The run-out on 97 was disappointing but on his debut, Aiden Markram showed the qualities that are important for success in international cricket

Firdose Moonda in Potchefstroom 28-Sep-2017This was going to be a story that asked what more Aiden Markram could have wanted from today, because he seemed to have it all.He made his Test debut on one of the most placid pitches around, in front of his family and against a Bangladesh side that bafflingly chose to bowl first. He had his franchise opening partner, friend and battle-hardened international Dean Elgar at the other end. He had the freedom of knowing this was the start of what is set to be a long run to establish himself in the Test XI.In all honesty, it might have been more difficult playing for his franchise team, Titans, down the road at SuperSport Park. His predecessor in the South Africa XI, Heino Kuhn, was doing that and managed 73 against an attack that included Beuran Hendricks, Dwaine Pretorius, Wiaan Mulder, Craig Alexander and Aaron Phangiso, effectively a second-string South African pack who know how to make the ball talk. Markram did not have to bother with any of that because the Bangladesh bowling attack was all but mute. The first ball Markram faced just about rolled to the wicketkeeper, that’s how quiet it was.By lunch, he had (mostly) cover-driven himself to 43. Even though the news that Cricket South Africa no longer has a CEO had taken the focus completely off the opening day of the international season, things were still going pretty well for Markram.After the lunch break, they went even better. The Markram-Elgar stand reached 100, the first time a South African opening pair have managed that many in 18 innings. Markram got to fifty with one of those of those gorgeous drives. He hit offspinner Mehidy Hasan – the captain of Bangladesh’s Under-19 World Cup side in 2014, the same year Markram led South Africa to victory – over his head for four and then to the midwicket boundary for four more to scoot past Elgar, and displayed the aggression he is known for. The pair played a cat-and-mouse game and entered the 70s, then the 80s, then the 90s together. Along the way they put on the second most successful opening stand by South Africa after being asked to bat first, after Graeme Smith and Herschelle Gibbs’ 301 against West Indies in Centurion in January 2004.Overall, proceedings could barely be described as engaging but watching the openers approach their centuries together had its charm. There was Elgar, a grinder who makes brutalist architecture look pretty, fighting his way through, even though there was nothing to fight over. And then there was Markram, young, supremely talented, the perfect combination of force and finesse, crafting his way to the milestone.No one seemed to want Markram to get there more than Elgar. It was big-brother-little-brother stuff. Not only does Elgar have a good relationship with Markram from their domestic days together, but he is desperate for an opening partner who does not leave all the pressure on him. Elgar has been through four who were thought to be long-term options – Alviro Petersen, Stiaan van Zyl, Stephen Cook and Kuhn – and none of them have stuck. Despite that, he has done his bit and more, with four hundreds this year, but he needs someone to stay at the other end, and the early signs are that Markram can do that.Then at two minutes to tea, we found out what more Markram could have wanted from the day. He wanted not to have been so hasty to complete the single that would take Elgar to a ninth international century. What was the rush? He wanted to have been sent back a milli-second earlier. Maybe he even wanted Elgar to try and run towards the danger end, if only because his batting partner had already experienced the feeling of raising his bat eight times before and he was about to do it for the first time.Elgar also wanted Markram’s centry, though maybe not at the expense of sacrificing himself. He sunk to his knees, furious with himself for depriving his mate of the chance to make a little bit of history. He celebrated his own hundred, which came up two balls later, with a little less gusto than usual. Elgar also became Test cricket’s highest run-scorer this year. He did well, though maybe for that one moment, when he played a part in Markram’s run-out, he could have done better.Of course, Markram will have many, many, many more chances. At least nine more matches this summer alone. He is seen as the real deal. Even in relatively simple circumstances, he showed some important qualities every international needs: he was not overawed by the occasion, he treated deliveries that demanded respect with exactly that, he was wary against variable bounce, which may become a challenge later on, and he recognised an opportunity to cash in and almost did in a big way.But there was something more he wanted from what would have been an otherwise perfect first day as an international. And there may be something else he may want a little later: Elgar and Markram drove from Pretoria to Potchefstroom together; Markram may want a good soundtrack on the way back.

At The Oval Faf du Plessis talked about South Africa’s mistakes, here they just replicated them

Jarrod Kimber at Old Trafford05-Aug-20172:02

‘I’d have taken 99 at the start of the day’ – Bairstow

Keshav Maharaj is chasing the ball out to the boundary, but perhaps chasing is the wrong term, he’s following the ball, and the ball is gradually getting slower. He eventually picks it up, largely as it’s pretty much given up on its own.England wanted to be attacking, or reckless, this morning. Toby Roland-Jones, Moeen Ali and Stuart Broad seemed to have all been told they only had 15 minutes to live. South Africa just had to remain disciplined, stay calm, and pick up their wickets.They were undisciplined, not calm, and yet they kept picking up wickets. With one wicket left, Jonny Bairstow was batting with James Anderson when he gave a chance. Bairstow hadn’t been batting well, last night he struggled through, today he was better, not fluent. His control stats suggested a player that was trying hard and being lucky. But South Africa wouldn’t have wanted Bairstow to wake up when he was batting in the last-wicket partnership. And it shouldn’t have happened.The ball is full, wide and the edge leaves the bat going low and to the right of Quinton de Kock. It isn’t a simple chance, but de Kock made harder catches look easier yesterday. Of course, there was one chance, off Joe Root, that he failed to move yesterday. This time he does move, but he drops it.Bairstow is 53 off 107 balls.A few balls later Bairstow guides the ball down to Heino Kuhn at third man. Bairstow doesn’t take off straight away, and then when he does Kagiso Rabada is in his way. But despite the fact he’s hit the ball pretty much straight to Kuhn, they take two. It is clear that Kuhn isn’t moving well. To finish the over he hits the ball into the ring field and takes off, stealing another single. In six balls they’ve dropped him, and allowed him to retain the strike twice.Next over Faf du Plessis starts putting out the field for Bairstow. The same guy who has just edged a ball behind suddenly is so dominant that other than two slips, everyone is spread everywhere. Morne Morkel bowled Broad the over before, and now he’s bowling to a stupid field he doesn’t seem to understand.Jonny Bairstow toyed with some poor South Africa tactics•Getty ImagesBairstow smashes a boundary off Rabada the next over, and then lets Anderson face out the last two balls. Bairstow beats the man in the deep on the leg side for a boundary off Morkel, waits for the field to come in before scoring another, and then steals a single off the last ball of the over which is a limp wide ball that makes no sense at all. None of it does.The next over from Rabada there are two twos, with an entire field set up to stop twos. The field comes up, Bairstow smashes another four. The final ball is on his hip, the sort of ball you bowl when you want to get a player off strike. Which is exactly what it does.At one stage Kuhn is chasing the ball to the boundary, but he’s moving like he’s been held back by what appears to be a flock of invisible crows flying in the other direction. He’s injured, and he looks beaten. He’s not the only one.Duanne Olivier comes on, Bairstow ramps him, smacks him, and then trying to get a single off the last ball accidentally times it so well he hits another four. In less than six overs South Africa have turned Bairstow from a kid’s slingshot into the death star.Olivier’s next over has more twos. South Africa has all these men out, all of them 20 or 30 metres from the boundary, and yet Bairstow keeps embarrassing them. It looks like the plan to allow twos is not cunning cricket by Bairstow, but some failed rope-a-doping from South Africa. Bairstow takes another single, and then he’s out on 99. An unforced error. England have put on 50 for the last partnership and have made over 350 again.The worst thing is that this is exactly what they did at The Oval. South Africa took wickets, but never kept the pressure on long enough. This missed chances, they never shut England down. And when they were finally ready to end the innings, they allowed English batsmen to free themselves with these knuckleheaded everyone-out-on-the-boundary-why-don’t-you-have-a-swing fields. It’s not just stupid; it’s consistent stupidity.And to top it off, they lose a wicket. Anderson has got it to swing in; it’s straight and tough. Dean Elgar has already played and missed at a ball with something that loosely resembled a cricket shot his first ball. Now he’s pinned on the crease, straight in front, and as the finger is raised he’s limping around the crease like’s he’s not just been dismissed, but destroyed.At The Oval Faf du Plessis talked about South Africa’s mistakes, here they just replicated them. South Africa started the first session a chance to go ahead in the game; they ended it limping.

