The visitors were pinned down on Friday at the SCG, scoreless for more than 10 overs. Relive the drama

Andrew McGlashan07-Jan-2022When are England going to score their next run?That might sound a like a flippant response to their batting woes on this tour, but for a passage of play either side of lunch on the third day at the SCG, it was a genuine question.The last ball of the 13th over, Dawid Malan clips Pat Cummins to fine leg. It’s a pretty innocuous moment. England are 36 for 1.

****

The first bowling change of the day comes in the 14th over and Scott Boland, the hero of the MCG, is warmly applauded into the attack. He immediately hits his groove and starts with a maiden.It becomes a double change as Cameron Green replaces Mitchell Starc who has bowled a superb opening spell, curving one back through Haseeb Hameed’s wild drive having seen him dropped by Alex Carey a few moments beforeGreen’s second delivery bounces from a good length and beats Malan’s cut shot. He, too, starts with a maiden. It’s three in a row.Boland beats the edge of Zak Crawley with one that nips away. The next delivery nips back, the one after nibbles away. It’s doing plenty off a pitch playing a few tricks.Then the last ball of Boland’s second over jags back again, this time it’s right on target and goes between Crawley’s bat and pad. Boland has added to his wicket tally without conceding a run. It’s also four maidens in a rowEngland are 36 for 2. When will they score their next run?

****

Three balls into Green’s next over, Malan almost miscues a pull to mid-on. It would have been a horrid way to get out, but quite in keeping with England’s tour. Malan sees out the over. Maiden number five.Boland challenges Joe Root’s technique as he hammers away in that off-stump corridor. Root angles one into the gully area where Green uses his go-go gadget arms to intercept. No run there.Malan is relatively secure in seeing out an over from Green. Seven maidens in a row.Scott Boland gets a standing ovation from the SCG crowd•Getty ImagesThe first ball of the 21st over and Root, who towered above all other batters in 2021, slashes at one outside off and the top edge travels very quickly. Steven Smith leaps at second slip and grabs it above his head. Root has collected England’s first duck of 2022. He’s a captain with the weight of the world on his shoulders.Boland has another Test wicket. His average is now 6.11. His overall figures are 9 for 55.Ben Stokes, nursing a side strain, makes his way to the middle. Four balls into his innings he is beaten by a delivery from Boland that nips away sharply. A fast off-break. The last ball does the same, but moves even more. Eight maidens in a rowEngland are 36 for 3. When will they score their next run?

****

The first ball of Green’s next over leaps at Malan and hammers him on the glove. Three balls later it happens again. Has the pitch gone?Having shaken off the pain, Malan faces up again. Green is around the wicket, angles the delivery into the body and Malan clips it low to Usman Khawaja who is stationed at leg slip. An hour at the crease, 39 balls and Malan is gone for 3.It brings lunch. England are 36 for 4. When will they score their next run?

****

Forty minutes later Stokes walks back down the steps of the visitors’ dressing room with Jonny Bairstow for company.There is one ball left in Green’s over. It’s actually off target, pushed down the leg side. But it’s another maiden. Nine in a row.Ben Stokes laughs after successfully reviewing a decision against him•Getty ImagesBoland gets the ball again. The first five balls are relatively mundane. Then the final delivery moves devilishly off a length to beat the edge. Ten maidens in a row.Cummins brings himself back on to replace Green. The second ball is a beauty which skims past Bairstow’s outside edge. He would have done well to edge it. The last ball of the over is short and Bairstow goes for the pull. It is miscued and rebounds towards gully where Green can’t quite reach it with a sprawling dive. Replays show it came off the arm. Eleven maidens in a row.

****

The question is asked about the record for a scoreless period in Test cricket. It’s 154 deliveries between Peter Nevill and Steve O’Keefe against Sri Lanka in 2016.Boland strings together four more dot balls against Stokes. And then it happens.Stokes plays forward to a good-length delivery and it squeezes off a thick outside into the point area, wide enough that the fielder can’t cut it off.After 70 balls, England have scored a run. The crowd cheers. Not quite as loudly as for Khawaja’s century or Boland’s wickets and there’s no doubt a healthy dose of sarcasm from many.

