India look near-invincible at home after a 3-0 whitewash of New Zealand, but England, with their batting depth and ability to generate reverse-swing, will pose an entirely different challenge

Alagappan Muthu in Rajkot06-Nov-2016Define the India-England series. Fifteen men who have spent the majority of their lives playing cricket in conditions that twelve of the opposition have never ever faced in a Test.Alastair Cook’s side didn’t even get the time for a practice game. Meanwhile, Virat Kohli’s took an international team, New Zealand, and broke them over the course of two months. Perhaps that is why the experts were calling it early.Michael Vaughan feared a 5-0 whitewash of England. Graeme Swann couldn’t see them improve at facing and bowling spin when their slow bowlers were treated as “third-class citizens” back home. Capsizing to Bangladesh didn’t help. If the 18-year old Mehedi Hasan, in only his second Test, could make them lose all ten wickets in a session, R Ashwin could hypnotize them into bashing their own stumps and walking off to the pavilion.And now that India’s batsmen have begun to score big runs on turning pitches again, it is almost tempting to think the schedule – which packs five Tests into seven weeks – may worry the hosts more. Many of their first-choice players are already injured and a series this unforgiving may well put even more on that list.But much like how you never run off a misfield or throw jellybeans at a batsman, you should not write off an opponent who is hurting. They can gain a ruthless kind of motivation.Joe Root has shown that already. Dissatisfied at throwing his wicket away cheaply to Pakistan at Lord’s, he went to Manchester, refused to fish outside the off stump, kept his pulls and hooks down, and generally avoided risk to make 254. He won’t find India anything like Old Trafford, but runs and the memories of scoring them are beyond vital to a batsman. He can use them to confront alien conditions and snuff out the doubts in his mind. Better yet, he can shove those doubts somewhere else. The bowler tends to be nearest.England have another thing going for them. He has red hair. Freckles all over. Swears. Biffs. Swings the ball. Reverse-swings it even better. And does basically anything England want. Ben Stokes is 100% charisma and cricket can’t help but gravitate towards personalities like that.He withstood Mitchell Johnson at the WACA. He demolished South Africa in their backyard. He broke down at the World T20, but is back in India again, with better confidence in his ability to play spin. And if it is strong enough, Stokes could possibly act as a renegade, coming in at No. 6, with the license to attack no matter what the scoreboard says. He has the power to do so, but he has to make it last if England are to unsettle India.Stokes’ threat to India may be far greater when he has ball in hand because he can produce reverse-swing. Besides runs and spin, that is the one thing that wins Test matches in the subcontinent and that England were able to harness it in Bangladesh, where the weather is hot and humid, means they know how to keep sweat off the rough side of the ball. James Anderson’s return, at some point during the series, will give them another exponent of the art. New Zealand struggled in this aspect and it played a part in their defeat.That still leaves the question of Ashwin. A man who is so much on top of his game that he has repeatedly said he can put the ball where he wants to. He is not a mystery spinner. Reading him off the hand shouldn’t be a problem. Reacting to him, though, clearly is. Right-handers have lunged forward only to be bowled past the outside edge because of the drift he gets in the air. Left-handers have tried to meet the delivery where it pitches but have nicked off because of the dip that adds inches to his turn. Even Root, a man largely thought the equal of Kohli, and Cook, quietly creeping up on Tendulkar’s records, will be tested, let alone Haseeb Hameed, the 19-year old uncapped opener, or Gary Ballance, who made 1, 9, 9 and 5 in Bangladesh.So it should come in handy that England may, in all likelihood, field an XI in which everyone has a first-class fifty. The only man in their 17 – now that Anderson might be back in action sooner than expected – who doesn’t have one is Jake Ball; his best first-class score is 49 not out. India would have noted this. But they have to be ready to react to it when out in the field. If their luck with the toss runs out that may happen sooner than expected. They’ve been frustrated by the tail so many times. They nearly gave Anderson a Test century in 2014.India have a job to do to get down that far, though, because having England five down for a hundred may not be enough. The fragility of their top order has meant they’ve often been reduced to that score often and still managed to recover.Jonny Bairstow is this year’s highest run-getter and he’s done that batting at Nos. 5 and 6. He stole a match from Pakistan by taking the second-innings score from 282 for 5 to 445 for 6, declared. This was in Birmingham, where his partner Moeen Ali overcame bad form and dismantled Yasir Shah late on the fourth day. Until then England had lost every session of the game and had conceded a first-innings lead of 103. That sixth-wicket stand of 152 at more than five an over was essentially the equivalent of Tweety bird turning into Tyrannosaurus Rex.The same magnitude of contributions may be unlikely from a team that features 12 men who have never played Tests in India. But every little run – especially down the order – counts for so much in the subcontinent. England would have understood that in Mirpur when Chris Woakes and Adil Rashid added 99 for the ninth wicket. They would have understood it better had they not lost.India are ranked No. 1 in the world. The most promising thing about the team they have now is that they have most bases covered. England are the underdogs, and have a squad full of inexperience and a spin attack that their own captain does not always trust. They do, however, have a few things going their way, and with a bit of luck could make this contest a lot more competitive than anyone might expect.

From the emergence of Jayant Yadav and Karun Nair to Virat Kohli’s stunning new heights, ESPNcricinfo rates India’s players after their 4-0 win over England

Alagappan Muthu21-Dec-20162:12

Who is India’s MVP?