Australia completed their 33rd Ashes series win to move ahead of England overall

Shiva Jayaraman18-Dec-2017 Yet another 3-0 Ashes win for Australia Australia’s innings victory at the WACA – which is hosting its last major Test – means they have regained the Ashes at the end of only the third match of series. This 3-0 margin is the 10th time a team has clinched the Ashes series by the end of the third Test. All but one of those ten wins were achieved by Australia, seven of which have come at home for them. The only England win in this manner came way back in 1928-29.ESPNcricinfo LtdOverall, this is the 19th time in the history of the Ashes that a team has secured the trophy before losing a Test to the opposition in a series involving five or more matches. In ten Ashes series played since the turn of this century, this is the sixth time when a team has won the series before conceding a match to the opposition. England won the 2013 Ashes at home by the fourth Test of the series by a margin of 3-0, while the other wins to be achieved in this manner have all been by Australia.ESPNcricinfo Ltd England equal their worst away streak This was the seventh successive loss for England in away Tests. The last time they came away without a defeat from a Test match played outside England was in Rajkot, when they drew the first Test of the 2016-17 series against India. They have endured only one other similar stretch before this, from 1993 to 1994 when they lost three away matches in India, one in Sri Lanka and three in the West Indies. Since the beginning of 2016, England have a 2-9 win-loss record from 13 away Test match. Only Bangladesh and Zimbabwe have a poorer win-loss record in away and neutral venues in this period.With this loss, England also equalled the record for the most successive Test matches they have lost in any away country. Their eighth straight loss in Tests in Australia equals a similarly long streak they had way back from 1920 to 1925 when they also lost eight in a row. Visitors flatter to deceive, again As they have often done in the series, England seemed to put up a fight in this match on the first two days of the Test before running out of gas. The record 237-run stand between Dawid Malan and Jonny Bairstow had placed England at a promising 368 for 4 in the first innings before a lower-order collapse meant that they could not capitalise on the good work done by the pair. This was just the fourth instance in Ashes history that a team lost after being 350-plus for the loss of fewer than five wickets in the first innings of a Test. England were the team at the receiving end on the previous instance too, when a 310-run stand between Paul Collingwood and Kevin Pietersen in the first innings couldn’t prevent England from eventually losing the Adelaide Test in 2006-07. Malan shows mettle One of the few positives for England from this Test was Malan: he added to his first-innings hundred with a hard-fought 54 in the second innings, in all scoring 194 runs in the match. This is the most runs any England batsman has scored in a Test at the WACA. Before this, the highest was by Derek Randall, who made 193 runs in 1982-83 Ashes Test. Malan is also only the fourth England batsman to get two fifty-plus scores at this venue. Kevin Pietersen was the previous England batsman to do it: he made scores of 70 and 60 not out in the 2006-07 Ashes Test. Australia bid adieu to their most favourable Ashes venue This was Australia’s eighth straight win in Ashes Tests played at the WACA. This is the best streak any team has had at a venue in the history of Ashes. The next-best run for any team at a venue in the Ashes is five wins, which was achieved by Australia at the Adelaide Oval from 1895 to 1908 and by England at The Oval from 1886 to 1896. The WACA, Perth has been the most favourable venue for Australia in the Ashes, with nine wins out of the 13 Tests played while losing only one. For either team, no Ashes venue that has hosted more than two matches has been as favourable in terms of win-loss ratio as the WACA has been for Australia.

Champions Trophy winners Sarfraz Ahmed and Shadab Khan are in the squad. Former Sri Lanka captain Mahela Jayawardene is their coach. And in Mahmudullah, they have a fine finisher

Mohammad Isam01-Nov-2017Previous season: Knocked out in the second qualifier, finishing with seven wins in 14 games.Big pictureBy many accounts, Khulna Titans had a fairly limited squad last year and yet they fell only one step short of making the final. In 2017, they have increased their bench strength with the signings of in-form players such as Rilee Rossouw, Kyle Abbott, Sarfraz Ahmed, Shadab Khan and Chadwick Walton and the retention of Mahmudullah and Junaid Khan. They also have in their ranks four bright young local talents – Nazmul Hossain Shanto, Yasir Ali, Saif Hassan and Afif Hossain – who will look to leave their imprint on this year’s competition.

