The total number of active women cricketers in the country has come down to just 45

Umar Farooq24-Sep-2020The abolishing of departments from the domestic circuit, not to forget the Covid-19 pandemic, has hit women’s cricketers harder than their male counterparts in Pakistan, leading to the number of active women cricketers coming down alarmingly in the past few months – only 45 are left now.Until 2017, there were over 200 women cricketers playing in the domestic circuit for regional teams. They were signed up by departments, which allowed them to earn a livelihood from playing the game. Now, of the 45 remaining, nine are centrally contracted with the PCB, and another nine are in the emerging players’ category, for which they receive a monthly retainer of PKR 50,000 (USD 300 approx.).Around 400 male cricketers lost their jobs after the PCB revamped the domestic structure by removing departments from it. The new structure has six regional teams, with 192 cricketers given annual contracts. Replacing the old structure with the new one was a decision driven by the current prime minister Imran Khan, also the patron-in-chief of the PCB. He has long been an advocate for a domestic structure with only regional sides, wanting Pakistan to adopt a structure similar to Australia’s.So far, much of the focus of the new structure has been on the impact on male cricketers. But the impact on women cricketers has been more profound. As many as 17 have lost their jobs with State Bank and more than 12 out of 18 could lose their Zarai Taraqiati Bank Limited (ZTBL) contracts. The Higher Education Commission (HEC) has lost its playing rights, and Omar Associates and Saga Sports shut down their teams a few years ago over management issues.ESPNcricinfo LtdThe women’s game in Pakistan remains by and large in the developmental phase, although over the last few years more and more girls from colleges and universities had started to play as a professional option. Subsequently, the pool grew with regions and corporates stepping in to invest in women cricket. After 2013, there were five departments offering women playing contracts and jobs. By 2017, the PCB had three tournaments for women: one with 12 regional teams – though the number was as high as 16 just a few years prior – playing a preliminary tournament to qualify for a five-team national one-day tournament, and another with four departmental teams playing a one-day tournament. All taken, over 200 cricketers were fielded every season.Presently, there are only two tournaments and only three teams – PCB Blasters, PCB Challengers, PCB Dynamites – and that allows only around 45 cricketers to play; this, even as the PCB has upped the value of the central contracts in the last two years. ZTBL is the only department that has not terminated their contracts with women players, but that arrangement is unlikely to continue for long. The signs are that only a handful of the top players, who have full-time jobs, will retain their positions. But only if they don’t give up their jobs.”We are not really sure about our future,” a woman cricketer who played for HEC told ESPNcricinfo. “Cricket has been our passion and our ambition was to play for the country, but it is all confused now. The system has always been inconsistent and every new head comes with their own plan and never lets one structure run properly. We leave our studies to play cricket but we can’t have a future. They want us to grow but they don’t create the environment and infrastructure for women cricketers.”Unlike the men, we do not have long careers or enough freedom, but so many girls want to play cricket. They don’t know how to make their way. There is no set pathway. There are challenges, and parents need to be convinced: they need to be told that they need to encourage girls to play cricket, and departments offering jobs was a big breakthrough. Even if a girl isn’t able to have an international career, they can play for the departments and earn a decent amount of money to show their parents that they are doing fine. But now there is nothing left. The girls don’t even get an annual contract from the PCB at domestic level.”ESPNcricinfo LtdIn the last two months, to fight the economic challenges brought about by Covid-19, the PCB has provided a three-month financial support package for 25 unemployed national women cricketers. In this scheme, the players who meet the eligibility criteria and are without a contract for the 2020-21 season as well as a means of earning money, receive a monthly stipend of PKR 25,000 (USD 150 approx.).That will end next month.While all this has been going on, the PCB has continued to look for ways to bring the focus on quality over quantity.”The pipeline is redefined as our focus is on our five basic zones in Rawalpindi, Lahore, Karachi, Peshawar and Multan, where we have the academies in place. These are the points where we will be growing our pool of players,” Urooj Mumtaz, chief selector for women and a PCB cricket committee member, said. “They are already operating with coaches, working in evening shifts, and we are slowly growing. We have started picking girls from age groups, and admitting them in academies at every centre.”The pathway is changing and women’s cricket is growing, but currently underdeveloped. But it has started to get its due importance. We are increasing the number of tournaments but number of teams (three) will remain intact for now. But we are paying every cricketer in PCB tournament and in fact have doubled the price of match fee at any age group. So there is incentive. We are also adding an Under-19 tournament every year and making it a part of the structure to prepare for the ICC events.”

