Young New Zealand star leaning on tips from Maxwell and de Villiers in RCB nets

Matt Roller07-Jun-2021In the era of comprehensive video analysis and advanced data, there is nowhere for young T20 batters to hide. After a brief honeymoon period, in which teams have limited access to footage of a player and have to work plans out on the spot, analysts and coaches can get to work by poring over every shot in their career to come up with a strategy to counter them.Finn Allen knows he is no different. After hitting a competition-high 512 runs for Wellington in this year’s Super Smash (averaging 56.88 and striking at 193.93) and earning a New Zealand T20I debut and a deal with Royal Challengers Bangalore in the IPL, Allen has arrived in Manchester ahead of a T20 Blast stint with Lancashire as a marked man, with teams scrambling to work out how to limit the damage he can cause.Related

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That much was apparent in his only warm-up innings, against Nottinghamshire’s last week in a 2nd XI T20. Notts threw the new ball to Samit Patel, the veteran left-arm spinner, and Allen whipped the first ball he faced through midwicket for four. To his second, he charged down the pitch, only to see Patel rip one past his outside edge to have him stumped. North Group teams, take note.”Teams will potentially see that as a way in,” Allen admits, speaking via Zoom from his room in the on-site hotel at Emirates Old Trafford. “I think my strike rate is a little bit lower against spin [181.81 across his T20 career, compared to an eye-watering 204.69 against seam] but I’d like to think I’m a good player of spin and that it will give me a chance to play my array of shots and think about planning my innings differently.”I have thought a little bit about it. I did some work before going to India [for the IPL] around being less one-dimensional. I’ve obviously had a very aggressive approach and still do, but for me, it’s about being able to hit similar balls in different areas, or moving around so I can access different areas of the ground, especially if one side is closed off by the bowler. That’s what I’ve been working on the most, trying to manipulate the ball a bit better – still playing strong shots, but potentially being a bit harder to bowl at.”ESPNcricinfo LtdLancashire have bowled more overs of spin than anyone else in the Blast over the past three seasons, pushing the boundaries back at Old Trafford and playing on used pitches in a concerted effort to play to their own strengths, and for Allen – whose success to date has largely been on postage-stamp grounds in New Zealand on flat surfaces – that provides a fresh challenge, for which his time with RCB in the IPL served as ideal preparation.”I have heard that Old Trafford tends to spin, especially when pitches are used, [but after] India, I’ve had a lot of experience playing a lot more spin that I was used to, and on turning wickets as well. My main focus over there was being able to get close to the ball when it’s spinning. I like to sweep and reverse-sweep, so [was] working on those when it’s spinning and bouncing which I’ve already experienced out here in the nets and in the middle.”It’s a little bit different over there: when it’s spinning a bit more, you have to get close to the ball so you can have a bit more control. It’ll be interesting to see what it’s like out here when pitches are a little bit used. I was learning off [Glenn] Maxwell and AB [de Villiers] – they’re pretty good players of spin, so pretty useful to talk to about how they go about it, as you can imagine.”

“He had long blond hair, he didn’t really drink, he didn’t score a hundred in the league, but he was a good lad. Snapchat and was about all we got from him.”James Overy, Allen’s opening partner at Brondesbury CC in 2017

