Vote for the best individual Border-Gavaskar Trophy performance by an Indian in Australia since 2000

Shashank Kishore21-Oct-2024Update: This poll has ended. Sachin Tendulkar’s performance goes into the quarter-finals. Check the other polls here.ESPNcricinfo LtdSachin Tendulkar celebrates his double-century at the SCG in 2004•William West/AFP via Getty Images

Sachin Tendulkar – 241* & 60* in Sydney, 2004

Match drawn, series drawn 1-1Sachin Tendulkar’s form with the series level 1-1 hadn’t been reassuring. His cover driving had caused three dismissals in the first three Tests, and he was determined not to fall for the bait at the SCG. His 241* in the first innings – his highest Test score at the time – was a remarkable example of his discipline and ability to find a way.Tendulkar did not play the cover drive, even when the Australian bowlers offered easy temptation, and entirely cut out a faulty part of his game. He batted for more than ten hours and helped India amass 705, shutting down Australia’s hopes of a series win. His unbeaten 60 off 89 balls in the second innings was compiled with more freedom, as India pushed towards a declaration. However, a setting a target of 443 left them with too little time to take ten wickets and achieve what would have been a historic series win.Watch the highlights of these performances on the Star Sports network at 10am, 1pm, 4pm and 7pm IST, from October 22 onwards.Virender Sehwag saved the Adelaide Test for India in 2008•AFP

Virender Sehwag – 63 & 151 in Adelaide, 2008

Match drawn, India lost the series 2-1After winning in Perth, India began the final Test in Adelaide 2-1 down and Virender Sehwag gave them a cracking start, his 63 off 90 balls laying the platform for a first-innings total of 526. But Australia responded with 563 and the visitors were under fire to save the game.Sehwag was in Australia only on his captain Anil Kumble’s insistence, and he wasn’t known to be a second-innings performer. He ended up batting for nearly six hours, doing un-Sehwag things like going an entire session without a boundary, and scored his 13th century – his first in the second innings of a Test. He went through his gears, ensuring runs came despite wickets falling, to put India’s lead well out of Australia’s reach. Sehwag finished on 151; the next highest score in India’s total of 269 for 7 declared was MS Dhoni’s 20.

In our second batch of team report cards for 2024: India, Australia, South Africa, Bangladesh, West Indies, Afghanistan and Zimbabwe

