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Do players born earlier in a selection year have a distinct advantage over those born later? And do these advantages carry over to later in their careers?

Matt Roller08-Jan-2021Rory Burns and Dom Sibley, England’s incumbent Test openers, have plenty in common. They were both born in Epsom, a small market town; they attended the same secondary school; they made their breakthroughs as professional cricketers at the same county; and while Burns is five years Sibley’s senior, they celebrate their birthdays ten days apart from one another.But in the last of those similarities lies an important difference. In England, the selection year usually runs from September 1 of one year to August 31 of the following year. Sibley’s birthday, September 5, made him one of the oldest pupils in his year group at school; Burns’, on August 26, put him among the youngest. That fact alone made Sibley twice as likely to have his name entered into an ECB database as a junior cricketer – as well as giving him a substantially better chance of attending Oxford or Cambridge University, or becoming a CEO of a major company.”It is not the month of birth that is important per se but rather where that month falls in the selection or academic year,” Tim Wigmore and Mark Williams write in their book (in Australia, the cut-off month in age-group sport tends to be January, compared to September in the UK, but the phenomenon remains the same). “Whatever month the selection year begins, the relative-age effect persists; those who are born earlier in the selection year have a far greater chance of being selected for youth teams or academies.”The logic behind the relative-age effect is intuitive. “Say my best mate and I have kids born in the same school year: one right at the start, one right at the end,” David Court, the player identification lead at the ECB, explains. “One of them could be walking around kicking a football on the same day that the other one is born. That’s where the gap is biggest.”

“This is the paradox of the relative-age effect: it is significantly harder for later-born children to reach professional level – but, if they can make it there, they have a higher chance of reaching the peak of their sport”From . “The professional hockey player starts out a little bit better than his peers,” he wrote. “And that little difference leads to an opportunity that makes that difference a bit bigger, and that edge in turn leads to another opportunity, which makes the initially small difference bigger still – and on and on until the hockey player is a genuine outlier.”The result is that at youth-team level, those who are born earlier in their respective selection years are over-represented. In England’s last two U-19 World Cup squads, 12 players were born between September and November, and only 11 between March and August. In 2015, an article co-authored by Court in the Journal of Sports Sciences showed that out of young cricketers at the first point of identification, i.e. entry into the ECB’s database, 36% are born between September and November, compared to just 16% between June and August.ESPNcricinfo LtdWhile they were born five years (and, crucially, ten days) apart, the similarities between Burns and Sibley’s journeys – same secondary school, same county development system – to become Test openers serve to accentuate the differences.Sibley was a typical early-maturing, early-born child, who dominated at schoolboy level, made hundreds for England U-19s, and became the youngest double-centurion in the history of the County Championship while still studying at school. Burns, on the other hand, was a late developer with a late birthday, whose slight frame and awkward technique saw him struggle for the same sporting opportunities as Sibley at Whitgift, to the extent he changed schools for sixth form.”Dom’s parents are both quite tall, and he was always pretty tall for his age,” recalls Neil Kendrick, Whitgift’s master of cricket, “whereas Rory would have been the opposite. Physical strength, especially for a batter, can cause you to score a lot of runs when you’re younger, but that’s not to say if you don’t have it that you’re not going to end up being a really good player like Rory has been.”There is a lot of proof that from an England point of view, at representative and age-group level, there is much more likelihood of you being selected at those levels if you’re born between September and November or December, like Dom, than if you’re like Rory with a June to August birthday.”The progression of Dom Sibley (left) and Rory Burns’ careers has typified the impact of the relative-age effect on young cricketers•Getty ImagesBut this advantage in the junior system does not necessarily bear out at senior international level. Court points out that two England players he classes as “super elites” – James Anderson and Ben Stokes – have birthdays in the final quarter of the selection year, in July and June respectively. This illustrates the idea of the underdog effect.Wigmore and Williams suggest that the traits picked up by relatively young players are exactly the sort required to help athletes reach the highest level. “The very difficulties of being physically immature for their selection year – and having to struggle to out-muscle or outrun opponents and rely on other qualities if they are to compete – are ideal preparation for professional sport,” they write.”This is the paradox of the relative-age effect: it is significantly harder for later-born children to reach professional level – but, if they can make it there, they have a higher chance of reaching the peak of their sport.” Their hypothesis is backed by the research: Court’s 2015 paper showed that 7% of English cricketers who had made it into the system despite their late birthdays went on to play internationally, compared to only 2% of those with early birthdays.Staggeringly, when he won his cap in 2018, Burns was England’s first August-born Test debutant since the Australian-educated Darren Pattinson a decade earlier. But throughout the 2010s, there is little evidence of a relative-age effect among England Test debutants, with the same number of caps handed out to players with birthdays in each of the four quarters of the year.ESPNcricinfo Ltd”You need to look at relative age, but also their physical maturation,” says Court. “You could have an early-born child who is a late maturer, or a late-born child who is early maturing, physically. What I found in my time at the FA [England’s Football Association, where he worked as the performance education lead] was that if there were any Q4 [June-August birthdays] boys within the academy system, they tended to be early maturing.”There are also implications for coaches. The ECB emphasises the idea in junior development that current performance is not necessarily a good indicator of future potential, but outside of its pathways, grassroots coaches can often pay undue attention to how a young player is performing at the moment. At every level below elite, there is a trade-off between investing in a player with a higher ceiling for long-term gain, or instead chasing short-term rewards, and the balance is hard to strike.And Burns and Sibley’s cases highlight the fact that for promising young players, progress and development are not linear. Kendrick suggests that Sibley stood out as a potential future professional from early on. “Lots of things can happen, but when he was 12 or 13, I think we realised he had a good chance,” he says. “I don’t think you would have said that Rory was as nailed on, and he certainly wouldn’t have been on the radar for England U-19s or anything like that.”Good players can be made in lots of different ways. Some of them are prodigies younger; some aren’t, and develop later. There’s definitely not one thing that happens; everyone progresses differently.”Sibley, then, exemplifies the benefits of being born early in the selection year: he was physically mature for his age, especially when compared to some of his younger peers; he was given development opportunities with additional coaching which exacerbated that advantage; and he had the confidence and strength that allowed him to flourish in his early days in county cricket. After his form fell away and he suffered his first setbacks as a Surrey player, he moved to Warwickshire, and made his Test debut aged 25.

