England’s No. 3 rides his luck throughout but still takes 121 off West Indies

Vithushan Ehantharajah18-Jul-20240:43

Pope on ‘lucky charm’ Ramsdale: He can come more often!

Is there such a thing as a ‘bad’ Test hundred? Ollie Pope’s sixth Test century fit snugly into this philosophical navel.His 167 balls at the crease were a neat microcosm of the first day of this second Test at Nottingham. Those 88.3 overs were as fast-food as Test cricket gets. Big chomps of low-grade, error-reared beef interspersed with the occasional mouthful of high-quality fries that will leave both teams feeling a little icky as they lie down on Thursday evening.West Indies will feel it worse. Kraigg Brathwaite’s decision to bowl first under clear blue skies and on a baize-like outfield allowed Ben Duckett to nail into the Trent Bridge pockets like peak Ronnie O’Sullivan, his breezy 71 more than covering for the loss of Zak Crawley three balls into the start. Four drops, a missed stumping and ragged ground fielding – despite the carpet surface – let England off the hook, allowing them to pass over any introspection into their own carelessness.Five batters made it to 30, but only three went beyond 60; among those only Pope reached three figures. Ben Stokes looked set to join his vice-captain to a milestone but instead gave Kavem Hodge a maiden Test wicket. Harry Brook fluffed a scoop to short leg, having already been given a life on 24. Joe Root’s awry hook undid a patient start. Is there such a thing as a “bad” 400-plus score? It might be this one, you know.Even Pope walked off unsatisfied with his 121. He was shelled on 46 before lunch, lashing one to Alick Athanaze at gully – and again on 54 soon after, a simple catch dropped by Jason Holder at second slip and almost redeemed by Hodge at first. Having got through that period, offering up a third chance when there were runs to plunder late in the day was an opportunity squandered.Related

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“A nice couple of drops, which always helps,” Pope ceded bashfully at stumps. It certainly does when you are emerging from a peculiar run of form emanating from the innings of a lifetime.Pope’s stunning 196 in the heist of Hyderabad prompted a dire run that spilled over into his domestic season for Surrey. In 18 first-class innings leading into this West Indies series from that first India Test, Pope averaged 19.05. His 57 at Lord’s last week was just his second half-century in the period, following a gritty 64 against Worcestershire at The Oval.Those struggles in the final four India Tests were not for a lack of effort. But it was the famine in the County Championship that had Pope scrabbling. Surrey might be top of Division One, but Pope’s average of 22.88 from seven games sticks out like a sore thumb considering he arrived into the season with a red-ball average of 70.31 for his county.He rejected any notion of doubts. But he admitted to a degree of pressure because of what he now represents, both to his peers, and to himself: “You’re like ‘Why’s everyone else in the country scoring runs in county cricket but England’s No. 3 isn’t going out and averaging 50 this summer?'”Privately, he reflected that he should have taken more time off at the start of the season to fully shed the toil of three gruelling months overseas. But it was during a round off ahead of this series – when Surrey played Essex – that he set about some corrective work with England batting coach Marcus Trescothick.Were those improvements visible today? Sort of… ish?The drops scream at you, but there were plenty of sweet-sounding strikes in there, particularly the six off Shamar Joseph, picked up off the hip over deep square leg, among the scuff and strikes nailed at fielders. Pope’s restraint was evident by the fact this was comfortably the most leg-side of his centuries, split 47/74. The single that took him to 83 was his first run in front of square on the off side, followed by a crisp punch through the covers an over later.Pope brings up his sixth Test hundred•PA Images via Getty ImagesThough undoubtedly fortunate, this ranks third when you look at the false-shot percentage of his six hundreds: below Hyderabad (21%) and his double hundred against Ireland last summer (19%) on 15%.Maybe that says more about those two innings than this one. But while this England team moves towards refinement, the old ways – bringing up the team 50 from 4.2 overs; reaching 100 in 17.2; putting 281 on the board by the time Pope was the fifth man to fall at the start of the 58th over – kept them moving forward, unperturbed by the rakes that lay ahead.How else to explain their immediate recovery from 0 for 1 in the first over, and how Pope shed the drops when others would have dwelled on them? “It’s kind of like a play and miss,” he explained, delving into the mentality of parking what, to rest of us, appeared to be grievous mistakes.”Sometimes I slash at a wide one and miss, and think ‘lucky I didn’t nick that’. I use it as a lesson, think it’s not the option to take. With batting, you are never going to be completely perfect.”Cricket goes in [swings and] roundabouts. My luck wasn’t with me in my county stint, but every now and then, you get a bit of luck in international cricket and it’s just trying to make it count as much as you can.”1:12

