Unheralded duo of Atit Sheth, Lukman Meriwala pick five wickets apiece to shoot hosts out inside two sessions

The Report by Annesha Ghosh in Mumbai09-Nov-2017Stumps
ScorecardLukman Meriwala (left) and Atit Sheth are applauded off the field after their five-fors•ESPNcricinfo Ltd

Before Thursday, Baroda quicks Atit Sheth and Lukman Meriwala had first-class experience worth nine matches between them. Inside two sessions of the most successful Ranji Trophy side’s 500th match, the duo had all of Mumbai’s line-up. Playing party-poopers on an evenly-grassed Wankhede pitch, they bagged five wickets each to skittle the hosts out for 171.Spanning four spells of two each in as many sessions, 21-year-old Sheth’s artistry with the ball was a study in deception. Only into the fifth ball of the game, the right-arm swing-bowling allrounder played killjoy to birthday boy Prithvi Shaw with a back-of-a-length nip-backer that flattened Shaw’s middle stump after penetrating an expansive front-foot cover drive. In his next over, Sheth fired a fullish ball that elicited a healthy edge – and a second Mumbai duck within five deliveries – as Ajinkya Rahane tried to drive on his knees, only to send the ball into Deepak Hooda’s reverse-cupped palms.Until the 12th over, all threats to Mumbai came wrapped in the right-arm pacers of Sheth and Sagar Mangalorkar. Then Meriwala – whose two first-class appearances had fetched him cumulative figures 2 for 135 in three innings – steamed in. His second delivery forced Shreyas Iyer to waft with a near-horizontal bat but was met with caution for the remainder of the over. Iyer could, however, extend his stay only to a tentative 47-ball 28, before Meriwala got him to angle a flat-batted shot towards second-slip with a short and wide delivery. A safely-pouched nick off Suryakumar Yadav reduced Mumbai to 82 for 4 before Seth took center stage again.Mumbai captain Aditya Tare, who promoted himself to the opening slot on account of Akhil Herwadkar being dropped to accommodate Iyer, brought the team fifty up with a square cut off Sheth off the fifth ball of the 14th over – a shot that best bore testimony to the abandon that marked his eight fours in his 82-ball 50. Dropped on 5 by the wicketkeeper Mitesh Patel , and then on 40 by debutant Ahmadnoor Pathan off Abhijit Karambelkar, he reaped back-to-back fours off cuts that pierced short point and gully – the first with immaculate precision, the second a thick edge flying past a diving gully, immediately after the reprieve.Into only his second first-class game, Patel’s inexperience at the level became more conspicuous when he grassed a sitter – a thick edge off Lad – in the last over of the first session, robbing Baroda of the opportunity to reduce Mumbai to 103 for 6. The reprieve presented Lad the perfect opportunity to live up to his “crisis man” reputation in veteran allrounder Abhishek Nayar’s company, but indiscretion – compounded by the pace attack’s discipline – further abetted Mumbai’s undoing.In the seventh over after lunch, Nayar, for all his five-time Ranji Trophy winning experience, couldn’t resist throwing his arms at a seventh-stump-line outswinger and ended up offering a gift to the keeper. Within the space of seven balls, Patel then atoned for his prior scratchy glovework by snaffling a blinder as Meriwala angled one into Lad from around the wicket and had him prod at the away-moving good-length delivery. A low, full-length stretch and Patel’s one-handed grab had Mumbai’s tail exposed. The lower order, however, added 54 of Mumbai’s tally of 171, with Dhawal Kulkarni and Vijay Gohil putting on a 40-run ninth wicket stand. The duo, however, fell within the space of three balls as Sheth and Meriwala crowned their swing-bowling offensive with well-deserved five-wicket hauls.Much of Mumbai’s efforts with the ball revolved around a cautious approach from the Baroda openers Aditya Waghmode and Pathan, who saw off the new ball, adding 25 for the opening stand. Mumbai’s three slips and a gully had little involvement in the proceedings until Waghmode edged a Royston Dias outswinger, only to be dropped by Iyer at third slip. Two overs later, having already sent down two maidens, the left-arm quick stole a feather from Pathan’s attempted front-foot defence. Vishnu Solanki clobbered a brisk 32 despite the disciplined line from the Mumbai quick bowlers who sent down 26 overs between themOn a day built around elaborate merriments, the caught-behind was the only instance when Dias and Mumbai could afford to let out a celebratory holler as Baroda finished on 63 for 1 at stumps.

