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At the start of a big home season, with conditions to their liking, with the required ammunition in their bag, and with batsmen world over struggling to play quality spin, Virat Kohli sounded like a captain who felt his team’s time has come

Sidharth Monga in Kanpur21-Sep-20161:41

Need to be smart about our combination – Kohli

Virat Kohli’s performances in the last two years have been seen as a case of his recognising his time had come. He worked hard on his game for the conditions he was likely to get, eliminating every small weakness as he went along. He became obsessed with his fitness so his body became strong enough to match his ambition. At the start of a big home season, with conditions to their liking, with the required ammunition in their bag, and with batsmen world over struggling to play quality spin, Kohli sounded like a captain who felt his team’s time has come as well.”We believe we certainly have what it takes to be the best team in the world,” he said. “We definitely believe that. One area we have tapped into is belief. It’s something that a lot of young players can lack coming into international cricket. There can be a lot of insecurities: ‘Whether I’ll play in the next game or whether my position is secure or not.’ It’s all about getting them rid of that feeling. When you step on to the pitch, you need to tell yourself, ‘I own this position for the next eight-ten years in Test cricket for India.'”That’s the only way you can go out there, be confident and express yourself. Express how good you are, and that’s what this team has done. That’s why we’ve been able to win seven-odd Test matches in the last 13 or 14 that we played. [It’s] because we wanted to go out there and play bold cricket and take some risks. More often than not if you’re fearless, the results will fall your way because you’re willing to take that extra risk in the course of the game. I certainly feel that this team has what it takes to be the best.”Just like he has done with his batting, Kohli said he wanted his team to become obsessed with preparation so that at crunch time their strength and skill don’t desert them.”What it requires is sustained concentration, attention to detail, practising the same way every day… You know, doing boring things,” he said. “At this level you need to be boring if you want to be successful. As simple as that. Your training, your practice, the way you prepare for games should not change. Whoever can do that for a sustained period of time will obviously be a very good side, and this team has the potential to do that.”In the last season, when India beat South Africa 3-0, the frontline batsmen didn’t finish the job; India struggled against spin themselves and had to be bailed out by the lower order on more than the odd occasion. On Wednesday, Kohli said work has been done to overcome that.”I think what’s really important is to find the balance between being positive and being solid at the same time,” he said. “If someone is bowling a good spell you want to pay respect to the bowler, but not so much that you get under pressure. You don’t want to defend too much and eventually feel like, ‘I could have attacked more,’ when you get out. So it’s a right balance of putting the bowler under pressure and at the same time respecting the good balls that he bowls.”And that requires a lot of concentration. We have to be more watchful and more focussed throughout the day. There is no room for complacency; you cannot relax at any stage. In Test cricket, half an hour of bad decision-making can cost you the whole Test. So that’s one thing that we have worked on.”That’s why we work on our fitness levels so that the body can support what we want to do. To bat through the whole day, or two days, you need a fit physique and that’s what the boys have been working on and it’s been going really good. That has certainly improved our focus levels and we have been able to play out difficult situations in the best way possible. So it’s a combination of a lot of things, but I think the key is to maintain that balance between being positive and at the same time, being solid and playing through a difficult situation for the team.”To prepare for the 2013-14 season, when the bulk of India’s Tests were to be played overseas, the players had concentrated on how to play fast bowling as best as they could and in doing so they “sort of didn’t pay that much attention to spin.” Kohli admitted as much, but went on to say the same mistake would not be made now.”We have lost a Test match in Sri Lanka because we could not play spin as well as we wanted to,” he said. “But we rectified that. The team wants to improve in that aspect of the game. It is something that we surely need to get stronger at. What has happened is that there was so much being built up about us not being able to play well away from home that we kept focusing on playing fast bowling, and we got really good at it. We countered conditions really well in England, in bursts, in South Africa, New Zealand and Australia.”We sort of didn’t pay that much attention to spin. That was one area we could have worked more on. Now we are putting in more effort, to face the spinners longer in nets and practising small little things by ourselves – someone might sweep, someone might play off the back foot, someone might step out – whatever it is. We are trying to improve that part of our game slowly. If you want to be a champion side, you don’t want to give the opposition any window to get into the game. The good thing is we are playing a lot of Test cricket so on the sidelines we can keep working on that every day and surely that improvement will happen.”As Kohli spoke at his press conference before the first Test of the Indian season, the ICC presented Pakistan the mace for being the No. 1 ranked side in Lahore. Kohli knows if his side can replicate what he did when he realised his time had come, that mace is likely to be in India before the season is done.