This will be Allen’s first season in the UK since 2017, when he used his British passport to travel over as a teenager and spend the summer playing for the MCC Young Cricketers and for Brondesbury in the Middlesex Premier Division. He arrived for his club stint with glowing recommendations from Glenn Phillips – who had played for both teams the previous summer – and Bob Carter, then New Zealand’s batting coach, but it was not until an innings of 275 off 124 balls in a 40-over friendly that they realised they had a special player on their hands.”We were pretty excited when we heard he was coming over,” James Overy, the club’s current captain, says. “We knew his pedigree was pretty high but then in one of his first friendlies he got 275 – I was blocking it up the other end while he just went ballistic, hitting every ball for six towards the back end.”His best knock was 90 not out off 56 balls in the league in our record run-chase. He didn’t consistently score runs, but he probably won us four games single-handedly, and when he scored runs, we won, which is kind of what you’re after. He had long blond hair, he didn’t really drink, he didn’t score a hundred in the league, but he was a good lad. Snapchat and was about all we got from him.””It was my first year out of school,” Allen recalls. “I was in a different stage of my career, and was playing a lot more three-day cricket in terms of the red-ball stuff and that was how I’d seen my career going at that stage, but this season, moving [from Auckland] to Wellington and getting the confidence boost from the coach to express myself against the white ball was pretty good. Playing that amount of cricket at that age was really good for me.”He is still part of Brondesbury’s WhatsApp chat, and remains in touch with Lulu Lytle – the designer behind the controversial renovation of Boris Johnson’s Downing Street flat – and her family, who hosted him for six months. “I’d like to think I’d grown up a little bit since then,” Allen laughs, “but I’m still looking forward to the new coming out in a few weeks’ time.”Allen faces stiff competition at the top of the order•Allan McKenzie/SWpixAllen is expected to open the batting against Derbyshire in Lancashire’s opening game on Wednesday afternoon, but with Jos Buttler available for the first six games and Alex Davies and Liam Livingstone also in the squad, there is a logjam of options at the top of the order in what looks like one of the North Group’s strongest squads.And he is already eyeing up the two Roses fixtures, after watching Lancashire’s raucous celebrations following their four-day win over Yorkshire from his balcony while quarantining last weekend. “You could see how passionate they all were to win the game. I’ve heard a lot of chat about the rivalry: Maxi shed a bit of light on it over in India, and what it’s like playing in the away games and getting a bit of stick from the crowd, which will be nice.”I’ve watched a lot of [the Blast] back home on TV, and can already tell it’s quite a good standard… With all the overseas players, it’s probably a bit of a step up from what I’ve come from in the Super Smash. I’m hoping to be tested and learn from that. It was a no-brainer for me coming over: it’s a step forward in my career, an opportunity to win titles, learn and play in different conditions, and to put my name up there and show people what I can do.”

Captain’s stunning vein of form gives England the perfect first two days of India campaign