02-Jan-2025Indiaby Sidharth Monga
It was almost like India used up a year’s worth of luck on one afternoon in Barbados. It brought the country immense joy. What the T20 World Cup, their first ICC title in 11 years, meant to India really hit home when parts of the financial capital of the country came to a standstill for the victorious team’s trophy tour. It was as though not just the players but the entire country let themselves release their emotions after the heartbreak of the defeat in the last year’s ODI World Cup final.However, the tears of joy soon turned into anguish when India ended their dominant home run of 18 unbeaten series with not just any series defeat but their first-ever whitewash at home.As after the ODI World Cup in 2011, India hurtled towards a transition, with R Ashwin announcing retirement and pressure building on some others. Only the relentless genius of Jasprit Bumrah kept the men’s team from resembling the side that sleepwalked to eight straight Test defeats in England and Australia in 2011 and 2012.At the end of the year, needing a win in Sydney to stay alive in the World Test Championship, the memories of the T20 World Cup win and the home series win against England seemed so distant they might as well have been nostalgia.You can’t take away from those victories, though. Especially the T20I one, where the younger batters kept going from strength to strength. India scored at 9.55 an over in 2024, the third-fastest by any Full Member side in a calendar year in T20Is. Their batters made seven centuries in the format, and they lost just two games out of 26 all year, truly entering the modern T20 age.That they lost three times as many Tests should tell you which format needs their leadership’s utmost attention.The year was much more temperate for the women, lacking dramatic ups and downs. While they won the only Test they played, they kept losing to Australia. The surprise defeat to Sri Lanka in the Asia Cup T20 final will remain a disappointment.High point
When Heinrich Klaasen hit Axar Patel out of Kensington Oval during a 24-run over, South Africa were left needing just 30 off 30 balls in the World Cup final. The replacement ball, though, began to reverse, and all of a sudden, everything started to go India’s way. Everything needed to be inch perfect to be able to pull off that defence, and that is exactly what it turned out to be, ending years of agony for a trophy-starved nation.Low point
Later in the year, everything started going against India to result in the snapping of their 12-year unbeaten run in Test series at home. Unseasonal rain in Bengaluru created a seaming track that helped New Zealand, and a Rishabh Pant six hit out of the Chinnaswamy brought out a ball that started seaming afresh. In a panic, India demanded extreme turners for the remaining Tests, lost the tosses, and for once, their spin-bowling allrounders failed to bail them out. The streak was ended by the unlikeliest of opponents, who last won a Test in India in 1988, and ended up more than doubling their tally of wins in India.ResultsMen
Tests: P15 W8 L6 D1
ODIs: P3 W0 L2 T1
T20Is: P26 W24 L2Women
Tests: P1 W1
ODIs: P13 W8 L5
T20Is: P23 W15 L7 NR1After disappointment in the World Cup, Australia found redemption with a 2-1 series lead over India•Getty ImagesAustraliaby Andrew McGlashan
Australia’s men saved their best for last, taking a 2-1 lead over India with a race-against-time victory at the MCG in a Test that saw record attendances. It was a significant turnaround after a crushing defeat in Perth to start the series. They will head into 2025 with hopes of a first series win over India in a decade and a good chance of defending their World Test Championship title.There was a sense of renewal, too, after the sparkling debut of 19-year-old Sam Konstas amid what had become a churn of openers following David Warner’s retirement at the start of the year – first Steven Smith and then Nathan McSweeney were tried at the top of the order. Regardless of how Konstas’ career pans out, it will be fascinating to watch.The shock defeat to West Indies at the Gabba (against an inspired Shamar Joseph) and a Super Eight exit at the T20 World Cup meant it wasn’t quite a year to match the highs of 2023.The women’s team, too, fell below their usual heights – although they had set a bar very hard to stay above forever. Going out in the semi-final of the T20 World Cup was a surprise, and doubts grew over the future of captain Alyssa Healy, who has been beset by injury, but the question was also about how to make the best use of the abundance of talent available in the likes of Phoebe Litchfield, Annabel Sutherland, and latterly Georgia Voll.High point
The MCG on the penultimate day of the year. Pat Cummins and many of his team-mates termed the victory against India as among their greatest. A game that began with the thrilling debut of Konstas, who took the attack to Jasprit Bumrah, came down to Australia needing seven wickets at the start of the final session and surging over the line with 12 overs to spare. Cummins, as so often, led from the front with an immense all-round performance.Low point
Both Australia teams were eliminated from their respective T20 World Cups early, but given their legacy it was the women’s exit in Dubai that was the more surprising. They were bundled out by eight wickets against South Africa, missing injured captain Healy, and it ended a run of seven consecutive finals for them in the competition. Was it a sign of a decline, or a defeat that was inevitable at some point? With an Ashes early in 2025 and an ODI World Cup later in the year, the coming 12 months will tell us a lot.ResultsMen
Tests: P9 W6 L2 D1
ODIs: P11 W7 L4
T20Is: P21 W17 L4Women
Tests: P1 W1
ODIs: P12 W11 L1
T20Is: P17 W14 L3South Africa men rode a very bumpy, unpredictable path to their first WTC final•AFP/Getty ImagesSouth AfricaBy Firdose Moonda
Three finals in one year screams success (even if two were lost and one has yet to be played) and points to a consistent upward trajectory for the South African game. But there is a caveat: 2024 was a year where South Africa won when it mattered and lost, often badly, when it didn’t.Their Test year started poorly, with a defeat to India in a 107-over aberration at Newlands and a first series loss to New Zealand, where they were forced to take a second-string sidebecause the first-choice players were committed to the SA20. But they roared back for series wins against West Indies and Bangladesh away, and Sri Lanka at home to put themselves on the brink of the World Test Championship final. Before the year was out, South Africa secured their spots for that match in a nerve-shredding two wicket win in the Boxing Day Test. A feature of their performances has been the upturn in century-scoring. In 2024, eight South Africa Test batters reached hundreds; Tristan Stubbs and Kyle Verreynne twice each.Their white-ball performances peaked when they reeled off eight successive wins to reach the T20 World Cup final – a first for the men’s team – but a narrow loss by seven runs to India left the trophy cabinet bare.In ODIs, South Africa lost series to Afghanistan in Sharjah and Pakistan at home, the latter the first time any team has whitewashed South Africa in their own backyard. They also lost their first four T20I bilateral series in 2024 – and were blanked 3-0 by West Indies either side of the World Cup – before beating Pakistan in December. It is difficult to assess these results on numbers alone because South Africa played most of their bilateral white-ball cricket without first-choice players due to various factors.The women’s team reached a second successive T20 World Cup final, after losing series to Australia away and Sri Lanka at home, but against expectation, thrashed defending champions Australia in the semi-final. They then they took on much less fancied New Zealand in the final but it wasn’t to be, again.An all-format visit by England in the summer brought more misery: South Africa won only one out of seven matches and were dismissed for their lowest Test total, 64. But there are signs things are steadying. In the last three weeks of the year, the South African women’s team finally got a new head coach, Mandla Mashimbyi, who has promised to advocate for red-ball cricket at domestic level. In 2025 the focus will be on the ODI World Cup, for which South Africa have qualified after ending the women’s championship in fourth place.High point
Reaching the WTC final is a testament to consistent high performances. South Africa recovered from early lows to peak in the Boxing Day Test against Pakistan, which they won by two wickets. A thrilling fourth day also saw South Africa do what they’ve rarely managed before – hold their nerve in a chase.Low Point