Nottinghamshire can do no wrong since Peter Moores joined the coaching staff: their defeat of Worcestershire made it 10 wins in all competitions in a seasaon that has fired up too late

ECB/PA10-Aug-2015
ScorecardLife is full of blue skies for Peter Moores since his arrival at Trent Bridge•Getty Images

Fast-improving Nottinghamshire dodged the worst of the rain to register their third victory in four LV= County Championship matches by beating Worcestershire by five wickets at New Road.Needing 75 more runs, they were delayed for 75 minutes by a heavy shower and it was after lunch when a strong team performance came to a successful conclusion after a stand of 157 by James Taylor and Riki Wessels.On the resumption at 157 for three, their partnership was worth 120 and when it was broken by Saeed Ajmal it was the county’s highest for the fourth wicket in championship meetings with Worcestershire.Taylor, a former academy player at New Road, compiled a classy 66 from 127 balls and Wessels, after a first-innings duck, more than made amends with 88 from 190 balls on the ground where he marked his debut for Notts by scoring 67 in May 2011.Worcestershire, as always, kept fighting to the end but they were eventually overpowered by two batsmen – and a team – at the top of their game since the forner England coach, Peter Moores, was added to the coaching staff as an assistant to Mick Newell.After a sluggish start to the season, it now seems that Nottinghamshire can do no wrong. Since propping up the Division One table in the Championship on June 24, they have amassed 77 points from four matches, two of them against Worcestershire, and in completed games in all competitions they have reeled off 10 consecutive wins.Worcestershire, in contrast, have lost seven completed matches in a row, mostly in the Royal London One-day Cup, and the struggle against relegation in the Championship continues despite another committed display.The match was probably lost on the second day when a dropped chance allowed Nottinghamshire to take control by adding 157 in the afternoon session.By the last day their victory was close to being a formality, although Taylor and Wessels went out of their way to avoid unnecessary risks in adding 31 in 12 overs by lunch.It was only when they looked for a big finish that they came unstuck, departing in successive overs from Ajmal as they tried to take on the off-spinner. Taylor was caught at extra cover and Wessels at mid-off.Notts eventually got home 45 minutes after lunch. Samit Patel (17 not out)) avoided a “pair” with a six to mid-wicket off Brett D’Oliveira and Chris Read (19 not out) finished it off with successive fours off Ajmal.

India seamer Praveen Kumar could be in trouble for a “serious” breach of the players’ code of conduct in a Corporate Trophy game

