All posts by h716a5.icu

The fans – Indian and West Indian – who came to watch the first T20 international in Florida were treated to an amazing game, and they enjoyed it together

Aishwarya Kumar in Florida28-Aug-2016One ball, two runs to win. One to tie. A few seconds pass in silence. Hands are clasped together; the pressure palpable. And then red flags erupted as West Indian supporters came running down the stands of Central Broward Regional Park.A one-run victory for West Indies. The fans could have asked for little more.After the initial shock of loss wore off, the Indian fans applauded, realising what an unprecedented game of cricket they had witnessed. More than 30 sixes and fours; 489 runs separated by one.”You can’t get a better finish than this to conclude the first Indian match in the US.,” a West Indian fan called out to a group of Indian fans. They hugged and shook hands. They had got their money’s worth, and some of the tickets were not cheap.The game was an example of why cricket goes beyond who wins and loses. It goes beyond who takes the Man-of-the-Match award home. It was all about enjoying the thrill and the uncertainty of sport. With eight runs needed to win in the last over, the Indian fans looked confident, pumping fists and waving flags. But they wouldn’t be heartbroken if India didn’t make it. To witness the game was all that mattered to them.They wanted a spectacle and they got one.KL Rahul and Evin Lewis kept the crowd entertained in both innings, their cover drives and midwicket sixes elicited wild cheers from the crowd. Both got standing ovations when they reached their centuries.” India,” screamed a fan and the rest followed suit. Sometimes a West Indian fan joined in.When Rahul cruised to his century with a six, the crowd chanted “Rahul, Rahul.” When Dwayne Bravo pulled off the near impossible – denying India eight in the final over – the crowd chanted “DJ, DJ.”It was not about who would win. It was about how.”If there is one person who could do it, it is DJ,” said West Indian fan Geta Whitehall, waving her flag and jumping in excitement. Despite the overwhelming Indian fan base, the West Indian fans remained confident throughout. “We’re closer to home, you know,” said Chris Whitehall.Midway through the first innings, a dance broke out in the stands next to the press box. A West Indian fan and an Indian were battling it out. The crowd chanted words of encouragement. Bhangra on one side. West Indian jive on the other. The fans bonded like never before.”Most people have never witnessed India playing here before. The passion and happiness is more intense here because of how rare cricket is played here,” said Gourabh Arora, an Indian fan who flew down with his nine-year-old daughter from Virginia.After the game, MS Dhoni said Indian fans follow the team wherever they go and it was a pleasure to play in front of the crowd. “Even if we’re playing in the Bermuda Triangle, they’ll be there,” he said. Dhoni also joked about how the closest people came to witnessing sixes here were home runs in baseball and not many of those are scored in a game.At the tail end of the chase, the big screen read: “Fan of the day – Cherry.” And the stand next to the press box broke into loud cheers. Cherry Patel, an Indian fan from Tampa, was going to get a chance to get a photo with Virat Kohli. She stood up on the chair and screamed, the painting of the word “Virat” visible on her legs. The crowd cheered “Cherry, Cherry.”The crowd stayed back for the presentation ceremony as Ravi Shastri’s booming voice rang around the stadium. “This is a once in a lifetime opportunity. I won’t forget this,” said Raja Selvaraj, an engineer from Atlanta.Fans walked out, flags and posters safely tucked away in their bags.”We are coming back tomorrow,” they said.

Haseeb Hameed’s impressive Test debut has fired England’s optimism that this time they have found an opener to be reckoned with

George Dobell in Rajkot12-Nov-20161:37

Compton: Hameed’s style is similar to Root’s

They have kissed some frogs along the way, but it looks as if England may have found their prince.It wasn’t just Haseeb Hameed’s runs that impressed. And it wasn’t just the uncomplicated technique. It was, most of all, the composure of a 19-year-old dealing with the pressure of playing his first Test against the No. 1 rated side in their own country. If he had any nerves, he didn’t show them.The basic facts are these: Hameed has become the first England opener to make a half-century on debut since Alastair Cook in 2006. He has become the third youngest man (after Jack Crawford and Denis Compton) to make a half-century in Test cricket for England (and the second youngest opener, after Crawford) and, if he makes 38 more runs on the final day, he will be the first England opener to make a century on debut since Cook and the youngest England Test centurion of all time.While the scorecard hardly suggests it, his runs were made under some pressure. With England starting their second innings just 49 runs ahead of India and the pitch starting to show signs of modest deterioration, any early wickets could have resulted in a serious case of jitters in the England dressing room. Offering a little more turn and a little more uneven bounce, this is no longer the genial-natured pitch on which five men have recorded centuries this match. These were not soft runs.So while Cook (who is said by the England camp to be in robust good health despite a couple of spells off the field, an uncharacteristic drop at slip and another scratchy display with the bat) prodded and poked as if batting on the most treacherous of surfaces, Hameed was able to drive boundaries through the covers off front and back foot, late cut anything even slightly short and, when Ravi Jadeja gave the ball just a little flight, skip down the pitch and drive him over long-off for six.Hameed is ‘great talent’ – Rashid

Adil Rashid credited a new sense of self-belief for arguably his best display of Test bowing to date.
Rashid has previously been urged to bowl with more pace if he is to prove a success in Test cricket, but he claimed four wickets in Rajkot by sticking to the slightly slower pace with which he was comfortable in the belief it enabled him to gain more turn.
“The pace is key,” Rashid said. “It’s the pace I’m comfortable with and where I spin the ball most. It’s crucial I believe in that and that I’m confident in doing the skills out in the middle.”
Rashid also had warm praise for Haseeb Hameed who he first saw in the Roses game in which Hameed scored a century in each innings.
‘He played seam exceptionally well and spin very well,’ Rashid said. “So I wasn’t surprised at all how he came out and played here. He’s got a good head, he’s a clever and solid boy, works hard in the nets and he’s a great talent. He’s a very calm, organised cricketer.”

