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England legspinner unfazed by spotlight as he holds his own in England’s Test team

Vithushan Ehantharajah07-Feb-2024It was an early checkout for England at the Novotel Hotel in Visakhapatnam on Wednesday morning, as they jetted off for a brief sojourn in Abu Dhabi.The golf clubs will meet them there, while the cricket kit goes on the road to meet them in Rajkot next Monday. For now, thoughts on how to combat Jasprit Bumrah have been parked in favour of a new conundrum: how to balance a few rounds against quality time with those family members who have travelled to the UAE. Rehan Ahmed, however, does not have that problem.”Nah, not sure how anyone plays that sport,” Rehan says, when asked about the team’s favourite pastime. “Shocking sport. If you go to Topgolf in Dubai [driving range/restaurant] it’s not bad. I hold it like a cricket bat.” Even managing director Rob Key, a golf tragic, has failed to get him into it.Most 19-year olds are quite happy telling older generations their idea of fun is no fun at all. But the fact that Rehan is not tempted to hack around just to fit in speaks of his comfort with who and where he is. Besides, he’d prefer to catch up on the Turkish television series, Ertugrul. “I started it in Pakistan and I still have three years left of it,” he says. “It’s about the Ottoman Empire. And by the time I finish it, I’ll have forgotten the first part, so I’ll start again.”The last 13 months have been a whirlwind: 16 England caps across all formats and a lucrative two-year central contract with the ECB. It began with a five-wicket haul on Test debut against Pakistan in Karachi, and now he’s holding his own as the wildest selection in a wildcard team away to India.Rehan’s eight wickets mean he is England’s second-highest wicket-taker in the series so far. Six of them came in the second Test in Visakhapatnam, where he operated in a spin trio alongside Tom Hartley and debutant Shoaib Bashir. Rehan was both the youngest and most experienced on show.Ben Foakes ‘is a joke’, says Rehan. ‘I have never seen anyone as good as him”•AFP via Getty ImagesHe was also parachuted in at No.3 on the penultimate evening of the Test, looking to give the fourth-innings chase a shock. It didn’t work – Rehan’s cameo of 23 of 31 was not quite a big enough dent in a colossal 399 target. It meant he also did not come good on a promise to his favourite player, Kevin Pietersen, who was commentating on the first two games. “He spoke to me and said ‘right, I just want to see sixes’,” Rehan says. “I said I would be trying. I didn’t get one. It’s the thought that counts.”The intention was sound, particularly as a reprisal of Rehan’s role as the original ‘Nighthawk’ the previous winter, after Stuart Broad had trailed the role in England’s home summer. It was Rehan’s idea, too, collaring Ben Stokes as they walked off the field after India’s second innings had come to an end.Related

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“I don’t know where I got that confidence from,” he says. “But I just felt it was a good time to go in, and I’ll take any opportunity I get to do that. So yeah, I went straight to Stokesy and Baz and was like ‘let me get the pads on’.”He’d like a more permanent promotion – “top seven, top six would be nice” – but appreciates he’s lacking runs at present. One century for Leicestershire, against Derbyshire at the end of the 2022 summer, and an 85 and 90 against Yorkshire and Glamorgan last season are his most notable first-class scores. Those who have closely monitored Rehan’s progress at the ECB wonder if he might end up being more of a batter as his career takes shape.For now, the bowler is doing his bit. And Rehan’s reflections on how the tour has gone so far are refreshingly mature.”I don’t think there’s many places where you can say leg-spin does very well,” he says. “I think it’s more about adapting as well as you can.Rehan’s role as the Nighthawk was a qualified success in the second Test•Getty Images”I think I bowled a bit slow in the first Test. The batsmen had a lot of time to play more. So I tried to speed up a little bit but again, tried to keep it balanced as well. I think it’s more of a thinking game than anything. Not a skill thing. I think if you just keep it very simple, you’ll be all right.”Even so, his legbreak does seem to be turning more in this series than previously. Something he has worked on, perhaps?”I think I’m just playing in India, so it’s going a bit more,” he says. “I mean, I’ve been working on it as much as I can. I’ve not really thought about trying to get big sidespin. I just try to hit the stumps as many times as I can.”So yeah, I have tried to put more spin on it. Tried to get it on the seam and stuff, but I just feel like bowling cross-seam with variable bounce is more dangerous in India than bowling on the seam quite traditionally.”Rehan’s most productive form of dismissal has been caught behind, which is a testament to Ben Foakes’ work behind the stumps – “I reckon he is the best keeper in the world, ever … I have never seen anyone as good as him” – and a consistent attacking line. There have been times when India’s batters have got hold of him, but he has never wavered. It’s not in his nature.”I don’t like bowling maidens,” Rehan says, despite the fact that only Bumrah (14) has sent down more than his 11 in the series to date. “I think that’s just boring. I’ll try and change some things.”‘We all trust Stokesy. He is always looking for the betterment of the team.’•Associated PressStokes’ use of Rehan has varied, even if the onus has always been on taking wickets. He used him as late as the 61st over in the first innings of the last Test, something which Rehan admits got him angsty. He went on to take 3 for 65.”Every time he looked at the scoreboard behind me, I was like [gestures warming up]. When he gave me the ball, he was like, ‘do I need to say anything to you?’ And I was like, ‘Please give me the ball’.”The thing is we all trust Stokesy. Everyone knows what goes on in Stokesy’s head. He is always looking for the betterment of the team. That’s what I want as well. Whatever the team needs, I will try to do. Obviously, Stokesy will always put the team first. It’s not about making me happy. If he believes I will get a wicket at a certain time, he will put me on.”They just don’t care about how bad things can go,” he says of Stokes and Brendon McCullum. “It’s always about what good you can get out of it. So if I bowl four bad balls and get a wicket, that’s better than bowling 16 good balls in a row.”Stokes’ belief in Rehan is matched by his sensitivity. With Islam playing a huge part of Rehan’s day-to-day life – “much more important than cricket” – he has been allowed to miss the odd training session to observe optional fasting days. Appreciation of a player’s faith is the very least you would expect from any team, but Rehan appreciates how open he can be with his.