Khulna Titans squad

Mahmudullah, Mosharraf Hossain, Shafiul Islam, Ariful Haque, Nazmul Hossain Shanto, Abu Jayed, Yasir Ali Chowdhury, Muktar Ali, Dhiman Ghosh, Saif Hassan, Imran Ali Enam, Afif Hossain, Tanvir Islam, Junaid Khan, Rilee Rossouw, Kyle Abbott, Prasanna Seekkuge, Shehan Jayasuriya, Sarfaraz Ahmed, Shadab Khan, Jofra Archer, Chadwick Walton, Carlos Brathwaite, Benny Howell, Akila Dananjaya

Key playerMahmudullah was their backbone in 2016 and remains so in 2017. While his form in Test cricket has been up and down, he remains one of Bangladesh’s leading batsmen in the shorter formats. His bowling helped Khulna clinch last-over thrillers last year, so it goes without saying that he will be their gun player over the next few weeks.CoachAfter completing his illustrious career for Sri Lanka, Mahela Jayawardene is fast becoming a highly sought after coach in the T20 circuit. He led Mumbai Indians to the IPL title last year and will bring a lot of new ideas to the Khulna set up, that also includes former Bangladesh captain Habibul Bashar and former batsman Nafees Iqbal.One that got awayAlthough Khulna have retained many of their key performers from 2016, they will likely miss Kevon Cooper, who took 11 wickets in eight matches and provided X-factor to the bowling attack.Flying under the radarSaif Hassan is one of the most talented young batsmen in Bangladesh, and is the current Under-19 captain. He missed playing for Bangladesh A recently due to a nose injury but has made a good start to his first-class (average 47, with a double-hundred) and List-A career (average 33, with a hundred and six fifties), and is understood as being groomed for bigger things.

Where did Delhi Daredevils’ latest teenaged sensation come from?

ESPNcricinfo staff12-May-2018Who is Abhishek Sharma?Short answer: India Under-19 allrounder from Punjab who smashed an unbeaten 46 off 19 balls on T20 debut for Delhi Daredevils.Abhishek first came into the limelight with a century on Under-19 debut for Punjab in the Vinoo Mankad Trophy, before which he was the leading run-getter with 1200 runs at an average of 109.09 in the 2015-16 VIjay Merchant Trophy, India’s domestic U-16 tournament. Acquired by Daredevils for INR 55 lakh ($85,000) at the IPL auction in January, he is among three players in their squad from India’s U-19 World Cup-winning side, apart from Prithvi Shaw and opener Manjot Kalra.Still only 17, he was part of Daredevils’ trials and training squad as early as 2016, before being denied a chance due to his state side Punjab’s reluctance to expose their young players to T20s too early.What does he do?He is a hard-hitting lower-order batsman who also bowls fast and accurate left-arm spin. He had led India to victory in the U-19 Asia Cup in 2016, before being replaced as captain by Shaw months before the 2018 U-19 World Cup, where he remained an integral member of the squad.How did his Under-19 World Cup go?With India’s top order consistently firing through the tournament, his batting abilities weren’t needed for the best part. Instead, it was his bowling that shone through, as he picked up six wickets at a miserly economy rate of 3.91 from six games. When his side desperately needed him with the bat in the quarterfinal against Bangladesh, his fifty carried India to a match-winning 265 despite a lower-order collapse.Has he played any other senior cricket yet?He has already played four first-class games for Punjab during the 2017-18 season, scoring 202 runs from six innings, including a 94 against Himachal Pradesh in a league game in Dharamsala. While he has also played 10 List A games at senior level, the game against Royal Challengers was his debut in the T20 format.

Saurabh Netravalkar was India’s leading wicket-taker in the 2010 Under-19 World Cup. Sunny Sohal once outscored Virat Kohli at the junior level. Their cricketing journeys since then have taken them to an adopted home halfway around the globe