His footwork was crisp and unhurried. His judgment over which balls to leave and which he could nudge off his legs was astute. He already uses the crease against the spinners better than all but one member of the England team. He could not be bullied by the seamers or befuddled by the spinners. This has been England’s most assured debut since Joe Root.But for a twist of fate, Hameed could have ended up playing for India. His father, Ismail, who looked understandably emotional in the stands as his son reached his half-century with a delicious late cut for four off the world’s No.1 rated Test bowler, tells a tale of the invitations extended their way after one of Haseeb’s trips back to the land of his parents to work on his game on turning tracks.Would he be interested in playing club cricket in Mumbai? Might he like to think of the Mumbai side in the Ranji Trophy as his target? Might he think of joining his heroes, Sachin Tendulkar and Virat Kohli, as an Indian player?It was never going to happen. By then, Haseeb was impressing in the Lancashire age-group teams. Their Academy Director, John Stanworth, a man not prone to hyperbole, told that Hameed was “probably as good a player as we’ve had for a generation” two years before he graduated to the Championship side, and made comparisons with Mike Atherton and John Crawley. He captained England U-17 and U-19 and although there have been setbacks – he was especially stung to be left out of the England team for the U-19 World Cup – he has long carried great expectations.The records followed. He became the youngest Lancashire player to make 1,000 runs in a Championship season, the first Lancashire player to make centuries in both innings of a Roses match (Tim Bresnan told him he had played “a seriously special knock” after the second innings century) and, despite it all, possessed a demeanour busting with a desire to learn but graced by humility. Even if Haseeb Hameed was hopeless at cricket, his parents would have reason to be immensely proud of him.Haseeb Hameed became the third youngest England player to make a Test fifty•Associated PressHis first memories are of cricket: batting with a mini bat and punching his father’s friendly lobs in the living-room of their Bolton home. Later Ismail resolved to teach his son the defensive technique of Geoff Boycott which, whatever the changes in the modern game, remains a decent foundation. He hasn’t played a first team game of white ball cricket for Lancashire yet, but there’s no reason why he cannot make a success of that. He’s not a blocker with a limited game; he’s a class act with an array of elegant strokes and the sense to play within himself. He looks as if he was born to bat.There are still questions to answer, of course. Most of all, there was talk on the county circuit of the day he was worked over by a sharp Surrey attack containing Stuart Meaker and Mark Footitt. You can be quite sure that Australia, in particular, will explore any potential vulnerability against the short ball.The signs in this match are promising, though. While others have paid the price for taking their eye off the ball in this game and taken short balls on the head or upper body, Hameed reacted to the first ball of his Test career – a well-directed short-ball from Mohammed Shami – with a composure you suspect is going to become mightily familiar. He kept his eye on the ball and dropped his hands expertly. There haven’t been any obvious chinks in the armour.Other England openers have enjoyed good days, of course, only to be discarded a short while later. Sam Robson and Adam Lyth both made centuries in their second Tests and Nick Compton made two in New Zealand. But have any of them – and Hameed is Cook’s 10th opening partner since the retirement of Andrew Strauss in 2012 – looked this assured and unflappable? Have any of them looked to have such a well-rounded game?Ben Duckett made a half-century as opener in the previous match, but it always seemed a little frenetic and little as if it was a punt that was coming off. Hameed offered something approaching certainty. His journey is just beginning and there will, no doubt, be some stony terrain on the way. But if you could buy shares in people, you would put your shirt on Haseeb Hameed.Hameed’s runs have helped put England in an almost impregnable position. While there will be talk of a declaration sometime in mid-afternoon – you cannot give a side containing the best limited-overs chaser in history a hint of a chance in a run-chase – there might also be a thought to keep India in the field for another full day. With only three days between Tests, those extra overs could be telling in Visakhapatnam. Besides, any psychological edge India thought they had before this game could be further eroded. It was a tactic that served England well in Brisbane in 2010.The counter argument suggests that opportunities to win may be few and far between in this series and that England, with a slim chance, should do all they can to take it. In the end, it may depend on how much the pitch has deteriorated by lunch. It is breaking up, certainly, but whether it is doing it fast enough to force a result is doubtful.Hameed need not worry about that. He just needs to bat. And, for the first time in several years, England may well not need to worry about finding a new opening partner for Cook. It’s premature to reach conclusions, of course, but it really does seem as if the search is over.

Qualification scenarios for the last spot in the top four in PSL 2017

S Rajesh and Gaurav Sundararaman26-Feb-2017With only one league game left in the PSL, two teams – Karachi Kings and Lahore Qalandars – are battling for the last spot. Peshawar Zalmi, Quetta Gladiators and Islamabad United have qualified for the playoffs.Lahore have already played their eight games, finishing with six points and a net run-rate of -0.223. Whether they qualify or not depends on the result of the last match of the league stage, between Karachi – also on six points with an NRR of -0.150 – and Islamabad (eight points, NRR -0.113).Islamabad will move to ten points and top the group if they beat Karachi, while Karachi will qualify if they win. (In that case, these two teams will again play each other in the second playoff on Wednesday.)However, with Karachi having an NRR of -0.150 to Lahore’s -0.223, there is a possibility of Karachi qualifying even if they lose to Islamabad, as long as their NRR stays above -0.223. Here are a few scenarios that indicate how Karachi can qualify even if they lose to Islamabad on Sunday.If Karachi bat first…The table below lists the minimum overs Karachi must bowl, if they bat first and lose the game. For instance, if Karachi score 160 and lose, then they must ensure that Islamabad take 18.3 overs or more to chase down the target. If Islamabad chase it down in fewer overs, then Karachi’s NRR will drop below that of Lahore, who will qualify instead. (However, the over cut-offs will change slightly if Islamabad level the scores and then win with a boundary. For instance, if Karachi score 160, and Islamabad level the scores and then win with a four (total 164), then Karachi will have to drag the game till at least 18.5 overs.)

Min overs for Islamabad’s chase to ensure Karachi qualify

Karachi’s score (20 overs) Min overs to chase120 18.2140 18.3160 18.3180 18.4200 18.4If Karachi bat second…Similarly, if Karachi bat second and lose, they need to come close enough to the target to ensure their NRR doesn’t drop below -0.223. For instance, if Islamabad make 160, Karachi will need to make at least 147 to keep their NRR above that of Lahore.

Min scores for Karachi chasing to ensure they qualify

Islamabad’s score Karachi’s min total120 106140 126160 147180 167200 188In case of a washout, both teams will qualify as they will get a point each. Islamabad will finish third and Karachi fourth, which means they will play each other again in the second playoff on Wednesday.

Marks out of ten for Bangladesh’s players after their landmark Test series in Sri Lanka that finished in a 1-1 draw