“From an England point of view, at age-group level, there is much more likelihood of you being selected if you’re born between September and December, than with a June to August birthday”David Court, ECB player identification lead

Burns, on the other hand, typifies the late-developing underdog. He was small and young compared to his immediate peers, he missed out on England U-19 selection, and he did not make his County Championship debut until the age of 21. From there, he had to demonstrate his resilience and perseverance, plugging away in county cricket until belatedly getting a chance with England at 28.Perhaps the more pertinent question is whether the relative-age effect represents a problem to be solved, or simply a fact of life. Some direct attempts to address it have been made within a sporting context: in New Zealand, rugby teams are selected by weight rather than age group at youth level, while in English football, West Bromwich Albion have held trials open only to children born between May and August in order to “unearth talented footballers who have previously been overlooked”.”It’s a really tricky one,” says Court. “If you see it as a problem to solve, there might be unintended consequences.” In particular, he has concerns about the prospect of eliminating the underdog effect. “If some of our best players coming through are Q4s, do we then risk limiting them because they miss out on the same challenges along the journey? I’m wary of that.”The relative-age effect hints at “an inefficiency in the talent identification process”, according to Wigmore and Williams, and begs the question whether young players of high potential like Burns are being lost to the game by virtue of something as random as their date of birth. For the time being, ten days can make all the difference.

Notts batter eyeing England after righting some wrongs during last summer’s T20 Blast triumph

George Dobell09-Jun-2021Life doesn’t always present second chances quite as neatly as it has for Ben Duckett.A year after Duckett had, in his words, “messed up” at the key moment of the 2019 Vitality Blast semi-final against Worcestershire, he was back at Edgbaston again, though this time in the final. And this time, he hit consecutive boundaries to finish 53 not out and win Nottinghamshire the title with 16 balls to spare.”I will remember that match against Worcestershire for the rest of my life,” Duckett says now. “It was a big learning curve for me.”The whole game rested on me, and 99 times out of 100, I’d get the team over the line there. But I messed up in that last moment. I could have been the hero, but I missed that last ball and yeah, it was a bit of a shock. I made one mistake and it costs us the competition.”But when I look back on it, we – as a team – messed up the game long before that. We should never have been in the situation where it went to the last ball. I think we needed 11 from the final two overs. But we lost three wickets in the penultimate over through some brainless cricket.Related

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“Everyone had my back. Until that moment I’d actually played a decent innings and I think we understood that it was a learning moment for us as a team. I knew afterwards that, if I had my time again, I would have taken a risk in that second last over and tried to kill the game.”I’ve certainly had setbacks in my career. That was one of them. They’ve made who I am.”A great example is Ben Stokes. Look what happened to him in the final of the World T20 in 2016? Like me, he wants to be there in the big moments. And if you are there in those pressure moments, sometimes you won’t get it right. But he bounced back from that and won England the World Cup final a few years later.”Thankfully, 12 months after that Worcestershire game, I had another chance and I got us over the line.”Duckett and co. will have another chance to “get over the line’ when their Vitality Blast campaign starts on Wednesday with a televised fixture away against Worcestershire. They have lost their captain, Dan Christian, Pakistan allrounder Imad Wasim and Chris Nash, the top-order batter, from the team that won last year. But with Alex Hales and Joe Clarke joining Duckett in an eye catching top-order, they are quietly optimistic they could become the first side to win the title for two years in succession.

He redeemed his 2019 near-miss by hitting the winning runs in the 2020 final. Now @BenDuckett1 is ready for #Blast21 with @TrentBridge

Interview https://t.co/gLpz0k7rqE pic.twitter.com/MTfrX8i8Wx

— ESPNcricinfo (@ESPNcricinfo) June 9, 2021

Was the wicketkeeper-batter’s bold approach in the WTC final appropriate?

Nagraj Gollapudi24-Jun-20211:02

Virat Kohli – ‘We don’t want Rishabh Pant to lose his positivity or optimism’

Just before he entered the Indian dressing room on Wednesday afternoon, Rishabh Pant punched the thick wooden door hard with his bare-knuckled right fist.Pant had just got out attempting to slog Trent Boult, getting a top-edge that flew high to backward point. Henry Nicholls, running backwards, took the catch of the final to silence the Indian fans in the crowd at the Rose Bowl. The magnificent catch, one of the turning points of the final, didn’t get as much attention as the shot that Pant played. The question still being asked is: was Pant’s bold approach appropriate?Related

