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Rahane and company could ride out the tough period with greater assurance in the face of a sub-par total

Daniel Brettig27-Dec-2020For eight pre-lunch overs on the second day, Pat Cummins bowled possibly just about as well as anyone in 143 years of Test cricket ever has.Fast, unimpeachably accurate and on a length that left India’s top order unsure whether to venture forward or sit back, he plucked the wickets of Shubman Gill and Cheteshwar Pujara to earn the ovation of the MCG and the deep gratitude of his team.The spell’s analysis reads 8-5-12-2 but even that did scant justice to the exhibition of skill, grit and no little persistence: after having a caught behind appeal and review denied from his first ball and then seeing the captain Tim Paine spill an inside edge off the bowling of Josh Hazlewood, Cummins knew he had to raise his already lofty game.When he bounced and nipped a delivery just enough from the line of off stump to claim Pujara’s outside edge in identical fashion to the crazy second innings of the Adelaide Test, the din from the MCG was far louder than any crowd of 23,841 has a right to deliver.From here, by rights, Australia might have expected to clamber all over India who, after all, were without Virat Kohli and coming off a previous innings of 36. The brilliant, all-New South Wales bowling attack of Cummins, Hazlewood, Mitchell Starc and Nathan Lyon now well established as Australian cricket’s “big four” was undoubtedly confident it could finish things off from 3 for 64.Instead, what transpired over the remainder of day two was a rather sobering reminder for Cummins, Paine and Australia’s coach Justin Langer that their present sequence of consecutive first innings of less than 200 runs was always likely to get punished somewhere along the line.India’s riposte, begun when Hanuma Vihari punched Cummins back down the ground for three runs second ball, was not quite as memorable as the aforementioned spell, but it was something more vital in Test matches: consistent, methodical and based on partnerships around a single, spinal innings from the unflappable Ajinkya Rahane.Langer, one sensed, was aware his men had left the door wide open. At the lunch break, while still ahead by 105 runs, Langer lamented Australia’s’ lack of substantial batting partnerships in the series so far – just two worth 50 or more in three innings.”A bit like the first Test, just our partnerships,” Langer said when asked by Ricky Ponting about what he had been disappointed by. “We’re not going to set up games as well as we could – if you look at our partnerships in the first Test match in the first innings and then yesterday, we have to get a lot better at that.”We had one 50-partnership in the first Test and we had an 86-run partnership yesterday, and you’ve also, when you have an 86-run partnership, you’ve got to turn that into 150, because you’re set and to set up the game. So we weren’t able to do that and to me, partnerships as much as anything.”As if to give Langer examples to write on his whiteboard in the team room, India’s partnerships ticked over accordingly: 61 between Gill and Pujara, 52 between Rahane and Vihari, 57 between Rahane and the effervescent Rishabh Pant, and then a damaging and as yet unbeaten 104 between Rahane and Ravindra Jadeja, either side of a rain break and also the second new ball. So well did they build that, under cloudy skies after tea, India rejoiced in the first wicket-free session of the series.Each union warded off some “tough periods” when one or both ends were taken up with quality spells. But each also received opportunities to score from an Australian attack that, having had absolutely everything fall their way on the third afternoon in Adelaide, now experienced greater adversity. Five catches went down; several edges fell short; another flew at eminently catchable height straight to a first slip position left vacant by Paine. That was in itself an odd decision, given how much life the pitch has offered relative to other MCG surfaces of recent, drop-in vintage.Furthermore, only Cummins could claim to have been right at his peak. Starc was arguably next best, still able to get the ball swinging back into the right-handers when it was 70 or so overs old, but Hazlewood seemed unusually quick to frustration when neat little outside edges could not be found as often as last week. Lyon’s lines appeared unduly straight, perhaps under the influence of Ashwin but also in uncanny mirror to the way he bowled here to India in 2018. Separated by two years, Lyon’s analyses shared only one wicket apiece.Undeniably, though, the greatest factors in the eclipse of Australia’s attack by Rahane and company were those created by the swift demise of the hosts’ top order on Boxing Day. The mere fact that Australia, possessing such an enviable record on home soil over the past 30 years, had not surrendered consecutive first innings for fewer than 200 runs since the dark days of late 1984, spoke volumes for the predicament they had placed themselves in.It followed logically, if painfully, that having pulled a Test match out of a rapidly heating fire in Adelaide, Cummins did his best to repeat the trick at the MCG, only to find that already singed hands could not quite cling on.”That last ball pretty much summed up our day,” Starc said in reference to Travis Head putting down a chance off Rahane seconds before the rain returned. “Not our best day, not our worst, created a fair few chances but couldn’t hang onto them. Going to have to back up tomorrow and take five wickets as quickly as you can. We found once the ball got softer, the wicket’s pretty placid and there’s not too many demons anymore.”

What they said about Devdutt Padikkal’s classy century against the Rajasthan Royals

ESPNcricinfo staff22-Apr-2021

Devdutt Padikkal has played a supremely masterful innings. The sheer power and dominance of his stroke-play was something to behold. And, he enjoys batting with his captain Virat Kohli. Well played @RCBTweets

— Ian bishop (@irbishi) April 22, 2021

There is a toss-up for new-ball bowlers and a debutant vying for a spot in the middle order

Nagraj Gollapudi10-Mar-2021Who should be Rohit’s opening partner: Dhawan or Rahul?
With Rishabh Pant set to perform the role of the wicketkeeper-batsman, Rahul may have to play as a specialist batsman. And opening the batting is the most favourable position for Rahul, who has done the job assertively for Kings XI Punjab over the last three years.Compared in terms of numbers, Rahul has an edge over Dhawan. Since 2019, if you combine both T20s and IPL, Dhawan has scored 854 runs at a strike rate of 133.43 and an average of 40.66. Rahul has hit 960 runs at a strike rate of 136.36 and a far superior average of 87.27 as he tends to bat deep into an innings. In the middle overs Dhawan has 641 runs at a strike rate of 131.08 and an average of 29.13. Rahul slows down, too, in the middle overs, his strike rate dipping to 129.05. However, he averages 41.84 having scored 795 runs in this phase.As a left-right combination, Sharma and Dhawan provide variety at the top and they have vast experience to handle pressure. But both men use the same modus operandi: start slow, get settled before taking off, which at times, especially while batting first, has been a factor in their teams failing to raise a par total.In contrast robust starts from the Sharma-Rahul combine has helped India raise massive targets. In 2017, against Sri Lanka in Indore, India were able to raise 260 for 5 on the back of the opening stand of 165 in 12.4 overs. Two years later, against West Indies in Mumbai, India scored 240 for 3 after Sharma and Rahul blasted an opening stand of 135 in 11.4 overs.Overall, of the 18 opening pairs globally with a cut-off of minimum of 500 T20I runs, the Sharma and Rahul pairing is the third-best on average (50.72) and second on run-rate (9.96). Of the five opening pairs to have piled at least 1000 runs in T20Is Sharma-Dhawan’s numbers are among the weakest. Their average of 33.51 is the seventh-worst and run rate of 8.28 is the fourth-worst.Clearly it is then a choice of safety against being bold.