Mohammad Isam21-Mar-20178.5Mushfiqur Rahim (193 runs at 64.33, four catches, one stumping)
Bangladesh’s captain was the team’s best performer when the pressure reached its apex. In Galle, after he was relieved off wicketkeeping duties, he battled hard in both innings with the bat despite the remaining batsmen faltering. In Colombo he was involved in a crucial partnership with Shakib Al Hasan in the first innings and when Bangladesh needed a chaperone in the 191-run chase, he was there too. His anticipation to catch Niroshan Dickwella’s sweep in Colombo was a feather in his cap during the series.8Shakib Al Hasan (162 at 40.50, nine wickets at 39.77)
He scored Bangladesh’s only century in the series, which was a very un-Shakib like batting performance for most of his 116 runs. He started off carelessly but tightened up and then played a mix of dominating strokes, while anchoring two different partnerships. With the ball, he had a better time in Colombo than in Galle, delivering spells in which he looked like taking a wicket every over. He was the perfect foil for Mustafizur Rahman in the crucial afternoon session on the fourth day.Mustafizur Rahman (eight wickets at 27.50)
This was Mustafizur’s first Test series since his debut against South Africa in 2015, so there weren’t a lot of expectations on his recently-fixed shoulders. But he was the best Bangladeshi bowler on show in both Tests. While the rest of the bowling attack came up short in the first game, Mustafizur was good at attacking the batsmen as well as bowling defensive spells. His cutters started to flow out right and his round-the-wicket angle tested the Sri Lankan right-handers constantly in Colombo. They eventually succumbed to his ‘carrot balls’ outside off, edging thrice and handing the advantage back to Bangladesh.7.5Tamim Iqbal (207 runs at 51.75)
Tamim was underwhelming in Galle, following up a confident 57 with a low score. In Colombo, he started similarly with his 49 in the first innings, but it was his 82 in the second that played a major role in Bangladesh’s win. He took his time to settle down before a calculated counterattack against Sri Lanka’s spinners. Tamim’s stability also enabled three Bangladesh half-century opening stands in four innings.7Mehedi Hasan (ten wickets at 35.10)
He was Bangladesh’s highest wicket-taker in the Test series, making important breakthroughs and ensuring that he was an attacking option for his captain. Mehedi has to curb his run-rate, which will come with experience but he bowls tight lines against right-handers. At the start of the fourth day, Mehedi’s superb off-break removed Upul Tharanga while on the fifth day, his smart pick-up at the stumps completed Dilruwan Perera’s important run-out.6.5Sabbir Rahman (one Test, 83 runs at 41.50)
He was a last-minute inclusion for the Colombo Test, and should have scored more than 42 and 41. He was given a high batting spot, No. 4, which he should have nailed, given his starts. In the second innings, however, Sabbir showed why he is rated highly. He joined Tamim in the counterattack, starting off with a reverse sweep and then crunching drives and cuts in the 109-run second-wicket stand. In the first innings too, he looked positive and continually put pressure on the bowlers.6Soumya Sarkar (195 runs at 48.75)
Sarkar struck three successive fifties, which is a rarity for a Bangladeshi opener, but his highest score of 71 showed that he wasn’t prepared to do the hard work after getting starts. When he holed out to mid-off in the fourth innings in Colombo, Sarkar’s collection in the series ultimately looked a bit meaningless. But one good thing, at least for the upcoming limited-overs matches, is that Sarkar is in good form. Credit to Sarkar also because of the three decent opening stands he was involved in, with Tamim.Mosaddek Hossain’s debut half-century set up Bangladesh’s win after Shakib Al Hasan hit a memorable 116 in Colombo•Associated PressMosaddek Hossain (one Test, 88 runs at 44.00)
Mosaddek debuted in the Colombo Test and his first-innings 75 was a glimpse of what Bangladesh can expect from him in the season ahead. He will also prompt a major discussion in the selection panel next time Bangladesh play a Test. Mosaddek possesses confidence and doesn’t look to do anything that he is not trained to do. His impressive handling of Rangana Herath in both innings was noteworthy.5Liton Das (one Test, 40 runs at 20.00, two catches)
He did a good job as the designated wicketkeeper in the first Test, taking a fine catch to remove Dickwella. He seems like the right choice to replace Mushfiqur behind the stumps, but Liton also needs to get into the mindset of a No. 7 batsman if he is to keep his Test spot in the long-term. Technique doesn’t seem to be a major issue at the moment, so a bit of mental adjustment could keep him in the selectors’ interests.4.5Subashis Roy (three wickets at 75.33)
Subashis was a surprise choice as Mustafizur Rahman’s foil in the second Test but he mostly held his own. His wicket-taking would depend largely on boring the batsman out. But for that, the team management must be patient with him, given that they seem to be picking horses-for-courses while selecting a new-ball partner for Mustafizur. Subashis gave a decent account of his ability to bowl tightly from one end while others attacked.Taijul Islam (one Test, two wickets at 39.00)
He was under-bowled in the second innings in Colombo but broke a crucial partnership by removing Rangana Herath. In the first innings he took Dhananjaya de Silva’s wicket, also breaking an important 66-run fifth wicket stand. An economical bowler, Taijul will remain Bangladesh’s go-to spinner when they are looking for someone to support Shakib and Mehedi.4Imrul Kayes (one Test, 34 runs at 17.00)
In Colombo, he replaced Mominul Haque at No 3, starting well in the first innings but giving it away and triggering a collapse. In the second innings he was unlucky that he got a peach from Herath first ball. He should still be challenging Soumya for the opening slot.3.5Taskin Ahmed (one Test, two wickets at 54.50)
Taskin took two wickets in Galle but was possibly sacrificed for the Colombo game because of a new rotation policy. The selectors felt that Subashis can offer more control than him, thereby complementing Mustafizur, who is the natural attacker. Taskin also has to introduce his own method of cutting out the boundary balls during the middle and end part of spells. His pace is an asset to this attack, but to be useful with Mustafizur, he would have to bowl a lot better than he did in this series.3Mominul Haque (one Test, 12 runs at 6.00)
This was his worst Test series, but it is too early to say that Mominul Haque’s place in the Test team is uncertain. He doesn’t get to play a lot of Tests, so he must be given a longer rope than other batsmen. He is a settled No. 3, and although there was enough reason to drop him in Colombo, he must be picked next time.2Mahmudullah (one Test, eight runs at 4.00)
It wasn’t a great two weeks for Mahmudullah who lost his place after the first match and was subject to off-field drama before the landmark 100th Test. While he is a strong limited-overs performer, he has to work on his Test approach, which means that he should play a lot of first-class cricket next season.

The spectator experience in Indian stadiums can often be unpleasant. One group of fans from Mumbai wants to change that, one chant at a time

Snehal Pradhan02-Apr-2017When I was running in and scaring tailenders in my Under-16 days, I was a very vocal cricketer. Don’t get me wrong – I don’t mean I sledged the opposition. But I did scream at them from the sidelines. Or rather, chant at them.Every wide ball our batsmen got was greeted by a sadistic ” wide ball ” (How are you feeling now? Feeling great.) If you have played junior team sports, chances are that lines of this sort are more than words on a screen to you; they are tunes in your head.When I graduated from age-group cricket, the chants disappeared (as did the U-16 tournament; when the BCCI took over in 2006, they didn’t bother running one and still don’t). As we grew older, we left behind those markers of immaturity and got down to the serious business of making runs and taking wickets.I hoped to rediscover those chants whenever I went to watch a live game. But while there are always crowds for international games in India, there is no real chanting, only chatter. Lots of acclamation, some heckling, even abuse, but little chanting, organised or otherwise.A bunch of cricket nuts in Mumbai have been trying to change that.