****

Twenty-five overs later Stokes and Bairstow walk off together for tea. They have batted out the session, with the help of a sizeable dose of luck when a delivery from Green clips Stokes’ off stump but the bail doesn’t fall. It’s one of England’s best passages of the series, albeit the bar has been set pretty low. In the first over of the resumption they raise the century, only England’s third of the tour, and those 70 balls of struggle are not the only memory of the day.

Coach Domingo says players coming through the domestic system aren’t quite ready for international cricket

Mohammad Isam30-Nov-2021Bangladesh’s batters might be looking for ways to transfer the Chattogram pitch back to Mirpur, the venue of the second Test. The highway between the two is great these days. There is also a river cargo route. Of course, the bowlers wouldn’t necessarily help out in the shipping process, but at a time of low confidence in the team, the pitch for the first Test against Pakistan came as a breath of fresh air for the home side.That said, despite a pitch that had more runs in it, Bangladesh didn’t have a lot of batters stepping up. Only Liton Das and Mushfiqur Rahim made runs in both innings, while Yasir Ali started well in the second innings before his concussion blow. The top order collapsed twice, including captain Mominul Haque, a Chattogram giant. It cost them the Test match, but after more than four months of a batting drought, which included a period when they didn’t score a half-century or put together a 50-run stand for four weeks, Chattogram gave the batters some relief.Bangladesh is one of the few cricket teams that consistently ends up playing in bowling-friendly conditions both at home and abroad. When they travel, they are naturally enough presented with green-tinged and pacy pitches where feasible. Since 2016, their home strategy, particularly in Mirpur, has been to aid the spinners. It has backfired as often as it has worked, since the Bangladesh batters themselves struggle on these pitches.Related

Mominul Haque: Lack of 'a lot of performing players' reason behind reliance on longer-format rookies

Liton, Mushfiqur provide respite amid Bangladesh's run rut in Tests

Domingo: Bangladesh lack 'belief and confidence to grab the game by the scruff of the neck'

Abid Ali, Shaheen Shah Afridi lead the way as Pakistan go 1-0 up

Mominul said that he preferred the kind of pitch they got at Chattogram, but that Bangladesh’s fast bowlers needed to become more skilful to bowl on these surfaces.”I prefer this type of wicket,” Mominul said. “It was totally flat. It was good for batting. But of course, it was tough for the pace bowlers. I think they need to know how to bowl on a flat wicket. I think the coaches can also explain this better. It is different bowling at home compared to overseas conditions. Our fast bowlers have to play a lot of four-day matches.”This wasn’t a spin wicket. It was a flat wicket. In a spin wicket, the ball turns from the third or fourth day. At least four or five balls turn on a spin wicket. Here one or two balls were turning.”Coach Russell Domingo had said on Tuesday that Bangladesh missed a trick on this pitch by not getting a bigger score in the second innings.”I think this has been a really good wicket,” Domingo said. “We let ourselves down in the second innings. A score around 250-280 would have put us in a great position. I think we play really good Test cricket when we have been on top of the game. I keep telling my coaches [in the support staff] that Bangladesh is in a very difficult situation. When we play on good wickets, we might not have the firepower to bowl sides out, like Pakistan might have. When we play on wickets that spin, we definitely have the firepower to bowl sides out but then our batsmen can be challenged as well. If you want to develop confidence in our batting line-up, you have to get our batting numbers up. It is a tough situation. Bangladesh seamers struggle historically on good wickets. Our batters seem to struggle on spin wickets.”Domingo believes that most Bangladesh cricketers have to enter the senior side with some readiness, but domestic cricket doesn’t quite prepare them for the international stage.”There’s some exciting young players coming through but they are long way off where they need to be as international batsmen and bowlers,” he said. “The more cricket they play at the domestic level or A-team tours, the better it will be for the national side. Right now, the step up from domestic to international cricket is a massive step. It is something BCB needs to look at to make sure they impact the game and not take a long time to find their feet.”