The tournament begins on July 31 at seven venues across the USA

Peter Della Penna30-Jul-2021After initial launch plans were disrupted by the pandemic last summer, the 27-team Minor League Cricket (MiLC) T20 franchise tournament is set to kick off on July 31 at seven different venues across the United States of America. The tournament is meant to act as a feeder into the higher-profile six-team Major League Cricket (MLC) T20 franchise league which is designated for launch in 2023. That is the tournament USA Cricket wants to be on par with Full-Member-run T20 leagues around the world. Here is a rundown of how the MiLC will play out.Who’s playing?
American Cricket Enterprise (ACE), USA Cricket’s commercial partner, has already signed more than a dozen overseas players to three-year contracts with an eye on having them as anchor players for the six-team MLC, as well as putting them on the ICC residency qualification pathway to potential USA selection.These players are also available to feature for MiLC franchises and include Sami Aslam (ex-Pakistan, Golden State Grizzlies), Corey Anderson (ex-New Zealand, Irving Mustangs), Smit Patel (ex-India U-19, Manhattan Yorkers), Shehan Jayasuriya (ex-Sri Lanka, Silicon Valley Strikers), Dane Piedt (ex-South Africa, DC Hawks), Justin Dill (ex-South Africa U-19, New Jersey Stallions) and Corne Dry (ex-South Africa U-19, Atlanta Fire). Aside from these names, numerous West Indian players have also been signed as Wildcard overseas players, including Rahkeem Cornwall (Atlanta Fire).Related

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The teams were put together at a draft that took place earlier this year with squads of 16 to 18 players. According to league rules, there is a mandatory policy to include at least one U-19 and one U-21 player in each starting XI to promote development. There is also a shift to play as many matches as possible on natural turf wickets, which in the past has been one of the biggest hurdles for players attempting to transition from club cricket to international tournaments. MiLC’s first season will feature at least 11 venues using turf wickets with more planned for 2022.What are they playing for?
MiLC will feature an USD 250,000 prize pool, the largest for any tournament organised in the USA. The tournament champions will receive half of that and the runners-up USD 30,000 while the Division Champions who do not reach the final will receive USD 15,000.More than 100 matches will be livestreamed on YouTube throughout the tournament, offering more visibility to players both locally and internationally.ESPNcricinfo LtdSplit across four divisions on a regional basis
The 27 teams have been split into two conferences (Atlantic and Pacific) with two divisions (Eastern and Southern; Central and Western) in each conference. Because of the odd number of teams the schedule is slightly unbalanced. Both Pacific Conference divisions have seven teams and each will play a 15-match league slate of home and away fixtures against the other six teams within their division plus three matches against teams in the other division within their conference.The Southern Division holds six teams and will play a 14-match schedule consisting of home and away fixtures within the division plus four crossover matches with the Eastern Division. Meanwhile, the seven Eastern Division teams will play a 16-match schedule featuring home and away fixtures within the division plus four matches against teams in the Southern Division. The league phase runs from July 31 to September 19 with matches played on weekends to ensure player availability in a competition featuring both professionals and amateurs. In some instances, teams will be playing a morning-and-afternoon double-header on the same day.Eight-team playoffs
Playoffs qualification will be determined on a divisional basis. The top two in each division advance to the playoffs where the division winner will play the second-place team from the opposite division in their conference (i.e. Western Division champion vs Southern Division runners-up) on September 25 and 26 in a best-of-three round. The winner of each quarter-final will advance to the championship weekend on October 2 and 3 at Church Street Park in Morrisville, North Carolina.That weekend will be a straight knockout. The two teams advancing from the conference semi-finals (i.e. Western Division champion vs Southern Division champion) will play each other in a national semi-final on October 2 before the conference champions square off in the tournament final on October 3.

And what is the most ducks a team has made in a T20 they won?

Steven Lynch23-Nov-2021Are there any pairs in international cricket who haven’t ever batted with each other despite playing lots of matches together? asked Noor Alameen from Bangladesh

There are runaway leaders on this unusual list: Sanath Jayasuriya played 408 international matches with Muthiah Muralidaran, but never once batted with him. Some current pairings come next, who still have power to add to the list (or escape it entirely): Martin Guptill has so far played 141 internationals on the same side as Trent Boult, but never batted with him. India’s Shikhar Dhawan and Bhuvneshwar Kumar have also had 141 matches together; next come Jason Roy and Adil Rashid, with 139 for England.Jayasuriya and Murali are also the clear leaders in Tests alone, with 94: next come Herschelle Gibbs and Makhaya Ntini with 64, Alastair Cook and Graeme Swann with 60 (Swann’s entire Test career), and Rohan Kanhai and Lance Gibbs with 58.Since ESPNcricinfo started computing win percentages, which team won with the lowest win percentage at any stage of the game? asked Umar from the United States

The ESPNcricinfo Forecaster was introduced in April 2019, and has been used for 141 T20 internationals since then. The lowest win probability from which a chasing team has won is 3.8%, in Zimbabwe’s victory over Scotland in Edinburgh in September 2021. Chasing 179, Zimbabwe were 74 for 3 at the end of the 12th over, needing another 104 from the last eight – and got there.But the earliest in an innings when the win percentage for a successful chasing team has gone below 10% was in the match between Australia and India in Bengaluru in February 2019. After 4.5 overs, Australia were 25 for 2, needing another 166 from 91 balls. Their win probability, according to the Forecaster, was just 6.6%. But they did it, mainly thanks to a 50-ball century from Glenn Maxwell.In a similar case in Hyderabad in December 2019, India were 35 for 1 after 4.5 overs, needing 173 more from 91 balls – and the win forecast had them at just 8%. But Virat Kohli cracked 94 not out, and India won quite comfortably in the end, with no fewer than eight balls to spare.If you’re expecting an explanation of the system, look away now: according to Shiva Jayaraman of the stats team, “It’s a complex machine language-driven algorithm which I wouldn’t be able to explain even if I wanted to.”Has anyone been stuck on 99 in their debut T20 international, or an ODI? asked Michael Bailey from England