Peter Della Penna10-Feb-2018When former USA captain Sushil Nadkarni first came to the USA in his early 20s to pursue a post-graduate degree in engineering, cricket was the last thing on his mind. Despite having played for India Under-19 and opened the batting against Brett Lee, he left his cricket kit behind. It wasn’t until he arrived in the country and stumbled into cricket that he realized his career might not quite be over just yet.In the words of former Yankees catcher Yogi Berra, it’s deja vu all over again. Two former India Under-19 players recently made the switch to compete for USA in the ongoing CWI Super50 Cup – left-arm seamer Saurabh Netravalkar and batsman Sunny Sohal. While Sohal’s skillset as an opener mirrors Nadkarni’s transition on the field, Netravalkar’s academic ambitions are almost a carbon copy of Nadkarni’s on his odyssey from Maharashtra to eventually suiting up for USA.”Frankly speaking, I didn’t even carry my cricket shoes to the USA,” says 26-year-old Netravalkar of his initial landing in the USA in August 2015, having enrolled in a masters degree program in computer science at Cornell University in New York. “I was completely focused on academics. [After seeing the cricket locally] the next time I went to India, I came back with my kit.”On January 31 this year, just over three years after he played his last game for Mumbai, Netravalkar debuted for USA against Leeward Islands. It’s been a quirky and at times fanatical journey into the USA squad, rediscovering his passion in a new country for a game he thought he had to give up after being unable to achieve a work-life balance between cricket and engineering in India.After finishing as India’s leading wicket-taker at the 2010 Under-19 World Cup, where his team-mates included KL Rahul and Jaydev Unadkat, Netravalkar initially pursued an undergraduate degree in computer science while juggling it around his cricket. By the time he graduated in 2013, he realised the dual vocation was untenable. He committed himself full-time to cricket, making his first-class debut for Mumbai in December 2013 and playing ten 50-overs games as well. But that season back, he says, opened his eyes as to how much other players had progressed.”In 2015, I realised it’s really competitive to get back to the international level. I thought I had good educational skills and I got admitted at the right time to Cornell, which is one of the best universities in the world for computer science. I thought it was a good opportunity and considering in the long run that education would help me, I took that step at that time.”Netravalkar’s masters course at Cornell ran from August 2015 through May 2016, at which point he came to another fork in the road. Option one: head back to India for engineering work and a progressively more difficult path at restarting his cricket career. Option two: stay in the USA and move from New York to San Francisco, where he had been offered a job with Oracle, and begin a path toward eligibility to play for USA. He chose the latter.After playing some club matches while at Cornell, he began to get much more serious about cricket once he moved out west. In 2016, he represented the North West Region at the USACA National Championship. After learning about the ICC eligibility guidelines from Marin CC team-mate and USA legspinner Timil Patel, himself a former Ranji Trophy player with Gujarat, he kicked his efforts into high gear, seeking out as many opportunities to play as possible.”Most importantly it’s the continuity in practice,” Netravalkar says. “In Cornell, for the whole year I had a burden due to studies and could hardly practice. After I moved to Oracle, the only thing I found was the lack of practice because I have to motivate myself on weekdays to go to practice after work and find a slot for practising. There are very few games so I have to make sure I play different tournaments and am continually in the process. So that’s what I started last year.”To accomplish his aim of playing in two cities per weekend, Netravalkar traveled with team-mate Srinivas Salver from San Francisco to Los Angeles on Friday nights after work, the pair driving three hours each for the six-hour trip south before crashing at another team-mate’s house. He’d wake up Saturday morning to play with Vijayta CC in Los Angeles, then drive straight back with Salver to San Francisco for a short night’s sleep and a Sunday morning match with Marin.Going to such great lengths worried his parents back in India but Netravalkar was determined to play in Los Angeles in order to get exposure on turf wickets.No match in Los Angeles was bigger for Netravalkar than playing for the Southern California Cricket Association XI against a USA XI in a national-team warm-up match last May ahead of WCL Division Three. Though he had played with and against many of the USA squad before, it was the first time coach Pubudu Dassanayake would see him. Netravalkar rose to the occasion with 2 for 30 in nine overs, leading the SCCA XI to a surprise win over USA. When the ICC lowered the minimum residency for eligibility from four years to three, Netravalkar got the call to join USA.Associated PressThe same residency stipulation allowed Sohal to be fast-tracked into USA’s squad at the top of the batting order. Unlike Netravalkar, cricket was always Sohal’s focus and the 30-year-old was part of a golden crop of Under-19 talent in 2007-08. Playing in a squad captained by Piyush Chawla that included Virat Kohli, Ravindra Jadeja and Saurabh Tiwary, Sohal topped the team’s run-scoring charts in a tri-series against Sri Lanka and England, with 288 runs including three-half centuries. His best of 97 came opening the batting against a Sri Lanka attack featuring future internationals Thisara Perera, Isuru Udana and Sachith Pathirana. He then went on to make 75 not out against an England attack spearheaded by Steven Finn.He progressed into Punjab’s Ranji Trophy team and was in peak form at the start of the 2008-09 season, which he ended as his team’s leading scorer that season with 569 runs at 51.72 in seven matches.Another step forward came when Sohal was named in the India Red squad for the NKP Salve Challenger Trophy in October 2009. He didn’t get to bat in the first match he played, and in his only innings in the tournament, in the final against India Blue, he was out second ball to Harbhajan Singh. That was the closest he came to achieving his lifelong ambition.”When every cricketer starts cricket, my dream is to play for the country,” Sohal said. “I did well. I played Under-19 India, India A, I was right there. But when I was 26, I did not think they would pick me.”Though his national-team ambitions faded, he still managed to carve out a niche for himself at the IPL. For the first three seasons of the tournament from 2008 to 2010, Sohal played for Kings XI Punjab, appearing 11 times. His best season came after moving to Deccan Chargers in 2011, when he scored 249 runs in ten innings as a top-order mainstay including 62 off 41 balls in a win over Delhi Daredevils. But just as he found his groove, his role went up in smoke.”They bought Parthiv Patel in the 2012 auction, Deccan Chargers,” Sohal says. “I was sitting on the bench. Then I got selected by RCB [in 2013]. Virat Kohli picked me. He suggested me. They have a big team. I was waiting but didn’t get a chance because I’m an opener and they were already set at opener with Chris Gayle and other big names.”As he rode the bench with Chargers and then Royal Challengers Bangalore, his opportunities with Punjab also disappeared. From the end of the Vijay Hazare Trophy in February 2010, Sohal went four years before making the Punjab XI again but played just twice more in the 50-overs competition in March 2014. No longer with an IPL contract either, he decided to pack up in search of greener pastures in America as a paid professional for Potomac Cricket Club in Maryland at the invitation of an old friend named Rajat Passey.”He has a club in the Washington Cricket League and said you can come here and I’ll give you a contract and take care,” Sohal says. “Then I moved here. My wife also has family here.”Sohal’s first exposure to cricket in the USA was actually not in Maryland, though. He came to Chicago for a T20 invitational tournament in the summer of 2014 which featured several West Indies and Pakistani internationals. The quality on display helped cement his decision to settle in Maryland for good.”I didn’t know what kind of competition there was in the USA, but when I came to Chicago I saw a couple of international-level players – Darren Bravo, Mervyn Dillon, old West Indies players and some of the current ones. Also a couple of players from Pakistan – Mohammad Sami, Kamran Akmal, Saaed Ajmal, Abdul Razzaq – were there. In the WCL, they have first-class players from Jamaica and Barbados.”It was outside of Maryland, in Texas, that Sohal caught the eye of Dassanayake and national selection chairman Ricardo Powell. At the Dallas Premier League T20 tournament in November, Sohal scored a century in front of Dassanayake. With USA’s struggles at the top of the order throughout 2017, Dassanayake called on Sohal in an effort to solve the problem.”Every player has a dream to play international cricket. I’m lucky I achieved that here, I’m so happy,” Sohal says. “I was watching US cricket and they are doing good for a couple of years. But they need some good batting. I had experience and played at that kind of level and have experience to play how you manage pressure situations. I want to take US team to the next level.”So far, Sohal has had a rocky start. He got a ripper of a delivery, jagging back in, to be bowled first ball on debut against Leeward Islands, then followed it with an over-eager slash to the keeper for a second-ball duck against Guyana. He struggled early in his third match against Jamaica before battling to grind out 65 off 112 balls in a losing effort. Overall, he has 72 runs in four matches.Netravalkar has had a much more promising start to his USA career. Opening the bowling, he’s taken four wickets in four matches with an economy rate of 4.33. He took 2 for 45 in 10 overs on debut against Leewards, and arguably could have had two more wickets after a pair of edges evaded fielders. He hasn’t gone for more than 4.60 an over in any match so far. However, Netravalkar says getting into the side and putting in solid performances is just the start, not the finish.”If you’re playing at the international stage, you can never be satisfied,” Netravalkar says. “But I think the hard work I’ve done, I’ve set a tone for a good routine and a good attitude that I’m always on the field. I think the attitude is set but the results will show and I need to keep improving and need to keep working harder if I have to sustain at this level. To enter this stage is a job half-done. From now on, what I do, how I perform is more important. That will be my test.”