They just don’t care about how bad things can go. It’s always about what good you can get out of it. So if I bowl four bad balls and get a wicket, that’s better than bowling 16 good balls in a row.

“Stokes is so good with that. I remember a time in Abu Dhabi where there was a team day out on a Friday. We had Friday prayers. Obviously me and Bash [Shoaib Bashir] were there. I messaged Wayno [Wayne Bentley], the team manager, asking if we could miss this day because we need to pray.”Stokes messaged me straight away and said: ‘Come to me whenever you want about this kind of stuff, I understand it fully’. And yes, he’s stuck by his word. Every time I pray he is so respectful, very understanding. Everyone is on this tour.”In the short term, the third Test looms with the series locked at 1-1. Predictions for the surface range from flat to the sharpest turner of the three so far. England, as they have done throughout this series, will analyse the preparations to make a call on their team the day before the Test.Whether that means continuing on with their current line-up of three spinners and one seamer remains to be seen. Whatever they decide, and with Jack Leach unlikely to recover fully from his damaged right knee, Rehan is a lock for now. Could this be a chance to cement himself as a man for all conditions?”I think to stay in the team you have to justify your place,” Rehan says, not expecting any ‘wildcard’ charity. “I need to get wickets and runs.”

After seven failed attempts, their men’s World Cup semi-final jinx is broken. After plenty of scrapping at this World Cup, they were clinical in their quest for history

Firdose Moonda27-Jun-20242:45

Jansen a ‘real nightmare’ with bounce and movement

The complete game. After seven games of scrapping at the T20 World Cup 2024, that’s what Aiden Markram was searching for. Five overs into the semi-final, his bowlers seemed to give him that.Marco Jansen and Kagiso Rabada relied on South Africa’s traditional strengths of seam movement and bounce, before Anrich Nortje brought express pace to floor Afghanistan and end their fairytale. Overall, South Africa’s seamers were excellent at moving the ball back into the right-handers off good length, and used their height to vary that with back-of-length deliveries that surprised the batters. Afghanistan lost their leading run-scorers early and were never able to properly counter-attack, and that may be for several reasons.The quality and aggression of South Africa’s attack is one, the difficulty of the surface another, and Rashid Khan admitted the team had not slept much since qualifying for the semi-final late on Monday night local time. Some of the reasons for the latter was because of a travel delay and some of it because they were celebrating so much. The logistics of the tournament’s travel aside, Afghanistan’s emotional over-expenditure was understandable and few teams will relate to that better than South Africa. Historically, it has been them that have been overwhelmed by expectation and the statistics show it: seven men’s World Cup semi-finals, no wins. But on Wednesday night in Tarouba, they were ice-cold.Related

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The wickets fell so quickly there was barely time for the South Africans to celebrate but the absence of major outbursts was noticeable. In fact, the most animated of the South Africans was someone not involved in any of the dismissals at all – Tristan Stubbs. He is also the youngest member of the squad and the only one who has not experienced knockout heartbreak. Stubbs’ air punches, leaps and whoops at the fall of every wicket gave a glimpse of the joy the others kept inside and, from a distance, were a delight to watch. South Africa have never had cause for raw ecstasy in a men’s World Cup semi-final and Stubbs showed what that could look like.

