The hosts have retained their core from this year’s T20 World Cup in a bid to become “championship-winning”, while the visitors are looking to create some depth in their ranks

Firdose Moonda22-Aug-20242:04

Sammy: ‘We want to become a championship-winning team’

No points on the line. No imminently looming World Cup to prepare for. Sport for sport’s sake, who’d a thunk?The three-match T20I series between West Indies and South Africa is a contextual anomaly on the cricket calendar because there does not seem to be any reason for it – other than that it was scheduled to take place. While fans may see it as an opportunity to just be entertained, neither side’s coaching staff was willing to take that approach. Instead, they’ve already begun a narrative of using these matches as a first step on the road to the T20 World Cup in 2026, even as the memories from the 2024 event have barely receded.

West Indies hope to lay foundation for future

For West Indies, the failure to reach the semi-finals of their home tournament – after defeat against South Africa – confirmed to white-ball coach Daren Sammy that they need to work on their tournament-play. “I want to become a championship-winning team. Right now, we are a series-winning team,” Sammy said. “We beat one team over a three- or five-game period and we know what to do, but I want this team to become a championship-winning team – where you can find and play a different opposition in a tournament, and be able to come up with the goods every single game.”Related

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In the lead-up to this year’s T20 World Cup, West Indies came out on top in four out of five T20I series, including two against South Africa and one against England. At the tournament itself, they were unable to beat either side in the Super Eights, when it mattered most. Whether another series against South Africa can help West Indies overcome this issue is debatable, but it does allow Sammy to keep his core group of players together – 11 of the 15 who were part of the World Cup squad are in this one – and hope the younger ones like Alick Athanaze and Sherfane Rutherford can learn from the likes of Johnson Charles and Rovman Powell.”Those guys of 2016 [the T20 World Cup West Indies won] are now the senior players,” Sammy said. “It’s a combination of youth and experience. And by the time you look at the next 16 months, hopefully the game plan we put in place, the roles and personnel we have will tick all the boxes, and the championship mentality we are looking for can come to fruition.”

South Africa look to develop depth in talent

South Africa have taken the opposite approach, and brought only six of the 15-member squad that reached their first men’s World Cup final as they try to create depth around the big names and among players who don’t always feature in T20 leagues. Quinton de Kock, David Miller, Heinrich Klaasen, Marco Jansen, Kagiso Rabada, Anrich Nortje, Keshav Maharaj and Tabraiz Shamsi have all been given the series off, with recalls for experienced names like Rassie van der Dussen, and call-ups for promising youth like Under-19 World Cup’s breakout star Kwena Maphaka.With several regulars given the series off, there was a recall for Rassie van der Dussen•Associated Press”It’s 18 months away from the 2026 World Cup. We’ve got nine series from now until then, which leaves us with around 32 to 36 fixtures before that World Cup,” Rob Walter, South Africa’s white-ball coach, said. “In terms of giving guys international opportunities and playing against quality T20 sides – not every one of our players is a marquee player in the league – we have to use these opportunities to play against strong opposition. We need to grow the base of our players that are competing at this level.”For me, the importance of fixtures like these are massive. The leagues and the congestion is a challenge, but actually it can be a positive for us in that we’ve got a broader group of players that are playing competitive cricket.”Walter will also be looking for some level of consistency as he builds the squad. Before the 2024 T20 World Cup, South Africa had not won a T20I series in six attempts since beating Ireland in August 2022. They went into the tournament with only two wins from their previous 11 games, though it’s worth remembering that they pulled off a stunning run of eight successive victories to reach the final.

Batters to watch: Nicholas Pooran and Reeza Hendricks

The highest T20 run-getter so far this year is Nicholas Pooran, who has played 54 matches and scored 1628 runs, including 11 fifties. He was also West Indies’ highest run-scorer at the T20 World Cup, with 228 runs in seven matches. Pooran is known as one of the biggest hitters and best finishers in the game, and will be after a three-figure score to top off a stellar 2024.Nicholas Pooran is the highest run-getter in T20s so far this year•AFP/Getty ImagesJust 181 runs behind him this calendar year is Reeza Hendricks, but the least profitable of South Africa’s top six at the T20 World Cup. Hendricks scored 113 runs from nine games in the competition and, after missing out on playing even a single game despite being a part of the squad at the 2022 tournament, may have a sense he did not fulfil his potential, especially as he just turned 35. But Walter is backing Hendricks to keep going, and Hendricks will know the expectation is that runs will come.”In my opinion, 35 is not too old. There’s many guys who are playing at older than that, and they’re playing the best cricket of their life,” Walter said. “We are cognisant of age and building for the future, but also of wrapping younger guys with experience. We want to get the balance right.”