No one has yet scored 99 in their first T20 international, but Ricky Ponting was marooned on 98 not out in the first ever such match, against New Zealand in Auckland in 2004-05. Ponting never did make a century in a T20 international.In all T20 cricket, the Haryana opener Mukul Dagar was stuck on 99 not out in his first such match, against Punjab in the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy in Delhi in October 2010. That remains his highest score in T20 matches.How many runs did Eoin Morgan make in his debut ODI?•International Cricket CouncilTwo men have recorded a score of 99 in their first one-day international. The first was 19-year-old Eoin Morgan, who had the misfortune to be run out one short of his hundred on his debut for Ireland, against Scotland in Ayr in 2006. Then, in a World Cup qualifier in Lincoln (New Zealand) in February 2014, the UAE wicketkeeper Swapnil Patil ended up with 99 not out in his first match, also against Scotland.Zimbabwe had six ducks against West Indies in a T20 international in 2010 – but still won. Has anyone bettered this? asked Jameel Maynard from Trinidad & Tobago

Zimbabwe scraped together 105 in that match, on a difficult pitch in Port-of-Spain in February 2010, but then restricted West Indies to 79 for 7 in their 20 overs.No team has won a senior T20 match after suffering more than six ducks, but two other sides have won despite six: Lahore Lions (113) beat Peshawar Panthers (79) in a Faysal Bank T20 Cup match in Rawalpindi, in Pakistan, in March 2012; and Mumbai (155) beat Punjab (120) in India’s Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy in Indore in February 2019.The most ducks in any men’s T20 innings is eight, by Turkey in their total of 21 against Czech Republic (who had earlier smashed 278 for 4) in Ilfov County, Romania, in August 2019. For the full list, click here.In women’s T20 internationals, there were nine ducks in Mali’s record low total of 6 (five extras) against Rwanda in Kigali in June 2019. There were also nine in Maldives’ innings of 8 (seven of them wides) against Nepal in Pokhara six months later. For that list, click here.Who’s the only man to hit the winning runs, take the winning catch, and coach a winning side in the 50-over World Cup? asked Daniel Hendry from Australia

This much-medalled player is Australia’s Darren Lehmann. In 1999, he hit the winning runs – a four off Saqlain Mushtaq – as Australia hurtled past Pakistan’s modest total of 132 in the World Cup final at Lord’s. Four years later, Lehmann caught Zaheer Khan off Glenn McGrath to seal another trophy, in Johannesburg. And then, in March 2015, Lehmann was the successful coach as Australia beat New Zealand in the World Cup final in Melbourne.Use our feedback form, or the Ask Steven Facebook page to ask your stats and trivia questions

Essex’s attack leader seeks to emulate Abbas, Philander and Robinson in bid for England call

Andrew Miller21-Apr-2022How do you measure the value of a contemporary English seamer? Their currency has been debased in light of the Test team’s recent struggles – so much so that, at Taunton last week, Craig Overton’s stunning haul of 13 for 87 for Somerset against Essex somehow read more like a postscript to his England ambitions than a mission statement. It’s all very well hoovering up when the going is good, the naysayers will say, but can you show any teeth on a flat deck in Antigua?It’s a concern that nags away at the very best of England’s county hopefuls, not least Overton’s opposite number in that agonising one-wicket defeat. Sam Cook’s figures for Essex at Taunton were less exceptional but all the more critical to his county’s first victory of the season – most particularly his first-day haul of 3 for 17 in 15 overs, as he hounded Somerset’s top six on his relentless full length and sent them spinning to a first-innings total of 109 from which there would be no recovery.At the age of 24, Cook has quietly taken over from another of England’s nearly-men, Jamie Porter, as the premier seamer in the most decorated red-ball team of the decade. His coronation (such as it was) arguably took place at Chelmsford in the final match of the 2021 summer, when he claimed the remarkable match figures of 10 for 41 – nine of them on the first day alone as Northamptonshire were routed by an innings before 11am on day two.And yet, as if to prove that such performances have lost their ability to impress, within a month of that match, England had announced their Lions squad for the tour to Australia, and Cook’s name (initially at least) was nowhere to be seen. Despite a season’s haul of 58 wickets at 14.43 (and an overall tally of 107 at 17.08 since the start of 2019), the snub seemed to suggest that his card had been marked: an energetic and skilful medium-pacer, no doubt, but some way short of the out-and-out quick that the Test team was crying out for.”Yeah, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t disappointed not to be to be included,” Cook told ESPNcricinfo. “I felt like had a really good year, my rhythm felt good all year and I put some good numbers down. I don’t think I could have done more, and especially in that last game [against Northants], I felt like it all came together. Ever since I started at Essex, I’ve felt like I probably deserve more returns than I’ve had, so last year it was really pleasing to hit the 50-wicket target. That’s something I’ve had in mind for a while.”For reasons that the ECB never entirely made clear, Cook’s omission was rectified some weeks after the original announcement, and he did make the trip after all – shadowing the Ashes squad through a damp series preamble in Queensland and bowling eight wicketless overs in an otherwise rain-ruined warm-up fixture.But by the end of the winter, the sense still pervaded that he’s not quite the right fit. Of the four uncapped seamers in that intra-squad match, Cook alone would be omitted from the subsequent “Test” against Australia A; of the others, Saqib Mahmood and Matt Fisher would go on to debut in the Caribbean, while Warwickshire’s Liam Norwell has emerged, since Mark Wood’s elbow injury, as the next man in line.The common factor for all of those favoured bowlers – and one that will not have been lost on Cook – is their ability to push up towards 90mph. And yet, while he remains realistic about the upper limits of his pace capabilities, Cook still clings to the advice he received from Ed Smith, the former national selector, in 2021, who told him that any bowler with two out of three facets – pace, accuracy and skill – could still have a place in England’s plans.Sam Cook has quietly risen to become the leader of Essex’s seam attack•Getty Images”The communication I had when I was around the Lions squad was that ‘we feel like you’re quick enough, otherwise you wouldn’t be here’,” he says. “I think I’ve definitely added pace to my game, because when I started out, you could probably say my pace was an issue. But then there’s been plenty bowlers that have been extremely successful at Test cricket that aren’t 90mph bowlers.”And to that end, he looks to the example of England’s breakthrough performer of the past 12 months. Notwithstanding the fitness issues that clouded Ollie Robinson’s tour of the Caribbean, a haul of 39 wickets at 21.28 in his first nine appearances serves as overdue proof that there’s still a place for artful seam bowling at the highest level.”I’ve taken huge confidence from that,” Cook says. “I’d be kidding if I said I’m going to be a 90mph bowler, because that’s not what I am. But you look at Mohammad Abbas, Vernon Philander, Ollie Robinson now … it proves that those skills that are favourable in county cricket can be successful at Test level.”That’s something that inspires me. Seeing someone who is probably a more skills-based bowler, it’s really encouraging and gives you that bit of boost that, yeah, what I’m doing week in, week out can work. Robbo has been phenomenal, but I’m not surprised at all, because his skill levels are that high. So they’re the guys that I’m trying to be as good as, if not better than, and trying to follow that sort of path.”For that reason, Cook is determined to see only the positives of an otherwise frustrating winter – most particularly the opportunity, in spite of the bleak outlook in Australia, to rub shoulders with England’s Test elite and glean first-hand wisdom that might not otherwise have come his way.”For me, I found it a fantastic experience,” he says. “Obviously there were challenges, mainly with the weather, but once we came out of the bubble phase and got to Brisbane, I learned an awful lot about the England set-up. Unless you’re involved in a Test squad, it’s a one-in-a-lifetime experience to see the prep that goes into an Ashes.”Ollie Robinson’s displays in his maiden season of Test cricket were an inspiration to Cook•AFP/Getty ImagesIn particular, Cook believes, it is the use of the fabled wobble-seam delivery that could help propel his game to the next level. It is a weapon that James Anderson reputedly learned from Pakistan’s Mohammad Asif in 2010, and which he in turn has since seeded among his England colleagues – not least his oldest ally Stuart Broad, with whom Cook has now been discussing the method.”I chatted a lot to Stuart Broad about how he bowled with it,” Cook says. “Obviously you’re still looking to hit a good area with the new ball, and trying to shape that, because the Kookaburra doesn’t swing for as long and the seam gets softer quicker, but all of those skills are concentrated a little bit more in Australia. There’s an element of reverse swing, and using your bouncer, and adjusting your length, and that just comes with experience.”I’ve had done a couple of winters in grade cricket in Australia, but playing with and against the best every day at training is a totally different experience. I learned so much and just tried to take in as much as I could from how they went about it. Obviously I would have liked to have played more cricket on the trip, but the weather put a bit of a stop to that. But I took a lot from it, and they are all things I’m going to try and implement this season.”Two matches into the new Championship campaign, Cook is already settling into a familiar pattern at the helm of Essex’s attack. He has picked up seven wickets at 16.00 to date, but in many ways, it was his performance in adversity on a flat deck at Chelmsford that said more about his progress than his five-wicket display in the Taunton victory. In a relentless Kent innings of 581 – underpinned by hundreds for Ben Compton and Jordan Cox – Cook was the stand-out seamer with figures of 2 for 63 in 32 overs, and the only man in the innings with an economy rate of less than 2.Related