While its understood that financial reasons compelled CSA to make room for the SA20 in the calendar (and it turned a profit again in its second year), the consequences were alarming. South Africa named a Test squad with seven uncapped players for their tour of New Zealand, and they duly lost the series 2-0l. That was the first time South Africa had lost a Test series to New Zealand, and at the time it threw their WTC hopes into disarray.ResultsMen
Tests: P10 W6 L3 D1
ODIs: P9 W3 L6
T20Is: P23 W12 L11Women
Tests: P3 L3
ODIs: P12 W3 L8 NR1
T20Is: P21 W9 L11 NR1The Shamar sizzle: the Gabba win at the start of the year was one of West Indies’ great achievements in Tests this century•Albert Perez/Getty ImagesWest Indiesby Shashank Kishore
A seminal Test win at the Gabba, West Indies’ first in Tests against Australia in 21 years and their first in Australia in 27, set the tone, but their Test year got tougher from there, with an away sweep in England and losses at home to South Africa (1-0) and Bangladesh (1-1).Though the results were a mixed bag, there were flashes of individual brilliance from time to time, like Kevin Hodge’s maiden Test hundred at Nottingham in the face of some serious heat and hostility from Mark Wood.In T20Is West Indies underachieved by crashing out of their home World Cup without making at least the semi-final. England inflicted further agony by beating them 3-1 in the T20Is in the Caribbean in November. A win in the ODI leg over England may have been a temporary balm, but it meant little, given they don’t have a Champions Trophy to look forward to, having failed to qualify for the eight-team event.The women’s team achieved far more than they were expected to, reaching their first T20 World Cup semi-final since 2018. That campaign marked the international return of superstar Deandra Dottin, who contributed wholesomely to their success.High point
The Gabba Test win, which came on the back of a ten-wicket drubbing in under three days in Adelaide.Equally massive was them knocking off tournament favourites England to qualify for the semi-final of the women’s T20 World Cup. Having last beaten England in 2018, they broke a 13-match losing streak against them. It was only the second time England failed to make a T20 World Cup semi-final since 2010.Low point
A Super Eight exit from the men’s T20 World Cup after losing to England and South Africa.Results
Men
Tests: P9 W2 L6 D1
ODIs: P12 W6 L6
T20Is: P27 W14 L12 NR1Women
ODIs: P8 W3 L5
T20Is: P16 W10 L6Bangladesh swept Pakistan at home in a Test series for the first time ever•Associated PressBangladeshby Mohammad Isam
Bangladesh men’s 3-0 win against West Indies in the T20I series capped a hot-and-cold year for them. It was hard to gauge exactly where the team stood at the end of a year in which they beat Pakistan 2-0 in a historic overseas Test series, but they were also beaten by USA 2-1 in a T20I series.They also had their share of controversies and drama. The year began with an ill-tempered multi-format home series against Sri Lanka. Then came the series defeat to USA in Houston, which caused much trepidation for the T20 World Cup, but Bangladesh made it to the tournament’s second stage for the first time in its history. Still, their exit caused controversy as they gave up a potential semi-final spot chasing just 114 runs against Afghanistan.When they beat Pakistan two months later, Bangladesh looked like a different side. However, they then had series defeats against India, South Africa and Afghanistan. They went to West Indies an injury-hit side, but ended up winning a Test in Jamaica, and then beating the home side in the T20I series in St Vincent.The women’s team, meanwhile, had a poor year, struggling in the T20 World Cup and in the format overall, culminating in a 3-0 defeat to Ireland at home in December.High point
Bangladesh’s sweep of Pakistan – their first ever – was their best performance in an away Test series in years. Mushfiqur Rahim and Litton Das starred with the bat, and the pace attack carried the side when the batters couldn’t. Mehidy Hasan Miraz was stunning with both bat and ball.Low point
USA beating Bangladesh in a T20I series was a real low, but they were also bossed at home in a Test series by an inexperienced South African side.Results
Men
Tests: P10 W3 L7
ODIs: P9 W3 L6
T20Is: P24 W12 L12Women
ODIs: P6 W3 L3
T20Is: P19 W3 L16In 2024, Afghanistan made it to their first World Cup semi-final•AFP/Getty ImagesAfghanistanby Danyal Rasool
In 2024, Afghanistan continued their inexorable rise in white-ball cricket as demonstrated by an ODI series win against South Africa and their run to the T20 World Cup semi-final. There were also T20I series wins over Ireland and Zimbabwe, which showed signs Afghanistan were building depth, slowly but surely moving on from the generation that first oversaw their emergence in international cricket.There remain bouts of inconsistency, as is perhaps inevitable for a side still early in their development. Test matches remain few and far between, and Afghanistan lost the two they played in 2024. Plus, an ODI whitewash by Sri Lanka indicated there is work they still need to do in the 50-over format as well.But the wider story of Afghanistan cricket continues to be marred by the complete absence of a women’s team, with the ruling Taliban having banned women from playing cricket. It has led to social isolation of Afghanistan cricket, most notably with Australia refusing to play them in bilateral series, though the sides have competed multiple times in ICC tournaments.High point
Afghanistan seem to improve with every ICC tournament they play, but the 2024 T20 World Cup was the real breakthrough. They blitzed New Zealand and stunned Australia to qualify for the semi-final for the first time in their history. While South Africa eased to victory in that game, it showed the progress Afghanistan have made in all these years.Low point
Test cricket is not Afghanistan’s forte, but even so, they were expected to beat Ireland in the UAE, where the conditions favoured them. They paid the price for a poor first innings and never quite recovered, as Ireland secured a six-wicket victory.Results
Men
Tests: P2 L2
ODIs: P14 W8 L5 NR 1
T20Is: P21 W11 L10 Sikandar Raza became Zimbabwe’s first T20I centurion in a record-breaking 290-run win against Gambia•International Cricket CouncilZimbabweby Firdose Moonda
A continuing sparse run of fixtures means it may be a while yet before Zimbabwe’s assessment on one of these report cards can improve, but at least 2024 was not quite as disastrous as the year before.There were no tournaments the men’s side could qualify for, though they remain in the running for the 2026 T20 World Cup after winning their sub-regional qualifier. The women’s team took part in the T20 World Cup qualifiers and recovered from an embarrassing loss to Vanuatu to beat UAE, but finished fourth in their five-team group. There was some success at continental level for both sides: a Zimbabwean men’s Emerging side won gold after beating Namibia at the Africa Games in Accra, and a full-strength women’s side also finished as champions after beating the South African Emerging side. Neither of those matches were classed as T20Is though.The games that do qualify don’t make for pretty reading. The men lost the only Test they played, in Ireland, and won only one ODI, against Pakistan. Their T20I form was slightly better: they had one-off wins over Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, India, Pakistan and Afghanistan but have not won a bilateral series since beating Ireland in early 2023. The women’s team had better fortunes, notching up an ODI series wins against Papua New Guinea (PNG) and USA, a T20I series win over PNG and have been included in the new women’s FTP.Off the field, Zimbabwe appointed a new men’s coach – Justin Sammons – and began work on a couple of infrastructure projects, expected to be ready in time for the 2027 men’s ODI World Cup, which Zimbabwe will co-host with South Africa and Namibia.High point
Against the run of play, Zimbabwe racked up a world record, and a good one. They have the highest score in men’s T20I cricket, 344 for 4 against Gambia, in the Africa Sub-Regional Qualifier to win by 290 runs. They topped the points table in that qualifying tournament and advance to the eight-team regional final, which will be played in 2025. The top two teams from that tournament will go through to the 2026 World Cup.Low point
Some of Zimbabwe’s batting collapses in 2024 were nothing short of spectacular. They were bowled out for 54 by Afghanistan in an ODI – their joint fourth-lowest total in that format – and lost the game by a massive 232 runs. They were also dismisssed for 57 by Pakistan in a T20I – their lowest total in the format. The women’s team lost to 32nd-ranked Vanuatu in the Women’s T20 World Cup Qualifier; they were bowled out for their lowest T20I score: 61 in that game.Men
Tests: P 1 L1
ODIs: P9 W1 L6 NR 2
T20Is: P24 W10 L14 Women
ODIs: P11 W6 L4 T1
T20Is: P22 W8 L14 Report cards for the other top teams
More in our look back at 2024