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Pant himself was angry. As he charged Boult and the ball flew towards Nicholls, he would have known he had made a mistake. However, ever since he had arrived at the crease early in the first session after Virat Kohli and Cheteshwar Pujara fell in quick succession, Pant had been walking the high wire. Yet, it was only those outside who had their hearts in their mouths. For the stockily built Pant, who India’s bowling coach Bharat Arun describes as a “pocket dynamo”, his various advances towards the bowler were calculated acts of blunting the opposition attack.Pant’s plan and instinct was to play every ball. At times it backfired. Off the ninth ball he faced, Kyle Jamieson pitched a delivery on length with a scrambled seam. Jamieson had induced edges and lbws with similar deliveries and lengths, which was on the fullish side. Pant attempted a push to the off side away from his body. The outside edge flew straight to second slip where Tim Southee made a mess of an easy catch. Pant was on 5. India were 82 for 4.The Indian fans celebrated the drop. Southee banged the turf. Jamieson walked away, doing well to hide any emotions towards his senior team-mate, who had now dropped not one but two catches in the match. Dale Steyn, one of ESPNcricinfo’s experts for this Test, tweeted wondering whether Southee had dropped the WTC mace.Pant seemed unmoved. As Jamieson tested Ajinkya Rahane with short stuff, at the other end Pant was doing mock drills: ducking, swaying, hooking, pulling, ramping.Then it was Southee’s turn with the ball again. A delivery before the first hour into the morning, Southee swung one into Pant, who lunged forward toward the off stump. If you freeze the replay at that point, you can see Pant’s front toe, the right one, pointing towards cover – as if he was going to drive it square on the off side; instead with a loose left leg and meaty wrists, he flicked the ball to the right of mid-on for a boundary. Even Rahane was caught by surprise as he had to quickly move out of the way.When Neil Wagner replaced Southee, Pant charged him the third ball of the over, to slap a firm four. Next ball, he quickly moved into position to perfectly defend it under his eyeline, and exchanged a cool stare with the left-arm quick. Both men would engage in fencing duel.Rishabh Pant played his shots, as only he does•Getty ImagesPant jumped out of his crease again for a streaky outside edge against an away swinging delivery that flew to the right of gully for four. Wagner had a curious smirk. Next delivery, slightly fuller, again an away swinger, Pant charged and this time missed. Rahane walked up to Pant. From afar, Pant seemed to indicate to his vice-captain that if he stayed in the crease, there was a greater danger of the ball taking the outside edge.Next over Rahane was gone. India just ahead by just 77 runs, with 25 minutes to lunch. What would Pant do now? He jumped once again and went for an almighty heave against Wagner and missed completely. Wagner scratched his chin with an expression that said: ‘What the hell?’ Was it rash? Crazy? Pant might tell you: it was not an act of defiance. It was his instrument of defence.Immediately into the second session, Wagner went round the stumps to unleash his main weapon – the short ball. Six men were in position on the leg side: short leg, backward short leg, midwicket, deep square leg and two fine legs. Every time Wagner banged in short Pant pulled him – both on the front foot and the back foot. And he was pulling these balls into the ground.One particular stroke showed how well Pant had understood the pitch and the bowler’s plan: he reverse swatted Wagner for a single to third man with such disdain as if he was shooing a fly.Rishabh Pant swats one away•PA Photos/Getty ImagesPitted against the meditative batting of Kane Williamson and Kohli in the first innings, it is easy to be critical of Pant’s bating on Wednesday. Anarchic it might have seemed from outside, but Pant actually used his natural game to play to the situation. He was doing exactly what Kohli professed after the defeat: taking risks but in a calculated fashion. And he had to take risks. Both he and Ravindra Jadeja had battled hard to survive the first hour after lunch. Then Jadeja succumbed to sustained pressure. India’s tail rarely wags. Pant did not have too many options, because otherwise there was every danger that India would end up with a far lesser lead. Recent evidence suggests the same. In the WTC, India have been bowled out 19 times. Only on four of those 19 occasions has the team batted more than 10 overs and added more than 50 runs after losing the seventh wicket.Kohli himself was cautious about making too much of Pant’s final shot on Wednesday. The Indian captain backed Pant, saying he was an “expressive” batter and India didn’t want him to “lose his positivity or his optimism in changing the situation for the team”, because that is his USP. “It’s up to him to understand whether it was an error of judgement and rectify it moving forward because he has a long career with the Indian team, and certainly someone who could be a match maker for India on consistently many occasions in the future,” Kohli said at the post-match media briefing.This is not the first time Pant has played one stroke too many. It will not be the last time. The frustration from outside is because he himself raised the bar with his heroics in Australia, followed by the home series against England where he dug his heels in initially and then seized the momentum. He nearly did the same in Southampton, albeit in a different manner. Without his innings India potentially might have lost the battle well before lunch.

Outrage has dominated both sides of the debate

Firdose Moonda28-Oct-2021It may be tempting to think that Quinton de Kock’s refusal to take a knee ahead of the match against West Indies earlier this week is out and out racism, but ignorance of racial inequalities that have resulted from slavery, colonialism and apartheid might be what caused him to not comply with Cricket South Africa’s directive, and to consequently withdraw himself from the match.That’s not the soft view, nor one that seeks to justify de Kock’s continued inaction over antiracist gestures, but rather one that aims to add nuance to the ever-complex conversation around race and sport, and especially race and sport in South Africa.Outrage has dominated the narrative locally on both sides. On the one hand, there is the argument that the right to freedom of speech and expression, which is enshrined in the South African constitution, must be respected, and that CSA should not have made taking a knee mandatory. On the other is long-brewing dissatisfaction with the national team’s inconsistency over their approach to antiracism, which is now embodied in de Kock’s refusal. And all this is happening while CSA conducts Social Justice and Nation Building (SJN) hearings, where some of those who have appeared, including former team manager Mohammed Moosajee and South African Cricketers Association CEO Andrew Breetzke, have called for the national team to have a unified approach to taking a knee.Related

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As a collective, South Africa have swayed between a steadfast approach to doing nothing, as was the case in the lead up to the 3TC event last July, to doing everything, when all players and support staff took a knee. (de Kock missed this last event because of a Covid-19-related issue.)They then planned to do nothing in the series against Sri Lanka, before deciding to raise their fists in the Boxing Day Test. Then there was a three-pronged approach on their tour to West Indies this winter, where some team members, all of colour, as well as Rassie van der Dussen and Kyle Verreynne, took a knee; others – all white, like Test captain Dean Elgar and Aiden Markram, raised a fist; and others, also all white, like Anrich Nortje, stood to attention. de Kock did nothing and has continued to do nothing. One of the issues is that no one yet knows why.de Kock is not against gestures. Historically, he has joined the rest of the team in wearing a black armband to commemorate a death, and the pink shirt at the annual Pink ODI to raise awareness for breast cancer. He has also made individual gestures. On scoring a century in the first Test against West Indies in St Lucia, de Kock displayed a bat sticker in favour of rhino conservation. And he made a finger gesture in support of a friend who had lost a digit. You might argue that de Kock made his own decision in all of these, but it would be interesting to see the reaction if he opted to wear a blue shirt on that all-pink day. The point being that employers often expect certain commitments from their employees. Very seldom do they impose expectations on them.

The gesture is a way to tell South Africans, the majority of whom have suffered under racial segregation, that there is recognition of what they have been through

