England vs India - PLAYER RATINGS: Who was immense, who looked all at sea and who fell short of the billing?
Defending just 192, the hosts bowled out the visitors for 170 after tea on the fifth day - with injured spinner Shoaib Bashir claiming the final wicket.
Ahead of the series moving on to Old Trafford in Manchester next week, Mail Sport's LAWRENCE BOOTH rates Ben Stokes and his men...
Zak Crawley - 4
Got a beauty from Nitish Kumar Reddy in the first innings, but gifted him his wicket in the second.
Time-wasting antics were shameless.
Ben Duckett - 3
Two tame dismissals as he over-attacked against the bowlers at the other end from Bumrah. Has endured two quiet Tests since his Headingley heroics.
Ollie Pope - 5.5
Ground out 44 in the first innings after being dropped first ball, but looked all at sea in the second. How much more rope will England give him?
Joe Root - 8
Rescued England's first innings with his 37th Test hundred, and top-scored in the second with 40. Now Test cricket's leading fielder too.
Harry Brook - 3
Entered the game as Test cricket's top-ranked batsman, but fell short of the billing. Loses a point for a dreadful hack just before lunch on the fourth day.
Ben Stokes - 9
Immense. Six wickets, socres of 44 and 33, plus the crucial run-out of Pant. Led from the front like the giant he is.
Jamie Smith - 7
Another composed half-century in the first innings, then got a good one in the second from Sundar.
Harry Brook's dreadful hack before lunch on day four put England in a spot of bother
Chris Woakes - 6.5
Looked tired at times, but removed Gill in the first innings, and took the crucial wicket of Reddy just before lunch on the last day.
Brydon Carse - 7.5
His half-century from No 9 turned a moderate 271 for seven into a challenging 387, and his two wickets on the fourth evening gave England hope.
Jofra Archer - 8
Electric on comeback: all five of his wickets were left-handers, and he took care of the dangerous Jaiswal twice.
Shoaib Bashir - 6
Took the big wicket of Rahul in India's first innings, and bravely played a part on the last day, despite a serious finger injury, bowling last man Siraj.
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Telegraph
3 minutes ago
- Telegraph
Why is more not being done to arrest the demise of the Dukes ball?
First, the fielding team moan among themselves. Then, the captain approaches the umpire, requesting to change the ball. If the ball fails the 'ring test', which involves passing it through a metal gauge to check if it remains round, it is deemed to be out of shape. Finally, a new ball is sourced. This rigmarole has become a tedious feature of each Test between England and India this summer. Fielding sides' desperation to change the ball acknowledges a truth: batting in England has gone from one of the most treacherous challenges in Test cricket to one of the most gentle. From 2018-21, the average runs per wicket in a Test in England was just 27.5. Since 2022, the average in England has soared to 32.7. Over a full four-innings match, the change equates to an extra 208 runs scored. In this period, the average runs per wicket in England has been higher than all countries to host Tests, bar Pakistan and Sri Lanka. While England are batting much better since 2022, their improvements only explain some of the rise in run-scoring. Touring teams in England also average 60 runs more per two innings since 2022 than in 2018-21. This rise reflects easier batting conditions. A series of hot summers, and a higher proportion of England Tests being scheduled in July, have abetted batsmen. Insiders believe that improvements in drainage systems at grounds mean that less moisture remains on the pitch, reducing the amount of seam movement. Some boundaries have become smaller too: at Edgbaston in the second Test, the size of the boundaries was scarcely above the minimum mandated by the International Cricket Council. These shifts have also impacted the ball. 'The game has changed,'observes Dilip Jajodia, the owner of Dukes, who has worked in developing cricket balls for 52 years. 'People are hitting the ball harder. They're hitting it into the stands more often, when it's getting cluttered against all sorts of hard objects.' Drier outfields also lead the ball to soften more quickly, and potentially fail the ring test. 'It has to expand a lot for it to fail the big ring test,' Jajodia says. 'But occasionally it does, because mostly it's been smashed out of shape.' Late last decade, particularly in 2018 and 2019, the Dukes ball was instrumental in batsmen struggling in England. The seam movement offered in 2018 was such that England requested that the 2018 batch be used in the 2019 Ashes, to provide home advantage. A cricket ball is expected to change over 80 overs: the shift can help spin bowling and reverse swing. But, this summer, the ball continually goes soft, rendering it essentially impossible for any bowler to extract significant assistance. No more spit and polish The ban on saliva being applied to the ball, introduced for hygiene reasons in 2020, has contributed to less swing, Jajodia believes. ICC research when the ban was enforced suggested that saliva did not make swing more likely; in any case, fielders can still apply sweat to the ball. But even if the science is not clear, the saliva ban has added to the perception that bowlers in England now have a less friendly ball to contend with. This has led to wildly oscillating cricket: bowlers initially rampant, and then nullified until the second new ball. In their first innings at Edgbaston, England were 108 for five after 25 overs, and then 376 for five after 80. At Lord's, India were 82 for seven after 25 overs of their run chase, yet reached 170 all out; the last three wickets survived 50.1 overs. Overall this series, batting teams average 33.7 in the first 25 overs. This soars to 65.5 from the 26th over until the end of the 80th. From floundering against the new ball, teams are plundering the old. A contrast with 2021, when England hosted India for four Test matches, is instructive. In the first 25 overs in those Tests, batting teams averaged 32.6 runs per wicket. From the 26th to the 80th overs, they averaged 34.1, almost exactly the same. Variability is wired into the Dukes ball. While each ball adheres to a British standard, every one is the product of leather from a different cow, and then hand-stitched for four hours. 