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Anish D’Souza lives in the US, but mentally he’s wherever there is cricket. He is the kind of fan who has two or three screens in front of him showing whatever cricket is on around the globe. If there is a Test in India, he doesn’t get much sleep. If there is a Test at the Wankhede, he is there in person. Most non-resident Indians try to visit home during festivals and holidays; Anish plans his trips based on the Future Tours Programme.Growing up in Mumbai, Anish was a regular at the Wankhede and Brabourne stadiums for Tests since 2004.With the Barmy Army: (from left) Vipul Yadav, Chris Millard, Anish D’Souza, Andy Thompson and Ashutosh Shirke•North Stand Gang”I saw the same few faces come every time,” D’Souza says. “We would come, cheer, chant, and go back.” But back then they didn’t allow phones into the stadium. The first time they did – in 2009 at Brabourne – he took down the numbers of these like-minded fans. That was how the North Stand Gang was born.

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Sport pulls people into stadia and momentarily binds them together. For the North Stand Gang, those bonds did not dissolve when they left the stadium. When did they really become a gang? “After WhatsApp,” says Sabarish Gopalkrishnan, one of their more recent members. “When most of us were still students and in Mumbai, we used to meet almost every other weekend,” D’Souza says. Even now, while life has taken them to different cities and countries, some of them remain friends.These conversations, over social media and in person, led to the decision to watch every Test and some ODIs together as a group.They shared train schedules and traffic updates. They harangued the Mumbai Cricket Association to find out match dates, and the ticket booking company, with tweets and calls, for ticket release dates. A volunteer stays up at night to book tickets in bulk. Always the North Stand of the Wankhede (the 2009 Test was the last the Brabourne hosted), Level Three, blocks G and H, which have a straight view of the pitch.”There is only one condition to join the North Stand Gang. You have to be loud and keep chanting,” says Kishan Purohit, one of the core members of the group. No strident vuvuzelas allowed here, though. “We want innovative chants. . They may mean nothing, but they get the crowd going.” The one with the loudest voice leads, the others follow. When vocal cords need a rest, another becomes the herald.Where the Gang got organised: the 2009 Brabourne Test between India and Sri Lanka•North Stand GangSome of them are fans of European football and have brought across chants from there. “Ole, ole, ole” becomes “Kohli, Kohli, Kohli”. “Oh Robin van Persie” becomes “Sir Ravi Jadeja”. When there’s a lull in play, they even sing the good old “Washing Powder Nirma” ad jingle.

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For last December’s Wankhede Test against England, the North Stand Gang was perfectly synchronised, turning up in identical t-shirts, which, designed by one of their own, Vipul Yadav, recount the history of the Wankhede. They also had five banners, all signed by Sachin Tendulkar. There were close to 40 people sitting together (thanks to them having booked 40 tickets at 1am, within minutes of release). Forty may seem a small number in a stadium of 30,000, but it is enough to get critical mass. Herd mentality does the rest. The gang is the crowd version of Twitter influencers, and can start Mexican waves at will. Besides, it’s not too hard to get people to join in when you are chanting “” (One two, one two, hit Ben Stokes out of here).”Yes, we can be a bit hostile,” says Purohit, trying to smile angelically. Even abusive? He grins, halo fading slightly. “But on the whole, our Mumbai crowd is very mature.”D’Souza backs him up in a separate conversation. “I had gone to watch an India-Pakistan game at the Eden Gardens in 2013. India did badly, and the fans turned on us and booed our team. We support India till the end.” Even when South Africa score 434 in an ODI? “Yes, even then,” says Purohit.At Sachin Tendulkar’s final Test, 2013•North Stand GangThe North Stand Gang even earned the respect of the Barmy Army during that December Test. So impressed was the Army by the Gang’s gusto, they presented the group with an England flag signed by the entire contingent and their official book of chants. The North Stand Gang in turn gave the Barmy Army one of their T-shirts. It was validation of the sort these fans had never expected.

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In 2011, while studying at IIT Bombay, D’Souza volunteered to teach maths and science at the Shindewadi Municipal Public School in Dadar. But he ended up teaching the students whatever he knew, which included music and sport: cricket and football mostly. He even roped in some of the North Stand Gang to help on occasion.By then the Gang had been watching Tests together for a couple of years, and some of them had even followed India around in the 2011 World Cup. For the final alone, they spent thousands, despite having booked tickets well in advance. It was a kind of excess that most of D’Souza’s students probably couldn’t imagine. He decided to involve them.”We asked for voluntary donations from North Stand Gang regulars, and so many pitched in to buy tickets for these kids,” D’Souza says. “I had a chat with the principal and we agreed that the best students from two classes would get to go.” For day one of the India-West Indies Test in 2011, which ended in a draw with the scores level, the North Stand Gang enjoyed the company of children from the Shindewadi school.”This was before the BCCI and MCA started getting schoolchildren to games,” D’Souza says. “They got to see Sachin live. It was a special moment for all of us.”The Gang members present one of their T-shirts to the Barmy Army•North Stand GangThe next year, D’Souza arranged for female students from the school to attend an India v Australia women’s ODI, for which entry was free. And for some time now, the Gang has also arranged for entry for a few die-hard chanters who have been with them for a while but can no longer afford to buy tickets nowadays.

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A few North Stand Gang regulars came down to Pune for the first Test of the India-Australia Test series, Gopalakrishnan among them. A data analyst who thinks GRE math is a walk in the park, his real talent in the stadium is with his hands. With crisp, infectious clapping, he roused the somnolent Pune crowd to slow-clap in sync with the bowlers’ run-ups. Every boundary was celebrated with a mini-dance, like a Mexican wave that began and ended with him. No poor ball was spared. “Short ?” (Why are you bowling short, man?), he yelled at R Ashwin on day two. Immediately after that he launched into a story of how he used to bowl offspin with a rubber ball, and how difficult it is to control.It’s not just a red haze of passion, there is knowledge here too. Adoration of both craftsmen and the craft.Gopalakrishnan and his friends started most of the chants in their stand over three depressing days for India in Pune and brought some life into the crowd. It had a downside, though; when he jumped a barricade to get into a stand with a better view, stadium security took all of two minutes to recognise him and help him back to his seat.

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Some might associate Test match viewers with old-timers, but most of these men and women – yes, it isn’t just a boys’ club – of the Gang are in their twenties, working in IT or accounting or finance. And they are purists, attending every Test, picky when it comes to ODIs, and giving the IPL a miss altogether. “A Test is like a storybook. Each day a different chapter,” D’Souza says. “In a T20, the match is over before you can absorb the experience. Also, tickets to the IPL are very overpriced.”At the 2011 World Cup•North Stand GangPurohit echoes his sentiments. “We want younger viewers to come and support the Tests. Tests need a different temperament. Even the temperament of fans has to change.”In this age of top-class TV coverage and stinking stadium toilets, astronomical prices and endless security checks, why should fans go to a stadium to watch a game of cricket anymore? The North Stand Gang is one answer. Like the West Block Blues, Bangalore FC’s loyal fans, they offer an organised fan experience, still a new concept in India.So for the next Test in Mumbai, you know where to go: Wankhede Stadium, North Stand, Level Three, Blocks G and H. Go ahead, teach this lot a few chants yourself.