George Dobell06-Feb-2021Just as Torvill and Dean were once responsible for dozens of broken ankles, you wonder if Joe Root will similarly delude another generation.Let’s be clear: nobody is suggesting Torvill and Dean used their cover as ice dancers to pursue shadow careers as enforcers for the criminal underworld. They never broke anyone’s bones.No, the point is, they were so good at what they did, they made it appear simple. And, as every performance seemed to be on TV at the time, it was only to be expected that a generation of admirers would attempt to follow in their footsteps. They soon discovered two things: ice is really quite slippery. And Torvill and Dean were really very good at something that is monstrously difficult.There should be few broken ankles as people attempt to emulate Root. But it is possible that the ease with which he has made runs in recent days could seduce people into underestimating the significant of his achievements. There’s been a lot of cricket played on a lot of flat wickets over the years. Very rarely has anyone scored as many runs as this.Indeed, Channel 4’s coverage should probably come with a warning. Figures published by The Telegraph suggest that the first day’s peak viewing figure was around double that which might have been expected if it was shown behind a paywall, and there is a danger those seeing the sport for the first time will presume that watching England is always like this. As those with longer memories can tell them, it really isn’t.Let’s put this in perspective: the last time an England player scored at least 150 in three successive Tests – it was Wally Hammond in 1929, since you ask – there was unrest in the Middle East, risk of civil war in Afghanistan and the second wave of a virus was killing an alarming number of people. Imagine living through times like that.Joe Root and Ben Stokes batted out the morning session on day two•BCCIBut Root is reaching heights that very few batsmen – especially England batsmen – have previously scaled. Indeed, it is telling that, over the last few weeks, he has surpassed the run-scoring records of a quartet of greats: Geoff Boycott, David Gower, Kevin Pietersen and, on the second day of this match, Alec Stewart. He has played fewer games than any of them and averaged more than all. Root deserves his place among them.Hammond looms like a giant in England’s Test records, but Root is starting to challenge him, too. Hammond is now the only England player to have scored more double-centuries at Test level than Root (Hammond made seven; Root has five though, had he not been run-out in Galle on 186 a couple of weeks ago, he would surely have just recorded his third in succession) while Hammond and Gooch are the only England players other than Root (who has scored 644 runs from three-and-a-half Tests – five innings – this year) to have scored more than 600 runs in three successive Tests. Kumar Sangakkara is the only other man in Test history to score 180 (or more) in three successive Tests.And before anyone attempts to minimise the achievements, consider this: it was the first double-century by a visiting batsman in India since 2010 – when Brendon McCullum made 225 in Hyderabad – and the first by an England batsman since Graeme Fowler and Mike Gatting both did so in Chennai in 1985. It was also the first double-century anywhere against India since McCullum made 302 against them in Wellington in 2014. Whichever way you look at it, Root’s achievements are significant.It does have to be acknowledged that he has batted on pretty flat wickets over these past few weeks. And it does have to be acknowledged that winning the toss in this match was disproportionately important. India may well have made England’s bowlers suffer in similar fashion had they had first use of the pitch.But this wicket is no flatter than those seen routinely in India or New Zealand and, nicely though it played on day one, there was more encouragement for the bowlers on day two. Yes, the worst of the rough is more relevant to left-handers, but there was reverse for the seamers and some bounce and turn for the spinners. Just because Root made it look easy doesn’t mean it was.It was a point made by Ben Stokes at the close of play. “There’s been spin, bounce and reverse,” he said. “A lot of balls have spat out of the rough. We’ve just played really well. You’ve got to give us credit there.Statistical highlights of Joe Root’s 218 in the first Test in Chennai, 2020-21•ESPNcricinfo Ltd”Joe makes us all feel pretty rubbish with how easy he makes batting look. He’s in phenomenal form and making things look very, very easy. The way he plays spin – dominates spin – is incredible to watch. I don’t think we’ve had an England batsman ever play spin the way he does. He’s got an answer and an option for everything.”Stokes also dismissed the idea that England might have declared before the close on day two.”There was no thought whatsoever of a declaration tonight,” he said. “That would be stupid. If we can bat for another hour in the morning, we’ll be very happy with that.”There’s logic in that. Batting will only become more difficult as the game wears on so it will prove much easier to score runs now. It will be the first time they have chosen to bat into the third day of a Test (in a game unaffected by the weather) since the Lahore Test of 2000. And, at 180 overs, it is already England’s longest Test innings since the Abu Dhabi Test of 2015 when they came within an ace of inflicting a rare defeat upon Pakistan in the UAE.Related

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They can inflict some more pain on the India team, too. The fielding wilted a little on the second day – Rohit Sharma’s dropped catch, at mid-on, providing the nadir – and none of them will relish pulling on their boots for a seventh successive session in the field. Jasprit Bumrah, for example, has already bowled more overs than ever before his Test career and more than he has managed in a first-class innings since 2014. It may be relevant that he played only one more match in the next 16 months as injury intervened.Might there be an element of negativity about this tactic? It would be understandable. England have twice scored 500 in the first innings of a Test only to lose the game, after all. The most recent occasion, during the 2006-07 Ashes, saw them declare, six down, on 551. It’s a result that is scarred on the minds of England supporters of a certain vintage.Most of all, though, they are learning from experience. They scored 477 on this very ground the last time they were here. And they still went on to lose by an innings. They are learning – most of all Root is learning – about the need for ruthlessness in such circumstances. Yes, he’s made a technical change or two to his batting – most noticeably, he is going back and across rather than simply back and has improved balance as a consequence – but it seems the biggest change may be mental. Put simply, he just looks ferociously hungry for runs and utterly determined to take every opportunity he is given. It’s made England look a far stronger side.There is, no doubt, hard work in store for England bowlers over the next few days. Only once since they won in Kolkata in 2012, have they managed to take 20 wickets in a match in India (in Viskhapatnam, in 2016). But Root has earned England a chance – an outside chance, perhaps – to push for victory. They couldn’t have wished for a better first two days of the series.

