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His fifty was central to tourists’ best day of a series that has already passed them by

Vithushan Ehantharajah26-Jul-2024Before the , there was .Diary of a CEO reels. Mark Wahlberg’s daily routine. Dubai-based influencers flexing (rented) wealth. All of which are still going, of course. Don’t you see – hustle culture never dies.But amid the glorification of unreasonable work hours and unsustainable sleeping patterns under the banner of “rise and grind” was a central pillar that, ultimately, spoke of a broken society. One that needed to be gamed as much as played. Where all you could really do was gamble and barter for incremental moments of success. Success that was fleeting, merely leading to another stage of the cycle with no guarantee of happiness the more you went around.Earlier this week, Cricket West Indies chief executive Johnny Grave told BBC Stumped that hosting the T20 World Cup last month and with England to come at the end of 2024 makes it “three good financial years” in a row after Covid decimated the business. The visits of England and India in 2022 and 2023 were crucial money spinners.Time to put the word out there that Caribbean cricket is back? Not quite. The success of those years will only really be felt in the upcoming fallow ones of 2025 and 2026, when CWI can at least continue their investment in infrastructure across the men’s and women’s game, and reinforce their grassroots systems, while feeling the pinch. India are due to return in 2027 to replenish the pockets and on the grind goes.Related

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It’s galling to think of the governing body of a Test nation operating on such gig-economy terms. But as most with the power to fix a broken system shrug their shoulders, West Indies crack on. After the ECB agreed to three extra T20Is on 2023’s limited overs tour, they asked if they could assist with anything this Test tour. CWI, sensing the need to future-proof what Test stocks they have, asked for help in facilitating an Under-19 tour to the UK.For the first time, maybe ever, CWI as a body feel more in step with its players, who are among the most accomplished traversers of increasingly absurd terrain. And it was one of them in Jason Holder who was central to West Indies’ best day of a series that has already passed them by.Two outstanding catches at the end of Friday at Edgbaston supplemented a 59 from Holder that did more than just delay an impending collapse. An opening stand of 76 became 115 for 5, and thoughts immediately turned to Sunday’s botch job in Nottingham. Holder, with the familiar help of Joshua Da Silva in a stand of 109, were able to stave it off. With England 38 for 3 at stumps, West Indies’ 282 does not look as light as it initially seemed.This was Holder’s first half-century in 16 months. But much like West Indies cricket as a whole, the truth lies a little deeper. An unbeaten 81 against South Africa came just eight innings ago before two Tests against India were followed by a brief sabbatical from the format at the start of this year. After rejecting a CWI contract, Holder opted out of the tour of Australia to ply his trade in the ILT20, citing practice for the upcoming T20 World Cup.Jason Holder raised a battling half-century•Getty ImagesAs the world lamented another nail in the coffin of Test cricket, Holder made it clear his Test career was not over. Those words were backed up with a stint in County Cricket for Worcestershire. Not that they needed to be, of course. The 32-year-old, weighing up financial gain and personal preference, happened upon a happy medium for him.It felt oddly in sync in a fractured world that at 5:17pm – the time Holder was yorked by a late-swinging delivery from Gus Atkinson – Nicholas Pooran, arguably the most talented batter of his generation and yet without a single Test cap, rocked up at Headingley.Just 36 hours earlier, his MI New York had been knocked out of the MLC 2024. Now, he was donning the purple of Northern Superchargers for the start of a £125,000 stint. Cold work for some, necessary for a player who continues to gamble on himself – and win.Holder came up short of his own gamble out in the middle here. Alzarri Joseph’s brief, breezy cameo meant three more partnerships at most. The former West Indies Test captain had grand ambitions of being “more expressive”, flicking through his options and setting a path for the future… one which was destroyed in an instant by Atkinson’s yorker.Jason Holder was bowled by a beauty from Gus Atkinson•Getty Images”At the stage when I got out, I was trying to get past the two spells, of Woakes and Atkinson,” Holder explained of his thinking at the time. “The ball was starting to do a little bit more; it was quiet for a bit but then it started to swing a bit more.”I knew Woody was deep into his workload in terms of the amount of overs he was asked to bowl. Obviously coming with a short ball plan on a very slow wicket, it takes a lot of effort. I wasn’t really expecting him to come back too soon after, so maybe Bashir would have come back and I’d try to push the game on a little bit more.”The calculations were sound. Holder had looked settled when Wood tried to go at him earlier, and largely dominated the 27 deliveries he had previously faced from Bashir, which included stepping to the off spinner and planting him into the sightscreen for six. Their return would have signalled a mini-win that could in turn have lifted West Indies to 350.Though Kraigg Brathwaite had notched a tidy 61 and Da Silva had looked steady for his 49, Holder was far better equipped than two red-ball specialists for the situation after the top-order collapse, and the circumstances that lay ahead.Holder only added five runs to his score after Da Silva’s dismissal. All the grinding and computing he had done for the late charge had come to nothing. And it was ultimately not enough to cover for the Kirk McKenzie’s shortcomings and Alick Athanaze’s frustrating decision to try and pull a ball not quite there that was always going to be the last ball before lunch.Just as it is in the system, this match will require constant ducking and diving. That West Indies ground and ground some more to finish day one in a good position in this Test puts them no closer to being surer as a Test nation. But as the game continues to shrug, they continue to hustle.