Amol Karhadkar09-Feb-2013India seamer Praveen Kumar, who is on the comeback trail after missing most of the Ranji season due to the recurrence of a tennis elbow injury, could be in trouble for a “serious” breach of the players’ code of conduct in a Corporate Trophy game. The BCCI is expected to decide on what action, if any, is to be taken against him next week.On February 4, Praveen had sworn at an opposition batsman while playing for Oil and Natural Gas Limited (ONGC) in the Corporate Trophy: he hurled swear words at Income Tax batsman Ajitesh Argal despite the on-field umpires warning him. The umpires subsequently charged him for a code of conduct breach and match referee Dhananjay Singh found him guilty on two counts.According to the match referee’s report, which is in possession of ESPNcricinfo, Praveen pleaded guilty on both charges, under clause 2.2.8 and 2.4.2. “As per the BCCI guidelines, the penalty imposed for the offence is a 100% fine of the match fee under Level-2 (for repeating the offence within 12 months) and a serious warning not to indulge in such acts in future. For the other offence, you are charged during the same ball. The matter has been referred to chief administrative office [CAO] of the BCCI for further action, since it is charged under Level-4,” Dhananjay Singh wrote in his report, which was submitted to the BCCI.As per the BCCI procedures, after the report has been submitted, the CAO is supposed to take a call on the matter within seven days. So, Ratnakar Shetty is expected to decide on how the case will move forward during the coming week. If Praveen, who is contracted with the BCCI, is found guilty, he could be banned for up to four matches.”Whatever the action or decision will be, the board won’t discuss it in public,” a BCCI official said.Besides submitting the report, Dhananjay Singh has also written a letter to BCCI’s game development manager, KVP Rao, questioning Praveen’s mental condition. He wrote: “I would like to report to you that at present Mr Praveen Kumar is not in a mental frame to play the game. He is very aggressive and gets hostile with little trigger. He is very abusive and passes very filthy comments to his own team-mates, opponents and even to spectators. During the first match also (ONGC v CAG on February 1) he had a spat with spectators at the international stadium in Raipur. It was told to me by the other match referee Mr Prakash Bhatt. Even his own team-mates are keeping some distance from him.”The episode highlighted Praveen’s tendency to lose his temper frequently. In 2008, he had allegedly come to blows with a doctor during a fracas in Meerut, his hometown. During India’s tour to the West Indies in 2011, Praveen was involved in a spat with spectators in Port of Spain. Soon after, during the series in England where he proved his worth as a Test bowler, he had reacted angrily to fans’ taunts during a tour game in Northamptonshire.

Phillip Hughes will spend the entire 2012 season at Worcestershire after extending his contract with the county

ESPNcricinfo staff06-Jan-2012Phillip Hughes will spend the entire 2012 season at Worcestershire after extending his contract with the county. Hughes, the 23-year-old Australia opener who was dropped from the Test team after a disappointing series against New Zealand, had originally agreed to join Worcestershire in June but has now agreed to arrive in the UK at the start of April.The attractions of the relationship are obvious to both parties. Hughes, whose technique has been exposed somewhat at international level, will have plenty of opportunity to learn to deal with the moving ball in English conditions, while Worcestershire’s brittle batting will be boosted by the addition of a player good enough to have scored two centuries in a Test against a formidable South African attack. Hughes’ presence at New Road for the entire season will also alleviate the disruption sometimes caused by the short-term nature of many modern overseas player contracts.”We are delighted to have available a player of Phil’s stature for the whole 2012 season,” said Worcestershire’s director of cricket, Steve Rhodes. “This was our original plan when we first set out in search of Phil’s signature and it will give the dressing room a real boost. Having spoken to Phil he views playing a full English season as a fantastic opportunity to score plenty of runs and in turn, it is hoped this will bring success to the team. We are looking forward to him joining up with the squad at the start of April for what will be an exciting 2012 season.”Hughes also expressed his delight. “I’m thrilled to have been able to agree terms with Worcestershire to extend my 2012 contract to the full county season,” he said. “I haven’t played a full season of domestic cricket for more than two years and I can’t wait to get to England and meet my new team-mates. I’ve heard so many positive things about their structure, environment and wicket which are all really favourable for what I want to achieve in the coming 12 months.”Meanwhile Gareth Andrew will miss the start of the season after undergoing knee surgery. Andrew, the 28-year-old all-rounder, who finished the 2011 season second in county cricket’s Most Valuable Player ratings, underwent micro-fracture treatment in early December. Worcestershire do not expect him to be match fit until late May.

Ganesh Sanap, the president of the Northern California Cricket Association, has thrown his hat into the ring to fill the vacant vice-president position for the USA Cricket Association