A quick look at the fast bowler’s accomplishments in the shortest format

Sampath Bandarupalli14-Sep-2021107 Lasith Malinga signs off as the leading wicket-taker in Men’s Twenty20 Internationals, by the narrowest of margins. He has one more than Shakib Al Hasan (106). Malinga became the first man to scale the peak that is 100 T20I wickets in 2019, while playing against New Zealand.170 Wickets for Malinga in the Indian Premier League, the most by any bowler. In 2013, he became the first player to complete 100 wickets in the league and progressed to 150 ( in 2017) before anybody could catch him as well.390 Malinga ends his career with 390 wickets in T20 cricket, the fourth-highest among all bowlers. Malinga was the leading wicket-taker in this format between February 2014 and April 2016, before Dwayne Bravo went past him and emerged as the first bowler with 300 T20 wickets.ESPNcricinfo Ltd195 Wickets for Malinga while representing Mumbai Indians, the most by a bowler for a team in T20s. He took a wicket with his second ball on debut, while his last ball ended up producing a championship-winning scalp.38 Wickets for Malinga in Men’s T20 World Cups, which is eclipsed only by another legend, Pakistan’s Shahid Afridi (39). Malinga’s 38 strikes were best by any bowler at the time of his playing his last T20 World Cup match in 2014. He missed 2016 due to an injury.6 for 7 Malinga’s best bowling figures in T20s came in the 2012-13 Big Bash League for Melbourne Stars against Perth Scorchers. Those figures are still the best in the history of BBL cricket.ESPNcricinfo Ltd7.82 Malinga’s economy rate in death overs (17-20) in IPL, the best among 41 bowlers to have bowled at least 250 deliveries in this period. He bowled 152.5 overs at the death of an IPL match and conceded only 1196 runs while claiming 90 wickets, which is also a league record.37 Wickets for Malinga against Chennai Super Kings, the joint-most for any player against a single opponent in T20 cricket. Andrew Ellis also had 37 strikes against New Zealand’s Northern Districts.5 Five-wicket hauls for Malinga in T20s, second only to David Wiese. Two of those came in internationals, also the joint-most for a bowler. The Sri Lankan pacer leads the list of most four-and-more-wicket hauls in T20s, with as many as 15 to his name.152 Wickets out of Malinga’s 390 in the T20s were ‘bowled’, the most for any player. Those 152 wickets are also equivalent to 38.97% of his career wickets, the highest proportion for anyone with 200-plus wickets in this format.9 Instances of Malinga claiming wickets on successive deliveries in the IPL, but none of them were converted into a hat-trick. Only Umesh Yadav (10) was on a hat-trick more often than Malinga, while Imran Tahir has also done it on nine occasions. Malinga had seven such instances in T20Is, out of which two turned out to be hat-tricks, making him the only bowler with multiple hat-tricks in this format. Only Umar Gul (8) had more opportunities than Malinga to pick up a hat-trick in men’s T20Is. He never ended up with one.

Pakistan served another reminder that Bangladesh’s T20 batting needs rejuvenation