Stats highlights from Galle, in which two England spinners took five-fors in a Test for the first time since 1982

S Rajesh18-Jan-20215 – Successive wins for England in Sri Lanka. The streak started in April 2012, in the second match of the series – an eight-wicket win in Colombo which helped them level the two-Test series 1-1. On their next tour, in 2018-19, they swept Sri Lanka 3-0, before the seven-wicket win today.ESPNcricinfo Ltd1 – Instance of England winning more consecutive matches in a country overseas – they won the first eight Test matches they played in South Africa, from 1889 to 1899. England also won their first five Tests in Bangladesh. Apart from these two streaks against teams which were new to Test cricket, their only other five-match winning streak in an away country (apart from the current one) was in Australia in the 1930s; that streak included three wins from the infamous Bodyline series of 1932-33.3 – Instances of a non-Asian team winning five Tests in a row in an Asian country. Apart from England’s current streak and their five in a row in Bangladesh, the only other team to achieve this is Australia, in Sri Lanka, from 2002 to 2011.ESPNcricinfo Ltd28 – Test wins for England in Asia, which equals the mark for the most wins by a non-Asian team in the continent. Australia have 28 wins too, in fewer Tests, but they have lost 36 compared to England’s 34. England’s win-loss ratio of 0.823 is better than all the other non-Asian teams.24 – Test wins for Joe Root as captain, which puts him second on England’s all-time list, level with Alastair Cook and Andrew Strauss. Root has captained in only 45 Tests, compared to 59 for Cook and 50 for Strauss. Michael Vaughan leads the way with 26 wins from 51 matches.ESPNcricinfo Ltd1982 – The last time, before this match, that two England spinners took five-fors in a Test. That was in England’s first Test in Sri Lanka, when Derek Underwood (5 for 28 in the first innings) and John Emburey (6 for 33 in the second) took five-fors. England won that game by seven wickets, the same margin as their victory in Galle.14 – Wickets taken by England’s spinners in his Test. Since 1980, there have only been three instances of more wickets for England’s spinners in a Test, and they have all come in the last 10 years: 19 wickets in Mumbai in 2012 and in Pallekele in 2018, and 16 in Galle in 2018. England’s spinners also took exactly 14 wickets in their first Test in Sri Lanka in 1982.3-8 – Sri Lanka’s win-loss record in their last 11 Tests at home. They have lost four to England, three to India, and one to New Zealand.

He reckons Shahrukh Khan and Siddharth will be on the IPL radar following their tournament-winning performances

Deivarayan Muthu03-Feb-2021Dinesh Karthik made his T20 debut in India’s first-ever T20I in Johannesburg in December 2006 and bagged the Man-of-the-match award. Four months later, he took over as Tamil Nadu’s captain after S Badrinath suffered an injury and led them to glory in the inaugural edition of the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy.This was in April 2007. The inaugural IPL season was a year away.Now, almost a decade-and-a-half later, Karthik has rallied a young Tamil Nadu side to their second domestic T20 title.Karthik, the captain, and R Prasanna, the assistant coach, are the only members of the current squad who were part of the 2006-07 success. Does Karthik feel old among this group?”With these guys, I don’t feel that old and all. Age is just a number,” Karthik tells ESPNcricinfo. “I always feel if you’re fit and passing those tests, you’re good enough to play the sport. At least I don’t give too much importance to age and for me with age, experience has come. So, it’s my duty to play the tough situations and help the boys with whatever little I know. More importantly, these boys are keyed on and there isn’t much you need to do. You just have to guide them and make sure they’re doing most things right.”Having narrowly lost the final against Karnataka in 2019-20, Tamil Nadu had only one week or so to prepare for this season in the backdrop of the Covid-19 pandemic, but once the squad assembled at Chepauk, Karthik made his point.”I just told them it’s going to be a short tournament – just five (league) games, and if you slip up in a game, you’ll be behind the run-rate and it’s going to be tough to qualify. Every game you had to be on point and they just did that from game one. Even though our preparation was short, it was very good and pertinent to what we would be encountering. Thanks to the TNCA for giving the ground for around a week where we were able to play practice games.”Shahrukh Khan plays an uppercut•NurPhoto/Getty ImagesThe most striking feature of Tamil Nadu’s unbeaten run to the title was that they found a hero for every situation. N Jagadeesan, the season’s top run-getter, and C Hari Nishanth forged a strong partnership at the top in the league phase and when their form cooled off in the knockouts, the middle order stepped up.In the quarter-finals, Himachal Pradesh seamer Vaibhav Arora swung out Tamil Nadu’s top order and when Karthik was caught behind for 2, they were 66 for 5 in a chase of 136. The power of M Shahrukh Khan and the calmness of B Aparajith, however, ushered them home. Then, Rajasthan ran away to a fast start in the semi-finals, but M Mohammed and the spinners reined them in. Karthik and KB Arun Karthik, the senior-most players in the set-up, coolly completed the chase on a tricky pitch. Then, in the final, Tamil Nadu’s spin quartet nearly made it a no-contest against Baroda.”I’m extremely proud [of this run],” Karthik says. “So many positives to take out of this actually – all the top-six batsmen contributed. Shahrukh Khan got 88 runs and out of it, he hit 10 sixes [seven], I think, and that just shows the power he has. Hari Nishanth and Jagadeesan… and KB obviously, he played an important knock in the semi-final.”I’m very happy with the batting and bowling I don’t need to say; we’ve been very consistent with the bowling and a couple of players even came back from injury like [Aswin] Crist and all. So, good to see the competition and the way these boys are shaping up, it’s good for Tamil Nadu.”