CSA went as far as imposing expectations only after more than a year of the men’s national team umm-ing, ahh-ing and half-gesturing. In that time, the board has been imploding: it changed from an interim board to a permanent one, and has had to deal with a significant lack of senior staff after suspensions over the last two years. It is plausible that the collective response to antiracism has not been top of mind, and the seriousness of the division in South Africa’s appearance only occurred to them when they saw the opening match of the Super 12s, where Australia took a knee together and their own team presented a mish-mash of posturing.Two images caught fire on social media. One was of members of the team on the sidelines that showed Keshav Maharaj, Tabraiz Shamsi, Kagiso Rabada and van der Dussen taking a knee; Dwaine Pretorius, Aiden Markram and David Miller raising a fist; and Anrich Nortje and Heinrich Klaasen standing to attention. The other was of Temba Bavuma taking a knee and de Kock standing with his hands on his hips. CSA board chair Lawson Naidoo confirmed that was the spark that forced CSA to act, but to do so five hours before the next game was risky.Perhaps CSA thought it had called the team’s bluff and the speed of the command would ensure it was obeyed. Then de Kock called the board’s back. When the team arrived at the ground in Dubai, he made himself unavailable without even telling his team-mates why. In so doing, he put his captain and his team-mates in a difficult position.Bavuma said it was the toughest day of his captaincy, as he had to do without de Kock the batter and de Kock the senior player. Reeza Hendricks would have been told at the last moment that he was going to open the batting. Heinrich Klaasen would have been told he would have to take the gloves, after having done so just once in a T20I in the last six months. He went on to drop the first chance he got. Bavuma was run out for 2 after failing to beat Andre Russell’s arm. Had South Africa gone on to lose, doubtless focus would have been on those three players and it’s likely the blame would have been laid on them. Luckily for them, they didn’t.The act of taking a knee has been described as a gesture of antiracism, rather than a gesture in support of Black Lives Matter, and that is another significant point. Although BLM has become synonymous with the fight against racism, the two do not have to be the same thing, especially in a country like South Africa, where the right for racial equality predates the BLM movement. The BLM organisation is seen by some in South Africa (and elsewhere) as a radical political, and even Marxist, movement rather than a civil-rights activist collective that speaks to global issues of exclusion. This is the kind of movement that white South Africa has in the past been afraid of; they have had terms to describe being overrun by the disenfranchised majority as “black danger” () and “red danger” (). And therein may lie part of the explanation for why taking a knee has been difficult for some of South Africa’s white players.Although none of the members of the current side are old enough to have lived through the horrors of apartheid, all of them will have had parents or caregivers who grew up then. van der Dussen was influenced by a father who was part of the African National Congress to take a knee.The array of gestures before the game against Australia that probably drove CSA to mandate the whole team taking the knee•ICC via GettyWhich is where Michael Holding and Carlos Brathwaite and Daren Sammy and Kieron Pollard’s calls for education come in. All of the last three have been part of a West Indian set-up that has been unrelenting in their consistency in taking a knee, and who have spoken at length about the experiences of being black in a world, especially a cricketing world, governed by whiteness.As South Africa readied to collectively take a knee, sans de Kock, on Tuesday, Sammy was on air. “My mother always told me, ‘You’ve got to stand for something or you will fall for anything’,” he said. “It’s good to see players united over something that has affected so many people across the world.”Pommie Mbangwa went further: “Some will say it is being political but I cannot shed my skin. I hope that the discussion at the very least can be about how to be united about something that everybody agreed on. This is also in the hope that there is agreement in that regard.”The pair referenced de Kock’s absence before Sammy expressed his disbelief at those who struggled to support antiracism. “Sometimes I don’t understand why is it so difficult to support this movement if you understand what it stands for. That’s just my opinion because of what my kind have been through. There are a lot of issues affecting the world, but I don’t understand why it’s so difficult.”Brathwaite, speaking on BBC Five Live, understood the significance of South Africa taking a knee together and de Kock not being there. “I’m not an advocate of forcing anyone to do something that they don’t want to do. But I also understand where Cricket South Africa is coming from,” he said. “There are a lot of conversations and a lot of education that still has to happen around why you take the knee, what it signifies, but more importantly, for things to change in society, taking a knee has to be a start and not the be-all and end-all.”Talk to some around de Kock and they will say this is the exact reason he does not want to take a knee: because it achieves nothing. The footballer Wilfried Zaha has argued similar. What that does not acknowledge is the simple fact that human beings can walk and chew at the same time. They can gesture publicly and they can act behind the scenes. The gesture is a way to tell South Africans, the majority of whom have suffered under racial segregation, that there is recognition and understanding of what they have been through. The rest is what shows our education in action.