Bowlers to watch: Kwena Maphaka and Obed McCoy

To that end, Kwena Maphaka, who was the Player of the Tournament at the Under-19 World Cup this year, could get his first international cap. He has already played first-tier provincial cricket for Lions, and two matches for Mumbai Indians at the IPL, so he has had some taste of the big time. Walter has yet to see Maphaka bowl in the flesh, but likes what he knows about him so far.”He’s a wonderfully calm young guy, and seems to have his head screwed on very well,” he said. “He’s done some incredibly amazing things for a very young guy, and seems to have a really cool perspective on it all. We see him as a strong potential for the priorities moving forward, and it was an ideal opportunity to just get him on tour and get him into the system.”Kwena Maphaka was the Player of the Tournament at the Under-19 World Cup this year•ICC/Getty ImagesWest Indies will also be relying on their younger quicks, with all of Alzarri Joseph, Jason Holder and Andre Russell rested. That puts responsibility on Obed McCoy as the senior seamer, and he has experience to lean on. McCoy has played more T20Is against South Africa and India than any other opposition – nine matches each – and had also bowled West Indies to a 3-0 series win against South Africa in May. He has also spent time in the SA20, so his knowledge of the South African batters could prove crucial for West Indies’ think tank.

The venue: Brain Lara Academy, Tarouba

The ground staff at the Brain Lara Academy are still smarting from news that the surface they prepared for the T20 World Cup semi-final between South Africa and Afghanistan was deemed unsatisfactory by the ICC, and will be keen to do better. As a reminder, South Africa bowled Afghanistan out for 56 and chased the score down inside nine overs, with the low scores being put down to uneven bounce and excessive seam movement. But happily, that’s not the norm here, and in 35 completed first innings in the CPL, the average first-innings score is 145, which, in the last two seasons, has increased to 158.On the weather front, there may be some nerves as well after rain washed out most of the first Test, which was held in nearby Port-of-Spain. But the news is better for the T20Is. There are morning showers forecast for Friday and Sunday – the days of the first and second match – which should clear by the afternoon. The third game, on Tuesday, might be in some danger of being affected, but downpours are not expected to be constant, and a three-hour playing window should be possible. All three matches will start at 3pm local time.

Where his colleagues tried to force the situation, he batted with seemingly no preconceived ideas and made a landmark hundred away from home

Alagappan Muthu30-Sep-20241:08

Manjrekar: Mominul’s ‘old-school batting’ worked well for Bangladesh

There was one good thing that came out of the wet outfield at Green Park. Mominul Haque got his birthday off. He spent Sunday at the Bangladesh team hotel being spoiled rotten by his team-mates.Respite is the very last thing that comes on a tour of India these days. Especially for a batter. Mominul could attest to that after he began his tour with a first-ball duck before getting worked over by one of the greatest spin bowlers of our time.Related

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There is a pattern to his career so far. At home, he averages 48.57, the best of any Bangladeshi batter in history (min five games played). Away from home, he averages 27.39 with 60% of his innings ending before the 30-run mark. This is part of the reason why Mominul struggles to feature in the same conversation as some of the great players from his country. He has the game – particularly the concentration levels required to face high quality bowling – but an asterisk has always accompanied his numbers.Bangladesh are staring at an incomprehensible situation in Kanpur. With a great deal of help from the rain, they’d been able to see off three days of a Test match in India with only three wickets lost. On the fourth, they lost seven wickets for only 126 runs. India rubbed that in their face when they then amassed 285 in just 34.4 overs. A game that was shuffling towards a draw is now bursting with life.Mominul Haque made a statement with his sweeps•Associated PressMominul finds himself at the centre of it. He had hoped not to, with Bangladesh sending out a nightwatch when the openers were unable to negotiate the 40-odd minutes there were until stumps. But R Ashwin took care of Hasan Mahmud and he had to represent, which, if his 107 in the first innings was any indication, he can.His back-foot play, all through the innings, was both impressive and crucial. It helped him survive India’s unerringly accurate spinners. As much as Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja tried to tempt him forward, he knew he didn’t need to succumb. The slowness of the pitch gave him an advantage and he took it gleefully.Against the quicks, Mominul on the backfoot was not just a pain but a threat. He used to have a problem against the short ball, used to be hurried by it. It was an area that needed work and based on recent evidence it seems he’s put that in and then some. On the tour of Pakistan, he messed with Naseem Shah’s attempts to bounce him out. Here, he kept carving India’s quicks over point and third man every time they gave him an opportunity.Mominul’s century was his second away from home; he has 13 Test hundreds in all•Associated PressAccording to ESPNcricinfo’s ball-by-ball data, Mominul only scored 35 of his runs off the back foot but he scored them at a strike rate of 112.90, which suggests that, more often than not, he took that option knowing he’d be able to score runs.”Cricket is a game of runs,” Mehidy Hasan Miraz said at the press conference on Monday. “You have to score and batters make mistakes with wrong shot selection. Sourav [Mominul] was good with his shot selection. He played a good innings after a while. His commitment and temperament were very good and that’s why he scored runs.”Other Bangladesh batters tried to throw the Indian bowlers off their discipline. Litton Das succeeded for a while before India forced him away from the shots that were working for him. Shakib Al Hasan, in possibly his last Test match, ran at the bowlers to see what would happen. Only Mominul seemed to bat without preconceived ideas. He did have his plans of attack – whenever Ashwin or Jadeja tossed it up a little too straight, he was quick to go down and sweep them – but they were more like guidelines. Up until playing the shot that got him runs, it seemed as if he had the blankest mind of all the Bangladesh batters. That’s where good decisions come from. Bangladesh are going to need a lot more of that on Tuesday.”Anything is possible in Test cricket,” Mehidy said. “It’s not like we have lost already. We have won matches like this and lost as well. So it’s an opportunity for us, for those batters remaining. The wicket is good and it will be challenging for us but if we can get a good partnership up top and our batters bat with responsibility for a session it will be a positive sign for us. We still have tomorrow’s day so we are not trying to think about it [losing].”