Even at his most fluent, Cook cannot avoid being ungainly. But without him on the first day at Lord’s, England would have been sunk without trace

Jarrod Kimber at Lord's24-May-2018Alastair Cook is awkwardly squatting at slip. His legs are too far apart, his hands are already together as if someone is about to pour soup into them, and it’s as if he’s standing over some imaginary obstacle, making his legs buckle weirdly. Cook was never a natural slip fielder, so he’s made this technique to survive.Cook was out of fashion before we even knew who he was. He made his first-class debut in 2003, the same year that T20 burst onto the county scene. He’s the Jacob Rees-Mogg of English cricket, except that none of it is put on for effect. Cook’s batting is from another era, untouched by the modern world.The modern world, according to the ECB, thinks T20 is too long. The modern world doesn’t even know of Ben Stokes or Joe Root. And Jos Buttler has just been picked for a Test match because the modern world liked his performance in a competition whose format and conditions are from another dimension.Cook – Test nurdler, farmer, right kind of family, deer hunter – is still England’s Test opener. And despite the many calls to drop him, Cook remains.Since Cook’s debut, opposition openers in England have averaged 32; Cook’s averaged 44 in that time. English openers, including Andrew Strauss, have averaged 32 as well. Strauss has averaged 38, the only one close to Cook. In England’s worst-ever opening partnerships of ten innings or more, Cook appears five times among the top ten. Since Strauss, only Root has averaged over 32 when opening for England. Dropping Cook would be like replacing a working washing machine with a bucket of mud.Cook’s made huge scores and series-winning ones in Australia and India. He has flaws; he often bats at one pace, he can suffer significant dips in form, and is almost anti-box office. But he’s been an incredible opening batsman for English cricket.Who cares if on Pointless – the English game show – he’s a prized answer (the less famous you are, the more valuable you are to the contestant). He’s made over 12,000 Test runs; today he went past Mike Atherton in facing the most balls as an opener in England (since balls have been counted), and now is joint with Allan Border for the most consecutive Tests, 153. All done without sweating.Alastair Cook raised his bat after notching fifty•Getty ImagesToday England lost their fifth wicket at 149, at which point Cook had made 70. England would add another 35 runs without him.Some suggested Cook was more attacking in this innings, and there were things in his cricket you rarely see. After 15 balls, Cook had made 17. This is a man with a strike rate of 77 in ODI cricket, so 17 from 15 was like watching your nan watch Childish Gambino’s This is America on her phone. There were actual real-life cover drives, four off the seamers. Cook’s wagon-wheel usually has a hole where cricket’s classiest shot is played. He also went on the front foot to the seamers 74% of the time, even allowing for Pakistan’s fuller length. That’s a lot of front foot for Cook.But, he still is Cook. After reaching 17 that quickly, he then scored one run from his next 29 balls. It took 96 deliveries to bring up his fifty, which was pretty quick considering the level of bowling he was facing. But then straight after that, he sat on 50 for 21 balls. Even when he’s attacking, he isn’t.But Cook’s method is perfect for days like this. Pakistan bowled full and accurately, with constant movement. To survive all that and the slope, you need to be patient, to understand the ball will beat the bat. According to CricViz, Cook usually leaves 18% of his deliveries, today it was 34%. When he played, he often played and missed. But he kept fighting, and was in control of 79% of his balls, the rest of England were at 75%.Despite the brilliant bowling from Mohammad Abbas and Hasan Ali, it was Cook’s old nemesis Mohammad Amir who had him most in trouble. His control against Amir was 69%. But Amir has dismissed him six times in 15 innings and had him dropped almost as many times. And it was finally Amir who took him, with a ball handcrafted to dismiss him.Until then there had been no counter-attack from Cook, just his standard counter-defence.During Cook’s first fallow period, Mohammad Abbas was bowling around the wicket, and the ball was still moving. The slope and angle dictated that the ball should come back in. But Abbas got the ball to go against gravity and slant, and both balls flew past Cook’s outside edge. For the next seven deliveries from Abbas, Cook went back to defend, came forward to smother and left the ball alone. It was two straight overs of tests from Abbas.But one ball was shorter, and Cook went back, dropped his hands, and steered it through slips for a boundary. It was the last delivery of Abbas’ first spell, and Cook handled it through a combination of avoiding all-out defence, avoiding playing shots, and connecting well enough with an ungainly, effective steer. Cook survives; he often does.

Ashish Nehra, Royal Challengers Bangalore’s bowling consultant, talks about dealing with defeat, advising Virat Kohli, and deciding who will bowl at the death

Interview by Nagraj Gollapudi11-May-2018In his first stint as a bowling consultant, with Royal Challengers Bangalore, Ashish Nehra has been constantly in the ear of Virat Kohli, the franchise’s captain. But despite possessing a strong bowling unit, which Nehra says is as good as that of table leaders Sunrisers Hyderabad, Royal Challengers are currently languishing in seventh place. In this interview, speaking after Royal Challengers had played eight matches, Nehra explains his bowling group’s strengths, the grey areas they’re trying to address, and how he is helping his bowlers stay strong while facing the challenges of bowling in T20.When you sat in on the auction, what kind of a bowling unit did you want to build?
The Bangalore wicket is a good, flat wicket, and it is a small ground. It is not turning as much as last year. The wicket was responsible for RCB winning only one or two games last year. You pick your team according to the home ground, where you play 50% of your matches. On this ground you need bowlers who have pace – 140kph-plus, hit-the-deck bowlers. That is why I went for Umesh Yadav, Mohammed Siraj, Navdeep Saini – all 140kph-plus bowlers. Then we have [Yuzvendra] Chahal and Washington [Sundar] – both spinners are playing for India in this format. You have Chris Woakes, who is an allrounder. I don’t think you can have a better bowling unit than this. We also have Kulwant Khejroliya and Aniket Choudhary. So all together, we have plenty of options. The only team [as good or better] than us is Sunrisers Hyderabad, who have a good bowling attack, especially the Indians. It is another thing that the bowling unit clicks sometimes and sometimes it does not due to the pressure.