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The perfect game. After seven games of scrapping at this World Cup, Aiden Markram must have known tournament runs are rarely flawless. Three overs into the chase against Afghanistan, South Africa’s batters would have known it was not going to be easy.South African fans’ support was on display in Tarouba•Getty ImagesThey had only six runs on the board, Quinton de Kock had been bowled by a Fazalhaq Farooqi inswinger and Markram should have been out but Afghanistan did not review when he nicked off against Naveen-ul-Haq. With the bounce becoming more variable, South Africa had to resurrect the resilience of New York, where runs were also hard to come by but they were always able to get just enough. They knew it would not be pretty. And then two overs later, against the run of play, Markram stood tall and played the perfect cover drive. He took a step forward, leaned into the ball, struck it on the sweet spot and held the pose. On a difficult surface, shots of that quality were rare and that one, in the middle of a 13-run over, shifted momentum and opened South Africa’s door to the final.It was not the perfect game South Africa were after, just a series of perfect moments to give an imperfect country reasons to hope that what seems impossible was not.At 4.37am Thursday morning South African time, when Reeza Hendricks hit the winning runs, ordinary South Africans would have been waking up in mid-winter (happily with electricity, which makes a welcome change), most of them getting ready to take long commutes to work and more than likely seeing the news that the team had reached the final through social media because they would not have the cable television subscription needed to watch the match. And when they realised what had happened, they may have reflected on 18 months of unprecedented success in South African sport.Tabraiz Shamsi welcomed Aiden Markram after their dominating win•ICC/Getty ImagesSince last February, these are the achievements: the women’s national cricket team reached the final of the home T20 World Cup, the women’s national football team became the first senior side to get out of the group stage at the FIFA World Cup, the Springboks won a fourth World Cup, and the men’s national football team had their best finish in the African Cup of Nations since 2000. Winning is contagious, it seems, and the feeling that South Africans are winners has finally come to men’s cricket. And it could not have happened at a more opportune time and place.In 2007, in the semi-final against Australia in St Lucia, South Africa were 27 for 5 on their way to 149 in a game they eventually lost by seven wickets. Of all their semi-final failings – and there have been seven, remember – that was the most limp. Seventeen years later, they have gone back to the Caribbean, won eight out of eight, and produced the most dominant knockout performance in their history.South Africans have a habit of believing every tournament will be the one that they win and when they don’t, they console themselves that there will be a next time. This time feels different. Perhaps after all that waiting, their next time is right now.

In a chat with ESPNcricinfo, Shanto and Mehidy speak about what the 2-0 series win against Pakistan means to the side, and more

Mohammad Isam04-Sep-2024Mehidy, you have won Player of the Series against England and now this one against Pakistan. Which one is bigger?Mehidy: [friend], you tell him. What do I say? I’m confused.Shanto: I was the captain in this series, so this one is better.Related

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How would you rate Mehidy’s performance in the second Test?Shanto: He was just brilliant. The way he bowled on the first day on this wicket – a spinner taking five wickets, it was unbelievable. It was something else.And how about his batting?Shanto: We were 26 for 6. He comes up to me and says, ‘, this happens to our team all the time; Litton [Das] and I are there’. That’s all he said. He said it with all seriousness.Your turn, Mehidy – you have had quite a few clutch performances already…Mehidy: To be honest with you, I try hard. Allah helps me. If a person tries something and works hard for it, he’s going to be successful. You mentioned the two Player-of-the-Series awards – these two are huge moments in my life. I can’t choose one, both are big achievements. That was my debut Test series against England. It was our first Test win against them. This is my first Player of the Series on foreign soil. I never expected that I would contribute with bat and ball. So both are special for me.What do you tell yourself when the team is in trouble?Mehidy: I try to be calm. I try not to be too excited. I try to remember good memories from the past. Whoever I bat with, I try to diffuse the tension. I will joke with the batter at the other end. When I joined Litton at 26 for 6, I was joking with him. I asked him if he remembered how nervous we were when we opened the batting in the final of the Asia Cup [in 2018]. He joined in, he started to joke with me too. This is how we got rid of the nervousness.When the momentum came back, we started to discuss how to turn things around. We wanted to take the team to a good position. We had a very good partnership [of 165 runs]. I am thankful to Allah, he keeps me calm and cool even in these moments.9:19

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Shanto, which was your favourite Mehidy performance in this series?Shanto: Batting. Both knocks [77 in the first Test and 78 in the second]. I would say it was 49-51 [between his batting and bowling performances].We always thought Shakib Al Hasan, Taijul Islam and Mehidy only take wickets at home…Mehidy: Now you can say that we take wickets abroad too. To be honest, you cannot make a Test player in one or two days. You have to give him time. You have to allow him to do well. It takes time for him to settle into a role and dominate in world cricket. The more time he gets, the better he will be.Maybe my home performances gave me a certain kind of mindset, but now that I am bowling well abroad, I will have this as a reference point to do well in the future. It raises your confidence for the next big series abroad. Confidence comes from records and references. I have both now. I will be more confident next time.