Hampshire captain on the playing and personal reasons for his decision to turn back on Championship

Matt Roller20-Jan-2025James Vince believes that the ECB’s new policy on No-Objection Certificates (NOCs) is inadvertently driving players away from first-class cricket and towards the franchise T20 circuit. Vince, who stepped down as Hampshire’s club captain last week, will not play in the County Championship this year and expects “more and more” English players to follow suit.Vince’s decision was primarily informed by family reasons: after unexplained attacks on their home in Hampshire last year, his family – his wife, Amy, and their two young children – are relocating to Dubai. The move made playing in the Championship impractical, not least because playing the full English domestic season would have significant tax implications.But it was also a necessary step in order for him to be granted an NOC for the Pakistan Super League by the ECB, following changes in the board’s policy in late November. While designed to “protect” English competitions, according to chief executive Richard Gould, the details went down poorly with players and the threat of legal action continues to linger in some cases.”When they first mentioned it, a WhatsApp group of players was created and there was a lot of discussion,” Vince tells ESPNcricinfo from Dubai. “The initial feeling was that it was going to drive people away from red-ball cricket. It felt like it was going to limit opportunities. Players were frustrated by it… There were a few things in there that [we] didn’t really understand.”A scheduling pile-up has pushed the PSL back into an April-May window for 2025, clashing with both the IPL and the start of the county season. Vince, retained on a six-figure contract by Karachi Kings, is among six English players with deals and believes that number would have been significantly higher if not for franchises’ fears about their availability.Vince is the fifth of those players to have signed a white-ball county contract, while Tom Kohler-Cadmore is set to renegotiate his Somerset deal along similar lines. Some players have privately expressed their frustrations that the IPL is being treated as an outlier, with English players granted NOCs for that tournament regardless of their contractual situation.”That’s a big one that has caused a lot of confusion,” Vince said. “It’s got to be something to do with relationships between the ECB, PCB and BCCI as to why they’ve come up with that rule. The PSL’s a shorter competition, so if you’re going to play in that, you’re probably missing less domestic cricket than if you’re going to the IPL… It just didn’t seem right.Vince has been a stalwart for Karachi Kings in the PSL•PCB”There’s more and more opportunities for guys to play white-ball cricket and earn decent money during our domestic season… You’re talking quite large sums of money in terms of what they forego by playing red-ball cricket. Particularly further down their careers, when there’s a big difference in those numbers, I’m sure more and more people will go down that route.”Vince will be a significant loss not only to Hampshire, but to the Championship as a whole: he has played 197 first-class games for his county across 15 years, captained them 92 times, and led them to three consecutive top-three finishes. He insists he is not “officially retired” from red-ball cricket but, turning 34 in May, his career in the format is likely over.He has also come to terms with the end of his international career, two years on from the most recent of his 55 appearances for his country. “I’d say it’s probably pretty much done,” Vince concedes. “There’s no point announcing your retirement when you’re not playing for England, but in my head I’ve kind of moved on from the possibility.”It’s certainly not something where, when squads get announced, I’m looking at my phone expecting someone to call me. I had a taste of it, which was good; I obviously would have liked to have done better and played more for England but as that hasn’t worked out, I’m trying to make the most of my career.”It will be April when Vince’s decision sinks in, when Hampshire start their season against Yorkshire without their long-serving captain. “When I’m there in Pakistan, no doubt I’ll flick the live stream on and be looking at the scorecards. That’s when it’ll really hit home that something I’ve been involved in for the last 15 years, all of a sudden I’m not… It’ll be a strange feeling.”Related

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But he will return at the end of May to captain them in the Blast, and says Hampshire have been “very supportive” since his stable family life was upended last year. The Vinces have been living in hotels for nine months after two attacks on their home, which they have now sold, but will soon relocate to Dubai where they hope to resume “a fairly normal life”.”The instances themselves were fairly scary,” Vince recalls. “It was people causing damage, smashing windows and stuff as opposed to actually coming into the house. The police said straightaway it looked like a threat of some sort… We haven’t had concrete information of exactly what happened, but we’ve got a fair idea that it wasn’t intended for us.”It was pretty scary. It was more as the man of the house, making sure the kids and Amy weren’t affected by it was my main priority… We sat down as a family and tried to make a plan going forwards, left the UK in mid-October, came away for a month in Dubai before the Abu Dhabi T10 and the Big Bash, and took the time to do a bit of exploring the option of moving across here.”They hope to have the keys to their new home by the end of the ILT20, where Vince is captaining Gulf Giants for the third year in a row. It will leave him with a short break before the PSL starts in April to reflect on the most turbulent year of his life, one which culminated in the major career decision Hampshire announced last week.”My wife and the kids are quite excited about the prospect of living over here. We don’t really have a timeframe on how long that’ll be. If we like it, it could be indefinitely; if, after a couple of years, we feel it’s not for us, then I guess we’ve got the option to move back to the UK. It’s a case of taking it step by step and seeing where it leads us.”