“When we play on good wickets, we might not have the firepower to bowl sides out… When we play on wickets that spin, we definitely have the firepower to bowl sides out but then our batsmen can be challenged as well.”Russell Domingo

Taijul Islam’s bowling and Liton’s batting were some of the few bright spots for Bangladesh in what was eventually an eight-wicket defeat, particularly in the way Liton bounced back after an ordinary T20 World Cup campaign. Domingo predicted that Liton’s progress as a Test batter could see him get a promotion soon.”Liton has been averaging close to 60 in the last 18 months. He has played some really good innings for us in the middle. We found a good spot for him at No. 6 or 7, which allows him to bat with the lower order and get the confidence going. We know he is a fantastic player. It took him a while to find his way in Test cricket. Over the last year, he has been a big positive for us in Tests. Maybe in another year’s time, he can be the new No. 4 or 5 for Bangladesh.”Mominul, meanwhile, applauded Taijul’s bowling effort when he took 7 for 116 in the first innings to give Bangladesh a first-innings lead – which had seemed improbable when Pakistan’s openers put on 146.”I think one of our biggest gains from this game was Taijul’s bowling. He took eight wickets on this pitch, which is a lot of hard work. I think he has improved a lot and certainly he inspires everyone. It was due to Taijul that we took the lead.”

Yes, it was a case of merely aiming “to hit every ball” and having it come off, but also the various skillsets in play did set Cummins up to steal the show

Sidharth Monga06-Apr-20222:55

Lynn: ‘Offence is the best form of defence for Pat Cummins’

How do you even describe a 14-ball fifty?It is, of course, an extraordinary knock. Any 14-ball fifty is. More so on a night when almost every other batter has struggled to tame the steep bounce. In all, 48 not-in-control runs will be scored behind the wicket in this match, the most for a single game in the last six IPL seasons.Related

• Aussies abroad: Cummins, Warner, Stoinis among the runs in the IPL, Bird Cook-ed again

• How Pat Cummins hit an IPL record 14-ball fifty

• Report: Cummins' 14-ball fifty stuns Mumbai, puts KKR top of table

Venkatesh Iyer, coming off his honeymoon season and coming to terms with the cost of living, is fighting his own form and the conditions valiantly to turn 19 off 21 into 50 off 41. He has hung on for dear life, knowing his side’s fate depends on his staying there till the end. The plan has been for him to be at his most efficient in adverse circumstances but make sure he bats through and delays taking his chances as much as he can. It is making for a great story.And then comes the joint-best fast bowler in Test cricket – not half-bad in limited-overs cricket, mind you – and he hits the other joint-best fast bowler in Test cricket – who is also the best fast bowler in limited-overs cricket – for a six and a four before causing absolute mayhem in a Daniel Sams over that he takes 35 runs off. It is mockery of others who have been trying to play a hard-fought match in difficult conditions.It is apt that a person with unfair amounts of cricketing talent and fitness comes up with the best description of the innings. “I just tried to hit every ball for a four or a six,” Pat Cummins explains, cutting straight to the chase, just as he did with the bat.Of course there will be explanations for why it came off but, at the heart of it, it was just that: trying to hit every ball for a boundary, targeting the short boundaries, and making sure Venkatesh didn’t have to risk his wicket.Pat Cummins mauled Daniel Sams in a 35-run over to finish off the chase•BCCIFor further explanations, we can look at Cummins’ record against pace vis-à-vis spin: after today, his strike rate against pace is 156 at 21 runs per dismissal. Two years ago he hit four sixes off a single Jasprit Bumrah over. He now has the second-most IPL fifties batting at No. 7 or lower. So you shouldn’t probably be shocked that he played a match-winning hand here. But he is not considered a genuine allrounder, despite those numbers, because it is easy to shut him down with spin. Against spin, he doesn’t score at even a run a ball.One of the few teams funky enough to bowl heavy doses of spin even late in the innings is the team Cummins himself plays for, so, more often than not, the best time for him to bat is at the death. Especially if he is batting with a specialist batter who prefers spin to pace – Venkatesh has a strike rate of 142 and an average of 60 against the slow stuff as against 122 and 28 against pace. And here too Venkatesh has had a better night against spin than pace, so the opposition can be forgiven for planning for the more apparent threat – the established batter and his obvious strength.Cummins himself had gone for 23 in the last over of the first innings. Two of the sixes were edges as he tried to bluff Kieron Pollard with short balls despite having third man and fine leg up. Cummins was perhaps unlucky in his final analysis of 4-0-49-2. “Welcome to Twenty20 cricket,” he thought to himself then, having just come off a gruelling Test series in Pakistan where he toiled for 110.1 overs for 12 wickets, the joint-highest in the series, and a 1-0 series win.Then he played the purest form of Twenty20 cricket himself: try to hit a boundary every ball. And the hitting was all clean too. Except maybe for one cue-end to a wide Bumrah yorker, but even there he intended to hit the ball in that general area. “I am at my best when I am not thinking much,” he says later.That is not to dismiss the work that goes on behind the scenes to achieve a skillset where you can hit fours and sixes without thinking too much. Being primarily a bowler perhaps liberates you to attempt that. He has tried just this on many a night but this was the night when it all came off.Any 14-ball fifty is a freak innings, but in hindsight, if you look at the circumstances and skillsets, of all the unexpected sources of such a knock, Cummins is probably the most expected. If that makes any sense. Not much about a 14-ball fifty does, admittedly.