9Virat Kohli
There were many feats he performed over the past six weeks – hitting grubbers to the boundary in Visakhapatnam, and scoring nearly 60 percent of what the entire England team managed in Mumbai. It’s the attitude that makes him as good as he is. He loves a fight, and when he is in the middle of one, he seems to have the time of his life. On the final day in Rajkot, with India facing the possibility of losing the first match of the series, a ball from left-arm spinner Zafar Ansari burst out of the pitch and went past his right shoulder into the wicketkeeper’s hands. Kohli had a mischievous little grin on his face and turned to the square leg umpire to make a signal for one bouncer for the over. He hasn’t quite faced a side, or conditions that undermine India’s strengths yet, and may still be learning as a captain – odd as that is to say after he’s led the team through an unprecedented 18 Tests without a defeat.R Ashwin
A strong stock delivery. A host of variations. No shortage of confidence. And more than happy to indulge in mind games. There was a legspinner who used to do all that. Ashwin seems to be doing his best to fill the void. “I’m looking forward to try and play on his confusion,” he said of Ben Duckett the day before dismissing him a third successive time and forcing him out of the XI. If a 22-year-old, playing his second series may not have been the toughest opponent, how about the man tipped for the England captaincy? Ashwin got Joe Root with dip in the second Test, when he had gone well past fifty, and with drift in Mumbai. The surface was not needed for any of those dismissals. The deception was all in the air. Bodes well for when he travels outside. Became the first Indian to score 300 runs and take 25 wickets in a series.8Ravindra Jadeja
Often, the praise he gets is tinged with a sense that it won’t last. He had Michael Clarke’s number in 2013. He had Alastair Cook’s number in 2016. And the critics are still waiting for the other shoe to drop. Zips through his overs. Retains his discipline whether it is his first ball of the day or the last one. The batsman gets no respite. Additionally, in this series, he has shown a willingness to toss the ball up more, thereby gaining drift and dip. Keaton Jennings’ dismissal during the Chennai collapse was a prime example of how this new-found skill enhances his threat. The batsman came down the track, but the ball weaved away in the air, forcing him to check his shot and pop a return catch. Jadeja’s 90 in Mohali also featured all the characteristics of a top-order batsman, and his catch in Chennai to dismiss Jonny Bairstow was comfortably the kind that kept getting better with each viewing.7Cheteshwar Pujara
Marked the first time his father came to see him play for India live with a century. It also contributed to India staying afloat despite England putting up 537 on the board. Followed it up with another ton in Visakhapatnam. Responded to the team asking him to show more intent. Seemed at ease though he is playing only one format and as such has to go through long periods without international cricket. Was troubled by the bouncer, though, and the old weakness of his – playing around straight balls – hasn’t been cut out of his game yet. It was, however, masked by the patience he showed against the quicks, and the skill with which he dominated the spinners.M Vijay
The mental strength he has is readily apparent, for he has a game that demands high levels of concentration: leaving countless balls outside off stump while waiting for the right one to put away. In Mumbai, he used a part of that to overcome a perceived weakness. After a century in Rajkot, it seemed like Vijay was not dealing with lifters well. He responded by scoring 136 in Mumbai to make sure England do not get a lead despite making 400. Of course, the Wankhede pitch was awful for the seamers, but there was plenty of spin, and Vijay is remarkable at handling that. He steps down the track late, and yet gets to the pitch of the ball quickly. And the hit is clean more often than not. He put the pressure back on Moeen Ali and Adil Rashid, and they buckled. Since they were the only two spinners in the team, England buckled too.Karun Nair
One innings does make all the difference. He was a replacement player – getting his chance only because Ajinkya Rahane and Rohit Sharma were injured – but his 303 not out might just make his among the first names put down on the team sheet in the next Test. Granted the innings was played on perhaps the best batting track of the series, but Nair did have other things to worry about. There were notions that even if he made a hundred, he might end up losing his place because he was not among India’s first-choice options in the middle order. By turning that into a triple, he has forced the selectors, if not to vote in his favour, to at least feel awkward when not doing so.Karun Nair has given Kohli a selection headache with his triple century•AFP6Jayant Yadav
“You might see some surprises,” Kohli said the day before Jayant made his debut, and an impression so strong that he became part of the first-choice XI. His athleticism helped India make the incision they wanted, and England’s blockathon fell away after that. There appear to be no tricks to his bowling, but he did castle Ben Stokes with a ripping offbreak that was almost too good to be true. A high-arm action allows him to extract more bounce than the opposition expects. A very capable lower-order batsman, he became the first Indian to hit a century at No. 9. Could become a regular feature when India play at home.KL Rahul
It may be hard to erase the sight of him on his knees, horror in his eyes, trudging back to the dressing room in Chennai. The disappointment was understandable – he had fallen on 199 – but it dissipated soon enough as he took the catch that set off England’s final innings collapse, racing away from leg slip to square leg in celebration. He admitted that it was “tough” being in and out of the side; “tough” that he kept getting injured. But when he is fit and firing, Rahul appears to have incorporated just enough of the one-day game to be an excellent foil to Vijay and Pujara at the top of the order.Parthiv Patel
For someone who hadn’t played for India in eight years, at times, he was doing some very important jobs. Stepped up to open when the specialists were injured, and did so after keeping wicket for over 150 overs in Chennai. Earned the approval of his captain, and perhaps a long-term presence in the squad moving forward. Missed out on a maiden century, playing an unnecessary shot. Could be sharper behind the stumps.Mohammed Shami Would have been rated higher had his body held up. Bowled the ball of the series to break Cook’s off stump in the second Test. Later derived reverse swing – with the second new ball when it was only seven overs old. Clearly India’s No. 1 fast bowler. Emphasis on the fast because he has often hit the mid 140 kph. One of the main reasons why the experts think India’s quicks outbowled England’s in the series.4Umesh Yadav
Good in spurts. Would have got a five-for in the first innings in Mohali but for a dreadful morning when India dropped three catches. Is always in the XI on pitches that are unhelpful because he has raw pace and can make the old ball hoop around. But becomes surplus when conditions are ripe for swing and seam because of his problems with consistency.3Ajinkya Rahane
His first dismal series since his debut in 2013. His wicket on the final day in Rajkot – cutting against the turn – gave England hope of an unlikely win. Fell to the second new ball late on the opening day in Visakhapatnam and bagged his first duck in over a year in Mohali. Was injured before he could play his first Test at home in Mumbai. Remains India’s first choice at No. 5 though, considering in each of the nine previous series, at home and abroad, he made at least one score of 90-plusWriddhiman Saha
Looked uneasy as a batsman – as he normally does at the start of every innings. Seemed a little vulnerable behind the stumps too. Fluffed opportunities in Rajkot – Ben Stokes, who scored a century, was dropped twice and survived a stumping chance in Visakhapatnam too. Both the management and the pundits back him to regain his form, but he would know the competitionAmit Mishra
Skillful legspinner. But he struggles on slow surfaces and may well have slipped down the line to his Haryana team-mate Jayant. Did well on the last day in Chennai to keep the pressure up and unveiled a lovely googly to dismiss Liam Dawson for a duck. More was expected of him.Balls such as the one from Mohammed Shami that splintered Alastair Cook’s off-stump showed the upswing in India’s fast bowling•Associated PressOne TestGautam Gambhir (29 runs at 14.50)
Did well on the second day in Rajkot to help India go to stumps unscathed and then mount their charge. But a dreadful lbw dismissal in the second innings, getting into a tangle and falling across to a full, straight delivery, left him open to the axe.Bhuvneshwar Kumar
Like some of his team-mates, who play in only one format, he seems to be needed only when the pitch and overhead conditions are in favour of fast bowlers. Came in for the Mumbai Test and didn’t make quite the impact he would have liked.Ishant Sharma
Took a wicket in the third over of his return. Has learned to bowl a fuller length to make himself more of a threat. But again, on unhelpful pitches, he goes out of favour and the outright fast bowlers come in.

