he hasn’t been able to meet them. He resisted hard while scoring 32 in the first innings, before falling to an inadvisable shot to Herath in the second.Younis Khan, apart from his 177 in Galle, has scored just 34 in three innings. Being a senior player, the attempted sweep which led to his dismissal today, with the side already reeling, could be termed erratic. Captain Misbah-ul-Haq has scored 67 at 16.75. He is having a hard time as captain, too, with Pakistan not having won a Test series since beating England in the UAE in early 2012. A 2-0 defeat here could be decisive for him.While the defeats must hurt, what could hurt Pakistan more is if they do not learn from them. It is vital that the team management gets the team selection right. The likes of Azhar Ali and Asad Shafiq seem to be the future for Pakistan, but Umar Akmal and Fawad Alam could probably work well too. The captain and coaches have also rarely been critical of the batting in public.Minutes after the stumps today, the team had packed up its stuff and left the ground. The media had requested that coach Waqar Younis attend the press conference, but they were told none of the Pakistan contingent would be taking questions. Even if they do not do so for the media, one hopes that Pakistan is answering the many questions that persist over their batting for themselves.

Dig deep in a city still recovering from devastation

Shane Bond03-Nov-2014Spend some quiet time
Those who have been to Christchurch before will find it incredibly different post-earthquake. There’s an eerie quietness in Central City despite the fact there is a bit of construction going on. With a number of buildings still to be demolished – including the Cathedral – it still captures the extent of devastation caused by the earthquake in 2011. I still find it sad to go into town, but I’m excited about the future.Grab a coffee
Within Central City, Container Mall – shops in containers – was set up as a means to attract Cantabrians back to the heart of Christchurch. It’s a great place for a good coffee and for shopping.Visit the Gardens
The World Cup matches will be hosted at Hagley Oval, which is part of Hagley Park, an open space that includes the beautiful Botanic Gardens. In fact Christchurch is nicknamed the Garden City. There are flowers and trees from around the world and you can spend a relaxing afternoon at the gardens, which are open every day of the year.Check out the museum
Not too far from the Botanic Gardens is the Canterbury Museum, which has Maori exhibits and collections from Antarctic explorations. It’s a great place to take the kids.Chill in the hot pools
Two hours north of Christchurch, through some of Canterbury’s vineyards, Hanmer is a town that provides ample things to do for those who like outdoor activities (cycling, tramping, golf) and thrill-seekers (bungee-jumping, jet-boating). If neither of those is for you, there’s always the main attraction: the thermal pools at Hanmer Springs.