Master jam session with our very own master!#VathiComing #TNCA #SyedMushtaqAliTrophy pic.twitter.com/PDioZYJvwE

— jagadeesan (@Jagadeesan_200) February 2, 2021

Also, what did Devdutt Padikkal do differently today in the middle overs?

Nagraj Gollapudi28-Oct-2020Padikkal powers RCB’s intent in the middle overs
Devdutt Padikkal has been one of the most successful openers in IPL 2020 so far, and has the second-most runs in the first six overs: 244, which is just eight behind tournament’s highest scorer KL Rahul for that period. In the powerplay, Padikkal also has the highest strike rate this tournament: 133.But Padikkal’s big challenge has been to keep the tempo high in the middle overs (7-16), a segment of the innings where the Royal Challengers have struggled for momentum in general. Before this match Padikkal’s strike rate in the middle overs was 114.28. He had managed to hit just a total of just 10 boundaries in 112 deliveries in the middle overs, taking 11.2 balls per boundary.Today, though, Padikkal’s strike rate soared to 173.07 as he blasted 45 runs from 26 deliveries in the middle overs, including six fours and a six – a boundary every 3.71 deliveries. That was even more than what Mike Hesson, the Royal Challengers’ team director, had asked for while talking to the match commentators during the innings.Hesson had pointed out that his team was slowing down in the middle overs and so falling short by at least 20 runs. The Royal Challengers had the worst run rate of 7.07 in the middle overs coming into the game, way below the top two teams – Mumbai (8.50) and the Kings XI Punjab (8.45). But thanks to Padikkal, and a useful cameo from AB de Villiers, the Royal Challengers scored 80 in the middle 10 overs, their second-highest total in the period for the tournament, only two runs behind what they scored against the Kolkata Knight Riders in Sharjah.Do RCB continue to rely too heavily on Kohli and de Villiers?
Without a doubt. The Royal Challengers have turned a corner and are strong contenders to make the the playoffs this IPL. However their success continues to be dictated by the batting fortunes of their two best batsmen: de Villiers and Kohli. Every time this season the pair has failed, the Royal Challengers have lost the match.Today neither Kohli nor de Villiers were around during the death-overs phase and the Royal Challengers eventually fell well short of what they would have expected to get after all the good work done by Padikkal.In their five defeats in this tournament, including today, Kohli has managed 151 runs while de Villiers has not even totalled three digits, scoring just 93 runs. In the seven matches that the Royal Challengers have won, Kohli has scored 238 at a strike rate of 138 while de Villiers has powered 196 runs at a phenomenal strike rate of 196.Suryakumar Yadav makes a statement
Suryakumar Yadav would have been intent on making a statement after being overlooked for India’s T20 squad for the upcoming Australia tour. Who better to make a statement against than the team lead by Kohli, the India captain, who is part of the selection meetings.ESPNcricinfo LtdHe swung the contest in Mumbai’s favour in a matter of six balls between overs 11.6 and 12.5. Nineteen runs came off those six deliveries, 18 of them to Yadav, and according to ESPNcricinfo’s Forecaster tool Mumbai’s win percentage nearly doubled from 36.5 to 64.8 in that period.An audacious six with a high and straight elbow over extra cover against Yuzvendra Chahal was followed by a steer against a fast delivery outside off from Dale Steyn, which Yadav executed in seemingly a matter-of-fact fashion. It was as if he was making a point with his calmness and composure.Yadav has been among the best batsmen this IPL, and he has done that by dominating the opposition’s best bowlers. Tonight, he dominated Chahal with the sweep shot, and hit 25 runs from 13 deliveries against him. So far in this IPL, Yadav has the most runs overall using the sweep: 32 form 13 balls. Against RCB he also caned Steyn for 19 runs from just seven balls.He had the final word, too, hitting the winning boundary and signing off with a gesture that seemed to suggest: “I’m there, relax.”