'No two cows are the same,' Jajodia explains. 'And then you've got the human factor. So if any one of those things in the mix are not quite right, it affects the product. 'The number of balls we throw out is just unbelievable. We believe in giving the consumer the very best result.' Yet changes in the industry in recent years have made Jajodia's work trickier. 'People say 2018 was a great year. In the olden days, I could specify, I want Angus Heights – can't do that any more. A lot of slaughterhouses have closed down. The tannery could insist that they got a certain breed of animal. These days, you're lucky if you get what you're asking for, a certain thickness of height. Those are day-to-day problems which we have to cope with. 'Since Covid, there was a big disruption to production. Some of these boys who work in the industry have got a lot of stuff in their head. And I keep asking 'has it all been passed on?' It may be, if there is a problem with the leather, we have to get the old boys back to look at it, out of retirement.' At the very same time as the Dukes in England are being criticised for doing too little, those in the Caribbean are being criticised for doing too much. In last week's Test in Jamaica with the pink Dukes ball, West Indies were bowled out for 27 against Australia, the second lowest total in Test history. A new ball is by definition new; as such, there is inherent uncertainty in how any ball in a Test match will behave. After the Test series, Dukes will review every aspect of the ball, from materials to production. As is customary, there will also be a review of how the balls performed during the county season, with balls in each game marked by umpires and captain. The company will also discuss potential solutions with the England and Wales Cricket Board. 'It's been a nightmare,' Jajodia admits of the focus on the balls during the England-India series. 'They keep asking, 'what's wrong with the balls?' As though we're just sitting around, deliberately making balls that are wrong. 'I'm very happy with the balls when I supply them. What happens to them in the meantime, if there's something is being affected – I have to get to the bottom of it, and that can only happen after an extensive look, cutting the balls open, seeing where we think the problem is.' In the past, Jajodia has even floated a radical suggestion: allowing the second new ball to be taken earlier. But this would risk nullifying spin. In the 1948 Ashes, when a new ball was allowed after 55 overs, spin was almost irrelevant. Yet questions about the ball are not restricted to matches involving the Dukes. Indeed, the use of the Kookaburra ball – the same as that used in Australia – for four rounds this County Championship season has been heavily criticised for destroying any semblance of balance between bat and ball. In the last round when the Kookaburra was used, Surrey amassed 820 for nine declared against Durham, the top score in the championship for 18 years. The overall average per wicket in matches using the Kookaburra this year is 44.2, 12 runs higher than for games using the Dukes. The contrast is particularly striking because it inverts the pattern in Test cricket in the past four years, when averages have been four runs higher in England than Australia. 'We've had mixed feedback – obviously, there's been some championship games where probably the balance was not right,' says Brett Elliot, the managing director of Kookaburra Sport. 'The pitch and weather conditions also contribute to this.' Elliot cautions against simple solutions. For instance, it is sometimes suggested that a harder ball would not deteriorate in the same way. 'Increasing the hardness of a cricket ball could have significant consequences against fielders. Getting hit by a ball that's 20 per cent harder could be fatal. So we just need to make sure that we stick within the proven and tight criteria of ball specifications.' The ball is perhaps the most important essential component to ensuring a compelling balance between bat and ball. Yet while billions of pounds are spent on watching cricket worldwide every year, those running the sport continue to pay strikingly little attention to the ball itself. When teams are successful in requesting a replacement ball, for instance, there is little science to how it is chosen. The potential replacements are provided by each individual ground, rather than the host board. Umpires then select a replacement ball based on how it feels, and how old it seems to be – not how old it actually is. Sometimes, replacements transform the game. At the Oval in 2023, the replacement ball offered far more swing and seam than the old ball, contributing to Australia's collapse on the final day. Like a series of cricket's perennial issues – time-wasting and over-rates, the use of substitute fielders for tactical reasons, debates about pitches – questions about the ball reflect the ICC's broader failure to regulate the game. The ICC's regulations for international cricket are clear about the weight and size of the ball, yet are vague about how the ball should play. The regulations state that 'umpires shall periodically and irregularly inspect the state of the ball' to consider whether it needs to be replaced. The ICC was also initially ignorant about how the character of the white Kookaburra ball, used in all international limited-overs cricket, changed markedly from the end of 2020 to offer new-ball bowlers greater assistance. Baseball, the world's second-most popular bat-and-ball game, hints at an alternative approach. In 2018, Major League Baseball spent $395 million on buying Rawlings Sporting Goods Company, the league's ball-manufacturer. This purchase recognised the importance of the ball in shaping the quality of the game that spectators watch. Yet administrators in cricket, a game equally dependent on the quality of the ball, have shown no interest in doing the same.