Peter Della Penna06-Jan-2011Ganesh Sanap, the president of the Northern California Cricket Association (NCCA), has thrown his hat into the ring to fill the vacant vice-president position for the USA Cricket Association (USACA). Sanap told ESPNcricinfo that he will run for the position against Hemant Buch. Both men are involved with cricket administration in the San Francisco Bay Area, and it now appears that a regional rivalry will be played out on the national stage.”I just want to bring new energy to the old guard,” Sanap said. Sanap traveled with USA’s U-19 squad to New Zealand for the 2010 ICC U-19 World Cup, where he served as team statistician. If elected, he says his focus will be on youth development, which he feels has been badly neglected by USACA.”As far as the national administration is concerned, all they care about is funding tournaments, which is basic duty of course. Other than that, there has been no plan shown by anyone on the national level that they care about the growth of the game or development of the sport.”Only a handful of committed people at the regional level, they’ve been doing it by themselves. Some have vested interests; some have real passion for the sport. There won’t be any vested interests from me.”Sanap served as secretary of the NCCA from 2006 to 2007 before taking over as president of the league in 2008. The league had 33 teams in 2010, and Sanap says his biggest accomplishment was the formation of the NCCA youth program and U-19 team.”It’s one of the best. My major focus on the league level as well as the national level will be getting more programs in place for youth cricket, identify coaches across the nation, across the various regions, and then if possible, have a few dollars earmarked for them to hold those regular coaching camps, at least a two-day session or a weekend every month to coach U-19 players or youth and then gather reports from them, maintain a database of how the players are progressing.”According to John Aaron, Secretary of USACA, the general elections for USA’s governing body will take place “sometime between March 8 and November 30” following guidelines from the USACA constitution. A USACA board meeting is scheduled for January 15-16 in New York in conjunction with the departure of the USA squad traveling to Hong Kong for the ICC World Cricket League Division Three tournament. Aaron believes that the date of this year’s USACA elections will be finalized at the upcoming board meeting, but said that a full meeting agenda hadn’t been finalized.Depending on the date selected for the elections, Aaron also indicated that someone may be appointed to fill the USACA vice president position left vacant after the resignation of Nabeel Ahmed up until the elections are held.

The South African fast bowler has credited his seven-wicket haul in India’s first innings to a ball change just before tea. India lost six wickets for 12 runs after tea, Steyn taking five of them

Cricinfo staff08-Feb-2010Dale Steyn has credited his seven-wicket haul in India’s first innings to a ball change just before tea. India lost six wickets for 12 runs after tea, Steyn taking five of them.”There was a ball change around tea time [it was actually a couple of overs before tea], the seam had split open…we came back after tea and the ball looped around a bit. It [change of ball] was a good thing,” Steyn said after the day’s play.Asked what was different from conditions in the home series against England, Steyn said: “We have been speaking about these kind of wickets. We wanted to adapt as quickly as possible. We hit the right areas with the same intensity. On some days you can bowl the best of your life and not pick wickets and then you have some days.”The decision to follow on, he said, was taken by captain Graeme Smith after consultation with the bowlers. “There was a huddle after the Indian first innings. The batters came and told us that we were 300-odd runs ahead and asked if the bowlers had enough gas in the tank to go on and bowl another 26-27 overs.”We said we were not finished yet and it would be good to take a couple of wickets in the second innings. We told them we had enough fuel in the tank. We were looking to take a couple of wickets by stumps and then we would come back tomorrow and finish the job.”

“The final is the biggest stage, that’s the game that matters,” Chinelle Henry says ahead of the WCPL final, where her team, Barbados Royals, will be looking for their third title