Mohammad Isam22-Nov-2021Bangladesh’s powerplay woes kept haunting them against Pakistan even though the three T20Is were played on good batting pitches at the Shere Bangla National Stadium. The difficulty to get going during the fielding restrictions took root in the two home series wins against Australia and New Zealand when, in a bid to find winning confidence ahead of the T20 World Cup, the team management used unplayable pitches for all ten matches. It sucked the life out of Bangladesh’s batting unit. There is fear that it may have spooked the batters to go for their shots in the powerplay, permanently.Bangladesh averaged just 30 per innings in the powerplay in the Pakistan series, the lowest this year. They posted totals of 127, 108 and 124, below-average scores that the visitors chased successfully. Bangladesh had begun their T20I assignments in 2021 by averaging 51 in New Zealand, deemed difficult batting conditions for Bangladeshi batters. The powerplay scoring was still healthy in Harare in July, but the slide started against Australia in August.They won against Australia and New Zealand by margins of 4-1 and 3-2 respectively. The spinners took 40 wickets at 16.07 and pace bowlers averaged only 13.6 for their 33 wickets. The combined team batting averages languished between 13.50 and 16.54 among the three teams, among the lowest in T20Is played among top teams. Bangladesh’s team scores also showed a sharp decline.Captain Mahmudullah and coach Russell Domingo both claimed multiple times that the team’s overall confidence from these two series wins – Bangladesh’s first against Australia and New Zealand – was more important than their batters’ flagging belief in their approach.In an interview to ESPNcricinfo in September, Domingo said he was unconcerned about batters’ confidence going into the T20 World Cup.”I don’t think the batters will carry any scars going into that event (T20 World Cup),” Domingo said. “I think it is always easier to go from poor pitches to good pitches, than the other way around. We had a tough couple of weeks here but a lot of positives have come out of it. Once we get into better surfaces in the World Cup, it won’t be long before the boys get back to their best.”But Bangladesh is also a team that relies heavily on mood and momentum. At the end of Bangladesh’s World Cup campaign, Mahmudullah said that they needed to start soundly to do well in T20Is. Good starts with the bat and ball sets the tone for most teams in any format, but Bangladesh have showed time and again that they take a long time to turn around from bad starts.Bangladesh averaged 51 and 45 in powerplays in New Zealand and Zimbabwe in the first two T20I series this year. It continued the 46 powerplay average form the four previous years (barring 2020). But Bangladesh had a difficult 2021. They were winless for ten matches from January to May, before they beat Sri Lanka in an ODI series, and Zimbabwe in all three formats.Mahmudullah wears a dejected look after Bangladesh’s loss•ICC via GettyThe belief in the Bangladesh camp was that winning against Australia and New Zealand at home would not only be good build-up for the World Cup, but also be face saving for the cricket team and the cricket board. The wins did the trick. The turnaround pleased BCB president Nazmul Hassan enough for Domingo’s contract to be renewed. Hassan also seemingly forgave Mahmudullah for retiring in the middle of a Test match.But a large section of fans and the media were not convinced. While Australia brought roughly half of their World Cup squad to Bangladesh, New Zealand sent a second-string side. They were international cricketers but none of them would feature in New Zealand’s UAE-bound squad. Bangladesh fielded all their World Cup players.The move backfired spectacularly for the home side. Bangladesh’s struggle with the bat was was thrown into sharp relief by Australia and New Zealand’s surge in the tournament, both making the final. Many fans pointed out how Matthew Wade got over his Bangladesh struggle to play a winning hand in the semi-final against Pakistan. It was arguably the sharpest evaluation of Bangladesh’s reliance on sluggish low pitches: T20s are better when played on sporting pitches which have a bit of pace on the bat.Bangladesh won half of home T20Is from 2016 to 2019. In each of those four years, their powerplay average was 42, 53, 51 and 42. The average number of dot balls played was also going down during this period, before taking a sharp upward swing. The average number of boundaries also took a nosedive.The powerplay plunge has also taken down Soumya Sarkar and Liton Das, two of Bangladesh’s most blessed strokeplayers in white-ball cricket. Liton had the second best strike rate in the world between 2016 and 2019. His strike rate in powerplays in 2021 was 96.57, leading to his ouster from the T20I side after the World Cup. He shares half the blame for his inability to tackle the home conditions, and then unable to reprise his 2016-19 form in the World Cup.Soumya thrives in the powerplay as he likes to play on the up, and over the top. His strike rate dropped from the 120s (2016-19) to 96 this year. None of the Bangladesh batters who faced more than hundred balls in the powerplay this year has a 100 strike rate.The three batting pitches against Pakistan is an encouraging sign. The BCB and team management possibly understood there’s no point torturing their own batters, particularly without the experienced trio of Mushfiqur Rahim, Shakib Al Hasan and Tamim Iqbal. With less than a year out from the next T20 World Cup, Bangladesh have to put together a new game plan. They also have a difficult 2022 schedule to deal with. Building a T20I-only pool of players may be a good option, but for that they need a domestic T20 tournament played on good pitches.Bringing back their quick scoring in the powerplay should be one of their biggest targets when they resume playing T20Is, from February. Starts are important for Bangladesh, and without runs, no team can win T20s.