Telegraph
3 minutes ago
- Telegraph
Newcastle are having a nightmare in the transfer window
There is no point trying to pretend otherwise; there is no amount of spin that can turn this into a positive for Newcastle United. They have had a bad summer and nobody at the club will try and argue differently. They have tried and failed to sign at least five of their priority targets. They have been snubbed. It is the painful sting of rejection. A realignment in recruitment is needed. Newcastle wanted to sign Bryan Mbeumo (going to Manchester United), Liam Delap (joined Chelsea), João Pedro (signed for Chelsea) and Hugo Ekitike (on the verge of joining Liverpool). They also held a brief interest in Matheus Cunha (gone to Manchester United) and Dean Huijsen (signed for Real Madrid) before swiftly moving on. They are also now in danger of losing out to Manchester City in their attempt to buy goalkeeper James Trafford from Burnley. The player had wanted to join Newcastle for more than a year. Newcastle had a deal worth £20m in place to sign the England Under-21 international, only for the plug to be pulled shortly after Paul Mitchell was appointed as sporting director 12 months ago. The club had been willing to improve that offer to £25m in this window, but Burnley have been holding out for £40m following their return to the Premier League. Negotiations reached a stalemate and now Man City – who negotiated a 20 per cent sell-on clause when they sold him to Burnley in 2023 – have made their interest in the 22-year-old known. It looks like Newcastle are going to miss out on another key target. The reality is this: Newcastle are shopping in the top-tier player market because they want to build a top-level team. That is fine in theory, but in practice, they fail whenever there is competition. The pool of elite players is a small one. Everyone is looking for the same things but other clubs can offer more money, their name carries more prestige, they have a legacy aura. They also have the lure of London and Manchester. When rich clubs have overthrown the old order in the past – like Blackburn Rovers, Manchester City and even Chelsea – they shook things up and turned heads with pound sterling. Newcastle have the richest owners in the world in the form of Saudi Arabia's PIF, but the financial rules were changed precisely to prevent Newcastle doing the same. These are long-standing issues. We have gone over this ground before, but this summer has highlighted the problems it presents once more. When Newcastle were looking to close the gap on the 'Big Six', they signed up-and-coming players who could grow with them. They identified players with potential, such as Alexander Isak, Sandro Tonali and Bruno Guimarães, before the bigger clubs were willing to take a chance on them. Their needs are different now. They have closed the gap, but staying there is a different sort of challenge. They desired 'plug-in-and-play' signings who could make an instant impact on the Champions League and the Premier League. That is the level they find themselves at because of results on the pitch but, given their many failures in this window, they may have to tilt back in the former direction. Unfortunately, Newcastle are the weakest members of that top-tier group from a financial and prestige standpoint. It has been reaffirmed by everything that has happened over the past few weeks. What we have seen, ever since manager Eddie Howe said they needed to be dynamic and move swiftly in the market back in May, is a collision between expectation and reality. A club with huge ambitions has been forced to confront the fact they are not operating at the same level as those they strive to compete with every season. Newcastle currently have the eighth-largest wage bill in English football and that will almost certainly not change this year. The bruising truth is it might never do so. They could edge ahead of Aston Villa, just as they edged ahead of them in the league table last season, but the gap between themselves and the Big Six remains a gulf because so too do the revenue streams. Newcastle may have enjoyed their most successful period for more than two decades, qualifying for the Champions League twice, as well as winning their first domestic trophy for 70 years, but they have exceeded expectations and defied predictions. They have, in short, massively over-achieved. Nobody thought they could qualify for the Champions League and win a trophy 12 months ago, when a second transfer window passed without a first-team signing being made, but somehow they managed it. It was a triumph against the odds, but you cannot keep pulling off miracles. Everyone at the club recognised that back in the spring when shortlists were drawn up. This summer was the chance to build a bigger squad, with more depth and upgrades in key positions. Having rid themselves of PSR constraints, this transfer window was supposed to be transformative. Instead, Newcastle have hit a ceiling they are struggling to break through. They have improved with the signing of Anthony Elanga from Nottingham Forest, which ended a three-year search for a right sided forward. But they have so much still to do. More players will arrive before deadline day, but internally there is a desire not to panic. As frustrating and as disappointing as recruitment has been up to this point, the worst thing they can do is sign someone for the sake of it, just to quieten the clamour for new faces that always comes at this time of year. In turn, Newcastle have refused to be bullied. With Liverpool, and others, circling Isak, the pressure on them has been