Anyone could have seen this Champions Trophy imbroglio coming, but cricket’s governing body did not

Nagraj Gollapudi18-Nov-2024We are here again. Not for the first time and probably not the last.With under 100 days to go for the 2025 Champions Trophy, scheduled in Pakistan, the ICC has still not formally announced the dates for the tournament. The schedule, too, has not been finalised. Why? India, one of the eight participating countries, will not travel to Pakistan – a decision taken by the Indian government, according to the BCCI in its communication to the ICC.We have been here, not once but twice, as recently as 2023. Take your memory back to last year’s Asia Cup and ODI World Cup and you will see a similar pattern. In the first instance, the PCB was forced to loosen its stance that the event would be held solely in Pakistan after the BCCI said India did not have permission from their government to travel across the border. Eventually it was Pakistan, the hosts, who ended up boarding flights to and from Sri Lanka, where India played all their matches, including the final. At the World Cup, the PCB pushed to get the ICC to adopt the hybrid model, but Pakistan eventually travelled to India. They travelled, it has since emerged, despite deep reservations within the Pakistan government.Twelve months later we are once again in familiar territory: the BCCI has made its move, comfortably standing in one corner, arms folded. At the opposite end, the PCB stands steadfast, refusing to blink or budge. The ICC, in theory the adjudicator, remains tight-lipped. It is a shambolic situation.Related

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• Champions Trophy: PCB promises to do 'what's best for Pakistan cricket'

• India withdraw from T20 Blind Cricket World Cup in Pakistan

• PCB chief on Champions Trophy: 'I still have positive expectations'

Who actually gains from this brinkmanship? That is only part of the question. The more important question, though, one that never gets asked properly is: who is responsible for this standoff? Unequivocally the answer is the ICC, the game’s governing body, which has once again escaped scrutiny. To be precise, the ICC leadership: the ICC board.In November 2021 the ICC board allocated hosting rights for various global events in the 2024-31 rights cycle to several boards. The PCB, which had bid for two events, was allocated the 2025 Champions Trophy. The ICC board approved the hosts based on recommendations drawn up by a smaller working group that included Sourav Ganguly, then the BCCI president, and Ehsan Mani, the former PCB chair and ICC head. That ICC board was headed by Greg Barclay. Ganguly, one would assume, had the backing of the Indian board, whose secretary was Jay Shah (who takes charge as ICC chairman from December 1).Sourav Ganguly, the BCCI president at the time, was part of the working group that drew up recommendations to the ICC board when it awarded Pakistan the Champions Trophy hosting rights•BCCIAs a reminder, the ICC board comprises directors who represent the 12 Full Members, along with an independent director, three directors representing the Associates, and the ICC chairman and CEO. So this was a collective call. If there was even a single voice of caution three years ago when it came to allotting the Champions Trophy to Pakistan, details of it have never emerged. Did nobody see this coming? Maybe they did but opted to look down or the other way instead?In the fraught political climate that has existed between the two neighbours since the Mumbai terror attacks of November 2008, you didn’t need to be a fortune-teller to raise a red flag about whether India would actually travel to Pakistan in 2025. More than one person involved in the bids allocation process said that one reason the ICC board believed conditions might be favourable for India to visit for the Champions Trophy was if Pakistan went to India for the 2023 World Cup – which they did. And once they did, the PCB must have assumed India would reciprocate.However, in a professional environment, you need accountability instead of relying on good faith. Why did the ICC, in 2021, not attach a few conditions when it allotted the Champions Trophy to Pakistan, starting with an official timeline including deadlines, with one specifically for the BCCI: communicate well in advance to the ICC whether India would travel to Pakistan? Such a hard stop could have been put in, say, a year before the actual event. In the absence of any such cutoff, the BCCI’s first communication to the ICC that India would not travel was relayed around November 6. That is just over three months before the scheduled start of the tournament on February 19.

More than one person involved in the bids allocation process said that one reason the ICC board believed conditions might be favourable for India to visit for the Champions Trophy was if Pakistan went to India for the 2023 World Cup – which they did

But more crucially, what plan was in place to deal with the outcome that was always likely? In a perfect and equitable world, global tournaments could go ahead without teams that are unable to participate in the prescribed way, but no ICC tournament is commercially tenable without India’s participation, a fact that was emphatically underlined during the last broadcast deal. Why wasn’t a hybrid option part of the contingency plan if India failed to travel to Pakistan? Or was it assumed that the PCB would once again fall in line and acquiesce to a hybrid model?As it turns out and as was pointed out to them recently by a senior official from an overseas board, the PCB might have a little leverage by dint of their team being part of the most watched and most lucrative match in an ICC event. It might have been unacceptable to the PCB to accept the hosting rights with a hybrid option attached as a contingency. But it would have been the most pragmatic and clear-minded approach, since it is beyond the ICC to persuade the Indian government to allow the Indian team to travel to Pakistan. Instead, the ICC leadership has opted to kick the problem down the road, hoping it will somehow resolve itself.In our increasingly divided and divisive world, strong leadership is required to maintain equilibrium. The ICC board in the past has shown it is capable of doing that. Now it needs bold solutions for the future.