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“There is no better feeling as a seamer than when you get into one of those spells where you feel like every ball you can take a wicket,” Cook says. “But I have that mentality whatever, even on a flat pitch or if the ball is soft, I genuinely believe that I can take a wicket every ball, and then sometimes that does transpire into one of those spells when you genuinely do feel like you can get a wicket every ball.”A lot of it is mindset, a lot of it is rhythm, but last season, my average was probably the most pleasing thing for me, because at the end of the day you want to take wickets for as little runs as possible.”Whatever transpires for Cook, there seems little doubt that his skiddy, wicket-to-wicket methods will be central to Essex’s bid for yet more silverware this season, after the relative disappointment of their second-division crown last summer, having claimed either the Championship or the Bob Willis Trophy in three of the preceding four seasons.”A big focus at Essex is how focused on the team success we are, and sometimes if you’re putting the team first, your individual performances might not get noticed as much,” Cook says. “But that’s the selfless nature of our squad. It shows how far we’ve come as a team, that even though we won Division Two very comfortably last season, we weren’t satisfied with that.”Because of the format last year, we had a couple of games where we didn’t play our best, and we were out of it. This year, it feels like it’s ready to go, it’s a proper season. It’s back to what we were familiar with before Covid. So everyone’s excited and our goal, as always, is to win that Championship.”Winning a chance with England would be nice too. But while Cook waits for the call that may or may not come, he can take heart from the recent displays of another pillar of Essex’s recent red-ball dominance. Simon Harmer’s return to Test action for South Africa against Bangladesh yielded 13 wickets at 15.15 in a 2-0 series win, and further proof that the gulf to international cricket need not be as vast as England’s recent travails would have you believe.”It’s another sort of confidence boost that county cricket is a good indicator for whether you will do well in Test cricket or not,” Cook says. “If eventually, hopefully, I do get the opportunity to represent England, it’s more confidence that you do deserve to be there, and that the performances that you’ve put in in county cricket do still stand you in good stead.”

England wicketkeeper has been integral in run to Finals Day, and still keen to improve

Andrew Miller11-Jun-2022It didn’t take long for Amy Jones to offload the emotions of a long and gruelling winter, and get back to business for the 2022 season. England’s wicketkeeper is currently the leading run-scorer in the Charlotte Edwards Cup with 245 runs at 40.83, helping to hoist Central Sparks into Saturday’s semi-final showdown with South East Stars at Wantage Road.It can’t have been easy for any of England’s players to take stock of a mega tour of the Antipodes, encompassing a multi-format Ashes series and the heartache of defeat in the World Cup final in Christchurch. But Jones’ performances since her return to action are proof of her determination to get straight back onto the bandwagon, at what remains an exciting juncture for the women’s game.”It was a big winter, quite a rollercoaster,” Jones tells ESPNcricinfo. “At times I felt like I was ageing quite quickly! But it has been great to step away for a bit of a break, see friends and family, and then come back to an English summer feeling really refreshed, and looking forward to hopefully a normal season. It’s been good fun to get back with the Sparks. It’s nice to just get back with the girls and get stuck in.”Jones’ break may have been brief compared with the months of touring that preceded it, but it was an eventful one nonetheless, encompassing a whistlestop tour of Chamonix, Lake Como and Paris (“We had a few trips cancelled last year, so we made sure we rolled several trips into one”) and then, as if to underline that sense of new beginnings, the social event of the year – the long-delayed wedding of her England team-mates Nat Sciver and Katherine Brunt.Related