Questions over PCB’s procedures before the side’s departure to New Zealand

Umar Farooq03-Dec-2020Two weeks ago, all 54 members – players and support staff – of the Pakistan squad tested negative for Covid-19 and were cleared to fly out to New Zealand. There were supposed to be 55 travellers, but Fakhar Zaman had symptoms similar to Covid-19, and was thus left behind; he would return a negative test the following day. The rest of the squad departed, apparently, with no cases of Covid-19 among them.However, after testing upon arrival the following day, the New Zealand health ministry found half-a-dozen players had tested positive, and four players who had what was called historic infections. With this many of the travel contingent found to be carrying Covid-19 at some point since arriving in New Zealand, questions arise about whether the PCB’s procedures and processes before the squad departed were rigorous enough.The same processes weren’t in place, before the New Zealand tour, as there had been before the England tour earlier in the year. Ahead of that tour, the PCB carried out two tests, including an antibody test. To comply with their stated policy for the England tour, players had to test negative twice before being cleared for travel. They were together in a hotel for seven days. For the New Zealand tour, the PCB carried out just one test, keeping players in the hotel pre-departure for only two days.The entire squad of 35 players and 20 coaching staff and officials assembled in a Lahore hotel on the afternoon of November 20. They were tested for Covid-19 the next day and all returned negative tests. The team then departed for Dubai on a connecting flight to Auckland via Kuala Lumpur. A chartered plane then took the squad to Christchurch to begin what should have been a 14-day quarantine period.Before flying out, the players had been part of a hectic home season in which many of them would have played in the National T20 Cup, the Quaid-e-Azam trophy in Karachi (first and second XI), the white-ball series against Zimbabwe in Rawalpindi and four PSL matches in Karachi. Though the PCB had created bio-secure bubbles for players during these matches, there were breaches, leading to a PCB reprimand for certain players during the National T20 Cup.ALSO READ: NZ director of public health slams Pakistan Covid protocol breachesEarlier this week, left-arm spinner Raza Hasan was sent home from the Quaid-e-Azam trophy and banned for the rest of the season for a serious Covid-19 breach, which involved him leaving the bio-secure premises without prior clearance.Jimmy Neesham grins as Shaheen Afridi, Sarfaraz Ahmed, Fakhar Zaman, and Mohammad Amir look on•Getty ImagesThis has coincided with a time when Covid-19 has seen an alarming spike in Pakistan over the past two months. After a first peak died down in July, bringing official cases down to as low as under 500 a day in August, cases and deaths from the virus began to creep up again in October. Pakistan averages over 3,000 cases a day over the past fortnight, with the state acknowledging further precautions needed to be taken. Notably, however, a second lockdown has not been imposed, and while regional lockdowns are officially in place, enforcement remains feeble.Between the second and third round of games in the QeA Trophy, nine Sindh players, including captain Sarfraz Ahmed, experienced flu-like symptoms. But because their results came back negative, they all remained in the bubble and only fast bowler Mir Hamza returned home after being declared unwell. Balochistan’s wicketkeeper-batsman Bismillah Khan had tested positive for Covid-19 during the second round match against Southern Punjab in the Quaid-e-Azam trophy, but hadn’t been tested until the fourth day, after which he was substituted on the field by Adnan Akmal – who himself would test positive a round later and is presently in quarantine in Lahore.Five members of the Multan Sultans squad have either tested positive post the PSL, or are currently the part of the Pakistan squad who are being investigated for a historic Covid-19 infection, meaning an infection that is no longer contagious. Sohail Tanvir, part of the franchise, played the PSL, but then tested positive on arrival in Sri Lanka for the Lanka Premier League.Zaman, who was pulled out a day before the departure for New Zealand, tested negative but his Lahore Qalandars team-mate Dilbar Hussain tested positive after landing in Australia to play in the BBL. Hussain had tested negative before leaving Pakistan, and is now in quarantine in Perth. And before playing the PSL, Shaheen Afridi underwent various tests which threw up what are believed to be inconclusive results. He was ultimately cleared to play after two negative tests, but it is understood he is one of the four players in New Zealand who are being investigated for historic infection.The historic infection cases, in particular, throw up questions about testing in Pakistan. The four players repeatedly returned negative results during the many tests conducted over the course of the domestic season. All four were also part of the squad to England which means that they are now throwing up historic signs of an infection, despite having tested negative repeatedly since June.The PCB is confident they did what was required of them before the departure for New Zealand. It is worth noting the PCB do not carry out the testing themselves, but outsource it to certified laboratories. And it is not as if the PCB has not tested enough: across the domestic season so far, they have conducted nearly 3000 tests.”During the nine tournaments/series to date, as many as 2,830 Covid-19 tests have been conducted on players, players support personnel and match officials as the PCB has strictly followed and implemented its strict protocols, which were designed in-house, and have been put together for the health and safety of all participants,” the board said in a statement.