All the stats and numbers from the engrossing draw between New Zealand and India in Kanpur

Sampath Bandarupalli29-Nov-20213:16

Jaffer: New Zealand played like the No. 1 team, competed right through

2 – Previous instances when India were left with one wicket away from a Test win – both against West Indies – in Kolkata in 1978-79 and Antigua in 2006. The Kanpur Test is also the second instance of New Zealand finishing with a draw after losing nine wickets in the fourth innings. The other occasion was against Australia in Hobart in 1997, where they made 223 for 9 while chasing 288.10 – Consecutive Tests without a defeat for New Zealand, a streak that includes eight victories, their longest without a loss in this format. New Zealand had three unbeaten sprees of nine matches, the first of which came between 1964 and 1965, when they played out nine consecutive draws. They also had a nine-match unbeaten streak between 1989 and 1990, and in between 2002 and 2003.14 – Consecutive Tests in India being won (or lost) before the Kanpur Test, the longest sequence of such Tests in the country. The previous longest sequence was 13 Tests between 1988 and 1994, when India had a 12-1 win-loss record.1.91 – New Zealand’s run rate in the Kanpur Test, the second-lowest by any team in the last 20 years while batting out 200 or more overs. The lowest is 1.79 by South Africa against Sri Lanka in 2014, when South Africa held on to a draw with two wickets in hand.Player-of-the-Match awards on men’s Test debut for India•ESPNcricinfo Ltd7 – Players, including Shreyas Iyer, to win the Player-of-the-Match award on men’s Test debut for India. The last player was Prithvi Shaw against West Indies in Rajkot in 2018.3 – New Zealand batters, including Tom Latham, with 50-plus scores in both innings of a Test in India. Nathan Astle and Craig McMillan recorded this feat during the Ahmedabad Test in 2003. Latham faced 428 balls and lasted 619 minutes at the crease – both being record numbers for New Zealand in a Test in India.ESPNcricinfo Ltd419 – Test wickets for R Ashwin. He is the third-highest wicket-taker for India in this format. Ashwin went past Harbhajan Singh’s tally of 417 when he dismissed Latham on the fifth day.58 – Test wickets for Ashwin against New Zealand, the most for India, surpassing Bishen Bedi’s 57. Ashwin is also the second-highest wicket-taker in the Tests between India and New Zealand, behind Sir Richard Hadlee (65).6 – Batters dismissed lbw in New Zealand’s second innings, the joint-most such dismissals taken by India’s bowlers in a Test innings. The last two instances were against West Indies in Mohali in 1994 and against New Zealand in Kanpur in 2016.

Highly-regarded young batter keen to push Test case three years on from England blackballing

Matt Roller04-Apr-2022When Joe Clarke is unveiled as a top-bracket £125,000 signing by Welsh Fire on Tuesday – the first domestic player picked in this year’s Hundred draft – it will reassert his status as one of the most talented young all-format batters in English cricket.Clarke turns 26 next month and there is a sense at Trent Bridge that this could be his long-awaited breakthrough season. He has become one of the most destructive short-form batters in the world – nobody can match both his run tally and his strike rate of 160 across the last two years – and while his first-class record has dipped since his move from Worcestershire to Nottinghamshire, a phone call in February in which he was told he had been named as a reserve for England’s Test tour to the Caribbean confirmed that he is still considered to be a red-ball player of high potential.But that call, from performance director Mo Bobat, represented his first contact with the ECB in nearly three years. Having been an England Lions regular, Clarke was omitted from their tour of India in early 2019 when it emerged during the trial of his ex-Worcestershire team-mate Alex Hepburn that he had been involved in a WhatsApp group chat later described by a judge as “pathetic sexist game to collect as many sexual encounters as possible”. He was fined and handed a retrospective ban for bringing the game into disrepute, and told he would not be considered for selection for an indefinite period of time.Unsurprisingly, Clarke would rather leave that stage of his life in the past. The judge in Hepburn’s trial clarified that Clarke had done “nothing wrong” on the night and there was no suggestion that he had committed a crime. He addressed his remorse in an interview with ESPNcricinfo two years ago – “if I could take back everything that happened, in terms of the whole situation for all the parties involved, then I would. It runs through my mind every day,” he said at the time – and feels as though he has moved into a new stage in his career and his life.”I hadn’t heard from anyone to do with the ECB for a long time,” he says, looking out on a snowy Trent Bridge at Nottinghamshire’s pre-season press day. “I guess I went from someone who was consistently in touch with people from the ECB to not having any communication for a long time.”It was a nice phone call, just to know that my name is back in the frame. I don’t know whether it was held against me, or for how long. I’m trying not to think too much about that and just try and perform out there for Notts and in the competitions that I have the opportunities in.”Related