South Africa had almost the same team that got thrashed by England in the 2014 World T20 semi-final. What has turned them into such an intimidating side?

Jarrod Kimber17-Jul-2017The ball is still rising; it feels like it will always be. It has cleared the fielder, the rope, the electronic fence and the speaker system, and flies at least forty metres over a boundary that has been placed so her so-called fairer sex can clear the rope. If there is a ground that can contain her, it certainly isn’t to be found in the roped-off postage stamps of the women’s games. This six almost ends up out of Grace Road. Lizelle Lee hits a lot of sixes.She hits so many she currently has over 12% of the sixes scored in this World Cup. She’s a better six hitter than Sri Lanka, Pakistan and West Indies. It would be unfair to focus only on her six-hitting power, because she was the reason that South Africa had enough runs to panic against Pakistan, the reason India got crushed, and the reason her team was set up to go past 300 against England. And that’s all fine, nice and wonderful, but she hits the ball like she has a dark prior history with it, and no one else is hitting the ball as far, or anywhere near as often.Lee has gone from an average middle order player with no impact on the game to a genuine threat at the top of the order. Her team has done the same.It was not that long ago that the South African team was a non-entity. They did make the 2014 WT20 semi-final, but in that match they had two players score double figures, and England chased down their total one wicket down with more than three overs to spare. It was their only success since a surprise World Cup semi-final in 2000. As women’s cricket has got better and better, South Africa have struggled.Lee opens the batting with Laura Wolvaardt, who is probably the biggest prodigy in the game. At 16 she walked into the team like a fierce magical heroine from a far-off land. Dane van Niekerk had never even heard of her before she was picked, but after watching her once in the nets, was completely won over. Wolvaardt has so much time to see each delivery that it feels like she could plan a backpacking holiday as Anya Shrubsole was delivering an inswinger. According to van Niekerk, “she’s not 18 when you speak to her, it’s weird. She’s not 18 when she bats.”Then there is van Niekerk, a warhorse captain who passionately supports her team. An allrounder who bowls leggies, her bowling economy in this tournament is 3.26, which would be impressive in any case, but is more so since she also has 15 wickets at 8.3. Yet she has said she still isn’t in rhythm yet and has been lucky with her bowling. Most people don’t get that lucky, or in that kind of rhythm once in a lifetime.Then there are her pace bowlers. According to Van Niekerk, “I came into the World Cup thinking I had the best opening attack in the world”. The only thing that has changed since then is she now thinks her other bowlers have improved enough for her attack to be the best. She has pace in Shabnim Ismail, constant probing from Marizanne Kapp and massive swing from Moseline Daniels. But this is the weird thing about this bowling attack, and really, the entire team: They have all been there for a long time.Dane van Niekerk has inspired South Africa’s charge in the tournament, on and off the field•ICC/GettyComing into this tournament they were ranked sixth in the world. But during the last two years, they have played 33% more ODIs than any other team – double the amount West Indies have played. Of the team that England smashed in the 2014 WT20, nine have already played in this tournament; all nine could even line up in the semi. So it’s almost the same side, just with an added batting prodigy, and somehow they’ve gone from a curiosity – why are South Africa never any good – to a semi-finalist and future contender.So this is a team that has grown up together, is finally getting proper off-field support, plays more than anyone else, and has their line up right. It’s not a surprise that they’ve finally become a decent team. Before the World Cup, the team got together to come up with a slogan for their tournament. This is not new for South African teams; ‘ProteaFire’ is something that has been used for years by the male team. But the women went for something different: always rising.”We always want to get better day by day, and like what happened in the first game against England, you get knocked out, it’s about how you rise,” was how van Niekerk explained the slogan. The phrase came from the CSA publicity team sitting down with the team and asking them about their core values. There is no doubt that good things have come since the team and CSA started working so closely together.Van Niekerk was 10 in 2000 when they made their previous semi-final, and she doesn’t remember it at all. This time they have the chance to make a far bigger impact. It’s more than just winning, they are playing to inspire. They know that there are more girls out there like Wolvaardt, and the more they win, the more chance they have of finding them. Every time Lee smacks a six, Ismail uproots a stump, and South Africa wins, they are building the game for their country. If they beat England, they have more than a chance of winning the tournament, but for them, they also have a chance of winning fans at home.England look reformed in this tournament, and as good as South Africa have been, it was England who kicked them the hardest. But regardless of the result, they will be playing in front of the biggest audience they’ve ever played for. The way they play, it’s going to fun to watch them regardless.They might lose, but like a Lizelle Lee six, they are still rising.

The surface prepared for the Boxing Day Test has come in for criticism from all sides, with only Adelaide currently succeeding in getting the balance right

Daniel Brettig at the MCG28-Dec-2017When Steven Smith posted no fewer than three covers for Alastair Cook midway through day three at the MCG, he provided a succinct statement as to the lifelessness of the pitch prepared for the showpiece match of Australia’s cricketing summer. Admirable as Cook’s innings was for offering proof that his career is far from over, it was achieved on a pitch that presented very little risk of nicking off to slips the bouncing ball – the manner in which so many of his innings this series had ended.Cook’s innings took him past Brian Lara on the list of Test run-makers. After he made his 375 at the Recreation Ground in Antigua in 1994, Lara commented on how much he would have liked to roll up the pitch and carry it around everywhere with him. Being a drop-in, this MCG surface could actually travel wherever Cook wanted it to, but in terms of entertainment, and balance between bat and ball, it would be better used as a portion of the current project to widen the Tullamarine freeway linking Melbourne to its airport.The MCG has long been a wonder of Test cricket, offering up massive and diverse crowds to watch the long form of the game at the traditional holiday time of year. If Boxing Day’s roll-up of 88,172 narrowly failed to reach a new mark for the highest-ever day’s crowd at a Test, follow-ups of 67,882 and 61,839 provided further reminders of how this multipurpose colosseum can attract some of the best and brightest gatherings not only in cricket but all of sport.But Melbournians have seldom had the benefit of watching cricket played on a surface to match the quality of their attendances. For decades the demands of football in the winter presented problems for both the pitches and the outfield, culminating in a period in the 1980s when the surface was universally considered the worst in the country. Among the many elements of nostalgia inherent in this week’s anniversary celebrations for the 1977 Centenary Test is how the players involved have contrasted the excellent Bill Watt pitch prepared for that game with the poor fare that followed it.Drop-ins were gradually introduced to the square from 1996 onwards, replacing the unreliability of the past with a far more consistent brand of mediocrity. Unless it starts with green grass on the top and moisture underneath to allow seamers and spinners some early traction, the MCG surface simply does not deteriorate fast enough to offer enough of a challenge over the course of four or five days.