Stats highlights from the fourth day’s play in the Boxing Day Test at the MCG

Sampath Bandarupalli29-Dec-20242 – Sunil Gavaskar and Harry Brook were the only two players to top-score in four of their first six Test innings before Nitish Kumar Reddy. He is also the first batter to top-score in four of his first six innings at No. 7 or lower. Dattu Phadkar, Wayne Phillips and Kamindu Mendis did it three times each, while Reggie Duff was the top-scorer on all three occasions when he batted at No. 7 or below.3912 – Runs conceded by Jasprit Bumrah before taking his 200th Test wicket – the fewest among the 85 bowlers to reach the milestone. The previous fewest conceded by a bowler at the time of their 200th Test wicket was 4067 runs by Joel Garner, and among Indians, it was 4840 by Ravindra Jadeja.Bumrah needed 8484 deliveries for his 200th wicket, the fourth fastest in terms of balls bowled and the quickest among Indians.ESPNcricinfo Ltd23 – Number of wickets for Bumrah in three Tests at the MCG, the most for an Indian bowler at an away venue. The previous highest was 20 wickets by Anil Kumble at the Sydney Cricket Ground (SCG).5 – Total runs scored by Travis Head and Mitchell Marsh in Melbourne – the lowest by No. 5 and 6 batters for Australia in a men’s Test (where the same two batters have played at No. 5 or 6 in both innings).10.42 – Marsh’s batting average in this series – the second lowest for a top-seven Australia batter in a Test series at home, for a minimum of seven innings. The lowest is 10.12 by Kim Hughes against West Indies in 1984-85.5 – Previous instances of an Australian batter scoring 40-plus runs in both innings of a Test match at No. 8 or lower. The last Australian before Pat Cummins at the MCG was Peter Siddle against India in the 2013 Delhi Test, where he scored fifties in both innings.Scott Boland and Nathan Lyon kept the Indian bowlers at bay for 110 balls•Quinn Rooney/Getty Images2 – Number of tenth-wicket partnerships against India to have lasted 100-plus balls in Tests since the start of 2015. Both have come in this series – 18 overs between Mitchell Starc and Josh Hazlewood in Perth and 17.5 overs between Nathan Lyon and Scott Boland in Melbourne.744 – Number of balls faced by batters at No. 8 and lower in the Melbourne Test – the highest across the 248 Tests played in Australia since 1980. It is also the sixth highest for a Test match anywhere since 1998.

The Zimbabwe batter talks about falling down a black hole of drug abuse and then getting his life back

Firdose Moonda19-May-2025When Brendan Taylor walked out to play against Ireland in September 2021, he knew three things: his career was over, he had failed a drug test, and he had waited too long to report an approach to fix matches. The last of those earned him a three-and-a-half year ban from the game, but it was failing the drug test that changed his life in ways he could not imagine.”The walls were closing in,” Taylor says, talking about the consequences of his addiction to drugs and alcohol. “It was an absolute pressure cooker because I was dealing with the ICC and knew there was a ban looming, so the fact that I was retiring and I’d had a failed drugs test – I was just totally defeated.”Over the next four months, Taylor waited for confirmation of the ICC sanction and then began to tell his wife, Kelly, the extent of his indiscretions. She didn’t believe him, not even when he told the world and then checked himself into rehab.Related

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“I said to Kelly, ‘Everything is coming to a head and I’ve really got to get some help.’ And she was infuriated. She thought I was running away from the problem but only knew about 5-10% of what I was really getting up to.”Three days before the ICC announced Taylor’s ban, he checked himself into a 90-day programme at a rehabilitation centre in Zimbabwe’s Eastern Highlands, four hours away from Harare. For the first two weeks, he chose to give up access to his cell phone so he would have no outside noise as he started the 12-step recovery programme and discovered the depth of the work he had to do.The first of the 12 steps is admission of a problem, which Taylor had already done publicly but still needed to explain to himself. It all started with alcohol. Like many people in a country where casual drinking is part of middle-class culture, Taylor had often a few drinks and didn’t see much wrong with that. He subsequently discovered his grandmother was an alcoholic.”Alcohol is so accepted and almost encouraged. Everything is geared towards it. It’s like, ‘Let’s play golf and have a few drinks’, or, ‘Let’s have a braai and have a few drinks’, or, ‘Come around this afternoon and we’ll have a few.'”I was convinced that if I only drank on the weekend, then I didn’t have a problem, but I didn’t know what two beers was. I could hide behind the binge-drinking culture, but the reality was that I couldn’t actually predict how much I was going to drink.”With that, came drug use. Taylor first tried cocaine around 2007 or 2008, “quite heavily during periods out of international cricket,” he says but stopped in 2010. When he met Kelly, he stayed off cocaine for six years, but still drank. Though he can’t pinpoint the exact reason, he says he felt the rot starting to set in when he was on a Kolpak deal in England, away from the family and susceptible, playing for Nottinghamshire between 2015 and 2017.