The exclusion hurt him, but it gave him a break that he perhaps needed after two years of carrying an intense workload. Now he’s back, and back to his best

Sidharth Monga06-Apr-20251:31

Rayudu: Siraj’s comeback since India omission has been amazing

Mohammed Siraj had been doing well for India in both limited-overs formats for some time when he was left out of their squad for the Champions Trophy. Even in Jasprit Bumrah’s absence, Siraj didn’t find a place in the 15-man squad. India wanted a left-arm quick, a tall, into-the-pitch bowler, and the expected conditions put a premium on the extra spinner. There was only one spot left for the traditional seam bowler, which went to Mohammed Shami, who was returning from injury.India were looking for someone who could run through a side when he got on a roll. Siraj had been doing this in 2023, but had gradually become a steady bowler since then. He didn’t have out-and-out bad days, but he didn’t run away with big hauls either. As any proud competitor, Siraj was upset by this exclusion coming hot on the heels of a release from his beloved IPL franchise Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB).”To be honest, at the start, I couldn’t digest it,” Siraj said after his second straight Player-of-the-Match performance in IPL 2025, for Gujarat Titans (GT) against Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH). Put together international cricket and the IPL, and he won two in all of 2024. Now he has two in four days.Related

• Rayudu: Sai Kishore 'as good as anybody' in the Indian team

• Siraj, Gill and Washington hand Sunrisers fourth successive defeat

• Vettori: 'We understand the ramifications of losing four in a row'

• Nearly man Washington makes rare opportunity count

It will not quite be fair to call his exclusion a blessing in disguise, because there is no guarantee Siraj wouldn’t have done well in the Champions Trophy, but the break it gave him seems to have done him good. Through that break, Siraj followed the classic arc of struggling to come to terms with it before putting in the hard work to try and come back better.”I reached a point when I had to convince my mind that my cricket is not over,” Siraj said. “That I have bigger plans. Okay, this [Champions Trophy] was not in my destiny, but what can I do now? I got my mindset right, I worked on my fitness. I was playing non-stop, so I didn’t have time to reflect on what mistakes had crept into my game. So I worked on it. Now I am enjoying my bowling. The body is fresh, I am not overthinking, I am staying in the present.”It is important to remember that as Shami and Bumrah grappled with fitness issues, Siraj was the one constant in India’s team. He was perhaps denied the break that fast bowlers need to carry out running repairs. Since the start of 2023, only Ravindra Jadeja has bowled more overs for India than Siraj.Mohammed Siraj won his second Player of the Match award in a row•AFP/Getty ImagesNow Siraj already has more powerplay wickets in this IPL – six – than he managed in the entirety of the 2024 season. Again, just looking at wickets is neither accurate nor fair when it comes to T20. It’s his control that has been impressive. In this game – played on a slow and low pitch – Siraj bowled three straight overs in the powerplay. Only five deliveries went fuller than good length. Three of them were just a fact-finding mission in the first over.Once he knew there was no swing, Siraj bowled almost robotically to capitalise on the lack of pace in the pitch. There was no anxiety to go looking for wickets. The result was 11 dot balls to Travis Head and Abhishek Sharma, and both their wickets.With the old ball, Siraj drew a hint of reverse swing – he acknowledged the use of saliva to maintain the ball – which has been reinstated in this IPL – helped him pick up two more wickets at the death.In his last game, against Royal Challengers Bengaluru, Siraj started the match with a sharp bouncer that nearly got Phil Salt out first ball. Only a handful of games in the 18 years of the IPL have started with a short ball bowled in anger. That Siraj was sharp enough from the get-go to bowl one with both venom and direction perhaps said something about his state of mind and body. There is perhaps a freshness to Siraj that makes a case for regular breaks. But now that Siraj finds himself on a roll, GT – and India? – won’t want to miss a thing.

The CSK allrounder talks about the reception he has received in the league, and his ambitions to play the Ashes and the T20 World Cup

Matt Roller24-Apr-2025Jamie Overton tends to spend April in leafy Kennington, keeping a low profile in the early weeks of the County Championship season. This year, even a 500-yard walk down the road from a hotel to a café is enough to prompt countless requests for selfies.”I don’t really get noticed in London,” Overton says from Mumbai, midway through his first IPL season with Chennai Super Kings. “Everyone just goes about their business. But cricket is just so big over here that everyone recognises who you are… You can’t go out too much without 30 or 40 people coming up to you, asking for pictures. It’s a different world.”For Chennai, doubly so. After eight group games, they sit dead last with only two wins, but their “Yellow Army” has been as visible as ever, dominating the stands even at away fixtures in Guwahati, Mullanpur and Lucknow. MS Dhoni, who has resumed the captaincy with Ruturaj Gaikwad injured, still attracts a unique following at the age of 43.Related

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Dhoni: 'Important to get the right combination for next year'

“I messaged my dad and my agent after the first home game. I was like, ‘You have to come out and experience MS walking out to the middle,'” Overton says. “[Ravindra] Jadeja got run-out… and you had a home crowd cheering for someone to get run-out. I’ve watched Premier League games, plenty of other sports events, and there’s nothing else like that noise.”Until this year, Overton’s only experience of India was an England Lions tour in early 2019. But after also touring with England’s white-ball team early this year, he is growing accustomed to travelling between huge cities and spending most of his time in hotels. With games and training sessions under floodlights, he is “still on English time” despite the 4.5-hour difference.Overton has played three games to date in an unfamiliar role: a hard-hitting finisher and hard-length fast bowler elsewhere on the T20 circuit, he has only faced seven balls to date and has bowled four of his six overs in the powerplay. “I’m trying to find a way to do it,” he says. “The last three years, I’ve not bowled in the powerplay at all… It’s been a bit different.”But he is determined to make use of the opportunity to train in Indian conditions, after struggling against spin in an England shirt earlier this year. He has worked closely with Rajiv Kumar, CSK’s “batting guru”, adjusting his technique to counter the lower bounce, and has been watching Dhoni from close quarters.

“I messaged my dad and my agent after the first home game. I was like, ‘You have to come out and experience MS [Dhoni] walking out to the middle'”