Smart economy rate is one of a new set of metrics by ESPNcricinfo to accurately assess T20 performanceRoyal Challengers have played eight matches and won three. What is your assessment of the team’s bowling?
It is very easy in this format to criticise a bowler or a batsman after a few games. Bowlers are always under pressure. We scored 205 [but] Chennai chased it. CSK also gave [away] 200 twice and chased it. [On May 2] Delhi [Daredevils] would have nearly made 230-240 if not for the rain; the other team [Rajasthan Royals] lost by just four runs.For me, if the fast bowlers can perform in 50% of the matches then you are winning the battle. I need to give the guys the mental support. This bowling unit has all the ingredients. It has done well but still can do better, especially at the death.Take the example of Siraj. He is bowling well at the death in the last three to four matches. I don’t judge a guy by stats. If he is bowling at the death, he is going to give 40 in four overs, especially in a 180-run game. If it is a 200-run game, he might give four overs for 45, but I will say that is good bowling because I look at bowling and not stats. He has the variety.Umesh has been consistently picking up wickets for RCB. And in this format it is very important to pick up wickets upfront, otherwise you are not going to win that easy. If you saw the game against Mumbai [Indians], he picked up two upfront. Against Kings XI Punjab, he picked up three in an over, a complete game changer, and finished as Man of the Match. In the last match at home, Tim Southee was really good against Mumbai and won the same award. So you need to have good bowlers who can bowl well upfront and also at the death.My idea of mentoring or coaching is: one size does not fit all. For example, Umesh is not someone who will look to bowl a lot of slower ones. My plan for him has been to bowl two or three overs upfront and one over at the death. In this format it is really important that all bowlers have different roles.”Washington Sundar [second from left] will come good. He is a very intelligent guy. He just needs one good game”•BCCIWhat are the roles you have assigned to the bowlers?
Umesh is a 140kph-plus bowler who can swing the ball and looks to pick up wickets in the first six overs. In the majority of the games he has bowled back-to-back three overs. In fact, against Chennai he bowled four in a row. We took a chance, the game was in our hand, but unfortunately we did not have any bowlers who could put pressure [at the other end]. Washington did not have a good game. He bowled only one over.Corey Anderson is a batsman who can bowl. Unfortunately he was bowling the death overs in that game.Umesh has been consistently bowling well. I will prefer him bowling three overs upfront, and I don’t mind him giving away 25 runs and taking one or two wickets instead of three overs for 15 runs without any wickets.Siraj is a different bowler. Usually he bowls one-change. He also bowls at the death. Against Chennai, that boy bowled the 15th, 17th and 19th overs – three overs at the death in a high-pressure match in front of Mahendra Singh Dhoni.So why are things not clicking?
I don’t agree. It is clicking. The way we have played, we should have won four and lost four. Right now, the way Umesh and Siraj are bowling, if this is not clicking then nothing will. Even a guy like [Jasprit] Bumrah has gone for runs on a couple of occasions. Like in the first match of the IPL, when [Dwayne] Bravo hit him for runs when the game was in Mumbai’s pocket. He also went for runs in Jaipur [18 runs in the 19th over]. As a bowler, if you are successful 50-60% of the time, I see that as clicking. Umesh has been a Man of the Match. Southee, too, won the same award. So the bowling has been clicking, but it was the last match [against Mumbai] which was won due to a team effort.

But you will agree that in the previous seven matches the bowling has been inconsistent. How did you handle that?
In the Chennai match, Corey should not have bowled at that time – the final over of the innings. I don’t mind that, but only if you are bowling first.We took a chance because they were 74 for 4. Umesh had bowled all his four overs at one go upfront. Washington bowled only one over, and we were playing with only two Indian fast bowlers and the third one was Corey. We might have put too much pressure on him and were expecting too much of him. It was an exception, that match.A guy who is bowling in Hyderabad – his stats would not be similar to a bowler in Mumbai or Bangalore. These two are high-scoring grounds. If it is a 200-run game, your best bowler will go for a minimum of 40 runs.Yesterday I was watching the Royals’ match. Jofra Archer, a good bowler, gave 37 [31] runs in three overs. If the game is a 230-run game and your best bowler, who bowls upfront, with the field in the circle, and then at the death, if he is giving 45 in four overs, you will rarely see the second team making 225. As a captain you give your best bowler the tough overs. If the other team is going to score 200-plus, that guy will go for runs.So I will not say our bowling is not clicking. Only thing that is not working [so far] is Washington hasn’t been able to deliver the way he wanted to.

Why hasn’t Washington bowled his quota of overs more often?
Being an offspinner is not easy because batsmen are attacking them. Batsmen now are dominating a bowler who is down. It is similar to the case [where] if I were a bowler and AB de Villiers and Mandeep Singh are batting, I would bowl as many balls as possible to Mandeep, who is also a good batsman. You’ve got to be clever enough.Washington will come good. He is a very intelligent guy. He just needs one good game. In addition to small grounds and good bats, batsmen have also become smarter. People are clearing long-off and long-on with ease. Earlier, teams thought of making 50 runs in four overs. Now they want to get it in three.Washington has taken only four wickets. Has he spoken to you about his doubts?
He is a match-winner. He can also bat. He is just playing his second IPL. He is only 18. For me, it is all about giving him confidence and the liberty to go and express himself.I know that boy can bowl – he did it last year, he has done it for India, he has bowled upfront and at the death, he has bowled under pressure. So it is not that he can’t do it. He can. It is not like he is bowling badly or too many loose deliveries. It is not like every second ball he bowls is a full toss or he is being cut easily. Batsmen are trying to take him on, and if one or two succeed, every team will try to do that. You can take the example of Sunil Narine. Against us, Narine went for 36 [38]; against Royals [who made 160], he gave 48 runs in four overs.Look at Rashid [Khan]. Chris Gayle took him on because he knew if he played normally, he did not stand a chance. Rashid gave 54 [55] in that match against Kings XI Punjab, and 49 in the very next match [against Super Kings].But why can’t Washington bowl in the Powerplay?
Because we have Umesh and [Tim] Southee, who we want to bowl upfront. Secondly, batsmen are easily taking spinners on when the fielders are inside the circle. They like it. All the Indian guys: [Ambati] Rayudu, Rishabh Pant, Mandeep Singh – they wait for spinners. Unless the pitch is a rank turner, they are hitting at will against a spinner, especially right-handers against offspinners.Wristspinners are more successful only because they have more chances of picking up a wicket. That is why you have Kuldeep Yadav and Chahal playing and not [Ravindra] Jadeja and Ashwin in ODIs for India now. Coming back to Washington, he bowled a lot of overs in the Powerplay [last season] because Rising Pune Supergiant did not have [good enough] fast bowling. You have to see your strengths and weaknesses before deciding on a bowling combination.”If Siraj is bowling at the death, he is going to give 40-45 in four overs, but still I will say that is good bowling because I see bowling and not the stats. He has the variety”•AFPYou are seen speaking to Kohli all the time during matches. What kind of things do you suggest to him?
In a tight situation he might come to me and say, who can we bowl? Like in Mumbai, where Corey bowled that last over at Wankhede. So many people said, “, why is Corey bowling the last over?”Overs 17, 18 and 19 have to be bowled by your good bowlers. If they bowl well, then the final over anybody can bowl. If Corey had bowled in 17 or 18 and he went for 20 in that over, then there is more chance that your good bowler can also go for runs, because the batsman is on top of you. I don’t leave it for last. You try to kill the game as quickly as possible.In that same game, Siraj, who was bowling well, went for 13 runs [11 runs in the 18th over]. That difference matters when you are defending a total of 150-160, not 217 [213]. Teams might say this person is making that mistake, but you might be making mistakes when you are winning, but then nobody points that out.Tell us about times when suggestions you offered worked?
Take our match against Mumbai, where we kept two overs of Siraj and Southee for the death and also one over of Umesh. I said, we have to give Umesh the confidence and have him bowl one over in the last five. He had gone for 26 in an over against Royals, when Sanju Samson hit him, and then Rohit Sharma took him on and hit him for 18-odd runs. He is an international bowler, so if he can’t bowl at the death then who can?I do not like chopping and changing the bowling unit. We have given Siraj the confidence despite him starting slowly in the first few matches. He was saying that after the first three matches he was worried about not taking wickets. But in the last couple of matches he has picked up wickets.I said, wickets will come. He was bowling well. I told him that T20 is like that: at times you bowl well and you don’t take wickets. Then at times you feel as a bowler you did not bowl well and you end up picking up wickets.Take Hardik Pandya. He is wearing the purple cap. Nobody thought that overs 18 and 19 would go only for four runs. And Mitchell McCleneghan had bowled his first three overs for 11 runs. For his last over, he was hit for 23 runs.This game is never over. I always tell the bowlers: if you have 3-0-15-2, don’t think the game is going good. A prime example is McCleneghan. But if you are 3-0-45-0, you are still not out of the game. You might end up picking up a couple of wickets for five to six runs and might win the team the game.Does Umesh have the skills to bowl at the death?
He has a good yorker and he has the pace. Even with the old ball, he can bowl 140kph-plus. And if there is an Indian domestic batsman at the crease, you can bowl back of a length. I am talking about Umesh bowling just one over [at the death]. You don’t need too much variety while bowling at the death. If you have three different balls, and if they are good enough, master them. Virat Kohli scores so much. He does not sweep. He does not need to. MS Dhoni never swept. He will play with his cap on when spinners are bowling, because he knows he is not going to sweep. You don’t need to do ten different things. You stick to your strength.It is also difficult for a bowler in this environment to consistently execute plans. Take the example of Siraj attempting wide yorkers to Dhoni. Incidentally, the third man was in, a ploy many teams are trying with mixed success.
On a slow wicket, you can do that. If I am bowling a yorker outside off stump, I will not keep my third man in. Or if my third man is in, I will send my gully deep. People are also keeping two fielders deep behind point. And the kind of six MS hit against the outside-off-stump ball, only MS could hit that shot the way he was batting that day. It was an out-of-the-world shot. That over was a nine-ball over. Still, Siraj only went for 14 runs. This included three wides, and he went only for one hit. That over comprised a slower-ball bouncer, a yorker, a length delivery and three wides. He did not bowl a single slower ball.I am not a big fan of too many slower balls. You have to mix it up. Even against Mumbai, he bowled very good length deliveries, clocking in the high 140s. He was bowling the heavy ball, pitching it back of a length. Siraj is having an amazing IPL. How many Indian fast bowlers are doing the job Siraj is doing at death? Jasprit Bumrah. Who else?Is there anything missing in the team combination?
Bowling-wise, I would say no. In batting we could have had one Indian batsman who can be No. 5 or 6 and who can hit big and finish games. But that kind of hole there will be in every team.