Forceful lower-order batting undoes visitors’ excellent work in the first half of opening day

Matt Roller29-Aug-2024This was a missed opportunity for Sri Lanka. England’s batters played charitable hosts at Lord’s, laying it on thick with a series of self-inflicted dismissals on a slow, blameless first-day pitch. Yet after tea, the champagne hardly flowed: England added 142 for 1 in the final 29 overs, leaving Sri Lanka to rue their profligacy.Their day was personified by Lahiru Kumara, the bustling fast bowler who replaced Vishwa Fernando. He struck with his fifth ball, having Dan Lawrence caught behind, and had Chris Woakes caught on the hook in the afternoon. But his final spell of the day was a tired one: Gus Atkinson crunched his short ball over midwicket, and he looked exhausted.When Atkinson and Matthew Potts added an unbroken 50 for the eighth wicket in 10.3 overs, Sri Lankan heads dropped. Their fatigue in the final session was encapsulated by Kumara’s loosening-up for his final spell: after bowling a practice delivery to Prabath Jayasuriya at mid-off, Kumara took his eye off the underarm return and dropped the brand-new ball on the turf.It was a particularly frustrating day for Dhananjaya de Silva, Sri Lanka’s captain, whose surprise decision to bowl first when he won the toss looked for a while as though it had paid off. England lost wickets regularly in slipping to 216 for 6, and with Ben Stokes’ absence prompting a longer tail than usual, the game was wide open. Instead, Atkinson crashed 74 not out from No. 8.”We’ve done well in the first session, and what we were expecting was to get them out for 320, something like that,” Aaqib Javed, their bowling coach, said. “The partnership between [Joe] Root and Gus actually took them along, and when you’re expecting a wicket to fall after six wickets, it’s getting sometimes frustrating. The energy level from 65 overs to 80 was a little bit down.”Related

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After a superb record-equalling hundred, Root gifted his wicket to Milan Rathnayake on 143, fluffing a reverse-scoop to be caught in the gully. And yet, most frustratingly for Dhananjaya, his team failed to capitalise in the final 45 minutes of the day, spraying the new ball around. “There is tiredness, there is fatigue, and it’s showing,” Kumar Sangakkara, Sri Lanka’s former captain, said on commentary.The man who capitalised was Atkinson, whose approach was simple and clinical during his maiden Test half-century. He put particular pressure on Sri Lanka’s spinners, launching Jayasuriya for two straight sixes over mid-off and combining with Root to take Kamindu Mendis’ three overs for 27, rendering him unbowlable and bringing the seamers back for third and fourth spells.”How well did Gussy strike the ball?” Root said on Sky Sports. “I’ve seen him play enough to know that it’s in there, but… I’m dying to be able to play shots like that. There was a pull shot he played to deep square: we got one, but we had to sprint a single. He hits it that cleanly. We need to get him into golf, because that swing is pure.”With Potts unbeaten on 20 overnight – the top score of his own fledgling Test career – England are eyeing a total of 400 or more on the second morning. “Those guys in particular set things up nicely going into day two,” Root said. “They stepped up and really made life difficult for Sri Lanka at the back end of the day, where you can cash in and you can score quite quickly on such a fast outfield.”Sri Lanka have fought hard across the first five days of this series, with England facing moments of real jeopardy. But their attack’s inexperience – their four main bowlers in this Test have won 57 previous caps between them – has shown twice when bowling to the tail: on the third morning in Manchester, and now on the first evening at Lord’s.