I would like fast, bouncy tracks that go through, day in and day out, that’d be lovely. We don’t get it when we’re at homeDarren Lehmann

This strip’s turgid nature, then, has been entirely unsurprising from the moment Australia’s captain Steven Smith remarked on Christmas Day that it “looked ready to go three days ago”. It rather underlined the fact that in an otherwise thriving environment for the game down under, pitches are becoming an increasing sore point. The fact of the matter is that apart from Adelaide Oval’s success in converting from a traditional square to a drop-in collection with a new but still distinct character, all of Australia’s international venues currently have conditional caveats against them.James Sutherland, the Cricket Australia chief executive, set out his idea of the standard for international pitches in Australia when speaking on ABC Radio earlier in the Test: “I think the broad statement is pitches are incredibly important to the future of Test cricket, we need to provide an entertaining contest, we need to provide a balance between bat and ball and I think broadly we’ve seen that in the three Test matches so far this summer.”Of the four pitches prepared so far this season, Adelaide’s stands out alongside Perth in terms of providing the sort of balance Sutherland spoke of. Brisbane, talked up as breathing fire in the lead-up to the series opener, was too sluggish by half until the match was well into its journey, necessitating the sort of grinding innings Smith constructed to wear down England’s bowlers. The WACA Ground’s pace and bounce were a welcome sight after some years of disappointing pitches, but it was also a parting shot, as all major matches move to the new Perth Stadium from later this season – early signs are that its drop-in surface is still some way short of the desired standard.Australia’s coach Darren Lehmann offered the following assessment: “Brisbane was too slow day one and day two, would’ve liked more bounce in that track, but it certainly quickened up and once we get quick and bouncy tracks we see what we can do. Adelaide was a really good track for day/night Test cricket and Perth was quick and bouncy. So you’d like a bit more bounce and pace in a lot of them, it’s a big weapon of ours.”At the end of the day you’ve got to chop and change don’t you. Sydney I presume will be a traditional Sydney track, so you get a well-rounded cricket venture around the country with five Test matches. We would’ve liked a little more bounce in the [MCG] track if we’re perfectly honest, I think both sides would’ve, Jimmy [Anderson] said the same thing. It doesn’t break up here so it’s going to be good for five days, so it’s going to be tough work. We’ve got to bat well in the second innings.”One of the curiosities of Australian pitches is how Adelaide Oval and its curator Damian Hough have succeeded in matching a far higher, more precise standard than all other venues are held to. The reason for this was finding a balance between the need for a fair Test match pitch but also to protect the somewhat less durable pink Kookaburra ball used in day/night matches – a complex process that has involved Hough, Cricket Australia, Channel Nine and the Australian Cricketers Association. This season Hough produced a strip that offered seam by day and swing by night, before there was just enough variable bounce towards the end for Josh Hazlewood to exploit fully and thus seal the match.Yet in other cities, the mere expectation of a pitch offering a modicum of bounce in addition to whatever local characteristics might be evident has been beyond many. Take for example the surface prepared at North Sydney Oval for the women’s day/night Ashes Test earlier this season – a dull as dishwater pitch that was about as suited to the format as a traditional Christmas dinner is to a 38C Australian summer. Likewise the Gabba’s slowness this season, or the road-like pitches commonly seen at the WACA Ground in recent years, or the MCG this week.Steven Smith studies the pitch at the MCG•Getty Images”They play a lot more footy here at the MCG,” Lehmann said of the contrast between the Adelaide and Melbourne drop-ins. “But it’s just the way they compact them and the soil they use. Adelaide they’ve just got it right, they’ve got great form with the day/night Test basically, keep the grass a little bit longer, so the difference here [is it’s] a little bit flatter, hoped it would break up and it may still break up, we’ll wait and see with how it plays day four and five. I accept that [multipurpose venues] but I also would like fast, bouncy tracks that go through, day in and day out, that’d be lovely. We don’t get it when we’re at home, which is just the way it is.”Given how much CA has worked at maximising audiences for the game through adroit broadcasting deals and shrewd investment in the Big Bash League, it remains mystifying as to how venues as august as the MCG and SCG cannot get their conditions right. In Melbourne the competing interests of football and cricket have long been contentious, but no more so than they are now at the recast Adelaide Oval. In Sydney, the Trust and Cricket New South Wales have endured a testy relationship, epitomised by the abandonment of a Sheffield Shield match due to a muddy infield the umpires deemed unsafe in 2015.Priorities for the SCG seem to extend not much further than the January Test and a handful of BBL games, but even then the pitch is not always of great quality. In the corresponding Ashes match four seasons ago, the match was over in little more than two and a half days, moving Lehmann to offer the following salty assessment: “Words will get me in trouble here. It’s disappointing, a three-day Test match. The SCG I remember was always a good wicket and spun obviously days four and five. Hopefully we can get back to that at some stage. I certainly got surprised by the state of the wicket here and to finish in three days is disappointing – for the crowd more so than anyone else.”Another window into how Australian grounds can do with more and better investment was shown by the damp patch that briefly endangered the conclusion of the Perth Test when water leaked under the two layers of covers commonly used in this part of the world. While the Australian climate is far less worrisome for pitch preparation than England’s, many visitors remained surprised at how basic the precautions were.Perhaps there is an element of generational change to all this: Hough is a younger curator than either the SCG’s Tom Parker (who retires this season) or the Gabba’s Kevin Mitchell Jnr (who finished up after the Brisbane Test). The previous MCG curator David Sandurski has moved to Brisbane to replace Mitchell, while the WACA Ground’s Matthew Page is MCG-bound. But in catering successfully to a mass audience in contrast to the increasingly boutique scale of the English game, CA and the state associations would do well to ensure that pitches and playing conditions are not left behind.

Stats highlights from New Zealand’s incredible run chase against England in Dunedin

Bharath Seervi07-Mar-20183- Number of scores in an ODI chase higher than Ross Taylor’s unbeaten 181. Taylor fell short of Shane Watson’s record by four runs. The previous highest in a chase for New Zealand was Martin Guptill’s unbeaten 180 against South Africa last year.Ross Taylor’s career-best•ESPNcricinfo Ltd1- Number of scores higher than Taylor’s 181 made outside the top three batting positions in an ODI. Viv Richards made 189 not out at No. 4 against England at Old Trafford in 1984. The previous highest score outside the top three in a chase was Marcus Stoinis’ unbeaten 146 against New Zealand last year.336- The target chased by New Zealand, their third highest in ODIs. The previous two were 347 and 337 against Australia in 2006-07.1- Number of higher successful ODI chases against England; New Zealand’s 336 is No. 2 on the list. The only previous instance of New Zealand chasing over 300 against England was in Southampton in 2015.59- Runs scored by England in the last ten overs for the loss of five wickets. They were 276 for 4 after 40 overs and finished on 335 for 9. New Zealand had scored 20 runs fewer than England after 40 overs – 256 for 3 – but cruised to victory.68- Runs scored by England’s last eight wickets. Of the last 12 overs of their innings, England managed to score more than 10 in only the 50th over.1- The first time England’s No. 4 to No. 8 – Jos Buttler, Eoin Morgan, Ben Stokes, Moeen Ali and Chris Woakes – were dismissed for single-digit scores in an ODI. Jonny Bairstow and Joe Root scored centuries, however, which makes it only the third-time England had two hundreds in a defeat.