“I didn’t have the courage to tell my family I had a problem. I didn’t have the willingness to go to them. I was too proud and I was too ashamed”

“My wife and kids were at home and then Kelly fell pregnant with the twins. I saw the twins once for a week and then not again for seven months,” he says. “I loved the club so much and I loved the people in the club, but I’d get to my home and I was surrounded by four walls. Just felt down in the dumps but I can’t really tell you how I got back into it [drug use]. That’s what the disease of alcohol and drug addiction does – it’s cunning and baffling and it sneaks its way back in.”Taylor failed two drug tests while in England, where there was a three-strike policy before a player’s records are made public. “The first one, the doctor came in and asked me if there was a problem, but I convinced him there wasn’t. And then the second time, I failed, the punishment was that I lost 5% of my gross income and got a three-week ban.” But no one knew because he’d split the webbing on his hand, and managed to hide the absence behind that. “I missed the pre-season tour in Barbados. The club protected me, but if I failed a third one, it would have been in the press. By then, I was already gearing up towards returning to Zimbabwe.”Back home, it was easier and cheaper to get his fix and he knew how to avoid being caught. “I was very careful and meticulous about who I did [drugs] around, who I could trust. I wasn’t out there in nightclubs or pubs and bars, but I was living a double life. It’s an exhausting way to be.” And that exhaustion fuelled the need for more cocaine.According to the World Anti-Doping Agency’s (WADA) Substances-of-Abuse guidelines, cocaine produces a “euphoric rush”, which wears off fairly quickly, leading to “a depressed mood”. Taylor experienced both ends of that spectrum and classified himself, around 2018-19, as an addict.”Out of competition, cocaine is not a banned substance, so that was music to my ears,” he says. The South African Institute of Drug-Free Sports, which is a signatory to WADA, confirmed this, and said that if an athlete tests positive for one of their four “substances of abuse” (cannabis, cocaine, ecstasy or heroin) on a non-match day, they receive only a reduced sanction (as was the case with Kagiso Rabada recently).Taylor used that knowledge to manage his cocaine use. “I’d taper off before international games and try and figure out how best to flush my system, but certainly, I was living by the sword.”During his three seasons with Nottinghamshire, Taylor twice failed drug tests•Julian Herbert/Getty ImagesIn October 2019, he travelled to India to meet a group of businessmen to discuss sponsorship and the setting up of a T20 tournament in Zimbabwe. They offered him cocaine and he accepted. The next day, they showed him that they had filmed him taking the drug and said they would release the video unless he agreed to fix. “I guess those people might have done their research, and they might have known [my history of drug use]. They must have thought, ‘Okay, this is gonna be an easy guy to extort from.”At the time, Taylor accepted money from them for a future fix and left the country.They then approached him to fix in February-March 2020, during Zimbabwe’s tour of Bangladesh, at which point he reported it to the ICC, who began an investigation. In the time they took to complete it, Taylor played five Tests, 12 ODIs and seven T20Is, and maintains that despite the threat of his drug use being exposed, he never entertained the idea of fixing. “I’ve been a lot of things in life but being a cheat is not one of them, so I can sleep a bit better knowing that.”In Ireland with Zimbabwe in September 2021, still stressed, he had become progressively more reckless in his use of cocaine over the preceding six years. When he was called to do a dope test, he knew he was cooked. “The quantities I was engaging in were too much to flush out,” he says. “I tried to detox but with 24 [hours] to go before the game, I was still feeling very dehydrated, very withdrawn and the anxiety and the depression were kicking in. I realised I didn’t know how to do life anymore. I didn’t have the courage to tell my family I had a problem, I didn’t have the willingness to go to them. I was too proud and I was too ashamed, but I knew I’d failed that test.”So he did the only thing he thought he could, and instead of waiting for the test results to be made public, retired abruptly. Four months after that, he confessed to the world what he had kept hidden for so long and decided it was time to get help.The next ten steps on the programme are a combination of building spirituality, surrendering to a higher power, and a process of constant self-reflection, to ensure you build the tools not to slip back. At rehab, Taylor did “a lot of meditation, a lot of running, cold-water plunges, reading, writing and being out in nature”, he says.

“It was quite humbling going from international cricket to trying to figure out a way to get the best out of the kid in front of me. It definitely ignited a passion for coaching”