India allrounder is one of 11 players with the double of scoring 3000 runs and taking 300 wickets

Sampath Bandarupalli30-Sep-20241:19

Jadeja’s special club feat. Kapil Dev, Ian Botham and more

11 – Ravindra Jadeja is now one of 11 players with the double of scoring 3000-plus runs and taking 300-plus wickets in Test cricket. Only two Indians have done this double before Jadeja – Kapil Dev and R Ashwin.74 – Number of Test matches Jadeja took to complete the double of 3000-plus runs and 300-plus wickets. He is the second quickest to the feat by matches, after Ian Botham (72).Jadeja has a difference of 12.72 between his batting and bowling averages, the second highest among the 11 players with this feat, behind Imran Khan’s 14.88.Related

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2 – Number of left-arm spinners with 300-plus wickets in Test cricket before Jadeja. Daniel Vettori was the first to get there, who finished with 362 wickets, while Rangana Herath topped him with 433 scalps.19.69 – Difference in batting and bowling averages of Jadeja in the first innings in Tests, the highest among the 15 players to have scored 1500-plus runs and taken 150-plus wickets.

Playing his first Border-Gavaskar Trophy, the 22-year old opener is emerging as one of India’s key players

Alagappan Muthu16-Nov-20243:31

Straight Talk: How can Jaiswal succeed in Australia?

There is a pretty cool bunch of people at the top of the list of Indians with the highest strike rates in Test cricket. Only four of the first ten are specialist batters. One of them is Yashasvi Jaiswal.Players at the top of the order in a game that can go on for five days are meant to try and avoid risk. The lists they would rather be on are most runs, or most hundreds, or best averages. And would you look at that, Jaiswal is there too. He is going to be important for India’s chances in Australia. But he has never faced a challenge like this.Five Tests. Away from home. Against a bowling attack that has quality, depth, variety and venom.Related

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In a career that is now little over a year old, Jaiswal has had occasion to taste bits of those separately. He played five Tests against England, but that was at home. He faced seam-friendly pitches and rip-snorting bowling in South Africa, but that was just two Tests. The Border-Gavaskar Trophy will combine the worst of those two events together.India’s training sessions since they landed in Perth earlier this week have been focused on getting their batters used to pace and bounce, to the extent that one of them, KL Rahul, suffered an injury scare, because they know what they are up against. In the last three years, only two countries, where at least two Tests have been played, have been less hospitable for run-scoring than Australia (27.08).And that is fine. Test-match batting is supposed to be difficult, particularly when the red ball still has its shine. It’s on you to stay out there until it gets soft, and then cash in. Except, over the same period, the batting average against the old ball in Australia – assuming it starts to get old after 30 overs of wear and tear – is almost identical to the batting average against the new ball: 27.81 vs 26.64.That may be testament to the discipline of Australia’s bowling attack, and how well they function together. Jaiswal hasn’t really had a chance to face any of them, barring a few balls here and there in the IPL. He is going to have to do a lot of learning on the job, which began in earnest on Tuesday when he joined India A’s net sessions at the WACA, and hit one so hard and so far that the ball ended up on the street outside the ground. It seems he is comfortable that the methods he has been using so far don’t need too much fiddling. There are others who share the same opinion.They stray, he flays: Yashasvi Jaiswal could be key in Australia•Associated Press”He has the ammunition. He has the game to do well in Australia,” former India batter Sanjay Manjrekar said on his ESPNcricinfo’s Straight Talk.Give Jaiswal half a chance to play an attacking shot and he will, whether it’s the first ball of the innings, or the second one in a chase. Put him in front of someone who is approaching 700 wickets or someone else who gets it up to 150kph, it’s all the same. They stray, he flays. That’s why a 22-year-old is shaping up as one of India’s most important players on a tour that is going to be long and tough, and lousy with consequence. Even the Australians know it.”He’s scored runs very quickly, but he hasn’t made a mistake. He hasn’t really given the opposition a chance to be able to get him out,” former allrounder Shane Watson said. This was pre-New Zealand though, when Watson was answering a question about whether India will miss someone who is capable of batting time and absorbing pressure, like Cheteshwar Pujara.”I think if those type of batters come out to Australia and play aggressively – just put the bad balls away and put pressure on the Aussie bowlers – then they can still have the same effect, and they keep the game moving as well.”Yashasvi Jaiswal perhaps has work to do in terms of shot selection when the ball is in an in-between length•AFP/Getty ImagesWith 10 of his 14 Tests have come at home, there has been a pattern to Jaiswal’s run-scoring – 902 have come against spin at an average of 75.16, and the remaining 505 have come against seam at an average of 38.84. He likes to take on short-pitched bowling, which he showed once again in a match simulation setting against India A in Perth. But there is perhaps some work to do in terms of shot selection when the ball is in an in-between length. It accounts for seven of Jaiswal’s 13 dismissals to pace so far, at an average of 18.42, and it happened again at the WACA when he was caught in the slips for 15. But he batted again and scored 58.”In Australia, you have to be to the pitch of the ball [to drive] unless the ball gets older, then you can drive on the up,” Manjrekar said. “But Yashasvi will play the new ball, so [he has to be] be careful when he wants to play that drive because that is one of his favourite shots.”Mitchell Starc, Josh Hazlewood and Pat Cummins will be tempting him to make that mistake over and over, again and again. Nathan Lyon won’t let him rest easy either, because even if he bowls the kind of stuff Jaiswal likes, Jaiswal is the kind of batter Lyon likes – a left-hander, against whom he averages 24.20. At every turn, there is an obstacle. At no point can you feel safe. This series, with its relevance, profile and the baseline skill-level it demands from everyone involved, is fire, and Jaiswal will be stepping into it for the first time.He is the kind of batter whose success will breed success for the team because he can upset the opposition’s plans and take their rhythm away. But he is young, and he has never been here before. His success is far from guaranteed, though perhaps his growth is. Jaiswal has a high ceiling, and win, lose or draw, the experience of this Border-Gavaskar Trophy will help him reach it.