As Australian cricket seeks to make its way from chaos to triumph, its stakeholders can learn from the Tigers’ example of forging relationships and building trust that helped them fight through numerous crises and win the AFL title in 2017

Daniel Brettig24-May-2018Triumph out of chaos is just the sort of trajectory Australia’s cricketers and coaches are chasing after the ball-tampering fiasco of Newlands, and this week they’ve taken heart from the tale of Richmond’s switch from a chaotic, underperforming 2016 to a cathartic premiership victory last year.Central to a seminar for all coaches with Cricket Australia and the state associations at the National Cricket Centre in Brisbane was a session with the Tigers’ head of coaching and performance, Tim Livingstone, in which he detailed the club’s journey through numerous crises to the 2017 flag, capped with a command performance over Adelaide in the Grand Final.Livingstone, who on matchdays takes up the key role of link man between the senior coach Damien Hardwick and the players and runner on the interchange bench, spoke about how the club had seemingly been building towards success in 2016, only to see a year of poor performance force plenty of reassessment of how the club, from Hardwick down, was going about its business. Aided by the club’s board – itself subject to a challenge from a rival ticket – and management electing not to respond by sacking the coach, a period of introspection led to a greater focus on relationships, vulnerability and building trust.Broadly, Livingstone told those present how Richmond engaged the whole organisation into understanding and believing what they wanted to achieve – getting connected from top to bottom – and then living that out. Another element of discussion was bringing the “fun” back into the club after a dour and disappointing 2016, when most had been saddled by expectation. This was shown by examples such as the marked contrast in the pre-Grand Final photos of the Tigers and Adelaide. Damien Hardwick’s team were all smiles, Don Pyke’s largely deadpan.Wade Gilbert, professor at California State University and a globally respected coaching scientist and consultant, was also a keynote contributor to the week, and said that the Richmond story was a further reinforcement of what has become apparent to many successful sporting clubs and governing bodies: look after the people, and the performance will follow. Gilbert and Livingstone both spent time with Australia’s new coach Justin Langer as he contemplates a first assignment with the limited-overs teams in England.”We spent a fair amount of time talking and I was there for a few hours with them and their staff [at Richmond] and they also built around people, they understand the importance of continually investing in the people in their organisation,” Gilbert told ESPNcricinfo. “[Livingstone] shared with Justin and CA some good examples of the types of things they do and how they navigated their own turmoil, their own crises.”Justin will be looking, and already has been looking, outside cricket to other organisations, other sports, other cultures, other programmes, to better understand how they built culture, how they built relationships. The Richmond story is a great story, but it’s just another example of another organisation that really invested heavily in people.”Gilbert said that all sporting organisations inevitably faced setbacks whether on the field or off it, and the key was to develop an environment in which resilience and trust allowed a quick recovery. “Every club that I’ve been around the last couple of weeks, we’ve shared the same message and had similar conversations,” he said. “All around culture, people, relationships and the little things you do on a daily basis across your organisation that help strengthen relationships and trust.’If you’re doing those things, you’re going to be fine. That’s what you see at the best clubs and the best organisations. For sure you’ll have good days and bad days and losses, but you’re just going to have a better environment. People are going to be more resilient, they’ll come back after a bad loss.”Previously, Livingstone has spoken about how the club adjusted its focus entering into 2017, a process that started largely with Hardwick acknowledging that under the pressure to perform, he had moved away from being himself. “Through his inspiration, we’ve invested more time in understanding everyone’s story and how they came to be playing for the Richmond footy club,” Livingstone told the AFL website. “It’s the old saying, people don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.”He’s always been a great leader in that sense. He sees himself as the leader and the buck stops with him. Damien will put it on himself and the coaches first. If we’re not teaching them correctly, we cannot expect them to execute. He’s always taken responsibility.”On a week-to-week basis, these relationships were strengthened among the players by the staging of regular sessions in which players shared personal stories with one another, building knowledge of each other, emotional connection and trust. “It’s pretty confronting, but it’s also like a load off their mind,” Livingstone said in . “We’re talking about stories of sickness and broken homes. Put it this way, if you’ve got to put your arse on the line for your mate, and take a hit on the field, you’re more likely to do it if you have some care for what he’s been through.”

Gilbert said that all sporting organisations inevitably faced setbacks whether on the field or off it, and the key was to develop an environment in which resilience and trust allowed a quick recovery.

The strength that can be derived from a stronger relational focus is summed up by how Hardwick and Livingstone operate on match-days, with the latter essentially acting as Aide-de-camp for the former. This means that Livingstone will interpret and pass on Hardwick’s messages in the heat of a game, occasionally leavening out some hot-blooded venting into useful information for players.”We both know when he just needs to vent,” Livingstone said. “Like sometimes he’ll say, ‘Get that guy straight off the ground, now’, but I’ll know that the player is five minutes away from his rotation, and Dusty [Martin] is due, and if we need to hold Dustin on the ground when he’s fatigued, that can have consequences. Damien trusts me to hit back at him.”Lessons translatable across sports can reckon without subtle distinctions. Cricket is almost unique in its fusing of individual disciplines into a team configuration, being more Ryder Cup than Stanley Cup. Equally, Australia’s national team is a representative team rather than a club, where players compete as much with each other for tenure as they do with opponents for trophies.But then, Australian cricket has always had considerable crossover with football, from the moment the game itself was first concocted in the 19th century as a way of keeping cricketers fit in the winter months. Several former AFL players and coaches are employed within cricket, from Guy McKenna as a coaching and talent ID specialist at Cricket Victoria, and Brett Jones as high performance manager at Queensland Cricket, to Stephen Schwerdt as fitness coach for South Australia.James Sutherland, the longtime chief executive, had his eyes opened to the rough and ready world of sports administration by serving as financial officer and company secretary at Carlton in the 1990s. The former coach Darren Lehmann has been a Crows ambassador since 2001 and not so long ago sat alongside Pyke in the Adelaide coaches box for a loss to North Melbourne in Hobart. Langer, too, has his own foot in the other camp, as a Board director with the West Coast Eagles.Whatever their relationship to football, all will hope some of the lessons of the Tigers’ tale can aid Australian cricket on that aforementioned journey from chaos to future triumph.