Mitchell Starc and Josh Hazlewood triggered a slide with the second new ball that resulted in India slipping from 238 for 4 to 274 all out in the second innings

ESPNcricinfo staff07-Mar-2017238-5 84.3 Starc to Rahane, OUT, not given out on this lbw shout and Australia have reviewed it. Full and straight, and I think umpire Llong has not given this out suspecting an inside edge. Replays show no inside edge. So down to the projection now. Pitches leg, swings to straighten a touch, and is going to hit the leg stump. Another decision reversed, and Australia have their breakthrough. Don’t forget what an innings this has been from Rahane under pressure. He has brought India back into this contest238-6 84.4 Starc to Nair, OUT, bowled him. Starc is on a hat-trick. The big man is bringing Australia back. Nair out for a golden duck at his home ground. Starc is on fire. Loose shot first up. Starc is full, swinging it, bowling fast, and Nair looks to play a big drive. The ball swings and the inside edge cannons into the middle stump. Oh what a Test242-7 85.2 Hazlewood to Pujara, OUT, Australia on fire. The first time Pujara has been dismissed in the 90s. Short of a length, hits a naughty spot on the pitch, and kicks up to hit the shoulder of Pujara’s bat. He has been staying inside the line of these, but not this time. It lobs off the shoulder of the bat for a simple catch to gully246-8 85.5 Hazlewood to Ashwin, OUT, I told you he was loose. Hazlewood has a five-for. Ashwin plays another loose drive on the up on a treacherous pitch, and this one is a grubber from outside off. Nips back in to hit the base of the off stump258-9 87.3 Hazlewood to Yadav, OUT, what has Yadav done here? There is Saha with you, just bat with him. Loose shot. Swings hard at a length ball. No way you can be driving this. Hits the bat high, and goes to mid-off for an easy catch274-10 97.1 O’Keefe to Sharma, OUT, Ishant will be disappointed after having shown so much of application. Loose drive to a length ball, and it chips to short cover for a catch

The birthdays of Tom Pritchard and Jack Laver this week draw notice to an exclusive band of cricketers who have lived 100 years and more

Brydon Coverdale10-Mar-2017There is scoring a century, and there is reaching a century. Tom Pritchard never scored a century, not in a first-class career spanning 200 matches. Neither did Jack Laver, who played only 13 first-class games himself. But in a delightful coincidence, both men have now, at long last, reached centuries within a day of each other.Pritchard is New Zealand’s oldest living first-class cricketer; Laver Australia’s. In Tasmania on Thursday, Laver celebrated his 100th birthday; across the Tasman on Friday, Pritchard enjoyed his 100th. Two days, two countries, two tons, two messages from the Queen.”It’s just one after 99,” Laver said this week, in an interview with Launceston newspaper the .Laver’s flippancy aside, his and Pritchard’s achievement is phenomenally rare, considering that more than 33,000 men have played first-class cricket. Of those, more than 8000 are known to have centuries, but only 20 are known to have centuries – though it is necessary to include a caveat that such a list may not be exhaustive.The first cricketing centenarian was George Deane, whose entire first-class career consisted of one match for Hampshire that occurred so long ago that he was bowled by John Wisden – yes, John Wisden. The year was 1848 and Deane made a duck in both innings, but later created history by living until 1929 and the age of 100.The latest cricketing centenarian can boast a much more prolific career. Pritchard claimed 818 wickets and was considered one of the fastest bowlers of the 1940s. In fact, after he took 4 for 46 for Warwickshire against the touring Indians in 1946, India captain Vijay Merchant wrote a letter of thanks to the county, in which he called Pritchard “the fastest bowler in England at the time”.Why was Pritchard, a New Zealander who had earlier played for Wellington, in England playing for Warwickshire? Because he served in the armed forces in Europe during World War II, married an Englishwoman, and set up home there after the war.In an interview this week with Andrew Alderson of the , Pritchard told of how in the post-war era he would have “at least two beers before I went out at lunchtime, some at afternoon tea and a couple afterwards. All with the magnificent people we played against.”