Pope explains his attitude to being dropped after his 121

England were certainly not completely perfect on Thursday – not even a little bit. This was a day that loaded questions onto West Indies and did not provide England with any answers. But they did make it count.For Pope, the England batter under the most scrutiny heading into this summer, this was at the very least a score of note to bank for a player thriving at No. 3 – with an average of 44.45 – while still trying to figure the role out.If this century unlocks a more comfortable Pope, then it’s served its purpose. And so maybe there is no such thing as a bad Test century. It’s like what they say about pizza – even when it’s bad, it’s still pretty good.

Cast in a different mould than his predecessors, he hopes to lead his way at the T20 World Cup and after

Firdose Moonda17-May-2024South African captains generally come in two flavours: inspirational (think Siya Kolisi and the way he has led his double-World-Cup-champion Springboks), or irritating – to the opposition, that is.For an example of the latter, think whatsisname, who got under the skin of and contributed to ending the careers of not one, not two, but three England captains, including Nasser Hussain, Michael Vaughan and Andrew Strauss. There were Faf du Plessis’ Zipgate, Mintgate and Staircasegate scandals. And more recently Dean Elgar’s goading of Virat Kohli, who he claimed spat at him in the 2018 series.T20I captain Aiden Markram is neither type.Related

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“He has a different type of leadership than we’re used to,” Adrian Birrell, Markram’s coach at SA20 franchise Sunrisers Eastern Cape says. “He’s quieter. He doesn’t like the limelight. He doesn’t like all the interviews. He doesn’t like being at the forefront of things.”He doesn’t seek that. He doesn’t need the airtime that comes with a job. But he’s 100% the leader of our team. Because he fights so hard, the guys follow him. And he’s got this tremendous will to win.”Markram has led SEC to successive SA20 titles (which makes them the only team to have won the tournament thus far) and Birrell says he was the automatic choice for captain when the squad was being put together. From his time as Russell Domingo’s assistant coach, Birrell also knew Markram to be “very astute on the field”, someone who “speaks in soft tones but is very effective”, and “knows the game inside-out”.That last attribute has come from a decade of experience in high-profile positions, some successful, others not. In 2014, Markram led South Africa’s Under-19 side to the age-group World Cup trophy, becoming the first South Africa cricket captain to win a World Cup, which seemed to confirm captaincy was in his destiny.Boy wonder years: Markram at the U-19 World Cup in 2014, where he was player of the series•Pal Pillai/ICC/Getty ImagesMarkram himself doesn’t remember it being quite so serious. “When you’re 19, you think a lot differently about the game and are probably a lot more free-spirited and oblivious to the external pressures that come with playing cricket,” he says. “I remember things being quite relaxed and quite simple. We were pretty clear on what we were trying to achieve and that was where all our focus was.”Four years later, with just two ODI caps to his name, Markram was temporarily put in charge of South Africa in a 50-over series against India in February 2018, in place of an injured du Plessis. He was put in charge of players he had never dreamt of leading, like Hashim Amla, JP Duminy and Morne Morkel. South Africa had lost the first match, and would go on to be defeated 1-5 in what Markram describes as a “strange, but really cool experience”.”I wasn’t 100% sure how I wanted to go about things as a captain then,” he says. “You kind of try to work out as quickly as you can what your unique way of trying to lead is, and that series helped me sort of find that out. That was a blessing in disguise.”It wasn’t a great series, of course, but it was cool at the time to have that responsibility, although pretty unexpected. In hindsight, I still hold those memories and lessons close.”Markram was dropped from the ODI team after that series and did not captain full-time again until Birrell’s SEC offer came along, giving him an opportunity for a fresh start.Markram bats in last year’s SA20 semi-final. So far he has been more of a hitter for South Africa than he is in T20 leagues•SA20″It was a first trial for me,” Markram says. “It was nice to have a much better understanding and idea of how I wanted to do things as a captain. It helped a lot that Coach Adi Birrell was there. He’s seen it all. All in all, I had a much better understanding.”By this point Markram had played 33 Tests (in the course of which he had been dropped twice and fought for his place back both times), 47 ODIs, 31 T20Is, and two IPLs. Although known as a classical cricketer with a textbook selection of shots, he had been exposed to years of innovation in the game and developed his own ways of using those learnings. “He can sometimes make a big call from left field,” Birrell says.In a match between SEC and Paarl Royals at the SA20 this year, SEC were going fairly well at 85 for 1 just past halfway in their