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Pinning down Pollard
Super Kings vs Mumbai Indians, IPL 2010 finalMumbai Indians were 136 for 6, needing 33 from two overs, with the title on the line. Kieron Pollard had just clattered Doug Bollinger for 4, 6, 4, 6 in a 22-run over, which titled the title fight Mumbai’s way. Until Dhoni intervened, having Matthew Hayden at an unorthodox straight mid-off position, in addition to having a more conventional long-off.Dhoni’s plan was to have Albie Morkel bowl yorkers at Pollard and turn his strength of hitting down the ground into a weakness. Morkel’s first ball to Pollard was thwacked past him for four. He nailed the yorker second ball, which squeezed underneath Pollard’s bat. After a dot and the run-out of Ambati Rayudu, Morkel went full once again, and Pollard could only skew a low catch to Hayden at straight mid-off. The Super Kings pressed on to win their maiden IPL title.IPL 2010 – Chennai Super Kings’ first title in the tournament•Indian Premier LeagueAt the post-match presentation, Dhoni reasoned that it was worth whisking short fine-leg to straight mid-off, given Pollard’s propensity to hit in the ‘V’. He also revealed that he had deployed a similar field against Hayden himself at a practice match in the lead-up to IPL 2008.”If you see the big-hitters of the world or powerful hitters, they don’t sweep or reverse-sweep. So I said, ‘okay what’s the point of a short fine-leg’,” Dhoni told the host broadcaster after the game. “Pollard will anyway look to hit down the ground and Morkel will look to bowl yorkers outside off. If he miscues one, he may not get the elevation. I’ve tried it once with Matthew Hayden, though. It worked at the practice game we had right at the start of the tournament. No rocket science.”Many other IPL captains subsequently took a leaf out of Dhoni’s playbook, having a fielder straight to counter the likes of Pollard. M Vijay, for example, when he was captaining the Punjab franchise in 2016, stationed himself at ultra-straight mid-off against James Faulkner.Chaos theory
Chennai Super Kings vs Kings XI Punjab, IPL 2018Super Kings slipped to 27 for 3 within five overs in pursuit of 154 on a spicy pitch in Pune. Fast bowler Ankit Rajpoot was on a hat-trick, having taken out Faf du Plessis and Sam Billings. Dhoni unleashed his chaos theory – promoting Harbhajan and Deepak Chahar ahead of himself, DJ Bravo and Ravindra Jadeja.Chahar. Chaos!•BCCIWhile Harbhajan saw off the new ball and contributed 19 off 22 balls, Chahar made a more decisive 39 off 20 balls at a strike rate of 195. Dhoni and Super Kings head coach Stephen Fleming had originally identified Chahar as a batting allrounder at Rising Pune Supergiant/s, but injury delayed his initiation into the IPL. Dhoni and Fleming reunited with Chahar at Super Kings, where he became their go-to bowler in the powerplay. In that game against Kings XI Punjab, he repaid the team management’s faith with the bat too, helping them seal the chase.”Sending in Bhajji [Harbhajan] and Chahar creates a bit of chaos,” Dhoni told the host broadcaster. “The bowlers all of a sudden bowl yorkers, offcutters, and bouncers. When [top-order] batsmen are batting, they stick to a good line and length, but against Bhajji and Chahar, they lose their line and lengths instead of sticking to the plan. Plus Bhajji and Chahar could come in handy during the playoffs.”Straightjacketing Sachin
Chennai Super Kings vs Mumbai Indians, IPL 2010 finalStopping Sachin. Not everyone could do it. Dhoni knew how•Indian Premier LeagueLet us revisit that game. Bollinger had struck early to dismiss Shikhar Dhawan, but Sachin Tendulkar stabilised Mumbai’s chase of 169, with the crowd behind him. Dhoni brought Shadab Jakati into the attack in the tenth over to give him a crack at Tendulkar. Jakati had apparently troubled Tendulkar when he was once a net bowler with the India side, so Dhoni was hoping for some control from the left-arm fingerspinner.The left-handed Abhishek Nayar, though, briefly foiled Dhoni’s plan, carting Jakati for back-to-back sixes in a 14-run over. Jakati then switched ends and eventually made the incision by hiding one away from Tendulkar’s swinging arc and having him chipping a catch to long-off.Two years later, in the 2012 Eliminator against Mumbai in Bengaluru, Dhoni tossed the new ball to Jakati, who kept Tendulkar to a run-a-ball 11. Something had to give and that something was Tendulkar running himself out. Super Kings went on to win that knockout game as well.Holding back Harbhajan
Chennai Super Kings vs Sunrisers Hyderabad, IPL 2018 Qualifier 1Super Kings had picked Harbhajan in 2018 to exploit the spin-friendly Chepauk track, but after just one game there, they had to shift base to Pune because of protests surrounding the Cauvery river water issue. Harbhajan did a good job for Super Kings in Pune, too, but in the qualifier against Sunrisers Hyderabad at the Wankhede Stadium, where Harbhajan had bowled across phases for Mumbai Indians, Dhoni didn’t use his offspin at all. Jadeja was in fine rhythm, giving up just 13 runs in his four overs for the wicket of Manish Pandey, so Dhoni didn’t need him on the day.Harbhajan Singh, not a car Dhoni needed to drive all the time•BCCI”You know, I have a lot of cars and bikes in my garage. And, I don’t ride all at a time,” Dhoni quipped. “When you have six to seven bowlers in your side, you want to see the conditions. You want to see who is batting and what is needed at that point of time.”Then, in the final against Sunrisers, Dhoni dropped Harbhajan altogether, fielding legspinner Karn Sharma, who brought with him the reputation of being a serial title-winner in the IPL and in domestic cricket. Karn came away with the prized scalp of Kane Williamson, drawing him out of the crease and having the Sunrisers captain stumped for 47 off 36 balls.Besting Chris Gayle
Chennai Super Kings vs Royal Challengers Bangalore, IPL 2011 finalChris Gayle could have taken the 2011 final away from Super Kings; he was out for a three-ball duck•AFPAfter opting to bat, Super Kings racked up 205 for 5 on the back of an M Vijay special. A red-hot Chris Gayle, though, was standing between Super Kings and back-to-back IPL titles. Gayle was the leading run-getter during that IPL and single-handedly transformed Royal Challengers’ fortunes in the tournament. Dhoni matched up R Ashwin’s offspin with the left-handed Gayle at a time when match-ups were not even a thing. After setting up Gayle with two offbreaks, Ashwin darted one into the batter and had him nicking off for a three-ball duck. Game over!”I rely a lot on the bounce, therefore a good wicketkeeper is extremely crucial,” Ashwin told the . “With Dhoni, the caught-behinds and stumpings have gone up many notches in my bowling. He understands the trajectory, the variation, and the bounce that I get.”

The recalled opener seemed well prepared for Australia, showing patience and maturity

Danyal Rasool in Rawalpindi04-Mar-2022Sometimes, it can be tough being Imam-ul-Haq. He was the second Pakistan player to score a hundred on ODI debut in 2017; yet at the time, the dominant story revolved around the man who picked him – chief selector and Imam’s uncle Inzamam-ul-Haq. He was the first to score four centuries in his first nine ODIs. On Test debut, he stabilised a tottering Pakistan side in a tricky fourth-innings chase against Ireland in Malahide, his unbeaten 74 steering Pakistan to victory.Yet, to far too many, he was simply a – a piece of paper – which is a callous one-word dismissal of all achievements by putting them down to nepotism. Often, it is a trenchant jibe deservedly deployed against the ingrained privilege which the elite in the subcontinent enjoy by birthright in just about every industry you cast your eyes toward.No matter how desperately the nephew of Inzamam – to give him his official name – tried break out of being typecast, there was simply no other role Pakistan seemed to want him to play.Related

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When Test cricket returned to Pakistan in 2019, it would be Abid Ali – and not Imam – who got the nod for the starting line-up. It was lost on no one that Inzamam was no longer chief selector. Misbah-ul-Haq, whose relationship with Inzamam is famously tetchy, was in charge. Abid would grasp that opportunity with both hands, winning Player-of-the-Match awards in each of his first two Tests.Imam’s Test career had stalled after that sparkling debut, and the wheels for his omission were set in motion.Abid’s form waxed and waned over the following two years, but his place in the side was never under threat. At the other end, Pakistan had a somewhat surreal dalliance with Imran Butt, an opening batter whose best trait was his penchant for taking stunning slip catches. Unfortunately, his tendency to offer slip catches was equally prolific, and so out he went soon enough.Shan Masood, too, came and went as his form crescendoed before falling off, but Imam had quietly slipped off the radar.Australia’s return after an extended absence naturally grabbed all the headlines, but the occasion must have felt personally momentous to Imam. Frozen out since 2019 – coinciding exactly with Test cricket’s return to Pakistan – Imam, like so many openers in the generation before, had been starved of the chance to play Test cricket at home.He had played little first-class cricket in that time – Covid-19 had seen to that – but an average of 106.20 in the recently-concluded Quaid-e-Azam trophy meant he had rammed his way through doors so many in Pakistan had assumed automatically flew open for him.On Friday, the first day of the Rawalpindi Test against Australia, Imam began scratchily, even nervously. It is antithetical to the brash, confident persona he exudes – sometimes a little inimically for his own good – off the field. But when you are facing Mitchell Starc and Josh Hazlewood after two years out – the two men who took turns dismissing him in his last Test in November 2019 – you would be forgiven some tentativeness.”There is a pattern in which I tried to score, and there was a certain plan when playing against Nathan Lyon” – Imam•AFP/Getty ImagesAn early, optimistic leg-before review by the visitors seemed to settle rather than unnerve him, and as it became apparent this wasn’t a pitch that offered much to Australia’s storied four-pronged pace attack – including the allrounder Cameron Green – Nathan Lyon was thrust in as early as the eighth over. It was just the sixth time in 105 Tests that was been called upon to bowl this early in the first innings.Over the past few days, the nature of the pitch had been kept a bit of a state secret. In Pakistan cricket, that means everyone but the people who matter know about it. But this time, the strip was kept under wraps in both senses of the phrase. When it was peeled back this morning, it had been shaved clean of any grass; soon after, the hosts announced they were playing just two fast bowlers as they won the toss and batted.Lyon had to work overtime, and Imam seemed well prepared for it. Off 45 length deliveries the offspinner sent down to him, Imam took 41 runs, including a couple of majestic sixes down the ground when the dancing feet were on full display. The tactic was as calculated as it was forensic, and Imam had the patience and maturity to shut shop whenever Lyon got the more natural fuller length right; after all, those 49 balls yielded just six.”There is a pattern in which I tried to score runs, and there was a certain plan when playing against Lyon,” Imam said at the post-day press conference. “I have played against him in Dubai as well, so I knew he’s a world-class bowler. I knew that I would have to work on those good areas. The full length is not going to turn that much, that’s why I was being respectful against it.”That maturity was a hallmark of the innings that saw Imam carry his bat into the second day, and might represent personal growth for a cricketer not naturally blessed with that trait in abundance. Remember, this is a man who celebrated a century in South Africa by mimicking a yapping mouth gesture to the fans and putting a finger to his lips, sarcastically saying he wanted to thank the media and fans who had criticised his selection.He had previously told ESPNcricinfo that criticism over nepotism had “seriously pissed him off”, and that he often appeared more comfortable playing the pantomime villain. In a country where fan support – and more importantly, media support – plays an outsized role in team and squad selection, it was ill-advised.

