Alice Capsey, Lauren Filer added in England's ODI squad for their ODI series against West Indies
New Delhi, [India], May 28 (ANI):Key batter Heather Knight is in doubt for the series that commences in Derby on May 30 due to a hamstring issue, with all-rounder Alice Capsey drafted into a 16-player group as cover for the former England captain. have been drafted into England's ODI squad as the team awaits the results of scans on Heather Knight's hamstring injury. According to the ICC website, England has brought two extra players into their squad for their upcoming three-match ODI series against the West Indies.
Key batter Heather Knight is in doubt for the series that commences in Derby on May 30 due to a hamstring issue, with all-rounder Alice Capsey drafted into a 16-player group as cover for the former England captain.
Knight hurt her troublesome hamstring while batting during the final match of the T20I series against the West Indies, and the team is still awaiting the scan results that will determine her availability for the 50-over matches.
Capsey gets a call-up to the ODI squad after she featured in all three of the T20I contests, though the 20-year-old was used sparingly in those matches, managing just four runs and not given the chance with the ball.
Pacer Lauren Filer has also been added to the ODI squad to take on the West Indies after recovering from a knee injury.
Filer hasn't played at the international level since she featured against Australia at the start of the year, with the right-armer in contention to take on the West Indies in what will be a vital preparation for this year's ICC Women's Cricket World Cup in India.
England take on the West Indies in three ODIs and host India in another three 50-over contests towards the end of next month, with both series being to finalise plans for the 50-over World Cup, according to new coach Charlotte Edwards.
'I feel these games are really big for us,' Edwards said, as quoted from ICC.
'We've got nine games before the World Cup starts, so a lot of this is about us getting the right balance of team,' she added.
England squad: Nat Sciver-Brunt (c), Emily Arlott, Tammy Beaumont, Lauren Bell, Alice Capsey, Kate Cross, Alice Davidson-Richards, Charlie Dean, Sophia Dunkley, Lauren Filer, Mahika Gaur, Sarah Glenn, Amy Jones, Heather Knight, Emma Lamb, Linsey Smith. (ANI)
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Mint
25 minutes ago
- Mint
Big data has changed cricket
The 2025 edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL) has been anything but typical—how could it be, with the armed conflict between India and Pakistan forcing a week-long hiatus in May. Yet, the tournament remains a barometer for cricket's overarching trends. Even a casual glance at an IPL broadcast tells us the direction in which the game is heading—scientific, data-backed and underpinned by professional analytics. The pre-match show is punctuated by bursts of data specific to the venue—average scores, average degree of spin/seam movement, the average and economy rates for every single style of bowling. Two opposing players are pitted against one another in 'matchups", and we have ball-by-ball data about which batter fared poorly against which bowler. Former players plot the dismissals of key batters, keeping the bowlers of the day in mind, while broadcasters quickly back up their arguments using ball-tracking data. 'If you're a professional cricketer today," says former India wicketkeeper-batter Deep Dasgupta, 47, 'and you're playing for your country or you're playing in the IPL, you know that the other teams will have seen hours and hours of footage of you at play. There will be people whose job it is to go over the data, analyse your every weakness and figure out how to capitalise on it." Every team in the IPL knows that their key players are being deconstructed; massive datasets are being pored over by professional analysts; players are aware they will be 'figured out" sooner rather than later; they have to keep finding new and creative answers to questions being posed on-field—all of which has changed the game at the day-to-day level. 'One of the main things is the ball-tracking system," says Dasgupta, who has been a part of the commentary and pre/post-match analysis teams for IPL broadcasts. 'Everything flows downwards from there. If you're a batting coach, you can use the ball-tracking data to tell your batters which lengths and lines are troubling them. If you're a bowling coach, you can use the same data to make specific plans for the opposition's best batters." In Sanjay Manjrekar's playing days—the late 1980s and the 1990s—international teams didn't invest heavily in analysts. In recent years, however, teams have reaped the benefits of astute data analysis. According to the former India batter, young cricketers have been quick to adapt. 'Previously, if the captain or the coach wanted one of their players to make an adjustment in their game, they'd have to rely on what they've observed with their own eyes. But now, with the data and the analytics and everything, it has become very easy to convince players—and also fans, actually. The subjectivity has reduced." Cricket's new backroom Ahead of the 2024 T20 World Cup, held in the US and the West Indies, Team India analyst Himanish Ganjoo figured out that the explosive English opening batter Phil Salt was susceptible to deliveries angling in to him, deviating further inwards after pitching, targeting the stumps. The findings were presented to team India coach Rahul Dravid. Sure enough, in the eventual India vs England semi-final, India's Jasprit Bumrah produced a precision-guided missile along these lines, beating Salt's forward prod and crashing into the stumps. 