India continued to dominate West Indies in Women’s World Cups, as the 155-run win highlighted

Sampath Bandarupalli12-Mar-2022317 India Women’s total against West Indies on Saturday is their second-highest total in ODI cricket, behind the 358 for 2 against Ireland in 2017. It is also the first instance of India breaching the 300-run mark in the Women’s World Cup. Their previous highest was 284 for 6 in 2013 against West Indies.7 India have now defeated West Indies in all seven Women’s ODI World Cup matches they have played. No other team has won more games against an opponent in the Women’s World Cup with a 100% win record. New Zealand against Ireland and Australia against South Africa have seven wins each in ODI World Cups.ESPNcricinfo Ltd1 Smriti Mandhana and Harmanpreet Kaur became the first Indian pair to score centuries in the same Women’s World Cup game. There have been only seven previous instances of two centurions in the same innings at the tournament. Mandhana and Harmanpreet also became the third Indian pair to score hundreds in a women’s ODI.184 Partnership between Mandhana and Harmanpreet, the highest for India at the Women’s World Cup. The previous highest stand was 175 between the opening pair of Punam Raut and Thirush Kamini against West Indies in 2013. The 184 between Mandhana and Harmanpreet is India’s highest stand in Women’s ODIs for the fourth or a lower wicket.40 Wickets for Jhulan Goswami in the Women’s World Cup. She is now the leading wicket-taker in the history of the competition. The Indian pace bowler surpassed Lyn Fullston’s tally of 39 wickets when she dismissed Anisa Mohammed. All 40 wickets of Goswami have been of different players as she never got the same batter out twice.ESPNcricinfo Ltd3 Hundreds for Harmanpreet in the Women’s World Cup, the most by a batter for India. She left behind Mithali Raj and Mandhana, who have two hundreds each.109 Harmanpreet became the first Indian batter to score a century while batting at No. 5 or lower in Women’s ODIs. Only two players had a higher score in Women’s ODIs while batting at No.5 and lower.100 Balls Harmanpreet needed for her century, the second-fastest for India in Women’s World Cup, behind her 90-ball ton against Australia in 2017. The 100-ball effort in Hamilton is also the joint third-fastest hundred for India in Women’s ODIs.