The squad, coached by Jimmy Kamande, will be flying to Sydney to play two friendly matches against Sydney Thunder before it heads to Christchurch

ESPNcricinfo staff18-Dec-2017Cricket Kenya has announced a 15-member squad for the Under-19 World Cup, scheduled to begin in New Zealand on January 13. The squad will be flying to Sydney on December 28 to play two friendly matches against the Big Bash League team Sydney Thunder before it heads to Christchurch.Kenya are placed alongside New Zealand, South Africa and the defending champions West Indies in Group A. The players are currently training in Nairobi as part of a nine-day camp. The team qualified for the tournament in July through the ICC Africa Under-19 World Cup qualifiers, where they were pitted against three other teams – Ghana, Botswana and Uganda. They won five out of their six games to make the cut.”I am very excited as a coach to take this group to New Zealand,” Kenya coach Jimmy Kamande – also the former captain of the senior national team – told the . “They are massively talented with the potential for even greater things. I’m confident we have picked a combination that will give us the desired results.”Kenya will face South Africa in Lincoln on January 14, before taking on New Zealand in Christchurch on January 17 and West Indies on January 20 back in Lincoln.Squad: Aman Gandhi, Dennis Musyoka, Aveet Desai, Rene Were, Thomas Ochieng, Sachin Bhudia, Ankit Hirani, Sukhdeep Singh, Jasraj Kundi, Jayant Mepani, Jay Doshi, Maxwel Ager, Gérard Mwendwa, Sidhart Vasudev, Abhishekh Chidambaran. Reserves: Minal Kerai, Viraj Patel.

New measures needed to identify and nurture spin-bowling talent, says John Emburey, after failure to compete in Ashes

Daniel Brettig10-Jan-20182:11

England’s torrid history with legspin

Counties and the ECB could address a systemic dearth of spin bowlers by pooling money into a “spin bowling fund”, worth around £3 million over six years, to pay for a coaching and talent identification network that would also fund overseas apprenticeships, under a proposal to be considered by England’s cricket director Andrew Strauss.The proposal is the brainchild of the former England captain and spin bowler John Emburey, who has become increasingly weary of what he sees as a lack of focus by the counties and ECB on developing spin bowlers. That neglect, Emburey believes, led to the vast disparity between England’s spin bowlers Moeen Ali and Mason Crane in the Ashes series, in which they took a combined 6 for 768 while Australia’s spinner Nathan Lyon (21 wickets at 29.23, 2.36 runs per over) was a leading contributor to the home side’s 4-0 victory.Emburey, formerly the Middlesex director of cricket, is set to meet with Strauss following the conclusion of England’s tour of Australia and New Zealand, and told ESPNcricinfo that if the current schedule of county matches being pushed to the fringes of the northern summer continued, then much more needed to be done to nurture young spinners capable of playing the sorts of roles Lyon now does for Australia. He also said that the current England spin coach, Peter Such, had his “hands tied” because he could only work with what the counties produced.”The counties don’t have spin bowling coaches, there’s no talent ID done in those counties for spin, there’s no captains that understand spin, set the right fields and know when to bring one on to bowl or take them off at the right times,” Emburey said. “We need to find a proper structure in finding and developing talent. It’s something I’ve spoken to Andrew Strauss about and he wants to have a meeting about it when we get back home, and Peter Such should be part of that because he’s the England spin bowling coach, to discuss where we go forward.”We’ve got to go down to a younger age group, to the minor counties and the counties themselves, and do more talent ID. All those counties should be pooling their young spinners from the ages of 11-16 to do talent ID. If the counties are not going to employ [coaches], I think the Board has got to employ six to eight coaches to be divided up amongst the 38 counties in England, say five counties each to work with.”With all the money they’re pushing forward for all the other projects they’ve got, the biggest part of the contribution is going to come from the counties themselves, with the Board contributing to make it work. Say we’re going to do it for six years, £3 million over six years, to see what can be developed and come through in terms of those younger players. You’ve got money then to pay for those coaches, and a pool of money also for Peter Such to work with to send some of those players away overseas to play or help to develop them.”Moeen Ali reflects on a dispiriting tour•ESPNcricinfo Ltd