“He holds the bat quite low with his hands, whereas I’m more an English or Australian version, with quite high hands,” Overton explains. “The spinners don’t get as much bounce [in India] so I’m trying to be a bit lower, with my hands a bit more relaxed, so I can keep my head really close to the ball… I feel like I’m in a good place with my batting.”Those improvements may come in particularly useful early next year, when Overton will hope to be part of England’s squad for the T20 World Cup in India and Sri Lanka. It was about 12 months ago that a stress fracture of the back denied him a place at the 2024 edition, prompting a spell on the sidelines.”I’m in a better place now for being injured,” he reflects. “It actually gave me time to reassess what I need to do with my health.” He had struggled to manage his diet during a winter on the franchise circuit and sought advice from Surrey’s nutritionist Ollie Whiteman; six months later, he had shed 10kg.It is a change that Overton believes could help him extend his career. “When I’m bowling, I put seven or eight times my body weight through my knees and my back every ball. Taking 10kg off… If you’re playing a four-day game and bowling 30 overs, that is a hell of a lot of difference in the strain you’re putting on your body.”The mention of four-day cricket underlines that Overton retains ambitions across formats – for now, at least. He turned 31 this month and concedes that he may be having “some different conversations” in two years’ time but hopes to return to red-ball cricket at some stage this year and believes he could thrive on Australian pitches if selected for the Ashes this winter.In six white-ball games for England in India earlier this year, Overton took nine wickets at an economy of 8.27•Getty Images”Ashes cricket is probably the pinnacle for English players, and I feel like I’ve got a decent record on Australian pitches,” he says. “It probably suits my game more than wickets back in England – but I’m not expecting anything. I need to play red-ball cricket to give myself a chance of being there, so we’ll just see where we get to when I’m back home.”His home season is likely to start with T20Is and ODIs against West Indies and will be dominated by white-ball cricket – including the Hundred, where he was the top pick at March’s draft. “There’s not many bowlers that play all three formats now. I’ve obviously had issues with my body, so the first thing is to make sure that’s in the right spot before going into anything.”I bowled ten overs in the Afghanistan game [at the Champions Trophy], but I’ve not bowled more than that in a day since last April. It’s going to take a lot to get the body back to those bowling workloads, and we’ll just see where we go and play it by ear. It’s a short career, so you’ve got to maximise it while keeping your body in a good place.”But those conversations will come down the line, with Overton soaking in his first IPL experience in the here and now. “Any person’s dream is to travel the world doing what they love doing and I’m fulfilling that at the moment. I’m grateful for whatever I’m doing. Hopefully, it goes on for a lot longer.”

They started the season with 287 for 3 against RCB, and ended it with 278 for 3 against KKR

ESPNcricinfo staff25-May-2025

287 for 5 – SRH vs RCB, Bengaluru, 2024

At the Chinnaswamy Stadium, boundaries rained down as SRH redefined T20 brutality, obliterating their own record from earlier in the season to post a staggering 287 for 3. Travis Head led the charge with a career-best 102 off 41, Heinrich Klaasen pummelled 67 off 31, and Abdul Samad applied the finishing touches with an unbeaten 37 off just 10 balls. That helped SRH win the contest by 25 runs.

286 for 6 – SRH vs RR, Hyderabad, 2025

The big question heading into IPL 2025 was whether the first 300-plus total would be scored. SRH, the favourites to do so, came tantalizingly close and fell 14 short. The top five collectively faced 118 balls, and not one of them struck below 200. On his SRH debut, Ishan Kishan added to the fireworks, smashing his maiden IPL ton.

278 for 3 – SRH vs KKR, Delhi, 2025

SRH began IPL 2025 by smashing the second-highest total in IPL history, but then their big-hitters fell away dramatically and last-year’s runners-up were the third team to crash out of the race for the playoffs. However, they ended the season in trademark style, by clobbering KKR for 278 runs in Delhi, the third highest total in IPL history. Abhishek Sharma made 32 off 16, Travis Head 76 off 40, but Heinrich Klaasen was the show-stopper with 105 not out off 39 balls – the joint third-fastest hundred in IPL history.

277 for 3 – SRH vs MI, Hyderabad, 2024

The carnage in Hyderabad resulted in an 11-year-old IPL record falling, RCB’s seemingly-insurmountable 263 for 5 from 2013 fell by the wayside thanks to a breathtaking, collective show from the SRH batters. Klaasen spearheaded the carnage with an unbeaten 80 off 34, while Head and Abhishek Sharma blasted rapid fifties. Mumbai Indians gave a spirited chase but lost steam, falling short by 31 runs.

272 for 7 – KKR vs DC, Vishakhapatnam, 2024

A rampaging Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) batting unit laid down an early marker for a season of run-fests with a commanding demolition of Delhi Capitals (DC). Sunil Narine blazed 85 off 39, Angkrish Raghuvanshi kept pace with 54 off 27, and Andre Russell provided the finishing fireworks with 41 off 19. Only Ishant Sharma’s tight final over, conceding just eight runs, stopped KKR from climbing even higher on this list.

266 for 7 – SRH vs DC, Delhi, 2024

SRH ventured where no team had gone before in a T20 powerplay. Head and Abhishek blazed their way to a jaw-dropping 125 for no loss in six overs. At that point, 300 looked like a terrifyingly real possibility. But with the field restrictions lifted, Kuldeep Yadav and Axar Patel pulled things back, bringing SRH’s innings down to more earthly realms. Shahbaz Ahmed’s unbeaten 59 off 29 balls, however, still powered them past 260.

Nineteen-year-old fast bowler impressed against Australia with South Africa grooming him for the future

Firdose Moonda11-Aug-2025

Kwena Maphaka impressed with a four-wicket haul in his ninth T20I, against Australia on Sunday•Getty Images

Kwena Maphaka is the youngest player to represent South Africa but that doesn’t mean he has the least to say. Quite the opposite, in fact, which he showed when he also became the youngest bowler from a Full Member country to take a four-wicket haul in a T20I, against Australia in Darwin.Australia were off to a flying start at 71 for 4 in the powerplay when Maphaka was brought on and the left-arm quick responded with the wicket of Mitchell Owen. The danger man, Tim David, had scored 18 off the first seven balls he had faced, including two sixes, and wanted to take Maphaka on. The first ball David faced from Maphaka was short and slow and he pulled it for one. The second was shorter, strayed down leg and was called wide. And the third was better directed, at David’s chest. He could only splice it to point and at the height it came, David thought Maphaka needed to bowl it again.”He went to the umpire and he was asking about it,” Maphaka said the day after the match, which South Africa lost. He also revealed that he was having none of David’s complaints. “I just told him to let the umpires deal with umpiring the game and he must focus on batting.”Related