“It was very beautiful and I had a lot of time to think and reflect, especially with the early sunrises and quiet, and to unpack the wreckage of my past.”The disease of addiction is in the mind, so I had to really re-engineer my whole way of thinking. My old ideas were chaotic and catastrophic. I needed to implement a new way of thinking. You’re dealing with something that’s so damn strong on human beings, you need something a lot stronger than you to take that away. So you develop a faith. I was asleep to God for 36 years and once I woke into that, I really sort of tapped into that.”For three months, he spent time connecting with himself, the natural environment, and his faith, and then it was time to get back into the world, where things could get messy. “I had to be ready for the big, bad world, you know, because you’re in bubble wrap at rehab and it feels manageable but then challenges and the hustle-bustle of life comes your way.”I had to understand that I had a very toxic way of living, where I wallowed in self-centeredness, dishonesty, fear, resentment, and [I had to] unpack all that. I had to realise that I had a part to play in this and I am responsible for my actions and I need to be accountable. It was quite liberating, quite tough to sit through that, but when you are rigorously honest with yourself, you can feel the weight coming off your shoulders.”He left with a plan. The final step in the programme is to be of service. “Before I went into rehab, I had installed a two-lane cricket facility at home, and I had this thing in my head [about] wanting to do a bit of coaching, but it was more for my kids. It just worked out that when I came out of rehab and I was quite limited with where I could coach, because of the [ICC] sanction, that the requests for private coaching went through the roof. I was quite inundated.”I loved that first [coaching] session. It was quite humbling, going from international cricket to trying to figure out a way to get the best out of the kid in front of me. It definitely ignited a passion for coaching. I’ve now spent thousands of hours doing it.”Taylor at a Zimbabwe T20I in Harare in January 2023•Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi/Associated PressOver the last three years Taylor has made up for lost time with his wife and sons, and now happily spends his days as a “little bit of a hermit, being at home or in the nets, or helping Kelly at the hair salon”.Occasionally he gets called to help someone else embarking on the 12-step programme, and he has raised funds for his sponsor to open up another rehab centre on the Eastern Highlands property he was at, so there are now separate male and female facilities. He does talks at schools and in communities, doing his part to fight what he calls an “epidemic” of drug abuse in Zimbabwe. A recent study at the Walter Sisulu University said that 57% of Zimbabwean youth abuse drugs. As Taylor’s ban approached its end, he hoped to become involved with Zimbabwe’s support staff. But Zimbabwe Cricket had other plans.They have asked him to continue playing as soon as he becomes available, and that’s what he is readying for. His sanction ends on July 31, the second day of the first Test of Zimbabwe’s series against New Zealand, in Bulawayo. That means Taylor can be selected from the second Test onwards, and for assignments such as the T20 World Cup Africa Regional Qualifier in September, and the home series against Afghanistan later in the year. Though he hasn’t had any competitive game time, the 39-year-old says he feels better than ever mentally, is in the physical condition he was in when he made his debut 21 years ago, and is a lot lighter than he was for most of his international career.”I’m living good, clean and healthy. I’m 85kg now, and I probably played my whole career around 105kgs. The phenomenon of craving left me long ago. Now it’s just my behaviour I work on. If any of the old things pop up, which they occasionally do, I do an inventory on that. And you actually have to do it every day. Yesterday’s shower will not keep me clean for today. Every 24 hours, it’s about getting back onto my programme and having spiritual fitness.”But weight and his need for external validation are not the only things Taylor has lost. “My ego got absolutely smashed three-and-a-half years ago,” he says. “I’m definitely not expecting to walk back into the team. It’s about what I can do for Zimbabwe Cricket. If I come back and I do okay personally, that’s a bonus, but for me, it’s about impacting the group as best as I can. I just want to fly under the radar, put an arm around someone and say, ‘I’ve got your back and I’m willing to help you.’ That’s the beautiful thing about your past becoming your greatest asset, because I can actually help someone.”And if that someone happens to be lured by substances like he was, Taylor promises to take a firm but gentle approach. “I have sympathy for people who turn to alcohol or drugs, because we don’t know their background, family dynamics, their relationships or [what] they’re dealing with [in] life,” he says. “What people tend to do is use a substance to numb pain that they’re dealing with. I will never judge.”

The MI captain came in at 14 for 2 in the final and produced a stunning counterattack

Vishal Dikshit16-Mar-2025As soon as the umpire’s finger went up to signal Shafali Verma’s dismissal, a fired up Shabnim Ismail sped towards captain Harmanpreet Kaur at cover with a couple of punches thrown in the air. Ismail roared. Harmanpreet roared back louder. Once they were face to face, fists pumping, veins on their arms about to pop, they paused for a second and suddenly surged into each other’s arms just as the noise around them reached a crescendo.Shafali’s wicket in the third over of Delhi Capitals’ modest chase, six balls after Meg Lanning’s, was pretty much half the battle won for Mumbai Indians, and the captain who hardly celebrates early strikes was wearing her heart on her sleeve. She had, after all, turned things around almost single-handedly when Mumbai batted. It wasn’t as much about the fact that she scored nearly half (66) of Mumbai’s total of 149, but more about the manner in which she counterattacked against one of the best bowling attacks of WPL to give them a total they could think of defending.Boundaries were hard to come by – just one had been hit in 27 balls – no risks were being taken, the DC fielders were throwing themselves around and the bowlers had their tails up when Harmanpreet walked out at 14 for 2.Related