ESPNcricinfo staff17-Sep-2025The Women’s Caribbean Premier League (WCPL) is in its fourth season, with the final lined up on Wednesday morning in Providence, and we will have the familiar sight of Barbados Royals in the middle, gunning for their third successive title. It’s a competition with just three teams, but Royals have been the dominant power, making all four finals, so “there was a lot riding on it,” when the WCPL began and Royals had to cope with the loss of regular captain Hayley Matthews. A shoulder injury left her on the sidelines and Chinelle Henry in the hot seat.”When she [Matthews] called me and asked me to be captain [because] she wasn’t going to be available, it was quite like, ‘yeah, just give me a moment to think about that’,” Henry said before taking on Guyana Amazon Warriors, the only team not to have won the title. Trinbago Knight Riders were the inaugural champions in 2022.”But I guess when [Matthews] asked, she was like, ‘you probably could be that person, because you have been around the team all the seasons before, as a senior player in the squad’, [despite] all the overseas players that we’ve had and even the captain in her own right in Chamari Athapaththu, who’s been brilliant helping me in the field in terms of decision-making and stuff like that.”Hayley is a big character, both on and off the field, and she has done a lot for us as a franchise. I think the girls have really stepped up. We’re in our fourth final, so that’s really something to talk about.”So far, the way we have been in the group games, there’s still a few areas to tighten up, but I think we are ready to compete in that final.”Royals have made the final winning all their four games this year, including the two against their opponents in the final, giving them a clear upper hand in the title fight.”Over the years, we have had a majority of the same girls playing on the team, so when it comes to culture, we already know what that’s like in terms of the players that we already have and the overseas players that we try to get into the squad,” Henry said. “Once they come in and get a feel of what the girls are about, everybody just fits right in and that’s what’s been the core thing for us this season.”Yes, Hayley’s not here, but how we play, how we come together as a group… she was here a few days ago, she had a few words for us, she will talk to me to say what she thinks, give a bit of advice, but it’s never anything to question my ability to lead the team. And that’s where she is really that person that trusts and believes in players and believes that players can step up when they need to. And, having done that, leading the Royals this season, it was just stepping into that spotlight and still playing my game.”The big star for Royals has been Athapaththu, who is 15 runs clear at the top of the run-scorers’ list with 169 runs in four innings, to go with seven wickets (second only to Amazon Warriors’ Laura Harris who has eight). Henry and Qiana Joseph have done their bit with the bat, but it has, at times, been a one-woman show.Chinelle Henry has played her part with the bat in Royals’ winning streak•CPL T20/Getty Images

“We have a lot of big characters in this group, and she is very passionate, and she loves what she does,” Henry said of Athapaththu. “To be the opener for this team and constantly coming up with runs for us and in the middle, when we are bowling, you can call on her and be like, we need to break a partnership or something, which happens, you know.”She is that person, you know, whenever you call on her, she puts up her hand and is ready to perform and is ready to do her all for the team. With somebody like her, a lot of us, a lot of the younger ones that we have, we really look to her in terms of advice, how she plays, how she thinks when she goes out, and she keeps it simple.”Going by the form Royals have shown in the earlier games this season, they are runaway favourites for the final.”The final is the biggest stage, that’s the game that matters. If we go into that game with a calm and clear mind, things that we have to do as a team and, I have said in a previous interview, we still haven’t got all the areas that we want to tick, all three boxes, the final will be the game to do that,” Henry said. “We know that and we have that in the back of our minds, and we go into Wednesday’s game with everything that we have and the girls are ready to fight. We’ve been in the finals and we know what it feels like to win finals, and we want to make it another one for us, so we go into the final with no complacency, we’re just going out there to fight and bring that trophy back home.”

RCB batter says it hasn’t been a conscious decision to bat at a higher tempo this IPL season

ESPNcricinfo staff06-Apr-20241:01

Kohli’s form ‘never in doubt’ – Wasim Jaffer

Virat Kohli is scoring at a strike rate of 146 in this year’s IPL. Only once has he ever scored quicker and that was in 2016 when he was the kind of form where he was threatening the 1000-run mark. Is this a conscious effort? Is he trying to bat differently, more aggressively?”Look I’m not coming with any premeditation,” Kohli said after making the first century of the 2024 season that took Royal Challengers Bangalore to a total of 183 on a Jaipur pitch that was on the slower side. “Whatever the surface allows me to do, I do that. Today I wasn’t 20 off 9. I was 12 off 10.”Kohli has seemed more willing to take risks, particularly looking to hit over the top to find boundaries. He is lofting more balls per innings this year than in any of the last 10. But he is putting that down to his usual process of assessing the game in front of him and knowing that if the need arises he can go big whenever he wants.”So I knew I can’t go over-aggressive. I don’t want to be predictable. I know I can step up at any point because I’m hitting the ball well. But I want to keep the bowler guessing as to what I’m going to do. They probably want me to come hard at them so they can get me out or have an early breakthrough. But I feel like if I’m set and if I bat beyond six overs, then our chance of getting good totals becomes that much better. So I guess it is just experience and maturity over the years and understanding the conditions that you’re playing. I basically play the conditions and I have the game ready to play in two or three different ways.”ESPNcricinfo Ltd