Under Emburey’s proposed scheme, each county would put in £10,000 every year, with £5,000 to come from each of the minor counties. The ECB would then add a figure in the region of £200,000 to create a war chest of £480,000 to invest in spin bowling around all 38 counties. Options for overseas education include England Lions tours, while the ECB and CA have already discussed the possibility of opening up spots in the Futures League – essentially the Australian second division – for fledgling English players.”If the counties are not going to develop those spinners then we’ve got to do it by other means. It may be that the Board have to do it and then those players get picked up by the counties,” Emburey said. “If we talent ID players the counties don’t have, but we feel they’ve got sufficient skills relative to some already playing, take those away with the Lions to Sri Lanka or wherever and I’d imagine in a few weeks a county would pick them up if they can see them performing.”Such measures are necessary due to a combination of factors, most of which chart back to the fact that precious little of the first-class county competition is scheduled in the prime summer months of July and August. These months are now subject to a surfeit of limited-overs matches. While similar to Australia’s Big Bash League scheduling, the southern summer tends to afford spin bowlers better opportunities over a longer period, while CA works closely with each state on the composition of pitches.”It’s a shocker for them,” Emburey said of the domestic schedule facing English spin bowlers. “Pitches at the beginning of the season aren’t going to suit spinners, so they’re either going to struggle or they’re not going to play at all, and at the back end of the season when it gets cold and damp and wet, it isn’t going to suit them at the end either.”The middle part of the season and towards the back end when you want spinners to make a contribution, there’s no cricket for them because of all the limited-overs cricket. You’ve got to develop one-day skills instead of those you need in first-class cricket and Test matches. Cricket used to finish on September 17-18, now it is the very end of September, and that’s ridiculous.”I think Peter Such has been hamstrung in what he can do and achieve. All he’s doing is working with the players in a first-class system that doesn’t encourage them to come through. So the system has to be changed to go out and find these players and develop them. These coaches would still be available to help and develop the players already around in county first and second XIs, but I think we’re missing out on so much talent – spinners out there we’re not getting anywhere near.”Somerset is one of few counties using spin bowling to its advantage by preparing surfaces with bare patches on a length. These pitches have been subject to plenty of criticism from opponents, such as these words from the Middlesex director of cricket, Angus Fraser, last year: “It’s disgraceful what they did. I’ve never seen such a doctored pitch. The intent was there, so the combination of a below-average pitch and intent, that changes things. There are guidelines for counties to produce the best possible pitch for matches.”However Emburey argued that in providing an environment in which the spin bowlers Jack Leach and Dom Bess could prosper, while still leaving good grass coverage on other parts of the surface to aid the seam bowlers, Somerset should be seen as “crusaders” for a wider array of skills to be seen in the English game.”I think they’ve been very fortunate with the pitches they’ve had not to be docked points, but are they actually the crusaders for change?” Emburey said. “Why should pitches always be flat? Why not have pitches that spin? Batsmen have got to learn and develop skills against spin as well. Taunton is a pitch where you’ve got to adapt your game to get runs.”The issue Leach and Bess would have after bowling on turning wickets is then having to learn how to bowl on a flat wicket, in terms of changes of pace and flight. [But] the Board have got to relax a bit in this respect. They have the ends bare at Taunton, but there is a bit of grass in the middle to give the seamers some encouragement and the ball to go through. To me they’re good cricket pitches.”As for Crane, Emburey had been impressed by elements of his debut in Sydney, but said there was still a long way for him to travel. “He needs to bowl on all types of pitches to develop his game,” Emburey said. “On a green pitch that’ll seam around, he’ll learn to bowl straighter, and to do that he’s got to bowl with more control. If you’re wide or short or bowl a long hop, you’re going to get spanked around. He needs to learn to bowl on flat wickets to bowl better and tighter, then when you get onto a wicket that gives you assistance, you’re going to bowl sides out.”

The correlation between intent and wickets is low in T20 cricket. It’s more about stifling batman and forcing them into low-percentage shots. Bhuvneshwar Kumar knows that; it is what he did in Jo’burg