“I have seven centuries in ODI cricket but the feeling I got today was very different”Imam on his maiden Test hundred

Yet, when facing this diverse Australian bowling attack, the ego was swiftly put to one side. Starc, Hazlewood and Pat Cummins routinely peppered him with short deliveries, but Imam was happier to duck rather than try and take unnecessary risks; the premium bowlers would eventually tire out and be forced out of the attack, and the runs would come.He took just a single boundary off 61 short balls, targeting Starc when he went full instead, scoring 15 off 11 such deliveries.”The wicket was not that even, and the ball was coming slow,” he said. “I just wanted to be in my zone, and I was just trying to avoid the short ball. There was a bubble in my batting that I wanted to remain in. I was waiting for the bad balls.”It was one of those balls that brought up his first Test hundred, a silky extra-cover drive that raced away for four. Even the celebration was redolent of the discipline on exhibition all day. Gone were the irascible taunts or even the puffed-out chest. Instead, there was a self-containment to the joy, inwardly appearing to congratulate himself for triumphing over his baser, less patient self.There was even no overt gratitude to the crowd, but though that was likely a function of extreme concentration rather than the harbouring of grievances.”I have seven centuries in ODI cricket but the feeling I got today was very different,” Imam added. “Firstly, it had been a while, and I wasn’t getting a chance. This feeling of scoring a Test hundred against Australia carries a special feeling.”Two years ago, Abid had supplanted Imam as opener in the Pakistan side, keeping him out in the cold. Now, Abid’s absence has given Imam the chance to return the favour. Unbeaten on 132 and gearing up for the second day with his side at 245 for 1, he might be on his way to doing just that.Perhaps it isn’t all that tough being Imam-ul-Haq after all.

Elgar at a loss for answers, as bid to avoid playing by England’s rules backfires

Firdose Moonda12-Sep-2022Lock the drinks cabinet, please. South Africa will not be having any.After the promise of a shot of tequila for every mention of Bazball, South Africa don’t want to hear it anymore. And they’re serious about being sober. “I said I am not speaking about that,” Dean Elgar said, even before the question about how he assessed England’s proactive approach had been fully asked.When it was, he answered. “I actually thought they played relatively good Test cricket. I don’t think they played extraordinary cricket. I thought they played the correct tempo. I didn’t see that B-word coming through at all.”Didn’t see, or didn’t want to see?There is no denying that England played a certain way (whether you want to give it a name or not) throughout this series, and especially in the reduced-to-three-days decider. Ben Stokes confirmed that his message to the team was to “produce a result”, because in the last Test of the summer “nobody wants to see a draw”.That isn’t entirely true. Had South Africa thought it through, they would have realised that playing for a draw, taking four points and closing the gap between themselves and Australia in the World Test Championship table would have been the prudent approach. Instead, they got swept up in the kind of hype they are not used to.South Africa may not even realise it, but they allowed England to control the narrative as their pre-series tequila jokes gave way to a selection blunder at Old Trafford and batting blow-outs not seen in more than a century at The Oval.They also revealed their limited experience in dealing with a savvy media and a boisterous public and you can’t really blame them. Before this series, South Africa had played more than two years of cricket behind either closed doors or tiny crowds, while only three of the current squad had ever played Test cricket in England before. On top of that, no-one anticipated the scale of emotion that would come after the death of Queen Elizabeth II on the first day of the final Test.Kagiso Rabada is one of a handful of South Africans with prior experience of either English or Australian conditions•Getty ImagesBut could it all really be about one silly B-word? Yes, says a man who might know better than most. “Somebody in the press box comes up with Bazball and we know what happens in the English media,” Kevin Pietersen said on Sky Sports in his post-match analysis. “The pen is mightier than the sword and Test teams, touring teams will turn up here and they’ll be thinking about Bazball. Every single player around the world will be talking about Bazball – from India, to New Zealand to Australia. The psychology pre-Ashes is already happening.”It will be the least of South Africa’s concerns as to whether they have done England a favour ahead of next year’s Ashes. Instead, they should focus on the consequences this series defeat will have on their own Test ideology going forward.In this series, they were forced to confront their middle-order shortcomings and make big changes. Rassie van der Dussen (who missed the final Test through injury but had been out of form anyway) and Aiden Markram were swapped out for Ryan Rickelton and Khaya Zondo, but it’s far too early to say whether either man can go on to be the solution South Africa are looking for. But it’s no secret that South Africa need answers, and need them quickly.”It’s a tough one when guys aren’t getting numbers on the board for you,” Elgar said. “Sooner or later, your resources are going to be depleted and we are going to have to look elsewhere. We did the right thing for this Test match. We had to use the resources we had, something different, something new, you don’t know if you don’t give them a try.”But Elgar also continued to throw his weight behind both van der Dussen and Markram, who he thinks can come again. “Aiden has still got a bright future in Test cricket,” Elgar said. “He just needs to get numbers behind his belt and go back to the drawing board. He is still too young and too talented not to be playing this level of cricket. When he gets those opportunities to play a four-day game, he’s got to nail it like he has done in the past when he was left out and he went back home and he nailed four-day cricket, scored a lot of runs and he got his opportunity again.”That is precisely the problem. Even when Markam was the top-scorer in South Africa’s first-class competition, he was not able to translate that form to Test cricket. Since 2018, Markram averages 67.50 from 10 domestic first-class matches, with five centuries. In 18 home Tests in the same period, he averages just over half that: 34.70, with only two hundreds. It’s clear that South Africa’s domestic breeding ground is not producing enough players who can make the step up and Elgar is unsure how best to address the gap.Related