Kohli’s century on Saturday night was the eighth of his IPL career, two clear of any other batter in the history of the tournament. He needed 67 balls to get there though, which makes it the joint-slowest. Kohli explained that it was not easy to hit the shots that he wanted to hit because of the lack of pace and bounce, which the Rajasthan Royals spinners used to their advantage to finish with combined figures of 8-0-62-2.”Nothing really came onto the bat. Even a few shots that I tried to play against Yuzvendra Chahal, just trying to slog him, they kept going under the bat. Even R Ashwin, it just felt like you couldn’t get under the carrom ball to hit over midwicket. All you could target was straight if they missed their length. So if you’re consistent enough, the batters were finding it difficult out there.”The wicket feels like its flat but as soon as you see the ball holding up in the pitch, that’s when you realise the pace is changing pretty quickly and then the big dimensions of the ground come into play. Our target initially was 190, 195, to be honest. But then assessing the pitch and how it was slowing down, we decided if one of Faf [du Plessis] or me get out, then the other had to bat till the end so that we can get that boost closer to 180-185, which we did, which I feel is a very effective total on this pitch.”Kohli has contributed 38% of all of RCB’s runs this season. He holds the Orange Cap with a tally of 316 from five innings and has now crossed 7500 runs in the IPL,

Coach plays down own role in series marked by superb tactics and man-management

Andrew Miller20-Dec-2022Brendon McCullum, England’s Test coach, says it is “scary” to think how good a leader Ben Stokes could become after his transformative influence in the year just gone, having secured a historic 3-0 clean sweep in Pakistan with a ninth Test victory in the space of ten games.Speaking to Sky Sports in Karachi, in the aftermath of England’s eight-wicket win in the third and final Test, McCullum played down his own crucial role in the team’s rise from the ruin of last winter’s Ashes, stating bluntly that he does “bugger all” behind the scenes. Instead, he lavished praise on his captain, for his work both on and off the field.”The skipper was absolutely magnificent right throughout the series,” McCullum said. “Not just on the field, where everyone sees the decisions he makes and the strings he pulls, but it’s his man-management and his ability to get the very best out of each member of the side, off the field, which is the most impressive part from our point of view.”It’s the captain’s mantra, this side is very much in the image of the skipper,” McCullum added. “And Stokesy wants the guys to go out there and play with the most amount of freedom that they can.”He’s got the benefit of a long and distinguished career behind him, and he’s in that stage of his life where he wants to do something significant and make a real impact, not just on the game but on other people’s careers. He’s identified that taking away that pressure and that fear of failure allows the talent and the skill to come out.”ESPNcricinfo Ltd

Stokes himself was at the crease on the final day, finishing 35 not out in England’s pursuit of 167 for their clean sweep. But it was England’s efforts on the very first day of the tour, in Rawalpindi, that set the team on course for history, as they racked up a remarkable 506 for 4 in 75 overs, including four centuries from Zak Crawley, Ben Duckett, Ollie Pope and Harry Brook, the eventual Player of the Series.”That was more than I thought we were going to make, to be honest,” McCullum said. “The way that Crawley and Duckett started for us in that Test match, it really laid a marker out for where this team wants to be, and for how brave our cricket needs to be as well.”It was about playing the role that the team needs you to play, rather than getting too caught up in your own stuff, and it was a huge day that allowed us to try and force a result. Maybe the series would have been different if we hadn’t have gone down that route.”The defining aspect of England’s wins, however, was ultimately their ability to prise out 20 wickets in a Test, with a range of different tactics and personnel coming to the fore, from the part-time spin of Will Jacks and the skilful use of reverse swing in Rawalpindi, to Jack Leach’s first-innings four-for and the decisive pace onslaught of Mark Wood in Multan, and ultimately to the remarkable emergence of the legspinner Rehan Ahmed with his debut five-for in Karachi.”It’s a great achievement,” McCullum said. “If you look at the whole six or seven months, we’ve taken 20 wickets in a Test on nine out of 10 occasions. So it’s one thing scoring fast and putting teams under pressure with the bat, but you got to be able to bowl teams out as well.”And the mantra within the group is ‘how do we take wickets?’ Every time we’ve got the ball in our hand, ‘how are we going to try and get this guy out?’ If you go for runs, you go for runs, but we back ourselves that will chase those runs down later on. I think once you have that mindset, you free yourself up from having to worry about runs. It allows you to look at things with a positive mantra.”Related