They are panicking and trying to attack from the crease rather than stepping out to get the bowler to change length

Ian Chappell27-Feb-20216:11

Rohit Sharma: ‘Intent wasn’t to survive, but to score’

Virat Kohli described the day-night third Test, in Ahmedabad, as “bizarre”, a word that aptly describes the England batsmen’s attempts to cope with India’s spinners.India’s decision to select three spinners for the Test was prompted by England’s batting on a tricky Chennai pitch, where their batsmen – Joe Root excepted – displayed a distinct ineptitude against spin. India correctly calculated that would result in mental scarring and used it to their advantage.From the moment Axar Patel conjured up the ultimate thimble-and-pea trick to dismiss Jonny Bairstow with a straight delivery, England were in a spin. Is the ball over there? No, it’s here.When faced with a serious spin challenge, the England batsmen didn’t trust their defence, which eventually resulted in panicked attempts to attack the Indian spinners. Their choice to reverse-sweep rather than to leave their crease to change the bowler’s length is a classic example.Related

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• How do you deal with Axar Patel and Ashwin?

• How do you bat on pitches like Ahmedabad? Take risks, choose your shots, use your feet

• How a spinner can break the rhythm of the batsman

• The science of deception

How can a risky premeditated shot be less dangerous than what was previously a trusted technique to unsettle good spinners?One of the first principles of batting – especially on a pitch assisting spinners – is to keep the odds slightly in your favour.Following the memorable 2000-01 series in India where VVS Laxman made a magnificent 281 on a testing surface, I asked Shane Warne how he thought he had performed. “I didn’t think I bowled badly,” he replied. “You didn’t,” was my response. “When a batsman alters your length drastically by coming out three paces and then is quickly onto the back foot when you toss the next delivery a little higher and shorter, that’s not bad bowling, that’s excellent footwork.”Shrewd use of footwork not only helps negate the spin but also puts a batsman in a position to direct the ball where he wants, rather than where the bowler would prefer it to be hit.To be fair, this is a skill to be learned at a young age. Which prompts the question: why is it not widely taught in England, where sweeping is misguidedly touted as the secret to playing spin bowling successfully?Another prominent theory is to take block on off stump when the ball is spinning back in to the batsman.Ollie Pope was looking to attack India’s spinners but at the same time was worried about getting stumped•Saikat Das/BCCIThis flawed theory closes off scoring opportunities through the on side. It’s designed to reduce the chances of being dismissed rather than to create scoring opportunities, which is always a bad option. It also causes batsmen to play balls towards leg slip. Why deliberately hit the ball where there’s a catching fielder?I asked former Australia batsman Doug Walters: “How do you get caught at leg slip when an offspinner is bowling?””You can’t,” he replied.Walters is the best batsman I’ve seen against top-class offspin bowling. He scored a century in a session on a tricky Queen’s Park Oval pitch against Lance Gibbs and crafted a brilliant hundred against Erapalli Prasanna on a Chepauk pitch that was every bit as difficult as the one in the recent Test there between India and England. On both occasions he used lightning quick footwork to both negate the spin and manipulate the field placings against two champion offspin bowlers.Back in Ahmedabad, Ollie Pope decided to use his feet against the Indian spinners. He had the right idea but the wrong execution. Firstly, he jumped rather than glided out of the crease. Secondly, his front foot pressed forward but the back one lingered, as if searching for the safety of the crease.I was told two crucial things about footwork when I was very young: “Get stumped by three yards not three inches,” my coach said, “and never think about the keeper when you leave the crease.”Pope was conscious of the keeper as he tentatively ventured out of his crease, which meant he was worried he would miss the delivery. That results in footwork that hinders rather than helps.It’s never easy against good spinners on a challenging surface, but it is possible to play well; just not the way England are going about it.

Last year at this time, they were looking ahead to their first T20 World Cup final. After that, everything went downhill