innings when the second wicket, Tom Abell, fell. Ordinarily Markram would have walked in at No. 4, but sensing an opportunity to try something different, he held himself back and promoted Marco Jansen instead. “That changed the game,” Birrell says.Jansen scored a career-best 71 not out off 31 balls, and Sunrisers posted a match-winning 208 for 4. “Aiden made that call. He wanted Marco in to take down their spinners with his long reach, and he was not afraid to make that call for the team,” Birrell says. “So he went down the order because it was the right thing to do for the team’s success.””Give me the ball, skipper. Oh, wait, I’m the skipper”: Markram bowls a fair bit more in white-ball matches that he has captained in than ones where someone else has led•Andy Kearns/Getty ImagesNotably Markram bowls himself more when captain than when others are in charge. In 50 T20s in which he has led, he has bowled 63 overs – including 48 in 2023 alone – compared with 70 overs in 101 matches when he has not been leading. He mostly turns his arm over in the middle overs and has an economy rate of under eight runs an over in that period .Although he is not a massive wicket-taker, his offspin gives South Africa an extra option and greater variety, so much so that Rob Walter, the national white-ball coach, says he’s taking four spinners to the T20 World Cup, not just the three frontliners, Keshav Maharaj, Tabraiz Shamsi and Bjorn Fortuin.Walter views Markram as a genuine allrounder. For South Africa to once again have a player like that in the top order will immediately draw comparisons to the Jacques Kallis era, but there is an important difference. Markram has learnt to play at a tempo Kallis was never able to adopt – partly because that wasn’t the done thing for the bulk of Kallis’ career, partly because he was often anchoring a line-up that was fragile without him, and mostly because it was not in his personality. Markam is both a product of the times and willing to try to play in ways that are out of character because he recognises the game is changing.”[Power-hitting] is not the most natural thing for me just based on how I’ve always played,” Markam says. “I’ve always been a space hitter – generally more fours than sixes, a lot more twos than ones, especially in the initial phase of my innings, I don’t mind my power game once I feel in. But to have that and to be able to do that after three, four balls is a completely different ball game. It’s not the most natural thing to me but the way the game’s moving, I’d be silly not to be training that and not to try and grow my game to hopefully then be able to do it. And even if you don’t do it, I suppose just feeling confident enough out in the middle that you can do it because you’ve trained it.”In his first series in charge, against India in 2018: “You kind of try to work out as quickly as you can what your unique way of trying to lead is, and that series helped me sort of find that out,” Markram says•Gallo Images/Getty ImagesIt works – sometimes. There is an interesting distinction between Markram’s franchise T20 numbers and his international ones. Among batters who have had at least 25 innings between positions three and five in the last two years in leagues, Markram’s strike rate is 129.28, which places him 40th out of a field of 42. In the same period, his strike rate for South Africa in T20Is in those positions is 154.97. There could be many reasons for the difference, but it bodes well for South Africa to potentially have a middle order of Markram, Klaasen, David Miller, and possibly even Tristan Stubbs, all of whom have been named in the T20 World Cup squad and have spent the last two months getting ready for the tournament at the IPL. Markram’s experience, in particular, has been enhanced by watching and playing under a World Cup-winning captain, Pat Cummins.Has that experience allowed Markram to deduce if there are any tricks to the specific trade of winning big tournaments? “I wouldn’t say there’s massive secrets,” Markram says. “[Cummins is] really calm. He’s really clear in how he wants to see the team play the game, and that makes for pretty simple decision-making when you’re out in the middle. I’ve gathered quite a lot of that. I’ve learned a lot from them, from Dan [Vettori, SRH head coach] and Pat in that regard.”Markam’s challenge is different to Cummins’ because although both come from countries with great expectations, Markram is also from one whose cricket World Cup hopes have never been fulfilled. “It’s the desperation of winning a trophy, which you’ve never done,” Birrell says. “The biggest thing is handling that sort of pressure and he’ll do that because he won’t let it get to him.”For now, Markram isn’t. “We’ve been tracking really well. From the Dubai-Abu Dhabi T20 World Cup, from a consistency point of view, we’re playing a lot better at World Cups, which is good,” he says. “Each person handles the World Cup pressure differently, so it’s understandable that some guys will just say it’s another game to them and someone [else] might feel that extra pressure. So being able to then help that guy and manage that guy will be important for us.”What we’ve been doing as a team is good and we’re not going to change that.”