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Stokes’ field placings were eye-catching throughout the tour, but they had to be too, with not a single traditional slip catch off the seamers all series long. Instead, he backed his bowlers with leg slips for the short ball into the ribs, and close catchers in the eyeline to capitalise on mistimed drives, a process that Stokes himself admitted had been entirely down to instinct, rather than pre-set plans.”A lot of my decisions were based on what I thought was the best option at any given time,” Stokes told Sky Sports. “I feel as if out here is probably the easiest conditions to mess around with a few different things. You don’t have to have a slip because it’s not going to go to slip in three games for us. So you use that slip somewhere else, maybe to visually upset the batsman.”Watching on from the dressing-room, McCullum was impressed. “The skipper never lets the game drift,” he said. “He’s always got something happening. He’s always pulling a string somewhere and the guys follow him. It’s a great combination to have, and it makes it pretty easy when you’re watching from up in the coach’s box.”There’s maverick in it and genius in a lot of it,” he added. “He’s just got an insatiable appetite to keep moving the game forward, which is super-impressive. But for me, it’s the man management, it’s the consistency of message, it’s the pure passion and drive that he’s got to make a significant difference in Test cricket, and English cricket, which is most impressive.”So I feel incredibly lucky that I’ve taken over this job when Stokesy has got the reins, and I think he’s only going to get better and better and better, which is quite scary. Because if he continues to improve and drive this team forward then, with the talent that sits within the dressing room, they will give it a good shake anyway.”I don’t do bugger all, to be honest,” McCullum joked. “I just make sure that the guys remain consistent with their own beliefs, and that they all want to be the best version of themselves. To be honest, it’s a really easy job … don’t tell my bosses. But I’m really enjoying myself, and I couldn’t I couldn’t have asked for a better opportunity.”Looking on from the Sky Sports studio, however, Stuart Broad gave a more nuanced assessment of McCullum’s under-stated influence in the dressing-room.”I’ve not seen him throw many balls, I’ve not seen him talk technically to anybody, but you watch every training session, he walks around and speaks to every single player,” Broad said. “Just checking in and seeing how they are, seeing what their mindset’s like, making sure they are taking the options that are right for the mantra of the team. He’s an incredible man-manager.”

Shakib Al Hasan’s five-for against Zimbabwe, meanwhile, moved him to eighth in the ODI bowling rankings

ESPNcricinfo staff21-Jul-2021Pakistan’s Mohammad Rizwan and England’s Liam Livingstone have made the most significant gains in ICC’s latest rankings update for T20I batters. Rizwan, who was the top scorer during the T20I series between the two sides with 176 runs in three innings attained a career-best seventh position while Livingstone’s 147 runs in three innings – including a maiden T20I ton – propelled him up 144 places to 27th, having played only eight matches in his career so far.The latest rankings update, which includes the final two T20Is between Australia and West Indies and the series-opener between Ireland and South Africa, also sees Evin Lewis move from tenth to eighth on the batting charts after scores of 31 and 79. Dawid Malan, Babar Azam and Aaron Finch maintained their rankings as the world’s top three T20I batters.

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In the T20I bowlers’ rankings, four wickets each for Shadab Khan and Mohammad Hasnain have moved them to 36th and 41st, while Sheldon Cottrell’s three-for in the final match against Australia helped him gain six positions to reach 16th. Wristspinners Tabraiz Shamsi, Rashid Khan and Wanindu Hasaranga remain the top three T20I bowlers.In ODIs, South Africa’s Quinton de Kock moved into 10th among batters after smashing a 91-ball 120 against Ireland in the final ODI in Malahide. Shikhar Dhawan’s 86 in his first ODI as India’s stand-in captain against Sri Lanka lifted him to 16th. Azam, Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma continue to hold the top three batting positions in ODIs.Shakib Al Hasan was the most significant gainer among ODI bowlers on the back of his five-wicket haul against Zimbabwe in Harare. He moved up nine places to break into the top 10 once again, and into eighth position. He remains first on the ODI allrounders’ list.