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David took those words to heart. He went on to score 83 runs off 52 balls, including 13 off 11 balls from Maphaka but he was the only batter to send the 19-year-old to the boundary. Maphaka’s four overs cost only 20 runs, he was the most economical bowler of the match and David was among the batters he dismissed in a career-best haul. After what he called “a few bad performances in Zimbabwe,” where Maphaka picked up three wickets for 92 runs in 10.5 overs, he showed he belongs at this level.”It feels really good, coming off a few bad performances in Zimbabwe and just building up, playing some more professional and competitive cricket in the past few months, it feels really good to put in a good performance for the team and make history while doing it,” he said.Maphaka opened the bowling in the second match South Africa played in the Zimbabwe tri-series last month and bowled two overs in the powerplay that cost 19 runs. He was used at first change in two matches after that, including the final, and both times also bowled in the powerplay. But against Australia, with Kagiso Rabada back in the South African XI after a rest, Maphaka was only called on after the fielding restrictions were lifted and that seemed to suit him better, though he was cautious not to see it as an attempt to shield him.Kwena Maphaka showed he belongs at this level•Getty Images”It may have been a tactical ploy, but I think it’s also just about giving me a little bit more freedom,” he said. “I’m a guy that likes to take wickets in the middle and I think the team understands that. It was really just a tactical ploy in terms of getting wickets through the middle rather than protecting me as a player.”With Australia going as hard as they could upfront, South Africa needed someone to slow them down. Maphaka and left-arm spinner Senuran Muthusamy provided that. In the four overs after the powerplay, they gave away only 17 runs and took two wickets between them, which left Australia 88 for 6 at the halfway stage.”When a team is coming out all guns blazing, there’s a few more opportunities to take wickets so it’s about being smart and understanding what you have to do when you’re faced with those situations,” Maphaka said. “Sometimes you go to a yorker, a bumper or a slower ball. It’s all about reading the game and understanding what you need to do at that moment and keeping your plans as simple as possible, really.”

“It’s not about trying to over-complicate things or make it seem like it’s a game of 20,000 deliveries. Just go to your best ball.”Kwena Maphaka

All of those variations were on display as Maphaka was also given the job of bowling the penultimate over, where he took two wickets and mixed up his lengths well. He had David caught off a full delivery and dismissed Adam Zampa with a short ball and backed his skills to limit Australia to 178 at the end.”It’s not about trying to over-complicate things or make it seem like it’s a game of 20,000 deliveries,” he said. “Just go to your best ball at a particular moment in time and back your plans. Belief is a massive part in performance, and I think I might have been a little bit short on belief in Zimbabwe, so that’s probably one of the big takeaways from that series.”Before the Zimbabwe series, Maphaka had played five T20Is, two ODIs and a Test for South Africa, all before he had turned 19. Though his returns had been relatively modest, he would have had no doubt that South Africa see him as a key player in their future. Already, he has learnt how to manage that expectation.”The most important part is just really accepting the fact that you’re going to have bad days, you’re going to have good days, and it’s just sticking to your game plan and sticking to whatever you do best. I’m not going to be the best player in the world overnight, and I understand that,” Maphaka said. “It’s all about growing as a player day by day, and just keeping focused on the grind and what I have to do to make myself better on a daily basis.”He has also learnt not to shy away from speaking about his aims to fulfil every ounce of his potential. “I’ve always been pretty confident and a real competitor,” he said. “I never like losing. I always want to come out on top of the fight. It’s something that’s been instilled in me since I was really young.”Some would say, he still is.

A series taking place two years out from the next World Cup is unlikely to offer much of use for either team

Danyal Rasool03-Nov-2025ODI cricket in 2025 is a bit like a premium tablet, a product in search of a use case rather than the other way around. It was revolutionary when it first came out, but now most of its functions can be better catered to by something bigger and more luxurious, or smaller and more easily mass-produced. But since it already exists, justifications for its existence have to be manufactured, and they tend to take the form of niche situations. Perhaps you’re on a flight, where you can’t bring your laptop, and your phone is too small. Or, in the case of ODI cricket, maybe a World Cup is just around the corner.The issue is that most of the time, you’re not on a flight, just as most of the time in a four-year cycle, a World Cup is quite far away. It’s still two years out from the next one – around this time in 2027. What Pakistan and South Africa can extract of value in Faisalabad to be deployed in Southern Africa half a world and half a cycle away is unclear. Not much else is staked on ODI cricket these days, especially with a T20I World Cup three months away.Perhaps it’s where these three ODIs will be held this week that provides the most meaning to this series. Faisalabad last hosted international cricket 17 years ago, and will become the fifth international venue in Pakistan since cricket returned to the country in 2015. It was due to host two T20Is against Bangladesh in May, but was forced to have its wait extended by another half year after skirmishes between Pakistan and India’s armed forces led to the PSL overrunning its schedule, and scrapping the Faisalabad leg of the Bangladesh series altogether.Faisalabad did, in recent memory, hold what was then billed as a prestigious enough tournament to act as a test case for future international cricket. The 2024 Champions Cup, Pakistan’s domestic 50-over competition, was given a glamorous makeover and played at Iqbal stadium. It serves as the most recent reference point for the kind of pitches likely to be served up to Pakistan and South Africa. If much of that tournament, held at a similar time of year, is an indicator, high-scoring games are likely; only in four of the ten group stage matches did the side batting first fail to post 300.Faisalabad saw many things during the 2024 Champions Cup, including Babar Azam bowling•PCBThat is par for the course at most ODI venues in Pakistan now, though this is the first time since their ill-fated home Champions Trophy campaign that Pakistan are playing ODI cricket at home. There were two away series losses in New Zealand and the West Indies to compound the misery and raise further questions about this team. These three ODIs right now are unlikely to answer them.Pakistan have selected a full-strength squad for the series, with Fakhar Zaman back after fitness issues kept him out of the T20Is last week. More excitingly for Pakistan’s supporters, the trio of Shaheen Shah Afridi, Haris Rauf and Naseem Shah will bowl together again for just the ninth time since they first caught fire at the 2023 Asia Cup. They achieved great success at the backend of last year, winning a series in Australia before whitewashing South Africa, taking 31 of 47 opposition wickets in five games. Replicating that success in Pakistan, though, has proved trickier, as evidenced by their indifferent showings in the Champions Trophy.South Africa have no such qualms about their ODI form, coming off the back of away series wins in Australia and England following a Champions Trophy run to the semi-finals. Their squad, however, is decidedly not first-choice, bearing something of a resemblance to the one that played a tri-series in Pakistan at the start of the year. Matthew Breetzke, who debuted then, is now captain, while Quinton de Kock’s un-retirement provides premium top-order experience to a side that will need plenty of it.Their biggest concern is likely the bowling on what will be batting-friendly surfaces. Corbin Bosch demonstrated he could bother Pakistan in the T20Is, but he didn’t get enough support from the other seamers. In that tri-series earlier this year, run-scoring was not a problem for South Africa. They put up 304 against New Zealand and 352 in their game against Pakistan, but a bowling unit denuded of their best assets failed to defend either.Ultimately, any result of this series risks being dismissed in a week’s time as an irrelevance to any larger picture. The cricket will be entertaining in the moment, especially for Faisalabad’s starved viewers, but it is likely to be little more than a dopamine hit. Not unlike the reasons for buying a tablet.