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Luckily, she had the prolific Nat Sciver-Brunt at the other end and Annabel Sutherland gifted her a freebie outside off in her first over which Harmanpreet dispatched for four. No need to go over the top, why bother with unnecessary risk, just middle it off the back foot. The powerplay soon ended on 20 for 2, MI’s second-lowest., and it happened to be in a final.Once Marizanne Kapp finished her four overs straight, Harmanpreet wanted to feast on the spinners, but Meg Lanning brought on two left-arm spinners with enough protection on the leg-side boundaries for the sweeps. Harmanpreet faced five deliveries across two overs from Jess Jonassen and Shree Charani without attempting any big shots, and the pent-up aggression was desperate for an outlet. Luckily for her, Lanning made another bowling change and as soon as Sutherland pitched one on middle, Harmanpreet flicked a nonchalant six behind square. Three balls later she was served a half-volley and Harmanpreet sent a thunderbolt through the covers for four. After facing just 18 balls, of which three she had smashed to the boundary, Harmanpreet had made it clear that the situation of the match was not going to dictate her strike rate. It was going to be the opposite.ESPNcricinfo LtdWhen Jonassen returned in the 11th over, with the packed leg-side boundaries again, Harmanpreet cut the third ball, which had only a hint of width, for four. But the shot on the next ball was the real harbinger of all damage to come. A tiny step towards leg and she lofted the ball gloriously over the covers for four; with the six earlier and this lofted stroke it was evident now that Harmanpreet’s batting was ethereal compared to others, and she proved it by making it three fours in a row of Jonassen. MI had picked up 26 runs in two overs.Lanning had plenty of bowling options and she brought Shikha Pandey back. Harmanpreet smoked her over the covers first ball to make it clear the Harmonster was coming after DC. Most other batters would have tried to consolidate with Sciver-Brunt from 14 for 2 in 4.3 overs to take the innings deep, but Harmanpreet was taking risk after audacious risk, and they were all paying off for her. There wasn’t that much batting to come for MI: Amelia Kerr had hardly scored this WPL and waiting after her were a few inexperienced Indian players.By the time 12 overs were done, Harmanpreet had settled in and Lanning finally had to bring on an offspinner. First ball from Minnu Mani, Harmanpreet whipped it between deep square leg and deep midwicket. Later, she swatted to leg, rolling her wrists enough to send it crashing to the wide long-on boundary to being up a majestic half-century off just 33 balls.MI head coach Charlotte Edwards said there were no specific conversations she had had with Harmanpreet apart from the usual stuff about “being aggressive” and “putting the pressure back on the bowlers.””Yeah, I think it’s helped that we’ve played three games here,” Edwards said about MI’s familiarity with the conditions at Brabourne Stadium. “We knew that we could catch up later on in the innings and it was always hard. The first six overs at this ground, we always felt there was something in the pitch, so I think she just read the conditions brilliantly. She knew which bowlers to be aggressive against and it was just such a great innings and really set us up.”After that 13th over by Mani, Harmanpreet even fought a niggle in her left leg, but that did not deter her from unleashing more fireworks. She finally middled her trademark slog sweep for six against Jonassen and struck a classy inside-out drive in the 18th over but this one was pouched safely by Kapp. Harmanpreet’s head dropped and she headed back with the score on 118 for 6, still a distance from being competitive.The same lower order made up of Indian players that had failed to step up in last year’s Eliminator against Royal Challengers Bengaluru after Harmanpreet’s dismissal, had a chance to redeem itself and they scored another 31 runs in the last three overs to nearly touch 150. The bowlers then pounced on the DC batters and as the wickets started to tumble, out came one passionate Harmanpreet celebration after another.

Ben Stokes insists his team-mates will be able to pull him up on bowling too much

Vithushan Ehantharajah20-Jun-20251:00

Manjrekar: Reality check for England’s bowling attack

The first day of a five-Test series feels a little early for self-flagellation. But there was Ben Stokes, pushing the limits of traditional frustration with a repenting evening spell.The re-constructed knee, the recently re-weaved hamstring, pushed to the brink of their warranties, producing an average speed of 83mph across this spell, albeit with impressive comfort. Or rather, as comfortable as you can be bending your back on a flat deck as the sun beams 30-degree-Celsius rays upon you.The seven-over spell veered close to “long” territory, with six in a row after the tea break. Stokes insists, now that he is back to active duty as a full allrounder, his team-mates will be able to pull him up on bowling too much. But Ben, who might tap you on your flogged shoulder to take the whip out of your hand?Related

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It all made sense, by the way. Stokes was the best bowler on show, 2 for 43 from 13 encouragingly smooth overs, so why wouldn’t he keep doing it? The dismissal of Yashasvi Jaiswal – angled into off stump and then seaming to beat the edge of a bat that had already carved 101 – showcasing the skill still in those fingers. And the late-repenting justified by a day of utter domination from India’s top-order, finishing on 359 for 3 that began with Stokes putting them in.You didn’t need the score at stumps to have witnessed the two gorgeous centuries from Jaiswal and Shubman Gill, or seen England’s largely fortuitous initial double-strike, to have reservations over the decision. Much like Nasser Hussain’s infamous dud call in Brisbane back in 2002, the buck stops with Stokes.The explanation from the England camp was a peculiar one even after all that. The colour of the pitch on Thursday suggested to them that there was a touch of moisture that would remain by the morning. But with bright blue, cloudless skies and with the temperature already uncomfortably high at 10am, with a distinct mug in the air?1:45

Manjrekar: Rahul, Jaiswal made England bowling look ‘insipid’

Were they influenced by history? The last six teams to win at Headingley had done so bowling first. But dig a little deeper into the last three and you’ll find overcast skies and a spongy deck for England’s innings battering of India in 2021, clouds and showers forecast for the 2023 Ashes Test, and a weary New Zealand opting to bat first on their way to a hat-trick of fourth-innings Bazball maulings.Perhaps this was more about the team’s own nature? Since the start of the Stokes-Brendon McCullum era (2022 summer), England have now won ten tosses at home and batted first just once. It became a joke in the midst of this run that Stokes should respond to correct calls of the coin with “we’ll have a chase”. Oh boy, will you.There was willingness from England’s bowlers throughout. But they were not quite right. They started well to find what movement they could without being great, but it was often from too wide. And then when they opted for off stump, they were too short. Of the five venues that will host matches in this series, this is the one where you need to be the fullest – just under six metres, the other four venues are over – to hit the top of the stumps.1:25