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“That was a really, really special day,” says Jones, who was maid of honour, and who had also been present in the team bubble in Derby in September 2020, when the team had laid on a replacement ceremony in the midst of the Covid lockdown. “I don’t think it could have gone better. It was all just really, really fun, and great to see those two celebrate their big day. It was a long, long time waiting but yeah, it didn’t disappoint. It was an incredible day.”Jones had the best seat in the house during Sciver’s other most notable moment of the year – albeit temporarily, as the pair shared a 43-run stand for the fourth wicket in the World Cup final, as England briefly kept alive their hopes of defending their title against the runaway favourites, Australia. In the end, they fell short by 71 runs, but not before Sciver had amassed an outstanding unbeaten 148 from 121 balls – to go along with the unbeaten 109 she had made against the same opponents in their tournament opener.”She was incredible, wasn’t she? To get a hundred in a final is a great achievement anyway, but two hundreds in the last two games against the best in the world in Australia, I think just shows the class that she is. It’s a shame she didn’t get the support in the final. But it was an incredible innings.”Thanks to that performance, England were able to surrender their title with pride – a prospect that hadn’t seemed quite so likely when they slumped to a trio of defeats against Australia, West Indies and South Africa in their opening games of the tournament. Each of the matches was a cliffhanger – defeats by 12 runs, seven runs and three wickets respectively – but it was a setback that tested the team’s mettle to the limit, and demanded that they make no further slip-ups. Jones is proud of the way the team responded to adversity.Nat Sciver and Amy Jones celebrate a wicket during England’s World Cup campaign•ICC via Getty Images”At one stage we were looking like we were definitely going home early,” she says. “But each of those losses went down to the last over, so they were quite draining games on the back of a big Ashes series as well.”So it was a lot to keep getting up for each game, and still keep confidence as high as possible within the group, so it was definitely a big achievement in the end to just make the final, to be honest. That isn’t the mindset we want as a team, but you’ve got to adapt to the different situations you find yourself in. and that one was particularly challenging.”But the way the team came together, and just really looked after each other as people, was a big factor in us turning it around, and getting the wins when we needed them, up until the final. As a group, we are quite proud of how we stuck together and managed to turn it around.”There is a sense, however, that the World Cup marks the end of an era. Anya Shrubsole, the hero of the 2017 final victory, has already retired, and Jones acknowledges that a refreshing of the team is inevitable in the lead-up to the next tournament in 2025 – especially now that the impact of the ECB’s new regional contracts is beginning to expand the pool of players whose professional standards are able to match those of the players they may eventually replace.”The 50-over World Cup comes around every four years, so it does feel a bit like an end of an era,” Jones says. “You’ve seen some retirements from different countries as well, but it’s great to be able to play a big part at regional level this year, and see just how far all the girls have come within the space of a year of their contracts. It’s great that that’s paying off, and hopefully we’ll see more and more contracts as the years go by.””All the contracted girls at the Sparks are just so passionate about this opportunity. A lot of them have trained for years, outside of working hours. And now they can finally put everything into their cricket and it’s great that we’re seeing really quick improvements as well, with lots of girls challenging for spaces higher up, which is great. That’s what every team needs, in terms of England, pressure for places and competition. I think it’s brilliant.”Jones is days shy of her 29th birthday, and with 135 international appearances across all three formats, she has long since stepped out of the long shadow of Sarah Taylor to become England’s premier wicketkeeper. But she knows she needs to stay on her toes in the prime of her career, not least with such a glut of talented spinners coming through the ranks to test her mettle when standing up to the stumps.At the age of 23, Sophie Ecclestone has already established herself as the No.1 spinner in the world, while the offspinner Charlie Dean, 21, was England’s break-out star at the World Cup. Then there’s Sarah Glenn, Jones’ Sparks’ team-mate, a hugely talented legspinning allrounder who, aged 22, is set to be a central figure in the England team for years to come too.”The good thing about those three is they are all so different,” Jones says. “Glenny and Soph are two very tall bowlers but Glenny’s very skiddy, while Soph can get some bounce, which makes it exciting for me. I see a lot of Glenny at Sparks but it’s important for me to keep keeping to them all to get to know their different variations.”I absolutely love having the gloves, and I’m always trying to improve,” Jones adds, while crediting Michael Bates, the former Hampshire and Somerset keeper, for keeping her on her toes. “Having Batesy around has been key to that really. We gel really well and if I have something that’s slightly off, he’ll know what it is.”That relationship is really important for me and I’m just going to keep trying to improve. The standard of wicketkeeping across the country is pretty good now. It’s great to see, throughout the regions and the Hundred, the girls doing so well.”

How the eight teams stack up ahead of the T20 World Cup qualifying event to be held in Bulawayo

Peter Della Penna10-Jul-2022A T20 World Cup qualifying process that began in October with regional pathway events is set to conclude this month in Zimbabwe as eight teams duke it out for the last two spots up for grabs in this year’s ICC showpiece event in Australia.Though this event features both champion and runners-up of the 2019 T20 World Cup Qualifier held in the UAE – Netherlands and Papua New Guinea respectively – it is anything but a foregone conclusion that either side will make a second straight trip to the T20 World Cup. Among the other six challengers, there is far more parity than was evident at the corresponding eight-team global qualifier held last February in Oman. And as Oman can attest, being the tournament hosts for the qualifier does not portend a cakewalk for Zimbabwe by any stretch of the imagination in this short format.The eight teams in the qualifying process have been split into two groups of four. Each team plays three round-robin matches, after which the top two teams in each group pair off in crossover semi-final matches. Unlike the knockout structure of most T20 franchise leagues, there is no second chance for the teams that top their respective groups. When it comes to the playoff stage of this qualifier, win the semi-final and you’re in the World Cup. Lose and you get nothing. Here’s a look at each team in this month’s event in Bulawayo.