Pritchard bowled fast outswinging offcutters – the change of direction made him a particularly difficult customer for batsmen to face – but playing in England for much of his career limited his opportunities to play for New Zealand. He represented his country only once, in a match against Sir Julien Cahn’s XI in Wellington in 1939.Like Pritchard, Laver served in World War II, though in New Guinea. He was born in Melbourne into a sporting family – he is the second cousin of tennis legend Rod Laver, who sent Jack a card for his 100th birthday, and the nephew of cricketer Frank Laver, who played 15 Tests for Australia.Laver moved to Launceston after the war and played first-class cicket for Tasmania – they were not yet part of the Sheffield Shield competition – including three games as captain. After retirement, he went on to serve as a state selector.”In those days, the NTCA [Northern Tasmania Cricket Association] had all the visiting countries come, and I played against all the countries, two Australian sides, two English sides, one West Indies side and one Indian side,” Laver told the this week.Laver and Pritchard are not the only living centenarians among former first-class cricketers: John Manners, who played 21 matches for Hampshire from 1936 to 1953, is 102. Manners is the only living man to have played first-class cricket in England before World War II, and was the subject of a fine piece in last year’s .The remainder of first-class cricket’s late centenarians form a fascinating bunch.There was the Australian Ted Martin, who upon turning 100 in 2002 – the year after Don Bradman’s death aged 92 – quipped that “it’s nice to have beaten Bradman at something”.Pritchard at 100•Andrew AldersonThere was the Irishman Harry Forsyth, whose entire first-class career consisted of one game for Dublin University in 1926, and whose team-mate in that match was the future Nobel Laureate playwright Samuel Beckett.There was Alan Finlayson, the South African who doubled the age of his brother Charles, who also played first-class cricket but died at 50.There was DB Deodhar, once known as the Grand Old Man of Indian Cricket, who was one of very few people to play first-class cricket both before World War I and after World War II, and whose name lives on in the Deodhar Trophy.There was the 19th-century cricketer Charles Braithwaite, unique in this list in that his entire first-class career of four matches occurred in Philadelphia, USA.There was Fred Gibson, who was born in rural Jamaica, stayed on in England after serving in the RAF during World War II, played for Leicestershire, worked for Rolls-Royce (sometimes surprising opponents by arriving in one of the company’s cars) and served as a Labour councillor.There was Cyril Perkins, the left-arm spinner who made his first-class debut for Northamptonshire in 1934 and, remarkably, made his List A debut for Suffolk at the age of 54 in 1966, and died in 2013 at the age of 102.

Eileen Ash turned 105 last year. She played seven Tests for England either side of World War II, worked for 11 years with intelligence agency MI6, still drives a yellow Mini, and doesn’t look or sound a day over 80

And there have been others, though none who have lived longer than Jim Hutchinson, who began working in a coal mine at the age of 14. A decade later he was spotted while playing for the colliery XI, and a week after that, he was making his first-class debut for Derbyshire. Hutchinson went on to play 256 first-class matches and lived to 104, claiming that his longevity was due to a diet of “pork chops and onion rings”.If Hutchinson is the first-class cricketer with the longest lifespan, the South African Norman Gordon is the Test cricketer who has lived the longest. A fast bowler who played in the famous ten-day timeless Test against England in Durban in 1939, Gordon died at the age of 103 in 2014. He is the only Test cricketer to have reached a century.Actually, that statement must be clarified: the only Test cricketer to have reached a century. For there is one person who surpasses all of these men not only for longevity, but for the remarkable nature of the long life still being lived.Eileen Ash (nee Whelan) turned 105 last year. She played seven Tests for England either side of World War II, worked for 11 years with intelligence agency MI6, still drives a yellow Mini, and doesn’t look or sound a day over 80. She puts down her longevity to the fact that she still practises yoga once a week – see for yourself – and enjoys two glasses of red wine a day.She is so fit that she has not only reached a century but jokes about one day reaching a double-century. “I’d like to know when I’m going to be old,” she said in a BBC interview last year, shortly before her latest birthday. “Do you think it will be when I’m 105?”

Aakash Chopra analyses the action from day two in Hyderabad

Aakash Chopra10-Feb-2017Taskin still not spot on
At the end of the day’s play, most bowlers revisit what they did. On the first day Taskin was guilty of bowling a little too short; he was expected to learn from that and bowl fuller on day two. But that did not quite happen. Whenever he did bowl on a good length on the fifth-sixth stump line, he kept both Kohli and Rahane quiet. Unfortunately for Bangladesh, those few good balls had for company several short and wide balls. Test bowling on flat pitches is about discipline: having one plan and the field to back it up.Not quite right outside off
First Taskin, then Kamrul Islam tried bowling the outside-off line but couldn’t do it well for two reasons. Firstly, the length becomes critical while executing this plan: you must bowl full, forcing the batsman to play on the front foot. The Bangladesh seamers were too short and lacked control. Secondly, you have to have the field to support the plan, which means having six or seven fielders on the off side. But Mushfiqur chose to keep only five fielders on the off side.The puff of dust
The cracks opened a little bit on the pitch, and the first signs of deterioration appeared. Taijul Islam’s deliveries took a piece off the pitch on a couple of occasions, including the ball that dismissed Ajinkya Rahane. The issue with the pitch exploding once in a while is that it alters your response against normal deliveries too. Ever since the first ball that disturbed the surface, India’s batsmen showed caution.Wriddhiman Saha’s wagon wheel against spin•Getty ImagesCaptaincy in the spotlight again