Sidharth Monga in Johannesburg19-Feb-2018Of all the formats of cricket, wickets in Twenty20 have the least correlation with a bowler’s intent to pick up those wickets; they usually come through containment, and, at times, through funny shots. Bhuvneshwar Kumar is now the first Indian to have a five-for in each format, but he knows better than to look at just the wickets. It is the economy rate of a run a ball that matters more – this in turn brings wickets, sometimes for other bowlers but, like on Sunday evening, for Bhuvneshwar himself.Bhuvneshwar is more satisfied that he bowled in a way that suffocated the batsmen enough to play those low-percentage shots – in the case of Chris Morris, first ball of his innings – and brought him three wickets in an over, leaving him on the verge of a hat-trick.”Taking wickets means a lot when you play for your country,” Bhuvneshwar Kumar said. “Doesn’t matter if you take five wickets or how many as long as you’re winning matches for your country. That’s what matters, and taking five-fors in every format feels good. I want to keep doing it as long as possible.”Bhuvneshwar’s experience as compared to South Africa’s fast bowlers shone through. Even as South Africa continued to try to bounce India out, Bhuvneshwar kept bowling short of a length, stump to stump, and mixed it up with knuckle balls. “The important thing is how you mix up your deliveries according to the wicket,” Bhuvneshwar said. “For instance, today we bowled a lot of slower balls. It was a part of our strategy on this wicket, to do away with pace and make it difficult for the batsmen to score. Apart from line and length, it’s important to understand how you want to mix your deliveries. Today it was about bowling slower, not giving the batsmen the pace to work with.”Reeza Hendricks, who scored 70 off 50 balls, spoke about how difficult it was to score off Bhuvneshwar. “He was just consistent in his areas, which was pretty much giving us nothing to score off,” Hnedricks said. “So we had to be happy with ones and twos at that time.”Bhuvneshwar conceded just two boundaries, easily the best effort over four overs in the match on a small outfield and a flat pitch. The key was to quickly judge what lengths were to be bowled and how much pace variation was required in those conditions. Just like India’s batsmen, Bhuvneshwar is somebody who doesn’t go in with pre-conceived plans, and has the ability to adjust to the pitch’s response to his bowling.”Today, for instance, while we were batting, we had a certain idea of the kind of wicket we would be bowling on,” Bhuvneshwar said in response to a query on whether the India’s bowlers decide what plans they should use even when they are batting. “But the whole picture begins to emerge only after you’ve bowled. Because it depends on the bowlers. Look at their bowlers, they’re of a different height, have different skill sets, and the pitch responds differently to them. So you get an idea, but, as I said, the whole thing emerges only after you’ve bowled a few balls. For instance, if I’ve bowled the first over, I can communicate with the rest of the bowlers what’s happening on the wicket, like that…”So how long does it take for Bhuvneshwar to suss the conditions out? “Depends. Sometimes it takes just one ball. Sometimes you get hammered for four overs and still don’t know what the ideal length and pace for that pitch was.”

Rashid Khan endured a difficult captaincy debut, getting out for a first-ball duck and conceding 68 in nine overs as Scotland chased down 256 with 16 balls to spare

ESPNcricinfo staff04-Mar-2018IDI/Getty Images

It only took one match to affirm the wide-open nature of the World Cup Qualifier. In a spectacular opening-day heist, Scotland downed Afghanistan by seven wickets, with Calum MacLeod scoring his sixth ODI hundred and subjecting Rashid Khan, the world’s No. 1 ODI bowler, to one of his worst days as an international cricketer.Chasing 256, Scotland got there with 16 balls to spare, with MacLeod scoring an unbeaten 157 off 146 balls. He scored 108 off 118 against Afghanistan’s other bowlers, and 49 off 31 against Rashid’s legspin, off which he hit eight of his 24 boundaries. Rashid finished with figures of 1 for 68 in nine overs – this was the first time he had ended up with an economy rate of above 7 in his 38-match ODI career. He also scored a first-ball duck. All this happened on a day when, at 19 years and 165 days, he became the youngest man to captain an ODI side.MacLeod came in with Scotland 16 for 1; they lost their other opener two overs later to slip to 21 for 2. Both wickets had fallen to the mystery spin of Mujeeb Ur Rahman. It was here that Richie Berrington joined MacLeod. The two proceeded to add 208 in 223 balls, with MacLeod by far the dominant partner, Berrington scoring 67 off 95 balls before falling lbw to Rashid in the 43rd over of Scotland’s innings. By then, they only needed 27 off 44 balls, a task MacLeod and George Munsey completed with ease.Sent in to bat, Afghanistan made a plodding start, losing three wickets – two to Berrington’s medium-pace – while only scoring 49 in their first 15 overs. Berrington picked up his third wicket in the 19th over, getting Mohammad Shahzad out for an uncharacteristic 30 off 54 balls, leaving Afghanistan 71 for 4.Afghanistan needed to stop losing wickets, but they also needed some urgency. Mohammad Nabi and Najibullah Zadran achieved both, putting on 149 for the fifth wicket in 136 balls. At the end of the 41st over, Afghanistan were 219 for 4, and a total in the 280-300 range seemed within reach. But both set batsmen fell off successive balls, Najibullah for 67 off 69 balls and then Nabi – run out – for 92 off 82.The back-to-back wickets were a body blow to Afghanistan’s innings, their lower order collapsing in a heap to Safyaan Sharif and Brad Wheal. In all, the last six wickets fell while adding only 35 runs in 51 balls, leaving Scotland a far smaller target than they might have envisioned chasing at one point.