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With a new England managing director and coach due to be appointed before the start of the home summer, Clarke has the opportunity to impress. “When those changes were made and then that phone call came, it’s given me clear guidance on where I sit going into the summer,” he adds. “I’ve always wanted to play Test cricket. That’s always been my main focus. It’s clear guidance: if I score runs for Notts, hopefully I can put my name in the hat.”But the reaction to the news that Clarke had been removed from England’s blacklist was not overwhelmingly positive. The misogynistic messages revealed in court three years ago did not reveal criminal wrongdoing but exposed an attitude that seemed to encapsulate wider problems with dressing-room culture throughout the English game. Has he said enough to prove he has learned from his mistakes?”I don’t know,” Clarke says after a pause. “Maybe that’s for other people to think. I don’t go out there to say stuff on that. I feel like I just want to concentrate on the now and what can happen in the future. I feel like that was a long time ago and I don’t want to keep going back to that. I feel like I’ve moved on from that.”I don’t tend to read or listen to those sorts of comments. Social media is social media. I know that basically, if I score runs then I’ll put myself in the hat and that’s all that I can control. I can’t control what people say on social media.”Peter Moores, his head coach at Notts, is firm in his belief that Clarke has “moved a long way, both as a player and a bloke” in the last three years. “At times, the outside view which gets portrayed isn’t the one you are inside,” Moores says. “You get portrayed in the media through things that happen but you want to see all sides of somebody.”We’ve seen a lot of really top players go through different journeys, even the greats. It doesn’t mean they’re not good people. I do think there’s a maturity coming over him. As you get a little bit older, you look at your life in a slightly different way and think about being a role model to other people and that sort of thing, which I think is great for him to do.”Hopefully, that will make him a good advert for the club and for himself moving forward. I see a bloke who is passionate about cricket and wants to play for his country. It’s an exciting season for him – it’s great to get some recognition by England to say they see him being close, and I think that’s just fuelled him a bit more to keep driving forwards.”Clarke has maintained a 160 strike rate across the last two years in T20 cricket•PA Images/GettyClarke enhanced his on-field reputation over the winter, particularly in Australia. He started the Big Bash season with scores of 1, 13, 0 and 0 for Melbourne Stars but finished it as the leading run-scorer among overseas players, hitting 419 runs at a strike rate of 151.26. His stint at Karachi Kings was less successful and they finished rock-bottom of the PSL, but he hopes to hit the ground running in the Championship after a proper red-ball pre-season.”I was very pleased,” he reflects on the BBL. “I feel like it’s quite a good stage to perform and lads before me who have gone on to push their names for England in the short-format stuff, most of them have performed in that competition. I felt like it was a good competition to go and do well in.”If you didn’t think like that, you’re in the wrong game. Everything that I do is always to push for higher honours. It’s something I haven’t achieved yet and I’m desperate to do so. The opportunities at the moment are in T20 cricket, to play away in the winter and make the most of that opportunity.”His challenge this summer will be to balance his ultra-attacking short-form game with his ambitions to play Test cricket, which he insists is his priority. “I felt like it got to a stage where I was starting to get on this franchise circuit and I didn’t want to get pigeon-holed as a franchise player. That’s the reason why I didn’t put myself in for the IPL auction: because I want to play Test cricket,” he says.”From my personal point of view, my main thing is to play for England. I feel like in white-ball cricket, playing franchise competitions will enhance that. But ultimately, hopefully, ideally, I’d be playing less and less in franchise competitions by playing the longer format of the game and hopefully playing Test cricket.”Last winter, when I spent the whole winter away playing white-ball cricket, it took me longer to get back in and find my rhythm in Championship cricket. I didn’t have much of a pre-season and sort of got thrown out into playing red-ball cricket and I was still in a white-ball T20 mindset, and kept thinking I wanted to hit the bowler back over his head when he was coming in with a red ball. Now, when I’m away playing white-ball competitions, I still do stuff in my training that allows me to make that jump easier.”Clarke has been discussed as a future England player since he was a teenager, growing accustomed to comparisons with Joe Root before those infamous WhatsApps had entered the public domain. If his long-awaited call-up finally arrives this summer, he will feel the full glare of the spotlight on him again.