Group A

Zimbabwe
An ICC suspension because of governance issues meant Zimbabwe’s players were denied an opportunity to take part in the qualifying process for the most recent T20 World Cup, held last year in the UAE. But Zimbabwe have been given an opportunity to get back into the T20 World Cup field by being able to play this event in home conditions. In order to do that, though, they will need to get out of the form rut they have experienced in the format in 2022, having lost six of eight T20Is, all of them at home. That includes not only a three-match loss against Afghanistan last month in Harare, but more ominously going down 3-2 to Namibia in a series held in Bulawayo in May.However, Zimbabwe were missing some key players for the series against Namibia, none more than the pace duo of Blessing Muzarabani and Richard Ngarava, and allrounder Sean Williams. Each possesses assets that are hard to find at the Associate level and their return will help ease the burden on star allrounder Sikandar Raza and captain Craig Ervine. Zimbabwe’s talent depth might not seem deep on paper compared to other Full Members, but it still has the quality that most Associates would dream of and it would be a shock to not see them advance to the semi-finals.United States of America
The champion from the Americas regional qualifier turned heads in December when they beat Ireland in a T20I in Florida by 26 runs despite having numerous key players ruled out because of Covid. They also notched a victory on July 6 over the Netherlands in a tournament tune-up match in Zimbabwe, chasing a target of 145 with six wickets and four balls to spare. But Netherlands restored order a day later by holding USA to 130 before knocking off the runs with 28 balls remaining in a seven-wicket win. Like Zimbabwe, USA also fell to Namibia twice in the lead-up to this event, including an inability to defend a total of 194 followed by a nine-wicket mauling 24 hours later in Windhoek when the hosts dusted off a target of 137 with four overs to spare.USA have risen to the occasion at past T20 World Cup Qualifier tournaments to register wins over Scotland in 2010 and 2012, as well as a pair of wins over Hong Kong and Papua New Guinea in Dublin in 2015 when both had ODI status. And they did all of those feats without a trump card like pace star Ali Khan. But USA is far from a one-man band. Captain Monank Patel has been in sizzling form while Gajanand Singh, who scored a half-century in the win over Ireland, has quickly become one of the best finishers on the Associate circuit since his debut in September 2021. However, the absence of Hampshire allrounder Ian Holland, who was their leading wicket-taker at the regional final in November, leaves a significant void that will require creative solutions to overcome.Tim David is unavailable for Singapore because of T20 Blast commitments with Lancashire•Lancashire CricketSingapore
They raised eyebrows on the opening day of the 2019 T20 World Cup Qualifier when they ambushed Scotland to win a thriller at the ICC Academy in Dubai by two runs. It’s hard to imagine anyone taking them lightly now, even if Tim David is unavailable because of T20 Blast commitments with Lancashire.Even without him, Singapore still pose a threat. Opener Surendran Chandramohan scored a century in Singapore’s final T20I ahead of the qualifier against Papua New Guinea on July 3. Longtime middle-order stalwart Arjun Mutreja has been scoring consistently as well in the lead-up to the first match in Zimbabwe. On the bowling side, captain Amjad Mahboob’s array of slower balls and yorkers at the death gave Scotland a headache in Singapore’s victory at the previous qualifier and showcased the experience they will be able to draw upon to give USA and Zimbabwe a serious challenge for a semi-final spot.Jersey
Jersey won three of their six matches in the group stage three years ago at the qualifier, missing out on a playoff berth on net run rate. Those victories included wins over both UAE, who made the playoff stage, and Oman, who went to the T20 World Cup for a second consecutive time. A population of about 100,000 people may lead many people to think the odds are stacked against them in terms of a talent pool to draw upon, but the island has some of the best turf wicket facilities in the Associate world to help neutralise any disparity they face.Despite losing four straight T20s in the buildup to this event on tour in Namibia to both the hosts and USA, Jersey showed signs that they would be far from pushovers in Zimbabwe. Left-arm spin allrounder Ben Stevens made an unbeaten 98 in the final warm-up against USA on July 3. Though his form has been patchy recently, former Sussex player Jonty Jenner has the sort of dynamic strokeplay capable of being a disruptor. On the bowling side, Jersey do not have anybody express in the pace department and instead will rely on their spinners to tie teams down – led by Elliot Miles, Rhys Palmer and allrounders Harrison Carlyon and Stevens – to give them the best chance of springing a few upsets.Netherlands’ qualification chances may be dented by the absence of some of their County-contracted players•Michael Bradley/AFP/Getty Images

Group B

Netherlands
The reigning tournament champions have gone through a series of shake-ups in the lead-up to the event, most recently with the abrupt retirement of captain Pieter Seelaar because of chronic back issues. After dominating the global qualifier three years ago, the team put in an underwhelming display at the tournament in the UAE last year and will be looking to atone for that display under new captain Scott Edwards.Though their qualification chances may be dented by the absence of some of their County-contracted players – Colin Ackermann, Timm van der Gugten and Roelof van der Merwe – Netherlands have enviable depth, best showcased by the frontline pace options of Brandon Glover, Fred Klaassen, Paul van Meekeren and Logan van Beek. They have also received a serious boost from the return of Tom Cooper, who ended a six-year hiatus from the side while focusing on Australian domestic cricket and returned for the recent ODI series against England. Along with the experienced hand of Stephan Myburgh at the top of the order, it would take a calamitous display for them not to advance to the semi-finals.Papua New Guinea
They were red-hot at this event in 2019, but it increasingly has looked like an anomaly sandwiched around some horrendous results across formats over the last several years. Like Netherlands, they went winless at the T20 World Cup in the UAE – including a pair of lopsided results against Oman and Bangladesh – after running rampant through the qualifying field.PNG have always been one of the elite fielding sites over the years, but their lack of consistency in the batting department has held them back in recent times. That is best showcased by a three-wicket win over Singapore in the build-up to this tournament where Tony Ura scored an unbeaten 93 off 40 balls at No. 5 as part of a 115-run sixth-wicket stand alongside the devastating finisher Norman Vanua’s 71 off 37. But the rest of the batting line-up made single digits in that match. PNG will need something far more significant out of captain Assad Vala and vice-captain Charles Amini if they’re going to make it back to the knockout stage.Hong Kong
They nearly made it three trips in a row to the T20 World Cup but fell short in the knockout stage of the qualifier in 2019 after being in the crosshairs of an extraordinary yorker barrage from Oman’s Bilal Khan. That they were able to get that close without longtime batting mainstays Babar Hayat and Anshy Rath is even more impressive.Babar Hayat has returned to the Hong Kong squad for this qualifier.•Peter Della PennaThough Rath continues to try to carve out a professional career in the Indian domestic system, Hayat has returned to the Hong Kong squad for this qualifier. The team’s form as a whole has been a reprisal of their best years from 2014 through 2018. They won four of five matches in the recent tour of Uganda for the CWC Challenge League as Hayat and Kinchit Shah produced centuries during the event. If captain Nizakat Khan can turn back the clock as well to the explosive top-order displays of his youth, there’s no reason why Hong Kong cannot contend not just for a semi-final berth but take one of the two spots left for the main event.Uganda
The African regional champions are a side that like Papua New Guinea do not demonstrate consistency from event to event. But beware of catching them on a bad day, especially in spin-friendly conditions. Under the captaincy of Brian Masaba, Uganda also mirror PNG in their athletic and energetic fielding.There are few weak links in that regard as 41-year-old offspinner Frank Nsubuga took arguably the catch of the tournament at the Challenge League event last month. Henry Ssenyondo gives them a potent left-arm spin option in tandem with Nsubuga. On the batting side, Ronak Patel and Dinesh Nakrani pack a stiff punch in the middle order with the best chances of success depending on their level of run production throughout the tournament.