Annesha Ghosh07-Mar-2021March 8 last year, International Women’s Day, was box office for women’s cricket. India’s maiden appearance in a T20 World Cup final, against defending champions Australia, drew 86,174 spectators at the MCG – the most ever at a women’s or men’s T20 World Cup final and for a women’s sporting event in Australia.The significance of it all had barely sunk in before the Covid-19 pandemic took hold. Global sport screeched to a halt by the close of March. While Australia, England, New Zealand, South Africa, West Indies and Pakistan all played at least one women’s series apiece in the 12 months since, India played none. By the time they face South Africa in Lucknow on March 7 they will be just a day short of a full year during which they have not played any international matches. The reasons why are a reflection of many ills, most of which have afflicted the women’s game in India for decades now.India’s women cricketers cut their teeth in international cricket in October 1976, three years after the formation of the Women’s Cricket Association of India (WCAI), which became the custodian of the women’s game in the country. Until January 1977, India played eight Tests, including two overseas. An inactive spell of nearly 12 months followed.The next time they took the field, in January 1978, it was for their World Cup debut, also their first ODI. India finished last in that four-team competition but the tournament itself was significant as the first international cricket championship of any kind to be held in India, a decade before the country hosted its first men’s World Cup.India women wouldn’t play any cricket for 54 months after that 1978 World Cup – largely due to an acute cash crunch at the WCAI, which was founded by volunteers and those from the political fraternity. India returned to action with the 1982 ODI World Cup and played 35 international matches until July 1986, the games fairly evenly spaced out in that period. Then all cricket stalled for them for 1644 days, or another four and a half years, their longest gap between two international matches.ESPNcricinfo LtdIn that period, Australia played 32 matches, New Zealand 24, England 23, Ireland 21, Netherlands 14, and Denmark six. India, on the other hand, stagnated, with the cash-strapped WCAI unable to afford to send them abroad or host other teams.”That [break] was horrible,” remembers Diana Edulji, India’s captain for the best part of the period between 1978 and 1993, and for nearly three years a member of the Committee of Administrators, appointed by India’s Supreme Court, that ran the BCCI between 2017 and 2019. “We missed the 1988 World Cup in Australia despite being in a training camp before that, because the sports ministry had withdrawn our entry from the tournament without us or the association [WCAI] knowing.” A disagreement between the WCAI secretary and the government ministry of youth, sports and women and child development over guidelines issued by the latter that the WCAI was expected to follow (because it was receiving funding from the government at the time), is understood to have prompted the withdrawal from the World Cup, but an official explanation was never given to the players.”We had to catch up a lot because the other teams had moved far ahead,” Edulji says. “It took us time when we got back. That is why in our era we couldn’t perform well in the World Cups.”Gargi Banerji, who debuted under Edulji as India’s youngest player ever – male or female – at 15, agrees. “We were way better prepared to put up a fight in the 1988 World Cup than in the 1978 one. That gap of four-plus years killed the possibility, and the careers of several talented players.”The WCAI merged with the BCCI in November 2006, a year after the ICC made mergers between all national boards and their women’s bodies mandatory. The BCCI was the last of the national boards of the top eight countries to start administering women’s cricket in its country, and the absorption of women’s cricket into the larger fold happened at a snail’s pace in India. Against the backdrop of the delay in integrating the workings of women’s cricket at the level of the state associations came another hiatus for the players, stretching 424 days, from March 2007 to May 2008. It remains the longest India have gone without playing an international game since the BCCI took over.The current 364-day gap is India’s longest between two international matches since then. Save for Mithali Raj and Jhulan Goswami, who debuted in 1999 and 2002 respectively, none of the players from India’s 2020 T20 World Cup contingent or their squads for the upcoming series against South Africa, had prior first-hand knowledge of what a gap year looks like.Jhulan Goswami and Mithali Raj have gone long spells without cricket before, but none of their team-mates have•ESPNcricinfoThis hiatus is unlike any Raj and Goswami have experienced before, though. For starters, the security accorded by annual retainers at a time when the players have not been able to turn out for their country was unthinkable in the era before professionalisation. The BCCI, the richest and most powerful cricket board in the world, has to its credit, since the merger, bettered infrastructure for its female cricketers. It has improved the quality of grounds, upgraded travel essentials, introduced match fees, daily allowances and central contracts and announced pensions for its retired female cricketers. It has allowed its women players to participate in overseas competitions, and launched a tournament that is understood to be a precursor to an IPL-style women’s league.The 2010s were a productive – and critical – phase for women’s cricket administration in India, not least because of the impressive