After a season with Kerala, the allrounder is back at Karnataka and is geared up to make an impact

Shashank Kishore05-Nov-2024At 31, Shreyas Gopal believes he’s at his bowling peak. Glimpses of this were evident last week when he single-handedly delivered Karnataka’s first win of the 2024-25 Ranji Trophy season, against Bihar.Sure, the opponents weren’t the most-fancied, but with two set batters – Babul Kumar and Sakibul Gani – having put together a century stand on the final day, Karnataka were running out of time. But when Mayank Agarwal, the captain, threw the ball to Shreyas in a last-ditch effort to salvage something, the tide turned.Shreyas picked up four wickets in a hurry as Bihar lost 8 for 76 to set up a 69-run target, which Karnataka achieved easily under fading light. Shreyas finished with a match haul of 8 for 98.Related

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For Shreyas, who is seven short of 250 first-class wickets, creating an impact and delivering under pressure has been a prime focus. This performance must have underlined those attributes.With K Gowtham not in the reckoning, Vidwath Kaverappa injured, and Prasidh Krishna with India A in Australia, the timing of Shreyas’ performance couldn’t have been better.”I’m delighted to be back where I belong,” he says. “Last year I went to Kerala only because I was guaranteed to start across all formats. Towards the end of my first Karnataka stint, I wasn’t getting chances consistently across formats. I had lost my IPL contract as well [in 2023].”Shreyas didn’t perform all that badly for Kerala. During the 2023-24 Ranji season, he picked up 16 wickets in six games, and hit one century and one half-century in his 272 runs, largely in the lower middle order.His white-ball numbers were a lot better. At the Vijay Hazare Trophy, he picked up 12 wickets in eight games at an economy of 4.96, while at the Syed Mushtaq Ali T20s, he picked up 12 wickets in seven games at an economy of 7.66.

“[Chahal] is one of my favourite bowlers currently and there’s no shame in saying that. The way he uses his variations and when he uses them is really phenomenal”