building. Of course, the player has been unsettled. It would be impossible not to be. Isak had been promised a new contract by former co-owner Amanda Staveley in 2024. However, Mitchell, who left the club last month, decided not to open those talks as Isak had more than three years left on his current deal and the club's PSR position made it difficult. This led to acrimony and the player's agent felt insulted. Everything that has followed can be traced back to that moment. But Newcastle have been steadfast. They insist, from the very top, which means chairman Yasir Al-Rumayaan and co-owner Jamie Reuben, that Isak is not for sale at any price this summer. For the time being, they will let the noise and the distractions die down. They respect the fact the constant speculation about his future has been difficult for him as well as them. But when the dust settles, they will offer him a new deal that would make him the club's highest earner. A mess was created that still needs to be cleared up. It is a difficult task, especially when there is no sporting director and the chief executive, Darren Eales, is working his notice. Running a club without a proper executive team is not the way any football club should operate, let alone one that aspires to be 'number one' according to their chairman. However, for all the setbacks in terms of bringing players in this summer to improve the squad, the one thing Newcastle could not countenance is making themselves weaker. Ambitious clubs do not sell their best players to a direct rival, for well below their valuation, when they have three years left on their contract. And Newcastle do remain ambitious, even if they do not have everything in place to achieve their goals at the moment. Isak is far too good and far too integral to how they play to lose him. Struggling to sign players is one thing; selling the world-class ones you have would be even worse. In a tricky period, that at least has been recognised.
Daily Mail
3 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
Mikel Arteta insists Arsenal were '100%' RIGHT in handling of Thomas Partey case amid claims complaints were raised with the Gunners 'almost a YEAR' before he was arrested
Mikel Arteta has defended Arsenal 's handling of Thomas Partey, who was charged with five counts of rape and one count of sexual assault days after his contract at the Emirates expired. The Gunners boss insisted that the club '100 per cent' followed the 'right processes' amid widespread criticism following the revelation that complaints were made about the midfielder almost a year before his first arrest in 2022. Partey is accused of attacking three women between 2021 and 2022. He was first arrested in July 2022 but The Telegraph claimed to have seen definitive evidence that Arsenal, the FA, and the Premier League were aware of concerns as early as September 2021. Reportedly, no formal investigation was launched in the wake of that, because they fell outside the FA's safeguarding responsibility for adults and minors 'at risk' in the sport. Partey left Arsenal last month following the expiry of his contract, with reports suggesting negotiations over a new deal had stalled weeks earlier. Speaking ahead of the start of his side's pre-season tour of Asia, Arteta insisted he was unable to comment on the 'very complicated' legal matter but did maintain that the club acted in the correct manner. Partey, who spent five years in north London, played more than 50 games for Arsenal while on bail, it has emerged Partey left Arsenal last month following the expiry of his contract, with reports suggesting negotiations over a new deal had stalled As reported by ESPN, when pushed on whether he believes the club followed the right processes, Arteta replied: '100 per cent.' The charges against Partey follow a three-year investigation by Scotland Yard and came just five days after his Arsenal contract expired on June 30. He is currently without a club after five Premier League seasons at the Emirates. The Ghanaian international midfielder is accused of five counts of rape. Two counts of rape relate to one woman and three counts of rape relate to a second woman. The one count of sexual assault relates to a third woman. None of the alleged victims can be named. He will appear at Westminster Magistrates' Court on August 5. The Crown Prosecution Service has said the charges came after it 'carefully reviewed a comprehensive file of evidence'. Partey 'denies all the charges against him' and 'welcomes the opportunity to finally clear his name', his lawyer said. The Metropolitan Police said the investigation into Thomas Partey began in February 2022 after officers first received a report of rape. He was first arrested in July 2022, though he was not named at the time and continued to play for Arsenal while investigations were ongoing. He played more than 50 games for Arsenal while on bail, it has emerged. In a statement, his lawyer Jenny Wiltshire, of Hickman and Rose, said: 'Thomas Partey denies all the charges against him. 'He has fully cooperated with the police and CPS throughout their three-year investigation. 'He now welcomes the opportunity to finally clear his name. 'Given that there are now ongoing legal proceedings, my client is unable to comment further.' Detective Superintendent Andy Furphy, whose team is leading the investigation, said: 'Our priority remains providing support to the women who have come forward. 'We would ask anyone who has been impacted by this case, or anyone who has information, to speak with our team. You can contact detectives about this investigation by emailing CIT@