After 13 years as an England cricketer, fast bowler aims to evolve into a genuine allrounder to prolong her career

Andrew Miller28-Jun-2018Over the past fortnight of international action, in both men’s and women’s cricket, there’s been no place to hide if you are a toiling fast bowler. Records have been obliterated wherever you care to look – from New Zealand women’s 490 against Ireland, to England men’s 481 against Australia, to England women’s 250 in a T20 against South Africa at Taunton last week.”Yeah, it does make you question why you do what you do,” says Katherine Brunt, England’s veteran quick bowler, with the sort of lugubrious air that Angus Fraser might have cultivated in his pomp.”There’s not much fun in it any more. One of the main things our coach tells us now is accept you are going to get hit, the pitches are that good and the balls don’t move off the straight so you have to be very highly skilled at variations and consistent lines and lengths.”You mainly have to accept the fact that you are going to get smashed a few times, you have to keep working hard and you’ll get your rewards that way.”However, Brunt, who turns 33 next week, is not half as downcast as she might like to let on – not even when the conversation turns to the astonishing wicketkeeping skills of Sarah Taylor, whose half-volleyed leg-side stumping off Dane van Nierkerk at Taunton was a bittersweet moment for the fastest bowler in England’s ranks.”It’s actually demoralising,” she says. “It makes me think I can’t be that quick if you can just do that! But I’ve played with Sarah since she was 16, so I know what she’s capable of. It wasn’t a massive shock to me, but for people watching it’s jawdropping. You do have to take a moment to say that was pretty special, but I bet if you asked her, she’d say it’s not as hard as you think.”But realistically there is little reason for Brunt to grumble at present. England’s women are riding the crest of their post-World Cup wave, having out-muscled South Africa in a closely fought ODI series before providing some quality entertainment in the opening rounds of the T20 Triangular, for which they are virtually guaranteed a berth in Sunday’s final at Chelmsford after a pair of hard-hitting wins over both opponents.”The venues have been great, the crowd attendance has been great, the feedback’s been brilliant, the media support too,” says Brunt. “And the weather has been incredible, we’ve been melting down in Bristol for the past two days. All of our games seem go down to the wire at the moment because the teams are so evenly balanced, and that makes for really good entertainment. But it doesn’t work quite so well for the state of my nails, or getting heart attacks midway through games!”With three wickets at 19.66 in the campaign to date, Brunt has done her bit for the cause with ball in hand. But increasingly, she is being trusted as a frontline batting option – not least in the world-record 250, when she was pushed up the order to No.4 with licence to give it some humpty, and duly walked off the field 16 balls later with 42 not out to her name.Katherine Brunt rocks back to cut•PA Images via Getty Images”I’ve been working on my batting a lot recently,” she says. “I used to be a bit of a slogger but I’ve turned myself into a genuine allrounder. My skill has come on a bit, I can hit balls in different areas now rather than just being a one-track batter, so I’ve got Robbo [coach Mark Robinson] to thank for that, and hopefully I can keep getting better.”Brunt’s innings on that day at Taunton included three fours and three sixes, and followed another fine performance in the first ODI of the summer against South Africa, when she produced a career-best 72 not out to double England’s total after they had slumped to 97 for 8.”It’s mostly a mental thing,” she adds. “The hardest thing about batting is that you have to believe it yourself, and then I needed someone else to believe it too, not just me. It’s always been a bit of a ****-take, for want of a better word. People would laugh at me if I said I could bat, and they’d just say ‘no’.”So once people started to take me more seriously, I was allowed to take myself more seriously, and spend a bit more time on it, and I could see the improvement from where my game was.”The development of an extra string to Brunt’s bow is a vital aspect of her career evolution, as she begins to accept the inevitability of time creeping up on her 13-year England career.”I ask myself this question in two-month intervals,” Brunt says on the subject of her eventual retirement. “It’s just where my body’s at really. I did used to say I’d quit when I didn’t love it anymore, but I can’t see that happening because my passion will always be there.”I’m very stubborn and a perfectionist. There’s always more I can do to be better, It’ll be my body that caves in in the end, and I don’t see that happening yet, but I’ve got too big a drive to stop. The choice will have to be taken out of my hands in the end, but women’s sport is going places, with different formats and competitions taking place, which make it harder to walk away.”As and when she does depart, however, Brunt will be able to reflect on a career that has spanned two distinct eras of women’s cricket – and while the professional era is still in its infancy, the standards have been rocketing in recent months, not just out in the middle where no total seems safe anymore, but in the nets where the next generation are developing rapidly.”We’ve never really been challenged in the nets on tours until recently,” says Brunt. “Now a few girls have turned up with a yard or two of pace or a bit about them. These are 16-17 year olds with variations from nowhere, and they do open your eyes and make you think ‘blimey!'”Five or six years ago, kids coming into the nets as net bowlers weren’t very good, you’d have to get the coach to give you throwdowns because the standard wasn’t good, but now they are getting you out every other ball.”There’s some real good talent coming through from the counties, lots of girls with the skills to bowl yorkers and out of the back of the hand. The likes of our performance squad girls, who unfortunately miss out a lot of the time like Beth Langston and Kate Cross, and Katie George, who’s just on the scene with pacy left-arm inswing. There’s a lot to be excited about, for now and in the future.”Kia Motors is the official title sponsor of the Kia Super League, for more information please visit www.kia.com