This relationship has always sent sparks flying in pivotal World Cup moments. What does Navi Mumbai have in store for us?

Sruthi Ravindranath29-Oct-2025When Harmanpreet Kaur tore Australia’s bowling apart with a sensational unbeaten 171 off 115 balls in the Derby semi-final of the 2017 World Cup, she did more than win India a match. She tore a hole in Australia’s cloak of invincibility. It remains one of the greatest innings ever played in a knockout game, and it marked the turning point of women’s cricket in India.That innings even changed Australia a little bit.”Look, I’ve forgotten a lot about the game, but you guys are pretty, pretty good at putting it on the telly at every opportunity possible, so it brings back the memory a little bit,” Alyssa Healy said before Australia’s league-stage meeting with India at this World Cup. “But we’ve spoken a lot about how it’s just drove us to rethink our standards and the way we wanted to approach our cricket. It made us rethink what we were doing and how we could do it better. And I think we’ve been really successful since that point.”It isn’t surprising, then, that whenever India and Australia have met in a global tournament since that day, one question has always hung in the air: what will Harmanpreet do this time?Harmanpreet cannot believe her luck: the heartbreaking run-out in Cape Town•ICC/Getty ImagesEight years on, that question still defines her. Between Derby and Thursday’s semi-final in Navi Mumbai, the journey of Harmanpreet and India in World Cups has been one of agonising near-misses. Whenever these have involved Australia, Harmanpreet has been front and centre.In the T20 World Cup semi-final in Cape Town, her 52 was set to become a career-defining innings, as she batted through illness and set India up for what looked like a famous chase. All until a freak run-out with her bat stuck in the pitch. At the post-match presentation, Harmanpreet wore sunglasses to hide her tears.Then came Sharjah, October 2024, where India met Australia again, this time with a semi-final berth hanging in the balance. Batting on 52 with India needing 14, Harmanpreet nudged a single off the first ball of the final over, and watched helplessly as four wickets tumbled in the next five balls. India had fallen short once more.In the years since that 171*, Harmanpreet has remained an exceptional ODI batter, averaging 38.73 and striking at 85.71 – both improvements on her career figures – while scoring five hundreds and 13 fifties in 80 innings. Yet, the conversation almost always circles back to Australia, against whom she seems to reserve her most memorable performances in ICC tournaments. She has scored more runs against them than any other opposition in both ODI and T20 World Cups, but Derby only showed how rare it is for one player to bend a result to her will. Since that match, India have won only two of their seven matches against Australia in ICC events.Sharjah, 2024. Another missed opportunity for Harmanpreet and India•ICC/Getty ImagesLeadership has added another layer to Harmanpreet’s story. Since taking over as India’s full-time white-ball captain in 2022, she has led the team through a transition from a group of bright but incomplete parts to one with more battle-hardened depth than ever, but for whom the ultimate prize has always seemed just out of reach.That prize is now two games away.This World Cup has been a patchy one for India, who stumbled to three successive losses after a bright start, all of them tight and therefore viewed from outside as avoidable and indicative of tactical and temperamental cracks. Questions arose over the team’s balance. Harmanpreet’s own form was up-and-down, intensifying the scrutiny around her decision-making. Her dismissals seemed like opportunities lost, particularly the late dab straight to short third, on 70, at a pivotal moment of India’s chase against England.But India are in the semi-finals now, and the sense of occasion feels heavier than ever. Here is another shot at breaking free of a cycle of close losses, this time in a home World Cup. For Harmanpreet, now 36, this could well be the final ODI World Cup. And perhaps the final World Cup showdown with the opposition that has defined her legacy.It’s India vs Australia, and the eternal question hangs in the air once more: what will Harmanpreet do?

The Boyle brothers – Jack and Matt – posted their career-best scores in the first round before they face each other in the second

Deivarayan Muthu21-Nov-2025Glenn Phillips returns to actionGlenn Phillips wasn’t originally named in Otago’s XII for the first round, but after clearing a late fitness test, he returned to action from injury and had a good workout against Wellington at Basin Reserve.Though Phillips scored only 6 in the first innings, he had a bigger role to play with the ball, bowling 37 overs across two innings and coming away with five wickets. Having proved his match fitness, Phillips could be back in contention for selection for the upcoming three-match Test series against West Indies. The allrounder has not played for New Zealand since the Champions Trophy final against India in Dubai in March earlier this year.After Wellington were asked to follow-on, Phillips found turn with a new-ish ball and had opener Sam Mycock caught at short leg. He then had Nick Kelly nicking to slip, for 150, with the older ball and proceeded to dismiss No. 11 Liam Dudding, setting up a simple 96-run chase for Otago. He then crashed an unbeaten 28 off 20 balls to ice the chase.After spending several months on the sidelines Phillips had an active week: he was retained by Gujarat Titans for IPL 2026 and impressed on his comeback from injury.

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