Kelly Castle and Sophie Luff, the old guard of domestic women’s cricket, are now at the vanguard of a new era

Andrew Miller22-Apr-2025Unless you were deeply invested in the rise of English women’s cricket, you could be forgiven for not having previously heard of Kelly Castle and Sophie Luff. At the ages of 27 and 31 respectively, each has been a county cricketer for more than a decade already – providing solid, dependable presences in the previously amateur ranks of Essex and Somerset, including six years each as captain. However, throughout that time, neither player has come especially close to international recognition nor, in Castle’s case, attracted the attentions of the Women’s Hundred.Now, however, Castle, Luff and their ilk are at the vanguard of a brand-new era for their sport. Last April, Essex and Somerset were chosen as two of the eight initial Tier 1 women’s professional set-ups, and this week each player will be helping to launch her county’s Metro Bank One-Day Cup campaign: Castle, up at Chester-le-Street, where Essex take on Durham, and Luff down at Beckenham for Somerset versus Surrey.How each player fares individually will be of less relevance than what they represent. At a time when the depth of English women’s cricket is under scrutiny like never before, amid the failings of the national team at the T20 World Cup and the Ashes, the rebooted county game is intended to create the sort of pyramid structure that has never previously existed within the sport.And what that may entail – more urgently even than the identification of a new golden generation to challenge the current stars of the international set-up – is the expansion of this middle tier of “solid pros”: the likes of which have shored up the men’s game for generations but which, due to the fast-tracked nature of the women’s elite game, have not yet had a chance to take proper root among their female counterparts.”I’ve been here for a long time, so it’s cool to see a full-circle moment,” Castle tells ESPNcricinfo ahead of a transformative season. “For a lot of us girls, no matter where we played, we didn’t know if we could play professional cricket, unless we got to international level. So now, it’s great to see that it can be a career and, for that to happen at the club that I’ve grown up playing at, is pretty cool.”The professional experience isn’t brand-new to either player: in 2020, both were among the initial tranche of 41 regional players to be handed groundbreaking full-time contracts. And yet, seeing as Castle had been one of just five initial pros within the now-disbanded Sunrisers squad, and Luff one of six at Western Storm, even that seminal step-up was limited compared to the opportunity that awaits the women’s game this summer.”I never envisaged I’d be a professional cricketer first and foremost, particularly not at domestic level,” Luff, who has been named as Somerset’s first professional captain, tells ESPNcricinfo. “It just wasn’t an option when I was growing up. I chased the England dream for a long time and that ship’s probably sailed. But the fact that I can be a domestic professional cricketer, playing in front of a lot of people and getting paid pretty well, it’s come an awful long way, and I think it’s only going to grow.”When I first started at Western Storm there were three professional players on a retainer, then it went to six in the first winter. Now we’ve got a full squad of players, some of whom are rookies obviously. But the fact that we’ve got a full squad of girls in training week in, week out, makes a huge difference. I’m really excited to see what difference that makes moving into the season.”Those rookie contracts, worth £20,000 for this first year, will have a crucial part to play in the expansion of that pyramid. Notwithstanding the growth of the women’s game in recent years, there’s still a significant element of chance that dictates the ability of young players to rise through the sport’s existing ranks, as Castle’s own story relates.Sophie Luff will be Somerset’s first professional women’s captain•Getty ImagesHad it not been for the fact that her primary-school teacher in Southend was Australian, Castle says she would never have got a taste for the sport in the first place. And thereafter, having followed the familiar path of being a token girl in the local boys’ cricket team, she made her first appearance for Essex as a 13-year-old in 2011, and so was in position to ride the wave as the first stirrings of professionalism began.”I remember thinking, if I’m not playing for England by the time I’m 15, then I’ll need to give up, which is crazy,” Castle recalls. “And then, there was always something else that just kept me going, until I’m 17 … until I’m 19 … I was in my third year of university when there were murmurs around professional cricket happening, and because I’d always worked in cricket, I managed to transition in when I’d finished. I still do a lot of coaching on the side, just to keep myself busy. It feels as though the sport is getting there, but there’s still a lot of stuff to do.”To judge by the new narrative that surrounds the county game, however, the changes this season have already been stark. The ethos of one club, two teams has been a feature of the formative years of the Hundred, but already that seems to have been adopted across the board.Wherever you look, there’s a new recognition of the importance of the women’s set-up, whether it’s Surrey factoring a bespoke women’s changing room into their plans for a multi-million pound redevelopment of the Kia Oval pavilion, or Essex talking excitedly about their plans for expansion at Chelmsford, a project that simply could not have been possible when the club only catered for its men’s team.”We get to come to the same place every day for work,” Luff says of the experience down at Taunton. “The girls have a familiarity around where they’re coming to train and the infrastructure here has been brilliant, the way that we’ve been welcomed into the club.”The one thing that I really took away from our first week here was we met every department,” she adds. “It felt like Western Storm in the previous era was just a cricket team that existed as cricket players and cricket staff – whereas coming here, there’s a lot more that goes into a county cricket club than just the cricket on the pitch.Related