The season has also witnessed a record-breaking 29 straight games in which teams have opted to chase

Gaurav Sundararaman18-Apr-20228:18

IPL 2022 trends: Pain at the death for the bowlers

The 2022 IPL has almost reached the halfway stage and there are some clear trends emerging. Retained players are performing below par, uncapped Indians are doing very well, bowling in the death overs is a struggle, and teams are reluctant to bat first after winning the toss. We dig a bit deeper. Retained players struggling for form At the end of 29 matches, a few franchises must be pretty disappointed with the performances of their retained picks. Moeen Ali for Chennai Super Kings, Mohammad Siraj and Virat Kohli for Royal Challengers Bangalore, Rohit Sharma and Kieron Pollard for Mumbai Indians and Axar Patel for Delhi Capitals are some of the retained players who have been below par. The likes of Abdul Samad, Yashasvi Jaiswal and Anrich Nortje are not finding a spot in the XI. Both Mumbai and Super Kings find themselves at the bottom of the pack probably due to the failure of these key players. In contrast, the players that were picked through the draft for the new franchises have had a good tournament so far. The two new teams are one and two respectively in the points table. The retained players often form the core of the franchise and their form would be vital as the tournament moves towards the business end.ESPNcricinfo Ltd Uncapped Indians thrive under pressure There was some scepticism on how a ten-team IPL would affect the quality of the league. However, the league has thrived with some amazing uncapped talents showcasing no nerves. The likes of Jitesh Sharma, Tilak Verma, Dewald Brevis, Vaibhav Arora, Abhinav Manohar and Ayush Badoni have all seamlessly transitioned to the big stage confidently. In an eight-team IPL, these players may not have got enough game time but the larger pool has allowed these talents to flourish. The pitches and conditions have also been batting-friendly thereby helping these youngsters to be aggressive. Most of the above players have struck at over 150 in their first season and also have come in at difficult situations and performed. The overseas players seem to be the ones under pressure to keep their spots with more teams looking to back the Indian talent and not playing the full quota of overseas players. Mumbai have not played Tim David in spite of buying him for INR 8.5 crores at the auction. This season has already seen 11 instances of teams not using their four overseas players which is the most across all seasons after 29 games. Win toss, bowl first This season has witnessed a record-breaking 29 consecutive games in which the captains have won the toss and chosen to chase. In the last 12 games, the results have been spread evenly with teams batting first winning six and teams chasing winning six. Teams are just reluctant to choose to bat first irrespective of the way the results have gone. Teams are reluctant to go against the dew. Shane Watson, the assistant coach of Delhi Capitals in Podcast said that it was impossible to predict when dew would set and when it would not. As a result the captains are not willing to risk the option of batting first and are happy to know what the target is to plan their innings.ESPNcricinfo LtdScore big at the death The death overs (17-20) run-rate of 11.53 is the highest so far across any IPL season after 29 games. This means teams are on an average scoring 47 runs in the last four overs. In most of the previous seasons, teams scored at an average of 10 runs per over in the death. The 2020 season in UAE and this current season are the ones in which the run-rate at the death has gone over 11.5.Related

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Carnage and fun – the madness at the death in T20 cricket

Death overs bowling with dew and short boundaries have made it very hard for the bowlers to make an impact. As per ESPNcricinfo’s logs, the yorker and short-of-good-length balls have given the best results. While the yorker length has gone just for 5.76 runs per over the short-of-good-length has gone for just 8.76 runs per over. But we have seen a lot of bowlers fail to execute the yorker with the wet ball. There have been 16 instances in which a bowler has conceded more than 20 runs in the last four overs. The traditional death bowlers have all struggled to maintain consistency in these tough conditions.