Jodhpur’s Devender Kumar does commentary not only in international Afghanistan games but also their domestic fixtures

Daya Sagar13-Sep-2024In 1998, during Desert Storm innings, when a 10-year-old Devender Kumar heard this piece of commentary by Tony Greig on the six Sachin Tendulkar smashed off Michael Kasprowicz, he was dazzled. Greig’s voice attracted him so much that Devender decided commentary would be his career path.”One day I was flicking channels when I heard this piece of commentary on air,” Devender tells ESPNcricinfo on the sidelines of the washed out Afghanistan-New Zealand Test in Greater Noida. “I was attracted to Tony Greig’s voice and the rhythm of his commentary. I felt like this was something special and I should take it up.”After this, I started practising commentary for hours. My father was in the Army and had an analog radio that played both short and medium wave-length radio stations. I used to listen to commentary from all sports, not just cricket, and then repeat this exercise for hours.”This commentary journey, however, was not at all easy for Devender, who hails from Chutarpura, a small village in Jodhpur, Rajasthan. He neither spoke English nor had any sports background. Apart from this, he did not know what he had to do to become a commentator. He practised every day by listening to news and commentary on the radio. He loved the three-hour weekly ” programme on the BBC, through which he got to listen to commentators like John Murray and Alan Green on various sports, including football and tennis.Devender Kumar also does commentary on Afghanistan’s domestic games•Special Arrangement”Through this show, I used to get news from sports the world over every Saturday and Sunday,” Devender says. “In the beginning, I couldn’t even understand what they were saying, because I didn’t know English at all. But their way of talking, the rhythm of their voice, all this attracted me a lot.”Gradually, I started reading English newspapers which improved my vocabulary and I could understand what they were saying. Due to this, my interest in sports and commentary increased and now it has become a 24-hour job.”During this time, Devender also did a nursing course after completing school. After the course, he got a job offer in the USA, but he turned it down because he wanted to pursue commentary full-time. This happened in 2006, in the second half of Tendulkar’s career. Devender just had to commentate on at least one Tendulkar games before his retirement. A job in the USA may have stopped him from achieving this dream.To pursue his dream, Devender came to Jaipur from Jodhpur. He felt that after coming to the capital of his state, his path would become easier and within six months he would start commentating in international matches. But the process to the top was a long and arduous one.Devender used to go to the Sawai Mansingh Stadium every day. Whenever he saw any game going on, he would sit there, roll the newspaper as a mic and start commentating. He practised commentary on many sports including cricket, football, tennis, basketball, handball, volleyball, karate, kabaddi and horse polo. While many people liked Devender’s commentary, a lot of them also made fun of him. But he did not care. He was engrossed in his passion. He had to become an international commentator.Devender says the trend continued for the next ten years. He would wake up at 3am and listen to a radio programme called ” to learn English. After this, he would walk to the stadium which was an hour from his house, at 5am, and observe the different games and commentate on them.”This became my daily routine. I didn’t care about Diwali or Holi, summer or rain,” Devender says. “I would go to the stadium and wherever I saw a game taking place, I would start doing my commentary. Some people used to make fun of me, some even called me ‘crazy’, but some people also liked my commentary. I started getting some work because of this.Devender Kumar with Pashto commentators Fazal Rahimi and Sharafuddin Shakir in Kabul•Devendra Kumar”Then people organising tournaments in Jaipur started calling