on-field results of the national team. Among the highlights was a maiden series win in Australia in 2016 and a breakout runners-up finish at the ODI World Cup the following year. A first appearance in eight years in the knockouts of a T20 World Cup then came in the 2018 edition of the competition, though the format wasn’t deemed their strong suit.India made the final of a T20 triangular series featuring England and Australia in February last year. The same young squad (with the addition of a 16th member) carved out an unbeaten run to the final of the T20 World Cup in February and March, beating favourites Australia in the tournament opener. Their campaign culminated in an 85-run hiding but on the whole it bolstered India’s stature as world-beaters in the making. The pandemic then brought their momentum to a halt.Then, even as international cricket resumed, in July 2020, and preparations for the IPL and the India men’s tour of Australia gathered pace, the women’s team remained starved of communication from the BCCI for months about what, if anything, was in the offing for them, as a raft of cancellations and postponements of their bilateral assignments played out rather discreetly. The players found themselves without a dedicated point person or a selection committee, and with the contract of their manager awaiting renewal.”Sometimes we do feel there’s no sense of purpose if we don’t have competitive cricket or any international series, even domestic,” Raj said during the ICC’s ‘100% Cricket’ virtual discussion last September. Six months on from then, India have not had a national camp in all of 2020, despite the BCCI president himself having promised one in August. Their domestic season begins on March 11, two months after the men’s started, so the only top-flight playing opportunity they have had since the T20 World Cup was the four-match Women’s T20 Challenge last November. They go into the upcoming South Africa series with just three training sessions, having come off a five-day quarantine, and their last outing in ODIs dates back to November 2019. The preparations aren’t ideal by any measure, not least for veterans Raj and Goswami, who are both 38, or for the six uncapped rookies in the two squads.ESPNcricinfo LtdIndia aren’t the only women’s team to have not played for so long. Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Thailand too haven’t had a game since the T20 World Cup in Australia. Ireland, USA, Netherlands and PNG haven’t played since the T20 World Cup Qualifier in September 2019. And Zimbabwe’s first series in nearly two years was called off after just one game due to Covid-19-enforced flight restrictions. Worse, nine of these ten teams are slated to compete in the 2022 ODI World Cup Qualifier in four months’ time, with only India among them having earned direct qualification to the tournament proper.At the MCC cricket committee’s virtual meeting last month, the disproportionately low amount of international women’s cricket played compared to the men’s game since the start of the pandemic was discussed. The concerns raised echoed the 2020 UN Women brief, which said that the pandemic has exposed how, in the face of slashed revenues across the entire ecosystem, organisations instinctively lean towards prioritising investments in “traditional” sports – meaning men’s sports.In the situation the Indian team finds itself in now, the absence of an independent players’ mouthpiece has not helped. “The fact that the best women’s players in India haven’t played for more than a year is hugely disappointing,” Tom Moffat, the CEO of the Federation of International Cricketers Associations (FICA), says. “From our perspective, it’s critical for the growth of the game and safeguarding of player interests that players have a voice and that they’re represented collectively through a players’ association.”India does have a players’ body – the Indian Cricketers’ Association – but it is for retired players only. The BCCI recognises it, but not FICA, which, in its Women’s Professional Cricket Global Employment Report 2020, highlighted an increase in volume of cricket for women’s players among its chief recommendations. It also described the Indian public as becoming “increasingly accepting of female sport” in general and off the field.”If you look at the most sophisticated team sports around the world, including cricket, like Australia and England, many of the most developed sports are the ones where players are best protected,” Moffat says. “A strong players’ association is the best way that we know to reach fair outcomes, and now with what’s going on in the world at the moment, especially for the women’s game.”An additional challenge facing India, and the women’s game at large, needs tackling in the immediate future. “Over the coming months, if there isn’t renewed focus on the women’s game and ensuring greater volume of cricket and exposure across more countries globally, a very foreseeable outcome is that there’ll be less eyeballs watching,” Moffat says. “Therefore, the reality is, there’s going to be potentially less fan interest and commercial interest in the game. And we know the commercial side of things is really important to sustaining the game longer term and to enabling it to grow across more countries.”On March 8, last year, for the third time, India came within touching distance of their maiden world title. Win or lose the series opener against South Africa today, they will feel somewhat relieved that their year without cricket is finally behind them. More than the memory of the defeat to Australia a year ago, their anguish at the eroded momentum of their recent world-tournament finishes is likely to linger.A timeline of the series that India women missed out on