Everything you need to know about the tournament, arranged alphabetically. Includes J for jinx and R for running out a non-striker

Sidharth Monga14-Oct-2022A for Australia: Defending champions for the first time, and also staging the T20 World Cup for the first time. Seven Australian grounds will host 45 matches and 16 teams over 28 days. One of the teams that qualifies into Group 2 will play Pakistan in Perth on October 27 and then take a four-and-a-half hour flight to Brisbane to cover the road distance of 4310km (or 3606km as the crow flies) for their next match, against Bangladesh on October 30.If that makes you worry about jet lag, keep in mind this is a tournament that will be played in four different time zones, but the eastern-most venue, Brisbane, is not the one that is the farthest ahead of UTC because it doesn’t take part in daylight savings time. Perth is eight hours ahead of UTC, Brisbane ten, Adelaide ten and a half, and Melbourne and Sydney 11.So where the bloody hell are you?B for bounce: It is unmissable, even to the naked eye. It is the first thing you notice. The bounce is steeper in Australia than elsewhere. It is not always bad news for limited-overs batting. The ball can be easier to time if the bounce is good and true, but equally, the really good bowlers can use the bounce to their advantage.C for captains: Quite a few captains go into the tournament with a big selection headache: do they drop themselves? Kane Williamson and Temba Bavuma are going at under a run a ball in all T20 cricket since the last World Cup. Aaron Finch hasn’t been in the best touch, has given up ODIs, and went down the order to let Cameron Green, who is not even in the World Cup squad (yet), open in the same month as the World Cup. Babar Azam will carry the strike-rate cross, and even Jos Buttler might have cause to doubt himself, what with injuries and meagre returns in T20Is leading up to the World Cup.D for Djilang: The indigenous name of Geelong, the only non-Test venue in the World Cup. Adelaide is Tarndanya, Brisbane is Meeanjin, Hobart is nipaluna, Melbourne is Naarm, Perth is Boorloo, and Sydney Warrane. Australia will be wearing an indigenous-themed kit (see K) for this World Cup. Only four indigenous men and two indigenous women have played international cricket for the country.We won’t be seeing most of West Indies’ 2016 title-winning side at this World Cup•Getty ImagesE for Eliminator: As in, the one-over eliminator. Or, more colloquially, the Super Over. Ever since the boundary-countback fiasco in the 2019 World Cup final, the provision is that teams will play Super Overs until there is a winner. However, there are time constraints and double headers. Only 30 minutes of extra time is available for all the matches (except for when the reserve day kicks in for the knockouts – an extra two hours are available on reserve days). If the full quota of overs in a match is bowled before the scheduled close, the minutes saved are added to the time provisioned for Super Overs. A minimum of 20 minutes will be made available for Super Overs, even if the actual match goes into overtime. The changeover time of five minutes between the match and the first Super Over is not counted in the time available.If we don’t have a winner in the time available, the match ends in a tie. If there is no winner in a semi-final, the team that finished higher in the Super 12s will progress. A final without a winner even after Super Over(s) will result in joint champions being crowned. Semi-finals and finals have a reserve day, but every attempt will be made to finish the match on the actual day with the match continuing from the point at which it was truncated, should the reserve day be used.F for first round: Not to be confused with Qualifiers (see Q). Four teams from the two groups in the first round will make it through to the second round. UAE, Netherlands, Sri Lanka and Namibia are in Group A in the first round; Ireland, Zimbabwe, West Indies and Scotland in Group B. The top two teams from each group will go into the two groups in the Super 12s. The top two teams from each of those Super 12 groups will make it to the semi-finals.G for Gayle: This is the first T20 World Cup without Chris Gayle. And the first without Dwayne Bravo. Also missing for West Indies are Kieron Pollard, Andre Russell and Sunil Narine. That’s a massive load of T20 experience and genius they have lost in recent times. Add to it Shimron Hetmyer, who was replaced after he could not make both his original and his rescheduled flights to Australia. It’s the first time that West Indies have to qualify for the Super 12s, and there is a realistic chance that the two-time champions might not make it.H for Hazlewood: Josh Hazlewood is a category unto himself. Previously written off as a Test specialist, he has made a roaring comeback into limited-overs cricket, T20s in particular. He is not the word that Rahul Dravid is too shy to speak in public, but he rarely goes for more than the going rate in the match. He is a banker you can expect to bowl four overs pretty much all the time. In the IPL at least, R Ashwin became that kind of bowler, although in T20Is he might still rely on match-ups. Keshav Maharaj is also getting there.Australia will wear an indigenous-themed jersey at this World Cup•AFP/Getty ImagesI for injuries: Jasprit Bumrah, Jonny Bairstow and Jofra Archer are three exciting T20 players out with injuries. South Africa allrounder Dwaine Pretorius too has been withdrawn. Also on the injury watchlist is Shaheen Afridi, who is coming back from a knee injury but has been named in Pakistan’s squad.Thanks to the freak injury to Bairstow, Alex Hales, who last played in a T20 World Cup in 2016, gets to make a comeback. Dinesh Karthik has waited much longer since last appearing in a T20 World Cup, in 2010.J for jinx: No side has successfully defended its T20 World Cup. No host side has won the title either. Then again, no side has had a chance to defend at home. And Australia are the favourites, with most bases covered. There: we have reverse-jinxed a reverse-jinx.K for kits: Australia have their indigenous-based jersey, Sri Lanka are drawing attention to climate change, Zimbabwe’s yellow top to go with red trousers looks fresh, England are vowing to play with freedom in collarless red, India have managed to find another shade of light blue, and New Zealand again have everybody beat with a mix of grey and black punctuated with white horizontal stripes and the fern.L for luck: It is not the opposite of skill or strategy or fitness, but the shorter a match of cricket gets, the bigger the role luck plays. Other luck factors are difficult to imagine ahead of the start of the tournament, but not the toss. Matches in the UAE, the hosts of the last World Cup, were heavily loaded in favour of the chasing side, making the toss crucial. The coin is less likely to play a role in Australia. While chasing still remains the way to go in T20 cricket, it is confounding that over the last two years Australia has been the second-worst country for chasing sides, who have won 43% of the time. Still, expect teams to prefer chasing but also expect possible closer contests.M for MCB: Mini collapse breakers. The discussion around anchors in T20 is quickly moving to those who can arrest a collapse. Dawid Malan and Virat Kohli are examples: they bat high when a wicket falls early, but if the opening partnership has lasted close to or over ten overs, the batting order is reconsidered, to see if bigger hitters need to be promoted. Malan and Kohli are now efficient in this role, a skill Williamson, Bavuma and Steven