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“I always bank on experience. I know we don’t have that at the Test level. My next best thing is, who do we have in first-class cricket back home, but is that the right solution? We don’t know yet,” he said. “We’ve still got a few months before our next series and we’ve only got a handful of four-day games at home before we leave to Australia. It’s a tough thing now, because the guys have to learn the toughest format without a lot of experienced heads around them, which is always something we were aware of. But those are the cards we’ve been dealt and we’ve got to find a way to ease the blow.”That upcoming assignment includes a run of Tests in Australia’s festive season for the first time since their victorious 2008-09 series. No-one in the current South African squad has any experience of playing a Test in front of a packed MCG or SCG, which will present another challenge. The same three who had experience in England – Elgar, Kagiso Rabada and Keshav Maharaj, along with Temba Bavuma – are likely to be the only players who have been part of a Test series in Australia before. The scrutiny – remember mint-gate? – will be unending. So how should South Africa avoid making the same mistakes?”We’ve been playing good cricket and we’ve been playing pretty average cricket as a squad, and we need to get that balance right,” Elgar said. “Every Test match is going to be something you have to live and die for. That three-Test match series is going to be huge. We’ve got five massive Tests before June. Even our series against West Indies, we can’t take that lightly. I need the guys to have that mentality going forward.”It sounds a little bit like the way England play, with one-pointed focus on every game as a must-win, but for Elgar’s sake, South Africa should avoid coming up with any catchphrases that define them.

The fast bowler emulated his childhood hero Abhimanyu Mithun with a five-wicket haul on first-class debut

Shashank Kishore31-Jan-2023M Venkatesh comes from a family of musicians. His grandmother and younger brother are classical singers. Growing up, Venkatesh was different. He loved playing cricket and roughing up batters gave him a thrill.On Friday, he roughed up Uttarakhand in the Ranji Trophy quarter-finals on a greenish M Chinnaswamy Stadium deck, becoming only the fifth Karnataka bowler since 2006 to pick up a five-for on first-class debut. One of the bowlers in that list, Abhimanyu Mithun, was Venkatesh’s hero in his age-group days. He simply calls him Mithun (older brother).Venkatesh woke up expecting to carry drinks, like he had done all season, and when he got a tap on the shoulder from his captain Mayank Agarwal, informing him of his debut, he froze. V Koushik had pulled up with a back spasm and Venkatesh was going to be in the thick of things quickly, with Karnataka electing to bowl.”I didn’t have time to call anyone [family] and inform them I was playing,” Venkatesh said after the day’s play, with Karnataka firmly in control after bowling out Uttarakhand for 116. “It feels nice to finally get an opportunity. I wasn’t expecting it at all, and I was totally surprised when I got the news.”Venkatesh, 22, grew up playing a lot of cricket in Mysore, but he didn’t necessarily watch a lot of it. His father played local cricket and wished his son would carry forward his interest in the sport. When young Venkatesh did, he was delighted. “My father would show me videos of Kapil Dev,” he said. “He was my father’s hero. I also watched a lot of videos of him.”For a number of seasons, Karnataka have been in a fast-bowling transition following the exits of Vinay Kumar, Abhimanyu Mithun (in pic) and S Aravind•PTI Venkatesh is shy and soft-spoken, and almost needs to be shaken up to speak. It certainly felt that way at his post-game media interaction when he sat at a table fielding questions about his growing-up years and his journey to the Karnataka team.Even a local cameraperson looking for that perfect shot when Venkatesh fielded on the boundary had to cajole him to show some (energy). Venkatesh’s teammates, who were walking beside the rope then, joked about how he had been shivering in the dressing room before taking the field.Once the first wicket was out of the way, Venkatesh appeared a lot calmer. He ran in hard, bent his back, and bowled quickly and accurately for most of his first spell, an eight-over burst that brought him two wickets.It helped Venkatesh that much of the pressure he was able to exert was also kept up at the other end by Vidwath Kaverappa and Vijaykumar Vyshak. Venkatesh, the junior-most member of the pace-bowling group, largely kept to himself early in the day but by the end of Uttarakhand’s innings mustered up enough courage to speak with his senior colleagues.When he uprooted Abhay Negi’s middle stump with some late tail in, Venkatesh was unstoppable. By then, he was running on instinct and adrenaline. The fifth and final wicket came when Kunal Chandela, Uttarakhand’s best batter on the day, misjudged the line of an away-going delivery and nicked to Manish Pandey in the slips.M Venkatesh grew up watching videos of Kapil Dev, his father’s hero•ESPNcricinfo LtdAs he led the team off the field, Venkatesh wiped away a tear. He had to be coaxed into raising the ball up to acknowledge the dressing room. He was also clapped off the field by Ravindra Jadeja and Navdeep Saini, who are currently at the National Cricket Academy (NCA), which is housed in the Chinnaswamy Stadium.Venkatesh touched upon how he had needed to be patient and wait for his chance in a team brimming with talent. If you were a Karnataka seam bowler in the 2012-18 period, you would have needed a lot of patience, since R Vinay Kumar, Mithun and S Aravind, the pace trio that led the team to back-to-back domestic trebles, were at their peak. Even someone as talented and skilled as Prasidh Krishna had to carry drinks for three full seasons before getting a look-in.Several bowlers have had to contend with the frustration of missing out. Ask HS Sharath. A fourth seamer who came in and out of the side based on conditions, he was part of the famous double-treble attack before fading away. He hasn’t played.a first-class game in seven years. Then there’s Ronit More, in one day, out the next. The cycle has repeated itself on loop. More even left to play for Himachal, only to return. It’s fair to say things haven’t gone to plan.Since 2019, though, things have been different. The famous troika were no longer together, with Vinay first leaving for Puducherry and then retiring. Mithun and Aravind, who was Karnataka’s bowling coach last season, followed suit. It left Karnataka needing to search for a new seam attack, and several contenders have staked a claim. Venkatesh is the latest in a long list of fast bowlers trying to make a mark and become a regular.”It feels amazing to play in the same team as some of these legends,” Venkatesh said. “Aravind has been backing me a lot, always open to giving me inputs and suggestions on how I can improve. Playing for the same team that legends like Vinay and Mithun played for feels amazing. I love bowling fast and I hope to keep improving.”