'Rahul Dravid knew precisely how to use the information I presented, how to effectively communicate those points to the players," Ganjoo, 32, tells Lounge. 'It was a great feeling to make whatever small contribution I could—let's say 2-3%—to a World Cup victory for India." Ganjoo, a cosmologist by training, has produced cutting-edge cricketing analysis over the last four-five years. In January 2022, he published a Substack article on what made Indian left-arm finger-spinner Axar Patel a unique threat to batters, especially on Indian pitches, using data from HawkEye's ball-tracking technology. Without delving too much into the technical details, we can say this: the article presented compelling proof that Patel's height (at 6ft, 1 inch, he's taller than other elite spinners like Rashid Khan, Varun Chakravarthy and Sunil Narine) and angle of release made him far less predictable than his peers. The article led to Dravid bringing Ganjoo on-board. 'We had a workflow wherein I would analyse several different types of data for each batter we were facing," says Ganjoo, who is currently based in Paris. 'For every batter I prepared five-six slides, detailing, with graphs and charts, which shots they like to play the most, which shots they are least in control of, what are the kinds of deliveries they seem to be struggling against. Their performance against different lines, lengths, speeds and kinds of movement were analysed. We would present these slides to the coach (Dravid), who would then make game plans." What Dravid had taken note of wasn't Ganjoo's original article, but rather a YouTube breakdown of the same in February 2022, delivered by Australian cricket writer, podcaster and analyst Jarrod Kimber, who runs the popular Good Areas YouTube channel. A trained filmmaker, Kimber has a knack for storytelling and breaks down sophisticated, data-based arguments into actionable bits of cricketing wisdom. 'Ahead of the 2018 Caribbean Premier League, I had been hired as the analyst and assistant general manager for St. Lucia," recalls Kimber, 45, who lives in London. 'I thought I would work with the coaches, work on anything Kieron Pollard (then St. Lucia captain) wanted. Within a couple of hours of arriving I was asked, 'Are you ready to give a team talk about strategy?'. I asked for the video footage from previous seasons—there was no video. I asked if anybody had been collecting basic stats—there was nobody doing that either in the CPL." The CPL was hardly alone in its faltering first steps towards professionalisation. Issues like logistics, finances and a lack of structure were widespread roadblocks in the early days of professional analytics, explained Kimber. One morning Kimber found himself at a Durban bed and breakfast, manually chopping up hours-long game footage into usable clips, patchy internet notwithstanding, for Team Scotland. Powering the T20 age In the context of a franchise team, 'analyst" is ideally a full-time, year-long job, not just during the weeks and months before the tournament begins, not least because the analysts can help with auction strategy too. This is a simple reflection of the fact that T20 cricket has changed rapidly over the last decade and analytics has changed the way we look at the game. In T20, increasingly, we look at required runs and immediately start thinking of the number of sixes it would take to achieve the target. The six has become the primary currency of T20 cricket, in other words. Freddie Wilde, an analyst for the England and Royal Challengers Bangalore men's teams, described this process in the 2019 book Cricket 2.0: The T20 Revolution (co-written with Tim Wigmore). 'The growth of the six in T20 mirrored the ascent of the three in the NBA, which have more than doubled since 2000. The six, like the three in basketball, has a 50% greater pay-off than the previous highest scoring shot, more than making up for it being harder to execute. Both the six and the three represent the marriage of the athletically spectacular and the analytically shrewd. Increased use of data analysis in cricket has been one of a number of factors... to cause a surge in the rate of six-hitting in T20. In 2012 a six was hit every 28 balls. By 2018 that had fallen to one every 20 balls." Over the last decade, a number of companies have built up databases for cricket and developed predictive mathematical models. The rise to prominence of firms like London-based CricViz, and Chennai-based SportsMechanics began in the late 2010s, with T20 leagues starting around the world. A host of deep-pocketed new investors entered the game, eager to see their recently purchased teams being run professionally. Accordingly, a number of cricket writers, journalists and stats people transitioned into professional sports analysis. One of the reasons these changes feel significant is that cricket has been resistant to change. A number of concurrent phenomena in the 1990s, however, turned things around. One of them was the birth of Cricinfo in 1993, which introduced its popular StatsGuru tool by 2000. Then there was the emergence of live cricket as a lucrative category of TV programming. State broadcaster Doordarshan, which reached 60% of the Indian population in the 1990s, broadcast every match played at home. Suddenly, Indian TV screens lit up with 'wagon-wheels" (a diagram of the field with coloured lines indicating where batters are hitting the ball), 'run-worms" (line graphs representing cumulative runs scored across every phase of the innings) and complex fielding charts. This was the Indian viewer's first exposure to analytics in real time, and it whetted our collective appetite. This was already a passionate and involved fanbase. They were crying out not just for data but also for visualisations that communicated it in a lucid, engaging way. The rise of laptop coaches The enduring image of Bob Woolmer, coach of the South Africa team from 1994-99, is him hunched over a laptop screen, watching replays. 