Smith will aspire to developing.Get ready to be Rauf-ed up: the World Cup is missing some key fast bowlers, but Pakistan’s Haris Rauf and Co will bring plenty of zing to it•Gareth Copley/ICC/Getty ImagesN for net run rate: It’s not uncommon in such tournaments for more than two teams to end up on the same number of points. Then it often comes down to net run rate, though only comes into the reckoning if the teams can’t be separated by number of wins. If two teams are tied on net run rates too, the next tiebreaker parameter is the number of wins in matches between them and then the net run rate in those matches. If that still doesn’t resolve the tie, the sides higher in the pre-tournament seeding will progress. The pre-tournament seeding order is: England, India, Pakistan, New Zealand, South Africa, Australia, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, West Indies, Scotland, Namibia, Zimbabwe, UAE, Netherlands, Ireland.O for over rates: Over rates are not overrated anymore. For the first time since 1999, a cricket World Cup will have an in-game over-rate penalty. It means extra work for the third umpire, who will have to pause the clock every time there is a stoppage beyond the control of the fielding side. Any over that begins outside the stipulated time limit of 85 minutes for an innings has to be bowled with at least five fielders inside the ring, as opposed to four at other times. Any wicket after the fifth earns the fielding team one minute of time (there is no such time allowance for wickets one through four). In innings shortened by three or more overs, the fielding side must be ready to bowl the penultimate over inside the proportionately reduced time limit. No such penalties apply to innings of ten overs or shorter.P for pace: In the 2019 50-over World Cup we had only five men who regularly went over 145kph, which roughly classifies as extreme pace. Archer is not available, but we have Pakistan fast bowlers Haris Rauf, Naseem Shah and Afridi joining Mitchell Starc, Lockie Ferguson, Mark Wood, Kagiso Rabada, and the seriously fast Anrich Nortje.Extreme pace is one point of difference teams look for, left-arm pace is another. All eight teams that have qualified for the Super 12s already have at least one left-arm quick each.Q for Qualifiers: Two qualifying tournaments featuring eight teams each took place to decide who the final four teams in the World Cup would be. All four finalists – UAE and Ireland from Qualifier A, and Zimbabwe and Netherlands from Qualifier B – made it to Australia.R for running-out a non-striker: The practice is being normalised, though some sections still think of it as being underhanded. The MCC has moved its ruling on such run outs from the law on unfair play to the one on run outs, so watch out for more non-strikers being caught outside their crease before the ball is bowled.A total of 405 sixes were scored in the 2021 T20 World Cup. How many will be hit on the big Australian grounds in this year’s tournament?•Daniel Pockett/CA/Cricket Australia/Getty ImagesS for sixes: Since the start of 2020, a six in Australia has been hit every 22 balls. Only in South Africa has six-hitting been less frequent. The South African pitches probably make it difficult to hit sixes, but in Australia, it’s more likely a case of #mcgsobig.The boundaries for this World Cup can’t be bigger than 82.29 metres, but in order to maximise the use of available field of play, they can’t be pulled in more than ten metres in from the perimeter fence. The threshold for the shortest boundary has been reduced from 59.43 m to 52.12 m, in all likelihood to accommodate Geelong, which is primarily a footie ground and is quite narrow. The pitch is dropped in at an angle to get around the size limitation, but since the ground hosts six matches in five days, it might need a bit of elbow room when the game is not played on the centre pitch.T for triple-headers: There are three days in the tournament on which three matches will be played, to go with 14 double headers, but no match will be played simultaneously with another. That makes for another multi-team tournament where the teams playing the last match get the advantage of knowing what to do if their prospects of progressing come down to net run rate (see N). Namibia, UAE, Scotland, Zimbabwe, India and England stand to benefit from this schedule.U for umpires: Remember, they know the laws better than us and know how to judge and apply them better than us. But they also make mistakes, a lot of which are corrected these days. The same 16 umpires who stood in the last World Cup will stand this time around. With this tournament, Aleem Dar, Marais Erasmus and Rod Tucker will have officiated in six of seven men’s T20 World Cups. This will be second World Cup of the year for Langton Rusere of Zimbabwe, after the women’s World Cup. The four match referees will be Ranjan Madugalle, David Boon, Chris Broad and Andy Pycroft.V for venues: If Australia make it to the semi-finals, they will play their match in Sydney no matter where they finish on the table. If they don’t, the winners of Group 1 and runners-up of Group 2 will play the first semi-final in Sydney; the winners of Group 2 and runners-up of Group 1 will play in Adelaide.W for weather: Climate change is upon us, and this World Cup could be affected directly. Victoria this week braced for the “worst weather event” of the year in the form of very heavy untimely rain in what normally would have been spring, the season of sunny days, cool nights, colourful jacarandas and wildflowers. There was flooding in South Melbourne and flash-flood warnings in Victoria the week before the event, and there is already talk of rain-affected games.Sixteen-year-old Aayan Afzal Khan of UAE is the youngest player at this World Cup•Ashley Allen/ICC/Getty ImagesX for cross(over): Finally, we can put the confusion to rest. T20 leagues adopted a regulation saying that the incoming batter would be on strike irrespective of whether the batters had crossed during a dismissal (except if the dismissal was off the last ball of the over) before international cricket did on October 1, but now, at long last, the not-out batter will stay at the end they were at even if the two batters cross each other while a catch is taken. It is a crucial little bit of help for bowlers, especially when they are up against lower-order batters.Y for youngest: Aayan Afzal Khan of UAE, born in Goa, brought up in Sharjah, is 16 years old, comfortably younger than any other player in the tournament. In the Under-19 World Cup earlier this year, Ayaan starred in what was possibly UAE’s biggest triumph on the world stage. He scored 93, taking his side from 26 for 4 to a total that was enough to beat West Indies by 82 runs. He is actually a left-arm spinner first and then a batter. UAE went on to win the Plate final. Mohammad Amir, who started the 2009 World Cup at 17 years and 55 days, remains the youngest player in all T20 World Cups.At 38 years and 230 days on the day Netherlands play their first match, opener Stephan Myburgh will be the oldest in the tournament. Hong Kong’s Ryan Campbell played in the 2016 World Cup when he was 44 years and 33 days old.Z for Zampa: And other wristspinners who are no longer part of XIs by right. Fingerspinners are making a comeback, especially if they can be as good as Maharaj and Ashwin, or if they have match-ups working for them. Apart from Rashid Khan and Adil Rashid, Zampa is the one non-allrounder wristspinner who gets picked no matter what. If the Australian pitches have the bounce they are famous for, this tournament could signal a comeback for his breed.