Forget about flight and deception, in the shortest format offspinners are just looking to give the batter one

Cameron Ponsonby15-Jul-2021The best advice in life is often the simplest. A moment where an expert in their craft cuts out the noise and hones in on one driving philosophy. For example, when coaching up-and-coming spinners, former Australia offspinner Ashley Mallett would boil the game down to this: “a spinner attacks and defends with the same stock ball.”That hard-spinning, dipping delivery that brings four fielders around the bat into play during a Test match, will be the same hard-spinning, dipping delivery that will see a player mishit you to the fielder on the boundary in a one-day game. Don’t try anything fancy, be your true self and only then you’ll be your best self. A rare piece of advice that will see you right on a first date, a job interview or managing a spell in the middle overs.Related

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The problem is the world is changing. We now play Twenty20, you lied on your CV and your online persona is far better than the reality. Just being yourself will be a disappointment, and your stock ball will be too.”There is no place for your traditional ball that has loop or drop [in T20]”, says Surrey’s former England spinner Gareth Batty, “because they’ll either have wonderful skills and hit you straight, or just slog you for six.”And yet, for at least the third consecutive season, batters are scoring slower off offspinners than their legspinning counterparts. And all whilst those same weapons that Mallett and all other offspinners have sworn by for decades are now being used against them. The overspin that would mean the ball would hit high on the bat, now just means additional bounce that allows the batter to get underneath the ball. That full-ish length that would draw the batter forward? In the arc, out the park etc.Consider the single as the barometer of success in cricket. In Test cricket, a single is a win for the batter, in the one-day game it’s a draw, and in T20 it’s a win for the bowler.”A stock ball in T20 cricket is basically the ball you can bowl to get a batter off strike,” Batty says. “You’re giving up the run. For a traditional bowler that might mean a quicker ball into the hip and having no square leg. So, for instance, it’s quick enough and full enough that you can’t rock back and pull it, but not too full that you can be hit back over your head. Let’s call that a stock ball. How different is it [to Batty’s first-class stock ball]? It’s like chalk and cheese.”People often say how difficult it is for batters to switch between formats, but rarely seem to consider that for bowlers, particularly spinners, the process can be equally challenging.

Any player that is not trying to get better and trying to diversify their game is a sitting duck, particularly in T20Gareth Batty

“The motor skills needed in your body are so different. If you have a good base – and you can probably use two guys who have a decent base over time in myself and Simon Harmer – then you can slip from red-ball to T20 if you switch your mind to it. Because you know you have that stock ball and can be very accurate if you want because you know your grooving is good. But the switch from white-ball then to red-ball – absolute nightmare. So difficult. Because you’re almost sometimes trying to bowl your worst ball to be your best ball in T20 cricket. So that might be out wide on the return crease when someone’s running at you or you might be bowling a drag down into the wicket.”The stock ball is an offspinner’s night bus home on a Thursday. After a heavy evening of playing T20 cricket and doing all the things you shouldn’t, your stock ball will be the thing you can rely on to get you back, so you can still be up and make a living the next day.”If you watch me in T20 prep”, said Dom Bess after his career-best 7 for 43 against Northamptonshire, “I do a lot of red-ball because I think that’s where the majority of the skills are. In white-ball I think the skills are there but white-all is a lot to do with your mentality – getting underneath the bat, and being quite smart with skills like that.”The problem, however, is that by rewarding “poor” practices in T20, spinners regularly return to four-day cricket with a hangover.”The skillset required for four-day cricket, to be very good at it, is something you need to spend a lot of time on to get,” Batty says, “and a few T20s can stunt that growth and that muscle memory to keep it locked in.”Nottinghamshire’s Matthew Carter, whose 13 wickets at an economy of 7.21 has been a vital part of Nottinghamshire’s dominant group campaign, agrees: “When you transfer to red-ball it does take three or four overs for your brain to function properly and remember that red-ball is all about that up and down and putting revs on it.”It’s a dilemma that confronts young spinners across the country. The desire to be successful across all formats vs the desire to maximise your red-ball potential and develop that “grooved stock ball” that will take you to international honours. It is perhaps not a coincidence that arguably England’s top three finger spinners in Jack Leach, Bess and Amar Virdi have played just 17 T20s between them, with Bess playing all but one of them and Virdi yet to play a white-ball game at all.Matthew Carter in Blast action for Notts•Getty ImagesCarter says this concern that playing T20 cricket might damage his red-ball ability was one that he also dealt with early in his career.”When I first started, for two or three years, yeah [I worried]. I just wanted to concentrate on getting in the red-ball team and making an impact there. But, once you stop and think about it, if you can get that little bit in between where you can still bowl in red-ball cricket and transfer to white-ball pretty quickly, well then you’re pretty much set.”Easier said than done perhaps, but Carter is correct. It’s also a contradiction that Batty volunteers, explaining that as damaging as it may be to your stock-ball development to play T20, a large part of him also believes it’s a good thing for young spinners to play white-ball cricket.”Four-day cricket is changing. And we saw this winter with Leach and [Rishabh] Pant, how [Pant] just went at it in the middle of a Test match, into the rough, with men back and he just didn’t care. And it was exhilarating batting, it was wonderful batting. And Leach didn’t do a lot wrong. But the reason that I bring that up is that Leach wouldn’t have played a lot of white-ball cricket. Had he bowled in more white-ball cricket he’d have had more answers.”Batty stresses that the result may have remained exactly the same. But the point is that Pant would’ve had to draw on a skillset that was more difficult than the one required to hit Leach’s “traditional” bowling.So what does this mean for the traditional finger spinner in T20 cricket?”What is tradition?” asks Batty. “Every era has a different skillset that requires you to be successful. Put your stamp on it and take it forward. Any player that is not trying to get better and trying to diversify their game is a sitting duck, particularly in T20.”Perhaps the answer is to not be concerned about the game we know being left behind, but to be excited by the one we don’t that’s coming in the future.