He is probably just keeping the seat warm for Shakib, but can also use the opportunity in Zimbabwe to make a case for himself

Mohammad Isam23-Jul-2022Who is Nurul Hasan?
Nurul, a 28-year-old wicketkeeper-batter, made his international debut in 2016. It has been an on-again-off-again sort of career, despite being recognised as a technically gifted wicketkeeper. He has had to wait for his turn as Mushfiqur Rahim, first, and then Litton Das have kept a hold on the spot in the various formats.When Nurul has got a chance at the highest level, he has usually shown that he belongs there. He recently tackled the West Indies’ pace attack well in the Test series, while completing two tricky chases in the ODIs. Tamim Iqbal was particularly impressed with Nurul after the West Indies show, saying, “Apart from the bowlers, I have to say [Nurul] was the leading performer. He has put up a very strong case going forward.” Overall, though, his numbers with the bat are modest.What’s his pedigree as captain?
Nurul’s leadership experience is mainly in white-ball cricket at the domestic level. He has led Sheikh Jamal Dhanmondi Club in 49 white-ball matches, and occasionally, Khulna Division and South Zone in first-class cricket. He led the Chattogram Challengers in one BPL game in 2019 too. So there is a little experience on that front.Related

Fractured finger puts Bangladesh captain Nurul Hasan out of remainder of Zimbabwe tour

Raza, Madhevere, bowlers give Zimbabwe 1-0 lead

Zimbabwe have reason to believe against undercooked Bangladesh

Bangladesh land Test and ODI jackpot in 2023-2027 cycle

Tamim: West Indies ODI win 'should not go to our heads'

“He has captained in domestic cricket, so he has leadership qualities. He is an aggressive character who can motivate the team,” Jalal Yunus, the BCB’s cricket operations chairman, said on Friday, when announcing Nurul as the Bangladesh T20I captain.But it is a stop-gap arrangement. Nurul is leading only in the three matches in Zimbabwe, for the moment. Mahmudullah is being rested, but there is no clarity on whether Mahmudullah will return to the helm for the Asia Cup in late August. Shakib Al Hasan might be in line to take over, but the BCB is not telling just yet.What! Shakib, really?
Indeed. ESPNcricinfo understands that Nurul is only keeping the seat warm for Shakib. Mahmudullah’s removal has been on the cards for a while, especially after Bangladesh’s campaign in the T20 World Cup last year, where they lost all their Super 12s matches, which was preceded by a knee-bruising qualification round, which included a defeat to Scotland.But the BCB had pointed to a lack of time after the T20 World Cup to find a new captain, which meant Mahmudullah continued for the next three series. Bangladesh won just one out of eight games in that period.Mahmudullah’s own form with the bat has also contributed to the way things have panned out. He hasn’t touched the 30-run mark since October 2021, when he scored 31 not out against West Indies in Sharjah. That’s ten innings with a best of 22.Shakib has already taken charge of the Test side, following Mominul Haque’s resignation before the West Indies tour last month. It proved that the BCB has no reservations about Shakib despite his ICC suspension in 2019 or his frequent run-ins with the bosses over the years.But why not come clean, and say what the plan is?
Oh, well… But, actually, Shakib wanted a break, for personal reasons, which has complicated matters. We are hearing that if Shakib had a change of heart about touring Zimbabwe, he would have been named T20I captain. But, in his absence, the BCB discussed Nurul and Litton as the T20I captains. Litton led the side in a T20I in New Zealand last year, but Nurul’s leadership qualities seem to be more attractive to the BCB at the moment.What are the expectations from Nurul?
Not a lot, to be honest. Three T20Is aren’t many games. But the BCB did mention “a different direction” when announcing Nurul as captain. Bangladesh’s overall T20I cricket has been woeful of late, to put it mildly. They are behind most of the top sides in every statistical, technical and physical parameter.The T20 World Cup last year showed where they stand in the format, and very little is expected of them in the T20 World Cup this year. But the BCB feels that if Nurul’s aggression rubs off on the others, then Shakib can lead a side that’s a little more confident.But Bangladesh need their big guns to fire, don’t they?
It is going to be Bangladesh’s first squad in any format without any of their senior cricketers. Tamim announced his retirement from T20Is earlier this month. They have played only ten T20Is without Mahmudullah in the last 15 years. Mushfiqur too is rested for this T20I series, although no one is certain whether the BCB has given him a break or it’s a sign of a long-term absence from the format.Bangladesh haven’t found an opener who can replace Tamim’s T20 qualities, but the team management has to formulate a new-look middle order that can combine with the lower order effectively, now that they are without Shakib, Mahmudullah and Mushfiqur.The BCB is hoping that one of the newcomers or recalled players can step up quickly, so that they can head into the Asia Cup, the New Zealand tri-series and the World Cup with a bit of progress within the T20I side.