'The laptop coach", as he was dubbed, was one of the first international coaches to make extensive usage of computer-based analytics. Woolmer used the contemporary stratagem of 'matchups" back in the 1990s to stymie run-scoring in 50-over cricket. In the 1999 50-over World Cup, Woolmer used wireless earpieces to communicate with South Africa captain Hansie Cronje during the game. The practice was swiftly outlawed but proved, nevertheless, Woolmer's embrace of both technology and the spirit of innovation; two of the things that drive cricket analytics to this day. Woolmer died in 2007 at 58, less than a year before the first-ever T20 World Cup was played. One suspects he would have been a tactical giant in the game's most abbreviated—and analytics-friendly—format. For in the first decade of T20 cricket (2007-16), not many teams, national or franchise, were especially good from a tactical point of view. Most batters approached the 20-over game as though it were a 50-over game, only scrunched up. But where the latter format rewards batters minimising dot-balls (deliveries where no runs are scored), T20 rewards maximal four-and-six hitting. The West Indies men's team won the 2012 and 2016 T20 World Cups, largely on the back of its muscular six-hitters like Chris Gayle, Kieron Pollard and Andre Russell. Several factors through the 2000s—new statistical tools, the influx of money in T20 leagues, and legacy teams getting outflanked in a turbo-charged version of the game—have brought us to this current moment in cricket, where analytics and professional analysts have well-defined roles. Not just gameplay but also everything that happens off the field—training, conditioning, nutrition, etc.—is now a little more scientific, a little more organised. According to IPL commentator and former team India fast bowler Varun Aaron, 35, data and analytics can contribute to the fitness and well-being of fast bowlers (notoriously, the most injury-prone), not to mention improve their skills. 'A year ago, I was working with the MRF Pace Academy in Chennai, designing a new high-performance centre for fast bowling. I put a lot of data-driven processes in place. The data is intended for the coaches, not the players; it's important not to clutter their minds with too much data," says Aaron. 'At the same time, if I tell a young fast bowler to make a technical change in their action, the data helps me prove my point with evidence, it shows the young players exactly where they can make a change that will improve their pace." Aaron, who is currently pursuing a sports science degree at the Centre for Sports Science, part of Sri Ramachandra Institute of Higher Education and Research, Chennai, is representative of this new cricketing landscape, where ex-cricketers are using increasingly scientific methods to train the next generation. Of course, this comes with its own set of challenges. Effective analytics begins with widespread data-gathering and not every corner of the cricketing world is similarly blessed in this regard. In the women's game, for example, collecting enough footage and data can be a challenge. Women's games, especially domestic ones, are very often not broadcast live, or in some cases, captured with a single-camera setup that is, of course, inadequate for professional analysis. 'If you look at this year's men's IPL there are some teenaged players performing very well, about whom the average fan does not know a lot," says Krithika Venkatesan, who works for the Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) women's team. 'The likes of Vaibhav Suryavanshi and Ayush Mhatre; YouTube already has so much footage of them playing junior-level cricket and club cricket and so on, stuff that nobody would watch live. But when it comes to the women's game, analysts find it difficult to source footage even for international players. Also there have been only three seasons of the Women's Premier League so far, so analysts have a relatively small sample set to work off." Another potentially tricky area cricket might have to negotiate in the near future is the intersection of professional analysis and organised betting. Within the super-popular fantasy sports app Dream11, for example, there is a paid tier where users can access tips by pro-analysts, and look at their finished teams and compare notes. Twitter threads by the likes of Kimber and Ganjoo have been circulated in betting circles while discussing an upcoming matchday's potential trajectories. The legal status of betting on cricket is wildly variable among cricket-playing nations: in the UK and Australia, for instance, it's legal and centrally regulated, whereas it is illegal in India and Pakistan. Former cricketers also mention another problem: over-reliance on data. Teams run the risk of over-thinking their approach and good old-fashioned cricketing 'wisdom" could be ignored. As Manjrekar notes, 'Teams should remember that the human mind is the most sophisticated analytical tool." 'I always say that cricket is like a performing art," says Dasgupta. 