Those performances went a long way in Mumbai Indians picking him for the IPL. But with Piyush Chawla preferred as their No. 1 Indian spinner, Shreyas played just three games. Yet, the confidence from his domestic season was reassuring.”Those innings and wickets gave me that confidence,” Shreyas says. “I want to try and set that bar as high as possible and give it to the next generation to take over. My whole thing is to do as well as I can [once again for Karnataka].”Over the years, Shreyas has enjoyed learning his craft. In this journey of self-discovery, he has had a number of fruitful conversations with Yuzvendra Chahal. “He is one of my favourite bowlers currently and there’s no shame in saying that,” Shreyas says. “The way he uses his variations and when he uses them is really phenomenal.”The one thing they share in common is the love for bowling at the Chinnaswamy Stadium, where the key to success is “overcoming fear of being hit” as much as it is about consistency and variations.”It’s always difficult to bowl here,” Shreyas explains. “But again, if you keep saying ‘difficult, difficult’ when you get the ball, you’re not helping matters. You have no choice but to bowl here. You have to try and look at the conditions. There has to be something in it that you can try and extract.”Whether it is angles, whether it is the wind, whether it is the longer boundary, whether it is speed or trajectory – anything. You have to try and evolve. I’ve focused on that over the years.”Shreyas believes he is a lot more mature and calmer to take setbacks in his stride now, like missing an IPL season or not being an all-format regular for Karnataka previously. He wants to channel this maturity now.”A 20-year-old version of myself wouldn’t have this experience,” he says. “The first few games of my IPL, even in the odd game, when I got taken for a few runs, it used to really affect me a lot more.”But it takes a lot of bowling and a lot of matches, whether it is IPL, SMAT, Ranji, India A – it takes a lot of games to be able to come to a stage where you’re like, this has happened, these are my learnings, and I take this from here and I ensure I don’t keep making the same mistakes.”Shreyas Gopal has six hundreds in first-class cricket•PTI While continuing to evolve as a bowler, Shreyas has also fine-tuned his batting. Six first-class hundreds and nearly 3500 runs are the proof. Much of these have been in the company of the lower order, because he has primarily batted at No. 6-7, unlike in age-group cricket where he was a top-order batter.”Very honestly, when I was in my early 20s, there were a couple of years where I didn’t do very well with the bat,” he says. “So, it kind of took away a little bit of confidence. But then, you do realise that you have scored so many runs for a reason and there has to be a way to come out of it. And it’s probably just bad form.”It’s something that you’ve not dealt with, or you’ve not thought about it. So I did start putting a lot of thought in it in the last five-six years about my batting. I wanted to take it to the next level. I wanted to win matches with the bat as well. I was winning matches with the ball.”I’m glad that in the last few years, I’ve been able to do that. And, you know, I’m very happy sometimes when people ask me, are you a bowler who can bat or a batsman who can bowl that? I still want to be someone that when I walk into bat, they’re like, this guy can score a lot of runs.”Looking ahead, Shreyas realises India could be amid a spin transition at some point in the immediate future. And he wants to put his hand up to join what seems like a long queue already, with Axar Patel, Kuldeep Yadav, Washington Sundar, Saurabh Kumar and Manav Suthar in it.Shreyas is focused on impact performances – like the one he came up with in Patna – rather than setting any numbers.”It’s about creating an impact, adding value, whether it’s a four-wicket haul instead of five, or a 60 on a tough track instead of 120 on a flat track. If I can do these consistently and we win, I’ll automatically put my hand up to be noticed.”That’s what I want to do. Help the team win titles, like we did when I first came into the team.”

Which was the better Test – Sri Lanka beating South Africa in Colombo in 2006 or India thwarting Australia in Kolkata in 2001?

ESPNcricinfo staff22-May-2025Update: This poll has ended. The IND-AUS 2001 Kolkata Test moves into the quarter-finals.Sri Lanka come out on top after final-day drama – Colombo (PSS), 2006The Test swung this way and that, till it came down to Farveez Maharoof, more than competent with the bat, and Lasith Malinga, not quite as adept, needing to score two runs to win the Test. They did, to earn Sri Lanka a one-wicket win and make it 2-0 for the series.South Africa chose to bat – who would want to bat last on a Sri Lankan pitch? And they got the biggest total of the match, 361. The fifth-wicket stand between Ashwell Prince and AB de Villiers, worth 161, made it possible, despite Muthiah Muralidaran’s five-for.Sri Lanka didn’t stop too far away, at 321, but they had the century stand for the eighth wicket between Maharoof and Chaminda Vaas to thank for it even as Dale Steyn and Makhaya Ntini combined for nine wickets.When South Africa batted again, Muralidaran got seven, and South Africa got to 311, setting Sri Lanka 352 to win.Then, in a Test where all four innings crossed 300, Mahela Jayawardene scored the only century. But when he fell, Sri Lanka still had 11 runs to get, with three wickets in hand, but hope since Maharoof and Vaas were around. Vaas and Muralidaran fell, though, and then it was over to Maharoof to get the scores level, and Malinga to avoid a tie. He did. Driving Nicky Boje, who had taken four wickets in the innings, down the ground to finish the job.Australia fall at the Eden final frontier – Kolkata, 2001If someone came up with a script detailing this Test before it happened, it would have probably been rejected for being too unrealistic.A Test hat-trick against the world’s top side at the age of 20. A follow-on. A historic partnership to turn the tables. A record individual score by an Indian. And a thrilling end in front of packed stands to level the series and end Australia’s streak of 16 wins.But all of it did transpire.After Harbhajan Singh hurt Australia with a hat-trick on the first day, Steve Waugh scored his maiden Test century on Indian soil to lead his team to a strong 445. In reply, India were bundled for 171 and asked to follow-on.They were then 232 for 4 – still 42 behind – when VVS Laxman was joined by Rahul Dravid and the two of them played out the entire fourth day with strips of iced towels around their necks to beat the heat and humidity; they still needed attention from the physio from time to time.The two ended up seeing off nine bowlers with innings that were instantly stamped in the game’s history. Laxman’s 281 lasted ten-and-a half-hours, and Dravid’s 180 nearly seven-and-a-half. They set Australia a target of 384. Australia succumbed on the last day against India’s spinners as Harbhajan finished with a tally of 13 for 196.