While the likes of Kohli and Jadeja are returning after longish breaks, Gill and Pujara will look to push their case for selection at Edgbaston

Nagraj Gollapudi22-Jun-20221:05

India hit the nets in Leicester

The high-decibel welcome that usually greets them on England tours is missing, but the Indians will look past that when they begin their four-day practice match in Leicester on Thursday, aiming to build up intensity ahead of the Edgbaston Test next week. The warm-up game will be a 13-a-side, non-first-class contest, but it is the only opportunity for Rohit Sharma’s team to prepare for the Birmingham Test, which their head coach Rahul Dravid has termed significant with World Test Championship points at stake.To ensure that all members of India’s touring party get adequate match practice ahead of the Test match, four of them – Cheteshwar Pujara, Rishabh Pant, Jasprit Bumrah and Prasidh Krishna – will turn out for Leicestershire.The Test is the rescheduled fifth match of the 2021 Pataudi Trophy. It was originally scheduled to be played at Old Trafford last September, but was postponed indefinitely following a Covid-19 scare, and eventually rescheduled for the 2022 summer. After four Tests, India lead the series 2-1, and have the opportunity to win their first Test series in England since 2007, when Dravid was their captain.Related

• Ashwin links up with India Test squad in Leicester

• Cheteshwar Pujara back in India squad for Edgbaston Test

• Rahul Dravid relishes challenge of facing 'different' England with 'series on the line'