The tournament will be a high point of a bizarre year in which the team has lost its ODI status while also securing famous wins against Afghanistan, UAE and Nepal in the 50-overs format

Peter Della Penna15-Sep-2018St Patrick’s Day is a quirky date on the calendar in the annals of Associate history. In 2007, the day was marked by a famous Irish win in Jamaica over Pakistan that served as a catalyst for Ireland’s inexorable march to Test status. Eleven years later, Hong Kong experienced the bizarre dichotomy of having their participation in the 4000th ODI against Papua New Guinea trumpeted in an ICC press release with the knowledge that it may be their last such match for at least four years.Four years of hard grind to keep ODI status won in 2014 was undone in the matter of two weeks in Zimbabwe this past March. It didn’t matter that Hong Kong could have secured a spot in the 13-team ODI League beginning in 2020 had they been able to win either WCL Championship contest against the Netherlands in 2017 that they only narrowly lost.The Dutch had been in Hong Kong’s shoes four years earlier. One win in the 2011-13 WCL Championship was what separated them and Afghanistan from an automatic berth in the 2015 World Cup. Netherlands wound up one spot back, forced to go to the World Cup Qualifier in New Zealand where one bad week, and one bad loss to Kenya, saw their ODI status wiped out in an instant.But the Dutch had also laid a blueprint for Hong Kong on how to bounce back from such a devastating result. It was only two months after the Dutch debacle in New Zealand that they pulled off one of the greatest chases in any format, smashing 193 in 13.5 overs on a legendary night in Sylhet to leapfrog Ireland into the main draw of the 2014 World T20 in Bangladesh.Last month in Malaysia, a young Hong Kong side showed that what happened in Zimbabwe need not be the end of the world for them either. Under new captain Anshuman Rath, Hong Kong reeled off four straight wins against Singapore, UAE, Nepal and then UAE once more in a final rematch to earn a place in Group A of the main Asia Cup draw against India and Pakistan, thus highlighting one of the great ironies of Hong Kong’s ODI existence.

If playing in the Asia Cup were an opportunity afforded only to teams with ODI status, then Hong Kong would have been locked out in favor of UAE and Nepal, teams they scored a trio of wins against at the qualifier in Malaysia.

In the four years Hong Kong held official ODI status from 2014 to 2018, the only two ODIs they played against Full Members took place in the final week that they held the status, against Afghanistan and Zimbabwe. They won the first of those two encounters, demonstrating their capabilities if only given an opportunity.Now that they’ve lost their ODI status, they’ll be playing the same amount of ODIs against Test nations in the space of one week as they had in the preceding four years by virtue of the ICC’s decree that all matches at the Asia Cup will have ODI status in spite of the lack of such status currently held by Hong Kong. It’s also their third appearance in the Asia Cup, following up on 2004 and 2008, the only other opportunities they’ve ever had to play ODI cricket.Hong Kong’s performance at the Asia Cup Qualifier once again demonstrates the beauty of meritocracy through qualifying on the field of play rather than having opportunities dished out according to administrative status labels. If playing in the Asia Cup were an opportunity afforded only to teams with ODI status, then Hong Kong would have been locked out in favor of UAE and Nepal, teams they scored a trio of wins against at the qualifier in Malaysia.The same held true during the Asia Cup T20 Qualifier in 2016. Prior to the staging of that tournament, three Asian Associates – Afghanistan, Oman and Hong Kong – had all qualified for the World T20 that was to follow a month later in India. But UAE was invited to participate as a fourth team courtesy of their T20I status and despite having missed out on the World T20 managed to trump that Asian associate trio to advance to the main draw of the Asia Cup T20, and in the process gave a serious scare to Sri Lanka. It was yet another instance showcasing the depth and strength of Associates in the region.Hong Kong’s qualification also provides evidence that the countries’ development programs are indeed bearing fruit and deserve more investment from the ICC in spite of their lack of ODI status. Many casual observers fall into the habit of lazily looking at the names on paper and assume the squad is made up of washed up imports from other countries.The truth is that regardless of their ethnic heritage, the majority of the squad has come through Hong Kong’s Under-19 junior squads, including 20-year-old Rath. This is not a recent phenomenon either as the last remaining holdover from their 2004 Asia Cup debut is 30-year-old left-arm spinner Nadeem Ahmed, who made his debut as a 16-year-old in that tournament against Pakistan. In addition to English and Urdu, Nadeem speaks fluent Cantonese as well, underscoring his strong connection to the local Hong Kong Chinese culture that he was raised in.More than anything, though, Hong Kong just want the opportunity to show they belong. They’ll still be overwhelming underdogs to make it out of group play. But as Ireland showed the world against Pakistan in 2007, stranger things have happened.According to the Chinese zodiac calendar, 2018 is the year of the dog. Hong Kong have already demonstrated against Afghanistan’s superstar spin trio of Rashid, Mujeeb and Nabi that their bark is backed up by a strong bite. And they’ll be woofing plenty when they take the field next week against Pakistan and India.