Opener celebrated emotional eighth Test hundred, but knows job is not yet done

Firdose Moonda13-Jun-20252:23

Day 3 review: Markram’s knock could be career-defining

Aiden Markram flicked Josh Hazlewood off his pads, watched the ball roll through midwicket, then raised his arms, removed his helmet, and wiped away a tear. He might even have allowed himself to think that he was in the midst of the most significant Test century of his career, and perhaps in South Africa’s history, too.Temba Bavuma, his partner at the other end, hung back and let Markram take it in. He watched, with what looked like nothing but deep respect, as Markram saluted the sun as it ducked behind the clouds – they did not form through the bulk of the best batting conditions. When the two batters met mid-pitch for the hug, they allowed themselves the briefest of revelries at what Markram had achieved, and you could almost hear them willing each other on. “It’s not done yet,” the fist bumps seemed to say. And it isn’t. Victory is still 69 runs away. Markram is 102 not out and there is work to do, which he knows.But later, when there is a moment to reflect, whatever the final result, Markram’s century will be engraved into the annals of South African cricket history as one of the great fourth-innings responses. Already, Markram is second-only to Graeme Smith (who made four) when it comes to centuries in the second innings for South Africa. This one could prove more crucial than any.Related

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It started under immense pressure for both Markram and South Africa. In much better batting conditions than the previous two days, Australia added 63 runs to their overnight total of 144 for 8. That meant South Africa would have to pull off the second-highest successful chase at Lord’s, while making the highest score of the match. Markram was coming off a duck in the first innings, when he chopped a Mitchell Starc inswinger on to his stumps, and a reckless 13 off 15 balls in the warm-up match, where he was caught flicking to square leg.Given that only Bavuma is more experienced at Test level than Markram in this side and the task that faced South Africa, he was shouldering responsibility from the moment he padded up. He would face Starc again, this time with no swing, and his first ball was a gentle push that allowed him to get off strike. Just that tap and run was a sign that South Africa’s mindset was switched on. Unlike their first innings, in which they employed an ultra-defensive approach against high-quality bowling, this time South Africa immediately showed some intent.Even when Ryan Rickelton nicked off early and Wiaan Mulder, under the microscope at No. 3, came in, Markram took the opportunities where he saw them. He punched Hazlewood off the back foot through the covers and got down on one knee to drive Starc square through point before playing him off his hips for a leg-side four. Markram scored 18 off the first 21 balls he faced, South Africa were 47 for 1 after ten overs, and there was impetus and energy in the chase.But the examinations would come. Nathan Lyon was brought on in the 11th over, and immediately got one to dip and turn. Pat Cummins drew Markram’s edge but it didn’t carry and Starc had Mulder caught at cover with a ball that seemed to stick in the surface. The sternest test was when Bavuma pulled his hamstring shortly before tea and hobbled through two overs. Would Markram be able to bat alongside a struggling but vital partner? And more specifically, would Markram be able to change his game, hold himself back if needed to, so that South Africa’s best batter of the last six years could do his bit for the chase?2:00