Kim McConnie speaks about WBBL and BBL as the shopfront window, the long-term strategy for the competition, the prospect of Australia’s national players featuring in the tournament and more

Daniel Brettig18-Jul-2018You’ve launched the vastly expanded competition on the Gold Coast and you’re going to have a Melbourne Stars “home” game there. How did you reach that decision?The Gold Coast is an unusual market when you think about it. It’s the sixth-largest city in Australia and at that time of the year [in December], it is a very different market; the influx they have of tourism means the landscape changes pretty significantly. A lot of those tourists are from Sydney and Melbourne, so when we looked at it we thought ‘let’s do something a bit different and bring another team there as well’. It would’ve been easy to have a match-up with the Brisbane Heat, but it wouldn’t have felt like a different team. So it really had to be a neutral game, and it was going to be either a Sydney or a Melbourne team. And the Stars were pretty bold, put their hand up and said ‘we want to give this a try’.As far as the Melbourne and Sydney-based fans of those clubs are concerned, did you feel that in expanding to a full home and away season you could do that with the extra games and not hurt them much by taking games away?Spot on, you’ve obviously seen our strategy document! It is important because full home and away for us is about playing the long-term plan. It’s not about just building strength in the metro markets. We’ll do that, but it’s really about building new markets, new fans and expanding. That was part of the reason for taking the Stars to the Gold Coast as well, starting to build fans beyond the traditional core metro markets.To join the dots further strategically on that point, does it become ultimately about getting more people following the game and perhaps in the end, playing for a BBL club or for Australia? Is that the bedrock?Both WBBL and BBL, we talk about it as the shopfront window. It is what inspires kids to want to play cricket. They see the “Bash Brothers” [Chris Lynn and Brendon McCullum], they want to go out into the backyard and be the Bash Brothers. So it’s really important for us to drive participation.There has been a gentle plateau of TV ratings and crowds over the past few years, apart from Perth Scorchers moving to a new stadium last season, and an issue where the Melbourne and Sydney teams in the major markets are being outperformed by the likes of Adelaide, Perth and Hobart. Is that an area of concern for you or do you feel like that’s the maturing of the competition after an initial spike in interest?I think it’s just the natural evolution of the competition. You’re never going to get away from the variability of team performance, and every sport lives and breathes that. So that’s a variable you can’t control, but we do feel like there’s a maturing of the league and for us that’s ok. It is about the long-term and we don’t have such a traditional focus on making sure that we’re driving those attendances up. If that was the case we would never go to Alice Springs, we’d never take the Stars to [Gold Coast]. So it is really important for us to make sure we’re building BBL as the national sport and we’re taking it throughout Australia, and that has been part of our long-term strategy. Therefore we do expect there will be some attendances that come off as a result of that, and that’s ok in the short term.So is it in the lap of individual clubs (in terms of their crowds) or your new broadcasters Seven Network and Fox Sports in terms of getting as many eyeballs as possible on TV?Exactly. We’ll still expect, as we go to these new markets, there’ll be some strong ratings as well.WBBL and BBL players (L-R) Sammy-Jo Johnson, Matthew Renshaw, Glenn Maxwell, Ben Cutting, and Jess Jonassen pose during the Big Bash League fixture announcement•Chris Hyde/Getty ImagesWhat about the logistical and scheduling challenge of adding an extra 16 games to the season and the tight squeeze. For the first time you have got a scheduled day’s Test cricket where a game starts before stumps, and a number of Perth games starting quite late for the east coast. Did you feel that was unavoidable?I think it is unavoidable going to a full home and away [schedule] and where we can, we’ve leveraged it to the best of our advantage. Channel Seven have talked about these 13 “mega days” which create a whole day of cricket, so that has really helped us. The Perth piece helps in terms of the new stadium, because it really comes to its strength at night time. So part of working with the Scorchers was that they were keen to have some later games to really show off the stadium and to the best of its capability. But there are other areas where we’ve had to be a bit tighter to fit all the cricket into the schedule.You stated at the launch that there are no plans to expand the number of BBL teams for at least the next three years. Do you think the number of matches you have after going to a full home and away season will remain stable because it has grown bit by bit over the past couple of years, and then the big increase this year?Definitely. We feel like the next couple of years for BBL are about embedding. You can’t do it all in one year, we’re going to have some wins this season, we’re going to have some learnings from this season. Definitely we feel the next few years are about focusing on the schedule we’ve got, the 59 games, and really starting to build fan tribalism. We want fans to feel an attachment for the Brisbane Heat, for the Sydney Sixers, and consistency is going to be part of that.One thing that changes a little bit this season is that there’s less overlap with international cricket at the end of the BBL. Are you hopeful that you would have Australian players available for the BBL finals?That would always be something we’d love to see. I think the league has been developed some of its own stars, people you didn’t expect in the competition have done really well. So we’ve seen historically it works really well whether we have Australian players there or not. Ultimately what people want to see are the big hits and the drama that unfolds in the finals.Thursday and Friday semi-finals into a Sunday afternoon final. Is that the kind of season climax you were hoping to get to or is that something we’ll see evolve still further into being on consecutive weekends or similar?That is something we’ll continue to evolve. We do think there’s headroom and upside in evolving the finals. Whether or not we fix it Superbowl style, whether we have more of a gap between the semis and the final to build the hype. I think that’s probably the next phase we’ll have a look at, how do we make the finals bigger and bigger and end the season on a crescendo. We start really strong, we want to make sure we’re ending the season just as strong.While the BBL will be consolidating at 59 matches, the WBBL is still very much in transition from what it was initially to being a standalone tournament at the front end of summer in 2019. What are you looking for from the WBBL this season ahead of that move?One of the things we’re most excited about is Channel Seven broadcasting 23 games. I think that’s really important – you can’t be what you can’t see. That’s what Channel Seven’s really going to help us fix because it is really important the next generation of young girls starts to see their heroes on TV. We need to make sure we’re driving that awareness this season. The other thing we’ll be doing is creating more festival weekends. We did a few last season, opening weekend, Lilac Hill, Mackay, those were some of our most successful and we’re doing more of those. That’s going to be the future of WBBL once we move to standalone. Something for all the family’s entertainment that is beyond just cricket.Lastly, one change this season is that you’ve got 16 games exclusive to Fox Sports, with Seven broadcasting 43 on free-to-air. How did you go about deciding which games would be solely on Fox? One each of the Melbourne and Sydney derbies are behind the paywall, for example.It was to make sure there was a fair distribution. We wanted to make sure that across all our clubs, they were getting the ability to be on Fox Sports and also that it was spread across the country as well. We’ve got new markets and we wanted to give Fox Sports the opportunity to cover those. So equality was a core principle we looked at.