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“We’ve had great access to the facilities. Our changing rooms have been upgraded. We’ve got lockers in, the gym’s been extended to accommodate more people basically. And I think the men have probably seen some benefits from us coming in as well, which is nice.”However, it’s not simply the Tier 1 teams that have got the memo. As Beth Barrett-Wild, the ECB’s Director of Women’s Professional Game, noted earlier this month, some of the most interesting dynamics are set to occur within the new Tier 2 set-up, where a lot of ambitious amateur players will be seeking to make a name – and maybe ultimately a career – for themselves this summer.At Middlesex, for instance, where there was initial “shock” and “frustration”, according to their head of women’s cricket, Marc Broom, at the club’s failure to secure Tier 1 status, there has been a determination to prove the ECB’s decision-making wrong.”We’re going to treat you like professional cricketers, and we want you to act, train and play and think like professional cricketers,” says Broom, whose players stormed out of the blocks in their opening fixture earlier this week, bowling Kent out for 66 at Radlett en route to an eight-wicket victory.”Everything we’re going to be able to provide you is what we would try and provide a professional cricketer. The difference is your contact time with coaches is going to be less than a pro. The money you receive back is going to be less than a pro, and the time you’ve got available to commit to this is going to be less than a pro.”That would sound like an unpalatable prospect to most amateur players, were it not for the new incentives that the tiered structure has put in place.”My job is to create the best environment for these players and set them on the right journeys,” Broom says. “If, at the end of this year, every single player in this squad got signed by a Tier 1 county, I would be holding my hands up saying, ‘I’ve done my job’.”Additional reporting by Valkerie Baynes

After two years of playing at neutral locations, the Bay Area side have a stadium to call their own in the third season of MLC

Matt Roller11-Jun-2025On Thursday night, history will be made at the Oakland Coliseum in California. San Francisco Unicorns and Washington Freedom will launch the third season of Major League Cricket with a rematch of the 2024 final, which will become the first top-level cricket match staged on the west coast of the United States of America.The Coliseum, which can seat more than 60,000, was until recently the home of the Oakland Athletics (MLB) and Oakland Raiders (NFL) but both franchises have relocated, leaving it without a permanent tenant. Operating at a reduced capacity, it will host the first nine matches of MLC 2025 – including Unicorns’ first three home fixtures after two years at neutral venues.The ICC explored the possibility of using the Coliseum as a venue for last year’s T20 World Cup, but plans fell through for logistical reasons. MLC’s fixtures will be played on the same drop-in pitches used in the New York (more accurately, Long Island) leg of that tournament, which were transported across the country last month.Related