me for commentary and I used to get INR 500 per day in return. Even if I would get work for three or four days, it would be enough to meet my monthly expenses because the rent for the room I lived in was only INR 500 per month. The remaining money was enough to cover my other expenses.”Gradually, Devender began getting work outside of school and local tournaments in , All India Radio and even Doordarshan Jaipur. He also started doing radio dispatches for Ranji Trophy matches held in Jaipur and got commentary gigs for polo matches held in Jaipur for DD Sports.In 2009, when the now-defunct Champions League T20 was held in India, Lalit Modi, the then IPL chairman who was associated with the Rajasthan Cricket Association, saw Devender’s passion for commentary and sent him to Delhi for an internship. There he met Alan Wilkins for the first time and Wilkins became Devender’s mentor. During this time, Devender also met many other commentators and when the Afghanistan Cricket Board (ACB) needed a commentator, one of them suggested Devender’s name to the board.He was signed up and as luck would have it, his first stint was an ODI match between Ireland and Afghanistan on December 5, 2017 in Sharjah.Devender still gets emotional remembering that day. “I couldn’t believe that I was sitting in the commentary box where Tony Greig served Sachin’s Desert Storm to the world,” he says. “It took me an innings to sink it all in and only when I was going for the commentary in the second innings, I felt that a dream of mine had come true. That is when I posted on my social media, ‘I am making my international cricket debut’.”Today, Devender is the voice of Afghanistan cricket. Since 2016, he has done commentary on almost every international match that Afghanistan have been a part of. He has no professional cricketing background but has the experience of commentating in over 100 international matches. Apart from the international games, Devender also does commentary in Afghanistan’s domestic 50-over and T20 tournaments. He travels to Kabul every year for those and is also called the ‘Voice of Kabul’. Devender has now visited Kabul several times and says the city is a “second home” for him.”When I first got the offer to go to Kabul, people were asking me a lot of questions, but I was clear,” he says when asked about the political situation in Afghanistan. “I can go anywhere for my job because I love it immensely. I had no doubts about going to Kabul.”In fact, once there was a blast at the Kabul Stadium during a domestic T20 game [in 2022]. Many people wanted to call the game off and many international players went home overnight. I not only continued to do commentary in the game but also stayed in Kabul till the end of the tournament. I’m an Army man’s son so these things don’t scare me.”After Tendulkar’s retirement in 2013, Devender’s dream of commenting on his batting remained unfulfilled. But he does not want any of his other dreams to remain unfulfilled. Last year during the Men’s ODI World Cup, he ticked off one of those by calling the India vs Afghanistan match for BBC Test Match Special. He now wants to move to other sports and is confident of fulfilling that dream of his as well.This story was originally published in ESPNcricinfo Hindi and can be read here

England slipped to a 2-1 series defeat in Pakistan but are already looking ahead to New Zealand. Alan, Miller and Vish discuss the fallout, and preview the West Indies white-ball tour

ESPNcricinfo staff29-Oct-2024England were sent spinning to defeat in Rawalpindi, as Pakistan completed their comeback to take the series 2-1. But England have stuck with much the same group of players for next month’s tour of New Zealand. On the podcast, Alan Gardner was joined by Andrew Miller, Vithushan Ehantharajah and, from Pakistan, Matt Roller to discuss the fallout from only the second series defeat for Ben Stokes and Brendon McCullum – and also look ahead to the white-ball series starting in the Caribbean this week. Topics included Ollie Pope’s place in the side, Ben Stokes’ captaincy and a Test call-up for Jacob Bethell.