While in the first half of the day Mushfiqur was quick to put out a defensive field, he chose to attack a little more when India had 550 on the board. For a well-set Wriddhiman Saha, he didn’t make any attempt to plug the hole at short fine leg for the sweeps and, also, the fielder at slip never moved back to short third man, allowing Saha the chance to collect runs through late-cuts. Saha’s wagon wheel against spin highlights his preference for these two areas.Saha’s spin advantage
Saha has got a very effective way of handling spin. He isn’t afraid to step out and hit either along the ground or over the top, has three variations of the sweep shot, and plays the square cut well. The shot that stands out is the sweep, for that simply doesn’t allow the bowler to settle. He chooses his variation of the sweep shot depending on the line and length: a really full ball within the stumps is paddled fine, a slightly shorter ball is conventionally swept towards long leg, and he picks deliveries from outside off to go over the midwicket fielder.Bhuvneshwar’s angles

Bhuvneshwar Kumar began over the stumps. He got the ball to come into and go away from the left-hand batsmen. Then the umpire had a word with Bhuvneshwar about running on the pitch and that prompted him to go around the stumps. Kapil Dev, who was on commentary at the time, was of the opinion that as a swing bowler, there’s more merit in staying over the stumps for a couple of reasons. One, the moment you bring the ball back in, the chances of getting a leg-before dismissal increases. And two, the natural angle from over the wicket will keep the batsman guessing.

Former South African umpire Cyril Mitchley remembers his days on the circuit, giving Tendulkar run out at square leg and Atherton caught off the thigh pad