• Ashwin misses plane to England after testing positive for Covid-19

Outlining the challenge confronting the Indians this summer, Dravid said recently that England were a “bit different” to the team they had in 2021, when they were “on the back foot”. What Dravid meant by different was the fearless show England put on in the first two Tests of their home series against New Zealand, under the new captain-coach combination of Ben Stokes and Brendon McCullum.India have not played a Test match since March, when they dominated Sri Lanka at home with a 2-0 series win. Barring Pujara and Shubman Gill, none of the Indian players have played any red-ball cricket since, with the majority of the rest featuring in IPL 2022 followed by the home T20I series against South Africa. The Leicester tour match will also be the first time several key players who are likely to make the first XI at Edgbaston, including Rohit, Virat Kohli, Bumrah, Mohammed Shami, Mohammed Siraj, Ravindra Jadeja and Shardul Thakur, will be playing since the IPL.Shubman Gill will want to push his case to open at Edgbaston, while Virat Kohli will look to get back into rhythm after being rested for the South Africa T20Is•BCCIWhile the Indian selectors picked a 17-member Test squad in May, there will only be 15 Indians in the tour match. The two absentees are offspinner R Ashwin, who is recovering at home in Chennai after testing positive for Covid-19 recently, and opener KL Rahul, who was meant to lead India in the South Africa T20Is but had to pull out of the series with a groin injury. The BCCI has not yet sent any medical update on both Ashwin and Rahul.Also not yet known is the identity of Rohit’s deputy, with Rahul originally named vice-captain for the England Tests. Rahul was a key batter for India last year when he and Rohit helped India lay a solid opening platform. Incidentally, Rahul was originally a back-up middle-order batter on last year’s tour before injuries to Gill and Mayank Agarwal gave him an opportunity in his original role. Rahul was the third-highest run-getter in the first four Tests, behind Joe Root and Rohit.The importance of a tour match can be gauged from Rahul’s success in the warm-up game last year, where he scored a century against a County Select XI. This week, Gill will similarly aim to utilise the opportunity to push his case to open alongside Rohit. Gill last played a Test match in December 2021, in the home series against New Zealand. Injuries ruled him out of the South Africa tour and the Sri Lanka home Tests that followed.The match is also significant for the senior batting pair of Pujara and Kohli for different reasons. Pujara was dropped for the Sri Lanka series but, to borrow Dravid’s words, the Saurashtra batter “banged open” the selection door to make a comeback with his stellar form for Sussex in Division 2 of the County Championship earlier this summer. Pujara scored 720 runs in eight innings at an average of 120.00, with four hundreds including two double-tons. While the selectors and the Indian team management are keen to provide exposure to young batters, Pujara has kept himself relevant and pushed his case on the basis of both runs and his immense experience at No. 3.Ravindra Jadeja is back in action for the first time since a rib injury ruled him out of the latter stages of the IPL•BCCIAs for Kohli, the tour match, followed by the Test, give him another opportunity to overcome a lengthy struggle for consistency. He has gone through a century drought in international cricket that has now stretched past 100 games across the three formats, including IPL. During the league, Kohli had emphasised the importance of taking breaks from the game to keep himself refreshed in the long term. Back on the field after being rested from the South Africa T20Is, Kohli will once again be hungry to impose himself on bowlers, an element of his batting that hasn’t always been in evidence over recent months.Jadeja, too, will be looking for a positive return to the field after a rib injury prematurely ended what had been a difficult IPL season. Appointed captain of Chennai Super Kings on the eve of the season, he stood down from the role halfway through the season, with his team’s results mirroring his own poor form with bat and ball. Jadeja, though, remains a vital cog for India as the spinning allrounder, a role he has made his own in overseas Tests for the last few years – he played all four Tests in England last year, his solidity with the bat keeping out R Ashwin in the race to be the lone spinner alongside four quicks.One difference between last year and now is that India no longer have to live in a biosecure bubble, which both players and coaches had pointed to as a major challenge, and one with potential repercussions on performance.Match timings: 1st Session: 10:30am-12:30pm; 2nd Session: 1:10pm-3:10pm; 3rd Session: 3:30pm-5:30pm
Where to watch: On Foxes TV, Leicestershire’s official YouTube channelThe story has been updated following confirmation from Leicestershire that the match will be a 13-a-side game, with four Indian players featuring for the opposition.

She smashed 62 off 44, bowled a maiden in her 2 for 28 and put on a show of her electric ground fielding

Annesha Ghosh29-May-2022It’s no secret that Deandra Dottin can turn a match on its head single-handedly. And that’s usually the outcome if she clicks in just one department.But there are days when Dottin metamorphoses into a three-dimensional force of nature. What hope might the opposition have in such contests, then? Ask Velocity, whose pursuit of a maiden Women’s T20 Challenge title was thwarted by the West Indies allrounder’s chief-destroyer act for Supernovas in the final at Pune’s MCA Stadium on Saturday.Related

• Sune Luus bats for expansion of T20 franchise cricket: 'Important to know different players and different conditions'