The Impact Player rule has allowed their teams to give the two players a run of games, and in Ahmedabad, they showed what they can do with that opportunity

Karthik Krishnaswamy09-Apr-20232:08

Moody: Vijay Shankar repaid Titans’ faith in him with an extraordinary performance

They’ve played 14 ODIs and 18 T20Is between them, scoring 481 runs and taking 14 wickets. They’re adept at using their reach to strike a long ball, and they bowl brisk medium-pace. They’re multi-dimensional cricketers with great utility value, and that’s been both a blessing and a curse for Vijay Shankar and Venkatesh Iyer.Vijay famously went to the 2019 ODI World Cup ahead of Ambati Rayudu, a specialist middle-order batter, and came back early with a fractured toe. He got to bat only three times, scoring 15*, 29 and 14, and bowled 5.2 overs, all against Pakistan, taking the wickets of Imam-ul-Haq and Sarfaraz Ahmed.He didn’t get enough of a chance to succeed or fail in any real way, and played no part in the semi-final defeat to New Zealand, but fan discourse turned him into something of a scapegoat for India’s failure to win the tournament.Related

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Vijay hasn’t played for India since.Venkatesh came into India’s squad after their early exit from the T20 World Cup in 2021, at a time when Hardik Pandya was recovering from a long-term back issue and bowling very little. Seam-bowling allrounders who can bat in the top six are a scarce resource in Indian cricket, and Venkatesh had shown promise in both departments over the course of his debut IPL season.He played 11 times for India between November 2021 and February 2022, and showed glimpses of his potential – his 133 T20I runs came at a strike rate of 162.19 – without putting in a headline-grabbing performance. Soon after, Hardik enjoyed a triumphant IPL campaign as Gujarat Titans’ captain, batting up the order and bowling regularly with immense skill and smarts.India had no need for Venkatesh anymore.Neither Vijay nor Venkatesh is at Hardik’s level, but not being as good as a once-in-a-generation talent doesn’t necessarily diminish an allrounder’s value.Even so, both Vijay and Venkatesh began IPL 2023 with their utility under threat, thanks to the introduction of the Impact Player regulation, which gave teams the ability to substitute a specialist for a specialist – usually a batter for a bowler or vice-versa – vastly reducing the need for allrounders. Both Vijay and Venkatesh had endured poor 2022 seasons with the bat, and with their secondary skill no longer quite as important to their teams, they were under pressure to contribute with their primary skill.Venkatesh Iyer smashed 83 off 40 against Gujarat Titans•Associated PressOn the flip side, though, having the Impact Player option might have enabled both their teams to keep giving them opportunities. On Sunday, Gujarat Titans picked Vijay for the third time in three matches this season, and Kolkata Knight Riders used Venkatesh as their Impact Player for the second time, which meant he had featured in all three of their games as well.In a sport with as much variance of outcome as T20 cricket, it’s a blessing to get a solid run of games. Given enough chances, a gifted player will put on a display worth the wait.Both Vijay and Venkatesh did this on Sunday in Ahmedabad, lighting up a cracking contest full of incredible hitting, and demonstrating why India selectors have shown interest in them over the years.Vijay adopts a baseball-style power-hitting set-up in T20s, and it doesn’t always seem a natural fit with the lines of his bat-swing. It can make him look a little ungainly sometimes, as he frequently did during the first half of his innings – his first boundary was a flat-bat swipe past the bowler, and his next three came off the inside edge, the inside half of his bat, and the top edge respectively.But having rushed to 34 off 16 in that manner, a switch seemed to click inside Vijay, unlocking the effortless power he can summon while in full flow. His hitting began to be defined by the stillness of his head, and by how well he held his shape through his bat-swing.A lofted off-drive off Lockie Ferguson – one of four sixes he hit off the last six balls he faced – was a prime example. He moved his left leg out of the way well before the bowler released the ball, but kept his front shoulder closed: he had the room he needed to free his arms while being perfectly aligned to hit straight through the line of the ball. It’s a difficult balancing act, clearing your front leg without losing your upper-body shape, and when he spends time at the crease and gets into rhythm, Vijay does it as well as anyone.Having rushed to 34 off 16, a switch seemed to click inside Vijay Shankar, unlocking the effortless power he can summon when in flow•AFP/Getty ImagesVenkatesh, loose-limbed and left-handed, took no time getting into his groove when he walked in with Knight Riders 20 for 1 in their chase of 205. He’s more of a square-of-the-wicket player than Vijay, preferring to hang back and either lash the ball through point or muscle it over square leg or midwicket. On this day, these shots pinged unerringly off the middle of his bat: a flamboyant, one-legged carve over deep third off Mohammed Shami set the tone as he clattered his way to 83 off 40 balls with a control percentage of 90 – an incredible figure in the smash-and-grab world of T20 cricket.Interviewed post-match, Venkatesh spoke about the pitch giving his back-foot game full value.”I am really not surprised that we have scored 200 in these last two games because of the role clarity that has been given to us,” he said. “I have not been in great form but tonight, I just wanted to go out there and execute my plan of playing late. When the bounce is good, you tend to hang back and use the pace. Their bowlers were quick so I tried to use their pace and it worked to my advantage.”It’s worthwhile to examine what Venkatesh said about role clarity. It’s certainly beneficial for a batter to have no doubts over how to approach their innings, and it’s easier to have that sort of clarity when your team bats deep. Both Titans and Knight Riders batted deep on Sunday, and everyone bats deep in the IPL now, thanks to the Impact Player rule. Where teams once had to strike an uneasy compromise while deciding whether to pick the extra batter or bowler, they are now able to name a batting-heavy or bowling-heavy team the toss, and sub in a bowler or batter to address their balance as required.It’s likely, then, that the Impact Player regulation will give gifted ball-strikers such as Vijay and Venkatesh more opportunities as well as more freedom to play their shots. It’s also likely, though, that it’ll turn their secondary skill redundant.