Luke Alfred05-Feb-2017Cyril Mitchley hears a voice rather than sees a face when you ask him a question nowadays. Eighteen months ago he started suffering from a hereditary disease of the retina – called macular degeneration – which blurs everything he looks at directly. His peripheral vision is fine but in the middle it’s indistinct and blurred, a soggy mess.He struggles in the garden and shouldn’t be driving his Toyota Tazz, but carries on regardless, vaguely relieved that he no longer needs to see whether Saeed Anwar or David Boon has feathered an edge to the keeper. “My paternal grandmother was an artist,” he said. “She painted water. When she started painting red and yellow water we realised that something was up and that her eyes were packing in. I’ve got the same thing.”There was a pinch of the showman about Mitchley the umpire. In his early umpiring days he used to go into a prize-fighter’s crouch before jabbing his index finger at you not once but twice or three times. “Dave Richardson complained – he said I took too much pleasure in it, so I didn’t use the flourish so much after that. Even when I wasn’t crouching I always used to stand with my head at a slight angle so my good ear was facing the batsman. I had one season as a 20-year-old inside-forward with Sheffield United – I had the choice of Charlton, Wolves or United, God alone knows why I chose United – and someone kicked a wet, heavy ball at my head. It burst my eardrum. After that my hearing in the left ear was always a bit dodgy.”Mitchley wasn’t about to allow the imperfections of a wonky ear get in the way of a job he loved. He was always engaged, never distant, always part of the game without allowing his personality to overshadow bigger names or larger spectacles. He remembers giving Sachin Tendulkar run out from square leg in South Africa’s first readmission Test (beside the third-umpire bells and whistles, the match was unspeakably dreary) and was scandalised by a stranger who he at first assumed was an autograph-seeker, offering him $50,000 to make sure Pakistan didn’t lose the third Test of their 1994-95 home series against Australia. He reported the approach to John Reid, the match referee, and promptly forgot about it. The high-scoring Test was drawn, so Pakistan wrapped up the series 1-0.Launching from the haunches: Mitchely crouches as fast bowler Brett Schultz bowls in a tour game against India, 1992-93•Getty Images”The best umpire I ever stood with was [the Tasmanian] Steve Randell, said Mitchley. “I thought he was brilliant. I was the first neutral umpire to stand in an Ashes Test [at the Gabba, in November 1994] and I stood with Steve, although he couldn’t stand Ian Healy for some reason. He came to me once and said: ‘If he steps out of line for anything we’re going to nail him’.”The biggest decision Mitchley ever made was when he was asked to judge on Sanath Jayasuriya’s run-out in the 1996 World Cup final in Lahore. Jayasuriya was later named Man of the Tournament, and Mitchley was well aware his decision would have far-reaching consequences. “[Steve] Bucknor and [David] Shepherd got the final and I wasn’t even sure I was going to be in Lahore because I was in Delhi, but Dave Richards [the ICC chief executive] phoned and said: ‘Look, we think there’s going to be a bit of shit and we want you there as TV umpire. We’ll send you a ticket.'”To cut a long story short, many of the tournament umpires had flown to the final in Lahore and we were all sitting in the same box-like booth, so when I worried about giving Sanath run-out there were many eyes on me. Not long after that we get a Sri Lankan delegation who’ve come to complain. I’m not happy but Clive [Lloyd], the match referee, says, ‘Relax, Cyril, let’s all have a look at the slow-motion together.’ So we look at the replay and he then asks them: ‘Are you happy with the decision?’ They say they are, and then he tells them in no uncertain terms to get the hell out of there.”Mitchley describes the 1996 World Cup – co-hosted by India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka – as a tournament of considerable behind-the-scenes strain. With such a broad sweep of venues, competition logistics were already demanding, and with the Australians and the West Indians refusing to visit Sri Lanka, tensions rose. He had to be present in Colombo, just in case the Australians arrived, and signed an affidavit in the presence of an attorney to that effect. He remembers tournament organisers like Sunil Gavaskar and Kapil Dev (“They didn’t trust the Australians”) being exceptionally tense and the competition unfolded in an atmosphere of mutual watchfulness. “I suppose the upside of the trip to Colombo was that I had four or five days free to visit the tea plantations and the hill stations and that was fabulous,” said Mitchley.Mike Atherton walks back past Mitchley, who gave him caught off the thigh pad, in Port Elizabeth, 1995-96•PA PhotosHe wasn’t one to dwell on mistakes but remembers a shocker he gave Mike Atherton in Port Elizabeth in 1995-96. “As soon as I saw his face he just knew I’d stuffed it up,” recalls the man many in South Africa still call “Squire”. Mitchley apparently gave Atherton, a man for whom he had immense respect, out caught off the thigh pad and the decision perched darkly on his conscience for the rest of the day.Squire’s humiliation was softened only slightly when Ian Botham told him to forget it after the close, but turned to wry amusement when he was later presented with the signed leg of a white plastic chair by Dermot Reeve. Atherton had smashed the chair in a fury once he returned to the dressing room and the token of his esteem was duly delivered by a smirking 12th man – Reeve. To this day it remains one of Mitchley’s treasured mementos, along with signed shirts and equipment from Brian Lara and Malcolm Marshall, two of his favourite players.Mitchley says he was a dogged wicketkeeper-batsman with a good eye, not much to look at but plucky. He kept to Hugh Tayfield (“what a taskmaster”) as a young club cricketer and reserves special praise for a long-forgotten Transvaal fast bowler called Ken Walter. “When he played at Pioneer Park [in Johannesburg’s Southern Suburbs] he could be well-nigh unplayable. John Reid brought the New Zealanders to South Africa in the early sixties. They always said that Ken was the best South African bowler they faced by far.”Mitchley was the first umpire to refer an on-field decision to the TV umpire•PA PhotosMitchley once hit a lippy young Brian Davison (yet to make his mark as an elegant middle-order batsman at Leicestershire) back over his head after Davison had terrorised a handy Transvaal B batting line-up during an away fixture in Salisbury. Mitchley had been put on the plane by the irascible Eric Rowan, who warned him to stay off “the sauce” and nail down a regular place.”Brian was giving our guys a send-off, telling them that they’d just been bowled by the legcutter and what not,” said Mitchley. “I didn’t have a good bat, I couldn’t afford one, but he bowled me one in the slot and I just pumped him onto the grass embankment for six.”‘You can call that whatever you like here in Rhodesia, sonny,’ I told him as I marched down the pitch, ‘but in the Southern Suburbs, where I come from, we call that a six.’ It was my highest first-class score, 66, I was proud of that.”Mitchley’s route past 66 soon took him into umpiring. He umpired in one B section game before being promoted and was always a firm favourite with the players. He was verbally adroit and exuded a kind of cheery calm that instantly made them comfortable. He enjoyed his time at square leg and is mildly relieved that he escaped much of the current culture of super-scrutiny. “We probably had an easier time because we actually made the decision. Every decision nowadays can be referred with the exception of a wide. We weren’t watched quite as much.”His capacity for the verbals must have had something to do with his love of poetry. He never did very well at school, receiving a couple of O levels, including 8% for Latin, but he can still recite poems by John Masefield and Sir Henry Newbolt by heart. He loves *”In Flanders Fields”, by Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, and takes comfort from their heft and rhythm now that he can’t actually see the words on the page. “The degeneration happened about 18 months ago over two or three days. At first I thought to myself: ‘What’s wrong with my eyes, they’re going cockeyed?’ Then I thought it was cataracts, but that wasn’t it. I don’t have an income now, so I’m thankful that my wife still works. I’ll be 79 on Independence Day.”If anything, his fading eyesight has sharpened his memory. He remembers Harry Wolf, the Southern Suburbs chairman, walking around the change room and deftly placing folded five pound notes into the Tayfield brothers and Walters’ shoes. There were never any coins, they were liable to roll across the floor and so raise awkward questions. Notes were discrete, even delicate. Mitchley, the young whippersnapper, watched it all, knowing he had some way to go before he found a note in his.*The name of the poem was corrected

Chadwick Walton’s riposte, Lendl Simmons’ imaginary friend and Kamran Akmal’s misery feature in the plays from the fourth and final T20I

Alagappan Muthu02-Apr-2017The prophecy“Only big shot coming,” Sarfraz Ahmed screamed from behind the stumps. “Only big shot, lads”. So, struck by the great urge to prove his captain right, Imad Wasim bowled a long hop, and Chadwick Walton used the depth of his crease, and his giant bat, to great effect as he pulled a massive six over the long-on boundary. All that was missing was the batsman turning around to the wicketkeeper and saying “your wish was my command.”The oddest strikeAmid the flurry of West Indies wickets, one stood out. Lendl Simmons blocked a good length ball and as if he had come to the crease with an imaginary friend, and that imaginary friend had hacked his sense of sight, he began running. It didn’t matter that the ball had barely left the cut strip. Or that Hasan Ali only had to take three steps to get to it, and then three more to break the stumps at the bowler’s end. Fluffy told him to run and he did.The T20 microcosmThat inexplicable run-out was but one part of a story that could basically explain T20 to dummies. It began with Wahab Riaz bowling a wide delivery that Marlon Samuels bashed over point for six. The next one was length and was thrashed over long-off for six. Then the over ended, the dust settled and out of the shadows emerged Hasan, arch enemy of both sets of stumps. He ran Simmons out, bowled Samuels and enabled T20 to show itself off. Four balls, two sixes, two wickets.The bunnyOn Saturday, the first ball Kamran Akmal faced from Samuels became his last one for the innings. He might have hoped that, in 24 hours’ time, things had changed. Nope. Samuels came on in the seventh over. Ahmed Shehzad took a single off the first ball. Akmal got on strike, was undone by the slowness with which a good length offbreak came off the pitch and was caught at midwicket.