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“It’s a dream come true,” Anand Rajaraman, one of Unicorns’ co-owners, says. “I’m both excited and nervous. I hope the pitches play better than they did in New York. The curator says they will, because they’ve had more time to bed in, but fingers crossed. We’ll be introducing this sport to new people, and we don’t want them to get the wrong idea.”A lack of suitable infrastructure has been a major obstacle to cricket’s growth in the US but the Coliseum is unusually well placed to stage matches. “Cricket needs a field with certain dimensions,” Rajaraman explains. “The Coliseum is unique in that it was built to host American football and baseball, and therefore it’s more oval. That’s why the ICC had their eyes on it.”The venue is best known outside the US as the home of , the 2011 Brad Pitt film based on Michael Lewis’ book of the same name, which explored the Athletics’ use of data and analytics to compete with bigger-budget franchises. Fans regularly complained about the upkeep of the venue, and the Coliseum has been described as “baseball’s last dive bar” in the .The A’s have since relocated to Sacramento, temporarily, ahead of a planned move to Las Vegas, and the Unicorns approached the Coliseum last year to discuss the prospect of staging matches in the Bay Area. The project has since been overseen by MLC chief executive Johnny Grave, who started his new role earlier this year following a seven-year stint heading Cricket West Indies.Since the Athletics and the Raiders vacated the Oakland Coliseum, it has hosted other sports, including the MLC this season•Getty ImagesRajaraman believes there is a natural affinity between Unicorns and the A’s. “In the eyes of the world, they are most famous for Moneyball,” he says. “We see ourselves as the team of Silicon Valley, and my background is technology… The way I can contribute to cricket, and enrich the sport overall, is by pushing the envelope in technology.”He believes that cricket’s data revolution has a long way to run. “There’s been some adoption of data in cricket, which has increased with the IPL, but it’s not as deep or advanced as US sports, for sure.”Whether it’s baseball, [American] football or the NBA, they’ve gone ahead. Technology has not stood still either. With the latest AI, we can do more things with video than we ever could before. I’m very bullish that there is a lot more we can do with data and technology than we are right now.”Rajaraman’s background suggests that he should know. He met Venky Harinarayan, his co-owner, while they were studying at Stanford: “He gave me a ride to pick up groceries back in 1993. We founded our first company together in 1996, and we’ve been business partners ever since.” Both men were born in Chennai (then Madras), and have been cricket fans since childhood.Their first venture, an early price-comparison site called Junglee, was acquired by Amazon during the dotcom boom, and a later company called Kosmix was bought by Walmart; they were also early investors in Facebook. They later founded a venture capital firm, Rocketship, which they still head today.They were early Cricinfo users while studying overseas. “I could keep in touch with cricket even when I wasn’t in India,” Rajaraman says. “I remember following the 1996 World Cup with great attention on Cricinfo, and the famous 2001 Test series [against] Australia. Naturally, I couldn’t watch the whole days’ play, but I followed the rest on Cricinfo.” Vishal Misra, one of Cricinfo’s founders, leads Unicorns’ data analytics team and has a small stake in the franchise.Rajaraman was immediately enthused by the concept of MLC, and particularly the chance to own a team in the Bay Area. “It’s been my home for the last 30 years,” he says. “I’ve invested in enough companies for purely business reasons, and this is certainly not that. I feel like I’m giving back by bringing the sport I love to the region I call home.”Unicorns have players like Pat Cummins, who signed a four-year contract with them, among its ranks•MLCThe “Unicorns” name brought some pushback from the league itself, but the owners insisted that it was right for them; in the business world, the term refers to a start-up company valued at over $1bn. “We invest in companies at an early stage that become the unicorns of the future,” Rajaraman says. “It’s emblematic of what makes Silicon Valley great.”Some MLC stakeholders have invested in the Hundred in England, and four IPL franchise owners are involved in the MLC. Unicorns have a strategic partnership with Cricket Victoria, which involves some level of player and coach overlap, but they remain a single-team franchise and have no immediate plans to create a global network of teams.They were losing finalists under coach Shane Watson last season, their first with Australia captain Pat Cummins in their ranks. Cummins has signed a long-term deal and has expressed his interest in the world of venture capital. “I was blown away by the depth of his interest and knowledge of all things business and technology,” Rajaraman says.Cummins will miss the 2025 MLC season for Australia’s Test series against West Indies, but the league’s salary offers are hard for others to turn down, as evidenced by Nicholas Pooran and Heinrich Klaasen’s recent international retirements. “It’s up to the ICC to rationalise the calendar so that there is less conflict between leagues and international cricket,” Rajaraman says.Having fallen in love with the sport through the 1983 World Cup, Rajaraman now believes that ODIs are redundant. “I was at the Boxing Day Test in Melbourne, and there’s nothing like it. You want hard-fought Test cricket between balanced teams. T20s have shown that they are the format of the future, and ODIs will have to ride off into the sunset.”But for the time being, his focus is squarely on Thursday night as cricket arrives on the west coast of America.

The trophy belongs as much to the current players as the past, who represented India with limited means, often shuffling between jobs to make ends meet

Vishal Dikshit03-Nov-2025

India’s world champions celebrate with Jhulan Goswami and Anjum Chopra•Getty Images

The most ironic celebratory scenes unfolded as the victorious Indian team took the ODI World Cup trophy around the ground in Navi Mumbai to Mithali Raj, Jhulan Goswami and Anjum Chopra and they all said “Thank you”.As a weeping Goswami towered over captain Harmanpreet Kaur on one shoulder and vice-captain Smriti Mandhana on the other, she whispered those two words with her eyes shut, almost not knowing how else to appreciate the gigantic effort of finally bringing the trophy home. Mithali then held the trophy high with the squad surrounding her, offering rapturous applause. She had come so close to winning it herself eight years ago. Now that she had it, she cuddled it as tight as she could, big, beaming smile on her face.Chopra threw her arms around Harmanpreet with “you have done it,” not long after she had said, “finally, finally, finally” on commentary, just as the Indian team’s celebrations had begun. Perhaps she was counting the two World Cup finals India went down in, in 2005 and 2017, and that the third time was the real “finally” that sparked an endless celebration for the players and their families, both at the ground and the adjacent team hotel, all the way to the wee hours of Monday morning.Related