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At the interval, Markram “was adamant”, in the words of batting coach Ashwell Prince, that Bavuma should continue because “the partnership was key”. Markram was also well aware that he would have to curb his intensity in terms of running between the wickets “to allow Temba to ease his way through it,” Prince said.The pair’s first post-tea run was a single off a mistimed Markram drive that took him to fifty, and it seemed the run rate might drop as Bavuma’s injury was managed. The boundaries came occasionally, Bavuma’s hobble improved in parts, then worsened, and both got through threatening spells from Hazlewood and Cummins with much tighter techniques. Markram’s in particular was more cautious than it has been recently and Prince confirmed there was a focus on playing closer to the body, especially since the opposite can happen because of a deluge of T20 cricket.”He’s done a little bit of technical work, not a lot,” Prince said. “In the last little while, he’s just had a little tendency of his hands pushing away from his body and cutting across the wall but it wasn’t a big fix. As soon as he saw a few videos of himself doing that, it was quite a simple fix.”There was also Markram’s traditional strength on display: his strong off-side play. He drove and cut with confidence and scored 65 runs in that area of the ground. He also got more comfortable against the turn, even though it was never easy and every ball seemed an event. Markram spent 22 balls in the 90s as tension grew. South Africa would already go to sleep with the nerves of knowing it was not over, but would Markram also clock off without reaching the milestone he had worked so hard for?3:33

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Seven balls before the close of play, he got there, and acknowledged the moment with the right mix of celebration and seriousness. . He has done it, for himself, but he hasn’t done it all yet. Markram said later that he was “overwhelmed with emotion” as he looked to the London skies and let a few tears out. But he kept himself together to take South Africa to the close of play and the doorstep. He will also want to take them across it.”We certainly know that he’s someone for the big occasion,” Prince said. “When I talk about his ability to play big innings – albeit in a losing cause [against India] at Newlands on a very, very difficult pitch – he played an unbelievable innings. Everybody else was really struggling, and he got a hundred on that surface. So we know what he’s capable of.”That was the last century Markram scored, 16 innings ago, in the first Test of this WTC cycle. Since then, he has contributed three half-centuries, including an 89 in the Centurion Test against Pakistan where South Africa qualified for the final, but there was a sense that more that needed to come from him. As an opener, as one of the few batters with Test experience that goes beyond a season or two, and as someone who was once labelled the golden boy of South African cricket.Markram is the only South African captain to have held a World Cup trophy aloft, when his team, which included Kagiso Rabada, won the Under-19 World Cup in 2014. Great things were expected of him from that day. His two hundreds in three Tests suggested they were coming, and his 152 against Australia in 2018 seemed to confirm it. He has since been dropped from the Test side twice, most recently for the tour of Australia in 2022-23 just before the Shukri Conrad era began. Conrad brought Markram back and he rewarded him with a century on his return. Two more came after that, the Cape Town one Prince spoke of and this one, which no one will forget.

Numbers reflect the dominance New Zealand and South Africa have had in Tests in India and how India have not been able to play to their strengths

S Rajesh18-Nov-2025India’s 30-run loss to South Africa in Kolkata has evoked strong reactions from home fans and pundits, and not without reason: this is India’s fourth defeat in their last six home Tests. In October-November 2024, they had lost 3-0 to New Zealand; only a 2-0 series win against a weak West Indies line-up separates those defeats from this one.Clearly, this is an unusual occurrence for India, who have not been used to losing at home over the last several years. Before this wretched run over the last 13 months, their previous sequence of four home losses spanned 28 Test matches, or seven years from February 2017 to January 2024.ESPNcricinfo LtdAfter the last of those defeats, against England in Hyderabad, India won six Tests on the trot going into that horrific New Zealand series. That means, in their last 34 home Tests before hosting New Zealand, India had a 25-4 win-loss record, the best among all teams at home in that period.Related

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From there, they have slumped to a 2-4 win-loss record at home in the last 13 months, their worst stretch at home in 53 years: the last time they lost four in a six-game sequence was way back in the 1969-72 period, against Australia and England.That wouldn’t have felt half as disastrous though, as India were nowhere near as strong a team then, even at home – they only had a 5-4 win-loss record from their previous 25 home Tests. Moreover, the last of those four defeats in the six-game sequence came three years after the fifth: India didn’t host a single Test between January 1970 and November 1972.