Chris Woakes talks about his approach, what he has gained from the IPL, and how he wants to develop his game

Interview by Nagraj Gollapudi16-May-2017This year has been special for you, hasn’t it – you got married, were one of ‘s Five Cricketers of the Year, were bought at the IPL for a good price?
So far, so good. Touch wood, 2017 has been pretty good so far, but you never look too far ahead in cricket, do you?When you decided on Rs 2 crore (approximately US$307,000) as your base price, were you confident franchises would pick you?
With international cricket, the schedules are very hectic. The summer we have got coming up is very, very busy. So this period during the IPL was actually a good time to rest up and take time away from game. I had to weigh that up: either come to the IPL or take the time off. So I had put myself at a high price for it to be really worthwhile coming here. I didn’t expect to even get picked up. The fact that I did was quite a shock.Were you following the auction?
I was not following it live. I woke up at about 6.30am, by when it had started. I flicked through Twitter and had seen that Ben [Stokes] and Tymal [Mills] had gone for a hell of a lot of money. I couldn’t see my name anywhere, so I did not know whether I had been through the auction or whether I went unsold. I went to make a cup of coffee and by the time I came back to check my phone, I had a notification from the IPL Twitter feed saying that I had been sold to KKR. I enjoy my coffee usually and it was extra nice that morning.What did you think were your strengths that made you an attractive offer to a franchise?
The fact that I’m an allrounder, and in T20 cricket an allrounder balances the team well. I suppose that is what the franchise was after, having lost Andre Russell for this year. So I suppose they were looking to fill his shoes to a certain extent, and maybe I could fill part of that role.

“I had to weigh that up: either come to the IPL or take the time off. So I had put myself at a high price for it to be really worthwhile coming here”

Did you really look at yourself as a like-for-like replacement for Russell?
It is tough, considering I had not played an IPL game. Andre is one of the best T20 cricketers in the world. He has good T20 and IPL experience behind him as well. So to fill his shoes completely isn’t really what I was coming here to do. I knew I could do a really good job with the ball and make some useful runs with the bat. I haven’t really had a chance to show my true qualities with the bat, but I would like to think I have done a reasonable thing with the ball.There have been a few good ones, particularly the RCB game at home when we bowled them out for 49. It is something the whole team and the franchise will remember for a long, long time – to bowl out a team like RCB for that sort of a number is almost unheard of in T20 cricket. We broke a lot of records that day. It was a good personal performance from myself: I took three wickets. Got Chris Gayle out, which obviously was a good wicket for them. Eden Gardens was very, very loud.What is the major difference that you have felt between the T20 Blast and the IPL, other than the crowds?
With four overseas players allowed, the IPL has a lot more international players. You also have the Indian internationals, so you are coming up against very strong teams regardless of who you are playing. In England you are only allowed two overseas players, and there are 18 counties, so [talent] is a bit more stretched out across the board. Here it is very much concentrated: it is eight teams, you have world-class players playing in front of 60,000 people at a ground like Eden Gardens, in conditions and the heat, which we are not used to as England players.What about the level of the game?
It is a very, very hard, high standard here in the IPL. There is a lot of pressure on you as an international player to perform because there is always someone on the sidelines trying to take your position. The T20 Blast is a very good tournament, but the quality of the IPL, I believe, makes it the best T20 tournament in the world.”T20 cricket is a good experience to have behind you going into an ODI tournament because you still have to bowl death overs in ODI cricket”•PA PhotosIs there any element from the IPL you might want to take back home?
It is tricky, because you want to still be able to develop homegrown players. The fact that the IPL is a franchise tournament, which we don’t have yet in England. I know they are looking at creating that possibly down the line – I think that would develop T20 skills across the board. In general, the fact that you have four overseas players allows the quality of the teams to be little bit stronger. But, as I said, you are still creating homegrown players, which India have done, which the IPL has been very good for.Can you talk about a pressure moment you faced as a bowler in the tournament?
In every game. As a bowler you have to bowl important overs, like two at the death when you have someone like Glenn Maxwell or MS Dhoni batting at the other end. You have to make sure you are on the money and you execute your skills very well. If you don’t, you get found out. You are always under pressure.You have a slightly high economy rate of almost nine, but you are the leading wicket-taker for the Knight Riders.
It is rough with the smooth in T20 cricket. You just have to have the mindset of always trying to take wickets. If you speak to the coaches and captains, they are happy for you to go for the occasional boundary as long as you are picking up wickets. That is what really wins you games, making sure you take plenty of wickets. It can help you towards the back end if you have got a team six or seven down – then you are bowling to the tail rather than an MS Dhoni or a Ben Stokes or a Jos Buttler. I would like my economy closer to eight than nine, but as the tournament has gone on, I have improved.