• Rodrigues, Bahadur, Navgire – Takeaways from the Women's T20 Challenge

• Dottin and Ecclestone bring the crown home for Supernovas

• An identity crisis, and the promise of a brighter tomorrow

• Women's IPL would be 'amazing for the game' – Heather Knight

All that was missing from Dottin’s phenomenal day at the office was a blinder or two to add to her electric ground fielding and match-winning returns of 62 off 44 and 2 for 28. In her best performance yet across two successive seasons and as many appearances in the final, Dottin World-Bossed her way through the ebbs and flows of a box-office encounter that ended in Supernovas clinching a four-run win in a humdinger of a finish.The numbers alone don’t entirely tell just how wily Dottin, named Player of the Match and the Series, was on the night. In the face of tight bowling from seamers Kate Cross and Ayabonga Khaka and offspinner Deepti Sharma in the powerplay, Dottin traded run-scoring pace for circumspection at the start of her innings. The result: she scored just 16 off her first 15 balls, with a solitary four, a let-off by Sneh Rana on 13, and a close shave against a DRS umpire’s call to her name.Rana’s introduction in the sixth over flicked the switch for Dottin. Two imperious sixes came off the first two balls as she found in the arc between deep midwicket and cow corner her backyard. It helped that Velocity themselves put on a brand of fielding and bowling through that phase that was more the backyard-cricket level than anything else.With Dottin receiving another lifeline on 32 and feasting on free hits off overstepping errors, it was only a matter of time before she made them pay with her first fifty of this edition. She reached the milestone off 33 balls with a disdainful six over the cow-corner fence off left-arm spinner Radha Yadav.”The game plan was to spend as much time on the crease as possible and survive the first six overs,” Dottin said after her innings, having added 73 with fellow opener Priya Punia and 58 with first-drop Harmanpreet Kaur. “Having a slow start is not always bad. You can’t always have a fast start all the time. The plan was to continue to stay and target bowlers from the end where the wind was strong.””Yeah, it’s true (that luck gave Supernovas free hits), but I wanted to cash in on one,” she said.”To be honest, it’s fun batting with Punia. We enjoy batting together. We talk a lot and give each other encouragement after each ball and each over… It was always really nice to watch Harman hit from the non-striker’s end.”

“She’s an incredible cricketer, an incredible T20 player. She’s so powerful with the bat, and then she bowls as well, and bowls really well.”Laura Wolvaardt on Deandra Dottin

With the ball, too, Dottin was a quick thinker. Bowling at a good pace – an element of her all-round game that flagged following a career-threatening shoulder surgery that pushed her to the brink of contemplating retirement in 2019 – she executed what seemed well-drawn up and batter-specific ploys.Against two of the most destructive batters in the Velocity line-up, Shafali Verma and the uncapped Kiran Navgire, she unleashed a barrage of back-of-a-length deliveries and skiddy bouncers. Cramming Shafali for room was an inswinger to have her caught behind in the third over, thanks in part also to a superb diving take by wicketkeeper Taniya Bhatia.Two legal deliveries later, she pinged Navgire, fresh off a resounding 34-ball 69 a night ago, on the helmet. Visibly rattled, though medically unaffected by the rammer, Navgire played out 12 dot balls, 11 of those against Dottin alone, before being bowled by Sophie Ecclestone for a duck.Sprinkling her end-overs spell with a few surprise short deliveries also proved the perfect stratagem. No. 9 Cross, swinging wildly for her seven-ball 13 in a bid to decisively swing the momentum Velocity’s way, edged Dottin behind, unable to negotiate the pace or the spite in the delivery.”She’s an incredible cricketer, an incredible T20 player,” South Africa batter Laura Wolvaardt, whose 40-ball unbeaten 65 nearly got Velocity over the line in their chase of 166, said. “She’s so powerful with the bat, and then she bowls as well, and bowls really well.”I think she bowled really well today, especially upfront. She had a lot of change-ups and variations and was bowling bouncers and yorkers, so it was hard to predict what she was doing.”And she had a couple of different fields as well, which we don’t really see too often. So, I think it’s great the way that she plays her game and goes about it and when she is in form, like she is now, she’s very destructive.”At the presentation ceremony, Dottin described herself as a shy person by nature, an antithesis to her style of play and the self-adopted moniker, “World Boss”. As the heady Saturday night drew to a close, and the cheers of a raucous 8621-strong Pune crowd quieted, Dottin trudged along the boundary barricade near the Supernovas dugout, autographed her cap and handed it to a teen female cricketer in flannels waiting on the other side.On a night when she shattered the opposition’s dreams, giving wings to a young fan’s might have been the most Dottin way to cap it.