'There is the scientific aspect. But there's also the artistic aspect or the cricketing sixth sense, which should never be underestimated. Ideally, both should go hand in hand." What Dasgupta is describing here may well be the foundation on which analytical teams are assembled in the future, with professionals from various walks of life working in tandem towards cricketing goals. Kimber hypothesises a future picture of the global game along similar lines. 'In the long-term future, I expect many more former players to get involved with analytics, especially younger ones who retired prematurely due to injuries," he says. 'Ideally, you don't want your analytics team to be just four kids from IIT or Cambridge or wherever, who are good at analysis but have never spoken to a cricketer in their lives. What you want is a bunch of different types of people—maybe one of them used to be a journalist, another is a junior coach, a third is a former player, a fourth guy who is the math whiz." As the IPL and other T20 leagues around the world carve out increasingly large chunks of the cricketing calendar for themselves, the visibility and responsibility offered to professional analysts will only increase. This will affect the game but also how cricket is presented. If you're a fan, what would a more data-inclusive game look like? A clue might lie in how the NBA is consumed. It begins with the way the sport produces and organises stats for fans. On the official NBA website, you will get a 360-degree statistical summary of the player you're looking up—points, rebounds, assists, and so on. Now imagine a cricket scorecard where you can see what percentage of false shots played by a batter, or a bowler's economy rates and averages against right versus left-handed batters. Compared to the data presentation of an average NBA or English Premier League broadcast, there's a long way to go. Cricket has some catching up to do to rival the statistical sophistication of other major team sports like basketball and football. The good news is, everyone—players, coaches, franchises and broadcasters—seem to agree that analysis is the future. When data points start to look like runs saved or wickets taken, you know the game has truly changed. Aditya Mani Jha is a writer based in Delhi. Also read: Fantasy leagues are making cricket viewing transactional
Time of India
2 hours ago
- Time of India
'This journey will not always go on': Jasprit Bumrah reveals retirement plans
Jasprit Bumrah (PTI Photo/R Senthilkumar) Indian cricket team's pace spearhead Jasprit Bumrah has shared his thoughts on retirement during a conversation with Michael Clarke on the Beyond23 Cricket Podcast, indicating he will continue playing as long as his body and drive permit. At 31 years of age, Bumrah , who has transformed fast bowling in India, discussed his journey in international cricket and acknowledged the physical demands of playing across all formats. Bumrah's comments come at a time when Indian cricket is experiencing several high-profile retirements, including those of Virat Kohli , Rohit Sharma , and Ravichandran Ashwin . Having already faced significant time away from the game due to back injuries, Bumrah is mindful of his career trajectory and physical limitations. Go Beyond The Boundary with our YouTube channel. SUBSCRIBE NOW! In his nine-year international career, Bumrah has established himself among India's legendary fast bowlers, drawing comparisons with Kapil Dev, Javagal Srinath, and Zaheer Khan after just 45 Test matches. "This is a sport that I fell in love with. I went to Australia this time, and a lot of youngsters came up to me and tried to copy my [bowling] action. Which is surreal because I used to do that. So yeah, this journey will not always go on, but whenever it ends, I want to give it back to the sport. Because whatever I have and whatever I have learnt in life is through this sport. Thankful to the journey that I have had," Bumrah shared during the podcast. 'I don't want to be a one-season wonder': Punjab Kings' Shashank Singh Despite winning a T20 World Cup, Bumrah recognizes the need to be selective about his workload across formats, including the Indian Premier League, as he progresses in his career. His recent Australia tour, where he claimed 32 wickets in a series that India lost 1-3, was followed by another back injury that sidelined him for two months, reinforcing the importance of managing his physical condition. Quiz: Who's that IPL player? "It is tough for any individual to keep playing everything for so long. I have been doing it for a while. But eventually, you have to understand where your body is going and what the important tournaments are, so you have to be a little selective and smart about how you use your body. Obviously, as a cricketer, I would never want to leave anything and always keep on going," Bumrah explained. The fast bowler maintains a pragmatic approach to his future in cricket, focusing on the present while being aware of potential limitations ahead. "At this moment, I am ok. But I don't set goals such as this is the number I should be at. I look at it one day at a time. The journey is going good so far, but the day I realise that the drive is gone or the effort is not there or my body is not holding up, that is the time when you make the decision," Bumrah stated, indicating his approach to eventual retirement. IPL 2025: What went wrong for Lucknow Super Giants? The conversation highlights Bumrah's realistic perspective on his cricket career, acknowledging both his current capabilities and the inevitable challenges that come with being a fast bowler in international cricket. His statements reflect a measured approach to career longevity, emphasizing the importance of maintaining physical fitness and mental drive while continuing to perform at the highest level of international cricket.