“It is a very, very hard high standard here in the IPL. There is a lot of pressure on you as an international player to perform because there is always someone on the sidelines trying to take your position”

You have not got the batting time you might have desired. It must have been difficult then to come out in a crunch situation, like you did against Kings XI Punjab, where KKR needed 29 off 11?
As a batsman going into such a position, you have nothing to lose, really. All the pressure is on the bowling side, because you shouldn’t lose from that position. As a batsman, you have no choice but to try and get boundaries when you need 20 off six balls. Realistically you should win, but they bowled very well towards the back end and we could not close it out.Was it possibly instructive for you as a bowler, watching Mohit Sharma bowl the knuckleball and the slower balls?
Yes, definitely. A lot of the guys are bowling the knuckleball; it is almost like the flavour of the month. Some guys execute it better than others. Mohit bowled it very well the other night. He bowled some good dot balls. The more variations you have towards the back end of the innings, and particularly if you can execute them well, [the better]. Just because you have the knuckleball doesn’t mean you are not going to go for runs. You still need to bowl it well, bowl it on the right length, on the right line, to the specific batsman. You have to bowl it where you want to bowl it and also disguise it well.Do you bowl the knuckleball?
I am practising it at the minute. I don’t feel comfortable enough to bowl it in a game yet. You have to commit to it 100% and know where it is going to go.What have you learned in the time you have been bowling in India, starting from the India series and then the IPL?
Indian conditions are generally not bowler-friendly: small grounds, fast outfields, good, flat, batting pitches.Almost every wicket we have played on has been slightly different. On some surfaces you can bowl seam up and it offers a little bit. You certainly have to smash [the ball into] the wicket and use your cross-seamers and the slower ball, etc. The one thing you need to do in T20 cricket, regardless of where in the world you are playing is to use variations very well.”I bat at No. 8 in the Test team. I have got a couple of fifties and scored some valuable runs, but I would like to go on and score hundreds for England”•PA PhotosDo you also need to have a good mindset?
Very true. Your mindset has to be always taking the positive option. You always have to take the batsman out. Sometimes in T20 cricket you get into a mode of trying to stop runs, which is good to a certain extent, particularly if you are defending a total. But sometimes, particularly when you are bowling first, you need to take wickets, you always have to try and find a way of getting the batsman out. That is the best mindset to have. The good thing about batsmen coming at you quite hard is, you always have a chance to take a wicket.You showed a strong mindset in the third ODI of the India series, played at Eden Gardens, when you denied India a victory. India needed 16 runs off the final over and Kedar Jadhav hit your first two balls for a six and a four. Can you talk about that over?
It was a really good moment for us to finish that series on a high, because we were 2-0 down and Kolkata was the last game. Defending 16 off the last over, as a bowler you are expected to close that game out. When your first two balls go for ten runs, all of a sudden you are under pressure and the batting side are looking like they are going to win. Your mindset was to try and almost think the game was gone. The batsman was under pressure to finish it off, and I just tried to execute my skill. I managed to get a couple of dot balls, then got Jadhav caught on the rope and then defended the last ball. A big moment to close out a game that I thought had gone.That third ball was the most vital. What was the plan?
I had to change the plan because I was trying to go for my yorker and did not quite nail it [in the first two deliveries]. I decided to change the plan, decided to change the field and then try and hit the good length. I managed to do that and got the dot ball. All of a sudden, you get a little more confident. And then the next ball, I actually decided to bluff the batsman because I thought he was going to think I would bowl the same one. Decided to bowl a wide yorker, executed well. It was a dot ball. Tried the same the next ball – he hits it out to [deep] cover and gets out. The mindset was just to try and somehow find some dots or get a wicket.Sometimes Plan A does not always work. Eoin Morgan, the captain, was very good. He said, “Look, we are going to have to change the plan. What do you think we should do?” So we came up with Plan B, which seemed to work well.

“The one thing you need to do in T20 cricket, regardless of where in the world you are playing, is to use variations very well”

Do you reckon playing in the IPL will help your ODI game?
T20 cricket is a good experience to have behind you going into an ODI tournament because you still have to bowl death overs in ODI cricket. And it is almost just an extended version of T20. So clearly it will keep me in good stead going into an ODI tournament.Looking at the near future, are you looking forward to the Ashes?
It is so far ahead. Still six months away at least. There is a lot of cricket to be played still, so fingers crossed I can perform well this English summer and make sure that I am on the plane to Australia.What are the improvements you want to carry out going into the Test series against South Africa?
I have had a good 12 months in Test cricket. I have had a good run in the team. Ideally it would be nice to continue that form. I would like to keep contributing with the bat. I bat at No. 8 in the Test team. I have got a couple of fifties and scored some valuable runs, but I would like to go on and score hundreds for England. That would be one of my aims. I aim to continue to bowl well. I took some good wickets in the summer. Hopefully I can take that form forward into the English summer. And if you play well in the English summer, you are on an Ashes trip, where you just want to perform well.Trevor Bayliss said that there was mild concern initially about whether players featuring in the IPL would be affected going to play South Africa and the Champions Trophy. What do you feel? Are you exhausted?
No, I don’t think so. That is what we had to weigh up before coming here: either take an off or come and have this experience. You don’t know if these opportunities are going to come around ever again. Might be a one-off for myself. You just never know. So I did not feel like it was an opportunity that I could turn down. My body feels pretty good. As a fast bowler, you are always hurting somewhere. You always have to look after parts of your body. I’m no different. I feel good. I feel fine going back to England and hopefully playing a key part for England this summer.

Reactions to high-profile cricket returning to Pakistan next month with the announcement of the World XI series

ESPNcricinfo staff25-Aug-2017

It’s Mr Cool’s 36th birthday. So, time to test whether you’ve been watching closely and taking notes on how to be not just cool, but MS cool

ESPNcricinfo staff07-Jul-2017