Manjrekar: ‘Gill tackled the grey areas of his batting’

An inexperienced attack could not quite nail their cues. And though Brydon Carse made a decent fist of what was not just his first home Test but only the 15th time in first-class cricket in England that he has started with the new ball. Alas, his penchant for overstepping was costly, with Jaiswal on 45 when England lost out on reviewing a “not out” lbw appeal that would have come back in their favour. Josh Tongue found his extra pace and bounce used against him, particularly by Gill – 34 off 31 against the Nottinghamshire quick – who relished the cat-and-mouse of England’s desperate short-ball ploy.Most humbling for England would have been the way Headingly quietened throughout the day, but for the regular applause of various Indian milestones and irregular cheers for rare English breakthroughs. This isn’t just England’s house, but Stokes’ temple. And six years after his joy-giving miracle that is commemorated in various art forms outside this ground, his and his team’s hardships were unfolding in front of an increasingly disinterested and thinning congregation.Of the many factors that motivate Stokes, digging his team out of trouble and making amends for his own errors elicit the strongest responses on the field. Even if we are still early in this Test, and even earlier in this series, we know there will be more flagellation to come.Having got England into this position with his call, he’ll do his best to get them out of it with his actions. The problem is there is already plenty to do in this innings alone, and most of it will have to be done by Stokes.

They are the first opening pair from England with a 500-plus aggregate in a Test series since Strauss and Cook in the 2010-11 Ashes

Sampath Bandarupalli01-Aug-20251:58

Bangar on Crawley-Duckett: Haven’t seen batting of that quality

7224 – Runs scored by Joe Root in Tests in England. His tally is the second-highest for any batter in a single country, surpassing Sachin Tendulkar’s 7216 in India, and only behind Ricky Ponting’s 7578 in Australia.Root has scored 2006 runs against India at home so far. He is only the second batter to aggregate 2000-plus Test runs against a single opposition at home after Don Bradman, who had scored 2354 runs against England.8 – Number of 50-plus stands between Zak Crawley and Ben Duckett in Tests against India, the joint-highest by an opening pair, alongside Gordon Greenidge and Desmond Haynes. Crawley and Duckett have 984 runs in 18 innings against India, only behind Greenidge-Haynes, who had 1325 runs in 30 partnerships.Related

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7.16 – The run rate during Crawley and Duckett’s 92-run partnership, which came in 12.5 overs. It is the second-highest run rate for a 50-plus opening stand against India in men’s Tests. .The highest is 7.18 by Shahid Afridi and Yasir Hameed, who added 91 in 12.4 overs in Bengaluru in 2005. Four of the top 15 fastest 50-plus opening stands against India have been by the Crawley and Duckett pair.539 – Partnership runs between Crawley and Duckett in this series so far. They are the first opening pair to aggregate 500-plus runs in a Test series since David Warner and Joe Burns’ 547 against New Zealand in 2015. They are also the first opening pair from England with a 500-plus aggregate in a Test series since Andrew Strauss and Alastair Cook in the 2010-11 Ashes.48 – Runs scored in boundaries by Crawley at the time of reaching his half-century. It is the joint-second-highest runs scored in boundaries while completing a half-century in men’s Tests (Since 2002). Only Tim Southee scored more, with 50, on debut against England in 2008.Harry Brook falls over after nailing a jaw-dropping slog sweep•Getty ImagesCrawley’s 64-run knock featured 56 boundary runs, a percentage of 87.50. It is the third-highest boundary percentage in a 50-plus score for England in men’s Tests, behind only Andrew Flintoff’s 88.89% (48 out of 54) against New Zealand in 2004 and 88% by Chris Woakes (44 out of 50) against India in 2021.6 – Bowlers to take a four-plus wicket haul for India in this series, with Prasidh Krishna the latest. Only once have more bowlers had a higher tally in a Test series for India – seven against Pakistan at home in 1960-61, while six bowlers did so against West Indies in 1974-75 and also in the 2018 tour of England.1066 – Balls that KL Rahul faced in this series against England, the second-highest by an India opener in a Test series in England, behind Sunil Gavaskar’s 1199 on the 1979 tour. Only six visiting players have faced more balls than Rahul’s tally in this series while opening the batting in a series in England.Rahul’s 532 runs are the most for any opener in a Test series in England in nearly 22 years and the second-highest for India behind Gavaskar’s 542 in 1979.

England have arrived in New Zealand for their white-ball tour, but all the noise is about the upcoming Ashes. Alan Gardner is joined by Andrew Miller and Matt Roller to catch you up on the latest

ESPNcricinfo staff14-Oct-2025England have started out on their winter touring commitments, arriving in New Zealand for T20I and ODI series ahead of the Ashes in Australia. On this week’s pod, Alan Gardner is joined by Andrew Miller and Matt Roller to talk through the latest – notably the increasingly urgent updates from Australia on Pat Cummins’ fitness. Also on the menu: T20 World Cup preparations, Jacob Bethell’s mission to impress, and the start of the Ashes phoney war.