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They took the trophy to Reema Malhotra as well, who turned out 64 times for India, and was Harmanpreet’s senior in the 2009 and 2013 World Cups. The duo reunited and sang “”, a popular Hindi song that means “give me my rights, here and now,” and largely symbolises rebellion and struggles against social and political norms.The irony of thanking the current side lay in the fact that these former players were the ones who had paved the way, laid the foundation and groomed some of these players who were wearing World Cup medals around their necks.It is the current fast bowlers who should be thankful to Goswami, who convinced her parents to let her play cricket as a teenager, for which she had to take a train every morning before dawn from her hometown in Chakdaha to Kolkata (about 80 kilometres away).It is the current batters who should be thankful to Mithali for smashing a Test double-century four months before she turned 20 and then taking up the India captaincy at 21, chaperoning the side to two World Cup finals.It was under Goswami that Harmanpreet made her international debut in 2009; it was under Mithali that Harmanpreet became vice-captain and then took over after Mithali’s departure in 2022. Chopra, too, had shown a young Harmanpreet the ropes more than 15 years ago and now fondly calls her protégé , an Indianised version of captain.8:05

‘What dream? We’re living it’

“Yes, Jhulan was my biggest support,” Harmanpreet said after the final. “When I joined the team, she was leading it. She always supported me in my early days when I was very raw and didn’t know much about cricket.”I used to play with boys, and the school principal picked me up, and within a year, I started representing the country. In the initial days, Anjum supported me a lot. I always remember how she used to take me along with her team. I learnt a lot from her and passed it on to my team.”Both of them have been a great support for me. I’m very grateful that I got to share a special moment with them. It was a very emotional moment. I think we all were waiting for this. Finally, we were able to touch this trophy.”Even though Harmanpreet was feeling “numb” at the press conference, she explained how this historic feat belonged to a myriad of people behind the scenes – families, close friends, coaches, who stood by them through the highs and lows. And all the former players, some of whom laid the foundation stone of women’s cricket in India decades ago.Two of them are Diana Edulji and Shantha Rangaswamy, who watched the players from the stands at the DY Patil Stadium on Sunday night. They are two pioneers of the game who started with nothing and continue to contribute in administrative capacities to date.Rangaswamy was India women’s first official captain in 1976, and was the first to lead them to a Test series win. Born in a family full of academicians, Rangaswamy didn’t have the means to take a bus to college but went walking around Bangalore (now Bengaluru) to study and train for multiple sports. Early in her career, she even played with her father’s broken bat against Australia before establishing herself as an allrounder.Edulji, just two years younger than Rangaswamy, forced her way into boys’ cricket teams in South Bombay and came from the generation that had to raise funds on their own for India women’s first overseas tour of New Zealand in 1976-77.Mithali Raj has been a role model for a lot of the current players•ICC/Getty ImagesExpectedly, the finances accrued weren’t enough and they were forced to stay in the houses of a few Indian families and local players, which then became the norm for some of the future tours. Edulji was the first to lead India in a Women’s World Cup, in 1978 at home, before Rangaswamy did it in 1982.The trophy that the Indian team are still shooting reels with, perhaps belongs as much to the players who represented India, not just without contracts or match fees but especially under the Women’s Cricket Association of India (WCAI), a body set up by lovers of the game in 1973.The WCAI’s history is dotted with its own share of financial difficulty before every overseas tour, before every World Cup – which even made India miss the 1988 edition – and until the BCCI took the women’s game under its wings in 2006. By then, India had featured in six World Cups without much formal support or money.The prize money of INR 51 crore that the BCCI announced the day after the World Cup glory in a way also belongs to those who shuffled between jobs to make ends meet while playing cricket. To those who defiantly fought against gender norms and initial administrative hurdles to set in place a system for girls to start thinking about cricket professionally, even after the likes of Harmanpreet and Mandhana had picked up their bats.”This one’s for those who were before us and set the foundation,” Jemimah Rodrigues wrote on her Instagram on Monday.It has taken generations of players, their parents, close friends and relatives to make all these efforts materialise into a World Cup trophy. The role of the media to popularise the game was also not lost on Harmanpreet.As soon as she finished her press conference after the final, she called some reporters to the podium – especially those who have contributed to the coverage of women’s cricket – and took selfies with nearly all of them holding the trophy. Coincidentally, they used the same words everyone around Harmanpreet had been saying: “Thank you.”