United News of India
3 hours ago
- United News of India
Ponting picks Australia XI for World Test Championship Final
Sydney, May 30 (UNI) ICC Hall of Famer Ricky Ponting has revealed the playing XI he thinks Australia will use in the one-off ICC World Test Championship Final against South Africa. Earlier this month, Australia named a strong 15-player squad for the Ultimate Test at Lord's starting June 11 and coach Andrew McDonald has already indicated he will wait until the side convenes in London prior to the contest before he settles on the make-up of the final XI. While the majority of Australia's XI looks well settled, there are still some question marks surrounding who will partner Usman Khawaja at the top of Australia's batting order, the lack of runs for former No.1 ranked batter Marnus Labuschagne, just where star all-rounder Cameron Green slots into the side and which pacer is preferred out of Josh Hazlewood and Scott Boland. Ponting discussed all of these issues on the latest episode of The ICC Review, with the former Australian captain going out on a limb and predicting exactly how he thinks the Aussies will line up. "I have just got a bit of a feeling that Marnus Labuschagne might be pushed up the order to open the batting with Khawaja," Ponting declared. "I think Green will bat at three and Steve Smith will be at four," he said. "Then it's Travis Head five, Beau Webster six, Carey at seven, Cummins eight, Starc nine and Lyon 10," Ponting said. "And the one that everyone talks about the last couple of years is the whole Hazlewood (versus) Boland one. It's a really tough selection every time because every time Boland plays, he just does so well. But unfortunately, if Hazlewood is fit, I think Hazlewood comes straight back into the team," he said. Ponting thinks the biggest dilemma selectors will face will be what to do with Labuschagne and whether he is capable of pushing up the order and opening the batting at Test level for the first time. Labuschagne has just one Test century to his name since the end of 2022 and failed to make much of an impression in two matches for County side Glamorgan earlier this month and the Aussies have Sam Konstas waiting in the wings should they want to provide the brash teenager with a baptism of fire in the one-off Test. But Ponting expects Australia to put their faith in Labuschagne, citing the path selectors took with former opener David Warner prior to the last World Test Championship Final may be replicated once again. "I actually think that that will go with Labuschagne," Ponting said. "Looking back to the last World Test Championship Final there was some talk about David Warner and whether he should hold his spot going into that," he said. "And there was a bit of talk around the team about wanting to get through that period or that phase or if you like, with the same group of players and give them the chance to, to be able to play off in that one-off final," Ponting said. "Labuschagne has been through this cycle with the team, albeit batting at No.3 and I think they will want to get through the cycle with the same players so I think Labuschagne will get the nod," he said. "Whether I agree with it or not, it's a different will be revealed in the next couple of weeks," Ponting added. Ricky Ponting's predicted Australia XI for World Test Championship Final: 1. Usman Khawaja, 2. Marnus Labuschagne, 3. Cameron Green, 4. Steve Smith, 5. Travis Head, 6. Beau Webster, 7. Alex Carey (wk), 8. Pat Cummins (c), 9. Mitchell Starc, 10. Nathan Lyon, 11. Josh Hazlewood. UNI BM
